Disclaimer: see previous chapter.

26: Fated Meeting

Freya awoke very suddenly, and lay there in the dark of the tent until she was sure that no one else was awake. She groped around beside her sleeping bag for her glasses and watch. The time was four in the morning.

She dressed as quietly as she could: green T-shirt, black trousers. She nearly put on her brother's trainers instead of her own, fumbling around in the dark and trying not to wake her family.

She was unused to being awake so early. There was an eerie stillness in the air, and the sky outside was greyish. Feeling as if she were in a dream, she folded her pyjamas and left them on top of her sleeping bag.

Outside, the air was crisp and cold. There was mist in the air and dew on the grass. The sun had not yet risen, but grey light illuminated the field.

Freya's surreal feeling increased. Everything was silent. She had almost never heard complete silence before. In London there was always some noise, somewhere.

Freya liked silence.

She set off through the still, grey air. Her trainers left clear footprints behind in the dew.

She was going back to Cardiff.

There was a small girl walking down the road, in the opposite direction to the way Lucy was going. Lucy drove past her without a second glance, because the girl was so thoroughly ordinary.

But once she had rounded the corner, she skidded to a halt. Every instinct in her body was suddenly screaming that she had missed something important. The girl?

Cautiously, Lucy got out of the car and walked back to where she could get a good view of this mysterious girl. She was rather young to be out on her own, she supposed, but she didn't think she was anyone important. Of course, Lucy could only see her from the back, but what she remembered of her face was equally unassuming. She had mousy hair, cut in a bob, and she was wearing dull-coloured clothes. Nothing special.

But something about her T-shirt was familiar. Lucy remembered it now. That particular shade of dark grey-green…

It wasn't a colour that she needed, normally. She'd had to mix it especially. And it had taken her so long to find a match for the shade she had seen in the dream.

The dream about the Smith family.

Eight-year-old Freya, standing between her brother and sister, with their parents behind them. Drab-clothed and bespectacled, looking completely unimportant - but she had been in the centre of the picture.

A lot of things abruptly made sense.

She had known, of course, that Melissa had been planning a day in London with some of the Smiths. Her dreams had warned her that her enemy would be there. She had found the scanner, and the Shuk, and prepared to strike, even though the dream had not told her to.

And she had struck at the wrong person. It had never been Rose. It was always Freya.

Presumably, it was because of that mistake that Rose had been allowed to return to Life. It was not her time to die. Not yet.

Of course, if she tried to protect her daughter, that might change…

A black car pulled up beside Freya and stopped. There was a blonde woman driving it. She leaned out of the window and remarked, "You're rather young to be out on your own, aren't you?"

"Not really," answered Freya casually.

"Where are you going? Can I give you a lift?"

"Cardiff," Freya answered dreamily. "I have to get to Cardiff."

And she got in the car.

She felt as if everything she had done this morning was just another dream. It didn't surprise her at all that a woman offering her a lift had appeared just as she was starting to get tired. The woman would take her to Cardiff and then everything would be alright. She was sure of it.

"How old are you?" asked the woman, after they had gone some way.

Freya's dreamlike feeling increased. Without even thinking about it, she opened her mouth and answered, "Eight."

She didn't know why she'd said it. She wasn't even sure if it was true. But she didn't normally blurt her age out to complete strangers. They always looked at her as if to say, Then, where are your parents? even when her parents were right next to her. Or did they? She didn't know. But somehow she had the impression that people always did.

This woman wasn't looking at her like that, though. She was concentrating on her driving. What Freya could see of her face was calculating, not pitying.

These thoughts occupied her all the way to Cardiff. If the woman spoke again, Freya didn't hear her.

Lucy looked at the girl in the car with her and sighed.

In the beginning, playing mother to Melissa had been just another thing that she had to do, another opportunity placed in her path by her visions: a chance to learn more about the movements of her enemies. But it wasn't - not any more. It was about encouraging her niece to see the values of honesty and kindness.

And it was about her having someone to care for.

But there were so many things that she couldn't tell Melissa: things to do with the Sight, which Melissa didn't have and couldn't understand. If Melissa knew the truth, she would fear Lucy - the same way her brother, Melissa's father, did by instinct, because he knew she was different somehow.

And last night, she had come very close to telling Melissa the truth, because she couldn't bear lying to her all the time. Lucy had always tried to be honest. Even her visions were the utmost truth.

And she had nearly told Melissa too much of the truth - which meant that she had to distance herself from her now, before she said too much altogether.

If she couldn't have Melissa as a daughter, could she find someone else to care for?

Someone talented enough to See the truths she did; someone clever enough to understand why she did these things; someone young enough to accept her for what she was and not recoil from her in fear.

Lucy looked again at Freya Smith, sitting beside her in the car, lost in a waking dream.

And very slowly, she smiled.