19. Bat
nineteen
Bat
Itook a breath I didn’t need and reached out toward Charlie. “Right. Here goes.”
The sensation was unlike anything I’d experienced before.
Instead of diving into Charlie like I had with Brad—complete takeover, drowning out his consciousness—this felt like…
slipping on a glove that was already occupied.
The warmth of Charlie’s presence pulsed beside me, mingling with my own essence, inviting rather than resisting.
There was a thrill in knowing that he was willing, a strange comfort.
The echoes of my own intentions were layered against Charlie’s thoughts; his curiosity blooming like spring flowers.
Weird, Charlie’s voice echoed in our shared headspace. I can still think.
Can you hear me thinking back?
Yeah. This is mental.
It was mental. We were partners in this bizarre dance, each sensation heightened, every intention shared. I flexed our fingers experimentally. Charlie’s body responded, but instead of feeling like taking control, it felt like… sharing a melody, a harmony of sorts, threading our desires together.
Your turn, I thought, and Charlie’s hand moved toward the salt and vinegar chip sticks. Or was it my hand? The distinction blurred.
Our fingers closed around a crisp. I guided it to his mouth, and the moment it hit his tongue, I nearly sobbed.
The salt exploded across our taste buds like a bloody symphony. Sharp, aggressive vinegar followed, making our mouth water. The texture—the perfect crunch that dissolved into savoury powder—it was everything I’d forgotten food could be. Every sensation magnified tenfold after so long of nothing.
Yet it was more than the taste of a crisp. It was the joy of tasting life again, side by side with Charlie.
A moan escaped our lips. Half mine, half Charlie’s.
Charlie laughed at the same time, creating this bizarre harmony of sound that shouldn’t have been possible. Christ, Bat, you’re having a religious experience over crisps.
But there was something else.
Something more.
A memory crashed over me like a tidal wave, the taste of the crisps triggering it so hard it was impossible to stop.
I was here. In this manor. Eating those exact crisps.
That couldn’t be right. Why would I have been here, eating crisps? This place was miles from Bristol, from my life there.
The memory consumed me. I was feeding someone else the crisps—a young guy with copper-red hair, lying with me on a red picnic blanket near the old well.
Sunlight filtered through the oak trees as I placed another crisp between his lips.
He laughed, the sound bright and carefree.
There was something forbidden about it; this was something private, something we couldn’t let anyone see.
His wheelchair rested nearby on the grass, its metal gleaming in the afternoon sun. My acoustic guitar lay beside us, the scratched body warm from the sun.
Michael. His name was Michael.
I liked Michael. I liked him very much, even though he wasn’t my usual type.
What the hell? Charlie’s confusion flooded through our shared consciousness. What’s going on?
I jerked back, severing the connection so violently that Charlie gasped and stumbled forward.
“Bloody hell,” Charlie breathed, catching himself against the bed frame. His face had paled, and he’d started shivering.
“Are you alright?” I reached out instinctively, my hands rubbing against his arms as if I had warmth to offer him.
“I’m fine,” Charlie said, though his voice wavered. “That was… weird. But I’m fine.” He wrapped his arms around himself. “Just cold now.”
“Did you see it too? That memory?”
“Yeah.” Charlie’s blue eyes fixed on mine. “Who was that guy?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I do, his name was Michael, but…” I ran a hand through my hair, frustrated. “I only remember feeding him crisps. Here. In the manor’s garden.”
“I assume he was your boyfriend?” Charlie said. “Not your murderer, judging by the way you were feeding him crisps.” Was I imagining that tiny, tiny edge of jealousy in his voice? Probably, but it still sent a lovely warmth through me regardless, even as confusion clouded everything else.
I tried to summon more images of Michael, concentrating until my head ached. Red hair. Wheelchair. That laugh. But nothing else surfaced from the fog of over twenty-five years.
“Surely if he really was my boyfriend, I’d remember him,” I said. “I never really had a proper ‘boyfriend.’ Just a string of encounters in club toilets and behind the chip shop. Nothing else that lasted more than a couple of weeks, really.”
Charlie shrugged. “Well, maybe he was someone you’d started seeing, then.”
The questions multiplied in my head like bloody rabbits. Who was he? Why was I here with him? What was he to me? And most pressing of all, What exactly happened in 1999?
I floated away from Charlie, drifting to the window.
The glass was grimy, reflecting my translucent form like a broken mirror.
