by Liz Flanagan
‘You know what?’ she says. ‘I even heard her come in. I’m sure I did. I never go to sleep till she’s back. Unless I’m going mad … I was waiting up, in bed but awake and listening, till she was home. I heard the door, heard her move a chair in the kitchen, so I let myself fall asleep.’
She moves and sits on the bed, smoothing Eden’s pillow. ‘Till this morning. She didn’t come down, and then I found her room like this …’ A small gasping sob escapes. ‘No one knows what that’s like. Not unless they’ve been there …’
I’m mute. I have no words for this. Tears fill my eyes, making Claire a pale shimmering blur.
‘It’s our fault,’ she says. ‘We shouldn’t have left her last weekend. We should’ve insisted she came too. But she said she was fine. She’s stayed on her own once before …’
My heart lurches at the mention of last weekend. If we’re doing guilt and last weekend, I’m going to win. ‘No,’ I tell her softly. ‘It’s not your fault …’ I rub my eyes to get rid of the tears.
‘We’ve been so wrapped up in our loss, we haven’t been there for her.’ Claire’s speaking almost absently, staring at the bed. She looks up and seems to focus with difficulty on me, ‘Did she ever say that to you?’
‘Nothing like that, no. I promise.’ I look into Claire’s eyes, even though it hurts to see the raw pain there, willing her to believe me. And the last thing I want is to make it worse, but I’ve got to know. I need to understand. ‘But can you tell me: what happened with Eden and Iona? I know Eden found something out, but she didn’t tell me what it was. When she found her birth certificate, something about Iona …?’
Claire springs up as if the bed is burning hot. I see her lips turn white as she draws them tight. ‘Get out,’ she says quietly.
It’s worse than if she hit me. Biting back fresh tears, I hurry down the hall and back downstairs. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to stick my nose in. I’m just trying to help,’ I babble, but it’s no good.
Claire herds me out, her face all pale skin, empty eyes and her mouth pulled in a tight line. ‘Jess was just leaving,’ she tells Simon, but he doesn’t even raise his head.
Through my tears I focus on my feet, stumbling towards the front door. The sight of Eden’s sandals, lined up next to her new boots, nearly finishes me.
Claire opens the door and there’s a police car pulled up outside. Two officers are climbing out, a man and a woman – not the two I saw this morning. Their neon jackets seem very bright. A radio crackles at the woman’s belt, but she ignores it. Then another man gets out from the back seat. He’s wearing a suit.
I hear Claire’s sharp cry next to me, before she collapses slowly, sinking against the doorframe.
They tell us they haven’t found Eden. They send me away. Claire and the police watch me leave, faces closed tight: locked, barred and shuttered with suspicion. I blunder down the hill, taking the other, rougher route, stumbling over potholes and tripping on rocks as big as my fist. The tears won’t stop. I fall downhill through a tunnel of trees, on the dark side of the valley, where the sun doesn’t reach.
This hillside is bleaker, half-covered with straggly trees and burnt-orange bracken. There’s a ripple of movement in the deepest dappled shade and I dart towards it. ‘Eden? Eden?’ It comes out a broken screech.
The answer explodes in my face, bronze wings battering. I guard my face with my hands, crouching low to dodge the mad clattering panic of a pheasant. It flaps past, squawking its alarm call loudly, and roosts in a small hawthorn to escape me.
The adrenalin surge gives me wings too. I turn and take the corner too fast. I slip on loose scree, heel jutting in a long forward slide. I land on my back in a mess of gravel and dead leaves, skinning the back of my arm.
For a long moment I just lie here, listening to the blood pound in my ears, staring up through shivering beech leaves at the distant blue sky. I’m still clutching the tiny metal lock from Eden’s diary.
And I realize that if we don’t find her, I will never, ever forgive myself for what happened last Saturday night.
Chapter Fifteen
Liam led me, hyperventilating, away from the surge of bodies on the dance floor. My mind clutched at three things, keeping it small:
1. Keep breathing
2. Don’t faint
3. Follow Liam
I focused on the back of his head, noticing how his hair was cropped in a very straight line above the deep golden tan of his neck. We jostled through the open doorway and I gulped the cooler air down gratefully.
