The Lost Girl

3

Flight



My coffee rattles in my hands. I have to put it down. I stare at Sean in disbelief, shaking my head. “You’d do that? You’d take my tracker out?”

“Yeah.”

“But they’ll know it was you. They’ll find out you were here and know you did it, you’ll get in such trouble—”

“Not if they can’t find me,” he says.

“Excuse me?”

“Not if I run too,” he says.

“What?”

“You said it, Eva. You said we could do it together.”

“But you have a life—”

“Yeah,” he says. “But I’d rather have one with you.”

I stand up. Pain shoots through my muscles and I ignore it, glaring at him. “You must think I’m terribly selfish or terribly stupid,” I say. “I won’t let you do it. You mean too much to me. I forbid it—”

“You can’t forbid me,” he says, smiling ruefully. “I’ll follow you if I have to.”

I rock slightly on the balls of my feet. I’m standing on a floor that is tilting beneath me. Like a bird with a cage door thrown wide open, I hover, dazzled by the open skies but frightened.

“The thing is,” says Sean, his eyes very green and sad, “there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

I feel a sharp, stuttering jolt in my heart. I blink, once, twice. How do you protest something like that?

“I wish you wouldn’t do this.”

“And I wish you wouldn’t cut and run,” says Sean. “They’ve never forgiven a single echo who has dared to run. But staying here isn’t going to save you.”

I claw desperately for any alternative. “I can live with getting myself in trouble if I fail. But you? You can’t ask me to do that.”

Sean raises his eyebrows. “I’m not asking.”

I twist my hands together and make shapes with my fingers. I could argue until I’m blue in the face, but he’s not going to change his mind. And maybe it’s not fair of me to try and make him. Wouldn’t I follow him if our roles were reversed? Wouldn’t I want him to let me?

“Thank you,” I say brokenly, digging my fingernails into my palms. “I know this isn’t easy for you.”

He gives me a slightly suspicious look. “That’s it? You’re done arguing?”

I nod.

We stare at each other for a long time. I feel like we can hang on to this moment if we don’t speak. We can tread the line between being safe and taking this risk, and the moment someone says a word, this becomes real.

“We’ll need money,” says Sean at last, and it crashes down on me, that we’re really going. My knees wobble.

I nod. “I need to look in that deposit box, see what they put there. And then—”

I break off. It’s easy to imagine running. Frightening, exhilarating, but nevertheless easy for me to picture in my head. The reality, on the other hand, seems somehow colder. If we run, we’ll have to run all our lives. If we make it, if we elude the seekers, we could be running for years. Long enough to get jobs, grow up, maybe even grow old. We’d have to survive out there indefinitely. Sean might be able to turn around and return to his old life if he chose to, but I can’t. If I run, I can never stop.

“Yeah,” says Sean, almost as if I said all those things out loud. “So are you sure this is what you want?”

I swallow. “Yes.”

He considers me a moment and then nods. “Well, I have some money too. I have most of the money the Loom paid me over the years and the money Dad left me when he died. But we’ll have to use cash as much as possible.” He rubs his forehead, a worried gesture. “And there’s—”

Someone knocks on the door. Sean goes quiet at once. We both look up guiltily as Neil pokes his head in.

“We thought we’d order pizza for dinner,” he says. “Pepperoni okay with both of you?”

I find that my brain can’t quite understand the word pizza. It’s too normal, too mundane, to fit into my tumbled feelings. Neil looks between us, slightly puzzled.

Sean recovers first. “That sounds good to me, thanks,” he says, and he sounds so perfectly at ease I can only marvel at it. “Can I help set the table or anything?”

“Don’t worry about it, we’ll just eat out of the boxes.” Neil gives me another odd look before leaving.

When we’re alone again, I make a sheepish face. Sean shakes his head. “You need a better poker face.”

“I know.” Pizza is still bouncing around my head, still making no sense whatsoever, merely an unwelcome interruption. It makes me remember there’s a household, a world, beyond this room. There are people who expect things of me. Am I really thinking of leaving Nik and Sasha? I gnaw my bottom lip, then push these doubts away. “What were you about to say when Neil knocked?”

