Fallow Heart Read online

  Lori let out a little breath. It was the thing she’d been planning on when the project was given at the start of term, more than three weeks ago. Stepping into A2 Spanish seemed such a long time ago now. Even Tuesday at the treatment centre seemed a long time ago. For the last three days, Lori had been spending her daytimes with Granddad and Huw, catching up on sleep and schoolwork, and itching to go back to college all the while. Showing her family that she still had some normality about her was the key to getting her wish.

  “Well, I heard of Dali a few years ago in English,” Lori began, “because he did these really weird illustrations for Alice in Wonderland. I could study those.”

  “Pfff,” Granddad scoffed. “If you’re going to look at his illustrations, then study The Divine Comedy at least.”

  Lori raised a brow.

  “The what?”

  Granddad’s mouth opened a little, then closed again. He gave a little smile.

  “Sometimes I forget how young you are,” he mused.

  He reached for Lori’s laptop, which was open on the table, and set about pulling up Google. Lori bit back a smile at the way his pruny fingers tapped every key at a perfectly deliberate ninety degree angle.

  “The Divine Comedy was a fourteenth century poem about the afterlife,” Granddad explained as he typed. “It’s a journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.”

  “I should’ve guessed it’d be something churchy,” Lori said, rolling her eyes at him.

  “They’re very good images, as I recall,” her grandfather said, sliding her a glare. “Take a look.”

  He had found a gallery. Lori sank into the images, from skeletal winged figures to bursts of colour and light flying across the page. As the colours shifted to greys and reds, Lori reasoned that she must be looking at Dali’s images of Hell. A rock with random giant limbs sticking out of it at all angles. A black, horned dragon carrying a figure in pain. The one that caught her most of all was a blue ghostly figure draped in a crimson cloak, beside what seemed to be a river of fire.

  So this is Hell.

  Lori’s breath grew short. She stared into the vague features of the ghostly face, able to make out a hooded brow and a long, hooked nose. A few days ago, she’d have broken into a sweat. Her body would have shaken at the table, she’d have balled her fists and fought back tears. Now, she just stared. Hell was real, or at least the place the demons came from was. What better name to give it than the one the human race already knew?

  Her phone buzzed, and Lori snapped from the image. Granddad had been speaking to her, which was only clear to her when he suddenly stopped, interrupted as she was by the bleep. Lori pulled her phone from her hoodie pocket and laid it on the table, watching the lines ripple on the screen as she swiped it.

  “Is that Mum?” Granddad asked.

  “Just my tablets reminder,” Lori said, shaking her head.

  She leaned under the table, delving into her bag, and produced a brown glass bottle with no label. Yanking on the cap, Lori tipped two small blue pills into the palm of her hand. They looked like the tops of screws, one straight line across the middle, and they were small enough for her to swallow without water. She popped a couple into her mouth and gulped. Lori’s throat turned scratchy. She coughed and swallowed a couple of times to be sure they were going down. When she looked up, her grandfather was watching her, his chin resting on the steeple he’d made of his fingers.

  “Do you think those things are doing you good?” he asked.

  “Definitely,” Lori replied, and she meant it.

  There had been no bad dreams since Tuesday. Three full nights of deep sleep, every one making Lori feel more like herself again. Ever since she’d begun the prescription that Doctor Lyons had made up for her, her temperature had been coming back down to normal. There’d been no visions of beasts or glowing crimson eyes, and she could think about college and Hell and all sorts of other things without fear of freak-out. Even the Harvest that Kasabian had spoken of seemed a long way off. Lori gave a gentle yawn. Granddad had not broken his stare yet.

  “I guess they make me a little tired, but that’s all,” she added.

  Her grandfather released a small sigh.

  “Back to the Inferno, then,” he said.

  Lori’s phone gave another beep, a different sound to the one before. She watched the display light up, eyes scanning for the new notification.

  KASABIAN: How’s things with you?

  She snatched up the phone, loading the message.

  “Well that’s definitely not from your Mum,” Granddad said, chuckling.

