She turns and looks at me and I’m startled by her expression. She looks stricken, almost panicked—wide-eyed and breathless. It takes her a moment to really see me.
“Shit, Mina! Come on in.”
Inside it is dark, muted evening light filtering through the grilles pulled down over the windows. From the flat above comes the sound of the television loudly playing cartoons and the strobing light of the screen projected onto the stairwell. Outside, another muffled bang as a firecracker explodes somewhere out on the green.
“Bet you wish you’d stayed at home now, right?” Fern says, pushing her bag onto the counter. I can hear the clink of bottles inside.
“You can say that again,” I say, and I mean it. I wish I’d never met Sam Hunter or heard that tape of his. I should have made that appointment with the caterers, I should have stayed home with Oscar and left that photograph of Eddie and his silvery eyes buried in a drawer. But then I think of the Polaroids in my pocket, Mary’s eye spiked with blood. I think of how she deserves justice, how all these Riddance girls deserve justice.
“I’ve got to talk to you.”
“I don’t have long. Stevie’s upstairs, and she’ll be needing dinner and a bath before it all kicks off tonight. I’d been hoping she’d be a bit older before being confronted with all this, but it is what it is, right?”
Fern laughs, and I think of the clinking bottles in her bag, wonder if she’s been drinking. She seems hectic, like she can’t settle. A prey animal with fast-moving blood.
“I’m not going to pretend I know what’s going on in this town, Fern. I don’t know about hagstones and Riddances and all the rest of it, and right now I don’t trust anyone to tell me. Youknow what happened earlier? The Webber family asked us to leave. Sam’s sitting in the dark with a shoe in his hands and Alice looks like she’s on the brink of a fucking breakdown.” I tug at my hair, pushing it away from my face, feeling frantic. “When I went to pack my bags, Bert locked me in the bedroom. I had to climb out of the window to get here. It feels like everyone is losing their minds.”
She laughs, a small, soft disbelieving sound.
“The Riddance is a form of madness. I’ve always thought it. Purification through chaos. It works though, Mina. It works. I should know.”
We stare at each other a long time. The light coming through from outside changes texture, becomes warm and golden and flickering.
“How old were you?” I ask gently.
“Thirteen. June 1977, baby. Last full moon of the spring. The Native Americans call it the ‘strawberry moon.’ I was out of control, the whole town said so. I got into trouble setting fires—what’s it called? That urge?”
“Pyromania.”
“That’s it. Pyromania. You know, if they don’t want kids starting fires, they shouldn’t make it sound so fuckingcool,you know? Anyway, that’s when Bert and Mary took me in. I had a Riddance two weeks later. Fighting fire with fire, I suppose you’d call it. I’d damaged a bunch of property and was looking at ending up in a youth custody center—a ‘Borstal,’ as it was known back then. It felt like the whole town came out to see me. The bonfires were twenty feet high. And the noise! Loud enough to drive the Devil out of me. I went to my knees in that grass and I’ve never felt lighter. I can’t explain it. I never set a fire again. No more stealing, no joyriding. I stopped cutting myself,went back to school—I mean, you can say it’s horseshit all you like but there are girls in this town who are proof of…”
She trails off. I feel frayed, as if I am coming undone. Panic, gnawing at me. Outside, firecrackers, a man shrieking at the moon.
“Of what?”
“I don’t know. Magic? Power? I’m not the best person to ask. Bert would know.”
Bert. I reach into my pocket, for the envelope.
“Actually, Bert’s why I’m here.”
“Oh?”
From upstairs, Stevie’s voice floats down, “Mum-ee, I’m hun-gree!”
“In a minute, baby!” Fern calls back. She is still looking at me. “Is this about Mary?”
That ruptured eye full of blood.
“Partly, yes. I saw her before the undertakers took her away. Did you know that?”
Fern nods. Outside, another firework. The windows rattle.
“I don’t think that she died naturally, Fern.”
She regards me for a moment. Her gray eyes are luminous, gleaming with tears.
“Don’t. Don’t, Mina.”