The Wordsmith

CHAPTER 21

FINN looked twenty years older, Letta thought, as she put a cup of burdock tea in front of him.

‘Did she see you?’ he asked, hugging the hot cup to his chest.

‘Yes,’ Letta said. ‘She did. I think they wanted her to betray me. It was a test. I’m sure of it.’ She waited for a second. ‘Finn!’ she said. ‘Did you know that she was Amelia Deer’s sister?’

Finn’s head snapped up. ‘Amelia’s sister?’

Letta told him what she had learnt.

Finn shook his head. ‘I never knew,’ he said. ‘She never mentioned –’

Marlo put a hand on Finn’s shoulder. ‘She must have had her reasons,’ he said.

Finn stood up. ‘I’m going to talk to some people,’ he said. ‘See what I can find out. If they have killed her, I need to know what they did with her body.’ He stopped for a minute. Nobody spoke. Finally, Finn turned towards the door. ‘We’ll meet back here this evening,’ he said as he walked away.

‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ Marlo said as the door closed behind Finn. ‘If Noa has killed her and her baby …’

‘He is capable of anything,’ Letta said. ‘His plan to put the Nicene in the water is getting closer too. There can be no doubt about that now. But we still have no idea exactly when he will do it.’

‘Any chance Werber would tell us what’s happening?’

‘We can’t trust him,’ Letta said, putting down her cup. ‘When I receive the bottles of water, I suppose that will mean the Nicene is about to be added.’

‘We’ll have to warn people not to drink the water,’ Marlo said.

‘Yes,’ Letta answered, but in her heart she knew that was impossible. Who would listen to them?

‘I’d better go back home,’ Marlo said. ‘People are anxious about Leyla.’

Letta nodded. She didn’t want him to leave, but at the same time she needed space to think. He touched her arm before he left, and once more she got the faint, bitter scent of sage. Then he was gone.

Next morning, Letta got up early and headed for the beach. The fresh air might clear her head, she thought, and give her some clue as to how to proceed.

When she reached the beach, the tide was coming in, the sand soft and wet under her feet. She stood looking out at the water, not really seeing anything, until a flock of small birds rose up noisily in front of her. They circled over her head twice, three times, and then set off out across the ocean.

Benjamin’s voice in her head was so clear it was as if he was standing right beside her. The birds still fly south.

Of course! How could she have been so slow? If the birds still fly south, then they must be going somewhere. There must be another place, far from here. Were her parents there? Her heart quickened. They could be. That was what Benjamin had been trying to say: Don’t lose hope. She had to survive this, she needed to be here if they came back. She had to. And she wasn’t going to be wordless.

As she turned to leave, something caught her eye: a lone figure walking slowly towards her. A woman with her head down. As Letta watched, she walked past the men loading barrels of sea-water, past the small stone jetty. Letta waited until she came nearer. With a start, she realised that it was Amelia. Letta had never seen her outside Noa’s house before. Curiosity kept her standing there, waiting for the older woman. Amelia’s progress was slow but Letta didn’t move. Amelia stopped a few strides away from her.

‘You were right,’ she said, her voice flat, the words curdled and sour. ‘He has killed her.’

There was an emptiness in Amelia’s eyes that Letta found frightening.

‘You didn’t know her,’ Amelia said, as though talking to herself. ‘She was unique. Talented as well as beautiful. We washed up here after the Melting. Three sisters. John took care of us. He had a good heart. He only wanted to save the planet. Was that so wrong?’ She looked at Letta, her eyes searching the girl’s face.

Letta said nothing.

‘Leyla turned against him. Became a Desecrator. It broke my heart.’

‘And now she’s dead,’ Letta said quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘There are worse things than dying,’ Amelia said.

‘I agree,’ Letta said, her eyes searching the other woman’s face for any clue that they were both referring to the same thing.

‘Soon all of Ark will know that,’ Amelia said.

She was talking about the Nicene. Letta was sure of it.

‘And you? Will you stay with Noa? Will you be part of it?’

Amelia shrugged. ‘What choice do I have?’ she said. ‘A broken old woman who can’t even breathe efficiently. How long would I last without Noa?’

‘We all have choice,’ Letta said.

‘Who knows what the future will bring?’ Amelia said. ‘We can only wait and see.’

‘Or we can influence it,’ Letta said, not wanting to let her off the hook. ‘You have great power, Amelia.’

The other woman laughed, which brought on a bout of coughing, a wet, desperate cough that left her gasping for air.

‘Are you all right?’ Letta put an arm around Amelia’s shoulder and lowered her on to a rock.

‘I have no power,’ Amelia said. ‘I couldn’t even save my own sister.’

‘I know what it is to lose someone,’ Letta said.

‘Your parents,’ Amelia said softly, not meeting Letta’s eyes. ‘Yes,’ Letta answered. ‘And Benjamin.’

Amelia nodded. ‘Benjamin was a good man. Sometimes I did try to influence the future, you know, without much success. But I tried. I tried to let you know.’

In a flash, Letta knew what she was talking about.

‘BENJAMIN NOT DEAD. That was you, wasn’t it? You left that note for me.’

Amelia shrugged. ‘What does it matter now?’

‘It mattered to me then,’ Letta said. ‘It mattered an awful lot. It gave me hope and it meant I got to say goodbye to him.’

