Don't Look Back

by S. B. Hayes

  I was filled with guilt again because I’d deliberately failed to mention that James was helping me. Harry’s face seemed to be permanently disapproving, his lips set in a thin line. I tried to make him snap out of it by sneaking up behind him and tickling his back. He almost managed to smile.

  ‘And I also found a secret room with a concealed priest’s hole … but that drew a blank. I still don’t know what it means. The clues are all connected to the afterlife though, some Christian, some pagan.’

  Harry sighed heavily and I realized that this was taking its toll on him too. ‘I still think you’re in danger,’ he said, ‘but … you’re blind to it.’

  ‘I had another of those freaky visions,’ I continued lightly, but I needed to share this with someone.

  Harry frowned. ‘Go on.’

  I told him about the dragonfly incident in a half-laughing tone so he didn’t think me completely gullible. ‘Apparently dragonflies have long been thought of as evil and when they fly around your head they’re actually weighing your soul.’

  ‘Your mind is so hung up on death, judgement and the hereafter, Sinead, you’re probably seeing things.’

  ‘Probably.’ Harry obviously shared my own fears. It would almost be preferable if he had said I was insane. ‘Sometimes … it’s stupid … but I almost think there’s something malevolent in the house … or the grounds … just watching, biding its time.’

  Harry had barely touched his food. He pushed his plate aside whereas I had long finished. He began to plead with me again. ‘I don’t want to lose you.’

  ‘You won’t,’ I reassured him, unable to look him in the eye. Still running through my head were James’s words. I’ve never felt this way before. Was he sincere? Why had I reacted so badly? Because he’d said the worst possible thing to me – he couldn’t give me any more time.

  Harry sat beside me on the sofa and began nuzzling my neck. ‘Missed you.’

  ‘Missed you too,’ I answered robotically.

  Harry entwined his fingers with mine and I rested my head on his shoulder. He seemed happy to stay this way, but I was itching to do some research on my laptop. I made a few noises to politely hint at my restlessness, but he kissed my cheek and stroked my hair, forcing my head back into position. I tried to speak and he stopped me by pressing his lips against mine. This gave me an immediate flashback to being close to James. I went through the motions and must have fooled him, because Harry smiled at me and brushed my hair from my face.

  My conscience began to prick me again. Harry was happy with so little it just wasn’t fair of me. The niggle grew stronger until I felt physically sick. He stroked my arm and I recoiled.

  Now he did look puzzled. ‘Is something wrong, Sinead?’

  It all came to the surface in one hot, bubbling eruption of guilt. ‘There is something wrong … very wrong.’

  He held me at arm’s length, searching my face for an answer. I couldn’t hold his baby-blue gaze and dropped my head. The seconds ticked by, each more painful than the last, until I just blurted out the truth.

  ‘I have … feelings for someone else. I’m sorry … it just happened.’

  He ran one hand through his curls and gave a hollow laugh. ‘Is that all?’

  Now I had the courage to look at him. ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  Harry made a circle with his lips as if he was going to whistle but just blew into the air. ‘I guessed as much,’ he said eventually.

  ‘You guessed?’ I was mortified because he also must have guessed who I had feelings for.

  He nodded. ‘You looked at him, James, in the coffee shop, and I’d never seen your face that way. It actually lit up … like a lantern.’

  There wasn’t anything I could say to make it better. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled.

  Harry appeared almost upbeat. ‘Thank you for telling me the truth. It can’t have been easy.’

  I winced because he was letting me off the hook. ‘But … that doesn’t make it any better for you.’

  He shrugged and there was determination on his face. I’d forgotten how stubborn he could be. ‘It’s OK because … he’ll be gone in –’

  ‘Ten days,’ I prompted, shamefaced.

  ‘Ten days,’ he repeated, almost trance-like. ‘But I’ll still be here for you … to scare away the nightmares and hold you close when you’re upset. I don’t have a tan or a surfboard,’ he added with a cynical smile, ‘but I’m here.’

