Things were tense at wushu practice. Wai Bing was still under the mistaken impression that Linua cared about his opinion, and once again stood over her expressing that opinion in a loud voice, to no avail. In the end, having exhausted all his usual tactics, he threatened to report her behaviour to Great-Grandfather Yi.

That truly was a terrifying prospect.

At the same time Linua remembered something Alnan had once said about his time in the military—the moment you have to invoke the power of a higher authority to enforce your will, you lose any remnants of authority of your own.

Linua knew she had won.

And if she could win against Wai Bing, she could win against Grandmother.

Linua came home feeling simultaneously triumphant and embattled. After that, it didn’t take much in the way of acting skills to mope around the kitchen and complain that her head hurt.

She felt bad immediately because Helged at once started making a tisane of her own recipe, and gave Linua a couple of painkillers before asking if she wanted to have a lie down, which she declined. She needed to carry on the performance in front of Grandmother too, during lunch. Grandmother had re-admitted her to the dining room, albeit with visible reluctance, so that was the end of Linua’s nice, cosy lunches with Helged in the kitchen.

“You have a what?” Grandmother asked, her soup spoon paused in front of her mouth.

Linua was very rarely ill. She didn’t blame Grandmother for her surprise.

“I have a headache,” she repeated.

“Oh. Oh dear. Helged, Linua has a headache!”

“I gave her some painkillers, and here is a tisane for her.” Helged bustled in with a cup of rosemary-scented tea in a china cup, which she set down in front of Linua. “She’s probably run down after everything that’s happened recently.”

“Oh,” Grandmother said blankly. “I do hope it won’t interfere with this afternoon’s tutoring session!”

Linua winced and put a hand to her brow.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she said in a subdued voice.

It would have been a lot more fun if she hadn’t felt so guilty about the way Helged was hovering solicitously around her and making special tea. It wasn’t hard to seem distracted with Mdm Patoni, because Linua’s thoughts were mostly occupied with the anticipated trip out that evening, torn between excitement at meeting up and going somewhere with Eret, and dread that she would get caught.

The lesson was interrupted when Helged came into the room and said, in a surprised tone of voice; “Linua, there’s someone on the phone for you.”

Linua never had phone calls. She was immediately afraid that it was Eret calling to say he wouldn’t be able to make it tonight. She swallowed her nervousness and went to the hallway, where Helged had left the receiver lying on the table. She sat down on the hall chair.

The person on the other end of the phone was Anith.

“Is everything okay?”

“I wanted to tell you some things,” Anith said. Her voice sounded hushed, as if she didn’t want to be overheard. “It’s about Eret.”

“Is he not able to…” Linua quickly glanced around the hallway to make sure that no-one was in earshot. “… not able to come tonight?”

“No, he’s planning to go, I gave him some clothes to give to you, but…” Anith paused. “He’s still not okay after the kidnapping last year.”

Eret had seemed to weather it very well as far as Linua could see. He’d bounced back very quickly. But then she’d only seen him once a week, at the Astronomy Club meetings.

“He seemed alright.”

“He pretends he’s all good, but he’s not. I mean, he’s better, but he still … did you know he’s been seeing a therapist?”

“No.” Eret had never mentioned it.

“Of course he’d never tell you. It was only after a monumental effort on my parents’ part that he agreed to go to the sessions at all. There were some days he didn’t want to leave the house and go to school.” Anith paused again. “He doesn’t walk the dog by himself anymore. I mean, we wouldn’t want him to anyway, given what happened, but it was months before he could make himself do it even with someone else along.”

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. It’s not your fault. You saved him.” Anith puffed out her breath in an explosive sound of impatience. “That’s part of the problem, apparently, the lack of agency. Or something. Eret tried to explain it to me once, that it was because he had to be rescued. But anyway, I need you to do something for me.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“What is it?”

“I need you to keep an eye on him. Just in case. I really think we should leave that stupid artefact alone. If someone stole it they’re not going to be happy that we’re all running around trying to find it.”

“Sorry.” It was because of Linua that the Astronomy Club were now hot on the trail.

Anith sighed.

“It’s okay. I’m just worried, because Eret doesn’t have any brakes. Please can you make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid?”

When Eret had been kidnapped it had been Linua who had done all the stupid stuff—walking into the kidnapper’s lair to bargain for Eret, and then afterwards, when they could have walked away, she’d turned around and saved Hoblin the thief, too.

She didn’t say any of that to Anith.

“I’ll do my best,” she said instead.

“Okay. Thank you! I hope you like the clothes!”

Linua jumped when Grandmother’s peremptory voice demanded; “Who was that?”

“It was someone from the Astronomy Club asking if I was going to be allowed to come back,” she said, hanging up.

Grandmother harrumphed.

“Well, I don’t want them calling here. Helged, if they call again, please inform them that Linua is not available. And ask me first if there are any more calls for Linua. You never know, it could be that journalist.”

