Chapter 8 #4
And I do, but not because of the cold and wet. Now the rush of fear and excitement has flushed out of my head I feel knocked around and aching and scraped in places I hadn’t known were being injured, and I almost feel like I’m going to throw up at the thought of what is to come.
We leave the horses and lead the girls through the even more miserable wood and then recross the old M-way.
The drainage pipe we’d come through was spouting water now, the stream having turned into a torrent.
We don’t go back that way, but cross the road on top and head up the weed-choked slope towards the tank and the fallen ruin of the petrol station.
The closer we get to the nettle patch and its dark secret, the more I have to force my legs forwards.
I feel like my brain is fighting my feet, who are starting to have a mind of their own and really just want to run in the opposite direction.
In the end, it was the dog that did it. I was right on the point of trying to ask Cat if we could put off telling them their father was dead when it made a single low woof deep in its chest and bounded ahead of us before I could reach out and grab its collar to stop it.
OK, says Cat. Shit. I’ll tell them now.
She drops down on one knee in front of them, blocking their way and holding her hand up to make them stop.
Can you understand what I’m saying? she says, speaking very slowly and deliberately. Nod if you can, because there’s something I’ve got to tell you, and I don’t know how to mime it.
They don’t nod. They aren’t really even looking at her. Their eyes were fixed on the nettle patch and the dog, who is sniffing at something they can’t quite see yet.
I’ll do it, Cat, I say. It’s mine to do.
It’s too late.
The injured girl sees something and makes a choking noise.
She limps forwards, pulling her sister around Cat’s outstretched hand.
And before we can stop her, they are both in the nettle patch looking down.
I can only see the face of the girl in the torn yellow dress as she stares down at the body in shock.
Whatever she is seeing has definitely pulled her back from wherever she had retreated to inside her head.
Her eyes are bright and shinily, unmistakably present and her jaw muscles are working as if trying to keep something terrible from bursting out.
I realise she’s biting back the grief rising in her throat.
He hit Cat, I say.
I can feel the tears beginning to stream from my eyes, but I don’t care.
I’m sorry, I say, knowing as I say them how useless the words are. I’m so sorry. I had to stop him. I didn’t know what else he might do. I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t know…
The girl in the yellow dress stops working her mouth and spits into the upturned face of the dead man. Then her sister starts kicking and hacking at the body with her feet and heels, and the dog is suddenly growling, and I can’t tell if it’s angry or excited because nothing makes sense any more.
And then Cat is close beside me. I look at her. She shrugs.
You know what? she says. I don’t think that’s their father.
The girls stop kicking and spitting on the corpse.
The unhurt one bends down and starts going through his pockets.
She finds something that makes her grunt in satisfaction and stands up with a tiny key in her hand.
She unlocks the metal bracelet from her sister’s wrist then her own and throws the handcuffs down into the face below. It bounces into the nettles beside him.
They turn towards us, rubbing their wrists.
Well, says Cat. I guess that explains the handcuffs.
The unhurt one thumbs her chest.
Storm, she says.
It’s a shock to hear her speak. I see Cat take a beat too.
You can talk, I say, and then immediately wished I hadn’t felt the need to state the obvious.
The look the girl – Storm – gives me doesn’t need words, it just says I’m not the only one thinking I’m a fool. She half shrugs, half snorts and points at her sister.
Freya, she says.
OK, said Cat. Storm. Freya. OK then.
And that’s how two became four.
Cat and I look at each other. My turn to shrug. Cat nods.
The dog pushes past us, tail wagging, and sniffs at Freya’s boots. She swats it away, smacking it hard on the side of its head. The dog doesn’t snap or growl, it just walks over to me and looks up at Cat and I, tail wagging.
It was his dog, Freya says, like that’s all the explanation she needs to give for hitting it.
This time I keep quiet, though again it’s somehow a surprise to hear her voice. Though maybe it wasn’t so much surprise that they could speak as it was the shock of hearing new voices that weren’t Cat or mine.
No reason to hit it, says Storm. That’s what he used to do—
It’s useless—says Freya, and then winces as she moves.
I think she broke her ankle, Storm says.
Freya has suddenly retreated again, the spark of fire quenched, gone lifeless as she looks down with no discernible interest at what is definitely – now I focus on it – a very ugly swelling on her ankle.
Yes, Storm says, scowling at her sister. Just before she tried to throw us into that quarry.
And that’s also how life became much, much more complicated.