The Gathering Page 5

  Indian collapsed the blade, dropped the knife into his pocket and pointed to the parcel he had brought with him. ‘You take that and I’ll take this.’

  Bewildered, I did as he said. It weighed a ton. ‘What’s in here?’

  Indian kicked the door shut with his heel, ignoring my question. ‘This way.’

  Since he was a lot bigger than me, it seemed safest to do what he wanted. I followed him round the corner onto the walkway leading to the library, then, at his instruction, put the parcel down on the steps.

  The neon exit sign inside the foyer gave off a greenish light that made him look sick. He squinted out into the black night, reminding me of a bear.

  ‘That Danny,’ I began, then stopped.

  ‘You scared of him?’ Indian asked as if he read that in my smell. I’ve heard animals can smell the change in sweat that comes with fear. Maybe Indian could too.

  ‘He was really going to stab me. He’s crazy.’

  Indian nodded. I was unsure whether this meant he agreed Danny was crazy or whether he would have stabbed me.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’

  Indian only shook his head again.

  I looked out into the darkness. ‘Who are you waiting for anyway?’

  He took so long to answer I thought of asking if he needed thinking music. Before he could speak Danny reappeared.

  ‘Why the hell did you bring him here?’

  ‘I had to get the stuff out of sight in case someone comes,’ Indian said calmly. He nodded at the parcel. ‘He carried that.’

  Danny’s mouth fell open. ‘What if he had taken off with it?’

  ‘He didn’t try,’ Indian said in a way that made me fervently glad I hadn’t.

  ‘I was just …’ I began. Danny whirled and snatched the torch out of my hand, switching it on me again.

  ‘You shut up …’

  ‘Switch that off!’

  All three of us jumped about a metre in the air at the sound of that low angry voice coming out of the dark.

  The torch beam wavered and flicked off and Nissa Jerome stepped into the greenish neon light, white to the lips with fury.

  ‘Are you crazy waving that light around? Why don’t you take out an ad in the newspapers, then we can let the few people you missed know we’re here!’ She sounded furious.

  Then she spotted me and her eyes widened. ‘Who the hell is this?’

  ‘Indian brought him!’ Danny announced.

  ‘Danny wanted to kill him,’ Indian said.

  ‘He was spying!’ Danny shrilled. Nissa’s pasty face shone unhealthily, the neon glow turning her cobalt blue eyes into stainless steel.

  ‘You were hanging around the library last night,’ she said with dawning suspicion.

  I was surprised she had even noticed me.

  ‘See? He was spying on you!’

  ‘Calm down, Danny-O,’ Nissa snapped, and to my astonishment he subsided, glaring at me malevolently. She threw Indian a questioning look.

  ‘I don’t think he was spying. Snooping maybe.’ Indian shrugged.

  Another car passed, but this time it slowed down and we could hear it pull in the drive.

  ‘Shit,’ Nissa said. ‘Quick.’

  They dragged the box and parcel into the shadows and Indian pushed me into the corner. My heart pounded as I saw a police car roll slowly past the canteen and out of sight. We could hear it drive right round the whole school, and then out of the gate again and away.

  Nissa was the first to relax and move away from the wall.

  She propped her hands on her hips and faced Indian and Danny. ‘You two are idiots bringing him here. You should have just chased him off. Even if he reported it, it would have just been your word against his.’

  ‘Indian brought him here!’ Danny protested. ‘I was going to silence him.’

  Nissa shook her head exasperatedly. ‘Were you born this stupid or did you take lessons? You think that’s what we’re supposed to do? Kill people?’

  A defiant, sheepish look flashed over Danny’s face.

  ‘He chose to answer the Call,’ said a new voice.

  ‘Lallie,’ Nissa said, whirling around and sounding relieved. ‘I went looking for you.’

  The pale girl with the flyaway mop of white blonde hair who had touched me in the schoolyard stepped out of the shadows on to the step beside Nissa. I gaped to see The Tod trotting alongside her.

  Nissa dropped to her knees so that she was looking up into Lallie’s face. ‘What do you mean he answered the Call?’ Her voice was as soft and low as a cat purring. There was a kind of nakedness in her voice when all the toughness was stripped away.

