beats per minute

by Alex Mae

  If only she hadn’t had to call him! If only she had been able to find her phone and call Marie instead. But without her phone she was buggered: Ramsey Island was the only number she knew off by heart. Oh, that bloody phone, she was always putting it down without thinking! If it turned out to be lost for good it would be the final cherry on top of an awful night.

  Her head was pounding.

  ‘Cards for you,’ Bridey trilled, setting a pitcher of orange juice on the table. Raegan gulped a glass down straight away; her throat felt like someone had stuck a hoover down it and sucked the last drop of moisture out. The cool sweetness was heaven. Feeling a bit better, pleased to be distracted from her confusing thoughts, she reached for the pastel coloured envelopes.

  ‘Happy birthday from everyone at the Woodstead,’ Raegan read. ‘Ah, how cute! It’s a card from my old school, gran.’ She held it up so that Bridey could see all the signatures; even Con craned his head for a quick look. Instantly cheered, she turned the gaudy purple object over and over in her hands, grinning widely. ‘What time did you say lunch was? I’m starving.’

  ‘Not long now. But first…’ Bridey wiped her hands on her apron before pulling up a seat beside Con. She and her husband exchanged a quick glance. ‘Here’s a little something. For your sixteenth.’ From under the table came a small red parcel. ‘Happy Birthday.’ Two mugs were raised in a shaky toast.

  Raegan was touched. ‘Oh, Grandma... you really didn’t have to –‘

  ‘It’s not just from me.’ Bridey’s voice was tight and high, as if stuck in her throat. ‘It’s from both of us. Actually, it’s been in your Grandda’s family for years. Go on, open it!’

  Raegan handled the package with great care. Her grandparents were watching her nervously, almost as if holding their breath; the contents were obviously very important to them. Curiosity piqued, Raegan unsealed the flap of paper at the end, and ran her thumbs down to free the little box inside, sliding it out gently. Bridey nodded at her eagerly, urging her to continue; but the mother of pearl clasp was so delicate that she was almost afraid to handle it. Slowly she eased it open.

  Nestling on the black velvet interior was a fine gold chain, threaded through a translucent pendant carved out of metal and glass. Cradling it in her hands, she gently tipped the necklace out onto her palm. It felt warm, which was unexpected, and strangely right; as if it belonged to her. The glass globe housed a tiny hourglass, perfectly visible within its case and skilfully crafted. The hourglass was tipped with black on both top and bottom, gleaming darkly from within the glass case, and contained tiny topaz beads which appeared frozen in motion; the time had only just begun to tick down, it seemed.

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ Raegan gasped. ‘It’s wonderful!’ She put it on straight away. The pendant hung between her cleavage, tucked underneath her shirt and resting against her heart.

  ‘Like I said, it’s a family heirloom,’ Bridey said, watching her with an unreadable expression. ‘Your grandfather’s clan in Galway placed great importance on these trinkets, a bit like the people of Claddagh with their rings.’

  Uncontrollably, Raegan’s eyes flicked to Con. He cleared his throat in answer. ‘When girls and boys reached sixteen it was tradition for the craftsmen of the village to make these specially; the clan strongly believed there were mystical properties in the stones that would protect the young adults from harm as they left their parents’ domain. It’s a sort of talisman, if you like.’

  Raegan’s hands had moved, quite unconsciously, to grip the pendant. It felt reassuringly heavy in her palm.

  ‘You may think we’re old fools, Raegan, but we’d like you to promise always to wear this; Con really believes that it’ll bring you good fortune. Lord knows, we’ve had enough bad luck to last us a lifetime. We couldn’t bear for anything to happen to you.’ Bridey’s eyes were glistening; embarrassed, dabbing at her face with her apron, she pushed her chair back with an abrupt squeak and hurried back to the kitchen. The clanging of pots and pans soon filled the room.

  Raegan was left with Con; but after seeing Bridey’s tears she couldn’t meet his eye. A mounting sense of shame prickled at her skin.

