Page 35 of Ringer
She was suddenly terrified. She launched herself to the door, ignoring the pain in her ankle, crying out: there was something behind her, something too terrible to look at; the weight of her fear had transformed into a monster.
She was outside, and the light was blinding. The cows moving across the pasture calmed her only slightly. She was alone and lost. She was shouting Pete’s name without even meaning to, and when she saw movement inside the barn, the shift of color and shadow, she went toward it with her arms outstretched.
“Don’t.Don’t.” His voice stopped her. She’d neverheard anyone sound like that, and in that moment, though she was still standing in the sun, the shadow of the monster behind her reached out and swallowed them. “Don’t come in here. Don’t.”
For a moment he was still invisible. He was corners of himself, an arm and a leg, trying to move out of sticky darkness. And she was drawn toward him, to reach him, to pull him away, and so even as he plunged outside, like someone diving in reverse, she saw behind him the shoes attached to the ankles, and an arm—a small arm, a young arm—held motionless in a slant of light. Even if she hadn’t, she would have known by Pete’s face: it was as if all the skin had come off, as if the fear had come down and planed away everything else.
The barn is where the animals go to die.
He grabbed her, and this time Gemma felt that he was the one in danger of falling. “We can’t stay here,” he said. “We’ve got to get out of here. We have to get out now.” There was blood on his shoes.
She couldn’t move. Her thoughts had frozen: they were rattling together like cubes in a tray. “What happened?” she asked, even though she knew. But she couldn’t quite make sense of it—that pale child’s arm reaching into a triangle of sun, and a man’s feet fanned apart.Bodies.
“Jesus.” Pete was crying. He turned away from her and bent to put his hands on his knees, trying to breathe,retching a little. “Jesus Christ.” He just kept saying it, over and over,Jesus, Jesus,and Gemma felt the clean brightness of the sky above them, felt all the emptiness of that endless hurtle into space.
“She killed them,” she said. The words didn’t sound real. Pete just nodded. He was still doubled over. She wanted to put a hand on his back, but she couldn’t make her arm obey the command.
The barn is where the animals go to die.
Where was she now? Where had she gone? Gemma was freezing, gripped by fear. In the distance, the woods rippled as a breeze passed through the trees. Was someone shouting? She couldn’t think. She thought she heard voices crying out.
“We can’t stay here,” she said, as Pete had. But neither of them moved. It was like a nightmare. Too bright, too warm, too empty.
Voices. She definitely heard voices now, not the phantoms but real people. In the distance a long trail of orange dust unfurled, and then she saw horse carts, three of them, and a cluster of people. They were coming fast, and for a moment she felt nothing but relief. They were saved.
Pete had her shoulders. He shook her, and her teeth jumped together. “You need to run. Don’t you understand? We can’t be here. They can’t find you here.”
“What are you talking about?” Her thoughts were stillfrozen into uselessness. The wagons were closer now. The ground shivered under the vibration of so many hooves. She could make out the men inside them, all men, all dressed in black, all shouting. There was a boy, too, maybe thirteen or fourteen. He was standing, balancing like a sailor on a rolling sea deck, scouting for sure. He was pointing.
“Listen to me, Gemma.” Pete was shouting, but she couldn’t hear him properly.
“Run, Gemma. Listen to me. You gotta move.”
She’d already lifted a hand to wave back, to hail the people in the wagon, because they were waving too, because the boy in front, the one who reminded her of a sailor, was pointing at her.
Pointing, shouting.Angry.
And suddenly she remembered what Calliope had said:
There was a male. He ran off when he saw me.
The cooled coffee with milk congealing into a pale skin on its surface. Half-eaten toast.
You can be my replica.
The men were pouring down off the wagons now, shouting, as the boy still stood with a finger raised, trembling and white-faced with fury, and finally Gemma heard him over the rattling of her heart, over the fear that had her in its grip.
“That’s her,” he was saying. He had the beginnings ofa beard, dark and patchy, and a long, narrow face, but it was his eyes that struck her. They were large and terrible, like holes that had been gouged into his face. “That’s her. That one. That’sher.”
Pete shoved her. The shock of pain when she stepped on her ankle jolted her into her body, into understanding: Calliope had killed people and Calliope had disappeared and Gemma, her replica, would be her substitute.“Run.”
They were swarming toward her, jackets flapping in the wind like capes, so she was reminded of insects, of biblical locusts coming down to bring punishment.
Finally, Gemma ran.
Turn the page to continue reading Gemma’s story. Click here to read Chapter 20 of Lyra’s story.
TWENTY-ONE
