I roar down our street in Nick’s green MG, tears streaming down my face.
He’s got to Cat too. He’s poisoned her mind. She’s drunk the Michael magic potion …
I slow as I reach our house, heart racing.
Who the hell is that?
An orange-jacket delivery guy lurks outside the house, looking around the tall gate then peering through the crack. He won’t be able to see inside. The crack is sealed. I glued the rubber strip on myself with modelling glue.
I screech to a halt, bumping two car tyres onto the sidewalk (pavement, Lorna) and leap out.
We never order goods by mail because I don’t like strangers hanging around the gate. Or strangers, full stop. Nick calls me paranoid, but he’s given in to my cynical world view and now buys his protein bars and neoprene sleeves in town.
The delivery guy’s jacket boasts: ‘Same Day Guarantee’. He has a cosy-looking blond beard all around his face and neck like a furry scarf, and he holds a small, grey parcel.
‘Hey.’ I jog up to him. ‘This is my house. We never have parcels delivered. You must have the wrong place.’
‘Iron Bridge Farm, right?’ The courier has an oddly high voice, considering his large beard. I see two broken front teeth.
‘Yes, but I told you. We never have deliveries.’
‘It’s definitely for you.’ He hands me a small package, then unsnaps the plastic device from his belt. ‘Miller, right? Sign here.’
I squiggle my finger on the signed for device, staring at the parcel. Then I let the courier shove it in my hand.
The parcel feels light, like a piece of cedar wood, the edges squared but soft. I rip open the thick, grey plastic, making a big, jagged black mouth.
What the hell is this?
A book.
I slide the novel out of the plastic, my fingers slippery, unreliable, not my own.
The Tales of Hans Christian Andersen.
This is my book. One of the study resources I took on tour with Michael, before I abandoned school entirely to live with him.
An angry tear falls onto the cover. Where the hell did this come from? Who sent it?
Someone has folded a small, plain paper between two pages as a makeshift bookmark.
My hands shake as I flick the book open. The bookmark has been placed at the end of The Little Mermaid story. It’s the part where I stopped reading the book years ago on a flight with Michael, but the bookmark can’t be mine. The paper is too new.
The story is about love and sacrifice, I remember telling Michael.
Would you sacrifice yourself for me?
Of course I would …
There are bright yellow highlights on the bookmarked page. Did I make these highlights? No. I don’t think so. But then again, my memory of that time is terrible.
I read the neon yellow sections:
The knife trembled in the hand of the little mermaid; then she flung it far away from her into the waves. She cast one more lingering, half-fainting glance at the prince, and then threw herself from the ship into the sea, and thought her body was dissolving into foam.
‘After three hundred years, thus shall we float into the kingdom of heaven,’ whispered one of her companions. ‘Unseen we can enter the houses of men, where there are children, and for every day on which we find a good child, who is the joy of his parents and deserves their love, our time of probation is shortened. The child does not know, when we fly through the room, that we smile with joy at his good conduct, for we can count one year less of our three hundred years.’
More tears come, falling onto sandy-coloured, porous paper.
A story of love and sacrifice.
This is all Michael. He made this bookmark and he highlighted this section.
It’s a message.
He wants me to give myself up. Diane must be gone – Cat said something about her taking a flight. Michael is calling me back with the strongest bait he could get.
If I give myself up now, he might let Liberty go.