Cai. By the sound of it, he’d done more than that. He’d hurt her!
Lil wasn’t a violent person. She’d never hit anyone in her life, but now she darted across the hallway and pounded Cai in the chest. Hard. She was actually a couple of inches taller than him, although she always forgot that because he made her feel so small. All of her fear about what was happening to Mella at the Sisterhood, her terror that they wouldn’t find her in time, fueled her fists. She was shouting, too, but not words. Just incoherent noises.
Cai didn’t fight back. He just put his hands up to protect himself as Lil bashed him again and again. She wanted to hit him so hard he would fly out of the atmosphere and land on the moon. No, she wanted to punch him right back in time so she could stop him before he got to Mella, so she could change that morning. I’m awake, Mella. What do you want? Let’s talk! Tell me what’s wrong.
Her aunt was saying her name over and over. Finally she grabbed Lil by the shoulders and pulled her gently but firmly back. “Let him speak, Lili,” she said gently.
Lil was still angry, but she could see that what her aunt had said made sense, and besides, her hands hurt. No one ever told you how solid the human body was and how much it hurt to punch it. She was gasping and sweaty. Her fists shook at her sides and adrenaline lit up her body like a power station.
“What’s this about, Cai?” Sabrina asked, voice icy. “We don’t have time for you to mess about right now. When you say ‘that morning,’ do you mean the morning Mella went missing?”
Cai nodded. He rubbed his neck. “Does she have to be here?” He jerked a finger in Lil’s direction. “Ain’t a confession supposed to be private?”
“Is that what this is?” Sabrina asked. Her voice was calm, but Lil knew her aunt well enough to recognize the anger and fear in the twitch of her mouth.
“No!” Cai said. He rubbed his neck. “You know it’s not. You found her now, so you know anything I say here—”
“Who told you we’d found her?” Sabrina asked.
Cai looked sheepish. “Overheard it, didn’t I? Two police were talking and I just . . .”
Sabrina’s lips had narrowed into two thin lines. “So this is why you’ve decided to talk to us now, because you think we found her, so whatever you say, whatever you did to her, doesn’t matter?”
Cai shook his head as color rose to his cheeks. “It’s not like that. I would have told you before, but . . . you guys were always on me. And she never liked me.” He nodded at Lil. “She always wanted to blame me.”
“Why do you think that is?” Lil said, the words exploding from her mouth. “You were horrible to Mella. You made her miserable!” Horrible, miserable. Lil sounded like a child. Cai had almost destroyed Mella.
“She was that way long before I came along,” Cai said. “It’s like my ma used to say: Some people are born happy. Some are born sad. You can make the sad ones happy for a while, but not forever. You can’t change what they are.”
“That isn’t true!” Lil began. “Mella was fine before she met you.” But she wasn’t. They blamed Dad leaving; they blamed the fights before he left; they blamed the move to Wales. Mella had always been emotionally vulnerable, prone to ups and downs.
“I loved her!” he shouted. “You don’t know anything about it. Always bitching about me. Turning her against me. It was you and the rest of the village sticking their nose in. ‘He’s a bad un, Melanie. Watch him, Melanie.’ You’re the ones that turned her. Caused rows and that.”
Lil was so angry. She couldn’t believe that Cai might have known something all this time and was only saying something now, and only because he thought they’d found her. “We didn’t . . . at the hospital, it wasn’t—”
“Right, Cai, you’d better start talking,” Sabrina said, cutting her off. Lil read in her eyes that she didn’t want Cai to know they hadn’t found Mella.
“We don’t have time for this,” Lil said. Sabrina needed to get on with rescuing Mella from the Sisterhood.
“It’s in hand, cariad,” Sabrina said, pouring meaning into her words. “The wheels are in motion.” She turned back to Cai. “Let’s focus here,” she said. “You say you spoke to her, Cai. When? Can you tell me exactly what time?”
“Is she going to stay?” He nodded in Lil’s direction again.
