by Kingsley Ash
He looks so kind, squinting a little against the moonlight spilling in from the window, his hand so warm and comforting, that I take a chance.
‘Please, promise me,’ I say.
‘You better leave that if you don't want to make me mad.’
There is no saying sorry. There is no remorse for what he did. He is a reminder that nightmares come true.
‘We wouldn't want that, would we?’ I say. ‘You might do something really bad if you got mad.’
I shut my eyes as my heart crushes until it hurts. When I open them again, Shepherd is leaning over me with a concerned look.
‘Baby?’ he says.
‘P — ’
‘Don't say it again. I’ve been sweet as pie to you up to this moment, but you're gonna find yourself friendless real soon if you don't drop that.’ The warning is as sharp as crystal. ‘Baby, I don’t get why you’re trying to push me away from your father. Is he gonna tell me something you don’t want me to hear?’
When the monsters come out at night, some of us hide. We stay quiet in the corner, shut our eyes, and wait for it to be over.
I look deep into his moonlit eyes and for a moment I see something human there. A thing that could be wounded, could be cured.
There’s a secret sorrow trapped inside his heart. It’s where his cruelness masks his sadness.
I keep looking into his eyes until he blinks and shuts himself away. I swallow and the back of my throat is hot and dry.
Sweet as pie, he said.
I’m so tired of it all, so I say, ‘Can I have some ice cream?’
He laughs and kisses my forehead. ‘You want ice cream?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘The painkillers are kicking in,’ he chuckles.
Shepherd leaves the bedroom and returns carrying a small pink and white striped carton.
‘Lie back against the pillows, Amy.’
I obey, feeling weightless, and lose myself in lavender and something that is him.
Shepherd sits on the floor next to the bed so that he’s at eye level with me. Opening the striped carton, he offers me a spoonful of ice cream.
The ice cream is wonderfully cool and green with Matcha. I open my mouth for another bite.
‘You'll get a brain freeze,’ he chuckles darkly, but gives it to me anyway. He’s being so nice. I know I should be worried. But I’m not. My brain feels fuzzy, untrustworthy.
‘It's good,’ I say around the next mouthful. He kisses me, pressing his tongue in among the creamy green coldness. And that’s how little I can trust my brain. I kiss him back. Long, slippery cold kisses. Bite after bite, kiss him until the ice cream is gone.
‘You like that?’ he says.
‘Yeah,’ I say, and touch his thick veiny arm where it rests on the bed beside me.
After that, I suppose I sleep. I wake at some point in the dark, lying under the sheets, alone. I don’t know where I am until I try to roll over and feel the pain of my head.
Carefully, I work my way to the edge of the bed. I find the floor with my bare feet. My head still spins a little, but I can walk well enough. I take two halting steps away from the bed. I try to guess at the correct trajectory to the bathroom. After two more steps, I hear his voice close by.
‘What are you doing, Amy?’
My heart thumps violently. If he’s there in the dark for me, it only ever means one thing. I can’t stomach the thought of it. Not now, I think. I can fight my desires so soon. Especially if he isn’t going to promise.
‘I'm thirsty.’
‘Get back in bed and I'll bring you some water.’
Slowly I move backwards, feeling for the bed. I sit down to wait. His boots scuff against the floor, then he takes my hand and closes it around a cool glass. I drink eagerly and hold the glass out into the dark for him.
‘You want more?’ he says.
I shake my head and inch back on the bed, drawing the sheet over me. A new thought occurs to me. ‘Where are you sleeping tonight?’
‘Are you trying to get me in bed with you again?’ he says. I feel his breath on my face and try not to flinch from the close proximity.
‘No,’ I whisper.
‘I didn’t think so. Go to sleep.’
Amazingly, I do. Am too tired not to, even knowing my monster is there in the dark.
If love is made from dreams, then whatever we have . . . is made from nightmares.
36
ME
I watch her SLEEP.
For the first part of the night, she’s restless under the influence of the fever. She tosses, unable to turn over, and whimpers. She mumbles things, things like, ‘How could you do this?’ and ‘Remember to forget.’
