The Glass Demon

by Helen Grant

  I opened the passenger door and climbed in.

  ‘Your bag’s in the back,’ said Michel.

  I looked round. He had evidently picked up the books and pens which had spilt out when I threw it there.

  I ran my hands through my hair. ‘Look, Michel –’

  ‘You shouldn’t have walked,’ he said. ‘You’d never have made it to school in time. The bus which goes from the end of this road doesn’t go to the school. You’d have had to walk the rest –’

  ‘Michel, about yesterday…’

  ‘I don’t know why you didn’t wait. Did you want the exercise or something?’

  ‘No!’ I realized I had raised my voice; he looked startled. With an effort I made myself calm down. ‘Look, I didn’t think you’d want to pick me up today. Not after – you know, what happened yesterday.’

  For a moment I thought he hadn’t heard me. He was looking straight ahead, at the road, and not saying a thing. Then I saw that he was chewing his lower lip, and the faint red stain of a blush was creeping up his neck.

  ‘I’m… I’m really sorry,’ I tried, realizing how lame it sounded. ‘I don’t know what happened. I was upset. I just … went sort of mad. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said, but we both knew it wasn’t.

  I heard a sharp intake of breath, as though he was about to say something, but evidently he thought better of it. We drove on in silence for a while. I was gazing out of the window when I realized that I wasn’t seeing anything at all; everything was a blur. I hadn’t even been aware I was crying.

  The car was slowing to a halt even though we were nowhere near the school. Michel pulled into an empty bus stop and put the brake on.

  ‘Hey,’ he said awkwardly.

  I felt his hand tentatively touch my shoulder. I shook my head. The tears were coming faster and faster; I couldn’t help letting out a sob.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I choked out.

  ‘That’s OK,’ he said.

  He hadn’t understood me; he thought I was saying sorry for what had happened the day before. But I was sorry for everything, for the whole horrible mess. For leaving poor Werner lying there in the grass, without even ringing the police. For fooling around in the church in the forest while someone was trying to spit my baby brother with a medieval spear. For making such an idiot of myself in front of Father Engels. The more I thought about it, the more I cried, until the tears scorched my eyes and my chest hurt from heaving.

  Michel sat next to me for a little while without saying or doing anything. Then he reached over and put an arm around me. I pushed my face against the side of his neck and howled like a small child, until I had cried myself out and my eyes began to feel dry and itchy.

  ‘Lin?’ said Michel in my ear. ‘There’s a bus trying to get in here.’

  In spite of my woe I peeped in the side mirror. He was right; a bus was looming up behind us, the bus driver grimfaced and impatient. The indicator was on and the next moment the horn sounded, twice.

  ‘We’d better move,’ said Michel. As we pulled out of the bus stop he said, ‘Do you want to go to school?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Then don’t let’s go,’ he said. ‘You can write one of your letters. Do you think you can forge my dad’s handwriting too?’

  I managed a weak laugh. ‘I don’t know. Tuesday’s is so bad, anyone could do it.’

  Michel patted his breast pocket. ‘I’ve got ten euros. We can go to the drive-through and get some breakfast.’

  ‘OK.’

  I rubbed my face with my hands. I probably looked awful, but perhaps that was a good thing. If I looked horrible enough, I would lose my power to hurt Michel’s feelings.

  ‘Do you feel better?’ he asked me.

  ‘Well…’ I shrugged.

