He tugs the boot off with a grunt, placing it neatly beside his chair. ‘If my forgotten memories can help the village I’ll offer them freely, and be proud to do it.’
‘You’ve got Shilpa’s boots,’ says Emory, picking it up.
‘No, I don’t.’
‘The heel’s missing a corner,’ she says, showing him the proof. ‘You took them off Shilpa’s feet last night, while she slept.’
‘Why would I take her boots?’ he demands.
‘Because the terrain past the farm is rocky,’ supplies Clara, smearing the gouge on his ankle with antiseptic. ‘You, me and Mum went out to Adil’s shack last night, pulling a cart. You had to change out of your sandals on the way.’
‘But I was at the lighthouse with Niema last night,’ he protests.
‘You must have brought her back to the village.’
‘But I woke up out there,’ he splutters. ‘Why would I row all the way back?’
The microsampler beeps, completing its scan of the blood on his clothes. Clara finishes wrapping the bandage around his leg, then gets to her feet, going over to the machine.
‘Whose is it?’ asks Seth, turning in his seat to see her, obviously afraid of the answer. ‘Is it Niema’s?’
‘No,’ says Clara, her voice shaking. ‘It’s Hui’s.’
FORTY-EIGHT
Seth is hobbling in circles around Thea’s lab agitatedly, watched by a thoughtful Emory and a stunned Clara.
‘Hui wasn’t in my boat last night,’ he says, for the fourth time. ‘I barely knew the girl.’
‘It probably just means you were near the bird bath when she was attacked,’ supplies Emory.
‘I woke up at sea!’ he growls in frustration, throwing his hands up. ‘None of this makes any sense.’
‘Tell us what happened last night,’ she says, secretly enjoying his discomfort. ‘Whatever you can remember.’
He shakes his head, trying to piece it together.
‘There’s not much to tell,’ he replies, scratching his whiskers. ‘Niema was quiet. She didn’t talk much on the journey. She told me how she owned the island, and asked about your mother –’
‘She asked about Mum?’ interrupts Emory. In the twenty years since Judith died, Niema hasn’t mentioned her once. Even in the weeks after the funeral, when all Emory wanted to do was tell stories and relive their time together, Niema would swiftly change the topic.
‘Yeah,’ says Seth, perplexed by Emory’s sudden interest.
‘What did she want to know?’
‘What she was like.’ Seth frowns at his daughter’s curiosity. ‘Why does it matter?’
‘I don’t know. Had she ever asked before?’
‘No,’ he admits. ‘We didn’t discuss it for long. Adil was waiting for us on the jetty, and I think that threw her. Abi must have calmed her down, because Niema asked me to moor up, and then she went up to the lighthouse with him. That’s the last thing I remember.’
‘How was Adil?’
‘Nervous, maybe. Angry. Niema was afraid, but she wouldn’t let me go with her. I fell asleep in the boat. That’s the last thing I remember before I woke up this morning with this.’
He holds out a folded piece of paper.
Emory takes it, finding herself staring at the torn page from Magdalene’s sketchpad. As they suspected, the artist drew what happened last night. The band is on the stage, playing their instruments, while the villagers dance. It looks like a party was going on.
‘Come look at this, Clara,’ says Emory, waving her daughter over. ‘Hui was talking with Niema near the bird bath. She’s holding her violin.’
Clara taps the drawing of herself, perched on the end of a table, carving a bird from a block of wood. Emory’s beside her, an arm around her shoulder.
‘I look upset,’ she says.
‘We both do,’ murmurs Emory.
‘I only carve when I’ve got a lot to think about or need to calm myself down,’ says Clara. ‘What could Niema have told us that would make everybody else that deliriously happy, and us that sad?’
‘It certainly wasn’t that we were going to spend the rest of our lives serving the humans trapped in Blackheath,’ says Emory. ‘Thea either lied to me, or Niema lied to her.’
She flips the drawing over, staring at the strange diagram with the lines and numbers.
‘Adil used to make drawings like that,’ says Seth. ‘When he first came back to the village, before he was exiled. He scratched them on the walls at night. We’d find them everywhere.’
‘What do they mean?’ asks Clara.
‘He never knew,’ replies Seth. ‘He seemed to be as confused by them as we were.’
‘Sounds like Ben,’ murmurs Emory. ‘This is your handwriting, isn’t it, Dad?’
‘Bit messy, but yes.’
‘You must have torn this page out of Mag’s book last night because it was the nearest paper at hand,’ she says. ‘Whatever this diagram means, you obviously needed to get it down in a hurry.’
Failing to make sense of it, Emory returns her attention to the drawing of the exercise yard on the other side. It’s so strange to see themselves there, awake and lucid, living a life they can’t remember.
‘Why wouldn’t Niema want us to remember any of this?’ mutters Clara, behind her.
Emory’s eyes widen, a horrible idea barging into her mind. ‘Where’s the knife you use to carve your birds?’ she asks abruptly.
‘In my bag,’ replies Clara, still staring at the picture.
‘Put it in the sampler,’ she says.
‘Why?’
‘Just do it, please.’
Frightened by the urgency in her mother’s tone, Clara withdraws her knife from its wooden sheath, placing it under the sampler.
A silent minute crawls by, until the machine’s beep cracks it like glass. Clara lowers her face to the display, reading it reluctantly.
She swallows, sitting upright.
‘There are traces of Hui’s blood and Niema’s blood on the blade,’ she says, meeting her mother’s steady gaze. ‘My knife is the murder weapon.’
Emory marches towards the memory extractor. After contemplating it for a second, she holds it above her head and hurls it to the floor, sending fragments of metal and glass skittering across the lab.
Dissatisfied with the damage, she stamps on it as hard as she can.
‘Stop that!’ demands Seth, trying to drag her away, but she wriggles free of his grip and jumps on it with both feet, causing something to crack inside. Bright red gel comes pouring out of the sides.
‘What have you done?’ he screams.
‘I’ve saved my family’s life,’ she says, panting. ‘You’re welcome.’
FORTY-NINE
Emory marches outside and screams her frustration at the purple sky, drawing curious looks from the people in the barracks.
She left her father cradling the memory extractor on his lap, like it was an injured animal. After everything they’ve learned, he’s still angry with her for defying the will of the elders. How can his faith in them be so steadfast, when he has so little faith in her?
She feels Clara’s arms slip around her waist, and her head nestle against her back. She used to do this when she was a child and wanted to be comforted. Emory can’t remember it happening since.
‘You okay?’ asks Clara.
‘He’s an idiot,’ declares Emory, whose fists are clenched.
‘He’s probably thinking the same thing about you.’