Resurrectionists (70 page)

“And?”

“She said you shouldn’t have trusted her.”

Maisie huffed a scornful laugh. “Yeah, I could figure that out.”

“Anyway, she’ll be here tomorrow – you can talk to her then.”

Talking wouldn’t change anything. Maisie picked at a fingernail.

“Tea? I just made it,” Sacha said.

“I guess.” She sat at the table with her head in her hands.

“What are you going to do?” he asked. “You can’t sleep forever.”

She raised her head, took the cup of tea that he offered her. “I don’t know. Everything’s changed.”

“You mean, everything’s gone back to how it was.”

She sipped the tea, nearly scalding her tongue. She pushed it away. Her appetite for it had evaporated. “I need to get dressed. I need fresh air. Perhaps I’ll look in on Reverend Fowler.”

“I have something for you.”

“What is it?”

“I cleaned it up for you.” He pulled a small shiny object out of his pocket and slid it across the table to her.

She picked it up. Georgette’s ring. A tear

threatened. “Thanks, Sacha,” she said softly.

“Does it fit? It’s so tiny.”

She put it on her right pinky finger, over a healing graze from flying glass. “Yes, it fits.” She couldn’t look at him. “I need fresh air,” she said, backing away from the table. “I’m going for a walk.”

She pulled on some clothes, tucked her hair up under her hat and opened the front door. The snow had melted, the sky was a clear, though pale, blue. The sun shone from a long way off, as though it were a star from a distant galaxy. She closed the door behind her.

The outside seemed peculiarly still after Saturday night’s adventures, almost a different place. She walked up the main road, glancing only briefly at the graveyard. The place of deception. The moment of betrayal. It made her skin swarm with anger to think of it. Sybill – her grandmother, the woman who had leaned over her baby crib and spoken proudly of her Gift. Only to steal it from her for some selfish purpose, to get across the distance she wanted to cover in the Afterlife. Maisie passed Elsa Smith’s house and thought of what the old lady had said to her once: she’d be better off with Baba Yaga for a grandmother. Well, Sybill hadn’t eaten her, but she had consumed her future.

As she approached the Reverend’s house she

could see Tony Blake’s police car parked out the front. She cautiously advanced the last few metres, waited for a moment on the front path and then ventured up the stairs.

The front door burst open. Constable Blake

stepped out, saw her and paused. They faced each other on the steps like that for nearly a full minute. Maisie shoved her hands hard into her pockets, shrugged. “I came to see the Reverend.”

Constable Blake’s jaw was set hard. “He’s dead. He died yesterday.”

Maisie felt tears pricking her eyes. Perhaps it was strange to have so much empathy for the Reverend, but he had spent his life doing what he thought he should do, what others expected him to do. She knew how that felt. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she meant it.

“That’s the tenth person to die in Solgreve since Saturday night,” the police constable continued.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, and this time she did not mean it. She backed down the stairs and walked out onto the street.

“Miss Fielding. Get out of town,” he said, his voice fed-up, exhausted. “Please, before somebody decides to take out their anger on you. I’ve more than enough deaths on my hands to deal with.”

She turned and looked up at him. A cloud passed over the sun, placing her momentarily into a shivery shadow. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m going the day after tomorrow. For good.”

“I wish that you’d never come,” the constable muttered descending the steps. Maisie watched him get in his car and pull away from the kerb.

“You think you lost something?” Maisie called to his departing tail lights. “Let me tell you about losing the only thing I ever really cared about.”

She trudged home. Mila would be here tomorrow. Less than twenty-four hours left alone with Sacha. She was determined to make the most of it.

Mila arrived Tuesday morning and Maisie would not speak to her. Under the pretence of packing, Maisie lurked in her bedroom all morning until she heard the front door open and shut and saw through the window Mila and Sacha make their way up the front path and towards the graveyard. Then she let herself out of her bedroom and looked around. This cottage, this strange little place by the woods, had become home to her. It had been exactly eight weeks since she had arrived, but it felt like a lifetime. Everything had changed but she had nothing to show for it. The whole eight weeks may as well not have happened. The fantasy of the little shop, the lifetime of psychic practice, had been snatched from her and she was right back where she started: frustrated, yearning, ordinary daughter of genius parents. She went to the phone. It was probably around ten p.m. back home and she wanted to speak to her mother with nobody around to eavesdrop. The phone beeped its double ring thousands of kilometres away. Janet answered it.

