Chapter 57
FIFTY-SEVEN
HAYAMI
PRESENT
When Willa, Fenrir, and I first arrived in this house, I woke up here in this very room.
The large living area felt spacious and grand, yet now it feels full and claustrophobic as my mum flanks me, tucking a blanket around my shoulders.
Markus paces before the unlit fire. It isn’t until Fenrir arrives, bobs down in front of me, and places a glass in my hand that I feel the world sink back into me.
“Drink this,” he tells me, holding the glass with me as I move my shaky hands to my mouth.
The whisky burns, but it’s nothing like the feeling of… of what? Having a ghost inside me? Having a spirit take over my body and then shoot her husband, my father, with the gun in my hand?
“It’s done. You are free.” Noa’s parting words as she left my body, and I’d realised what she’d done, ring in my ears.
Fuck. It’s going to take more than a shot of whisky.
“Hayami, my darling, it’s okay. We’re here for you.” My mum’s voice isn’t one I recognise. It’s clear, concise, reassuring. I like it. It feels more like the voice from her journal.
“I don’t mean to push things, but someone needs to start talking about what the fuck just happened out there.” Markus stops pacing and runs his hand through his thick, greying hair. I’ve never seen him look ruffled, but I guess he has just seen a ghost use my body to shoot his boss.
Fenrir stands. “Why don’t you start by telling us what you’re all doing here.”
Markus eyes us warily before speaking. “We thought something was wrong after I called you wanting to speak to Willa and she wasn’t available.
Then, when I called back twenty minutes later and none of your phones were switched on, we knew something was going on.
So, on a hunch, I called Rothkor General Hospital, and they confirmed that a Marta Gatsby was staying on the maternity ward.
” He raises an eyebrow, glancing from Fenrir to me.
“I figured out what happened,” he says, a little softer.
“You let Willa go to her wife when she went into labour.”
There’s no need for me to explain the details, so Markus continues.
“I had no choice but to report this to Mr Devall, and, as you can imagine, he went berserk and said he was coming out here. I explained about the weather, and he said that the road up the mountain would be cleared in the next few hours. I tried my best to advise him that flying out here wasn’t the best idea, but as you know, there’s no arguing with him. ”
Markus takes a breath, and my mum uses the opportunity to speak.
“I’ve been worried sick every day since you’ve been gone.
I’m the only person who knows what this house holds.
” She runs her eyes over the walls as if they’re listening.
“I needed to see you so badly. So, when I heard your father was flying out here, I insisted on coming. Barrett didn’t have time to argue with me.
There was no way I wasn’t going to come and help you.
They were worried about the Castros. I was worried about something entirely different. ”
I squeeze my mum’s hand, and she squeezes it back as Markus picks the thread up.
“We flew in on the jet, picked up a car, and headed up here. By the time we hit the foot of the mountain, it was late and already getting dark. The road had been cleared, so we started the climb, but it was still slick—ice all over.
“About halfway up, we ran into the guy with the plough heading down. He stopped, said he’d seen you at the house and that you were supposed to follow him down—but you never showed.
By then, Mr Devall was spitting feathers, so we eased past the plough, carried on up, parked, got out, and made our way to the front door. ”
Markus stalls, and I wonder if he’s replaying the events, trying to imagine what he could have done differently, how culpable he is in my father’s death, seeing he is—was—his bodyguard.
“I tried to tell him to get behind me, to let me scope out the situation before he went in, but he was having none of it. We got inside the house, and the rest you know.” Markus drops his hand by his side and looks at Fenrir.
Fenrir gulps and glances at me, then back at Markus.
“Tell me what you saw when you walked through the door,” he says.
Markus scratches his head. “I know what I thought I saw. Who I thought I saw. But it doesn’t make any sense.”
“You saw the ghost of Noa Devall, who was murdered in this very house by her husband,” Fenrir tells the room.
“Wait, no.” Markus shakes his head. “Noa died here, yes, but she died in the middle of the night. There were rumours amongst the staff that it was pretty horrific.” He halts.
We all wait for him to continue. He presses his lips together, concentration on his brow as if he’s trying to retrieve his memories.
