‘I’m not leaving Hawksmoor.’

  ‘It’s just a bloody house, Cecily,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to leave without you.’

  ‘Then stay with me.’ I swallowed. ‘Together forever,’ I reminded her. ‘We promised.’

  She swung away from me in frustration and stared across the ice. ‘Cecily,’ she said softly. ‘Please. I’m begging you.’

  She didn’t need to turn around to know I was shaking my head. She took a small step onto the skein of frozen water and another, and stood, finding her balance on the slippery surface.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  She walked another few steps towards the centre.

  ‘Alice,’ I called. ‘Don’t be stupid. We don’t know how firm it is.’

  She looked over her shoulder. ‘You’re a coward, Cecily. But you won’t get anywhere if you don’t take a risk.’ She turned away and took another step. ‘Tell me you’ll come with me tomorrow.’

  She turned to face me, shrugged, and stepped backwards. ‘Tell me, Cecily.’ She held out her hands, palms up like Jesus. ‘Tell me you’ll come to the kibbutz.’

  ‘I can’t!’ I shouted, my voice full of panic.

  She smiled, shook her head, turned around and walked further, almost striding, as if she was on a hike, until she slipped and rebalanced with a jerk and flap of her arms. ‘It’s beautiful out here,’ she called, her voice a little shaken. ‘But there’s a whole world waiting for us, Cecily.’ She swept her hand towards those invisible faraway things. ‘Deserts. Mountains. Cities. We can’t even imagine now.’

  ‘Alice,’ I called, my toes creeping on to the ice; every part of me tense and coiled. ‘Come back. Please!’

  ‘Tell me we’re leaving tomorrow.’ Her words a sing-song echo, bouncing from the hard, glittering surface, loud in the stillness. ‘I’ve got the tickets. All you’ve got to do is pack a bag. You just have to say, yes.’

  She was a long way out. The mist wrapped her in tendrils. I couldn’t see the details of her features any more. I heard the creak and judder of the ice. ‘Alright,’ I shouted in desperation. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ll come?’ She moved one leg behind her, teasing me.

  ‘Alice.’ I could hardly speak. ‘Be careful.’

  ‘Promise me!’ she shouted.

  ‘I said I’ll go with you.’ I gabbled it. The meaning of the words irrelevant. I would have said anything to get her to come to the bank. ‘I promise.’

  She was walking towards me now. Her smile shone. Puffs of silver trailed from her mouth into the gelid air. She looked beautiful, like a vision, like the Virgin Mother. Everything around us was silver. The grass at the edge of the tarn glinted like precious carvings. Clumps of hard mud twinkled with frost. We waited for her, the grass and snow, the earth, and the hushed grounds.

  The crack sounded like a gunshot. It ran in a fissure from the ball of her foot, a ribbon unfurling. It branched out. A deadly tracing spreading around her. She stopped, and looked at me, the smile gone.

  ‘Alice,’ I whispered.

  She kept utterly still, looking at me for what seemed like hours. We’d become statues, my gaze hooking into her gaze, a line shining taut between us. A cord to keep her safe. Don’t blink. Don’t move. We were suspended in time, two creatures caught in a glacier, fixed forever.

  Another gunshot. Cracks opening around her like mouths. The thin black lines fattening, expanding, moving apart. With a long, sharp squeal, the ice shifted and tore itself apart; she lurched and cried out, falling straight down in a slithering of legs, torso, head. A small splash. She was gone.

  I fell onto my knees and crawled towards the gaping hole. Under my fingers, I heard fractures race. I flattened myself against the groaning surface. Cold stuck to my palms. The jagged edge where she’d disappeared seemed very far away. I should have brought a branch, a stick, something for her to grab. I pushed myself on a little further, wriggling on my belly, shuffling inch by inch. A shadow moved below me. A fish, I thought, staring down through opaque ice. An oval blur hovered, her eyes and mouth hollows pressed into the pale of her face, and the darkness of her hair, dancing. Her hand was suddenly splayed against mine. A thickness of frozen water between us. Then nothing. The tarn had taken her.

  Gabriel and I pass between the carved pews over the stone flags. Above us, moonlight shifts through the gratings, falling like small coins onto our faces and hands. At the altar, I turn to the right and walk to a section of wall where there are two newer memorial stones. I take Gabriel’s torch and shine the beam onto the stones, picking out the engraved writing.

