The Half-Truth (Drowning Book 2)

by Claire Svendsen

  "Are you doing this?" I ask her, putting my hand on my belly. "Because if you are, you can cut it out. I can't stay here and you know that."

  I don't feel anything beneath my fingers. Nothing inside. But I know she's still in there.

  At the end of the corridor, I pause. I don't want to go back inside the room where I spent the night tied to a chair. It's something I'd rather just forget. But I take a deep breath and open it anyway because I have to know for sure that Norma and Samuel aren't in there.

  They’re not but then this room is nothing like the one I was in before either. A row of chairs line the wall. A rack with black robes sits against the other. There is a table with a silver cup and a matching bowl. Brilliant light streams through the windows. I sink against the wall. This can't be the same room. But part of me knows that just like Samuel's room, this one has changed too.

  I walk to the table, look at the bread in the bowl and the wine in the cup.

  "What's happening to me?" I whisper.

  Clutching the cross around my neck like it can somehow protect me, I stand in front of the three doors. There is the one I came through, the one that was once covered by a rotting tapestry but is now polished wood. There is one that is open slightly, revealing a closet full of brooms and buckets. The third is closed. It's a heavier wood than the others, studded with giant metal rivets. I lay my hand against the wood then press my ear against it. I can't hear anything except the wild beating of my own heart. I don't know what's behind the door. I don't want to know. But I feel compelled to open it. If I don't, if I run away now, I'll live with the regret of knowing that maybe something bad was happening to Norma and Samuel and I could have done something to stop it. I already have the guilt of leaving Mark behind. I won't make that mistake again. So I reach out and turn the handle.

  36.

  I'm temporarily blinded by the light of the sun streaming through a million stained glass windows. The colors dance across my eyes like a shimmering rainbow. Fluid and liquid it takes a while for the room to come into focus. Only it's not just a room. It's the chapel. Rows and rows of wooden benches face a huge cross, suspended from the ceiling above the alter. I can hardly make it out as I look into the light. Incense hangs in the air, thick and musky. The smoke from flaming candles rising up to mingle with it. Candles that have recently been lit.

  "Samuel?" I call out. "Are you in here?"

  He has to be. It's got to be him who cleaned the room and lit the candles. Perhaps he's been here all along with Norma, both of them hiding out from Mark. Waiting for the time when they could grab me and we could all make a run for it.

  "Samuel?" I try again.

  The light flickers across the seats and I walk down the aisle, following it as it slides across the floor like a snake. There are bibles on the benches. Some still open. I can't help but wonder who's been reading them. It looks as if an entire room of priests just up and vanished into thin air but I know that can't be true. No one has been here for years. Even back when I stumbled across this place the day of the picnic, it was tumbledown and abandoned even then. Well, almost.

  The light stops. The incense is stronger here but there is something else as well. Something I don't like. The light flickers and suddenly it's not the rainbow colors of light from the stained glass window anymore. It's the silver strand of light that tried to kill me. That wrapped itself around my neck and tried to choke the light out of me. Not a drug induced hallucination after all.

  I try to back away. Need to run as fast and as far as I can but my legs won't move. The light comes closer to me. Winds itself around my ankles. It feels cold as ice and sharp as wire. But it doesn't slither up my legs and try to strangle me. Instead it tugs me forward like a rope on a balking horse. It pulls me closer to the cross and the smell. Drags me towards things I'm pretty sure I don't want to see. But one tiny step at a time, it draws me closer and only stops pulling when my feet finally slip in something wet on the stone floor.

  It coils away from me now and the light is less. There is blood on the floor. I'm standing in a slick, slippery puddle of it.

  "No," I cry. "I don't want to see."

  But the silver light doesn't care about things like wants or needs. The fact that any more tragedy will push me over the edge of the cliff into insanity. After all I've only been hanging on by my finger nails, clutching at soil that breaks away the more I try to hold on. Now the light is pulling my fingers away one by one and forcing me to look. And what choice do I have? None. So I clutch the cross around my neck for protection and look up to see Samuel.

  He's bound to the cross with barbed wire. Blood still trickling from his wrists and ankles. But that's not where most of the blood has come from. He's been flayed. His body sliced open like a fish. Intestines trail out of his abdomen, a twisted bloody coiling mess. His face hangs low but his eyes are wide open, frozen in fear. He may be looking down at me but I know he sees nothing. He's dead. Tortured and killed in such a way that I can't take my eyes off him.

  I want to look away more than anything in the world. Erase what I have seen only I know that is impossible. I still have the picture of Mark burned into my mind, bloodied and broken on that table in the pantry. Now I have Samuel as well.

  Tears stream down my face yet I still can't look away. I have to get him down, to lay him to rest somehow but he's too high. I can't reach. I can do nothing but stare up at the man I hoped would help me. Who did help me and now he's dead.

  The silver light rises up to twist around Samuel's body. It makes its way up his legs and curls around his neck like a scarf. Then it comes back down towards me. I watch helplessly as it touches my foot. Ice crawling up my leg and then it's slithering around my waist. I wait for it to come up and strangle me. To finish the job once and for all.

