For Rye Gavin Gardiner (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

inside. His howling died with the sealing of the pantry.

Renata slid down the locked door, dropping her face into her hands.

I see it now, that’s all there is to say. She tore me apart then put me back together. Now I see everything.

 

Even if I made it out of here, I’m damaged beyond repair. I’d be worthless to anyone that once loved me – or they’d be worthless to me. She’s opened my eyes, and what I’ve seen can’t be unseen.

 

The world is evil. How couldn’t it be when places and people like this exist? God was never listening. She was right. We’re all monsters.

 

My life is a lie. I’m no more real than the characters Daddy made for me. I will end in this place.

 

For that I am glad.

32

The long grass rippled like waves around Renata’s feet in the moonlight. Cloaked in darkness, she waded through the swampy grassland, her outstretched fingers running through dead wheat. Tonight she would cross these fields for the final time. She thought of the bathroom mirror

into which she stares, knowing the fields await her – knowing Rye awaits her. She scrubs her gloved hands under the scolding water, steam ascending from the drenched leather to rise over a face both pale and of a permanent darkness. The blackened eye socket gazes back. Wrinkles have sunk like canyons around her features. She fastens the final clip into her night-black hair, carefully checking for rogue strands. Everything is in its rightful place. For the first time in her life, everything is in place.

No disorder, no disaster.

She pulls the scarf over her head and opens the front door, stepping into the

 

night, through which she trudged as the heavens opened for one final deluge. She ignored the screaming of her untreated, festering thigh and peered through the lifeless crops towards the clock tower. The world was deteriorating into little more than a blur through her remaining eye. No matter, the end was fast approaching and

so she prepares. Around and around the girl’s chair she wraps it like a vast python. There’s more than she anticipated, and, to her delight, finds there’s enough not only to encircle the chair, but also cover much of the surrounding floor.

The girl awakens. ‘Is it…time?’

‘Soon,’ says the woman, producing a pink mobile phone. She cycles through the stored numbers, an endless list of boys’ names, until she reaches ‘Daddy’. She hits the call button and listens for

 

voices through the rain. There were none. The cemetery was empty, save for the crooked stones leering from every direction. Rain fired from an obsidian sky as the tower loomed, its clock face springing to life as lightning flashed, then falling back into darkness.

She fiddled with a clip in her hair as she strode past Noah’s grave, the pit now refilled in an attempt to suggest the resumption of normality. There was nothing normal about this place, or this night.

Through the storm she spotted a shape leaning against the tower’s stonework: Rye’s motorcycle, upon which two helmets sat. Good boy.

‘Sandie, is that you?!’

‘Guess again.’

Silence.

‘If you want to see her again, be at the clock tower at midnight.’ The line goes quiet, then, ‘Bring your woman. And don’t bother tracing the call; the girl’s still out of your reach, unless you do as I say.’

‘Leave Eleanor out of this,’ says Rye.

‘Do as I ask, my love.’ Another silence. ‘Midnight, midnight, it’s your turn…’

33

Candlelight flickered through the open door at the top of the spiral staircase. Rye stood in the centre of the room with Eleanor sat white-faced on the steps by the glassless lancet window, fingering the cross around her neck, a blanket draped over her shoulders. They watched Renata shuffle into the cylindrical chamber and slink around the stone walls. They stared in horror as she stepped from the shadows and pulled back her scarf.

‘Eleanor knows everything, Renata,’ Rye said, looking her up and down, taking in the details of her physical ruin. ‘Everything I did to push you to the edge: convincing you I loved you, making you remember what you did to your brother. I’ve even told her what I did to—’ He cleared his throat. ‘—to your mother. Everything, Renata. I’ve told her everything. And all she wants, all we want, is Sandie home safe.’ He struck a match then produced his precious notebook, holding the flame to its pages. It dropped to the floor between them, burning. ‘I put too much on the line for my work, took things too far just to find inspiration for a novel. I’ve wronged you beyond forgiveness, but I beg you, let the suffering end.’ He took a step towards her. ‘For God’s sake, Renata. Let Sandie go.’

The glimmer remained in his eyes, that spark she’d so foolishly mistaken for creative energy. Too late it had revealed itself as the spark of evil, that same spark she now knew lay behind everyone’s eyes – even hers.

Especially hers.

The spark remained in his words, too. Yes, they were as hollow as ever. Renata now had a sense for deception; like fireflies, his insincerities shimmered in the candlelight. All she had to do was reach out and swat them.

‘Do as I say and you’ll see her again,’ she said, removing her leather gloves and stretching her wrists.

Lightning sprayed the room.

‘Anything, Renata,’ he said, eyeing her ruined hands. He took another step. ‘Tell me what to do.’

‘Choose.’

He stopped. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean,’ she said, picking the scabs on her palms. ‘I can see it in your eyes. The woman or the girl, you can’t have both.’

‘Renata, be reasonable.’ He edged closer. ‘Let’s talk about this like—’

‘Push her from that window and you’ll see Sandie again.’ Eleanor’s eyes widened. Her