CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“He’s dead?” I frowned, con-fused, but a cloy-ing dread coated my throat like soot in a chim-ney. “He can’t be. I saw him two days ago.”
“That’s what I can’t fig-ure out.” Mum laid the mug down abruptly, climbed down from the stool and crossed over to the fridge. Her legs were as un-steady as a new-born foal’s. “I know for a fact that the Masked Painter died a long time ago. And so how…?”
This rev-e-la-tion rat-tled me.
Had Or-lagh known this was a dif-fer-ent artist from the one who’d painted her?
I had the dis-tinct sense of tug-ging at a sin-gle thread and the whole world un-rav-el-ing.
“Okay, well there must be an-other painter, then,” I said fiercely, mind whirring. “An-other artist with the same pow-ers. Maybe a whole guild. We just have to find the Masked Painter that did my por-trait, right?”
Mum opened the fridge with a per-fectly man-i-cured hand—round-tipped nails a dusty-rose pink, the same as mine—and peered in-side. “Right. But I al-ready asked my Masked Painter, many years ago, and he told me the an-chors were per-ma-nent. I’m sorry, Penny. I should’ve warned you bet-ter. I just as-sumed that be-cause he was dead, you were out of dan-ger.”
She closed the fridge, and Polly and I both re-al-ized at once what she’d gone to get.
A bot-tle of Sauvi-gnon Blanc.
“No, Peggy,” said Polly fiercely. She stood up to her full five foot two and stood be-fore my mum, hands on hips. “I won’t al-low it.”
Mum smirked, but there was no hu-mor be-hind it, just a grim ex-pres-sion of de-feat. “You won’t al-low it? Truly, I would like to see you try and stop me.”
With-out pause, Polly slapped my mum right across the face.
In the split sec-ond it took my mum to re-cover—clasp-ing a hand to her blotched-red cheek—Polly grabbed the bot-tle from her other grip and stuffed it in-side her bag. “Any more gauntlets you’d like to throw down?”
I fought the ab-surd urge to laugh.
Mum glared at Polly, still rub-bing her face, but there didn’t seem to be any fight left in her.
Still, an acute fore-bod-ing coiled in-side me. Polly wouldn’t be around Mum at all times. The sec-ond my aunt left, my mum would open an-other bot-tle.
Why was the wine even in the fridge to be-gin with? Had she gone out first thing this morn-ing to buy some, as soon as she’d heard the news? The thought made me im-pos-si-bly sad. At the very same time I was scoop-ing food into my trol-ley like a de-ranged wolf, my mother was do-ing the same with her own vice.
Two years of so-bri-ety, shred-ded by Or-lagh’s death.
Or-lagh’s mur-der.
The lit-tle girl at the heart of me wanted to throw her-self down at her mother’s an-kles and beg her to stay strong, but I had long since learned it didn’t work like that. My love alone could not save her—par-tic-u-larly be-cause, in her own words, my love didn’t make her feel any-thing at all.
And could I blame her? I felt half de-mented af-ter less than two days trapped in-side my eter-nal cold and hunger. How must it feel to live over seven thou-sand days un-der the mercy of this self-made curse? What did that kind of suf-fer-ing do to a per-son? De-pres-sion was bad enough in it-self, but to know be-yond all doubt there was no way out of it? To know you would feel so empty ev-ery day for the rest of your life? The bur-den must have been un-bear-able.
“We still have to try and find him,” I ar-gued, fight-ing the urge to hug my mum. She hated phys-i-cal af-fec-tion. “We have to be-lieve there’s a way out of this. We can’t just live our lives sad and hun-gry and cold and scared and empty. And now that Or-lagh is dead, and I seem to be a tar-get … we have to break free. As soon as we can. Or I might be next.”
“Al-right,” said Mum, sullen as a teenager as she slumped back into her stool. De-feat weighed on her shoul-ders like a stack of bricks. “Do you have a plan?”
Such an in-nocu-ous ques-tion, and yet some-thing in-side me flared up at it; the sense of frus-tra-tion that I was more of a par-ent than she was. The in-sa-tiable wish for her to step up and care for me, to take the reins, to tell me ev-ery-thing was go-ing to be okay. But she just wasn’t wired that way—be-cause she’d al-ways be twenty years old at heart. Twenty years old and hope-lessly lost.
The myr-iad emo-tions of the sit-u-a-tion min-gled in my mind, but I wrenched my-self back into fo-cus. I tapped a fore-fin-ger on the counter in a rhyth-mic pah-pah-pah.
But as I thought through the sit-u-a-tion from ev-ery an-gle, I re-al-ized my mum was right. All of my ideas for find-ing the artist stemmed from some kind of tech-no-log-i-cal trac-ing—find-ing a hacker to break down Or-lagh’s phone calls, emails, text mes-sages, try-ing to fig-ure out when and how she con-tacted the Masked Painter. Yet she was a dig-i-tal ghost. No mo-bile phone, no com-puter that I saw. She fa-mously wrote all stu-dent feed-back by hand. Her only means of com-mu-ni-ca-tion were just an ana-log phone and a pair of well-heeled feet.
And if she’d gone to visit the Masked Painter to ask for his help in per-son, how would I ever trace those move-ments? Nor-mal peo-ple couldn’t just tap CCTV footage.
