It’s inevitable. She cannot contain this fury forever. It will escape. So it’s only right that she turn it on herself, detonating the bomb under controlled conditions before it explodes in the vicinity of innocents. And they are all innocent, excepting her.
Exactly how she’ll do it, Bea isn’t sure. Ropes are too unreliable, guns too quick, pills too painless. She’ll probably stick with razors. She has an affinity for them now and they’ll produce the right amount of pain. Timing is the only question. It’s simply too morbid to do it the night she turns eighteen. And too cruel to her mamá, something Bea feels guilty—
You’ll do nothing of the sort. Now get up off that floor and come to me.
Bea turns. But she’s alone in the bathroom and the door’s still locked.
Get up. Get up. Get up!
And so she does.
3:33 a.m.—Goldie
Last night, Leo begged me to return to him again. My eyes close and I prise them open. I’m exhausted. All I want to do is sleep. But I know where sleep will take me, and I’m scared to see him again. My eyes close. I force them open. I don’t want to see him and I do want to see him, and, eventually, I know that I will.
Then I am walking along a stone path through an avenue of trees. Then Leo is standing in front of me. I don’t stop. He falls into step beside me.
“I don’t expect forgiveness, and I’m not asking for it,” he says, as if he’s already been carrying on a conversation without me. “I don’t even want it. What I did was unforgivable. Still, I hope you know . . .”
I stop walking.
“You know . . .” His green eyes cloud with tears. “That I did, that I do, that I will . . .”
I look at him. I look at him for a long time without saying anything. Then I nod. After all, how can it be any other way? He is in my heart.
“So, will you let me teach you?” He’s tentative. “Will you let me help you learn how to fight?”
I nod again. And I try not to think that, if he doesn’t kill soon, he’ll die.
3:33 a.m.—Esme
Esme feels herself slipping, as if her bed has become a boat waiting to bear her away on a journey from which she will never return. She’s not scared. She only wishes her granddaughter were sitting beside her now, so she could hold Scarlet’s hand as she goes.
Her granddaughter’s name sits on Esme’s lips, if only she could summon the energy to say it, to shout it. Still, Scarlet must be here, for the last thing Esme feels is her granddaughter’s hand. The last thing she sees is her daughter’s face. Ruby is speaking, but Esme can’t hear. The words take shape in Ruby’s eyes: words of gratitude, apology, prayer.
Esme’s lips move, though no sound escapes. Still, it doesn’t matter. In this space between life and death, mother and daughter are connected again. Here, in the unknowable, all is known. All is understood . . . and forgiven.
6:29 a.m.—Scarlet
“Scarlet! Scarlet!”
Scarlet wakes, sitting before she’s even opened her eyes. Esme’s calling. Scarlet is stumbling halfway down the hallway when she realizes—it wasn’t her grandmother, it was her. She was calling her own name.
Scarlet falls silent, stopping outside the door. She doesn’t want to go into her grandmother’s room. Not tonight. She wants to sleep, wants to dream, wants to pretend her way into another world. The one with the rivers and trees, the unwavering moon and perpetually falling leaves.
But something has shifted.
There is a stiller stillness, a quieter quiet. There is absence, loss.
Scarlet doesn’t need to step into her grandmother’s room to know she’s no longer there, doesn’t need to walk to her bedside to see she’s not breathing, doesn’t need to touch her cheek to know it will be cold.
Still, Scarlet creeps forward, treading on the carpet as if Esme will feel every step. She stands beside her grandmother’s bed, watches her inert chest, brushes a fingertip along her cheek. Then places a kiss on her grandmother’s lips. She sits holding Esme’s hand, sinking into memories—dancing in the kitchen and setting fire to toast. At the edges of memories wait decisions, necessities, the question of what she must do next.
No doubt doctors believe it’s impossible to die of a broken heart. But when they give Scarlet the official report, she’ll know better. Her grandmother, already skirting the edge of the next world,