Vengeance Child (19 page)

‘I did my best. I want to make you happy.'

Ghorlan smoothed down the fabric of her dress with impossibly clean hands, considering she'd just planted a sapling in the mud.

Smiling, she said, ‘A problem, Victor?'

‘It's time I woke up.'

‘Because I'll tell you what the problem is, Victor, dear,' her voice turned deeper. ‘The
problem
is you never looked for me.' Her smile became a snarl. ‘I vanished from your life. Why didn't you try to find me?'

‘I did. I devoted weeks to searching the river. Every inch—'

‘Are you blind? I was never there. Never ever!'

Ghorlan fled. Instinctively he followed. Ahead of him, the dress gleamed white as bone as she flitted through the trees.

‘Ghorlan, come back. Tell me what you mean.'

‘The river!' she cried. ‘I was never there!'

‘I don't understand. Explain what you're saying.'

As she darted amongst dark tree trunks he strove to catch up. She'd become an elusive phantom now. A flicker of light in the darkness.

I'll catch her, he told himself as his mind whirled with crazy thoughts. I'll hold her so tight she can't get away . . . then I'll squeeze the truth out of her. I'll force her to tell me what she means. Moments later, he burst from the trees. The castle tower loomed in the night sky. Ghorlan's dress shone against the earth mound beneath the castle wall, then she vanished. The ground had swallowed her.

He groaned with frustration. ‘I wish I could hold her again. I need to tell her I love her.'

Jay appeared. ‘I can take you to her again. That's what she wants.' Jay pointed at the castle mound. ‘Just keep walking into there like you're walking through a door.'

‘I'll do it. I'll do anything to be with her.' A pain jabbed his stomach.

‘You've got to be quick,' Jay told him.

‘I'm going.' A metal taste filled his mouth. He took an unsteady step forward.

‘Hurry,' Jay urged. ‘You want to find her, don't you?'

‘More than anything else in the world.' Victor reached out to push his hands into the grassy banking. His fingers pressed against fabric. When he clawed them aside he saw they were his bedclothes. The bedroom walls pulsated. His tongue tasted awful. Victor grimaced as the pain stabbed his belly. ‘You thought you'd escape it didn't you, Brodman?' Briefly, he clung to memories of Ghorlan in the dream. The next moment all that mattered was reaching the bathroom.

Twenty-Two

All the next day after
that
dream, the encounter with his dead wife planting the cedar, Victor Brodman lay in bed with about as much vitality as a garden slug. One of the black unctuous kind that slithers across the patio. When stomach cramps didn't keep him awake he slipped into fevered sleep.

‘You're down with the same bug as me, Victor. Bloody awful, isn't it?' his sister proclaimed cheerfully. ‘I'm feeling much better now, though.'

‘My mouth tastes as if a slug died in it; one of those fat, slimy . . .' He groaned.

‘Same as me. The muscle spasms were worst, though. Felt as if I was splitting in two. Now, you've got a jug of water. Can I get you something to eat?'

‘Ugh . . . that's just cruel. Nothing like a big sister to be chief torturer.'

‘It's no worse than what you did when I went down with food poisoning when I was fourteen . . . you'd have been . . . what? Eleven, twelve? You came into my room as I lay there with a bucket by the bed. You were pleased as punch with yourself when you announced the best way to treat food poisoning was by eating frogspawn. You showed me a jar of the stuff that you'd collected from a pond. You said that to feel better I'd have to swallow it all in one go.'

‘I was eleven, Mary. It was a joke.'

‘Failing that, the next best thing was all the fat and gunk scraped out of a frying pan after Dad had one of those revolting fry-ups of his.'

‘Sis, if you leave me alone I'll give you a million dollars, a million euros, whatever it takes for you to stop making me feel . . .' He gulped.

Mary smiled. ‘I've been waiting years to get my own back. As they say, revenge is a dish best served cold.'

‘Medusa, witch, monster . . .' He blinked. A housefly buzzed around the room.

Mary entered the room with a jug of water.

‘Do you feel like anything to eat yet?'

‘Uh . . . I dreamt you were here just now asking the same thing. Then you started talking about Dad's cooked breakfasts.'

‘Ah, the cholesterol express.'

