by S. C. Ransom
“Thanks, Rob, but I’d better get home. When you get back will you check that address for me?”
He looked disappointed, and for a fraction of a second I wondered if the drink in the lap had been deliberate. “Sure. Well, let’s go then, shall we?”
As we walked towards the door of the café I glanced at the reflection in the glass and the tingle appeared in my wrist. Directly behind me was Callum, grinning broadly. He had obviously enjoyed his game of winding up the stags.
As I sat on the train the coffee began to dry, turning everything I was wearing sticky and uncomfortable. I didn’t really want to go home as I wasn’t sure what time Max would be leaving but I didn’t have a great deal of choice. The train slid past the dull office blocks and suburban houses and I tried to think of any other alternatives as I stared out of the window. At one station a man in a yellow jacket was changing the posters in the advertising boards on the platform, tearing down pictures promoting the latest Hollywood blockbusters. How things had changed, I realised. Just a few months ago I would have been off the train trying to negotiate with the guy to have one of the old posters to add to the collection on my bedroom wall. But not any more; now I had real dramas to occupy me.
I pulled out my phone, wondering if I should send Catherine a text. I just couldn’t think of what to say that would compel her to talk to me. I suspected that if I tried I might make things worse. Sighing, I put the phone down in my lap and returned to looking out of the window. When it erupted into life a few seconds later I was able to answer it almost instantly.
“Grace! You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice!”
“Hi, babe, are you still having boy trouble?”
“The worst! As soon as you get back I’m going to bore you rigid about it. I need help.” As I said it I realised just how much I wanted to talk to her, to test my theory and also have some uncomplicated girly gossip. “When do you get back? Is it tonight?”
“I’m already here. The drive up through France was quicker than we thought, so instead of staying over another night we got a ferry yesterday evening and got home at about midnight. So what’s up? Did you and Max get together, or is everything still OK with Callum?”
“There have been a couple of complications, to be honest.”
“Complications? How can it be even more complicated? I’m coming over now!”
“Actually, Grace, I’m just about to get off the train at Shepperton. Can I jump on the bus and come to your house? I think one of the complicating factors may still be at my place.”
“Now, that sounds intriguing! Of course you can. See you in a bit.”
It wasn’t long before I was sitting in Grace’s kitchen in a borrowed pair of shorts, giving her all the details of my holiday and the problem that was Max. Finally, though, I had to get to what was really troubling me. “Actually, Max is only a small problem in comparison. There’s much worse: it looks like I’m going to have to find Catherine again.”
“No! Why? She’s a psychopath who tried to kill you. Why would you possibly want to find her?”
Instinctively I rubbed my arm where Catherine had hit it with a golf club earlier in the summer. Although the bruising was now gone it was still a bit tender. The blow had been aimed at my head and could easily have killed me if I hadn’t moved at the last minute. Approaching Catherine was going to be a dangerous business, but I had no choice.
“I thought that I knew how to rescue Callum, how to make him human again, but actually I don’t. In fact, when I tried it on someone else, when I was trying to save Rob, it turns out that he died properly.”
Grace looked up at me quickly, the implications of what I was saying slowly sinking in. Her mouth opened soundlessly as I carried on.
“I want Callum to live! I can’t lose him again, not for a third time. And there’s worse.” I buried my face in my hands, not really wanting to say the words. “The process seemed to torture the guy really badly too. I can’t do that to Callum.”
Grace recovered her voice. “Oh, Alex, that’s horrible! How did it happen?”
I gave her a quick summary of what I had done. She already knew a fair bit of it, but I had glossed over the details of saving Rob because it had seemed a bit weird. She paced up and down the kitchen as I told her about it, throwing in the odd question, a huge frown on her usually flawless features. Finally she stopped and looked at me with her hands on her hips.
“So let me get this straight,” she said, the frown deepening. “You think that Catherine – and only Catherine – has the ability to help you bring the Dirges back to life. Why can’t Veronica do it? She’s an ex-Dirge too.”
