I passed out again.
When I peel my eyes open, grey light’s filtering in through the window. A blanket’s been draped over me. I throw it off, my skin crawling at the thought of Celene coming in and watching me sleep. Why the hell did she put a blanket over me? Did she sit on the bed and contemplate my sleepy face? Did she think about finishing the job quickly while I couldn’t defend myself?
My hands go to my throat, but it’s not been sliced open, even if that’s the sort of thing Celene loves doing.
I don’t know why I’m alive. What’s she waiting for? A waxing moon, maybe, whatever that is. Or perhaps some kind of mystical alignment of the planets like in The Dark Crystal or the weird comics Troll gave me. Then they’ll strap me to a tree or something and carve out my heart.
The Celene of the nineties would have already chopped me up, tossed my pieces into the Thames and fried herself a full English. What’s stopped her?
My neck creaks and I hoist myself up from the floor. The room doesn’t spin and my skull doesn’t feel like it’s going to crack open, so I know the drugs have worn off. I press my ear to the door. Nothing.
Holding my breath, I ease onto a narrow landing. There’s no sign of Celene, so I go downstairs, my boots thumping loudly no matter how hard I try to be quiet, and I find myself in a cluttered living room. Dark curtains let in gauzy light and plants sprout in little pots on a bookcase. The books aren’t what I expect. The Art of War. And On GuerillaWarfare. And a load of spiritual crap I’d laugh at if I still had a sense of humour.
I never imagined her as a reader. She’s a killer. Pure and evil. But now here she is reading up on battle strategies. Because she’s planning something? I don’t want to think what and the unease that’s settled in my abdomen doesn’t let up, only becoming more leaden by the minute.
I go to a window and peer out at the cabins nestled among the trees. I have no memory of coming through here last night. Did she carry me up the stairs? Exactly how strong is she?
We arrived in the dark and I can see the camp for the first time. It’s a bizarre compound of buildings. A handful of cabins at ground level are rotting and deserted. A dozen more cabins are on stilts between the trees and look like they’re inhabited, well kept even. I can’t see the gates from here, but to the far right nestles a decrepit portacabin, and beside that is a building made out of breeze blocks that looks like it could contain toilets.
It’s a bizarre, half-dead place that might once have been a holiday camp. Except I can’t imagine anybody ever having fun here.
I notice a crowd has gathered at the steps leading up to one of the cabins. They’re all murmuring and crossing their arms and touching their foreheads, ignoring the mizzling rain. I can tell from the light it’s early.
The crowd makes me nervous. It’s happening already. I’ve been at the camp for one night and somebody’s died. I know I’m right. Unless… Unless this is normal. God knows what kind of people live here. If they’re anything like my mother, they’ll be hardened criminals, egos the size of jumbo jets. Fighting’s probably an everyday occurrence, and people like these fight to the bitter, bloody end.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m out the front door and hurtling down the wooden steps to the ground. I’m drawn to the commotion the way people are drawn to car crashes and burning buildings. I know I should stay away, but my feet won’t listen.
About fifteen people elbow in around the stairs leading up to another cabin. The knot in my chest tightens. Nobody stands about in the rain unless it’s something big.
Slipping through the crowd, I reach the steps but my way’s barred by a stony-faced woman. My heart’s in my throat and a familiar nag huddles like a spider in a corner of my mind.
This always happens.
‘Nobody’s allowed up there,’ the stony-faced woman says. She’s the one from the gates last night.
‘What happened?’
‘You’re Celene’s girl.’
I don’t know what to say so I try to push past her, but she slams a hand on the wooden railing.
‘Nobody’s allowed up there.’
A man joins me at the stairs. He’s in his forties and has an impressive beard.
‘May, why don’t you tell us what’s going on?’
‘Dr Scott’s up there, she’ll be down when she’s finished,’ May says.
‘Finished what?’
‘Yeah, what’s Dr Scott doing up there?’ a woman asks.
‘If Domhnall needs help–’ The man tries to push through and May grabs him by the collar, dragging him away from the stairs. Seizing my moment, I lunge past her and hurtle up the steps.
Domhnall. That’s the name Dominic used.
The front door’s already open and I’m heading inside when I see him.
He’s hanging from a beam in the living room.
His face is grey and swollen. His eyes milky and bloodshot.
The rope creaks.
‘Shit.’
A woman wearing latex gloves turns from the body. ‘What are you doing up here?’
‘Rumer.’
Another woman stands on the other side of the body. Celene. Beside her is a man, the one I saw holding the shovel when we arrived last night. First Celene looks angry, then her forehead smoothes out and her gaze softens. She hurries towards me but I’m already stumbling backwards, feeling top heavy, like my skull’s turned to stone.
‘I have to get out of here,’ I murmur.
An overturned chair rests under Dominic’s dangling feet. It looks like he killed himself, but I know better. He spent ten minutes in a room with me and I was so angry, I almost strangled him. I could feel the pulse ticking in his throat, counting one, two, three, and I wanted to squeeze it until it stopped.
Now he’s swinging from a beam.
I almost fall down the steps to the ground, tearing my nails on the rail.
Being here has made it worse. Nobody’s ever died this quickly. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. My thoughts are snarled and thrashing tentacles, searching for something safe to cling to, but finding nothing. I shove through the crowd at the foot of the steps.
‘Did you see Domhnall?’
