Knew Stella, though. From Horizons. But Ms. Gao doesn’t mention her, or acknowledge that I have.
“Doesn’t it look rather dodgy, me leaving the country?”
“If you’d asked my advice before you left . . .” Her voice trails off. “I might’ve suggested adjusting the timing of your trip. But we can work with it. Your family’s in the UK, after all, and the archives incident is a civil matter, at best.”
The archives incident. Still no mention of what happened on the bridge.
“What about Stella?” I ask. The line is silent. “Hello?”
“Sorry, you cut out for a moment.”
“I asked, what about Stella,” I repeat.
“Stella . . . Benicia?”
“Yes,” I say, growing annoyed. “The girl who live-streamed her suicide attempt to the world.” Victoria Gao must know of her. What’s she playing at?
“What about her?” she asks perfunctorily.
“I knew her,” I persist. “I was there, when she jumped.”
Silence on the line again. Then, after a beat, “We’ll get it sorted.”
Sorted. A practical word. Efficient. Fitting, for Ms. Gao. She seems like a practical, efficient person.
If she has keys to my flat, it’s likely she has keys to other things. The archives, no doubt.
What else has she sorted?
A burst of laughter erupts from the front of the plane. A woman and a man I can’t remember meeting are doubled over at something Goose has said.
I shift away, leaning down a bit to look out the window. “How did you know I was here?” I ask Ms. Gao.
“We keep track of our investments,” she says, not at all ominously. “The Gulfstream’s brand-new. The shareholders would have my head if it was lost on my watch.”
“I see,” I say. “For a second I thought you were referring to me,” I add drily.
“I’m afraid the board is less compelled by nonmonetary value. Though of course it’s good to know where you are. I am here to help you, whatever you need.”
“Thanks,” I say, with sarcasm.
“You’re welcome,” she says without it. “I’ll have your things shipped from New York within the week, along with Mr. Greaves’s belongings. Madison will show you where to meet the car. Safe travels,” she says, and hangs up.
5
I SHALL FETCH HER UP
SO MUCH FOR THE GINGERBREAD house,” Goose says, when he hears where we’re going.
“Early days, yet,” I reply, as we’re driven through the Yorkshire Dales.
“Disappointed to have had our conspiracy theories dashed, are we?”
Not disappointed, but not relieved, either.
The problem with Goose is that he’s not wrong; in his position, I’d be equally sceptical. It’s just that I’ve spent the past year falling in love with a serial murderer, finding out that my father helped arrange it, discovering that a centuries-old man engineered my parents’ own marriage and my existence, and learning that everything I spent the first sixteen years of my life believing is wrong.
I could try explaining all that to Goose—he’d probably take it in stride, like he has everything else. But his perspective is limited. I can’t rely on it.
Daniel’s perspective would be useful, though. I wonder what he’d make of M’s reemergence? Or of the mission she tasked me with, which I seem to be unwillingly complying with despite my best efforts?
He’d never answer, if I messaged him. He’d be likelier to hit me for hurting his sister. And it’s hard to imagine him hitting anyone.
“Never thought I’d be spending my gap year at home,” Goose says, looking out the window. A mist of rain clings to the glass, fogs the air outside.
“We won’t be here long,” I say. “Our things’ll be shipped in the next week, the lawyer said. We can leave after that.” I don’t love the idea of strangers rummaging through my things, or of Ms. Gao having my mobile, but the thought of missing a text or a call from Mara is unbearable.
If she reaches out to you again, it won’t be her reaching. It’ll be him.
“Or we could leave before,” I add, remembering M’s words. “I don’t much care,” I lie.
“A week in the country,” Goose says, with a definitive nod. “Could be refreshing.”
“Could be,” I say. M could be wrong about Mara and the professor. She could be lying.
“Just what the doctor ordered.”
“Quite,” I agree. What did the professor write, in Mara’s letter? If you put it on, I will know. Something like that?
