WALES 2022
WHEN THE POLICE LEFT the hospital to search for Arden in earnest, they gave clear instructions to call them if he tried to make contact. I agreed to go down to the station the next morning to have a more formal conversation, and they asked if I would like a police chaperone to stay with me in the meantime. It was for my own protection, with the suspect still at large, but I declined. It would be hard to flee South Wales with a cop at my side.
And running away was hardly the behaviour of an innocent teenage girl.
At around eight in the evening, Dehghani dropped Mum and I back at the farmhouse, which had already been searched for any trace of Arden. My blood fizzed with the acute sensation that he was going to jump out on us at any moment, and I briefly regretted my decision to turn down police protection, but I knew my only shot at survival was to get as far from here as possible before turning eighteen – which was in a little under eleven hours’ time.
I don’t know if I really believed that running away would work. It never had before; the tether had always led Arden to me, somehow. But when the only alternative was to lie in wait for Arden to find me … I had to try. There was nothing left to lose.
I didn’t want to have to run for my life, but I wanted my life enough to run.
Once we were home, Mum flipped on the under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen, casting the room in an almost orphic glow. My eyes searched every shadow for Arden, but he wasn’t lurking in any of them. Every inch of me crackled with fear, anticipation, and a myriad other emotions that made no sense. It was like I had my finger jammed in a plug socket, electricity coursing up and down my veins.
It was dark outside, but the night was clear, the sky swirled with silver stars. The kind of night that made me want to lie on a picnic blanket on the grass and just look up. Think about the relentless passage of time, how vast my existence had felt, and yet how small compared to the universe.
‘Do you want a cup of tea, love?’ Mum asked.
She’d stopped sobbing at last – and stopped chastising me for arranging the procedure without her knowledge, without her there to comfort me. I’d told her a vastly simplified version of events, omitting the reincarnation backstory and just keeping to the death threats. First she had been almost catatonic with shock – Dylan? Our Dylan? – and had fallen silent for almost ten entire minutes before mustering any words at all. Then came the self-blame. She was horrified at herself for not spotting the warning signs – despite there not being any – and quite prolifically beating herself up for allowing a near-stranger so willingly into our lives.
I bit my bottom lip, not wanting to upset her even more. ‘Is it okay if I go and rest for a bit? I’m so tired.’
‘Of course.’ She could barely stand up, and slumped forward on to the kitchen island, elbows on the marble and palms either side of her face. ‘I can’t believe it. I just can’t bloody believe it. Dylan? He was so … Dylan . And – god, I’m so sorry, Bran. I should’ve done background checks. I should never have let him get so close to you and Gracie.’ She ran her hands through her hair, shoulders trembling with shock. ‘I just always think the best of people – I can’t help it – and I … If I’d lost you both …’
My heart curled in my chest like a wounded animal.
I always think the best of people.
Like mother, like daughter.
‘Mum, it’s okay.’ I crossed over to the counter and wrapped an arm round her shoulders. It was a strange feeling, to technically be her child, but in actual fact to be so much older than she could ever comprehend. ‘You didn’t lose us. We’re still here, okay?’ I allowed myself a beat, to let the impossible reality of the statement sink in. ‘And I’m all right. Really, I am. The whole thing was like some weird dream.’
‘But he’s still out there. He doesn’t have a key to the house, but how on earth are we supposed to sleep tonight? What if he comes to finish the job? What if he bangs the front door down?’ Her fingers gripped harder at her hair, pulling at the scalp. ‘God, I can’t believe this is Dylan we’re talking about. Finishing the job , like he’s some kind of … psychopath. It doesn’t make sense . He’s never shown a single sign of aggression in his life. He rescues bumblebees with broken wings. He carries a vial of sugar water, for god’s sake.’
‘Yeah, well. Hitler was a vegetarian.’
Mum let out a shocked bark of laughter. ‘I’ve never met anyone with a darker sense of humour than you. Except maybe Gracie.’
A smile twisted my lips, but I hadn’t really been joking. If there was one thing that living through history had taught me, it was that everyone had their own moral code, one that made perfect sense to them – no matter how monstrous.
Not that I believed Arden was monstrous.
‘And to think you’d only just told me you were in love.’ Mum shook her head fiercely. ‘When did the abuse start, Bran? Before or after that conversation?’
