Where had he put the jam?
The jam was important. The man in the basement flat had said it was his best batch yet, that he’d gathered the blackberries himself and used months of rationed sugar. But Tom couldn’t remember where he’d put it. He’d had it, he knew that. He’d brought it from London in his bag, but then he’d taken it out and put it down. Had he left it under the table? When he hid from the rain, had he taken the jam jar with him? He supposed he should get up and look for it, and he would. He had to, the jam was a gift. He’d go and find it in just a minute, and then he’d laugh that he could have lost it at all. He’d just take a little rest first.
He felt tired. So tired. It had been such a long journey. The stormy night, the trudge up the drive, the day of trains and buses and near misses, but more than that, the journey that had led him to her. He’d walked so far; he’d read and taught and dreamed and wished and hoped so much. It was natural that he should need to rest, that he might just close his eyes now and take a moment; just rest a little, so that when he saw her again, he would be ready …
Tom closed his eyes and there were millions of tiny stars, twinkling, shifting, and they were so beautiful and he wanted only to watch them. It seemed to him that there was nothing he wanted more in the world than to lie there and watch those stars. So he did, he watched them as they drifted and sifted, he wondered if he might even be able to reach them, to hold out a finger and catch one on it, and then finally he saw there was something hiding among them. A face, Juniper’s face. His heart shook its wings. She had arrived, then, after all. She was close by, leaning to lay her hand on his shoulder, to speak softly against his ear. Words that described it all so perfectly that when he tried to clutch them, to repeat them to himself, they turned to water in his hands, and there were stars in her eyes and stars on her lips and little shimmery lights hanging in her hair; and he couldn’t hear her anymore, even though her lips were moving and the stars were winking, because she was fading now, turning into black; and he was fading, too.
“June—” he whispered as the last little lights began to tremble, to switch off one by one, as thick mud filled his throat and his nose and his mouth, as the rain beat down on his head, as his lungs were finally starved of air; he smiled as her breath caressed his neck …
THREE
JUNIPERwoke with a start to a throbbing headache and the muddy mouth of unnatural sleep. The surface of her eyes felt grazed. Where was she? It was dark, nighttime, but a faint light crept in from somewhere. She blinked and registered a ceiling high above her. Its marks, its rafters, were familiar, and yet it wasn’t right somehow. It didn’t fit. What had happened?
Something, she knew that; she could feel it. But what?
I can’t remember.
She turned her head—slowly—letting the clutter of loose, nameless objects inside tumble over. She scanned the space beside her for clues, saw nothing but an empty sheet, a jumbled shelf beyond, the merest strip of light spilling in from a door that was ajar.
Juniper knew this place. This was the attic at Milderhurst. She was lying in her own bed. She hadn’t been here in a long time. There had been another attic, a sunny place, not like this at all.
I can’t remember.
She was alone. The thought came to her as solidly as if she’d read it in, black text on white paper, and the absence was a pain, an aching wound. She’d expected there to be someone else with her. A man, she realized. She’d expected a man.
A strange wave of misgiving then; not to remember what had happened during the lost time was normal, but there was something else. Juniper was lost within the dark wardrobe of her mind, but although she couldn’t see what lay around her, she was filled with a certainty, a heavy dread, that there was something terrible locked inside there with her.
I can’t remember.
She closed her eyes and strained to hear, cast about for anything that might help. There was none of the bustle of London, the buses, the people on the street below, the murmurs from other flats; but the veins of the house were creaking, the stones were sighing, and there was another persistent noise. Rain—it was light rain on the roof.
Her eyes opened. She remembered rain.
She remembered a bus stopping.
She remembered blood.
Juniper sat up suddenly, too focused on this fact, this small glimmer of light, of remembrance, to mind the pain in her head. She remembered blood.
But whose blood?
The dread shifted, stretched out its legs.
She needed air. The attic was stifling, suddenly, warm and moist and thick.
She placed her feet on the wooden floor. Things, her things, lay everywhere, yet she felt disconnected from them. Someone had attempted to clear a space, a passage through the jumble.
She stood. She remembered blood.
What made her look at her hands then? Whatever it was, she recoiled. There was something on them. She brushed quickly on her shirt and the gesture caused a rippling of familiarity beneath her skin. She lifted her palms closer to her face and the marks fled. Shadows. They were only shadows.
Disconcerted, relieved, she went shakily to the window. Pulled aside the blackout curtain and opened the sash. A light cool film of fresh air brushed her cheeks.
The night was moonless, starless too, but Juniper didn’t need light to know what lay beyond. The world of Milderhurst pressed upon her. Unseen animals shivering in the underbrush, Roving Brook laughing in the woods, a faraway bird lamenting. Where did the birds go when it rained?
There was something else, directly below. A small light, she realized, a lamp hanging from a stick. Someone was down there in the rain, working in the pets’ graveyard.
Percy.
