Her dad woke her up with a cup of tea an hour before they were due to set out. She showered, refused breakfast, and before she knew it all three of them were in the car on their way to Calderdale Hospital.
Bea had no idea how to handle this – what to say, or think or do. So instead she nursed a sulk. She sat in the back of the car, glowering. Her parents were taking her to her own execution. They loved her. They were killing her.
‘You’re going to watch your only daughter get locked up in a padded cell,’ she hissed.
‘Oh, don’t be so dramatic,’ said her mum.
‘I’m a prisoner in my own house, how’s that for dramatic?’ she asked. No one answered. ‘What happens if they steal my spirit!’ she demanded.
‘Oh, Bea, stop this. You’re not helping yourself,’ her mum said irritably from the front seat. ‘Just let us do what we have to. We love you . . .’
‘What use is that?’ Bea said.
That hurt. She could see both of them wince in the front seats.
‘This spirit of yours, what does it do?’ her mum asked, leaning over her seat to face her. ‘It doesn’t think, it doesn’t laugh, it doesn’t do anything. You know what they say about stuff that doesn’t do anything? It doesn’t exist.’
‘Everything we do is for you, Bea,’ said her dad, looking at her in the mirror. ‘All we’re doing is getting an expert opinion. How can that be wrong?’
‘I will fight for you, Bea,’ her mum said. ‘I’ll fight monsters and nut jobs, and dragons and wizards and witches and doctors and nurses and kings and queens for you. I’ll fight anything or anyone I have to, and I will get the best there is for my girl.’
That calmed her, oddly. Her parents loved her. Even if that love killed her, it was hers. It’s like a drug, she thought to herself. But it worked. Perhaps, deep in her bones, she did not believe that love could ever hurt.
Her dad pulled up into the hospital car park and tugged the handbrake tight.
‘We both love you, darling,’ he said.
‘I love you too,’ said Bea.
They got out. Her dad paid for a ticket and they led her into the hospital. The building was fronted by a tall glass atrium, and as they approached it Bea saw, reflected in the glass, images in the sky. She paused and turned – one last look. Her dad came and knelt beside her, arms around her, looking up with her, while her mum hovered anxiously behind them.
‘What do you see?’ he whispered.
Bea sighed. ‘I see a birthday party. There’s a girl who’s usually there, but she’s older now. She has a family. They’re in a garden, having a birthday tea.’
‘Balloons?’ her dad asked.
‘I don’t think they’ve been invented yet. Or if they have, they can’t afford them. They’re quite poor. There’s a pie and sandwiches and stuff. They have jelly. Three colours,’ she said, glancing at her dad and smiling. The jelly was fun. ‘The presents are wrapped in coloured paper. I think it’s been painted by hand.’ She turned to her dad. ‘What do you see?’
He put his face next to hers. ‘I see clouds, Bea,’ he whispered.
Bea turned to look him in the eye, and this time she believed him. She nodded. He stood up and took her hand. Bea let herself be led inside.
The doctor asked the usual questions: what had she seen, what had she heard, when and where had she seen it? Had she taken any drugs that might account for her hallucinations? Were there any problems at home? At school? She asked her about Odi and Silvis, where she’d met them, what they’d said, what they did, what they asked her to do. The doctor was nice. Bea relaxed. She answered all the questions as honestly as she could. Perhaps it wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
There were some tests – the doctor looked into her eyes with a light, tapped her knee with a hammer, asked about the colours she saw on a test card, looked at her tongue. A urine sample and a blood sample were taken. The usual.
When it was all done, the doctor called her parents in. In her opinion, Bea’s hallucinations were almost certainly just that – hallucinations. No matter how real they seemed they had no existence outside of Bea’s own mind. The real issue was what was causing them.
Bea nodded. Yes, yes. Here in the hospital, now that a doctor had told her, she recognised it as true. She was ill – how else could it be? As soon as you started to see things that other people couldn’t, you were in trouble. The doctors were there to help.
‘I won’t lie to you Bea,’ the doctor told her. ‘This is a potentially serious problem, but it is one we can control. There are a lot of techniques, not all of them medication, that we can use to give you as normal a life as possible. Do you understand?’
Bea nodded. A normal life. That was all she wanted. Up till now she had never wanted to be normal, but now that she knew just how different she really was it seemed that normal was the thing. More than silver, more than gold, she wanted to be normal.
The doctor nodded and smiled. ‘Good girl. I need to have a word just with your mum and dad now. You stay here. See if you can find a book to read.’ She nodded at some shelves with magazines, books and toys. ‘We won’t be a moment.’
She got up and held the door open for Bea’s parents. Her mum turned to look at her, unable to hide the tears glittering in her eyes. Then she followed the doctor out of the door with Bea’s dad close behind.
Bea waited, flicking through a magazine. A moment later a nurse appeared. ‘Beatrice Wilder?’ she asked. ‘We need to do a scan. This way, please.’
Bea got up and followed the woman through the corridors. She asked about her parents.
‘They’ll join us in a moment, they’re just signing some consent forms,’ the woman said, holding open a pair of double doors with a notice – Staff Only – on them. ‘Have you ever had a scan before?’
‘No. Is it a CAT scan?’ asked Bea.
‘Very similar.’ They reached another door which the nurse pushed open and waved Bea in. ‘There it is,’ she said.
