Page 109 of Breaking the Dark

Barton Wallop, Essex, UK

From her hidden office at the back of the farmhouse, Polly hears the dogs barking. She swivels in her chair so that she can see the monitor that correlates with the camera by the front gates, and there they are, Sebastian’s twins, waiting in the lane with their bicycles, looking around uncertainly.

She hears Ophelia greeting them over the intercom and then she hears the girl replying, “Hi. My name’s Lark. I’m with my brother, Fox. We just arrived here for the summer and our dad’s friend told us that there was a girl here named Belle?”

“Yes. That’s right. Did you want to speak to her?”

“Er, yeah, sure. If that’s okay?”

“Of course it’s okay! Come in, come in. Follow the driveway around to the right, it’s about a quarter of a mile. And ignore the dogs, I’ll get them to back off.”

Through the speaker, Polly hears the dogs start to settle. Then the lock clicks and the gates separate and the twins pass through with their bikes. She swallows down a sharp breath of nerves. They’re here. This is it. The final hurdle. She has four weeks before Fox and Lark head home to New York. Four weeks to be certain that the app really does work. And what better people to test it on than two gorgeous American teenagers who will take Miranda four thousand miles away. If it still works in NYC, then it will work everywhere.

She turns to face the monitors that display views of the kitchen and the hallway. A few minutes later, she sees the twins walk in and Belle get up from where she was sitting at the kitchen table.

“Hi,” says the girl twin. “I’m Lark.”

“Hi,” says the boy twin. “Fox Randall. Happy to meet you.”

“Hi,” says Grace. “I’m Belle.”

“And I’m Debra,” says Ophelia. “Belle’s family live abroad, so I take care of the house and of Belle during the holidays. Sit down, you two, let me get you something cold to drink, it’s so incredibly hot out today. What would you like? I have Cokes, Sprites, juice, fizzy water?”

Polly stares into the faces of the twins on her screen, looking for physical responses to the setup they’ve walked into, but she can tell they’re simply beguiled: beguiled by the cutesy old-world charms of the farmhouse, beguiled by the beauty of Belle, the warmth and kindness of Debra, the herd of handsome dogs panting at their feet looking for ear scratches.

Ophelia hands them all ice-cold Cokes and they chat for a while before Ophelia says, “Why don’t you take the twins outside to show them your new quad bike, Belle?”

Polly waits until she sees the three children leaving the kitchen on her monitor before sliding back the fake wall that separates her quarters from the back of the house and heading towards the kitchen.

Ophelia glances at her coolly as she walks in. “Well,” she says. “They came. Now what?”

“Now we just wait and see.”

Ophelia shrugs. “I don’t like this.”

“No,” says Polly. “I know you don’t.”

“They’ll talk, Polly. They’re bound to. And people will ask questions. As far as the village is concerned, Debra Phipps lives here alone.”

“They’re not going to talk to anyone in the village.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know that. Sebastian is totally antisocial, and so are the kids. But anyway, you can control what they remember, you can control what they say. You have the power.”

“Well, I only wish that were true. I wish I could make you do what I want you to do.”

“You could overpower me if you could be bothered.”

“I don’t have the strength, Polly. Not anymore. I’m too old and you’re too strong.”

Polly sighs and looks at Ophelia affectionately. “Ophelia, I’m just a girl. A mortal. How can I ever be stronger than you?” She sighs again. “I can’t believe you’re the same girl John told me about in that bar in Harlem all those years ago. That sexy, powerful girl who excited him so much, who turned his world upside down. And now you’re happy to get old, to shuffle off, to leave this world the same way you found it when you go.”

“Don’t you see, Polly, don’t you see? I have Arthur. That’s my super-power now. It’s in him, all of me is in him. I wanted more than immortality, more than youth, more than power. I wanted a child, Polly, even if it cost me everything. But you don’t understand that, and I don’t expect you to.”

“No, Ophelia, I really don’t understand it. If I’d been born with your gifts, your powers. I’d have turned the world upside down with them. I mean, you only managed two hundred years? I’d have been going strong at a thousand and still wanting more.”

Ophelia shakes her head. “You have no idea,” she says, “no idea what it’s like to see everyone you love die. To never grow up. To see the same shiny twenty-year-old face staring at you from a mirror every single day of your life. To never feel the visceral skittishness of time passing too fast, the fairground ride of life zooming by. We were not designed to be here forever. This world is not designed to trap souls for infinity, like butterflies behind glass. This world was designed for a good time, not for a long time. Its pleasures fade after a while, and they are meant to. We are meant to leave this world wanting more of it. But…” She sighs. “No, Polly, I don’t expect you to understand. You and I are very different creatures.”

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