  ‘It’s all right, you know,’ he said, taking his eyes off the road for a moment to look at me. ‘We’ll sort it out somehow.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, not wanting to contradict him. But there was still a heavy feeling in my chest, where the dark cancer of misery was growing. Whatever Michel said, I had a feeling this was beyond sorting out.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  The rest of the week passed without incident. I went to school carrying the note I had carefully forged and did my best to look sickly while Frau Schäfer read it, her eyebrows raised. I spent the afternoons hanging around the castle, not wanting to leave Polly alone, even though she was distinctly offhand with me. Any remark which might conceivably have been the opening to a discussion about her eating problem was met with a wall of silence. We both knew that in another month she would have left for Italy and the topic would be closed. I fretted, waiting in vain for my father to say that he had spoken to Karl and Karl had suggested something… For the hundredth time I wished that Tuesday was the sort of person I could have talked to, but she was as irritable as a toddler who has missed its nap. She drank endless cups of herbal tea, roamed the house all day long with her little bottle of flower remedy clutched in her hand, and complained vociferously about everything from the non-existent mobile phone signal to Karl’s lack of family spirit. Her patience ran thin with everyone, even Ru, who tapped into the current of bad feeling running through the house and became squally and fractious. Polly no longer seemed to have the energy to amuse him, so I did my best, but it was uphill work and my heart wasn’t in it. All I wanted to do was be on my own and think about what I should do. I felt lonely, a little scared and most of all sad.

  I look back on those few days now and realize that I did not know what it meant to be sad, to have regrets. I think that if I could have them back again, or one of them, or an hour, or even five minutes, I would try to speak to them – to my father, perhaps even to Tuesday, but most of all to Polly. I would try to say or do something – anything – which would make a difference. Supposing I had said to Polly, ‘Let’s wait until everyone else is out, then let’s go, let’s just go. Let’s walk out of here and take the first train from Baumgarten. Let’s go to Köln or Bonn and from there on to somewhere else. Anywhere. Let’s just get away’?

  I didn’t do it though, and thinking about it now is like trying to talk to the ghosts of the past, or at least to one thin, sad ghost, the one who stands beside me sometimes in the hours before dawn, its eyes grave and reproachful.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  By Saturday morning I had come to a decision. When I awoke it was still dark. I lay in the bed and watched the first grey light come seeping in at the edges of the curtains. Gradually the room took form around me – the furniture, the funny knick-knacks on the walls, Polly’s sleeping body were outlined in the soft light of dawn. As the morning slowly brightened into focus, so did my resolve.

  I slid out of bed, dressed silently and went downstairs. As usual the pine table was a panorama of empty wine glasses, dirty plates, books, papers and scattered pens. I cleared a patch of tabletop, took a sheet of paper from my father’s jotter and wrote back soon, lin in capital letters using one of his markers. I weighted the note down with the salt cellar. Then I let myself out of the front door, closing it quietly behind me.

  My heart was thumping as I worked my way carefully through the network of tracks which led towards the farm, taking care to follow the short cut Michel had shown me. If his father was up and about at this early hour I had no wish to be caught at the spot where we had met before. There was a tingling feeling, tight as a clenched fist, in my gut. Bad idea, said a voice at the back of my mind. I ignored it. This had to be the worst plan in the world, but I was going to carry it out anyway. The alternative was for me and my family to stay at the Kreuzburg like sitting ducks, waiting for the next attack. I knew with a chilling certainty that it would come. I remembered the Abraham and Isaac window, the great knife gripped in the hand of the patriarch, and shuddered.

  For a long time all I could see were trees and the next curve of the track, but suddenly I glimpsed the wall and roof of the farm. A minute later I stumbled out of the forest and found
myself in front of the wooden gate which led into the yard. It was closed. I approached it as stealthily as I could but all the same I heard something move inside, a sound which might have been the clink of a chain as it left the ground, pulling tight. There was a low growl from the other side of the gate.

  I backed away. Was there another way into the farm? Treading carefully, I followed the wall. I turned a corner and there was a battered door, the paint peeling away in patches.

  I lifted my hand, curling the fingers into a fist, getting ready to knock as loudly as I could, but then I hesitated. I wished I had tried to look through the keyhole of the gate, to see whether Michel’s car was inside or not. I felt pretty sure that Michel’s father would do nothing if Michel was there, but what if Michel was out? I let my hand drop to my side. I heard the sound of the dog barking from the courtyard, followed by a muffled bump from inside the house. A moment later there was a rattle on the other side of the door: someone was drawing back a bolt.