  ‘I don’t deserve this – though I guess after last night you think I really need it,’ Raegan said in a low tone. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking! I’m so sorry-‘

  ‘Enough.’ Con’s voice was quiet but brooked no argument. ‘Your gran has gone to a lot of trouble to make this a happy day. Don’t spoil it.’

  She stared at him, open-mouthed.

  ‘You were reckless and stupid. But you’re safe, and that’s all that matters. And it will never happen again.’ There was no question in Con’s voice. He still wouldn’t look at her.

  ‘No,’ she whispered.

  Suddenly it was all too much. Her head was throbbing, she was nauseous, and now a pain in her chest – not physical – joined in. The room was closing in on her. Raegan felt a desperate need to catch her breath.

  She stood up in a rush and banged her knee on the table. Unbeknownst to her Con’s eyes followed.

  ‘Just going to wash up before lunch,’ she announced, her voice over-bright and unnaturally high.

  On the other side of the room, Bridey looked up from where she was crouched, peering into the oven. ‘I’ll be dishing up in a wee while,’ she said in surprise.

  ‘Won’t be long.’

  ***

  The mattress creaked loudly as Raegan flopped against it.

  After a moment she opened her eyes, hands fidgeting idly with the pendant around her neck. She couldn’t bring herself to hurry back downstairs. Her grandparents meant well, she knew that. But sometimes it was like she couldn’t breathe around them. Years of separation and a Joseph-sized elephant in the room seemed to suck up all the air. Throw drunkenness and missed curfews into the mix and it was quite a party.

  Party. The word flashed across her brain as it had when she read it earlier. Suddenly remembering, she reached into the pocket of her dressing gown for the card she had tucked away at the breakfast table; a bright blue envelope with ‘time to party!’ embossed on the seal. For some reason she hadn’t wanted to open it in front of her grandparents. Maybe she was too scared of what she would find inside.

  Her heart picked up speed slightly. Grow up, she chided herself, trying to ignore the fact that her hangover seemed to have returned with a vengeance; it was like the room was going in and out of focus in time with her heart. After a beat her eyes found the envelope again. She tore it open.

  ‘Happy Birthday, Rae! Sixteen today, getting old now. Lol!

  We hope U R having a brill day. Wish we could be there. Invite us soon? Seriously. Miss you loads!!!’

  The words were surrounded by drawings of balloons and little stick figures. Then there were two familiar but different signatures, the one with hearts above the ‘i’s and the other all joined up and neat: ‘Annie and Bex xxxxxxx’.

  Raegan couldn’t swallow down the hard lump in her throat. The three of them had spent every birthday together for the past decade but this year she hadn’t even been sure they would remember.

  A rush of warmth thudded into her belly and suddenly the months of silence seemed stupid, pointless. Why was she worrying about making new friends when she had them? Energised, she pushed up off her elbows and leaned over to the bedside table, intending to grab her phone and fire off a thank you text. And then she remembered she had no idea where her phone was.

  Her head began to pound again and she almost wailed in frustration. Why did she have to lose her phone today, of all days? The last thing she felt like doing was wasting her birthday on the phone to Orange, explaining that – yet again - she needed a replacement simcard. But maybe there was still a chance, she thought hopefully. The fact that she couldn’t remember where she had lost the phone meant that, in theory, it could just be lying around in her room somewhere, waiting to be found…

  She sighed as her eye fell on the towers of clothing and DVDs that seemed to have grown
up around the bed. Her head, almost as if in answer, gave an almighty throb.

  Thump thump thump.

  After ten minutes Raegan was still searching fruitlessly, but the noise that seemed to erupt out of the floor was loud and strange enough to drag her attention away from the old copies of Glamour littering the carpet.

  Thump.

  ‘Raegan!’ Con’s voice was muffled, but it still pierced the quiet like a foghorn. A few more thumps. Was he hitting the kitchen ceiling? Another thump. It definitely sounded like a broom handle.

  It was also doing nothing for her hangover.

  ‘You could’ve just knocked on the door,’ she muttered sourly, clutching at her head before replying with a loud: ‘YEAH?’

  ‘We’re waiting on you! Get down here or I’ll be up to carry you!’

