Moth to a flame, p.4
Moth to a Flame, page 4
‘You decided,’ Ant interrupts. ‘You decided to take her in. She killed Sam’s sister, and you—’
Leo cuts him off. ‘I didn’t know about that.’ He sounds wretched, wrecked, because Ant’s right: Isabel is fundamentally unworthy of Leo’s help, and she’ll only bring more trouble. If she had anywhere to go, she’d leave right now, save them the awkwardness of kicking her out.
But she’s only here in the first place because she’s got no other options, so Isabel stays curled up on her windowsill, half listening, half staring out at a world she doesn’t recognise.
‘Well, don’t come crying to me when it bites you in the arse,’ says Ant. ‘Where is she, anyway?’
‘Front room,’ says Leo immediately. Isabel’s surprised; she didn’t think he’d noticed her here. ‘Probably listening to every word we’re saying. Which reminds me.’ There’s a scrape – a pot being dragged across to another hob. ‘Keep an eye on this for a minute, will you?’
Footsteps. The kitchen door opens, and a moment later Leo comes into the front room. He gives Isabel a small smile. ‘All right?’
She shrugs in response.
‘I brought you a present,’ he offers, and holds up his rucksack. ‘Thought it might cheer you up.’
That seems unlikely. But she says, ‘What is it?’, because showing interest will make Leo smile again.
It does. He rummages through the bag and produces two small paperbacks, which he puts on the windowsill next to Isabel. ‘Here. These are for you.’
Classic Leo, still thinking books can fix everything. She regards them for a moment, then picks them up. One is in German, the other in Russian. They’re a little battered, their barcodes hidden behind discount stickers, but they’re a gift. Hers. Something she owns, in a world where she has nothing.
‘I remembered you were good at languages, before,’ he says. ‘Couldn’t remember the whole list, but those two came in today…’
The bookshop pays him a pittance, but he loves it: she sees his old passion for stories in his face as he watches her examine the books.
‘When did I tell you I spoke Russian?’ Isabel asks, flicking through the first book. A long-neglected part of her brain stirs into life as she tries to puzzle out the language. She’s rusty, unable to pick out more than a few words, but it’ll come back. That kind of thing always does.
‘You didn’t,’ he says. ‘Jem did. Said it was why she hired you.’
Jem – the librarian who gave Isabel a job, and a brief taste of a normal life. That feels like a lifetime ago. ‘How do you even remember that?’
Leo shrugs. ‘I figured it was worth a try. Knew I could always return the books if I was wrong.’
Instinctively, Isabel grips it a little tighter. Hers. ‘You… you weren’t wrong,’ she says, stumbling on her gratitude. ‘Thank you.’
He’s still watching her. ‘See,’ he says. ‘You’re good at something other than killing people.’
Isabel considers asking him why he thinks her father taught her half a dozen languages, constantly testing her to ensure she kept them sharp. But if he hasn’t figured out how far the guilds’ power reaches, she won’t be the one to break it to him. ‘Still haven’t got any qualifications.’
‘True,’ he admits. ‘Maybe you should talk to Emily about that.’
‘Emily?’
‘Your caseworker. You’ve got a meeting tomorrow.’ He perches for a moment on the arm of the nearest chair, pretending to settle, unwilling to commit. ‘She might have some ideas.’
Isabel had forgotten about her caseworker, let alone that she was called Emily and that they’ve got a meeting tomorrow. She listens to the muffled sound of Ant swearing in the kitchen and then looks at Leo. ‘What is it he wants you to claim?’
‘So you were listening,’ he says, looking faintly pleased to be proved right. ‘You remember our history book?’
Isabel nods: the illegal, unlicensed history the abolitionists wrote and began distributing across Espera is half the reason they’re here, since Leo’s part in writing it is what made him a fugitive.
‘Well, it’s a pretty different perspective on Espera than anything these outsiders have got access to,’ he continues. ‘Civilian history, you know? They barely even know Espera’s got civilians. So the smugglers were helping us distribute copies out here, trying to raise money to keep the Free Press afloat, but it’s begun circulating beyond that.’
