The Switchers Trilogy Part 40

'Dawn,' said Tess.

'Not yet,' said Declan. 'But it's coming.'

'We must go back. Quickly!'

'But why? Now that you know what you are, you need never go back there again.'

'But I have to,' said Tess. 'I promised Kevin that I would.'

Declan opened his mouth to protest but, with an authority that surprised her, Tess summoned a wind and commanded it to carry her back to the sidhe in the crag.

Kevin was waiting outside the door in the rock. As Tess made her dramatic arrival, he jumped to his feet.

'Thank G.o.d,' he said. 'I thought you weren't going to make it.'

'Don't worry,' said Declan, who had swept in behind her in the trees. 'There isn't any hurry.'

'I think there is,' said Kevin. 'I think that any moment now the sun is going to rise.'

'So what if it does?' said Declan. 'Tess has made her decision, haven't you, Tess?'

There was a rus.h.i.+ng and a whispering among the trees. Although she couldn't see them, Tess knew that there were others there with them, waiting to welcome her into their company. She nodded, realising that Declan was right. She had made her decision. Now that she had found her heritage, how could she renounce it?

But Kevin was adamant. 'No, Tess. No. Think again.'

'But why?' said Tess. 'You could join us if you wanted to. You can't imagine how it feels.'

'Maybe not,' said Kevin. 'But I've been doing a lot of thinking.'

'Don't think,' said Declan. 'It's a terrible weakness that people have. I thought you were set on being a rat, anyway?'

As he said the words, he pointed at Kevin and Switched him. There he was, the rat with two toes missing, so familiar to Tess from the days when she had first known him. She experienced a sense of de ja vu, then remembered her dream and the strong sense of foreboding that had accompanied it. Something was very wrong.

Kevin spoke to her in rat. 'Girl changing rat back into boy. Very fast! Rat turning into boy! Rat turning into boy!'

In the background another rat voice added itself to the demand and Tess realised that Cat Friend was there, watching everything that was going on.

Tess remembered her lessons with Declan and Switched Kevin back, delighted to show off her new powers. How could she possibly give them up, now that she was discovering the full extent of them?

'Changed your mind?' said Declan, as Kevin became human again.

'Yes,' said Kevin. 'I have. I want to be human, Tess, and I think you should, too.'

'Why?' said Tess. 'Give me one good reason.'

Kevin glanced towards the east, and worry was carved into his features.

'I will,' he said. 'Just hear me out, will you?'

Declan looked disdainful, but Tess nodded and Kevin went on.

'I could live a happy life as a rat. I know I could. And you could live forever as you are; young and beautiful, a magical being. But neither of us would have influence, you see?'

'Influence?' said Declan, and as he spoke a wind rose and began to bl.u.s.ter around in the trees above their heads. 'What would you know about influence?'

'I'm not even sure what you are, Tess,' Kevin went on. 'Are you? Remember what Declan was saying about adapting to people's perceptions? What if that's all you are? Just a figment of someone else's imagination?'

Declan's face darkened, and he took Tess's arm as though to draw her away. But she shook her head and turned back to Kevin.

'Go on,' she said.

'I don't know,' he said, rus.h.i.+ng his words now in a desperate race against the irresistible turning of the planet. 'I don't know what you are or what he is. But I do know that if you become like him, if that's the choice you make, then you won't belong to this world any longer.'

His words unsettled Tess. The wind in the trees got rougher, more insistent. Declan gripped her arm again.

'Don't listen to him,' he said.

But Kevin was not going to be put off. 'This world, Tess. This world that we both love so much.' He tore a clump of moss from a rock and held its earthy scent to her nose. 'I came to an understanding tonight,' he went on. 'About what it meant to be a Switcher. I realised that it doesn't matter whether or not I can change my shape; not any more. What matters is that being a Switcher taught me ... taught you as well, Tess ... how to adapt. How to change to meet whatever situation arises, even though we might look the same from outside.'

Tess nodded. What Kevin was saying was something that she knew and believed, even though she had never succeeded in putting words on it.

'I can see my future at last,' he was saying. 'It came to me tonight as I was waiting here. I'm going to get off the streets, Tess, get some education if I need to, do whatever it takes to get into a position where I can make a difference. These woods are safe, now, they will stay as they are. But all over the world there are wild places being destroyed. I'm going to be there, Tess. I'm going to campaign, try to stop it happening, stand in front of the bulldozers if I have to.'

A few drops of rain began to fall, but despite them the first blackbird sang a tentative phrase from a nearby branch.

'All those creatures, Tess! We know them better than anyone. Who will fight their corner if we don't, eh?'

