Chapter Twenty-Five

‘Keep singing, Mam-gu.’ Our eyes dart about the ruin. It’s what we wanted, but the reality of it is still terrifying. ‘Don’t be afraid.’ I call this out into the shadows beyond the candlelight. ‘We won’t hurt you.’

The voice is hesitant at first. The girl sings along with Mam-gu. I guess she learned the language enough back then, when they were friends.

The end of the song comes too soon and with the last note Mam-gu seems to shrink. She pulls herself together and holds the piece of sea glass up to catch the beams of the torches. From nowhere the girl appears in the centre of the circle, next to her. She’s not solid. She’s more of an impression, flittering in and out of focus as if she is a fading memory. It’s hard to describe.

Mam-gu swallows, opens her mouth to speak, but can’t. Someone has to say something, before the moment is lost.

‘Tell us what you want from us.’ I sound stronger than I feel.

‘She’s sorry.’ Snow is speaking for the girl as if she understands her by telepathy. ‘She doesn’t want to be alone any longer.’

The girl turns and faces me. I balk. My mouth opens and shuts like a goldfish gasping for air. The burning sensation starts again, constricts my breathing. It is like two burning hands around my throat. I have got to keep it together.

‘She’s sorry but she wants a friend and you are getting in the way, Lark.’

I’m burning to a frazzle but no one seems to notice. They are all transfixed by the girl. She is staring at me. I can’t bear the heat. Sweat pours out of me like lava.

‘I can’t … breathe.’ My throat is getting so tight. I can’t get any air. ‘Please…’

I’m asking the girl to stop the pain. It’s directed only at me and it’s searing. She is coming closer and as she does her anger burns into my flesh. I can’t take any more. I’m going to die if I stay here.

I let go and run. Straight out through the cutting brambles and into the thick woods. I can hear them shouting behind me but I keep going. Their cries holler through the woods, echoing in my wake. The shouts are caught up by the wind and chase me through the trees. They are too close. I can’t run any faster. I can’t escape.

My lungs are exploding. Stars of pain dazzle me. I have to stop. To catch my breath. I crouch inside the hollow of a tree. Their voices are far off, like something underwater. I huddle down, making myself as small as I can. Stay calm. I breathe in short rasps. I try to slow my breathing down, to concentrate on getting oxygen deep into my lungs.

The heat is dying down a bit. Breathe. I can still hear their voices. Far away, calling my name over and over. People will hear. Dad won’t think we are bat watching now.

There’s a sulphurous feeling at the back of my nose which spreads rapidly to my throat. She’s close. She’s found me. I can feel her anger strangling me. I scrabble blindly about in the belly of the tree, find a stone and hurl it blindly into the darkness. And then I run again.

I should go back. I should protect Snow and Mam, Mam-gu and the gang. I’m too afraid. I’m such a coward.

I burst from the woods. In the sparse light of the moon, I see the thundering sea, the beach and look down on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff where I came out before.

I know there is a path down to the beach, but I’ve dropped my torch so I’ll be lucky to get down it alive. I have to try, though. I can’t stay here like prey, waiting at the edge of the cliff for the girl to come and push me over. I can’t go back into the woods. I’m just too scared. The voices have died away. I’m all alone out here. No. No. Not entirely alone.

Finding the top of the path isn’t easy and once I’ve found it I know that I’m taking my life in my hands. I could sit and wait it out till morning, but something tells me that I wouldn’t make it till the sun rose. I’d die of exposure, if nothing else. There’s no fog this evening but the clouds are scudding through the sky and the cold snatches my breath.

I use the wavering moonlight to make my way down. Scree skids under my boots and rattles down the path ahead of me. I can’t think about falling. I have to keep moving.

I get to the beach, panting for breath, a stitch stabbing my side. I can make my way across the sand back from here. If I can see enough not to slide and fall on the icy rocks.

She’s still with me. There’s a snicker of a laugh close to my ear.

‘What do you want from me?’ I need to face my fears. ‘Tell me.’

I can’t see her. The wind blows hard in from the sea. I have nothing to lose. ‘Stop being such a coward. Come on. Face me. I dare you.’

‘I am not a coward.’

She’s there. Right in front of me. Fading in and out. Her eyes glittering. Her fury scalds.

‘Why are you trying to hurt me?’ The wind hurls my voice at her. ‘You are not taking my sister.’

She is blisteringly livid. Her shouts cut straight into my brain. ‘I won’t be alone anymore.’

