The Sanatorium(95)

“No. No. It didn’t happen. It can’t have happened. Not like that.” Her voice sounds screechy. Something animal, out of control. “Isaac, no. Please say it’s not right, what you’re saying. It’s not right!”

“Elin,” Isaac starts, “I didn’t want to tell you, not like this, but perhaps now that you know the truth you can accept what happened. Move on. All these fears you’ve had . . . maybe they’ve been rooted in you.”

“In me?”

“Yes. We should have made you see a therapist, talk it through, but Mum was worried about you blaming yourself. So instead I think your brain put up barriers around that day, against what happened.”

Elin shakes her head. She doesn’t want his pity, these platitudes. It feels like she’s had the guts pulled out of her. Her head is throbbing; she’s fit to burst. She can’t remember ever feeling this tired. All she wants is to be alone.

“Please, Isaac, just go.” Her voice sounds strange. Empty.

He hesitates, opening his mouth as if to say something before shaking his head, walking away.

Watching him leave, she squeezes her eyes shut tight to block it out, block everything out, but it doesn’t stop them from coming—thoughts, sharp, like knives.

She hadn’t helped him. Sam. Her Sam. Her little brother. Lover of stories and fables. The soldier.

The knight.

The reluctant sheep in the white woolly costume.

Elin puts her head in her hands. She feels cogs turning, deep within her brain, shifting into place.

It all makes sense now, doesn’t it?

Her mother’s reticence to talk about Sam—the strained, try-too-hard face whenever she mentioned his name. Her father leaving, his halfhearted attempts to stay in touch.

They’d blamed her, they thought she could have saved him.

Fragments of a memory pull to the surface: the first anniversary of Sam’s death. Her mother in Sam’s room, sitting on his bed, holding a book: Peepo. A toddler-Sam favorite, but he still loved the simple language, the repetition.

Her mother was reading it under her breath, body slightly rocking. Elin went over, lightly squeezed her shoulder, but she’d recoiled at Elin’s touch, the action fierce enough to send the book flying out of her hand, careering into Sam’s Lego spaceship.

It clattered off its base plate, splintering into fragments. Her mother, still not acknowledging her, dropped to her hands and knees, scrabbling to pick up the pieces.

At the time, Elin thought it strange, how she’d recoiled at her touch, but she never really understood the significance.

Until now.

Leaning back against the pillow, Elin feels hot tears prick the back of her eyes.

It all makes sense now.

Her mother knew.

They all knew.

It was her.





77





Day Five


When Elin wakes, she has no idea what time it is. As she reaches out a hand to check, she winces; her lower back feels stiff, and she’s sore all over. It’s not just from the scuffle with Margot—she’s in a cot the hotel had provided so Will could have their bed to himself as he recovers. It’s narrow and unsubstantial, the thin mattress barely cushioning her against the rigid latticework of springs.

It’s 6:01 a.m.

She glances over at Will. There’s enough light that she can see he’s still pale, but his breathing is rhythmic, steady.

Relieved, she lies back against the pillow. Her head is throbbing; every fiber of her body still craving sleep. As she rolls over onto her stomach, she feels her eyes close.

This time, sleep comes harder, quicker, seizing her, pulling her under. Within minutes, she’s drifting. It’s dangerous, she knows, because this time, when the flashback comes, it’s not fragments like it always has been, but the whole.

Sam, leaning over the rock pool, net thrust deep into the thick of murky seaweed-water. It happens in slow motion; Sam turning, to say something—no crabs, maybe, or my neck’s burning, and as he twists his body back to face the water, he loses his balance.

Elin starts to laugh at his comic expression, which she soon realizes isn’t a comic expression at all, it’s fear. Fear twisting his features into knots because he’s falling backward.

There’s nothing worse, is there? No eyes on where you’re going. No control.

He breaks the water cleanly.

She knows now that this was the first warning sign: Sam should have splashed. Should have made a noise, cried out as he hit the water, thrashed around, laughing, as he tried to right himself.

But there’s none of that: just a single splash followed by a sickening crack.

Then Sam, lying still, the impact only continuing in the water; circles rippling outward.

Part of the rock is stained; deep gloss-red across the white barnacle lace.

Sam’s face doesn’t look like Sam’s face. His eyes are wide open. Staring. Jelly limbs like when he was a toddler.

There’s a split on the side of his head. More than a cut; something open, gaping. Elin wants to move, she remembers that much; she wants to dive in, do something magic to help him, but her feet won’t budge.

They’re stuck. Glued to the rock and the half dome of limpet that’s digging into her left heel.

Move, she tells her feet, move.