She so clearly wanted the answer to be after . She didn’t want to regret having missed the signs as I’d stood in the kitchen and told her, out of nowhere, I was dating her farmhand.
‘After,’ I said firmly. ‘Only in the last few days.’
‘But that doesn’t make any sense, either. I just … I can’t wrap my head around it. That someone could change so suddenly, so severely. I’m not saying I don’t believe you, Bran. Not for a minute. I’m just saying I’m shocked beyond belief.’ A fraught head-shake. ‘What triggered it, do you think?’
‘Remember that sheepdog we had when we were kids, and he had a tumour pressing on his brain? And it made him develop sudden rage syndrome?’
‘God, yes. Percy. He was a lovely animal, until he wasn’t.’
I shrugged. ‘Humans are just animals too, aren’t we?’
She stared at me, her eyes faded, red raw. ‘Are you seriously suggesting Dylan only turned murderous because of a brain tumour?’
‘I dunno, Mum.’ All the fight was leaving me, all the propensity for twisted jokes and mad theories. I rubbed my face with exhaustion, still pumped with painkillers, still stiff and aching. ‘But I’m tired. Can I go to bed?’
Somewhere outside, a branch cracked, and we both jumped. She went to peer out of the window, but didn’t seem to find anything too troubling. Still, my pulse pattered like rain on a roof.
She stood up straighter, suddenly decisive. ‘That’s it. I’m sleeping in your room with you.’
‘Mum, no,’ I replied instantly, insistently. ‘Please. The police are going to be keeping an eye on the house anyway.’ It was a problem my mind was trying to untangle as I planned my own escape. ‘Stay awake all night if you have to, but I need some peace and privacy. And I trust the police to find him. I really do.’
She sighed, letting loose an awful day, an awful month, an awful year. ‘Oh, all right. I just feel like I’m doing a bad job, you know. As a mum.’
‘That’s ridiculous. Why do you say that?’
Fiddling with the plain white-gold wedding band she still wore, she mumbled, ‘Not picking up on the signs with Dylan. Not spotting Gracie’s illness sooner. Letting your father go out drinking on Christmas Eve when he should’ve been home with his girls. I’ve dropped too many important balls.’
‘Mum, we caught Gracie’s sickness early. You know that. Nobody could have predicted Dad’s accident. And Dylan … I had no idea, either. When he first threatened me, I was as shocked as you were.’
‘I suppose, but …’
‘You’ve been an amazing mum.’ The words choked in my throat as I tried to convince myself they were not a goodbye. ‘You always have, even when you were grieving Dad. I know how much it killed you to lose him, but you never let Gracie and I see how badly you were hurting.’ I couldn’t help it; the tears spilled over, hot and fat, and it felt as though I might never stop. I sniffed fiercely. ‘I love you very much.’
Mum threw her arms around me, and in the dim pools of light I saw the wetness on her cheeks too. ‘Oh, I love you too, Bran.’ She wiped away a tear on my cheek with her thumb, fixed her watery blue eyes on me. She gazed as though the secrets of the universe were buried in the depths of my pupils. ‘My heart beats for you both. You are the lights of my life. I hope you know that.’
Swallowing the ragged lump in my throat, I said, ‘I do.’
She gave me a final squeeze. ‘Now get some sleep. I’ll check on you in a bit. And don’t go thinking for a second I’ve forgotten it’s your birthday tomorrow.’ Her eyes crinkled with warmth and affection. ‘We’re going to make it special. I promise.’
‘Coffee cake from Francine’s Bakery?’ I asked, trying to imbue my voice with genuine hope for a cake I would never eat.
Mum smiled. ‘Coffee cake from Francine’s Bakery.’
As I climbed the stairs, I wondered whether that was the last thing she’d ever say to me.
So much fresh devastation, over and over again. No matter how many people I loved and lost, it felt like a fishing hook through my heart every time.
Alone in my room, the adrenaline threatened to leave me all at once. The urge to sink to my knees and sob consumed me, as though gravity had suddenly become too overwhelming a force. I flicked on the light and tried not to crumple at the reminders of a life I had loved so much.
Three stuffed teddies: a penguin, a pig and a hippo. From my mum, my dad and my sister, each of them faded and matted by time and tears shed into their fur. A pink feather boa strung over the mirror on the vanity; a relic of Gracie and I dressing up as country music singers. Star-shaped glitter sunglasses and a jewellery box filled with friendship bracelets and lockets. School textbooks notched on the bookcase, Polaroids stuck to the walls, jigsaw puzzles and board games stacked on top of each other.