  I looked at Lallie and found her watching me, a faint mischievous smile on her lips, exactly as if she knew what I was thinking. It was impossible but I felt my face heat up. Her lips twitched and she looked back at Nissa.

  ‘He is the fifth and last of the chosen,’ she said in a windy little voice that spoke of asthma or hay fever.

  ‘Wha-at!’ Danny moaned. ‘Jesus H Christ!’

  8

  Nissa gave Danny an unfriendly look. ‘You heard what Lallie said, Danny-O. He’s with us.’

  ‘Just like that?’ Danny demanded. ‘We don’t know anything about him. What if Lallie made a mistake?’

  ‘The choosing is over,’ Lallie said dreamily.

  A picture came into my mind of the way she had come up to me just outside the schoolground and tagged me. Maybe it was some kind of game.

  ‘What do you mean the choosing? Who chose me?’

  ‘No one,’ she answered, looking momentarily less vague in her surprise. ‘You chose to answer the Call.’

  ‘I didn’t choose anything,’ I said. My mother did all the choosing in my life for me, I thought bitterly.

  ‘We’d better get inside,’ Nissa said briskly. She reached in her pocket and took out a set of keys, holding them up to the green glow. For a moment her eyes caught mine, the keys dangling between us.

  Then she turned and slid the key into the library door, pushing it open.

  I gaped. How did Nissa come to have the library keys? And what the hell had I got myself into?

  Indian winked at me and nodded at the parcel. ‘Bring that but be careful.’

  ‘I’m not vandalising anything,’ I warned him.

  Indian grinned and picked up the box. ‘You’ve got it all wrong.’

  I lifted the parcel, grunting at the weight of it and trying to figure out how to get away without inciting the wolf boy into more murderous plans to dispose of me. The Tod went in the door behind Lallie which gave me the creeps because usually he acted like every stranger was an axe murderer.

  Nissa said coolly, ‘We’re not planning to mess up the library or anything.’

  Inside the foyer The Tod was sitting near Lallie’s foot and as I watched, she dropped her fingers down and let him gnaw softly at the ends. The hair on my neck prickled because how did she know he liked to do that?

  There was a click and Nissa locked the doors behind us. I expected her to come across and unlock the doors leading into the main part of the library, but instead she went to a big trophy cupboard set against the side wall. Indian put the box down and hooked his fingers into a loop which Nissa used to get on top of the cupboard.

  She opened out a step ladder that had been stored flat up there and climbed up, pushing open a section of the crumbling plaster scrolling. Then she heaved herself into the roof and disappeared.

  Danny went up on the cupboard next and Indian passed the box up to him. Groaning and swearing, he heaved it to Nissa and between them they manhandled it into the roof. The whole thing happened with a minimum of words.

  ‘I’ll take him up,’ Lallie said, scooping The Tod up. He blinked at me from her arms, sleepy and relaxed and I knew I was dreaming. The Tod barely tolerated being picked up by my mother, let alone a complete stranger.

  Indian hefted them both up to Danny who helped them into the roof and wen
t up after them.

  A faint orange glow showed through the opening, but there was no clue as to what was up there. I knew just getting inside the foyer was breaking and entering, but I was too curious to take off now I had the chance. Besides, maybe they were testing me to see if I’d take the chance to run.

  ‘Hurry up,’ Nissa snapped from above.

  I let Indian hoist me up. He pulled himself up behind me, then pointed to the ladder. Again he followed me into the roof, hauling the ladder up behind him.

  I stared around, amazed. The attic was huge and that meant the fancy barrel-vaulted ceiling of the library was mostly a facade. The real roof was the roof of the attic, with massive exposed beams jutting out and down to the floor, sloping at the edges. Two old-fashioned hurricane lamps hung from nails illuminating the whole area in overlapping pools of flickering light. There was a mattress bed made up against one wall, and beside it an upside-down crate stacked with books. On the other side of the space was a kitchen area, with pots and pans, a primus gas cooker and a packing-case table. Next to this were two old car-bench seats with ripped upholstery. There were books on all the beams and some piled on the floor.

