The Safe Place, page 30
Emily wandered down the garden path, ducking under the arch of sweet peas, and pushed open the back gate. All the houses on this side of the street backed onto a chattering stream and a public footpath that ran right from the outermost cottage all the way into town. Turning left, she followed the flowing water past rows of neatly tended yards until she reached the “pooh-stick” bridge, a narrow slab of concrete from which she used to conduct stick-race championships with her friends on her way home from school.
Ducking under green metal railings, Emily scrambled down the bank until she reached an old weathered log with a soft spot in the middle where the wood had been worn smooth. She sat down and stretched out her legs. Then she slipped her phone from her jacket pocket and prised off the case. Plucking out the torn piece of paper she’d stuffed inside earlier that morning, she smoothed it out and read over the string of numbers she’d scrawled on the back.
Something in her stomach slipped and slithered as she entered the numbers into the keypad. This is it, she thought. Once she pushed that call button, there was no going back. Just one tiny movement and it would all be over.
She thought of Scott. She was ashamed, now, of the way she’d thrown herself at him, embarrassed to admit how badly she’d wanted to be saved, to be chosen. She’d been so blind. She’d seen only what she wanted to see and had made him into something he wasn’t. She felt bitter. Betrayed. But a small shred of affection remained.
A slideshow of images flashed, strobe-like, through her head. The way the rising sun had lit his face at the bus stop in La Rochelle. The sound of his voice as she got out of the car. Think carefully about everything I’ve said. The restaurant in London; that boyish smile. The smallest thing can change your life. And just like that, nothing is ever the same again. Her own cookie-smeared face reflected in the gleaming surfaces of his office. I think you can give us something we just wouldn’t get from an agency. And finally, her belly full of ice cream, her heart full of hope, her hand outstretched to accept a key. I knew you’d be perfect. For all of us.
He’d left so many clues, so many white flags. She wondered why it had taken her so long to see them.
A bird wheeled in the sky above her head, and she followed its path, wondering what it might it feel like to fly, to jump up in the air right this minute and take off, to soar among the clouds, over hills and roads, beaches and headlands. If she could fly, she would close her eyes and follow the wind. She would let it take her where it wanted. She might travel over a vast ocean and an expanse of trees, over a canopy so thick and swollen that it appeared to be an extension of the sea. If she looked down, she might see pinpricks of light glittering through the canopy like diamonds in a rock. And if she flew closer, she might see a house, and a woman sitting on a paved outcrop, a glass of crisp flax-colored liquid in her hand.
Perhaps a man would step out of the shadows and join her, a man with brown hair and black eyes. He would be carrying a child.
If Emily dipped down low, she might hear the man speak. I heard her crying, he might say. She had a bad dream. And the woman would reach out, and they would all wrap their arms around each other and press their heads close, the very picture of love. The perfect family.
Emily might then pull back, reluctant to intrude, and circle away into the night sky like Peter Pan. She would ride the currents across yet more trees and water, winding roads and patchwork fields, until she saw bright lights and tall buildings. Spiraling above houses and tower blocks, she might spot another woman, a woman with red hair and unanswered questions, sitting on a different kind of outcrop: a concrete slab overlooking a busy street. This woman would be alone, her arms empty and aching.
Emily looked down at her phone. Her thumb twitched.
Wait. Not yet.
Any minute now, the world would change. Her life and the lives of many others would never be the same again. But right now, everything was deliciously quiet and still, as if someone had hit the pause button.
Just a little longer, she thought. Just one more minute.
From somewhere behind her came the tinkle of cutlery and the rattle of plates. An overlap of voices spilled out of an open window, followed by a burst of laughter. The happy sound of safe, cozy homes.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
SCOTT
WHEN THEY came for him, Scott was upstairs in the guesthouse.
