WALES 2022
I RAN FOR THE stables and the fields beyond, darting between the outbuildings and their shadows, slipping through the cracks of humanity like I had for a millennium, tears blurring my vision, my heart beating so painfully in my chest that I struggled to breathe.
I ran down the farm track, the way illuminated only by the moon and stars, the night air cold and ripe, the scent of manure, of wet grass and spring earth, and I thought I could be anywhere, anywhere in history.
I ran, half expecting Arden to jump out at any moment, but I had the curious sensation that he would not be able to catch me.
I ran faster than I ever had in this life, further and more furiously than I had thought myself capable of. The weakness in my hip made my gait strange, but there was little pain, thanks to the adrenaline and the myriad drugs I’d been pumped with. There was just me, and my feet, and the earth beneath them.
I ran and ran, until I reached the country road that wound into Abergavenny. I ran perpendicular to it, on the field side of the hedge to avoid the blare of headlights and the curiosity my sprint would likely invite. I ran until the cowpats and hay bales became low pastel buildings and wonky grey cobbles. I ran all the way to the bus station, panting and heaving and almost bursting at the seams, and by the time I finally stopped, so too had my tears.
Pressing my back to the closest glass shelter, my lungs were screaming, my hip finally waking up to what I was forcing it to do, my stomach threatening to empty itself on to the pavement, and I almost buckled to the ground. Slowly, though, my breath came back to me. Slowly, the stars behind my eyes dimmed. Slowly, I registered what I’d done.
I’d almost done it. I’d almost escaped.
I looked around, but there were no suspicious figures lurking in the shadows. There were only a few others at the various stops – a student with a huge rucksack, an elderly couple sharing a flask of something steaming hot, a harried father with three kids who definitely did not want to be at the bus stop at –
Nine thirty.
It was only nine thirty.
How was that possible?
There was still an hour until the bus showed up. An hour in which I had to stay alive.
And yet wasn’t it obvious that I would be here? Wouldn’t he be watching this exit point like a hawk, waiting for me to run away like I had in the Azores?
I tried to think of somewhere to hide, somewhere he would not think to look, but my mind was scrubbed raw from the furious run, and nowhere came to me. All the cafes were closed. The bookshop. The florist’s. There was only the pub down the street, the pub outside which my father had died, but that was no less obvious than here.
Where else could I go?
My heart sang out a single clear note, but at first I was afraid to hear it.
It would be excruciating, I told myself. Agonizing.
And yet would it be less painful, once I’d grounded myself in my next life and remembered her all over again? Would that really be less painful for not having said goodbye?
My hand went to the wishbone dangling against my clavicle.
After all this time, all these lives, could I really let grief defeat me?
The Evelyn I know … they love over and over and over again, even though it can only ever end in tragedy. Even though they ’ ve lost everyone they ’ ve ever loved, and they miss them in the next life, and the next, and the next. Never have they developed hard edges, like I have. Never have they tried to protect themselves from that pain. They love softly, and fiercely, and openly, and it ’ s the bravest thing I know. The most human thing I know.
I had an hour to kill. The hospital was on the other side of town, and so I likely wouldn’t make it if I walked. And besides, my hip was really starting to protest.
But there was a taxi rank on the next street over. I could take a black cab. I’d be there in a few minutes, spend half an hour with her before I had to leave again.
And then, as though her sisterly spider senses were tingling, as though my pain had transmitted down the shimmering strand of sibling connection science could never truly explain, my phone flashed in my hand with a new message.
batshit INSANE turn of events??
Dylan????? Dylan who made the grotesque pressed flower ‘art’???????
not enough question marks in the known universe
for real are you good?????
Everything in me twisted with sadness.
My heart made the decision long before my brain caught up.
My perfect bald sister was propped up in bed. The main lights were off for the night, and her face was illuminated by the lesbian vampire show.
‘Hey,’ I said, my voice more hoarse than I’d expected it to be. It was warm in the room, even with a window cracked open a tiny bit. It smelled of shepherd’s pie and minted peas, and of the polish she’d just applied to the maple body of her violin.
She looked up and frowned – almost imperceptibly, due to her lack of eyebrows.
‘What are you doing here? Mum said you were resting.’ She hit pause on Netflix, lest she miss a single moment of paranormal lust. ‘You had to steal my thunder, didn’t you?’
I laughed in the way only Gracie could make me laugh. ‘Your thunder will never be stolen. I’m fine, by the way. Thanks so much for asking.’
She rolled her eyes, laying the tablet on the bedside table next to her violin and sheet music. ‘I repeat, what are you doing here?’ She studied me. ‘You look weird.’