“Hello, Fielding residence.”

“It’s me.”

A short pause. “Maisie? How are you, darling?”

“You were right.”

“I’m sorry, Maisie, I don’t follow.”

“You were right about your mother. Does that make you happy?”

Again the silence. A faint electronic squeal on the line, somewhere in the telecommunications

netherworld. Finally Janet said, “It doesn’t make me happy. It just makes me right.”

“I’ll be home in a couple of days.”

“I look forward to it. We’ve had an offer on the cottage and –”

“I shouldn’t imagine that offer stands any longer, Mum. The man who made it died yesterday.” She took pleasure in telling her this. Even though Janet had been right, even though Janet had warned her from the start about Sybill, Maisie took pleasure in deflating her hopes of a financial windfall.

“He did? Ah. Well, I expect we shall just lock it up and –”

“Sybill’s best friend is here – Mila Lupus. The cat seems to like her and she’s kind of between addresses at the moment. Can I give her the keys?”

Janet sighed. “I expect so, darling. It’s all the same to me. I’d as soon be without the place. I’d as soon put it all behind us. Now what’s this nonsense Adrian tells me about you wanting to read fortunes for a living?”

“Don’t worry, Mum. That possibility is now no longer open to me.”

“Oh, I see.”

Both of them fell silent. Maisie felt as though her face were made of stone.

“I’m sorry, Maisie, if things haven’t worked out the way you wanted,” Janet said gently. Maisie responded on an instinctive, almost child-like level to her mother’s sympathy. She started to cry.

“It’s all falling apart,” she said. “It’s all fallen apart.”

“You’ll be home soon. I’m sure that dismal weather is bringing you down. They’re always talking in magazines and on the television about that weatherrelated depression.”

“Yeah,” Maisie said, sniffing, pulling herself together.

“And it can’t be all bad. At least you can still play the cello.”

Maisie heard the front door open and Sacha came in, beckoned to her. “Mum, I have to go.”

“We’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah, sure. Bye.” She put down the phone and turned her attention to Sacha. “What is it?”

“Do you want to come and watch? Ma is going to bless the ground. So the curse is lifted forever.”

Maisie followed him out into the clear afternoon, down through the cemetery to the cliff’s edge. Mila stood, her arms stretched out beside her, humming a strange, almost inaudible song. They waited a few metres away while she went through her ritual. Sacha stood behind Maisie with his arms around her. She felt his breath tickle her ear.

“Are you going to talk to Ma?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

“She might be able to help.”

“I doubt it.”

He squeezed her. She put her hands over his and hung on. It was as though his arms were the only thing keeping her together, keeping the ache inside from becoming a quake that would split her apart. A light sea breeze tangled her hair and the sun shone palely on her face. Mila stopped singing and crouched close to the ground, whispering something to the earth. Maisie looked up. Two seagulls, hanging on the breeze, watched dispassionately from above them.

“Finished!” Mila said, leaping to her feet. She clapped her hands. “Ah, it’s a good feeling. So much pain and suffering over forever.”

Sacha let Maisie go, propelled her gently towards Mila. “I’ll meet you two back at the cottage,” he said.

“I’ll make us some lunch.”

Maisie and Mila faced each other. Mila opened her arms, offered an embrace. Maisie stood her ground, waited until Sacha was out of earshot.

“If you’d been here it wouldn’t have happened,”

she said at last.

“Why do you think that?”

“You would have warned me not to will over my Gift to her.”

Mila dropped her arms. “I’m sure I told you not to give it up to anyone unless you wanted to be rid of it.”

“But you didn’t tell me that
she
would take it.”

Maisie’s eyes filled with tears. “You didn’t tell me beware my own grandmother.”

“I’m sorry, Maisie, truly I am.”

“Is it really gone? It’s not just repressed like it used to be?”

Mila tried a smile. Shook her head. “I’m sorry. It was the first thing I noticed when I came back. There’s not a trace of psychic power about you. None of that dark tide remains.”

