‘MICHAEL, GIVE ME BACK MY DAUGHTER!’
Can throats bleed? If they can, I should be swallowing blood right now. Rivers of it.
My eyes scan the awful, frightening woods – trees I ran through with a baby in my arms.
Where is she? Inside Michael’s castle? In one of the turrets? MY turret? Or … my stomach drops … the little cottage in the woods?
Bad memories tumble with blind fury as I rattle the gates, black metal paint flakes scratching my palms.
The fir trees … the smell of earth … those golden twisty turret towers.
There was a girl here once. A skinny, weak, pathetic girl. A girl who cried and pleaded and never fought back. Why didn’t I? Why didn’t I kill Michael when I had the chance?
I remember my sister coming to these gates. Begging me to come home. Pain and fear pulling at her soft, plump face.
I’ll never leave you, Lorna. I’ll always be there for you. No matter what …
Dee never did leave me. She was the only thing in my life that was real back then. My mother, my friend and my hero. A real hero, not just the image of one.
More memories come, thick and fast.
Me at the window of that turret room, waiting, waiting for my prince to come home. Michael, chasing me through the woods. And Annalise … no, don’t go there. Don’t even think about her right now.
Coming here is like a lid coming off a bubbling pan. That crazy person – the maniac who ran from this house with a baby in her arms. She’s waking up again. I want to stuff her down, but I’m not sure I can.
Tears fall.
‘MICHAEL,’ I scream. ‘PLEASE. Give me back my—’
My words fall away as I see Diane through the trees. She’s walking carefully, lips pulled tight. Her eyes are fixed on the ground, but I know she’s seen me.
My hands freeze on the cold metal.
Diane is dressed in punk rock leopard-print boots and black jeans, skinny as a broomstick, stuck in a time when Michael loved me best. Her brown hair is cut into neat ends and tucked behind her ears, just like mine used to be. Is she trying to look the way I used to? Or is she just doing what I did – moulding myself into something Michael likes?
As Diane reaches the gate, her head flicks up. ‘Hello, Lorna.’
‘I shouldn’t have done it, Diane.’ I know my eyes are wild and crazy. ‘I told myself a bunch of lies about Michael. I was such an idiot and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just want her back. Give my daughter back and I swear to God I’ll leave you both alone.’
‘She’s come to see her father. The man you stole from her life.’
‘Please. Don’t let him take her away from me. I love her.’
‘You’re not capable of loving anyone.’ Diane’s voice is cold. ‘All you do is tell lies and make a mess. Try to break up happy marriages. Hide an innocent child from her own father. Thank God Liberty had some sense about her and wanted to find out the truth for herself. I can’t imagine the courage it must have taken her to come here. After all the evil stories you must have poured into her.’
Liberty’s name feels like a bullet in my stomach.
I grit my teeth. ‘Michael’s the one who tells lies, Diane. Open your eyes.’
‘Don’t start that again.’ Diane’s voice rises to a shout. ‘Don’t you dare. After everything you’ve done to him, to try and blacken his name—’
‘I didn’t try to blacken his name. How can you not know what he is?’
‘Michael isn’t perfect. But he’s a kind, loving husband. I’ve known him since I was a child. He’s always done right by me—’
‘Even when he was sleeping with me?’
Diane’s face tightens. ‘You bitch. You cheap groupie bitch. Throwing yourself at married men.’
‘I never threw myself at him,’ I say. ‘He pulled up outside my apartment in a tour bus and whisked me away with him.’
‘These are stories, Lorna. Your fairy stories.’
‘And he told me you two were separated. And that you were too weak and pathetic to deal with a divorce. You want to know what else he said?’
Diane’s eyes burn on mine. ‘Go ahead, Lorna. Give it your best shot.’
‘He said you married too young. That you were just a teenage infatuation, someone who played hard to get and wouldn’t have sex unless you were married. He said I was the real thing. True love. The best sex he ever had. And he said he couldn’t divorce you because you’d kill yourself. That’s what he said.’
‘You should be ashamed of yourself,’ says Diane. ‘They save the hottest part of hell for women like you.’
‘Do you think I’d have been with Michael if I hadn’t thought you were separated?’
‘Yes,’ says Diane. ‘That’s exactly what I think. I think you were obsessed with my husband and looking to get him any way you could. Listen, I know you were ill. That your mind isn’t quite right. That you were looking for a happily ever after.’
‘Of course that’s what you think,’ I say. ‘You want to believe the Michael fairy tale, just like I did. The truth is too painful. But were you there? Were you in the bedroom with us when he told me I was his one and all?’
‘Get the hell off of our property,’ says Diane. ‘You’re a bitter, twisted, jealous groupie who tried to get my husband put in jail. Honest to God, look at you with all those tattoos. What are you … a Hells Angel or something?’
‘No, I’ve done my time in hell,’ I say. ‘When I lived here.’
‘You never lived here, Lorna. That’s another of your many fantasies. And you don’t care about Liberty. You’re here because you’ve lost power over her. Have the decency to go home and let Liberty get to know her father.’
Diane whisks around and totters back towards the house.
‘GIVE ME MY DAUGHTER,’ I scream. ‘GIVE HER BACK TO ME.’
Diane doesn’t turn around.
‘YOU KNOW WHAT HE DID TO THOSE GIRLS. YOU MUST KNOW.’
Diane stumbles and catches herself on a tree. But then she carries on walking.