He stood in Emily’s old room, leaning on the frame of the balcony doors and looking out at the vast stretch of ocean. A murmuration of starlings moved on the horizon, wheeling and swinging in ever-changing patterns, a group of thousands contracting and dilating as one. Transfixed, he watched them with raised arms, mimicking their movement with his hands, his thoughts swirling with them, his feeble brain able to process neither the sheer beauty of Mother Nature nor the huge amount of drugs in his system.
About an hour ago, he’d found a shitload of pills in Nina’s bathroom—Valium, he assumed, but they could’ve been anything—and had thrown a whole handful down his throat.
Scott had suffered for years, but he’d never taken any medication. He drank—good god, he drank—and he’d found creative ways to ease his pain, pink, puckered evidence of which could be found all over his body. But medication had always been off-limits, because it would be confirmation that his mental health was in no better state than Nina’s.
But then Emily left him. Or rather, they left each other.
And then he’d had to lie and pretend to his wife that he’d murdered Emily, which was especially awkward because he’d developed some very complicated feelings for his former employee. Emily had made him feel young and exciting, as if he could start his life all over again. She’d reminded him of who he used to be.
But she was gone now, and she’d taken with her any last vestige of hope that he would ever be that person again. He was trapped in this miserable fucking snow globe for the rest of his life, and he could never leave, no matter how hard he tried to break the glass.
Hence the pills. He felt a flush of pleasure as he patted his pocket, feeling the packet he’d stuffed in there for later.
Scott was discovering that he liked Valium a lot, if that’s what it was. He felt wonderfully calm and floaty, with a little fizzy buzz running gently through his bloodstream. He was so relaxed, in fact, that he felt his feet leave the floor. He rose into the air and hovered above the balcony, bobbing gently like a balloon.
As he rose higher, his attention returned to the birds. He wondered if he might actually be a bird. He was something other than human, anyway. His skin was splitting, peeling back in strips and giving way to black feathers, which grew and rose up like spines, poking through his torn flesh. Scott stared as his arms melted away, transformed into enormous black wings that stretched out behind him, and the flock of birds stopped their swinging and swaying to admire him. Turning as one, they flew toward him, coming to claim him as one of their own.
Scott squinted. The birds really were coming. In fact, a really big one had broken away from the flock and was aiming straight for him, growing bigger and bigger and making a peculiar sound, a dreadful thumping and whirring. Scott reached out his hand—take me away, giant bird—but a great wind knocked him backward and whipped at his hair, and he understood then that he was wrong. This was no bird.
A voice scratched through a megaphone. Scott looked down from his great height and was surprised to see people swarming all over the property, little black creatures running up and down the paths, devouring the flower beds just like the ants in his office had devoured the cockroaches. He ought to call Yves, tell him to do a pest spray.
But then he remembered that Yves had taken his family and disappeared without a word. Scott had been to his house and found it empty as a mausoleum. Touché, my friend, he’d thought as he surveyed the bare floorboards.
Another strange sound; something was wailing. The gates at the top of the driveway had swung open and cars were streaming through, flashing with pretty lights. They stopped outside the family house, and from their doors burst more swarming creatures.
A woman strode into their midst and barked orders, a woman in uniform with short dark hair and thick-rimmed glasses. The Ant Queen, Scott thought.
He watched things unfold with a detached curiosity. He saw the Ant Queen talking into her phone. Saw her army of ants swarming in and out of his home, spilling from the front door as if from the mouth of a corpse. Saw them bearing his wife away, carrying her from the house bucking and howling, shaking her beautiful head from side to side, her face red and screwed up like a newborn baby’s. Nina was thrashing so violently that the ants were pulled in all directions; they struggled to keep their grip, their cheeks wet with her spit. She screamed, and her teeth flashed white.
“Aureeeeeliaaaaaaa!”
Then Aurelia herself appeared, and Scott felt a dull kick in his belly, a sudden drop that made him think of theme parks.
Aurelia fought like she was being taken to the gallows, her little fingers scrabbling and scratching, her feet lashing out at whatever they could find. She cried petrified, hysterical tears and threw back her head, shrieking her terror to the sky.