The Free Press is the voice of the radical abolitionist underworld in Espera, its newssheet their main way of coordinating resistance and its publications the home of their ideologies. It’s how Leo and Mortimer met, and it’s a good reason why Isabel should never have been friends with either of them. It was the Free Press who published her identity and ensured she’d never be safe in Espera again – the Free Press who forced her to run.
But the Free Press is also Leo, and Leo is all Isabel’s got left in the world.
‘The book’s still anonymous, isn’t it?’ she says, piecing together Leo’s words and the argument she overheard. ‘And Ant thinks it shouldn’t be.’
Inside Espera, claiming authorship would have got them all killed. Outside, it might still: if the guilds think they’re influencing global opinion of Espera, they could easily send an external operative to eliminate them. Escaping the walls doesn’t mean escaping the threat.
‘Right.’ Leo shrugs. ‘I’d prefer to stay anonymous. But there’ve been doubts about its authenticity, and about our status as abolitionists. Once people know we’re from Espera, they tend to automatically assume we’re a threat – Ant’s right about that much. So we’ll see.’
Isabel swallows her instinct to beg him to keep it secret and leave the guilds hunting for an author inside the city walls. ‘Is he right about me, too? About the photo?’
He frowns, like he hoped she’d have conveniently missed that part of the conversation. ‘No,’ he says decisively. ‘Ant’s being a knob. Besides, they didn’t print your name, nobody knows you’re living here, and nobody will recognise you now that you’ve showered. Forget the photo.’
But Isabel can’t, because it’s proof. Proof of how she got here, proof that it wasn’t a nightmare. ‘I didn’t mean to cause trouble. When I asked for you. I just…’ I didn’t want to be alone.
‘Never apologise to me for that,’ says Leo. ‘You said you’d follow me one day, and you did. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.’ There’s so much more to it than that. ‘But you can do me a favour, if you want to be helpful.’
Isabel can’t imagine what she can do for Leo, when she’s useless and he’s carrying the weight of the world already. ‘What is it?’
‘I need you to take Sam to her book club on Saturday. I’ve got work and can’t rearrange.’
Panic rushes in on her. ‘I can’t.’
‘She knows the way. She just needs someone to go on the bus with her. You can wait in the library café until she’s done.’
It’s Tuesday now, and Saturday is too soon, too sudden. She hasn’t dared go further than the garden path since she was brought here, and the thought of taking a bus across the unfamiliar city triggers choking fear. ‘Why can’t Ant do it?’
‘He’s working too. It’ll be fine, Isabel. I know you can do this.’
‘Can’t she… can’t she go by herself, if she knows the way?’
‘She’s twelve,’ says Leo, as if that’s an answer. ‘We’re supposed to be responsible guardians.’
Isabel isn’t a responsible guardian for anyone, not even herself – though perhaps Leo’s trying to be kind by pretending she’s not the one who needs looking after. She wants to agree, to take some of the weight he’s carrying, but her old fearlessness is long gone and the task seems impossible. She’s lost, rendered helpless by the strangeness of the city.
She leans her head against the window and looks out. All those people, walking unafraid beneath the empty grey sky. People who can go anywhere, be anything, and if that means turning their back on the walled city to the east and pretending they’re not witness to its atrocities, they’ll do so readily and without a twinge of conscience, because it’s easier that way.
‘I know you’re scared,’ says Leo, and she doesn’t bother to deny it. ‘But Sam will be with you, and it’s only a library. This will be good for you.’
Good for you. Like a vitamin, or an exercise regime.
‘Leo?’ calls Ant from the kitchen. ‘Something’s burning.’
Leo swears, then calls back, ‘I don’t know how you survived in that basement if you’re this bad at cooking.’ He looks at Isabel. ‘Will you eat dinner with us today?’
He’s been patient, bringing her a plate and letting her pick at it on her own, away from prying eyes. But after nearly a week in this house, it’s about time she started pretending to function. ‘Okay,’ she says, unwillingly.
Leo smiles in triumph and pushes himself up from the chair. ‘Then I’d better go and rescue it,’ he says. ‘Come through in a few and see if I’ve succeeded.’