The twitch by Sabrina’s mouth got stronger. “We can continue this conversation in private down at the station, if you’d prefer. No? Then I suggest you start talking. Shall we go in here? Bit quieter.” After she led them into the kitchen off the hall and shut the door, she said. “I know you and Mella had a turbulent relationship, but right now I only want to know about things if they are relevant to her disappearance. So, I say again, what time and where did you last see my niece?”
Cai sat down at the table and looked sheepish. “It were about seven a.m. or thereabouts, I reckon. Listen, what sort of trouble am I in for this?”
“That depends on what information you held back.”
“I didn’t do nothing to her, right. Not deliberate, anyway. She told you that, right? When you spoke to her today?”
Sabrina ignored his last question. “But you did lie when the police came to question you. You said you had not spoken to her since the previous afternoon. Are you now saying that isn’t true?”
“Yeah, but I was scared. The way you lot get on to me, you can’t hardly blame me.”
“Cai, I’m happy to discuss any grievances you have with my team at a later point. But right now can you give me a full account of the last time you saw Melanie Laverty?”
Cai’s eyes darted round the room, like he was looking for an exit. After a minute, as though he realized there wasn’t one, he began to talk. “It was a mistake. I didn’t mean it. It—it just got out of hand. Mella and me, we had our problems, but I loved her. You got to believe me.”
Lil’s heart was no longer bouncing around. It had curled up small and tight in the center of her chest. Sabrina’s words came from far away. “Did you hurt her? Is that what you’re saying?”
Mella. Lil gave a wail, and Sabrina put her arms around her and held her tight. “What happened, Cai?” Sabrina asked, voice shaking.
Cai began to talk. His sentences were jerky and hard to understand, but after a while it began to make sense. Mella had called Cai on the night of Lil’s sixteenth birthday at around midnight, after the row with Lil’s mum where she stormed out of the house. After I told her to go, Lil added in her head. She’d asked if she could stay with him. He’d been at the Castle Pub, drinking. He and Mella argued when he said he wouldn’t go straight home. “I’d just bought a round.” Then, come closing time, the barmaid there, a girl called Susie, told him he was too drunk to drive home and drove him herself. She then went into his trailer for a coffee, “because it was late and dark and I didn’t want her crashing or something when she drove back to hers.”
Mella called him again, he thought, around two o’clock. There was another fight. He didn’t want her coming over because “Susie was there, weren’t she, and Mella might get the wrong idea.” Or the right one, Lil thought. He couldn’t remember exactly what they’d said, but it was ugly. Mella had hung up on him.
When Sabrina asked what time Susie left, Cai shifted uncomfortably. “After . . . after the argument with Mella, I was kind of wound up and . . . well, Susie was sweet. She listened to me and said all the right things. I don’t know . . . it was stupid, really stupid, one of the dumbest things I ever did.”
Lil was so angry she was shaking, and a vein pulsed in Sabrina’s neck.
“Then there’s this banging on the door,” Cai said. “It was the next morning—early—before seven. I don’t know exactly what time, and it’s Mella. And she’s saying sorry and she’s trying to kiss me . . . and Susie . . . well, Susie’s right inside the trailer in my bed. . . . I know that I’ve made a massive mistake, and I just want to forget the whole thing ever happened. I tell Mella: ‘Let’s go for a walk. Stay out there. I’ll get my shoes.’ She’s suspicious, �
��cause why do I want to go for a walk at half past six or whatever in the morning?
“Then she gets this look in her eye, like she knows, and she tries to get into the trailer . . . and I . . . I don’t want her to, because Susie is inside, and I just think if she doesn’t know, it’ll be all right. I’ll never do anything so stupid again.” Cai broke off then. His eyes were distant, like he was back four months ago. When Sabrina asked what happened next, to prompt him, he jumped, like he’d forgotten they were there. Lil was wound tight: both desperate to hear the rest of the story and afraid to.
“So Mella tries to get inside, like she knows Sue’s there, and so I put my hands out, just to stop her, like, but I’m too strong or something, because she falls back and she knocks her head on the patio table and then there’s all this blood. I’ve never seen so much blood. She’s shouting that I . . . punched her. But I never! She just walked into my fist, you know. Then Susie comes out and she’s standing there in one of my T-shirts. Nothing else. She puts a hand on my arm. I shake it off quick, but Mella sees it and she knows. She’s shouting so much. I think that maybe if I let her go, she’ll calm down and then we can talk and she’ll forgive me.”
