‘You DON’T!’ I say. ‘If someone’s ex is dead because of murder, that’s what they call a red flag.’
‘She moved away, Madeline. Jesus Christ –’ she starts, but I keep going.
‘Catlin. She moved away, and then they found. Her. Body. You remember. You reminded me. And I left you alone with him last night. Jesus Christ.’
‘It wasn’t the same Helen, Maddy,’ she said. ‘He would have said. We spoke and spoke for ages. He really opened up to me.’
‘Yes, opened up his bag of murder tools.’ My voice is brittle, panicked.
‘STOP,’ she says. ‘This isn’t a thing to snark about, or make fun of. This is my life. I love him.’
‘What did he say to you, exactly?’ I ask her. ‘About Helen.’
Her face is very serious. ‘He told me she was kind, and she was beautiful, like me. And that he really fell for her, but she broke his heart, and soon after they broke up, she moved away. And it took him a long time to get over it. And he wasn’t sure he ever would, entirely. Until he met me.’
‘Catlin, that is terrifying,’ I tell her.
‘Madeline. I am telling you. It wasn’t the same girl. He would have said.’
‘Would he?’
‘Yes. He absolutely would have. I know not everyone likes him, I’m not blind. He knows that too. A lot of the people he went to school with moved away for college, and it’s lonely for him. He tries his best. Like, that’s why he runs the youth club. To try to fit in. And no one gives a shit. Like, he did so much work last night, organising the venue and the sound equipment and everything. And at the end of it, no one so much as thanked him …’
‘Does even a small part of you think …’
‘… that he had anything to do with it?’ Catlin finishes. ‘No. Absolutely not. I believe him and I love him,’ she says. ‘I wish you could talk to me about this like a normal person, without jumping to conclusions.’ She sighs, letting her hands flop down into her lap. ‘It’s very frustrating.’
‘Umm.’
‘Madeline,’ she says. ‘You can’t be stirring Mam up about this. Twisting things. She’d worry, and she’s got enough.’
‘Maybe she should be worried.’ I barely get the words out, before she cuts me off, her voice incredulous.
‘What?’ Her what has more syllables than normal, to fit in all the contempt. I shrink a little. I have a point. A sharp and shiny point. ‘Are you even listening to yourself?’
‘I mean, you were angry with me for going up to the mountains with Oona last night. And she’s, like, half the size of Lon … Can’t I just –’
‘NO. Lon wouldn’t hurt a fly, Madeline,’ Catlin says.
‘That’s LITERALLY what the man in Psycho says at the end of the movie Psycho. Did he actually say to you, in words, that it was a different Helen?’
‘He didn’t have to,’ she says. ‘I can’t do this. You don’t know what you’re talking about, Maddy,’ she snaps at me, and her voice is filled with spite all over again. ‘I’m going for a smoke.’
She turns on her heel and flounces out of the room, as haughty as a lady in one of the portraits Brian’s father bought to put up on the walls as pretend ancestors.
I sit cross-legged on the dusty floor, unpacking what just happened. Deep down in the shame-pit of my stomach, I’m conscious she’s right. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve never loved before, or been loved back. But, all the same, I know enough to know where danger lurks. Not to blindly follow where your person leads you.
Unless …
I think of Oona, nose and eyes and face. Her collarbones, the way she says my name. If I were to find out … what would I do with that? But Oona’s not even a bit like Lon is. She scares me in a different kind of way. A safer way.
Telling her the way I feel.
There’s not enough salt in the world.
She let go of my hand. She moved away. Of course she moved away.
There is another heart inside her heart.
I sit on the floor, scared for Catlin, worried for myself, draw stars into the dust and wipe the cloth over them, dark night sky.
I’m not the girl that people fall in love with. I’m the girl you use to forget that girl.
25
Agrimony
I was in a cavern. I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d gotten there. Implausible things were happening all over the shop in Ballyfrann, I mused, deciding to go along with it. Maybe the cave would be full of self-esteem and biscuits. I peered around hopefully. In a world where teleportation was possible, biscuits could definitely happen. I mean, biscuits are not an impossible dream, defying God and science. My stomach growled.
This place was wide, and large, and dimly lit. Filled with stalagmites and stalactites, the points of them a-drip. Everything was velvety and moist. I didn’t feel drunk. Not exactly. But I certainly felt something. Not myself.
Through the dim, I could make out the tall figure of a man. I moved towards him, dispersing mist. I knew the way it smelled, this fog. It belonged to somewhere, or someone maybe. I couldn’t place it though.
It wasn’t real.
I looked down at my hands and they were still mine. My feet too, though they were bare. The ground should have been cold, but it was warm and soft. More like a rug than gritty cavern floor. Where was I, really?
He smiled at me. I couldn’t see him smile but I could sense it, trickling through my body like relief. He beckoned with one hand and I approached. There was music playing. Something like a theremin, or a synth. Hard, high sounds through soft moist air. I felt the doughy ground part beneath my feet and I was falling. I was falling down. He caught me.
Strong arms tight around me, pressing against the white cotton of an unfamiliar nightgown. Lifting me up. Carrying me somewhere. To a bed. A big soft bed, with silky black sheets. I could see the cavern around me. Something written on the walls. The letters chipped. I couldn’t make out what they were exactly, like I had forgotten how to read. Or like English was Cyrillic. I knew the shapes meant words, but not which ones. I tried to focus on them, but the more I worked at it, the fuzzier they grew before my eyes.
A needle on a record player. The music changed, to something older. Throbbing. I tried to get up but it felt like all the blood had left my body. Like I was light and heavy all at once. Black and grey and spattered red on white. I closed my eyes. The world was spinning. The mist, when I tried to part it, was thicker. There are things I’m not supposed to see.
The man was there beside me. And his face … I knew that face. I knew him.
It was Lon.
He was wearing black, a T-shirt and waxed denim jeans. He smiled at me. His hair was slicked right back like he had recently climbed out of some sort of sexy swimming pool or hot tub.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘My dove.’
In one swift motion he removed his shirt. His chest was hairless, lithe. He wore a little chain around his neck. I glanced awkwardly at the rock formations, pointing up and down. Dripping on me. There wasn’t really anywhere to hide. Nowhere to look. The awkwardness was clearing out my head though. That was something. I wished I were a dove to fly away. A fox to bite him.
‘You are not normally so reticent.’ He smiled. ‘I kind of like it. Playing hard to get. And I will get you. In the end.’ He lay beside me, running bony fingers through my hair. I could feel his breath. It smelt of spearmint. Tin. I looked down at my bare arms. They were very pale, and I could see the fat blue veins weaving through them like green ones on a leaf. It’s weird how plants and animals have veins. And rocks as well. There were ribbons of limestone, granite, quartz running through the walls. Not lots of them, small neat lines, like seams.