Or broken.
“Here!” I don’t even wait for the car to stop fully before I hurl myself out on to the pavement, ignoring the angry shout of the driver. I stumble slightly, a horn blaring at me as I run blindly across the road. I right myself and race towards the cemetery entrance, eyes on the low wall where I last saw Meghan. She’s not there.
“Niamh, wait!” Jess and Will appear next to me as the cab squeals away.
“She’s gone.” My voice is dull, which is weird, because something molten is rising from my stomach. “SHE’S GONE!” I scream, aiming a foot at the grey stones.
“Whoa, stop!” Jess catches me and holds on tight as I immediately sag into her arms. “This won’t do any good, will it? You need to be strong, for Meghan. OK?”
“OK,” I snivel into my arm. “You’re right. But what now?” I sink down to the pavement, mimicking what I’d seen my sister do only minutes ago. It seems like hours. I trace my finger across a sparkling patch of pavement and lift it up to the light, wondering if the tiny shards of glass clinging to my skin have come from her phone.
“Tell us again, what exactly did she say?”
“He said he was taking her to meet me. At Jane’s party.”
“At Jane’s party?” Will repeats.
“Yes. Well, a party at Jane’s house.”
Will frowns. “But Jane Alsop lived at the museum.”
“Wait.” Jess is staring over the cemetery wall, past the lumbering iron gates. “Tell us about the dream you had again.”
“The graveyard one?” I rub my face. “Um, that I was walking through it to a kind of little building.”
“Like that one?”
I stand up so fast my head spins and I have to lean on the rough brick wall to stop myself falling over. “Which one?” I follow Jess’s pointing finger and see a short, stumpy building. It’s shaped like a kid’s drawing of a house, a pointed roof but no chimney or windows. A weathered metal door is set into the middle and it looks run down, neglected.
“Kind of.” I try to conjure the nightmarish image in my head. “But it was, I dunno, fancier than that one. Prettier, you know? Like, it had columns and stuff on it.”
“And a window?” Will is busy scrolling on his phone.
“Yeah.” The image of the sunken face, ropes of rotten hair framing it, scorches into my mind. “Yeah, there was a window.”
“Would you recognize it?” he asks, still tapping.
“What? But it wasn’t real. . .” I fall silent as he holds up his phone and I see the building from my dream there, on the screen in all its Technicolor glory.
“Of course,” whispers Jess. “Where Jane was buried.”
“I told you.” Will locks the phone and smiles at me grimly. “She’s been trying to help you. What you saw, in your dream, that was Jane’s mausoleum.”
“Oh my God.”
“Plus,” he adds, nodding over the wall, “guess where it is?”
“No,” I breathe. Was that where Tommy was trying to take me the other night?
“Yes.” He lifts his chin and for the first time I see something like confidence in his eyes. “It’s somewhere in there. And I think that’s where he’s taken your sister.”
“How big is this place?” I mutter.
“Few acres, I think.” Will’s voice is muffled by the stagnant atmosphere. I follow him deeper into the graveyard, brambles and old, dried flowers that have been shifted by the wind crunching beneath my feet. The air is soupy here, full of static electricity. Low, grey clouds have gathered, effectively blocking out the last of the afternoon sun. It feels like a storm cloud is following us.
Jess is lagging behind. I stop to let her catch up as Will ploughs ahead. She’s clutching her ribs and there’s a sheen of sweat on her forehead. The trees winding above us seem to knit closer together as the gloom settles around our shoulders.
“You OK?” I ask.
