Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
T obias had been lying on unforgiving ground. His joints ached and his face was hot on the side facing the relentless sun. When he swallowed, his throat clicked.
He had been thinking something important. Or doing something important. But now he wasn’t sure what either of those things might be.
His head still hurt, but he contained the pain, wrapped it into a bundle and shoved that to one side of his mind to open up some space. It was like moving furniture. Those words felt strange. Homely.
And that reminded him that he came from somewhere. That he had someplace he belonged and it wasn’t here on his flat plain of red and heat. He belonged somewhere with cool winds and salt water and green things pushing through soil and rock.
Getting to his feet was easier than he expected, and the bundle of pain was smaller. He crushed it experimentally, and it disappeared. The sun was as high as ever, as hot as ever, but Tobias ignored it and closed his eyes. When he opened them, the view was the same and he still didn’t know which direction to walk, but he set off anyway.
Luke woke up with a pounding headache. Lewis was on Luke’s camping mat on the floor. He was fast asleep or appeared that way. Luke realised he still didn’t trust anything about Lewis to be as it appeared.
He stared at the ceiling for a few minutes and then pulled his pillow out from under his head and threw it at Lewis.
‘Morning,’ Lewis said, apparently not fazed. He stretched his arms above his head and yawned widely.
Luke wondered when the last time they had been this unguarded with each other was. Lewis seemed almost vulnerable in this sleepy early morning state. But Luke didn’t trust that either. ‘Causeway opens at lunchtime.’
‘You still banging that drum?’ Lewis scratched one armpit. ‘I’m not in any hurry. Brothers reunited. It’s time for us to spend quality time.’
‘We did that last night,’ Luke said, his head throbbing in reminder. ‘I don’t drink like that anymore and now I remember why.’
‘Lightweight,’ Lewis said. There was a pause and then he added. ‘Did I say thank you? Last night?’
‘I have no idea,’ Luke said. His mouth felt dry and disgusting and he reached for the pint glass of water by his bed. ‘Doesn’t sound like you.’
‘No,’ Lewis agreed. ‘But thanks anyway. For doing that job for Fisher. It feels good to be free and clear.’
He rolled his head to look up at him and Luke was transported back to their childhood. Nights with Lewis on the floor of his bedroom after their mother had died and their father had fallen headfirst into a bottle of whisky.
‘And for looking for you for two years.’
‘I’m not thanking you for that,’ Lewis said, smiling smugly. ‘You did a shit job.’
Luke pulled his remaining pillow from underneath his head and lobbed it at his brother.
Across the village in Strand House, Esme woke up alone. Her bed, always her sanctuary, felt bigger than usual. Empty.
Shaking off the longing for Luke, she pulled on her dressing gown and slippers and went downstairs to fetch a morning tea. She opened the door for Jet to go outside, as he usually wanted to if he had been indoors overnight, but he stood on the threshold, back arched and fur standing on end and refused to move.
She petted him, murmuring that it was all right. Jet submitted to a couple of head strokes and even bumped into her hand, looking for more. ‘What’s wrong? Don’t you want to go out?’
He wound around her legs until she closed the door and fed him. Then she took her tea back to bed. She made a nest with her research books and a notebook and Jet settled himself in the blanket at the foot of the bed. The bookshop had given her a textbook by a Scottish archaeological society. It had black and white photographs of standing stones, Pictish carvings, stone circles, brochs and cairns. She leafed through it, wondering which of them looked like the mound on àite Marbh and at how certain in their faith these early people must have been to labour over these creations. Hauling giant rocks, carving stone, all while they were scratching a living on near-barren soil with driving rain at their backs and winter’s chill creeping through their bones. Of course, that was why. When life was hard, you needed something to believe.
One of Esme’s foster homes had been with a devout Christian family. The parents weren’t terrible people and it wasn’t her worst placement, but it still managed to turn her against organised religion. Extensive daily prayer sessions, lasting hours at a time, conducted in strict silence while the biological kids of the family surreptitiously pinched her, were the least of it. When they went to the church and listened to stories about an all-knowing and all-powerful god and his infinite love for them, Esme felt cheated. She had been told to forgive her biological mother for giving her up, told that God had a plan and that all she had to do was accept him into her life and to pray and that all would be well. Esme felt she had been praying, in her own way, for a very long time. And, to her ten-year-old mind, things hadn’t much improved.
She had taken to saying ‘goddess’ rather than ‘god’ the first time Ryan broke one of her bones. Sitting in the minor injuries clinic of her local surgery, Ryan holding her hand a little too hard, and the pain in her chest blooming with every shallow breath, she willed the nice doctor to accept her explanation and not to make things difficult. If the doctor was suspicious and caused any trouble for Ryan, he wouldn’t bring her for medical treatment next time. The fact that she was thinking this calmly, while most of her insisted that he would never do this again, that he had just lost his temper and that he was sorry and that she would know how to avoid upsetting him so much in the future, was a kind of acceptance. She held so many different facts in her head every day it seemed normal.
