“Oh my God,” I say, sickness rising through my stomach like a tide.
“So, obviously, the next question for everyone is who this woman is. According to the milkman, Lily – or, who we think was Lily – seemed to be upset, but still going with this woman quite willingly. She also didn’t have a bag with her. If this was a planned runaway, wouldn’t she have wanted to take something with her – a toothbrush – at least?”
I assume that Mum means this as a rhetorical question, but when I look at her I realize she wants answers. From me.
“Jesus, Mum, how would I have a clue? You know I haven’t been proper friends with Lily in a long time.”
“I know, love, I know. And I want to keep your name out of this as much as we can, but, unfortunately, you’re the only person who knew Lily very well. She’s a very insular kid. Even Rory seems to have been oblivious to what was going on in her head.”
I almost ask, “Who’s Rory?”, forgetting that “Roe” is a title only shared with a trusted few.
“I don’t know, Mum. What do you want me to say? Like, Lily can be odd, but I don’t know why she would just follow a stranger into the street.”
“What about the woman? Do you have any idea who that could be? Is there anyone she was talking to, even online or something?”
“Mum, I keep telling you, I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just –” she tightens her grip on the steering wheel, even though the motor is off – “when a man takes a teenage girl from her bed, you expect it, you … you know what that’s about. But when a woman takes her…”
She stares through the windscreen in silence, blinking hard. Wondering, I think, how she could have possibly raised five children and have nothing like this even cross her mind before. For a moment, I think about what it must be like to be her. To think you’ve seen everything that could hurt children, and then have to contend with something new.
“Mum,” I say, putting my hand on her back. “It will be OK, won’t it?”
She nods and folds me into a hug, holding me tight.
“Let’s go inside,” she says. “You honk of wine.”
Crap.
“And no, I’m not thrilled about it, but I’m glad you’re not getting rat-arsed in a field. If you’re going to drink, please try to only do so in houses where there are at least two parents and at least one saxophone.”
I trudge up the stairs to bed with a pint glass of cold water in my hand. I tell myself that I won’t be able to sleep, but as soon as I pull my dress off and put my head on the pillow, I’m out.
The wine sends me into a heavy, drunken slumber that lends itself naturally to heavy, twisted dreams. Dreams where a dark-haired woman remains constantly in my field of vision, but always just out of my grasp. I can never look at her face-on. I only get flashes. A lock of straggling black hair that doesn’t curl or wave even though it’s soaking wet. A mouth that is full but completely unlined, devoid of any spiderweb lines of cracked skin.
I am following her down the path I walked with Roe, the path that stretches alongside the Beg, tripping behind her and screaming at her to turn around. I keep wanting to call out to her, to command something of her, but my mouth can’t find the words. Who is she? What is she? I grapple at it, like my mind is pawing at a cliff edge that keeps falling away. She’s something. Something in a home. A maid? A cook? Something in a nursery?
Finally, we reach the narrow underpass where Roe and I almost kissed, but didn’t. Where he told me that witches know things by their true names. At this memory, the word “housekeeper” shoots across my brain like a burning comet.
She starts to turn around, and I see the curve of a slightly piggy, upturned nose, and the beginnings of a smile. My mouth starts to fill up with water, dirty river water that tastes like mud, metal and weeds.
I wake up with a pain in my stomach so deep that I have to stumble to the bathroom, holding my belly as though my guts are about to explode out of it.
The vomit is fluorescent pink and tastes like acid, and with each new retch, I vow to never drink red wine ever again. I clutch the side of the bowl, shivering as chunks of barely digested meat are ejected out of me. My thick, frizzy hair keeps spilling forwards, flecks of vomit sticking to it like paint splatters.
Once my stomach is totally empty, I run the ends of my hair under the tap, brush my teeth and wash my face with Mum’s expensive wash. I almost feel OK again, except for a thudding, pulsating headache that’s ringing through my skull. I’m still trying to analyse the dreams, but it’s like trying to transport water from one hand to the other. With each pass, another detail falls away. The feeling, however, stays strong. The woman from the cards has taken Lily. She’s a demon, or a ghost, or a witch, and she sprung to life through the reading I gave Lily three Fridays ago. That’s who the milkman saw. That’s what has taken her.
Back in my bedroom, Tutu has taken advantage of the open door and is lying with his head between his paws, his tail thumping supportively. I pull back the covers and he burrows in, his doggy sense of empathy clearly detecting that I need help.
I settle back into bed and open my bedside cabinet, hoping that there’s a Nurofen Plus in there. I dig around, my hands flailing
