Take Me Home Read online

  “I’m sorry,” I said, drying the tears that were still flowing down my face.

  “You can never make it right, Inary. Whatever you do. You can never undo what’s been done. Live with it,” Logan said in an angry whisper, leaving the room and the house.

  *

  I let myself cry at the kitchen table for a bit, then I went upstairs to see Emily. I’d promised she wouldn’t see me cry, and I intended to keep that promise. I sat on her bed and smoothed the covers down around her.

  “I’m sorry we were shouting. You know us. Cat and dog.”

  “Yes. Is Logan giving you a hard time?” she whispered. I could never get used to how blue her lips were, how troubled her breathing sounded. I wanted to breathe for her.

  “Not more than usual.” I tried to smile.

  “He doesn’t understand you.”

  “Nah. He’s right. I should never have left you . . .” I hated myself. At that moment, I truly hated myself.

  “He doesn’t need to live the way he does, Inary.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Emily took a deep breath – as deep as she could muster. “I’m his excuse.”

  “His excuse?”

  “While I’m around, he needs to look after me. He can’t leave Glen Avich, he can’t have a serious relationship . . .”

  “Why not? I mean, he could have a girlfriend . . .”

  “Exactly,” she murmured. Her breathing was becoming even more laboured. I had to leave her be, talking was too hard for her. “Like I said, I’m his excuse.”

  “Enough talking now, honey. Can I get you anything?”

  “Can you read me another chapter of Cassandra?”

  I smiled. “Sure. So you’ll find out if she managed to run away or not.”

  “Poor Cassandra . . .” she whispered.

  I nodded. “Women werewolves have it hard. Imagine when she needs to shave her legs . . .”

  I’d made her laugh. I squeezed her hand and winced a little, my palm tender from where I’d hit Logan.

  8

  Spirit be free

  Inary

  One afternoon, three weeks to the day that I arrived, Emily fell into a deep sleep, suddenly, like an exhausted child. It wasn’t the fitful sleep she’d had for weeks, the medication-induced oblivion that came in short bouts and left her more tired than before. It was deep and peaceful, and it brought the colour back to her face. She was breathing steadily, her eyelids still and not fluttering; she looked like Emily again, her cheeks rosy, her expression serene. The sun was setting in orange splendour above the hills, its rays dancing in Emily’s hair and turning it to honey.

  Logan and I sat with her, and as the hours went by and she still wasn’t waking up, we knew she would never wake up again; we knew that the fight was over.

  Darkness fell. Emily’s chest kept rising and falling for a while, and then her face changed. Something imperceptible, something intangible – whatever made Emily herself – vanished. She was gone. Just like that. No last words, no solemn conversations – only sleep, peace, silence. It was three in the morning, the deadliest hour, when many ailing souls give up their fight and let themselves be carried away.

  My eyes were dry with shock as I lowered my face to Emily’s, and no breath, however slight or ragged, came to meet me. I could hear my brother sobbing as I got up and opened the window and the door wide; I was following the Highland tradition of letting the dead soul fly away. The freezing air of winter swept the room and filled it, and filled our lungs.

  I wanted Emily’s spirit to be free.

  I wanted Emily to be free and no longer trapped in that treacherous shell that had been her body, her strength ebbing slowly, betraying her soul, hungry for life.

  The smell of sadness and medication dissolved as the scent of the Scottish night swept the room, and a wave of relief ran through me. My beautiful sister was free.

  In the grief-laden silence, I sat on her bed. I held her cold hand and undid the clasp of her charm bracelet. The silver swallow had its wings extended, free in flight, like I wanted Emily to be. I tried to tie it around my wrist, but my hands were shaking and Logan had to help me.

  My brother and I stood looking at each other, bewildered. I wanted to give him words of comfort, those words that soothe more for their tone than for their meaning, like humming soothes a crying baby. I raised my eyes to him and opened my mouth to speak, to tell him I was there for him, that I was so sorry I’d left . . . But as my lips parted, I caught a glimpse of Emily lying lifeless on her bed, her fine hair scattered across the pillow, her eyes closed forever. One hand uncurled at her side, the other resting on her chest, the shape of her slight body under the sheets, that body that I had held so many times, that I had washed and dressed in her final days . . .