“There were no staff in the house that night. Mr Devall had given us all the night off, as he said Noa wasn’t feeling well, and he wanted the house to be quiet for her.
A handful of us were called in the next day, and all we were told was that she’d gone into labour in the middle of the night, but there were complications.
The baby was breech, and the ambulance couldn’t get up the mountain in time.
Devall told us she’d been delirious with the pain and that things hadn’t ended well.
” Markus assesses us, maybe hoping this will be enough of an explanation as to what happened that night.
“Did you see her body?” my mum asks, eyes narrowed at Markus.
“Of course not. No one did.” His face pales, his eyes darting between the three of us.
There’s more. He’s holding back. Fenrir glares at him, holding his stare until Markus’s shoulders drop.
“The rumour was that Noa panicked. She thought her baby was going to die, so she’d tried to cut it out herself with a shard of broken mirror, and that was why there was so much blood in the bedroom and why no one was allowed to see her body; he had it privately cremated.
” Markus looks at the floor as I digest this horrific fabrication of events.
“Bullshit. All of it,” Fenrir interjects.
“Devall murdered Noa when he found out she had slept with someone else to get pregnant. He cut her face open, and she choked on her own blood. She died in this house, and her body was probably burned by Devall himself somewhere in the woods. Noa tried to warn us that Devall was here, and that was when she took over Hayami’s body. ”
Everyone looks at me, and I know I have to speak. It’s my turn to explain.
“He’s right. She came into my body. She shot him.”
The room spins. I close my eyes, remembering the moment she flew at me, her face feral, her eyes blazing. I was so scared, but not of her. I was scared of what I might feel, and what she would show me.
Even though she was transparent, the figure of lucidness, she hit my body like a ton of bricks. And then it was like someone taking over the controls. I wasn’t myself anymore. My thoughts were not my own. They were hers. I felt it all.
The rage, the hatred, the burning desire to avenge my death and the death of my unborn child, to kill the man who had ruined my life and was about to do the same to his daughter. I knew I would never get this chance again. So, I took it.
Noa took it. She fired the gun.
Markus clicks his tongue and shakes his head.
“She isn’t lying,” Junko says. “I felt her presence the last time I was in this house. I thought it was something else, a legend from my homeland, but when I walked through that door and Barrett said her name, it all fell into place. It was Noa. She came into my body and tried to warn me of the man I’d married, of what he was capable of.
” She glances at Markus, who still looks sceptical.
“Don’t you remember the night you found me in the woods with a knife in my hand? ”
“You were sleepwalking,” he begins to argue with her.
I interrupt, saying, “I don’t care whether you believe us, Markus. I get that this all sounds so fantastical that it can’t possibly be true, but it is. It is what happened.”
Markus crosses his arms. “I don’t know what the hell I saw.
I don’t even want to try and understand what happened here, because I don’t think my head will ever accept it.
But I’ve worked with Mr Devall long enough to know that some things are not always easily explained.
But my question is, what do we do with the dead body in the entranceway?
And what the fuck are we going to tell everyone else? ”
Fenrir straightens like a soldier standing to attention.
“We tell them the cell service went down. You came here as backup when I reported that there had been an intruder on the grounds. We don’t name the man; we don’t affiliate him with any gang.
We say he was a crazed stalker of Hayami’s and that he threatened her life.
That’s why we brought her out here. He arrived at the house at the same time as Devall, and in the scuffle, he was shot. ”
“That could work,” my mum says, nodding at Fenrir and then glancing at Markus, who doesn’t look convinced.
“It’ll work,” Fenrir confirms with a snap. “People will believe what we tell them to believe.”
“But what about the repercussions? What happens to the business?” Markus asks.
And for some reason, they both look to my mum.
She sits up and arches her back as if this is the first time anyone has noticed her since she married my father.
“Normally, it would go to his heir.”
She glances at me, and I close my eyes. That’s the last thing I want. I’m not a gang lord, a criminal, or a tyrant. I have no qualifications for the role, and my mother knows this.
“I think I speak for my daughter when I say she wants nothing to do with her father’s empire. So, it’ll be up to me to decide what happens from here on in.”
Markus stares at my mum, a hard stare that I’m sure she must feel under her skin.