Goldie
After regaining enough strength to return home, Goldie crawls into bed with Teddy and hugs him tight. To her surprise, he doesn’t squirm away but, once she’s unwrapped her arms, lets her lie beside him. Goldie’s body aches as if she’s just been beaten, her throat raw from hacking up water, so she places her hands on her chest to heal herself, to soothe her bruised muscles and sore bones, to inject herself with fresh energy and strength, to restore her former levels of power – a small resurrection of sorts. Blinking up at the swirls of plaster across the ceiling Goldie wishes they were the clouds of Everwhere and the ugly oval lightshade the unwavering moon, that she was lying on a blanket of bleached moss listening to the rustling of leaves and the raven’s calls, instead of Teddy’s shallow breaths. Lying beside him only exacerbates the thick, sticky guilt that coats her tongue and settles over her heart like the crush of a rock, guilt for having been so willing to die, to abandon her brother so readily, to discard him so easily.
‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbles into Teddy’s warm neck. ‘I’ve been so miserably selfish, I should’ve made more effort, I should’ve tried to snap out of it and live for you and take better care of you, I’m so, so . . .’ Tears slip down her cheeks and a sob rises in her throat, swallowing her words. If I could go back in time and do it again, be a better parent to you, I would. I only wish I could, but I can only . . . I won’t do it again, I promise to be a better person and to take care of you and stop thinking only of myself, of my own miseries and my own desires.
Responding with a sleepy groan, Teddy turns to bury his face into Goldie’s hair and squish his skinny, hard body against her softer one. At that, Goldie only cries harder, shaking with the effort of smothering her sobs from fear of waking him, unfurling a string of promises that she will not, under any condition, ever leave him.
Liyana
Aunt Nya still hasn’t left her room. Liyana has tried dragging her out of bed to slump on the sofa instead, thinking it would provide a slightly less depressing location to pass the time and that shuffling across the hallway into the living room at least suggests an attempt, albeit nominal, to get on with your day, to live your life. Not getting out of bed at all, Liyana thinks, is tantamount to giving up. To spend the rest of one’s life asleep, one might as well be dead.
When Liyana brings her aunt a tray of tea and toast for breakfast (as she did every day for lunch and dinner too, though each was discarded with barely a sip or a bite taken) she slips the handwritten page of Goldie’s story, ‘Worthless/Priceless’, under the plate. She hopes it’ll pique Nya’s curiosity enough for her to pick it up and read. Whether or not it will help reignite Nya’s heart and reawaken within her the desire to live, is another matter. Liyana’s hopes are not high.
Two hours later, when Liyana tiptoes back into her aunt’s room to retrieve the tray, the story is gone, the tea drunk and the toast eaten. She stares at the empty plate and cup. She has seen rivers rerouted, rain coaxed from the sky, moths resurrected, but now, met with this most simple and commonplace of sights, Liyana is almost unable to believe what she’s seeing.
Scarlet
Scarlet and Eli sit at the dinner table. Tonight, he was home before seven. A small miracle. Scarlet pokes at the salmon – overcooked and untouched – and stares down at her plate. Eli pours his third glass of wine. He proffers the bottle.
‘Do you want some?’
‘No, thank you.’
Eli sets the bottle on the table.
‘Had you forgotten I’m not drinking?’
‘What? No.’ Eli chews and swallows. ‘Of course not. But you are allowed some, you know. You don’t have to be so militant about it.’
Scarlet says nothing. I’m just being careful, she thinks. Silence stretches between them like a sulky child. Scarlet can’t imagine them, one day, having their own sulky child. How will these multiplying cells transform into a small human being? It seems impossible.
Eli looks up. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You don’t seem fine.’
Scarlet gives a slight shrug. ‘I will be.’
Eli sets down his fork. ‘You know, this isn’t going to work if you don’t trust me.’
Scarlet feigns interest in her potatoes. ‘I know.’
Eli reaches for her hand across the table. She doesn’t reach back but manages not to flinch when he touches her. ‘So, do you?’
‘What?’
‘Trust me?’
Scarlet hesitates. ‘Yes.’
Eli squeezes her hand. ‘That sounds’ – she hears the smile in his voice, the attempted levity – ‘more like a question than an answer.’
Scarlet fixes her eyes on their hands. How long since she’s seen those little showers of sparks when they touched? Finally, she looks up.
‘I want to trust you,’ she says. ‘I will . . . But it’s only been a few days. I just, I – I’m doing my best.’
‘I know you are.’ Eli lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses it, softly. Scarlet closes her eyes. ‘And I’m . . .’ – he searches for the word – ‘monumentally grateful that you’re giving me another chance. I only wish everything could be back to normal again.’
Then perhaps you shouldn’t have fucked another woman.
‘That’s not my fault,’ she says.
‘Oh, God, I know that.’ Eli shakes his head. ‘I wasn’t saying, I wasn’t suggesting . . . And, believe me, I’m going to spend the rest of our lives making it up to you. I’m just . . . I’m looking forward to having again what we had before.’