“Will Mara be joining us?”
She might not be wearing it. My hand rises to my neck, finding my pendant beneath the collar of my shirt.
Even if she is wearing it, though—who bloody cares? I’m wearing mine. It’s not the One Ring. She’s not a slave to him any more than I am. I press the point of the pendant into the underside of my thumb.
You kind of are, though.
The thought echoes in my skull, in Mara’s voice. I grit my teeth.
I mean, you’re here, just like they wanted.
“They?”
“Mate?”
The sound of Goose’s voice surprises me, and I look over at him. He seems puzzled, and a tad worried, which makes sense because I’ve just talked to myself. Out loud.
“Stop,” I say to the driver.
“Sir?”
I lean forward in the seat. “Pull over whenever you can.”
“Of course, sir.”
“You all right?” Goose asks.
“I’m fine.” Just mental. “Just need a bit of air.”
“Very well, sir.” He pulls onto a side road and I get out. Goose follows.
I take a few long strides away from the car. There’s a white sign marking the crossroads to a small village just outside the borders of the estate. “I’m fine,” I repeat, convincing absolutely no one. “Really.”
“Of course you are. You haven’t mentioned Mara once in the past twenty-four hours, but coincidence, surely.”
“I’d rather not deal with family shite right now,” is all I say, staring fixedly at the sign.
Goose comes to stand beside me. “All right, fuck the country, then. London’s calling.”
Not far enough.
I shake my head. “We’ll run into people we know.”
“Madrid? Paris?”
“Maybe,” I say, trying to imagine it. Disappearing into another city. An anonymous tourist like anyone else.
“Fine, I’ll choose. But first I’ve got to eat, mate. Let’s find a pub, shall we?”
“If you’re buying,” I say, when another thought occurs to me. “You’ve got cash?”
Goose reaches into his pockets. “A bit.”
“Enough for a taxi?”
“For a short ride, yeah.”
I nod. “Let’s do it.”
“Do . . . what, exactly?”
“Walk to town, get a ride someplace else.”
He places a hand on the sign. “A stupid question, probably, but . . . why?”
Because I don’t like being used. Because I like being tracked even less.
And because I can’t even think here without Mara invading my mind. Going back to the place where my father’s corpse is rotting won’t help me be rid of her, knowing she’s the one who put it there.
Goose is looking at me with concern. “Is there something wrong with the car we’ve got?”
“No,” I say, searching for a reason that won’t sound mad. “Except that the family solicitor hired it, and I just want a day or two to myself. Where no one knows where I am or what I’m doing and I’m not responsible for anything.”
Goose hovers for a moment, between believing me and not. When he sighs, I know I’ve got him. “Fine. But if I pass out, you’re carrying me.”
6
THE TRAGIC CLOWN
WE DISMISS THE DRIVER WITHOUT incident, but after that, our options thin. We end up walking into a car park outside a c
losed pub in Darlington, and stumble upon a couple of Dutch tourists on their way to Whitby who offer to bring us along.
Working out the lodging situation is a bit of a challenge, as I have to convince Goose not to use his credit cards without sounding mental. He ends up borrowing the Dutchman’s mobile, hacking into his brother’s Airbnb account, and stealing some of his credits. (“He invested early. He can afford it.”)
The scenery changes from moor to seaside, and it’s late afternoon by the time the car pulls up to a row of small houses that hug the edge of the cliffs, in full view of Whitby Harbour.
“Lovely people, the Dutch,” Goose says, waving goodbye as their car pulls away. I lean back against a low stone wall for a moment, closing my eyes. I’ve been running on anger and annoyance—mostly anger—but now I’m just fucking tired.
“I haven’t been here in ages,” he says. “Not since I was little and my brothers thought to scare me by making me walk the graveyard at night. Ever done that?”
I shake my head, letting the unfamiliar scents of the harbour and the sounds of the village work on my restless senses.
“Let’s go, then,” Goose says. “After we get pissed.”