I was still a kid, and yet I wasn’t.
The walls were covered in posters and vinyl covers – Taylor Swift and The Jam and ABBA, collected because they reminded me of the people closest to me. Taylor for Gracie, The Jam for my dad, ABBA for my mum. Little connections to them that might, if I was lucky, transcend time and death and fate. Maybe I would hear one of their songs in a future life and, for the smallest of moments, be back here with them.
Looking around, I saw my dad tucked into so many little corners of the room. Photographs, old toys I couldn’t bring myself to throw away, the Terry Pratchett books we’d read together. A gift wrapped inside my curse: even when I died, my memories of him would endure. He would endure. My immortality kept my loved ones immortal too. My grief built monuments in their honour, and I visited them from life to life. Until, inevitably, they faded. How many others had I loved and lost and eventually forgotten?
life gives us grief like mounds of wet clay,
ripe and heavy beneath our reluctant hands,
and with it we can do one of three things.
At the thought of Arden’s poem, sadness opened its maw and threatened to devour me whole.
Because even if I did survive the night, this birthday, this fate, it was still the end of something. Arden would no longer be in my life. He would no longer be the sun around which I orbited. He would be caught, eventually, and likely charged. The Dylan who had become a part of this family would be gone. There would be no more watching morning cartoons with him and Gracie, no more jam-and-butter croissants with him and my mum. No more Formula One and roast beef. No more trundling over the vast and wondrous land with him, my feet kicked up on the dashboard of a tractor. No more.
The ridiculous, ridiculous truth: I wanted to take Arden by the hand and run with him – forgetting that he was the very thing I was running from.
I slumped on the bed, the rusty springs in the mattress groaning under my weight. I ran my fingers over the bedspread – embroidered with little daisies and violets – and wondered if it might be the last time I ever touched it.
Don ’ t be maudlin , I thought, but I couldn’t help it. I’d always had an unhealthy attachment to objects. They felt like touchstones of the lives I loved, and yet I could never take them with me.
My hands went, at last, to the old Singer sewing machine at the back of my wardrobe. The physical representation of what could have been. The vintage clothing store next to Beacon Books, the buying trips around the glorious world, or my own fashion line – eccentric, unexpected, with a cultish celebrity following. Maybe I’d just be a seamstress, tailoring and mending beloved garments, finding peace in the hum of the machine and the steady flow of fabric beneath my palms.
I left the wardrobe ajar, as though that would keep the doors to my dreams propped open too.
Shaking, I opened the bus timetable and saw that there was a bus to Cardiff leaving Abergavenny at ten thirty p.m.
And I was going to be on it.
My escape plan was hastily formed, and wholly reliant on a lack of police presence out at the back of the farm. I suspected they would be watching the entrance to the country road that snaked up to the farmhouse, but they might not be vigilant enough – or have the manpower – to keep tabs on the overgrown farm track beyond the stables.
The stables. I wondered dimly how Ceri was doing, and hoped we hadn’t traumatized him too much. I owed him a thousand apologies, and a thousand thanks for doing what he’d done.
Switching the light off, I curled up under the covers and waited until Mum came up to check on me, as promised. The door clicked open, and I pressed my eyes shut, feigning sleep. I couldn’t face another emotional conversation, or I might not have the strength for what came next.
Once she’d padded back downstairs to sit vigil, I grabbed my backpack and a pair of shoes, and crept over to the window.
There was a ledge on the outside around the right size for my full body to crawl on to. Once I was out, I closed the window quietly behind me. The moonlight shone on to the faces of my three teddies, my bed still rumpled and unmade.
From the ledge it was a small jump down to the roof of the conservatory. I just had to hope Mum was in the kitchen, not the living room, or she’d see me on my final descent.
As I sat on the lip of the roof, I took a deep breath and then let myself drop. I was an old hand at such things, after several centuries of jewel thievery and general deviancy, and remembered to bend my knees to minimize the jarring impact. There was a soft crunching noise as I hit gravel, a keen pain in my bandaged hip, and I crouched in a ball for a few moments, praying Mum hadn’t heard it and wouldn’t flick the outside light on.
After a few moments, nothing.
So I ran.