Daisy’s hero-worshipping horrifies me.
She gazes at me with her large, blank eyes. ‘Don’t tell me that, Daisy. I’m not anything.’
People walk around with so much pain and nobody sees it.
I need to get better — now not tomorrow. But there’s only one way that can happen.
I have to open the Black Magic Box.
38
YOU
YOU MUST REMEMBER to forget, Amy. You did forget, but you’re remembering now. Bad things happen when you remember . . . Promise to forget.
But I can’t promise that. Not anymore.
It’s ten past one, darkest velvet outside. I go under my bed. I open the box.
Every cell in my body is shaking as I take out the Wedding Day DVD.
The face on the cover is my beautiful sister. Sometimes I see Elizabeth in the corner of my eye. My Elizabeth before the accident, smiling bright as a star.
But she looks so sad in this picture.
It’s all opening up inside me. But it hurts. I want it to stop.
I put the Wedding DVD back inside and shut the box.
I pull my knees to my chest, and start rocking on my bed.
Why does my father want to meet Shepherd?
My dad won’t tell Shepherd the truth, I know that. But Shepherd is intelligent, smart, perceptive. He might figure it out. Shepherd has this ability to rile anyone up, and my father might let something slip out in a moment of anger. I don’t want Shepherd to hate me. He is the air I breathe.
How can I fill in the cracks and stop the monsters from coming back?
I start checking.
Over and over and over, then just once more. I get stuck again. Each time I check, I do it wrong somehow. Lose count. Don’t do things in exactly the right order. Don’t have my hand on the door for long enough.
Hour after hour, I start again and again and again. I take a shower around three in the morning, shivering when I get out. I get some joggers on and Shepherd’s white T-shirt — one I still keep — and start again at the door.
Still no good. I end up sitting by the door, my head on my knees, sobbing and shaking, making such a racket that I don’t hear him coming down the stairs. He bangs on the door. Makes me jump out of my skin.
‘Amy? What’s wrong, baby?’
I can’t use words. I just gasp and sob. He’s just on the other side of the door.
‘What’s happened?’ he says, louder this time. ‘Amy? Let me in.’
After a moment I just say, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’
I wait for the sound of footsteps going upstairs, but they don’t echo. A few moments later, the sound of him sitting down on the landing outside my door.
After I manage to control my breathing, I crawl away from the door and sit on the carpet looking at it, thinking of him sitting outside. What must he think of me?
‘Are you alright?’ he says.
I clear my throat. ‘Yes . . .’
I hear shuffling as he gets to his feet. ‘Are you? Don’t lie to me.’
‘Yes. I promise. Thank you.’
‘Do you need anything? Tea, or something like that?’
‘No, I’m okay. Really.’ It feels like madness, talking to my door.
I hear a crack, like a fist to the wall, and him muttering to himself, ‘Why’d you have to be such a fucking arsehole?’
Then he says to me, ‘This can’t go on, Amy. You know that, right? I can’t let it. I can’t see you like this.’
I don’t say anything for the longest time.
‘Aren’t you going to leave?’ I finally say.
‘No, I’m staying here.’
‘All night?’
‘All night.’
‘You can’t stay out there all night.’
‘People tell me I can’t do a lot of things, Amy. I still do them. Did this happen because of me?’
‘No . . . it’s never been because of you. I just need . . . I just need some space, Shepherd. I can’t breathe. There’s too much going on inside my head and I need time to think. I am trying. I promise. I really am trying to get better now.’
I opened the box. I took it out. I’m making a start. I just need a little more time.
‘Okay . . . I promise I’ll give you space.’
‘Do you really mean that?’
‘If that’s what you want. Is it, Amy?’
‘Yes.’
There are a thousand hurts in that one lie. Venus is closer to the Earth than that want is to my heart.
‘I won’t push you to come to mine anymore.’
‘Shepherd?’
‘What is it?’
‘I’m scared . . . that’s why I don’t want you to speak to my father.’
My fear grows like poison ivy in the ensuing silence.
‘I won’t go see him. Just focus on breathing. Focus on getting better. We can think about the future later.’
‘Thank you. You can go up now. I feel better already.’
‘I’m staying here all night, no arguments. Go to bed, Amy. Dream sweet if you can.’
He slips something underneath my door and I go to pick it up. When realisation dawns, my breath catches in my throat.
He kept it.
The Monster Catcher.
He’s held on to it after all these years . . .
Why?
The reason why could kill me, I think, so I shut the door on it.
I look at my door. I’m inside my home, he is outside it, keeping that space between us.
39
ME
I meet Fab5 for lunch at Bishop’s pub. We discuss business matters over steak and hot coffee. When Bishop clears our table, I tell him to take a seat.
Bishop’s lived in Greystone his whole life. An ex-copper, he might have information that could be useful.
‘You ever know a Violet
