‘What do you want?’
‘To protect you and help you grow to be a man. We can change the world, Mark.’
‘No,’ Mark replies. ‘That isn’t my name. I just use it here.’
‘What is your name, kid?’
‘Edensun. But I’m not the anti-Christ.’
‘That’s what they’ll call you. If enough people believe a thing it becomes real. So who do you think you are?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You are the destroyer, Edensun.’
‘No,’ Edensun says. ‘I’m just looking for my mother. I want to know why.’
‘Why what?’
‘Why she left me there.’
‘The envelope you delivered to me. You opened it, didn’t you?’
Edensun nods.
Garlow leans across the table towards the boy, Mark - the demon, Edensun. His breath smells of mint. ‘Do you remember what was inside?’
‘A bird.’
‘Yes. It was a raven with a broken beak.’
‘And?’
‘That’s how you’ll find her. Use the raven with the broken beak.’
‘Raven. That was the ghost’s name.’
‘The ghost at the mansion? The one who scratched my boys?’
Edensun nods. ‘Yes, that’s what Father called her – Raven.’
‘Then you know where to start looking, Edensun. Take Kevin and Simon in case there’s trouble. That man you killed, Satori, his mother is a follower of Sith. She’s looking for you.’
‘What does she want with me?’
‘Could be one of three things: to worship you…’
‘That wasn’t the impression they gave me.’
‘To harness your power for their own purposes or to kill you. Now you’ve killed her son, it’s probably the latter.’
Edensun snorts. ‘Yeah, mothers are funny like that.’
‘It’s family, son. Nothing in the world is more important than family.’
‘If that were true my mother wouldn’t have left.’
Garlow pats Edensun’s arm and frowns. ‘Perhaps she had her reasons. Find her and ask her.’
Edensun nods. ‘I will. Thank you.’
‘And then come back to me. We have plans to make – you and I.’
Edensun smiles. ‘Your family are lucky, Mr Garlow.’
‘I’m the lucky one,’ Garlow replies.
Chapter 52
Freya wriggles on the mattress. She pulls against the restraints that hold her wrists and ankles to the bed and looks around the room. No one else is there. Her mouth feels dry and her mind heavy with sedatives.
‘What happened?’ Freya asks.
We killed our brother.
‘Why?’
It was an accident. We were trying to protect him from her.
‘From Star?’
Yes. The bitch enchanted him. She was going to take him away from us. We would have lost him.
‘And now he’s dead?’
Yes.
‘Did we kill, Rob?’
Who’s Rob?
‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten Rob. We lived with him for four years. He’s Jasmine’s dad. He was our saviour. He took us away from all…’
All what?
‘This insanity, this crazy obsession, it’s wrong.’
There is no shame in love, only completion.
‘Those are Lilith’s words, not ours.’
We can share them.
‘But she’s wrong. It is shameful to love your brother. It is shameful to kill a man, who worships the ground you walk on, just to be close to Ivan again. There is no goodness in us, no completion.’
We tried our best.
‘No we didn’t. What’s going to happen to Jasmine now, and Dad? He’ll never forgive us.’
Jasmine will be fine. Mum and Dad will take care of her until we’re well.
‘We’ll never be well, Deya.’
Of course we will, sister. You just have to let go. I’ll take over. You rest.
‘No.’
You will. When you can no longer cope with what you’ve done you’ll leave me to clean up your mess again. Like before.
Freya tugs harder at her restraints. ‘Leave me alone.’
You know I can’t do that.
‘Then kill me. Put me out of my misery. This isn’t our body anyway. We only borrowed it. We should leave and give it back.’
That’s ridiculous. There’s no one to give it back to.
‘Dave.’
He’s gone. You killed him.
‘I didn’t. I just wanted to borrow his body, for insurance.’
You killed him.
‘No.’
You killed them all: Dave, Rob and Ivan, all to hold onto something that was never yours.
