Chapter Text
Ashleigh comes over before Lars or Peter can go anywhere. This means she is subject to their dad’s speech about safety as well.
“I don’t want you to go out alone, all right?”
“Dad,” Peter starts.
“Until that runaway is found, I want you to stay in the yard, or ask me or one of Ashleigh’s brothers to go with you.” He takes his glasses off, which is always odd to see. “It’ll just be for a while. There are a lot of people looking.”
“Can we at least go to my house?” Ashleigh asks, rocking back on the heels of her old trainers. Dad cocks his head, putting his glasses back on.
“I’ll walk you there, how about that?”
The three of them shrug vaguely at each other. It seems like it was a good idea to get Alex out of the treehouse for more than one reason.
So they go to the Clarkes’, where David is just leaving, his short-sleeved uniform jacket still unbuttoned.
“G’day, kids! Torbjörn.”
“Hello, David. Is Joshua here?”
“Sure, he’s in the backyard.” He gestures to it, unnecessarily. “He’ll do fine keeping an eye on these ones, I reckon. I assume that’s why you ask, at least. He didn’t fight anyone, did he?”
Dad shakes his head. Lars knows that David knows that Joshua isn’t actually very good at looking after them. Is he aware of the people looking for Alex? Ashleigh did say he’s been out a lot lately even when he doesn’t have to work, so maybe not. The police don’t seem to be involved in that search.
“Right, right. Sorry, I have to go, people are waiting for me.”
Ashleigh waves at her brother, and then dad deposits the three of them in the backyard with a long-suffering Joshua.
“Here we are again,” he says when dad has left. “So, you probably want to go to Liam’s?”
“Like you don’t,” Ashleigh responds, and Joshua, seemingly on reflex, sticks his tongue out at her. Peter snickers.
“Bunch of gremlins. Let’s go.”
Angélique would be lying if she said it isn’t a little pleasing how David does a double take when he sees her sitting in the warm lobby—or what passes for it—of the local police station.
“Don’t you look spiffy,” he says, hooking a thumb into his belt. “Riley’d be jealous.”
Smiling, she stands up and smoothes her dress out. It’s not even one of her flowery ones, just a plain green one that’s airy but not too short, just in case she does have to go into the woods on a moment’s notice.
“This is just what I wear when I don’t have to blunder through the woods all day.”
“Well, it’s nice. Fashion week.” He laughs when she lightly slaps his upper arm, above the bruise he has there.
“How are you?” she asks, eyeing the more noticeable but already yellowing bruise on his face.
“I’m good, no worries.” He bows towards her, so she gently touches his cheek, his skin warm under her fingers, and he smiles.
“Good. Well, why are we here?”
David gestures for her to follow him, and they walk into the police station proper. It’s not very busy. An officer Angélique recognises by his face nods to her from where he is standing next to the copying machine. Quickly, they reach what she assumes is David’s office, a cramped space with tinsel-adorned fan on the desk, perched precariously on top of a file holder. He almost knocks it over when he paces to the other side of the desk.
“Remember what Riley said yesterday?” And, at her blank look, “Umbra means shadow in Latin.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember that. Why?”
“It reminded me of something I found.” He pushes a heap of paper aside, opens a desk drawer, and fossicks through it. “Where the hell did I... Ah! Yeah, it reminded me of something I found when I was looking for weird things that happened here the other day.”
Angélique walks around the desk when he jerks his chin at her, to look at the file he has pulled out. There’s a picture of a young woman attached to the inside of the manila folder he opens, probably in her mid-twenties. She looks pale-faced and tired, her gaze far away.
“This woman came into the station...” He runs his finger down the page until he finds the date. “Twelve years ago. I would’ve just become an officer, but I don’t think I was here. She was very upset, and claimed the shadows stole her child.”
Angélique stiffens, and David looks up at her, briefly touching her wrist.
“Yeah, that’s why I remembered it. Whatever it was, it’s obvious something awful happened to her. She spent a night here, but no one could really help her.” He pushes his hand through his hair, sighing. “Then she left, and we never heard from her again.”
“Just because it means shadow in Latin...”
