The Power(92)

She hears her name called softly, and she jumps, almost unseats herself from the tree, her nerves are so jangled and her mind so confused. Since the thing that happened, she forgets sometimes, now, who she is. She needs someone to remind her. She looks to her left and right, and then sees him. Two trees over, Tunde is still alive. He’s lashed himself to a branch with three coils of rope, but, spotting her in the pre-dawn light, he starts to untie himself. After this night he looks like home to her and she can tell she looks the same to him. Something familiar and secure in all of this.

He climbs a little higher, where the branches meet and mingle, and hauls himself hand over hand towards her, finally dropping down softly in the little perch she’s found. She’s well hidden in a place where two great limbs of the tree meet, making a little nest of a thick branch that one person can rest their back on while the other leans on them. He drops down on to her – he’s taken some injury, she can tell, in the night; he’s broken something at his shoulder – and they lie heavily together. He reaches for her hand. Interlaces his fingers with hers to keep them steady. They are both afraid. He smells fresh, like something green and budding.

He says, ‘I thought you were dead, when you didn’t follow me.’

She says, ‘Don’t speak too soon. Could still be dead tonight.’

He makes a little rough breath, a sign in place of a laugh. He mutters, ‘This also has been one of the dark places of the earth.’

They both fall, dazed, for a few minutes into a staring trance a little like sleep. They should move, but the presence of a familiar body is too comforting to give up, for a moment.

When they blink, there is someone in this tree just beneath them. A woman in green fatigues, one hand in an army gauntlet, three fingers sparking as she climbs. She’s shouting back down to someone on the ground. She’s using her flashes to peer up through the trees, to burn the leaves. It’s still dark enough that she can’t see.

Roxy remembers a time she and a couple of the girls heard there was a woman beating up her boyfriend in the street. It had to be stopped; you can’t let that kind of thing keep on if you own a place. By the time they got there it was just her, drunk, railing around the street, shouting and swearing. They found him in the end, hiding in the cupboard under the stairs and although they tried to be good and kind Roxy thought in her heart, Why didn’t you fight back? Why didn’t you try? You could have found a frying pan to hit her with. You could have found a spade. What good did you think hiding was going to do? And here she is. Hiding. Like a man. She’s not sure what she is any more.

Tunde is resting on her, his eyes open, his body tense. He’s seen the soldier, too. He stays still. Roxy stays still. They’re concealed here, even as the dawn brings on more danger. If the soldier gives up, they could be safe.

The woman climbs a little higher in the tree. She’s setting fire to the lower branches, though for now they flare and then smoulder out. There’s been rain recently. That’s lucky. One of her mates throws her up a long metal baton. They’ve had fun with this. Inserting it and setting it crackling. She starts to sweep the upper boughs of the next tree over with this rod. No hiding place is perfect.

The woman makes a swift jab, too close to Roxy and Tunde, too close. The tip of it ends no more than two arm’s reaches away from his face. When the woman raises her hand, Roxy can smell her. The yellow scent of sweat, the acid smell of the Glitter metabolizing through the skin, the peppery-radish of the power itself, in use. The combination as familiar as Roxy’s own skin. A woman with her strength up and no ability to contain it.

Tunde whispers to her, ‘Just shock her, once. It conducts both ways. When the pole comes towards us next time, grab it and shock her very hard. She’ll fall to the floor. The others will have to look after her. We can get away.’

Roxy shakes her head, and there are tears in her eyes, and Tunde has a sudden feeling as if his heart has opened, as if the wires around his chest have all at once unfurled.

He has an idea of something. He thinks of the scar he’s caught sight of at the edge of her collarbone, how protective of it she is. And how she’s bargained and threatened and charmed and yet … has he seen her … has she ever hurt anyone yet in his presence since she found him in the cage? Why was she hiding in the jungle, she a Monke, she the strongest there ever was? He had never thought of this before. He hasn’t imagined for years what a woman could be without this thing or how she could have it taken from her.

The woman reaches with her rod again. The tip catches the back of Roxy’s shoulder, sending an iron nail of pain into her, but she remains silent.

Tunde looks around. Beneath the tree they’re hiding in there is only marshy ground. Behind them are the remains of several stomped-flat tents and three women toying with a young man who is at his very limit. Ahead and to the right there is the burned-out generator and, half concealed by branches, an empty metal gasoline drum they’ve used as a rain collector. If it’s full, it’s no use to them. But it might be empty.

The woman is calling back to her friends, who are shouting up words of encouragement to her. They found someone hiding in one of the trees towards the entrance of the camp. They’re looking for more. Tunde shifts position carefully. Movement will catch the soldiers’ eyes, and then they’ll be dead. They only need the soldiers distracted for a few minutes, just enough to get away. He reaches into his backpack, rootles his fingers through to an internal pocket and pulls out three canisters of film. Roxy is breathing softly, watching him. She can tell from the way he’s looking what he’s going to try. He lets his right arm drop, like a vine detached from the tree, like nothing. He hefts the film canister in it and skims it towards the oil drum.