SEVEN

This train terminates here

Caila breathed in the familiar aroma of damp clothes, bacon and coffee, and glanced across the concourse.

London Victoria. Five days ago, she’d arrived the normal way, by train on platform nineteen, jostled along in a torrent of commuters on her way to the office. It had been ages before raids and Hobson's choices. Aeons before the end of the world. Out of habit, she glanced at the dispassionate heralders of dinner-desecrating delays and cancellations. Their golden letters glowed radiantly, informing weary travellers it was eight thirty-eight and fifty-nine seconds, and no Southern trains would arrive or depart for at least another hour. That was one thing that hadn’t changed.

An invisible arm grabbed the back of Caila’s jumper and dragged her behind the coffee bar, away from the crowds.

- I told you to cloak, - Mateos, her Neteruian liaison, hissed, using lectanimo ­– mind communication, something she would have dismissed as an unviable concept only five days ago.

Caila turned around to check herself in the WHSmith window, where her husband's features frowned back at her from beside a poster advertising half-price on all diaries* (*only this year’s). Mixing lectanimo with whatever this Spocky beam me up thing was, she’d confused cloaking with masking and morphed into a perfect copy of Chris. Chris – Caila cursed herself for her carelessness –, who’d shot to fame, ranking second in the Met’s top ten of most wanted. A chart topped, with a star, by herself. Quite an accomplishment, even if she said so herself, for a fifty-two-year-old mathematician whose life until a week ago consisted of eat, commute, work, commute, eat, sleep, repeat.

- Sorry, - Caila side-eyed Mateos. His six-foot-tall, human-like contours, veiled by a silver-grey diaphanous haze would be invisible to all and sundry. That’s what she should have been too, invisible to the world.

About to rectify her error, Caila scoured the entrance hall and froze. Perfectly timed, entering stage left from platform twelve, Rob emerged. Facing her, but mercifully looking down, her colleague paused to return his ticket to his inside pocket before, at a leisurely pace, he continued towards the main Victoria Street exit.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Caila concentrated on cloaking. She only needed to focus and imagine a soft warm coat aroun—

- Cloak, Caila, now, - Mateos said, sharply, behind her. While ahead, Rob made a sharp quarter turn and strolled towards WHSmith, this time looking straight at her.

Even at the best of times, Caila’s performance under pressure lacked sadly, and right now qualified as the worst of times squared. Nervously, she glanced over her shoulder, at the reflection in the shop window. Auburn hair, five-foot-small, her own bright-green eyes gazed back at her. Visible, one hundred percent.

“Cai. Hey, Caila,” Rob shouted, skidding to a halt beside the information booth, “Where have you been? The police were in the office, they are looking for you.”

Mateos cursed as two police officers who stood nearby, turned around. One mouthed something into his radio. Then he nodded at his colleague and together, their hands raising their semi-automatics just that little bit higher, they moved cautiously towards her.

With clenched fists, Caila took a step back. But with a bulwark of shops behind her, and more police now closing in from all other sides, her options of escape were limited to breaking through WHSmith’s reinforced shop window or scaling the not very impressive heights of Nero’s Express booth.

- Cloak, Caila, cloak. - Mateos’s voice was frantic.

There were eight officers now, four pairs, who moved swiftly along a 190-degree arc to minimise her escape options, which were limited to five evenly distributed and equally implausible vectors in between. Caila heard the buzz of a radio, and the nearest policeman aimed his gun at her. Paralysed with fear, she stared into the black-eyed nozzle of his semi-automatic. Rob stood frozen sixteen metres from her, his mouth agape.

“Coat,” she murmured, “Warm, cosy coat.” But as uniforms flooded the hall, stampeding towards her from exits and entrances, bounding down escalators and jumping over ticket barriers, the words were hollow and meaningless.

On the concourse, the bubble of apathetic commuters burst, spouting jets of passionate athletes in all directions. Some dived over the counter into the information booth which quickly welled over, but most hurdled to safety in shops and restaurants. Then there were the brave few, who lingered to watch or film the event that injected some excitement in their midweek commute.

Twenty feet from Caila, the officers formed a tight semicircle. They shouted something, words which Caila’s ears translated into a meaningless buzz. Then, backed by ‘The Gatwick Express terminates here’ from platform thirteen, they raised their guns and took aim. The crowds hushed.

