The Disappearances Read Online Free PDF Page A

Horrors, had won prizes, travelled the world. He was a sailor, a pianist, had invented a device used in fishing that prevented environmental damage and had given the proceeds – many millions of pounds – to charity. Evie had been told all this, but it didn’t mean much to her; she found talk of the old days confusing and strange. But what she loved about Neil was the excitement on his face when he was talking about a book or concept; the way his eyes danced when one of his pupils grasped something important.
    Now he tended live stock during the day and held various classes in the evenings: creative writing, musical appreciation, knot tying and singing, and he regularly told anyone who would listen that he had never been happier, that he had everything he wanted here and more. But Evie knew that this wasn’t strictly true; she noticed how quickly he devoured the Settlement’s meagre rations every evening, knew that he was too busy teaching to tend his own allotment. And so, whenever she went to his classes, she always brought him a piece of bread, a piece of fruit, something from her meal that day. And he would always refuse to take it, but she would insist because she didn’t need as much food as him and anyway, she was hungry for learning, so really it was a fair trade.
    Although she never told Raffy what she was doing.
    She wasn’t sure he would entirely understand.
    The truth was, though, and Evie knew it, that if Neil only asked for more food he would almost certainly get it; food was shared equally only because it seemed the most sensible way, the fairest system. As Benjamin and Stern and everyone else kept telling them, the Settlement wasn’t a place of rules but rather one of community. Everything was up for discussion; anyone was within their rights to suggest something different, to propose a new way of doing things.
    And no one ever asked to change a thing.
    ‘I got that book I mentioned.’ Neil held it aloft and Evie’s face broke into a smile. He threw it to her; jumping, she managed to catch it.
    ‘Thank you,’ she said, her face glowing as she turned the book over in her hands. It was a book Neil had told her about at her creative writing class held every Wednesday evening. Benjamin had suggested she go, that she might find writing cathartic. Initially, Raffy had gone with her, professing to be as interested in writing his thoughts down as she was, but eventually he had drifted away, joined another club, run out of excuses to stop her attending on her own.
    And Evie loved it – loved the language of words, the way just changing one word in a sentence could change everything, could create emotion, tension, suspense or fear, loved how writing about her life, about the terrible things that had happened to her, reduced them to just words on a page, helped her to free herself of them.
    ‘You’ll enjoy it, I’m sure you will,’ Neil said. ‘This author was writing over a hundred years ago, but her books are relevant to any time because her themes are universal, because there’s truth in her words. You’ll see what I mean.’
    Evie smiled gratefully. She’d always hated learning in the City; had despised the facts and figures she had been forced to memorise, regurgitate word for word, no questions, no imagination, nothing new or different, because different was dangerous, because different couldn’t be trusted. The City had been so full of fear, she realised now; fear of doing something wrong, fear of talking to someone who might infect you with evil, fear of your label being changed to a lower one, a worse one, fear of the same thing happening to someone close to you, fear of the Evils outside the City walls, fear of what might happen if the walls were breached, if your resolve crumbled, if evil reigned once more. And fear was crippling; fear was debilitating. Fear made people anxious, irritable, unhappy and closed.
    ‘I’ll see you on Wednesday?’ Neil asked and Evie nodded, beaming.
    ‘See