have enquired after her sister. Instead she’s playing a passive-aggressive game and pretending she’s forgotten. Which means Liyana will be damned if she’ll be the one to bring it up first. A light rain begins to fall, and Liyana takes comfort from it. Her girlfriend may not want to talk or touch her right now, but at least the rain always will.
“Well, I am. So you can believe me. Or not. It’s up to you.”
Liyana’s about to ask again but resists. It’ll only annoy Kumiko, to suggest that she’s lying. And Liyana doesn’t want to dig an even deeper hole with the Mazmo debacle, about which Kumiko has made her disapproval quite plain. So for now Liyana must let everything slide, even lies.
“Fancy seeing a film?” Liyana tries.
“Where?”
“The Everyman’s showing a double-bill retrospective tonight,” Liyana says. “Moby Dick and In the Heart of the Sea.”
Kumiko shrugs. A few weeks ago, Liyana wouldn’t have tolerated shrugs. But that was before.
“The pub?” Liyana persists.
This time, Kumiko doesn’t shrug. Instead she crosses the road without waiting for the light to change. A car honks its horn, but Kumiko walks on. Liyana hesitates, then hurries after her.
“I’ve not said I’ll marry him, you know,” Liyana calls out. “And I’ve got a trial shift at Tesco tomorrow.” It’s not true, strictly speaking, since she’d only had an email offering her one; she’d been putting off accepting it.
“I give you a day,” Kumiko says, quickening her pace. “No, you know what? I’ll be astonished if you last an hour. You’ll be in that rich boy’s bed before the week is out.”
“Koko! How can you say that?”
“Because you’ve been spoiled all your life, Ana.” Kumiko stops and turns back to Liyana. “And if you’re given the choice between having to earn something and being given it for free, I know full well which option you’ll take.”
11:59 p.m.—Goldie
I’ve invited Leo into my bed again. I didn’t want to be alone tonight. The sofa feels strangely empty without my sister here. Anyway, I want to be with him. I always want to be with him, as if I have an ache in my chest that abates only when we’re together.
“Thank you.” I kiss him again.
“For what?”
“For being here. For rushing over as soon as I called.”
“Of course.” Leo shrugs. “I’ll always come when you call.”
I smile, but his expression is serious. “What’s wrong?” I ask. When he doesn’t answer, I nudge him.
“I’m sorry, I’m just . . . it doesn’t matter.” Leo lets out a sigh, a long breath that sits between us. He seems about to say something, then shrugs again. “It’s nothing.”
I look at him. I think of those scars he hasn’t let me see since last time. I try not to think of them, to focus only on Leo, to stay in the uncomplicated, unsullied peace of being with him. I open my mouth, about to change the subject, to tell him all about Liyana, when he starts to speak again.
“I need to tell you something,” Leo says. “About who you are.”
22nd October
Ten days . . .
1:01 a.m.—Goldie
I study his face.
“Stop,” he says, turning away.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m just wondering if there are any more enchanted worlds to which you have secret access. Narnia, perhaps? Or Wonderland? I’ve always wanted to go to Wonderland.”
I’m smiling, but Leo’s still serious.
“So, if this place is real, why can’t you take me there?”
“I told you, I can only go on the night when the moon is at its first quarter,” Leo says, an edge of exasperation to his voice. “And I’ll take you then. But we shouldn’t wait so long, you need to go yourself first, without me, so you can—”
“I know,” I interrupt, not wanting to hear the whole weird story again. I love Leo and I don’t want to confront the fact that he might be a fantasist. I think again of his scars. I wonder again if he’s a member of a satanic cult. I pray he isn’t.
Though it would be even worse if he was telling the truth. And some of the things Leo said, the way he described Everwhere, tug at denied memories and dismissed dreams. But if I followed those threads, then I’d have to allow the possibility of dangerous things: that I am the daughter of a demon, that on my eighteenth birthday I’ll have to fight a soldier to the death, then make a choice between good and evil. And a fantastical land is one thing—perhaps no more improbable than life