There was the pos-si-bil-ity that a phone bill sent to the uni-ver-sity would list her out-go-ing calls, but how was I sup-posed to get my hands on that? An-other stu-dent with more gump-tion might break into the ad-min-is-tra-tion of-fice, try and find some phys-i-cal ev-i-dence. But it was likely a pa-per-less bill, and in any case, this month’s calls wouldn’t show up un-til next month’s bill. It was too long to wait. I might be dead be-fore the bill ever ar-rived.
“I think we have to go to the po-lice,” I said slowly, the re-al-iza-tion so-lid-i-fy-ing in my head. “Only they have the nec-es-sary re-sources to ac-tu-ally track him down. And if we go to them, we can tell them all about Davina too. Maybe they can pro-tect me from—”
Mum jumped as though a bur-glar had leaped from be-hind a cur-tain. “No po-lice. I mean it, Penny.” Her tone was fe-ro-cious.
Polly blinked at her, baf-fled by the heated out-burst. “Why on earth not?”
“Bad things have hap-pened in that gallery.” Her eyes were car-ni-val pin-wheels. “What we have done— No. None of this can ever come to light. Never.”
“What’s the al-ter-na-tive?” I snapped. “We let Davina keep ter-ror-iz-ing me? I just … walk around with a bull’s-eye on my back, hop-ing the next hit won’t be a fa-tal one? That’s bet-ter than this se-cret com-ing out?”
“No. Po-lice.” Mum’s words were two gavel strikes.
But anger was ris-ing in me now, mer-cury shoot-ing up a ther-mome-ter, and I could not tem-per it. “Se-ri-ously? The thought of me get-ting hurt—or dy-ing—is some-how less hor-ri-fy-ing than the world know-ing your en-dur-ing beauty came at a price?”
“That’s not what I—”
“No, it is. That’s ex-actly what you’re say-ing.”
“Penny’s right,” mur-mured Aunt Polly. She looked deathly afraid. “We need the po-lice for this, Peggy. And who knows, maybe with the gen-eral pub-lic search-ing for the new Masked Painter, we might—”
“If you go to the po-lice,” Mum snarled, “I will kill my-self. I’ll kill my-self, Polly. And it’ll be your fault. You’ll have to live with that knowl-edge for-ever. That you killed your own sis-ter.”
What fol-lowed was a si-lence as harsh and ab-so-lute as a salt plain.
Mum had al-ways been im-ma-ture, ir-ra-tional, emo-tion-ally ma-nip-u-la-tive.
But noth-ing as stun-ningly hor-rific as this.
Aunt Polly took on the calm, level tone of a hostage ne-go-tia-tor. “You don’t mean that, Peg.”
An ado-les-cent up-ward tilt of the chin. “Try me. I dare you.”
That mo-ment, that sin-gu-lar, aw-ful mo-ment, was the fi-nal straw.
I never wanted to see my mum again.
I wanted to sever my-self from this bro-ken fam-ily for-ever.
I turned to-ward the door and stormed out.
I hate her. I hate her I hate her I hate her.
Tears of fury stung at my eyes, blur-ring the beige-white-cream fur-nish-ings into one. The blood was roar-ing so loudly in my ears that I didn’t hear the foot-steps fol-low-ing me out the front door. Didn’t no-tice that it never slammed shut be-hind me.
Aunt Polly caught up with me as I was fum-bling with my car keys.
A hand on my el-bow. “Penny, she didn’t—”
“She did, though.” I swung to face her, feel-ing half wild with the del-uge of emo-tions thrash-ing through me. “She did mean it. And I’m done. I don’t want any-thing more to do with her. She can drink her-self into obliv-ion for all I care.”
“I un-der-stand.” Aunt Polly wept silently, mak-ing no ef-fort to wipe away the tears. “Be-lieve me, Penny. I un-der-stand more than any-one else ever will. And you’re al-lowed, al-right? You’re al-lowed to cut her out of your life. If that’s what’s best for you, I will sup-port you to the ends of the earth. Just don’t dis-ap-pear on me, al-right? Please. I love you so much.”
All at once, the emo-tions dragged me be-low the sur-face. I erupted into tears, plant-ing my face on Polly’s shoul-der, and I sobbed. I sobbed like a lit-tle girl. I sobbed like I might never stop.
“Shh, shh,” cooed Aunt Polly. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here.”
And it was so fucked up, all of it, be-cause part of me was glad this was hap-pen-ing, that Aunt Polly was car-ing for me the same way she’d held Pippa to her chest as a baby.
You’re a good girl, such a good girl.
“I wish you were my mum,” I whis-pered, the words muf-fled into her cardi-gan.
She didn’t say any-thing—she might not have heard me—but her hand stroking my hair felt bet-ter than any-thing.
Even-tu-ally, even though I wanted to feel this com-fort for-ever, I pulled away.
Fu-ri-ous in-ten-sity burned in Polly’s eyes as she cupped my face in her hands. “It’s up to you whether or not you go to the po-lice. What-ever hap-pens with your mum … leave her to me, al-right? I can’t watch her ev-ery minute of ev-ery day, but I can try to do dam-age con-trol. And prom-ise me you’ll stay away from this Davina girl, Penny. Prom-ise me you won’t pro-voke her any-more.”
I turned to my car, dis-quiet swirling in my gut. “I prom-ise.”
And I kept that prom-ise—un-til the next cut ap-peared.