  I looked at Indian. ‘Who lives here?’

  ‘I do,’ Nissa said calmly. ‘Help Indian unpack the box and we’ll have something to eat. We’ll talk when we’re all here.’

  Lallie came over and took Nissa by the hand. ‘He will not come tonight.’

  Nissa frowned. ‘What do you mean? He promised.’

  Lallie shook her head solemnly. Indian elbowed me gently and I helped him drag the box he had been carrying across to the kitchen area. He unpacked it while Nissa poured some of the jug water into a dented kettle and lit one of the primus jets, her face grim.

  ‘Who won’t come?’ I asked Indian softly.

  Before he could answer, we heard a car pull into the school grounds. The others were instantly alert, like deer scenting a lion. Nissa moved first, going to a dormer window down the end of the attic shaded by dark cloth. The others moved towards her in a restless little tide, and I let myself be carried with them. I had no earthly idea what was going on, but their air of apprehension was infectious.

  Nissa relaxed as the car went by without stopping, shaking her head and pulling the shade cloth back. She looked at Lallie. ‘It’s dangerous meeting tonight if he’s not going to come.’ There was an angry edge to her voice.

  Lallie said nothing, but her eyes flickered my way. Nissa gave me a hard look. ‘What’s your name then?’

  ‘Nathanial,’ I said.

  ‘Well, Nathanial, I hope you’re worth the risk,’ she said.

  Dressed in jeans splitting at the seams and another shapeless jumper that could have doubled as a tepee, Nissa was all sharp edges. Even her face seemed to be made up of feline angles with her pointed jaw, the perfectly straight nose and the heavy arching brows. Her blue black eyes…

  ‘Price goes up tomorrow,’ she said haughtily. My face burned.

  ‘What if the dog barks and someone hears?’ Danny demanded. He was sprawled on one of the car seats glaring over at me.

  Nissa gave him a weary look. ‘Can it, Danny-O.’ She went over and began to arrange the tins and packets Indian had unpacked on a beam. On the other car seat, Lallie patted her lap and The Tod jumped up in a springy bound.

  ‘What did you do with the parcel?’ Indian asked me. I pointed to the floor near the trapdoor and he told me to bring it over. I set it down with a thump and watched as he untied the strings, unpeeling layers of crumpled newspaper. At first I thought he had wrapped up a rock, then I saw it was a big, rough stone bowl like a neanderthal housewife might have used for brontosaurus stew.

  There was a sticker on the side of the bowl which said Maritime Museum.

  I looked at Indian incredulously. ‘You were the one that they were talking about at assembly!’

  He nodded, blowing dust out of the bowl. ‘Luckily they didn’t get a good look at me.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’ Nissa asked worriedly.

  ‘I was called up to the office but it seems the witnesses thought I had blond hair.’ He grinned.

  Nissa ran her hands over the stone, then looked over her shoulder. ‘Lallie, come and see what Indian came up with.’

  ‘The bowl of healing,’ the little girl said softly, her hair floating like a pale halo around her head.

  Indian and Nissa exchanged a startled look. I must have looked the same way only more so because Lallie couldn’t even see the table from where she was, let alone the bowl.

  ‘Did you know what he would bring?’ Nissa demanded, looking annoyed.

  Lallie ignored the question, setting The Tod down and coming over. ‘Let me see the other things.’

  Nissa went to the bed and reached under the mattress, withdrawing a long, rigid object wrapped in a blanket. She put this beside the stone bowl and folded back the cloth. Inside was a rusted sword.

  My mind did a sidestep. ‘The cemetery?’

  ‘Pretty quick,’ Nissa said, giving me a surprised look. She held it up, her lips curving into a triumphant smile. The first I had seen. If anything, the smile made her look harder. ‘An avenging angel lent me her sword.’

  ‘The sword of strength,’ Lallie wheezed.

  Danny brought out a stout, cone-shaped parcel. Unwrapped, it turned out to be a wire and papier mâché version of the Olympic torch.

  ‘The torch of justice,’ Lallie said.

  ‘Is this a witchcraft thing?’ I said.

  ‘Oh boy,’ Danny said, rolling his eyes back in his head.