“You know it’s not just that.”
She sighs as well. Runs her fingers across the picture of the woman’s face, thinks about Refik Adnan, about how Kostas’s life shattered the moment his brother was ripped from it. David is a comforting presence against her side, their arms pressing together.
“There’s a name,” she whispers.
“There’s a name,” David confirms. “And I have a current address.”
“Can... David, we can’t do that to her.”
“I called her.”
“Really?” She shakes her head, closes her eyes and rests her forehead against David’s shoulder for a second. “Of course. What did you tell her?”
David stands up straight and turns to lean against his desk, putting his hands flat on the folder.
“Just that I’d like to talk to her about this. That it might help. She wants to help.”
“All right,” she breathes. “All right.”
“She lives southeast of here, should take about two, maybe three hours to get there. Are you coming?”
Chewing on her lip, Angélique nods. She doesn’t really like doing something that could potentially be so important without Riley, but they insisted there was something at the museum they had to attend to, but to keep them updated. She’ll send them a message when they’re on the way.
“Ace.” David snaps the folder closed and hands it to her. “I’ll drive. Time to see what Ms Héderváry has to say.”
“What am I supposed to do with this swarm of children, Josh?” Liam sounds panicked as he gestures at the four kids in his living room. Peter is still a little on the fringe of the group, but at least it doesn’t seem as though he would like to strangle his brother anymore, so Joshua is counting that as a win.
“They’ll entertain themselves, they’re twelve.”
“I don’t think I knew how to entertain myself when I was twelve,” Liam muses.
“Yeah, but you’re a spoilt brat, aren’t you?” Joshua doesn’t even question the line, and Liam just huffs in amusement. This exact exchange would have ended very differently in school—if they had been able to have a conversation at all.
“You’re not wrong. Well, if they do that, what are we supposed to do?”
“See if there are other mirror places without symbols?”
“I guess.” He sighs. “It’s so fucking hot today.”
“And your house is full of children.”
As if on cue, Ashleigh shoots between them to ask if Liam has more controllers for his game console and also where’s the bathroom and also she’s hungry—
“I’m sure you can figure it out!” Liam almost shouts, eyes wide and hands held up. Joshua feels sorry for him and tugs his sister away while he shuffles closer to the door.
“He’s right, you’ll figure it out. Just remember to take Alex’s clothes out of the washing machine when it’s done and hang them to dry, I think there’s a clothesline in the yard, and I think Liam’s locked all the doors he doesn’t want you going in, so...”
“What if I eat cleaning supplies, though?”
“Ashleigh, you’re not a baby, you can read.”
“I don’t know if Alex can, to be honest.” She draws her eyebrows together, looking at her friends over her shoulder. “I think so, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they couldn’t.”
That’s terrible. Joshua goes to touch his sister’s shoulder, but she ducks away quickly.
“We’ll look after them while we’re here, you go do whatever it is you and your boyfriend do.”
“Shut up,” he mumbles, but Ashleigh is already gone again, rounding up the other three as if to give a speech.
“Hey, Josh!” she yells back at him while he’s making to open the door that Liam has gone through.
“What?”
“Don’t let Mr Oxenstierna see you, he’ll get upset!”
“Got it!” He waves vaguely, and opens the door. Or tries to. It won’t move.
When he tries again, putting a bit of force behind it, he practically falls through it, only Liam’s hand on his arm steadying him.
“Were you blocking the door?” Joshua nearly shouts.
“Not on purpose!”
He gazes at Liam, who looks both apologetic and contrite, his shoulders hunched, and starts giggling, leaning back against the door as he shuts it.
“All of this is so bloody stupid!” he guffaws. “Nothing makes sense!”
“All right, you’ve lost your mind,” Liam says appraisingly, and Joshua bites his lip.
“If that’s the case, I think we both have.”
“That’s a good point.” He lets go of Joshua’s arm. “You know, I kind of wish that was the case.”
Quietly, Joshua nods.
On the drive over to Erzsébet Héderváry’s house, Angélique reads the police file on her stay at the Watunga station—promising David she won’t tell anyone he let her do so. She might work for the government, but that doesn’t mean that she can just read any files.
