BY THE TIME THE SUN ROSE BEHIND THE HILLS IN THE east, Gus had made up his mind. Despite feeling depressed and disillusioned, he was unexpectedly determined to survive this nightmare. It had nothing to do with hope, it was just a burning desire to prove he was capable of shouldering responsibility. The one person he’d have liked to see this “new” Gus wasn’t there and the grief was choking him. He knew Oksa wasn’t far away, and yet she wasn’t just somewhere else: she was nowhere, by Outside criteria. Obviously, he’d miss his parents too, but he was sure they’d watch out for his friend the way they’d watched out for him over the past fourteen years, which had suddenly become sixteen, after Orthon’s evil conversion…
In a spirit of acceptance, he wiped away the condensation forming long frosted trails down the bus window and examined his reflection. He still wasn’t completely used to his new appearance. His hair hung to his shoulders and his cheekbones were more prominent, which made him look more… enigmatic. Which was just as well. He hated being an open book to everyone.
The terror of the day before, along with the grief and the unexpected shock, had turned to exhaustion and sleep had eventually claimed the Spurned, like a snake devouring its prey. At daybreak Gus had surfaced from a restless slumber and had sat there thinking. On the seat beside him, Marie turned over. It was so cold that her breath formed small puffs of icy vapour above her. Her face was ravaged by grief and disease and her body was shrivelled, like an autumn leaf. Her pain ran very deep and Gus was more aware than ever of the burden of his new role.
“OKSA!” Marie suddenly shouted in her sleep.
Several of the Spurned sat up in alarm. Gus shifted closer to his friend’s mother. She was tossing and turning in the grip of a bad dream. However, since their current circumstances were probably no better than the dream in which she appeared to be fighting someone, Gus decided not to wake her up.
“Come over here, lad,” called Andrew softly.
The minister, Virginia and Akina had gathered at the front of the bus. Kukka was a few seats away, her legs drawn up against her chest, looking distractedly at the window. Gus glanced furtively at her, but she gave no sign that she’d noticed him.
“Are you OK, Gus?” asked Virginia. “Are you coping?”
“This is by far the worst thing I’ve ever gone through,” he admitted, rubbing his arms, chilled to the bone.
“Yours is the best suggestion,” announced Andrew, coming straight to the point. “We’re going to head back to London.”
“Do you think we’ll get there?” asked Akina timidly.
In her bright-pink padded jacket, the small Japanese woman with her lined face, framed by long jet-black hair, resembled a battered doll. Gus looked down, tormented by the same unanswerable question.
“We’re going to try going back the way we came,” declared Andrew.
“Such relentless logic!” commented Greta, Lukas’s daughter-in-law.
“No one’s forcing you to do the same,” retorted Virginia Fortensky. “You’re all free to go where you want.”
All the Spurned were now awake. When Marie tried to sit up, Barbara McGraw hurried over to help her, beating Gus and Andrew, then sat down in silence beside her.
“May I come with you to London?” asked Akina, almost inaudibly.
“It would be an honour,” nodded Andrew. “Gus? Marie? Virginia? You’ll join our party, won’t you?”
All three nodded vigorously. The minister diffidently murmured his thanks and turned to Kukka, who was still miserably hunched in her corner, muffled up in a baggy beige wool jacket.
“Kukka? I’m hoping you’ll come with us. However, even though you’re not yet an adult, you don’t have to do the same as us.”
A shadow passed over Kukka’s face and she made herself even smaller on her seat.
“I’ll go with you,” she muttered offhandedly.
They all turned to look at the five Spurned who hadn’t yet spoken. Greta stepped forward and said bossily:
“We’d rather stay here.”
“But how will you survive?” cried Virginia. “It’s almost winter and there’s nothing to eat or drink. How long do you think you’ll last?”
“We’re planning to find accommodation in the last inhabited village we passed, about nine miles back along the road that led us here,” said Gunnar, Annikki’s husband.
“We’ll leave directions at the lakeside, so that those who went into Edefia can find us,” finished Greta confidently.
“See, Greta, you’re a woman of faith too, in your own way,” remarked Andrew, with a penetrating look.
“You’re mad,” said Gus softly. “What makes you think they’ll ever come back? You’re going to spend the rest of your life in this desert, clinging to false hopes.”
Gus had never been much of an optimist, but he now felt like an out-and-out defeatist. The Spurned gazed at him, some annoyed by his words, others saddened.
“If we don’t want to abandon hope, that’s nobody’s business but ours, is it?” asked Gunnar flatly.
“No, it isn’t. But, personally, I’d rather abandon my illusions,” cried Gus, surprised by his own daring and his flat refusal to keep hoping. “This time, it’s a matter of life and death! And I don’t want to hold on to a fantasy that will never come true,” he added, his voice breaking suddenly.
“Hope isn’t a fantasy, Gus,” objected Andrew, squeezing his shoulder. “But no one can blame you for feeling so angry.”
“I’m not angry!” yelled Gus. “I’m just being sensible.”
“Stop it!” suddenly wailed Kukka. “I can’t take it any more—you’re driving me mad!”
And she burst into tears. Virginia sat down and put her arms around her, rocking her like a baby. Just as she would have done with her children, the three strong, loving boys she’d probably never see again. Virginia stifled a sob, her hot tears soaking into Kukka’s hair.
“What about you, Barbara?” asked Marie, trying to catch her eye.
Barbara McGraw shrank into her seat, as if frightened by what she was about to say. Her lower lip was trembling slightly, when she finally uttered the words.
“I’d like to come with you. To London. If you’ll let me join you…”
Greta gave a shout of rage.
“Barbara! How could you?”
“I want to, Greta. I want to go back to London,” she declared firmly.
Andrew looked at his friends. The women seemed unsure, torn between compassion and distrust. Gus couldn’t make up his mind about Barbara. All they’d seen of her until now was a meek woman terrified by the ordeals they’d been through. However, she was still Orthon’s wife. He may not have been the man she’d thought he was when she married him, but she’d lived with him for years and had borne him two sons. She probably didn’t know all her husband’s secrets—his origins, his ambitions, his deeply ingrained psychoses—but she couldn’t have been completely in the dark either. Gus studied her again, unable to work out whether she really was the sensitive, vulnerable woman he saw before him or someone different. Someone totally different. Someone dangerous.
“Gus?”
They were all waiting for his decision, as if it really mattered. Gus blushed and felt flustered. It was hard to feel that his opinion might count for so much! He hated this type of situation. He glanced over at Marie, who was nodding almost imperceptibly.
“I’m happy for her to come with us,” he heard himself say, with the horrible feeling that he might be making a big mistake.