I sit next to her. She smells pretty, flowery. I stroke her long soft hair. She doesn’t wake.
I try to imagine being able to do whatever I like and not always be locked in some kind of mental combat with Amy. I try to think about it, take myself dangerously close to waking the beast, but the fantasies are stale. Is it the anger I like? Or is it her unwillingness to be with me?
No, she’s willing. She fought me a little, but she came here and took off her clothes herself. Because she enjoys my body. And isn’t that interesting? How she hates taking pleasure from me, but she’s going to keep coming back for it, because she needs me. Thinking of that stirs me, and I’m too aroused to stay.
She needs to sleep.
I kiss her softly on the forehead. It’s worth it just to kiss her affectionately like this, when she can’t feel it, when she can’t see my raw emotions.
It’ll never be enough, is never enough, but Amy gives me only what she can give and I’m getting used to it now. Used to her rejection. Used to her hate. So to me, I need to make this moment enough. I need to spend so long making every little moment I get to be with Amy . . . enough.
I’m not her hero.
I’m the villain she needs.
37
YOU
MOST OF THE GIRLS here smoke, but I don’t because of my asthma. Still, I join them in Lilac’s bathroom, under the extractor fan so the smoke rises and doesn’t trigger the alarm.
The girls are gossiping about Rebecca, and how fat she’s looking since Christmas.
‘She should spend some time with me,’ Lilac says. ‘Wouldn’t take me long to get her back into shape.’
Daisy stands awkwardly on one tennis shoe, pulling at a coil of hair that’s released itself from her hat. Today, she wears a red woollen hat, shaped like a poppy, making her impossibly fairy-like.
Scarlett offers Daisy the end of the cigarette, and I blanch but say nothing. Daisy has to make her own decisions. I know that, but she’s vulnerable, and I want to take her by the hand and lead her away. Her fingers hover in the air, just above the lit stub.
‘Take it, Daisy. It’s calorie-free,’ Scarlett advises in a fake American, have-a-nice-day voice.
Daisy puts it to her lips and sucks, then she starts to cough. Each cough feels like it’s coming from my own chest. She passes the cigarette to Annabeth, who pulls a face, so it’s returned to Scarlett.
‘Yup,’ continues Scarlett, inhaling deeply and warming to the theme, ‘we could teach her some weight-loss tips. Looks like she had too many mince pies.’
‘I’d love to have her body,’ I say. I like Rebecca. She’s been nice to me and doesn’t deserve such bitchy remarks.
‘Then why are you starving yourself to be so stick thin?’ Lilac says. ‘You can hide under your baggy clothes but we all see it, Amy.’
The other girls don’t understand. I hadn’t meant to lose weight. Stress of my mother’s death, my father contacting Shepherd, Elizabeth’s recent letter . . . all of it has been eating away at me. I am trying to make an effort to eat more.
‘I know your secret, Amy,’ Lilac says, tapping my skinny arm. ‘Your sexy therapist has you on a liquid diet. Bet he has plenty of juice for you.’
Scarlett and Annabeth fall into fits of laughter, but Daisy gives me
an admiring look from under the brim of her hat. I immediately regret not taking care of my body.
After taking a final drag, coughing into her bony hand, Scarlett concludes, ‘We look like the models in the magazines, but we’re the sick ones.’
DAISY COMES TO my room after dinner, this time wearing a bright orange baseball cap. She perches on the end of my bed, writing on her forearms with a black biro, and talks about the voice in her head.
I have a voice too. I know how she talks, the secrets she whispers: Keep quiet . . . remember to forget . . . you don’t deserve him . . . Elizabeth was your fault.
Daisy is so translucent her skeleton is on show. Her skin is like webbing, strands of her hair fall from her head every time she runs a finger through it, and her breath seems impossibly light.
She takes her hat off, when we’re alone together, and the bald spot on her crown glows like a halo. Sometimes she pulls just one hair and runs it through her teeth, before I gently remind her not to.