If I could, it’d be brilliant. I wonder how much alcohol it’d take to get me there in my newly nonhealing state.
“Got enough money for it?” I ask.
“Not to get totally rinsed. We’ll have to get by on our considerable charm.” He loops his arm around my shoulders. “Or, my charm, rather. I’ve got enough for both of us. Oh my God, this place!” He’s stopped us in front of a quaint little white shop with black windows. “I love this place!”
“Humble Pie and Mash,” I read the sign.
“Perfect for you,” he says, dropping his arm and opening the door.
It’s not a pub, but it smells good enough to make me not care, for the moment. A white pit bull is lounging beside a table with its chin on its paws.
“Welcome,” the hostess says in a northern accent. “Sit anywhere you like.” She hands us two menus.
“They don’t serve alcohol,” I say dejectedly.
“No, but they do serve haggis and neep pies.” Goose turns over the menu, then sniffs the air. “Is it my concussion, or do I smell beer?”
A group sitting a few tables away is passing bottles around.
“The Endeavour just down the road’ll bring a couple o’ pints over,” the waitress says, coming round. “Pop on over the road to pay and they’ll bring ’em by for a quid.”
Goose stands immediately, nearly knocking over his chair. “I’ll be right back.”
The waitress raises her considerable eyebrows as he leaves.
“Apologies for my friend,” I say. “For both of us, actually, in advance.”
“No worries, what can I get you?”
“I’ll have the steak and stout,” I say, reading the cheerfully illustrated menu. “He’ll have the Yorkshire sausage and black pudding.”
“Right then, anything to drink?”
“A glass of milk for him, and mushy peas with his pie as well?”
“Lovely. Do let me know if there’s anything else.”
I thank her again, then look around. There’s a fire going, and the place is done up to look like a quaint little cottage that a kindly grandmother might live in; flowered tablecloths, stucco walls, and painted cabinets with little oddments arranged on top. A framed note on the wall says everything displayed has been found in the attics and old rooms by previous and current owners of the building, which started as a bakery in 1843. The more you know.
Goose arrives before the pies do, carrying two full pint glasses of beer and a bottle-shaped paper bag under his arm.
“Impressive,” I say.
“Isn’t it? We’re too skint for delivery, but look!” He sets the bag on the table, scrunching the edges down dramatically.
“A half-consumed bottle of Jack Daniel’s,” I say. “Wow.”
“They’re not supposed to sell bottles.”
“And yet.”
“And yet.” He holds his pint aloft. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
“Gods, that’s good,” he says. After a few swallows, his glass is already a quarter empty. “We can ask for shot glasses for the whiskey, drop them in.”
“Here you go, lads,” the waitress says, setting down two plates loaded with peas and mash and pie and gravy. She sets a tall glass of milk in front of Goose.
“What did you do?” he drawls.
“Yorkshire sausage and blood pudding and a glass of milk,” she says to Goose, “and steak and stout for you. Will there be anything else?”
“Two shot glasses?”
“Sorry, don’t have ’em.”
“Two extra glasses, then,” Goose says.
“Thanks,” I add.
“No worries,” she says brightly. “Enjoy!”
Once she leaves, Goose shakes his head slowly at his thoroughly English meal.
“The milk makes it art, don’t you think?” I ask.
“Was the mushy peas that did me in.” He picks up his fork and cracks the surface of the pie. “I rather like blood pudding, actually.” He loads up his fork and shoves it into his grinning mouth. “Mmm,” he groans. “Delicious,” he says with his mouth full, spraying crumbs onto the table.
This is good, this moment. I feel less haunted already. “Last time you had it?”
“Last summer, could be? You’re the one who forgot your roots, mate.”
“I imagine that’s why I’m back here. To dig them up,” I mumble.
Goose tilts his head quizzically. Then says, “So,” drawing out the word. “Where’s Mara right now, do you think?”
“Which one,” I say tonelessly, pushing one of my glasses around with my knuckles.
