Don't Look Back

by S. B. Hayes

  I tensed, expecting to hear the first underwater rumblings, but nothing disturbed the still surface. My body stayed immobile and poised for what felt like forever, willing the end to come swiftly. I submerged my head in the cloudy depths again and again, but each time I spluttered to the surface. Eventually I had to limp out. Foolishness was replaced by anger when I realized how futile this was. There was nothing here to injure me. It had always been my mind simply playing tricks. But now that there was no way to reach James, the impact of his death hit me anew.

  The scream came from deep within me and it was a relief to let go. Even the trees seemed to understand and their lush canopy of leaves and branches didn’t deaden my scream but appeared to open to release my fury and impotence into the atmosphere. My teeth ground together and must have nicked my tongue because I could taste blood. I struck the nearest tree with my fist, the bark split open like a cracked nut, the diamond pattern imprinting itself in my flesh. I reeled slightly, the physical pain momentarily overshadowing the acute pain inside. Where would I go and what would I do without James? I couldn’t leave Benedict House because I felt close to him here. I’d be compelled to tour the estate mourning him, hot tears burning my cheeks, even though it felt like a life sentence. A shudder ran down my spine.

  ‘Your destiny is to stay here in a prison of your own choosing. The earth will weep with you and from your tears will spring forth new shoots.’

  James’s gran must have known of his condition and predicted my suffering, almost taunted me.

  Sister Catherine’s voice made me jump. ‘This isn’t the answer, Sinead.’

  She was standing close by, her hands linked before her. She must have heard me scream but didn’t ask why. By her expression, it seemed as if she already knew about James, and that I was trying to join him.

  My fingers traced the abrasion on my fist. ‘Then what is?’ I asked heatedly.

  ‘True love cannot be torn asunder.’

  Her words didn’t comfort me. ‘I don’t have your faith. And I’ve no idea where James is.’

  Her smile was beatific. ‘James is waiting for you.’

  ‘How can he be?’ I choked out. ‘I watched him die.’

  She shook her head slowly but didn’t explain. ‘Your trial has finished, Sinead. You must now achieve what you came here for and find your brother.’

  ‘Of course … but I can’t forget James … I can’t just leave him –’

  ‘You don’t have to. Your answers lie in the same place.’

  Her words only confused me more. ‘We had a deal,’ I cried out. ‘You promised you’d tell me—’

  ‘Guide you,’ she interjected, ‘when the time was right.’

  ‘Then tell me where the first church stood.’

  She pressed her lips together and spoke carefully. ‘The site is sacred, Sinead. That should suffice.’

  ‘If … When I find the site, what should I do?’

  ‘Don’t enter in haste or with animosity, Sinead. Clear your conscience first.’

  ‘How can I enter at all? It was demolished years ago.’

  ‘The foundations of the church can never be destroyed. You’ll find a way.’

  ‘What if I can’t?’

  ‘Face your fears. Your freedom is almost in sight. But don’t delay. You don’t have much time.’

  I screwed up my eyes in despair. When I opened them again I was alone.

  *

  I returned to the weeping willow to discover that James’s body had gone, although I could still see its impression on the flattened grass. Sister Catherine couldn’t have moved him and there was no one else here capable of helping, unless – my knees gave way and I sank to the ground – James is waiting for you. There was only one way that James could be waiting for me – if he wasn’t dead. Maybe I’d been wrong and his heart hadn’t stopped beating. James’s protracted illness could have somehow slowed his pulse to mimic death. Sister Catherine surely couldn’t be that cruel. If he was alive, she would have told me right away, instead of baffling me again with her strange words. Or would she?

  I felt woozy and took slow breaths through my mouth to calm my racing heartbeat. Was Sister Catherine testing my love for James, or my sense of duty towards my brother? Were their fates now bound together? Nothing made sense, but I had to cling to the belief that James was still alive, and in finding Patrick I would be reunited with him. Everything hinged on finding the first church, but in the last few days James and I had covered almost every inch of this estate. All Sister Catherine would tell me was that the site was sacred, as if that should be enough for me to find it. But what if it wasn’t enough? What if I wasn’t up to the task? The thought of what was at stake was terrifying.

