Darkhaven

Stephen seemed to sense my internal panic rising and offered to let me finish my tea in private. When I asked if there was a room with a window, he gave me directions to get to a verandah on the other side of the building, then left me sitting on the couch, lost in a whirlpool of thought. I wanted to know more about my mother and why Dad had lied. And the Praegressus program sounded pretty cool. More than cool – quite possibly magic. But I couldn’t leave Dad, Alex, Cecelia and Zenna believing I was dead, and definitely not without saying goodbye.

I stared into my mug, wondering if it would help if I could read tea-leaves. Dad would make tea in his favourite glass teapot when I was struggling with decisions. Everything is clearer, he’d say, with a good peppermint tea. All I saw in the mug now was the cold fluorescent light from the ceiling, reflected back at me.

I drained the tea and took the mug to the sink. With a watchful eye on the door, I changed out of my ruined clothes and into the ones Donovan had given me, folding the overlong leg hems up and pushing the sleeves to my elbows. Then, because I felt like these people definitely owed me, I rummaged through the cupboards, unsure what I was looking for until I found it: a jar of Nutella. Not quite roasted almonds, but it would do. I rinsed a teaspoon that was in the sink and followed Stephen’s directions down the corridor, around a corner and through a door at the very end. I came out on a small patio with more flat-pack dining furniture. It overlooked bushland, and there was a treeless clearing in front of the patio that was trying to be a patch of grass. The whole compound seemed to be fenced with tall sheets of green Colorbond, topped with razor wire. Thankfully, the thick bush stretching before me blocked most of that from view.

The thunder had moved on and fat drops of rain started to fall, hitting the earth with loud splats. Fatigue seeped through my body. I leaned against the table and scooped out a spoonful of the choc-hazelnut spread, breathing in the smell of dust and rain.

‘Petrichor,’ said a voice behind me. I turned and almost dropped the jar. It was the boy from the school office, leaning against the door frame. He was still wearing the sunglasses – God only knew why, it was so overcast – and a bemused expression.

‘From the Greek “petri”, meaning stone, and “ichor”, meaning blood of the gods. The CSIRO came up with the word to describe the smell of rain.’

‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded. It would have been more demanding without the thickness of Nutella on my tongue, but this day had been too damn long.

He pretended to look insulted. ‘Why shouldn’t I be here?’

My fingers twitched with an urge to rip the sunglasses off his mocking face. ‘Stephen didn’t mention you.’ Stephen probably hadn’t mentioned a lot of things, but I knew this guy was fibbing, even if I didn’t know why. He laughed. The sound lanced through my headache.

‘Okay, you got me. I snuck in.’

I raised my eyebrows. The fence was ten feet tall.

A coy smile brushed his lips. ‘I have ways.’

‘So you’re stalking me,’ I said. It took all my might not to slump over the table with despair and exhaustion. ‘Why not? Everything else about today has been creepy.’

He straightened, his swagger melting like chocolate left in the sun. ‘You can trust me.’

I took another spoonful of Nutella as I studied him, this strange boy standing before me, fidgeting with his hands like he didn’t know where to put them – pockets, clasped in front, folded behind, dangling. For all my fumbling over the simplest decisions, I’d always had a good sense for people, and strange as he was, he seemed genuine.

‘All right, I’ll trust you. But answer a question for me,’ I said.

He spread his hands, inviting me to continue. The sky beyond us was darkening without a sunset, the clouds too thick. The rain intensified.

‘What would you do … sorry, what’s your name?’

He stepped forward and offered his hand. ‘Keraun.’

I took it. He had a firm handshake. ‘Gabby,’ I said. ‘If you had the option to become superhuman and study crazy-cool science’ – I wasn’t quite game to say “magic” – ‘but it meant you had to leave your family and friends forever, what would you do?’

For an instant, his face tightened, then he shrugged one shoulder and grinned. ‘Easy. I’d choose the magic.’

My heart fluttered at the word, but he said it so casually he might have been joking. Then I thought “magic” could be a metaphor for either incredible science or the love of family and friendship, and I slouched over the table, Nutella in one hand, my head resting in the other. ‘What should I do?’

‘Well, you have no idea what to do with your future and here you are, being given a career and life package complete with human enhancement.’ Keraun made it sound so simple.

‘It’s not a complete life package,’ I protested. ‘Life should involve friends, family, people you love. Not playing dead for the next however many centuries I’ll live. Oh God,’ I moaned, my despair deepening. ‘Centuries. I don’t even know what to do with the next sixty years.’ I dug the spoon in for an epic amount of Nutella.

