by Amanda Mason
Her hand comes away smeared with ink.
Not ink, she realises. Blood.
She can’t breathe.
Lucy doubles over, falling onto her hands and knees, coughing, spitting, scattering a fine spray of dark droplets over the floorboards, her whole body shaking.
‘No,’ she says, when at last she can speak. ‘No, no, no.’
She can feel herself drifting away. The urge to give up, to let go, is near-overwhelming. She can taste the blood in her mouth, warm and salt.
‘Lucy,’ says Nina, shaking her arm gently. ‘Lucy. Do you think you can stand up?’ She is lying on the dusty floor and they are hovering anxiously over her. She’s not sure what happened – did she faint? She licks her lips, remembering, leans over to spit, then wipes her mouth again, not looking at the dark stains on her fingers.
The pounding in her chest slows and she sits up. ‘I – yes. They were going to leave, did you know that?’ Lucy says, clinging on to the words. ‘Cathy had finally had enough and she’d told them to go.’
‘Right,’ says Hal, glancing back, checking the ladder is still in place.
‘Only she put some glass in Isobel’s tea, and Issy nearly swallowed it. Bits of broken-up light bulb.’
Issy spitting blood into the clean white sink.
Lucy lets them help her to her feet. They haven’t worked it out yet, she realises, they don’t see. ‘And that changed everything,’ she says. ‘That really scared Cathy. She made them promise to stop it all, to get rid of Tib.’
‘Because she was here all along,’ says Nina. ‘And that’s what my dad saw, he realised—’
‘No,’ says Lucy. ‘I told you – it wasn’t Tib. It was Bee who put the glass in Issy’s drink.’ She wipes her mouth and her fingers come away bloody. ‘It was Bee.’
Dan had been furious.
‘Are you mad? Are you actually fucking mad, Bee? You could have killed her.’
Bee shrugging, making out that it was no big deal, a bit of a laugh. ‘But I didn’t,’ she said, and then she’d said something about Dan fancying Issy and wasn’t that a bit pathetic.
They’d argued it back and forth for a bit, in hushed voices out in the garden, worrying that the grown-ups might hear.
Back when the worst they could imagine was being found out.
Nina lets go of Lucy and looks at the patch of dusty floorboard where she’d seen her, the pale girl. ‘But that doesn’t make sense,’ she says uncertainly. ‘That’s not Bee. She doesn’t look right. She doesn’t look like her.’
‘I know,’ Lucy says, more certain of herself now the dizzy sensation has begun to recede. ‘But it feels like her. It feels like …’ She tries to recall the girl in her mother’s drawing and the girl on their video. She remembers the feeling someone was in the house, watching her; she remembers standing in the bedroom, drawing her fingers across the damp wall, the old layers of paper; one concealing another. ‘Sometimes it feels like Tib, the way she was that last time, and sometimes – it feels like Bee.’
One story on top of another.
A palimpsest.
‘We should go,’ says Hal, and she can tell he feels it too: Tib, Bee, so many girls pressing to get through, closer now.
It’s the only thing that makes sense. Not one girl, but many.
‘I think it is Bee, trapped here, with Tib, with all of them.’ Lucy says.
‘All of them?’ says Nina.
‘Yes. I think so. Yes.’
‘Right. But even so,’ Hal says, looking towards the ladder again, ‘we can work this out later, yeah?’
‘You don’t understand,’ says Lucy. ‘Bee’s here and I can’t leave her.’
Lucy stands in the centre of the room. She can do this; she imagined Tib once before, maybe now all she has to do is imagine her sister.
She places them all there, in the loft, Nina and Hal and herself, and in her imagination, they look at a patch of floor, washed in moonlight, and they wait. Time passes: minutes, seconds, heartbeats.
Lucy closes her eyes.
The girl who might be her sister is standing by the door, looking out over the valley. She’s too tall, too fair, too different, she is all wrong. She flickers in and out of existence, there and not there. Silent.
Something clatters against the roof and the sharp crack echoes through the room, then Lucy can feel it, the way she used to feel it when she was a little girl and she woke up in the middle of the night, afraid. ‘Bee?’ she asks.