‘Tell me again how you fell?’ The doctor was holding Esme’s other hand and gently feeling her fingers and wrist. Esme’s thumb was swollen and sitting at a strange angle.
‘I tripped on the last stair. Thought I had reached the bottom, but I hadn’t.’ Esme was proud of this lie. The detail of it. The lack of drama. She hadn’t ‘fallen down the stairs’, she had ‘tripped on the last one’.
‘Nothing else hurt?’
‘Just some bruises,’ Esme said. She smiled. Still very proud of herself and her performance. Ryan would be so pleased.
‘May I see?’
Ryan stiffened next to her.
‘Oh, I’m fine. Nothing else hurts.’ As if hearing the lie, and objecting, Esme’s ribs throbbed in agony. She was pretty sure one of them was broken. There had been a peculiar cold nausea that had washed over her when Ryan had kicked her, something in addition to the sharp pain. And she had heard a crack.
‘This might be dislocated,’ the doctor indicated her thumb. ‘Or there may be a small fracture.’
‘Can you sort it?’ Ryan asked.
Her kohl-rimmed eyes rested on him for a split second before turning back to Esme. ‘You need an x-ray. Take this slip to reception B and they’ll book you in. I will see you again after.’
‘Can’t you bandage her up now? I’ve got to get to work.’
‘That’s okay,’ Esme said. ‘I’m fine to wait.’
‘She’s in pain,’ Ryan said. ‘We’ve been waiting for hours already. Can’t you give her something?’
‘I’m happy to write you a prescription,’ the nice doctor said, still speaking to Esme.
‘That’s okay,’ Esme said. ‘I’m taking paracetamol.’
‘You can have ibuprofen, too. Take them regularly, according to the dosage on the packet, and it will build up.’
‘Can’t she have something stronger?’
‘If you can manage with the paracetamol and ibuprofen, that’s the best.’
‘I can manage.’
‘And,’ the doctor turned and rummaged in a drawer behind her. ‘I’ll see you again after your x-ray, but you’ll most likely need one of these, so I’ll give it to you now.’ She produced something that looked like a black glove. It had Velcro straps and was stiffened with a thin bar of metal. ‘This will help you sleep better at night. You don’t want to immobilise the thumb all the time, but you might find it more comfortable to spend time with support.’
Esme thanked the nice doctor and they left the room. Before Ryan had walked swiftly past the reception desk, she had already guessed that they wouldn’t be heading down to x-ray. His patience had worn out.
As they walked to the car, Ryan berating her for missing the opportunity to score some ‘decent painkillers’, Esme was turning over a realisation in her mind. The doctor had given her the wrist brace because she had already guessed that Esme wouldn’t be going to x-ray, wouldn’t be back in her office. She was, at once, grateful and embarrassed. She had been seen. Her relationship had been seen. And, for a brief and painful second, it made her see it, too.
She wasn’t ready for that, so she pushed the incident to the back of her mind. But she did start saying ‘thank goddess’ or ‘all the goddesses’ instead of ‘thank god’. And when she said it, she didn’t see the head of a bearded white man floating in a cloud, but a tired NHS doctor with a kind face and a hijab sitting in an ill-equipped treatment room.
Sitting in The Rising Moon, Lewis was looking around like he was visiting an alien planet. ‘I didn’t appreciate it yesterday, but this place is a real throwback,’ he said, just as Seren arrived at their table. She glared at him, and he held up his hands. ‘It’s a compliment. I like the retro vibe.’
‘What’s good today?’ Luke asked the first thing that came into his head, hoping to diffuse the tension.
‘Everything,’ Seren said flatly. ‘Same as every day.’
‘Right,’ Luke forced a laugh. ‘Maybe a pint to start with while we think about it.’
‘Two pints,’ Seren said, flicking a glance at Lewis. ‘You’ll want the venison, then.’
‘Yes, sounds good. Thanks.’
‘What a ray of sunshine,’ Lewis said when Seren had disappeared into the kitchen.
‘She runs this place on her own. It’s a lot of work.’
‘Truly shocking.’
‘What?’ Luke was regretting bringing Lewis to the pub.
‘That she doesn’t have a partner with that sunny disposition.’
‘I know you’ve had a rough time, so I’m going to keep things civil. Stop insulting my friends or I will eject you from this island myself and I won’t use the causeway.’
‘Ooh!’ Lewis held his hands up in mock surrender.
