by C. L. Taylor
‘Yeah.’ He nods, feeling he’s on more emotionally stable ground now that he’s not talking about his mum anymore. ‘After… after the accident… I… I started seeing danger everywhere I went.’
‘What kind of danger?’
‘I’d um… I’d imagine terrible things happening to my friends, my dad and my nan. Friends would be climbing trees and I’d get really scared because I could imagine them falling out and lying sprawled on the ground with a broken neck or something. And if we were playing football in the park I’d freak out if a dog got too close to us in case it savaged one of my friends. I’d go into my dad’s room at night and get scared that he was dead. I’d have to hold a hand over his face to make sure I could feel his breath on my palm.’
‘You saw danger everywhere you went. In everyday life.’
‘Yeah.’ He nods.
‘It sounds as though you were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Did you tell anyone about the disturbing things you were seeing? Your dad or a teacher?’
He shakes his head. ‘No. I didn’t want them thinking I was mad.’
‘Did you feel like you were going mad?’
‘Yeah, a bit. No, a lot. I couldn’t sleep at night because every time I closed my eyes I’d hear Mum screaming and I’d see… I’d see…’
‘It’s OK, you don’t have to go there again.’
‘Good.’ He sighs with relief. ‘It was so bad, the not sleeping and the seeing stuff and then, one day, when I was in the supermarket with Dad I thought I saw Mum. She was pushing a trolley with a little baby in it and I nearly ran up to her and hugged her and then I realized that it wasn’t her. But thinking that she was alive, that she’d had a baby with John was… it was easier to imagine that than accept she was dead so I… I made myself believe it was real. If a kid at school asked why my mum didn’t drop me off or pick me up anymore I told them it was because she had a new family.’
‘But your friends, and Honor, they knew the truth.’
‘’Course.’ He nods. ‘Their parents told them that Mum was dead but I forbade any of them from ever mentioning it. When Jefferson brought it up I beat him up.’
‘So you tried to control the way you felt by controlling the way other people viewed you?’
‘I guess so.’
‘And did that impact on your relationships, do you think?’
He sighs heavily. ‘You mean Honor?’
‘How would you describe your relationship with her?’
‘Was I controlling, is that what you mean?’
‘That wasn’t what I asked.’
‘Well, you should have, because I was. I wouldn’t have admitted that three weeks ago, but I can now. I was possessive and jealous and I was really, really scared of her leaving me.’
‘How are things between you and Honor now?’
‘We’ve split up.’
‘Were there repercussions because of what happened on the island?’
‘Well, yeah, obviously. Honor’s mum wanted to report me to the police. She said I should be locked up for what I did, but the others talked her out it.’
‘Your friends?’
‘Some of the other parents. They said I wasn’t well, that none of it would have happened if Anuman hadn’t died. They said I should get help, though. That’s why Dad sent me to see you.’
‘That’s not quite what I mean. How has Honor been since you were all rescued?’
‘She won’t talk to me. She won’t see me, neither will Meg and I don’t blame either of them.’ He shrugs. ‘I did something so awful I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself.’
‘And your other friends? Have they supported you at all?’
‘Jessie has. She rings me a lot. And Jefferson… he messages sometimes… he’s trying to understand. So’s Milo, I think, but,’ Danny rubs away a tear, ‘he’s still angry. I’m not surprised after what I did to Meg.’
‘You were ill, Danny. You had a breakdown.’
‘Yeah, but why? That’s what I don’t understand.’
‘I think it’s possible that, when your guide had a stroke and died, it brought back memories of your mum’s death that you’d been repressing for years. It shattered the safe, controlled world you’d created for yourself. All the mental defences you’d erected were pulled down and it was as though you’d become a terrified nine-year-old boy again, seeing danger everywhere.’
‘Why didn’t that happen to Jessie? She saw her brother die.’