The floorboards vibrate as something heavy strikes them.
One knock for yes.
‘Bee, is that you?’
That’s not my name.
She’s not sure she hears the answer, maybe she just feels it.
‘Bee?’ She tries again. The moon goes behind a cloud and the girl vanishes.
There’s a dull thudding in the walls in the far corner and it comes back to Lucy so clearly, the way she felt sometimes, towards the end of that summer, the sensation that the thoughts she had were not her own.
She tries again, calling the girl back, placing her inside the circle, the way she did before.
Something moves in the far corner. A rustling, shivering.
‘Bee?’
She can see her out of the corner of her eye. A hunched figure, hungry, her long skirts sweeping against the floorboards, her hair held in a loose plait; she moves in and out of the shadows. Her face – Lucy still can’t make it out, anyway this isn’t Bee, this is …
‘Tib,’ says Nina. ‘Is that you?’
She stretches up, out, she is formed now of muscle and bone, rough hands reaching out; she steps out of the shadow. And at last Lucy can see her face.
‘No,’ says Hal.
And there are so many of them. So angry.
No, the girl says, her voice pressing inside Lucy’s head, no, no, no, no. And she rushes forward, pale, screaming.
Lucy braces herself for what is coming, she waits for the blow to land, but nothing happens. The girl has vanished and she is safe, still on her feet, unmarked. Maybe there really is nothing here after all, just noise and rage and no real danger. It’s only as Hal cries out that she realises it’s Nina who has been struck, Nina who is falling forward onto her hands and knees, as the air is knocked out of her.
She drops the camera and curls up on the floor, choking, gasping. And Lucy can almost see them, the girls, circling her.
‘No,’ she calls out. ‘No. You have to stop.’
She feels the answer forcing its way into her head.
No.
No.
Lucy kneels down next to Nina, Simon’s girl, rolling her onto her back, and her breath is shallow now, coming in ragged gasps, her eyes are open and her lips are tinged with blue and she’s not breathing – dear God, she’s not breathing – and there are so many voices in her head now, she doesn’t think she can bear it, the noise, the rage.
‘Bee,’ she says, looking up, ‘I want Bee.’
And the knocking builds up in the walls again, in the walls, the ceiling, the floor; thunderous, enraged.
Bee grabs hold of her sister, her bony fingers wrapped around her arms. The two of them stand face to face, Bee leaning down, her voice soft and vicious.
‘This is all your fault,’ says Bee. ‘You and your stupid bloody game. I saw them. I heard them.’
They are close to the edge now, and Bee, taller, stronger, more determined, pulls Loo round so she has her back to the open doors, her nails digging into Loo’s skin.
‘That wasn’t me, that was Cathy. You said it was Cathy.’
‘Pissing about when Joe was trying to paint, knocking at the shutters.’
‘It was – a joke.’
They had both done it, once or twice, hoping to draw him out, hiding from him, half-hoping he’d find them anyway, even if it did mean a telling-off.
Bee shakes her, edging her closer to the drop. ‘You made him go away, it was all your fault.’
‘I didn’t,’ says Loo. ‘I d
idn’t.’
‘And now he’s going too.’
Simon, of course, always Simon.
‘I didn’t. I don’t …’ Loo is crying now, heavy snotty tears. She’s breathless and confused. Bee has got them all mixed up, Joe and Simon, Tib and Loo.
‘Why,’ Bee shakes her again, pushes her a little further towards the edge, ‘why do you do it? Why do you make them go away?’
The great empty space is behind her now. It’s not such a long drop, she tells herself, and anyway Bee doesn’t mean it. There’s another game they used to play, taking it in turns to fall back into each other’s arms, letting go and trusting that the other would always be there. The way she’d buckle under Bee’s weight, the way Bee could wait until the last moment to catch her.
Behind Bee a shadow moves.
Simon, she thinks. It’s Simon.
He’s there now; Loo can see him out of the corner of her eye.
‘Bee,’ she says. ‘Bee.’
She feels her sister’s muscles tense; she is strong, strong enough to lift her, strong enough to—
‘Bee!’
