“I thought you’d stood me up,” Cathy says quietly, wiping her nose with her hand. She has a pack of cigarettes in her hand, turning them over and over. “When you didn’t show, I figured you’d changed your mind. I was so mad at you.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, but she raises her hand.Let me finish.
“I know we haven’t spoken in a long time. I know I’ve missed big parts of your life—important parts—and I’m sorry I didn’t come and visit you at Belle Vue. I tried, but maybe I should have tried harder. If I had—”
“Stop it. Please, Cathy.”
“It can be all right again, though, can’t it? From now, I mean. A reset.”
“Yes,” I tell her, but my eyes are back on Maria. She hasn’t moved. Still smiling, still holding that rock. My scar burns with heat. I hear Suzie moving around upstairs.
“Do me a favor, would you?” I turn to my sister. “Go and see what’s taking Suzie so long?”
“Oh.” She looks suspiciously at Andrew and seems to be satisfied that he isn’t likely to be going anywhere before saying, “Okay, sure.”
I wait for her to reach the top of the stairs before slowly approaching Maria. After his horrific crimes, Joseph Bray had been hanged from a gibbet before he was buried at the crossroads where the road to the Spit now diverges. In announcing his punishment, the judge declared him “a monster in the skin of a man.” I think about that phrasing sometimes. How apt it can be.
“Tell me how you got away from her.”
I keep my voice level. Try to hold Maria’s gaze. It’s tricky. Her pupils are fat black inkblots floating on her irises. She keeps smiling, but it looks like it is starting to hurt.
“I made a deal,” she whispers. Laughs. I wish she’d drop that rock.
“What kind of deal?”
“It was like you told me, Hazel. Quid pro quo. I do something for you—”
“You do something for me. Yeah. I get it. So, what did she do for you?”
I keep saying that word.She.Maria shouldn’t know who I’m talking about, but she does.
That worries me.
“She let me go, silly!”
“And you? What do you have to do for her?”
I keep my eye on that rock. It glitters under the light, a thousand twinkling stars.
She let me in, Hazel.
I stare in horror as the voice of my other sister comes out of Maria’s mouth. It feels as if the ground is rushing toward me, and I have to put out a hand to steady myself. I can hear Suzie and Cathy coming down the stairs, Cathy’s voice drifting toward me, talking in that quick, garbled way she does when she’s anxious.
“We found a sweater but it’s going to be way too big, but I guess we can roll the sleeves up. Oh, and there’s a coat, although I think the zip is bust, I suppose we can tie with—”
“Thanks, Cathy.” I turn to her, keeping my composure. Keeping everything as normal as I can. I know what I have to do now. “Help Maria get dressed, will you? Suzie, how long do you think it’ll take to walk to the car?”
She considers this. Her gaze falls on Andrew, and I can see the concern there, writ large all over her face. She was always the most compassionate of all of us.
“An hour, if we don’t stop. Maybe more. It’s not so far when you know the route. As long as the snow hasn’t covered our footprints, we should be okay. You going to be able to walk?”
“I’m going to catch you up.”
I hear Cathy’s intake of breath from just behind me, her hand reaching out to grab my arm. “Absolutely fucking not. We’ve come all this way to find you, we’re not going to just let you make your own way in the dark. Jesus!”
Her face tells me how ridiculous she thinks I’m being. That’s okay. It was never going to be an easy sell, not to Cathy.
I force a smile. “I’ll be five minutes. Less, probably. I just need to do one thing, but I don’t want to hold us up. Suzie’s right, we need to get an ambulance out here for Andrew. Maria needs a warm bed, some food. Probably a doctor. The sooner we get to town, the sooner we can do this. Go on. Get going. I’ll be right behind you.”