“Her power to help has faded because she’s been over here for so long and is so much older. She can only help me put them all out of their misery. Catherine, though, as she’s so recently come over, can help me to keep them alive.” I struggled to keep the tears in check as I thought about it again. “If there’s a chance, any chance at all, that I can save Callum I have to try. I can’t just kill them all.”
“But that’s what they want, isn’t it?”
“Only because they think there’s no other choice.”
She looked at my reddened eyes and gave a wan smile. “OK, you have to find Catherine, I agree, and make sure you’ve tried every alternative first.” She hesitated a moment, then grabbed my hand and waited for me to look at her. “But the thing is, Alex, you will have to think about it; you’re going to have to be prepared to make that decision. Doing anything else is unfair.”
“I know, but not yet. I can’t give up Callum just yet.” I could barely say the words.
“All right, not yet.” She patted my hand as if she were comforting a child, and pulled a scrunchie out of her handbag. Pulling back her long dark hair into a messy bun, she scooped up a notepad and pen and sat opposite me at the table. “Time to go to work.”
“Thank you. I knew you’d help,” I sniffed. I blew my nose loudly, making her tut. “So I know where Catherine is, roughly anyway, but she’s leaving today or tomorrow, and I don’t know where she’ll be going. I could get the train but it doesn’t go anywhere near Polzeath. There is one way of getting there but it’s a bit of a last resort.”
Grace lifted her head from her scribbling. “What’s that then?”
“Rob offered to take me.”
“Are you mad? You know what he’s after.”
“I know,” I said miserably. “But it would get me there, wouldn’t it? I’d just have to be very firm with him.” It would be a complete nightmare, I knew, but it was a means to an end.
“That’ll never work. Of course,” she said chewing on the end of her pencil, “there is one alternative that you haven’t thought about.”
“What? Anything’s better than Rob.”
“Ask me. I could drive you down there this afternoon.”
“Really? But what about—” I stopped as she put her hand up.
“If I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t have offered. Now, are we on? Ready for a road trip?”
It was surprisingly easy to get ourselves organised and to make our excuses. The most difficult bit was saying goodbye to Jack and Callum. It was particularly hard on Grace as she hadn’t actually seen Jack since before she had gone on holiday. They snatched an hour together before she drove to my house to pick me up, but that was all. I managed to speak to Callum briefly.
“I don’t understand your rush,” he complained, trying hard to keep his amulet and mine together as I whirled around my room throwing clothes and bits into a small bag. “I mean, I know she’ll be moving from Rob’s place, but she won’t go far.”
“We don’t know that. She might jump on a train and end up in Scotland.”
“I suppose. But do you really think she might help?”
“If there’s any chance, any chance at all, that she can help me to understand how I can bring you over alive, I have to go and ask her. And I have to persuade her to talk to me first.”
“That’s
where you’re going to struggle,” he murmured, taking the opportunity to hold me briefly as I sat at my desk to gather my make-up bag.
“I know, but I have to try. I’ve nothing to lose.”
“I know, me neither. I only wish I could help.”
“Well, there is something you could do,” I asked, trying to smile. “Can you see my hairbrush anywhere?”
He ruffled my hair gently, not quite managing to smile back. “Over there, by the box of tissues. Will you be away long, do you think?”
“No, I’ll probably be back tomorrow. Grace is going to the Gower with Jack later in the week, so she’s got to be here to pick him up. I’ll be back before you know it.” I stopped trying to pack and gazed at him in the mirror. His mesmerising blue eyes were full of worry, and his free hand was twisting around a lock of my hair.
“There’s something you’re not telling me, Alex, I can tell. And I know,” he continued as I started to protest, “I know that you’ll be keeping something from me for a good reason. Come back to me quickly, that’s all I ask. I don’t want to waste any more time than we have to.”