“I was going to ask about passports,” he says. “Do you still have the false one Matthew used to bring you here?”

I check Amarra’s desk. “It’s here.”

“You’ll have to use that one if we want to leave this country. And I’ll have to use mine. But the Weavers will be able to track them. We’ll have to stop using them as soon as we can.”

“We could stay here,” I say. “Not use passports at all.”

“You’re illegal here,” Sean reminds me. I almost want to hit him. There’s something diabolical about the way he thinks of everything. “Do you really want to worry about the police finding out what you are, on top of everything? And anyway, if you want to get a look in that deposit box—”

“We’ll have to go back to England,” I finish, chilled to the bone.

“Yeah.”

“England, Sean.”

“I know, Eva.” Sean doesn’t look happy. “It’s a little too close for comfort, but it might be our only choice right now.”

I can’t help thinking that, as unnerving as such proximity to the Loom is, it also means we’re closer to Mina Ma, and Erik and Ophelia and Sean’s mother.

Typically, Sean guesses where my thoughts have gone. “We can’t see them,” he says quietly. “You know that. The moment they find out we’ve run, they’ll be watching everyone they think we’d go to.”

“I know!” I say testily, biting back my disappointment. “It was just nice to imagine.”

I study my hands, the lines in my palm. Everything has its consequences. You can’t win a war without losing something. The price of survival could well be never seeing Mina Ma or my guardians or Nik or Sasha or Lekha ever again.

“What about after we’ve emptied the deposit box?” I say. “Can we get our hands on passports that the Weavers won’t know about?”

“Sure,” says Sean, “I’ll just email my connections in the criminal underworld, shall I?”

I glare at him. “Sometimes you really need a smack.”

He gives me a lopsided smile.

“Well,” I say, abandoning the false-passports idea, “it sounds like thinking ahead isn’t going to help us now.” Sean actually looks pained. I resist the urge to rub it in. “Sean, as much as you feel like it’ll kill you not to have every stupid detail worked out, we can’t know what to expect. We need to work out what to do now. And then figure out the rest when we need to.”

“Fine. Then we need to get a flight out of here. We’d better avoid the London airports and fly into Manchester instead.”

While Sean gets on Amarra’s computer to look up flight schedules, I try to think of how we’re going to get to the airport. I reach for Amarra’s phone and dial Lekha’s number.

“Okay,” she whispers, by way of greeting, “are you in trouble again?”

“I—”

“No, don’t answer that! They might realize you’re tipping me off. We need a code word! Oooh, I have it! If the hunters have you, say shoelaces. And if it’s Ray, say—”

“Aside from how ridiculous that is in itself,” I say, choking on a giggle, “why on earth are you whispering?”

She laughs. “I have no idea. It seemed appropriate. So you’re not in trouble?”

“Not as such.”

“I need to teach you how to reassure people, because that was a shoddy attempt at it.”

I smile. “Do you remember telling me your mother taught you to drive?”

“Not in the slightest,” she says cheerfully, “but you always remember things, so I daresay I did. She taught me when I was a wee tot.”

“Please tell me you’ve practiced since.”

“A few times.”

“How many is a few?”

“Once.”

I sigh. “And you definitely don’t have a license?”

“No,” says Lekha, before adding with a snort, “not that that matters in this city, but I do like to obey the law—”

“Think you could break it this one time?”

There’s a pause. Lekha sounds resigned. “Good god, they have got you, haven’t they? Are you in a pool of your own blood again? Do you need me to pick you up?”

“No,” I say. “Really. I’m at the house. But I’m leaving. At the end of the week. And I could use your help.”



“I didn’t know you drove, Lekha,” says Neil, peering past her at the faded Zen parked by the front gate.

She beams at him. “I do now.”

“Legally?” he asks doubtfully.

“Well—”

“Never mind,” he says, “the less I know, the less I worry.”

I wave hello to Lekha from the top of the stairs. My stomach is in knots. She looks cheerful as ever, but I’m quite sure she’s putting it on. She didn’t hesitate for an instant when I asked for help, but she seems to share Sean’s view that running away is more likely to get me killed than save my life.