  Images of Emily exploded in front of my eyes. Emily as a little girl, running along the loch shore in a yellow summer dress; the two of us playing hide and seek in our grandmother’s house; sharing a bag of sweets on the way home from school; puddle-jumping on a wet day . . . And a still frame: the special place we had in the room we shared, between the chest of drawers and the desk, the nest-like nook where we sat and made ourselves small and cosy and safe and I told her stories I’d made up, just the two of us in the world.

  And now she lay with no more life in her.

  Something broke inside me, in my chest, as sudden and sharp as a crack in a mirror. It was so real a feeling I could almost hear it. My mouth was poised and ready to speak, but the words were stuck in my throat; the crack had absorbed them all. Nothing came out. I tried again and again, but where there should have been words, there was only silence.

  *

  Logan and I sat in the living room and watched the slow-burning peat, both silent, both stunned with grief. I still hadn’t shed a tear.

  As dawn rose on the hills around Glen Avich, its grey light filling the room, I got up in a daze and went to fetch the scissors from the cutlery drawer. I stepped into the bathroom upstairs and looked at myself in the mirror. Again, I didn’t recognise the face staring back at me. A face full of pain, eyes red-rimmed and dry – who was this woman?

  I wavered for a moment – I didn’t know what I was doing – and then, as if I’d split into two people, I watched my hair fall on the tiles snip after snip, in soft little mounds. My head felt light and strange.

  I let myself fall to the floor too and I just sat there, staring at the tiles on the opposite wall. There were tufts of hair entangled in my fingers. I couldn’t feel my arms and legs, I couldn’t feel my body – as if too much suffering had caused me to leave it. I could only sit there, hugging my knees, soft red clumps in my hands.

  After a while – I’m not sure how long – Logan came in. He wrapped an arm around my waist and lifted me up. I closed my eyes and went to lean my head on his chest, but he held me at arm’s length.

  “Your hair . . .”

  What about it? Oh yes. I cut it off.

  “Come on,” he said, and led me into my room and onto my bed. He lay me down and covered me with the duvet. Only then did I realise how cold I was. A long, painful shiver travelled through me. I was so cold, I was sure I would never feel warm again.

  There was a voice – Lynda. “Logan, a minute . . .”

  “Just rest now, Inary. I’ll be back,” he said. His eyes were wide, like he couldn’t believe what had happened. Like he couldn’t believe that death had just visited our family again.

  I waited until I heard his steps down the stairs, then I got up, ignoring the cold and the way the room was spinning around me. I switched the laptop on and opened the folder marked Stories. Everything I was working on, nearly everything I had ever written, was in that folder. One by one, I deleted all the files, until it was empty. Cassandra’s story didn’t exist any more. None of my stories existed any more. It was like I had never written them. I felt like I should open the window again, like they too should go free and follow Emily’s spirit in her flight.

  My
heart was frozen, my eyes dry, my soul empty. A sudden bout of panic gripped me, so intense that I started shivering again. I thought I would go the same way as Emily, the same way as my stories, dissolved into air.

  And then it happened.

  My hair stood on the back of my neck, and all my limbs started tingling, a faint drone singing softly in my ears. A strange, unnatural chill spread over my shoulders, and I knew at once that I wasn’t alone – there was someone behind me. I turned around slowly, trembling, and that’s when I saw her, sitting at my dressing table. I blinked in the darkness, my gaze fixed on the shadow; I tried to remain perfectly still and perfectly silent, without even breathing.

  Emily?

  I called her in my heart, and called and called, willing the shape to take form, willing the mute, slender figure to turn around and show me her face, her beloved face. But it didn’t happen. Her edges started fading quickly, and before I knew it she was gone.

  Please come back. Come back to me, I kept imploring, staring at the space where the spirit had been, trembling with fear and longing and awe. My gift was back. It had to be back. So I could see Emily again.