Keraun gave me an odd look. ‘I think you’ve just made your case. Go back to your friends.’ Then his face softened, and he tilted his head, like he was trying to see me from another angle. ‘But there’s something else.’

It wasn’t a question, but it was nice to talk to someone who wasn’t trying to steer me in any direction. I looked down at the jar in my hand, swirling the spoon in the sticky paste. ‘Dad lied to me about my mum. I don’t want to forget that, or that all this is possible, but if I choose the antiserum that’s what will happen. It’s like … I’ve always felt there was more to the world than I knew. And here it is.’ I looked up. ‘I can’t make this decision in an hour.’

Keraun moved closer, standing opposite me. The wind gusted rain across the table between us. ‘What if I said you didn’t have to forget? What if I could buy you more time on this whole life-changing decision?’

My voice was unsteady. ‘That’d be great. But how?’

He reached over, snatched the teaspoon out of my hand and stuck it in his mouth. ‘Mmm, that stuff is good,’ he said thickly. He swallowed with considerable effort. ‘Stopping the memory mod should be easy. The antiserum…’ he frowned. ‘I don’t know. I might be able to fix it so it delays the process.’

‘Then what?’

‘You make your choice. If you don’t want the transformation, come back in a week and get another dose.’

I nodded. ‘And if you can’t?’

He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I’ll swap it for saline or something. You go through the transformation now, but you’ll be back at home, memory intact.’ A smile tugged his lips. ‘Best of both worlds, right? It’s up to you.’

Either outcome was better than what I had. I nodded. ‘Yes. Please.’

‘Give me half an hour, then tell them you want the antiserum.’ He sauntered back to the door, twirling the teaspoon in his fingers.

‘Wait,’ I called. ‘Won’t you let me know how you go?’

His fingers brushed the chain at his throat. ‘I’ll come back as soon as it’s done.’

‘And after…’ I still had too many questions, and Keraun might be the one to answer them, but shyness doused me like I’d stepped into the downpour. I swallowed. ‘Will I see you again?’

He opened the door and flashed me a wicked grin. ‘Oh, I think so. Good night, Gabrielle Adele Whitehall.’

He left me standing, speechless and spoonless, on the patio. I put the lid on the jar.

***

Keraun didn’t return. By the time my hour was up, the rain had stopped, and I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. I’d have to take my chances that he’d managed what he needed to.

I found Stephen and Donovan back in the kitchen, bent over some notes at the table. They stopped talking when I tapped on the door.

I took a deep breath. ‘I’d like the antiserum, please.’ For a moment, it felt good to make a decision and declare it. Done. No taking it back. But then I remembered that it wasn’t really a decision. Keraun was delaying the inevitable, and I would still have to figure this out. I set my jaw. The main thing was I wasn’t going to have my memory modified, and I wasn’t going to be abandoning my family and friends. The rest, including the lies Dad had told me about my mother, I could figure out later.

Stephen looked at Donovan, who shrugged, then turned his serious eyes to me. ‘Are you sure?’

Definitely not. I nodded.

Donovan leaned back in her chair and flicked her boots up onto the table. ‘It is fun, you know.’

‘I can’t. I have things at home.’ I shifted on my feet. Standing still for too long hurt. Moving hurt. I longed to fall into bed.

She arched her eyebrows. ‘Like what?’

‘Family. Friends. School. A puppy.’ And I meant it. I wasn’t ready to give up my life. Not like this.

‘A puppy?’ Donovan scoffed. ‘You’d give this up for a dog?’

‘We could make arrangements for your schooling,’ Stephen offered. A faint crease pulled at his brow. ‘Do you even have a puppy?’

‘She doesn’t. There’s no trace of fur or dog smell on her,’ Donovan said. I glared at her. She shrugged. ‘I have better senses than most Eventers.’

‘Well, I’d like to get one,’ I declared. ‘And I’d like to go home, please.’

Stephen’s frown faded, leaving a soft sadness on his features, but he stopped arguing.

***

The rest of the evening passed in a blur of tests. Catherine, the medical medium Stephen had mentioned, turned out to be a medical doctor as well, with a whole wing of the building dedicated to her research. She shone lights in my eyes, knocked every reflex in my body with a hammer, pricked me with needles, monitored my heart rate and finally administered the antiserum, which then required an hour of observation. I spent most of the time trying not to be bothered by her perfect features. It was as if someone had gone over her with a photo editor and fixed everything that was slightly off – teeth polished white, golden skin flawless, dark hair ends unsplit and shining against her white lab coat.