  ‘You have an amazing heart,’ I told him truthfully, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me. ‘I know you don’t want me to go back to Benedict House, but nothing will happen between me and James –’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t try to cage you. I have to let you follow your heart and hope it’s just for now. If you love someone, you have to set them free and hope they come back to you.’

  What else could I say? Apologizing further would only make things worse. I couldn’t stop my foot tapping on the floor, each awkward second feeling like a minute.

  ‘The heat doesn’t seem to be breaking,’ I said at last.

  Harry nodded solemnly. ‘It’s going to be a sticky night.’

  ‘I wish it would rain again.’

  ‘Me too.’ ‘Harry got up and said with forced cheerfulness, ‘Why don’t I go to the shop and get you a dessert? You need feeding up.’

  I smiled. ‘That’d be great.’

  He could read my mind so well; any kind of emotional turmoil made me famished and I was desperate for sweet comfort food. When the door closed I buried my face in a cushion and then threw it against the wall. How could Harry be so annoyingly understanding and infuriatingly noble? Why didn’t he criticize me, shout or get angry? After a few minutes of beating myself up, I calmed down. A weight had been lifted from me, the weight of my guilt. I’d told him the truth, even though it had been one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. Harry was honest, dependable and my best friend. If James made my life turbulent, then Harry calmed the waters and brought me back to shore.

  Now alone, I knuckled down to the daily task of updating my mother. I couldn’t stomach another conversation and stuck to texting meaningless phrases about trying my hardest to search for Patrick and being hopeful of finding him soon. She didn’t even bother replying. Harry came back with a raspberry meringue. He scooped a large portion into the only clean bowl he could find, which meant we had to share. This seemed to break the ice between us. We sat side by side on the sofa, my laptop on my knees.

  Harry touched my shoulder hesitantly. ‘How’s the freaky nun? Saint Catherine?’

  ‘You mean Sister Catherine.’ Something clicked and I stared hard at Harry. ‘Actually you could be right. I think she might have taken her name from Saint Catherine of Genoa. I found a holy icon in her bedroom when I was snooping.’

  My fingers busily typed ‘saint catherine of genoa’ and I gave a little flourish with one hand. ‘Look at this. “Saint Catherine of Genoa was shown a vision of what a soul experiences in purgatory. After this she devoted her life to the poor, sick and destitute, suffering the same burdens as them.”’ I nudged him. ‘Purgatory leads back to Station Island and Saint Patrick and all the other clues … It’s like they’re all in this weird circle and I can’t find the end.’

  ‘The end is what worries me most,’ Harry said bleakly.

  I didn’t answer, intent on absorbing the details of Saint Catherine’s life and wondering how anyone could be so impossibly perfect. Apparently she used to drink water laced with vinegar as a penance. I could still taste the bitter water in Benedict House. It didn’t mean anything, I told myself. It was the ancient pipes. Sister Catherine was probably used to the taste and James remembered it from childhood.

  ‘All the allusions lead to the same place,’ I reiterated.

  ‘But not to Patrick,’ Harry said. ‘He seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.’

  A shudder of unease ran through me and for one crazy moment I couldn’t suppress the idea tha
t all this was real and my soul was being judged in some way. I felt compelled to pose the question. ‘If you had only a few days to live, Harry, would you feel … confident your soul was … pure?’

  Surprisingly he didn’t make fun of me. ‘I don’t know what the measure is, so how can I know?’

  I swallowed and said sorrowfully, ‘My life is littered with good intentions gone bad …’

  ‘But they’re still good intentions,’ Harry said.

  ‘Mm,’ I agreed, biting my lip. ‘But I’m a lousy daughter, sister and friend, without any patience or consideration.’ I wondered why I was increasingly susceptible to divulging my most intimate thoughts.

  ‘That’s rubbish, Sinead. You do nothing but put your family first. And you’ve done something good. You’ve made me incredibly happy.’

  This was debatable as well, but I smiled weakly at the compliment. My face scrunched up as I struggled to remember anything really selfless that I’d ever done. The amount of effort this took was disturbing, until a light went on in my head.

  ‘Well … actually … I did save a baby bird once. It had fallen from the nest and couldn’t fly.’

