Her misery filled every pore, when she reached out to touch the roses, they looked black. If I cry, I won’t stop.
Dark night slid through the garden.
Suicide…
How much pain must he have been in?
The balance of his mind…
Whatever the coroner said about doubt, Cadi knew. It was nothing to do with faulty brakes. Her father had killed himself. Dora drowned in the lake and Teilo deliberately crashed his car into a tree.
People only kill themselves in stories. No one you knew committed suicide. The only thing worse was having a murderer in your family. She picked at the sleeve of her fleece jacket. A murderer might be better. You could banish a murderer; write them out of your life.
The roses made her think of her grandmother. She shuddered. Cadi didn’t want anything more to do with dead people. She ought to find Lili and yet, in spite of her distress, it was her mother she wanted.
I can’t. I’ll want to kill her. Ghost mist hung everywhere. Crouching over the rosebush she plucked one, pulled off the petals, scattering them on the ground. One for truth, two for a lie.
Up until now, Cadi believed that once she knew what had happened everything else would make sense. But the truth changed nothing. It didn’t release you; it tied you up in knots. She felt contemptuous of her naiveté. Discovering the truth had seemed such a simple thing.
By now the night had turned chilly. A drop of rain landed on her arm, as heavy as her heart. Flinging the remains of the rose to the ground, she trampled it into the grass. Her father’s ghost was in the air now and his hurt was inside her.
Lili had said nothing worth fighting for came easy. You had to make the effort. Cadi needed more answers and now she knew she was done expecting help from anyone. I need to find her. It’s what big sisters do.
Her stomach knotted. If Dora had lived she would have been the big sister. She tried to picture the little girl in the photographs grown up – going to school and maybe with a boyfriend – and failed. Every picture she conjured was of a small child clutching a bunch of flowers or with a daisy chain in her hair, hand in hand with her father.
The rain began in earnest. It smelled of meadowsweet, cloying and rotten and it clung to her skin like a rash. Forcing herself to move, Cadi followed the path to the cottage. She turned back, and behind her, a trail of blemishes appeared on the bricks, as if small dark birds had fallen from the sky.
Fifty-six
Hand in hand, the child and the man follow the path to the lake.
Around her wrist a silver bangle catches the light.
A sheen of sweat lies on the man’s forehead. The air behind him is thick with reproach. Ahead, it smells of grass and magic.
‘Is it a mermaid day, then?’ he says.
One of them always says this and the child laughs. Determined not to let his anger blemish her, he picks a sprig of meadowsweet and tucks it behind her ear. Against her fair curls it hovers like gauze.
Turning by a thin birch tree, they step from the shade into afternoon sun. It glitters across the surface of the lake. Tiny waves break on the stony shore. A breeze strokes the water creating mirrors of gold. The little girl slips her hand from the man’s and runs to the edge.
‘Careful, cariad.’ The words are automatic. There is no fear behind them.
Dragonflies with stained glass wings dart above the shallows. The child laughs and when she catches sight of the minnows weaving through the water, steps closer.
On the other side of the lake a sharp splash draws the man’s attention. Frowning, he shades his eyes against the sun. Ripples circle out from a spot near the far bank.
Beyond the pretty fish’s dance, beneath the surface of the water, the child sees a small red-brown stone.
Disturbed by the splash, birds clatter up and the man hears someone shout. He walks – a few steps – toward the sound, hands curved around his brow, squinting against the sun’s glare.
Another shout echoes across the lake.
Behind the trees, he thinks he sees someone waving. He shifts his position, cranes his neck to see.
And walks a little further away from the place where the child reaches for the red-brown stone, curls the fingers of her small hand into the water.
This other splash is as soft as a head stroking a pillow.
In slow motion, the man turns. A dragonfly flits past his face. The space between him and the child is as immense as a desert. He moves, leaden feet dragging on grass that feels like glue.
Panic chokes his throat. Half crawling, falling over his glued feet, he covers the ground and plunges into the water.
It barely covers his ankles.