  Henry Deveraux, 4th July, 1959 – 2nd January, 1977

  Alice Deveraux, 18th August, 1961 – 14th January, 1977

  May their souls rest in peace.

  ‘My brother and sister.’ I look up into Gabriel’s shocked face. ‘They’re dead. And it’s my fault.’

  43

  CECILY

  Gabriel reads the plaques, then he looks at me, his expression full of horror.

  ‘I had no idea. I… don’t know what to say.’ He shakes his head. ‘But we’ve got to leave, Cecily.’ He touches my shoulder, gently. ‘Alice isn’t really here, is she? Just her memory. But there’s somebody waiting for me.’ He takes my hand, glancing at the grey light showing through the grating. ‘It’s nearly morning. Can you make it to the car?’

  I nod, and we retrace our steps, up the creaking stairs, along the gallery, past the dining room, into the main hall. I walk through the front door, leaving it wide open behind us, a gaping mouth. The next people to come will be workmen in orange coats and hard hats, carrying plans to erase Hawksmoor and build in its stead little houses with pocket-sized gardens, roads, pavements, and car parks.

  The sky above the fells is stained dirty red. The dawn chorus has started. Birdsong comes from the yew tree. I hope they don’t chop it down. I hope they let it live, bearing witness, carrying our story in its roots and branches, its deadly bark dense with history. When we reach the car, Gabriel gets behind the wheel. I don’t look over my shoulder at the house, instead I lean my head against the seat rest and close my eyes, listening to thorns scraping the sides of the car. Gabriel slows and turns through the gates. Opening my eyes, the craggy profiles of the fells are silhouetted against a star-speckled sky, and I’m crushed by the weight of things I don’t know. Sheets of moonlight lie over the dales, the dark shapes of drystone walls throwing long shadows across silver-grey grass. In the sleeping village, I smell woodsmoke, see a cat slinking around the corner of a house.

  Instead of indicating towards the motorway, Gabriel takes a left at the crossroads, and I realise we’ve arrived at St. Mary’s church. Gabriel pulls into a parking space and switches off the engine. I look up at the tall bell tower, the ridge of the roof with the grinning gargoyles. ‘Why are we here?’

  He touches my knee and says something I don’t catch as he gets out, shutting the door with a clunk. I watch him go through the gate, past the gravestones, towards the porch. I am suddenly afraid. Something appears out of the shadows of the church. A tall, stooped figure. For a second, I think it’s my father, come back to life. The two of them speak briefly and approach the car. As the moonlight catches a beaky nose and thin mouth, I recognise Ambrose Stone. My body prickles with confusion.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ I whisper as Ambrose climbs into the back seat.

  Gabriel puts his seat belt on. ‘He’s why I came to find you,’ he says. ‘He turned up at the house with a crazy story about following you in the car all the way up to Abbeystead, and then losing you.’ He leans forward and starts the engine. ‘He was certain you were about to do something terrible. He insisted I go to your parents’ house.’ Gabriel keeps his eyes on the windscreen, although we haven’t moved. ‘Anyway,’ he goes on. ‘I’d already seen the photo of you and Alice, so I knew something was wrong. Ambrose drove me up here as I had no car. We must have been breaking the speed limit the whole way.’

  ‘I knew time was of the essence,’ Ambrose says apologetically.

  It hadn’t occurred to me before to wonder how Gabriel had arrived at Hawksmoor. Ambrose has shuffled forward on his seat and stares intensely at me, his bulbous eyes milky pale. ‘How is your father?’

  ‘He’s dead⁠—’

  ‘His heart,’ Gabriel says. ‘There was nothing we could do.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Ambrose crosses himself. ‘God had plans for your father all along, Cecily.’

  His words confirm my suspicion. He’d heard me through the thin wood of the confessional. I want to tell him that he shouldn’t eavesdrop on the sins of others. Except, it’s true that I was going to murder Daddy, wasn’t I? But I didn’t need Ambrose. Alice set Daddy free and moved the trap. It was her that saved me.

  ‘I asked your husband to leave me at the nearest Catholic church,’ he’s saying. ‘I wanted to pray for you. For your father.’

