Sterile dawn light crested the trees. Blue’s white sheets were clammy with sweat, her hair plastered to her forehead, and she woke not from the cold or the light or the sound of the rain, but from the hammering of heart against rib.
She dreamt of the dead man last night.
Before anything else came back (the events of the previous evening, the state of the weather, the long pale hair), she remembered the cruel twist of the man’s cruel lips, the rotten smell of his rotten soul and the reaction of Mother.
‘You’re a little god.’
After the letter, she’d let Mother hold on to that idea; even Devlin had tactically ignored it. Though she never bought into Mother’s fantasy, Blue had believed that perhaps there was something good in it, that maybe her strange talents helped people. It’s all she had wanted to do; it made the terror worthwhile.
She should have left it well enough alone.
A flurry of rain drummed the window and Blue brushed the hair from her face, rubbed her temples free of the dream. The dull throb in her head reminded her of the alcohol. The ache in her back reminded her of the work at the stream – and the dead rabbit, the floodwater, the submerged fields, the cars that wouldn’t start, the face at the window, the thing in Sabina’s bedroom.
The feeling of suffocation.
She started upright and reached for her phone from the bedside table to check the time, check the signal, and see if she could contact someone, anyone, to get her out of here.
She had to get out.
Her phone wasn’t there.
Nor was it in the pocket of her jeans, her hoody, her bag. She searched the room stark naked, looked in every drawer and under the furniture. Mr Park had returned the phones yesterday – Blue had looked at the blank reception bars, frustrated she couldn’t use it but relieved that no one could google her and find out who she was, what she’d done. So where was it?
The headache was made worse by her hurry. She pulled on clothes, gave her teeth a harsh brush, didn’t bother to wash her face and left the bedroom to search downstairs.
Sabina’s door was shut; no sound came from within. Blue pictured her asleep beneath the white sheets. Pictured that face in the corner of the room.
At the top of the stairs, she slowed, aware of low voices in the hall. The Parks must be awake. How early was it?
The couple stood by the door that led through to the passageway. Mrs Park faced Blue but didn’t notice her. Her arms were folded, her gaze downcast. Mr Park whispered, gesticulated, pointed to the door, then the ceiling, then out to the side, and Mrs Park’s head hung lower. Her mouth kept its tension; regret and defiance held in its firm line.
‘For Christ’s sake, Molly,’ Joshua said, loud enough for Blue to hear.
Mrs Park looked up, clocked Blue, touched her husband’s arm in a warning and smiled too brightly at her guest.
Mr Park sighed and shook his head. He couldn’t or wouldn’t look Blue in the eye, said he’d put the kettle on and walked away to the kitchen.
‘You’re up earlier than I expected,’ Mrs Park said. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Yeah, OK, but too much wine.’ Blue tried to laugh off her awkwardness at the intrusion, but her stomach churned as well as her head, and she appreciated how true her words were. ‘I can’t find my—’
‘– that’s why I don’t recommend alcohol at the retreat; I knew Joshua shouldn’t have opened that first bottle last night. It only leads to trouble; I’m so sorry. Tonight will be different; you’ll sleep far better as a result. It’s so important, a good night’s rest. Guests always comment on it, how well they sleep here, how peacefully. They’re always grateful for it.’
‘Have you seen my phone?’ Blue tried again.
‘Isn’t it in the safe?’ She smiled an apple-cheeked smile, uncannily wholesome, and Blue wondered what the Parks had discussed.
‘Your husband gave it back yesterday.’
‘Of course, I forgot, what with the wine fog.’ She brushed down the front of her smock and gave a small laugh. ‘Silly me. They must have dropped out of your pockets last night; I found them on the armchairs earlier, so popped them away for safekeeping.’
‘But I had it last night; I checked it before—’ Blue said.
‘They’re such a distraction. It’s easier to sleep without electronics.’
A creak came from the ceiling and a light thud of footsteps. A wave of cold air washed the room.
‘Can I have it—’ began Blue. Goosebumps ran the lengths of her arms, her neck.
‘No point holding on to them until you’re ready to leave. There’s no reception here, and phones are such a distraction, don’t you think?’ She laid out the journals that Mr Park had put away the day before when they had all agreed the planned retreat wasn’t feasible.
At least, Mr Park, Milton, Blue and Sabina had agreed.
‘I’d like it back though if that’s all right?’
‘Let’s have a cup of tea and some breakfast first. I put on a lovely Sunday breakfast, I promise you.’ She gave Blue that same eerie smile, looked to the stairs and said, ‘You’re both early risers today!’
Sabina trod heavily down the stairs. She looked brighter, well-rested, unaffected by the smell of rotting meat that spread through the air like a swarm of locusts, oblivious to the pale-skinned, pale-haired, black-eyed figure close behind her.
It made Blue gag. Her knees almost buckled. She reached for the back of the nearest chair, was vaguely aware that Sabina and Mrs Park rushed towards her. She felt a hand on the small of her back, thought for a terrible moment that it was that thing, that it could touch her and she could feel it, until she realised with relief that the hand was too large, too warm. It was Mrs Park. Blue wished it had been Devlin.
