The Last House on Needless Street(75)

I snarl and bite him back, my small teeth puncturing him in the cheek. He starts in surprise. We die if we go down, he says.

We have to go down, I say. Or we will certainly die.

He shakes his head and grabs me by the scruff and we sink into the black earth.

It is like sinking to the very depths of a dark ocean. The pressure becomes unbearable. Nighttime forces us deeper into the dark ground, rasping in distress at my side. We are pressed together so tightly that our bodies and our bones begin to break and our eyes explode. Our blood is frozen to sludge and bursts out of our veins. We are crushed, bodies mangled to jagged ends of bone. The weight of everything obliterates us. We are crushed until we are no more than particles, dust. There is no more Olivia, and no more Nighttime. Please, I think, it must be over now. The agony cannot go on. We must be dead. I can’t feel him any more. But somehow I am still here.

A gleam of light ahead, like the first evening star. We struggle towards it, weeping and gasping. Somewhere, Nighttime raises his head and roars. To my amazement, I feel it rumbling in my chest.

I am powerful and sleek, my great flanks heave. Where are you? I say. Where am I?

Nowhere, he says, and here.

Are you still Nighttime?

No.

I’m not Olivia any more, I say, certain.

I roar and run towards the light. I tear at the dark with my great paws, clawing at the point of light until it rips and grows. I fight with all my strength until I burst out of the black, into the barred sunlight. I cannot move, I lie trapped in the cold and bloodied corpse on the forest floor, with the red-haired man’s hand pressed down hard on the wound. The blood has slowed almost to a stop.

I take a deep breath and spread myself throughout the body, running through all its cold bone and veins and flesh. Come back. Wake up.

Our heart twitches faintly.

The first beat is like thunder, echoing through the silent body. Another, then another, and the roaring begins, blood hurtling through the arteries. We gasp, we take his breath in a great heaving sigh. The body lights up cell by cell, reawakening. It begins to sing with life.





Dee





Dee runs into the dawn. The bite on her arm is a ragged hole, edges brown with dirt. She knows she needs a hospital. The pump seems to have got the venom out, but the bite might be infected. She tries not to think about that. All that matters is finding Lulu.

She stumbles on through the forest, seeing faces in the patterns of light and shade. She shouts her sister’s name. Sometimes her voice is loud, sometimes it is a dry whisper. Ahead, she catches a little sound. It could be a blackbird, or a child’s whimper. Dee hurries on, faster. Lulu must be scared.

Murderer. The word is like a bell, ringing through her head. Is that what she is? Dee knows she can never go back to Needless Street. She left bloody traces of herself all through the forest, all over his body. If one thing comes to light, others follow. They are like that, secrets, they move in flocks like birds.

She runs on through the forest. It becomes difficult to see the path ahead; the past is everywhere, overlaying the dawnlit world. Images come, and voices. She sees a ponytail flying between two tree trunks, hears her name whispered in a frightened voice. The tired detective’s face swims before her, the last time they spoke face to face.

‘Are you sure you’ve told me everything about that day, Delilah? You were just a kid, you know. People would understand.’ Karen’s eyes were kind. Dee nearly told her right then and there, she really did. She has never been closer to telling.

It was Lulu’s white flip-flop that made Karen suspect, of course. The woman from the bathroom was certain she hadn’t picked it up by mistake and put it in her own bag. She was sure it must have been put there by someone else. Dee was furious with herself for that. Who knew the woman would be so sharp?

‘You can’t prove anything,’ Dee hissed. Karen’s careworn eyes moved over her, the creases deepened at the edges, like volcanic land.

‘It will eat at you until there’s nothing left,’ she said finally. ‘Believe me, it would be better to let it out.’ That was when it went sour, of course.

Dee stops, retching. She crouches, her mind yawns up colours and memory. Her breath is coming too fast. She tries to summon the white static, make it cover the thoughts that teem in. But it’s no good. The air smells like cold water, sunscreen on warm skin.

Dee walks across the lake-shore, away from her family, navigating the chequerboard maze of blankets.

The yellow-headed boy says, ‘Hi.’ She sees the swirls of white lotion on his pale skin. When he smiles his front two teeth overlap slightly. It gives him a feral, intriguing air.

‘Hi,’ says Dee. He has to be at least eighteen, probably in college. She watches him watching her and understands, for the first time, that he sees both predator and prey. It is complicated and exciting. So when Trevor offers a hand to shake she smirks. She sees the flash of anger, of hurt. His pale skin flushes.

‘Are you here with your folks?’ This is retaliation. What he means is, You are a baby who comes to the lake with her family.

Dee shrugs. ‘I managed to lose them,’ she says. ‘Except for this one.’

He smiles, like he appreciates the joke. ‘Where are your parents?’

‘All the way over by the lifeguard stand,’ she says, pointing. ‘They were all sleeping and I was bored.’