Natalie shut Alex’s door and cleaned up downstairs, so that the others wouldn’t panic when they got home.  Then she sent them a text saying she might not be home til late, and she was off to the station.

The train took nearly an hour to get to Brighton, and Natalie spent the whole of that time staring at the back of the seat in front of her, listening to her pulse thumping in her ears.  She was going to get some answers.  She was going to see Alex again and she was going to make him tell her exactly what he was up to.

So… This doesn’t look like Amsterdam, she’d say.

Or, Boy, have you got some explaining to do.

Or maybe just, Alex!  Long time, no see!

The train pulled into Brighton Station.  Natalie’s stomach gave a lurch, and then she was on her feet and stepping out into the sunlight.

It was a twenty-minute walk to the hotel, all uphill.  Honestly, Natalie was quite glad about that.  She liked the momentum- it was easier to be sure of yourself when you were upright and moving forward.  It was easier to dismiss thoughts like, What if he’s already moved on to the next place?  What if he sees me coming and manages to sneak off?  What if I’ve just wasted my time?

If Alex had actually been in the hotel lobby, Natalie might very well have panicked and blown the whole thing.  But besides the staff, there were only three people hanging around the bar.  She’d have time to prepare herself.

“Can I help you?” asked one of the women on reception.

“I’m a friend of one of the guests,” said Natalie, trying not to sound so overexcited that she came across as a potential troublemaker, “I told him I’d wait for him in the bar- is that alright?”

The receptionist shrugged.  “I don’t see why not.”

Natalie smiled at her, then went up to the bar.  She’d get an Archer’s and lemonade.  A bit of liquid courage, that would be useful.

*

Isaac’s friend had photos of graffiti and notes she’d found, all saved on her phone, and she talked as she flicked through them, as if she was giving Isaac and Denny a slideshow.  “They turn up everywhere,” she said.  They were sitting at a table in the theatre café, drinking tea out of cardboard cups.  “I must have heard from fifteen or sixteen people since the first article went out.  There’s messages written in old textbooks, there’s stuff on the internet, there’s things scratched on the underside of tables and things…  It’s like a secret code, but it means whatever we like.”

Isaac had been up in the office with Denny all day- Jonathan said he shouldn’t be out front if Pinder was still around.  All day, Isaac had seemed like he was on the verge of mentioning something, but he never had.  Jonathan had told him not to ask Denny about anything to do with Pinder; Denny knew it.

Anyway, they’d been working together all day, and then, just before the end of work, Isaac got a text from his friend Rosalyn, saying she’d meet him in the café if he wanted to walk home together.  And just as Denny had been saying goodbye for the evening, Isaac had asked him to come down and meet her.

Denny still didn’t feel right.  Being down here made his eyes feel scratchy and his skin feel too warm.  His stomach was churning like a washing machine, and part of his mind was screaming at him to get out of here before he hurt someone again.  But…

“How do you think it got started?” he asked her, looking at the photo of the scratched-up table.  He wondered what they’d used to do it.  A penknife?  Maybe a scalpel?

Rosalyn’s eyes widened.  They were very blue.  “Well…  So, this is only based on what one guy said, OK?  But there was a student at Berrylands ten years ago, named Ben Sugar, and he said it was based on something they’d all seen written on a railway bridge somewhere near Croydon.  So that might be the original ‘Kelpie and Silkie’ message… or it might have been based on something else, even earlier.  Either way, it would be great if I could find it.”  She sounded like an archaeologist in a film, putting together a team of adventurers to search the jungle for a mysterious artefact.

“Would have been great if he’d been more specific,” said Isaac, with a twisty smile.

Rosalyn shrugged.  “Well, it was a long time ago.  Give him credit for remembering some stuff.”

Isaac made a noise of disagreement.

“Anyway, if he’d been more specific, I wouldn’t have anything to base those articles around, would I?”  Rosalyn smiled at Denny.  “As it is, a lot of it’s just me and Judith wandering around the woods.”

Denny smiled.  “Well, if you can make it entertaining…”

“He’s right, you know,” said Isaac, “People have written whole novels about being stuck in the woods with nothing to do.  At least you guys are actually looking for something.”

At that point, Denny looked up and spotted his sister.  She hadn’t done anything to draw attention to herself- she was just standing there, blending into the background.  Waiting.

Denny jumped to his feet.  “Tavia!  I’m sorry!”

She shrugged.  “For what?”