  Lori paused, her thumb over the reply box. Had he seen the name? She didn’t look up to meet his eyes.

  “I can tell by the sudden enthusiasm,” he continued. “Who is it?”

  She could breathe again at that.

  “A friend I made at the centre,” she lied, lifting a hand. “Two seconds and I’ll dive right back into Hell with you.”

  In her peripheral vision, she saw her Granddad slide the laptop back towards himself. Kasabian had sent her no more than a ‘how are you’, but it meant he was somewhere with a signal at last. What should she say? In truth, nothing bad had happened since Tuesday, but if that was all she told him, he might go silent again.

  All quiet, she typed, but funeral Sunday :( Gonna b tough. Will u b there like u said?

  Ending with a question was a good idea. She gave a nod to herself as she stashed the phone in her hoodie pocket again, one hand still clutching it. She looked up.

  “What?” she said, catching that glitter in her Granddad’s eyes again.

  “You must be feeling better,” he surmised. “Is this friend, by any chance, a boy?”

  Lori’s cheeks grew warm. He’d got it all wrong, of course, like parents and grandparents always did, but Kasabian was technically a boy. She opened her mouth, hoping some clever excuse would follow if she simply started talking, but the blare of the landline phone drowned her words out. Granddad pushed himself to his feet, stepping into the open archway between the kitchen and the dining table to grab the phone on the wall. As he answered, Lori’s mobile bleeped again in her pocket.

  “Hello, Timothy Granger speaking. How can I help you?”

  Lori sped straight to her messages again, waiting those painful few seconds for the black screen to load up.

  I will. You have to figure out how to get away afterwards. I want to show you some things that might help.

  “This afternoon?” her grandfather said loudly, interrupting Lori’s thoughts. “That’s short notice. Couldn’t we-?”

  She shook herself away from his voice, reading Kasabian’s text again. After the funeral, there would certainly be a wake. Lori could vaguely recall Granddad’s sister, Great Aunt Diana, passing away a few years back, and at her wake everyone got drunk. If Pauline’s ceremony was anything like that, she’d be able to vanish without being spotted.

  Can do, she replied, fingers slipping hastily over the buttons.

  She sent the message, wondering if she ought to have added anything more. She glanced up at Granddad, but he was staring out of the window with an absent gaze. He nodded a few times, despite not being able to see who he was speaking to. Then he turned a little, catching her watching him. He put his hand over the bottom of the phone.

  “Give me a minute, love,” he said. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  He took the phone and paced out of the room, closing the dining room door behind him. Lori listened for a moment as his muffled voice faded away. Footsteps creaked on the stairs. She toyed with her phone, willing it to ping again. She should have sent Kasabian more, asked another question. Sunday was too long to wait. Lori caught herself in that thought, thinking of Granddad’s knowing look about ‘the boy’. She shook herself out. Too long to wait for answers, not to see Kasabian.

  Yeah. Right.

  She left her phone on the table, slipping out of the dining room quietly to visit the loo. The little bathroom was at the foot of the
stairs, but she couldn’t hear even a mumble from Granddad now. Lori shut the bathroom door behind her, and a moment later she heard the rattle of keys from the other end of the corridor. Huw had been out since before Lori arrived that morning, and he was humming a little tune to himself as he came through the door. The footsteps on the stairs returned, this time trundling downwards.

  “Did you find anything out?” Granddad asked.

  “Well-” Huw begun, but Granddad shushed him.

  “Keep it low,” he said. “She’s at the table doing her project.”

  Their voices grew hushed, so Lori moved back to the bathroom door. It was old and ill-fitted, like most things in the house, so she put her ear to the thin gap between the frame and the door itself. Huw had already started to speak again, his Welsh lilt carrying his words down the hall through the gap.

  “I told you, didn’t I?” he said in a forceful whisper. “I told you there was something fishy about an unlabelled bottle of pills. No reputable chemist does that.”

  A blade of hurt stabbed Lori’s gut. What were they up to? Investigating her behind her back?

