Mia struck a match and brought it to the wick. Cupping the candle with her hand, she placed it on the dressing table, where the flickering flame reflected glassily in the mirror. She stepped back, her eyes automatically searching the shadows for Sweetpea before she remembered.
The room was stuffy and she opened the window wide and leant out, elbows propped on the sill. She stared across the dark rooftops into the distance as though she might see his flat from here—the lovely moss-green room with its books, its soft rugs and paintings—and she wondered what he was doing right now, the man she would be meeting tonight.
Turning away from the window, she stopped in front of the dressing table once more. As she brought her hand up to undo her hairclip, she paused. In that gesture, she suddenly saw Molly: the head slanted, the long neck, the pale, tapering fingers. But then she removed the clip and her hair curled round her face and she was Mia. No one here to rely on, except herself.
She knelt in front of the trunk and took out the small engraved tin box hiding underneath her clothes. Sitting down cross-legged, she placed the box with needles and moxa on her lap.
For a moment she closed her eyes. Into her mind came thoughts of broken webs of light, of darkness and death, and of time running out. She thought back to the text message she had received on her phone an hour ago.
MEET ME AT THE RETREAT. IF YOU BEAT ME, NICK IS SAFE.
She opened her eyes and lifted the lid off the box. No more time to waste.
• • •
The track leading to the Retreat seemed narrower tonight and less even. She felt sharp pebbles bite into the soles of her feet.
The cry of a night bird brought her up sharply. The startled echo seemed to spin out into the woods and set her nerves on edge. Above her head, through a tracery of black branches, an army of restless clouds raced across the sky. A cratered moon glowed with preternatural brightness.
She pressed on. Not far to go now. Round the next bend in the track was the gate with its stiff catch and then the clearing with the house.
The gate was open.
The gate was never open.
Fear. It covered her mind, a sticky spider’s web. It slowed her pace, dried her mouth. A gust of wind shook the trees and the rustle of leaves sounded like women sighing. You die in here. You die out there.
She should go back. Back to the house in London. She would lock the doors and close the windows. She would make herself hot tea and turn on the lights and all the shadows would leave.
I love you, Mia. You’re my life. Nick smiling at her, his hands so gentle. Nick, who would be sleeping right now, his heavy shoulders at rest. He would be gathering his strength, his lungs inhaling and exhaling cleanly; the energy inside his veins an insistent pulse.
She pushed the gate even wider and shivered at the cold touch of the wrought iron against her palm. As she continued walking, the wind suddenly increased in strength and an acrid smell filled the air. She couldn’t place it. It mingled uneasily with the scent of jasmine and the smell of rotting leaves. It made her feel even more anxious. The smell was unfamiliar, intrusive.
The last bend in the track was in front of her. On the other side was the Retreat. She turned the corner and stopped, feeling sick.
The Retreat was lit brightly by that toxic moon and it gaped, an empty burnt-out shell. The bamboo roof was completely gone and only a few beams thrust up into the sky. The windows stared, blind. She could see right through the charred frames to the swaying trees on the other side.
She had to force herself to place one leg in front of the other. Her chest felt tight. She walked across the clearing, her hands to her face as though they might shield her eyes from the devastation.
The stone steps were black where the fire had left its mark. Something glinted on the ground: the wind chime that used to hang at the entrance, the individual chimes now twisted and melted together, their voices stilled.
Slowly she stepped through the wreck of the door. Her eyes saw the destruction inside, but her brain refused to understand how beauty and elegance could be erased so thoroughly. Some things were too terrible to grasp.
It was almost all gone. The wall-hangings, the wood panelling, the exquisite vases and polished hanbo staffs. At her feet was a half-burnt book, its pages charred and curling.
The various rooms were filled with ash. She hurried past the room of crickets, her gaze averted, not wanting to examine what she would find inside. The dojo was a black hole. The mirrors on the walls had buckled in the heat and her reflection seemed elongated and warped, as though she were looking into a mirror in a fun house.
Tears were running down her face. Her heart felt broken at the terrible loss: at the knowledge that the imprint of the women who had dwelled here had been burnt into oblivion and their true names erased.
A small sound came from behind her—like settling dust. She spun round, her eyes searching the layered darkness. But there was no one.
No one.
And that’s when it struck her. He was not going to come. He was not going to give her the chance to win from him Nick’s life.
‘No!’ She screamed but her voice had no power. ‘Where are you? Show yourself!’
But she was alone. There was only the wind in the trees and a maimed moon slipping from the sky.