by Lee Monroe
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
‘You’re not going anywhere.’ He pressed his face to mine, and I could actually hear the pulse in his neck. I did as he said, I didn’t turn, I just stared straight ahead, focusing on the treetops in the darkness, looking at the moon, full in the sky.
All I could hear was the intense pounding of my heart.
‘What a treacherous little witch you are.’ His voice came out in an acid whisper. ‘Just like your whore of a mother.’
I turned and we stared at each other. I could smell his familiar smell, but otherwise I didn’t recognise him. He looked … ugly.
He gave a nasty, twisted kind of smile. ‘Now that I know what you’ve been up to I feel even less guilty …’ He sighed. ‘I was going to give it a little more time. Properly ingratiate myself with your family. Your mother would have begun to think of me as the son she never had …’ He paused. ‘Except she would always have looked at me and seen my birthmark, and been reminded … wondered if it really was just a coincidence.’
I was confused for a second but then my eyes fell to his neck, where the crescent-shaped scar seemed more prominent now.
‘My father’s was almost identical, except his was on his back. It’s all I have left of him.’
‘Sorry,’ I said tonelessly. His eyes swept over me, contemptuous.
‘I hear you’ve been tampering with my world,’ he said calmly changing the subject. ‘You and that pathetic wolf-boy, Luca …’ He shook his head. ‘He always was spineless. Even when we were small. A disgrace to his family.’
I kept silent, figuring it was the best policy.
‘You were playing us off against each other.’ Evan laughed nastily. ‘And here was me priding myself on my deceit.’ He pinched my cheek painfully. ‘Sly little minx, aren’t you, Jane?’
I shook my head.
‘Actually,’ he went on. ‘I apologise. It isn’t your fault. Really … it has nothing to do with you.’ There was a pause before he continued. ‘But on the other hand, it has everything to do with you.’ I flinched at how cold he sounded. Worse than cold, his voice was flat and emotionless.
‘How?’ I said quietly. ‘I don’t understand …’
‘Because she is your mother. Your flesh and blood. And I know you have inherited the bond with Nissilum … you and Luca.’ He relaxed his grip a little. ‘You mortals pretend innocence. You appear passive … But you are so dangerous. So indecisive. So weak.’
‘You used me,’ I said numbly. ‘Everything was just … an act.’
Evan pouted. ‘Don’t look so sad, Janey. You didn’t really want me either … did you?’
‘I … did. At first I did.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ he said, in a mock-sad voice. ‘I thought I had you so smitten. I mean, I know you wanted me. You can’t fake that. And everything was going so well. Just the right amount of attentive and loving, just the right amount of moody and unavailable. It’s pathetic how easy it is to get a girl interested.’
‘You wanted to break my heart. Make me feel that pain.’
‘Something like that.’
‘But it broke her heart,’ I said, my voice seemed to crack a little. ‘My mum. It was the hardest thing she ever did.’
‘Really?’ he said, icily. ‘Harder than watching your father disintegrate. Fade away in front of your eyes. Punished because of her.’
Evan was insane. I needed to choose my words carefully.
‘It must have been terrible for you.’
‘You have no idea,’ Evan said with more feeling.
The curved roofs of the abandoned Nissen huts were suddenly bathed in light from the moon glowing above us. The cawing sound, the crows, was louder than ever. I felt sick with fear.
‘But it was his choice, too?’ I ventured dangerously. ‘He had free will.’
Evan didn’t speak but his grip tightened again. I looked furtively down at his hands, saw the veins standing out with the effort of holding so tight.
‘They both took a risk—’
‘What do you know about it, freak!’ hissed Evan into my ear, and the nausea became worse. I kept my mouth shut, though I wanted to both scream and vomit at the same time.
‘You’re so naïve. So green. You fell for the first enigmatic sweet-talker that walked into town.’
A tear slid, unstoppable, down my cheek.