I’d spent years not remembering, actively choosing not to dig into the worst parts of what had been.
After all, what good would remembering my death actually do?
It certainly wasn’t going to bring me peace.
I’d thought I was content with the not knowing, wrapped it around myself like armour.
But now…
Now Charlie was here, and everything felt different. More urgent. More real.
I crossed to the cracked wardrobe mirror, lifting my T-shirt to stare at the wound between my ribs. The puncture looked as fresh as the day I’d died. Dark and precise. There was no doubt about it: someone had put this hole in me deliberately.
Footsteps approached behind me. Charlie’s arms slipped around my waist, his chest pressing against my back. His fingers traced gentle patterns around the wound, careful not to touch the damaged skin directly.
“Does it hurt?” he whispered against my shoulder.
“Not physically. But it’s like… like a song that’s been cut off mid-note. Just hanging there, unfinished.”
Charlie’s hand stilled. “Do you want to try to remember? How it happened?”
The question hung in the air between us. I’d been running from that answer for so, so long.
“I… I think I do,” I said finally.
My eyes fell to the guitar by Charlie’s window, in its cracked leather case. The same instrument from the memory.
“Can you play it for me? Please? If your fingers aren’t too sore from the digging?”
“The guitar?” He sighed. “I’ve never really been one for performing… I used to almost throw up on open mic nights when my mates forced me up there.”
Puppy-dog eyes, activated. “Please? It’s only me here, and you know I already think you’re amazing. I really think it might help me remember.”
I couldn’t bear to touch the thing myself. Every time I’d tried over the years, the weight of it in my hands made me want to scream. It reminded me of everything I’d lost, everything that had been ripped away before I could properly live it.
Charlie’s eyes flashed wide, but he nodded. “Okay…”
He untangled himself from me to unzip the case, and lifted the acoustic guitar, testing the strings with gentle fingers.
“Play what you played in the attic.”
A small smile crossed his face. “That crap? I’m not even sure I remember it fully. I wrote that one myself, back when I first learnt the guitar.”
“It was excellent,” I said, reaching over to stroke my thumb across his cheek. “That song will haunt me forever.”
Charlie positioned his fingers. The melody emerged slowly, somehow achingly familiar.
Something melancholic and raw, full of teenage longing and loss.
His fingers clearly remembered the patterns even if his mind doubted himself.
The notes flowed like water, filling the dusty room with ghosts of who he’d been.
I listened, transfixed by his magnificent music, but no new memories surfaced. Only a deep sense of nostalgia for something I couldn’t quite grasp.
When the last chord faded, I found myself studying Charlie’s fingers. Something tugged at the edge of my consciousness—a melody that wanted to be played, a progression that felt essential.
“Can you play ‘Wonderwall’?”
Charlie blinked. “Oasis? Really?” He wrinkled his nose. “Is that a joke?”
“Please?”
Sighing, he repositioned his hands, fumbling through the opening chords. Started again, missed a note, cursed under his breath. “I don’t think I’ve played this one since my friend’s wedding, like a decade ago.”
“You can do it,” I said, drifting closer. “I believe in you.”
Charlie’s cheeks flushed pink as he nodded and tried again.
This time his fingers found their rhythm.
The familiar progression emerged, tentative at first, then stronger.
The melody soon filled the room. I was tempted to ask him to sing it for the full effect, but didn’t want to push my luck.
Besides, it was working—each chord change sparked something inside me, like static electricity building before a storm.
I moved to the bed, sitting heavily as the music washed over me. Closed my eyes. Let the sound guide me backwards through the fog.
The room shifted around me.
I was in this manor. In the piano room. Sunlight streaming through tall windows.
My fingers moved across the guitar strings, demonstrating the opening progression. Wonderwall, because it was simple enough for a beginner but satisfying to master.
“Right, so it’s Em, G, D, A7,” I explained, passing the instrument to Michael.
He sat in his wheelchair beside the piano bench, copper hair catching the light. His hands shook slightly as he positioned his fingers on the frets. The first chord came out muted, his grip too tentative.
“Don’t worry,” I said, scooting closer. “Everyone murders it the first few times.”
Michael smiled—that shy, crooked grin that made my stomach flip. Then he winked. “You’re very patient for someone who charges by the hour.”
How long had I been giving him lessons? Weeks, months maybe? Long enough that our sessions had become the highlight of my week. Long enough that I’d started arriving early and staying late, finding excuses to linger.