He reaches for her. Fingers catch in the back of her frock and the cloth slides between them like water.
Like water…
He tries again, she falls again and this time he lifts her. Turns her over. Water runs from her mouth. Her eyes are closed, her blonde hair with its garland flattened against her head. Her limp arm slips sideways, as graceful as a dancer, the tiny hand falling open, the still warm fingers unfurling like a starfish. And a small red-brown stone drops into the water.
His heart cracks wide open, as if a wrecking ball smashed into it. And all he can think is: he must stop time, turn it back, suspend it forever. The silence spreads like the ripples on the water, ring after ring of quiet until even the clouds stop drifting.
He kneels beside her. The thin bangle slips over her wrist. He doesn’t see it. Later, they will tell him how he cried, how he told them he cried out, and tried to revive her and how it didn’t work.
She is too small and in his rigid terror he is too clumsy.
If he tries, he can almost imagine himself still in the cottage and the child is asleep in her room. If he concentrates hard enough, he can believe the row with Violet fizzled to nothing, as they remembered how they used to love one another so much the idea of arguing made them freeze with fear.
If he closes his eyes tightly enough everything will be perfect…
A bird cries, drawn up into the purpling sky, wretched and alone.
…he’ll open them again and the birds will be singing.
And a flower-faced child with meadowsweet in her hair will be sitting on the Sleeping Stone pretending to be a mermaid.
Fifty-seven
If you know how, it’s a simple thing to look at a person and see right inside them.
As Cadi came from her grandmother’s garden, Lili saw her misery. This time, she knew better than to interfere. Something in the way Cadi walked, her arms held tight to her sides, fists clenched, reminded her of Teilo.
When he was upset he held his arms like that.
On the night he died, two policemen had stood at the door and Lili shook as needles of fear stabbed every inch of her body. It had been this way when her mother passed away, as if she were breaking out in a rash. The only thing she could be grateful for was that Gwenllian had died before Teilo.
Parents weren’t supposed to bury their children.
And then she remembered Violet.
Teilo told them he’d willed time to go backwards.
If only I could unwind it now,I could warn him again and tell him what was coming. Lili recalled their happiness, when they were children and Teilo could make her laugh so hard she cried.
Grief for Gwenllian had faded, sister and brother rubbed along, needing one another, loving the best way they knew how.
Until he brought Violet to the village. Until Dora came along, bringing a new kind of love. Lili thought how proud of his other daughter he would have been.
Cadi came downstairs the following morning and found Violet sitting at the table, one hand curved around a mug of coffee the other holding a cigarette.
She moved closer, the edge of the table pressing against the top of her thighs. Her face immobile, she unfolded the piece of paper, placing it in the centre of the table.
Light years passed.
Violet put down her mug, a tic grazi
ng the corner of one eye. Gazing at the page, exhaling a line of smoke, she frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Yes, you do.’ Cadi placed her palm on the paper and pushed it across the table until it brushed her mother’s fingers. ‘If you’ve forgotten what it says, read it again.’
The question Cadi wanted to ask lay by the printed page like a threat.
‘I’m sorry. I thought it was for the best.’
Violet’s bland, apologetic words made Cadi wince. ‘For crying out loud, listen to yourself.’ She didn’t know if it was comfort she sought, or to scream.
‘Your father wasn’t an easy man…’
‘Don’t!’
‘I didn’t think you could cope with it.’
‘Oh please.’ Cadi hit the table with her fist.
Violet jumped as if she’d been slapped. ‘She was my baby – mine to grieve.’
‘She was my sister.’
‘You didn’t know her Cadi, what difference did it make? You didn’t lose her. As for him…’
‘How despicable are you?’
Violet opened her mouth to protest but none of her excuses worked any longer. Cadi’s eyes had turned to glass.
When did she get to be so tall? So grown up and unafraid?
‘He’s dead. You don’t blame a dead person for your mistakes.’
‘All I ever wanted to do was to…’
‘Protect me?’
‘Yes.’
