Free The Hourglass by Casey Donaldson Page B

looked up at them as they approached and Sarah finally realised
why those around her looked unsettled. Her eyes looked dead. Sarah had never
seen anything more cold, more soulless, more unalive in her life. The pupils,
uncomfortably large in their pale grey irises assessed the two of them them in
a cool, calculating manner. Sarah felt as if every inch of her was evaluated
for worth and weighed. She didn’t fancy that she ranked highly, although it was
impossible to tell from the Queen’s expression. It was eerily similar to the
warden’s assessment yesterday, although Sarah fancied that they gave weight to
different values. Tandy motioned for them to sit down next to Heather and
April, which they did, squeezing together so that they all fit onto the same
bench. The Queen’s eyes slid back towards the first person on the bench
opposite her.
    “Name.” Her
voice was devoid of emotion, but softly high-pitched at the same time and oddly
melodic. It was a question but she didn’t state it as one.
    “Heather.”
    “Full name.”
     Heather
Grimmer.”
    “Reason.”
    “Er, reason?”
repeated Heather nervously. All of her old bluster was gone.
    “Why are you
here?” clarified the Queen, a mote of impatience creeping into her voice.
    “Oh, right, or
course. I stabbed a man. He robbed me.”
    “And?”
    “Um, and he
died.” A tiny bit of pride crept back into Heather’s voice.
    Sarah felt
slightly sick. Not a muscle twitched on the Queen’s face. Her eyes slid to
April.
    April didn’t
need to be prompted. She spoke quickly and quietly. “April Upton. I sold black
market fruit.” 
    “You should be
on the farm.”
    “There was a
bomb. They couldn’t transfer any new prisoners there.”
    The dead eyes
slid towards Sarah. She too had learnt from Heather’s mistakes. “Sarah
Underhill. I stole food.” The eyes lingered for half a second longer than was
comfortable before sliding onto Marland. Marland was by this time a mess. Her hands
were trembling so much that she had clutched them together under the table in
an attempt to stop them. Unfortunately for Marland, all this achieved was to
send the tremor further up her arms, so that her shoulder’s looked like they
were participating in a weird little dance that her head wanted no part of.
    “Marland
Banker,” she squeaked, a little too loud and a little too fast. “I burnt down
my mother’s shed because things were shit. Oh god, sorry,” she started to
breath in short, fast gasps, “I shouldn’t have sworn. Sorry.” The Queen had
looked away before Marland had even finished, apparently uninterested. She made
a small, smooth motion with her head and suddenly Tandy appeared, looming over
them.
    “You can go
now,” said Tandy. They all got up and left as quickly as they could without
actually running away.
    “What happened?”
asked Finn and Justin in unison as they sat back down at the table.
    “She was just
sussing us out I think,” replied Sarah. “How did you even know about her?”
    “I told you, we
have something similar,” replied Finn. He calls himself the King, and I was
told the girls have their own version.”
    “Is yours a
doll-like version of hell incarnate?”
    A girl who had
been passing by their table stumbled to a stop. “Keep your voice down, idiots!”
she muttered at them. Her red curly hair raged around her head. “If the wrong
person overheard you, you’d find yourself flung overboard before you knew it.”
    They stared at
her, nonplussed.
    The red-headed
girl evidently took their silence for stupidity, because she sighed
dramatically and walked away. Sarah just made out her muttering “newbies” in a
derogatory tone before she passed out of hearing range.
    Finn turned back
to face the group. “That’s him,” he said, continuing the conversation as if the
girl had never interrupted them. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the
direction of a group of boys. Sarah knew who he was talking about straight
away. The boy