Nina reached out to the specter of their dead child one last time before the little ant men forced them both apart, wrestling them into separate police cars. They shoved the doors closed as if rolling a stone across a tomb.
And above it all Scott looked on: impassive, invulnerable. Amid the chaos, the Ant Queen’s eyes locked onto his winged form, and he felt momentarily stunned, turned inside out by her stare.
The Ant Queen opened her mouth, her palm flat in front of her. Stop, she commanded.
As she broke into a run, Scott tore his eyes away, seeking instead the flat majesty of the ocean. He found himself thinking not of his own escape, but of Emily. He could still feel her in his arms, still hear her voice. “Why am I here?” she’d asked. At the time the answer had seemed simple. He’d hired her because he needed help. Because she was a weak, suggestible person who wouldn’t ask questions, a lost soul who wanted to be found. He remembered how ecstatic he’d been when he opened that orange envelope in his office. As he read the court transcripts, the welfare report, and the psychologist’s profile, he knew he’d hit the jackpot. He’d found the one person in the world who would understand, who would connect with his family and see their line of reasoning.
But standing there on the balcony with his arms outstretched, the truth came to him with diamond-hard clarity. He’d had the whole thing back to front from the very beginning. Emily had been the right choice, not because she would support them but because she wouldn’t. She would identify with Aurelia’s experience, but she would also abhor it. She would see the nightmare for what it was. And she would end it.
Without even knowing it, he’d hired Emily for this. He’d seen her heart and knew she would do what he never could.
Scott felt his toes curl over the edge of something metallic. He looked down and saw his feet balancing on the balustrade—not birdlike at all, not claws, but pale pink and fleshy, like baby mice.
It’s over, he thought as he listened to the thump of footsteps on the stairs.
And he was surprised to find that he didn’t feel sad. He didn’t feel angry or scared or full of regret.
He felt free.
EPILOGUE
EMILY FOUND her parents in the garden, sitting on the terrace under the cherry tree, empty dinner plates on the table in front of them. Juliet was reading aloud from a newspaper, the pages tilted toward the glare of a camping lantern; Peter was reclining in his chair, his hands clasped over his stomach.
“You okay, love?” Peter said, regarding her over the top of his glasses. “You look a bit peaky.”
Emily took a deep breath, questions swarming in her head. Here it is, she thought. This is the perfect opportunity to ask.
A full moon was rising early, its pale face just visible through the branches of the tree. She studied her mother’s face, her hands, remembering all the times Juliet had tucked her into bed, picked her up when she fell, clapped when she learned something new. Her father’s eyes, once bright and blue, had seen her laugh and cry, dance and run, fail and succeed. Now, soft pouches hung beneath them like bruised plums, and his cheeks were mottled with broken capillaries. When had he become so old?
She realized then how selfish she’d been. She’d treated her parents like monsters when in fact they were just a bit annoying, probably no more so than anyone else’s mum and dad. It wasn’t true that they never listened; Emily had just never given them the chance. Well, that chance was here. It was now.
“You’re right,” she said, “I’m not feeling great. But you know what might make me feel better?”
“What’s that, darling?”
She nearly said it. She was so close. What happened to me? Where did I come from? Who am I? But Juliet’s tender expression made her think again. Her parents had done their best, and she was okay. There was nothing wrong with her, nothing rotten inside. Sure, she had a few issues, but she’d made it out of the woods, both literally and figuratively, and she could do it again if she had to. She may have been a victim once, but she wasn’t anymore. Perhaps some things were better left buried.
Emily smiled. “A nice cup of tea.”
“Cracking idea,” Peter said, “Pop the kettle on, would you, love?”
Emily walked back toward the house. Just as she reached the back door, Juliet’s voice followed her down the garden path. “There are biscuits in the tin, too, darling. Your favorite.”
