Riley feels Cal’s presence beside her like a sun but she can’t look him in the eye. ‘I’m sorry.’ Riley can see her voice in the air. The words hang there in the dim forest light.
‘I trusted you,’ Cal says. ‘I wish I’d never met you. But soon you won’t be here anymore. You won’t be anywhere. That’s good.’ He walks faster and tugs. Riley coughs and pulls at the rope about her throat. ‘The sooner we do this the better. No one will miss you. Even your little brother hates you.’
‘What did they give me?’ Riley asks. ‘In the mushroom stew?’
‘The mushrooms,’ he says. ‘You know.’
Nowhere House rears up in the clearing ahead like a blackened tooth. Cal drags her towards it, the rope tight and choking about her throat.
As he shoves the door open with his shoulder, Riley thinks how quickly she could bend and seize a stone, of the report on his skull. But she hesitates and he feels the thought and turns.
‘There’s no point,’ Cal says. ‘I meant what I said. You can’t leave Nowhere. The gate is sealed, and Noon has taken apart the fly. This is our valley and we would find you wherever you hid.’ He leans in close. ‘Also, if you run, I’ll take your brother to the lake, tie him up and whistle for the crocodile. That would be real justice. Then you’d know how I feel. How it is to lose him.’ He leans back, eyes cold. ‘Are you going to run?’
After a moment Riley shakes her head.
They walk through the house, disturbing a pair of crows and a fox that turns and looks at them with golden eyes before slipping into the shadows. The walls and everything are pulsing. The house is alive, all right. Riley sees lights dancing in the air, all around. Each glowing orb surrounds a tiny person-shaped thing. Their dragonfly wings beat fast, a blur.
The sunken garden is green and dim. The chair looms, high and pointed. The wood is dark with blood – Alison’s of course, and the blood of many others. The blood glows bright; Riley sees every drop, each stain on the wood. She struggles again, a river of fear rushing through her. She knows that once she’s fastened into the chair, everything ends. The orbs of light are everywhere in the dark air. The tiny people watch, expectant.
The straps close about her arms and legs. Cal stands back. For the first time, he looks hesitant.
‘Do it,’ Riley says. She feels vicious, at this last moment. ‘Why wait?’ She was a fool to have imagined she could find a place in this world.
Cal takes out his pocketknife and slides it in, not quite into her vein, but nearby. The pain is not as bad as she expects. Adrenaline, probably, and the mushrooms might be helping. Riley’s main sensation is heat, the warm gout of blood running over her wrist. The orbs of light dance through the air towards Riley and her wound. The small people hover by her wrist on their dragonfly wings. They dart delicately in and out of the red stream of her blood. She knows it’s the drug they gave her but it’s so vivid, the sensation of little lips sipping at the cut. The skin between all worlds seems worn very thin, here.
‘Leaf Winham will come for you,’ Cal says. ‘You’ll see him soon enough.’ For a moment his anger gives way. He looks worried and sad. In that moment Riley believes him. Then she remembers that she is feeling fairies drink her blood.
She smiles, white-lipped. ‘No I won’t,’ Riley says. ‘Because he’s dead.’
‘When you’ve had the mushrooms,’ Cal says, ‘that doesn’t matter. Normally we give them baby formula too. We don’t want to make it too bad for them. As for you, all you get is mushrooms. We punish you inside as well as outside.’
‘Cal.’ Riley’s body is singing.
‘You probably won’t die today,’ Cal says, ‘so someone will be back again tomorrow. Not me. I don’t want to see you ever again.’ Riley watches him walk away. His back heaves; he’s crying and she wants to call him back but she can’t, and she won’t, and it would do no good anyway. Cal is lost to her.
His footsteps fade. Riley is alone in the house, now. She tries to think, to make a plan, but the bobbing lights fill her vision, and all that will run through her mind are two words, over and over.Now here Now here Now here.It mingles with the rhythm of her blood, dripping onto the earth.
When next she surfaces, Everett is there. His eyes look pin-bright against the black wool mask. He has just opened her up again, she can tell, because there is a hot rush passing across her wrist. He holds out a bowl. Riley’s stomach clenches. She can smell the mushrooms.
‘No,’ she whispers.
Everett tips his head and nods at her slowly. He offers the bowl again. Food is better than no food, she thinks, when she is losing so much blood. Time has folded into itself, but she recalls from her time watching the Alison woman that the mushrooms’ effects seem to last around four hours. Riley nods. She can handle it. Everett feeds her with a spoon, gently.
Riley eats. But halfway through her mouth purses out and her body collapses into sobs.
Everett offers her the spoon again. She shakes her head, tears running down her face.
He nods at her. The spoon clicks against Riley’s teeth.
‘I don’t want to die,’ Riley says. ‘I know what I did. It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have to die for a mistake.’
Everett shakes his head at her, slowly.
‘Why do you wear that on your face?’ Riley asks.
He shrugs.
‘I don’t believe you,’ Riley says. ‘Everyone does things for a reason.’
