If I tried hard enough, I could almost pretend none of the evening had really happened. That no one had invaded my self-contained world and threatened to upend it.
My eyes fell on the Manila envelope on the phone table. Before I could stop myself, I snatched it up. There was no stamp, because it’d been hand-delivered, like all the others. The flap was held closed with a strip of Sellotape.
I opened the envelope and took out the folded papers inside. Even though I’d known exactly what they would be, still my stomach twisted with fresh nausea. My eyes skimmed the printed sheets which, as always, had been highlighted in yellow for my convenience.
Near the bottom, I saw one highlighted word, and it was enough for me to want to fling the sheets away from me.
Death, it said.
***
You never wanted to leave. You just never really wanted to stay.
Things were difficult for us both. Difficult parents, difficult family, difficult life. You were thirteen when you told me you’d realised something important: you didn’t have to stick around to endure the fights and the arguments and the occasional stinging slap from our ma. All the negative stuff that would echo through the house and leave us with ringing ears and red marks on our legs. You could walk out at any time.
‘The world is waiting for us,’ you used to tell me.
But I was never scared you genuinely would abandon me.
Not until you met him.
Chapter 5
The next morning I wanted nothing more than to stay in bed. I could’ve kept the curtains closed, the door locked, the lights off. I wanted to stay like that until the sour feeling in my stomach went away. Until I felt strong enough to restart my everyday routine.
But maybe the shadow of Beth was still at my side, because something made me wake before dawn and get out of bed. I made tea and toast without observing my usual ritual of watching the sun rise over the curraghs. Today I hurried around the house to open the curtains even before I’d finished my tea.
I had somewhere I wanted to be. It was something that hadn’t happened for over a year.
You can help them, Beth would’ve said. Yes, that was definitely it. Beth would’ve laughed and made a game of it. Chased me out of bed. Held the door and told me off for dawdling. Smiled like she always had, from the day I’d got lost in the wetlands right up until the day she died. She’d always smiled like we were both still children. Still capable of taking on anything the world could throw at us.
You can help them.
Wrapped up in my warm coat and bobble hat, I paused on the front doorstep to breathe the chill morning air. It wasn’t just Beth who was urging me on. There was a second shadow on my other side, just outside my field of vision. Bogbean.
For them, I could do this.
Besides, I wanted to not think about the letter that’d arrived yesterday. I didn’t want to be tempted to take it out from inside the photo album where I’d hidden it the night before.
I got into my car and started the engine. It always hated to start, especially on cold mornings. The problem was I never drove enough to keep the engine in good condition. I usually only took it out once a week, on Sundays, to visit Mum. The rest of the time it just sat there. Several times over the winter months I’d tried the ignition only to find the battery had gone dead. If it hadn’t been for Mum, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to call out the garage to get it fixed.
Today the car started after two attempts, which was fairly good, on average. I drove out to the main road and around to the car park in the curraghs without seeing another car on the road. The drive took almost ten minutes, even though the car park wasn’t geographically that far away from our house, because the road curved half a mile out of the way then back again. Plus the road was shockingly bad. I stayed in first gear most of the way, slowing to a crawl over a few particularly bad potholes. I hoped Dallin had thought to warn Cora.
When I reached the curraghs, I found Cora and Dallin already there. Cora was sheltering under the open boot of the car as she packed a backpack. Dallin was standing a short distance away, smoking a cigarette. It must’ve been a recently acquired habit. He’d never used to smoke.
You haven’t seen him in years, I reminded myself. He could be a completely different person by now, with a hundred bad habits you don’t know about.
As I pulled up behind Cora’s car, Cora looked up in surprise. Her face was tight with concern. But a smile lit her face as she recognised me.
I got out of the car and pulled my jacket a little tighter against the chill. Dallin nodded to me but stayed distant while he finished his cigarette.
‘Morning,’ I said.
‘This is a lovely surprise,’ Cora said. ‘Everything okay?’
Now I was closer, I could see the gauntness of her face. She looked like she hadn’t slept. I drew a breath then asked, ‘I wondered if you could use an extra set of eyes today?’
‘Oh, wow, yes, definitely. Are you sure? I don’t think the weather’s going to get much better than it is right now.’
‘I’d like to help.’ It was the truth. I’d sat up for half the night thinking about her story. I still didn’t think we’d find anything, but I wanted to help her look.
‘That’s really kind. Thank you.’
Her smile made warmth rise to my face. I made a pretence of looking at the road we’d come in on. ‘Did you get here okay?’ I asked. ‘I forgot to warn you about the road.’
‘Yeah, that was a bit of an adventure. It was like Wages of Fear finding this place.’ She adjusted her bobble hat, tucking loose strands of blonde hair out of the way. ‘I thought this was a fairly popular spot. For walkers and stuff? Why don’t they maintain the road?’
Dallin laughed. ‘This is completely average for the roads over here. I’ve seen potholes you could lose a Smart car in. Are we ready?’
In all honesty, I wasn’t sure if I was ready. The morning had a weird sense of unreality hanging over it. I tried not to think too hard about what we were doing here or what we hoped to find. If I avoided that, I could pretend this was a normal outing. No big deal.
Except that’s a lie too. When was the last time you went on an outing with anyone?
‘I’ve got the maps here,’ Cora said. She’d spread them out in the boot. ‘We’re going to try to cover sections A12 through A27, then back along B28 through B11 this morning. Once we get back to the road—’
‘What’s that in English?’ Dallin asked.
‘We’re going to start at the top of the map, roughly in the middle where the road cuts through and work our way across, left to right, then back again. English enough for you?’
Cora held out one of the maps so I could see. The hand-drawn squares were marked with letters and numbers. A1 was in the top left; Q39 at the bottom right. I saw at once the route she’d described, running from the road eastward through the curraghs until it came almost to the field boundary, then doubling back on itself.
‘Once we get back to the road,’ Cora said, ‘we’ll assess how much we’ve done and figure out whether we have to pick up the pace or not.’ She looped a dark green scarf around her neck and tucked the ends down the front of her waterproof jacket. ‘Weather forecast is changeable, but we hopefully won’t get rained on until later this afternoon. Be aware it might get warmer. Hope everyone wore layers.’