He kisses her fingertips and Scarlet watches him. Will we ever have that? she wonders. Is it possible that it’ll be the same again? Will I ever stop wanting to check his phone? Will I ever completely trust that he’s alone on his business trips? Will I always have a niggling whisper of doubt? In this moment, Scarlet can’t imagine that forgiveness is achievable, much less forgetting. How does one forget? How does she stop imagining their sex? The kissing. The dirty talk. The pillow talk. What did he say to her? I love fucking you. I want to slide my . . . And did Eli say to her what he says to her?
Scarlet shakes her head, dislodging the words, for the thought of this is almost too much to bear – the only thing worse being talk of love. Eli maintains, adamantly, that it was ‘just sex’. Though isn’t that the foulest phrase in the English language? ‘Just sex.’ Inconsequential enough to be instantly discardable, but not so insignificant that he could resist it, not so irrelevant that he could have simply chosen to do something else instead. Watch a football match. Drink a pint. Read a book. No, not quite so ‘just sex’ as that.
‘Are you all right?’
Scarlet looks up. ‘Sorry?’
‘I was asking if you were okay,’ Eli says. ‘You didn’t hear me.’
‘Sorry,’ Scarlet says again. ‘I was . . .’
She could talk about it. She could ask him again for details, for reassurance, for promises. But this ceaseless, hideous carousel of words and images and tears that never stops, never reaches a new, longed-for destination, is so agonizing and so exhausting. The questions are painful to ask and the answers painful to hear and never, never does the asking or the hearing undo or repair or lead anywhere but back to pain. Unremitting, relentless pain . . .
‘I, I . . .’ Scarlet begins again. ‘I’m fine.’
Goldie
Pushing the hoover across the plush cream carpet in room 27, Goldie glances longingly at the bed. She’s so tired after not sleeping last night – exacerbated by weeks of very little sleep – that she can barely stand straight. In all the years she’s been cleaning hotel rooms she’s never once even sat, let alone lain down on a bed. It’s too risky, and both the chance of getting caught and the subsequent price to be paid too high. But exhaustion has softened the edges of both reason and fear. What can it hurt, Goldie thinks, if I only stop for a moment?
Goldie stands in a glade. The willow trees flanking this hidden space are so closely pressed together that their boughs entwine into a canopy of branches and leaves so dense that the sky is no longer visible. It takes a few moments for Goldie to become accustomed to the dark and a few more moments for her to realize that she’s back in Everwhere, which means she must have fallen asleep on that hotel bed. Dammit. She’s about to wake herself and return when she sees something at her feet: a small body. Goldie bends her knees to crouch beside the creature: a fox, its body broken as if it has been snapped in half. Wondering what to do, she places a hand on its flank: still warm.
‘What are you doing?’
Goldie looks up to see Liyana emerging through a curtain of willow leaves, striding towards her. Quickly, Goldie withdraws her hand from the fox and stands.
‘I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t—’
Liyana frowns. ‘I didn’t say you had. Why would you think I would?’
Goldie shakes her head. ‘Nothing. I just, I found him here and I thought . . .’
‘What?’
‘Well, I just arrived and he was here and I thought—’
‘That you should practise,’ Liyana finishes her sister’s sentence. Now she too is standing over the fox, gazing down at the curl of fur and bone.
Goldie nods, relieved. ‘Yes, exactly. We don’t have long, and what if it doesn’t work, what if—’
‘It will.’
‘Yes,’ Goldie persists. ‘But if it doesn’t, we’ve only got till tomorrow night—’
‘I know. And it’s fine,’ Liyana says. ‘Stop worrying.’
‘It’s not fine,’ Goldie says, her voice starting to rise. ‘It’s fine for you. You’ve got the love of your life with you, every day. And if she’s not with you, you can phone her. You have no idea what it’s like for me – three years without a word or a touch or . . .’ Tears roll down Goldie’s cheeks and drop onto the fox’s body. ‘That’s nine . . . over a thousand, that’s . . . too many days. And every one of them like a year. Do you know? Do you have any idea what that’s like?’
Liyana shakes her head, having the decency to look a little shamed.
‘No,’ Goldie says, calming slightly. ‘And now I have a chance – one chance – to get him back. So, forgive me if I’m panicking.’
‘It should be in the water.’ Liyana reaches into her shirt to extract the talisman of Mami Wata. ‘We’ll harness the greatest power there.’
‘This is only a practice,’ Goldie says, casting an anxious glance towards the river. ‘We can do everything properly tomorrow.’
‘We shouldn’t do it at all,’ Liyana mutters. ‘It’s too dangerous. Look what happened last night.’
At her words, Goldie lets out a small sob and sinks to her knees.
‘All right, all right.’ Liyana kneels down beside her. ‘I’m not saying – let’s try it like this, let’s do it together.’ Mumbling an incantation, Liyana kisses Mami Wata’s tiny wooden head. Behind her, a line of willow trees shiver, scattering leaves over the sisters and the small corpse. Liyana closes her eyes and bows her head, rhythmically rubbing the carving and continuing to murmur the inaudible invocation.
