I lie down in bed, trying again to find undiscovered cracks on the ceiling so I don’t think about Mum. Dad. Elizabeth.
Shepherd.
I’m not crying at all. This is what scares me the most. Where am I locking up the things I felt when he fed me to the wolves? I’m not big of a girl to carry all of it. To carry all the pain in the pit of my existence and all the loss of what was, all the wishes that will never come true.
I can hear the whispers coming from the box under my bed.
Tell him. He has every right to know the truth. This is why you’re not opening up to him.
I know how important the contents of the Black Magic Box is, what it means to me — to us. If only I could turn back time, back to when the box wasn’t a place I kept this dark secret, but was just a chocolate box. The chocolates were eaten years ago, in a snug front room, passed around by my unbroken sister. A happy family, enjoying a treat together.
Tentatively, I pull it out from under the bed. It feels heavier in my hands than it actually is. I lift the lid, and in the light cast by a shrieking crimson comet, a firework in the sky, the top photograph gleams with glossy perfection. I shut the lid with a loud clank, chuck it back under the bed, and turn my face to the wall.
Shepherd is forcing me into the darkest corner.
I can’t open it. I can’t.
I can win this battle with memory if I only focus on my checks. Empty mind, numb heart.
I need to do my checks.
After an hour, the checking is going badly wrong. It’s worse tonight because I opened the box.
It’s my fault Elizabeth is damaged. And what am I doing? I went into the woods and fell into euphoria and earthquakes and ecstasy with a man I . . . used to love.
I’m a wicked human being.
A wicked sister.
Every time I think I’ve done the checks, doubt looms like a dark cloud, fear seeps into my veins like a virus. There’s no point doing it if I don’t do it properly. By the time I’m done, my hands are jelly. I start to cry then. Fat tears fall uncontrollably down my cheeks. My shoulders shake. And I collapse against my room door.
Pain everywhere. My back, my wrists, my legs. Even my hair hurts.
The worst of it is in my head. Hot, white shards of pain stabbing my skull. The dark closes in. I can’t tell where the blackness ends and I begin. Why is it so, so dark?
I try again. Close my eyelids. Open. Close. Open. Nothingness still smothers me. I can’t see a thing.
My hands pull at knots in my hair until some hair comes out —
I hear the footsteps this time. Clunk of his heavy boots. I hear his door upstairs open and close. I stand still, like a frightened mouse, holding my breath, trying not to squeak.
He knocks.
BANG. BANG.
I flinch back.
I’m not scared it’s him. I’m a little bit scared of what comes after.
‘Amy? It’s me. What’s going on? Something wrong?’
I can’t reply, I just gasp and sob.
I think I hear a sigh.
‘Something is wrong,’ he says. ‘Open the door.’
I gulp in deep breaths of stale air. ‘Nothing, I’m alright.’
‘Bullshit. Open the door. Now.’
‘No. Leave me alone.’
‘Open it, Amy,’ he says slowly, menacingly. ‘I can help.’
‘Help? You’re the last person who can help me. I told you what happened with us was a mistake. Please, just go away.’
The tears pour down harder like hail. I’m angry now, as well as afraid. Angry at him for always being here. Angry that he is the glue keeping me from shattering apart like a glass doll.
‘Stand back, Amy.’
‘What?’
‘Stand back.’
I don’t know why, but something tells me to move. I get to my feet and step back.
Shepherd smashes my door open, using the force of his wide shoulder to break through. My knees cave in and I drop like confetti, a crumpled mess. He charges in. The cell-like room suddenly smells intimate. I smell his pipe-tobacco and beer and his smell — leather, musk, and moonlight.
He closes the door behind him, lock torn apart, and sits down next to me. He doesn’t come too close, just sits there with me.
I can’t look at him.
‘Take a breath and hold it,’ he says.
I listen to him and try. There is just a lot of gasping. ‘I’m so — I’m . . . I’m so tired. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t do it . . . couldn’t check.’
‘I get it,’ he says, and he doesn’t sound anything like the cruel Shepherd I’ve come to know in recent weeks. ‘Listen, think about your breathing, nothing else. Just your breathing, for now.’
Again I try. My fingers tingle. The skin on my face, tingles. Feels like little electric shocks.
‘Take my hand, Amy.’ He extends it out across the gap between us, steady. A lifeline.
I reach out, touch it, withdraw, touch it again, like a yo-yo going up and down, until he takes hold of me. His hand is cold, icy.
‘Now try again with your breathing. Amy, look at me.’
I try that too. The breathing is still like a ping-pong machine. If I can’t keep calm, I am going to keel over.
‘Just think about your breathing. Breathe with me. In — hold