In. Out. In. Out. One foot in front of the other. He was holding my hand and my world shrank to that as I tried to make it a positive. His hand was bigger than mine. His palm was warm. His fingertips were slightly rough, shaking with tremors to match my own. He cradled his other hand against his chest. The knuckles were bleeding and a darker stain spread across his faded red T-shirt, as if he’d been shot.
I didn’t know which of us was in a worse state.
We passed a blur of people, lights, laughter in the darkness. We walked deeper into the gloom, along a crooked paved path. Liam took a left, down steps to the secret garden. Eden must’ve shown him this. It was a circle of lawn with a plum tree right in the middle, heavy with fruit. All around grew dense rhododendron bushes, so it was completely hidden from every angle, but we could see out over the moonlit valley below.
‘Here.’ He let go of my hand. ‘Take it easy, Jess. We’re safe here, right?’
Was he asking or telling? I collapsed back, crushing the long grass, cool and damp under my fingers. I stared up at the stars. The sky was blue, not black, and there was a moon rising over the opposite hill, three-quarter full and very bright. The moonlight made wisps of cloud glow like pale party streamers in the sky. Stalks of grass and round silvered dandelion clocks hung over my face.
In. Out. In. Out.
‘Breathe,’ Liam said, like he could read my mind. Apparently satisfied I wasn’t going to stop, he lay down next to me, a safe distance away. He folded his arms under his head, then swore as he scraped his injured hand. ‘Can you name them?’
‘What?’ I said when I could speak again.
‘The stars. Do you know them?’
I knew he was trying to distract me from the panic attack. ‘Only the ones all kids know. Plough. Orion.’
‘Always liked Orion. Ready for action. Dude with the sword.’
‘Dunno the rest.’ I tried to play along, even though it felt surreal, even though my speech was hoarse and halting. ‘I know they’re supposed to look like animals and gods and stuff, but it’s just a big swirl. ’Cept that one there. That looks like my cat. Constellation of Fluff.’
Liam laughed, a short bitter cough, but still a laugh. The sound of it was like a safety rope for me to follow back to earth. ‘What about that one?’
‘Yeah, it’s a bus.’
We carried on. He told me the real names and I’d tell him they looked like a kettle or a sausage or something dead ordinary.
We ran out of ideas eventually. An owl hooted somewhere near us. I was feeling nearly normal now. Distractions worked for me. I hoped the distraction Eden had chosen was giving her a break too: it had to be worth something. ‘Is your hand OK?’
‘It’s nowt.’
The silence stretched out between us.
‘She doesn’t mean to hurt you,’ I said finally. I heard him fidgeting, ripping up grass and twisting it in his fingers.
‘Maybe.’
‘Definitely. It’s not even about you, is it? Just distraction. Stuff to blot out the bad.’
‘Yeah, well. Tonight was different. With that lad – Tyler. Who the hell is he anyway? And in front of everyone, showing me up. Maybe it’s time to call it quits.’
‘No. She needs you.’ I roll on my side, leaning my head on my arm, trying to make out his expression in the darkness.
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘She needs you, not me.’
‘Well, it’s easier for me. I’m her best
friend, now and always. But don’t you go leaving her cos of tonight.’
‘I dunno, Jess. I’ve put up wi’ it for months. Maybe I’ve had enough. Maybe I want summat else. Maybe she does too – tonight is proof of that.’
My heart leaped with hope, but I kicked it savagely down again, denying it.
He ran his bloody hand over his face. ‘God, what kind of twat does that make me, if I walk now? Don’t you see? It has to be her. It has to be Eden who calls it, not me.’
What could I say that had the ring of truth? ‘People know you didn’t sign up for this.’
‘Neither did she!’ he hit back on the next beat. ‘It’s just what happened. It’s not her fault, and I should stick it out.’ He balled up the shredded grass and chucked it away as if it was a hand grenade. ‘What about you?’
We didn’t do this. We talked about Eden and how she was. We didn’t talk about us.
‘You OK? I mean, really? Back there, that was cos of …? Y’know, what happened to you?’
