Chapter 62 Carter
CARTER
A voice whispers in the dark: “Carter, can you hear me?”
I’m dreaming about DCI Bird and not for the first time. In this dream she is telling me I did a good job and she is sorry. I don’t know what she is sorry for or why she keeps asking if I can hear her. Of course I can hear her.
“Open your eyes if you can hear me,” she says.
I’ve never had such a demanding boss. She even gives me orders in my sleep.
I don’t want to open my eyes, but when I do, I see I am not where I thought I was.
Unless I’m still dreaming. But that wouldn’t account for the pain or dizziness.
I’m in what looks like a tunnel. Bird is on her knees beside me.
She’s taken off her jacket to put it beneath my head, and has rolled up the sleeves of her white shirt revealing a lot of tattoos. I have a curious urge to touch them.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“Spyglass. You were right about the secret tunnels. This one leads all the way to Blackwater Bay.”
Everything starts coming back to me. Eden. Mary. Harrison. Her.
“Did you lie about being my boss?” I ask, sitting up too fast.
“Shh, take it easy. You’re bleeding.”
“Where is Harrison? Did he get away? Is he in the tunnels?”
“Try to relax. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“What about Mary?”
“You don’t need to worry about Mary. She lived and worked in this house for almost twenty years, caring for my grandmother.
She dressed her, fed her, cooked for her, cleaned for her, washed her, cleared up her mess and her accidents, barely earning the minimum wage, and all on the promise of one day inheriting this place when her employer died.
But it took longer than either of them expected for that day to finally come, and when it did, Mary wasn’t too happy about my grandmother’s will saying that Spyglass had been left to someone else after twenty years of servitude.
Mary wanted what she believed was hers, and that’s why she went to work at The Manor, to get closer to the family who now owned the house she thought was owed to her.
Gabriella and Harrison had no idea about her true motivations until she had already befriended them. ”
“I don’t understand—”
“I know and I’m sorry. I wish I could explain but I have to go now. I’m almost out of time and there is something I need to do.”
“What are you talking about? You can’t leave me here.”
“You’re going to be okay. Mary told me that I got trapped in this tunnel myself once, stumbled into it by accident from the library when I was a child and almost died.
But then I followed a bird all the way to the ocean.
A swallow! Turns out my mother stopped speaking to my grandmother because of that, even though it was just an accident.
Apparently my mum even wrote in her will that if something were to happen to her, my grandmother should not be trusted to care for me.
My family has never been good at forgiveness. ”
“Wait. What? When did Mary tell you that?”
“Just now. Before she left. Funny how life gives you the answers to questions you didn’t know to ask. Follow the sound of the sea and you’ll be fine.”
DCI Bird does not sound like herself. I think they might have drugged her. But then she kisses me, so now I’m sure this is just a dream. The kiss is slow and gentle. I close my eyes and I kiss her back until she pulls away.
“I just needed a kiss for luck. Goodbye, Carter.”
I open my eyes but she’s gone. All I see is darkness.
And all I hear is the sound of a door closing.