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As the afternoon stretched into the evening, Zoe and Rachel and Danny and Cai made their way through many kids movies, a very subdued dinner, and plenty of worried looks from Zoe’s mums. After dinner, Val arrived to take Danny home and Rachel got a lift back to her own place. Her fear – no, her apprehension – around Val was still there, but there were bigger things to think about now.
Rachel hugged Zoe for a long time before leaving.
Cai lingered in the background, eating leftover cinema lollies from his pocket. He watched Zoe as she saw Rachel and Danny out the front door, and when she turned back towards him he thought, I’ve never seen a person look so guarded. Although he had to wonder how he looked.
Zoe had been at this longer, though.
All he’d lost to his visions was his relationship with Alex, and future relationships too, he supposed. That had been bad enough. What had Zoe lost? And how did she cope?
Zoe returned to the living room looking tired and drained. “Thanks,” she said. “For not telling them. I don’t-” she shook her head. Don’t know what to do if they turn against me.
Cai was different; he was psychic too. If she was in danger from it then so was he. It made sense in her head somewhere. Talking to him was easier. “They’re your friends,” Cai said, with a confused frown, confused and concerned. “Don’t you trust them?”
“I do,” Zoe could feel it in her throat, the threat, the terrifying threat of it. “I want to…”
Cai looked at her sadly. “Someone betrayed you before, didn’t they? When they found out what you could do?”
You’re a STRANGER Zoe wanted to yell at him suddenly. I don’t even know you! But Zoe was sick of people not knowing her. Zoe was walled in by secrets and old pain that still felt new. Zoe was trying to trust people but it was so hard – even harder because she couldn’t explain to anyone the biggest reason why she couldn’t.
Painfully, she nodded, but even that admission scared her. Admitting that yes she’d been betrayed.
Cai reached forward to comfort her, but stopped, careful, and withdrew his hand.
“No,” said Zoe, and reached for his hand, but stopped before she touched him. He didn’t pull back further, watching her. Her face was plastered over with a mask of fear, but he could see her trying to break out of it. “Please,” she said. “I can’t say it out loud.”
Cai looked at her hand, and thought on no.
It was Schrödinger’s cat, that hand, or Pandora’s Box or… or something full of horrors and dead cats.
But Cai still believed he’d been given this gift for a reason. He needed to keep believing that, and in order to keep believing he couldn’t let himself deny it.
Bracing himself for the worse, Cai reached out and took Zoe’s hand. She squeezed her eyes shut like she was about to be hit, but didn’t pull away.
Zoe’s mind was full of her time in the cage, before the auction. She never spoke about it, didn’t think about it, but every gift that time had given her she still carried around inside her. The horror of it, yes, and the fear of what might come, but it was the betrayal of her parents than ran the deepest.
He saw it, flashes brief but vivid enough for all their brevity. Young Zoe, twelve, still looking like a child, a child caged and waiting, one of the very youngest people in that room of cages.
They sunk to the floor together, his hand grasped in both of hers, tucked beneath her chin, beneath her bowed head, his other arm around her back.
She cried out, the quiet, guttural sound that let him know she was seeing it again too, and that let him know he could still hear the real world, the present world, though his eyes were closed and full of the past.
Zoe did not let go of his hand for a long time, and he would not let go until she did. The vision ended and she still did not move, though her body was trembling now.
“Zoe,” he whispered, but his voice broke some spell and she pushed his hand away, pushed herself into a backward crawl across the carpet till she hit the side of the couch. She sat there panting, her eyes focusing on nothing in the air between them. He stayed where he was, sitting on his heels.
“Isn’t it amazing,” she said eventually, still not looking at him or anything else. “How well you can forget how badly something hurt? How you can pretend something didn't hurt for so long and them bam.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wouldn’t know.” The two worst things that had happened to him were the shooting, and his mother dying. Cai still remembered the pain of that, though it felt like time was helping him heal from that wound, not bury it up, as Zoe had done. He thought he’d been healing from the shooting, but now he wasn’t so sure. “Do you want to tell me what it was that I saw?” he asked.
“No,” she said. Then, “Did - did we see the same thing?”
“Cages,” he said. “You in a cage. Other people, in cages. Other… things,” he didn’t have a word for the things he’d seen, but Zoe knew what he meant. Those, she could talk about.
“Seers aren’t the only kind of person worth selling,” she said. “People who can make their wings come and go at will, they’ll fetch a nice price. People who can turn into wolves.”
“Selling,” repeated Cai, and Zoe felt – well, she didn’t know what she felt. But the fact that the word he’d landed on was selling and not wings or wolves, well, that was significant.
That was extremely significant.
“Selling,” she whispered, with a nod.
“Is that how you came to London? Were you… sold here?”
She could hear the distaste for the word on his tongue. “I was rescued,” she said, and he looked at her with a flicker of hope. “I had a vision they would come, and they did.”
Zoe said: “I don’t know why it’s bothering me now. I thought I was over it, a long time ago. It was so easy just to hate them, to get on with my new life because I hated them, and they didn’t mean anything to me. But I’m not over it, am I?”