‘Okay,’ she said, voice cool and clinical as she unhooked me from whatever machine I was wired up to, ‘now for the memory modification.’ She donned a cap with a battery-powered LED torch attached to the front.

My skin prickled. I’d sort of been hoping that the amnesia was just built into the injection and Keraun had taken care of that. ‘How does it work?’

‘I give you a drug we’ve developed that essentially puts you into a semi-conscious state, a bit like a sleepwalker. You become open to suggestion. Then I recall your memories of the past twelve hours and give you new ones. You’ll be hazy on specifics, but you won’t have a gap. Before we start though, I will need contact information for your parents so they can pick you up from the hospital after.’

She paused, pen hovering over a notepad. I stared at her.

‘Don’t you just know all this stuff? Haven’t you known about me all my life?’ I asked, more aggressively than I’d intended. Unfazed, Catherine shook her head.

‘All we had was Liam telling us roughly when and where your Event would be, and he can usually give us a name, but we didn’t even know what you looked like until today.’

‘Oh.’ I gave the doctor Dad’s mobile number, but I didn’t volunteer our address. He’d made me swear to never give it out. Ever. I realised, with a pulse of regret, that I hadn’t asked Stephen if he’d left the note. If Darkhaven didn’t have my address, who did?

Catherine led me into a different room, a tiny cubicle of blank space. Somehow, they’d plastered the walls so it was hard to see where the wall ended and the ceiling or floor began. The whole room was a uniform white, including the two chairs and a small table holding a tablet. Catherine indicated for me to sit in the centre, leaned in close, and pricked my neck with a needle. She set a tiny blue syringe on the table, picked up the tablet and dimmed the lights. Another press on the tablet and her head torch turned on. It was too bright for this dark room, hard to look at. She sat down so the light was eye level.

‘Look at the light, Gabby,’ she said, voice sinking to a monotone.

‘It’s bright,’ I complained. She didn’t answer, just sat silently while I stared at the floor. Then I remembered that the drug was supposed to make me semi-conscious and compliant, and I looked up, trying not to squint. Keraun must have come through because I felt like a string pulled tight. I focussed on relaxing my face. My eyelid twitched and I willed it to stop.

‘Good. I’m going to remind you what happened to you today, Gabby. Everything is okay. I want you to think about the ocean.’

‘Darkhaven,’ Catherine continued, before I had time to think about the ocean. Instead, I thought about Keraun. Catherine lifted her fingers to a point just in front of my eyes. I let my gaze lift to follow the gesture as she went on.

‘Darkhaven is a place you have never heard of.’

Pause. I tried not to blink.

‘The Netica Project,’ Catherine said, moving her fingers again. ’You’ve never heard of the Netica Project.

’Regeneration. If you are mortally wounded in an accident, you will die.

’Donovan. You did not meet anyone called Donovan today.

‘Stephen. You did not meet anyone called Stephen today.’ And so it went. I sat as still as I could, blinking as little as possible and trying not to do anything un-trancelike such as swallow nervously. I ignored how scratchy my eyes were getting and paid attention to what the doctor said, in case someone spoke to me on the way out and I had to recite what they expected. My story was that lightning had struck a tree nearby in the park and I’d fallen and knocked myself out. A pedestrian found me and called an ambulance. I was treated for a mild concussion at the hospital and discharged after a few hours of observation.

Catherine finally turned off the headlamp, and I allowed myself to relax slightly. She showed me back to my bed, where there was a new pile of clothing that looked remarkably similar to the ones I’d had shredded by the lightning. My Event. A wave of vertigo swirled my head as I changed clumsily out of the oversized clothes. I stumbled against the bed, catching myself with tingling fingers.

The doctor looked around. ‘Don’t worry, it’s normal to experience a lack of coordination. A side effect of the amnesia drug.’

Stephen stuck his head in the door as I finally pulled the hoodie on.

‘Everything go okay?’ he asked, voice low. I guessed I wasn’t supposed to be computing much, and kept my face neutral.

‘She seems a bit wired. Not as relaxed as I would expect,’ Catherine replied.

‘I guess everyone reacts differently. I’ll test her when I drop her off.’

***

It was full dark by the time Stephen helped me into his car to take me home. The storm had passed and I stared out the window at the stars glimmering faintly way above the city lights. We drove past the West Beach exit. I nearly protested but remembered just in time that I was supposed to play along. Stephen parked at the hospital and ushered me into a large, bustling waiting room. No one looked at us twice. He sat me down on one of the hard, plastic waiting room chairs and knelt in front of me.

