6
"Not that I've ever really put much stock in that sort of thing, mind."
Amy had nodded politely.
"Still." The editor looked across the table at her. "I read the samples you sent, and I was impressed. I'll have a contract drawn up."
"Thank you!" Amy forced herself to put her hands back down at her sides. "You won't be sorry."
Smith nodded and looked back down at her tablet, tapped something into it. Then, raising her eyes and looking over her reading glasses, she said, "I have good instincts about people. You seem to be an intelligent young woman. But remember this is a probationary position…"
"Yes, of course."
"Very good." She held out her hand. "Welcome aboard, Ms. Pond."
Amy stood and shook the older woman's hand. "Thank you. Really. Thank you."
Smith smiled ever-so-slightly. "You're welcome. Now, I hate to rush you out, but I'm afraid that I really am quite busy…"
"Yes. Of course. Sorry." Amy backed her way out of the office. "I'll send that contract back soon as I can."
"You do that." Smith had already gone back to her work. Amy swallowed the last few phrases of ecstatic gratitude that were bubbling on her tongue and left the editor's office.
"How did it go?" Mels was sitting on the little couch in the little anteroom, bouncing her namesake on her knee. It was funny to see Mels holding a baby, but she wasn't as awkward about it as Amy had expected her to be.
She played it cool. "Oh, you know. Standard interview stuff." She held out her arms and Melody looked up at her with wide blue eyes. Her hair was reddish-blonde and wispy. She looked just adorable in her fuzzy white jumper, even if it did catch and hold onto every single solitary bit of food that came within a metre of it. It had been a present from her godmother, who had no inkling of the practical concerns of babies vis-a-vis mess.
Mels peered up at her. "Did you get it?" she insisted. She handed the eighteen-month-old over and dusted invisible crumbs from her black leather trousers. Amy was mindful as she could be not to let Melody dribble on her blouse. But then again, what did it matter now?
Amy tilted her head and addressed herself to her daughter in baby-voice. "Mummy got the job! Yes, she did!" Melody replied in incomprehensible, delightful syllables.
Mels got up and thrust the nursery bag at her. "I can't take you seriously when you talk like that."
Amy laughed. "Mummy doesn't care!" She hefted the bag onto her shoulder and then she tickled Melody's tummy until she wheezed and grinned back. "No. She. Doesn't!"
"Go on, Pond." Mels buffeted her arm lightly. "I'm starving. Let's get lunch or something."
"You're buying," Amy told her.
"Whatever."
"What did you think of her?" Mels asked hours later, after they had got back to the flat and Amy had put the baby down for her nap.
"Who?" They'd been talking about some bloke that Mels had seduced in order to get out of Belarus a few seconds ago.
"Smith. Does she really do the interviews for everyone who comes through herself?"
"Only if they get past the other ones. But I doubt she talks to the bloke who empties the bins."
"What was she like?"
Amy shrugged. "Fine."
Mels narrowed her eyes. She picked the bottle of wine she'd bought off of the counter and undid the cork with the tiny waiter's corkscrew from the drawer. Amy's kitchen only consisted of a couple of cupboards, an ancient fridge and the narrowest cooker known to man, but she had enough to make decent meals. Amy picked an apple from the bowl on the counter and used the edge of her thumbnail to draw a smiley face in the skin. She'd always done that. Old habit she'd picked up somewhere.
"Didn't you see anything?"
Amy frowned at her. "You never ask me that."
"What? Of course I do." She picked a couple of dusty wine glasses out of the cupboard, without even looking at them. Amy plucked them from her hand and rinsed them at the sink before handing them back.
"No, you don't. Besides, it doesn't matter, because I didn't."
"Nothing at all?" She poured and Amy took her glass. It had been ages since she'd had any wine, but Mels had insisted. They were celebrating, after all: Amy's new job, and Mels' own return to the Republic after her latest "time abroad." Though technically that had been a few weeks ago now. Mels had come to stay a week after Melody had been born (apologising for her absence) and she'd been sleeping on Amy's sofa ever since. In some ways, Mels was the best kind of flatmate. She always had money—cash—for the rent. She was gone for random intervals, usually for days or weeks at a time. Of course, that meant she couldn't be counted on to babysit very often, but Amy worked from home, so that rarely mattered. But it would have been nice to know what Mels really got up to. (Seducing men in Belarus sounded like something Mels would do, but that couldn't possibly be everything.)