“Hate is easier, when you’re young,” Cai said. “But I think it’s good for you, that it’s become… less easy. Hate is not supposed to be easy, I think. When hate becomes easy that’s when something has gone bad inside you. Really… bad.”
Zoe was watching him carefully. “But I still hate them,” she told him.
“Well... They sold you,” Cai said. “I would hate them too.”
“So what would you do?” Zoe dropped her head, picking at her fingernails. “If it had happened to you, how would you cope with it now?”
Cai turned his head on the side, thinking for a long time. If his grandmother had made arrangements to sell him to the highest bidder when he told her he could see into the secret parts of people? If he was rescued and taken to the other side of the world, where he knew nobody? How would he cope with that? “Do you mean, how would I go about healing myself, when I found I was ready?”
“Heal?” Zoe wondered out loud, and shrugged. “Or forget.”
“I wouldn’t forget,” Cai said. “I’d like to think I would try and forgive.”
Zoe rose her head and looked at him with such a burning anger, it took over every part of her face, every muscle in her body. “I am not good at forgiveness,” she said, her voice flat. Flat like the ocean before the atomic bomb goes off.
“I have noticed,” Cai said, sympathetically. “And forgive does not mean forget, and it does not mean excuse. It is… I just couldn’t live with that hate inside me forever, it would poison me.”
Zoe kept staring at him, still radiating with feeling. Poisoned, she thought. There had never been a better word for how she felt. Yes, of course I am poisoned.
“But I’ve never been betrayed by family like you have, Zoe. Or like Danny. I couldn't say who I’d be if I had.”
“I think you would be better,” Zoe said, her voice still flat, though Cai could hear she was having difficulty keeping it that way. “I can’t see the world poisoning you. I can’t see you letting it.”
Cai shook his head; he simply didn’t know. He hoped he wouldn’t let it. He crawled over toward Zoe and turned around, sitting at her side, their backs against the couch. He left a little distance between them, though he did not want to.
Zoe wrapped her arms around her knees, curling in on herself a little, cheek resting on her knee, facing him. “I don’t see myself being better than you,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anyone better than you.”
“Shut up,” Zoe winced, turning her head away.
“I mean it,” he said quietly. “Danny means it. Rachel means it. Liz means it.”
“I don’t need you to tell me what Liz means,” Zoe’s voice was lowering into a growl.
“You care,” Cai said. He’d seen the look on her face as she tried to stay calm when everyone was panicking. The fierce protection in everything she did. “You care deeply. The fact that you are able to care, after everything that has happened to you, that makes me think… really think… I do not believe you will be poisoned forever.”
Zoe didn’t move for a long moment, then slowly turned her head back to face him.
She didn’t say anything and neither did he. They just sat there, for a long, long time, just looking at each other.
Rachel hugged Zoe for a long time before leaving.
Cai lingered in the background, eating leftover cinema lollies from his pocket. He watched Zoe as she saw Rachel and Danny out the front door, and when she turned back towards him he thought, I’ve never seen a person look so guarded. Although he had to wonder how he looked.
Zoe had been at this longer, though.
All he’d lost to his visions was his relationship with Alex, and future relationships too, he supposed. That had been bad enough. What had Zoe lost? And how did she cope?
Zoe returned to the living room looking tired and drained. “Thanks,” she said. “For not telling them. I don’t-” she shook her head. Don’t know what to do if they turn against me.
Cai was different; he was psychic too. If she was in danger from it then so was he. It made sense in her head somewhere. Talking to him was easier. “They’re your friends,” Cai said, with a confused frown, confused and concerned. “Don’t you trust them?”
“I do,” Zoe could feel it in her throat, the threat, the terrifying threat of it. “I want to…”
Cai looked at her sadly. “Someone betrayed you before, didn’t they? When they found out what you could do?”
You’re a STRANGER Zoe wanted to yell at him suddenly. I don’t even know you! But Zoe was sick of people not knowing her. Zoe was walled in by secrets and old pain that still felt new. Zoe was trying to trust people but it was so hard – even harder because she couldn’t explain to anyone the biggest reason why she couldn’t.
Painfully, she nodded, but even that admission scared her. Admitting that yes she’d been betrayed.
Cai reached forward to comfort her, but stopped, careful, and withdrew his hand.
“No,” said Zoe, and reached for his hand, but stopped before she touched him. He didn’t pull back further, watching her. Her face was plastered over with a mask of fear, but he could see her trying to break out of it. “Please,” she said. “I can’t say it out loud.”
Cai looked at her hand, and thought on no.
It was Schrödinger’s cat, that hand, or Pandora’s Box or… or something full of horrors and dead cats.
But Cai still believed he’d been given this gift for a reason. He needed to keep believing that, and in order to keep believing he couldn’t let himself deny it.
Bracing himself for the worse, Cai reached out and took Zoe’s hand. She squeezed her eyes shut like she was about to be hit, but didn’t pull away.
Zoe’s mind was full of her time in the cage, before the auction. She never spoke about it, didn’t think about it, but every gift that time had given her she still carried around inside her. The horror of it, yes, and the fear of what might come, but it was the betrayal of her parents than ran the deepest.