Cadi’s glass eyes glittered. ‘If that wasn’t so pathetic it would be funny. Between you, you and Lili have this whole protection racket sewn up. You make the Mafia look like the Muppets.’
‘Cadi, stop it.’ Violet ground out the stub of her cigarette.
‘Why? It’s true.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’ Her desperation sickened her but Violet couldn’t stop. ‘You don’t know what he was like. He wanted everything his way. And even after … he didn’t have the guts to stay and help me.’
Listen…
There were no words. Violet hadn’t wanted to hear him.
‘I don’t care what he did to you,’ Cadi said. ‘I only care about what you’ve done to me. You chose not to tell me. You hid the truth, and tried to turn me against my own father. Well you’ve failed. Just because you made sure I never knew him, it doesn’t mean I can’t love him. And hate you.’
The walls Violet had so carefully built were crumbling to black dust. ‘You don’t mean that.’ She watched as Cadi pulled on her jacket. Her eyes were still cold.
Teilo’s eyes.
‘It’s written all over you, mother dear: what you see, when you look at me. My father’s daughter, and guess what? Maybe I’ve worked out what my very own Hopkins skill is, just like Lili said I would. I can see people’s fear.’ She sneered. ‘What’s the matter? Can’t cope? His eyes? His nasty ways?’
Violet shuddered and looked away. Yes.
‘You’re terrified I’m like him, aren’t you, that I’ll want it all my own way? Well, I do, and you can take it or leave it.’
While her back was turned, the balance of power had altered. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Can’t you at least try to understand?’
‘No, Mam,’ Cadi said. ‘I don’t think I can. I can’t understand why you won’t say something that makes me feel better instead of you.’
Violet’s breath slipped from her throat like a small groan. ‘Please, I can’t do this. It’s too hard.’
Cadi shook her head. ‘Lies are easier. Is that what you’re saying?’
The argument hovered, about to fall, as dangerous as lightning and threatening to scar them both forever.
‘Well, is it?’ Cadi waited for her mother to speak. When it was clear she wasn’t going to, Cadi pushed her hand against her heart to stop the pain. ‘Have it your own way. You can’t know how much I hate you.’
She didn’t slam the door and the soft thud as it closed frightened Violet more than the worst terrors of her nightmares.
Fifty-eight
Cadi hung her wretchedness on one simple grievance.
Her mother and Lili were liars and it wasn’t fair.
That’s what children say. Sitting in her bedroom, staring into the darkness, the thought mocked her.
Heavy mist shrouded the sky, turning the trees black and the window ceased to exist. In her head she stepped over the sill and floated until her feet touched damp grass.
In a blink the garden became solid again. The wind rose, slapping and blowing from the west. Cadi pushed open the window, wanting to feel its fierceness. The sound of the landscape changed from a benign murmur to a dragon’s ill-temper. The wildness excited her. Let it sweep through the cottages, catch Violet and Lili unawares, blow them out into the night, across the sky and away over the mountain.
She stretched out her arm and the rain splashed on her hand like tears. As the wind veered, sending a sheet of rain through the window, Cadi closed it with a slam.
There will never be enough wind in August to rid us of the rainmaker’s fury.
Cadi’s hand lay on the table and Lili saw it shake. ‘What can I do?’
Before Lili could take it, Cadi pulled her arm back. ‘Make things normal?’
‘It’ll be alright.’
‘How?’ They were in Lili’s kitchen, avoiding one another’s gaze. ‘I’m trying to work out what’s true, Lili, never mind what’s right.’
‘There isn’t any right, not really.’
‘Yes, there is.’
‘No. Only decisions made, and then everyone has to live with the consequences.’
‘You should have heard her. She didn’t even try. And if you keep someone’s secret, don’t you think you’re as guilty as they are?’
‘Oh, Cadi, that isn’t true.’ Lili knew how dangerous words could be: they stopped your throat and cut your tongue. Words tripped you up and the secret ones ate away at your heart like acid. ‘There are times when people confide in you and it turns into a burden. And once you’ve been told a thing you can’t un-know it. It’s like a bargain, even if you never intended to make it.’
