‘Nancy,’ I said, but she hurried away from me, head down. She knows something, I thought. I made a note to try to talk to her the next night, to get her away from the group. I’d shake it out of her if I had to.
‘You must be mad, doing this,’ I said, not caring that I was talking aloud, that people were looking at me and sniggering, hands over their mouths.
What if it could bring her back? I’d said to Rupert and that was my hope, that was my flame in the dark. But that’s the thing about hope: it doesn’t vanish. Not ever, not quite. It swells and shrinks like a tumour, turning the blood black in the process, ruining you. Even when I told people that I’d lost hope, I knew it was there somewhere, glimmering with the bright intensity of a comet. It filled me with excitement or despair or dread and yet even when I knew it was no good, I wanted it. Hope is a vice. It refuses to be snuffed out. I hate it. I love it.
At two minutes to eight the next evening I arrived at St Mary de Castro feeling sick and anxious. The ground was gilded with an early frost, glittering in the moonlight. The moon itself was fat and waxy and ringed with colour. We’d inched into November and the air was singed with the scent of bonfires and ice. I breathed in, let the cold sharpen my lungs. I couldn’t stop thinking about Edie’s winter coat hanging on the hook at home where she left it. She’ll be cold, I thought, and suddenly there was a stone in my throat, a rock, and it was difficult to breathe. She’ll be cold.
The bells chimed and I walked through the iron gate without hesitation. Since he’d been taken in for questioning, Peter Liverly hadn’t been up to the job of caretaking, and now the gates were left open most nights. His house, the little bungalow just beyond the old stone wall of the churchyard, had been empty since his release. Someone said he’d had hate mail. Another that masked gangs had been knocking on his windows at night, frightening him. We’d all seen the words that had been printed in thick black letters across his living room windows where the curtains hung drawn and still: pedo scum. I hadn’t seen the photos the police had found when they’d searched the church hall, the ones he’d taken of Edie and the other Rattlesnakes. Were they evidence? Would he be given them back? I’d have liked to find out where he’d gone. He didn’t deserve comfort. He didn’t deserve shelter. He killed rabbits and he stalked teenage girls.
It was dark here, round the back of the church, despite the full moon. The street lights didn’t penetrate the trees and the frost gave everything a pale blue glow that crunched underfoot. In the darkness beside me, something rustled. I told myself it was the wind sifting through the dead leaves. There was still that wretched smell of rot and blight and I was walking carefully to avoid stepping on any rabbit remains. Up ahead I could see movement, the dim glow of candles in glass jars, the glowing orange heads of handfuls of incense sticks jammed into the soft ground. I headed towards it, drawing my collar up against the chill. There was the police tape, fallen into disarray. The night air was still and brittle as the ice beneath my feet. In my back pocket, the reassuring weight of my knife.
As I drew closer, I saw Nancy sitting cross-legged on the ground. She was wearing gloves with the fingers cut off and holding a bottle in her hands. She was laughing too loud, her cheeks and eyes bright. She was drunk. Half the bottle was already gone. It’ll make her sick, drinking so fast. A rookie mistake. I saw Charlie encircled in a violet haze of smoke, the resinous smell of dope scenting the air. She was wearing a lace veil over her face, black of course, like a Victorian spiritualist. She motioned to me with a wave of her hand. I caught the glint of her smile through the darkness.
‘Where’s Moya?’ I said, looking around.
Nancy looked up at me, her lips wet. ‘She’s not coming.’
‘Oh, shush,’ Charlie purred. ‘She’ll be here.’ Her head turned towards me. ‘She has very strict parents. They wouldn’t let her within ten feet of us.’
‘She lies,’ Nancy laughed, digging furrows into the earth with her heels. ‘She tells them she’s coming to the youth club.’ She hiccupped, burying her chin into the fur collar of her coat. ‘I tell my parents I’m at Charlie’s.’
‘And I tell my parents I’m working at the pizza place in Brighton,’ Charlie said. She was a little unsteady on her feet, dancing a slow waltz. She exhaled smoke towards the stars. ‘They think I’m employee of the month.’
Nancy burst out laughing. The bottle fell from her hands and Charlie called her a clumsy bitch, which made her laugh even harder. There was something desperate about the sound of it, as if at any moment it could dissolve into tears.
I turned to Charlie. ‘So teenagers lie to their parents? You think that’s new?’
Charlie lifted the veil slowly from her face, casting it in elegant shadow.
‘I think it’s appropriate,’ she says. ‘You want one of these?’
I looked down at her outstretched hand. Pills. Small and diamond-shaped. I reached out my hand and then hesitated. What would Edie have done? That’s an easy answer, I told myself almost immediately. She’d have taken one, no question.
‘What are they?’
Charlie smiled, her head tilted to one side. ‘My little brother’s got ADHD. This is what he takes for it.’ She lowered her voice and leaned closer. ‘It’ll just help you focus, that’s all. You did say you wanted the ritual done right.’
I took one from her and held my hand out for the wine. It was warm and sweet and cheap-tasting, but it washed the pill down. Charlie laid a tablet on her tongue and grinned at me.
‘That’s my girl,’ she purred.
I looked down and saw the candles in jam jars at the compass points of Mary Sayers’s grave.
‘What’s so special about this grave?’ I asked, squinting at the headstone. Lost to the Waters, She will Return.
‘It’s Quiet Mary,’ Nancy said, passing the bottle to Charlie, who wiped the neck with her sleeve. ‘We’ve been trying to summon her.’
‘We have summoned her. I’ve seen her,’ Charlie said. ‘One time I even spoke to her.’
‘What did she say?’ I asked, lighting a cigarette. I wanted some more of that awful wine.
‘She said, “The water’s so cold, Charlie, I can’t breathe. Help me. It’s so dark down here. Help me.”’
I wished she’d lift the veil again. I didn’t like not being able to see her face.
‘Tell her what she looked like!’ Nancy hissed, her eyes round with awe. She swigged from the bottle again.
Charlie stepped closer to me, pale hands swimming before her. ‘Like the fish had been eating her. She had pondweed coming out of her eyes.’
Nancy was leaning back against the grave, listening with the rapt attention of a child to a bedtime story. I had a feeling this was one she’d heard before.
‘Quiet Mary found a way back,’ Charlie said into the darkness. ‘She found a path into our world and we can open the gateway just enough for her to come through.’
‘Where’s the gateway?’
‘Behind you.’
The dope made my head swim a little as I turned slowly, aware suddenly of how fast my heart was beating, my fingers twitching with my pulse. I was nervous but there was also a flash of excitement that ran through me like a shiver. I wanted to see what would happen. I wanted to feel how Edie must have felt. The way the night had stretched out for her.