“What the fuck was that?” he said.
I looked at the others, to see if they’d seen it, too. Luke was frowning out into the darkness. Cora and Abi glanced at each other, as though . . . as though they were sharing something. You know? A thought, a realization . . . something.
And then there was a noise, like someone running through the undergrowth, and Abi shrank back against the wall of the cave.
“Oh shit,” she was saying. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit . . .”
Luke darted forward, but stopped when Mason swung the bottle.
“Cut me if you want,” said Luke, with the jagged glass centimeters from his face. “Go on. Do it. It’s the only way you’re going to stop me getting past you.”
And I guess he must have seen something in Mason’s eyes. Capitulation, hesitation, whatever you want to call it. And then Luke was moving again, out of the cave, across the stream and scrabbling up the bank.
“Luke!” yelled Cora. “Wait!” She sounded afraid—even more afraid than she was of Mason, I guess, because she was suddenly running for the woods, too. And by this point I don’t think Mason knew what to do. In fact, in spite of the broken bottle, he looked about as terrified as any of us.
All of a sudden Abi started running as well. Whether to go after the others, or to get away from whoever was out there, I don’t know. And then it was just me and Mason left in the cave.
“Mase?” I said. “We need to go after them, Mase.” I edged forward, close enough that I could hear the raggedness of his breathing. “I swear to you, the stuff you were saying . . . it’s not true. None of it. But whoever’s out there . . . maybe they know what happened to Sadie.”
The bottle twitched in Mason’s hand. He looked at me, out into the darkness, then back into the recesses of the cave.
“Fuck!” he suddenly roared. And when he turned to face me, there was so much fury in his eyes, so much frustration, I could have sworn he was about to lodge that bottle in my throat.
And then he was gone, out of the cave and into the rain. Before I knew it he’d been swallowed by the darkness.
I only hesitated for a moment, and then I was running for the woods, too. And I don’t know about the others, but the only thing on my mind was to help my friends. I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, I swear it. All I can think now is that we’d have been better off remaining exactly where we were. In spite of Mason. In spite of the bottle.
We should have stayed and taken our chances in that cave.
FLEET WAS WALKING the estuary when he discovered the inscription. He hadn’t been looking for it. He’d had no idea it was there. He’d only come down here in the first place in an attempt to clear his head.
The promenade ran beside the water’s edge, funneling the river into the sea. At some point in the past two decades, the council had scraped together enough money to lay some paving, paint the railings, install a few Narnia-style streetlamps—to put just enough gloss on the area, in other words, that any visitors might at first glance consider it a pleasant place to take a stroll. The local tourist board had even planted several pairs of coin-operated binoculars, perhaps in a halfhearted attempt to recoup the town’s investment. But just as the railings had started flaking, and every third streetlamp was out, the slots on the binoculars had all been blocked up with chewing gum. Now passersby were denied the dubious pleasure of watching in close-up the tatty fishing boats setting out on the steel-gray water, or the golfers on the course across the river swatting their balls wildly into the wind.
Not that either option would have interested Fleet, even if there’d been enough daylight left by which to see. It had already begun to fade when he’d first come down here. To think, to walk. To make the most of the break in the weather when he’d finally left the station. Now, under cover of darkness, the rain had returned, and Fleet would long ago have gone back to his hotel if, in the dying of the light, his eyes hadn’t caught on the words that were etched on the bench.
In memory of Jeannette Fleet, loved and never forgotten.
The bench was the last on the harbor walkway, a final resting place for passing pedestrians before the river washed away into the sea. Fleet could see exactly why his mother would have chosen this particular location—and who else other than his mother could have been responsible? He imagined her sitting exactly where he was now, in the slight hollow he could feel beneath him in the seat. Early mornings, late evenings—it would be as private a spot as was possible to find in an area that was so exposed. The perfect place for Fleet’s mother to set aside her shame and, with her eyes on the point the heavens met the water, to quietly allow herself to grieve.
He’d misjudged her. For the best part of twenty years, he’d assumed she’d put religion over family, her god over her one and only daughter. He thought of the crucifix around his mother’s neck, as well as the mantelpiece devoid of Jeannie’s image—not to mention the accusations Fleet had hurled his mother’s way before, as a teenager, he’d stormed from his childhood home. Driven by guilt, undoubtedly, but anger, too. At the fact his mother, after Jeannie killed herself, had chosen to act as though she’d never been alive. If