Neil shuts the front door behind her. “I hope you’re staying for lunch. We’ve made too much.”

“Oooh, can I? Something smells amazing!” Lekha turns to me and says, innocently, “What do you think about going out after we’ve eaten instead?”

Neil looks at me in surprise. “You’re going out?”

I haven’t gone anywhere since the hospital, and though I worried my sudden decision to do so might rouse Neil or Alisha’s suspicions, Sean and I couldn’t think of any other way to leave the house quietly. This way, we might even be out of the country before someone realizes we’ve left for good.

“They won’t stop me,” I told him. “They even suggested I disappear. Sort of. They won’t stop us if they catch us slipping out.”

“They might not,” Sean admitted, “but if we flaunt it in their faces, they might feel like they have to lie to the Weavers later. It could get them in trouble.”

Now, I force myself to meet Neil’s eyes and babble, “Sean wants a souvenir to take back to his mother.”

“Sounds fun,” says Neil. “Fresh air will do you good.” He hesitates over his next words. “But do be careful, Eva.”

“We will,” Lekha assures him.

I smile weakly. Lekha takes me by the elbow and steers me upstairs, her bright eyes growing wide in panic as soon as we’re out of earshot. Her fingers tighten.

“Are you really going to do this?”

I nod.

“Eva—”

“You can find me,” I promise her, though I know the risks would be enormous and it’s likely neither of us will be able to find the other again. “When you’ve finished school and you’re out in world, come find me. I’ll tell you where I am. Don’t even try saying good-bye, because it’s not.”

“I hope not,” she says softly.

We walk into Amarra’s bedroom and stop short, because Nikhil is standing there, staring at the two bags on the floor.

“I told him they’re both mine,” says Sean quietly. He’s by the window, elbows on his knees. “But he doesn’t believe me.”

“That’s yours,” says Nik to me, pointing at the dark green duffel bag, the zippers locked together. “You brought it with you when you came.”

“Nik—”

“Are you leaving?”

It’s just a question. Not a demand for the truth. I can’t bear to look in his eyes, but I do. “Yes,” I tell him, “I am. I have to.”

“Is this because of the hunter?”

“Kind of. But it’s more than that. I don’t think I’ll survive if I stay here. The Weavers will come for me.”

Nikhil shifts his weight from foot to foot, considering. Then he nods, a slight jerky bob of his jaw.

“But maybe . . . like in a few years . . . when we’re older . . . maybe Sasha and I could see you? We could find you—”

“I’d like that,” I say softly, “very much.”

I kiss him on the forehead. Nikhil is nearly my height. He will grow up to be such a wonderful boy. My heart squeezes tight. I’ve known them all their lives, he and Sasha. I watched them take their first steps on film. I heard them laugh. I pretended to love them for so long, and somewhere along the way, it stopped being pretend. I didn’t expect a small part of me to want to stay. I didn’t expect to miss them already.

After Nik leaves the room, I let out a heavy breath. “I don’t know how I’m going to make it through lunch.”

“You don’t know?” Lekha demands. “What about me? I’m the messenger. And you know what happens to the messenger!”

“Speaking of,” I say. “Here.” I hand her a piece of folded paper. “You can read that if you like, it’s a note for them. Can you give it to them after you’ve dropped us off?”

Lekha puts the note in her bag. It took me a long time to write it. I didn’t really know what to say. In the end, I was honest.



I’m sorry to leave without saying good-bye. Thank you for giving me somewhere to stay and looking after me these last ten months, especially when I was hurt. You’ve been very kind and I hope you will all be happy.



P.S. Sean says thank you for letting him stay and that he’s sorry he had to leave like this. He thinks it’s rude, but we couldn’t think of any other way.



Neil calls up that lunch is ready. Sean and Lekha go downstairs, and I go up to the attic to tell Alisha we’re eating. When I step into her studio, I notice a difference immediately. On the wall straight ahead of me, hanging from a hook, is a pair of wings covered in black feathers. My wings. For the echo who was going to live forever.

