“Weirdly cool, right?”
I barely hear her. My vision has started to swim and there are tiny sparks of light flashing in my eyes, pinpricks climbing up my hands and feet. I slide off the wall like a limp piece of spaghetti and huddle into a ball, my back pressed up against the safety of the concrete, arms wrapped around my knees. A wave of nausea sweeps over me. I try to cover my face, regulate my breathing, wondering whether I’ve eaten something bad.
A gentle hand on my shoulder grounds me and the pins and needles recede a bit as Jess’s voice cuts through the buzz in my ears.
“Hey, it’s OK, breathe. I think you’re having a panic attack. In through your nose and out through your mouth.” I try to follow her advice, sucking a deep breath in. Oxygen fills my lungs. Better. I force it out and heave another in, snorting loudly, but I’m far from caring. The world begins to refocus so I carry on, following Jess’s soothing tone as she repeats herself: in, out, in, out, in. . .
“Better?” My head weighs a tonne as I lift it to look at her. She’s crouched beside me, her normally light brown skin pale in contrast to her bright lips. “Has that ever happened before?”
“No.” I carry on taking deep breaths as Jess helps me on to unsteady feet. She rummages in her bag and pulls out a half full water bottle, unscrews the lid and offers it to me. “Drink this.”
I take the water and gulp it down gratefully, my mouth Sahara dry after all those deep breaths. I sag against the wall. The water seems to rehydrate my brain so much, that it’s now pressing against my skull, trying to find a way out. I can feel the mother of all headaches coming on.
“Thanks.” I roll the empty plastic back and forth, letting it crack and crunch between my hands. “How did you know what to do?”
Jess waves a hand. “Mum has them sometimes. Because of the MS.” Ruth? No way, she seemed so calm.
“MS?”
“Yeah, that’s why she walks with a stick. How are you feeling?”
“Wobbly.” I try a smile but my mouth just twitches. “Damn, I’m meant to be back at the museum. What time is it?”
“It’s fine, you’ve got fifteen minutes. Are you sure you want to go back, though? I’m sure Geoffrey wouldn’t mind if you went home to bed.”
I weigh it up. My head is thumping but I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep; it’s more likely that I’ll lie in bed, alone, replaying the last few days over and over in my head. No thank you.
Maybe I should take Jess’s advice about one thing though. Maybe talking will help.
I take a deep breath.
“So, all that disgusting hair jewellery. When I saw it, I dunno, I guess it kind of gave me a flashback or something.”
“Of what?”
I spill out the horror of the last few days to Jess. To her credit, she sits and listens quietly, rather than running away screaming.
I tell her all about finding Sara, her open, staring eyes and the way clumps of her hair had been torn out at the root, an image I know I’ll never be able to shake off. I tell her about making friends with Tasha and then her being attacked. I tell her about my close call in the Tube station, the metal screech that is etched in my brain. Finding the girl on the platform, hair hanging in front of her face, the gaping wound where her eye had been.
Jess’s smile has vanished by the time I finish. She looks a little sick but determined.
“Right,” she says, zipping up her bag and swinging it over both shoulders. “We’re going back to the museum to tell Geoffrey you don’t feel well and then you’re coming home with me.” I start to argue but she doesn’t give me a second, grabbing my hand and pulling me away from the Thames, back towards the museum. “Nope, no excuses.”
“OK,” I say meekly.
We walk along together in silence for a while. Jess seems deep in thought. At last she says, “You see what all of these attacks have in common, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I say glumly. “All the girls look like me.”
She stops then and gives me a look which is part sympathy and part concern.
“They don’t just look like you, Niamh. I think the attacker thinks theyareyou.”
“Just two minutes, I promise.” Jess drops her backpack and disappears behind the library counter. She’s going to ask Ruth if it’s OK for me to sleep over.
A large, open book on the big desk catches my attention. It’s as big as one of those giant newspapers that my Granddaddy used to get on a Sunday, full of different sections that he’d spread all over the farmhouse table. I take a furtive glance around. I can’t see anyone, maybe it just hasn’t been put away yet. I’m sure Ruth won’t mind if I take a peek.
I walk over for a closer look. The pages are mottled and the binding looks heavy, leather maybe. The edges of the paper (or was it parchment when it was this old?) are brown and ragged, worn with age. They remind me of when I made a treasure map for a school project once, Meghan and I carefully stained paper with wet teabags and stole a lighter to set the edges on fire, burning a hole in Mammy’s favourite tablecloth.