“Of course, Madame,” Helged said, who had been hovering in the hallway that led to the kitchen. Linua knew that Helged had deliberately not asked Grandmother first, precisely for this reason. She took care to mouth thank you to Helged on her way back to the library where Mdm Patoni was waiting.

At dinnertime, Linua pushed away her dinner half eaten and announced that she would like to go to bed. After the huge drama she had made all afternoon, no-one questioned this. Helged brought her another tisane, a glass of water, and more painkillers, and left the tray on Linua’s bedside table.

Linua felt awful. It was much worse to be deceitful towards Helged than it was towards Grandmother.

Once Helged had gone, she pulled the winter duvet out from the bottom of the wardrobe, rolled it up, and stuffed it underneath the bed covers. She tried to arrange it in a pattern that made it look like she was lying curled up on her side with the covers over her head. After she’d added a few extra bundles of the hated skirts, to make it lumpier where her hips and shoulders would be, it looked quite lifelike.

She stuffed her flip flops in her backpack—she would put them back on when she was out of the house, otherwise they would make too much noise—and crept onto the landing. Grandmother was in the dining room having her supper. Linua waited until Helged had gone back into the kitchen, and she could be sure the coast was clear, then crept down the stairs. She was going to escape out of the downstairs toilet again, since it had worked so well the last time.

By the time she got to the village bus stop she was ten minutes late, and worried that Eret would think she had abandoned him. But no, she spotted his lanky figure leaning against the bus shelter. He straightened when he saw her and grinned.

“You escaped!”

She confessed the stratagem she had used, and he laughed.

“But I have to be back before ten tonight, because Helged will definitely check on me then.” And probably bring hot milk, although Linua didn’t mention that bit in case it made her sound like a baby.

“Yeah, no problem.”

“How are we getting to Bead’s Boats?” Linua asked suspiciously.

Eret pointed smugly to a shiny new moped parked near the bus stop.

“That’s yours?”

“Yep.”

“How on earth did you persuade your parents to get you one?”

“They let Anith have a scooter ages ago.”

Linua wasn’t surprised. Anith was a lot more responsible than Eret, despite being eighteen months younger than him.

“Also,” Eret added, as he straddled the moped. “They did promise they would get me one if I … uh … did something they wanted me to do this year and I did it. They got it for me last month, but they didn’t let me go out by myself until I’d passed the test.”

The thing his parents had wanted him to do had probably been the therapy sessions.

“Wow, it’s amazing!” Linua wished she had a moped. It would solve a lot of problems. She didn’t think you could get a moped for one hundred shekels, and anyway she had some idea that you needed a licence or had to pass a test or something to drive one.

Eret had been digging around in his backpack, but now he heaved out a bulging cloth bag and held it out to her.

“This is from Anith.”

Linua clutched it to herself.

“Mez! Clothes!”

Eret rolled his eyes, but in an amused, indulgent way. He handed her a helmet, and strapped one on himself.

“Shall we get going?”

Linua put on the helmet and climbed on behind him. She had ridden a moped as a passenger once before, and that time she had held onto the handholds at the back. This time, after a brief hesitation, she put her hands around Eret’s waist. He felt lean and warm under her hands. He gave her a smile over his shoulder, and they set off.

Once they were out of the village, and hidden by trees, she made him stop at a layby so she could inspect the clothes Anith had sent. There were two pairs of jeans, both soft and worn, with faded patches around the knees. There were a couple of t-shirts, one pink with a swirl of silver glitter on it, and one white with pale yellow flowers and sequined hearts appliqued to one shoulder. There was a pastel blue top with long sleeves of lighter blue lace. Anith had also put in a couple of scarves, one the inevitable pink and lilac, and one light green with dark green polka dots.

Linua selected the blue top with the lace sleeves and a pair of the jeans, and vanished into the undergrowth to change into them immediately. Anith was taller than Linua, so the jeans were too long, and she had to roll back the sleeve cuffs. But she felt smart and modern for the first time in her life.

“How do I look?” she asked shyly, coming back a little while later.

“Supe,” Eret answered, meaning cool, but his eyes said something else.

Bead’s Boats wasn’t at the docks themselves, but further along at the shabbier end of the beach, where all the smart glass restaurants petered out and were replaced with grubby shacks offering noodles and wraps for garishly low prices. It was also where most of the pleasure boats and tourist rentals were anchored.

“Pickle said he stays open until 9pm during the tourist season,” Eret said.

They’d chosen to walk on the beach itself, through hot, dry sand. Surf washed up on the shore, smoothing the sand flat, while oyster catchers jumped out of the way and then darted in again to hook something tasty with their beaks. Eret tried to persuade Linua to run into the sea with him, but she refused because she didn’t want to ruin the clothes from Anith.

They had walked all the way from the smarter end of the promenade to the shabbier end by the time they saw their destination.