Bitter Sun
Page 38
We had money. We had tickets. We had nobody stopping us. It was all so easy. A cold fear came over me.
‘Are you guys sure this is for real?’ I said and they both turned to me. ‘You’re not playing a prank on me, are you?’
‘Yeah, sure we are, John. We’ll get all the way to San Fran then yell, only kidding!’ Rudy scoffed. ‘We’re that kind of buds.’
‘But, you know, this isn’t like a dream and I’m going to wake up in the crawlspace with spiders all over me?’
Gloria made a disgusted face. ‘God, I hope not.’
Rudy stepped to me and punched me hard in the arm.
‘Jesus! What the hell was that for?’
He grinned, popped a piece of gum in his mouth. ‘In the movies they say, “Pinch me, I’m dreaming”, figured this would be a more fun way to tell.’
‘Jerk,’ I said.
On the other side of town, the church bells signalled the hour and a few moments later, the bus, a rusted hulk from the fifties, rolled up. We boarded, showed our tickets to the driver, then took seats on the long bench at the back of the bus. Rudy at one window, Gloria beside him, then me and Jenny by the other window. A few other people were sat nearer the front, including a young man in army uniform. He was missing an arm. He smiled at me as I passed, nodded like he’d seen a fellow soldier, then turned back to the window. Nobody else paid us any attention. We were just four kids taking a trip, nobody knew the truth and that relaxed me. Nobody else need ever know the truth. But that meant those terrible men would never see the inside of a jail cell, at least not for this. That wasn’t right.
None of this is right, Jenny said, but leaving, starting fresh someplace new, where nobody knows us, is the best we can hope for.
‘Last chance to turn back,’ Rudy said, eyes glued to the window, waiting for the bus to take off.
Finally, Gloria smiled and any lingering doubts vanished.
‘No way,’ she said. ‘We’re a flock, remember, and we have to fly away together. Where you idiots go, I have to follow to make sure you don’t do anything stupid. Besides, this is what Jenny would want for us,’ she paused, let herself smile. ‘We’ll see the world for her.’
The bus juddered forward. We slid open the windows and let the cool air rush over us. Jenny leaned her head and arm out of the bus and rode the wind, squinting against the sun. Gloria and Rudy play-fought on the seats and laughed and I looked back, at the town we were leaving. We passed the sheriff’s station and school and the road to the old warehouse. Through the dust, the white Larson water tower and the church spire receded. Once they were so important, my landmarks for the town, that I could never imagine a sky without them. Within a few miles, I couldn’t see them any more.
The road turned to liquid glass in the heat and I caught a car following us. A pale grey Ford with a bad paint job that seemed to absorb the light and didn’t have a driver. I closed my eyes.
When I opened my eyes, we were far out of town, past the places I recognised by name, but the car was still there, way back, but there. I caught Jenny’s eye. I see it too, she said inside my head. She put her hand on my arm and I understood. Marked by Death, from the day we found the girl in the sycamore roots to today and every day from now on. I knew I’d see that car wherever I went. It was a warning, a sign, not a danger. It was my albatross.
I pressed my hand to the glass and realised I wasn’t afraid any more. Not of that car, not of what it meant. I was free, like the birds I loved, and I was flying away.
I looked forward now, as we roared down the interstate. Sunlight streamed into the bus, painted the four of us in warm gold. The heavy, hollow feeling of grief and fear I’d carried for months, which had spiked in this last, terrible week and stabbed into my heart so deep I thought I would die from it, eased from my chest. Lifted off me as if all those horrors were tethered to the town and the further we drove, the more of it pulled away. It was the past and I was leaving it on the road behind me, like a rope unspooling on the asphalt.
I had my best friend, fogging up the window and drawing stupid faces in his breath. I had my shining sister beside me and nobody could take her away again. And I had Gloria, my beautiful quicksand girl. I met her smiling eyes and saw the spark of excitement in them to match mine.
I relaxed into the journey for the first time and let my eyes wander. We rolled through a town I didn’t know, with people I’d never seen, a diner I’d never eaten in, and I smiled at its newness. We passed a road sign saying thirty miles to St Louis and at the same time, to the west over cornfields I didn’t know, beside trees I’d never climbed, a cloud of starlings began their dance.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’m not supposed to say this, but this book was not easy to write. It was an emotional marathon and ended, as marathons do, in exhaustion and an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. I am extremely proud of this book, but it wouldn’t have been possible without the help and support of a few key people. Sarah Hodgson, with her patience and stern editorial hand, guided this book through countless drafts and never let me give anything but my best. Thanks also to my agent Euan Thorneycroft for his keen eye and sage advice, and to the whole team at A. M. Heath for their support.
Special thanks to my mum who read early versions of John’s story and never shied away from telling me exactly what was wrong with it.
And my eternal, constant thanks to my wife, Neen, for everything else.
Loved Bitter Sun? Enjoy another incredible literary thriller from Beth Lewis …
Some secrets will hunt you to the ends of the earth …
Since the Damn Stupid turned the clock back on civilization by centuries, the world has been a harsher place. But Elka has learned everything she needs to survive from the man she calls Trapper, the solitary hunter who took her in when she was just seven years old.
So when Elka sees the Wanted poster in town, her simple existence is shattered. Her Trapper – Kreagar Hallet – is wanted for murder. Even worse, Magistrate Lyon is hot on his trail, and she wants to talk to Elka.
Elka flees into the vast wilderness, determined to find her true parents. But Lyon is never far behind – and she’s not the only one following Elka’s every move. There will be a reckoning, one that will push friendships to the limit and force Elka to confront the dark memories of her past.
Click here to order a copy of The Wolf Road.
About the Author
Beth Lewis was raised in the wilds of Cornwall and split her childhood between books and the beach. She has travelled extensively and has had close encounters with black bears, killer whales, and Great White sharks. She has been, at turns, a bank cashier, fire performer, juggler, and is currently a Commissioning Editor at a leading London publisher. Her debut, The Wolf Road, was shortlisted for the inaugural Glass Bell Award. Bitter Sun is her second novel.
@bethklewis
Also by Beth Lewis
The Wolf Road
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