Seasons of War Page 3

  But the very idea was ridiculous. Auger was the Chosen One, born with an innate understanding of right and wrong. He was a good guy, the one person you could depend on to never let you down.

  And right now he was in a hospital bed after having nearly been killed, and Omen was visiting the guy who’d put him there.

  Jenan Ispolin sat on the other side of the table and stared, a twist to his lips, his eyes heavy-lidded. There wasn’t a glass partition between them. Omen had expected a glass partition.

  Suddenly all of his opening lines, the lines he’d rehearsed again and again in his head, that he’d muttered in front of the mirror, didn’t seem to fit the occasion. They were all tough-guy lines, designed to impress. But Omen wasn’t a tough guy, had never been a tough guy, and pretending to be one here, in a prison populated by guys who had to be tough to survive, now seemed like the silliest thing in the world.

  So instead he said, “How are you doing?”

  Jenan didn’t respond.

  “Do they let you get much exercise here? I saw a yard on my way in. Do they let you play sports? What kind of sports?”

  Jenan had liked playing sports when he was in school, Omen knew. He was good at them.

  “We don’t play sports,” Jenan said.

  “Right,” said Omen. That had been a stupid question. He changed the subject. “Do they let you see your folks much?”

  Jenan leaned forward. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t … I don’t actually know.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I wanted to confront you, I suppose. And I wanted to give you a chance to say what you needed to say.”

  “What are you talking about? What would I need to say to you?”

  “I’m not sure,” Omen confessed. “But there’s a reason you attacked me with that knife. Obviously, God, I know you don’t like me. I know that much! But this goes deeper than that, doesn’t it? I mean … you tried to kill me. You would have succeeded, too, if Auger hadn’t saved me. So I figure you must have some, like, unresolved issues.”

  Jenan stared at him. “That’s why you came? So I could talk through my unresolved issues and get some closure?”

  “Yeah,” said Omen. “We all need closure. I know I do. I wanted to come here and show you that I’m still alive, and I’m still doing well, and you didn’t manage to do whatever you were trying to do … but now that I’m sitting here, now that we’re talking, I can’t actually do any of that. You tried to kill me. That’s … terrifying. You stabbed me. I don’t have a scar any more, but it still hurts sometimes. It hasn’t healed completely yet.

  “And you nearly killed Auger, too. See, I’m more mad about that than anything else. He’s had all the same healers and doctors that I’ve had, but his injury was way worse than mine.”

  Jenan nodded. “I heard.”

  “The stuff they had to do quickly in order to save his life, that’s been complicating his recovery. He hasn’t healed right. He’s still in the Infirmary in the High Sanctuary.”

  “In here,” Jenan said, “I’m known as the guy who almost killed the Chosen One. They respect me because of that. A lot of them are scared of me.”

  “I … I don’t see how that’s anything to be proud of, Jenan.”

  Jenan laughed. “Of course you don’t. Because you’re a child.”

  Omen’s voice dipped. “My parents wanted you to be given the death sentence.”

  “Like I care.”

  “They wanted you executed, dude.”

  Jenan’s next laugh was more like a bark. “Dude,” he mimicked. “Dude.”

  Omen sighed. “OK, whatever, laugh at me all you want. I’m just trying to understand why you did it.”

  “Why I did it?” Jenan echoed. “I was part of Abyssinia’s army. I was the leader of First Wave. You and your little friends came in and ruined everything – of course I wanted you dead! We were going to change the world!”

  Omen frowned at him. “You weren’t.”

  “We all were!”

  “No,” said Omen. “You weren’t. First Wave was going to be framed for murdering all those Navy people in Oregon. Abyssinia was planning on killing you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, I do,” said Omen, “because I was there and so were you. You were never part of her army, Jenan. She used you and the others. You were a joke to her.”

  Jenan sat frozen for a moment, and then lunged across the table. Before he could touch Omen, he shrieked and jerked sideways, falling off his chair.

  Omen looked down at him. “No touching,” he said.

  Jenan moaned, and the prison guard stepped forward.

