“How many times must I tell you?” Cleo sets the two plates of toast on the table. “No me digas mentiras. Don’t. Lie. To. Me.”
“I’m not. It’s the truth.”
Her mamá pulls out the chair beside her daughter and sits. Bea waits.
“Your father told me what you did.” Cleo takes a bite of toast. “I’m impressed.”
Bea stares at her mamá, then picks up her plate of toast and hurls it at the wall. It smashes, scattering shards of bone china across the linoleum floor. The silence is sharp, expectant, as if malevolent kitchen sprites were watching and wondering what’ll happen next. Bea sits back in her chair.
“Now who’s the crazy one?” Cleo mutters.
A few minutes later, Little Cat pads into the kitchen and starts licking at a slice of the Marmite toast on the floor.
9:38 a.m.—Liyana
Liyana and her aunt stand on opposite sides of the kitchen table. In the no-man’s-land between them, piles of boxes are stacked, like a child’s fort. Full, sealed, and labelled. Empty, open, and blank. Liyana wraps glasses in bubble wrap, though she’d rather smash them on the stone floor and run. Except that she has nowhere to go. Kumiko wouldn’t take her in and Goldie has no space.
Nya twists torn strips of newspaper around knives and forks—the ones remaining after the bailiffs’ abduction of the silverware.
Liyana wants to ask her aunt where they’re going next. But she won’t. She wonders if they’ll stay in London. She can’t imagine her aunt deigning to live anywhere else. But if they do the house will have to be far out, beyond the suburbs, at the end of the line, to be affordable. And even then, how will they afford it? Even if she stacks shelves all day and night and never sleeps, her wages still won’t stretch to the cheapest of London rents. She wonders if Nya has been applying for jobs too.
Nya sneezes. Liyana says nothing. Silence pushes between them like a sulking child.
10:52 p.m.—Scarlet
Ezekiel is tied to a thick wooden stake atop a funeral pyre.
“Come down,” Scarlet calls. “What the hell are you doing up there?”
“Do it!” he shouts. “You know you want to!”
“No, no, I won’t!”
“I want to feel your power, I want to burn!”
“Stop.” But even as she speaks, Scarlet feels the familiar itch at her fingertips. Her skin is hot and starting to spark.
When Scarlet looks up again it’s no longer Ezekiel tied to the stake but Walt. She feels a flare of disappointment. As wood, Walt won’t burn well. He’s too soft for kindling. Ezekiel, now he’ll ignite fast and flame far enough to cause a forest fire.
“Scarlet! Scarlet!”
She wakes like a child, springing from asleep to awake in a single bound. She scrambles out of bed and runs, slipping twice in the hallway, to her grandmother’s bedroom. Esme is sitting up in bed, crying.
“Wait, Grandma, it’s okay.” Scarlet slips into bed beside her. “It’s all right, I’m here.”
“I ran, I couldn’t catch her.” Esme gasps. “I—I let her go.”
“It’s okay, Grandma.” Scarlet presses Esme’s hand between hers, holding tight until her grandmother’s breathing begins to slow. “It’s okay.”
“He took her.” Esme pulls her hand away, wiping her eyes. “The Devil took my baby girl.”
“It’s only a nightmare, Grandma. You don’t have a baby, you have me, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Ruby shouldn’t have left us,” Esme moans. “She shouldn’t have gone.”
“She didn’t leave us,” Scarlet whispers, the memory of the fire she’d caused aching like a bruise that won’t fade. “She died in the fire.” Under normal circumstances, Scarlet would be at pains not to say such words aloud, not to remember and not to remind Esme of her daughter’s death. But, in this moment, it seems like the better thing to do.
Her grandmother sits up, startled. “Fire? Where?”
“No, no, there’s no fire now.” Scarlet takes her grandma’s hand again. “It was years ago, the fire that burned down our house, that kill—”
Esme shakes her head and Scarlet can already see that, mercifully, the fog is rolling in. “No fire.” Her voice shakes. “No fire.”