‘It wasn't so much a dream.' He swallowed. ‘A nightmare, a horrendous, torturing nightmare.'

‘It was no such thing.'

‘You actually said those things? About frogspawn and bacon fat?'

She grinned. ‘I thought it might cheer you up. But I said all those things over an hour ago. You keep falling asleep at the drop of a hat.'

‘Never become a doctor, sis. Your bedside manner's a killer.'

‘Speaking of nurses, there's one to see you now.'

Victor perked up. ‘Laura?'

‘Lou.' Mary touched his forehead. ‘We could fry eggs on your face.'

‘Thanks for the lovely image.'

‘You must be feeling better. Until this afternoon all you did was grunt.'

His sister left the room. The fly remained. That buzz began to drive him insane. With an effort he turned over in bed. Jay stood in the shadows.

‘Jay? You shouldn't be here. You might catch . . .' Victor swallowed queasily. ‘Makes you feel rotten.'

Jay gazed at him. ‘You thought what your sister told you about the frogspawn was a dream.'

‘That's right, I did.'

‘When you met Ghorlan last night you thought that was a dream, too.'

‘Of course it was a dream.' He lay as limp as a wet towel. ‘Yes, I love my wife. I also know she's dead.'

‘You pricked your hand on a thorn.'

‘It was a realistic dream. I'll give you that.'

Jay advanced on him, gripped his hand, then lifted it. ‘What do you see?'

Victor's heart lurched. For there in the centre of his palm was a small, black scab. After burning with fever now he shivered as if plunged into ice-cold water.

‘What's that in your hand?' Lou bustled in. She fixed him with her dark eyes like she'd found a young boy up to mischief.

‘Uh, nothing.'

‘You find nothing mighty interesting.' Without hesitation she gripped his hand so she could study the palm. ‘Did you get a splinter in that, Victor, from breaking someone's heart?'

‘A thorn. I pricked myself last night . . .' He frowned as what she said fully registered. ‘Breaking someone's heart?'

‘You heard right, Victor.'

‘My sister was messing with my mind – and stomach – earlier. Don't you start or our cider drinking days will be over.'

She ripped open a foil sachet then shook white powder from it into a glass of water. ‘Drink this.'

‘Trying to poison me?'

‘It replaces natural salts in the body, restores electrolyte balances and the like.'

‘I don't think I can really—'

‘Drink!'

‘Ouch, not so loud, Lou. I really do feel like death.'

‘If you're feeling like death that's an improvement.' She bustled round, straightening his bedding, then yanked the curtains open, which admitted eyeball-searing light.

Victor protested. ‘Why don't people leave me to wallow in peace?' Scrunching his eyes against the light, he peered round the room. ‘Is Jay still here?'

‘Jay? No, he's down in the yard with Wilkes.'

‘With the mayor?'

‘No, Wilkes the goat. Victor, will you start thinking straight?'

He took a swallow of the cloudy water. ‘Hell's bells, that tastes awful.'

‘While you were sleeping today the health authority dropped a thousand of those packets by helicopter. They won't cure, but they restore chemical balance to the body.'

‘Is the island still under quarantine?'

‘That we are. We're prisoners here until the emergency committee lift the order. So far there's a seventy per cent infection rate. The elderly are hit the hardest, young folk like you, Victor Brodman, start to pick up within twelve hours of feeling the first symptoms.'

‘Do they know what it is yet?'

‘Probably a mutated version of gastric flu. Already there's stupid speculation in the newspapers that like some epidemics of influenza are supposed to arrive from outer space, so this bug flew in by meteor.' She sniffed. ‘In truth, the cause of this outbreak is more about hygiene systems rather than solar systems.'

‘So it's not that serious?'

‘Serious enough to claim two lives already.'

‘Really?' This shocked him enough to sit up. ‘Who?'

‘Two elderly men. Mr Moore. And Mr Henry.'

‘Good grief. I've known them for years. So the disease is worse than they thought?'

‘The disease wasn't directly responsible. Mr Henry decided to dig a deep hole on the beach. The sides collapsed and he suffocated. Mr Moore fell in the bathroom and struck his head hard enough to cause a haemorrhage. There are also rumours that at least two women have gone missing. I'm sorry to bring such bad news.' She sat on the end of his bed. ‘But I'm also here for another reason. An important reason.'