  “Everything OK here?” she asked.

  “It’s fine, thank you,” Omen said. “He just wanted a hug.”

  The prison guard nodded, and Omen waited until Jenan had dragged himself back into his chair.

  “Your friends are in detention facilities,” he said. “Minimum-security stuff. Not like here. This is a proper prison, for proper bad guys. You’re not a proper bad guy, Jenan. You should be in school. Temper Fray – you know who Temper Fray is? He’s a sergeant in the City Guard. Anyway, Temper Fray told me the truth. They don’t respect you in here. No one is afraid of you. He told me you cry yourself to sleep most nights and every day you’re on the phone to your parents, begging them to come and see you. Your mum’s only been here half a dozen times and your dad still hasn’t come to visit. You’re miserable, dude. I’m just … I wanted to see if I could make things better.”

  Jenan tried glaring back defiantly, but tears rolled down his cheeks and his lower lip quivered. “I hate you,” he said, his voice strangely high. “I hate you and I’ll always hate you. You ruined everything. You ruined my life, you pathetic little nobody. When I get out of here, I’m going to kill you. I don’t care how long it takes, how many years. I’m going to kill you, do you hear me?”

  Omen watched him cry. “I hear you,” he said sadly, and got up.

  Valkyrie set the alarm on her phone for sixty seconds, put it on the dashboard, and opened the lid of the music box on the seat beside her. The tune slowly filled the car, and Valkyrie’s eyes fluttered closed. It felt like the blood in her veins was slowing, her heartbeat softening. Anchors were attached to her thoughts, dragging them to a halt. Peace came over the horizon of her mind like the rising sun, until its warm comfort covered everything. She focused on her breathing. Her breathing was the only thing in the universe.

  In the distance, an alarm went off, but it was dull and muted and unimportant. It slipped from her attention easily and once more there was only her breathing.

  Then a voice – voices – and a laugh, and Valkyrie opened her eyes and blinked as a group of teenagers passed her car, chatting among themselves. Her alarm was going off. She closed the music box, shut off the alarm, sat there in the cold silence.

  Her thoughts returned to her and she looked at the time.

  “Dammit,” she said.

  She pulled the handle, opened the door, lurched out of the car. Went to stuff the phone in her pocket, realised she was wearing a dress. A nice dress. Blue. Why was she wearing a dress? That thing in LA. It had reminded her that she liked wearing skirts and dresses sometimes. Not all the time. Sometimes. For special occasions. Was this a special occasion? Why was she here?

  Fergus. His birthday.

  “Dammit,” she said again.

  She reached back into the car, grabbed her purse, and stuffed her keys and her phone into it as she hurried to the door of the Chinese restaurant. Here on time, but now twenty minutes late. Of course she was.

  Through the door, smiling at the nice lady there to greet her, indicated she was with someone already inside. In she went, found the table at the back. Her parents and her sister and Fergus and Beryl and Crystal but no Carol.

  “Here she is,” said Desmond, and Alice jumped up and ran over and Valkyrie laughed as her little sister hugged her round
the waist.

  “We’ve been waiting for you!” Alice informed her.

  “You’re very good,” Valkyrie said, smiling warmly. The little bit of panic was receding into the warm ocean of calm the music box had delivered. “Sorry I’m late, everyone,” she said as Alice guided her by the hand to her chair.

  She expected Beryl to say something sharp and resentful, but everyone just smiled and shrugged and said it didn’t matter.

  The waiter came over, took their orders. Valkyrie turned to Alice and winked at her. “Hey, you,” she said.

  “Hey, you,” Alice echoed.

  “Haven’t seen you in a few days. What you been up to?”

  Alice shrugged. “Things.”

  “Things, eh?”

  “And stuff.”

  “Stuff, too? You have been busy. How’s school?”

  “I got ten out of ten on my spelling test, but they were really easy, so everyone got ten out of ten except for one boy who forgot that we had a test. Well, he said he forgot, but I think he just didn’t want to learn the words. And there’s a new boy in my class.”

