by R. H. Dixon
Thurston exhaled irritably.
Smiler groaned with indecision. ‘I don’t know.’ He seemed to shrink into the fog as it swelled around him with a phantom glow. That or the sun was burning a hole through it. ‘I don’t know what to think. I guess we need to clear a few things up. Maybe we should wake Pollyanna and show her the diary. Maybe we should just ask her to explain the bloody timeline.’
Thurston was quick to dispute the idea. ‘No. The kid’s weird. Maybe even more unhinged than her cousin. I think we should read some more of the diary between the three of us before we let her see it. I mean, do we really want her kicking off right now? Because I guarantee that’s exactly what she’d do. And I bet her inner spider is a fucking Goliath birdeater called Beelzebub.’
Callie’s lips parted with a groan. ‘Slight exaggeration, don’t you think?’
‘Well would you like to find out?’
‘Not really.’
‘Besides, how do we know that Sarah Jane Miller isn’t here as well?’ Thurston looked up at the ceiling, as if indicating the tower. ‘How do we know that she and Pollyanna, together, aren’t messing with us?’ He fell quiet for a moment, allowing Callie and Smiler to consider the possibilities of his suggestion, before saying, ‘And aren’t we being a little naïve anyway? Who says the diary was written in 2009? She might have written it last week for all we know!’
Callie nodded and she gnawed on her bottom lip. Subconsciously her fingers stroked red satin. Smiler was shaking his head adamantly though. ‘Sarah Jane Miller isn’t here,’ he said. ‘I’d know. I’d have noticed. I mean, where would she be?’ He looked to the ceiling then. ‘Because if you’re thinking up there, you’re dead wrong. The tower’s empty except for a chest and a truckload of dust.’
‘How the fuck should I know where she’d be?’ Thurston said. ‘I’ve haven’t had the opportunity to take a look around, I’ve been a little incapacitated and preoccupied with other things.’ He gestured to his chest with both hands, the effort a heated one.
Smiler squared his shoulders, finally stepping away from the window but not quite losing the fog. It clung to the memory of him standing there, his silhouette by the window burned onto Callie’s and Thurston’s retinas. Like a little bit of his soul had bled out perhaps. ‘Yeah, well,’ he said. ‘I’m still wondering why Pollyanna’s so convinced that you’re Uncle Dean. That’s a massive coincidence, don’t you think?’
Thurston’s face darkened, his mouth tight with as yet unsaid rebukes. Callie flashed Smiler a scowl of disapproval, but really she wondered the same thing. A wave of nausea surged from her hungry stomach and crested in her head, making her eyes busy with black and white fizz. She looked from Thurston to Smiler then back at Thurston, wondering which, if either, she could trust. She felt terribly hopeless and frighteningly alone.
It’s him isn’t it? Who?
Dean?
Before Thurston or Smiler could start tearing verbal strips out of each other, Callie did the only thing she could think to do: she opened Sarah Jane Miller’s diary to the page where she’d left off and began to read again.
28
Wednesday 17th February 2010
Dear Deserted Dorian,
Sorry I haven’t spoken to you in ages, but shit’s been going down. Big style. And it’s only now I feel capable of talking about any of it. All of my plans from before are ruined and I don’t know what to do. It’s like a dark veil has been pulled tight over my face, squashing my nose so I can’t breathe properly and blurring my eyes so I can’t see. I need to figure something out.
Ok, so basically it all started when Roxanne left home. Two days before Christmas. She’d packed a load of her stuff into two suitcases and told Dad when he got in from work that she wanted a divorce. She didn’t even ask me to go to my room so they could talk, the horrible cow just went straight in for the kill. She may as well have thrown a pan of hot oil in his face. Seriously.
This is Roxanne Miller we’re dealing with though, Dorian. I mean, why would you choose two days before Christmas to announce that you’re retracting the sacred vows you once made in church unless you’re a complete twat? And that you’re deserting your only child on the penultimate eve of Christmas unless you’re an even bigger twat? In fact, she’s so much of a twatty twat, Dorian, it’s unreal.