“And it’s not coming back? She’s not coming back?”

“If she took it, it was to get her across to the next world. She’s not coming back.”

Maisie darted her eyes away, blinked back the tears. The sea was pale silver blue, pulsing just below the surface.

“I’m sorry, Maisie,” Mila said again, advancing to touch her.

Maisie shrugged away. “I know it’s not your fault, but don’t expect me to be your best pal, okay?”

“I understand.”

“Mum wants you to have the house.”

“She does?”

“I’ll call the solicitor and let him know. But you have to take care of Tabby. I can’t take her back with me, and I don’t want her to be lonely or put in a refuge.”

“I’d love to have her.”

Maisie nodded. It was all sorted out then. “I suppose I should go home now.”

“Certainly. Sacha will have lunch ready and it’s getting cold out here.”

“No. Home.”

“Oh.” Mila touched her shoulder lightly. “Good luck with it all, Maisie.”

“Yeah, well at least I can still play the cello.”

Because of a delayed train from York, and a crowded tube which couldn’t fit Sacha, Maisie and her suitcases, Maisie actually thought she might miss her flight. Her heart hoped that she would miss her flight, because that would mean more time with Sacha. But when she raced up to check in her baggage, she found the flight had been delayed an hour and she would make it easily. Hers was the departure lounge closest to the end of the universe. She bought magazines and lollies, changed money at the Amex office, Sacha lurking behind her. Her imminent departure had forced them into meaningless, polite conversation. All the way down from York they had tried to cram in a lifetime of words. Now they were reduced to talking about the exchange rate and whether over-the-counter sleeping pills worked.

“This is it,” she said, dropping into a seat at the departure lounge.

“Yeah. This is it,” he said. He sat next to her and put his arm around her. Neither of them could say anything. The triangle of soft edges between her ribs ached and ached. There was a jagged cry of pain trapped in there somewhere. He kissed the top of her head.

“I’ll miss you.”

“Don’t . . .” she said, fighting back a sob. “I’m ugly when I cry. I don’t want you to remember me being ugly.”

“Oh, Maisie. You could never be ugly.”

She put her head on his shoulder, his arms encircled her and she let the tears fall. “I’m so unhappy,” she whispered.

The boarding call came over the loudspeaker. People were standing, gathering hand luggage, waving goodbye. She sat in the circle of his embrace, willing the world to stop.

“You’ll be happy. You’ll see Adrian again, all your friends. It will be sunny and warm, you won’t freeze every time you go outside.”

She palmed tears from her eyes, nodded. “Maybe.”

“You’ll be all right. Just stop letting everybody else tell you what to do. You could do anything. Anything.”

The final boarding call came. She looked around. Only she and a few other stragglers remained in the departure lounge. “Oh, god,” she said, feeling sick,

“I’ve got to go.”

They stood. Embraced. She stepped back, gazed at him, his smooth skin, his dark hair, his full top lip.

“I will never see you again,” she said.

He drew a short breath as though he might answer with the requisite platitude.
Of course you will. Don’t
be silly.
But he didn’t say it. He let her comment stand. He touched her face, pulled her to him, kissed her hard enough to bruise her.

“Goodbye,” he said, close to her lips.

“Goodbye.” She stepped back, picked up her hand luggage, hurried to the gate.

She paused before she stepped through, looked back. He had his hand up, a goodbye wave. She waved back, braved a smile.

“Defy the system, Maisie,” he called.

The flight attendant at the gate ushered her through. She lost sight of him.

She woke on the plane – had she really been sleeping?

She must have been, because she had dreamed about Sacha, just a stupid dream which meant nothing. The shutters on every window were drawn, all the lights were off. The flight attendants had imposed artificial night-time, sleep-time. She let herself out of her seat belt and headed up towards the toilet. One shutter right near the tail was open, and daylight dazzled through it. She paused, peered out. A vast green and brown landscape spread out below, baking under bright sun. She had the sense that the plane wasn’t actually moving, that it had merely taken off and was now suspended, waiting for the world to turn underneath it. A man joined her at the window, looked out.

“Where do you suppose we are?” she said, to be polite.