“They spread like gangrene, the ways of the blanks. A doctor doesn’t treat a patient’s gangrene – they chop it out, for they know the only other option is death. Our first leaders knew how to deal with opposition. They were no fools when there was a threat to their way of living. I propose we return to the old ways. The blanks won’t leave us alone. They insist on attacking, in spite of our years of patience. They pollute and ooze their evil ways into our lives. No matter. The time has come for us to cut them off. Saintstone … beginning tomorrow, we will build a wall.”

Brick by brick, my defences rise. There is no point fighting fate – history only repeats, and the winners are all the same.

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-two

I am dropped from the heavens into deep water. A stone that sinks, leaving only a circle of ripples. Although the water is cold, it does not shock me – I am only embraced by a lovely darkness. At the bottom of the water, on the silty ground, are white stones and white bones – skeletal remains of the souls that have been passed over in this place. Lives that were not worth saving, sacrificed for their own good. The claws of a ribcage beckon like loving arms waiting to embrace me, and I plunge deeper still.

I feel the hands of the dead reach out and tug my arms and I gladly submit. Only, the hands pinch my skin with warmth and instead of sinking I feel my body rise up. I want to clutch hold of the grinning skulls beneath me and lay my body on theirs, femur to femur, radius wrapped around rib, metacarpal on spine.

The water wants me: it sucks at me while tugging hands force me along and out. I feel the surface like an umbilical slicing and I cry out, lungs clear.

A baby cries.

I must still be dreaming. I sleep again.

I am held in their arms and wrapped in blankets, brought into their cottage where the fire is lit. One blank, one marked, both with love and concern in their eyes.

They tend to me, feed me, nourish and heal me. The fire melts the ice within me and through the thaw a bud of hope begins to rise.

The sisters coax me back to life with tea and soft singing.

They tell me that I am safe – even when I cry they do not stop saying it. You are safe, you are safe, you are safe.

They show me the candle that has been constantly burning on the table next to where I lie.

“Just a little light,” they say, putting a taper to the candle flame, letting it fizz to life.

“Just a little light,” they say, taking the taper across to the hearth.

“Just a little light,” they say as the kindling singes and smokes.