‘Is he okay?’
I ignore the devil worshippers. The rain gets in my eyes, but I charge on, thinking of Dominic’s bloated face, his bloodshot eyes, and then I reach the camp gates.
As I throw myself at them, I’m only vaguely aware of a voice.
‘Rumer, please.’
Hands pry me away from the gates and I whirl to face her, shoving her off me. Celene steps back, raising her hands.
‘Okay, okay. Just please take a moment and breathe.’
I want to hurt her so badly. Everything’s her fault. My jaw aches, I’m clenching my teeth so hard, and I wish I could get rid of her the way I get rid of everybody else. With a look or a touch or a thought. And why is she alive? All these years I thought she was dead. Everybody did. She shouldn’t be here.
Celene’s big-eyed and panting. The look she’s giving me could mean anything. Pity. Shame. Fear.
‘So that woman they pulled out of the Thames wasn’t you,’ I say. The grave I’ve been to just once in nineteen years wasn’t even my mother’s.
‘I wish you hadn’t seen that,’ she says. ‘Domhnall.’
‘Don’t change the subject! You say he lies… lied, but you… You’re meant to be dead!’
‘I don’t expect you to understand.’ There’s no emotion in her voice. If anything she sounds tired, like this is a conversation we’ve had a hundred times before and she’s bored of it.
‘Who was she?’ I demand, because whoever the woman in Celene’s grave is, she could’ve once been a sister or a friend or a mother to somebody. And she got caught up in Celene’s games, all so Celene could disappear.
‘That doesn’t matter now. It’s raining. Let’s go inside.’
The more I stare at her, the more that robotic expression seems to suggest fear. Why would she be afraid of me? She’s not afraid of anybody, anything. I attempt to slip through the tentacles in my head, stop them thrashing, and the breath catches in my throat, as if an answer has lodged there.
I saw Dominic. He told me what they did to me, and then he turned up dead.
‘You killed him,’ I say.
Maybe it wasn’t me, the curse. Maybe it was her.
Her expression hardens and blood thunders in my ears. She’s angry that I know. She’s going to finish it now. Screw whatever ceremony she had planned. I’m too much of a liability. She wasn’t able to stop Dominic confirming my biggest fears, but she stopped him from revealing them to anybody else. And she can stop me, too.
But what comes out of her mouth next isn’t a confession.
‘I had no idea you’d be so cold.’
Her white hair is slicked into grey string by the rain.
‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’ There’s so little space between us I could reach out and slap her.
‘You’ve had it tough. I wish you hadn’t. I wish…’
‘That you hadn’t killed the woman in your grave? Or Dominic?’
‘How do you know that name?’
‘Just admit it. You didn’t like that he knew all your secrets, so you found a way to make sure he kept them.’
‘Domhnall… Dominic… I told you. He was troubled, always has been.’ Rain spits between us but I barely feel it. ‘He’s tried to kill himself before. This time he actually managed it. Look, if you want to know more about him, I’ll tell you. Just come inside.’
‘Tell me now.’
‘Inside.’
I give her a look that tells her I’m not kidding and her jaw sets hard.
‘He was a journalist once,’ she says. ‘Worked for one of the broadsheets. The Times maybe. It’s been a while. He was ruthless, successful… but he had problems. He was addicted to just about every drug going, and then he wrote something that wasn’t just untrue but completely fabricated. Probably while high. He lost everything. He couldn’t sell a story because nobody believed a word he said. Then he came here and he’s better… Was better. He could curb the mania, but when he drank…’
I think of the liquor bottle smashing at my feet and Celene’s so convincing. My head’s spinning again, all tangled tentacles and fear like stones, and I don’t know what’s real. Of all the things I thought when I saw her in the hotel window, I didn’t think she’d be like this. Sad and brittle. Desperate.
Maybe she didn’t kill Dominic. Maybe she got somebody to do it for her.
Or maybe he really did hang himself.
Maybe maybe maybe .
‘What do you want?’ I demand. ‘What am I doing here?’
‘I want to…’ She lowers her gaze. ‘I never wanted you to be part of that world. Mara’s world. I’ve been searching for you for twenty years and then I discovered you were caught up in his games. I realised the worst had happened.’
Worse than being abandoned as a kid? Worse than sleeping rough on the streets?
Worse than killing children and never being punished for it?
Cursing your own daughter?
‘I want to help you,’ she says.
‘You’re crazy.’
‘Maybe. But I’m trying to be the good kind of crazy. I’ll tell you about it if you just come inside.’
It’s a trick. As soon as she gets me into the cabin, she’ll shackle me to a pipe or the bed and then she’ll have won.
‘You should eat,’ she continues. ‘You’ll feel better.’
‘I’ll feel better when you let me go.’
‘You can leave whenever you want.’
The gates cut into my back and I consider digging my boots into them, hauling myself over the top and escaping into the forest, but I don’t feel well. My body’s heavy and my head’s pounding. All I want is to lie down and think. Straighten out the confusion knotting things together in my brain.
‘You’ll tell me everything,’ I say.
She nods.
‘And answer anything I ask.’
She pauses, then nods again.
‘And I’m not eating anything,’ I say, because I still can’t trust that she won’t drug me or poison me or serve me the flesh of one of her enemies.
Without a word, she turns and strolls back into the camp. She only looks over her shoulder once to check I’m following, but she needn’t have bothered.