The woman the report portrays seems... Sad, more than anything. She didn’t want food, she didn’t seem to sleep more than an hour at a time, she didn’t do much of anything. Angélique is shocked to find that the child she is talking about seems to be a baby, that the shadows are described as people. Not that she expected actual shadows, just... She doesn’t know what she expected. No one could possibly be prepared to have their child taken away from them.
“She’s so coherent, but at the same time...” She trails off, and David glances over at her briefly.
“Yeah, it’s very unsettling. That’s why I remembered it.” He clenches his jaw, looking at the curving road ahead. “I don’t know why no one followed through.”
“She just left.”
“Still. Something obviously happened to her, and we have a duty to help.”
Angélique puts her hand on his left shoulder for a moment, watching him chew on his cheek.
“Maybe, she can help us. But maybe, we can help her too.” She remembers something. “Does anyone at the station know what we’re doing?”
David drums his long fingers on the steering wheel and doesn’t reply for a long time, which seems uncharacteristic. They start the descent to the town where Héderváry lives. Angélique is sure she’s going to pronounce the woman’s name wrong, but can’t find out how she should be saying it.
“No one knows,” David eventually says, turning into a quiet street on the edge of the town. “There’s no investigation going on that would warrant me digging up those files, and I honestly don’t want to answer all the bloody questions the officers would have. It’s a good thing the captain is out.”
“So, officially, what are you doing right now?”
He looks over at her, his expression somewhere between apologetic and mischievous, green eyes bright.
“Just doing some patrolling of the woods. Which is why you’re doing the same if anyone asks, yeah?”
She huffs. “Of course.”
“Ace.” He peers from his navigation device to the road. “I think we’re here, Lique.”
They’re here, so David parks his Jeep—it’s not a police vehicle, but he is still wearing his uniform—and they climb out into the day’s pressing heat. Angélique smoothes her dress down and lifts her hair from her neck as it starts sticking to her skin right away.
Ms Héderváry’s house is a single-storey home on the end of the street, a homemade Christmas wreath adorning the green front door. Before David can even ring the doorbell, the door opens, and he nearly knocks the woman standing in the doorway on the forehead. She raises her eyebrows, looking very unimpressed.
“G’day,” David says, straightening awkwardly. He blinks. Runs a hand through his unruly hair. “Ms— Ms Héderváry?”
“That’s me,” she confirms, not commenting on his pronunciation either way. Angélique’s first impression of her is that she looks much better than in the old photograph from her police file. Her skin has a healthy tan, and her hair, shorter than in the picture, is loose but neat around her face, the expression on which betrays nothing of her age or what she’s been through. The only thing that could be interpreted as setting her apart from any other 37-year-old is the quick, assessing way her green eyes flick from David to Angélique and back.
“Thank you for agreeing to speak with us, Ms Héderváry. I’m David Clarke, sergeant of police in Watunga, and this is Angélique Verlaque...” He trails off and looks over at her. “This is Angélique Verlaque.”
“All right,” Erzsébet Héderváry says, raising her eyebrows again. “Come in, please. It’s too hot to be standing out here.”
They follow her into her blessedly cool home, ending up in the airy living room, where the woman sits down in a green lounge chair and gestures David and Angélique to her loveseat. David pulls a small notepad out of his breast pocket as he sits down.
“Thank you again, Ms Héderváry,” he starts, stumbling slightly over the name this time.
“Please call me Liz. It’s probably easier.”
“Liz?”
“Erzsébet is the Hungarian version of Elizabeth. It gets tiring having to spell it every time.” She pulls her brown hair into a ponytail, then releases it again. “Why are you here? No offense, but I didn’t think I’d ever hear from the Watunga police again.”
Pressing his lips together, David nods.
“I came across your file by accident, and it struck me.” He pauses, looks at Angélique. It’s odd to hear him speak so formally, although it must be something he does more often. She turns to—Liz.
“It might have happened again,” she says, softly, and the woman’s whole demeanour changes.
“It might have...” She takes a very deep breath, and then several more, but her eyes remain wide and her jaw clenched. “What happened?”