  I took a step back. I’m not ready, I thought. I had no idea what I was going to say if Michel’s father opened the door. Too late. The bolt slid back and the next moment the door was opened from within. For one long, horrible moment I thought it was Michel Reinartz Senior who was standing there in the dark passage, rubbing his eyes with one lean hand, his shoulder against the wall. Then I realized that it was not him at all, it was Michel, but I had little time to enjoy the feeling of relief that swept over me like an adrenalin rush. Michel’s expression changed in an instant from one of sleepy bafflement to wide-awake alarm. He grabbed me by the shoulder, shoved me away from the door and closed it behind him with stealthy haste, as though he was afraid of disturbing a savage animal which slept within.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he hissed.

  ‘I have to see you.’

  ‘Lin –’ Michel looked distracted. ‘Wait here. No –’ He ran a hand through his hair so that it stood up in untidy spikes. ‘Don’t wait right here. You know the track to the castle?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Go down there. Just a hundred metres or so. And wait. OK?’

  He turned to go back into the house and I saw that his feet were bare. He had only just got up. I glanced up at the house, wondering if anyone else was awake. I looked back and the door had closed quietly. I didn’t waste any more time. I took the track he had indicated, half-ran and half-walked for about a hundred metres, until the wall of the farmhouse was hidden by the trees, and waited.

  About five minutes later Michel appeared. He had put on an overshirt and boots, but his dark hair was still uncombed. I was uncomfortably reminded of his father’s rough looks.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said, nodding at the track ahead.

  I glanced back towards the farm.

  ‘We can’t take the car,’ said Michel. ‘I’d have to open the gates. The dog will go mad and Dad will hear.’

  He was striding along so quickly that I had to trot to keep up. After a few minutes he judged we were well out of earshot of the farm.

  ‘Here,’ he said.

  We turned off the path. There was a little picnic hut under the trees, a round construction with open sides and a thatched roof, and a bench which ran around the inside. Nobody had picnicked there for a very long time; we had to step over nettles and brambles to get inside, and the floor was littered with twigs and leaves. Michel sat down on the bench and I sat beside him.

  ‘Michel –’

  ‘Why did you come to the farm?’ he said, interrupting me.

  ‘I had to see you,’ I said.

  I saw the doubtful way he was looking at me and a horrible thought struck me. Did he think this was to do with what had happened the other day in his car? Did he think I had changed my mind – or worse, did he think I was messing around with him, leading him on for some unpleasant reason of my own? The more I tried to push the thought away, the worse I felt. It was the first time I had done this, sought Michel out, asked to see him. I could have waited until he picked me up on Monday morning – but my own desperation to do something had spurred me on. Now I could see that Michel might put quite a different interpretation on things. I moved along the bench a little, putting space between us. I could feel my cheeks burning and hoped I was not blushing. There was nothing for it but to push on.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ I said. ‘I can’t go on like this – we have to do something. Either we go back there or we tell the police.’

  I didn’t have to say what I meant by there.

  Michel let out a long breath. ‘Lin, we can’t tell the police.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because they’ll think we’re crazy.’

  ‘We won’t say anything about – you know, him. Bonschariant.’ I brushed strands of dark hair back from my face. ‘Look, we have to do something. My dad’s been trying to find somewhere else for us to go, but the landlord won’t let us off renting the castle. Tuesday’s going mad – not that I care about that. I just don’t feel safe, not after what happened to Ru. I feel like we’re being watched all the time.’ I saw a strange expression flicker across his face. ‘What?’ I said instantly.

  ‘I get that feeling too.’

  I eyed him warily, wondering whether he was trying to wind me up. ‘Truly?’

  He nodded. ‘Not all the time. Just sometimes. It’s like there’s someone out here in the woods.’

  ‘I know.’

  Michel hadn’t heard me. ‘It’s not just that. Someone tried to break into my car.’

  ‘What, your old Volkswagen?’

