Eugene Lambert - The Sign of One

She lets go and crumples into the chair by my bed. In the dim spill of glowtube light, her face looks old and exhausted. ‘Yes. No. I mean, there was always a chance it was you.’ She dries her eyes with the heels of her hands. ‘I suspected it last year, when you recovered so fast from that swamp pox. Look, I know you don’t understand. How could you? There’s so much I need to tell –’

She stops. Footsteps crunch across the dry grass outside our shack.

A second later somebody hammers on our door. The latch lifts and rattles; the door shudders in its frame as whoever’s outside tries to open it. We both hear a man’s loud grunt of surprise at finding the door bolted.

‘Hello-o-o! Is anybody there?’

It’s Fod’s gravelly voice, our self-appointed preacher, the very man who’ll put the rope around my neck if he finds out I’m a twist.

‘One minute!’ shouts my mother. ‘I’m changing Kyle’s dressings!’

The next few seconds are frantic. I dive back into bed. Rona scuttles around, picking up the dressings I ripped off. She tapes them all roughly back into place. When she’s done, she pulls the sheet up so only my eyes show.

‘Remember when you were bad with the swamp pox?’ she whispers.

I get it. Look like I’m out of it.

Rona gives me one last urgent check to make sure no healed skin is showing, then opens the door. Through half-closed eyes I see Fod bustle inside. With his stoop, long-nosed, wrinkly face and straggly hair, he looks like one of those giant wader birds as he twitches his narrow-eyed, suspicious gaze around the room.

He looks at me. I do some moaning and squirming.

‘What’s the meaning of this?’ he demands.

‘This?’ says Rona, all raised eyebrows and innocence.

‘Your door was bolted, your shutters closed.’

‘And is there a law against that? Can’t you see I’m busy here?’

He stiffens – even with my eyes half closed, I can see he’s not best pleased. He’s more used to people bowing and scraping to him than talking back. Rona will get into trouble if she keeps on like this. I fake a louder groan, to distract him.

‘I’m simply doing my rounds,’ he growls through gritted teeth. ‘Checking on my flock at this difficult time, to offer my prayers and support.’

Rona scowls. ‘And I thank you, Preacher. But I was changing my son’s dressings and didn’t want to be disturbed. Can’t you understand that?’

They face off against each other.

Even with his stoop, he towers over her, but Rona bristles right back at him.

‘Of course,’ he says at last, in that stiff way people have of saying things they don’t mean. And now he stalks over to my bedside, twitches the sheet away from my face and stares down at me. ‘Kyle, will you join me in prayer?’

I squeeze my eyes shut and groan. I can only hope my scared face looks sick enough, and that Fod is every bit the idiot people whisper he is. Rona’s only slapped my old dressings back on. How won’t he see that they are far from fresh?

‘He can’t hear you,’ Rona says. ‘I’ve done all I can for him, but –’

The sheet lands back on me. I risk a peek and Fod is staring at Rona, who’s got this mournful-but-trying-to-be-brave look on her face. Her chin trembles.

She’s good. I worry for a second that I am dying.

‘You can’t save him?’ says Fod.

‘Not with a few herbs, I can’t. All I can do is ease his passing.’

I moan again, extra loud and pitiful.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I’ll pray for you both.’

‘It’d be more useful if you helped me bathe him,’ says Rona. ‘He’s fouled himself again – he can’t help it, the state he’s in. Perhaps you could spare us a minute or three of your valuable time?’

I groan for real this time, but Rona knows what she’s doing.

‘Any other time, I‘d be glad to help,’ Fod says quickly. ‘But I’m in a rush. Many more people to visit; the day’s getting shorter. I’d better be leaving now.’

‘Of course.’ Rona’s voice could curdle milk.

I wait until I hear the door slam and bolts going home before I open my eyes. Rona glares at me, her back against the door, a finger pressed to her lips. We listen to Fod’s crunching footsteps as they almost run from the shack.

Rona puts her hands to her mouth. Me, I feel like laughing and crying.

‘What d’you want to tell Fod that for?’ I ask Rona as she peers through the shutters, making sure he’s gone. I sit up and start gingerly pulling the dressings off.

‘Tell him what?’ she says, obviously only half listening.

‘That I’m dying.’

‘I had to, to get him to bugger off.’

‘But now he’ll go and tell everybody I’m dying. And I’m not.’

Rona eases the shutter closed and comes over to sit by me on the bed.

‘Listen,’ she says, ‘we got lucky just now, but sooner or later someone will get a good look at you. Like your Jude. Especially if we have to up sticks and trek someplace else. They’ll realise your healing is . . . unusual.’

She sighs and shakes her head.

I stare down at my new skin again. Impossibly smooth and pink, glowing with health where only days ago I saw sickening wounds. Unnatural healing. The manifestation of evil.

My head is spinning, like I’ve stood up too fast.

‘But can’t we say you healed me?’

‘Won’t work. Those men who carried you back here, they all saw how bad your injuries were. Even if they could maybe believe I pulled you through, they’d expect you to be badly scarred. They’d soon figure it out. And then –’

I suck my teeth. Rona doesn’t have to paint me a picture. A real live twist found hiding in their midst – that would explain Freshwater’s run of evil luck. We’d both be dragged to the nearest tree and hung. The whole settlement would gather to watch us swing. I kind of doubt Fod would call the Slayers in to deal with us. When it comes to idents and twists, blame has a way of sticking too widely.

My flesh, new and old, tries to crawl off my bones.

‘We have to get out of here,’ I moan.

‘We will, but you’ll have to die first,’ says Rona. When she sees my stunned look, she dredges up a sad smile. ‘Not really die. We fake it. If everybody thinks you’re dead, they don’t miss you and they don’t come looking. See?’

‘Everybody?’ I say, thinking of Jude.

‘Everybody.’

I grimace. ‘But won’t they expect to see my dead body?’

My mother’s eyes go narrow and cunning. ‘Oh, these old wooden shacks with their home-made log burners – accidents waiting to happen. What with the Reaper attack and everything else, I can’t see anyone poking through the ashes.’

‘We burn this place down?’ I say, shocked.

A ghost of a smile haunts her lips. ‘Got a better idea?’

‘Don’t just sit there. Get dressed and give me a hand moving this,’ says Rona. She pulls at our cast-iron log burner, but can’t move it on her own.

The enormity of what’s happened to me, and what will happen if anyone finds out, is sinking in. I hear the air roaring in my ears with every breath I take. I reckon we should be hitting the road, not shifting stoves around.

‘What for?’ I say. ‘I don’t understand.’

Rona puts her hard face on and grits her teeth.

‘Kyle, every second counts. I need you to help me. Now.’

I still feel like screaming, but the desperation in her voice gets me moving. I throw my clothes on. Working together, we walk the stove back and lever up its hearthstone. Hidden in a hollow beneath this, smothered in bugwebs, is something wrapped in an oil-stained rag and a small electronic device.