At first Dad was furious about her going. He shouted lots and they both fought over the suitcases: Roxanne trying to get them out the door and Dad pulling them back inside. It might have been funny if they had no association with me. But by proxy, until I’m 18, they sort of do. And so I hate them beyond any reed redeemable sense of family duty. They’re both total freaks.
Dad was that angry he hurled one of the suitcases over the fence into next door’s garden. He has such a blatant disregard for anyone else in the world though. I mean, why would you involve next door in your domestic disputes? Which is exactly what he did do because the suitcase broke the dial off Norman’s sundial and Norman’s very precious about his sundial and Dad had to pay for damages the next day because Norman threatened to call the police. Serves him right though. What he should have done was throw the suitcase through Roxanne’s windscreen so she couldn’t go anywhere. Not as easily as she’d intended anyway.
After she’d gone Dad’s fury was pathetic. So pathetic I could have spat in his face. It only lasted for a day and then he got depressed. Like really mopey. I expected he might want to smash everything in the house, especially when I told him about Uncle Dean. But he didn’t. On Christmas Eve he sat on the sofa and drank whiskey ALL DAY and listened to Coldplay and cried like a baby.
Personally, I wish Roxanne had left us years ago. But not like this!!! She’d run off to have the perfect Christmas with Uncle Dean (!), leaving me behind to live with Dad’s wallowing and the shittyness of Peterlee’s dirty slush. Which was actually rather symbolic of how my heart felt (and still feels): cold, grey and impure.
On Christmas day I didn’t bother getting up till everyone else in the world was probably loading their dinner plates into their dishwashers. It was a miserable day that couldn’t be made any better. Dad spent it contemplating the sorrows of his failed marriage. I spent it contemplating whether to let Lucy loose. And also hoping that Roxanne would succumb to Whispering Woods and hang herself. Or that Uncle Dean would stab her in the head at least seventy times before feeding her to the animals that must dwell in the woods. Great big things I expect.
But none of those things happened. She phoned at 6pm. Dad answered and they had cross words. He tried to hand me the phone, but I shook my head. He gave me a don’t-mess-the-fuck-about look and handed it to me anyway. She said ‘Merry Christmas’ then apologised for not being here. The level of fake sincerity was astounding (that’s me being sarcastic by the way, Dorian). She obviously hadn’t even tried to convince herself that she meant it.
She only called to keep up appearances. Other people (friends and family mostly, but also neighbours) will already know by now that she’s a deserter. So if she hadn’t called her only daughter to say ‘Merry Christmas’ on Christmas day she’d have been demoted to a ‘black-hearted deserter’ (which is what she is anyway).
I can’t remember what else she said to me because the sound of her voice made me angry. So, so ANGRY! And I could imagine that Uncle Dean was right there next to her, maybe even touching her. Or her touching him. Yes. Her touching him. She’s ALWAYS touching him!!! Lucy started pacing then, scratching around behind my eyes till eventually they bled on the inside. Dad came and took the phone off me and said some stuff that I didn’t really hear. I think Uncle Dean’s ravens then carried me up to bed, and I stayed there for what felt like three weeks.
When I eventually did resurface I checked the phone to find out what number The Deserter had called from. But the last number was Gran’s. She must have called sometime in between. So I was left hanging for weeks.
I couldn’t even talk to you about what was going on, Dorian. That’s h
ow bad it’s been. I’ve felt so ill about it all, I had to let Lucy take over for a while. I’ve been resting and thinking and trying to heal. My heart hurts so much and my head is in bits. But it gets worse, Dorian. SO much worse…
The Deserter came back mid-January. I’d hoped Uncle Dean had kicked her out, but she’d come with paperwork for the divorce and to get the rest of her stuff packed together.
The atmosphere between her and Dad was tense. I wanted them to kill each other. I wanted Dad to knock her out with a fist to the face and for him to stamp on her unconscious body till it was dead and flattened on the carpet. Then for him to go and drown himself in the bath or something tragically depressing like that. None of that happened though. The Deserter slept in the spare room and Dad slammed doors a lot. That was all.