He looked up, his eyes red rimmed. “I swear that was the last time I saw her. I swear it.” And he broke down, his face collapsing like melting wax. “I know I messed up. I should have told you ages ago. I just needed a few days to get my head around it. I thought she’d calm down. If I gave her time. Then I heard that no one had seen her, and you guys were checking my trailer, asking all these questions. I knew if I told you I spoke to her, you wouldn’t believe that it was an accident. You’d think I was lying. That I did something to her. I wouldn’t. I loved her.” He dropped his face into his hands. “I loved her so much.”
When the Light is upon you, it burns in your fingers, in your toes, in your veins, in your soul, in your heart.
—THE BOOK
Mella had lost count of the hours they’d been in the Great Hall. It was impossible to guess the time with the thick curtains pulled across the windows. The Sun’s fire burned on endlessly, and Moon continued her whispering. She made no attempt to talk to Mella or the other sisters. Mella’s ankle throbbed and her tongue was a sponge in her mouth. She’d never been so thirsty.
Aside from Moon’s whispering, the room was largely silent. Mella could feel the sisters’ eyes on her from time to time, but no one spoke to her. She didn’t know what they were thinking. Were they terrified as well and all wishing they’d never come here? Or were they desperate for sunset and the Brightness? Mella couldn’t stop thinking about Dazzle and the others. Had they made it out? They must have done, surely, otherwise they’d be here too. Or had something happened to them?
“I just don’t get it,” Mella said. “You knew what would happen to Dazzle, but you did nothing to stop it.”
“We all have our duty in the Light,” Luster added quietly.
“That’s rubbish,” Mella said, amazed at the force of her anger.
Luster flinched. “You’re a new sister. It’s hard to understand.”
But Mella did understand. She was just sick of people here blaming the Light for their actions and expecting some other force to come along and take control of their lives. Then it hit her: That’s what she’d been doing her whole life. How many times had she said, There has to be more than this? There has to be a purpose. We can’t just be on our own, responsible for our own screwups. Because that was terrifying. Not to believe in a grand plan, to believe you utterly controlled your own destiny, was what Mella had been most afraid of. She wanted a safety net. No, she wanted someone else, something else, to blame when things went wrong. It’s not my fault, it’s written in the stars, it’s my horoscope, or my tarot, or God, or Cai, or my mum, or even Lil. And finally, it was the Light.
“We control our fates,” she thought now with absolute certainty. “We make our own choices; God or whatever doesn’t do that for us.”
Cai had been a jerk that morning. All the mornings, in fact, and the afternoons. He was just a jerk. She still remembered how he’d knocked her out of the way, so keen to hide that bloody Susie from her. Mella had been angry with Lil for not listening to her when she needed to talk. But it had been Mella’s choice to go and to stay gone, to avoid humiliation, to avoid saying sorry, and most of all to avoid having to face up to what a mess her life had become. It hit her hard to realize suddenly how her actions must have hurt her mum and Lil. Oh, Mouse, she thought. I’m so, so sorry. I put too much on you. She’d always expected her sister to cheer her up, to make it better. She’d never given a thought to how difficult that must have been for Lil. What a toxic sister she must have been sometimes.
“We make our own choices and then we have to stick by them,” she repeated more firmly.
Luster cupped Mella’s cheek. “Maybe you’re right. Or maybe there is some greater force involved than you realize. You once said you didn’t feel anything you did made a difference. You wanted to know what your purpose was. I hope you found it tonight.”
Mella was surprised. Was it true? Had she done that? Her desperate search for answers, for meaning, for purpose, had led her here. But was here exactly where she’d needed to be? She smiled at Luster. She felt something unfurl inside her, blossoming like a flower, beautiful and fragile. It was a sense of belonging she’d never had before. Not to a place but to herself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
After what Cai had told them, Sabrina insisted Lil let her talk to him alone. “It’s important that I get all the details down, Lils. Because of the conflict of interest, I’ll need to get Officer Burnley as a witness.” She stroked her niece’s cheek. “I promise to tell you everything I can, all right?”