Following her sister’s lead, Goldie closes her eyes, bows her head and chants her own invented, intuitive prayer – a call for assistance and a blessing. She looks up to see Liyana stretch out her hands across the fox – now shrouded in leaves – head still bowed. Goldie takes her sister’s hands.
‘Ina rokon albarkunku, Mami Wata . . .’ Liyana intones softly at first, then louder and louder so her voice fills the glade. ‘Riƙe hannuna kamar yadda na kawo wannan dan kadan daga sauran rayuwa.’ She pauses, inviting Goldie to join in. ‘Ina rokon albarkunku, Mami Wata,’ they chant together. ‘Riƙe hannuna kamar yadda na kawo wannan dan kadan daga sauran rayuwa.’
Still chanting, Goldie imagines the fox, its yellow eyes blinking, its soft russet fur dappled with white spots like splashes of sunshine. She pictures the fox alive – bounding over fallen trunks, its paws a dash across stones and rocks, body taut as wire, ears flicking at the faraway crack of a twig. Liyana releases one of her sister’s hands to brush the leaves from the fox’s body, then she presses both palms to the fox’s breast, while Goldie follows suit and cups its heavy head. They begin the recitation again.
A rush of warmth seeps from them and quickly, more rapidly than has ever happened when they’ve healed anything alone, the fox’s whole body begins to heat up.
‘Ina rokon albarkunku, Mami Wata,’ Goldie echoes Liyana, pressing her hands tight around the fox’s skull as the reanimating heat seeps from her skin and into the dead animal. ‘Riƙe hannuna kamar yadda na kawo wannan dan kadan daga sauran rayuwa . . .’
‘Ina rokon albarkunku, Mami Wata,’ Liyana incants. ‘Rike hannuna kamar yadda na kawo wannan dan kadan daga sauran rayuwa.’
Then, they feel it. The quiver of an ear, the sudden twitch of rigid legs. Liyana looks up to meet Goldie’s gaze and, still chanting, they grin at each other. A convulsion jerks through the fox from nose to paws and then in one sudden, swift movement it’s up, shaking off the remainder of its leafy shroud, staring at the sisters for a split second with its keen yellow eyes before leaping away, darting across the stones and disappearing through the curtains of leaves.
‘Not so much as a thank you,’ Liyana says, gaping. ‘How rude.’
‘Kids nowadays,’ Goldie says. ‘So ungrateful.’
They grin at each other like ecstatic fools; their laughter – buoyed by relief and hope – peals in the fox’s wake and rises up and up, high above the trees. On a hidden branch the raven regards her sisters below with a proud, beady eye.
None of them see the cracks starting to snap along the trunks of every tree in the glade, marking them like lightning strikes. None of them feel the building tremors shuddering deep beneath the network of roots and the moss-covered ground.
Liyana
Sitting on her bed she shuffles the cards. Again, again, and once more for luck. As the cards slice into each other, shifting from Liyana’s right hand to her left, one snaps out of the pack and falls. She bends over the edge of her bed and reaches to the floor to pick it up: The Devil.
Liyana cuts it back into the pack and continues shuffling. But, whenever she glances down, The Devil has come to the front. She slices him into the deck, again and again. Still hoping. The buoyant joy she’d felt in Everwhere has faded and now she’s scared.
‘Tell me about tomorrow night,’ she whispers. ‘Tell me that it’s going to work.’
Liyana holds her breath for one final shuffle, then deals out five cards onto her duvet. He is the first to appear, followed by the Three of Swords, The Lovers – reversed, The Magician and The Tower. Their pictures are intricate, bright against the white sheet.
The Devil: a man and woman are chained together by their ankles; the woman is dressed in a flamboyant costume, the man naked, with green skin and red eyes, hair slicked into horns, feet shaped into hooves. The woman has turned her face away but he is looking at her, as if he wants something that she doesn’t want to give. Greed, temptation, obsessions and addictions. The Three of Swords: a girl sits on a stone holding her own heart in her hands, the swords pierce her heart, blood dripping from their tips. Heartbreak, isolation, devastation. The Lovers (reversed): an amorous couple embrace on a flying carpet of hearts that soars over the top of an illuminated city. Deception, separation, loss. The Magician: a golden-cloaked woman holds a shining wand to the sky, an owl flies above, fairies and sprites dance at her feet. Infinite possibilities, power, determination, action. And, just as Liyana had feared, The Tower: a grey wind blows through a crumbling stone tower, a man and woman fall to their deaths from its windows. Sudden collapse, reversal in fortune, defeat.
Liyana searches for patterns in the cards, for connections in their meanings, for hope where there is none. Gradually the elements blend, creating the unique interpretations that come with every dealing of the cards. When the reading is complete, when there is nothing more to see, no hope to be found, still Liyana waits. The identity of The Devil still isn’t clear but this much is certain: Goldie won’t get what she wants. Exactly what will happen, Liyana does not know. But she is sure of one thing, that great suffering will be wrought upon all.