his fingers, tasting the air. “So what now? Are you going to take me back or something?”
Charlie’s brow crinkled. “I think you’ve turned out better than you would have done if you were part of me. And you’ve had a lot more fun.”
Spider said, “Rosie. Tiger knows about Rosie. We have to do something.”
“Of course we do,” said Charlie. It was like bookkeeping, he thought: you put entries in one column, deduct them from another, and if you’ve done it correctly, everything should come out right at the bottom of the page. He took his brother’s hand.
They stood up and took a step forward, off the cliff—
—and everything was bright—
A cold wind blew between the worlds.
Charlie said, “You’re not the magical bit of me, you know.”
“I’m not?” Spider took another step. Stars were falling now by the dozen, streaking their way across the dark sky. Someone, somewhere, was playing high sweet music on a flute.
Another step, and now distant sirens were blaring. “No,” said Charlie. “You’re not. Mrs. Dunwiddy thought you were, I think. She split us apart, but she never really understood what she was doing. We’re more like two halves of a starfish. You grew up into a whole person. And so,” he said, realizing it was true as he said it, “did I.”
They stood on the cliff edge in the dawn. An ambulance was on its way up the hill, lights flashing, and another behind that. They parked by the side of the road, beside a cluster of police cars.
Daisy seemed to be telling everyone what to do.
“Not much that we can do here. Not now,” said Charlie. “Come on.” The last of the fireflies left him, and blinked its way to sleep.
They rode the first minibus of the morning back to Williamstown.
Maeve Livingstone sat upstairs in the library of Grahame Coats’s house, surrounded by Grahame Coats’s art and books and DVDs, and she stared out of the window. Down below the island’s emergency services were putting Rosie and her mother into one ambulance, Grahame Coats into another.
She had, she reflected, really enjoyed kicking the beast-thing that Grahame Coats had become. It was the most profoundly satisfying thing she had done since she had been killed—although if she were to be honest with herself, she would have to admit that dancing with Mr. Nancy came in an extremely close second. He had been remarkably spry, and nimble on his feet.
She was tired.
“Maeve?”
“Morris?” She looked around her, but the room was empty.
“I wouldn’t want to disturb you, if you were still busy, pet.”
“That’s very sweet of you,” she said. “But I think I’m done now.”
The walls of the library were beginning to fade. They were losing color and form. The world behind the walls was starting to show, and in its light she saw a small figure in a smart suit waiting for her.
Her hand crept into his. She said, “Where are we going now, Morris?”
He told her.
“Oh. Well, that will be a pleasant change,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to go there.”
And, hand in hand, they went.
Chapter Fourteen
Charlie woke to a banging on a door. Disoriented, he looked around: he was in a hotel room; various unlikely events clustered inside his head like moths around a naked bulb, and while he tried to make sense of them he let his feet get up and walk him to the hotel room door. He blinked at the diagram on the back of the door which told him where to go in case of fire, trying to remember the events of the previous night. Then he unlocked the door and pulled it open.
Daisy looked up at him. She said, “Were you asleep in that hat?”
Charlie put his hand up and felt his head. There was definitely a hat on it. “Yes,” he said. “I think I must have been.”
“Bless,” she said. “Well, at least you took your shoes off. You know you missed all the excitement, last night?”
“I did?”
“Brush your teeth,” she said helpfully. “And change your shirt. Yes, you did. While you were—” and then she hesitated. It seemed quite improbable, on reflection, that he really had vanished in the middle of a seance. These things did not happen. Not in the real world. “While you weren’t there. I got the police chief to go up to Grahame Coats’s house. He had those tourists.”
“Tourists—?”
“It was what he said at dinner, something about us sending the two people in, the two at the house. It was your fiancee and her mother. He’d locked them up in his basement.”
“Are they okay?”
“They’re both in the hospital.”
“Oh.”
“Her mum’s in rough shape. I think your fiancee will be okay.”
“Will you stop calling her that? She’s not my fiancee. She ended the engagement.”
“Yes. But you didn’t, did you?”
“She’s not in love with me,” said Charlie. “Now, I’m going to brush my teeth and change my shirt, and I need a certain amount of privacy.”
“You should shower too,” she said. “And that hat smells like a cigar.”
“It’s a family heirloom,” he told her, and he went into the bathroom and locked the door behind him.
The hospital was a ten-minute-walk from the hotel, and Spider was sitting in the waiting room, holding a dog-eared copy of
Charlie tapped him on the shoulder, and Spider jumped. He looked up warily and then, seeing his brother, he relaxed, but not much. “They said I had to wait out here,” Spider said. “Because I’m not a relation or anything.”
Charlie boggled. “Well, why didn’t you just
Spider looked uncomfortable. “Well, it’s easy to do that stuff if you don’t
“Nothing really,” said Charlie. “It just all sounds a bit familiar. Come on. Let’s go and find Rosie. You know,” he said to Daisy, as they set off down a random corridor, “there are two ways to walk through a hospital. Either you look like you belong there—here you go Spider. White coat on back of door, just your size. Put it on—or you should look so out of place that no one will complain that you’re there. They’ll just leave it for someone else to sort out.” He began to hum.
“What’s that song?” asked Daisy.
“It’s called ‘Yellow Bird,’ ” said Spider.
Charlie pushed his hat back on his head, and they walked into Rosie’s hospital room.
Rosie was sitting up in bed, reading a magazine, and looking worried. When she saw the three of them come in, she looked more worried. She looked from Spider to Charlie and back again.
