AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It took a few moments for Shay to register the invite. She walked inside with a little trepidation. Rachel was standing nervously by the fireplace, arms wrapped round herself, long, loose hair half-hiding her curiously blank face. People had never known if Rachel was truly mentally incapacitated, or manipulative, sly. Shay thought it would suit her to be disingenuous.
‘Get to your room,’ her mother barked at her and Rachel scooted away. Shay charted her footsteps up the stairs, along the floor above them, until they stopped and she had the feeling Rachel had parked herself somewhere to listen.
Ella stood there, like a shrivelled old fruit, viewing Shay with eyes that were sharp and shrewd, her jaw twitching as if her back teeth were grinding, though Shay doubted she had any left. She’d only had a few, widely spaced-out, when Denny was alive.
Shay overcame the temptation to speak first, she let the silence build between them until it was uncomfortable, full of the unknown; she let it linger there with a million dust motes swirling in it.
‘My daughter thinks you’re a ghost,’ Ella said eventually.
‘Maybe I am,’ returned Shay. ‘I reckon I’ve been haunting your mind for a long time.’
Ella dropped a dry humourless note of laughter and followed it up with, ‘My dad always said the dead can’t hurt you, it’s the living that do that.’
‘I beg to differ, don’t you?’
‘Sit down if you want.’ Ella gestured towards the kitchen table, a massive, scrubbed pine piece of furniture which had served generations. Shay sat at the end they obviously didn’t use, covered in a furry film of collected dust. She noticed, in the middle of the table, sitting in the centre of a crocheted round, there was a black leather-bound book with a faded golden cross on the front. A bible, which was rich she thought.
Ella’s eyes traced hers to it.
‘Do you believe in God, Shay Corrigan?’
‘Yes.’ It was an honest answer.
‘I never used to. Why would I believe in a god that gave me this life? But the closer you get to the end, the closer you seem to get to him. I’ve read that book cover to cover and back again while I was waiting.’
Shay didn’t ask what she was waiting for. She wanted Ella to tell her.
‘I’ve got a heart condition,’ said Ella. ‘I’ve had it for years. Although I never knew until they diagnosed it. My dad had the same, according to his medical notes. She’s got it an’ all.’ Her eyes flicked upwards before returning to Shay. ‘You nearly finished me off when I saw you across the street.’
Shay didn’t respond with anything other than the involuntary blinks of her eyes.
‘I should have died years ago, they said. They don’t know what’s keeping me alive. I’m a walking miracle.’ If it was a joke, she didn’t laugh.
‘Maybe I’ve been kept alive for a reason, eh?’ Ella’s voice began to rise. ‘What do you think? You’ve been here shouting for days and you’re not saying a word now. What’re you here for then?’
‘You know what I’m here for, Ella.’ Shay kept her voice controlled, self-assured, belying the chaos happening inside her: nerves ringing like bells, thundering adrenaline, the pronounced pulse in her throat. She was so close to getting what she came for, she could almost taste it on her tongue, an energy like burning metal.
Ella pulled out a chair and threw herself on it wearily.
‘None of it is Rachel’s fault, you know. She’s not right up here.’ Ella tapped the front of her head.
Shay let it unroll, unsolicited.
‘I’m not a bad person, whatever you might think. I didn’t intend for things to turn out the way they did. You got kids?’
‘Two.’
‘Hmm.’ Ella licked some moisture into her dry lips. It was cold in this house and, despite the surfeit of windows, dark and dull. ‘I can barely walk and I’ve less breath every day. Rachel will have to go into a home because she can’t look after herself. The money from this place will make sure she gets somewhere nice to live at last.’
‘You should have found somewhere easier to manage a long time ago,’ said Shay.
Ella seemed amused by that. ‘Don’t think I haven’t been punished for what I did, Shay Corrigan, because this house has been my penance.’
‘And what did you do, Ella?’ Shay wanted to clear the distance between them, stick her hand down the woman’s throat and pull the words out of her.
‘I protected my children, that’s what I did. You’re a mother, you know what you’d do for them.’
‘I would never throw an innocent child under a bus for them,’ Shay yelled, she couldn’t help it, and Ella winced. Her head dropped into a hand that stroked it to soothe it. Then, in a volume barely above a breath, she said:
