He climbed out the car and walked over the road without looking back, a tall stooped man with grey in his hair and a smile for everyone. A man who championed good causes. I closed my eyes, the shock of his words rippling through me like a soundwave.
By the time the Rattlesnakes emerged through the gate on Monday afternoon it was gone four, and the light was already fading from the sky. All three girls were present this time, crossing the road hand in hand like children. I noticed Charlie had a black beret on her head, slanted sideways over one eye. Everything about her was matt black, deep as a shadow. Next to her, tiny Moya and skinny ghost-girl Nancy just seemed to fade away. Charlie smiled when she saw me, one hand reaching into the pocket of her leather jacket to pull out a packet of cigarettes. Her lips were a deep, vampish red.
‘You want one, Mrs Hudson?’ She extended a cigarette towards me. The girls crowded round. It was like being mugged by shadows.
‘No,’ I told her flatly. ‘I want to do the ritual. Tomorrow. Full moon, right? I want to do it exactly the way you did it when Edie disappeared. Everything the same.’
She arched an eyebrow, inhaling deeply on her cigarette. ‘Well, I don’t know about that. We’ll need to buy some stuff.’
‘Like what?’ The answer didn’t matter. I was already reaching for my purse.
Charlie pretended to think, rolling her eyes. ‘Uh, we’ll need to buy some Thunderbird.’
‘That’s alcohol,’ Moya chimed.
Charlie flashed her a look. ‘She knows that, dumbass. We’ll need money for candles too. And a little bit of dope.’
I stared at her. She stared back. Flat, confrontational. She wanted me to say no. She wanted me to fight her, to fight for dominance. Not going to happen, honey, I thought as I handed over twenty pounds.
‘What time?’ I said. My heart was racing. Hope, the flame sparking in the cave. A pale light, distant and wavering as though in a breeze.
Charlie looked at the others and then turned back to me, making my money disappear into the pocket of her shirt.
‘Eight o’clock. When the church bells toll, come through the gate. You’ll find us round the grave.’
‘Which one?’
‘Quiet Mary. You’ll see it. We’ll lead you there.’
She turned away and I noticed her leather jacket had an emblem drawn on it, an ouroboros with the word Rattlesnakes printed round it in a circle. The other girls chimed their goodbyes, turning away from me in a sooty flare of chiffon and leather, black winged birds from a fairy tale. I caught Nancy’s eye – they were such a pale blue they were almost transparent – and she immediately dropped her gaze. She was wearing a satin ribbon choker round her neck and had a crucifix drawn in felt-tip on the back of her hand, the ink slightly smudged.
‘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