Blue closed her eyes. She was overtired, overstimulated, had drunk too much.
‘I’m fine, I’m sorry, I’m fine.’ Blue forced herself to straighten, opened her eyes. She focused on the fact it wasn’t real. The projection of someone else’s fear or guilt would not undo three years of hard work.
Mrs Park fussed and Blue reassured her, blamed her sore head, said she could do with a coffee and a painkiller.
‘I could do with coffee, too,’ said Sabina, but she walked over to the chairs by the fire. ‘I just want to check … I think I dropped my phone last—’
Blue took a deep breath through her mouth, and her tongue tasted foetid air.
‘It’s in the safe, right as rain,’ Mrs Park said. ‘Let’s get you both through to the kitchen; I had a full English planned: sausages, bacon, eggs, mushrooms, all locally sourced—’
‘Could you get it out of the safe, please?’ Sabina said.
‘You’ll not need it; better to leave it where it’s secure. How do you like your eggs? I can do—’
‘No, I would like it now. Please.’
Mrs Park opened the door to the hallway, beckoned them both through, and Blue crept forward, kept her breath shallow, her gaze on the floor, stunned that no one else could smell it, see it.
‘Maybe after breakfast,’ Mrs Park said to Sabina. ‘A good feed will do us all—’
‘No, not maybe. And not after breakfast. Mrs Park, thank you for finding it and keeping it safe. I would now like my phone back.’ Sabina stood still, hands clasped behind her straight back.
What had Sabina done? Why was it so impossible for Blue to accept she might have committed some crime?
Because it’s not real. Because none of it is; my mind made a theatre.
The thought helped; the stench melted, the vision too.
Breakfast was served, drinks poured, the phones reluctantly returned. There was still no signal. Blue wondered if she could get the Wi-Fi password, thought it better to ask Mr Park. The man hadn’t joined them yet. Nor had Milton, but Mrs Park didn’t wait for either man before she served.
The food was hearty and good; the saltiness helped Blue’s sore head, and the paracetamol cleared the last of the throb. Sabina asked for mustard, but there was none left and so she had to make do with brown sauce. The hunger was bottomless; Blue ate twice as much as Sabina. Mrs Park, she noticed, ate little. She looked exhausted.
‘The elephant in the room.’ Sabina pushed her empty plate away. ‘Do you think a mechanic will make it out to us today? I would call the AA myself, but of course, I’ve no reception.’ She smiled gently at Mrs Park, bore no resentment about their phones. She seemed to understand as well as Blue did that Mrs Park’s want for them to stay was not malicious.
Mrs Park gave a resigned smile, said, ‘I’ll call now. Or you can, if you’d rather, from the phone in the passage?’
Blue looked back to her plate and the smear of egg and beans, took a final slice of fresh white bread and used it to mop up their remnants.
It’ll all be OK, she thought.
The yolk was putrid, the bread stale.
It’s gone cold, that’s all, Blue thought, and remembered Bodhi, how milk would sour when she saw him, how biscuits would soften and treats would turn rank.
Gaminess rose from the last of the sausage, its fat turned solid and grey.
It’s just bad meat, that’s all. A small piece of bad meat.
‘I’ll let you phone; you know more about the access here than I do,’ Sabina said, and Mrs Park nodded, brushed the crumbs from her smock and excused herself.
Blue picked up the slice of bread again. It was warm and light, the yolk soft.
Why is this happening now? After three years, why is my mind playing tricks on me now?
And another voice, one of logic and calm, answered and Blue thought about why she was here, the issues she might need to discuss.
‘It’ll be three years tomorrow,’ she said, surprised at her candour, ‘since Mother died.’
Sabina didn’t speak. Chin down, she squeezed her hands around her empty coffee mug.
‘I’m sorry,’ Blue said. ‘I didn’t mean to make you feel awkward. I don’t know why I said it, I’m—’ Her voice cracked.
‘No, please. I never know what to say in these situations, I’m not good at all with all … all this.’ Sabina gestured around, as though it were not Blue she struggled with, but life itself. ‘I’ve never believed in any of this stuff – this talking through things, and healing by dance and yoga and drawing pictures like I’m a child. I would have rather gone to a spa and got drunk on my own.’ She lowered her voice and leant towards her. Blue could smell last night’s whisky on her breath. ‘I’m pleased the weather is shit and has cancelled the retreat. I only wish I could go home. Honestly, I’d rather be at work. It’s therapy in itself; I think of nothing else when I’m in front of a computer other than the task in hand.’
In her mind, Blue saw a tall woman with a broad forehead and an aquiline nose, dark blonde hair pulled into a ponytail that reached her midback. Cracked lips pulled into a scream. She doubled over, clutched her middle, and Sabina reached out, touched the woman’s shoulder. The tableau melted.
‘When you’re at work, you forget about your sister,’ Blue said.
‘Stop it, stop … that.’ Sabina pushed her chair from the table, crossed her arms in the same way her sister had in Blue’s vision. ‘You know nothing about it.’
‘They need to wait, to see—You all right?’ Mrs Park stood at the kitchen door, eyeing her guests.
‘Will they send someone?’ Sabina regained her composure. Blue stared at her empty plate.