  I walked and walked, but every path seemed to lead back to the weeping willow. When I found myself back there for the third time I threw my arms around Orpheus, glad of something to hold on to. I smiled sadly, remembering how James had moved him to play a joke on me. He thought that he belonged over the bridge with the dead. There was no blinding flash of light. When the answer came to me, it was a slow, gentle realization that made me almost believe James had whispered the words in my ear. He hadn’t been allowed to play near the graves because the land was blessed. The first church and the burial site must be one and the same. Sister Catherine had waited until my trial was over to give me the final piece of the puzzle. I trembled at the thought of what might lie ahead.

  I made my way to the glade and my eyes scanned the bridge. I heard a low warning growl and my stomach pitched with fear. Sister Catherine hadn’t told me how to get past Cerberus, but she had warned me that I didn’t have much time. I had to do this and I had to do it now. I walked towards the giant dog, trying to appear as meek and unthreatening as possible. Cerberus’s ears immediately went back and he bared his teeth. My legs turned to jelly and my heart was thumping so loudly that it almost drowned out the sinister growling. I put one tentative foot on the first wooden slat, my mind teeming with unwelcome thoughts. James’s dad had been gone for eight years, but the dog must have remained, surviving on wild rabbits and game. Now he would be used to killing and eating his prey raw. He lowered his front legs threateningly into the crouch position, which I knew was usually a prelude to attack. Even the snarl had changed into more of an excited yelp as though he had smelled blood. My vision began to mist and I took a step back, knowing I wasn’t brave enough to do this. In that instant I heard a voice inside my head, ‘Face your demons, Sinead.’

  Dogs can smell fear. I slowed my breathing and pictured James’s beautiful face, then walked determinedly towards Cerberus, saying his name with as much authority as I could summon. And the strangest thing happened: as I approached, he began to retreat with a series of whimpers until he was on the other side of the bridge. Then he sat down and didn’t move a muscle. I concentrated on nothing else but putting one foot in front of the other. As I drew closer Cerberus didn’t react. He allowed me to pass unharmed. I was still terrified, imagining I could feel hot breath on the back of my legs.

  The circular wall of holly loomed before me. It must have been over three metres high. Looking up at it made me a little disorientated. I did a full circuit before I noticed a small gap, almost a doorway, as regular as if it had been especially cut out. I slipped inside. It felt like entering another world. There was a circle of blue sky, but the light was diffused and the air heavy and sultry, as if it was holding its breath. I gazed around, lulled by the silence. There weren’t any headstones – the graves remained unmarked – but I noticed some kind of monument. I walked over curiously to examine it.

  The brick structure was surprisingly solid with a door in one wall and a pitched roof. As I read the inscription a bolt of terror and elation shot through me. ‘I will give unto you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.’ I knew those words. I was taken back to the day I’d begun my search for Patrick, the day I almost fell from the clock tower. The message I’d risked my life to retrieve had led me to the church of Saint Pe
ter. The priest had told me that Saint Peter had been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. He’d hoped that Patrick’s key would lead me to the same place. I’d committed the design to memory. The distinctive fleur-de-lis decoration of its handle exactly matched the design around the lock mounted into the door facing me.

  I shivered at my discovery. Everything was falling into place. I should have been ecstatic but I couldn’t forget Sister Catherine’s words. ‘Don’t enter in haste or with animosity, Sinead. Clear your conscience first.’

  There was somewhere I had to go, and there wasn’t much time.

  Thirty-Two

  I stood by the roadside with my thumb in the air. Only five vehicles had passed, when a car slammed on its brakes and then its hazard lights. Two elderly ladies were sitting in the front seats and they had a brief conversation before opening the window. I told them a sob story about having a row with my boyfriend and being abandoned in the countryside without any money. They clucked and tutted, their dresses rustling, and I felt awful for deceiving them. They refused to simply drop me in town but went out of their way to take me right to my own doorstep.