  "Take me," I whisper, surprised how steady my voice sounds. "I'm ready."

  But the light does no such thing. Instead it disappears into my belly.

  37.

  I'm in the woods and a man has my hand. A priest. He pulls me along. The young me. The one who was only a little girl running to catch up with her sister when she fell into something scary in the woods.

  "Let go of me," I say.

  "No," he replies.

  "I'll scream."

  He just laughs. And so I scream but all my voice does is echo around the trees and back to me like a boomerang. I want Julia. She'd know what to do. She'd have a plan to get away from this horrible man in the black robe. I pull against him, try to kick him but it's no good. I'm small and weak. Easy prey. Now I know what all those teachers meant when they said you shouldn't get in the van, no matter how cute the puppy looks. But this time it wasn't me. I hadn't done anything stupid.

  "Do you know how long I've been waiting for you?" he asks.

  "No."

  "A long time."

  Finally we break through the trees and we're at the monastery. Smoke spirals up from a chimney in the back. Ivy winds up the walls and in through the cracked windows but it looks like a fairy castle. A place where little girls are locked in the tower for all eternity. I start to cry.

  "I told you I wouldn't hurt you," he crouches down beside me. "Don't you want me to help you?"

  "No," I sulk. "I want my Mom and Dad and my sister."

  "Well, where is your sister?" he stops and looks around.

  "She was right here. She was running ahead of me," I sob.

  He crouches down and looks at me with his soft brown eyes. "Are you sure you have a sister?" he asks.

  "Yes," I nod.

  He smiles then like I've just told him something wonderful. His face gets all wrinkled as he grins.

  "Sounds like I've just won the jackpot then," he says.

  He pulls me into the building. There is a chapel and an alter. Flowers and funny smells. A white blanket on a table. In my memory I know that by the time they are done it will be red. And I know that they'll never find Julia. They have to make do with me and that makes it all so much worse. So I scr
eam and scream until I can't scream anymore.

  But as I'm screaming I realize that the stone floor is rough beneath me and I'm not a little girl anymore. Groggily I stretch my limbs and try to stand. The room swims and I stumble back.

  "Oh my God, Ana? Are you okay?"

  I hear the voice but I don't know who it is. All I know is that I have to get away. It's not safe here. It's not safe anywhere. And now I know it's not even safe inside my own mind. There are things in there I've buried. Things I've tried to forget. Coming here was a mistake. I have to get to Noah.

  "Noah," I scream.

  The voice beside me is low and quiet. The hand on my arm steady and cool.

  "Yes Ana, it's me. I'm here."

  38.

  I can't believe it. Don't even want to dare think for a second that Noah might be here to rescue me. But as I look up at him I see that silly lopsided smile and those pretty blue eyes and all I want is to kiss him. I throw myself into his arms. Let him wrap himself around me.

  "It's okay, everything is okay," he whispers.

  He strokes my hair just like he used to. I just want to curl up in him forever. Now I remember that the only safe place left is in his arms. Mark was a stupid fling. A daydream. A sex fueled nightmare. I was stupid to ever want him in the first place. To crave his body and his lips. He took advantage of me in the worst way imaginable.

  "I love you," I sob. "I'm sorry."

  "It's all right," he whispers. "But we have to get out of here."

  "There's a dead body," I say. "I don't know what happened."

  "What dead body?"

  "Strung up above the alter."

  Noah lifts my tear stained face up to his. "Ana, there is no dead body."

  "But there is." I scramble to my feet and point. Only Samuel's flayed corpse has gone. "It was right here, up there. I don't understand."

  "Maybe someone moved it," he says.

  "But there was blood. So much blood. No. Something is wrong. This can't be happening."

  "Well, it's not there now and that's the important thing. Let's just get the hell away from here and pretend none of this ever happened."

  I want to. I want to more than anything but everything seems wrong. Like somehow I've slipped into a mirror and the world is now the reverse of what it should be. Like I'm staring down into a puddle and the girl in the reflection is smiling and waving up at me while I'm scowling back down at her.

  "How did you find me?" I say.

  "It doesn't matter. There's no time for that now."

  "Of course there is time," I say, sitting down on a wooden pew and crossing my arms. "What's the big rush?"

  "What's the big rush? You're sick Ana. You saw a dead body but there is nothing there. You were lying on the floor screaming when I found you. You've been out here for days alone without food or water. We have to get you to a hospital."

  "I want to know," I say stubbornly. “I want to know why everything has turned on its head. I was the one looking for you. But somehow you ended up looking for me. It doesn't make any sense. How do I know you're even real?"

  "You touched me. I held you. How more real can you get?"

  I can tell he's getting pissed and I think back to the Noah who told me to fuck off. Maybe he's still the same guy, being played by Julia. And I remember Mark. The guy who I was pretty sure was dead. I'd been able to touch him too.

  "They said you hurt people at the construction site. That you went crazy. Then you just disappeared. I went to look for you. Norma and I both went to look for you."

  "Then how the hell did you end up out here?"

  He sits beside me and takes my hand in his. I squeeze it tight. I want everything between us to be okay again. For us to be a family. But I also have to know the truth.