“I wish you could come with me,” I murmured, reaching up to stroke his face. His long fingers covered mine as he gave me a long, searching look.
“I wish I could too. Please be careful.”
“I will, and I’ll be back soon.” I gave as much of a smile as I could manage.
“When you come back, we need to talk some more about what Matthew wants you to do. What I want you to do,” he added in a quiet voice, suddenly looking away.
“I’ve already told you, I won’t do it.”
“Think about it. Ask Grace. I know that it’s a hard thing to decide on your own.” He bent down to kiss my shoulder and I couldn’t see his face, but I was sure I heard a slight break in his voice. I was about to reply when there was a sharp knock at the front door.
“That’ll be Grace. I have to go now. I won’t be long, I promise.”
“I love you, Alex. Please, please be careful. Catherine’s dangerous.”
“I know, and I love you too. See you tomorrow, I hope.”
I quickly wiped my eyes as I threw my rucksack over my shoulder and made my way down the stairs, catching a glimpse of Callum behind me in the big hall mirror. Josh was just letting Grace in.
“Hi, are you ready? Got everything?” she asked with a smile.
“Pretty much.” I lifted my bag so she could see that I’d packed. “I just want to get a few bottles of water from the fridge.”
She followed me into the kitchen and stopped dead. Max was sitting there, looking gorgeously dishevelled. Neither he nor Josh had been up for long. It wasn’t often that Grace was lost for words but this was one of those times.
“Grace, this is Max, a friend of Josh’s. Max – Grace.”
He gave her a lazy smile. “Morning, Grace. I’ve heard lots about you.”
“Oh … sure.” She turned to give me a look that clearly told me what she was thinking.
I scooped the water bottles out of the fridge and made for the door. “Come on, Grace, we need to be going. No time to waste, remember?”
“Um, no. Right, well, nice to meet you, Max. See you, Josh,” she said as I pulled her gently out of the kitchen. Josh nodded at me briefly over his bowl of cereal. Max was obviously pleased at the effect he was having.
“See you, Alex. Drive carefully and remember what I said.” He looked at me steadily for a moment, then winked.
Grace didn’t regain her composure until we were sitting in the car. “How on earth do you do it, Alex? Three of them falling all over you, all drop-dead gorgeous!”
“I know, I can’t believe it. All these years of waiting and suddenly I’m overwhelmed with choice. I just wish I knew what I was doing differently.”
“So I can absolutely see how Max would be a complication.”
“Yeah, and it got even more complicated when Max kissed me at the airport in front of Callum.”
“Ouch! That can’t have gone down well.”
“Tell me about it. I think I’ve convinced him it was all a misunderstanding but it’s been a bit of a struggle.”
“Complication is about right,” she sighed, before turning her full attention to the M4.
The journey down to Cornwall took hours. We stopped briefly for a sandwich somewhere near Bristol but otherwise kept on going. I called Rob mid-afternoon and managed to get an address out of him. Punching the details in Grace’s rather basic satnav we followed the instructions, not realising quite how much further Devon and Cornwall stretched beyond the end of the M5. We seemed to be stuck behind caravans forever and were sitting in a traffic queue when my stomach began to rumble again.
“It’s nearly seven o’clock. How did it get to be so late when we still have so far to go?” I wailed, exasperated, drumming my fingers on the dashboard.
“I don’t think my driving has helped much, has it?”
“You’ve been brilliant. There’s no other way we would have got to where we need to be in time.” That probably wasn’t true, I realised, as I said it. The train and a taxi would have got me there about an hour ago.
“But I’m not exactly speedy, am I?”
“You’re going to get us there in one piece, and that’s what counts,” I said, giving her a smile. She was absolutely right though. I had had to bite my lip several times to stop myself from shouting at her to put her foot down. “Anyway, the gizmo says that we’ll be there in half an hour. I just hope I can convince Catherine to come back with us. She’ll have to if she’s going to be any help with the Dirges.”
