Coldbrook

restaurants, or in home-grown food. But after the fifth mouthful she thought of Melinda and had to concentrate so she could swallow without vomiting.

‘You’ve been through something horrific,’ Drake said. ‘I’ll do whatever I can to help.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. She took a drink of water, then sat back.

‘You didn’t bring any equipment through with you,’ he said.

‘I came through in a rush,’ Holly said, realising that he knew all this anyway. They must have been watching her from the moment she stepped through the breach.

Drake had guided her to a cave lined with wood panelling and light blue fabric. The ceiling was bare rock, but the furnishings were comfortable and functional. A fire burned in a pit in one corner, smoke rising to a hole in the ceiling. There were light switches here too — and power points, and a phone socket — but they all looked redundant. The basic arrangements seemed incongruous set among this evidence of technology.

There was a bed against one wall, and several curtains hung from wires against the opposite wall, forming what Holly took to be a storage area. She guessed that it was Drake’s room — many items were scattered around, some of which she could identify. There were also several pairs of leather shoes beneath the bed, along with a few smaller and more delicate footwear items.

‘Your Earth. .’ Drake said. She could sense his eagerness to ask, but she doubted that it exceeded her own.

‘What did you do to me?’

Drake sat back again and averted his eyes. ‘Our doctor carried out some tests.’

‘What kind of tests?’

‘She’s a female doctor, very gentle,’ Drake said, not answering the question.

‘You say this is Coldbrook?’ Holly asked. ‘In the United States?’

‘That’s an old name for our country, but yes. And you’re from Coldbrook, too?’

Holly nodded. She looked at the patch on his jacket again, the three interlocking circles that was so similar to her own Coldbrook symbol.

‘We tried to guard the wound you made in the land,’ Drake said. ‘But one of them must have-’

‘One of your furies.’

‘They’re not our furies.’

‘So one of them must have what?’ Holly asked.

‘Gone through. I’m sorry.’ He stared at her for a moment, and then picked up some more meat.

‘I don’t know how bad my world is,’ Holly said. Drake would not look at her. ‘Do you know?’

‘No,’ he said. He stood and turned, and she knew that he was lying.

‘Drake?’

‘I need to make arrangements. I’ll be back,’ he said. ‘We can’t keep you locked up in here.’

‘Drake, what’s happening there? Tell me if you know.’

‘I don’t know,’ he said again, but still he would not look at her.

‘God help us,’ she whispered. And this time Drake did look, freezing where he stood by the heavy wooden doorway, his eyes wide.

‘You obviously haven’t met the Inquisitor yet, so I’ll allow you that.’

‘Allow me-?’

‘God,’ he whispered. Then he slammed and locked the door behind him. He hadn’t really answered any of her questions.

There was plenty of food left, but Holly was no longer hungry.

‘So what’s next?’ she asked the silence. ‘Bad cop?’

It was Drake who opened her door again half an hour later, and he had two women with him. One of them carried a tall glass of wine, another a bowl of berries, bearing them like gifts.

‘This is Moira,’ Drake said, and the short, muscled woman who’d accompanied her on the stretcher smiled a greeting.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Moira said. It was strange hearing her voice after seeing her communicate with sign language and expressions.

‘And you,’ Holly said. ‘Thanks for helping me.’

Moira nodded but seemed tense, her eyes wide and expectant.

‘And I’m Paloma.’ The other woman was tall and severe-looking, her coffee skin speckled across her left cheek and neck with what might have been burn scars, or the remains of an old illness. She stepped forward in front of Moira and placed the bowl of berries on the table. ‘I hope you liked the rabbit. I caught and cooked it.’

‘It was delicious,’ Holly said.

Paloma stepped back and Moira came forward, her hand shaking as she placed the wine gently on the table. ‘And she’s exactly like us?’

‘As far as I can tell,’ Paloma said.

Moira nodded and backed away, and the moment grew ever more surreal.

‘You’re the doctor?’ Holly asked.

‘I do my best with what we have,’ Paloma said.

‘And Paloma is my wife,’ Drake said. He remained outside the room, letting the two women go through their routine.

‘So, you’ve established that I’m human,’ Holly said. Paloma nodded and Moira stared. ‘Why do I still feel like an exhibit?’

Moira laughed and turned away. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I’ve never seen someone from-’

‘We have something to show you,’ Drake cut in. Moira raised her eyebrows — annoyed rather than chastened by Drake’s interruption, Holly thought — and Paloma smiled for the first time.

‘So I’m not a prisoner any more?’

‘You never were.’

Holly stood, taking a sip of the wine and swallowing a handful of berries. They could be drugged, or poisonous, but the women could have harmed her in either way without the subterfuge. So she accepted their gifts and sat back down.

Drake shifted uncomfortably, Moira looked back at him, and Paloma simply stared at Holly.

‘Tell me one thing before I come with you,’ she said.

‘Of course,’ Drake said, and there was a vulnerability in his voice she’d never detected before.

‘What’s beyond the hills?’ Holly asked. ‘What else is out there?’

‘The rest of our world,’ he said. ‘Our Earth.’

Holly nodded, her heart thudding as she remembered the way that zombie — that fury — had come through the breach. Staggering, slow, weathered away.

‘It ended,’ Paloma said. ‘Before I was born. The furies’ threat lessens as they age, but they left little behind.’

Holly felt sick. It was a truth that she had expected, but to hear it spoken was still a shock.

‘And you fight them with just bows and arrows?’

‘Silence is our best defence when we’re out in the open,’ Drake said. ‘That’s why we use. .’ He signed, clicking his fingers, and smiled at whatever he had said. ‘And why we find it safer using bows and crossbows — anything louder would be foolish. Destroy what’s left of their brains and they become still. Properly dead. An arrow or a bolt usually does it. But decapitation makes sure.’

‘Are you the only ones still fully human?’ Holly asked, barely able to speak because the answer might be so awful.

‘There are isolated islands of survivors,’ Moira said. ‘A few communities here and there. Wanderers. The older ones tell us what it was like before, and there are books.’

‘So we do mourn what should have been,’ Paloma said, as if to know that was important.

‘I’ll tell you the rest while we walk,’ Drake said.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Down into Coldbrook. You don’t think we spend our lives living in caves, do you?’ He smiled that confident