Isaac and Rosalyn were staring at him.  Denny’s throat went funny.  “For…  Well, you were going to meet me in the office, and…”

“Relax.  I saw you as soon as I came in.  I just didn’t want to interrupt, that’s all.”  She nodded at the others.  “Isaac, isn’t it?  And you’re…?”

“Rosalyn.”  She eyed Tavia warily, as if she was a strange animal that might be about to bite her.  “I’m one of Isaac’s housemates.”

“Octavia Lambton.  Pleased to meet you.”  She put out a hand, and Rosalyn warily shook it.  Denny could see why she was nervous.  Tavia must have been a foot taller than her, easily- she sometimes gave you the impression that her skeleton had been built with a few extra bones to everyone else’s.  When she was younger, she’d got some modelling work because of it.  “I’m sorry about all the trouble you’ve had.”

“Hm?  Oh, I wasn’t really the one who…”

“It’s fine,” said Isaac, a little abruptly, then caught himself.  “I mean, things should be OK now.  We’ve talked to the police.”  He sounded perfectly polite, but he was still giving Tavia an odd look.  Not like the one he’d given Denny after he jumped up.  More surprised.  Less concerned.  It was almost as if he wanted to protect him from her.

Denny struggled to make sense of it- if anything, it should have been the other way round, shouldn’t it?- but then he remembered jumping up and stammering out an apology when she’d come in.  They thought he was scared of her.  They thought she was the one who’d turned him into a nervous wreck.

It was almost funny.

He cast about for a way to put them at ease.  “Are you in a hurry to get home?” he asked her, “Because Rosalyn’s been showing me some messages she’s found around town, and I think you’d be interested.”

Tavia did a double-take- usually Denny was the one in a hurry to get home, and they both knew it- but she played along.  “I can spare a few minutes.  Do you two mind if I join you?” she asked Isaac and Rosalyn.

Isaac looked at Denny, to check everything was OK, then pulled out a seat for her.  “Sure.  Kelpie and Silkie could always do with a bigger audience.”

Tavia’s brow furrowed.  “Kelpie and…?”

“You’ll see,” said Denny, with a grin.

*

Natalie had been waiting in the bar area for twenty minutes when Alex turned up.  She saw him before he saw her.  He was walking through the front entrance, head down, shoulders hunched, and he looked as if he was going to go straight to the stairs.  Slowly, Natalie rose to her feet.  “Alex!” she called out.

His head snapped up, and his eyes went wide.

She met his gaze, and held out her hands in a pleading gesture.  “What the hell?” she added quietly.  Her voice sounded strangely wounded, almost disappointed.  She’d meant to say something a lot cleverer, but she felt she’d got her point across.

Alex stared at her for a few seconds, then, slowly, moved towards her.  He looked more like he was swimming underwater than walking.

“What happened to your eye?” he asked, as soon as he was close enough.

For a moment, Natalie wondered what he was talking about, but then she remembered being shoved face-first into the doorframe.  There must have been a bruise by now.  “Some woman keeps coming to the house, saying she’s your mother,” she told him, “In fact, Mariam sent you a text about her on Monday.  Why didn’t you reply?”

“My phone’s been in the hotel room safe this whole time.  I thought that if I…”  He broke off and shook his head.  “I don’t even know where to begin.  Can we sit down?”  He pointed to a table in the corner.  Natalie nodded.

He pulled her chair out for her before he sat down himself.  Natalie didn’t see the point of that- they were great big armchairs that towered over the little coffee table- but it seemed to be one of those things that Alex did without thinking.  “I know where we can begin,” said Natalie, “Why did you tell us you were going to Amsterdam if you weren’t?”

Alex made a slow, swallowing motion.  “I thought I was keeping you safe.  The four of you.  I…  How much do you know about the Oakmen?” he asked, his head snapping up again.

“Quite a bit, as of yesterday.”

Alex raised his eyebrows.

“Shaun Mandeville showed up at Mariam’s work and tried to convince her that I was a psychopath.”

“Why did he…?”

“Because we went to one of his meetings, and I made fun of his warm-up game.  Then Isaac ran outside to throw up, and we all followed him out.  It was an evening, alright.”

Alex looked at the floor, and sighed deeply.  “Well, that goes to show how wrong I was.  I thought that if I was out of the picture, he’d lose interest in the rest of you.”  He looked up at her.  “Natalie, I’m sorry.  I should have been honest with you from the start.”

“Well… why weren’t you?”

“I was worried that if I told you about the Oakmen, you’d want to do something about them.  I thought the safest thing was to lie low and wait for them to move on, and I didn’t think you’d want to do that.  Especially not you and Isaac.”