‘They’re checking the access and weather; there’s still a backlog from yesterday, including us. They’ll call back and let us know. Shall I get you both some tea? It’s taken its toll on all of us, this uncertainty. Our brains aren’t adapted to sudden change, generally speaking.’
Mrs Park turned the kettle on and cleared the table, came close to Blue and brought the chill with her.
‘I need to lie down, just for a bit,’ Blue said, gripped with terror that any second she would see something, smell something, taste something inhuman. Comfort came from the weight of her phone in her back pocket. She didn’t wait for a response before she left, gaze down so she wouldn’t see any dead things.
To run seemed dramatic, but still she ran, climbed the stairs two a pace, and locked her door.
She stood on her bed, searched for mobile signal, took the chair from place to place and stood on that, tried every corner of the window, prayed the extra height would give her a bar, but there was nothing.
Instead, she got a view of the field.
The driveway was one silver pool, the clouds and the alders reflected. The road away from the house was a river; the lane beyond the grounds was one too. The landscape’s only point of familiarity was the bridge’s head, two feet of its stonework above the water.
And the trees.
Stone upon stone of cold, hard dread formed a cairn in her gut. No escape.
How long would she be stuck here, hounded by an image of the dead, surrounded by people who didn’t know her, couldn’t understand or help her? How long before she lost her mind?
Her car was unusable, but her feet and her legs still worked.
She could borrow more waterproofs and put on her wellingtons, walk across the flooded land until she reached a house, any house other than this one.
If she knew which way to go. How far was it to the nearest farm?
Satnav was inaccessible. Blue had a compass app but no notion which way to go.
Another stone dropped on to the cairn.
The Wi-Fi code. Mr Park would give it to her, Blue thought; he was less uptight about his wife’s usual rules.
Blue saw him through the window. The lone figure waded through the bog that, days ago, had been field. Dressed in gaiters, waterproof trousers, waterproof mac and hat, none of his features were visible; his sheer size betrayed him. He carried a bundle of long-handled tools across his shoulders: a spade, a fork, a hoe.
He was near the house, a few hundred yards to go. Blue made to leave but was stopped by a knock at the door.
‘May I come in?’ Sabina tried the handle before Blue reached it. Blue had an impulse not to answer, to keep it locked and hunker down, because if she opened it, what if that thing was there?
Sabina repeated Blue’s name, knocked twice, sighed.
‘I came to apologise,’ she said, ‘for snapping at you. It was cruel, and unnecessary and I … I’m used to being able to hide. I’ve never met someone I can’t hide from.’
‘I’ve never met someone so difficult to read,’ Blue said.
A door opened below; Joshua Park thudded into the boot room.
‘Will you let me in?’ Sabina said.
Blue wanted to go down and talk to the man, not stand in her room idle and impotent. Still, she let Sabina in, and Sabina apologised again, and Blue said there was nowt to forgive.
She edged closer to the hallway, but Sabina didn’t move from the threshold.
Downstairs, Mr Park came into the house.
‘Did you mean that, about me being hard to read? You were accurate, made it seem so simple. So obvious.’
The desire to get away made Blue antsy and itched in her fingertips, in her toes. Another door closed, the one to the passageway. Joshua Park had moved on through the hall, but there was a chance Blue could catch him in the kitchen.
‘I can normally tell more, but I’m out of practice. It’s been a long time since I’ve done it—’
‘You used to do it a lot? Were you some kind of a fortune teller?’
‘I did a bit of tarot – basic talents, nothing special.’ Blue suppressed a sigh. She remembered her first meeting with Devlin, and Bridget’s talk of her own small talents and basic capabilities, and the memory was raw and too close. ‘I worked in a hospice, not a circus.’ She tried to brush her discomfort away with a laugh, and suggested they go downstairs to see if they could help with the floodwater. ‘They might need to sandbag the doors,’ she said, ‘and I really want to talk to Mr Park.’
‘Before you worked at the hospice, what did you do?’
She sighed in earnest, said, ‘Bits and bobs, you know. I worked in a factory for a while, then a warehouse.’ She had worked anywhere she could get a contract, stayed until someone recognised her or came across an old true-life-story magazine in a waiting room. She stayed as long as she could, left as soon as she had to.
‘You just do tarot as a hobby, then?’ Sabina finally stepped out of the room so Blue could too and Blue wanted her to stop, to shut up, to leave her alone and quit asking.
‘Not anymore,’ Blue said. The desire to run built firm in her legs and the desire to scream filled her lungs and her head. She had one simple, immediate goal: find Mr Park. Why was that so out of reach?
‘Why did you stop?’ said Sabina.
‘Because it’s rubbish, all of it, all right? It does nothing but harm and I’ve left it behind me, so stop asking, stop going on and on at me. It’s none of your business so don’t pretend like you care when no one cares!’
‘Jesus,’ Sabina stepped back, ‘what the hell happened to you?’
Blue felt the hurt fly off her like bats from a cave and the air filled with its quick feeling. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Blue and her own wave washed through her as a flood of otherness and isolation. ‘I just had one too many rough experiences. I was too young for it,’ she said, ‘and it made me grow up too fast.’