‘How do you feel, Gabby?’

Nervous. Weird. My feet were tingling. ‘Fine. A bit of a headache,’ I mumbled, remembering to lie.

He nodded. ‘Do you remember what happened?’

I swallowed. ‘I … I was out walking … and there was lightning. I think I fell and hit my head.’

He searched my face. Relax. Relax. I blinked. Tried to drop my shoulders.

‘You’re okay. The doctor said it was just a mild concussion, and to take some ibuprofen if you need it,’ he said, moving to sit next to me. ‘Your dad is coming to get you.’

He reached out then, taking my chin and turning my face to his. My neck felt stiff. His grey eyes were deep and sad, and I didn’t know why, but my heart softened around the edges.

‘Goodbye, Gabby,’ he whispered.

I blinked again, and he was gone.

***

Dad found me ten minutes later. He crossed the waiting room with long strides and crushed me in a bear hug. ‘Gabby! Are you okay? Why are you out here?’

‘Ouch,’ I said.

He let me go. ‘Sorry. What happened?’

‘Nothing, it’s just a headache. I lost my phone though.’

He scrutinised me. I sighed. We weren’t going anywhere yet.

‘I went walking in the storm and I slipped and fell. I hit my head and passed out. A passer-by found me and called an ambulance.’

‘Where’s your doctor? I’d like a word,’ Dad said, rubbing my arm.

‘Let’s just go home, please?’ I asked. ‘She was very busy, she said I was fine. They kicked me out here as soon as they could. Probably need the beds,’ I added, impressing myself with my improvisation.

He frowned. ‘Wait here.’ I hovered as he approached the counter and spoke to the tired-looking clerk. He watched over her shoulder as she searched on her computer, then spoke some more. But Stephen must have fixed something, because Dad came back, put an arm around my shoulders and took me home.

I turned down Dad’s offer of hot Milo and went straight to my room, shutting the door. My bedrooms at Dad’s and Alex’s were pretty similar, although the one at Dad’s was bigger and my desk fit in comfortably. Dad and Alex had decided early on that to minimise the stress of living in two places, I could dictate exactly how I wanted my rooms at any time, and they’d make it happen. As a kid, I’d had them both paint one wall and the ceiling dark blue so I could stick glow-in-the-dark stars everywhere and pretend to be gazing into the night sky. The stars had long since lost their glue and fallen off – some were probably still under my bed at Alex’s, where it was pushed up against the wall. After a fairly inelegant movie poster phase in my first year of high school, I’d had an artsy burst and touched up the tack-damaged paint with metallic silver swirls. Not something I would do now, but I still liked it. The grey carpet in Alex’s apartment supported my colour scheme better than the beige at Dad’s, so Dad had bought a shaggy silver rug to go over the floor. Now I thought it might be nicer to have some contrast between the rooms, but it seemed silly to change the decor when everything was perfectly functional. I pushed aside the pinstriped curtain and opened the window, breathing in the cold night air.

And that was it. I was supposed to just go to bed, wake up, get on with my life and forget all about the possibility of humans having more potential than anyone ever guessed. Well, that was what Stephen thought. If Keraun had kept his end of the bargain, the memory modification drugs they had intended to give me had never made it into my bloodstream. I could think about this for longer. And if I wanted it, I could say goodbye properly. I had no idea where Darkhaven actually was, but Keraun did, and I knew I hadn’t seen the last of him.

I flipped my laptop open to find a dozen notifications: Cecelia. Nancy. Nancy again. Three more from Cecelia. Those were just about missing study and dinner. Then the real panic set in. Dad. He must have talked to Nancy, because then there were another five from Cecelia and two from Zenna.

I sent a quick group message to my friends – sorry, thanks, I’m fine, see you tomorrow – and flopped onto my bed. How was I supposed to say goodbye properly? Because if I was honest, for the briefest moment before the ultimatum came down, I had been excited. Here was the thing I’d been looking for, that spark my teachers had been trying to fan all these years with Dickens and Introduction to the Human Body and flyers for student film festivals. Researching, or whatever it was these people were doing, the very fringe of human potential – quite possibly magic – was about the only thing I’d ever heard of that sounded real. I’d just never figured I’d have to give up the rest of my life for it.

I changed into my Hogwarts pyjamas and crawled under the quilt, wincing as the grazes on my knees pulled. Getting struck by lightning and falling onto the concrete footpath felt like years ago. I expected to lie awake for hours, but as soon as I thought about sleep, I drifted off dreamlessly.