I was glad it was dark and he couldn’t see the rush of blood to my face. ‘Yeah. Not good with crowds and stuff.’ I knew everyone knew: it’d been in the papers with the court case.
‘Bastards. I’m sorry, Jess. It shouldn’t have happened to you.’
My eyes had adjusted to the darkness. I could see his face in the dim light. He’d changed again: back to angry. Back to bloody lethal.
‘I swear, if I ever get near one of them, I will kill them for what they did to you.’
I believed him, but this whole Jekyll–Hyde act didn’t make me feel any better. I didn’t need anyone’s righteous vengeance. It wasn’t flattering. It was all violence: same as what they’d done to me.
‘Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong hair. Wrong clothes.’ I grated out the words I’d learned to say.
‘Nah, don’t. C’mon, it’s me. Cut to the truth, remember?’ His hand reached out and stopped in mid-air, dark against the star-filled luminous sky. ‘You can be honest with me. We’re a team, right?’
‘Right.’ It was true. We’d been a united front this summer. A good team at work. A good team as Eden’s minders. He was Eden’s boyfriend, so I felt safe with him. I let my guard down. I let go of my shield, shrugged off the armour. I didn’t have to hide with Liam. It didn’t matter if he saw me, because he was spoken for, his eyes fixed firmly on Eden.
‘OK.’ I exhaled long and slow, finally letting go of the tension I’d held all evening. The panic attack was gone, leaving me beached and heavy. The earth below me felt strong and safer than any person I knew. It held me and I let myself relax in that embrace. ‘OK then, Liam Caffrey, you want to cut to the truth?’ I told it to the stars. The truth tasted hot and powerful as the whisky in my glass tonight: too strong to take neat. I organized my pain into a neat, edited list.
‘One: Bad things happen for no reason. It’s shit and unfair.
‘Two: It’s my business. I don’t need you or anyone else talking vigilante nonsense about killing people and revenge.
‘Three: That doesn’t mean I have to forgive them. Don’t see why I should.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said, back to Mr Reasonable. I couldn’t keep up with the mood swings.
‘Really? You don’t think I’m bitter and twisted and in need of professional help?’
‘Nah, Jess. I think you’re brave. The rest, it’s normal, in’t it? You get hurt: you bruise, you bleed. It’s what happens. This is the same.’
I sat up so I could check his expression again. ‘Thanks. Most people want to keep their distance, in case it rubs off on them, my bad luck.’ I wrapped my arms around my knees, hugging them in.
‘Yeah, well. Not me.’ He sat up too. ‘But it’ll get better, like a bruise does.’ He held out his right hand in a fist, squinting at the damage, admitting it. ‘Like this will.’
The clouds shifted from the moon, giving us more light. His eyes held mine. They seemed very big and shining. I couldn’t read them.
‘Do you wanna talk about it?’ he asked me.
His hand reached out again, but didn’t stop this time. My breath caught in my throat as he touched me.
Liam tugged at one of my hands to release it. Then his finger brushed the inside of my left wrist, light as a dandelion clock, on the tattooed skin. For some reason, this didn’t trigger my usual response. Instead, his touch anchored me. It made me feel safe.
‘OK,’ I told him, surprising myself. ‘You want the whole story?’
He nodded.
Chapter Sixteen
Last November really outdid itself. After the minor sparkly compensation of bonfire night, it was a month of hard work: triple homework each night, accelerating towards the end of term. It got dark earlier every day, and the light was rubbish for painting. I didn’t want to be late with my art coursework, so I was working through my lunch breaks. Eden came around to mine after school most nights and we did our homework together.
This particular night, it was wet, cold and windy. Mum made veggie shepherd’s pie and apple crumble. Me and Eden took second helpings cos the weather seemed to demand it, then couldn’t finish them: completely overfaced. It was after nine when Mum put her head around my bedroom door. ‘Isn’t your mum going to be wondering where you are, Eden?’
‘Yeah, s’pose.’ Eden stayed where she was, leaning on the radiator, stroking Fluff, curled in a tight white circle next to her.
I knew Eden preferred being at our house these days. It kept her out of Iona’s way. Their war was getting worse all the time.