  Just then the water in the kettle began to bubble noisily, overflowing into the primus jet.

  Nissa hurried to switch off the gas and Lallie reached over and touched my hand with a single cold finger. ‘The symbol shows the secret truth of the one who chose it.’ She lay back against the chair and closed her eyes as if she were exhausted.

  ‘Give us a hand putting these off the table for tea,’ Indian said, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. They all just assumed I would stay. I wanted to. The mystery unfolding in the attic was infinitely more exciting than going home to a dark, empty house. I helped lift the collection off the table, stacking them on the floor.

  ‘What are they for?’ I asked curiously. ‘Is it some kind of initiation ceremony?’

  Indian shrugged. ‘Kind of. You’ll understand when you get yours.’

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘Each of us have to have one.’

  ‘Then it is a game?’

  He gave me a sombre look. ‘It’s no game.’ He turned away.

  ‘Who wants a drink?’ Nissa asked.

  ‘I’ll just have hot water,’ Indian said.

  ‘Hot water?’ Danny echoed. ‘How come?’

  Indian crossed to stand beside Nissa. ‘Tea’s bad for you. So’s coffee.’

  ‘What about chocolate? That’s okay,’ Danny retorted, following him.

  ‘No it isn’t. That’s bad too. A dog can die from eating too much of it. There’s some sort of chemical.’

  ‘Bull! You made that up.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Indian said. ‘It’s lethal to dogs.’

  ‘Well, what’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘I’m just saying.’

  ‘Well, I’m human,’ Danny said triumphantly.

  ‘You sure about that?’ Indian demanded.

  I drifted over to where The Tod was curled up on Lallie’s lap again. He opened his eyes and flapped his tail. Lallie stroked his silky butterfly ears and I couldn’t help smiling at the dopey, swooning look on his face.

  ‘He loves you,’ Lallie said. She gave me a long unfathomable look. ‘Animals hear the Call too. Did you know that? But few answer it.’ She frowned, her cloudy eyes intent. ‘Now that you have come, you have to find your symbol.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked, humouring her.

  ‘It will help hide you.’

  A coldness came over me. ‘Hide me from what?’


  Lallie’s eyes widened until it seemed they might overcome her whole face. ‘Don’t you understand? Can’t you feel?’ She looked really insane for a second, then she leaned nearer, dragging me closer so that her lips touched my ear. ‘He’s looking for you. The symbol will hide you from him.’

  Suddenly Nissa was kneeling beside us and gently she unfastened Lallie’s fingers from my jumper. ‘Tell Nathanial how to find his symbol,’ she said.

  Lallie stared at her with frightened intensity, but slowly the vagueness seeped out of her eyes. ‘Yes.’ She looked back at me, her eyes wide. ‘You have to look inside your own mind. It’s there, waiting for you to find it. When you know, you must get it and bring it here.’

  ‘Why?’

  The fear came back into her face. ‘No more. Don’t ask me any more.’

  Suddenly The Tod sat up and licked her chin. Lallie laughed in delight and hugged him. The spell was broken and at once she was just a girl with vague eyes.

  I looked past her at Nissa, but she only shook her head warningly and moved away.

  ‘I’m starving. What’s to eat?’ Danny demanded.

  ‘Beans,’ Indian offered, looking at the label of the can in his hand.

  ‘Ugh!’ Danny stuck his fingers down his throat and made vomiting noises. ‘Wouldn’t mind a pie and sauce.’

  ‘Bought pies are ninety per cent blood plasma,’ Indian announced.

  9

  Nissa would not let us leave the attic after we had eaten because of the Community Committee meeting due to take place that night. Luckily my mother was on night shift so she wouldn’t know when I got home.

  As we waited, Danny wandered up and down the attic restlessly, a wolf on the prowl. Lallie and The Tod curled up together on the bed and slept and Indian read.

  Nissa sat opposite me at the card table, nursing a cup of tea, a faraway look in her eyes.

  ‘How come you live up here?’ I asked impulsively.

  She shrugged. ‘The old lady I lived with died one day when I was at school, and her house was sold to cover her debts. I had nowhere else to go.’

  ‘How did you find out about this place?’