“If anyone can do it, you can,” Grace said supportively if inaccurately.
“I do love your optimism, Grace.” I smiled wryly to myself. “I mean, I’ve got to try, there’s no other choice, but she’s a monstrous cow.”
“I wonder how much of it is because of her big secret and how much is just because she’s an evil witch?”
“Not a clue. I’ve puzzled and puzzled over it, and so has Callum, but I don’t have any idea. I know that she knows how to save all the Dirges: she told me that she had written it down so whatever Olivia took from her is irrelevant. But if that’s all it is, why does she hate me? What have I got to do with it? What can I possibly have done to her to cause all this loathing?”
We lapsed into silence as there was no answer. Catherine’s hatred for me was epic. I thought back to the horrible things she had done to me since she had come over: malicious e-mails, stealing all my money, attacking me with a golf club, and finally stealing the amulet so that she and Rob could sell it and expose all the Dirges. It was a campaign of terror and I had been hugely relieved that she was out of my life.
The closer we got to Polzeath, the less likely I thought it would be that she would help me, even if we could find her. What was I doing dragging Grace all the way to Cornwall for a complete waste of time? The whole thing was mad. I thought about how we could plan our approach to Catherine, but absolutely nothing sensible came to me. I was going to have to cross my fingers and wing it.
I stared unseeing out of the window as the beautiful Cornish countryside swept past, wishing Catherine wasn’t my only hope. But if there was a chance I could save all the Dirges, however small, I had to take it.
Dusk was beginning to fall as we made our way along the little country lanes that led to Polzeath, and the birds were flying low across the hedgerows. We hadn’t seen much in the way of civilisation for ages.
“Not a lot going on round here,” said Grace, keeping an eye out for large vehicles coming towards us on the wrong side of the road, which seemed to be how they drove in Cornwall. “Honestly, with all this space you think they’d make the roads straighter.”
“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that,” I tried to laugh. “I think the farmers might object.”
“I don’t think I’m ever going to be a country girl,” she sighed. “I bet you can’t even get a decent cup of coffee out here.”
“It’s supposed to be the place to go, you know. Lots of surfing shops and fit guys in wetsuits.”
“Well, no harm in looking, I suppose. But I still bet I can’t get my skinny mochaccino.”
“You might be surprised,” I murmured. “Rob comes here, remember.”
We finally found ourselves being directed by the satnav up a small residential road, and I could feel my heart thumping in my chest. Trying to stay calm I peered through the darkening evening gloom at the house numbers, searching for the one I wanted. Finally I saw it.
“There – number seventeen,” I tried to say, but my voice was too squeaky. I swallowed and tried again, but Grace had seen and stopped the car a few doors up.
“Hmm, no lights on. Let’s hope she’s out the back.” She turned to look at me. “Ready?”
I gulped. “Ready,” I agreed, rather unsteadily.
“Do you want me to come with you to the door?”
“No, I think it’ll be best if I try her alone, at first anyway. You just keep an eye from a distance.”
“Sure? We know that she’s got a really violent streak.”
“I know but I think it’s best to face her alone, honestly.”
“OK,” Grace agreed dubiously. “But I’ll be watching.”
I stepped out of the car and looked up the street. It was a residential road with a line of nearly identical little chalet-style houses. Some were obviously homes and had beautifully tended gardens, but others were clearly holiday lets with telltale low-maintenance gravel and inoffensive decor. It was a warm summer’s evening and several barbecues were well under way. The smell suddenly made my mouth water, despite the fact that I couldn’t have swallowed a bite. Music wafted from open windows and every now and then I caught a glimpse into living rooms framed by undrawn curtains.
Number seventeen was silent and dark. I walked up the paved path rather than risk crunching across the gravel to the front door, then stopped, squaring my shoulders before pressing the bell. It buzzed unexpectedly loudly and the noise made me flinch.