  ‘We’ll drop him off on our way. I left his car near Hawksmoor’s gate.’ Gabriel glances over his shoulder. ‘I’d like to give you the petrol money, Ambrose. It’s the least I can do. You’ve really gone out of your way to help us. You must be exhausted from all that driving.’

  ‘Please,’ Ambrose says. ‘No need for that. God gave me strength. I wanted to help.’ Then he clears his throat. ‘And I have to apologise. I know you saw me outside your house, Cecily. I’m sorry if I frightened you. I followed you in Exeter, and I followed you in the car because I wanted to protect you. God told me you needed help. It was hard to see your faith faltering.’

  We drop him next to a red car and wait for him to get in, and then Gabriel and I drive on. I rest my forehead against the window, and snatch at fitful sleep. We stop at a dismal service station. Standing in the damp carpark, I roll out the stiffness in my neck. Dawn is a smear of dirty orange across dark blue. The passing motorway traffic creates a monotonous roar – a grey noise that presses into my ears.

  In the café, we sit across a Formica table with cups of coffee. ‘Tell me about Henry and Alice,’ he says.

  I push my fingers together. My acrylic nails are growing out, the polish chipped. ‘Henry was older than us. He was wonderful. A wonderful brother. But he was gay, and I didn’t understand. I lied to him, told him the boy he loved didn’t want to see him again. He jumped from our roof.’

  Gabriel’s forehead furrows. ‘But it wasn’t your fault,’ he says. ‘You made a mistake. You were a child.’

  My throat is tight. I manage a sip of tea. ‘And then Alice died,’ I tell him. ‘She fell through the ice. But she only went on it to force me to change my mind – she wanted me to leave with her, and I refused.’

  ‘Two children, dying so close to each other,’ he murmurs. ‘Was there ever an inquiry?’

  ‘There was an autopsy for Henry. My father managed to convince them that it was an accident. He knew the magistrate. And Alice… it was an accident. But it wouldn’t have happened if I’d agreed to go with her.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this? Why didn’t I even know you’d had siblings?’

  ‘Daddy wiped Henry from the family history and then Alice too. I kept up the pretence for him. He said I was an only child and I suppose, secretly, I liked it – not having the others to compete with – he always preferred them even though I was the one who loved him. The thing is,’ I look at him. ‘Alice has never left me. Not really.’

  ‘There were letters on your dressing table,’ he says, leaning across the table. ‘From Alice to you, and from you to Alice. They seemed to go back for years.’

  ‘We’ve written to each other ever since she left home.’

  He’s silent for a moment, playing with his teaspoon. ‘But she couldn’t have written,’ he says quietly. ‘She’s dead.’

  I look away from him, squeezing my eyes shut. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me.’

  ‘I think you wrote her letters,’ he says. ‘Maybe it was a way of denying her death, of keeping her alive.’ He reaches across and wraps his fingers around mine. ‘In one, you said that you were afraid of me – that I controlled you, that I drank.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. ‘I’m afraid of myself. Afraid of what happens to me. I do terrible things. There are all these blanks in my memory. I’m out of control and it feels terrifying – I never know when I’ll disappear.’ He let’s go of my hand and I push my hair away from my face. ‘It’s been like this for years. Ever since she died.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asks. ‘You disappear?’

  ‘I lose time. Hours. Sometimes days.’

  He falls silent and stares down, as if he’s thinking. ‘In the last letter,’ he says quietly. ‘You said you wanted a divorce.’

  I look at his strong, kind hands. ‘I had to please Daddy and he hated you.’

  ‘You’re not bound to his will any more, Cecily,’ he says in a low voice. ‘If you want to leave me, I’ll move out⁠—’

  ‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘I should be the one to leave. You and Bea would be better off without me. I don’t deserve you, either of you. We should divorce. I want you to be happy.’

  He blinks and rubs his eyes. ‘I won’t pretend it’s been easy these last years, but my feelings haven’t changed. I do still love you.’

  I swallow hard. There’s so much he doesn’t know. He wouldn’t love me if he knew what I do when he’s asleep, when I’m out in the dark world, alone. A bad apple is useless and disgusting. Worse, it spreads rot to other fruit, contaminates like a disease, infecting others with decay.