  “Is there?”

  “His name’s Dima. We all made him cards to introduce ourselves, and Mom looked up what welcome to school was in Russian and I wrote it and I gave it to him. And then today he gave me a card back, and he said he loved me.”

  Valkyrie’s eyebrow arched. “Oh, wow …!”

  Melissa leaned over. “He said you’re beautiful, didn’t he?”

  Alice nodded. “He wrote you’re beautiful and I love you. And he’s right,” she said, “I am beautiful,” and she gave a dimpled, gap-toothed grin that made Valkyrie laugh.

  The first course arrived and Valkyrie found it easier to interact with others when she had the distraction of food in front of her. It gave her time to think, to formulate responses, and an excuse to be brief when necessary.

  The waiting staff came over, cleared the plates, and Alice announced that she had to go to the toilet, and slid out of her chair.

  “I’ll go with you,” Beryl said, and Valkyrie suppressed a laugh at Alice’s rolled eyes.

  Smiling, Valkyrie turned her attention to the rest of the table. They were all looking at her and her smile dropped.

  “What?” she said.

  Crystal leaned forward. “Why were you late?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “Were you saving the world?”

  This was weird, sitting here with family members who all knew about magic. “No,” said Valkyrie, “I was just late.”

  “We don’t talk about this in public,” Fergus warned.

  “Then when can we talk about it?” Crystal asked, giving her dad a scowl. “We can’t talk about it in private because either Mum or Alice is around. Right now is the only time we can hear what’s going on. So come on, Valkyrie – what’s going on?”

  “Stephanie,” Melissa corrected. “We call her by her proper name here.”

  “But it’s not her proper name, is it?” Crystal countered. “It’s her given name. Valkyrie is her proper name.”

  “Stephanie is fine when I’m with family,” Valkyrie said quickly. “It makes it easier to, y’know, maintain my cover or whatever.”

  Crystal nodded. “Fair enough.”

  Fergus shifted uncomfortably. “We shouldn’t be discussing this where someone could overhear us.”

  “We’re fine,” said Desmond. “If anyone’s walking up behind you, I’ll give you the signal by coughing into my hand.”

  Fergus frowned at his brother. “Do you really think this is a good idea?”

  Desmond shrugged. “I reckon our family has gone long enough not talking about this stuff, don’t you?”

  “If that’s a veiled reference to how I never told you that magic was real, I would respond by saying you’ve had seven years to get over it and it’s becoming quite tiresome.”

  “Tiresome, is it?”

  “I was protecting you.”

  “You lied to me, you mean,” said Desmond. “You all lied to me – you, Gordon, Pop. The only person who didn’t lie to me was Granddad, and he’s the one you said was nuts.”

  “You think it was easy?” Fergus asked, getting angry. “You think it was fun? Gordon was a lost cause, so all the responsibility fell to me to—”

  Desmond coughed into his hand and Fergus shut up immediately and stared down at his plate.

  When no one approached the table, he looked around, then glared. “Very mature.”

  Alice came skipping back, with Beryl close behind.

  “What were you talking about?” Beryl asked as they retook their seats.

  “Nothing,” Fergus said sulkily.

  “Crystal,” Melissa said, putting on a smile, “how is Carol doing in her new job?”

  “Good, I think,” Crystal said. “It pays well, and she says the people are, um, what’s the word she used? Undemanding. So I think that means she’s settling in.”

  “We don’t really hear much from Carol,” Beryl said. “She’s steadily grown more and more distant. I think, probably, that’s my fault.”

  “Beryl, no,” said Fergus, covering her hand with his own.

  She tried to smile. “I suppose I was never the warmest of mothers. I look at you, Melissa – you and Stephanie, and now little Alice – and I marvel at that relationship. How close you are. You’re friends more than … more than anything. I could never understand how you managed it.”

  “Mum,” said Crystal, blinking back tears.

  “My sweet girl,” Beryl said, reaching over, holding her hand. “I’ll never stop being sorry for the kind of mother I was to you.”