In the pernicious silence, Caila stared dead ahead. They weren’t going to shoot her. Not in here. People were watching. Filming. She dug her nails into her palms and tried again. Coat, coat, warm soft coat. But rigid with fear, her body remained in a state of inertia, synaptic responses jammed by solidified terror.

“Mateos,” Caila whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Faintly, she heard his voice, urging her to lift her hands.

That, even if her arms weighed a ton, she could do. Anyone could raise—

A cool breeze touched her face, and the sweet smell of spring dissipated the aroma of damp clothes, bacon and coffee. It held a promise of summer, of a new beginning. Honeydewed, hyacinth and apple blossom. Petrichor, musky and fresh. The gentle breeze caressed her skin, and Caila smiled like everyone else on the concourse. Police, commuters, conductors, drivers, ticket agents and collectors, shopkeepers, they all smiled and gazed up, reliving their fondest memories. The tranquillity lasted a fraction of a second. Then they were gone.

The last day
Five days earlier, Friday, 15 September

“Hey, sleepyhead.”

Caila pulled her bag onto her lap and looked into Steve’s laughing, dark brown eyes.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” and suppressing a yawn, Caila grimaced. The train was warm, too warm, and the monotone rhythm of the wheels on the rails was somniferous.

“You so were.” Steve, a friend and colleague from two jobs back, grinned and grabbed the handle atop of Caila’s seat, as the driver of the 7:48 from East Croydon to London Victoria pulled into the station and used his brakes to shake-wake-and-propel his passengers into action. “You snored.”

“Never.”

“What’s that?” Steve asked, looking at Caila’s bandaged left hand while he pulled her off her seat.

“Nothing, really, just a little disagreement with the oven.”

“You should get rid of that oven, the two of you have way too many arguments. Front, side, or back exit?”

“Front. I’m only going to the office to pick up a book I left on my desk, then I’m going to enjoy my day off. You?”

“Side. I have a meeting at Defra, ... Oi,” Steve ground to a halt and, as commuters bumped into his back, peered up. “There,” he said, pointing at the cross-beamed metal rafters which heaved under the weight of Victoria’s aging arched roof, “I thought it was pigeons only up there.”

Caila looked up too, at the tall bird who, with his gleaming dark eyes, scrutinised the commuters under his raven-black feet. Then the raven stretched its legs, spread its wings, and glided gracefully on to the next crossbeam. Caila laughed, “I hope the Tower ravens are all accounted for, or this could bode ill for London.”

“That is ...” Steve dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “for the Kingdom; better not tell the queen.” Steve grabbed two copies of Metro and handed one to Caila. “See you later,” he said, turning right, flapping his paper overhead, “and give my best to your hubby”.

Sipping at her travel mug, Caila tagged along behind the commuters and peered at the top floors of the insurance office where she worked as a data scientist. Not today, though. Today—

Erit sapiens.

Caila’s smile gave way to a pinched-lipped pique. The words had been stuck in her head since ... since Steve’s sleepyhead remark. Erit sapiens. Latin? Caila frowned. Her knowledge of the language was limited to ad nauseam and carpe diem, but the words had a similar ring.

///

Caila had made it in and out of work, procuring her paperback at the scant cost of a run-in with a watercooler and being asked to apply for a team leader position she didn't want.

Now, balancing a tray, Caila manoeuvred to the only vacant table in the middle of the restaurant in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and with a sigh of relief, lowered the tray onto the table and dumped the evidence of a morning well spent in Oxford Street underneath. As she breathed out, the sunglasses she’d clutched between her teeth tumbled down and bounced off the table, and her specs would have landed on the abrasive terracotta tiles if it hadn’t been for an attentive stranger.

“Thank you,” Caila turned around to express her gratitude to ... to no one. With a giggle, she peeked up through her eyelashes, slumped in her chair, and added, “Thanks, ghost.”

She could’ve been late – Chris was always late, about a quarter of an hour usually. Sipping her hot chocolate, Caila looked around the Gamble Room. Until the ornate fireplace invoked a feeling of déjà vu, succeeded by an echo of those two nonsensical little words, with one extra thrown in for good measure: ‘Erit sapiens. Khered.’

“Khered,” Caila shivered and looked away from the gloomy firebox. Fishing her mobile from her bag, she mumbled, “What’s wrong with me?”

From the next table, a sour faced woman shot Caila a tight-lipped frown.