  “Inary?” It was Logan. He helped me up, and I held onto his hand tightly, for him to keep me on this side of reality, this side of the living.

  After that, I don’t remember a thing.

  9

  The end and the beginning

  Inary

  A few hours later I woke up on one of the sofas. Logan had wrapped a blanket around me, I realised gratefully. From a gap in the curtains I could see the bleak winter light seeping through – I realised it had to be late morning already. We’d sat up until dawn, but weariness must have won me over – I couldn’t remember falling asleep. I couldn’t remember anything from the night before.

  Emily was dead.

  Nothing else mattered, then.

  But life is always stronger than despair. Thoughts of the present grabbed me and made me sit up. My head felt strangely light.

  My hair! I’d chopped my hair off. Shit. Why had nobody stopped me? I ran to the bathroom and looked at myself. My hair wasn’t too bad – it was my face that looked terrible. I grabbed the first brush I could find and smoothed down my chopped waves. No longer weighed down, the ends were curling up already. I washed my face in icy water and sucked my breath in with shock. After that, I felt a bit less dazed.

  My brother was sitting at the kitchen table, clutching a steaming cup. He looked terrible too, blue shadows under his eyes, dishevelled in his ancient woollen jumper, jeans and bare feet. He was bent over the table, under the weight of his loss. My heart went out to him.

  He sensed my presence and composed himself. “Inary. Want some coffee?” he asked, getting up slowly. He was stiff, like he’d been sitting there all night. He probably had. The knuckles on his left hand were blue where he’d hit the wall a few days before.

  I opened my mouth to accept his offer of coffee, but no words came out. In an instant I remembered what had happened just after Emily died. The way my voice seemed to have gone, all the words stuck in my throat.

  I tried again, and again, mouthing “yes” many times under Logan’s bewildered gaze. Nothing. I felt panic spread in my chest and brought my hands to my throat.

  “Inary, are you okay?” Logan came to stand beside me. I locked my eyes on his as I tried to speak once more, but again nothing came out. It was as if my vocal chords had frozen. So it wasn’t just a momentary shock.

  I shook my cropped head, hoping to dispel whatever was clutching at my throat and stopping me from speaking; the sudden movement, coupled with the lack of sleep and food, made me dizzy. I grabbed a chair and sat quickly, leaning my elbows on the table.

  “Inary?”

  I was in two minds whether to try to speak again. I decided to leave my next attempt for when I was alone, and I nodded instead.

  “On you go upstairs and lie down. I’ll bring you some coffee. I’ll take care of . . . everything. They’ll be here in half an hour.” He sounded almost tender, almost like he still cared about me.

  I knew who he meant. The undertakers. Coming to take Emily away. I nodded again, my eyes heavy with exhaustion and a sudden bout of grief renewed. I went upstairs slowly, negotiating every step. I walked past Emily’s door; silence seeped through it as loud as a scream. Had I walked through that door, I would have seen my sister dead on her bed. I felt all that was left of my energy leaving me, leaking from me and evaporating in the air with a soft hiss, like when air seeps out of a balloon. Will my heart stop too, now? Like Emily’s, I wondered. Why was I still alive, when my sister lay with no more life in her?

  But that wasn’t my sister. That was just her body, I reminded myself to numb the pain a little. She wasn’t dead. She was free, like the swallow on her charm bracelet, the one that was clasped around my wrist now.

  I leaned against Emily’s door, resting my forehead briefly against the wood.

  Come back, come back to me, I found myself pleading with her. Let me see you again, Emily . . .

  *

  Hot, nearly scalding water enveloped me and soothed me a little.

  Dressed in clean jeans and a jumper, my hair wet and my feet bare, I sat on my bed, the door closed. I took a deep breath.

  I am Inary, I tried to say, wrapping my lips around each syllable, willing my vocal chords to vibrate.

  Hello. Hello. I am Inary.

  Nothing. No sound came out. I mouthed the words but nothing happened, nothing louder than a sigh or a breath. Again I brought my fingers to my throat, trying to feel what was wrong there . . .

