Sixty-One Nails Part 24

"Are you unwell?"

"I've got a bit of a headache, but no, I'm OK."

"The nausea hasn't returned? You're not seeing spots or blurred vision?"

"No. It's something else." I told her about the picture on the television. "There was no mistake, they're broadcasting pictures of me. Anyone we meet may have seen the pictures and report me to the authorities. It's all getting out of hand."

"They're bound to be looking for you, in the circ.u.mstances."

"Maybe it would be for the best if I turned myself in. They must have figured out by now that I had nothing to do with the death of that officer. I was just an innocent bystander."

"And you think they'll just accept that, do you? "

"It's the truth. "

"Yes, but it's not all of the truth, is it?"

"Well, I'm not going to tell them everything, obviously."

"So what are you going to say? You can't lie to them.

Not convincingly."

"I just won't mention it."

"An officer was killed, Rabbit. Do you think they won't want every detail? These people are trained to take statements from witnesses and they won't stop until all their questions have answers. How long do you think it will be before you tell them about what was on your stairs? How long before you're trying to explain about dying on the Underground, the Feyre, the Untainted, and me."

"Oh, so you're just worried I'll drag you into it, is that it?"

"Don't be stupid. What can you tell them? You don't know enough to give me away."

"Yes, and you made sure of that, didn't you?" She sighed, exasperated with me.

"Don't read into it more than there is, Rabbit. The police are the least of my worries. Yes, it would be inconvenient if I had to abandon my present life and start again, but I've disappeared before and I can do it again if need be. "

"You'd just abandon me."

"You're the one who wants to give himself up."

"I have to. It's only a matter of time before someone recognises me. It's better to give myself up than to be caught running. Don't you see?"

She looked at me with pity. "Poor Rabbit. You still don't get it, do you?"

"Get what?"

"Even if you tell them everything, they're not going to believe you."

"They'll have to."

"You didn't believe me when I explained it to you, and you were the person it happened to."

"Then I'll show them. They can't deny the evidence of their own eyes."

She laughed. "Oh, that'll get their attention. Enough to convince them you are nowhere near as innocent as you protest."

"But if I show them. If I summon my glow - what did you call it, gallowfyre? - then they'll have to believe me."

"They'll believe what they want to believe. You can show them gallowfyre and what you can do with it and that will do more than anything else to convince them you are a danger to yourself and others. They will do what they always do. "

"Which is what?"

"They will protect the public from the danger as they perceive it and they will avenge the death of their own. They will lock you away."

"They can't do that. No jury in the land will convict me just for being there when it happened. I wasn't even in the garden."

"No jury will ever come to hear of it. An a.s.sessment will be made by experts. They will make a recommendation to the court. A court order will be served and you will never see the light of day again."

"You can't just imprison people without charges, not in this country. Not since the Magna Carta. What about habeas corpus?"

"You won't go to prison. You're not a criminal and you won't be charged with anything. You'll go to a hospital. A special hospital where the nurses wear iron keys round their necks, the doors have iron locks and the patients are kept constantly sedated for their own good. Is that how you want to spend the rest of your unnaturally long life, drugged up to the eyeb.a.l.l.s? "I don't think it will come to that."

"Don't you? An officer died. They are not going to be satisfied with vague answers and plat.i.tudes." I thought about the scenario she had painted. Unfortunately, it sounded all too realistic. "Do they really have hospitals like that?"

"Fey genes got mixed up with humanity's a long time ago. For the most part it results in people like Megan who never really get noticed. Occasionally, though, the genes come out strongly, as in your own case. "

"There are others like me?"

"Of course there are. The genes pop up in every generation. It's pretty rare, so for the most part no one notices. If they are weak then it is usually explained away as something else; a talent for sailing in light winds or an ability to light fires maybe. Mostly people's gifts come out in p.u.b.erty, but Fey genes can be fickle. They can express themselves at any time, in any circ.u.mstance. How do you think you would feel if you woke one night to find that when you looked in the mirror, it wasn't your face looking back? Or how about if your belongings started to take on strange and perverse properties? What if you started to see flashes of the possible futures of people you touched? Would you be able to keep it to yourself? Or would you start telling people not to take the last bus home or to stay away from blonde people? What do we call people like that, Rabbit? What do we call people who behave in ways we don't understand? "

"We call them psychics. Clairvoyants."

"No, they're the rational ones. They are the ones who learn to cope with it and find a way to live. What do we call the others; the ones who see things no one else sees, hear things no one else hears?"

"We call them crazy."

"And what do we do with the crazy people?"

"We keep them safe, away from everyone else."

I had answered my own question. Of course we had places like that. We had them because we needed them. Blackbird watched me as I thought it all through and realisation dawned.

"You're telling me I can't go back. Even if there were a job and a life to go back to, I couldn't return to it. If I try to explain what happened, they will treat me as if I'm insane."

"I'm trying to explain that things have changed. It's not all bad news. You're old life died when you did and a new life began. Now you just have to accept that your old life has gone and move forward. "

"But what about my daughter?"

"That depends. It depends on you and it depends on her. For now, the best thing you can do is stay away from her."

"For how long?"

"At worst? Until you die or she does. But maybe only a few years."