  Valkyrie’s heart drummed in her hollow chest. Every beat reverberated. “Excuse me,” she said quietly, pushing herself away from the table. She managed to walk without stumbling out into the reception area, then lunged for the door.

  Fresh air. She gasped it in. Her head was light. She went to put a hand against the wall and misjudged the distance, fell sideways, hit it with her shoulder. She looked drunk. She felt drunk. She needed the music box.

  The door opened. Her mother walked out. Valkyrie straightened.

  “Are you OK?” Melissa asked.

  Valkyrie nodded. “Needed to make a call.”

  Melissa handed her her purse. “Then you might need your phone.”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “Are you OK?” Melissa asked again. Valkyrie didn’t answer, and her mum put her arm round her. “It’s sad,” she said, “watching Carol grow apart from her family like that.”

  “Beryl isn’t to blame.”

  “Oh, I know. She was never the easiest woman to get along with, and we’ve had our differences, but she adored the twins. Sometimes, sweetheart, there is no reason for the things people do. They change. They grow apart. But that’ll never happen to us.”

  Valkyrie smiled weakly, hugging her back, and Melissa was silent for a long, long moment. Then she said, “You just have to look at Alice to see how much people – even kids – can change.”

  Valkyrie moved her head off her mother’s shoulder.

  “The doctors don’t know what’s wrong,” Melissa said, turning to watch a car go by. “A shift like this, they said it could be down to trauma, but, if Alice has suffered any trauma, she’s not telling us about it. Has she mentioned anything to you?”

  Valkyrie shook her head.

  “I don’t know what it is. She’ll spend all morning crying. Not little sobs, either. Big, racking sobs. It’s … it’s gut-wrenching.” Melissa’s hand was shaking. She noticed it, used it to brush her hair back over her ear. “Is there anything you can do?” she asked.

  The question took Valkyrie by surprise. “What?”

  “Is there anything magical you can do? A spell, or a charm, or something?”

  “Mum, you really don’t want to use magic for something as delicate as this.”

  “But is there?”

  Valkyrie looked away. “We don’t do spells,” she said, not for the first time. “But
, even if we did, trying to alter a person’s emotional state, that’s …”

  Melissa nodded. “No. You’re right. It was a silly idea.”

  “It wasn’t silly …”

  “I thought there might be a quick fix,” Melissa said. “An easy answer. I wanted to cheat, basically. I was talking to your dad a few days ago about getting in a hypnotist, and that led us on to that time you told us about using people’s names to get them to do things. We were thinking something like that might help.”

  “I don’t know, Mum. That kind of thing, there’s no way of knowing the ramifications. Besides, using someone’s given name, that usually doesn’t last longer than a few seconds.”

  “But you use it to get people to forget things, don’t you?”

  “It’s not as easy as that.”

  Melissa’s face suddenly crumpled and the tears came, and now it was Valkyrie’s turn to wrap her arms around her.

  “It’s OK,” Valkyrie said, her heart breaking. “It’s OK.”

  “I just don’t know what we’ve done wrong.”

  Now tears were running down Valkyrie’s cheeks. “Nothing,” she managed to say. “You’ve done nothing wrong. None of this is your fault.”

  It was Valkyrie’s fault, just like Carol’s behaviour was Valkyrie’s fault. All this heartbreak, all this sadness and guilt – it was all because of her.

  There was bile in her throat. She wanted to drop to her knees, wanted to scream until her voice was hoarse, wanted to throw up until there was nothing left inside her. Instead, she hung on to her mother until Melissa had regained control and stepped away, smiling bravely.

  “Back into the fray,” she said. “You coming?”

  Valkyrie held up her purse. “Got to make that call.”

  Melissa smiled gently. “OK, sweetie. See you in there.”

  When the door closed and her mother was gone, Valkyrie lurched to her car. She plunged her hand into her purse, found the fob. The boot clicked and opened and she practically dived in, she was so eager. Grabbed the sports bag, yanked the zip across, pulled out the music box, held it in both hands, pressed her thumbs to each side and opened the lid.