  Harry grinned. ‘That’s a start.’

  ‘My mother told me not to bother,’ I rushed on, ‘that it would be kinder to let it die, so I kept it secret for weeks and fed it round the clock from a small pipette.’ I looked away, embarrassed. ‘I was so happy when it took its first flight but … it wouldn’t leave and kept tapping on my window. It broke my heart to ignore it, but I wanted it to be free, soaring in the sky, not trapped in my bedroom.’

  ‘That’s two good deeds,’ Harry said. ‘Saving it, and being generous enough to let it go.’

  ‘Suppose,’ I answered, pleased without knowing why.

  Harry studied me closely. ‘It isn’t healthy to be dwelling on all this. You said yourself, Benedict House is like a mausoleum. Stay with the living and with me.’

  ‘I’m so nearly there, Harry. I can feel it happening. There’s a new life waiting for me and I’m like … that bird waiting to spread my wings.’

  This was a bit poetic for me and Harry seemed surprised. He didn’t stay and the night seemed to last forever. The heat, my conscience, James’s words and all the strange stuff that had happened conspired to disrupt my sleep. I awoke sweating and struggling to get my breath, pushing damp hair from my forehead. My dream was horribly vivid – I was underground, getting deeper and deeper into the earth, unable to turn around. Smoke was clogging my throat and a voice close by was pleading with me to fight. Don’t die, Sinead, it’s not your time. Don’t die.

  Twenty-Two

  James must have heard my bike wheels cutting into the gravel because his face appeared at one of the upstairs windows. He came out on to the balcony, dressed only in a pair of striped boxers. I shielded my eyes to gaze up at him while he leaned over the balustrade to peer down at me. He raised one hand and then disappeared. I figured he must be getting dressed. I breathed the summer scents and watched an industrious bee collecting pollen. A noise made me look up – someone clearing their throat. I had been wrong about James getting dressed; he was barefoot and still almost naked. His hair was attractively untidy and one side of his face marked from being squashed against a pillow. He moved closer until we were only a metre or so from each other.

  It should have been no different from seeing him on the beach or in a swimming pool, except that somehow it was. I studied every sinew of his lean frame – the small v of hairs on his chest, the hollows above his collarbone, his ribs, even his navel, which was a gorgeous indent.

  Why didn’t he say something?

  And yet I didn’t want him to in case it spoilt the moment – it felt as if everything on the planet had ceased to exist except the pounding of my heart.

  I realized the time and panicked. ‘You should go before Sister Catherine appears. She’ll be horrified to find us like this.’

  He leaned in and lifted my chin with his finger. ‘Did you know your eyes have a fleck of violet dancing in the sunlight?’

  I turned my face away. After yesterday I was more determined than ever not to let him play with my heart.

  ‘I have to find Patrick,’ I said firmly. ‘That’s the only reason I’m here. Nothing else matters and you must concentrate on your own search. Maybe … helping each other isn’t a good idea.’

  This didn’t seem to faze James at all. ‘If we don’t work together,’ he said, ‘then you won’t find out what I know after talking to my gran.’

  ‘But … you said she was –’

  ‘She has lucid moments, Sinead, and she was very clear on one thing –’ James hesitated. ‘Both Eurydice and Orpheus were retained by the estate. Orpheus is definitely still here, in the grounds somewhere. Apparently it was me who decided his position all those years ago … but … I can’t remember.’

  ‘We could look for him later,’ I said, my face blanching as I heard footsteps.

  My eyes silently begged him to hurry, but with teasing slowness he disappeared back through the main entrance. I lowered my head, trying to compose myself, and when I looked up Sister Catherine was approaching. Guilt must have been written all over my face.

  ‘Will you be able to get the work done in time, Sinead?’ Her voice was cracked, like woodsmoke mingled with disapproval.

  At the mention of time my lip curled. ‘Time drags here. Haven’t you noticed?’

  ‘Is that not what you’ve always longed for – more time?’

  I was too stunned to answer. How did she know about my time obsession?

