‘You’re not going to talk anyone out of this search,’ Dallin said. He’d remained standing, leaning against the counter with his arms folded. ‘Believe me, plenty of people have tried. But we’re here, and we’re not leaving until we’ve finished the search. Right, Cora?’
Cora pressed her lips together and nodded. ‘Right.’
The pair of them were staying at the campsite at Ballaugh, a few miles down the road. I came out to the doorstep to say goodnight.
Cora gave me an awkward smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For helping us. I know you think you can’t do anything, but thank you for at least hearing me out and not dismissing us straight away.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Dallin said. ‘Rosie’s been called a crackpot for years by folks around here. If anyone’s likely to believe you completely, it’s her.’
Cora winced at his crass words; tried to cover it with another hesitant smile. ‘We’ll let you know how we get on, yeah?’
‘Sure.’ They were going out into the curraghs early the next day, to start the search. She’d hinted I was welcome to join them. ‘Drop round any time you need a cup of tea,’ I said. ‘I’m almost always here.’
‘Certainly will.’ Cora grinned again then got into the driver’s seat of the car.
Again, I couldn’t help but admire her determination. There was a lot to admire about Cora. I almost wished we were meeting under different circumstances.
I hunched my shoulders. I could practically feel the weight of Beth’s gaze pressing down on me from the house. I looked away from Cora quickly.
Dallin remained behind for a moment. He reached to hug me and I instinctively stiffened as he put his arms around my shoulders.
‘It’s good to see you, sis,’ he said.
‘Yeah, well.’ I turned my face away so I was staring over his shoulder at the garden. ‘Have you been to see Mum yet?’
‘Not yet, no.’
Something in his tone made me pull away from him. ‘I usually visit on Sundays, but I could go with you tomorrow if that’s better?’
‘I’ll have a think, sure.’
There it was again, that dismissive tone. ‘Dal, you have told her you’re here, right? She knows you’re back on the island?’
‘I figured it might be a nice surprise.’ Dallin gave a weak, apologetic grin.
I looked away. ‘I don’t know why I expected anything different.’
‘That’s hardly fair.’
‘Don’t tell me what’s fair and what isn’t.’ I kept my voice and my expression neutral so Cora wouldn’t notice anything wrong. ‘You’re quick enough to run and help when a girl you barely know needs it but you wouldn’t come home when your actual family needed you.’
Dallin started to say something else, but I turned away and went back into the house. I closed the door and twisted the key in the lock.
I stayed there in the hallway with my arms wrapped tight around myself, until I heard the noise of the car fade as it turned left at the end of the road. And then, at last, the house was silent again.
If I tried hard enough, I could almost pretend none of the evening had really happened. That no one had invaded my self-contained world and threatened to upend it.
My eyes fell on the Manila envelope on the phone table. Before I could stop myself, I snatched it up. There was no stamp, because it’d been hand-delivered, like all the others. The flap was held closed with a strip of Sellotape.
I opened the envelope and took out the folded papers inside. Even though I’d known exactly what they would be, still my stomach twisted with fresh nausea. My eyes skimmed the printed sheets which, as always, had been highlighted in yellow for my convenience.
Near the bottom, I saw one highlighted word, and it was enough for me to want to fling the sheets away from me.
Death, it said.
***
You never wanted to leave. You just never really wanted to stay.
Things were difficult for us both. Difficult parents, difficult family, difficult life. You were thirteen when you told me you’d realised something important: you didn’t have to stick around to endure the fights and the arguments and the occasional stinging slap from our ma. All the negative stuff that would echo through the house and leave us with ringing ears and red marks on our legs. You could walk out at any time.
‘The world is waiting for us,’ you used to tell me.
But I was never scared you genuinely would abandon me.
Not until you met him.
The next morning I wanted nothing more than to stay in bed. I could’ve kept the curtains closed, the door locked, the lights off. I wanted to stay like that until the sour feeling in my stomach went away. Until I felt strong enough to restart my everyday routine.
But maybe the shadow of Beth was still at my side, because something made me wake before dawn and get out of bed. I made tea and toast without observing my usual ritual of watching the sun rise over the curraghs. Today I hurried around the house to open the curtains even before I’d finished my tea.
I had somewhere I wanted to be. It was something that hadn’t happened for over a year.
You can help them, Beth would’ve said. Yes, that was definitely it. Beth would’ve laughed and made a game of it. Chased me out of bed. Held the door and told me off for dawdling. Smiled like she always had, from the day I’d got lost in the wetlands right up until the day she died. She’d always smiled like we were both still children. Still capable of taking on anything the world could throw at us.
You can help them.
Wrapped up in my warm coat and bobble hat, I paused on the front doorstep to breathe the chill morning air. It wasn’t just Beth who was urging me on. There was a second shadow on my other side, just outside my field of vision. Bogbean.
For them, I could do this.
Besides, I wanted to not think about the letter that’d arrived yesterday. I didn’t want to be tempted to take it out from inside the photo album where I’d hidden it the night before.
I got into my car and started the engine. It always hated to start, especially on cold mornings. The problem was I never drove enough to keep the engine in good condition. I usually only took it out once a week, on Sundays, to visit Mum. The rest of the time it just sat there. Several times over the winter months I’d tried the ignition only to find the battery had gone dead. If it hadn’t been for Mum, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to call out the garage to get it fixed.
Today the car started after two attempts, which was fairly good, on average. I drove out to the main road and around to the car park in the curraghs without seeing another car on the road. The drive took almost ten minutes, even though the car park wasn’t geographically that far away from our house, because the road curved half a mile out of the way then back again. Plus the road was shockingly bad. I stayed in first gear most of the way, slowing to a crawl over a few particularly bad potholes. I hoped Dallin had thought to warn Cora.
When I reached the curraghs, I found Cora and Dallin already