  “So what did your friend at the hospital say?” Granddad asked, his word hurried.

  “It’s a right concoction,” Huw answered. “Paracetamol to take the fever down, I assume, but then the rest is mainly diazepam.”

  “What’s that?” Granddad asked.

  Lori leaned harder on the door.

  “Valium, love,” Huw replied.

  “Lord,” Granddad answered. There was a pause. “You mean,” he added, his voice the barest whisper now, “like a tranquiliser? An anti-depressant?”

  “It’s no wonder she’s sleeping twelve hours a night,” Huw sighed, “Poor love’s on a course of knock-outs.”

  “And yet she’s still sleepwalking,” Granddad replied.

  Lori’s throat was tight. Her hands were pressed so hard against the doorframe that her knuckles had turned pale.

  “Still?” Huw said. “You heard from Yvonne again?”

  “No…” Granddad began. Another pause. “I found her on our porch. At about four this morning.”

  “Good God,” Huw breathed.

  “Standing there, fast asleep,” Granddad continued. “I walked her into the car and drove her back to Fir Trees.”

  “And she has no idea?” Huw asked, his whisper straining.

  No idea.

  There was a warm, sour feeling in her throat. Three days of feeling better. Three days of feeling like everything was going to be all right. Why hadn’t they told her? Huw, her Mum, her Granddad, all lying to her, all hiding the truth. Lori’s fingers crunched hard into the doorframe, and she was shocked to find that her nails carved into the wood a little. Was that right? Should she be strong enough to do that?

  “No,” Huw said, and Lori realised she’d missed a snippet of their words in her rage. “She won’t notice that I took a couple of pills out until she gets near the end of the bottle. We’re all right for now.”

  She opened the door. The old wood flew back with a bang, and Lori watched the two old men jump at the other end of the corridor. Granddad began to speak, but Lori charged back through into the dining room, grabbing her phone off the table. Her fingers clamped around the plastic case, glowing white again. How dare they? How dare they sneak around like that?

  “Lori, beaut-” Huw said, edging into the room.

  With a shake of her head, Lori smashed past him to get away again, bumping the old man’s shoulder before he could dodge her. This was Huw, who had always been so kind. Huw, the voice of reason against her Granddad’s strict ways. And he’d been poking through her stuff, testing her tablets without her knowing.

  “Don’t speak to me,” she said, her voice quaking.

  She started to march up the stairs, racing for the little guest room where she could slam the door and think. Even as she reached the threshold, her grandfather’s voice shot up the staircase. It had gone from a whisper to a boom in seconds.

  “It’s for your own good, Lorelai!” He called. “You’ve got an hour to get yourself out of this strop. That phone-call was from Detective Constable Walker. I have to take you back to the station.”

  Lori paused at the doorway. Her heart was hammering in her chest, heat stinging her eyes.

  “What’s it about this time?” she shouted back.

  “Ryan Wade.”

  She slipped into the spare room and slammed the door. The old house seemed to shake a little with the force. Lori dropped onto the narrow bed, rubbing her knuckles against her eyes. What was the point in crying again? What could she do against her own family, if they were determined to lie to her? She picked up her phone and tapped the screen. No reply from Kasabian. She hovered over his name for a moment, then made a quick decision. A single tap, and she put the phone to her ear, listening to the rings.

  “Hello?”

  Kasabian’s voice was deep and lazy.

  “Hi,” was all she could manage at first.

  “What is it?” Kasabian asked. “Lori, you sound like you’re crying.”

  “It’s all gone to shit again,” she confessed. “I’m still sleepwalking, but I didn’t know it. They’re lying to me, all of them! And Huw’s been going through my stuff.”

  “Huw? Who’s he?”

  “My granddad’s boyfriend,” she explained, teeth gritted. “And now I have to go back to the station for questioning again. Why can’t they leave me alone? Isn’t it enough that I’ve got this… thing… happening to me? Isn’t the Harvest and the D.C. and all that shit bad enough?”

