Alison knew that her Ormingat powers were fading, but with determination she summoned up all her strength to get rid of the nosy inspector. She simply told him to go and leave them, but on the level of mind-fencing she made him believe that nothing really important had occurred. He had been on the point of questioning Nesta and was even talking about calling in the social services when Alison had fixed her gaze on him, told him very firmly that he was no longer needed, and quietly ordered him to be on his way.
She had no idea that her efforts had been anxiously watched over by Steven and Jacob, scanning a screen in the upper room of a house two hundred miles away.
Nesta walked from the station between her parents, holding on to both of them and determined never to leave them again. She had achieved her aim. They would never, ever leave this Earth. Ormingat could be forgotten.
‘It’s been hard, you know,’ said Alison as they drove back home. ‘You can’t imagine how painful it’s been.’
She was sitting in the back seat, still holding Nesta’s hand. Matthew was content to be chauffeur so that mother and daughter could sit together. There was still a lot of healing to do.
‘I know, Mom,’ said Nesta. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you, but it was all too much. How could you expect me to leave this world in that tiny spaceship and stop being human? That’s what it would have meant, you know, however you try to make it seem normal. It wasn’t normal at all.’
‘For us it was,’ said Matthew. ‘That’s where we went wrong. We thought just being our child would be enough to make it – well, reasonably easy.’
‘Easy!’ said Nesta, indignation overcoming affection. ‘It was impossible. You should have known it would be.’
‘There, there,’ said her mother anxiously. ‘It’s over now, and probably best forgotten, but first we must know where you’ve been and what you’ve said to people. We can’t start over again without wiping the slate clean.’
All her parents knew was that she had spent one night with Stella Dalrymple, the kind stranger who had phoned them and told them that their daughter was safe; the very kind stranger who had escorted their child to the railway station at York, saying farewell to her on the train so that no one outside her family need ever know where she had been.
‘Can it wait till later?’ said Nesta. ‘I’m still so tired.’
‘You’re tired!’ said Matthew over his shoulder, with a vehemence that was unusual in him. ‘You’re tired! How do you think we feel? Never for an instant have you tried to see our point of view. We’ve been through hell searching for you. And never in a lifetime will you know what we have lost.’
Alison gave him a look of alarm.
Nesta began to weep quietly.
‘Leave it,’ said Alison. ‘Leave it for now. We are all overwrought.’
Matthew said no more, but it pierced him to think of the slate being wiped so clean. He was not even sure that he could manage it. And what would happen now? Even if they could persuade themselves to forget about Ormingat, would that be the end of it?
Nothing more was said in the car.
Even when they arrived home and settled into the comfort of their living room, the subject was left severely alone. Alison made tea and sandwiches.
‘No Sunday dinner today,’ she said with a wan smile. ‘I didn’t get round to making it.’
It was Matthew who brought up the topic first. He regretted his outburst. He loved his daughter too much to want to make her unhappy. As they sat eating the meal and drinking their tea, he looked across at her and said gently, ‘It would help us to know where you have been since Wednesday. Four nights away from home is something any twelve-year-old would be expected to account for, Nesta. We know why you went, but we really do need to know where you went.’
He was the right one to put the question. Alison would have phrased it wrongly and Nesta would have put up a barrier.
‘I don’t want anyone to get into trouble because of me,’ she said.
‘No one will,’ said Matthew.
‘What about the police?’
‘They will never be told anything,’ said Matthew. ‘There’s no fear of that. We asked them to find you. It was a mistake, but not too serious a one. Your mother saw to that.’
Nesta smiled obliquely at her mother before giving her full attention to her father again.
‘And you wouldn’t get on to the school either, would you? Or anybody’s parents?’
‘No,’ said Matthew slowly, but he did wonder what was coming next.
‘Promise,’ said Nesta.
‘I promise,’ said her father. ‘Neither your mother nor I will ever tell anyone whatever you tell us now.’
‘I stayed with Amy,’ said Nesta. ‘I stayed three nights in her garage. She looked after me.’
‘I knew!’ said her mother. ‘I just knew you would be with Amy Brown. If only we’d known her address!’
Nesta shivered. Thank goodness you didn’t! You might have got me back in time and forced me into the spaceship, though I’d have put up a struggle, no mistake!
‘What did you tell Amy?’ said Matthew anxiously.
‘That you were going home to Boston and that I didn’t want to go there.’
‘And that’s all?’
‘What else could I tell her?’ said Nesta huffily. ‘Even if I weren’t keeping your secrets, do you think she’d have believed in fiddly little spaceships and people diminishing? She’d have thought I wasn’t all there.’
‘So how did you end up in Belthorp with Mrs Dalrymple?’ said her father, no longer interested in Amy’s part in what he supposed both girls would regard as some sort of adventure. He deduced that camping out in the garage might even have been a game they enjoyed. It sounded like fun!
‘I couldn’t stay at Amy’s on Saturday because her brother comes home at weekends and keeps his bike in the garage.’
‘But to go all the way to Belthorp to find Mrs Dalrymple?’ said Matthew. ‘That was a bit much, wasn’t it? How did you even think of it?’
‘Please, Dad, try to understand me. I had to go somewhere and I thought I might be found if I wandered about here in York. Then I was drawn towards Stella Dalrymple. I wanted to meet the only person on Earth who knew that Thomas and his father were aliens; I felt as if she might somehow be able to give me some sort of clue.’
‘And did she?’ said Matthew.
Alison looked keenly at her daughter, eager to know how she would answer this.
‘She loved the Derwents,’ said Nesta. ‘She didn’t care about anything as long as they were safe and happy. She wasn’t even all that interested in Ormingat. She somehow made it feel not so fantastic. But she did tell me not to talk about it to anyone, and not even to let anyone know that we had ever met. Keeping it a secret was what was really important to her.’
‘And that helped?’ said her mother.
‘Yes,’ said Nesta. ‘I think it did. It means just what you said. We can wipe the slate clean. We can forget all about it.’
‘There must be no more running away,’ said Alison, speaking like any Earth mother to her wayward child. ‘Not ever again.’
Nesta’s eyes darkened to a deep shade of grey. She tugged a strand of hair across her lip. The look she gave her mother was not pleasant or submissive. She was nearly thirteen and mature for her age. The past few days had made sure of that.
‘I didn’t enjoy it,’ she snapped. ‘I didn’t run away for fun.’
‘Don’t push it,’ said her father, feeling irritation rising again. ‘Just don’t push it. When you think how much you have suffered, have the grace to realize that we are suffering too.’
Nesta smiled as sweetly as she could and took her father’s hand in hers. ‘I am sorry, you know,’ she said in a conciliatory voice. ‘Wiping the slate clean doesn’t mean I’m not sorry.’
Matthew sighed and said no more.