Anna swallowed. She’d felt wonderful at the time, slightly euphoric, even. But now, when she thought about it, she just felt sick. ‘I went too far, didn’t I? This is my problem. It’s always been my problem. I get so worked up and I can’t think straight, and I say things I never should say, that I don’t even really mean.’
‘You didn’t mean she was a cold-hearted, manipulative bitch?’ The smile was back in Brody’s voice, but Anna ignored it.
‘Oh, yes. I meant that.’
He finally cracked and stifled a laugh.
‘But I shouldn’t have said that I was glad Spencer was dead. I could never be glad about that…’ She trailed off, her thoughts taking a more morbid turn.
‘Anna?’
‘Yes?’ she replied softly.
‘How do you feel now?’
Anna shifted on the metal chair, hugging her cardigan around herself. ‘Weird. I thought I’d be upset, and I am… There are moments when I get all fired up and angry again when I think about it,when I turn it all over in my head, but in my heart…’ She placed a palm against her chest and waited, allowing herself to feel the beat beneath her hand, the steady pulse of life. ‘I feel… better. Free. But that could just be the eye of the hurricane, couldn’t it? It could just be that I’ve got no energy left to feel anything else. It might all start up again with raging force in the morning.’
‘Maybe,’ he replied, not sounding worried about the prospect of that at all, which somehow made Anna feel better, and allowed her to relish the calm, even if it wasn’t going to last.
‘What are you going to do now?’
That was a very good question. She felt like anything was possible. She felt like a racehorse at the track, a creature that had been primed and trained, all amped up and ready to go, and finally the switch had been pulled and the gate had been opened. It was time to run. Forwards.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied honestly. ‘I’m at Camber Sands. I came to get away, clear my head, which is probably a good thing… I’ve had texts from my sister-in-law, but I’m not ready to read them yet, let alone answer them. Maybe tomorrow.’ She breathed out, and with it the last bit of tension drained from her limbs. Suddenly, after being so wired and unable to settle, she was ready for a long, deep sleep. ‘Thank you, Brody. Yet again. For listening.’
There was no smile this time in his voice when he replied. His tone was thick, gravelly. ‘Any time. Always.’
Anna yawned. She needed to get to bed but, at the same time, she didn’t want to end the call either. ‘I think I’m having what’s called a post-adrenaline crash, or something like that.’ She yawned again, and this time her eyelids became heavy.‘This is going to sound a bit strange, but what the heck, seeing as I’m so far past my own boundaries today, I have no idea what I’m doing… Would you mind if I didn’t hang up, if I just carried my phone around with me for a bit, but didn’t actually say anything?’
He took a moment to reply. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘Thank you, Brody. Until next time…’
Anna tucked her phone into one of her cardigan pockets, then jammed her hand into the other pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. She unfolded it and read it yet again. This was exactly what she needed to do to commemorate her husband’s birthday. It was a bit last-minute – so not her – but so very Spencer. She hoped they’d have space tomorrow, because he’d have loved to see her do this. It was the perfect way to remember him.
Yawning again, she stood and went back inside, closing the patio doors behind her. Before getting into the soft double bed, she pulled her phone out of her cardigan pocket and looked for somewhere to put it. The pillow next to hers always seemed empty these days, so she put it there to fill the space, then curled into the duvet and fell into a deep and restful sleep.
BRODY’S CHISEL SUNK into the wood he was holding in his left hand and he began deftly shaping the block, referring to a rough sketch in a notebook laid on the workbench. It had been weeks since he’d sat at his desk, held a pen in his hand and waited for words to come, but that was what he’d done when he’d got up before dawn this morning. He’d had a dream last night,the details of which were lost in his subconscious, but he’d woken energized. Inspired. He’d really thought today might have been the day. He’d been wrong.
Or sort of wrong.
Like before, he’d started with a word – the one Anna had described the way she’d felt last night:free. And then he’d allowed his imagination off the leash in a way he’d hadn’t done in years, too afraid it would head back to that same awful destination. Other words had come:brave, strong, good…And, like last time, when his rusty brain had run out of words, his pen had continued making marks on the creamy paper of his notebook. Brody was no great artist, but he had enough skill to sketch an idea and the end result be recognizable as something, even if it was just a wisp of an idea caught from a dream he couldn’t remember.
He’d drawn a woman. Well, an elf, really. Similar to the one Moji had in her shop, so he’d decided that maybe his subconscious wanted to make another one. He’d give it to Moji and she could sell it. It was the least he could do after all her kindness to him over the years.
When he’d finished sketching, he’d headed out to the workshop to get started. Lewis had followed him, slightly perplexed and wondering where breakfast was, and now here they both were, under the harsh glare of the fluorescent tubes until dawn broke properly, Lewis in his bed in the corner and Brody leaning over the workbench, trying to see if he could make this glimmer of inspiration come to life.
Brody hummed while he worked. He tried not to make many decisions or pay too much attention to what he was doing, just in case he jinxed this almost forgotten feeling of creative flow.He didn’t even glance at his notebook much. The image seemed stuck in his mind, so there was no real need.
But when he’d come close to finishing, when the major features – limbs and body, clothes and face – were just about there, only needing a little refinement, Brody realized he’d taken a wrong turning somewhere. The little figure, maybe only ten inches tall, was close to the sketch he’d drawn earlier that morning, but there were significant differences too.
She wasn’t an elf, for one thing. She wore a dress, but it was plain and simple, no fluted sleeves or Celtic knotwork. Her hair was long but remained above her shoulder blades rather than skimming the backs of her thighs. He guessed, if he were able to lift her hair, that he’d find that her ears weren’t pointed but small and rounded.
His creation was human. Or maybe only half human, because there was something otherworldly about her too, something different.
Who was she?
The answer came in a flash from his dream, an image that fired across the synapses in his brain and stung them into life, like an electric shock from a defibrillator. He suddenly knew exactly who she was. His whole body grew hot and his skin shrank until it was three sizes too small.
