Leo looks stricken. “Shit, Goldie. How could—how can you think that of me? I know what I’ve done, but after everything we’ve—”
“Can you blame me?” Anger flares in my chest. “You killed my mother. You were intending to kill me. You’ve changed your mind now, but still . . .”
As I speak tears fill Leo’s eyes and slip down his cheeks. And I’m struck by the fact that I’ve never seen him like this before. Hate recedes, and as love rises, ribbons of desire begin to unfurl within me, unbidden, as they did the first time we met.
Leo takes a hesitant step towards me, as if I’m a skittish deer he’s trying to feed. “You know—you know I would never, never . . .”
I nod. “I know.” And I do.
Leo steps forward again. This time I let his hand touch mine and I slip my fingers into his.
“I wish I hadn’t left this too late. I wish I’d brought you here the night of the first-quarter moon just after I met you, then at least you’d stand a fighting chance of . . .”
I’m about to fill in his words, to point out that when we first met his aim had been to exterminate me. But I know that he’s thinking the same thing, that he’s hating himself, so I don’t.
“Right.” I step forward so we’re standing side by side in front of the gate. “I’m here. Just tell me what to do.”
“It won’t be a moment.”
And sure enough, the moon slides out from behind the clouds and the iron gate is illuminated, each midnight curlicue shimmering with a silver hue. Leo reaches up with his free hand to push the gate open and, together, we step through.
Arrival
Leo’s right, it’s most definitely not the master’s private garden. It’s not Saint John’s. It’s not this world at all. It’s the place from my dreams. It takes a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the dense fog that hangs in the air, a few minutes until I can make out the shapes of towering trees and fallen trunks, until I focus enough to hear the rush of a river nearby, of water running over rocks.
“Why is everything so pale?” I whisper, as if someone might be eavesdropping. “It’s . . . it’s like stepping inside a black-and-white photograph.” I reach up to brush a fallen leaf from my hair and see blanched leaves falling above and all around me, like rain. “Or a very strange snow globe.”
Still holding Leo’s hand, I walk on. We step from stone to stone, sometimes into sinking basins of moss, everything sprinkled with a dusting of dried white leaves. They gather in drifts, shoring up the edges of the fallen trunks and the long-fingered roots of the trees. They float along the streams, swirling in the currents of the water. I feel the earth hum under my feet, the stretch and pull of unseen growth deep beneath. When I step into pools of moonlight, it feels warm on my skin.
I feel something I can’t quite place, can’t quite remember.
And then it returns: the feeling of coming home.
Bea
Bea walks quickly along the streets of South Kensington. She has no idea where she’s going, nor does she care. She only wants to be as far from her mamá’s flat as possible. She hasn’t heard her father’s voice again since stepping out into the cold night air, but she doesn’t care about that either. She will go where she damn well pleases. And, right now, all she wants to do is keep walking.
On Cromwell Road she slows. Bea’s always been drawn to the Natural History Museum and, as it comes into view, she remembers the school trips, seeing the Diplodocus skeleton for the first time, being struck by its massive power.
Now she stops at the entrance, her hand resting on the thick brass lock of the gateway barring her from the museum steps. She gazes at the towers flanking the vast doors, the dozens and dozens of great stained-glass windows, the turrets reaching towards the stars.
As a wash of moonlight falls over the gate, in the silver glow the memory of that place returns, suddenly and completely, as vivid and real as every pane of glass and brick that built her favourite museum. Bea glances up at the moon, then pushes open the gate and walks through, stepping from a street in South Kensington and into Everwhere.