Isabel nods, and watches Leo head back to the kitchen. Very carefully, she stretches out her legs and places them on the floor. They’re stiff, and her feet have forgotten how to bear her weight. As soon as she’s upright, she’s conscious that she needs to pee, and wonders why her body didn’t tell her that sooner.
My body doesn’t care any more, she thinks. It’d kill me if it could. But that’s not news; she’s been fighting a long, quiet war with her body since she was seventeen and her father’s poison turned it against her.
The bathroom means confronting the horror of the mirror and a face she hardly recognises. Her hair’s getting longer, the turquoise dye faded; she uses one of Sam’s abandoned hairclips to pin it back from her face, though that doesn’t disguise the state of it. The zip of her hoodie is only pulled up to her sternum, and the tattoos twined around the scars on her collarbones and chest are easily visible. It doesn’t matter outside Espera. She doesn’t have to hide here.
But without the masks, she’s not sure she can bear the sight of herself. That girl in the mirror – that’s Isabel Ryans, Isabel before the Moth, a girl who died at seventeen now resurrected and wearing her face. A girl who is scared, directionless and broken.
At least the old Isabel knew what she wanted. Now she’s got the escape she dreamed of, it feels like another kind of captivity.
It’s a relief, after that, to close the bathroom door and go into the kitchen, where Leo is spooning food onto plates. It only looks slightly charred, and she doesn’t need to ask to know that he’s made sure it’s safe for her.
‘Ah, good,’ he says, at the sight of her. ‘Will you call Sam, please? She’s upstairs.’
Sam’s bedroom is in the attic, tucked under the eaves. The door is open, the sound of her music drifting out, and she’s sitting at the little desk in the corner, ostensibly doing homework. Even from the doorway, it’s clear she’s struggling to focus, drawing spirals in the margins of the page.
‘Dinner time,’ says Isabel.
Sam jumps at the sound of her voice. ‘How long have you been there?’
‘About three seconds. How’s the homework?’
She throws down her pen in disgust. ‘Boring and pointless. I know all this stuff already. I don’t see why I’ve got to do it again.’
So that you’ll have more choices than the rest of us, thinks Isabel, but Sam’s heard it all before. ‘So you can prove to them how clever you are,’ she says instead. ‘Now come and eat. Leo’s waiting.’
5 OBEA (OBEDIENT)
Isabel spends Wednesday morning wrestling with the first chapter of the Russian novel Leo bought her, noting down unfamiliar words to look up later and trying to muddle through without them. The years have stolen more of her Russian than she realised, and the novel’s vocabulary is frequently unfamiliar, being less acutely concerned with the specifics of arms dealing and poison manufacture than her father’s lessons. She should have known she didn’t have the skillset for a civilian life.
She lets the book and her eyes close for a moment, but the doorbell startles her awake. Ah, shit. Emily.
Reluctantly, Isabel makes for the front door. She might have forgotten her caseworker’s name, but as soon as she sees Emily’s face, she remembers her from the detention centre: dark hair, light brown skin, oversized glasses and a smile she doesn’t seem to know how to turn off.
Emily unbuttons her coat and hangs it up without asking permission. ‘Where are we headed then, Isabel?’
Isabel gestures awkwardly. ‘Living room?’ She spends most of her time there, perched in the window, and it’s a communal space – less of a violation than inviting Emily into her own room.
Her caseworker accepts this choice wordlessly and settles herself in an armchair, scanning the room as though it’ll offer some clues about how to deal with Isabel. She’s worked with Esperans before, but it’s usually civilians who defect.
‘Kiel vi fartas, Isabel?’ Emily asks, when she’s completed her survey of the room. How are you?
Now she remembers why they assigned this woman to her: because she speaks Esperanto. Emily’s got it into her head that this will set Isabel at ease – an understandable conclusion to draw, since she spent a lot of time at the detention centre not speaking anything else, too shell-shocked and exhausted to manage English. But hearing it now, with that strange outsider’s accent, doesn’t help at all.
‘Fine,’ lies Isabel, in English, and perches on the settee across from Emily. Replying in Esperanto feels like ceding territory she doesn’t want to give.
Emily capitulates easily, switching back to English. ‘What have you been doing since I last saw you?’
