following letter contains spoilers
NOW
LAURA
It all unfolds with cinematic clarity; the gunshot, the scream. Every detail sharp and clear. Time slows as her eyes plead with me to help her. In my mind I bundle her behind me, shielding her body with mine, but she is too far away and I know I cannot reach her in time.
But still I try.
My legs are weighted with dread as I run towards her; the fist around my heart tightening.
A second shot.
Her knees buckle. She crumples like a paper doll.
The ground falls away beneath my feet and I crawl towards her like the animal I have become. My palms are sticky in the arc of blood that is staining the floor red. Blood is thicker than water they say, but hers is thin and beacon-bright. Adrenaline pulses through me leaving numbness in its wake, as I press against her wrist, desperately seeking a pulse. With my other hand I link my fingers through hers the way we used to, before I brought us to this place that has been our ruin. A lifetime of memories strobe through my mind; cradling her close in the maternity wing; Easter eggs spilling out of the wicker basket looped over her pudgy arm; her first day of school, ribboned pigtails swinging as she ran across the playground.
She can’t be gone.
Can she?
Fingers of panic press hard against my skull. The colour leaches from the room. A black and white hue descending upon me. I tighten my fingers around hers, afraid I’m going to faint. Afraid I’m going to let her go.
But then.
A flicker of eyelids. A murmur from her lips.
I lay next to her, gently rolling her towards me, holding her in my arms. I can’t, I won’t leave her. Family should stick together. Protect each other. Instead, I chose to come here.
This is all my fault.
The drumming in my head grows louder – the sound of footfall. I don’t have to look up to feel their anger, solid and immovable.
The acrid smell of gunpowder hangs in the air along with my fear.
Looking up, my eyes meet the shooter’s; they are still holding the gun and sensations return, hard and fast. The pain in my stomach is cutting and deep and I am no longer sure if the blood I am covered in has come from her.
Or is coming from me.
Her top is soaked crimson, as is mine.
The pain increases.
Terrified, I tug at her clothes, my clothes. Praying. Let her be okay. Seventeen is no age. Let it be me.
At last I find the wound but before I can apply pressure to stem the flow of blood there are hands on my shoulders. My elbows. Pulling.
Darkness flickers at the edge of my vision but still I fight against it. I fight against them.
My hands are restrained, feet kick out, teeth sinking into flesh, but it’s fruitless. I am growing weaker.
Her fingers twitch. Once. Twice.
Nothing.
‘Tilly!’ My scream rips through me as I am yanked to my feet. ‘Tilly!’ I scramble for traction, every fibre of my being straining to reach my daughter.
I can’t.
I am still wrestling to be free as I am dragged, my feet scraping the ground.
I know they’ll never let us leave here now.
Not alive anyway.
Before
LAURA
Fears. We all have them. That creeping unease. An aversion to something. For me it’s spiders. It stemmed from a nature documentary years before about the black weaver, a matriphagous breed that switches on her babies’ cannibalistic instinct by encouraging her spiderlings to devour her. Unable to tear myself away, I had watched through splayed fingers as the mother circled her lair, tapping and vibrating the web, stimulating her young’s primal instinct until they attacked her in a frenzied swarm. Hundreds of scuttling legs. Sinking fangs. The sound of the adult being consumed after venom had dissolved her from the inside out had stayed with me. What possessed a mother to sacrifice herself like that? How could her children turn on her? Of course that was long before I was a parent.
The instant I saw Tilly, tiny hands fisted, eyes squinting in the unaccustomed light, I plunged headfirst into a love that was absolute. A fierce desire as her mother to shield her from the world however I could. And she needed shielding. I knew how damaging it could be out there.
I had been damaged.
That morning though I had no idea how I was going to shelter her from the contents of the letter. As I drove towards school, I tightened my grip on the steering wheel as if it might somehow stop the sense of everything spinning out of my control. It didn’t.
What was I going to do?
I slotted my rusting Volvo between two shiny 4x4s. Hordes of kids traipsed past the car, spines curved under the weight of the books they carried, dragging their feet towards the black wrought-iron gates. I rubbed my temples, trying to dispel the pounding behind my eyes.
‘Do I have to go back to school, Mum?’
I heard the sadness in her voice. I heard it in my own as I said, ‘It’s been six weeks, Tilly.’ As though that was long enough to make everything right.
It wasn’t.
She wasn’t coping well. Neither was I but, for her, I pretended we’d get through it. We’d be okay. Even if I didn’t know how.
‘We talked about this,’ I said, but not unkindly. ‘It was your idea to come back on a Friday. Ease yourself into it. It’s one day, Tilly.’
She tucked her unruly dark hair behind her ears as she looked anxiously out of the window. Her face looked smaller, skin ashen, black bags nestled beneath bloodshot eyes. She’d refused the offer of counselling, spending so much of her time shut away in her room that now, being outside was overwhelming.
‘You’ve already so much to catch up on but if you really can’t face it I won’t make you. You can come and help me in the shop instead. It’s time to try to re-join the world.’ I spoke slowly, deliberately, although each word was rough, grazing my tongue. Our Family Liaison Officer had said it was best to forge a routine, a semblance of normality, but was it? Sometimes being a parent was torturous. Spinning in circles like a bird with a broken wing. But Tilly was studying for A Levels. It was such an important year. Besides, at school she’d be with Rhianon and, although I knew the cousins