CHAPTER 67
THE SISTER
Hello, sisters.
I hate you both and miss you both. I miss watching you. I want to know where you are, what you’re doing, but according to Magnus, it won’t be safe to look for you for a long time.
He doesn’t understand. He could never understand our unbreakable bond. We’re like the three sisters, aren’t we? From the play. And when the hurly-burly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won, we’ll meet on the heath. Maybe that’s what’s destined.
I don’t know anymore. Nothing is turning out like I hoped it would.
Magnus is hiding something. He doesn’t realise that I know my man inside out, from his guts to his heart. We have always been united in our desires, but something feels fractured. We only have a few hundred pounds left and I’m not sure how much of this I can take.
The only part of this that brings me any joy is how much you must be hurting, Faye. Are you missing Penny? Do you wish she was safe and sound with you? Being taken care of by her doting Mummy? Well she isn’t. She’s tied up here and she’s in pain. He’s trying to break her, and turn her into an obedient little zombie. His pet.
He’s going to replace me.
The way he has been looking at me today fills me with dread. Those glittering dark eyes that regarded me as an equal have turned black. Bottomless voids with their own secrets. He slept on the sofa, not wanting to be near me. His touch is cold now, and his actions towards me are fuelled by something new.
I should leave but I have nowhere to go.
I hear a rustling sound behind me. His breath is on my neck. I hope for a kiss but the time for affection is over.
The blows begin then. To my head, my side. I fall to the ground and curl up in a ball. But he doesn’t stop.
He’s not going to stop until he kills me.
CHAPTER 68
FAYE
We sleep uneasily. Owls and foxes screech throughout the night. I’ve never known pitch black before, and at any moment I expect someone to bang on the windows of the van. Claire lies next to me, clutching the big kitchen knife. It may make her feel safer but it doesn’t offer me any comfort whatsoever.
When sleep eventually pulls me under, it does not provide the rest I need. I dream of pale faces made wet by rain. Claire staggering across my driveway, breaking into my house.
Magnus and Dina on the moors, the rain sheeting down, an open grave behind them. Penny lying unconscious or dead, ready to be buried.
I wake with a start.
“Can’t sleep?” Claire asks.
“No. You?”
“Not a wink.”
The sky is lightening now, and we decide to get back out on the road.
We drive along in silence for over an hour, both feeling the weight of anticipation, until Claire finally speaks.
“You know, I did try with Magnus. For years I tried to be his mother, to be patient and kind and look past every way he tried to hurt me. But that wasn’t the point. He never wanted a mother, I think he just wanted to practise being cruel.”
I look over at my sister, her face etched with pain as she speaks. Between Magnus and Jack, it seems the past thirty years have been very hard on her.
“You see, that’s the thing with Magnus. He takes pleasure in hurting people. He enjoys it. And he wants me dead. Which is why I have to act first. If I don’t, he will torment me forever.”
I nod. I believe every word because I’ve seen his brutality with my own eyes.
“I know you may not agree – many people wouldn’t – but it’s something I have to do. I can’t bear the thought of the police never catching him, or him going to prison and getting out after a few years for good behaviour. He will make it his life’s mission to make the rest of our lives miserable. He learned everything he knows from his father.”