‘When I walked into your house and saw your mother for the first time, it took all I had not to scream in her face. There she was, happy, carrying on her life like nothing had happened. Talking all that crap about being in love. Not being able to eat! I nearly slapped her. Heaven knows how I kept my cool.’
I remembered that day. I thought Evan had been quiet, thinking about his family.
He turned to me. ‘There is so much you don’t know.’
‘What?’ I said, feigning ignorance. In a macabre kind of way I wanted him to tell me about what I’d already found out.
‘I can … I suppose you’d call it “shapeshift”.’ He sighed, as though the explanation was boring him. ‘There was an Evan Forrest. Everyone thought he went missing, but he died in an “accident”. Body unidentified. He was strangled. I believe.’ Evan looked directly into my eyes, enjoying the fear he saw there. ‘But the killer was never caught. Just disappeared.’
‘Until he came here,’ I said. ‘You killed Evan.’ I dug my nails into my palm, feeling drops of sweat on the back of my neck.
‘Well, how else was I going to take on his form?’ Evan chewed his lip casually.
‘But why him?’ I found myself asking. ‘Why go all the way to Australia?’
‘Easier to cover my tracks,’ Evan replied evenly. ‘No awkward questions.’ He shifted, looking at me with indifference, as though he was confessing into a police tape recorder. ‘It meant I could teach myself to drive, get myself a good tan, become the rugged outdoors type … and I could reinvent Evan a little … And then I could turn up here, knowing my dad would welcome me with open arms.’
‘All that stuff about your mother …’ I murmured in disbelief. ‘Her depression and the neglect …’
Evan grinned. ‘Good, wasn’t it? Considering I made it all up on the spot.’ He paused. ‘I almost believed it myself.’
‘She doesn’t even know her son is dead,’ I breathed. ‘Her real son.’
He shrugged. ‘A few “civilian casualties” were inevitable. It couldn’t be helped.’
He truly was a monster. Or mentally ill. I didn’t know which I was more scared of.
‘How long have you been planning this?’ I shrank from him.
‘Years. Since my father passed away.’
‘I don’t get it. He died of a broken heart?’
Evan’s eyes glinted sharply then. ‘I told you. Falling in love is dangerous. In my father’s case, it was fatal.’
‘But he married your mother, had children … He moved on.’
‘Obviously not,’ Evan said in a voice laden with sarcasm.
‘You really think my mother is to blame?’ I shook my head. ‘That’s insane.’
‘Your mother is a foolish, cold-hearted woman. She walked away and now she has everything.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’ I felt tears pricking. ‘She was torn apart.’ I thought of the notebook. ‘She wrote it all down and she hid it.’
Evan turned abruptly. ‘What?’
She wrote down all her feelings, what was happening … Her mum – my grandmother – was very ill, she needed to take care of her. She tried to explain.’
His lip curled into a sneer. ‘A convenient excuse maybe—’
‘No!’ I wrenched myself out of his grip. ‘You don’t have the monopoly on suffering, Evan. Neither did your dad. Shit happens. Deal with it!’ I realised I was shaking, but I was less afraid now. I was angry.
Evan stared hard at me, he made no move to touch me. Instead he ran his hands, maddeningly slowly, through his hair.
‘Oh, I’m dealing with it, Jane,’ he said coldly.
‘Just you wait and see.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Luca kicked the bolts on the door one more time. His low growl of frustration sent a mouse skittering to its hiding place between two wooden benches. He closed his eyes and sank back down on to the floor.
‘Please, brother …’ he whispered into his hands. ‘Understand.’
But outside, in the depths of the palace, there was just silence.
He sat for what seemed hours, staring at a spot on the floor, trying to stop the tumult of thoughts in his head. If he focused on any one of them he would start to rage and cry … Perhaps he would disintegrate? Perhaps he would deserve to. The sound of a door opening some distance away made him look up. Then footsteps, light, childlike, approaching the door to his prison, stopping just outside.