‘I won’t let you have her.’ The sea is so close. ‘You’ll have to drown me first.’ I run. But not away. This time I run straight at her. Facing my fear head on. She cowers down and I laugh spitefully. ‘Afraid of me are you? Well, you should be.’

I howl at her. Scream into the spinning sky. Something wild has taken me over. I thought my anger had left me but it’s very much alive.

Nothing good comes without work. I have to try to control it. Ten. Nine. Eight.

‘Stop.’ She’s crying.

Seven. Six. Five. ‘What do you want from us?’

The sea is so close and it’s roaring.

Five. Five. Five. ‘Answer me.’

Cold seawater sprays into my face on the shattering wind and I see myself from above as if I am flying over the scene. From above I am the bully. I am the one standing over a small child, shouting and scaring. She’s so small. So young. I know her story. I know how it feels when the darkness takes over.

Four. Three. Two. Count. Breathe. I feel cold. The heat has gone from the girl and I can see she is as exhausted as I am. I can’t keep this up forever. This all-consuming anger. I have got to stay calm. Reason with her.

One. ‘Tell me what you want.’

She carries on crying. I soften my voice as much as I can against the biting wind. ‘I’m sorry. Listen. Really I am. I just want to sort this out.’

No response.

‘Please.’ I’m so very cold suddenly. I’m not sure if I’m crying myself. ‘Please.’

She looks up from where she is crouched, and her face is so pitiful. I crouch down so I’m the same height.

‘I just want to have a friend.’ Sobs make her shoulders heave up and down. ‘Why does everyone hate me?’

‘I don’t hate you.’ I’m surprised to find it’s true. ‘I just don’t know what you want from us.’

‘Everyone hates me. Even my mother left me.’

This is where the rage comes from. Because she doesn’t want to be without her mother. I know this rage. I’ve felt it myself.

‘She didn’t leave you. There was a terrible…’ I choose my words carefully. I’ve learned the power of words. How the wrong ones can damage so badly. How the right ones are so important. The bombs that fell on her and her mother were dropped on purpose by people under orders and I don’t want to lie. I move closer to her so she can hear me better. ‘It was so unfair.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When you ran from…’ I feel so tired but the truth is the only way forward. ‘When you ran from my Mam-gu, from Olwen, and the other children, where did you go? Can you remember?’

‘I hid. Deep in the woods. Until I was certain they had left. Until night fell.’ She struggles with the words. ‘I went home and there was nothing. A flash of light and heat. And then nothing at all. Just this.’

I take this in and try to think what to say. The wind whips my thoughts from me.

‘She left me. My mother. Here on my own.’

She sobs again and I clench my fists. I have to finish this.

‘She didn’t leave you. Not on purpose.’

‘I don’t know where she went.’

I clear my throat. ‘She died. I’m sorry.’

The girl cries more and I hate myself but I need to put an end to her misery. ‘It was the war.’

At the word ‘war’ I can see her face flooding with memories. It’s an awful thing to watch.

‘There were planes.’ She is frozen in thought.

I am crying now.

‘I was running to tell my mother. But I couldn’t run fast enough and… Oh no. I don’t want to remember again. I don’t want to see it all again.’

She covers her eyes with her hands.

I get even closer. ‘You are not alone.’

She takes her hands down and looks straight into my eyes. I see it all with her. She is running and not making it in time. I see her anger and despair.

I think of my own anger. The destruction of it. The energy it takes. The way it kills everything in its path.

‘I couldn’t get to her.’

‘You have to forgive yourself.’ Whirlwinds of sand gust around us. I’m shouting this to myself and her. ‘You can choose to stop this.’ Particles of ice sprinkle my face. ‘You have to be strong.’

‘I don’t know how.’

‘I don’t know how either, but I’m going to try so hard.’ I am shouting again because of the blasting wind. It tumbles my words away. ‘You need to try hard too.’

I think of the pain that Mam-gu has carried with her. I think of the courage that Mam uses every day to fight her depression. ‘We can do this. Together. I will let my anger go but you have to do it too. It’s a pact.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘A pact is a promise between friends. We will have a pact that we will move on. And let our anger go.’ The air zings and there is something moving in the corner of my eye. ‘We won’t use our anger to scare people anymore.’

‘We are friends?’

‘We are.’

‘Pact.’

‘Pact.’

There are voices out there carried by the wind. ‘I think your mother is calling you.’

‘I think yours is calling you.’

‘Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, friend.’

The ice particles turn to snowflakes. Thick snow like feathers. Swooping like birds. White and wild and free.