‘Because we buried her,’ Kyle whispers, behind me. ‘We buried her long ago.’
I moan, putting my hands to my ears, because I know that’s not true. Mama’s tree stands in the Memory Wood, I’ll admit, but no bones lie between its roots. Her tree is an oak, glorious with foliage in summer, laden with acorns in autumn, a bounty for squirrels, deer and wild boar. Its upper branches are strung with my memories and hopes: letters I’ve written, drawings I’ve made, wind chimes and paper lanterns and charms. When the rains come, as they so often do, my shrine is washed away. Yet I always renew it, and with it I renew Mama.
But this storm – the one raging outside, and likewise in my head – could wash her away for good. That thought alone is a calamity, one from which I cannot recover.
All things end. All things.
And now, at last, this has to end too.
Abandoning my parents’ room, I clatter back down the stairs. Kyle guards the front door, his eyes like spears. This time, it’s easy to ignore him. The whirlwind in my head rages ever more fiercely, but now that I’ve made my decision, I’ve found sanctuary within the tumult.
My calmness lasts until Bryony swings out of the living room. ‘Dead,’ she hisses, flashing those needle teeth. ‘Dead because of you.’
I veer away, slamming against the bannister. Pain races through my shoulder, but it’s nothing to the agonies I’ve caused. When I turn back to the doorway, Bryony fractures into a million black splinters that melt into liquid as they fall.
I back into the kitchen, and for a moment it’s not my own kitchen but the one inside the Memory Wood. Ivy spreads across the ceiling, then recedes. Glass falls from the window, then reappears. The pantry calls me in, calls me down, to a damp cellar choking with fumes.
This is real, Elijah. All of it. You’re real, so am I. So is my mum. So is my family. This place is real, too. It’s not where I want to be, and I hope I’m not going to die here. I hope, more than anything, that you’re going to help me survive this – but it’s real, I promise you. It’s about as real as a thing can get.
Maybe for her. Not for me.
My lips buzz with electricity, an echo of Gretel’s mouth on mine.
She kissed me. I didn’t imagine it. Our mouths were close together, but she put hers on mine.
All things end. All things.
And there’s only one way this can.
The back door is unlocked. I charge through it to the garden. Slipping and sliding, I cross the muddy grass. Above, the sky is a fury of thunder, lightning and driving rain. By the time I reach the woodshed I’m shivering, so cold and disoriented I can barely recall my plan. Earlier, I’d reached the eye of the storm. Now, I’m back in the cyclone.
Finally, I spy it, the tool I need to end this nightmare. I cross the shed to the stump block, where Papa’s axe is buried. Licking my lips, I taste Gretel, Bryony’s blood, a host of things forgotten and foul.
Wrapping two hands around the shaft, I wrench the axe free of its block.
All things end. All things.
I step out of the woodshed and into the vortex.
II
Crashing through the cottage, I wonder if I’m moving forwards or backwards, through time or place or both. I hear Mama’s voice, that passage from Ephesians, verse ten of chapter six: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.
Far from standing against the devil’s schemes, for too long I’ve accommodated them.
Cold wind rails through the cottage. In the living room, our only picture thumps against the plaster: an Arthur Sarnoff print of a beagle playing pool. Nothing else adorns these walls, no mirrors of any kind. How anyone could bear their own reflection, I cannot begin to imagine. For as long as I can remember, I’ve carefully avoided my own.
I step outside. In the front garden, pounded by rain and a flattening wind, Kyle faces me, fists upon his hips.
‘Get back!’ I yell.
‘Why the axe, Eli? What’re you planning now?’
‘I’m going to set her free.’
Kyle’s teeth glint as he bares them, bright and feral. ‘That’s not what you’re planning,’ he hisses. ‘That’s not what you’re planning at all.’
My mouth falls open. I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. ‘You think I’m going to kill her?’
‘I know you, Eli. I know you like no one else.’
I look at the axe, at the keen edge of its blade. Rain hisses and pings off the metal. Water runs down the shaft. I grip it tighter, heartened by its weight, and for a moment – just one – I think about swinging it at Kyle, burying it in his face and ending his stream of bile.
I couldn’t kill Gretel.
I couldn’t kill anyone.
‘Yes, you could,’ he whispers. ‘You already have.’
Kyle lifts his finger. When I follow where it points, west past Fallow Field, I see the eastern edge of the Memory Wood; and, rising above it, a dense cloud of black smoke.
Mairéad
Day 7
I
Mairéad is in the Mirzoyan living room for her fourth visit when Lena Mirzoyan’s phone starts ringing. Grabbing it from the sofa, the woman answers straight away. Hope, briefly stirred to life, fades from her expression. ‘Lasse … Yeah. Look …’ She pauses, listening.
Mairéad glances at Judy Pauletto and sees they’re thinking the same thing: Lasse Haagensen, the chess teacher. Single white male, thirty-four years old.
‘You’re where? … You’re … Lasse, hold on. I don’t understand … Yes … OK … she what?’
Lena leaps up, racing to the window. ‘Right now … Of course I will! Stay where you are. Don’t you move.’
Mairéad’s already on her feet. ‘The chess teacher?’
‘He’s outside. Says he can’t get past your officer on the gate. Says he has urgent information and needs to speak to us.’
II
Lasse Haagensen is dressed more like a rock star than a Danish chess Grandmaster: black boots, leather biker’s jacket, tight black jeans. He reminds Mairéad of Jeff Goldblum, playing Dr Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park.
Haagensen twitches involuntarily as he talks, as if his brain is discharging excess electricity through his limbs. ‘Which one of you is in charge?’
‘I’m Detective Super—’ Mairéad begins, but Haagensen waves away her introduction.
‘No time,’ he says, brandishing a piece of paper. ‘I have her. I have Elissa.’
Lena Mirzoyan’s spine snaps straight. She puts her hands to her mouth. ‘What do you —’
‘Sir, if you—’
‘Listen to me,’ Haagensen says, clutching the paper like it’s a weapon. ‘I know where she is. I know where to find her.’
Suddenly, the room is full of competing voices. ‘You have her, or you know where she is?’ Mairéad demands.
‘What?’ Haagensen shouts. ‘Why’re we even discussing this? The latter, of course the latter. Why aren’t you listening?’ He thrusts out the paper. ‘Read it. Read that and tell me I’m wrong.’