Engn II

XIV

XIVDiane and Finn rode together all that day, and the next. Diane, at least, seemed happier now Whelm was gone. They came across very little destruction, and she talked excitedly about seeing her family again. Despite all his gloom about losing Whelm and the reader, Finn had to smile at the sight of her. It was good to see her laughing again as she recounted tales from her girlhood. He'd visited her home several times and always received a warm welcome. He couldn't help wondering about Whelm, though. Would the ex-master be pursued? Would they ever see him again? If not, how was Finn ever going to assemble another spindle reader? Perhaps he couldn't. Some of his hope from the day before ebbed away.

The light was fading to grey when they rounded the foot of a round hill and saw fires blazing in the distance. They looked welcoming, but the sight of them stopped Diane mid-sentence as she recounted another of her tales. The shock on her face was alarming to see.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Those fires are coming from my home,” she said. “I know what they are. Finn, there are funeral pyres burning.”

A day later, Finn sat with Diane on top of a hill overlooking the remains of her village. It was a height she had scaled often as a girl. A place to sit and think, above the world, separate from it. A place for perspective, something like his tree. Maybe she'd been up there once, looking down, while he'd been up the oak on Three Tree Hill, the two of them enjoying their separation from the world without knowing about each other. Now they were together, arm in arm on the springy grass, the wind tousling their hair, blowing the cries of birds at them. Below them, the place that had once been her village lay in ruins, as if some giant had come along and trampled it to pieces.

Diane sat with her head resting on his shoulder, both of them lost in their thoughts. The pyres were still burning down below. One for each person lost, including the one for Diane's mother and the one for Diane's father.

The plumes of smoke from the fires rose vertically into the evening sky. Thirty or forty feet up, the breeze catching them, the grey columns merged into a single cloud. The sight pleased him, as if the smoke were their souls reuniting. Some said the sparks from the pyres were people's spirits spiralling upwards to join the stars. He knew that wasn't true, but still it was a comfort. Sometimes you told yourself things like that to try and make some sense of what was happening. They were stories, nothing more, but stories could make you feel better even if you knew they were just stories.

“Do you think it's true?” said Diane, breaking the silence. “What Connor's mother said about the earthquakes? How we caused them by destroying Engn?”

“I don't see how,” said Finn. “Her mind was tangled up in itself.”

“But you're still going to go, aren't you?”

There was only one answer he could give. “I am. I think there's something that still needs to be done, I really do.” He kissed her on the top of her head. Her hair smelled of wood smoke. “But I don't want to leave you, especially not now, especially after all this.”

She didn't speak for a moment. Then she slipped a thin knife from inside her boot. She handed it to him.

“Cut my hair.”

“What?”

“Cut it. Long hair is useless in the wilds – it gets matted and tangled. It gets in the way when you fight. Cut it so it's how it used to be.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm coming with you,” she said.

That threw him. He desperately wanted her to come, but he hadn't been prepared for her wanting to. For some reason, the unexpected change of heart troubled him.

“But why? You've said often enough you don't ever want to go there again.”

She didn't reply for a moment. At the foot of the hill, a single figure crept from one of the ruins towards the wide river. One of the few survivors.

“There's nowhere else to go, is there?” said Diane. “There's nothing here for me anymore. And if you're off to Engn, I don't want to head back up the valley alone.”

“My whole family is there,” said Finn. “They're your family now. My parents and Shireen and Nathaniel. Mrs. Megrim. All of them. You'd obviously be welcome there even without me.”

Diane nodded. “I know. But I don't want you going alone. And I need to do something. If it is all starting up again, if those timing signals are from Engn, if the earthquakes are somehow caused by it, I want to make sure we destroy it properly this time. Destroy it for good. This thing with the spindle and the secret trail – I don't see it, to be honest. I think you're wrong, and I think you're a bit obsessed, my love. But we do need to make sure the machine is properly destroyed. And Connor's dead and Whelm's gone, so it's up to you and me, isn't it?”

Finn put his arm round her and held her tight. “I thought you were going to tell me to go and not come back. I thought I might not see you again after today.”

“You really thought that?”

“I did.”

She sighed and stared off into the distance. “If anyone from my family had survived, I would have wanted to stay, for a while at least. To help. But now everything is different. Now I'm coming with you.”

“When do you want to leave?” asked Finn.

She considered for a moment. “In a day or two. I'd like to stay that long at least. Make sure I've done everything I can. Say goodbye to things. To people.”

“Take as long as you need,” said Finn. “When you're ready, we'll leave for Engn together.”

“Okay.”

When he'd finished slicing through her golden hair, the pool of it on the grass around her, they sat in silence together once more. The shattered world lay peaceful in the evening light.