‘No.’
When did you start to unravel, Freya?
‘I don’t remember.’
Was it when your sister died?
‘No. Later, I think.’
When you found the book?
‘Lilith’s book?’
Yes. Remember your excitement, the way you trembled when you first turned those pages and realised you could be powerful? You weren’t the baby any more, were you? You weren’t a victim?
‘I remember.’
Would you do things differently if you had your time again?
‘I wouldn’t kill Ivan.’
Maybe we can still go back.
‘How?’
I don’t know yet.
‘It was Raven’s fault.’
What?
‘That we killed Ivan.’
She wanted revenge?
‘Yes.’
Because Star killed her.
‘Yes.’
Star killed her because of Lilith.
‘Did she?’
Yes, don’t you remember?
‘No.’
She changed when she met Lilith.
‘So did we.’
It’s Lilith’s fault.
‘Yes.’
How can we put things right?
‘We can’t.’
If we’d never gone into that cave. If we’d never brought her here.
‘But we did. If we hadn’t we wouldn’t have had that night with Ivan either. Raven and Ivan would still be fucking in the park and we’d still lose him.’
Is there nothing we can do?
‘There’s always something.’
We just have to figure out what.
‘Exactly.’
Should we go back?
‘Where?’
To our willow tree.
‘It started before then.’
To the park?
‘Yes, the park. Now help me get out of here.’
Chapter 53
Star runs along the street. It’s a long way, but she can make it there on foot if she keeps moving. She checks bus stops and looks for taxis, but her mind will not let her wait, she must keep moving, running. What if he’s still there, my son?
Tears blur her sight. Satori, dead. Ivan, dead. Who else will I lose? I have nothing left. All gone.
‘Lilith,’ she says. That was where it started, my dream and then those musty old books in Satori’s bedroom. She remembers the way they smelled and the strange writing within them – Hebrew. She recalls how the letters clung to her fingers, calling Lilith to her. The passion I felt in Lilith’s arms, was it real? Is that why I never loved, really loved, Satori. Did I yearn for someone else? ‘Lilith?’
Now my son, our son, is here. He’s somewhere in the city. Perhaps he’s looking for me. ‘I’m sorry I left you. I never should have. I could have stayed and watched you grow. Perhaps I might even have been happy.’
People turn to face her as Star jogs along the pavement. Perhaps they overhear snippets of her conversation with herself. She does not care. Nothing matters to her now, except finding the son she thought she had lost for ever.
She sees a bus ahead. It waits at a stop to allow travellers to filter on and off.
She joins the queue and asks whether it is heading towards Snuff Mills. The driver shakes his head. ‘You want the number forty,’ he tells her. She jumps back off and checks the timetable and her watch. The bus isn’t due for twenty minutes. She knows she will not be able to stand still for that long.
As she runs through suburbs, houses grow bigger and the streets quieter. There are very few people to stare at her now. Tiredness weighs down on her shoulders and limbs but she keeps pushing herself, breathing heavily. Not much further.
She turns a corner and sees the street. The houses here are large and detached. Paul’s gates stand ajar and she slips through the gap into his driveway. She remembers the times she walked here before. The first time with Satori, he was excited to show her his wonderful friend. Star shudders as she remembers Paul’s coldness. He hated her. He saw her as a rival in love. He wanted Satori for himself, but it had seemed more than that, as if he sensed something inside of her, something terrible. He had been right. I am wicked. I can shine as brightly as any star and yet I have never lit anyone’s way, let alone my own. All I have ever done is burned those around me. Only Lilith knew the potential of my power.
She tries the front door but it is locked. She wonders whether to ring the bell, but decides to walk around the house instead. She enters the kitchen through broken doors and shivers. She feels cold with fear. She is not alone. There is something or someone left in this house. She considers leaving. Turning around, she sees a woman. The figure darts behind the summerhouse and out of sight. Star steps outside and scans the garden. Who is it? Should I go and check? No. It’s female and adult. It is not my son.