"I would have thought that somebody like Sarah Jane Smith would have all sorts of creepy crawlies on her."
"Yeah, well, she didn't. She was perfectly normal."
"Perfectly normal people have crawlies."
"Not everyone does."
"Don't I?" Mels had gone grumpy-face. She was looking at her wine glass with an intensity that made Amy nervous. "I've always thought… You've never once said. I figured it must have been horrible. But you never once…"
"Mels…?" Amy put her glass down on the counter. "What's wrong?"
The other woman looked up at her, her brown eyes shining and a smile wavering on her lips. "You tell me. You're the one who always knows."
Amy was at a loss. "Nothing," she stammered. "I mean, I've never… There aren't any faeries following you around, if that's what you're asking me."
"Well, I always keep a very close eye on my socks." The joke fell flat.
"I've never been able…" Amy licked her lips. A tiny sound caught her attention and she glanced at the baby monitor sitting on the counter between them. Melody was sighing in her sleep. "I don't see things about you. I never really have." She paused, then added, "Or Rory." She leaned her elbows on the counter. "He always made them go away. Like, they didn't want to be around him."
"And me?"
Amy looked at her, hard, trying to see anything, even something awful, but all she saw was her friend, twenty-two years old, delinquent, too clever for her own good, rebellious, funny. She shook her head. "I just see you." Mels' eyes flickered. "Isn't that a good thing? Believe me, you don't want these things following you around. It's not good to know your own future."
"Would you do something for me?"
She hesitated. "That depends on what you want me to do."
"Help me rob the Treasury." Amy gave her a level look, and Mels rolled her eyes. "You were expecting it to be crime, admit it."
"I wish you wouldn't joke about it," Amy said. "I worry about you. All those months you were gone, no calls, nothing… I was afraid you weren't coming back."
Mels' eyebrow arched, but she didn't bring up Rory this time. "I want you to tell me my fortune."
"No!" Amy gasped.
"Why? Afraid you'll finally see something in me?" It didn't sound like a barb, but it was one.
"I don't see nothing," Amy bit off. "I see you. Just you."
Mels waved her hand and threw herself onto the little sofa. "Oh, go on, Pond. Get your cards!"
Amy glared at the counter. The apple sat and smiled back at her.
They settled on either side of the tea table, Mels sprawling on the sofa, Amy on the wicker stool someone had left on the pavement. She'd lit a few candles more for the electricity-saving benefits than mystical energies. Of course, most of her customers expected a certain amount of that exotic theatricality. Secretly, Amy quite liked the long skirts and the incense, but she never would have admitted that to anyone. She didn't have to dress up for Mels, but she did find a stick of patchouli incense. (Which she had grown to like, over time.) The baby monitor sat to one end of the table, next to the wine bottle.
"Is that that same old deck?" Mels asked when it was handed to her.
"No, it's a new one. I made my own. It works a bit better than that other one did."
Mels shrugged and started to shuffle. "Is there something I should be doing?"
"Think of a question, if you like. It doesn't really seem to make a difference to me. When you're done, pick seven."
"Off the top?"
"Whatever you like. It doesn't—"
Mels smirked. "Make a difference. Got it." She cut the deck and took three from one side and four from the other.
Amy helped her lay them out in a line. After a minute or so of study, Mels looked up from the table. "None of the people have faces."
Amy nodded. "I didn't put any in. They change anyway." Empty faces in figures that she had drawn, painted, and découpaged from a hundred different sources. Fine art, photographs, her own imagination. The deck itself was a work of art.
The thing was, this time the faces really were blank. She focused all of her attention on the cards on the glass between them. She kept her hands on the wooden edges of the table,grounding herself, so to speak. Not because of any sort of mystical claptrap, but because wood always made her feel more solid.
Mels fidgeted with impatience. "What do you see?" she asked.
"Be patient, would you?" Amy snapped. Mels drained her glass.
There wasn't much to them. Four of Wands, Princess of Stars (most decks called them coins or pentacles, but Amy preferred to cut to the chase), Three of Stars, Queen of Stars, Princess of Cups, Eight of Swords, Nine of Stars. She rarely got that many of one suit in a single reading. The first Princess and the Nine were turned on their heads. Not that she could remember what that meant.
