Amelia is puzzled. How would James have any idea how it was meant to end?
The two small figures on the screen walk up the hill to the headland. The one with the long hair walks over to a small copse of drooping trees and starts gathering sticks. The one with the short hair stands watching, hands on hips. The sounds are muffled, their voices carried away by the wind. She can’t work out whose memory feed this is. It was only the two of them there that day, wasn’t it?
Amelia in the blanket watches as the feed switches to another perspective, and she sees now what George saw, all those years ago. The man appearing from over the side of the cliff behind the small long-haired figure. An old man with wild hair, his clothes tattered. His arms are raised out in front of him, zombielike, and he opens his mouth to speak.
But before he can, a voice cries out to the long-haired figure: ‘Behind you!’
The figure turns to face the man, whose arms drop to his sides as they regard each other for a silent moment. Then the long-haired figure rushes towards him with arms thrust forward and pushes the man’s chest, toppling him over the edge.
Then the perspective changes again, taking in the two figures as the long-haired one spins round from the cliff edge. It’s a much younger Amelia – frozen in shock – looking back at the shorter-haired girl who had called out to warn her of the man’s approach . . .
Of course, Amelia knew all of this was coming. Her younger self was right there, after all. She’s the girl standing on the cliff edge. But whose memory is this? Who saw the two of them?
James stands up. ‘Enough of this now,’ he says to the room, to whoever is showing them this scene. ‘We don’t need to see any more. You’ve tortured us enough.’
Amelia is crying now, her shoulders shaking under the blanket. ‘I’m sorry.’ Her words are punctuated by sobs. ‘I thought it was a . . . a game. And then I wanted to help him.’ She shakes her head angrily, pointing at the place where the screen was, where it’s now just air. ‘It was her,’ she says, her finger trembling as she points at the empty space where the short-haired girl had been. The holographic screen might be blank, but she still has the image etched in her mind. ‘She told me we couldn’t save him . . .’
‘You ran away, remember?’
They both turn at the sound of the voice. Behind them, from a door they hadn’t paid any attention to before, stands a woman with short, dark hair. She’s dressed in neatly cut black trousers and a black, fitted polo-neck sweater. She smiles.
‘I’ve been looking forward to this—’
‘You!’ James leaps from his seat and lunges towards her. ‘Who the hell are you?’ His voice shakes as he shouts. He has the woman pinned up against the wall, his hands on her shoulders. ‘Is this all your doing? Are you the other girl in that projection?’
But the woman doesn’t struggle. She just smirks.
‘Are you quite finished, Jago? Your acting has been tolerable up until now, but you seem to have lapsed into melodrama. Maybe seeing your own dark secret wasn’t such a good plan after all . . .’
James keeps her pinned to the wall, but his shoulders sag. After a long, silent moment, he says in a hollow voice, ‘You bitch, Merryn.’
He turns his head towards Amelia. ‘I’m sorry. I really am.’ He draws in a long breath, releases it in a sigh. ‘I should never have gone along with this. I just thought she wanted to ruffle a few feathers. Make some sort of point. She promised to help get me back on my feet.’
‘What?’ Amelia says. ‘Help you . . . ?’
‘I’ve been struggling, ever since I moved to the mainland. That terrible scene you watched on the canal was only part of it.’
‘You were always weak, Jago,’ the woman he called Merryn says. ‘Did you really think I was going to give you a new chance at life? It’s not as if you helped me out when I needed you.’
Who is this man? Amelia wonders. And why did the woman call him Jago?
He turns back to the woman, who is still pinned up against the wall and not attempting to struggle at all. She clearly feels no threat from this man. ‘We were kids, Merryn,’ he continues. ‘We both suffered at Father’s hands. I thought you just wanted to bring Amelia back into your life. But people are dead . . . and Amelia still wants nothing to do with you.’
‘We’ll see about—’
In one swift move, James’s hands have shifted to the woman’s throat. Her face starts to turn red and her eyes bulge. Her arms go to his, grabbing him at the elbows, trying to push him off. But Amelia can see she has no real strength.
Amelia’s mind whirrs as she watches this man she knows as James continue to throttle her. Obviously the woman is behind all this, and getting rid of her means they might be able to get away. But if he kills her, there’s no chance of justice for any of the others, not to mention any insight into everything that’s gone on. Who the hell does she think she is, brandishing her moral compass . . . punishing them like this? Killing her isn’t the answer – she owes them an explanation at the very least.
Amelia throws off her blanket and rushes over to stop him from choking her to death, but before she can get to him he flinches and releases the woman’s neck, then he starts to buck and writhe, as though he’s being electrocuted. He falls to the floor, still shuddering, until a rush of bloody foam pours out of his mouth and his whole body goes slack.
‘James!’ Amelia cries out. But it’s too late.
The woman steps over him and walks over to the dining table in the main room, pulls out two chairs. ‘Come on then,’ she says.
‘What . . . what did you do to him?’
The woman shrugs. ‘The trackers’ tasering function is new. I hadn’t actually trialled it before. Might need to dial down the voltage a little. I got a slight shock myself with the first burst.’
Amelia grabs the back of the chair, feels her legs ready to buckle. ‘You killed him. Killed them all.’
The woman sighs. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes, I did. But it’s your fault.’
Amelia
Amelia sits down hard on the dining chair, her body heavy and numb. Her head falls forward, the weight of it too much now on her shoulders.
What have I just witnessed?
She can’t take it in. These people have died because of her. Six innocent people. OK, maybe not so innocent. Maybe they have done some terrible things – but hasn’t everyone?
The woman in black turns the other chair around, then sits on it, legs astride, leaning on the back. ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’
Amelia’s head snaps up at the sound of the familiar voice.
‘Hello, Anne. It’s been a long time.’
She looks away. ‘Don’t call me that. My name is Amelia.’
‘And mine is Merryn, but I never really liked it. I always saw myself as George. Just like the one in the stories. Living on that island, desperate for friends. When you came along that summer, I thought I’d made a friend at last. We’re blood, Anne. Don’t you remember?’
Amelia turns back to face the woman sitting before her. This is . . . George?
This woman who, according to Harvey and the various presentations, is the most gifted technological scientist in the world. This woman’s inventions have made the impossible possible. The implausible come to life.