The boat pressed up against the sandbar and the Silent Boys jumped out to haul us in. There were more waiting on the shore, all too glad to serve my grandmother.
I forgot how much respect she demands, just by her presence. Even watching the Silent Boys serving her with their big, respectful eyes was more alien than familiar. When did that happen?
They followed Seanmhair as she walked up the beach; members of the family were all gathered beneath the rocky cliffs to greet her. I hung back, using the grounded boat to hold me up, and watched as they surrounded her, swallowing her until I couldn’t make her out from the rest.
“That your family?” Jeanie asked, and I nodded. “Perfect. Tell me what the bloody hell I’m doing here again?”
I managed to grin at her through my half lids, until Scott stepped up to her side, his lips pressed together.
“Welcome home, Nads,” he whispered.
And then he looked at me.
They both caught me as I slipped. I was trying to take a step toward him. He knew it too, and without a word, he lifted me into his arms and I wrapped mine around his neck.
I sighed into his neck, since I couldn’t tell him the words that were in my head.
He kissed my hair and I knew he understood.
I am locked in my room.
It has not changed since I left. I can hardly move without bumping into my eleven-year-old self. The desk (too small and painted white) displaying an array of glittery pens and colorful pieces of paper. The corkboard above strung with magenta ribbon, a makeshift notice board. Pinned on it are only two photos: one of Seamnhair and me at the winter festival.
And one of me and Haji. I am riding his shoulders. He has fewer markings on him, and his hair is shorter. But I can see already he has dipped his foot into Grúndi. Now that I have dirtied myself with the black art, I can see it painted on him, even then. I lean forward, trying to figure out what he thought he was doing, messing with that stuff.
I remember asking Seanmhair when I was older, Why does Haji sully himself with it?
Seanmhair had looked down at me and smiled. He has a gift for it. He can control it. It bends to him as much as he bends to it. But you, my girl. You are for Mala and Mother Karrah alone.
Haji’s picture smiles out at me, frozen in time, full of unknowable secrets.
I’m going to set up my camera, keep it running. I’m going to clear Kaitie’s name and I’m going to prove what happened to her was real, because it’s happening to me. This headache, this rising warmth, this blurring of the world… did she feel it too?
I’m going to put up my old webcams around the house so I can see everything.
Then I’ll put all the footage of all my proof into the mail to DCI Floyd Homes with a note that reads: FUCK YOU.
I can’t sleep. Both Scott and Jeanie are snoring in sleeping bags on my floor, their dreams soundless and calm. I can tell by the looks on their faces.
Not mine.
Mine was full of endless corridors that changed and bent and twisted around me. The Dead House. My very own Dead House. It’s beginning to look more and more like hers.
Oh, God, Kaitie. I’m so sorry. I failed you, and I led you to the thing that wanted you. The demon that was waiting. And I don’t even have the vocabulary to describe it anymore.
I am so sorry, and it will never be enough.
I have your diary.
Not a single person knows that you told me where to find it that day in the hospital. I don’t know why. I can hardly touch it, much less look at it. Your everything was in there, and I know I am too. Some long-dead version of me, anyway.
It is a dialogue of my mistakes. Your trust. My betrayal.
The first line is all I’ve been able to read.
I curse anyone who reads this book. If you touch it, hell will be waiting.
Cute. I’m crying like a goddamn baby now, thank you. It’s so you that it’s like I feel you here with me. I feel as though I’m still down there in the basement with you, feeding you cookies and stitching up your arms.
I don’t know why you wanted me to have this, Kaitlyn. But I hope you’ll give me a sign.
Naida Camera Footage
Fairy Island, indoors
Date and time not noted
The footage is long, because Naida has not set up the timer as she did in the basement of Elmbridge High School. Much of the night is recorded, into the early hours before the footage ends. It is presumed that Naida plugged the camera into a power source overnight.
Night vision is active, and through the green-tinged screen we can see that Naida is asleep in her bed, Jeanie in a cot at the far side of the room, and Scott is lying on the floor in a sleeping bag.