“That’s right, there’s no fire. We’re safe,” Scarlet lies. “We’re okay.”
“No fire,” Esme says again. “She ran—she ran away . . .”
“No, Grandma. She died.”
“No.” Esme shakes her head, her voice rising. “She’s not dead. Ruby isn’t dead.”
“You’re right, Grandma, she isn’t.” Scarlet lifts the blankets. “She’s fine. Come on, let’s go back to sleep, okay? Everything will be better in the morning.”
Her grandmother looks confused. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s okay, don’t worry.” Scarlet tucks her in. “You had a nightmare.”
“But I—I . . .”
“Shush, Grandma. Go back to sleep.”
Her grandmother shuts her eyes, moaning softly.
“That’s it, that’s right, go back to sleep now, go back to sleep.” Scarlet strokes her grandmother’s shoulders, until moaning drifts into breath and breath drifts into snores.
11:17 p.m.—Goldie
“The other day . . . you asked about my scars.”
Leo sits up, fiddling with the edge of the sheet. We’re in room 36, doing things we shouldn’t be doing. We haven’t talked about Everwhere yet today, and I’m grateful.
“I want—I need to tell you now.”
I nod, alert, though I’ve learned my lesson. This time, I won’t push. Leo looks at me as if he’s trying to commit every inch of me to memory. It’s a little unnerving.
“I’m a soldier,” Leo says finally. “The scars are . . . kills.”
I stare at him, wondering if he has at last lost his grip on reality. First a star, now a soldier. And how can he have—there are so many, hundreds and hundreds of scars. It’s not possible for someone, a single man, to have done so much.
I try to slow my breath, try to calm myself. “Kills?”
Leo nods. “I told you, didn’t I? I told you not to say it didn’t matter, not to promise that you wouldn’t care. You can’t, can you? You can’t say a thing like that. Not now.”
I’m silent. He was right. Though only if I believe him. “But tell me . . . explain what happened. I—I just want to . . . understand.”
“You can’t.”
“Try me.”
He sighs. “What would you say if I told you I’d killed insurgents in Iraq? Terrorists.”
“No, that’s not possible. You can’t—you . . . you’re not old enough to—”
Leo shakes his head. “I’m older than I look.”
“But you’re a student. You’re studying—”
“Now,” Leo says. “But not always. And, anyway, the two things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
I look at him. “So, did you? Did you kill terrorists?”
“Well . . . that was the way I saw them, at the time.”
“How many?”
He waits, not meeting my eye. “Two . . . hundred and eighty . . . one.”
I’m silent. What can I say? There is nothing to say.
“And that isn’t the worst of it,” he says.
What could be worse than that? I don’t say it but Leo must see it in my eyes. He pulls away, sliding off the bed.
“Wait,” I say. “Wait. I’m sorry, I—”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “I don’t deserve it.”
I’m silent. Is it possible that he did this? Or is it another fantasy? I’m not sure which I am hoping for more: that he’s demonic or delusional.
“I—I . . .” I don’t know what to say but know I need to say something.
Leo is buttoning up his shirt, pulling on his trousers. “Don’t say things you might not mean, simply because you feel . . . I’ve got to go. I’ve got work—”
“No!” He’s
leaving me. I’ve said the wrong thing, I’ve done the wrong thing, and now he’s leaving and he won’t come back. I slide out of bed. “Don’t—you can’t just tell me something like that and go, it’s not fair. Please.”
“I know.” His voice drops. “I’m sorry. But you need some time to process it, before I . . . before I . . .”
How can I process the killing of 281 people? But before I can say anything at all, before I can find my own clothes, the door is banging shut and he’s gone.
“Wait!” I run after him. I’m half naked still but I don’t care. I know if I let him go he’ll never come back, I’ll never have another chance. And even though I’m not certain I want one, I can’t let him go, not yet.
“Please,” I say, reaching him. “Please don’t go, not like this.”
Leo doesn’t stop.
“Look, you don’t have to explain. Give it time. Let’s wait, let’s see . . .”