  I must have caught something. The flu, or laryngitis, or something of that sort. I had neglected myself in the last few days of Emily’s life, forgetting to eat, to put on a jacket when I went to the shops, and it was so cold outside. Glen Avich in March was still freezing. So that was my answer. I needed paracetamol and throat lozenges and I would be fine.

  I was relieved for a few seconds, but then my heart sank again. I felt my forehead – fresh and cool. No pain in my throat at all. My chest wasn’t heavy. I wasn’t ill.

  My heart started pounding with panic again.

  I can’t speak. I really can’t speak.

  I checked myself, taking more deep breaths. If ever there was a bad time to have a panic attack, it was now. Logan couldn’t possibly deal with that as well, and neither could I. I had to keep it together. It was just a temporary thing, after all. It had to be.

  As I focused on trying to slow my shaky breath, voices and noises from outside made me jump. I closed my eyes briefly, bracing myself for what was about to happen. They were here, the funeral director Mr Clarke and his sons. They had taken care of my granny when she died. And now they were here for Emily.

  I was shedding loved ones like a tree sheds its leaves; one by one they were going, and I felt bare and barren like the black branches outside my window. All gone, but for Logan and me.

  I forced myself to walk to the door, each step heavy, as though my legs had turned to lead. I made my hand turn the handle, and I looked. There they were, dressed in black like a murder of crows. And there was Logan, his eyes distant, unbelieving – weird how such a strong, tall man could suddenly look so small and lost, like a little boy.

  I went to stand beside him; I had to be with him. I had to, like I hadn’t been when he and Emily had needed me the most.

  For a second, it crossed my mind to scream at the top of my voice and rip Emily from the undertakers’ hands, to throw them out of my house and shout at them to leave us alone. My chest heaved with anger and hatred for the only people I could hate at that moment, the ones who were taking Emily from us. A sob escaped my mouth, and Logan stepped closer to me, his arm touching mine. All my anger ebbed away, and the tears started flowing.

  At last.

  “I’m so sorry, Inary,” said Mr Clarke, an elderly man who always spoke quietly and had been to nearly every home in the village in their darkest hour. He’d seen grief in all its f
orms.

  I nodded, ashamed of the fury I’d just felt. I wondered if it had happened to him before, being the object of anger from people who had nobody else to be angry with, who were angry at the universe, at life itself.

  We wanted to go with Emily, but Mr Clarke said to stay at home, that they would think of everything. To go down at lunchtime for all the arrangements. The door closed behind them, and they were gone. Emily was gone.

  My lungs tightened and I couldn’t breathe – it was time for my mantra again. Emily won’t be a prisoner of her body ever again. Emily won’t be buried. Her soul is free.

  *

  “I’m having a drink . . .” Logan’s voice sounded funny, like he had to work so hard just to form words and sentences, when all he really wanted to do was cry. I could see it in his face, could spy the tears pressing behind his eyes, gathered in a silent torrent that would flow as soon as he could allow himself.

  I took hold of his arm and made him look at me. I can’t speak, I mouthed.

  “What do you mean?”

  I tapped at my throat and shook my head. My chest was tight with panic.

  “Is your throat sore?”

  I shook my head again.

  “You must have caught a chill or something . . .”

  A knock at the front door – Aunt Mhairi, her eyes heavy with crying and the sleepless night. She held me tight.

  “Dearie, your hair! What happened?”

  I shrugged. Logan shook his head swiftly, as if to say “don’t mention it”. I was grateful.

  “Have you two had any sleep at all?”

  “Not really,” Logan replied. I couldn’t answer. “Inary caught a chill; her voice has gone,” he explained.

  “Oh, sweetheart. Do you have anything in the house? No? I’ll run up to the chemist for you.”

  I realised I’d always counted on Lesley’s medicine stash. I never bought anything, really. Aunt Mhairi was out of the door before I could protest, returning a short time later with assorted medicines, plus a tub of vitamins – “to build you up a bit”. I took anything I could – Lemsip and lozenges and a vitamin pill – and then, at the bottom of the bag, I spotted two lollipops. I held them up, raising my eyebrows.