by Lee Moan
Rachel let go of her husband and edged slowly around to the far side of the table. She found a stool and sat down by her daughter’s side. Shakily, she took Becky’s hand from beneath the sheet and clutched it to her own lips. Sam caught a glimpse of her blue plaster—now a faded pastel blue. He took a deep breath, his body’s attempt to hold back his raging emotions.
Pete cleared his throat gently, deafening in the silence, but enough to catch Sam’s attention. “Sam,” he whispered, “is this your daughter?”
Sam looked to Rachel at that point. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps he was just looking for support. But she closed her eyes, head bowed. Sam turned back to Pete.
“Yes,” he said, “this is our daughter.”
Pete gave a slight nod. “I’ll leave you both alone,” he said, and before Sam knew it, he’d slipped from the room.
Sam’s legs felt too weak to support his body for much longer, so he dragged another stool over and sat down opposite Rachel. He was trying to think of something to say, something to help comfort his wife at least, but what could he say in that moment?
In the end, it was Rachel who broke the silence.
“Is that him?” she said, her voice cracking. She was looking over her shoulder at the small white landscape created by the stranger beneath the sheet. “Ben Garrett?”
“Yes,” he said. Sam studied the man’s shape for a moment, noting the reddish-pink stain around the head area. He shivered at the memory of his injury. Without thinking, he added, “He saved me. He saved me and then he . . . tried to save Becky.”
Rachel turned slowly round to face him now, and her red-rimmed eyes fixed on his without flinching. “What were you doing, Sam?” she said. “What the hell were you and Becky doing on the ferry?”
As the silence stretched out, Sam debated telling her the truth. The weight of his burden was now threatening to crush him inside. But as he examined the look in Rachel’s eyes, saw the unforgiving beast that nestled there, he decided that if there was ever a right time to reveal his terrible sin, this was not it. He broke eye contact and, finding some shred of inner strength, finally reached out and touched his daughter, taking her fragile hand in his own. All the years he’d hugged the girl close and basked in that simple sensation of warmth were gone in a second, obliterated by the unearthly chill of her skin.
25
Sam had a vague recollection of being driven back to the house and both of them entering the cottage in silence, drifting to different corners of their home without even looking at each other. Rachel went straight to Becky’s bedroom at the top of the stairs, shutting the door behind her, an act which spoke volumes to him. After what seemed like hours sitting in front of the dark screen of his MacBook, Sam remembered clearly realising that he hadn’t yet cried. Not a single tear had been shed. He studied his distorted ghostly reflection in the dark monitor, finding new levels of self-hatred and disgust. He couldn’t even cry for the daughter he’d abandoned, he thought to himself with a sneer. What was wrong with him?
You’re just in shock. That’s what the paramedic said. But surely I should have cried by now?
He had a sudden urge to see Becky’s room. Perhaps looking over her living space, her toys, her keepsakes, perhaps these memories of her would bring him out of this terrible zombie-like state. Perhaps then he could weep for his daughter. He stumbled out into the hall and up the stairs, wondering what he was going to say to Rachel when he opened the door, but he needn’t have worried. As soon as he reached the landing, Becky’s bedroom door opened suddenly. His heart tripped in his chest as a sudden irrational thought raced to the forefront of his brain: that it was Becky, yanking the door open the way she always did, with all the recklessness of youth, and racing out onto the landing without looking to see who was coming . . .
But it was Rachel. She paused in the doorway as they faced each other, her features half in shadow, her eyes like two dark wells. She was clutching Becky’s favourite bear, Stinky. She called him Stinky because she couldn’t bear to wash him. She’d had that bear since birth, and had taken to him instantly, and never let him go. Like all comforters, Becky’s smell was embedded in that bear’s very fibres, and she had liked it that way. Rachel looked at her husband guiltily for a moment, opened her mouth slightly as if to offer an explanation, but decided against it. She pushed past him, leaving the door to Becky’s room open, before disappearing with her stolen treasure into her own bedroom. She shut the door firmly behind her.
Sam stared at the closed door for a while, wondering what her true feelings were. They had hardly spoken to each other in the last twenty-four hours, so he was completely in the dark.
He looked back to the open door of Becky’s room. He could see her bed and part of her dresser. He made out pictures of various young male pop stars on her walls. He didn’t know their names, and as he stood there on the landing he realised that he probably never knew them. He’d never bothered to find out, or take an interest. What Rachel had accused him of so often was patently true.
It was this thought which paralysed him, and stopped him from going in. He suddenly felt barred psychologically from his daughter’s most private world. He had no right, he felt, to go in there. He had all but ignored her in life, and his interest in death seemed almost like an intrusion.
Sam’s mind was so full of mental static that he couldn’t tell if this was just craziness or whether it was true. Whatever the case, he reached out, took the handle in his trembling hand, and pulled the door shut.
26
It was too much. Her mind was unable to fix on a single coherent thought. Losing Becky was like a massive blind spot in her psyche, a rent that had blinded her to the event itself. Without the ability to deal with Becky’s death head-on, her mind kept returning to Sam. Sam was now the target for all her anger, her frustration, her fear. At times she hated him—yes, real hatred—but it was inconstant. At other times, like when they drove to the doctor’s surgery to identify Becky, she held onto him tight, wanting him to be the strong man she had met seven years earlier, the man who had changed her life and made her believe that miracles could happen: the dreamer, the artist, the enigma wrapped up inside a mystery writer. But he could never be those things—not now, not anymore.
He was suffering now, too, she knew that. And his guilt must be consuming him, just as her guilt—guilt at leaving Becky with him to nurse a sick woman—was eating her from the inside out. And yet there was another side to her guilt—that she had been thinking of leaving Sam, walking out on him and their marriage.
She sat upright in the bed, wiping away the tears from her cheeks. Was she really thinking of abandoning their marriage? She had made her promise before God: ‘til death us do part. When she stood on the altar and made that promise to Sam, she had meant it, had envisioned only one future for herself—a future with Samuel James Thorne until the very end. How had it come to this? What had brought her to the point of abandonment? They had simply drifted apart, that was all.
She was convinced that Sam was trying to rebuild things, too, but she couldn’t help her feelings. She couldn’t change the direction of her heart.
She told herself often that the only thing that helped her to remain within the marriage was Becky: she was the glue that had kept them together this past year. Dear, sweet Becky.
But now Becky was gone.
What did that mean for the future?
The bedroom door creaked open a couple of inches and Sam’s face appeared in the gap.
“I need to change my clothes,” he said softly.
She said nothing, found herself incapable of even speaking to him in civil tones. Instead she moved into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, her back to him. She heard him move across the carpet to the wardrobe. By the time he turned back to the bed with fresh clothes, she had left the room.
27
Later that night, Sam slipped into bed alone and exhaustion finally overcame him.
He fell into a troubled, fitful sle
ep, the dreams black and ugly and filled with menace.
He was with Rachel on Rook Hill. He couldn’t tell if it was the past or the future, but he knew that they were happy together. Becky was not there, but that fact didn’t occur to him immediately. Rachel was studying the huge ancient stones, trying to take rubbings from them with her huge sheets of tracing paper. But Sam noticed that as she rubbed she was grating the skin off her knuckles. He tried to tell her but she kept on, and her rubbing got harder and harder, and the blood was soon running down the backs of her hands, over her wrists and smearing the tracing paper. The rubbings were illegible. He ran forward to grab the rubbing kit off her, but when he reached her she winked out of existence. One second she was there, the next he was standing hugging one of the monolithic stones. He couldn’t understand why he was actually hugging the rock. It was cold and mossy and ugly. Then he felt a hum within it, like a heartbeat, deep down at the centre of the rock. When he stepped back from it, he saw that Rachel was somehow embedded within the body of the stone. Her arms reached out claw-like from the sides, and her face, fixed in an eternal scream, protruded from the front facing. He screamed her name, the scream so loud that it burned his throat, and then–
Then he was back in bed in the cottage, safe in Rivendell like Frodo Baggins. He opened his eyes just barely and saw Rachel’s slender shoulder, her faultless skin washed in silver-blue by the moonlight, a few renegade strands of blonde hair spilling over the pillow by his face. His heart burned with joy. She was back. She had joined him in bed. There was still hope for them.
He took a deep breath, the scent of his wife so invigorating and comforting.
Then the smell altered.
A malevolent, salty smell replaced the sweet aroma of apple shampoo, a stink that invaded the room like a malevolent spirit. Just then, Sam sensed movement at the end of the bed. His heart burned with fear. Someone was in their room. Someone or some thing which had brought the smell of the grave with it . . .
And whatever the thing was, it was waiting there at the end of the bed, and it would wait for as long as it took . . .
In one swift movement he sat bolt upright, his hands pulled into fists, his body tensed for action – but what he found there, standing at the end of his bed, robbed him of all his courage.
It was Becky.
“Daddy?” Her voice, dry and hollow, filled their bedroom, filled Sam’s ears, stole away his breath. Her face was as white as bone, the skin drawn taut across her pallid cheeks and forehead. Dark circles ringed her eyes. The stitches that the doctor had carefully sewn into her scalp and neck had run loose and the flesh was blackened and curling at the edges. Bloated white maggots squirmed in her tangled hair.
“Daddy, why didn’t you save me?” she shrieked. “Why did you let me die?”
Sam woke up with a breathless scream. When he realised it was a dream, and that he was alone in his bed, he descended into uncontrollable, wrenching sobs.
He knew it was a nightmare, but he also knew with dull certainty that it would not be the last.
He didn’t sleep again that night.
He could barely bring himself to close his eyes.
28
CONVICTED MURDERER BEN GARRETT DIES IN FERRY TRAGEDY
MYSTERY AUTHOR LOSES DAUGHTER
Kelly Burnett sat at her breakfast table in front of her laptop, scanning the Yahoo! News headline over and over. She realised she had been holding her breath for a very long time and sucked in air before exhaling slowly.
