A Cold Season (26 page)

Ben shook his head.

‘It’s okay, love. I won’t let anybody hurt you.’

He didn’t move, just stood there holding out his hand, and she saw it, the thing he was trying to show her: a red line bisecting his palm.

Cass reached out and took his hand, opened her mouth, but no words came out.

Ben looked away. His chest heaved.

‘What is it, Ben? What did they do?’

He was trying to speak.

Cass rubbed his fingers, warming them.

‘The book,’ he said at last, ‘the book. It’s the book.’

‘What do you mean, love?’

Ben looked up and the sky was in his eyes, cold and white. ‘It’s to write with,’ he said. ‘It was so I could write in the big book.’ And then he turned and ran, and the sound of his feet was loud in the empty street.

Cass caught up with him. His eyes were big with tears.
‘Ben, what do you mean? What book?’ All she could think of was her father, leaning over her, inspecting her dress to see if she was good enough, and behind him the church, looming tall.

Ben pulled away and marched wordlessly towards the lane that led to the mill.

The cross etched into the door had been obscured by deep scratches that furred the wood with splinters. Ben stood before the door and she saw his pale, pinched face reflected in the glass.

She punched in the code and pushed Ben before her into the dark interior. The light did not come on, but she didn’t stop to investigate. Ben was her priority, and he was cold and hungry and upset. For now he needed to be at home, then tomorrow – early – they would escape. Ben would make it this time; she’d carry him if she had to. She’d tell the police, and everything would be all right.

Ben allowed her to bathe him; he didn’t resist and he didn’t help. There were no other marks on him, just that livid cut in his hand. It made her think of blood pacts, of boys cutting their hands and pressing them together. Blood brothers.
Family
. That’s what Sally had called them: her family. Cass brought his palm to her lips and kissed it, but Ben didn’t smile.

‘Ben, what did you share?’ she asked.

He looked up. His eyes were flat.

‘You said you shared, when you were at Sally’s. What did you share?’ She stroked his hair and waited.

‘We ate the stuff,’ he said.

‘What stuff?’

He shook his head.

‘What did it look like?’

‘It was just stuff. Like bread, only it was black. And we had the drink. It tasted funny. I didn’t like it.’ He pulled a face.

‘What did that look like?’

He shrugged his skinny shoulders again, hugged his legs. ‘We played games,’ he said. ‘I liked the games.’

‘I know you do. Let’s get you out and then you can play now – anything you like.’

Cass dried him, led him to the television and put the controller in his hands. His cut hand didn’t seem to pain him as his fingers moved rapidly over the buttons, but he didn’t react to any of it, didn’t laugh or sigh or crow over the deaths on the screen. Only his fingers had life in them.

‘Ben?’

He stopped. Cass knelt by him, turned his face towards her. His eyes made her catch her breath. They were dark, rimmed with shadows:
soulless
. She forced herself to speak. ‘It’s time for bed, sweetheart.’

Cass thought she would lie awake, but instead she found herself slipping in and out of sleep. She floated on the surface, yet the dream pulled her under. Her dress wasn’t good enough. Her father looked down at her and his face was angry. She wasn’t sure what she had to do to make herself better.
This is love
, he kept saying, but when she looked into his eyes there was no love in them.

The book was lying open on the altar, a dusty black leather volume with yellowing parchment pages. Cass went over and looked at it. The writing was grey-brown, then dark brown, then rust-brown. The latest entries were brighter, reddish. Some of the ink had pooled as from an imperfect nib and dried into little crusts. She could smell the book. It smelled of age, dust, dry stone. There was spice there too: cinnamon, cloves, sharp pepper.

Written in the book was a list of names. Sally’s was there, signed with a flourish, with Damon’s printed beneath it. Cass could picture him forming the letters, tongue resting on his lip. There was Myra’s. Cass read on and she knew it was a dream then because she willed herself to stop, but still her eyes kept tracking down; she had no choice. She followed the names towards the blank space at the bottom of the page, left for others to sign – for
her
name. He would never have it. She would never cut a line across her palm and write her name on this blasphemous page. And yet she couldn’t stop herself reading the last name, almost the last, and then a bright streak of light cut across her vision as sun lit the windows, turning everything to day.