One day after school I came out and asked The Deserter straight up, because I NEEDED to know, if she’d been staying with Uncle Dean. She didn’t deny it and I could feel Lucy freewheeling around the inside of my skull. Then I asked The Deserter if she and Uncle Dean were going to be a couple. She said ‘probably’ at first. Then nodded and said ‘yes’.
I HATE HER!!!!
The Deserter announced that she’d be staying for a few weeks while she got things sorted with work (and I suspect while Uncle Dean got things sorted with his ‘wife’. Claire. The bint). So Dad moved in with Gran. I only saw him on weekends when The Deserter dropped me off there. I presume she was meeting up with Uncle Dean and didn’t have to take me, not now that everything was out in the open. Bitch.
I began to worry I’d never see Uncle Dean ever again and that my heart would remain a barely beating, mushy mess. But I saw him just three days ago! On Valentine’s Day, of all days!! Which is bitter-sweet irony.
The Deserter tried to palm me off on Dad and Gran that day, but they refused to have me I think out of principle (because they knew they’d be ruining her slutty plans). And so I was used like some cheap-move chess piece.
Uncle Dean was forced to come and stay at our house instead though. So checkmate!
After school the Deserter made me a fish finger sandwich then sent me to my room. Uncle Dean arrived some time afterwards and I watched from the stairs as they cooked a meal together and drank wine. They never even saw me. I felt like a ghost, hovering outside of my body, looking down, unable to intervene intervene. Not even when Uncle Dean took a small box from his pocket and asked The Deserter to marry him. She said ‘yes’ and then they kissed. Next thing I remember I was in bed and it was morning and everything was red. And a couple of days later it still is a little bit.
So there you have it, Dorian, my heart is officially DESTROYED. Uncle Dean and The Deserter are to be married.
I asked Uncle Dean if I can live with him too, but before he got round to answering The Deserter butted in and said that I’d have to stay with Dad because of school and stuff. Uncle Dean winked at me with his blue eye and said I could visit whenever I liked. But that’s not good enough, Dorian. I NEED to be with him.
So much it HURTS.
But I figure he’ll have to let me live with him if I force the issue, because I have his ravens and I won’t give them back if I have to stay here with Dad and Gran. Not ever.
29
‘What are you all doing up there?’ It was Pollyanna calling from downstairs.
Callie slammed the journal shut as though she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t.
‘We’ll be down in a tick,’ Smiler yelled. Then to Callie and Thurston, because they were looking at him like he was Judas Iscariot, he said, ‘What? We have to show her what we found! She has a right to know.’
Callie sighed. She knew he was right, but involving Pollyanna with their find bothered her more than she could put into words. So she didn’t try. She stood up and hugged the journal to her chest, feeling unreasonably possessive of it and not wanting it to leave her hands, not even for a moment. The answers she sought lay within the pages, she was sure of it, and even if those answers turned out to be sickening in whatever revelatory truth they unveiled, it was a truth that had to be known nonetheless. Everything Sarah Jane Miller, past or present, had planned, Callie needed to know. The teenager’s spew of angry words and dangerous obsession was somehow key to why they were all there. Maybe even key to the death threats she’d received. The more diary entries she read the more she disliked the girl. And Pollyanna’s direct familial association made her massively uneasy. ‘Okay, let’s go down,’ she said, still hugging the journal. ‘Smiler, could you give Thurston a hand?’
She expected Thurston would prove difficult and argue, but he didn’t. He shuffled round and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, breathing hard with the effort like someone twice his age. He even looked like he’d aged about five years since the day before; his physical bearing less robust, though it had hardly been a thing of strength since he’d arrived, and his skin significantly paler as though the room had sapped something from him. Or as though the white walls had bled into his body.