“They’re not finished,” I say, embarrassed.

Alisha shakes her head. “Things don’t have to be finished to be beautiful. But if you ever want to come in and finish it, you’re welcome to.”

I swallow. “Alisha, I . . .”

Her wide eyes focus on me. Eyes just like mine. I almost said good-bye. I almost hugged her. She stares at me. It’s like she sees right through me. “Is something wrong, Eva?”

“N-no,” I say. “I just—I just came up to tell you lunch is ready.”

This is harder than I’d expected.

I eat slowly at lunch, partly out of anxiety, partly to make this final meal with them last a bit longer. When we’re finished, I go back to Amarra’s room to make sure I’ve packed everything I might need. I check my bag. False passport. Photographs. The bracelet Sean gave me. Indian money. A few British coins. Frankenstein. Erik’s envelope and key. I double-check everything and have just finished when Sean comes back upstairs. Lekha trails behind him rather reluctantly.

“Do you have to do this?” she asks. “Here?”

“We have to leave the tracker here,” says Sean, “so that anyone checking up on her will think Eva is still in this house.”

“So they won’t know it’s out immediately?”

“Not until it loses power. It’s like a battery being charged. When it’s out, it will start to wind down, and it should set an alarm off at the Loom when it dies. But her body’s been charging this tracker for almost a year now. It could be days before it loses power. Or hours.”

Lekha shudders. “Well, do not ask me to help, because removing things from people’s bodies is just not a talent of mine. I’ll be shutting my eyes.”

But she opens one eye and watches with a kind of disgusted fascination anyway.

I feel slightly squeamish myself. I pull the chair over to the window so that Sean gets the best light. I look up at him for a moment. He’s soaked in sunlight. “From what I remember, the tracker is in your back,” he says. “Erik told me. It’s about an inch to the right of your spine, three inches above your tailbone, and about a third of a centimeter beneath the surface of your skin.”

“How are you going to get it out?”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a Swiss knife. He opens out the blade and says, “How do you think?”

“Great,” says Lekha, “absolutely spectacular. I should not have eaten lunch.”

I feel the blood drain out of my face. I’m not afraid of a single cut after the blows I’ve taken already. But there’s something awful about knowing it’s coming.

Sean reaches for Amarra’s box of matches. He sets one alight and holds the blade of the knife over the flame for a minute or two. I swallow back a sour taste in my mouth.

“Turn around,” he says gently.

I hike my T-shirt and kneel in the chair, screwing my face and forehead up in anticipation of pain. I wait, and there it is, a flash like fire. I gasp.

“Sorry.” He cuts into my skin. I imagine the knife sliding in as easily as if I’m butter, but this can’t be what really happens. It’s a sharp, raw pain, as though it’s taken a lot of his will and nerve to actually break the surface of the skin. Skin is tougher than I had imagined.

“Is it out?”

“It is now.” He shows me. It’s tiny, little more than a black dot, a miniature capsule covered in blood. I take it from him and lean my head against the back of the chair, tired, aching. He touches my shoulder. His thumb brushes against the bare skin below my ear. My skin prickles pleasantly.

Sean cleans the cut and puts a bandage over it. He throws blood-soaked cotton balls into a tiny plastic bag. My back continues to throb, but it’s bearable. I leave the blood on the tracker and wrap it in an antibacterial wipe, leaving the wipe under Amarra’s bed so no one notices it for a few days. Sean and I wash our hands in the bathroom.

“It’s done,” I say, a little breathlessly.

“The tracker’s gone now.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” says Sean.

Lekha shakes her head at me. “I spent seventeen years without any unnecessary turmoil,” she says happily, “seventeen years! Then you turned up and here I am, aiding a fugitive, watching a minor surgical procedure take place in a bedroom, witnessing firsthand the agony and the despair of star-crossed lovers . . .”

“We’re not star—”

“Don’t bother,” I tell Sean. “It’s not worth arguing with her.”

He lets it go. “I think Neil and Alisha were still at the table when we left, finishing their wine. I’ll go talk to them. It should keep them from coming out and seeing you take the bags to the car.”

