The Book Eaters(43)
Lying to him was wrong, but it seemed too heavy and strange for a five-year-old who already carried the sins of other people and many victims on his shoulders. He had enough to worry about.
Sometimes she wondered if the device was really there, or had somehow deactivated. It seemed so improbable as a concept. But reality always reasserted itself. Devon had seen the surgery done, watched the stitches put in afterward; her son carried death with him, at all times, and did not know it.
And if she ever faltered, she only needed to think about Ramsey. Go, before I change my mind and blow your son into next Thursday. Every time he threatened Cai’s life—as he had tonight, and no doubt would again—she swallowed down the boiling stew of her overcooked rage and tried to play polite. He could end her son with the flick of a button.
Scuffling sounds came from the bathroom. Devon dropped the edge of Cai’s shirt and repositioned herself less suspiciously, just in time for Hester to emerge. In the space of ten minutes, the other woman had tamed her hair and uncreased her clothes. An impressive skill.
“You left this on the sink, by the way.” Hester held out the compass.
“Oh!” Devon snatched it back with lightning speed. Careless, so careless. Christ, she really was tired. “Thanks,” she added lamely.
“No problem.” The Ravenscar woman sat on the other bed, the gap narrow enough their knees knocked, and began brushing out wet curls of hair with her fingers. “Nice trinket. Family heirloom?”
“Memento of my daughter.”
Hester paused, mid-finger-comb. “… Oh. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have picked it up if—”
“It’s fine.” Devon opened the compass to display it. “Have a look if you want.” Everyone should see her daughter.
“She’s lovely,” Hester said, subdued.
“Of course. All little children are beautiful.” Devon snapped the compass shut and wound the chain around her palm. “Adults, not so much. We’ve done too many things in our lives to be beautiful.”
An uncomfortable beat of silence, and then Hester gestured at the mini fridge. “Do you want a drink?” Her laugh sounded anxious. “Pretty sure they have wine in that thing.”
“Aye, I’d like that.”
Hester got up, dug through the mini fridge, and pulled out a bottle of cheap white. “Can I ask you something? Were you happy as a child? Growing up in your Family.”
“Yes.” Devon didn’t have to think about her answer. “I was really happy. I had freedom, or thought I did. Maybe it would be better to say, I truly enjoyed doing the things I was allowed to do. I know everything was twisted and perverse by the end, but I still wish I could have given Cai some of that joy.”
Moors. Heather. Foxes. Otters. Sunshine and snow, barefoot in a thunderstorm. All those things existed and had been hers, yet she had managed only to pass on a legacy of pain.
“Makes sense.” Hester filled a couple of B and B mugs, since there were no glasses. “I would have liked to have met happy-Devon, I think.”
“Your own life isn’t exactly spun sugar, either.”
“I’ve hardly talked about myself.” Hester set down the bottle, picked up the cups.
“It’s what you don’t say.”
“You’re too observant for your own good, then.” Hester sat beside her this time, almost shoulder to shoulder, a mug in each hand. Her proximity was a pleasant solidity. “Here, take one.”
“Thanks.” The ceramic handle sweated condensation against her palm. “So, um. Do you have kids?”
“No. Never had children.”
“What, really?” Devon raised an eyebrow; the other woman was her age, and a book eater. So—“How’d you avoid that one?”
“Random chance.” Hester took a long drink, finishing most of her mug in one go. “All healthy Family women suffer from premature ovarian failure as a default. In my case, that failure came in childhood, instead of in my late twenties.”
Devon didn’t trust herself to answer. She was afraid to open her mouth and end up saying How lucky are you? when that wasn’t actually fair; she didn’t know enough about Hester’s life to judge whether infertility was lucky or not. She had no right to project that kind of assumption on someone else.
“Anyway, I feel so silly. I should have known you’ve had more than one child,” the Ravenscar woman was saying. “Where is she, your daughter?”
“Birmingham. I haven’t seen her in seven years.”
“I’m so sorry, that must be hard,” Hester said, low. She drained the last of her wine. “I hope you don’t mind me saying, but there’s a strange comfort in knowing that you miss your girl. I don’t remember my mother very well, but I like the idea that she is missing me, somewhere.”
“Me too,” Devon admitted. The response felt inadequate. Thousands of books eaten and she still lacked the language to say anything about her own matriarch. How did one give shape to absence? Fill a black hole with light?
As a child, she’d imagined what it might be like to meet her mother. As a young bride, pregnant and glowing, that hypothetical scenario had expanded into a fully-fledged fantasy, one where Devon could envision reuniting with Amberly, the pair of them bonding over their shared experiences.