The Shadow House(92)

The landing was dark. Dom’s bedroom door was ajar; Renee could see one of his shirts lying discarded on the bed. The room was rustic but neat. Threadbare blankets and thin pillows. A freestanding robe. A used mug on a side table made of wooden pallets.

Renee gripped the doorframe. There was a spot on the carpet, a stain near the wall. A dark mark that had been scrubbed over and over again. Mud? Ink? Coffee? Something else?

‘Help.’ Bess’s voice rose from the living room like embers from a fire. ‘I need help.’

‘I didn’t realise what I’d done until it was over.’ Dom was close now. He’d reached the topmost step, teeth chattering, speech cracked and broken. ‘He was on the floor. He had his shoes on, a hoodie, a backpack. It didn’t look like him, but it was. I didn’t understand, I didn’t know what to do.’

Renee hadn’t yet seen grief, not properly; the image had never been clear. She’d expected something bloody and brutal, like roadkill or a slaughterhouse. But when she learned the truth of her son’s death, the image she saw was the blackest of skies. Grief, it turned out, was a vacuum with no air to breathe or scatter light. Grief was an astronaut falling at speed while appearing to remain still.

Suddenly, Dom was right behind her. ‘Please, Renee, you have to believe me.’ He grabbed her wrist and yanked her arm, trying to make her stop, make her listen. ‘I swear, it was an accident. I can’t go to jail. My girls, my beautiful girls …’

Renee’s teeth rattled in her jaw as he clawed at her shoulders, his face red, his eyes round, his lips white. She looked up and their eyes locked. She saw right into his core, saw what he’d done, the secret he’d lived with, the things he’d kept hidden. She imagined her son’s final breath, the last things he ever felt, ever thought, ever knew – and the agony of it demolished her.

‘Murderer,’ she spat, and twisted away from him. But Dom threw an arm around her neck and dragged her back. ‘No, no, no, Renee, please, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—’

It happened too quick. When she reached for the banister, it wasn’t where she thought it was. She tumbled forward into the stairwell; Dom came with her, and they both slammed into the wall. Renee tried to free her arms but couldn’t move fast enough. She felt her feet leave the floor and, tasting blood and panic, she lashed out, trying to hang on to something, anything …

The world was a blur, and her body was on fire. She crashed into things; her hip – bang – her head – smash – then her fingers got crushed and her knee popped. Pain exploded in her leg, and Dom was still with her, his breath in her face, his teeth against her skull, his bones grinding into hers, and then—

Crack.

She stopped falling.

She tried to move but, oh god, the pain.

Her lungs burned.

Her bones screamed.

And then the floor beneath her fell away and she couldn’t feel anything at all.


When Renee opened her eyes, she was flying. Hovering over a mirror, looking at her reflection. But when she moved, the reflection did not.

Everywhere around her, shadows were moving, shifting and swirling like ink in water. The darkness was alive – and full somehow, as if she was seeing not the absence of light but the other side of it.

Suddenly, a rush of movement: the sound of pounding feet, and a breath sucked in like a bow drawn slowly across a string. In the mirror below, Renee noticed a second reflection, a wretched lump huddled in a corner on the floor. And a third, frail and dressed in white, lingering in the next room. But – she turned her head left and right – she was alone.

And then she realised what was happening.

Floating calmly in the air above her own inert body, she watched as Alex came running, throwing herself to the ground and calling Renee’s name. She checked for a pulse, then straightened up and frantically patted her pockets. Unable to find what she was looking for, she called to the shape on the floor.

‘Dom! I can’t find my phone, I need yours.’

Dom was catatonic. There was a cut above his left eyebrow and his lip was bleeding. He was holding a small black rectangle tightly in both hands. When he didn’t stir, Alex lunged at him and tried to grab it.

With one sharp shove, Dom pushed Alex away. Fear rose from him like smoke, the black tendrils reaching up to Renee and twisting around her limbs like cats’ tails.

‘Quick, Dom, please,’ Alex was shouting. ‘She could die.’

Indeed, mused Renee, there seemed to be something pooling under her corporeal head, thick and sticky like tar.

Dom didn’t move. Renee could see his thoughts jumping off him like fleas. If the paramedics came, the police would follow. If they did not, she would die. Another life lost, another senseless accident. Another loop in the endless cycle of lies and fear.

‘Dom!’ Alex yelled again.

His hand twitched. His head fell back against the wall. His shoulders sagged and somehow he looked smaller. And then Dom Hassop did what he hadn’t done before. He lifted the phone and made the call; broke the cycle and sealed his fate.

As he did, Renee saw a light.

Gabriel.

He was there, in the room, by her side, holding a lantern. Dark hair, blue eyes, full lips, gapped teeth.

It’s you, she said. Oh, it’s you.

Her brilliant, beautiful boy: a multitude of layers and ages, a nesting doll of a human. A thousand different incarnations, each more miraculous than the last.