‘Maybe because she was older when it happened to her. Maybe she has different coping mechanisms. We’re all so different from each other, Danny. We don’t know why one person develops PTSD and another doesn’t. The important thing is that you shouldn’t feel ashamed of yourself for what happened. You were mentally ill.’
Danny considers what she just said and shrugs. ‘So… Anuman dying… that’s why I saw the phobias coming true and the others didn’t?’
‘Yes. And you had no way of protecting yourself. You couldn’t concoct a story that would allow you to hide from the threat so you faced your fears straight on.’
‘I kidnapped my own girlfriend.’
‘Because you thought someone was going to take her away from you for ever. In your own way you were trying to do what you couldn’t do when you were nine. You were trying to protect yourself from pain. Does that make sense?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’
She smiles sympathetically. ‘We’ve still got a lot to cover and plenty of sessions in which to do that.’
Danny twists his hands together in his lap. There’s a question he’s been wanting to ask his psychiatrist all session but he’s afraid of her answer.
‘What is it?’ she asks softly, as though sensing his dilemma. ‘What’s troubling you?’
‘Am I…’ He forces himself to look up at her. ‘Am I a monster? Am I a psychopath?’
She shakes her head gently. ‘No, Danny. You’re not.’
And that makes him cry.
Chapter 37
JESSIE
Six weeks after the escape from the island
I crouch down beside the grave and trace a finger over my brother’s grave.
THOMAS ARTHUR HARPER
BELOVED SON AND BROTHER
It’s the first time I’ve seen his grave since he died. I haven’t been able to face it before but it feels right today, in the spring sunshine with the sun gently warming my cheeks and new leaves budding on the trees.
‘I know you don’t particularly like flowers.’ I crouch down and lay the small posy of daffodils and tulips on the cropped green grass. ‘But I wanted to bring you something.’
I thought, when I got up this morning, suddenly certain that today was the day I wanted to visit my brother, that I’d have so much to say to him, but now that I’m here all the words and phrases that were spinning in my head on the bus have grown still and faded away. Instead my heart is beating out its own message to my brother, each pulse steady and weighted with love.
Danny isn’t the only one who’s been to see a counsellor. I’ve been seeing one too. I spent a lot of time talking, and even more crying. For the first few sessions I was angry. Angry with Tom, angry with myself, and angry with the counsellor for not giving me a salve that I could use to heal my grief. But there is no salve or sticking plaster that can take away the pain of loss, and time doesn’t heal. But I am learning how to reconnect with my feelings without feeling crushed by the weight of them. I am relearning how to trust and to love, not just others but myself too.
As I stand up I sense someone watching me and turn to see Milo walking down the path towards me, his hands in his pockets and an uncertain smile on his face. He looks relieved when I smile back. It’s still new, our relationship, and we’re treading lightly, getting to know each other slowly rather than rushing in, giving each other the space we both need. I look back at my brother’s grave. Today is my eighteenth birthday. As a child he’d always be the first one to rush into my room and jump
on my bed and shout ‘Happy birthday!’ in my ear. I had to come and see him today. He had to be the first person I shared my birthday with.
I close my eyes and I picture my brother. I see the gentle wave of his hair, the rough stubble on his jaw and the bright blue of his eyes. And then I see him smile.
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to my amazing editor Emily Kitchin, who understood the story I was trying to tell in The Island and whose editorial notes really helped me up the tension, conflict and the mystery in the book. Thank you for being such a pleasure to work with and for being such a champion of Young Adult novels, and of The Island in particular. Thanks also to the team at HQ HarperCollins for all their support and hard work particularly Katrina Smedley, Isabel Smith and Melanie Hayes. I’d also like to thank Jon Appleton for doing such good work on the copyedit. Huge thanks to Kate Oakley for creating such a vivid and eye-catching cover. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it.
Thanks as always to my incredible agent Madeleine Milburn and everyone at the agency, particularly Hayley Steed, Liane-Louise Smith and Alice Sutherland-Hawes, for your belief in me and my books, and all your hard work.