  "I don't know," I say. "There was a guy. This priest. I remembered him from my childhood and I was drawn here. I was convinced that somehow he could help me but now I'm not so sure. I don't think that was the reason I ended up out here at all."

  "So what was the reason?"

  "I can't remember."

  But the nightmare sweeps back. The alter. The blood. The sweaty men. I start to shake.

  "It's okay. Let's just go. I told you I came out here to find you. I'm not mad at you, I'm fine. We're fine. I'm just worried about you and the baby."

  "The baby?" I ask, remembering the silver light as it made its way back inside me, cold as ice.

  "Yes Ana, you’re pregnant. Remember?"

  "But with what?" I mumble.

  "That's it. We're going right now. I'm not going to let you sit here and slip away from me again. Come on. Now."

  He pulls me to my feet and I don't resist. Everything is a swirling mixture of color. Every memory easily able to be real or fake. I don't know what is real anymore so I limp along behind him like a dejected puppy.

  "What's wrong with your leg?" he asks, looking worried.

  "Was I bitten by a snake?" I ask.

  "How should I know Ana, I wasn't even here."

  He stops and looks at my leg. It's pink, no sign of a bite at all.

  "I don't see anything."

  "Samuel healed it," I say. "He gave me drugs."

  "He gave you drugs?" Noah shakes his head. "Fucking hell."

  I don't know what he means but I want him to take care of me so I let him pull me along. Through the chapel and out the door, into the room where possibly dead Mark kept me a prisoner. The table and the robes have gone. Now there is only dust and that awful chair, tipped over on its side with the ropes trailing onto the floor like dead snakes.

  "No," I whisper. "No."

  Noah doesn't say a word. Just pulls me through the darkness and out into the corridor. Down the hallway where Samuel's room is. I try to stop and look but Noah won't let me. I want to see if his bed is made and the cat is still there. I strain to see through the crack in the door but I can't make anything out.

  "Kitty?" I call out but there is no meowing reply.

  39.

  Noah pulls me outside but I don't want to go out there. The sun is setting low on the horizon, splashing blood across the sky. A hint of orange blossom hangs in the air. For a moment it feels like paradise, the way the last rays of sun filter through the leafy palms and warm our skin. But I know what is out there, deadly snakes and something else. Something so much worse.

  "Come on," Noah says.

  "No."

  "We have to go."

  "Where is your truck?"

  I look around, wondering how he made it through the brush. Norma's burned out car still blocks the only way in.

  "I parked out on the road and hiked in."

  He smiles and I want to believe him but something in that smile is broken. Wrong. I start to back away. I should have run when Mark pulled me from the car and I get the feeling that I need to run now.

  "What's wrong?" he asks.

  "Everything. Give me your phone."

  He pulls out his pockets. "No phone. Must have left it in the truck."

  "No," I say. "My Noah would never do that. My Noah is organized and ready for anything. He'd bring his phone so that he could call for help. He wouldn't just wander out here with nothing."

  Noah inches closer to me like at any moment he's going to reach out and grab me. I back further away.

  "You have to trust me," he says.

  "Why the hell does everyone keep saying that? You want to know who the only person I can trust is? Myself. And you know what else? You can all fuck off?"

  "All who Ana? The only ones here are you and me."

  "You. Mark. Samuel. Norma. Every last God damn one of you. Just leave me alone."

  Noah's face pales. "Mark is dead, Ana."

  "Really? That's what you say. Did you see his body being dragged from Victoria College? Did you see it inside a coffin? No. I didn't think so. And stop keep saying my name. Ana this. Ana that. I'm not a fucking crazy person, alright?"

  He crosses his arms, mad now. "Really? Because you sound a hell of a l
ot like a crazy person to me and I've put up with your bullshit for long enough. You know that a normal guy would just leave, right? He'd let you rot out here and forget he ever met you."

  "Well why can't you do that then?"

  "Because I fucking love you. Don't you think I've tried to forget about you? To leave all your crazy bullshit behind and move on with my life? What do you think I've been doing? I've been trying to forget you but I can't. I can't get you out of my head. Out of my heart. I'd cut you out if I could but I can't."

  I start to cry.

  "Don't cry," he whispers.

  "I love you," I say. "But I don't know what to do."

  "You come with me, that's what you do. And we get you the help that you need."

  "You can't help me," I say. "No one can."

  His face falls and that's when I see it. The silver light winding its way out of me. It slips down my legs and across the tall grass, slithering like a snake. Evil and wrong.

  "Run," I scream because I know what will happen next.

  The light will take Noah and make him do horrible things. Or maybe it will just kill him like it did Samuel. But Noah doesn't run. He just stands there looking confused.

  "Come on," I yell.

  I grab his arm and pull him away. We start to run. I guess he figures that as long as we're getting the hell out of here, he doesn't care why. But the light is following. I know we can't out run it forever.

  "Run faster," I scream.

  "What are we running from?" he shouts.

  "Evil," I reply.

  40.

  The sun set while we were standing there arguing and now the grounds are dark. I can't see where I'm stepping. We could be running into a pit of snakes or an alligator filled pond for all I know but I don't even care. The silver light is far more dangerous than any of those things.