  ‘All of this,’ he sighs, ‘it’s hard to get my head around.’ He rubs his nose with a knuckle. ‘But we need to deal with one thing at a time, and it seems to me that the most important thing is to get you help. I think you’re ill, Cecily. There’s something very strange happening. It’s… it’s as if you have a split personality.’

  ‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘No.’

  ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of – I think… the other part of you is Alice.’ He gives me a long look. ‘You’ve been struggling with this since I met you, haven’t you?’ His voice is gentle. ‘Even at Exeter? That’s why you sometimes seemed like a different person.’

  His kindness makes me want to cry. I blink and fold my fingers through his. ‘I…I confused people, didn’t I? Forgetting things I’d said or done. I was confused, too. And scared.’

  He swallows. ‘When we met, I knew you were troubled. But I put your changes of personality down to mood swings.’ His fingers squeeze mine and let go. ‘You don’t have to hide it from me any more.’ He sits forward, brows wrinkling. ‘There must be some kind of therapy, a cure, someone who can help you. We’ll find a doctor.’

  ‘Do you think it can stop? Do you think I can be normal?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says.

  ‘Gabriel.’ I hold his hand across the table. I love you. The words stay in my head, instead I say, ‘There are things you still don’t know about me – things I do – shameful things…’

  ‘There’s a lot of stuff we need to say to each other.’ He sweeps his jacket from the back of the chair, picks up the car keys. ‘But it can wait. We should get going. We still have miles to go.’

  We are silent on the motorway. Speed lulls me, the warmth of the car soporific. I touch the webbing of the seatbelt across my chest, feel the smooth glass of the passenger window, clasp my knees in tea-stained leggings. I’m still here with Gabriel – it’s just me: Cecily, wife, mother, and survivor. The relief of him knowing my secret is huge. I thought he’d find me disgusting, weird, a freak. But he wants to help me. He still loves me. Maybe that was all it took to dispel Alice’s ghost. Maybe now I can stay present in my life. Maybe it was always that simple.

  We pull off the motorway, negotiating narrow roads lined with hedges, and then we are driving into Exeter, gulls wheeling above the car, raptor eyes spotting our return. Familiar streets open on either side of us. Home.

  ‘Cecily,’ he says, as we stop at a red light. ‘We slept together the other night.’ His voice is hesitant. ‘Do you remember?’

  A shock of understanding, then a flare of rage. I bite my lip. She’s betrayed me. But I can’t blame him. She’s easier to befriend, easier to love. She’s always taken what she wants. I shake my head. ‘That was Alice.’

  Gabriel’s cheeks are red, and he frowns, rubbing his hand over his forehead. ‘This is beyond me.’ He sounds hollowed out, exhausted. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘It’s alright,’ I say quietly. ‘It was my body in your arms.’

  The lights are green. He changes gear as we move ahead and turns briefly towards me with a quizzical expression. ‘I noticed something on your back. Scars, I think. I could feel them. You didn’t have any before. But you… or Alice… were trying to hide them from me.’

  ‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘I need to hurt myself. I deserve pain.’

  He pulls over suddenly, swerving into a parking space at the side of the road, and looks at me. He turns off the engine. ‘I don’t want you to hurt yourself,’ he says, his voice shaking with anger. ‘Nobody deserves pain. We will get help, Cecily.’

  He takes my hand in his, entwining our fingers, and we sit for a few minutes without moving in the warm, enclosure of the car. It’s no longer early morning. The world is waking up. I notice people leaving their houses; a jogger runs along a damp pavement; a woman crosses the road with two terriers pulling at their leads. There are puddles. The road gleams. It must have rained.

  Gabriel leans forward to turn the key. ‘Are you ready?’

  I nod.

  We pull up outside Hollyhocks Cottage. The privet hedge is alive with glittering drops. It takes only three strides to the blue front door. The drooping palm from the neighbour’s side drips water onto my sleeve as Gabriel lets us into the little hallway, and the unique smells of our house rush around me like a hug. I feel as if I’m an invalid returning home. Sukie is lying on the pine floorboards, washing behind her ears. Bea runs down the stairs in her pyjamas. Relief and happiness stretch her mouth wide. ‘Mum,’ she says. ‘You’re back. Dad let me have my friend to stay. He said he was going to surprise you.’