  She was about to respond when a strange buzzing noise made her prick up her ears. Was that Con making the floor shake, or something else? She held her breath.

  Yes, there it was again, humming through the silence, a definite buzz – like a phone vibrating! And it seemed to be coming from the pile of clothing just by the door. With no thought for her bruised elbows, she flung herself on the mound, sending clothes flying around the room.

  ‘YES!’ Breathing heavily, the phone clutched in her hand, she sat up. ‘Raegan 1, Room 0. Happy birthday to me.’

  Her excitement quickly turned to surprise when she saw the screen. A flashing envelope letting her know she’d run out of space in her inbox, ten missed calls and two voicemails! She scrolled through the missed calls list. Ramsay Home, Private Number, some 0800 she didn’t recognise… and then her finger slowed as the same name appeared, over and over: Marie. Marie. Marie. Marie. Marie. Five calls within the space of an hour.

  ‘You have… two… new… messages…’

  ‘First message sent today at… two twenty-six am.’

  ‘Raegan!’ Her friend’s voice was loud and excited as it battled against the background traffic noise. ‘Where did you go off to? Naughty girl, ditching me, I didn’t even get a chance to sing! Soooo: happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Raegan… or, wait, shouldn’t it be that song, you know, that old one my dad likes?- “happy birthday sweet sixte-e-een”.’ She finished with a tuneless flourish, giggling drunkenly. ‘Have a good one, babe. What’s that? Oh yeah, Christian says to say Happy Birthday from him.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I think he likes you!’

  Beep.

  ‘Second message sent today at…two fifty-seven am.’

  ‘Raegan? Raegan, where are you?’ This time the voice on the end of the phone was quiet. Breathless, almost. Then Marie spoke again and Raegan’s heart gave a lurch as she realised her friend was crying. ‘I don’t know where I am. Philip and Christian said they wanted to go to the Shack, and that they knew a shortcut through the woods. But then they started messing, pushing me about, ‘cause I couldn’t see where I was going, like it was funny. Then they ran off. They were l-l-laughing at me…’ Marie was crying hard now. ‘I’m in Lydgale somewhere, but it’s so dark, and I’m nearly out of battery. Please, I can’t tell my dad about this, he’d kill me! Please get this message! Please come and get me! Please-‘

  ‘End of message.’

  Raegan hung up. It was as if she was in a daze; her fingers, scrabbling at the keys, didn’t seem to be working fast enough. After an age she finally pulled up Marie’s number and pressed ‘call’. Her mobile was switched off. Her house phone just rang and rang and rang.

  Her hands were shaking as she let the phone drop from her ear. So many possibilities flitted through her mind, none of them good. What if something had happened to Marie? What should she do? Call Marie’s father? Call the police? Her eyes began to sting and she could feel the tears clawing at her throat. What do I do I don’t know what to do what do I do…

  Marie’s voice, anguished, panicked, echoed in her mind: ‘Please come and get me!’ Please. Please. Please. Her mother’s voice after the car had hit her. Please. The blood, warm and wet, sliding through her fingers…

  She groped for the floor blindly, desperate for something to hold onto.

  Her heart was hammering; her head overtaken with a sudden dizzying lightness, as if like a balloon it could disconnect from her neck and float up to the ceiling. Then, as if responding to the tumult of emotions, her vision began to fluctuate. She blinked once, twice, but it continued. The familiar room was mutating before her eyes. The sky outside the window appeared to be changing from light to dark and back again, and the objects in the room bent at the edges, in and out like a maniacal squeezebox. What was happening to her? Was she hallucinating? The room continued to morph for split-seconds at a time. She was going mad. Frightened, she pressed the heels of her hands, one still clutching the phone, into her eyes.

  The darkness was soothing. Focusing on her breathing and nothing else, she commanded herself to exhale in and out, slowly – like her mum had always told her to. Gradually, her heart began to slow.

  In that moment it had been like her feelings and body were linked: upset one and the other replied. Was that even possible?

  With apprehension, Raegan cracked one eye open, and then the other. The room was still. A great rush of air burst out of her lungs in relief and she gripped the edge of the bed to steady herself, pulling herself to standing.