She looks admiringly at my wrists. Narrow. Bony.
‘You’re so beautiful, Amy. Such pretty bright green eyes. Are they really that colour?’
‘Yes. And you’re the pretty one.’
‘No I’m not. You’re the luckiest girl in the world. I wish somebody looked at me the way he looks at you. He dotes on you.’
Daisy considers her own forearms, which are covered by silvery threads of old scars. She starts to draw over them with curly writing. ‘I see you as . . . inspiration. Like, a role model.’
Daisy’s hero-worshipping horrifies me.
She gazes at me with her large, blank eyes. ‘Don’t tell me that, Daisy. I’m not anything.’
People walk around with so much pain and nobody sees it.
I need to get better — now not tomorrow. But there’s only one way that can happen.
I have to open the Black Magic Box.
38
YOU
YOU MUST REMEMBER to forget, Amy. You did forget, but you’re remembering now. Bad things happen when you remember . . . Promise to forget.
But I can’t promise that. Not anymore.
It’s ten past one, darkest velvet outside. I go under my bed. I open the box.
Every cell in my body is shaking as I take out the Wedding Day DVD.
The face on the cover is my beautiful sister. Sometimes I see Elizabeth in the corner of my eye. My Elizabeth before the accident, smiling bright as a star.
But she looks so sad in this picture.
It’s all opening up inside me. But it hurts. I want it to stop.
I put the Wedding DVD back inside and shut the box.
I pull my knees to my chest, and start rocking on my bed.
Why does my father want to meet Shepherd?
My dad won’t tell Shepherd the truth, I know that. But Shepherd is intelligent, smart, perceptive. He might figure it out. Shepherd has this ability to rile anyone up, and my father might let something slip out in a moment of anger. I don’t want Shepherd to hate me. He is the air I breathe.
How can I fill in the cracks and stop the monsters from coming back?
I start checking.
Over and over and over, then just once more. I get stuck again. Each time I check, I do it wrong somehow. Lose count. Don’t do things in exactly the right order. Don’t have my hand on the door for long enough.
Hour after hour, I start again and again and again. I take a shower around three in the morning, shivering when I get out. I get some joggers on and Shepherd’s white T-shirt — one I still keep — and start again at the door.
Still no good. I end up sitting by the door, my head on my knees, sobbing and shaking, making such a racket that I don’t hear him coming down the stairs. He bangs on the door. Makes me jump out of my skin.
‘Amy? What’s wrong, baby?’
I can’t use words. I just gasp and sob. He’s just on the other side of the door.
‘What’s happened?’ he says, louder this time. ‘Amy? Let me in.’
After a moment I just say, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’
I wait for the sound of footsteps going upstairs, but they don’t echo. A few moments later, the sound of him sitting down on the landing outside my door.
After I manage to control my breathing, I crawl away from the door and sit on the carpet looking at it, thinking of him sitting outside. What must he think of me?
‘Are you alright?’ he says.
I clear my throat. ‘Yes . . .’
I hear shuffling as he gets to his feet. ‘Are you? Don’t lie to me.’
‘Yes. I promise. Thank you.’
‘Do you need anything? Tea, or something like that?’
‘No, I’m okay. Really.’ It feels like madness, talking to my door.
I hear a crack, like a fist to the wall, and him muttering to himself, ‘Why’d you have to be such a fucking arsehole?’
Then he says to me, ‘This can’t go on, Amy. You know that, right? I can’t let it. I can’t see you like this.’
I don’t say anything for the longest time.
‘Aren’t you going to leave?’ I finally say.
‘No, I’m staying here.’
‘All night?’
‘All night.’
‘You can’t stay out there all night.’
‘People tell me I can’t do a lot of things, Amy. I still do them. Did this happen because of me?’
‘No . . . it’s never been because of you. I just need . . . I just need some space, Shepherd. I can’t breathe. There’s too much going on inside my head and I need time to think. I am trying. I promise. I really am trying to get better now.’
