Elliot hadn’t been home for months. He steered his BMW E Series off the main road and drove down the familiar little lane that led to Ipstones. He knew every nook and turn, having traveled the route twice daily on the school bus. The trees had grown, but not much else had changed in the years since he’d first moved to the village.
He didn’t remember arriving at Ipstones. He just woke up one day and was living with Mrs. Hughes. He recalled crying a lot. He’d missed his parents terribly, and the pain had never really left him. There were no graves, his mother’s body had never been found, and his father’s had been taken by the sea, so he never had closure. There were so many unanswered questions, and Elliot puzzled over them constantly. It was a way of being close to them, he supposed. He could never feel their embrace, but he could try to keep them alive in his memory. And the more he thought of them, the more he came to hate Ben Elmys, the man he was convinced had some role in their deaths.
He parked in a space by the old church and walked back along the road to the little cottage he’d shared with Cynthia Hughes. He let himself in and was immediately greeted by the musty smell of a house that hadn’t seen a living person for months. The place was still and silent. Cynthia’s rosy face, her constant humming of show tunes, and the smell of her baking had been absent since she’d passed away at the end of his first year at Oxford. He’d spent the summer straightening out her affairs and coming to terms with the fact he was utterly alone. Tears and self-pity had been his only companions that bleak, rainy summer, but as he’d started his second year, the pain of her passing had faded.
He still didn’t like to come home, though. He hadn’t cleared the house, and there were reminders of Cynthia everywhere. The tacky kitten-festooned Home Sweet Home sign by the front door, the collection of Edwardian china figurines, the family photos of Cynthia as a child with her older brother and parents. Elliot passed the mementos of his guardian’s life and went into the kitchen to reclaim a set of keys from the odds and ends drawer.
Minutes later, he was on the road again, this time heading for a house that had once been full of love and laughter but was now associated with loss and suffering. The dark clouds that had been spitting mockingly all morning finally threw down their worst, and the roads were coated with a slick wash of heavy rain. This was how Elliot remembered Longhaven, the cottage where his mother had become sick with cancer, where he’d received news of his father’s death, the place that had been his home until he was ten. There had been happy times, bright moments with the parents he longed for every single day of his life. But those happy memories had been overwhelmed by a fog of misery.
Time was friend and foe. The years had made his suffering fainter, so he didn’t feel as though he would immediately cry at the thought of his mother and father, but equally the passage of time was the enemy of memory. He used to recall exactly how his mum smelled and what her hair felt like when she hugged him. He used to be able to remember the flush of contentment he’d experience whenever she smiled at him. When he was younger, he could recall the sound of his father’s voice, the smell of his aftershave when he carried Elliot upstairs to bed. Now those details were gone, and his absent parents were just ideas, vague ghosts that haunted his memory. He tried to clasp specific moments, like the night his father had given him his mother’s necklace, but his mind was fallible, and he knew it would eventually fail his parents and forget them altogether, and that was a prospect he simply couldn’t bear.
Elliot turned onto Ash Ridge, the winding lane that led to Longhaven, and he followed it through the wild open countryside that stretched from the foot of Hen Cloud, the inland cliff formation that had sparked his imagination as a child. His father had often used the gritstone towers that loomed above their family home as inspiration for stories, but like the memories of his parents, the details of those tales were lost, and all Elliot recalled were vague snippets of pirates and dragons lurking in hidden caves.
Elliot saw the cottage as he rounded the bend and it looked as miserable as ever. Cynthia Hughes never felt she had the authority to sell the place, so she had rented it out, but it had stood empty ever since her death. Elliot wanted nothing to do with it and had abandoned it, perhaps as pathetic retaliation for his own abandonment. As he neared the building, all the old feelings surged. He wanted to feel his mother’s loving embrace and hear her tell him everything would be okay. He longed to be with his father and ask why he’d abandoned his only son.
A lump grew in his throat as he thought of all the things he would say to his parents, all the moments that were stolen from him, and how fate, ill fortune, or the malevolence of one man had conspired to leave him utterly alone.
Elliot parked on the lane and jogged towards the cottage with his hood up, trying to shield himself from the worst of the rain. He pushed open the creaking gate and hurried up the drive. The dead house exuded loss. There were times when Elliot wondered whether he should have it torn down, but now he thought there was no need. The years and the elements would do the job. The windows were intact, but the pointing in the brickwork was crumbling and coming away in places. Any paint had been attacked by the seasons and was faded and flaked, and there were splits in all the door- and window frames.
Elliot walked around the back of the house and took out the keys he’d retrieved from Cynthia’s—his—kitchen, but he didn’t need them. When he reached the back door, he saw it was ajar.
Where else would a recently released prisoner go? Elliot asked himself.
Something had told him Ben would come here. He prayed the man was still inside. A confrontation was overdue.
He pushed the door and crept into the damp utility room. He entered the large kitchen and found only empty units, a rusting Aga, and the ghosts of his past, bubbling memories of the weird lectures Ben used to deliver over hastily prepared meals of beans on toast.
Elliot moved through the rest of the house, but it was empty and there was no sign of Ben Elmys anywhere. Elliot lingered in his old bedroom at the front of the house. It had been converted into a study by one of the former tenants but was now empty. A lump formed in his throat as he imagined all the family moments that were fading with time. Of his mum and dad tucking him in, reading him bedtime stories, a tender happy history being consumed by passing seconds. His strongest memories were of his months with Ben, and even they seemed faded, patchy, and unreal.
There was always one interaction he could recall clearly: the night his dad had given him his mother’s necklace. He pulled it from beneath his hooded top and studied it now; a silver pendant with a moon and stars and the word Beth. Elliot remembered how he had tried to be brave when his dad had given it to him, but once he was alone, he’d clasped the necklace and cried most of the night. He had put it on the following morning and hadn’t taken it off since. It was a permanent connection to his lost parents, and for all the faded memories, Elliot thought that night with his father was something he’d never forget. The following morning was the last time he’d ever seen the man.
Elliot went downstairs and drifted through the old dining room and the living room, where Ben used to make him listen to weird recordings. He was about to leave, when he noticed a brick by the fireplace was askew. Elliot recalled his father showing him the secret hiding place that lay beyond, and he went over and pulled the brick out. He reached into the small cubby hole and felt a piece of paper.
He unfolded it and read the distinctive typescript as rain drummed the window.
Fluttering on a wind that isn’t there
The kite floats along the corridor
Light beyond
Dark behind
A girl skips after it
Chasing
Hands reaching
Fingers stretched
And sprung
Ready for the moment
Hungry for the catch
Always on and on
The kite floats along
On a wind that isn’t there
Hurry Harri
Your time has come
Elliot’s stomach knotted and his heart raced. He knew where Ben Elmys was going.
Harriet Kealty was in grave danger.