‘El. El.’ I lean closer. ‘You didn’t know.’
She pushes me away. Staggers back onto her feet. ‘What if I did? What if I did believe her? What if I told her everything, and then left her down there alone with my drugs, knowing that—’
I stand up. ‘You didn’t believe her. Not when you went back up on deck. You were relieved, remember? Relieved that it was all over. It wasn’t your fault.’
When she just goes on shaking her head, I grab her, force her to look at me again. ‘None of it was your fault. What Mum always said about the eldest having to look after the youngest, she was wrong. Just because her elder sister never protected her, you’ve had to sacrifice your whole fucking life for mine.’
‘Wasn’t such a great sacrifice,’ she says, and her smile is terrible, her gaze unfocused. ‘I loved him. I always wanted him, right from the very start. I always used to think I was so good, so brave. But lying and manipulating, planning, it’s like breathing for me now. Maybe I am bad. Maybe there is something wrong with me. Because it was my fault. I should have died and Mouse—’
‘I’m a drunk,’ I say. ‘I’m selfish. I’m disloyal. I’m a coward who has never faced anything. I wanted Ross, and I didn’t care when it hurt you. I hated you, and I never ever suspected that you didn’t hate me. And that night – that last fucking night – I would have kept going. If Ross hadn’t blocked up the hole, I would have left you behind, I would have left you with Grandpa, just like the Witch did to Mum, and I wouldn’t have looked back. I didn’t look back.’
El tugs on my arm. ‘That’s bullshit. You’re nothing like her. You’re nothing like them. None of it was your fault—’ She stops. Her gaze suddenly sharpens, her fingers loosen. She sits back down with a choked laugh. ‘I suppose you think that was clever.’
‘It wasn’t your fault, El.’ And I smile, even though it’s the very last thing I feel like doing. I sit down, move my chair close enough to hers that we can look at each other as if we’re looking in a mirror. Her eyes are red, her skin white. I think of her lying in that hospital bed. I think of all Mum’s stories, all her lessons. Shawshank, A Tale of Two Cities, The Count of Monte Cristo, Papillon, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, all those Agatha Christies. I’d only ever understood escape in them, but El had seen subterfuge. Imitation. Opportunity. Sacrifice. Rescue. That a white lie was just a lie that hadn’t got dirty yet.
And she would have come back. If I hadn’t escaped Ross too, she would have sacrificed her freedom, her new life. I know that absolutely.
I remember that hidden tribe in South America. How they would form a circle so tight around someone that they couldn’t escape. I clasp El’s hands. I make her look at me. And then I tell her about every good thing that she has ever done. Every good thing that she has ever been. Over and over. Until finally she sees me. Hears me. Believes me.
*
And then – then – I cry for Iona. I cry for the sister that neither of us even had the chance to love. To need. To save. I cry for the moment she sat beside me in Chief Red Cloud’s teepee, eyes big and blue and full of the best kind of sympathy.
It’ll be okay, Cat. I love you.
I cry for that melted, shiny thing on a metal stretcher. A bald rippled scalp, deep eyeless holes, teeth fixed into a lipless grin.
And most of all, I cry for Mouse. The little smiling girl with the chalk-white face and ruby-red lips who once told me, If you’re quiet and small and scared in the dark, no one will ever see you. Because no one ever had.
EPILOGUE
The day after Boxing Day we get up before dawn and make our way along the walkway in silence. The wind is low and the sea is calm. The lights of houses and boats slowly vanish until only the occasional streetlight remains, reflecting gold against the water. We climb, and duckboards take us through dark close mangroves, until finally we break into fresh air. And light. The dawn is coming: a thin bright line on the horizon, bathing the sea silver. A distant cockerel crows once, twice. I can smell flowers, something sweet like lilac.
We walk along a track, skirt around rocky outcrops and leaning trees. When we turn a corner, the wind blows hard against us, pushing my hair away from my face, cooling the sweat on my neck.
‘Oh my God.’
El turns to me, smiles. Looks at the huge shadow of rock sitting on a ledge above the water. ‘Morgan’s Head.’
I follow her as she steps down through a path overgrown with ferns and bushes bright with red and yellow flowers, grasping the bark of palm trees as the way grows steeper.
‘The lagoon’s just down here,’ she says over her shoulder, as we reach the vast craggy crown of Morgan’s Head.
I fight the ridiculous urge to say hello. Flatten my palms against the stone instead.
El smiles again. ‘I did that too, the first time.’
And then I see the lagoon. It’s beautiful: shallow blue-green water, turning darker as it gets closer to the rocks and reefs at its mouth. Surrounded on all other sides by high cliffs of stone beneath dense green thickets. At the bottom, we step straight down into the water, cool and shallow, sandy underfoot.
‘It’s beautiful, El.’
‘I’ve come down here every day since I got here,’ she says. ‘It was exactly how