A light touch, light as a moth, tickled Tess's ankle. Cat Friend was there again, reaching up, her whiskers twitching. The simple gesture of trust brought a charge of emotion into Tess's bones.

'We can be their amba.s.sadors, Tess; their voice in the world. It will help the fairy people, too, if we can save the wild places!'

Declan was tugging at her again. 'Don't listen to that nonsense,' he said. 'Stay with me, Tess, and ride the wild winds at night. Look at the gold you have on you. Look at your wealth. You'll never have such power in any other life.'

The rain fell harder. A second bird began to sing and there were two small voices in the darkness. As the first ray of the rising sun found a way past the clouds and crept in among the leaves another bird voice joined them, and then another. Kevin held out his hand.

And Tess took it.

Then all h.e.l.l broke loose around them as Declan unleashed the full fury of the storm. Instinctively, Tess ducked down and shrank against the flat wall of the crag. Kevin joined her, s.h.i.+elding his head with his arms as lightning blasted the heart out of a huge boulder just feet away.

'It's OK,' said Tess, clutching at his jacket. 'It's OK.'

Again the lightning struck, and again. High above them it hit the exposed crag once, twice, three times. An ominous rumble began, deep inside the mountain.

Rain drenched their hair and ran down their faces. Kevin got to his feet and dragged Tess up.

'Run, Tess,' he yelled. 'The whole lot is about to come down on top of us!'

Even as he spoke there came a deafening crack from above, as though the cliff itself had split in two.

'Come on, Tess! Run!'

But Tess held her ground. She shook her head. 'No.'

'Are you mad?' Kevin was shouting now, his voice barely audible above the creaking and groaning of splintering rock and the splas.h.i.+ng of monsoon-like rain.

'No!' Tess shouted back. 'I'm not mad. But I know that Declan won't hurt us!'

'What do you think he's doing, then?' Kevin yelled.

There was terror in his voice. To their right they heard the crash of fracturing trees as the first huge boulder hurtled down on the woods from the crag above.

But still Tess held her ground. 'He won't hurt us,' she repeated. 'None of them will.'

Another ma.s.sive chunk of rock crashed into the trees. Lightning struck repeatedly nearby, making the world smell of sulphur.

'But they're trying to kill us!' said Kevin.

Tess shook her head, absurdly calm amid the raging chaos. 'They won't kill us,' she said. 'They won't hurt us at all. They're the Good People, Kevin. The Good People.'

And as though the forces of nature themselves had heard her words, the wind dropped and the storm died away and the rain continued for just long enough to extinguish the lightning-fires, then it stopped, too.

Tess and Kevin sat on the wet moss at the foot of the crag, absorbing their experiences and waiting for daylight. Gradually the birds regained their confidence and resumed their singing, and from a nook in the rock beside them, Cat Friend peeped out.

'Lightning finished, huh, huh?' she said.

'Yup, yup.'

Tess bent down to talk to her, and as she did so, something in her jeans' pocket dug into her stomach. She pulled it out. It was Orla's inhaler.

'White Cat at home in the rock, huh?' said Cat Friend.

'Yup,' said Tess. 'White Cat, raven, hare, all back inside the rock.'

Cat Friend slipped away and disappeared, and Tess felt a stab of regret, knowing that she was unlikely to see her again, or Declan either, at least in his handsomest form.

'What's that?' said Kevin, noticing the inhaler.

'It's Orla's,' said Tess. 'For her asthma. I'd better get it back to her, in case she's looking for it.'

She stood up and Kevin joined her. 'You should, I suppose,' he said. 'Although I've got a funny feeling that she won't be needing it any more.'

He slipped an arm around her shoulders and together they began to make their way through the trees. But after a few yards, Tess stopped.

'Did you hear footsteps?'

Kevin listened hard. 'I don't think so.'

Tess looked back. 'It's like a dream,' she said. 'As though it never happened at all. If you saw the rock now, would you believe that you could walk straight into it?'

Kevin shrugged. 'I think I'd have doubts, to be honest.'

He turned back to her, and as he did so he fixed his eyes on her throat and shook his head in astonishment.

'But it happened all right,' he said. 'There's your proof.'

Tess remembered the torque and reached up to take it off. In her hand was nothing but a few twists of rusty old wire, and around her finger, where the gold ring had been, was a plastic washer from a tap.

Kevin started to laugh. 'There's your gold, Tess,' he said. 'There's your glamour.'

Despite herself, Tess laughed too. At the same moment they both stopped, each of them certain that they heard another voice laughing along with them.

But no matter how hard they listened, all they could hear was silence.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fict.i.tiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 1999 by Kate Thompson.

Cover design by Michel Vrana.

978-1-4804-2422-7.

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media.

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New York, NY 10014.

www.openroadmedia.com.

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