  It was an odd sensation to be back. My house looked utterly familiar and yet so distant from me. Mum answered the door within seconds, and stared at me as if I was a stranger. I suddenly wondered if she had always made me feel this way.

  ‘Do you have any further news of your brother?’ she asked.

  Instead of being furious with her, I just felt incredibly sad. I went into the living room and sat down on the sofa. It was a high-backed one that forced you to sit with a poker-straight spine, about as comfortable as being under interrogation. The room was spotless as usual.

  Mum followed me in, still waiting for a reply. I answered her question with one of my own. ‘Weren’t you worried when I stopped calling?’

  She moved her hand in a gesture like swatting a fly. ‘Did you go back and look for Patrick?’

  ‘I looked.’ Her peevish expression indicated that my efforts weren’t enough. ‘I think I might have found the … er … key to where he is, but … there’s something I have to ask you first.’

  My mother’s pencilled brows shot up. I ran my tongue over my lips nervously. ‘I wanted to ask what you meant when you said I was … twisted. It’s really important I know.’

  She sighed. ‘Why bring this up now? The damage has already been done.’

  ‘What damage?’

  ‘Damage to your brother, Sinead, damage to Patrick.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘How have I damaged Patrick?’

  My mother massaged her neck with a pained expression. ‘Do you really want to know?’

  My eyes narrowed. ‘I really want to know.’

  She folded her arms across her chest. ‘If you hadn’t been such an attention seeker, Patrick’s life might have turned out differently.’

  ‘Attention seeker?’ I gulped in amazement. ‘I was invisible to you. For years you ignored me – you covered me with a blanket!’

  I’d returned home to clear the air, desperate to put our differences behind us. Instead I was still the fall guy, but this time something had changed; I had detected a new bitterness in her voice.

  ‘Don’t let’s argue, Mum,’ I said contritely. ‘This is hard to explain. I know you don’t usually worry about me, but there’s been some weird stuff happening—’

  ‘Weird stuff happening,’ she mimicked in a horribly piercing voice. ‘You were always the same, even as a little girl, inventing stories, trying to make yourself important. That’s the reason …’

  She clapped her hands over her mouth and turned away from me. But I could see her reflection in the mirror, her face contorted with pent-up emotion.

  ‘Reason for what?’ I asked, bewildered.

  ‘The reason why Patrick is … so vulnerable.’

  I groaned inwardly, hating it when she trivialized Patrick’s problems and made out that he was blameless. ‘So … you’re saying it’s my fault he became a raving addict?’

  She winced at the harshness of my words. ‘Cast your mind back, Sinead, and face the truth of what you did.’

  There were plenty of things on my conscience at this moment, but my treatment of Patrick wasn’t one of them. I hadn’t expected her to roll out the red carpet for me, but I was genuinely perplexed at the ferocity and nature of this attack.

  ‘No, you’ve still lost me, Mum.’ Despite all my intentions to stay calm, I was growing hot and bothered. ‘Remind me.’

  Her eyes blazed. ‘That childish lie you told about Patrick, Sinead.’

  This was growing more bizarre. Patrick’s disappearance must have seriously unhinged my mother. I never made up childish lies about him because she wouldn’t have believed me. For years she’d refused to believe he was an addict, even when the evidence was staring her in the face. Dad had eventually forced her to confront it, but she couldn’t forgive him.

  ‘That night you couldn’t breathe,’ she continued, her own voice sounding strangled with repressed fury.

  I had a sense that my mother’s rage had been suppressed for a long time and the floodgates were about to open.

  ‘I was … five years old,’ I said hesitantly, ‘and I had a bad asthma attack … You know I did.’

  She shook her head determinedly and her face was strangely gloating. ‘You didn’t have asthma.’

  ‘Yes, I did. I had an inhaler.’

