The Book Eaters(60)
Devon dreamed again of Hell, with that same sense of absurdist comedy.
Instead of a pit opening up, she found herself riding a train whose destination was Heaven, although no one wanted to take her ticket. Cai sat next to her, Hester in the seat across. Both were keen to see what Heaven looked like. But Devon knew better; Heaven was a lie. They needed to jump off the train into the fields of fiery death outside.
She flung herself from a ghostly train, but her companions did not jump with her, only watched from the doorway with sad faces. Devon crashed into a pit of fire and kept going. She fell through level after level after level of molten heat, deeper and darker and hotter until, finally, she landed on a rustic sofa in a self-catering B and B cottage.
Devon snapped awake, sitting up so fast her head spun. She’d rolled off the sofa in her sleep, hitting the floor with a thump. Her head ached.
Light streamed through the cheap lace curtains, making her squint. Cai wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but a pile of his clothes sat outside the bathroom door, which was shut, and the sound of running water came from within.
“Merry Christmas, sleepyhead. You’re the last one up.” Hester sat on the edge of her bed with legs crossed. Dressed, alert, and looking far less stressed than the night before.
“What,” Devon groaned a yawn, “time is it?” Morning sunlight washed out her black clothes to an unhealthy gray. The carpet beneath her face smelled like mothballs.
“Almost eight A.M.” Hester gestured at the room’s little television, which was turned on with a low volume. “Look, we’re famous.”
On the flickering screen, a well-coiffed news anchor was speaking.
We have urgent news of a shooting incident in Newcastle Central Station on Christmas Eve, followed by an aggravated series of assaults on the Edinburgh line. No casualties reported, but the police would urgently like to speak to a man and a woman, believed to be traveling together toward Edinburgh. They are also in search of a train conductor, who is accused of attacking passengers before disappearing. More information as it comes in.
Reports say the man is roughly six feet in height, dressed in black, with fair skin and dark hair. The woman is around five feet tall, wearing a patterned blouse and long skirt—
“No casualties, huh?” Devon said, swallowing a second yawn. “Just inexplicable piles of ink-stained paper, moldering on the ground.”
She thought of Ramsey, wearing that train conductor uniform. There was only one explanation for how he’d gotten it. She wondered if the real train conductor would turn up alive. And what he would have to say about the man who attacked him, if so.
“Being on the news is bad,” Hester said. “We might run into trouble if our hosts think that description is awfully familiar. All the more reason to get out of here.”
“I’d feel better if I knew exactly what I’m walking into next,” Devon said. “How is this going to work? Do I just rock up and introduce myself to your siblings?”
Hester got up and started shaking dried mud from her shoes. “I’ll bring you to Killock and you’ll have a chat with him. He’s very charming.”
“Fair enough.” Devon thought of Hester’s confession from the night before: Sometimes he frightens me. “We still need a way of getting there.”
“Two steps ahead of you! I’ve already been down to reception this morning to ask around. Don’t look so anxious, we don’t match those daft police descriptions on the television! Anyway, no dealerships that she knew of, but—but!—the farm itself has an old hatchback they’ve been trying to get rid of for several months. I reckon we could take it for a test drive and not come back.”
“Or, we can just buy it.” Devon raked her fingers through her hair to unknot the tangles. “And we should. If they’re not already suspicious of us, they absolutely will be if we steal a vehicle.” Attention from Ramsey was one thing. Attention from human police was quite another.
“Buy it?” Hester said, poise rattled. “How much money do you have, precisely?”
The water switched off, thumping noises from Cai clambering around in the bath. He would be out soon.
Devon snagged a nail in her hair. “Tell me where we’re going, precisely, and I’ll tell you how much money I have, precisely.”
Hester flared slim nostrils.
“Even if you take a scenic route to avoid towns, eighty miles isn’t exactly Journey to the Center of the Earth. We’ll be there by this afternoon. What are you afraid of? That I’ll betray you before you get me somewhere secure?”
“It’s not that simple. Killock insisted on secrecy. He asked me to keep you in the dark as much as possible.”
Devon abandoned her hair to its tangles. “Let me get this straight. Everyone has to do what he says and live under his rule, you’re sometimes afraid of him, and he’s also paranoid. Remind me again how he’s supposedly different from the other patriarchs?”
“That’s not…” Hester picked at a thumbnail, lips pinched.
“Dev?” Cai stuck his head around the door. “I don’t have a towel.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes.” Devon scooped one off the floor and tossed it at him, trying not to show how rattled she felt. “Take it in with you next time.”
He huffed at her and shut the door again, that odd mix of overly competent five-year-old who could manage his own shower but also never remembered to bring in towels or clean clothes.