Seren returned with their drinks. She put a pint of ale in front of Luke and a pint of water in front of Lewis.
‘Excuse me,’ Lewis said. ‘I’d like a beer too, please.’ He gave Seren an entirely fake smile.
She matched his expression with one of her own. ‘I’ll be right back with that.’
Lewis watched Seren disappear into the kitchen again. ‘She’s not bringing me that beer, is she?’
‘Wouldn’t think so,’ Luke said, taking a sip of his. He smacked his lips. ‘That’s the stuff.’
‘Arsehole.’
‘Wanker.’
Bee didn’t want to go to àite Marbh. She had been very firm with the islanders that it wasn’t worth the risk of going to the strange islet and that they wouldn’t find Tobias there, but she had been feeling a growing guilt that she ought to at least check it out for herself. She wasn’t exactly afraid, but she was wary. They had looked into the mirrors and seen the hole in the world. The doorway had to be closed before something was sucked from Elsewhere. A hole wanted to be filled. That was its nature. It couldn’t help it any more than a nettle could help stinging your skin.
Diana was no help. She had point-blank refused to leave the house. It was her sanctuary and Bee understood that, but she had hoped that her middle sister might make an exception just this once.
She borrowed Hammer’s boat without telling him where she was going. He didn’t question her, as it wasn’t unusual for her to head out to the wide ocean, just to have a few hours' peace. She supposed that he understood the impulse.
Bee was experienced with a boat, but she felt a flutter of panic as she approached the islet. The current seemed to alter as she drew nearer, drawing the boat in at an unnatural pace. She jumped out and pulled the boat up onto the sand, her muscles straining with the effort.
Just as Hammer had described, the place was entirely still. It was a dead place. Bee thought she must have been here at least once before, in all her time living on Unholy Island, but she couldn’t remember it for certain. It felt like a place she might have seen in a vision or a dream. She put her fingers up to form a frame to look through as she regarded the small hill in the dip of ground. Had she seen it in the mirror with the gilt frame around the image?
She walked down the slope, watching the entrance to the hill tomb. The emptiness was crushing. Tobias was not here, she was certain of that. But still, she had to check.
The black rectangle in the side of the grassy slope of the tomb was not an invitation. Bee didn’t look around as she crossed the flat ground that led to the cairn. It wasn’t because she was frightened of what she might see. But that she didn’t want to confirm that there was absolutely nothing there. She usually saw things out of the corner of her eye. Visions of the past and future, vying for her attention as if they sensed she was one who could see them and, in the seeing, give them meaning again for a brief and shining moment. It was lonely here and Bee could feel a draining sadness lapping at the shores of her subconscious.
She ignored it and stepped through the angular stone entrance. The light of the world was immediately replaced by darkness. Within a step, it was as dark as being far below the surface. It was like jumping into deep water. Bee strode forward. She could feel her sisters with her, the sharp chaos of Lucy and Diana’s warm steadiness, and she realised why Diana had refused to leave the house. Calm and surrounded by her plants, she was at her strongest, and that meant Bee was at her strongest, too. They were three, but they were also one. Bee had been playing at being human for so long that she had started to forget. The thought jolted her.
The passageway had a low ceiling. Hammer would have had to stoop. Several paces in, and Bee estimated she had to be in the centre of the cairn. She trailed her fingers along the stone walls on either side, noting the gaps where side chambers branched from the main passage. If her fingers hadn’t been touching either side of the hall, she would have guessed that she was in a cavernous space. Her proprioception insisted that she was in an unbounded cathedral-like building, while her fingers told her that she was in a cramped corridor. The dissonance made her stomach roll.
She took another large step, refusing to allow the space to intimidate her. Her toes connected with an unyielding surface. She reached out and touched the uneven surface of a stone wall, indented in a rectangle shape, as if a doorway had been filled in. End of the road. The words were not her own and she pushed them from her mind with all of her force. Then she waited to see what the cairn would do next.
Was that someone breathing? Something? The wall was still in front of her. Bee put her hands on it and felt cold stone. The surface smooth, as if worn by water and time. As if it had always been here. She hesitated. She could demand to be let through, to the place she was now certain Tobias had gone. But what if she couldn’t find him in the Elsewhere? What if she became trapped? He might already be on his way out, and then she would have sacrificed herself and her sisters for nothing.
The moment of uncertainty seemed to give the doorway power. Or perhaps it sensed an opportunity. The wall in front, where her palms were splayed was moving closer. The sides of the passage touching her shoulders. Squeezing in. Closing so quickly that she knew she would shortly be crushed. Like hands clapping to kill a fly. You idiot , she just had time to think before the darkness went the colour of nothing.