I’d like to thank all the book bloggers, librarians, booksellers and reviewers who adore young adult fiction as much as I do and who help spread the word. And thank you to the readers who took the time to contact me to let me know how much they enjoyed my previous book The Treatment. It’s been a bit of a wait between books but I hope you think it’s worth it.
Finally, all my love to my amazing family – Jenny and Reg Taylor for reading everything I write, to my brother and sister David and Rebecca Taylor for pimping my books on social media, to their partners Sami Eaton and Lou Foley for putting up with them, to my nieces and nephews Sophie Taylor, Rose Taylor, Frazer Eaton, Oliver Eaton and Mia Taylor (Sophie and Frazer, I expect you to read this book!), to my amazing in-laws Ana Hall, James Loach, Angela Hall and Steve and Guinevere Hall. And last but by no means least, my own amazing family, Chris and Seth. Thank you for letting me witter on about my plot lines over the dinner table and for chiming in with ideas and thoughts. I mostly ignore your suggestions but it’s good to talk! I love you more than you can ever know.
For anyone who’d like to keep up to date with my books do please join my mailing list: https://cltaylorauthor.com/newsletter/ or get in touch on social media.
Thank you for reading The Island. I hope you enjoyed it.
Cally
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Keep on reading for an extract from the gripping and twisty YA debut from C.L. Taylor, The Treatment…
Chapter One
They’re still following me. I can hear their footsteps. They think I can’t hear them because I put my headphones on the second I walked through the school gates. But they’re not plugged in. I heard every word they said as I walked down Somerset Road.
‘Why are you walking so fast, Drew? Don’t you want to talk to us?’
‘She can’t hear us.’
‘Yes she can.’
‘Oi, Drew. Andrew!’
Lacey and her gang of sheep think it winds me up, calling me Andrew, they think it’s funny. I don’t. My dad gave me my name because my hazel eyes and chubby cheeks reminded him of the child actress in the film E.T. He thought it was a pretty name, unusual too. Drew Finch. My name is all I’ve got to remember him by other than a folder of digital photographs on my computer.
Mum doesn’t talk about Dad any more – she hasn’t since she married Tony. Mason, my fifteen-year-old brother, refuses to talk about Dad too. Not that Mason’s here to chat to. He’s been sent to a school hundreds of miles away, hopefully to learn how to stop being so irritating. It’s weird, my brother not being at home. He was never much of a conversationalist but God was he noisy. He’d bang and crash his way into the house, kick his shoes off, stomp up the stairs and then slam his door. Then his music would start up. It’s eerie how quiet it is now. I can hear myself breathe. I think the silence unsettles Mum too. She’s always tapping on my door, asking if I’m OK. Or maybe she feels guilty about sending Mason away.
I speed up as I reach Jackson Road. It’s the quietest street on my walk home and if Lacey and the others have followed me this far it can only be because today’s the day they go through with her threat. Lacey’s been saying for weeks that they’re going to pin me down and pull up my shirt and skirt and take photos of me with their mobile phones. I’ve tried talking to her. I’ve tried ignoring her. I’ve spoken to my Head of Year and we’ve been to mediation, but she won’t leave me alone. She’s clever. She never says anything in front of any of the teachers. She hasn’t posted anything on social media. She hasn’t touched me. But the threat’s still there, hanging over me like a noose. Whenever I go into school I wonder if today’s the day she’ll go through with it. It’s not about hurting me, or even about humiliating me (although there is a bit of that). It’s about fear and control. We were best friends in primary school and I was the one she opened up to when her parents were getting divorced. She’s the big ‘I am’ at school but I know where her vulnerabilities lie. And she hates that.
