Then they called an ambulance. They cried and told the police that they would have checked on Callum if they had known he was there. And the police told them it was all right, there was nothing they could have done, and carted Callum away in a black plastic bag but left the pink sofa, which to them smelled of rot. They returned to their rooms and studied for their exams and waited for Callum’s parents to come for his things. They made sure to express their condolences but were more grateful that his belongings, especially the camera, were gone.
But he wasn’t gone. Not entirely. The smell of his body became their contribution to the house’s growing inventory. Like the second broken microwave, it would never be removed, not until the fire years later.
All it would have taken was for one of them to tell the truth, just one, and their story would have fallen to pieces. But they were all so scared of what would happen to them if the truth came out. They’d be labeled as liars and cheaters. Disappointments. The truth was, they never told the truth because they were glad that he had died. Glad that their secrets were safe. Glad that they didn’t have to face the consequences of their mistakes. Life was easier for them with Callum dead, so they didn’t fear whoever had done it. They thanked them, and though they never spoke of Callum, even to the ones they loved, they never really forgot him.
But they never remembered me. Of course, why should they? I was part of Callum’s life, so to them, I was nothing.
11
Ellie
Ellie whispered to what was left of Oliver.
“If you had really regretted it, you would have called it rape.”
She knelt in the mud and the blood and ran her hands over his clothes.
“But you’re not going to hurt me again.”
She patted all of his pockets, put her hands down his shirt, but she couldn’t find the diary. She had seen him put it down his shirt, but now it wasn’t there.
“You won’t do this to me. I won’t let you do this to me! I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Then she heard the someone gasp and saw Maeve and Lorna staring at her from the broken window. And Lorna’s presence didn’t surprise her. Ellie knew what it was like to look into a dead man’s eyes. Lorna’s had been very much alive.
Ellie clambered through the broken window, ignoring the glass cutting her. She saw the blood running down her arms, staining her clothes, but felt nothing. Wasn’t even sure what was hers or what belonged to the men of this house. She leaned once more on the windowpane and looked at what was left of Oliver.
“This was all your fault and you know it.”
She smoothed back her hair, streaking it red, and adjusted her bracelet. And then she ran. Maeve and Lorna had taken off and were now out of sight, but she heard Maeve’s heavy footsteps on the stairs. Ellie rounded into the lobby in time to see someone’s legs disappearing around the corner on the first floor. She reached the upstairs landing and heard them continuing up to the next floor. Could even hear Maeve’s wheezing breath. Then a blur dashed the opposite way—they must’ve split up. Ellie knew her chances were better with Maeve. She’d take care of Lorna later.
She wove her way to the top floor, and there at the end of the hall she saw it. The door to the attic.
Open. Waiting.
Ellie could no longer see those now old scratches, but she ran her fingers over where they had been and remembered she had a choice. She could go back the way she came, out the broken window, make her way to the quay. Play her part so well when the first ferryman came. Through tears, tell him of the monsters inside Wolfheather House.
Ellie pictured her children running up to her on Monday, telling her how much they missed her and how much they needed her and how thankful they were that she was alive. David could take her into his arms, hold her tight, and she could smile because everything would be perfect again. She could let Gordon go. Be done with him. And no one would begrudge her anything after all she’d been through.
Or she could go into the attic.
Ellie removed her shoes to silence her steps and made her way up the narrow staircase.
The rain fell like gunfire on the roof so close to her head. Her hand felt for the light switch but then she stopped, remembering it wouldn’t work anyway. So she stood and let her eyes adjust to the darkness. The stillness seemed absolute. Even her breathing felt intrusive. Where would Maeve go? she wondered. Would she continue to hide like the coward she was, or would she come out and face her?
“I know what you did,” Ellie said.
She walked through the stacks of boxes, listening for any noise behind her.
“You didn’t need to trick me into coming here. You could’ve just asked.”
A shadow moved in the corner of her eye. Ellie spun, but there was nothing in the darkness. She paused, then kept moving forward.
“I would’ve helped. I feel just as awful about Callum. And there’s no reason we can’t be friends after this. We can clean this all up together. No one will ever know.”
She peeked around a mothballed rack of clothes. Nothing. Silence.
“You know, it’s only fitting that we tore ourselves to pieces, isn’t it? We didn’t need anyone to help us along the way. It was inevitable that we’d be drawn back to each other. It’s chemistry. Jilly was studying chemistry for her GCSEs, and she read all about how different elements are harmless on their own, but when put together they can be explosive. That’s exactly what we are, isn’t it?”
Back in the far corner, a shadow darker than the rest.
“But it’s different now, with Hollis and Oliver gone. Especially Oliver. We don’t need to destroy each other anymore. The three of us ladies, we can stick together. After all, what happened to Callum wasn’t your fault, just like it wasn’t mine.”
A figure leaned against the attic eaves.
“It wasn’t my fault at all.”
She lunged and brought the corkscrew down again and again. She brought it down to smash the events of this weekend, to shatter the memory of Caldwell Street, to erase Callum from her mind. But it was only after several blows that she realized what she had been stabbing wasn’t a person at all but pillows covered in a quilt. Wispy duck feathers floated in the air. One stuck to her lip. She brushed it away.
There hadn’t been a person. Only pillows leaning up against the wall in a far corner of the attic, with the only path out behind her, where someone already stood.
Maeve
The tire iron struck Ellie in the back of the head, but unlike Hollis, Ellie didn’t fall. She spun away, striking Maeve in the hand with the corkscrew. The sharp scratch stung, but Ellie hadn’t been able to hit hard enough to do any real damage. Maeve swung again. A gash opened up on Ellie’s cheek. She pressed her long fingers to the blood with a laugh.
“So this is how it’s going to be,” Ellie said. “I could’ve helped you. All girls together against Oliver and Hollis.”
“This was never about them,” Maeve said. “This was about justice for Callum.”
“I wanted that, too.” She staggered into a wall.
“No,” Maeve said. “You wanted him dead.”
Ellie sighed. It was the same sigh she made when someone hadn’t flushed the toilet or the microwave hadn’t been cleaned properly. The sound she’d made when Maeve had offered her the last Oreo on a cold day in January before everyone else had returned to the house for the new term.