Amelia lifted her hand and touched Letta’s cheek, tears in her eyes. ‘You are so like your mother,’ she said.

‘My mother? You knew her? Leyla told me she remembered her too.’

‘How could we forget her?’ Amelia spoke so softly that Letta had to strain to hear what she said. ‘Freya. Poor little Freya. She was the youngest and the most adventurous of us. The bravest too, braver even than Leyla.’

Suddenly, Letta could hear Leyla’s last words to her.

Be strong like your mother. Like all the women in your family.

‘She was your sister.’ Even as Letta spoke the words, she knew they were true. ‘That was her song, the one Leyla sang. I knew there was something familiar about it.’

Amelia turned away from her, looking out to sea.

‘She sang it to you all the time. You were the focus of her whole life, of all of our lives. We came to Ark with nothing, three sisters orphaned and alone. John took us in and cared for us. You were born in his house and lived there for the first four years of your life. John adored you.’

‘What?’ Letta struggled to process what she was hearing. ‘Why did I not know this? Why did no-one tell me?’

‘Your mother betrayed us, Letta. She set off, she and your father, against John’s orders. She abandoned Ark, abandoned me, abandoned you, Letta. I couldn’t accept it. I told John that I never wanted to hear her name again. I couldn’t bear to look at you. John sent you to live with Benjamin and warned the people that you were not to be told about your family background.’

‘How could you do that?’ Letta could hear the bitterness in her own words. ‘She was still your sister.’

Amelia sighed.

‘They were both my sisters. They both betrayed John, but more than that, they betrayed Ark. That I couldn’t forgive.’

‘Please, Amelia,’ Letta said, ‘help us.’

Amelia shook her head, sighing deeply.

‘I will tell you this,’ she said. ‘Carver doesn’t trust you. You may have convinced John, but Carver won’t give up. Be warned.’

Without another word, Amelia got up and walked away, not looking back. Letta stood watching her, hearing her hoarse breathing get fainter as the distance grew.

Somewhere in the ether she could hear Leyla’s sweet voice:

Down in the valley

The stream flows on

Later, back at the shop, Letta couldn’t rest. She felt as though she were trapped in Ark as much as Amelia was. She stood looking out at the street and let her mind wander over all that had happened. Her whole world had imploded, but in a strange way, she felt more real, more alive because of it. She had always seen herself as special in Ark. She was the wordsmith’s apprentice, part of John Noa’s team. The ordinary people were somehow separate from her. They didn’t have as much language or the right to speak it. They didn’t have information or power.

She realised now that it was that sort of thinking that had made Noa into the monster he had become.

She thought about the Desecrators and their way of life. Among them, she had got a glimpse of what life could be and, having got a glimpse, she was hungry for more.

And she thought about her mother, tried to imagine those three young women so full of hope and enthusiasm for the new world. Leyla was dead, Amelia transformed into a pitiful old woman and Freya …

Finally, she pulled out a box of words that Benjamin had brought back from a field trip and that had not yet been sorted. She was laying them out on the counter when a noise startled her.

A few minutes later she looked up to find Werber at the door.

‘No harm!’ he greeted her, his round face wreathed in smiles. ‘Bring you water.’

Letta felt as though her heart had stopped. In his hand, he carried a box with six large bottles of water in it.

‘I bring to Green Warriors in morning. What wrong, Letta?’

‘Nothing,’ she managed to say. ‘Nothing wrong. Thank you.’

He wagged his finger at her.

‘Thank you no List word!’

Of course it wasn’t. List didn’t accommodate please and thank you. Not any more.

She nodded. ‘Leave water there,’ she said pointing to the counter.

Werber hefted the box onto the counter.

‘Good water,’ he said to her with a smile.

Once he was gone, Letta allowed herself to panic. The water was being distributed. That meant that Noa was about to use the Nicene. She had to stop him. She sat at her desk with her head in her hands and tried to think. She didn’t hear Marlo come in. She looked up and found him, dressed as the cat collector, looking down on her. She jumped to her feet.

‘I am so glad to see you,’ she said. ‘Where’s Finn?’

‘At the pump house,’ Marlo said. ‘In a bad way.’

‘Leyla?’

Marlo nodded. ‘We don’t know where they’ve buried her.’

‘Listn, Marlo,’ Letta said. ‘Noa’s going to put the Nicene in the water. Any minute. I have got my bottles of uncontaminated water, and Werber is delivering some to the Green Warriors tomorrow. It’s time.’

They sat in silence for a moment.

She shivered at the thought of the water bottles in her house. It was as if the evil emanating from the house on the hill was a physical thing. She could almost touch it.

A sound from the direction of the back door startled Letta. ‘Did you hear something?’ she hissed at Marlo.

Without a word, he slipped out the door, and made for the stairs to the Monk’s Room. Letta got up and walked through the shop and out to the door at the back. She opened it cautiously. There was no-one there. She looked down the lane just in time to see a figure dressed in a long black coat disappear around the corner. A woman? Whoever it was, they had left in a hurry. As she turned to come back in, the drop box caught her eye. She opened it and saw a single sheet of paper. She picked it up. Three words:

TOMORROW AT DAWN

She recognised the handwriting. It was the same person who had written BENJAMIN NOT DEAD a lifetime ago.