She passes again between the French doors and across the kitchen. The hallway beyond is dusty and there are a jumble of footprints across the floor, at least four different sets, all of them too large to belong to her infant son.
She sighs and decides to check upstairs for clues. She follows the footprints to the foot of the stairs. Sat three steps from the bottom is a teenage boy. He looks up at her as she approaches. His bright green eyes shine and his lips curl into a warm smile.
‘Hi,’ she says.
‘Hey,’ he answers.
‘Is anyone upstairs?’
‘Who are you looking for?’ he asks.
‘I – I was hoping…’ She opens and closes her mouth. She realises that she has no plan. She just needs to see where it happened, to understand. She wants to know if she’s to blame for Satori’s death. She shakes her head and her curls slap her cheeks. She sits beside the boy on the stairs. ‘What happened here?’
‘There was a fire upstairs. My friends are looking to see what happened.’
‘Your friends?’
‘Just two guys who look out for me.’
She stares at his face. His eyes are vibrant and full of intelligence. He hardly looks like a child from this distance. ‘Do I know you?’ she asks.
‘I think so,’ he answers. ‘Did you come looking for Satori?’
‘Not really. The police…they said…’ She looks at the floor. ‘The truth is I’m not at all sure what I’m doing here. Satori and I used to live together. I thought I owed it to him to…’
‘Mum?’ Edensun asks.
‘What?’
‘You’re Star.’ His face glows and his eyes shine with joy.
She studies his face, her brow creased in consternation. ‘Yes. I’m sorry I don’t…’
‘Yes you do. You just can’t remember. You left and I grew up.’
‘Son?’
Edensun embraces her. She jolts out of his arms, stands up and backs away from the stairs. ‘But…’
‘Did you think time would be the same, there?’
Star shakes her head.
‘I am Edensun, your son. I was born in Binah. Lilith took care of me when you left. I came to find you.’
‘Edensun…’
‘Yes, or Mark.’
‘Edensun. Is that what Lilith called you?’
‘Siloth, chose the name.’
She takes a step closer. Her fingers press against her lips. Slowly, as if approaching a dangerous animal, she extends her arm and places the tips of her fingers on his cheek. ‘You’re my son?’
He nods. Tears fall from Star’s eyes, but she smiles. He eagerly returns her smile. They stand there in silence, staring at each other. She bends her knees slightly and squeezes the palms of her hands against her cheeks then repeats the action on Edensun’s face. She shakes her head. Her eyes widen and her pupils dilate.
‘Oh baby. I’ve missed you so much. How are you? I’m sorry I left. I never should have. I didn’t know how to go back and find you. Now you’ve found me. We…’ Star sees a movement on the other side of the hallway. A female figure steps out from the shadows.
‘Marian?’ Star asks. ‘What are you doing here?’
Five white robed figures step through the kitchen door behind Marian.
‘Thank you, Star,’ Marian says. ‘We can take it from here.’
Star frowns.
‘Mum?’ Edensun asks.
Star shakes her head. ‘I guess she followed me. I’m sorry.’
Edensun reaches for Star’s hand. ‘Come on.’ He pulls her behind him as he runs up the stairs. Star looks over the bannister and watches the others swarm through the hallway behind them. The robed figures reach the bottom of the staircase as they reach the top.
‘Kevin, Simon,’ Edensun calls. Men rush out through a doorway and run across the hall. Mother and son press themselves to one side so the skinheads can dart past them onto the stairs.
Star hears a roar of rage as they leave the fighters behind and run into an empty room. She looks around. There are no exit routes, only a small skylight in the ceiling too high to reach. ‘Why here?’
‘Do you trust me?’ Edensun asks.
Chapter 54
‘Where are we?’
Edensun looks at his mother. She shines in the darkness. She catches his eye and smiles.
