Tam’s face remains the same, impassive, totally devoid of emotion.
‘And I assume Holly is the one you think will tell you every little detail of Finn’s life so you can impersonate him? Because that’s hilarious, Tam. Really.’
He doesn’t say anything, but I know I’m getting somewhere, because there is no human alive on this earth that can read Tam’s silences better than me.
‘It doesn’t have to be like this,’ I say. ‘You’re not in fairy land any more, Tam. You’re here, in Haylesford, with humans, and this is not how this works. If you want to be Finn – if you really want to be Finn, to live his life, to be a real boy – then you can’t kidnap people and tie them up in your shed. You do that, you get arrested. But I can help you.’
More silence.
‘Just tell me who’s making everyone forget about you,’ I say. ‘Tell me that, and I’ll help you be Finn.’
Holly-Anne thumps her chair and coughs pointedly.
‘Oh, and you need to let Holly go,’ I add. ‘Obviously.’
Tam’s lip curls. ‘You say you have one thing to ask of me, and yet you ask two,’ he snarls. ‘If I acquiesce, it will be a third, and a fourth, and you dare to ask this of me when you have already taken everything!’
‘Tam, I’m trying to help you!’ I say. ‘Do you think this is easy for me? Do you think it’s going to be easy for me to see you take Finn’s place? It’s going to kill me. But I’ll help you do it, if you do these things for me.’
Pulsating, furious silence.
‘You want even? I’ll give you even,’ I say. ‘You tell me who’s erasing the memory of you from everyone’s minds, and I promise I’ll help you be Finn. You let Holly go, and I’ll promise she won’t go to the cops and have you arrested for kidnapping. All right, Holly?’
‘Yes,’ Holly croaks.
‘Do we have a deal?’ I ask Tam.
He’s silent for a long time. (Silence #14: Processing.)
‘You want to know who is making people forget about Tam Linford?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’s all. Just tell me who’s making people forget, and I’ll help you.’
He smiles, another awful dark smile that looks completely wrong on Finn’s face. ‘I would also like to know where to find her,’ he says, and looks at Holly.
Oh no.
‘No,’ Holly spits at him.
‘No,’ I repeat. ‘That can’t be right. We tied her up in iron chains, Tam! There’s no way Emily Houdini’d her way out of that and is going around town making people forget who you are!’
‘I have served the Silver Lady my whole life,’ he says. ‘I have been loyal. I have been faithful. And she has rewarded me. You saw her change my face. You saw her give me back the life that was mine. You may have chained her, but she is stronger than the mountains and more cunning than the river. Do you not think she would ensure the way was smooth for me?’
Something inside me dies.
There are no Seelie fairies left in Haylesford. It was all … I don’t know, some ticking time bomb or some mental trigger that Emily planted in everyone’s minds.
They’ve got Finn, and now they’ve left.
They’re gone, and they’re not coming back.
Finn’s not coming back.
Tam kneels down and unknots the garden hose tying Holly’s ankles to the lounger. She tries to kick him, but he immediately straddles her, sitting on her legs so he can untie her hands. ‘I will uphold my bargain,’ he says. ‘I will free you, Holly-Anne, and I will trust that you will tell none that I held you captive. But you will tell me where the Silver Lady is. If I must hound every step you take for the rest of your life, you will lead me to her.’
Holly slaps him across the face.
It’s a truly impressive slap – like, you would not guess that Holly just spent nearly a day with her hands tied to a pool lounger, probably cramping to hell – but Tam just smiles his cruel non-Finn smile and leans in closer. ‘I will even keep my promise,’ he says to her. ‘I will intercede for you with the Silver Lady. I will lie to her for you, if you tell me where she is.’
Holly bares her teeth. Her gums are bleeding.
Tam turns to leave, then looks back at us both at the shed door. ‘And please know,’ he says, ‘that I have no desire to hurt either of you. I understand your desires and your feelings, but I am bound and I have a duty. If either of you knocks on my door again, and the first words out of your mouth are not the Silver Lady’s whereabouts, know that I will levy a price in blood.’
‘Tam,’ I say softly, ‘Lesson One in being a real boy. You can’t do things like that here.’
‘I will not go to jail, Pearl,’ he says, ‘because they will never find where I will hide the bodies.’
It should be one of those awkward moments where Holly and I look at each other, half afraid of Tam, half afraid of each other. It should be a silence that stretches out forever, heavy, ominous.
We need to tell him where Emily is, my eyes should say.
We can’t tell him where Emily is, hers should say at the same time.
He’ll kill us both if we don’t tell him, mine should say.
She’ll kill everyone if he sets her free, hers should respond.
But there’s no long menacing silence full of meaning, because less than a second after Tam leaves, Holly-Anne nearly knocks me over as she barrels past me.
‘Holly, no!’ I say, grabbing at her, but her shirt slips through my fingers, suddenly thick and nerveless.
I expect to hear the smack of flesh on flesh as she throws herself at Tam, and then perhaps a truly ominous silence, but all that comes is the rusty groan of pipes. When I leave the shed, I see Holly on the ground, mouth pressed to the garden tap, drinking deep.
Tam is nowhere in sight. I know he’s not a fairy, but his apparent ability to appear from and disappear into thin air is more unnerving than just about all the fairy shit I’ve ever seen Finn do.
They will never find where I will hide the bodies.
I swallow.
After what feels like hours, Holly finally turns the tap off and stands. ‘Shit, that feels so much better,’ she says, wiping her hand across her mouth. ‘Do you have any Nurofen or anything? My head is killing me.’
‘Um, maybe,’ I say. I take my wallet out of the back pocket of my jeans and dig through until I find the little foil pack of ibuprofen I keep there in case of period pain emergencies. ‘Here you go.’
She pops a couple out and downs them with more tap water. ‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t mention it. We should get out of here. Like, now.’
‘Did you drive? Can you drop me in town? My car’s there.’
‘No. Sorry.’
‘Guess I’m walking then. I can give you a ride home if you want to walk with me.’
‘That’d be great. Thanks.’
‘Just a sec.’ She ducks back into the shed and emerges a few moments later with her handbag.
It takes about fifteen minutes to walk into town from Finn’s place. We don’t talk for most of it, largely because Holly is responding to all the messages and missed calls and notifications that have built up on her phone. ‘Yes, Mum, I’m safe,’ she says, in that tone that communicates ‘eye roll’ as effectively as actually rolling your eyes does. ‘I was hanging out with Lili and Tricia, and my phone died. You don’t need to call the cops or anything.’