Callie turned away and made the mistake of venturing too close to the window. Beyond it the fog was a soupy wall of thick grey, curling around indefinable edges and making everything in between blurred. The forefront of Whispering Woods was nothing but a suggestion; a row of what looked like weak day shadows standing upright. But the trees’ voices were clear in her head, a cacophony of remembered hissed whispering. Do you know any stories? Suppose that depends. Lived here as it happens. Something really awful. Take a guess. Suppose that depends. Why does anyone do anything? Suppose that depends. All except the small boy. But why? But why? But why? But why? That’s just how it is, sweetheart.
‘We need to come up with some sound ideas,’ Callie said, as much to the trees as to Smiler and Thurston, to let them know the trees and their words hadn’t broken her. Yet. She resisted the urge to pull the curtains closed, because if she did they would have won. They were mocking her, subtly but all too perceptibly, and she knew she had to focus on zoning out from their insistent teasing else they’d worm further into her mind and wreak havoc with her subconscious. She whipped round and started pacing the room, and watched as Smiler stooped next to the bed to put Thurston’s arm across his shoulders. ‘I can’t do this for much longer,’ she admitted. ‘We’re floating about the place like dead people and it’s driving me crazy. This cabin, that fog, those ravens, the trees – they’re all driving me crazy! And this diary?’ She held it out, making a point of uttering a small laugh that was hostile enough to express her abhorrence for all the book had revealed thus far. ‘I need to get out. I have to go. I mean, look at me!’ She pulled on the hem of the shirt she was wearing, aware of how hysterical she must sound, but not caring because what she said was true. Never had she been so close to the edge of what felt like categorical madness. ‘And look at the pair of you. We’re a right fucking state.’
‘Calm down,’ Thurston said, his voice gravelled yet calm. He was on his feet now and Smiler looked strained under the weight of him. ‘We’ll sort it. We’ve got this.’ Still shirtless, he’d let the t-shirt he’d used to stem the blood flow fall to the floor. The left side of his chest was gaping open like a bloodied toothless mouth and Callie supposed that sooner or later one of them might well to have to stitch it up somehow. The thought made her queasy.
‘Hey, why don’t I bring Pollyanna upstairs,’ Smiler suggested. His hands were planted firmly on Thurston’s bare torso in an effort to keep him upright and his face was a blood-rush of red. ‘That way you can stay right where you are, Thurston. I mean, you don’t seem too good, man. You should probably lie down again.’
Thurston pushed away from Smiler a little, so he was standing more independently. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, though he was clearly lying. ‘Let’s just go.’
‘Yes let’s,’ Callie agreed, glancing round the walls with no sense of diminished unease. The paint on the canvas above the bed looked as though it was wet like recent blood. She shuddered. ‘I think it’s
best if he gets out of this room. If we all do.’
Daylight from the lounge lurked on the stairs with all the gloom of a wet October morning, but still it managed to make a faint shadow cage, as hazy as outside, around Callie’s feet and lower legs from the wooden spindles of the bannister. At the bottom of the stairs Pollyanna was waiting. Annoyed impatience exaggerated the blackness of her eyes as though they were coals that had sparked the redness of her hair. ‘What’s going on?’ she said. ‘What took you so long? And what’s that?’ She lifted a hand and pointed, indicating the journal clutched to Callie’s chest.
Callie held the book out and angled it about in the air, as if to allay any suspicion Pollyanna might have that she was trying to conceal it. ‘It’s your cousin’s diary.’
‘Sarah Jane’s?’ Pollyanna’s anger was repressed by shock, making her eyes lessen in intensity and small mouth appear smaller still. ‘But…where was it?’
‘In the tower,’ Smiler told her. He and Thurston had begun to climb down the stairs. His arm was tight around Thurston’s waist and neither man looked comfortable with the arrangement. Their heavy, awkward footing caused a rowdy clobbering on the wooden steps, the sound of which the cabin seemed reluctant to absorb into any of its surfaces. But the echoing din wasn’t enough of a distraction for Pollyanna. ‘But you said you couldn’t open the door,’ she said, accusingly.
‘Long story,’ Smiler grunted, as he helped Thurston to negotiate the next step.
‘We found a key to open it,’ Callie explained more easily.