Then she smiled at Mum and started getting her stuff together. ‘Thanks though, for dinner and everything.’
‘Any time, Eden. You know you’re always welcome here. When’s the next bus? Don’t want you waiting in the rain. I’m sorry I can’t drive you – our car’s in the garage again.’
‘It’s all right.’ She checked her phone and turned to me, ‘There’s one in ten minutes.’ She gave me her best pleading face. ‘Walk me to the bus stop, J?’
‘Really? In this?’ I could hear the rain splattering out of our guttering onto the street below. ‘And you can save the puppy-dog eyes, E. They don’t work on me.’ It wasn’t true. She knew I’d give in. She’d ask; I’d agree. That was our dynamic. She led; I followed, and it worked fine for both of us. What did I want to be out in front for anyway?
‘Ah, go on. What if it’s late? Anyway, I’ve not finished telling you what Josh said today.’
‘All right then, seeing as it’s you.’ I got up too and followed her down the stairs. ‘But I want it noted: I don’t get soaked to the skin for just anyone, Eden Holby.’ We put our coats on, hardly dry from the walk home. Then I turned and shouted through the open door, ‘Mum! Be back in ten, OK?’
We ran, yelping, through the rain, seeing as neither of us owned an umbrella. They were testing the flood sirens. That eerie distant wail always freaked me out; it sounded as if it belonged to wartime.
‘Hurry up, E, you’ll miss it!’ The raindrops were heavy on my shoulders and my hood, little scrabbling paws, trying to get in.
We went along the main road and then ducked under the underpass, where the back lane was pouring with water off the hill. From there, it was a sharp left, up the ramp onto the station forecourt, with Eden’s bus right there, waiting to head off in the opposite direction.
I yelled, ‘You owe me one, E! Tomorrow!’
She ran for it, with a backward wave. I saw the bus pull away, Eden safe inside its little warm bubble. She put her face up to the glass and made a daft face, eyes and mouth wide as a clown’s.
I laughed out loud – with the rain pouring down my cheeks, I bet I looked like a clown now too – waterproof eyeliner and mascara were no match for this – and then I turned for home.
I hurried back down the ramp. I pulled my hood lower, now I was facing the wind. I didn’t see the people coming under the railway bridge, till they were right in front of me.
Six or eight of them, shouting and smoking, headin
g slowly for the station.
I hunched my shoulders, avoiding eye contact, and did a quick check behind me to see I was OK to step into the road. I gave them a clear metre, dodging the two girls nearest me.
But just as I passed, one of them stepped back, screeching with laughter. Arms flailing, she slammed straight into my shoulder.
‘Oi, you blind bitch!’ She yanked my hood down but didn’t let go of it, or the clump of my hair that she’d grabbed in her fist.
Rain in my face, heart pounding, I tried to pull away. The second she let go, I’d be out of there and they would not catch me.
That didn’t happen.
My scalp burned. I felt hair ripping away. ‘Get off me!’ I screamed. Both my hands flew up, trying to push her away.
My hand connected with warm soft flesh. Her face? Her neck? All I knew was that her fingers released. I spun, gasping, ready to run.
‘She fucking winded me. Get her.’
The others closed in. The rain wasn’t bothering them. They had all the time in the world for this.
I had time to think, This is real, this is actually happening, before her boyfriend moved in, filling my vision. Tall, blundering, doughy: he had a shaved head and boy-breasts filling the shiny United shirt under his sodden jacket. His eyes narrowed with drink and hate at the sight of my face, my Sky Blue hair, my piercings.
I smelt his pickled breath as he came in for a closer look. I held my hands up, reasoning with him. ‘OK, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt her, but she was …’
He flicked his cigarette away. I remember noticing how neatly he did that, between middle finger and thumb. Then he pulled his arm back and punched me in the face.
My head exploded. The pain was massive. It pushed every other thought away: blinding, crushing, awful. I collapsed. Wet hands and knees. The cold reached me distantly. My vision smeared with orange and black. I twisted my head and vomited, bringing more pain. Above me, the rain broke over the streetlight like an asteroid shower.
‘Fucking dirty goth.’
That twisted drawl, rattling out words like bullets.