She can hear the panic in Simon’s voice as he moves quickly towards them, only a few paces away now, almost close enough to touch, and for a moment, a second, Bee looks unsure and she lets go of her. Simon is reaching out and Loo can tell it’s all going to be all right.
He’s come to save her.
She steps forward and as she goes to move past, she knocks Bee off balance, just a little, to get to him.
Maybe Simon loves her. Not the way he loves Issy, but a little bit, all the same.
‘Bloody useless,’ said Bee. ‘It’s me he wants, not you.’
‘No.’
‘Poor old Loo. He just feels sorry for you.’ And Lucia twists, bringing up both hands, grabbing hold of her sister’s dress. All at once she’s sick of her, sick of them, Bee and Tib, the pair of them in her head, going on at her until she can’t think straight.
She can see them both now, Bee in front and Tib in the shadows, stretching out slowly, familiar, as if she has been there all along, and somehow Loo finds a way to switch off, to step aside from herself, and to let Tib in.
At the very last moment Bee understands what is coming.Loo can see it in her face, and it makes her happy.
She takes a breath and pushes as hard as she can.
‘Please.’
The moon breaks through the hazy patchwork of clouds and there she is. The knocking in the walls dulls into a faint tapping, as if the girls, whoever they are, have receded too. Tib has vanished and underneath all the rage and the grime there is just Bee, her sister, playing dress-up all along. ‘I’m sorry,’ Lucy says. ‘I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to, Bee. I didn’t mean any of it.’
Nina stretches, tilting her head back, exposing her throat, and takes in a long agonised breath. Hal leans over her, trying to lift her as she takes another gasp of air and begins to cough, her chest heaving.
Lucy is framed by the open doors, by the torn sky scattered with stars.
Nina can see the tremor in Lucy’s hands as she reaches out to Bee, who seems in the moonlight to be perfectly solid, perfectly real at last. She wants to ask Hal if he can see her too, but she can’t speak. She can feel his arms around her, holding her close, comforting, safe.
Sarah is sitting in the chair by Cathy’s bed, the radio her only company as Cathy sleeps. She’s missed her last bus anyway, and although she’s sure Jean would let her use one of the guest rooms, she’s decided that she’ll stay with Cathy.
I don’t think she should be alone.
And the thing is, even if some relatives fussed too much, especially the ones who never visited, when you worked with the elderly and the frail, if someone asked you to stay close, to take extra care, you started to pay attention. She hadn’t always felt that way, but then she’d seen the girl, and she’d started to wonder. You saw odd things being so close to death, sometimes.
Cathy stirs in her sleep, her eyes opening briefly, and then something changes, something in the set of her features and in the rasping quality of her breathing. Sarah has seen this before. It’s as if she’s no longer here.
‘Cathy? Mrs Corvino?’ She shakes her gently. She is still calling her name as she hits the call button as hard as she can, over and over again.
It’s Bee as Lucy last saw her, hot and grubby and bad-tempered.
‘Bloody hell, Loo.’ She looks confused, as if she can’t quite remember how she got here.
Slowly, Lucy stands up, she reaches out and takes Bee’s hand and for once, her sister doesn’t pull away. Her hand is clammy, her fingernails broken and bitten; this is her sister, perfect in every detail.
‘It was my fault,’ says Lucy, loud enough for Hal and Nina to hear, loud enough for the camera lying on the floor. She edges towards the open doors. ‘All my fault. It was terrible, that summer, you know. We were all so unhappy. All we wanted was Joe to come back, and all we had was each other. And I couldn’t think of a way to make it stop, to say no.’
‘Cathy,’ says Bee, and she sounds sleepy, like a fretful child. ‘Where’s Cathy?’
Loo tugs at her sister’s fingers; she needs her to concentrate. ‘Listen to me,’ she says. ‘It’s all right now. You can go.’
‘No,’ says Nina.
‘You can’t make me,’ Bee says and the pressure starts to build again. Lucy can feel it, the sickening buzzing inside her head.
‘I want – I want …’ Bee looks directly at Hal and Nina. Hal feels his skin prickling. ‘The girls,’ she says. ‘I want—’
They’re coming back, he thinks, all of them.