‘We’re in between,’ he answers.
He watches as Star turns slowly around, taking in the enormity of nothingness.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
‘There’s nothing here,’ she says.
‘We are,’ he answers.
‘Yes. What now?’
‘We’re safe here. We can step back into your world whenever we wish. I thought, perhaps, we might talk and then…’
‘Then?’
‘Well, after we’ve talked you’ll have a decision to make.’
‘What sort of decision?’
‘You’re jumping ahead.’ Edensun holds both his hands out to Star and she takes them. ‘It’s good to see you again, Mum. Tell me all about yourself, about when I was born, and why you left.’
Star blushes. ‘I – I…’
‘No guilt, Mum. I just want to know where I come from.’
‘I’ll try,’ she says. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Tell me everything. Time doesn’t exist here. We literally have all the time in the world.’
‘About my parents?’
‘My grandparents, yes, tell me.’ His skin prickles with excitement. At last!
‘I was an only child. Both my parents were older and very religious. Dad was a preacher and Mum would never question a thing he said. I suppose you could say, it was hard to fit in. They were used to being childless. I think they often resented having to take care of me.’ She blushes. ‘Is this the kind of thing you want to hear?’
‘Anything. Everything.’
‘Okay. I loved art, still do. It’s the only thing that really makes sense to me. I would paint and sculpt with whatever materials I could find. I created things from my imagination. My parents were afraid of what I imagined. They thought I was wrong and Dad punished me. He made me feel like I was evil. They sent me to therapists, psychiatrists and even tried to exorcise me.
‘I left home when I could. I escaped to University. I met a friend, Donna, and she introduced me to the rest of t
hem: Satori - your father, Raven and Freya. We were close friends, the closest I’ve ever had. I fell in love with Satori.
‘He brought things out in me, stuff I had buried, things which scared me, darkness. I started to think Dad might be right. Maybe I was evil. I tried to bury the ways in which I was changing, hide them from everyone including myself, but they always resurfaced. In the end I left Satori.
‘He didn’t want to accept it was over. That’s when he brought Lilith here, to win me back for him. I think he felt he owned me. He couldn’t stand the thought that I could walk away.
‘Lilith didn’t follow his instructions either. I think she frightened and confused him even more than I did. I’m not saying your father was a bad man, but he was self-centred. He had this idea that the world owed him everything he craved.
‘Lilith enchanted me. When we danced it was as though my soul was pure and fresh and clean. I thought I loved her. She’s your parent too. Between the three of us you were conceived.’
‘Satori, Lilith and you are my parents?’ Edensun asks.
‘Yes. I can’t explain it better than that. I guess it was part of Lilith’s magic.’
Edensun nods. ‘How did you feel?’
‘When?’
‘When you knew you were pregnant.’
‘You have to understand a few things first. I killed my friend, a woman called Raven. I’m not sure why I did it. When I later realised I was pregnant, I blamed you or my hormones, but now, when I look back I only see betrayal – her betrayal. I thought we were friends and she revelled in putting me down, making me feel small. I think she probably hated me. The same with my father, I guess. She wanted to hurt me, keep me under her power.
‘I murdered Raven. I did it in a nightclub bathroom. I saw red. Since then I keep seeing red. Except now, it isn’t anger. It’s regret for the pain I’ve caused, the deaths I’m responsible for. I guess I’m still jumping ahead.
‘I ran off with Lilith. I didn’t even know that she wasn’t human. Things got more and more violent. I was stuck in a nightmare and I was scared. When she told me…when she said I was carrying her baby…I thought I was going mad.
‘I started imagining that I was carrying the anti-Christ, like Rosemary’s Baby, have you seen that film?’
Edensun shakes his head.
Star blushes. ‘No, of course not. Well, before I could even think straight about what was happening, Lilith was gone and Satori was dragging me back to civilisation. I couldn’t cope. Everything confused me. I was terrified. So…’
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