  She looked me up and down in a probing way. ‘I hope very soon you will come to realize that you are in the right place; this is where you want to be.’

  And why did she keep going on about me staying? It wasn’t going to happen.

  I fixed her with my hardest stare. ‘I know you have some kind of weird agenda, but let’s get one thing straight … nothing and no one will ever persuade me to stay here.’

  ‘Persuasion is not in my nature, Sinead. Your choice will be a willing one. Now follow me into the library.’

  She actually crooked one gnarled finger at me. The library was as dull as it sounded: ceiling to floor solid-wood, glass-fronted bookcases that were weirdly empty of books. The more I thought about it, the house was surprisingly bare of personal possessions. It was as if James and his family had never lived here. I set to work, trying to calm down. My pulse still hadn’t stopped racing as I pictured James in his boxer shorts, warm with sleep. It only took a small mental leap to imagine him moments earlier in his bed, before he awoke, and me lying beside him. He would have opened his eyes, looked at me as if I was the only girl in the world, enfolded me in his arms and then … I shivered. I had to stay strong.

  *

  James came back just after midday. The scorching sun took my breath away and I pulled him quickly away from the house. The dry leaves of the wood opened with a rustle to allow us inside. I noticed the giant trunk of a fallen oak tree and sat on it. I got my sandwich out, staring up at the spread of greenery and branches protecting us. James joined me, his long legs dangling above the ground.

  ‘The estate is huge,’ I said. ‘It’ll take us forever to search for one statue. Doesn’t your gran have any idea where Orpheus could be?’

  James shook his head. ‘No, but apparently it was a special place where I liked to come. I waylaid Sister Catherine this morning, sure she would have noticed it on her travels, but she said she never veers off the pathways and her eyes are only ever fixed on God.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘She is totally weird.’ I tapped my hand against the side of his head. ‘It’s in there somewhere, James. Think.’

  ‘I can’t. I know the paths, but they’re all the same to me.’

  I picked bits of bark from the tree with my nails. ‘Your mum said you were close to your dad and you did things together. What sort of things?’

  ‘Erm … she said we used to hang out in the wood playing Robin Hood, maki
ng camp fires and sleeping outside.’

  The thought of a young James running through the wood with a bow and arrow was especially sweet. It didn’t sound like the same dad who would lock him in a dark hole.

  ‘You thought you remembered something crashing through the wood after you. You were only a boy. If you felt threatened you would have run somewhere safe … a special place if you had one.’

  ‘Suppose,’ he answered, ‘but how do I find it?’

  ‘The grounds aren’t lit at night,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘If you slept outside you must have known your way in the dark.’

  James still appeared doubtful and more than a little nervous. ‘To find it I have to go back, Sinead, and that’s what I’m scared of.’

  ‘That’s what you’re here for,’ I told him gently. ‘Your mind hasn’t forgotten; it’s just … suppressed some things you don’t want to remember. I think you can still find that place if you try.’

  James looked at me for a few moments and then stood up. He squared his shoulders and blew out as if he was about to run a race.

  ‘Try not to think or reason,’ I said. ‘Just feel your way … your body might instinctively remember the route … I’ll follow behind,’ I reassured him.

  James set off, looking bewildered and more than a little apprehensive. He glanced back once or twice as if checking I was still there. But then his posture changed and became much more purposeful. He gained speed and I had difficulty keeping up. My feet had to negotiate every bump and crater in the ground, but his didn’t falter; they knew the way. When he came to a fork in the path he didn’t hesitate. I was right; he could have done this in the dark. When James checked behind him now, his eyes didn’t see me; they kept looking around wildly at something unseen. I could see fear on his face and his breath was coming in gasps. I remembered that feeling from when I first arrived, the blind panic that had consumed me when I thought the foliage had come alive and was bearing down on me. I called to James but he was deaf to my voice. He cut his arms on twigs but didn’t seem to notice. He ran like a boy again, his head down, his feet churning up the narrow path. On and on he ran until he stopped dead by a weeping willow, out of breath and sweating. He looked around blankly and seemed astonished to see me. He shook himself as if suddenly remembering where he was.