“I don’t know if you’ve heard any news from Watunga lately?” David starts. When she shakes her head, he explains, “Recently, a young boy disappeared.”
“No,” she breathes.
“He was found... His body was found after a few days.” He draws a lumpy shape on his notepad, not looking at it. “Although his death seems like an accident, we don’t know what happened before it, and some things—let’s say there are similarities to what you described twelve years ago.”
Liz mumbles something sharp under her breath, fingers digging into the fabric of her skirt.
“What— How can I help?”
“I understand it’s probably difficult, but if you could tell us what happened twelve years ago... Who were these people who took your child? Do you have any idea?”
“I don’t know their names, I never did.” She shifts in her seat, pulls her hair back again. “All right, so. I wasn’t in a good place in my early twenties. I’d been homeless for a while.”
“Did you live in Watunga?” David asks, scribbling on his notepad in large, messy letters.
“Sydney, for a while, but Canberra when one day a man approached me. Very neat bloke, mid-fifties, he was wearing a suit even though it was just as hot as it is now. He said his company was looking for people to take part in... Experiments.”
Angélique frowns, biting her lip. Liz shrugs, almost contrite but at the same time fumbling her hands in her lap. She’s wearing a single silver ring on her thumb, and has the beginning of a sleeve of colourful tattoos on her right arm.
“They’d provide housing and pay, and, honestly, that was all I cared about at the time.” She gestures as if pointing. “That would be in Watunga, or somewhere near it, anyway.”
“In the mountains?” Angélique asks.
“Yeah. I wouldn’t be able to find it now, or even then. They never took us there directly.”
“And these experiments?” David gestures with his pencil. “What sort of stuff are we talking about?”
“I don’t fucking remember most of it!” Liz grasps her skirt, scrunching the billowy fabric so hard her knuckles whiten. “Just... Shadows. Literally, but also just— There are so many gaps in my memory. I know there must have been some kind of drugs involved, just by what I’ve been through in the past twelve years, but other than that? No fucking clue.”
“And then you fell pregnant.”
She nods, and then she’s silent for a long time, still fumbling. Angélique wishes she could just hold her for a bit, because her heart aches for this woman, not that much older than her, who’s evidently been through far too much already.
“The moment I found out I was pregnant, I tried to get out,” Liz says, voice thin. Someone down the street with a vacuum cleaner threatens to drown her out. “They wouldn’t let me.”
David obviously begins to form a swear word, but catches himself.
“What did they do?” he just asks, tightly.
“Kept dragging me in, it felt like it was more often than before. I was so afraid they’d do something to hurt my child.” She swallows audibly. “And I’d always wanted to be a mother, you know. I wanted that baby so much. So I ran away.”
“You—”
“Don’t ask me how I managed it, but I did. I was six months pregnant by then.”
“Do you... Sorry for asking, but do you know who the father was?”
She laughs humourlessly. “Yes. He was one of the other test subjects. We were encouraged to socialise. Sometimes I think a pregnancy is just what they wanted. I told him, and I never saw him again.”
“Sorry,” David says, intoning it almost like a question. Angélique squeezes his leg, although she keeps her eyes on the woman across from her. Evidently shaken by having to tell the story though she is, she is still sitting up straight, her jaw clenched and her gaze intense.
“After I managed to get away, I found my cousin in Sydney. He’d helped me out before, and I stayed with him and his wife. She was a nurse, and my other cousin worked on an ambulance, so I was sure they could help me deliver the baby.”
“What’s his—”
“I don’t want to drag any of them back into this, Sergeant Clarke,” she interrupts before he can finish. “If you don’t mind.”
“That’s understandable,” Angélique forestalls his answer. “In the report, you said you had the baby in a hospital in Sydney. What happened?”
“There were some complications. Minor, but enough that I had to go. And they were there.”
“The shadows,” David quotes. “That’s what you called them.”
“Like I said, they never had names for me. But I recognised their eyes.” Now, her voice breaks, and she clears her throat. “One of the other people in there once said that it was like they had shadows in their eyes. It always stuck with me, because that’s exactly what it was. I only saw my baby for a second before they took it. I’m sure they would have taken me too, if my cousin didn’t get me out of there.”
