Taking out a small notebook and her guidebook, she set to work. First of all, she scanned the map and made a note of places that looked like they were worth exploring: the beach area, St. Mary’s graveyard, the abbey grounds, a long cliff walk toward Robin Hood’s Bay. Then she turned her mind to a more serious problem: where could she find someone who actually lived and worked in Whitby? Where would he be likely to live, for example? So far she had seen no one but holidaymakers and those residents who ran guesthouses, pubs and shops. Nobody else actually seemed to live around the harbor area, where the men worked on their boats.
She flipped back to her map to see how far the town spread. It was small, with a population of about thirteen thousand, and East Cliff didn’t seem to extend much at all beyond St. Mary’s. That left the southern area, further inland along the Esk estuary, and West Cliff itself. Up there, according to her map, housing estates seemed to stretch almost as far as Sandsend. And then there were smaller places nearby, like Sandsend itself, and Robin Hood’s Bay. They weren’t exactly suburbs, but it was possible that some people lived there and commuted to and from Whitby.
At one time, she might have felt as if she was looking for a needle in a haystack. After all, she had so little to go on. But she trusted her instincts now. There could be no doubt about it; she would know when she had found the one she was looking for. Her spirits would help guide her toward him. And Whitby felt like the right place; she could sense his nearness.
Martha sipped her beer. Somebody put an old rock-and-roll song on the jukebox and it reminded her of something a long time ago, another evening listening to old songs on a jukebox. She shut it out. Memories and sentiment were luxuries she couldn’t afford these days. She stuck her hand in her holdall and felt for the smooth, hard sphere.
6 Kirsten
A long, oily blackness punctuated by quick, vivid dreams. A figure hunched over her, dark and hooded, and a blade flashed. It seemed to slice at her skin. Long cuts flapped open and blood welled, but there was no pain. She saw, as if from a great distance, the sharp steel pierce the pale flesh of her thigh. It went in deep and when it slid out, blood oozed around the edges of the gash. But she felt nothing at all. Then the darkness came again.
This time it was a figure all in white, a human shape with no face. The same things happened. The knife was different, but it cut just like the other, and again there was no sensation.
They were all just dreams. She couldn’t possibly see these things, could she? Her eyes were closed. And if they had really happened, then she would have screamed out in agony from the pain, wouldn’t she?
7 Martha
A loud shrieking woke Martha at four o’clock in the morning. She turned over in bed and frowned as she looked at the luminous dial of her watch. The row went on. It sounded very close. Finally, she realized it was the seagulls. They must have found a shoal of fish, or perhaps a cat had spilled the dustbin at the back of one of the fish bars and they had zoomed in on that. It was a terrible noise: the sound of raw hunger and greed. She pictured the gulls ripping dead fish apart, blank white faces speckled with blood.
She sighed and turned over again, pulling the sheets up around her ears. The gulls had woken her from a dream. Maybe she could get back to it. All her dreams were good these days-Technicolor jaunts of indescribable beauty, full of ecstasy and excitement, visits to alien worlds, flying easily through space and time.
They hadn’t always been like that. For a long time she had suffered from terrifying nightmares, dreams of blood and shadows, and then for a while she hadn’t seemed to dream at all. The good dreams only started when the dark cloud in her mind disappeared. At least, she had always thought of it as a cloud, or perhaps a bubble. It was opaque, and whichever way she looked at it, it always deflected the light so that she couldn’t see inside. She knew it was filled with all her agony and anger, yet it refused her entry.
For so long she had walked around on the edge because of that cloud inside her. Always on the verge of violence, despair or madness. But then one day, when she found the right perspective, she saw inside and the darkness dispersed like a monster that vanishes when you discover its true name.
The seagulls were still wailing over their early breakfast when Martha drifted off to sleep again and dreamed about her secret lake. Its waters flowed from the fountain of youth, clear and sparkling in the sun that never stopped shining, and she had to swim through narrow coral caverns to get to it. Only she knew about the lake. Only she could swim so effortlessly so far without the need for breath. And as she swam, the sharp, pinkish coral cut thin red lines across her breasts, stomach and thighs.
8 Kirsten
The first thing Kirsten saw when she opened her eyes was a long curving crack in the white ceiling. It looked like an island coastline or the crude outline of a whale. Her mouth was dry and tasted bad. With difficulty, she swallowed, but the vile taste wouldn’t go away. Around her she could hear only quiet sounds: a steady hissing; a high-pitched, rhythmic bleeping. She couldn’t smell anything at all.
She moved her head and glimpsed shadowy figures sitting beside her bed. It was difficult to focus from so close, and she couldn’t make out who they were. Then she became aware of muffled voices.
“Look, she’s coming round…she’s opened her eyes.”
“Careful…don’t touch her…she’ll wake up in her own time.”
And someone bent over her: a faceless figure all in white. Kirsten tried to scream, but no sound came out. Gentle hands touched her brow and pushed her shoulders firmly back onto the hard bed. She let her head fall on the pillow again and sighed. The voices were clearer now, like a finely tuned radio.
“Is she all right? Can we stay and talk to her?”
“She’ll talk if she wants to. Don’t push her. She’s bound to be feeling disoriented.”
Kirsten tried to speak but her mouth was still too dry. She croaked, “Water,” and someone seemed to understand. An angled straw neared her mouth and she sucked greedily on it. Some of the water dribbled down the edges of her dry, cracked lips, but she managed to swallow a little. That felt better.
“I must go and fetch the doctor.”
The door opened and hissed shut slowly.
“Kirstie? Kirstie, love?”
She turned her head and found it easier to focus this time. Her mother and father sat beside her. She tried to smile but it felt like it came out all crooked. Her teeth felt too big for her mouth. Her mother looked beside herself, as if she hadn’t slept for days, and her father had dark, heavy bags under his eyes. He looked down on her with a mixture of love and relief.
“Hello, Daddy,” she said.
He reached out and she felt his soft hand close on hers, just like when they used to go for walks in the woods when she was a child.
“Oh, Kirstie,” her mother said, taking out a handkerchief from her handbag and dabbing her eyes. “We were so worried.”
Her father still said nothing. His touch told Kirsten all she needed to know.
“What about? Where…”
“Don’t try to speak,” her father said softly. “It’s all right. It’s all over now. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Her mother was still patting away at her eyes and making little snuffling noises.
Kirsten rolled her head back again and stared at the scar on the ceiling. She licked her dry lips. Sensation was returning to her bit by bit. Now she could catch the clean, white, antiseptic smell of the hospital room. She could also feel her body. Her skin felt taut, stretched too tightly over her flesh and bones. In places, it pinched at her as if it had snagged on something and puckered.