She looked up, expecting some vision, Christ, maybe, but it was only Pete, smiling down at her. The light faded and her husband held out his hands and they were heaped with stones the colour of sky. He spoke, but she couldn’t hear the words. He held out the stones for her to take, but she couldn’t hold them and they fell to the ground, and the ground took them. Pete frowned: he was telling her the thing she had to know, the thing she was supposed
to see. She reached out, caught a stone. It shone in her hand and became the sky.

At last she heard his voice:
Now you see
, he said.
Now you see
.

Cass woke, clawing the covers from her throat, wiping stinging sweat from her face. She opened her hand, closed tight in a fist, looked for the stone, and remembered it was only a dream after all.

Now you see
. She put her hands to her face. Whatever Pete wanted her to know, it was no use; she couldn’t understand. She wasn’t good enough. ‘I
don’t
see,’ she whispered. ‘Pete, I’m sorry, I don’t see at all.’

Someone knocked on the apartment door.

Cass was motionless. All she could think of was Lucy, coming to see her, a printout held in one hand:
I brought you this
. No – it could be Sally, coming to whisper her poison in her son’s ear, or the boys, knocking with their tainted palms.

It could be Remick. Theodore Remick, come to see how she was, holding out his offering of bread.

All at once she felt his hands running over her, the warmth of his breath on her night-cold skin, heat blossoming inside. Somehow she did not flinch from it. She closed her eyes, crossed her arms over her breasts, heard him whisper,
You’ll come to me
.

Cass’ lips parted; she suddenly wanted to feel his lips on her, wanted it more than anything—

She drew her lip between her teeth and bit down. The pain brought her back.

There was no one at the door. She had been dreaming,
that was all. There was no Pete; there were no blue stones. Cass closed her eyes, wondering if she had fallen asleep up by the witch stones, whether she had really seen the white figures looking back at her.

You’re the maddest bitch I’ve ever known
.

Maybe Sally was right.

The knocking came again, an ordinary domestic sound, but this time it didn’t come from the door; it came from the wall at her back. Cass got out of bed and looked into the dark. There was nothing, no one there.

Ben might have heard something; he might be frightened.

Cass took a deep breath and went to check on her son. As she reached the hall the knocking came again, louder this time, coming from the door and from the wall and from the ceiling.

She looked up, saw nothing – of course she saw nothing; it was only the children, Damon and his friends. They had got into the mill somehow, crept into the flat next to hers and the one above and the one below, and they were waiting for her to show she was afraid. Well, she wasn’t.

She felt her pulse beating in her throat.

She went into Ben’s room. He was sitting up in bed, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open, a string of drool hanging from it.

There was banging on the ceiling, the walls, the floor.

Cass went and put her arms around him. ‘Shh,’ she said, although he hadn’t spoken. ‘It’s just children messing about. Naughty children, Ben. We won’t have to put up with them for long.’

‘They’ve come for me,’ he said.

‘No, no, they haven’t. It’s a game, that’s all: a silly game they’re playing.’

His skin was clammy against her arms. He squirmed and pulled away from her. ‘It’s not a game.’

‘It doesn’t matter, Ben. Whatever it is, we’re leaving tomorrow, you and me. Do you understand that?’

He shook his head.

‘Yes, Ben. We’re going away from here. We’re not coming back.’

‘It doesn’t matter. He got me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s in here.’

‘In here?’ Cass glanced towards the door.

Ben raised a finger and pointed to his chest. ‘Here – he’s in here. He told me.’

‘Who is, Ben?’

‘Daddy.’ He paused. ‘He’s my daddy now – they said so. They gave me the bread and the stuff and I wrote in the book.’

Cass had a sudden image of her father:
This is love
. ‘You mean like in church?’

Ben scowled.

‘What did they make you do?’

In answer he held out his hand, the dark line vicious against his pale skin.

‘You wrote your name in a book.’

He nodded.

‘What book, Ben? Where was it?’