  “It is,” Kasabian replied. There was something so calm about his slow way of speaking. Lori took a breath, waiting. “The sleepwalking goes away in time. Your family doesn’t understand what’s happening, Lori. They can’t possibly. But I do.”

  She sniffed in a breath. “Yeah. I know.”

  “Don’t tell the police anything detailed, okay?” Kasabian warned. “If they poke too deep, then Matilda Vane will make them go away. She’s good for that, if nothing else. Tell them the truth about anything they might already know, then plead your ignorance about the rest.”

  At last. Someone who would give her some advice instead of a vague promise of help. Lori took Kasabian’s words in, breathing herself calmer.

  “Okay,” Lori said. “I can do that.”

  “Keep your head down until Sunday, and I’ll see you then,” Kasabian replied.

  Lori clutched the phone harder.

  “You can’t stay and talk?”

  A pause.

  “I wish I could.”

  The line beeped. Dead. She wiped away a few more errant tears. Had he sounded sad at the end there, or had she imagined it? Lori loaded her photos, searching for the one Kasabian had added. She read the tattoo across his chest, then zoomed in and out for a moment on his scar. She hadn’t looked at the background of the picture before, the bright sunny day outside the window of the little room he’d been in at the time. Was that Beirut? Had Kasabian travelled the world in the last two years, hiding from the beast that wanted to harvest him? She looked at his face: the dark eyes and thick, wavy hair.

  I’ll help you, he had said. Better than they can. I swear it.

  Lori lay back on the bed, the phone resting on her chest.

  “I hope so,” she whispered to herself. “I hope so.”

  Bodies, and how they lie

  “I’ve told you already,” Lori said, squeezing the fingers of one hand with the other. “Ryan teased me sometimes. We had an argument. I grabbed him. And then I let him go.”

  Detective Constable Walker was pacing the room, and Lori had long-since given up on following him with her eyes. He was making her dizzy, shifting back and forth in front of the stark lamp that lit the space. This interrogation room was a lot less friendly than the little beige box she’d spent her time in on her last visit to the station. There was no shock counsellor, no silver blanket, no offer of a cup of tea. There was only Walker, with a big yellow
file and steely eyes full of questions. Lori’s leg bounced, her tongue shifting around and pushing at the backs of her teeth.

  “I should have a lawyer or a chaperone or something for this,” Lori said, teeth gritted.

  “You’re not being formally charged, Miss Blake,” Walker replied. “I need some information on your classmate. You had this argument and you left the college premises?”

  Lori nodded.

  “And you didn’t see Ryan Wade after that?” Walker asked calmly.

  “I’ve told you,” she said again. “What else do you want from me? Can I go yet?”

  “No,” Walker replied.

  He stood still for a moment, and Lori saw the shadow of his head on the desk before her. His buzz cut was perfectly even and his ears were the pinned-back sort. Blockhead. He started to pace again, like a Minecraft figure wandering randomly around a new space. She let out a sigh. Had it been an hour? Two? She wished she hadn’t left her watch at home, and Walker had prevented her from bringing her phone into the room. Granddad was out there somewhere, waiting for her, but he was the last person she wanted help from right now. Except perhaps Huw.

  “You have to understand, Miss Blake, that the only connection between the killings on Friday night and Monday night is you. Nobody’s pressing charges here, you needn’t be so defensive. I need to know what happened, every detail. I want to serve justice for your father’s girlfriend, and for your school-chum.”

  Walker’s face was turned away when Lori looked up, buried in the contents of his big yellow file.

  “I don’t know anything,” she told him, pacing the words out one by one. She stretched her hands out over the table, noticing the hot, clammy sensation that had returned to her palms. An idea formed in her head. “Please,” she continued, “I can’t handle this. I’m not well.”

  Walker flipped a page in his file.

  “Yes,” he mused. “Tell me about that. You’re receiving treatment for an infection, is that right?”

  Kasabian’s voice echoed in her head. Don’t tell the police anything detailed. Lori took a breath.

  “Yes.”

  “How long have you been unwell?”