  Either her hangover had reached brain-tumour proportions or she was going mad, but right now she didn’t have time to focus on that. All that mattered was that Marie was safe. A sickening sense of dread crawled over her skin but she prayed, again and again, that this was just an overreaction. Just because Marie’s phone was off didn’t mean she was in trouble. It could all be in her head.

  Yes, that was it, Raegan told herself. She was probably overreacting and she just needed to see Marie in person to reassure herself. After lunch she would go to her house. Marie was probably hungover and probably hadn’t even charged her phone yet! Yes, that sounded like something her friend would do. The fact that so much of her logic relied on the word ‘probably’ was deliberately ignored. Raegan forced a smile; in the mirror it looked as false as the Cheshire Cat’s grin.

  Everything would be fine.

  Chapter Five: Shards

  I’m going mad.

  The thought reverberated in Raegan’s head as she walked.

  What sane person decided to spend her birthday chasing after a friend who was probably just dying of a hangover somewhere? What sane person turned up at said friend’s house and her place of work? And what sane person, after getting no answer at either property, decided to go into the woods?

  ‘And not just any woods,’ she muttered to herself, crunching her way over damp leaves and uneven soil. ‘Creepy old Lydgale Forest. The one Bridey tells ghost stories about. Plus it’s raining. Plus Con and Bridey don’t actually even know where you are. Great plan.’

  And now you’re talking to yourself, the little voice in her head cautioned. Also a sign of insanity.

  But it wasn’t madness driving her on. It wasn’t some kind of latent alcohol poisoning. It wasn’t even fear. No, after she’d come down to earth and some food and normal conversation with her grandparents had eased the panic, it seemed to dawn on Raegan that Marie’s voicemail was probably just the product of a drunken night out. True, she had sounded scared, and true, the thought of Marie alone in the woods at night sent a shiver down Raegan’s spine – but the chance of anything happening beyond that was incredibly remote. Her friend was much more likely to be sleeping it off than in any kind of trouble.

  Also true was that guilt, for Raegan, was even stronger than fear. And she couldn’t get rid of the crushing feeling that if she hadn’t left Mojo’s, hadn’t believed Christian when he said Marie had gone without her, this would never have happened. It was her fault Marie had been left alone with those two guys in the first place.

  If anything had happened to Marie it was all her fault. Even if the chances were slim that was the truth: there was no
denying it.

  Which is why – despite the angry storm clouds over head and random drops of rain falling from a dusky sky; despite the fact that it was the evening of her sixteenth birthday; and despite the fact that her grandfather had grounded her – Raegan now found herself poking around the depressing, derelict old building known as the Shack.

  Why anyone would want to party here was beyond her, she thought, kicking aside old beer cans as she trudged around the open plan room at the bottom of the house. Old, damp mattresses, a few items of clothing – nothing she recognised from Marie, thank god – and wine bottles lay alongside old cigarette butts and something that looked suspiciously like a used condom. Gross.

  After twenty minutes of searching she had seen everything there was to see; which was a good thing, as she didn’t think she could put up with the smell for much longer. Still, she was glad she came. It was a relief to see the place with her own eyes, to know that there was nothing in the Shack to suggest that Marie had ever even been here. She shrugged. What she was expecting to find, she didn’t know, but Marie’s voicemail made her worry that if Christian and Philip thought it was funny to push her around in the dark, they might also think it was funny to drag her to the Shack against her will. And once inside… she shuddered. She didn’t want to think about it.

  But it didn’t look like anything had gone down at the Shack recently. In fact, it didn’t look as though the place had been used for months.

  She furrowed her brow. That seemed weird. Why would Christian and Philip even want to hit the Shack if there wasn’t a party going on?

  Before she could ponder that fact a rumble of thunder distracted her. Racing to the entrance, which was marked by a rusty old door hanging off its hinges, Raegan stepped out into the forest. The sky seemed to swell angrily overhead, parting to shoot patters of rain onto the earth. Lydgale Forest, wide, dark and long, loomed before her.