‘Damon said it was okay,’ he said. ‘He said it was okay ’cos it was in the church. But it doesn’t feel okay.’

She remembered her dream, the image of herself in a white dress, trying to please Daddy, trying to be good enough. ‘The name book.’

‘It means you’re family,’ he whispered. ‘I wanted to be in the family, Mummy. I want my daddy.’

She pulled him close.

‘They said I could be in the family, only it has to hurt if you want to be in. That’s why they do your hand and you write in that.’

‘You wrote in
blood
?’ Cass thought of the dream, the letters almost black at the top, then dark brown, then rust. ‘Who did that to your hand? Was it Damon?’ It struck her that it could have just been the children, hearing old stories, playing silly games. Sally might not have even known about it.

But what had she said to Ben?
We’re your family
.

He’s in here
, Ben had said. Cass looked around, half-expecting to hear the knocking again, remembered the way it had sounded as if it was coming out of the walls. She shivered. ‘Who did they say is inside you, Ben?’

She felt she already knew. She sensed the weight of her father’s hand, pressing down.
Let him into your heart, Gloria. Leave no room for another
.

But Ben was so young. How could she have let this happen?

‘Your soul,’ she whispered.

‘That’s what they asked for,’ said Ben. ‘Is it wrong, Mummy? Did I do wrong?’ When he looked up, she saw
a trace of the little boy he had been – the little boy he still was. She bent and kissed his head. He was innocent; he couldn’t have known what he was doing. It was a crazy sham, nothing more than some religious mumbo-jumbo.

You’re the maddest bitch I’ve ever known
.

Cass closed her eyes. It was her; she must be going insane. She felt Ben pulling on her arm again, but it was Lucy’s face she saw: blank stone eyes, staring out across an empty hillside. She shivered.

‘Mummy?’

Cass kissed her son. She stroked his arm and held him and rested her cheek against his head until he slept.

THIRTY

Cass peered into the mirror, staring into her own eyes. She had already woken Ben, but left him to doze a little longer. She couldn’t bear the way he’d sat up and looked at her, his eyes glassy, without interest or light or fear, like there was nothing inside him.

I don’t suppose the lad’ll leave now
.

Bert had been wrong about Ben, and yet he had been right too. It didn’t matter how far away she took her son, a part of him would stay in Darnshaw with Sally and Damon and the pack of boys. His eyes would always be blank. A vital part of him was gone and she would never get it back.

Unless she did something …

A rush of heat burned her chest, her throat. She
would
do something – but first she had to see the book for herself. She had to know it was real.

She roused Ben again, looking into his face as he sat up, hoping it would brighten, that his eyes would shine, but they were still blank,
soulless
. She turned her head
away, rubbed her eyes, then said with a smile, ‘Come on, love. We’ve an errand to run, and then we’re going far away from here.’

She helped him up. Ben was limp in her hands, but he stood. He didn’t ask why he wasn’t going to school. He didn’t say anything.

‘Ben, do you remember before we came here? You didn’t want to move. Do you remember that?’

He rested a hand on her shoulder and leaned while she pulled on his trousers.

‘Ben, do you—?’

He interrupted, blurting out, ‘I was never anywhere,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t anywhere, and you were always here.’

‘Ben?’ She tilted his face up.

‘You were here,’ he said and pushed her away.

‘I wasn’t here, Ben. We lived at Aldershot, remember? With—’ It felt cruel to make him remember, but she pressed on, ‘with Daddy.’

‘I have a daddy. He’s here. He’s always been here. With you.’

‘Well, I was here for a while, Ben, when I was a little girl. But that was with my own daddy. Then I went away and had you, and that made me very happy.’

Ben’s face twisted, and it looked as though he was blinking back tears. ‘It made him happy too,’ he said, and no matter how Cass pressed him, he wouldn’t say anything else.

In the lane everything was dripping. Their feet punched through brittle snow and Cass heard water trickling
beneath it. She looked up at the grey sky. It was definitely warmer than yesterday.

The road had twin tracks running down it now. It wasn’t raining, but as Cass guided Ben down the road fat droplets pattered on their heads: icicles disintegrating. Everything was melting.