"Who are you?" Seth asks again, still staring. "What's going on?"
"He's kind of emotional," the girl says, holding the boy. "I think it might be a Polish thing."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know that's not what you meant." She lets go of the boy, whose chin is still wobbling. "We're
good, Tommy. We're good."
"Safe?" the boy asks.
The girl shrugs. "As safe as we can be."
She's English, Seth notices, and her eyes are tired and baggy, her clothes that same combination of
brand new and ash-covered as his own. She's quite tall, taller than Seth, and her hair is pulled tight
across her scalp by a clip at the back of her head. As for the boy, he's so short it's almost comical.
Seth notes, too, the way his hair is that same spectacularly messy pile that Owen always wore. For a
moment, he feels an unexpectedly deep pang for his brother.
"I'm Regine," the girl says. "This is Tomasz." She pronounces the names Ray-zheen and Tohmawsh.
Both she and the boy look at Seth expectantly.
"Seth," he says. "Seth Wearing."
"You're American," Regine says. "That's a surprise."
"How do you know he is American?" Tomasz asks her.
"The accent."
Tomasz smiles bashfully. "I still cannot tell. You all sound the same to me."
"I was born in England," Seth says, his confusion growing again. "I was born here. Wherever the
hell here is."
The girl starts pulling the bikes out of the alcove. "You'll have to ride with him," she says to
Tomasz. Tomasz groans loudly but takes a bike from her. "Come on," the girl says to Seth. "We really
can't hang around."
"You expect me to come with you?" he says.
"We don't have time to fight about this. You can come with us or not –"
"Regine!" Tomasz says, shocked.
" – but if you stay here, the Driver will find you and you really will die."
Seth doesn't answer. He doesn't know what to answer. The girl stares back at him, and he sees her
looking at his running clothes, his lack of water, sees her considering the way he was running,
furiously, with purpose. She glances behind him, out to the landscape.
Out to Masons Hill.
It's close, so close he could dash out of here right this second and run up it –
But that intention is less clear now. That feeling of release is gone, for the moment. The feeling that
would have driven him up to the top.
To the edge of the sheer cliff.
They stopped him. In the nick of time.
And he considers this, too.
A boy and a girl, appearing from nowhere, stopping him just before he started up the hill, just
A boy and a girl, appearing from nowhere, stopping him just before he started up the hill, just
before he met the black van.
Which also appeared from nowhere.
Did he call them into being? Did he make them arrive?
Just in time?
But Tomasz and Regine. Preposterous names, foreign, even here.
And the van. And the Driver.
What was that all about?
"Are you real?" Seth asks, quietly, almost to himself.
The boy nods a sympathetic yes.
"I know why you're asking," the girl says. "But the only answer I've got is that we're as real as you
are."
Seth breathes. "What if that doesn't feel very real at the moment?"
The girl looks like she's understood him. "We really do need to get going. Are you coming?"
He doesn't know what he should do, what he's supposed to do. But there's no denying that –
whoever they are, whatever they might be – they feel a lot safer than the Driver does.
Seth says, "All right."