“How would they have known where you were, Liz?” Angélique asks.
“They knew I was pregnant. I’d have to give birth eventually. And shadows... Shadows are everywhere, Ms Verlaque.”
She sighs. That’s true, but it’s also very cryptic and very unhelpful.
“Can you tell us anything about your child?” David says. “Do you know hair colour, sex, anything?”
“I don’t even know whether it was a boy or a girl, but I remember... Their hair was so blond. So very blond. I remember thinking they must be special, because the baby’s father didn’t have blond hair either.”
Sighing a resigned sigh, David scribbles that down.
“Did you stay with your cousin for long?”
“No, I didn’t want them to get involved. I tried to go back to Watunga, to find the facility, but all I found was a giant bloody heap of nothing. That’s when I went to the police. It was... A last resort.” She looks intently at David, who nods, almost solemn. “I’ll spare you the details of the following years, but I managed to pick up most pieces of my life, and here I am now.”
“I am very sorry that the Watunga police never did anything more for you.”
“I just hope...” A deep breath. “If it’s still happening, if they’re still running whatever it is, I hope I can help put a fucking end to it, at least.”
“I hope so too,” David says. Angélique taps his leg, and he pauses.
“Do you know what could have happened to the other people who were involved in the experiments?”
Liz shrugs dejectedly. “I’ve tried not to think about, if you must know.”
“Of course.”
“Liz, if we find out anything about your child, or the organisation behind this, would you like to know?” David asks, and the woman thinks for a long moment, breathing heavily through her nose. Eventually, she nods.
“It’s still my child.”
“Of course. I have one more question. Does the name Umbra mean anything to you?”
Again, she is quiet for a time, gazing into the middle distance. David looks at Angélique, who squeezes his thigh again, urging him to be patient. The road outside is silent, the heat shimmering over the bitumen.
“I think it does,” Liz says, slowly. “I think... That’s what they called us. Project Umbra.”
In an effort to evade Mr Oxenstierna, Joshua and Liam have spent most of the afternoon hanging around the local park, hiding in the marginally cooler shadows and not looking for mirrors to the other side at all. The excuse they’ve given themselves is that it’s too fucking hot to move—well in the high thirties, if not forties—and so they can’t be expected to do anything.
Liam went to the shop earlier to get cool drinks and something to eat, but mostly they’ve just talked about inconsequential things, easily. Joshua wishes that Marcello were here, because he could really use someone to talk to about how fast his disdain for Liam has turned into... He wants to say affection. Attraction, as well, but he reckons that, in hindsight, that was already there and he just chose to ignore it. He’s almost tempted to go talk to Dragos Rotaru at this point, because he seemed to understand, at least.
“Don’t think this is gonna work,” Liam is mumbling now, putting his phone, on which he was trying to load a video, away. “I’ll show you sometime when I do have reception.”
“It was too much to ask for,” Joshua agrees, smiling when Liam snorts.
“God, I feel bad,” he then mutters, throwing his arms over the back of the bench they’re sitting on. “We didn’t do shit.”
“We could... I mean, it’ll be cooler this evening, yeah?”
“I guess.” He sighs, throwing his head back as well. “Josh, we’ll have to get to the other side eventually, don’t we?”
“I’ve been trying not to think about it.”
“Yeah, same here, mate.” He sits up straight again, turning to Joshua. “I’ll try to talk to Alex. If they know something, we need to know. And I think they like me.”
“At least someone does,” Joshua replies. And, when Liam, his mouth already open to add something, frowns, “Not that I don’t—I just, fuck, I mean for the past five years, I didn’t. Like you.”
“And now?” Liam asks, raising one eyebrow in apparent challenge.
“Well, I reckon I’ve changed my mind.” He shrugs helplessly. “Didn’t you?”
Before Liam can reply, Joshua’s phone is buzzing, and he sighs, digging it out of his pocket. It’s Ashleigh calling.
“What?” he answers.
“And a good day to you too, Josh,” Ashleigh says. “Peter and Lars have to get home, so you have to come back over. I’m starving, by the way, so I hope there’s food at home.”
