December 3, 5.00 p.m.
The garden was stark and empty in the winter. Nick loved spring most of all. Nick was, by his own admission, heavy on the planting. He loved tulips. Strange plants. Upright and singular. In his back yard, he was digging holes about six to eight inches deep and putting a bulb in each. He had bought over a hundred bulbs. They would look great in the spring. He wanted to see the whole lot thick with the red and white throats of scores of tulips turned upward to the sky.
His son William was behind him, halfway up a cherry tree. It was great sometimes, thought Nick. It was great to get out of yourself and relax. He felt like he was doing some good.
He went inside to get himself a soda. William walked in behind him.
‘What you up to, little feller?’
‘Need a soda like you.’
‘You know how to ask for a soda?’
‘I say please and thank you.’
‘That’s right, but you’re getting water. Water is good for you, right? We remember that, don’t we?’
William took hold of a glass from the draining board. He turned the tap. Nick watched the water stream into the glass. Then he watched William tilt his head back and drink.
‘What are you looking at, Daddy?’
William’s blond hair was fine and long, his white throat upturned as he drained the glass. Sebastian was crawling somewhere inside, scratching in the distance like a wolf through the undergrowth. Nick felt the tingling rise up his spine and up his neck.
‘You need to go away now, William. Go outside and play.’
‘I want to be with you.’
‘Go now!’ Nick shouted. The tingling was getting worse. He felt the spasm starting.
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Go! Run!’
William stared, unable to move or understand.
Nick put his hand in his pocket and grabbed at the nails. He squeezed hard, but it was no good. It wasn’t working. The pain streaked across his frontal lobe. Nick felt Sebastian rise in his throat. All at once, Nick was gone and Sebastian’s arm lurched forward and grabbed William’s hand. He stared hard at the boy. William stared back. It looked like his father but it was not his father staring at him. It was someone else. His wrist was hurting. He began to cry, but his father didn’t stop. Soon, William was howling.
Dee suddenly appeared from another room and asked what was wrong. She saw her husband gripping her son and then she began to scream. Inside Sebastian’s head it was quiet. The world had stopped. Nick loved these people. He wanted to hurt Nick now. That was all. Hurt the things Nick loved. That was all he ever wanted. To hurt what Nick loved. He hated Nick. Nick was weak. Nick was an embarrassment.
His cold silent gaze moved to the right. A shining spoon caught his eye. He picked it up.
The faces in front of him were red-eyed and twisted in pain. Dee was screaming violently. He could see her mouth open and close. The inside of her mouth was red like a fresh cut. He could see the dangling flesh at the back of her throat. Her teeth, her fillings, her saliva.
At times like these, he felt so cold, yet so full of emotion. He wanted to clean the world up. All the flesh and movement. He wanted everything dead. The whole world. Nick’s wife, his children, everything.
Sebastian saw his princess — little Bethany — bright sunlight in her blond hair. Was it real? It was the secret of himself. He held the image for as long as he could. He saw her sweet, open face. Blond hair. Bright, white, sun- starved skin. Naked, she was lily white. Whiter than he thought possible. White, naked, dead.
The secret of him.
The spoon was in his right hand now. William’s hand was red. The bones were bending in his little arm and the pain was increasing. His face was intense and strange.
Dee was close now. She was pulling at him.
He moved the spoon across to William’s face, until the boy could see his comical reflection in the convex bow of the spoon.
She was his princess. Why did he keep her in his glass cage? He wanted more than anything to let her free, but he couldn’t. The glass cage had no doors, no windows. He had only to watch her suffer and suffer and suffer in silence.
He pushed William’s face against the table. He was looking out at the lawn. A thrush was fiercely pecking the grass. The thin bare branches of the goat willow moved in the soft breeze.
The spoon touched the edge of William’s eye. It was cold. The boy had stopped screaming. His father’s hand was tight against his small jawbone.
Sebastian looked down at William. Dee was hitting him now. A heavy-based pan came down on his arm with all her weight behind it. Nothing entered his world when Sebastian was reigning. Nothing. The edge of the spoon moved under the boy’s lower eyelid. What was the child saying? Sebastian stopped momentarily. Something deep within him recognized a guttural sound. William was saying something. Sebastian remembered it now. It was something the princesses had said. They had said it over and over again. He wanted to hear it. He needed to hear it.
But to hear it, he had to come out of his own cage. He had to break free.
Nick. He needed Nick now. He let him back. Suddenly, Nick was there. The scream of his wife in his ear, his arm throbbing in pain, his son held under his own hand.
He moved his hand from William’s mouth. The spoon fell to the floor and bounced to a stop.
Nick looked down at his son, now able to hear the words he was repeating over and over again.
‘Sorry, Daddy,’ William was saying. ‘Sorry, Daddy. Sorry, Daddy.’
Over and over again.
Chapter Ninety-Seven
East River
December 3, 6.04 p.m.
N ick fled the house and ran and ran until he was at the very edge of Queens overlooking the East River.
This was it. Sebastian had gone too far. He had threatened Nick’s own child. His own boy. Nick loved his boy. He loved him so much. Didn’t he? He was going mad.
Alone by the water, surrounded by silence, Nick shut his eyes, in tears. Sebastian’s girls were banging and thumping the glass. Nick could see them too. He could see them crying in pain. All Sebastian’s women crying out in agony in his glass cage.
Nick moved up close to the cage. He had to see what they were saying. He was so close his mouth was against the glass.
He needed to shatter their prison, set them free. He had to hear them, to know if they forgave him. He had to free them because it was they who brought Sebastian to him. If he let them go, Sebastian would disappear too.
At the water’s edge, he drew the pistol up to his head. He pushed the barrel tight into his ear.
He promised them freedom. He said he would free them. He only had to shatter the glass cage.
It had been a long journey. Sebastian had killed people to get back to them. Back to his girls. Now Nick was going to end it.
His forefinger applied three pounds of pressure to the toe of the trigger. Another three pounds and the spring would be released. The firing pin would move to the primer. The small explosion would ignite the main charge, the bullet would drive from its case.
Another three pounds of pressure was all he needed to be free.
The water glistened with diamond tips, the seagulls swooped with arrogant ease, their dark voices carrying over the river.
Another three pounds of pressure.