Leo turns back to me. “I’m not a soldier. I didn’t kill for any alleged just cause. I did it because I must—it’s my function, it’s what I was made to do—and in order to survive: each kill gives me life—”
“What?” I’m incredulous. “How? That makes no sense—”
He cuts me off in turn. “But most of all I killed to avenge another’s death.”
I stare at him now, unable to speak. He’s telling me that he’s a monster.
“It’s worse,” he whispers.
“What?” I blurt out. “What could be worse than that?”
“What I did to your mother,” he says, barely audible now. “And what I might have done to you.”
28th October
Four days . . .
12:05 a.m.—Bea
Bea sits on the bathroom floor, the razor untouched beside her. She studies the drawing, the striking blackbird-woman by T.L.M.C. The longer she looks at it, the more she feels that she knows who drew it and, what’s more, that it was drawn for her or, perhaps, inspired by her.
T.L.M.C.?
All at once it comes to her: the L is Liyana. The dream. The name her mamá mentioned. Her sister was in Fitzbillies, which means she might live in Cambridge. And yet she cannot recall Liyana’s face. Her own sister. Bea feels a sudden flash of rage at the unfairness of Mamá owning more of her memories than she does.
Bea grips the page tighter, since perhaps she might pick something up through osmosis. Her sister. And the thought of this girl she can’t quite yet remember, but whose presence she can increasingly sense, makes Bea feel less alone. A balm on the raw wound of Vali’s death. Her sister.
Ana.
1:13 a.m.—Goldie
Goldie dreams. She dreams she’s in a garden with Leo, sitting together on the grass. But it’s not grass, it’s moss. And the moss is pale as freshly fallen snow. And it’s not a garden but a glade enclosed by white-leaved willow trees. And they’re not sitting together but apart. She should, Goldie thinks, be happy. But she’s not, she’s sad. No, more than that, she’s enraged. And so completely, so deeply, that it’s as if she’s sucking anger out of the air, drawing it up from the soil, like a parched plant ingesting every molecule of fury.
From these nutrients, flowers bloom in her open palms. White roses.
Goldie holds a rose out to Leo and he, smiling with relief, takes it. As he presses the flower to his lips its thorns begin to grow, thickening and lengthening. Still smiling, he doesn’t notice, not until a thorn is wrapping itself around his neck. As it tightens, Leo doesn’t move, doesn’t struggle, doesn’t fight. He simply looks at Goldie, his eyes full of sorrow and regret. She makes no move to stop it. She simply watches as her rose slowly chokes out his life. Until he’s a pile of dust atop the moss.
She watches and feels nothing at all.
1:59 a.m.—Leo
The way Leo feels, it’s perhaps fortunate that he can’t get into Everwhere for a few days yet. If he could, he’d instigate a massacre rivalling what came after Christopher’s death—four or five kills on the night of every first-quarter moon, for five years, nearly three hundred . . . The figure horrifies him now, especially after seeing the look in Goldie’s eyes when he finally told her the truth. She’d thought him a monster. Which he is. Still, this doesn’t temper his fury; indeed it only sharpens it. He wants to obliterate everything, everyone. Most of all himself. He has lost her. And by his own hand. Which feels, if that were possible, worse than if she had died by her father’s.
He was a fool. If he could, he’d end his own life now. Sadly, for that he must go to Everwhere. The star in him is indestructible, at least on Earth. If he doesn’t kill, his light and life will eventually fade and gutter out, but if he wants an instant death it’s no use. Leo cannot die by mortal methods or means; he can be killed only by a Grimm girl or by his father, his captain.
Still, he doesn’t have to wait long. If Goldie won’t kill him when she enters Everwhere again—and given the way she must be feeling right now, she’ll probably relish the opportunity—then Wilhelm will. And Leo won’t put up a fight, won’t give a fuck, won’t rage against the dying of the light. Death doesn’t scare him. He only wishes it were coming sooner.