“You’re always starving, Ash.”
“Are you coming or not?”
“Yeah, yeah, we’ll be there soon.”
“Hi Liam!” she bellows, joined by a chorus of children in the background of the call.
“Ashleigh, I still need my bloody ears!” Joshua yells back, as Liam laughs. “We’ll be there in five minutes!”
Before she can assault his ears any further, he hangs up.
“The boys need to go home,” he relays to Liam, who nods, still smiling. “When you said your brothers are very American did you mean ‘loud’?”
“That’s part of it.” He wets his lips. “I think your sister is worse, though.”
“Too right. Are you coming?”
“Of course.”
They pack up their things and walk back to Liam’s house, mostly in silence. Like everyone on the road, which isn’t a lot of people because everyone has more sense than them, they try to stay in the shadows, although the air still feels sticky even there. Joshua knocks the back of his hand against Liam’s.
“It’s supposed to be less hot tomorrow, might even rain. If Alex says anything, we can see what we can find then.”
“And if they don’t?”
“I’m sure their friends will want to see them again, either way.”
“All right.” Liam smiles at him as they walk up to his front door. “Ace.”
“Yeah?” Joshua asks, and Liam echoes it, softly.
Again, the odd, suspended moment is interrupted by Ashleigh, this time bolting out of the front door and nearly knocking Liam over.
“Jesus Christ!” he yelps, and Ashleigh only laughs at him. “All right, Josh, have fun with that.”
Now, Joshua can’t help but laugh as well.
“No worries, I will. See you tomorrow. Ash, where are your friends?”
As if on cue, Peter comes outside, sidling past Liam. In the hall behind the front door, Joshua can see Lars and Alex talking, heads bent together. It’s pretty cute, he thinks. After a moment, Lars comes outside as well, and Alex slinks back around the corner to the living room.
“Did you have a good day?” Joshua asks, and as he expected, he just gets a heap of mumbles across the board. “Yeah, that’d be right. We better go, then.”
He waves at Liam, a little jauntily to make him laugh. It works.
“I can’t believe you fancy someone you fought a week ago,” Ashleigh says.
“That’s none of your business.”
She looks up at him appraisingly while the four of them walk down Lyne Street.
“I reckon he’s quite all right.”
“Thanks.”
She elbows him in the side, far too hard as always, and he stumbles. Behind them, Peter snickers.
After dropping the Oxenstierna brothers off with their father, Joshua and Ashleigh find David at home, with the gamekeeper.
“Ah, there you are!” he says, gesturing with the knife he’s holding. Is he actually cooking? Joshua is a little confused. Maybe he’s trying to impress the gamekeeper. He’s not sure cooking is the way to do that, when it comes to David, but he appreciates that he doesn’t have to do it, all the same.
“Yeah, we were getting Peter and Lars home,” Ashleigh is saying. “Hello—Angélique, right?”
Ah, so it is. The woman nods, dark curls tumbling around her face. She’s very pretty, even if she looks a little worried right now. Maybe it’s because of David’s cooking. That sounds right.
“I hope you don’t mind I’m staying for dinner again,” she says. Both Ashleigh and Joshua wave that away. It’s honestly rare that it’s just the three of them to eat. It’s as if their friends don’t have food at home, sometimes.
Joshua seems absent while he eats, even as Ashleigh talks enthusiastically with David about some video game she and her friends played today. Angélique can relate. Everything Erzsébet Héderváry told her is weighing on her. It has struck a horrible chord with her, she thinks. The part of her that wants to be a mother, that misses her family, is more shaken by the woman’s story than she’d like to admit. She can’t even begin to imagine how Liz herself felt—feels, probably. How Kostas feels.
“Lique?” David is saying under his breath, his siblings arguing on the other side of the kitchen table. Reflexively, she smiles at him, but she drops the expression quickly.
“It’s just... I reckon I’m glad I never joined the police.” She huffs, hunching her shoulders and pushing her fish around her plate. “It’s a lot.”
“Yeah, it can be.” He clasps her forearm and smiles. “We’ll figure it out. Everyone deserves closure.”
She hopes he’s right.