At first the night is calm. The only noise registering in the mic is the sound of the storm outside, the whistle and hiss of the Hebridean winds. About three minutes pass before Naida stirs. Her body flinches violently and she raises her arms as if in defense. She stills again, but only briefly, before she is shaking her head back and forth, her arms raised, her hands clawed.
She begins grunting, as though in agony, or in making a great effort. This continues for several seconds until, at last, she jerks violently and sits up, awake.
She grabs her head, shaking it as though to dislodge a bug in her ear. When her breathing has calmed, she gets out of bed and leaves the room, grabbing another camera on the way out.
15 February 2005
I am still waiting for Seanmhair to come to me, to tell me what the elders have decided. But every moment that she waits, the word becomes heavier, my head aches the more, and I lose my foot in this world to some blurry otherworld.
How can I have changed so much since I left?
I have walked the white stone path of the eternal coast. I have dipped my fingers into the waters of the prayer spring and stood beneath the great weeping willow. And I have felt outside of it all. The eternal coast felt like a land I could lose my way in, even though I have walked the paths many times since I was three. The prayer spring felt cold, and my fingers dirty in the clear waters. And the great weeping willow seemed to shadow me, judging and claustrophobic.
Seanmhair watches me, and when the others look at me, they stare as well.
I am a spectacle.
They watch me as a curiosity that has brought them some strange danger.
I am not their little Dasha anymore. I am Naida, The Girl From the Foreign Isle, The Girl Who Carries the Demon.
I am Naida, tainted. Cursed. They send me their wary glances.
I am an alien in my home.
I am not welcome here.
Been called to the council—taking my camera.
Naida Camera Footage
Location, unknown
Time index, unknown
It is a dimly lit room. The camera screen is partly obscured by something green and blurred—most likely part of a plant. It can be inferred that it was placed by Naida, in secret, before the meeting began.
Men and women of advanced age begin to trickle into the room from offscreen. There is the sound of doors closing, and then the last of the party enters the shot. Seven women. Five men. Each of them looks to Naida’s grandmother before taking their seat at her dignified nod. Naida is among them, but she does not sit. She stands, outside the circle of chairs, and enters when called by her grandmother.
“Naida.”
Naida’s gaze has not left her shoes. She nods with respect.
“Thank you,” she says, and Naida looks up, eyes wide. “Thank you for being brave enough to come home and face your family.”
Naida blinks and bites her lip.
“It is not easy to acknowledge a mistake. It is not easy to face the consequences. But we all here—your aunts, uncles, cousins, and far-reaching Dupré family—we all know that what you did, you did out of love. Love of your friend. And the risk you took cannot be called foolish without also being called brave.” Seanmhair’s voice drops in volume. “Your mother, my daughter, Karrah carry her, would be sad, and proud.”
As her grandmother speaks, Naida shrinks and shrinks upon herself until she is on her knees, her arms wrapped around her torso, and she is weeping.
Her grandmother kneels down too, in one surprisingly fluid movement, her dress flowing like the leaves of a weeping willow, and lifts Naida’s chin. Naida resists at first, but then gives in, though she does not open her eyes.
“Oh, child,” Seanmhair says. “I have lost one grandchild. I will not lose another.”
Naida opens her eyes, and more tears fall. She reaches for her notebook, which still hangs around her neck, and slides the pen free. I thought… I thought you hated me. I thought you all hated me.
“Naida—” Seanmhair says, and then pulls Naida into her chest in a hug that all but envelops her. “We don’t hate you, child! We could never hate you! We love you! And that is why we are afraid.”
The men and women who have been watching, so austere and silent, all kneel, abandoning their chairs and gathering Seanmhair and Naida in a circle of protection. They stay this way for some moments, then Seanmhair’s voice sings out, gently at first. It is a song in the tongue of the local Islanders, one that is no longer spoken anywhere else. Soon others join in. A man here, a woman there, and then the volume grows, and thirteen voices ring out, powerful and spellbinding. They sway sideways as they sing until, at last, a singular voice—beautiful—is heard from the center. Naida sings with her family.
The song bends and turns, harmonies dance out and are retrieved; a tapestry of sound that is woven into the walls, the plants, the dimness in the room, and even into the camera.
The song, vibrant and alive, is cut short with a hiss; the image flashes, blurs, distorts, and then dies.