“Sorry,” Caila mouthed, as she consulted google.

‘Erit sapiens’ Google said, ‘is Latin for, Be wise’.

“Ehh?!” In disbelieve, Caila stared at her phone.

‘Annihilation of Earth, Khered. Your final verdict.’ Her mind hurled a fresh challenge at her.

“Hey, darling.”

Caila jumped at the hand on her shoulder.

“Wow,” said the man, tall, with light brown hair, which retained a tinge of the red he was born with, and matching fair skin, “You were miles away.”

“Chris!” Caila smiled. Chris always made her smile. Was it possible for a honeymoon to last a lifetime? She stood on tiptoes to kiss her one-foot-taller better half. “I bought you a new jumper. You’ll love it, it’s purple.”

Chris frowned, doubtfully.

“It’s a manly shade of purple,” Caila laughed. “How did the software deployment go?”

“Not a hitch.” Chris drained Caila’s mug. “But I’m famished. Shall I get something to eat? Salad, sandwich, soup, pie ... more time to decide? The restaurant doesn’t close until five.”

“Ha, very funny. But I checked the boards,” Caila wiggled an index finger – her mother had taught her it was impolite to point – at the menus over the hot food counter, “Kale and cheddar onion tart, please, and a mixed leaves salad.”

“That is a personal record, darling.” Chris pulled his wallet from his bag, “I’ll never understand how someone so indecisive can make a career out of decision making.”

“Simples, my dear Chris, I use algorithms and decision trees.” Caila held up her mobile to Chris, ignoring the silver-grey haze who appeared on her other side, “I made an app to decide what to order at Pret A Manger?”

“You’re hopeless,” Chris laughed, carefree, oblivious of the ghostly grey figure who glared at him over Caila’s shoulder.

///

That evening, at home, Caila showed Chris his new jumper. Satisfied it wasn’t too bright, he smiled and remarked Caila’s hand didn’t appear to have given her much trouble.

“My hand?” Caila examined her bandages. London’s grime had left its mark. She opened her hand, balled it into a fist, and stretched her fingers back out again. “It feels fine. Like ... like normal, actually.” She reached for the curled-up edge of the tape, “Shall I have a peek?”

“I’ll do it.” Chris took a first aid kit and laid out clean gauze, scissors and tape. “Hold still.” Squinting, he peeled back the tape. Then peeking up at his wife’s face, he lifted the edge of the smudged gauze, and said, “Tell me if it hurts.”

Caila giggled. A surgeon prepping a patient for open heart surgery couldn’t be more focused and meticulous.

“What—” Chris’s jaw dropped, and his expression changed from over-the-top, sweet spousal concern to wide-eyed dumbfounded-ness.

“What? What is it? My hand hasn’t turned green with pink and purple dots, has it?” Caila pulled her hand out of Chris’s. “Eh,” she gasped, swallowing and turning the offending appendage. No blisters, no redness, just perfectly healthy skin. Like her right hand. Caila compared them.

“I guess, I don’t have an excuse for not doing the dishes then?” Stroking the flawless skin of her left hand with the tips of her fingers of her right, Caila eyed yesterday’s caked-on pasta tray in the sink.

“You normally heal quickly, but this is ridiculous,” Chris looked worried. More so, even, than twenty-four hours ago, when he’d cooled Caila’s hand under the tap and suggested going to A&E. “That was fire-engine red, blistering.”

“Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked,” Caila tried, despairing. “If you’re really worried, we’ll Google it.” She hated people making a fuss. Even from Chris she accepted fussiness only in small doses. “I can hardly go to the doctor’s and ask him why my hand got better after I burned it a little bit.”

“A little bit much you mean, and it healed within a day, completely.” Chris studied Caila’s hand again. “But all right. Let’s have a glass of wine, and then we’ll turn in.”

Two hours later Caila woke up and picked Gifts of the Crow – one sixth of the yield of that afternoon’s bookstore crawl – up from the floor. It must have slipped from her hands as she dozed off. She switched off her bedside light and, at the sound of two soft caws just outside the window, smiled. There was a chapter on corvid language in her new book.

“Night, darling,” she whispered, snuggling up to Chris who slept like a log.

But then, as her eyes adjusted to the dark, Caila noticed a tall silver-grey shape, floating from the corner by the door to the foot of their bed, where it stopped to watch her.