Emily stopped, her fingers resting on the door handle. Somewhere inside her, things were beginning to shift. It was as if, after years of scrabbling around trying to pick up all the patchwork pieces of her life, she finally held them all in her hands. And even though there was no way of knowing yet how they all fit together, she knew that someday they would.
“Thanks, Mum,” she called back.
Raising her face to the fading light, Emily watched as violet clouds merged and parted, drifting soundlessly across the sky, revealing a faint splatter of tiny, winking lights.
The stars were coming out.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is an honor and a privilege to acknowledge my teammates. All you phenomenal people who took a chance on me, who saw the potential in my manuscript, and who have worked so hard and so collaboratively to put it out into the world. Guys, you’ve changed my life. Because of you, both my book and I are much better versions of ourselves. Huge heartfelt thanks to:
My spectacular agents. Hillary Jacobson (my first yes), whose relentless Graft and unerring faith in me is a daily miracle, and Tara Wynne, whose advice, reassurance, friendship, and sharp elbows mean the world to me. How I lucked out with you two I will never know. Shout out to the wider teams at Curtis Brown Australia and ICM Partners, for all their support. I’m also forever grateful to the very wonderful Katie Greenstreet at C+W, as well as Kate Cooper and the translation rights team at Curtis Brown UK.
My exceptional publishers the world over. At Minotaur Books, Catherine Richards has managed somehow to convince me that she has been standing by my side throughout this entire journey whilst actually remaining thousands of miles away. Catherine, I could not be more grateful for your guidance, generosity, and eagle-eyed editing expertise. Additional thanks to Nettie Finn, Hector DeJean, Joe Brosnan, Steve Erickson, Kelley Ragland, and the wider team, who have pulled out all the stops to make this book the best it can be.
Over at Affirm Press, I could not do without the extraordinary passion and enthusiasm of Martin Hughes, which truly has to be experienced first-hand to be believed. Both he and Ruby Ashby-Orr have proved to be the rigorous and insightful editors that both I and this book so desperately needed, while Keiran Rogers and Grace Breen continue to amaze me with their warmth and dedication. Big love to the whole gorgeous gang.
At Hodder and Stoughton, Eve Hall has been an invaluable collaborator and a total joy to work with. Eve, I so appreciate all your input and faith in me. Massive gratitude, too, to the whole Hodder team, for all your time and effort (especially Ellie Wheeldon for the audio encouragement!).
I’d like to thank the writing community at large, both at home and abroad; never have I encountered a warmer and more supportive bunch of people. I’m also indebted to my Curtis Brown Creative course-mates/beta readers/international writers group, for all their solidarity and motivation, especially Polly Crosby, Paula Arblaster, Ben Jones, Jo Kavanagh, Carol Barnes-Burrell, Sarah Jane King, Tracy Curzon-Manners, Kristy Gillies and Matt Telfer, who suggested the title.
This list would not be complete without the mention of my former employees, who I won’t name but whose stunning house provided the inspiration for Querencia. Thank you so much, both of you.
I’d also like to acknowledge my family and friends, the people who have loved and supported not just my best self but my worst, and all the selves in between. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t want to, do life without you. Extra special thanks to:
Carly, Annabel, Caitlin, and Polly, for always being there.
Everyone who read early drafts and gave valuable feedback, especially Aoife Searles, Sarah Edwards, Sophie Devonshire, my stepmum, Liz, and my stepdad, Charlie.
Beth Vuk, for answering my questions on child psychology, and Abi Campbell, for the medical advice.
My Aussie tribe (you know who you are), especially Candice Boyd, for being a one-woman cheerleading squad and Jackie Lollback, whose kindness and regular willingness to look after my children so I can write is nothing short of mind-blowing.
My former day-job bosses, Richard and Chris, who did not fire me even though I was frequently found to be writing when I should’ve been working.
My in-laws, Bev and Pete, for all the emergency babysitting.
My mum, Heather, who basically makes my world go round.