‘Brother,’ he heard a voice whisper loudly, ‘I have the keys.’
His heart shot up into his mouth and adrenaline made his body bounce up and stand, then run to the door.
He pressed his ear against it.
‘Quickly,’ he told his sister. ‘I have to get out of here right now.’
‘I know, I know,’ she grumbled, and he heard the jangle of keys. She had stolen the large master bunch from the palace cellar and was sorting through them.
‘What are you doing, girl?’ he hissed, exasperated.
‘Trying to find the right key,’ she told him, witheringly. He would have smiled to himself had his mind not been wholly on what he had to do.
Eventually the key turned in the lock and she stood before him, a small triumphant smile on her face.
‘Good work,’ he said, briefly touching the top of her head before pushing past her towards the stairs.
‘Wait,’ she grabbed his arm. ‘I found something.’ She took a letter out of her pocket.
Luca frowned. ‘Dalya, there is no time.’
‘Read it.’ She thrust it at him. ‘It could be your only hope.’
He opened the folded letter and scanned the contents. His sister watched his eyes widen as he read. When he was finished he stared at the words in front of him, eventually looking up at the girl.
‘How can I take this with me? We will have to convince him of its existence.’
She nodded. ‘I’ll keep it in a safe place. For when you return.’
They looked at each other, neither knowing whether he would come back at all.
‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘Time is running out.’
The two of them ran nimbly up the stairs, her breathing was heavy behind him.
He turned at the top. ‘This is as far as you go,’ he told her. ‘You know that.’
She pouted, but waved her hand. ‘Go, then,’ she sighed. ‘Be careful.’
‘You are a good sister,’ he said, feeling it. ‘And I will be back.’
Pulling up his hood he ran at the speed of a puma across the servant’s courtyard and through the back gate.
Watching him disappear out of sight, she closed her eyes, allowing anxiety to come.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I stopped the engine and I stared across the lake. Bird Lake. That’s what I had called it when I was little. Years before – I must have been about five or six – my dad had brought me here. When we’d walked down to the water’s edge, I’d put my hands up to my face. Two white swans had floated, dead and bloody, on the surface of the water.
White-faced and shocked, Dad had pulled me away, picking me up and holding me close, taking big anxious strides away from the scene of the crime.
I’d screamed all the way back to where Dad had parked the truck, and I hadn’t stopped until I fell asleep, cried-out and exhausted. Nightmares had come for months. My mother sent Dad to the doghouse. She was furious with him.
‘How was I to know we’d find savaged swans!’ I heard him say guiltily when I listened outside the living room door one night. ‘Jesus, Anna. Must have been a wild dog of some kind.’
Since then, since the nightmares had stopped, I hadn’t been back. And after time, I had stopped thinking about it. Blocked it out I suppose.
But now I was here again. Looking over the grey-green, reed-covered expanse of water, nausea rising in the pit of my stomach.
Evan’s voice was casual, thoughtful. ‘Creepy, isn’t it?’
I said nothing, concentrating on not shaking. Not vomiting.
‘I call this place Death Lake,’ he went on. ‘Everything dies here.’
A sharp noise cut through my thoughts, like a knife slicing through my brain, and a hissing sound, turning from a sound to words.
‘I’m coming,’ said a voice. ‘Don’t be afraid.’
I didn’t dare believe it. Evan was playing tricks on me. But when I lifted my eyes to see his face, his mouth was set, silent.
‘So, you’re going to kill me then?’ I said. ‘Just get it over with.’
He turned to look at me, began to smile. ‘But that’s not the point, Jane.’ His eyes danced, teasing. ‘Where’s the fun in that?’
I felt bile again. Part of me wanted to spit all of it out on to his face. But I restrained myself. He wanted me to react, I realised. Start screaming, or try and escape. I wasn’t going to give him that.