Lil nodded. She was numb, like someone could set fire to her and she wouldn’t even notice. She winced. That was a bad analogy. She’d found out so much today and didn’t know how to process it all. Lil sat down on the floor of the little entranceway to the village hall, unable to make the decision of whether to go inside or outside. She was exhausted, mentally and physically. Knees up, she let her head drop against them.
Cai had seen Mella after she left home, and he hadn’t said anything. In over four months. He’d only spoken up now because he thought they’d found her. He thought he was safe, free from blame.
Mella hadn’t intended to leave like she did. She only planned to stay at Cai’s for a bit until everything calmed down, like always. But Cai hurt her, humiliated her, and rather than admit the truth—that Cai was a waste of space and their mum had been right—Mella stayed away. That was why she hadn’t come back. Right? Because of Cai, not because of what Lil had said. Lil rolled the idea around in her head, trying to make it fit. It didn’t. Cai was a crappy boyfriend. He was always going to let Mella down, but Lil was her sister; she should have been there for her.
Whatever Cai said, it wasn’t love that he’d felt for Mella. You didn’t treat someone you loved like that. You didn’t make her feel guilty for seeing her friends or talking to other boys. Nor cheat on her and finally hit her. But—and the thought brought Lil up short—maybe it had been love, from Cai’s point of view, because he didn’t know any better. How much love had he been given? Not a lot, probably. From what Lil knew of his background, he’d experienced a pretty rubbish childhood and now wasn’t in touch with either of his parents. To be only nineteen and living alone in a trailer must be pretty bad, although before it had just made him seem grown up. “He has his own place,” Mella would say. None of that was any excuse, though.
And—this was hard to admit— Mella had been unhappy before Cai. “We’re concerned about Mella,” a letter from school would say. “We’d like to discuss the possibility of weekly meetings with the school guidance counselor. We think Mella might benefit from some one-on-one support on how to manage her anxiety and emotions.” The head of school requested a meeting with Lil’s mum. “Such a drama queen,” Mum said of Mella, and she blamed their dad for leaving, and then the m
ove to Wales, and finally Cai. But those were all surface things. They affected Mella, sure, but it was more than that. “I hate being inside my head,” Mella would say. “I just want . . . I want out of it. To be quiet, you know. It’s never just quiet in here.” And she jabbed her forehead. Lil didn’t know what to do, because how did you help someone whose own head was a dangerous and frightening place? So she ignored it, pretended everything was okay. Mella was just a bit sad. Mella did love the drama. She’d be fine. In a little while, she’d be happy again. But she never was.
Lil was consumed with guilt, she was drowning in it, and it was hard to breathe. They could have stopped this. Her and Mum and Sabrina. If only they’d listened, if only they’d seen how much Mella was suffering. If only they’d stopped blaming everything else and really, really asked Mella what she wanted, what she needed.
Oh God, Mella. I’m so, so sorry. If she ever got Mella back, she would never ignore her pain again. Lil would help her in whatever way she could, because no one deserved to hate being in her own head. Lil would find a way to make it better for Mella.
If she ever got Mella back.
If.
Only two letters, but their meaning was devastating.
Lil gripped her knees, remembering the conversation she had with Sabrina a few months ago. It was three weeks after Mella left. “She’ll be back for Mum’s birthday,” Lil said. “I know she will.”
Sabrina turned her face away from her, trying to hide the tears in her eyes.
Lil touched her aunt’s shoulder. “She’ll be back. She will.”
Sabrina gave a half nod, then rubbed her eyes. She took Lil’s hand, holding it tight in her own. After a long while she said, “Lili, hope is good. It’s important to believe in Mella, but . . . at some point you might have to face up to the fact . . . Mella was very unhappy before she left. . . .”
“No,” Lil said. “No.” Not that. Never that. Please.
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