I slow down as I reach the High Street and my heart stops double thumping in my chest. I’m safe now. The street’s full of shoppers, drifting around aimlessly or else speed walking madly like they must get an avocado from the grocer’s before it closes or the world will end. Someone brushes past me and I tense, but it’s just some random man with a beanie and a swallow tattooed on his neck. I glance behind me, to check that Lacey and the sheep aren’t following me any more, then I reach into my pocket for my phone, select my favourite song and plug in my headphones. Just two terms of school left and I’m free. No more Lacey, no more lessons, no more –
My breath catches in my throat as my arms are pinned to my side and I’m half carried, half shoved into the side alley between Costa and WHSmith. A hand closes over my mouth as I’m bundled past a skip and forced to sit on a pile of bin bags. They’ve got me. They’ve finally made their move. But it’s not Lacey or one of her cronies who forces me to the ground as I thrash and squirm and try to escape.
‘It’s OK. Don’t be afraid.’
The woman keeps her hand tightly pressed to my mouth but her grip on my shoulder loosens, ever so slightly. Her pale blue eyes are wide and frantic and her long brown hair, pulled into a tight ponytail, is damp with sweat at the roots. There’s a deep crease between her eyebrows and fine lines on either side of her mouth. She’s probably as old as my mum but I’m too shocked to hit out at her. All I can do is stare.
‘Drew? It is Drew, isn’t it?’ She glances at her hand, still covering my mouth. ‘Promise me you won’t scream if I take it away.’
I nod tightly, but the second she lifts her palm a scream catches in the back of my throat.
‘Drew!’ She smothers the sound with her hand. ‘You mustn’t do that. I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to help Mason.’
I tense at the mention of my brother’s name. How the hell does she know who he is? He’s over two hundred miles away and we haven’t heard from him in over a month.
‘My name is Rebecca Cobey. Doctor Cobey,’ the woman says, shuffling closer on her knees. We’re completely hidden from view behind the skip but she keeps glancing nervously back towards the street as though she’s scared that someone will discover us. ‘I worked at the Residential Reform Academy. I was Mason’s psychologist. He gave me something to give to you.’
She lets go of me and reaches into the pocket of her jeans. There’s a loud bang from the street, like a car backfiring, and all the blood seems to drain from her face. I’ve never seen anyone look so scared. For several seconds she does nothing, she just listens, then she pulls her hand out of her pocket.
‘Here,’ she say
s in a low voice, as she thrusts a folded piece of paper at me. ‘I’ve got to go. I can’t talk. It was a risk just trying to find you.’ She scrabbles to her feet and pushes a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She glances towards the street then back at me. ‘I would have got him out if I could. I would have got them all out.’ The word catches in her throat and she presses a hand to her mouth. ‘I’ve said too much. I’m sorry.’
She darts out from behind the skip, sprints down the alley towards the street and turns right, disappearing from view.
I sit in stunned silence for one second, maybe two, surrounded by split bin bags and the smell of roasted coffee beans and then I launch myself up and onto my feet.
‘Wait!’ I shove the piece of paper into my pocket. ‘Doctor Cobey, wait!’
I can see her long, dark ponytail bobbing above her khaki jacket as she speeds down the street ahead of me, weaving her way through shoppers, briefly stepping into the road when there are too many people to overtake on the pavement.
‘Doctor Cobey!’ I shout as the distance between us decreases and a stitch gnaws at my side. ‘Wait!’
I am vaguely aware of people staring at me, of toddlers in buggies gesturing, of car drivers slowing to gawp, of cold air rushing against my face and my heart thudding in my ears. I don’t know why I’m chasing the woman who just grabbed me, smothered me and terrified me. I was lucky she didn’t hurt me, but I can’t shake the feeling that if I let her get away I’ll never see her again. She knows something about Mason. Something she was too afraid to tell me.
I see the car before she does. I hear the engine rev and the black flash of the bonnet as the lights change from green to amber at the crossing and Dr Cobey steps into the road. One second the car is a hundred metres away, the next it’s at the crossing. The engine roars and there is a sickening thump as Dr Cobey’s body flies into the air.
Chapter Two
‘He didn’t stop. I can’t believe he didn’t stop.’