Thyla - Kate Gordon [71]
Isaac looked at me and then back to you.
‘I will explain,’ he said, softly. ‘I’ll explain everything. But not now. All you need to know for now is that the Sarcos were here to protect the girls. And our pack does nightly patrols here for the same reason, as we have done since the school was built. I thought Tess would be safer here than anywhere, with our protection.’
‘Okay,’ you said. ‘Maybe that’s okay. I don’t know.’
‘It was necessary, Rache,’ Isaac said. ‘Please leave it at that for now, yeah?’
You nodded.
‘Now, Rache,’ said Isaac, clearing his throat. ‘There is something else I need to tell you. Something else happened out there, in the bush …’
I heard Isaac tell you about Ms Hindmarsh. I heard the little cry you gave, and saw his hand reach out to touch your shoulder as you struggled against tears. I saw it all, Connolly. But at the same time, it felt as though I was a thousand miles away, and the words were just far-off specks on the horizon.
My body was tired: aching, seizing, shifting and humming. It felt as though all my joints were somehow loose and floppy. Like my limbs were made from porridge.
It felt like my brain was too full of words, memories, ideas and emotions.
Sara was dead.
Ms Hindmarsh was dead.
Mr Beagle was dead.
Rhiannah was gone – taken.
I was a shapeshifter. I was immortal. Isaac was immortal.
And Perrin was … I could see his face. I adored his face. It filled my mind. But he was a Sarco.
It was too much. It was –
Blackness hit me like a rock thrown at my head, and I was wrapped in shadows.
The lights were so bright they were like darkness. My eyes watered. It felt as though they were bleeding.
I opened my mouth, and what I wanted to be a scream came out as a whimper.
I pushed my eyes closed again, then opened them immediately. My mind was an even scarier place to be than the outside world.
I remembered.
I remembered everything.
I am Tessa. I am a Thyla. I used to be human, a very long time ago. My mother was a prisoner. Her name was Dora Geeves. She was from England. She was transported to Tasmania and imprisoned in the female factory when she was pregnant with me. I lived in the Female Factory most of my life, apart from those few years at boarding school, when I learned to be a lady: a skill I had little use for later in life, but one of which I was intensely proud. After boarding school, the Factory became my world again. I knew how things worked there. I was tough. I was strong. I did not cry. I did not let the Flash Mob see my weakness. They were the mean women, the violent ones, the ones who refused to bow to the system. I admired them, but I hated their cruelty. I would not be like them. I would not become one of the Flash Mob. My mother was not as a strong as I was. She joined them. She said she did it to protect me. I said she was insane. She paid for her decision with her life. The Flash Mob women were the first to go. Lord and his men took them first, because they were the lowest of the low. They were the ones who certainly had no family back home to miss them. They took them and they killed them and they ate their hearts and they bathed in their blood.
I was always rebellious, in my own little way. I’m sorry, Connolly. I know you wished that I would never rebel, but I always have. I could never just sit meekly and watch injustices being committed. And sometimes, I just yearned for some small freedom. I was always safe, though. I knew the boundaries. I was sensible. I often sneaked out of my dormitory at night-time and sat in the moonlight. I liked the moon. I liked the feeling of it on my skin. Later, Isaac would tell me more about the moon: about its cycles; about how I was most powerful when it was full and weakest when it was fingernail thin.
But I knew none of that yet, as I sat in the moonlight in the grounds of the Female Factory. I knew none of that when I saw Isaac change for the first time.
When my mother was taken by Lord’s men, I begged Isaac to let me be a shapeshifter too.