He saw it, flashes brief but vivid enough for all their brevity. Young Zoe, twelve, still looking like a child, a child caged and waiting, one of the very youngest people in that room of cages.
They sunk to the floor together, his hand grasped in both of hers, tucked beneath her chin, beneath her bowed head, his other arm around her back.
She cried out, the quiet, guttural sound that let him know she was seeing it again too, and that let him know he could still hear the real world, the present world, though his eyes were closed and full of the past.
Zoe did not let go of his hand for a long time, and he would not let go until she did. The vision ended and she still did not move, though her body was trembling now.
“Zoe,” he whispered, but his voice broke some spell and she pushed his hand away, pushed herself into a backward crawl across the carpet till she hit the side of the couch. She sat there panting, her eyes focusing on nothing in the air between them. He stayed where he was, sitting on his heels.
“Isn’t it amazing,” she said eventually, still not looking at him or anything else. “How well you can forget how badly something hurt? How you can pretend something didn't hurt for so long and them bam.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I wouldn’t know.” The two worst things that had happened to him were the shooting, and his mother dying. Cai still remembered the pain of that, though it felt like time was helping him heal from that wound, not bury it up, as Zoe had done. He thought he’d been healing from the shooting, but now he wasn’t so sure. “Do you want to tell me what it was that I saw?” he asked.
“No,” she said. Then, “Did - did we see the same thing?”
“Cages,” he said. “You in a cage. Other people, in cages. Other… things,” he didn’t have a word for the things he’d seen, but Zoe knew what he meant. Those, she could talk about.
“Seers aren’t the only kind of person worth selling,” she said. “People who can make their wings come and go at will, they’ll fetch a nice price. People who can turn into wolves.”
“Selling,” repeated Cai, and Zoe felt – well, she didn’t know what she felt. But the fact that the word he’d landed on was selling and not wings or wolves, well, that was significant.
That was extremely significant.
“Selling,” she whispered, with a nod.
“Is that how you came to London? Were you… sold here?”
She could hear the distaste for the word on his tongue. “I was rescued,” she said, and he looked at her with a flicker of hope. “I had a vision they would come, and they did.”
Zoe said: “I don’t know why it’s bothering me now. I thought I was over it, a long time ago. It was so easy just to hate them, to get on with my new life because I hated them, and they didn’t mean anything to me. But I’m not over it, am I?”
“Hate is easier, when you’re young,” Cai said. “But I think it’s good for you, that it’s become… less easy. Hate is not supposed to be easy, I think. When hate becomes easy that’s when something has gone bad inside you. Really… bad.”
Zoe was watching him carefully. “But I still hate them,” she told him.
“Well... They sold you,” Cai said. “I would hate them too.”
“So what would you do?” Zoe dropped her head, picking at her fingernails. “If it had happened to you, how would you cope with it now?”
Cai turned his head on the side, thinking for a long time. If his grandmother had made arrangements to sell him to the highest bidder when he told her he could see into the secret parts of people? If he was rescued and taken to the other side of the world, where he knew nobody? How would he cope with that? “Do you mean, how would I go about healing myself, when I found I was ready?”
“Heal?” Zoe wondered out loud, and shrugged. “Or forget.”
“I wouldn’t forget,” Cai said. “I’d like to think I would try and forgive.”
Zoe rose her head and looked at him with such a burning anger, it took over every part of her face, every muscle in her body. “I am not good at forgiveness,” she said, her voice flat. Flat like the ocean before the atomic bomb goes off.
“I have noticed,” Cai said, sympathetically. “And forgive does not mean forget, and it does not mean excuse. It is… I just couldn’t live with that hate inside me forever, it would poison me.”
Zoe kept staring at him, still radiating with feeling. Poisoned, she thought. There had never been a better word for how she felt. Yes, of course I am poisoned.
“But I’ve never been betrayed by family like you have, Zoe. Or like Danny. I couldn't say who I’d be if I had.”
“I think you would be better,” Zoe said, her voice still flat, though Cai could hear she was having difficulty keeping it that way. “I can’t see the world poisoning you. I can’t see you letting it.”
Cai shook his head; he simply didn’t know. He hoped he wouldn’t let it. He crawled over toward Zoe and turned around, sitting at her side, their backs against the couch. He left a little distance between them, though he did not want to.
Zoe wrapped her arms around her knees, curling in on herself a little, cheek resting on her knee, facing him. “I don’t see myself being better than you,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anyone better than you.”
“Shut up,” Zoe winced, turning her head away.
“I mean it,” he said quietly. “Danny means it. Rachel means it. Liz means it.”
“I don’t need you to tell me what Liz means,” Zoe’s voice was lowering into a growl.
“You care,” Cai said. He’d seen the look on her face as she tried to stay calm when everyone was panicking. The fierce protection in everything she did. “You care deeply. The fact that you are able to care, after everything that has happened to you, that makes me think… really think… I do not believe you will be poisoned forever.”
Zoe didn’t move for a long moment, then slowly turned her head back to face him.
She didn’t say anything and neither did he. They just sat there, for a long, long time, just looking at each other.
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