‘You don’t belong with Tib,’ says Lucy, pulling the blue-green marble out of her pocket, holding it tight. ‘You should be here, with me. We can go together now.’
‘No,’ Hal says.
‘I miss you, Bee,’ says Lucy. ‘I love you.’ It’s her last great secret and it’s the truth.
‘Don’t,’ says Nina.
‘Here we go,’ says Lucy softly. She is still holding Bee’s hand and it’s the easiest thing in the world to let go, to step back and finally let go, to fall through the open doors onto the freezing ground below.
In the barn, Lewis is woken by the sound of Lucy’s phone. He pulls it clumsily from her coat pocket and stares at the caller ID on-screen.
Blue Jacket House.
38
Now
The voices are muffled and someone, Nina, she thinks, is holding her hand. She can feel that, Nina’s cold fingers wrapped around hers.
She sees her, suddenly, briefly, her face mottled with tears.
Simon is there too, Lucy can hear him.
‘… be all right … Lucy … Lucy …’
She looks up at the stars, scattered across the inky sky. The biggest sky she’s ever seen, blue-black, velvety soft. Her vision blurs, she must be crying and she wishes she could wipe away the tears, see properly.
‘Keep still.’
‘I am.’
Did she say that?
Bee is lying next to her, her petticoat skirts spread out, one arm flung back over her head; they are still holding hands.
She can hear the siren and understands what is being said to her.
Ambulance
Lewis
Then Hal lowers his voice.
Cathy
The siren gets louder, then cuts out.
Hal walks away, she feels that, but Nina is still there, still holding on. Fierce. ‘It’s all right, it’s going to be all right,’ she says.
The stars glitter, too many to count.
She wonders where Bee has gone.
39
Now
Cathy’s instructions had been quite clear. She wanted a secular service, and had chosen the music and the readings. The crematorium is a low modern building set in rolling green hills on the outskirts of the town, and a herd of cows continue to graze indifferently in the field beyond the memorial garden as Lucy, Dan and Florian
stand outside after the short service, shaking hands and embracing Cathy’s friends who have come to say their goodbyes.
Jean is there, professional, calm, Sarah too, teary and clutching a hankie – she was with Cathy when it happened. Lucy must find the time to speak with her properly, thank her, reassure her. There are people Dan seems to know, and Flor makes the best of the situation, meeting all these strangers with a firm handshake and murmured thanks.
There are more people there than she expected and Lucy’s grateful for that, happy at least that her mother hadn’t been lonely at the end of her life, that she’d been held in some regard by those who knew her.
The line of mourners progresses slowly, and they wait until last, Hal, Nina and, left leg encased in plaster up to his hip, slightly unsteady on his crutches, Lewis.
Lucy hugs them in turn. ‘You’ll come back to the house, won’t you?’ she says.
Lucy doesn’t know if this is usual, a final courtesy extended by Jean, or a special arrangement, organised in advance by Cathy, but a funeral tea has been laid on at Blue Jacket House. They use the dining room, a buffet has been set up in one corner, and members of staff, those unable to attend the service, seek out Lucy and her brothers to offer their condolences.
Her younger sister Antonella hasn’t been able to make it; her job, her family, her other commitments. There’s talk of her coming over from America in a couple of months’ time, when they, the family, will scatter Cathy’s ashes in a private ceremony.
They sit by the window, Hal, Nina and Lewis, and after a while Dan joins them while his wife, Julie, helps Lucy see to their guests, exchanging pleasantries, venturing stories, memories of happier times.
Gradually people leave and Sarah and Jean begin to tidy up. Flor and his wife decide their two boys have had enough, and make arrangements to meet Dan and Lucy for lunch the next day. Flor knows perfectly well who Hal, Nina and Lewis are, and about their connection to the farm, but he makes no mention of it. Lucy hugs her younger brother too; she can feel his surprise at this. She resolves to be kinder to him in the future.
Julie announces she’s going to go upstairs, get on with packing up Cathy’s things. She kisses Dan on the cheek, takes Lucy’s hand and squeezes it gently then leaves, shepherding her daughters out in front of her.