I opened the box. I took it out. I’m making a start. I just need a little more time.
‘Okay . . . I promise I’ll give you space.’
‘Do you really mean that?’
‘If that’s what you want. Is it, Amy?’
‘Yes.’
There are a thousand hurts in that one lie. Venus is closer to the Earth than that want is to my heart.
‘I won’t push you to come to mine anymore.’
‘Shepherd?’
‘What is it?’
‘I’m scared . . . that’s why I don’t want you to speak to my father.’
My fear grows like poison ivy in the ensuing silence.
‘I won’t go see him. Just focus on breathing. Focus on getting better. We can think about the future later.’
‘Thank you. You can go up now. I feel better already.’
‘I’m staying here all night, no arguments. Go to bed, Amy. Dream sweet if you can.’
He slips something underneath my door and I go to pick it up. When realisation dawns, my breath catches in my throat.
He kept it.
The Monster Catcher.
He’s held on to it after all these years . . .
Why?
The reason why could kill me, I think, so I shut the door on it.
I look at my door. I’m inside my home, he is outside it, keeping that space between us.
39
ME
I meet Fab5 for lunch at Bishop’s pub. We discuss business matters over steak and hot coffee. When Bishop clears our table, I tell him to take a seat.
Bishop’s lived in Greystone his whole life. An ex-copper, he might have information that could be useful.
‘You ever know a Violet Adams?’ I say to Bishop. I speak slow and clear.
He whistles in surprise. ‘God damn. Haven’t heard that name for a long time.’ He searches my eyes. ‘Why’d you want to know?’
I press my back against the booth. ‘She was my mother.’
Bishop’s eyebrows hit the roof of his head.
‘Did you know Violet?’ I say.
He shifts in his seat, shrugs. ‘Not really. Saw her around town.’
‘Don’t suppose you saw her with anyone? A man, possibly?’
Bishop passes a hand across his forehead. ‘Saw her once slinking around the edge of the woods wit
h Christian Earhart.’
The growing knot in my gut twists harder.
‘Go on,’ I say.
Bishop leans forward and lowers his voice conspiratorially. ‘There she was, sitting on the fence, swinging her legs and smoking and talking to Christian.’
‘The Mayor?’ Fab5 says, and frowns.
Something sharp lodges itself in my chest.
Bishop continues. ‘Christian was one of the few young men in this town with money in his pocket and that lent a certain shine to him.’ He grins. ‘It’s hard to believe it now, looking at the shape of him, but Christian was well put together in those days, a fine big strapping lad.’ Bishop leans in closer. ‘He told me the last thing he needed was to be hooked by Violet’s dirty ways. She, uh, had a bit of a reputation back then, you see.’
Rage rests heavy on my shoulders. ‘You’re talking about my mum there, Bishop. You’d do well to remember it.’ I speak low and soft, but it’s my expression that startles Bishop. Cold-eyed and with a smile that says I could climb over the table and finish him off with my bare hands.
My mother was thirteen.
His dark eyes turn into slits. ‘I meant no offence.’
‘None taken,’ Fab5 says. He nudges me. ‘Is there, man?’
I nod imperceptibly, drop my stern smile.
‘There now,’ Fab5 says. ‘Let’s play nice, boys.’
Bishop takes a sly gander at me, straightens up. ‘If you’d prefer I dressed it up a bit? Tidied the corners? I only say it how I saw it.’
‘And isn’t that the best way, Shepherd?’ Fab5 says.
I pause, watch a spider crawl under the table.
Bishop snorts. ‘Now I can see it.’
I light an electronic cigarette. ‘See what?’
I offer one to Bishop. He declines. ‘You have your mum’s eyes,’ he says. ‘Wild.’
‘I do? And what about my dad? Do I look like my dad?’
‘I’ve no answer for you there, Shepherd.’
‘My dad was anyone and no one, was he?’
Bishop looks down at his hands. They’re shaking. ‘You were a bye-child. There wasn’t anyone that could have made her decent.’