“Pardon?”
I blink at Goose, enviably clueless. I’m not quite sure how to tell him that there are two Maras, the first of whom has been alive for at least a hundred and fifty years.
Easier just to drink. “I ended it. With Mara.”
“Got that feeling. Really sorry, mate,” he says. “You can cry in front of me, if you like. Better out than in.”
“Thanks,” I say drily.
He leans his elbows on the table. “Know what I think?”
I raise my eyebrows.
“Forget Madrid. Let’s go to Ibiza, or Crete. Someplace where everyone’ll be wearing less clothing, yeah?”
If this had happened last year, before everything, before her? It’s exactly what I’d do.
“We can pop off to the manor once our things’ve arrived or get money wired here, even. Then set out.”
Something itches at the back of my mind, but I can’t quite find it beneath the haze of alcohol. “You don’t have to stay.”
“I like Whitby,” Goose says. “It’s adorable.”
“No, I mean, after.”
“I like Ibiza, too.”
“You could walk away, still,” I say hopefully. “From all this.” He seems appropriately confused, given how little he knows, how little I’ve told him. I ought to fix that. “Everything that’s happened—” I start.
But Goose stops me. “Whatever happened, happened. It’s in the past. You can’t change it, but you can leave it there, mate.”
Tempting. But true?
I brought Mara to New York and had Jamie come to live with us and tried to act like the shite that had brought us together didn’t matter. One could ask Stella how well that turned out. Or not, seeing as how she’ll never speak again.
Unless . . . M said she could help get my ability back.
I’ll keep your friend Alastair in my thoughts, she said too.
If he’s next, I won’t know it without my ability.
But if he’s next, how much help would I be, with it? How much did I help Felicity or Beth or Sam?
Or Mara, for that matter? If I’d been with her at Horizons, at the end—she couldn’t have gotten to this place. She can’t have wanted thi
s for herself. For us.
My thoughts spin and stutter. I can’t think through the noise of them.
Better not think at all. I pour another glass of whiskey, only just realising I’ve finished my first, and a pint besides. For the first time in years, I feel the sharp click of the alcohol, filling me with warmth. The illusion of fullness is preferable to the reality of emptiness.
Maybe Goose is right. Whatever happened, happened. I can’t fix what’s broken, but I can leave it behind. Stop dragging it with me.
I raise my glass in the air. Goose follows suit. “What are we toasting?” he asks.
“A clean break.”
7
HEREIN LIES THE JUSTIFICATION
WE PAY THE BILL, THEN head out in search of somewhere we can buy or borrow more whiskey, because fuck it, why not.
We’re thoroughly, delightfully wasted by the time we start toward Whitby Abbey, which doesn’t prevent either of us from enjoying some of Goose’s Percocet and chasing it with the bottles of Guinness we begged off a bartender at the last pub of the night. The abbey ruins are surrounded by a considerable stone wall. The graveyard, however, is not.
Goose picks an unsteady path through the headstones. “Stoker used some of the names from the graveyard in Dracula,” he says, leaning over one of the headstones. “Can’t read most of them.” Then he raises his arm, pointing over a cliff. “That’s where the Demeter ran aground.”
“What?”
“The ship? In the book?”
“Don’t remember,” I say, settling down on the grass. Goose slouches down against a headstone. I’m up against one shaped like a cross, for the symbolism.
“Liar,” he says. “Even Neirin had to study at least once. You’d never taken so much as a note. If we hadn’t liked you so much, we’d’ve loathed you. You remembered everything.”
I take the bottle of Guinness from him. “Maybe that’s gone now too.”
“Hmm?”
I take a long sip. Then, “Our abilities are gone,” I find myself saying.
“What, you mean . . .” He stares at my hand, lying palm up on the grass. With significance.
“Mmm,” is all I manage to get out.
“I need a bit more than that, mate.”
The Reckoning of Noah Shaw Page 3