In the middle of the lake, an unwitting bird swooped, circling, interested. I watched as it hovered, its beak pecking tentatively at a piece of sodden driftwood. I focused on the creature’s investigation, ignoring the darkening sky above me. I felt colder than I had ever done in my life.
Hold on.
I jerked in response to the voice and, somewhere inside, hope stirred. Luca was coming. Luca would make it all right.
‘I heard you were the talk of the Great Ball,’ Evan said, conversationally. ‘Such a pretty little mortal.’
My head snapped round to face him. ‘How did you … ?’
He was smiling unpleasantly. ‘Did you really think I wouldn’t find out about that?’ Shaking his head, he picked up a slender stick and began prodding at the ground. ‘There are some voracious gossips in Nissilum,’ he went on. ‘The witches can’t help themselves.’
Tilly.
I said nothing, I wanted to hear every detail of what he knew. In a sick kind of way, him talking about the ball made me feel close to Luca. I gulped to keep myself from crying.
‘And when I saw that photograph in your room …’ His tone darkened. ‘I suppose it just speeded up the inevitable.’
I remembered that. Remembered his weirdness. He’d said it was something he’d seen out of the window. But he’d seen the photograph.
‘That boy is you,’ I said then. ‘Of course.’
‘That boy was innocent, trusting, full of love …’ He paused. ‘But your mother destroyed everything.’
I wasn’t going to contradict him again. There was no point.
‘Where is my family?’ I said.
His mouth twisted into an ugly smile. ‘They are still alive, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Still alive. Was he going to kill us all?
‘Please …’ I thought of my little sister. Confused and frightened. Of my dad, who knew nothing of my mum’s dark secret. They didn’t deserve to be punished. Neither did she.
‘Do what you want to me,’ I told him, sounding a lot braver than I felt. ‘But don’t hurt them.’
‘Loyalty,’ he said quietly. ‘I like that … Unfortunately for you, not enough to reconsider.’ He scratched at his chin, thoughtfully. ‘But what’s the hurry? I’m enjoying our little chat.’
If it bought me more time, I was grateful. It began to sink in that there would be no happy ending. I tried to bring Luca’s face into my mind. I could see his eyes and I focused on them.
Keep him there, he told me, clear as a bell. Just keep him there.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Luca leaped over the palace walls; lithe and strong, his cheekbones narrowing, his face changing shape. It was the full moon and the time for turning had never been more right.
He was conscious of someone b
ehind him, but he had no time to stop and look. He was about to do something he had never attempted before. To turn in one world and jump to another.
His heart was speeding up and his skin grew tauter, then more elastic as it prepared itself for its cataclysmic change. Soon his organs would grow and his heart would enlarge to twice its size. His hair would turn thicker and the blood vessels in his eyes would explode with pressure.
He was familiar with this. He knew this. What he didn’t know was if he could save the girl he loved.
‘Luca!’
He heard the scream as he vaulted through the fields and he shook his head as he ran, wondering if she was calling for help. If Raphael had already …
‘Luca!’
The voice was close now, right behind him, and he turned to see his sister. A smaller neater, prettier version of him.
Dalya was wolf.
He stood up on his hind legs, which shook with the shock.
‘Brother, you can’t do this alone,’ she half panted, half growled, and then she lost her voice. Her slender jaws snapped together.
He met her gaze full on, silently communicating gratitude, and she pawed the ground, ready to run with him.
And as the moon held court above them, brother and sister bounded forward, heading for the Water Path.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It would be light soon, I thought, not knowing whether this would make things better or worse. I was both exhausted and wired; I didn’t dare drop my guard.
Evan was pitching stones into the filthy, stagnant water. I used the time to look around me, wondering how, if, I could possibly escape this.
Through some trees, I could see Dad’s truck, which Evan had made me drive, enjoying watching me as I’d nervously navigated the narrow roads. It had been one hell of a way to lose my learner plates. I didn’t think I would ever be able to drive again.