“But Berry’s husband said that you have it. Not anybody else. That you have it.”
I nod, hearing him but thinking it couldn’t possibly be true. I would have remembered being given it.
“Did Berry send you anything since you’ve been home? Think about it, Celestine.”
“Granddad,” I say, holding my hands up to my pounding head. “I haven’t been able to do anything but think about it. But there’s nothing. Apart from an envelope with an invoice, there was nothing. He left his home number for me, and I called his husband. That’s the only message he left for me.”
He goes silent. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.”
“Thanks for your help, Granddad. I appreciate it. I don’t want to get you into trouble, though.”
“Trouble?” he barks. “I’ve been trouble since the day I was born. You’re not cutting me out of this excitement.”
I smile, feeling grateful.
We turn off a country road onto an even smaller track, and Granddad slows.
“This can’t be right,” he says, confused, squinting out the windows at the view of fields around us. We’re surrounded by thousands of acres of wind turbines, and a liquid-air storage plant rises from the horizon, enormous though it’s miles away. “Let me see the directions again.”
I hand him the crumpled slip of paper with Alpha’s handwriting. It’s a messy scrawl, something I think she did deliberately so nobody else could decipher it.
“Hmm,” he says, face screwed up in concentration as he reads. Then he looks up and around. “Looks like we’re going the right way,” he says, but he sounds uncertain. “This woman, do you trust her?”
I look at him. “I don’t trust anyone anymore.”
“That’s my girl.” He chuckles. “Well, we’ll soon find out.”
He continues driving down the narrow road, on the hunt for Gateway Lodge. I’m expecting a hotel of some sort, a conference room with a dozen or so people all talking about their experiences, but this doesn’t seem like the place anybody would come to to stay in a hotel. It’s too remote. My stomach tenses. Becoming lost is a concern of mine now, as is running out of gas. I worry about a random event occurring that will stop me from returning home in time for my curfew. Even worse, I’m afraid Mary May will orchestrate something to deliberately get me into trouble. She can’t be happy with the outcome of the photograph and alcohol charge, and I’m expecting trouble. I must beat this fear. I thought the Guild couldn’t do anything to hurt me anymore, but I was wrong—targeting my family would be an unbearable pain, a guilt I don’t think I could live with, and it’s the fear that they instill in us that is the continuous punishment for what we’ve done. I trust Granddad. I trust he will make sure I get home. But he’s old. What if he has a heart attack, what if he passes out…?
The road gets increasingly narrow as we delve deeper. The branches of the trees are now brushing up against our windows. Just when I think we’ll be crushed by branches and overgrowth, a gate appears after the next bend in the road. The gate is enormous and towers over us with multiple security cameras covering all angles. A twenty-foot wall hides whatever is behind it. The plaque on the wall announces it is Gateway Lodge.
We’ve arrived.
FIFTY-SEVEN
WE LEAN FORWARD and strain our necks to look up at the height of the walls.
Before Granddad even has a chance to reach out the window of the truck to press the buzzer, as if hearing our conversation, the gates suddenly open. Granddad moves the truck forward, and after following a mile of driveway, surrounded by perfectly manicured lawns and sloping hills, which block what’s coming up next, as though driving through a golf course, finally, we are faced with an enormous mansion. “Lodge” did not accurately describe it. There are dozens of cars parked in front of the house and a series of minibuses that must have had a hard time squeezing their way down the country roads. As we park, the front door of the mansion opens.
“That’s not her,” I say, walking toward our greeter.
Granddad immediately speeds up and almost blocks me, reaching the woman first.
“You made it,” a timid, but polite, woman says excitedly. It’s pulsating from her, her smile so enormous it is contagious. “I’m Lulu,” she says, her voice high-pitched, but soft, like a cartoon character. “Alpha’s assistant. I’ve held you a seat. Two, just in case.” She smiles and gives Granddad the quick once-over.
Granddad always receives these looks from people. For someone with a soft heart, he does a good job of scaring everyone off with his deeply lined, scrunched-up, grumpy face.