Heret-Kau sighs, striding over to Siara. ‘That was a rough job.’
‘I had’ – I shoot a glare over at Xander – ‘distractions.’
‘I’ll meet her there,’ Rye says, rushing out the door and into his sister’s car. I hear the chaotic confusion and the urgency that ensures as she speeds down the road. The room is left in silence.
Siara lays there, eyes closed but breathing.
I let out a deep sigh. ‘It’s over.’
‘Not quite,’ Heret-Kau says, giving a small nudge before turning her attention to the boy. ‘Come now, you’ve interfered enough,’ she says, taking Xander’s wrist. He doesn’t struggle. He doesn’t even react. Instead, his stare becomes absent, plodding after the Goddess beside him.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, picking Siara up and carrying her outside. In the darkness of night, I carry her down the narrow streets, across the bridges and the fields and through the beachside caravan park until eventually I end up where I first met her.
The beach stretches out, the water quiet and calm. Walking up a part of a steep rocky cliff, filled with dense trees and ledges, I lay her down on the forest floor.
Mind still, I use my remaining concentration to freeze time for just a few moments more. Sitting down beside her, the world no longer moves. How long could I hold time like this? Definitely not as long as I could before. In the eerie unnatural world, I move stray strands of her cinnamon hair off her pale sleeping face. As opposed to an hour, it appears my limit is less than half that now. Time resumes, breaking the constructed world around us. The wind blows a cool chill through the forest. Animals scurry in the treetops above.
‘You’ll be happier this way, in this world. I promise,’ I say, leaning forward and kissing her forehead.
35
Siara
A stray curl is placed behind my ear. A cool light pressure touches my forehead. A kiss.
‘Siara, are you awake?’
My back aches and I toss and turn in an attempt to lessen the pain. The ground rustles with my movement.
‘Siara?’
Wait. Don’t go. I sit up quickly; for a few moments, I’m unsure whether my eyes are open at all. Tall shadows with spiked edges surround me in all directions, a thunderous rumbling echoing in the distance. It takes me a few moments to recognise the shape of trees and the sound of crashing waves.
‘Siara!’
Rye’s daggy shoes stand in front of me, scuffed and blotched with small drops of red. My head rings, a soreness arising around my temples. I stumble to my feet. ‘Rye! Where are we?’
I start walking forward, one bare foot shakily standing in front of the other. What happened? I was asleep at Rye’s and then – I saw someone. Will’s face enters my mind, fragmented, abstract and unreal. My fingers touch the tingling sensation still left on my skin. That was him, I’m sure of it. He can’t be too far away.
Not this time. I can’t let him get away this time. Just when he finally came back.
Branches and twigs scratch at me as I sprint down the steep hill, my heart thumping loudly in my chest and my unfit lungs yearning for air. Running out onto the beach, I stand there in disbelief. It’s the same beach. Right here. This is where I met them both. I glance around. It’s completely empty, no signs of lines in the sand – I’m too late. My knees collapse, dropping me with a thud onto the beach.
Rye’s voice calls out after me as he trails down the cliff, clumsily and awkwardly, not quite as sure-footed as I was. I give an amused grunt in between my heaving breaths.
‘Siara, what are you doing?’ he calls. I clamber to my feet as he jogs over. ‘Why are you running?’
I pause. ‘Running?’
‘Yes! Running! I’m surprised you didn’t fall.’
My brows narrow; I notice my puffed breath. ‘Huh? Was I running? Is that why I feel so awful?’
Silence stretches as Rye’s eyes widen. He groans apathetically. ‘Everyone’s been looking for you. Let’s go back now, okay?’ He reaches out a hand. I stare down at it tentatively. ‘Unless there was something else you needed to do here?’ My eyes wander past his hand. Something glimmers in the sand; I reach down to pick it up.
A crystal flower. How beautiful. Who would be so careless to lose something like this? I hold it up to the moonlight, letting the light refract through its different petals. Rye’s jaw clenches, an unimpressed expression crawling across his face.
‘No,’ I say finally, tucking the ornament into my pocket. ‘We can go.’
Why did I come here anyway?
I place my hand in his, comfortable and warm, and walk back to the van with my distraught parents there, waiting.
‘Siara! Where were you? You made us worry. We thought you’d had an episode again.’
‘Don’t worry, Claire, I was with her,’ Rye coos.
She brings a hand to his cheek. ‘Oh, good.’ My mother turns to me, giving me a tight squeeze. ‘I swear, every day you’re becoming more and more like your great gran, Lottie. Isn’t she, dear?’
My father agrees, amiably. ‘She’s starting to even look like Charlotte. Have you seen the old photographs, Rye? It’s astonishing how identical they look.’
My eyes narrow. ‘Charlotte? I can’t believe I never knew that was her name.’
Something pulls in the back of my mind, something blaringly urgent, but the more I strain to remember the quicker it fades.
And then the subject passes on and we talk about something else, and minutes turn to hours and hours turn to days, and my life goes on just like it always has, and just like it always will. The same thing, day after day after day.
