Page 174 of These Tears

They blur into a hum beneath the sudden violence of my pulse.

Rapist.

The word keeps coursing through me, knocking loose every careful version of this man I have tried to construct from fragments.

A prickling heat crawls beneath my clothes.

He wouldn’t hurt anyone.

Sound thins in and out as if I’ve been pushed underwater. Inga starts talking about her degree. About social work. About how she chose it because once, she had been young and furious enough to believe the world could be divided into people who hurt and those who could be saved. Because she wanted to help those who ended up in the claws of bad people.

Bad people.

My fingers curl around my camera bag.

I look through the fire at Elias.

He is crouched alone beside the fire, holding himself together in front of people who think they know him and his demons. The flames devour him. The smoke winds in the air above him, briefly taking the shape of black horns.

And I stand there with milk drying on my fingers, wondering which claws Inga thinks he escaped from.

And which ones belong to him.

‘Sorry,’ I interrupt, my mind reeling, ‘would you mind telling me where the lavatory is?’

The words die on her tongue as though I’ve yanked her clean off whatever track she was on. ‘Yes, it’s right down the hall, up the stairs to the left of the telephone.’

Every joint in me locks up.

‘You have a telephone here?’

She smiles. ‘Sure. Only a few families kept theirs when they changed the lines over. They cost a fortune. Unfortunately, mobile is useless out here, so most people just walk over if they need something.’

Something opens in my chest, and my next breath rushes in a little easier.

Right down the hall.

My fingers stop drumming against the edge of the table. Even my hands seem to forget what they were reaching for.

The phone’s close enough to touch, but getting there means crossing the yard and passing through the sitting room.

Would I call Anna? The police? What would I say?

What was the name of this place again? Rypevik, someone said, or something? I can’t remember a sign at the entrance because we probably drove past it while I still had the blindfold on.

I don’t know where I am. What the address is. I don’t know if Conall is part of this or whether making that call would drag my sister into whatever Elias has set in motion.

My body stiffens. My mouth goes dry, throat raw with a silent scream that slowly begins to die as my eyes find him again.

The man I’ve spent a year writing to, travelling to photograph places he couldn’t reach, trying to keep his mind away from chains. Defending him.

But he was never just a convict with sad eyes and poetic silence.

My fingers shake against my thigh as I wonder if Melody had ever stood this close to people who might have helped her, if she had known how to make the danger sound real.

Do I?

I incline my head at Inga’s moving mouth without hearing anything else. The yard reduces itself to distances and timing: table to door, door to sitting room, sitting room to telephone.