2:23 a.m.—Liyana
Kumiko’s favourite café, tucked away in a back street in Camden, opens only at night. Liyana hopes it’ll be empty. She hopes Kumiko will forgive her. She hopes, by the end of the night, that she’ll be held tight in her girlfriend’s arms. Because she desperately needs some solace and comfort right now.
Following Goldie’s advice, Liyana has prepared a grand gesture, involving poetry, glitter, and a modicum of nudity. Unfortunately, even at this hour, the café is still crowded. Liyana crosses the chequered vinyl—Beatles records and Bowie and the Stones all pressed into the floor like a Walk of Fame—until she reaches Kumiko’s table in the corner of the café, squashed up against the wall.
“Hey, Koko.”
Kumiko looks up from her book.
For one awful moment, Liyana thinks she’s going to ignore her.
Kumiko slowly pushes aside her curtain of midnight hair. “Hello, Ana.”
Liyana shifts from foot to foot, trying to postpone the yet more deeply dreadful moment of beginning. She’s been practising the dance moves to accompany the poem, although the whole performance is still woefully inadequate. At least that will serve to up the humiliation factor.
“Why are you here?”
“To see you.”
“And how did you know I was here?”
“Because you’re a creature of habit.” Liyana ignores the brightening spotlight of attention in which she stands, as other customers start to sense that something’s happening. “Once a week you come to read The Hobbit and see if you can make a single cup of coffee last till morning.”
Kumiko smiles—a twitch at the corner of her lips.
“I’m here to make a fool of myself,” Liyana says. “Because I’m a fool.”
“You are. And an idiot.”
Liyana nods. “An idiot. An imbecile. A—”
“Dunderhead. A dimwit. A numbskull.”
“All that and worse.”
“Well, I’m glad we at least agree on that.” Kumiko’s smile deepens. “And what are you going to do about it?”
“Try again to deserve your heart. If you’ll give me the chance.”
Kumiko closes The Hobbit. “Go on.”
“I’m never seeing Mazmo again. I’ve taken the shelf-stacking job at Tesco. The bailiffs have taken everything we own and we’re moving to an estate in Hackney.” Liyana feels herself starting to sweat under the ever-brightening spotlight of attention. She drops her voice. “And I’ve written you a poem. A dire poem. It hardly even rhymes, but it’s—”
Kumiko raises an eyebrow. “You took the Tesco job? How is it?”
“Hideous, I hate it. But the point is you were right. I was massively spoiled and now I’m trying to—”
“Speak up.” Kumiko sits forward. “I can’t hear you.”
Liyana gives her a wry smi
le. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, just a bit.”
3:33 a.m.—Bea
In her childhood bedroom, Bea dreams childhood dreams. Tonight, she tracks prey. She begins with birds, stalking them like a silent, stealthy cat. At first, she’s excited to catch ravens while they preen or wrench worms from the soil. But she soon tires of this: the explosion of feathers among fallen leaves is too easy. Piercing the heart of a bird in flight with a single hawthorn spike is much more pleasing. Until, after the first few dozen kills, she tires of that too.
A gratifying side effect of each kill is that young Bea absorbs the life force of each bird so she can rise into the air, hovering above the moss and stone, above the blankets of fallen leaves. Every death fuels her flight. A single kill brings her eye to trunk with a silver birch; three in a row lifts her over an ancient oak; six carries her a few hundred metres through the air; twelve brings her within reach of the stars.
In her dream, Bea wonders why her father isn’t there. But even as she asks herself the question, the answer comes. He won’t lessen her learning by holding her hand. His absence enables her to feel the full impact of her actions, to absorb every flush of pride, every ounce of honour. He lets her run free. He won’t permit his presence to leach anything from her and, for that, Bea is grateful. It is something her mamá has never been generous enough to do.
With every hour that passes, Bea’s strength swells so her sense of herself shifts further from her earthly self. She is different in Everwhere. Not only can she achieve what she previously imagined impossible, but she also feels lighter. The loneliness has ebbed, perhaps because this place is so full of her father, his presence imbuing every tree, every river, every leaf. His whisper threads through the shadows, making threats that further sharpen her focus and hone her skills.
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