It was an ordinary hospital room, smelling of disinfectant. The scanner was a weighty-looking machine, made of solid white plastic and glass. There was a long glass tube at one end, and a long bed that slid in and out to lie on, with straps attached. At the other end was a panel of switches, LEDs, buttons and a screen.
‘We’re going to see what you look like inside. There might be something that doesn’t belong there.’ The nurse flashed Bea a winning smile, led her to the machine and got her to lie down on the sliding bed. At that moment every fibre in Bea’s body was telling her that this was wrong. Her mum had promised her she wouldn’t have anything done on her own – where was she now? And worse of all – hadn’t Odi said that the device that would steal her spirit looked like a scanner?
Bea was panicking inside, but the sense of normal was so strong in the room that she was unable to raise any objections. Like a pet monkey she did as she was told, climbing onto the scanner bed and laying down her head. The nurse smiled and chattered as she did up the straps.
‘Will it hurt?’ Bea asked.
The nurse laughed and shook her head.
‘You won’t feel a thing, I promise.’ Normal, normal, all so normal. The straps? Nothing to worry about, just to make sure she was as still as possible. Some children get fidgety. Normal, normal, normal, said the nurse. She tightened the straps over Bea’s chest, across her hips, over her legs and finally across her forehead. Normal, normal. She could hardly move a muscle.
The nurse patted her arm and smiled.
‘We’ll just take this off,’ she said, and she put her hands under Bea’s neck to find the clasp to her necklace.
‘No,’ said Bea.
But the nurse took no notice.
‘It’s the sort of thing that can mess up the scan – no jewellery, didn’t I say? Sorry.’ She clicked the little clasp and held the stones on their silver chain up to the light. ‘It’s divine,’ she breathed. She looked back down at Bea, and there was no mistaking the triumph in her eyes or how much she coveted the jewellery. Bea hadn’t even seen her notice it. She was certain she’d never see it again.
‘Don’t take it away, please,’ she said. ‘My dad made it.’ She struggled at her bonds but was unable to move an inch.
‘Doctor will be with you in a moment,’ said the nurse. She pocketed the necklace and turned to leave the room.
‘I want my mother here,’ Bea said suddenly.
The nurse nodded.
‘I’ll go and find her,’ she said, and left the room, her hard shoes tapping on the floor. On her own, Bea tried again to move. For a full minute she struggled in silence, then gave up. She wept briefly; tears tickled her cheeks but she was unable to wipe them away. Another minute passed. Her terror was like a rock in her chest, crushing her heart. Then there were footsteps in the corridor and the door opened. Bea tried to turn her head to see who it was, but the door was out of sight.
‘Little Bea! Fancy seeing you here,’ said a voice she knew. A moment later, a face appeared above her.
It was Lars. Lars! What was he doing here? But she had no time to discuss that.
‘Lars, Lars. Listen – I think I might be in trouble,’ she whispered to him. ‘I’ve lost my mum. Will you let me out?’
‘Too late, too late, Little Bea,’ said Lars. He walked round to the side of the machine and examined the controls. ‘Normal, normal, normal,’ he sang. ‘Normal’s great, isn’t it? Is that what I call you from now on? Normal?’
What was going on? ‘Let me out please,’ begged Bea. She began to push again at the straps.
‘I’m the tech. I operate this beauty.’ He patted the machine she lay in.
‘You work here?’
‘Not really. This is just for you.’ He flicked a few switches on the console. The machine murmured softly. Bea’s mind was whirring into overdrive. Was Lars with the Hunt? All the time?
‘Please, Lars, let me out.’
‘Uh-uh. It’s kill or cure for you, Little Bea.’
‘I need to go to the loo.’
‘Too late.’
‘Lars!’
He came round, leaned over her and looked keenly down at her. ‘There are times when the world is pregnant with change, did you know that? Special moments, when things are about to go careering off in some unexpected direction. Well, those are my moments, Bea. And I think this might be one of them. The question is: is it a beginning, or is it an end? What do you think? Will you sink or swim? Ah – here comes Doctor.’
The door was opening, and a moment later, a figure loomed into Bea’s eye line. If she had any doubts that all was lost, that she was lost, that her mum and dad and everyone she loved was lost, she knew it then.
‘This is the one, sir,’ said Lars.
The Huntsman smiled down at her, his teeth gleaming like china. ‘Got you,’ he said.
‘. . . tests,’ croaked Bea, almost unable to speak with fear.
‘The time for tests is past. You have a problem, Beatrice. We’re going to cure it. Your mother asked us to. She likes the idea. She likes it so much she’s having the same operation herself.’
He reached down to touch her neck, and his hand on her was cold – as cold as clay.
‘There’s something inside you that’s making you sick,’ he said. ‘A little thing, a very small little thing. It used to have a purpose long ago but we’re past that now.’ He smiled down at her. ‘No need for fire or the rope. No need for surgery. Think of it as having your tonsils out.’
The Huntsman nodded to Lars who flicked some switches. The machine – the Rook – began to hum louder and vibrated softly. Bea struggled, but the straps held her firmly in place.
‘I don’t want it,’ she begged.
‘You will,’ the Huntsman said. He nodded to Lars, and the scanner bed she lay on moved smoothly into the body of the Rook.
The machine began to whir. Bea felt her head spinning, her heart spinning, her insides spinning like a whirlwind. In a space deep inside her, so deep that she never knew she had it until now, she could feel the Rook reaching in . . . deeper, deeper, deeper, towards the very seat of her being.
Then everything went black.