I toss Sean’s things to Lekha and collect my stuff. Sean leaves the room, and we soon hear his voice in the dining room. We wait a couple of minutes before going down too. We make it out to the car without running into anyone. Lekha sags against the front door in relief and says she’ll wait outside while I get Sean. I go back indoors. The slit in my back is throbbing, and I’m quite sure I will be sick any minute now.

I go upstairs to find Sasha, busy writing her journal pages for her echo. “Hi, Sash,” I say. “I’m going out with Lekha and Sean, so I won’t be here for a while, okay?”

“Can I come?” she asks eagerly.

“Not this time. You have to finish your pages, don’t you? Come here,” I say, heart snapping in two. “Give me a hug before I go.”

I scoop her up and she puts her face in my neck, nuzzling like a cat. I laugh and squeeze her tight. I hold on too long and she wriggles, looking at me worriedly. I let her go. She drops back onto her bed. I smile to wipe away her concern.

“You be a good girl.”

“I’m always a good girl!” she says indignantly.

I blow her a kiss and force myself to leave her. I find Sean in the dining room and tell him Lekha’s waiting for us.

“Have fun,” says Alisha. “See if you can find a jade elephant at one of the shops. They make lovely souvenirs.”

“Bye,” I say. Sean, master of the carefully blank face, says a light good-bye and grips me by the hand. He pulls me out of the house before my expression gives us away.

I don’t look back. I can’t. The sky and road are singing to me and I have to run. I have to fly. Or stay and wither, die by a Weaver’s needles and loom.

Sean gets in the back of Lekha’s car. I get in the passenger seat. We don’t leave at once. We sit there silently, absorbing the fact that once we start moving, there will be no going back. Then Lekha blows out a huge exaggerated breath, turns the key in the ignition, and jolts forward before stalling. I laugh in spite of myself. She addresses the car with a number of rude words. She starts again and we glide down the street. We’ve left. We’re gone.

We’ve each chosen. All of us. To take control or to stand back. To stop a friend from risking her life or to help her do it. To follow or not to follow. We will have to live with our choices, whatever the outcome.

“Isn’t anyone going to talk?” Lekha demands, after exactly three minutes of silence.

“Radio?”

She huffs and turns it on. The song playing is “Stop Crying Your Heart Out.” By Oasis. It seems like a sign. It makes me feel more hopeful.

“Why is the traffic so bad?” Lekha wails at intervals. “It’s driving me bananas!”

“I can drive if you like,” I offer. I’ve been watching her do it. I’ve watched Ray. I think I can figure it out.

Sean makes a noise in his throat. “As bloody if.”

“You drive then. You’re the only one of us with an actual driver’s license.”

“No one’s touching my mother’s car,” says Lekha. “I can live with the traffic. I have bathed an elephant in a river. I can handle traffic.”

In spite of a few starts and stops and a great deal of unladylike swearing from Lekha when a motorcycle zooms by and nearly takes her mirror with it, we sail out of the traffic in good time. From there it’s one long straight road, and Lekha cheers up no end.

At the airport, she can only park by the departure doors for a few minutes before security will come shoo her away. We hop out of the car and collect our things.

“Be careful,” says Lekha. “And call me. Whenever. So I know you’re still alive.”

“I will. Will you get back okay?”

She nods tearfully.

Then she wraps her arms around me and hugs me tightly. I hug her back, even harder if that’s possible, and whisper, “Thank you for this. Thank you so much.”

“Good luck,” she whispers back. “Never eat sushi at an airport.”

Then she kisses Sean on the cheek and jumps back in the car. We watch her drive off. I sniffle. I think I might miss her the most.

“Come on,” I say, “let’s go be star-crossed lovers and court disaster.”

Sean laughs. I realize how much I’ve missed hearing the sound of it. I’ve always been able to make him laugh.

We pass through the airport scans and checks without incident, but I can’t relax, I am as tightly wound as wire around a spool. But when we’re finally on the plane and we haven’t caught a whiff of the police or a Weaver, I realize that we’ve done it. We’ve gotten away.

By the time we take off, I am fast asleep.