‘Lou, is it Laura? Is she all right?'

‘So Laura
has
been on your mind?'

Lou was usually such a warm, bubbly character that this chill manner roused him from his lingering drowsiness. ‘What's wrong, Lou?'

She plaited her fingers together on her knees. ‘Today, Victor, I'm going to test our friendship to breaking point. We've known each other for many years. We respect each other . . . shush, Victor. Let me say my piece.' She took a deep breath. ‘You are a fine man, Victor Brodman. Loyal, caring, compassionate. You're also a turtle of a man. By that I mean that whenever you find yourself on the brink of a potentially romantic relationship you retreat into that damn shell.'

‘Lou, I'm not like that.'

‘Oh, yes, you are. I've watched you with female visitors to the island. They flirt, you might flirt back, then when it seems as if the lady is ready to take it further, back into your cold, hard shell you go. You retreat. You say you need to count ducks, or lizards, or whatever, then vanish into the woods. You might have been Mr Right in the woman's eyes, but within minutes you are Mr Gone, never to be seen again until the woman's left the island. No, shush, Victor. Let me finish because what I've seen over the last few days has made me so angry.'

‘Angry?'

‘Yes, angry at you. Dunderhead.'

‘Lou, what's got into you? I—'

‘Victor, let me finish. Listen, Laura is a lovely person. I've never seen anyone devoted like she is to the children in her care. Every day she fights battles to save them from being locked in secure units or kept on tranquillizers that would knock down a horse. Just before she came to Siluria her friend, Maureen, died in a traffic accident. Laura has been under so much pressure! Her spirit was breaking to little bits. Then something marvellous happened . . .'

‘Oh?'

‘She met you, you foolish man. For the first time in months I saw her like the time we first met. Her entire face changed. Eyes sparkling. She was happy, happy, happy! I don't know what happened between you. That's none of my business—'

‘You're right, it is none of your—'

‘But being Laura's friend and being concerned for her well-being is my business. It's my business to want the best for you, too.' She sighed. This wasn't easy for her. ‘I saw two lovely people meet. They clearly like each other. That old magic happened. I saw it in Laura's eyes and yours. Then you go back into your shell, Victor – your cold hard shell. A shell that doesn't protect you, no sir. That shell keeps you isolated from womankind.'

‘Lou, I'm tired.'

‘Sleep when you're old like me, Victor. Now's the time to fight for happiness. Defeat your demons.'

‘I don't have any demons.'

‘You do! They are turning you into a hermit. Kill the demons now; otherwise you're going to turn into a lonely, miserable hermit.' She balled her fist. ‘Someone must tell you one important fact. Victor, it is time you buried your wife.'

He flinched. ‘Lou, stop right there. You've no damn right to say that.'

‘OK, so hate me. But it's got to be said. I know Ghorlan disappeared in the river. You never could bury her body. But it's time to bury her in here.' She extended her hand to touch his head. Furious, he pushed it away. ‘Bury your dead wife, Victor, so you can rejoin the world. You deserve a life. Ghorlan wouldn't want you to live as if part of you died with her.'

‘How can you say what Ghorlan would or wouldn't want? Leave me alone!'

‘You keep Ghorlan alive. She's dead, Victor. Bury her.'

Sweating, he twisted the sheet in his hands. ‘Get out . . . 
get out
!'

That evening Victor headed into the forest. Lethargy made walking hard work. He still alternated between sweats and a shivering coldness; the fever hadn't quit yet. Every so often he needed to pause until a surge of queasiness passed. However, he was determined to get out of the apartment because he churned inside.

This time it wasn't the virus, it was thinking about the last twenty-four hours. Constantly, he replayed what Laura had said to him. Then there were Lou's home truths that had been so very bitter to hear. Add to that the dream of last night when he met Ghorlan in the clearing – if it was a dream. Now, the symptoms of the physical illness seemed almost trivial in comparison. He wanted to yell his fury at the sky. In the last few days it seemed as if some monster had been peeling him alive. His heart had been bared. His nerves exposed. Now his soul that had been sheltering deep inside of himself was being roughly dragged out into the cold light of day.