‘Not much.’ Sleeping. Doubting the evidence of her own eyes. Second-guessing herself. Emily wants more than that, though. She manages, ‘I’m still adjusting.’
‘To living here with your friend, or to the city?’
Maybe she should’ve chosen the windowsill; then she’d have somewhere to look that isn’t a pointed avoidance of Emily’s gaze. ‘Both. Mostly the latter.’
‘It’s a difficult transition,’ says her caseworker sympathetically. ‘Everyone I’ve worked with from Espera has needed time to adjust. But they’ve all made very successful—’
‘I get it,’ Isabel interrupts. She should wait this out, pretend to be the person they want her to be, but she can’t, not when they’re acting like she’s no different from every civilian who ever fled the city. ‘They’re all functional, productive members of society. Good for them.’
Emily’s lips tighten, but she doesn’t reprimand her. She’s too nice for that, sympathetic no matter how unlikeable Isabel is. It would be easier, Isabel thinks, if someone would just snap and yell at her. She knows how to deal with that.
Emily says, ‘Have you had any more nightmares?’
Isabel’s grip tightens on the arm of the settee. She woke up screaming every night in that fucking detention centre, watching them all die over and over again. Or it’s her mother, or Ronan’s knife at her throat, or – on rare nights, when her mind is being particularly cruel – her father’s lab, like nothing’s changed at all. The nightmares are well-documented in her file, so of course Emily knows about them. Doesn’t mean Isabel wants to talk about it.
‘Not since I came here,’ she says, half truthfully. The nightmares persist, but they wake her less often these days. It’s the daytime memories she dreads, the way they force themselves in without warning and rip her away from the present.
‘So you’re doing better, since you came to live here?’
A leading question if she’s ever heard one, and Isabel doesn’t want them to take her away, so she nods and doesn’t mention the shadows, or the hallucinations. If it was a hallucination.
Emily writes this down. ‘Is that your book?’ she asks.
With some surprise, Isabel follows her gaze to the coffee table, her notebook of new vocab tucked inside the Russian novel as a bookmark. ‘Yes. Leo bought it for me,’ she adds, in case Emily thinks she stole it.
‘You speak Russian?’
Isabel shrugs. ‘I did. I’m rusty.’
Emily’s smile is slightly uncertain. ‘That’s great, Isabel. That’s a really useful skill.’
Isabel narrows her eyes. ‘Then why do you look so nervous about it?’
Her caseworker laughs awkwardly, embarrassed to have been caught. ‘I’m not nervous. It’s just… well, Russian is…’
Ah. So Emily’s made the connections Leo didn’t. ‘You think it’ll look suspicious that I speak Russian. Like I might start hiring out my services now that I’m no longer bound to the guild.’ Leo’s so trusting – it wouldn’t have occurred to him that Isabel’s language skills could be anything except an asset. But this world will never stop seeing her as a threat.
‘I’m not saying that,’ begins Emily, but it’s unconvincing. ‘I think it’s good that you have language skills. I’m only apprehensive about how it might be perceived.’
Isabel leans over and retrieves the other book from the windowsill, holding it up. ‘Kafka,’ she says. ‘German. How are the optics on that?’
‘Better,’ Emily acknowledges. ‘And believe me, I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with reading Dostoyevsky, but in your specific circumstances…’
‘Yeah, I know. Everyone thinks I’m waiting for an opportunity to assassinate the Prime Minister or whatever.’ She drops the second book on the coffee table next to the first. ‘Like anyone would hire a defector.’
This was the wrong thing to say. Emily’s cheerful face creases into a concerned frown. ‘Isabel, you need to understand the position you’re in.’
Isabel abandons the settee and the pretence of calm and goes over to the windowsill, hopping up lightly and curling her legs to her chest. ‘I understand,’ she says, staring determinedly out of the window. ‘Nobody wants me here. I don’t want me here. They’d rather deport me back to Espera, right? That’s why you’re here, to check I’m integrating properly and take me away if I’m not. Well, I promise you this – if I wanted to make connections with the Russian government, I wouldn’t be using Notes from Underground to do it.’
