I froze, breath caught.
It was so dark, the blood pouring down her cheek didn’t look like blood. She stumbled back. The axe, still gripped in my hands, slid out of her face with a sucking sound. The black blood glistened along the blade like a lumpy oil slick.
She fell back through the open door in the basement, disappearing into the darkness of 1a Sgàthan Sìth beyond. Then the door swung shut.
Into
the Fire
CHAPTER 17
I didn’t remember much after my neighbour fell through the door.
I remembered throwing myself up the stairs. I remembered piling what belongings I had up against the bedroom door. I remembered the night sky through the window, swaying in my inebriation, and then darkness.
When I woke, I was gifted a few seconds of grace, of just lying in my bed in the soft light of morning, of feeling my way back into the world, toes and fingertips first.
Then I remembered what I had done.
I sat up suddenly and immediately regretted it. A stab of pain shot through my skull. God, after everything last night I’d almost forgotten about the pub. And all that beer.
Groaning, I tucked myself into the far corner of the mattress and hugged my knees to my chest. I was still wearing last night’s clothes. My beautiful Aran jumper, lying limply beside the mattress, stank of vomit. My head swam. My body convulsed with my heaving breaths, fast, faster still, heart a pounding drum. Oh God, oh God, what had I done now?
It’s not my fault, I told myself. I couldn’t be responsible. I wasn’t with it. I was drunk. It was dark. She snuck up behind me. What was she even doing in my basement?
I could see my defence. I was home, chopping wood, someone surprised me in the dark. I startled. I swung. I didn’t expect there to be anyone in my house. It was self-defence. It was a horrible accident. I could see the police officer nod sympathetically, the jury look at me with understanding. A horrible tragedy. No one at fault.
I rubbed my chest.
They wouldn’t see my thoughts. The thoughts I was having just before it happened. How wound up I’d been. How angry I was. Angry at the smirking faces behind computers. Angry at Fergus’s sneer. Angry at how my neighbour had hovered and grinned. Angry at how I’d let her get to me. Angry at how I’d probably frightened off Rowan and all my chances at settling in here and leaving my past behind.
I shook my head, wishing I could just refuse it all away.
I could still feel how the handle of the axe juddered up my arm with the force of my blows as I split wood.
Was it really an accident? Or did you just snap?
I held myself tighter, feeling profoundly sick.
No one would have to wonder anything, I realised. They’d only have to ask why I hadn’t checked to see if she was alright.
I threw on last night’s jeans and the hoodie I’d been using as a pillow and staggered downstairs.
I’d just left her. She’d fallen through the door and I’d left her. How could I do that? I paced at the top of the stairs to the basement. I’d assumed no one could open that door down there. Could I have opened it last night and checked? Even if I couldn’t, I could have gone round to see if she was alright. I hadn’t raised the alarm. Hadn’t called an ambulance.
I’d run and left her.
My hands shook in front of me. I had to go down and try to get in. At least to say I did. At least to be a person I could live with being. I flipped the light switch, forced myself forward, and headed down into the basement.
I prepared myself for horror, for blood and viscera.
There was nothing.
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs, convinced I was seeing wrong. Haphazardly chopped wood and jagged splinters littered the concrete floor where I’d scattered them in my frustration last night. My axe lay where I’d dropped it. The door in the wall was still sealed over. And there wasn’t a drop of blood to be found.
No destruction. No gore. Just a basement, dusty and dim and cold.
I picked up the axe. No blood on the blade. I ran my fingers gently across it. A black sticky soot smeared across my fingertips, but that could easily have come from some residue on the wood or grease from the boiler.
