Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen (the gingerbread man read aloud TXT) 📗

was his funeral today. That’s why I’m wearing this.’ I pulled at my black clothes uneasily. ‘I don’t usually look quite this maudlin.’

Thomas reached for my hand and I held on to him gratefully. We didn’t speak for a while, which I liked about him. There was a quiet between us but it didn’t matter, the way he touched me was more comforting than words.

We walked and walked that night. At each turning, we just chose a left or a right. At each junction, we patiently waited to cross the road. At times I would sneak a look at him but he would always notice and meet my glance with a smile.

I shivered, even through my black coat. The rain sank insidiously through the layers and chilled me.

‘This is no good,’ Thomas said. ‘I would happily walk around with you until the sun comes up. But I’m rather worried you might get hypothermia.’

‘I’ve had a good time. On a night where I didn’t think that was remotely possible. But I’d better go home.’

‘I’ll walk you.’ We laughed together again and then as naturally as if we’d been united for years, we fell into each other. He kissed me on my forehead and then down in a line, in between my eyebrows, on the tip of my nose, on the ridge above my lips.

And suddenly I didn’t feel as cold.

NOW

I’m almost out of the door of the restaurant. If I’d not stopped to look at the robin, I would have missed it.

The Spheres flash with a familiar image – it’s a building, grey, squat and large. I recognise it immediately and just seeing it makes my lungs crush, all the breath in my body is expelled so quickly I feel it as pain. It’s the building I have just come from. The building where Mimi was hidden.

I don’t need to read the headlines, or hear the disembodied voice to know the story. I catch a glimpse of the dark, short-haired boy I saw asleep in bed carried out by an enforcer. He looks very small in his arms. I notice that he is still asleep.

More OSIP raids found hidden babies. It appears they have been heavily drugged.

I catch sight of a figure in the crowd for just a second before the camera pans away. It’s the way he is standing, it’s the shape of his face. I only see him for a second but it’s him, I’m sure.

He is outside the building in the crowd watching the children being brought out.

Thomas.

* * *

I’d gone back to the library in the South East quarter.

When we had received our first few IPSs it struck me that that was where I should go. I felt myself pulled there, magnetised towards it. I arranged with Thomas that he should take Mimi for part of the morning, then I set off towards the hospital, in a winding route.

When I walked in, the first time that I had been back there since I’d got the formula milk for Evie, there was no one there. A different puzzle was on the table. It was not quite finished, missing just a handful of pieces in a patch near one of the corners.

‘Hello,’ I called out. ‘Anyone here?’

A woman with short, untidy bobbed hair appeared from the storage cupboard.

‘Hi there, can I help you?’ she said. It took me a moment to realise that it was the same young woman that I’d seen on my first visit. Her hair had grown out in that time. She looked like she hadn’t slept properly in days, her skin pale, almost translucent. But it was definitely her.

‘I hope so.’

* * *

What I never liked about the plan was that it all depended upon on us being split up from each other.

‘But you have to go separately,’ Iris said shortly. ‘Travelling as a family is too conspicuous.’ That was her name, Iris, the young woman at the library. She reminded me of the flower, her thin body resembling its spear-like stalk, surging from the ground.

‘Mimi would go first. She’d be taken to a safe place – somewhere you have no affiliation to, somewhere no one would begin to consider looking. And then you’d leave too, staying in safe houses, moving from quarter to quarter. Always moving.’

‘And Mimi—’

‘She’d be looked after,’ Iris cut in. ‘We are connected to a network of helpers through the libraries. Some people think libraries are obsolete now but in a way that’s helped our movement. They underestimate the power of this space to unite us.’ Iris’s eyes glowed as she spoke.

‘When do we see Mimi again?’

‘After that, you and… what’s your partner’s name?’

‘Thomas.’

‘You separate too. We’ll get you both onto different boats, take you across the Channel. Then you’ll all meet up.’

‘In France,’ I said dully. My mind swarmed with the little I knew of our neighbouring country. The democratic government over there had been overthrown years ago and I’d heard stories of child-trafficking. I wished that I felt something like relief or conviction but though Iris was offering me the kind of lifeline that I hadn’t dared to dream of, I was numb with doubt. ‘It just doesn’t seem possible that we can do this.’

Iris didn’t linger on my reservations. ‘And from there, Germany. They are still receiving immigrants. You’ll get support there.’

‘In Germany,’ I tried to sound convinced although the enormity of what Iris was telling me was too much to imagine.

‘It’s the only way,’ Iris said shortly. ‘Or you stay here. You know what will happen if you do that. Think it over. Talk to…’

‘Thomas,’ I said again.

‘But don’t leave it too long if you want to do it. There’ll be someone else who will take the space.’ She turned away from me and picked up a small stack of books that were on the desk in front of her. I could tell my hesitance was irritating to her.

‘Has it worked? For other people?’ I blurted out.

‘Yes.’ She paused. ‘For some of them, yes.’

*