*
The day before El was discharged from the hospital, Ross met me at the Royal Botanic Gardens again. It was raining, and we stood under a big willow tree next to the wrought-iron gates. He held my hand as I cried, as I begged him. Don’t. Please. He cupped my face in his hands, tried to catch my tears with his thumbs, his eyes nearly black with grief. She left me a note, Cat. She said we’d broken her heart. She said she couldn’t live with us or without me.
Why do you have to be with her? I wanted to scream. Why does it have to be her?
But he just went on looking at me with his sad eyes and his stupid, knee-jerk shame. I love you both, he said, and that was when I knew that El had won – no matter how wretched he looked or how much he cried – guilt had finally managed to prise us apart. I’d lost him for good.
El has to be watching us. She has to be sending the cards. To get rid of me. But why? Because until she vanished, she was rid of me. All of it: the cards and clues and diary pages have only made me hate her more and him less. And I can admit to myself now that when I read LEAVE, the first thing I thought was No. And the second was Come back and make me. Because I should have fought back the first time. I should never have given up, run away, tried to forget. She’s had my life for years. She’s stolen it. While I’ve been what? A reflection in a mirror. A shadow on the ground, dark and flat and impermanent. Inconsequential.
The wind picks up, urges me back towards the house, and it’s as I turn that I hear the shed door. It’s not quite flush with its frame and makes a dull quick thud with every gust. Without knowing why, I go towards it, push it open. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dark inside. When they do, all I see are dusty, empty crates, some old newspapers and bags of compost. And then, a flash of bright blue.
I venture in reluctantly, picking my way through all the detritus. The blue is crammed right at the back of the shed, folded into an untidy cube. I lean down to touch it, and it feels like the same kind of material as the blow-up mattress El and I used to have in the bedsit. Something stirs in my mind then, some bad conclusion that my subconscious has reached before the rest of me. I should leave this where it is. Whatever it is.
Instead, I haul it out from under all the rest of the crap, and hard enough that I nearly lose my balance. I try to straighten it out, pull it into whatever shape it’s supposed to be. It’s big, maybe as tall as I am. There’s a large oval gap at its centre, and inside it I find a carbon-fibre paddle folded into four pieces. The word Gumotex is printed along the length of the largest. And that’s when I know for sure.
It’s El’s inflatable kayak.
CHAPTER 14
I have a terrible dream. El and I are running – and hard – the force of our sprint shudders up our legs, jars our knees and hips. Fear is a solid beating thing. Pushing down on our shoulders, snatching the breath out of our mouths.
Behind us is the Tooth Fairy, her heavy fast tread thundering over floorboards as we run into the Clown Café. Dicky Grock looks frightened instead of sad, his lips pressed thin as he ushers us inside the dress-up cupboard. Even Pogo looks worried, though his wide red smile remains frozen in place.
We crouch down in the dark. The Clowns close the cupboard door, the seams of their cloth feet scratching across the floor as they run to hide under the bed. Inside, we breathe stale cold air, hold on to each other hard enough to hurt. I can hear boots, heavy and erratic. I can smell blood.
The cupboard handle starts to rattle, to turn and turn, and then the cupboard is gone, the Clown Café is gone, and El and I are standing on the shoreline of a beach, the sea washing over our feet, the black silhouette of a pirate ship on the horizon. Bluebeard is standing over Grandpa on the sand, holding a long, curved hook in one hand, a longer stovepipe in the other. Grandpa has half a head. Dinnae worry, lassie. He laughs. Ah’m feelin’ nae pain.
Bluebeard grins at us with every one of his pointed black teeth. His face and chest and knuckles are covered with blood. He likes to hit. To hurt. His hair reaches down his back to swing heavily between his legs. His beard has bones in it. He winks, and then he brings the stovepipe up and around again, smashing what’s left of Grandpa’s skull, spraying arcs of crimson across the sky.
Mum grasps hold of our arms, pinches our skin. Her face is bloody, eyes wild. You hide from Bluebeard, because he’s a monster. Because he’ll catch you, and make you his wife, and then hang you on his hook until you die. She shakes us, lets go long enough to point at the black ship. Nearer now, riding the incoming tide. But you run from Blackbeard, because he’s sly, because he lies. Because no matter where you go, he’ll always be there, right behind you. And when he catches you, he’ll throw you to the sharks.
So we run. We run even though the sand is too deep and the tide is too high. Even though Blackbeard’s ship is so much closer than it’s ever been. Even though we can feel