She frowned at the Queen. She couldn't remember what she represented in standard tarot. She couldn't remember what any of them meant. Why couldn't she remember? She glanced at Mels, but she was still staring at the cards, oblivious. There was someone behind her, a man. Tall, thin, wearing a black suit. Amy gasped when she saw his face. It was horrible; grey and wrinkled with deep-set eyes. He was wrong, very wrong. He didn't belong here. She'd seen him before, somewhere. When? Who was he, why was he following her?
"What do you see?" Mels asked.
Amy dropped her eyes back to her friend and she forgot. "Nothing." She shook her head. She was relieved, to tell the truth, but she held in the sigh and lied. "I'm sorry."
"It can't be nothing!" she insisted.
"It's… shadows," Amy said, shrugging and shaking her head. She looked at the cards. Every blank face was overcast with a smudge of grey. Symbols were meaningless. "All I can see are shadows."
Mels' face went rigid. "Are you sure you're doing it properly?"
"I told you that it never works for you!"
Mels banged her knee on the table in her haste to get up. Amy's wine glass toppled, splashing wine on the cards. Amy hissed and pushed them out of the path of the liquid. Mels was stumbling away, like she was drunk, but she'd only had the one glass. Amy realised that she was crying. Actual tears were streaming down her cheeks.
"What does that say about me?" Mels sobbed. She never ever cried. Amy scrambled to her feet and tried to hug her. Mels swatted at her and wailed, "Why can't I be like everyone else? What's wrong with me?"
"There's nothing wrong with you," Amy assured her. "It's all right." She touched her friend's cheek. "You're Melody Zucker and you're brilliant."
Mels shied away like a frightened animal, her eyes wide and shifting. "No. No. Stay away!" She put out her arms, pushing at the air, but colliding with Amy's ribcage. Too hard. The next thing Amy knew, she was twisting and falling; then she was on her side, and something had shattered. She could feel cold wine trickling over her arm and fingers and something warm trickling down her back. For a few moments, the world seemed soaked in silence.
Mels' face was a picture of horror, wide eyes and open mouth. "Oh my God…! Amy! Amy, I am so sorry!"
Blood and glass. Green wine bottle on the floor, wine everywhere, soaking into the little rug. The table was broken. Glass in the top. Stupid. She'd worried that Melody would hurt herself one of these days, once she really started climbing and jumping. Hadn't foreseen this. A hysterical giggle bubbled from Amy's mouth.
"Amy, Amy…" Mels knelt in the broken glass and threw the wooden side of the table across the room. "Don't move, let me…"
The baby was crying in the next room. Mels froze.
"She's just scared," Amy said. "Help me up. I'll go get her."
"Don't move. I'm so sorry, Amy. I didn't… I don't know what happened!"
"It wasn't your fault. Shhh…" She patted her arm with her right hand. That one didn't hurt. Funny how clear-headed she felt. She pushed herself up and yelped. There was a shard from the top of her wine glass in the side of her left hand. She shuddered and tried not to be sick. Oooh, that was a lot of blood…
Mels was standing halfway across the room now, a mobile in her hand. "I need an ambulance. My friend's hurt; broken glass. Hurry!" Amy pushed herself into a kneeling position while Mels gave the address of the flat. She was back fast, almost as if she'd beamed across the room. "Hold still!" she hissed. "They'll be here in ten minutes." She had a towel from the kitchen and she wiped blood from Amy's forehead. The baby was screaming.
"Get Melody," Amy commanded. "She's frightened."
"She's staying right where she is until you get taken care of." Mels pressed the towel to her upper back. Amy shrieked in pain.
"I'm sorry! Oh God… There's a big piece…"
"Take it out!" she begged. "Oh God, take it out!"
"I can't! I could do more damage if I did. You've got to be brave, okay? They'll be here soon."
Amy wanted to get off the floor. She was light-headed. "Let me go. I'll wait in my room."
"Stay with me, Amy." Somebody had tied a strip of towel around her arm, like a tourniquet. When had that happened?
A man, no, two men, were standing over her. She didn't know them. She panicked. Moving hurt. She was sick; she wished that she hadn't had the creamy curry. Agony shocked her back to a more lucid state. Or maybe it was fear. She shouted for Mels, for Melody. She was on a stretcher and a woman was asking if she had anyone they should call for her. She told them about a police officer named Jones; she'd been very nice. She wanted to tell them to call Rory, but she held her tongue.