  ‘Your inhaler was empty – it was just a pacifier.’

  The panicky feeling was returning to my throat as though my air supply was being slowly cut off. ‘Then why did you tell me I did have asthma and that Dad was making it better?’

  She ignored my question and declared with a vehemence that shocked me, ‘Your lie changed the course of Patrick’s life.’

  This was incomprehensible to me, but something significant was taking place. I’d never seen my mother so darkly incensed. My eyes closed and I was back in my bedroom, waking from a deep sleep. It was a windy night and the branches of the horse-chestnut tree outside my bedroom tapped on the glass and the rain sounded like gravel against the windows. The curtains must have been open just a little, because a tiny bright chink shone through from the street light, and I stayed really still because I knew something wasn’t right. It came from nowhere, a soft, downy weight muffling my nose and mouth. I was frantically inhaling, desperate to draw air into my lungs, but there was no air, as though the darkness itself was smothering me. Then Dad was blowing into my mouth and begging me to breathe.

  ‘I didn’t make it up … Dad had to give me mouth-to-mouth.’

  Her glacial stare sent shivers up and down my spine. Patrick had my mother’s eyes. I saw him in hers just then, and in that instant I knew what had been different about that night.

  ‘There was someone else in the room,’ I whispered, ‘someone hiding in the shadows. Oh my God!’ I covered my face with my hands, my stomach heaving. ‘Patrick had a pillow over my face. It was the middle of the night,’ I managed to croak. ‘He was pressing harder and harder. I couldn’t get him off, he was too strong, and then … I gave up … I gave up … I gave up fighting –’

  ‘It was just a game,’ my mother insisted through clenched teeth. ‘Patrick told me you did the same to him. There was nothing sinister about it.’

  I looked at her in utter horror. ‘He nearly killed me, and you believed his pathetic story about playing some kind of game?’

  ‘You were just children,’ she protested. ‘You shouldn’t have made such a fuss.’

  At these words another memory slowly filtered through and my eyes kept on staring, unable to even blink. ‘I told you what had happened … I told you the truth but you said if I ever repeated my story Patrick would disappear into a black hole and he’d never get out again.’ A sob escaped from me. ‘I’ve spent my life plagued by nightmares about what he did to me, counting time because I thought I was going to die –’

  My mother’s face was stained
with shame but at the same time she hadn’t dropped her armour of self-righteousness. ‘I know about difficult choices and how you have to trust your instincts to protect your child.’ She had said these words to me the last time I was home. But she hadn’t protected me; she’d only ever protected Patrick. A terrible weakness swept over me. I stood up and walked towards her, dazed like a sleepwalker. ‘You … didn’t believe him, did you?’ I asked, bile rising in my throat. ‘You knew what he’d done, you knew what he was, but … you still blamed me. Even now you blame me. How could any mother do that?’

  She didn’t even try to deny it. ‘Patrick was never the same after your accusation … all the light went from his eyes; something died inside him.’

  Something died inside me, I wanted to scream. I suddenly remembered my father. Where did he fit into all this? I had a momentary flashback to Dad’s laughing face as he lifted me high in the air to swing me around. He was always so much fun and so loving. He wouldn’t have stood by if he’d known what Patrick had done.

  ‘You never told Dad, did you? You frightened me into keeping quiet and made sure I never repeated the truth to anyone.’

  My mother wrinkled her nose. ‘Your father knew how highly strung you were and thought you’d had some kind of anxiety attack. He told you it was asthma to set your mind at rest.’

  I hung my head for a minute, trying to collect myself. Everything had become appallingly clear, but the biggest shock was the way it made me feel. Together with the disgust and nausea at my mother’s actions I was overcome with an unexpected sense of freedom. She’d sacrificed me for Patrick and didn’t deserve my loyalty or my love. In coming here today I had faced my biggest demon of all.

  My mother moved closer to scrutinize me and for once I didn’t recoil. ‘You could only ever see the bad in people, Sinead.’