It made Elizabeth furious and sad. It was the reason she ran out from the house and went inside the shed. I went after her . . .
I should have stayed inside. Bad things happen outside. Bad things happen when you don’t hide.
I remember the sickening sound of the crack as Elizabeth’s head hit concrete. It echoes again and again like a bad song lyric stuck inside my head.
Elizabeth was about to move into her first flat. At twenty-nine, she was old to be leaving home. But she was thirteen when I came along. I suppose she got into the habit of helping Mum with me. And we were very close, so that stopped her leaving.
She left school at eighteen. Dad got her a job with the entertainment team at Pleasurepark, working for Archer. He was a charmer. I always thought he was a bit oily, with his year-round tan and his big gold watch. She was always whispering to me about him and all the promises he made her. The fancy holidays and fast cars never materialised.
At night, she would spin the scene of her big day. A princess colour scheme and magical doves. But when she kissed me goodnight, she reminded me it was a secret. Mum or Dad couldn’t know . . .
I wish I could wake up from the nightmare that started on my seventeenth birthday. I can’t cradle this guilt anymore.
Elizabeth is broken because of me.
It was all my fault.
Why didn’t I keep quiet?
There is a chain round my ribs, an early warning sign I need to keep calm or I will tumble into an asthma attack. I rummage in my draw for my Ventolin, then take a couple of puffs.
A selfish part of me wants to confide in my big sister. How the monster who crushed my heart has returned to do it again, over and over.
An empty wish, but still I wish.
I refuse Elizabeth any visits she requests. She needs a fresh start. She doesn’t need a constant reminder. And that’s what I would be. A dark reflection.
I never reply to her letters. Seeing her, seeing my family, would break me.
Of all the girls who come to Swan Lake, I’ve been here longest. Some girls stay a few weeks, usually a few months, but I’ve been here for almost three years.
I liked the quiet.
Now Shepherd’s return threatens to open up the box I’ve locked.
The Black Magic Box.
It was my old chocolate box, black with a raised red rose and the words ‘Black Magic’ on the lid.
I keep it under my bed.
It’s where I hide my secret.
I don’t know anything, anymore. But I do know one thing.
Shepherd can never find it.
This secret I’m keeping . . . it’s his, as well as it’s mine.
5
ME
FROM A DISTANCE, the church looks like a white marble castle rising from the cemetery grounds, haunted with ghosts.
It’s New Year’s Eve. I decide to take a walk in the early evening. My new pad is too empty, too many places for the whispers to fill.
I go to the church. The graveyard. I light a smoke.
If I’m distancing myself from silence and death, why do I choose to sit in a cemetery?
The graves are spotted with bell jars full of Virgin Marys and wreaths of plastic roses. To the right, the graveyard wall slopes down towards the bay. And to the left, there’s a clear view of Devil’s Woods.
In the far corner of the graveyard is a quiet spot where Violet Adams is buried. The uncut grass is scattered with yellow daisies and black crow feathers.
Too much death here.
I lie back by her grave, turning my face up to feel the blue moonlight. Eyes shut, I hear the voices of the dead below me as they claw up the soil.
I wanted to keep you. Your mummy loves you.
I must’ve slept because it’s full dark and cold when I wake, the church empty. Even the dead have gone. I wipe saliva from the side of my mouth and get up off the ground.
I walk, keeping out of the woods but circling the open fields. I need time to think. The wind is howling, and the moonshine makes the stone of the distant church as colourless as rain.
I almost don’t see her, on the road up ahead of me. With her button nose and a soft lispy voice and twinkly eyes and soft kitteny hair. She’s as sweet and pale as a graveyard angel.
I walk down towards her, take a hard drag of my smoke with a tune in my mind. My boot heels spin echoes across the soulless space, and I begin to sing low. The lyrics are pure, about love and sacrifice and good intent. But the tone in my voice makes the words dirty and hard.
Amy’s dress looks so faded that for a second I’m not sure if she’s dead or alive. But when she turns to face me, I know she’s alive. For the pain is real and raw on her face.
Amy Earhart with all her skin.
Her face is delicate, sharp with grief. Her coral-sea eyes look into black, dead space. I’ve got this strange fucking urge to smooth a loose strand of hair behind her ear. I take control of my senses, leave my hand just where it is. Just where it fucking belongs.
‘What’re you doing out here, Amy? It’s late.’
‘My sister would take me into Devil’s Woods when I was small.’
She sounds like a sleepwalker who you don’t want to wake.
‘There’s a secret in there,’ she says, still asleep, still sleep-talking to her ghost. ‘She used to whisper it to
