will. And Leo won’t put up a fight, won’t give a fuck, won’t rage against the dying of the light. Death doesn’t scare him. He only wishes it were coming sooner.
2:23 a.m.—Liyana
Kumiko’s favourite café, tucked away in a back street in Camden, opens only at night. Liyana hopes it’ll be empty. She hopes Kumiko will forgive her. She hopes, by the end of the night, that she’ll be held tight in her girlfriend’s arms. Because she desperately needs some solace and comfort right now.
Following Goldie’s advice, Liyana has prepared a grand gesture, involving poetry, glitter, and a modicum of nudity. Unfortunately, even at this hour, the café is still crowded. Liyana crosses the chequered vinyl—Beatles records and Bowie and the Stones all pressed into the floor like a Walk of Fame—until she reaches Kumiko’s table in the corner of the café, squashed up against the wall.
“Hey, Koko.”
Kumiko looks up from her book.
For one awful moment, Liyana thinks she’s going to ignore her.
Kumiko slowly pushes aside her curtain of midnight hair. “Hello, Ana.”
Liyana shifts from foot to foot, trying to postpone the yet more deeply dreadful moment of beginning. She’s been practising the dance moves to accompany the poem, although the whole performance is still woefully inadequate. At least that will serve to up the humiliation factor.
“Why are you here?”
“To see you.”
“And how did you know I was here?”
“Because you’re a creature of habit.” Liyana ignores the brightening spotlight of attention in which she stands, as other customers start to sense that something’s happening. “Once a week you come to read The Hobbit and see if you can make a single cup of coffee last till morning.”
Kumiko smiles—a twitch at the corner of her lips.
“I’m here to make a fool of myself,” Liyana says. “Because I’m a fool.”
“You are. And an idiot.”
Liyana nods. “An idiot. An imbecile. A—”
“Dunderhead. A dimwit. A numbskull.”
“All that and worse.”
“Well, I’m glad we at least agree on that.” Kumiko’s smile deepens. “And what are you going to do about it?”
“Try again to deserve your heart. If you’ll give me the chance.”
Kumiko closes The Hobbit. “Go on.”
“I’m never seeing Mazmo again. I’ve taken the shelf-stacking job at Tesco. The bailiffs have taken everything we own and we’re moving to an estate in Hackney.” Liyana feels herself starting to sweat under the ever-brightening spotlight of attention. She drops her voice. “And I’ve written you a poem. A dire poem. It hardly even rhymes, but it’s—”
Kumiko raises an eyebrow. “You took the Tesco job? How is it?”
“Hideous, I hate it. But the point is you were right. I was massively spoiled and now I’m trying to—”
“Speak up.” Kumiko sits forward. “I can’t hear you.”
Liyana gives her a wry smile. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, just a bit.”
3:33 a.m.—Bea
In her childhood bedroom, Bea dreams childhood dreams. Tonight, she tracks prey. She begins with birds, stalking them like a silent, stealthy cat. At first, she’s excited to catch ravens while they preen or wrench worms from the soil. But she soon tires of this: the explosion of feathers among fallen leaves is too easy. Piercing the heart of a bird in flight with a single hawthorn spike is much more pleasing. Until, after the first few dozen kills, she tires of that too.
A gratifying side effect of each kill is that young Bea absorbs the life force of each bird so she can rise into the air, hovering above the moss and stone, above the blankets of fallen leaves. Every death fuels her flight. A single kill brings her eye to trunk with a silver birch; three in a row lifts her over an ancient oak; six carries her a few hundred metres through the air; twelve brings her within reach of the stars.
In her dream, Bea wonders why her father isn’t there. But even as she asks herself the question, the answer comes. He won’t lessen her learning by holding her hand. His absence enables her to feel the full impact of her actions, to absorb every flush of pride, every ounce of honour. He lets her run free. He won’t permit his presence to leach anything from her and, for that, Bea is grateful. It is something her mamá has never been generous enough to do.
With every hour that passes, Bea’s strength swells so her sense of herself shifts further from her earthly self. She is different in Everwhere. Not only can she achieve what she previously imagined impossible, but she also feels lighter. The loneliness has ebbed, perhaps