‘He’s real,’ Beth said quietly. ‘This is real. But you’re not. That’s the problem.’
‘Rude.’
‘You’re magic, Gigi. And he isn’t.’ She brushed pastry edges with beaten egg. ‘I don’t know where you end and life begins anymore.’
He tilted his head, oddly thoughtful. ‘That’s because you’ve never allowed yourself good things without paying a price for them.’
The lunch rush hit with relentless force. Ed shouting orders, Rose clattering plates, Jo popping her head in to ask if she could ‘borrow’ a batch of sausage rolls.
Beth moved on instinct. Knife flashing, pastry folding, taste, stir, season.
Life felt normal again, almost.
Until she felt that faint vibration in the air. That prickle at the back of her neck.
Gigi drifted closer.
‘Oh no,’ she said quietly.
‘Oh yes,’ he whispered back. ‘He’s starting to feel it.’
‘Feel what?’
‘The edges of me. The corners of the truth. The bit you’ve been standing in all this time.’
Beth’s hands stilled. ‘What happens when he figures it out?’
Gigi looked gentle. ‘People run,’ he said. ‘Or they stay.’
Beth slid a tray of pies into the oven, leaned against the counter. Wondered which kind Kieran would be.
Upstairs, wood creaked. Footsteps.
Not his: not now. But she felt him anyway.
Like a loose thread pulling, slowly, at her heart.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Kieran hadn’t planned on going to the pub. He’d planned on making lunch, staring at his laptop and pretending the dream hadn’t unsettled him in a way that felt far too real to be shrugged off with a cup of coffee and a cheese and ham toastie.
Snippets of the dream looped through his mind like a poorly edited film. He groaned, and Prom, unhelpful as ever, gave a disgruntled miaow.
It had started innocuously enough. A faraway land, exotic and unfamiliar. Then, the voices. Not loud. Not frightening. Just … recognisable.
Jinnie’s practical tone, Jo’s quiet sarcasm, Wilma’s murmured asides, Sam’s calm, thoughtful cadence. All talking about something he couldn’t see. Except … hehadseen something. Something close. Something connected with Beth. A pinball machine, that was it.
And he had heard another voice. Achingly familiar, yet also beyond his mental reach.
By the time Kieran reached the pub, his thoughts were a jumble of contradictions.
It was just a dream.
But what about the pinball machine?
Beth’s behaviour is odd at times.
Strange things have happened in the pub.