‘Shut up,’ Cadi said. ‘I’m sick of you making it up as you go along.’
Lili drew in a sharp breath. ‘She couldn’t forgive him.’
Cadi pounced. ‘Or me. She couldn’t forgive me either.’
‘Maybe, yes. No.’ Lili leaned back in her chair. ‘That’s not fair. If your mother was guilty of anything, it was in believing she did the right thing when clearly, she got it wrong. She wanted to protect you. She still does.’
‘She didn’t want me to know him. She didn’t want me.’ As she stood up, Cadi’s chair fell backwards with a crash.
My poor chairs. At this rate, they’ll be firewood.
‘Why didn’t you tell me he killed himself?’
Before Lili could answer, the scent of meadowsweet filled the room making her gag.
Cadi breathed in and laughed. ‘It’s following us, Lili. The stench of lies. Don’t you get it? The magic’s working in spite of you.’
Goddess, I think she may be right. ‘It wasn’t my place.’ Lili held her hand to her nose. ‘Perhaps I was wrong. Right or wrong, I made your mam a promise.’
Cadi righted the chair, banging it under the table. ‘When is it better not to know something that important?’
‘Never. It isn’t. It wasn’t. Cadi, I’m on your side, but it wasn’t up to me.’
‘Do you know what else she said?’ Cadi leaned against the sink, her arms folded. Her breath came in jagged rushes. ‘She said I didn’t know what he was like. That he’d wanted everything his way and she didn’t tell me because she didn’t think I’d be able to handle it, and a lot of rubbish about it being for the best.’ Her face twisted. ‘She couldn’t say a single nice thing about him. All about her and her feelings.’ Cadi held her hands to the side of her head. ‘How could you think I’d never find out?’
‘Now you have.’
Fast as a l
ash, Cadi said, ‘Now I know I’ve had them both stolen from me. She said it wasn’t my place to grieve. I never knew them so how could I have lost them.’
Appalled, Lili put out her hand.
‘No.’ Cadi shook it away. ‘Don’t you dare pretend you care. I’ve had it with both of you. Now I hate you both so deal with it.’
The sound of the door reverberated behind her. On the rebound, it swung open again and warm air flooded the room.
‘The secret’s catching up with us all,’ Cadi shouted. ‘Better hope you can run, Lili.’
In August, even when the rain is fierce, it’s warm and the sky is so wide you can see the edges.
The ghost’s wings are completely grown, strong and broad and light. Her eyes are as vivid as pools of old amber ink.
The other birds no longer bully her or chase her from tree to tree.
She is carried on the wind and she can fly to the lake as often as she chooses.
Fifty-nine
The village was in two minds about summer.
Getting the bedding aired and a garden full of vegetables was one thing. Dust and weeds and girls in frocks smaller than handkerchiefs were different.
Mrs Guto-Evans, chatting with Gareth outside the shop watched Cadi hurtle past, dust fanning up from the wheels of a red bicycle. She saw a flash of brown legs and the child’s plait and proffered a wave.
Cadi pedalled furiously pretending she hadn’t seen her. Her one thought was to get as far away as quickly as possible. On the other side of the square, she cycled across the bridge, head bent over the handlebars. She didn’t hear the church clock chime or the magpies shouting. Pushing the pedals as hard as her legs would allow, she followed the lane out of the village.
With the rain resting, the sun shone as if it had nowhere else to go. Cadi’s breath came in shallow bursts: she’d cycled uphill for almost two miles, determined not to stop until the village was far behind her.
A collage of fields edged with ancient stone walls spread either side of a single track road. Dropping the bicycle onto the verge, she flung herself down. Sheep grazed and ravens called from rocky outcrops. Where the road descended into the next valley, she made out a scattering of farms and cottages. This was one of hers and Lili’s favourite places. Higher up the slope a small ring of ancient stones traced a rough circle. Lili said it was a faery ring. She liked to sit inside it and read, listen to the skylarks.
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