  I could hardly believe my ears. The car had an ancient tape deck which looked as though it had been manufactured round about the time Tuesday was still listening to ABBA and wearing flares, but otherwise there was nothing worth stealing.

  ‘Yes,’ he told me slightly defensively. ‘The bonnet’s scratched, like someone tried to lever it up. I think the dog disturbed them. He’s been barking a lot at night. Anyway I’ve started putting the car inside at night, in the courtyard.’ He gave me a rueful half-smile. ‘Took me hours to move enough stuff to make room for it.’

  I pondered this. Perhaps Michel was imagining things with his car. It was such a rustbucket that I didn’t see how he could pick out a few new scratches from the dozens of little scrapes and scuffs which adorned it. All the same, a whole new vista of unpleasant possibilities had opened up before me.

  Herr Mahlberg, who had wanted to talk to my father about the Allerheiligen glass, was dead, and so was Werner, who might have talked about it too. Michel had done a whole lot more than just tell one of us about the glass – he had actually shown it to me. There was a cold and horrible logic to it. Of course he was in the firing line. I could not block out the vision which arose in my mind of something humansized, with a dim intelligence below that of a man and the bloodlust of a wild animal, something with claws and fangs which scratched and gnawed at the empty car as a beast of prey might paw at an empty nest.

  Don’t be stupid. Demons don’t tamper with car engines, I told myself, but there was scant comfort in the idea. Whoever had attacked Ru was quite solid and real enough to wield a spear, so why not a wrench or a screwdriver?

  I huddled on the bench and looked surreptitiously at Michel’s profile. I took in the firm line of his jaw, the fall of dark hair on his forehead, the lean lines of his shoulders and arms in the faded overshirt he was wearing. I thought briefly about Father Engels too. It was funny how I’d been blinded by one of them so that I hadn’t even looked at the other. It had been like trying to listen to a ballad while someone was playing the 1812 Overture in your ear – it wasn’t until the cannons and cymbals had died away that you’d even hear what was playing underneath.

  I thought about the fight Michel had had with his father, about how he had refused to stop seeing me. The last faint traces of the fight were still there, in the yellowing line of old bruising under one eye. I remembered the time he had kissed me in the church. That memory made me run hot and cold with mixed pleasure and
guilt. I knew how Michel felt about me. I was still deciding how I felt about him, but I also knew what I was going to ask him to do.

  It wasn’t fair; I was sure he’d do what I wanted, and it would probably be dangerous for both of us. But I was still going to ask.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  ‘Let’s go back to the church.’

  He glanced at me.

  ‘Not now. Later,’ I said. ‘When your dad’s out.’

  ‘Lin –’

  ‘Michel, we have to.’ I put a hand out tentatively and touched the bare skin of his arm just above the wrist. ‘If we can’t talk to the police, we have to go back there ourselves. We have to do something.’

  ‘Like what? Make a bargain with him?’

  ‘Actually, yes,’ I said.

  Silence. Then: ‘That’s crazy,’ said Michel.

  ‘I know.’ We stared at each other.

  ‘Look,’ I said quickly, ‘we can’t leave. The landlord won’t let us off and Tuesday’s already asked Uncle Karl if we can stay with him. He said no. If we do nothing and something happens again…’ I held out my hand, the thumb and forefinger a few centimetres apart. ‘Dad said the spear missed Ru by this much. Next time…’

  ‘Lin, whoever did that – he’s dangerous.’

  ‘So let’s go to the police.’

  We were going round in circles.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Michel didn’t reply, but he didn’t have to. I saw the answer in the way his eyes shifted away from me. He was really afraid that his father – or perhaps his father and his brother – would be implicated. Dad had nothing to do with it, he had said – but did he really believe it?

  ‘Michel, we have to do something.’ I raked my hands through my hair. ‘You said yourself, you feel like someone’s watching you. It could be you next, or me. If we don’t go to the police, what are we going to do?’

  Michel said nothing, but I could see from the expression on his face that he was weakening.