Natalie nodded.  “Still…”

“Still,” agreed Alex, “I should have trusted you.  I’m sorry.”  He took a deep breath, and put his fingers to his temples, clearly gearing up for something.  “When I lived with the Oakmen, Pinder… Shaun… would send us out at night to vandalise shops and government buildings.  We never hurt any actual people- I wouldn’t want you to think we were that far gone- but we caused a lot of property damage.”  Another deep breath.  “And sometimes we used small explosives to do it.”

Natalie swallowed.  “You’re talking about the bomb in the park.”

Alex nodded, his eyes big and sad.

Natalie didn’t even know why she was surprised.  She’d brought up the possibility herself, two days ago.  They’d all talked about it!  Why had the blood suddenly rushed to her head like that?  “But… they couldn’t have known we were going to be there.  It’s like Rosalyn said- if she hadn’t picked up that exact book in the library…”

“I think it was a coincidence,” said Alex, “They probably didn’t even know I was in the area until my name came up afterwards.”  His mouth twitched.  “Although it probably wasn’t a coincidence that they were in the area to begin with.  They’d have known that Denny had family there…”

Suddenly, the air around Natalie felt heavy.  She thought about the pressure at the bottom of the ocean, enough to crush a human in seconds.  “I’m glad you got me to sit down,” she mumbled.

Alex reached out and put his hand over hers.

Natalie took a few deep breaths, clearing her head a bit.  It must have been the day catching up with her.  “What about the woman who came to the house?  Do you think she really was your mother?”

“Definitely,” said Alex, without any hesitation, “And I don’t think she worked out where I was on her own, either.”

“You’re not really in touch with her, then?” said Natalie- stupidly, because why would Mrs Rudd have had to bully her way into her son’s house if they’d been in touch?  And why wouldn’t she have known that Alex was at Berrylands?

Alex shook his head.  “Not since I was seventeen.  I lost touch with them all after I joined up with the Oakmen.”  (Natalie noticed that his hand was still over hers.  She didn’t try to move it.)  “The only person I did get back in touch with was my sister Roxanne, and that only happened when I turned up on her doorstep out of the blue four years later.”

“Was that when you left the Oakmen?”

Alex smiled.  “Mm-hm.  Showed up with nothing but the clothes on my back.  I’d had to ask some passers-by for enough money to get a train ticket.”

 Natalie took a shaky breath.  There was a decision ticking over in her head.  In a few seconds, she’d have made it.  “And that’s what you had to do to get away?”

Alex nodded.  Not smiling anymore, but still holding her hands.

She thought of Alex having to sneak away from everyone he knew, people he’d lived with since he was seventeen.  Probably (given what Natalie had seen of his mother) the first people he’d ever lived with who didn’t scream and threaten at the slightest excuse.  She thought of him leaving behind everything he owned because he didn’t want them to suspect he wasn’t coming back.  She thought of him begging hostile strangers for money, all so he could travel far enough to take a chance on a sister he hadn’t seen in years.  Natalie had thought her journey this afternoon had been tense, but what had actually been at stake?  Even if she hadn’t seen Alex, or if she’d seen him and he’d refused to speak to her, she’d still have had somewhere to go back to and sleep that night.  What had gone through Alex’s head when he’d been on that train?  And how long had it taken him to find his sister’s place afterwards, and then to confirm that she still lived there and was willing to take him in?  There must have been a million horrible possibilities going through his mind every second.

Natalie made up her mind.  “Well, OK.  I think I understand why you went to so much effort to get away from them this time.” 

Alex let go and sat back, sighing deeply.  “I still shouldn’t have put you all in that position.  There I was, thinking I was protecting you, and I just made it worse.”

“Why not give us a chance to protect you instead?”

Alex’s mouth opened a little wider, then twitched back into position.  “You want me to come back to London with you?”

“Yeah.”  Natalie tried not to blink.  If she maintained eye contact, then he couldn’t wriggle out of it.  “We’ll all be safer if we’re all in the same place.”

Alex’s mouth curved up into a fond smile.  “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to put all your eggs in one basket?”

“Nope.  She buys them in packs of six.  It’s cheaper.”

That had been a bit of a gamble, but it paid off- Alex laughed.  “I meant, if we’re all in the same place, and the Oakmen know where to find us…”

“Well, at the moment, they know where to find everyone but you,” Natalie pointed out.  A bit of a guilt trip, true, but definitely worth it if it worked.

Looking down at the table, Alex let out a long, wavering breath.  Finally, he nodded.  “If you’ll have me back… then yes.”