I looked down at myself, half expecting to see filth from the farm track or even blood from my hip bandages, but there was nothing. ‘I just wanted to see you.’
‘Okaaay.’ She smacked her lips, visibly uncomfortable, then stabbed a thumb at the tablet. ‘Well, I’m watching my show, so …’
‘The procedure went well,’ I replied hurriedly, for lack of anything better to say. Anything better than goodbye. ‘The bone marrow one. Thanks so much for asking .’
Another exaggerated eye-roll. She took a sip from a carton of caramel iced coffee I was fairly sure she was not supposed to be drinking. ‘All right, you’re a top sister. Do you want a medal? Perhaps a village fete thrown in your honour? I’ll dress up as a clown and scare the children.’
I crossed to her bedside and picked up the tablet. ‘Can I watch with you for a little while?’
She looked like I’d asked if I might take a shit into her bedpan. ‘I mean, there’s no room on the bed.’
I’d forgotten how much it felt like pulling teeth talking to her, sometimes. She was spiky and difficult and hilarious and wonderful. I’d never known anyone quite like her.
Dragging a chair so it was right next to the bed, I said, ‘I’ll sit here. Just turn the screen towards me a little.’
She conceded, and hit play. There was a dramatic confrontation between a vampire hunter and their mark, in which it was not quite clear whether they were about to murder each other or have passionate intercourse against the library wall.
Relatable.
Tears slid silently down my cheeks as we watched. A small, miraculous thing so many people took for granted. Watching television with their sister. Needling each other with loving barbs. On an impulse, I took her hand in mine and gave it a squeeze – she was freezing cold, and it filled me with creeping dread. When a loved one is sick, you fixate on every tiny detail, every fluctuation in temperature, ascribing sinister meaning to it. Praying, even if you don’t pray, that it’s nothing.
Gracie snatched her hand away. ‘What are you doing? Gross.’
‘I love you,’ I whispered.
She sighed, paused the show, and said, ‘Look, I’m really trying to just watch the hot vampires, and now you’re making me feel like I’m at death’s door. Is there something you’re not telling me? Do I have the bubonic plague and you just haven’t the heart to let me know?’
‘No, I just –’
‘ Love me. I know. But you don’t have to be so maudlin about it. Like, why are you weeping? Openly, brazenly weeping.’
I shrugged, swiping the steady flow of tears with the back of my hand. ‘I don’t know. Dylan threatening to kill me … I thought I was going to die. And I realized we didn’t say it enough. That we love each other.’
Something earnest passed over Gracie’s moon-pale face, if only for a moment. ‘Some things are just a given. And do please try not to die before me. As previously stated, I do not wish to have my thunder stolen. You borrowed it for a while, and I’ll let it slide, but if you could just stop being dramatic for literally fifteen seconds –’
I threw my arms round her, squeezing her frail frame, and some of the stubborn tension in her body eased for a moment. She sank into me with an almost imperceptible sigh, and I did understand what she meant.
Some things are just a given.
‘Get off,’ she whispered, giving me a little shove.
We watched the show for another few minutes before she spoke again. ‘A few weeks ago, when you asked me what I wanted to do when I got out of here?’
‘Yeah?’
‘After I deface the grave, I was wondering … can we go into London to see a show?’ She seemed almost embarrassed by her rare moment of sincerity, of raw and earnest hope. ‘I think I might want to be on the stage. Maybe we could tie it into Fashion Week, for you.’
I nodded, but the tears were too strong now, and I could only murmur, ‘I have to go,’ and then I was pulling away, suddenly overcome with emotion, knowing I couldn’t stay there any longer without a full-blown meltdown, and how would I explain that? ‘I don’t want Mum to go into my room and find me gone.’
I’d left her a note, but I knew she’d lose her mind with worry. That Dylan had made me write it under duress. That I was dead in a ditch somewhere. Guilt wracked me, but I had little other choice.
Once I was in Cardiff, I’d just bide my time and come back for them once it was safe, I reasoned.
This was not a goodbye.
So why did it feel so dangerously like one?
Never. Such an agonizing word. Such an unbearable full stop.
‘I love you so much,’ I said again, every syllable stitched through with pain.
‘Nobody listens to a word I say, do they?’ she muttered, with a final over-the-top eye-roll. ‘Love you too, weirdo.’
Bundling myself back into my coat, I left her room without looking back.
I walked down the ward corridor in a daze, the lights too bright, the emotions too big, my breathing too loud in my head, and I thought that hospitals heard more prayers than churches ever did.
On the bitterly cold street outside, breath plumed in front of my face.
A figure stood on the opposite side of the street, cloaked in shadow.
Arden.