‘Sam Thorne,’ the article said, ‘the bestselling mystery writer, has lost his only daughter in the Northern Star ferry tragedy. Rebecca Thorne, six, was with her father aboard the ferry on Saturday when it experienced engine difficulties which resulted in an explosion. It is believed that she drowned after receiving injuries in the blast. . .’
Kelly read the article a second time, slower, taking in each word, trying to comprehend the significance of the event. Her heart pounded in her chest. She felt that strange but familiar sense of destiny come over her, a destiny that she had not seen clearly back when she had first fallen for Sam, but which only now was becoming apparent.
This opportunity will not come again . . .
Sam had lost his daughter. He had lost the very thing which turned him and his wife into a family. That little girl was the only thing holding them together. If she was gone, how would that affect their relationship? It was common for marriages to collapse after the death of a child. Everyone knew that. And if that was to happen, if Sam was to leave his wife, where would he go? Who would he turn to first?
“Me,” she whispered.
But no, she reasoned, her mind racing now. No, he would never come looking for her. There had still been some bad feeling after their last meeting. Sam still didn’t understand that she, Kelly Burnett, was good for him, that she was his destiny and vice versa. She had to go to him now, to show him the future.
Yes, she thought, her thoughts slowing down, settling on a single goal. The thought of it made her whole body tingle. Was it just madness, or was this what she was supposed to do right now? She had to know for sure.
She flicked through the newspaper to the centre pages, slapping the paper flat with an open palm on the Your Stars section and drawing a finger down to the Scorpio section.
‘Plans you have been putting in place for some time are in danger of coming to nothing if you don’t act now. Take an unplanned trip to an exotic location and make your dreams come true . . .’
Before she had finished reading the rest of the paragraph she was reaching for her mobile.
29
As the sun struggled over the horizon, Sam lay in bed listening to the muffled noises coming from Becky's bedroom. Rachel, it seemed, was getting less sleep than him. If that was possible.
He slowly rolled himself to a sitting position and sat on the edge of the bed, blinking into the grey morning light. He was acutely aware at that point of the sensation of thinking nothing. He remembered it because he had never experienced it before, this trance-like absence of creative thought. For as long as he could remember, his last thoughts at night and the first thoughts he had in the morning were almost always to do with a story or a book he was working on. The creative juices were always working in the Sam Thorne cerebrum, the synapses snapping from first light to last. But not now, not anymore. The period of writer’s block he had recently been suffering now seemed a trivial blotch on a much larger, emptier canvas.
Yesterday, he told himself, I lost my daughter. Yesterday, I lost myself.
He heard Becky's bedroom door close and then Rachel’s footsteps on the landing. He felt a horrible tightening sensation in the middle of his chest at the thought they might meet in the house. But then Rachel seemed to change direction, and he heard her footfalls on the stairs, followed by the sound of the French windows in the lounge sliding open. He went to the window and saw Rachel’s slender frame step up to the edge of their swimming pool. For a brief second, he felt a sharp stab of panic—She’s going to throw herself in!—but it quickly passed when he realised she had a broom in hand, and began to brush away the dead leaves from the edge of the pool. She performed this action as if she was drugged, soporific.
Sam took a deep breath, then pulled on his jeans and a sweater and followed her out through the sliding doors. She didn’t look round when he approached. She just kept on sweeping, her once lustrous golden curls now grey and lifeless and clinging to her ashen cheeks.
“Cup of coffee?” he said.
She shook her head.
“I’ll fix you some breakfast if you like.”
“Not hungry,” she said.
That was it. End of conversation. The defences were up.
He stared into the pool. After a few seconds, Rachel stopped sweeping and leant on the top of the broom. She joined him in studying the harlequins of sunlight dancing on the water. The call of the early morning cormorants down by the quay filled the silence.
“Do you remember w
hen we came to view this place?” Rachel said. “We argued over the pool, remember? I said that if Becky was going to live on this island she had to learn to swim, and the best place to swim was in her own pool. But you didn’t want the pool. You said it was a crazy idea to have a swimming pool with a child around. You were terrified that she would . . . drown.” The last word dropped out of her mouth, and the shock on her face was palpable. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “God, Sam,” she said, staring out at the horizon. “You were so passionate about protecting your daughter from the dangers of the world. Just remembering the fight we had over this pool reminded me how much you cared back then.”
“Jesus, Rachel, I still care,” said Sam, trying not to raise his voice too much, containing the anger. “I always have.”
She looked at him now, her once bright hazel eyes red-rimmed and swollen from all the tears. “Really, Sam? Well, I’m not so sure. You’ve been so self-absorbed recently, lost in your own private battle with a goddamn word processor–”
“It’s more than that, Rachel–”
“–and I really think that did a lot of damage with Becky. I think—no, I know that she felt you didn’t care about her.”
The bubble of anger burst within Sam now, and he said, “How the hell can you possibly know that?”
“Because she told me,” Rachel replied quickly.
Whatever Sam was going to say next was obliterated. “What?” he said.
“The day before she died, she came to me in the kitchen bawling her eyes out. She said she went into your study to show you a story she’d written and you shouted at her. You told her to come back later.”