“Would you like to do the honours?” He nods down at his groin. “Or shall I?”
I try to speak, but I’m struggling to breathe.
“Cat got your tongue?” He brings his face so close that I can see the pores of his sweaty skin and smell his stale, smoky breath. For one horrific moment, I think he’s going to kiss me. Instead he slips a fat finger into my mouth. My eyes go wide, unblinking.
“You like that?” He grins again. “Suck it up, sweetheart—a small preview of coming attractions.”
Then, somehow, I do what I’ve never been able to do before. Instead of freezing, I fight. It’s an impulse; I don’t think strategy, I just bite. I bite down so hard on his finger that his skin breaks and blood fills my mouth.
Garrick shrieks and leaps back, grasping his bloodied finger, hopping and twitching and squealing like a pig being slaughtered.
“You—you little fucking bitch!” he screams. “What the fuck do you—?”
A cascade of curses gush forth, words so crude, so colourful, that for a second I’m pinned to the spot in shock. Then I turn and run.
12:34 p.m.—Liyana
Other than her tarot cards, when Liyana feels lost it is blackbirds she looks for. They are her personal angels, messengers from a benevolent universe, if such a thing exists, to reassure and remind her, to tell her when she’s on the right track. At the sight of a blackbird Liyana feels that, ultimately, all is right with the world, no matter how hopeless it might seem at the time.
It’s blackbirds because, though she’d never admit this to another living soul, Liyana believes that, in some esoteric and inexplicable way, they embody her mother’s spirit. Perhaps because Isisa used to sing a song about blackbirds so often it became a soundtrack to her dreams. Sometimes Liyana would wake with the lyrics still on her lips. Sadly, she can’t remember any of the words anymore, no matter how hard she tries.
Liyana hasn’t picked up a feather or seen a blackbird in weeks. The angels have deserted her. So Liyana returns to the tarot. She asks about money, about marriage, about the chance of miracles. She deals the Tower, the Three of Swords, the Five of Cups. She asks the same questions over and over, dealing again and again for the chance of different cards. She shuffles and reshuffles, deals and re-deals, in the desperate hope of a single reassuring sign. She gets none.
2:59 p.m.—Scarlet
Scarlet leans against her beloved cappuccino machine, half-heartedly polishing Francisco’s flank with a dishcloth, trying not to think about Ezekiel Wolfe and his plans to erect another monument to global capitalism on the site of her grandmother’s little café. Scarlet feels a fool. Still, she’ll be damned if she’ll let Mr. Wolfe get his claws on the café. It’s still beloved, after all. The old stalwarts still come. Cambridge is a city of tradition, ritual, memory. Sadly, though, this loyalty doesn’t increase with the same eager ferocity as the rent.
Glancing at her blurred reflection in the shining stainless steel, Scarlet allows herself to wonder what she might do if she weren’t doing this. She hasn’t thought about doing anything else, not for years. Why would she? She’s qualified for nothing—where will ten GCSEs get you nowadays? Even if they are all As. Which, given that she was helping her grandmother out in the café every day after school, is quite impressive. But what employer would think so? She’d need to continue studying or take a training course. Either of which would require time and money, neither of which she has in plentiful supply.
While Esme still worked in the café, before the disease had been diagnosed, Scarlet had been set to go on to sixth form, with the vague notion of pursuing a career in chemistry. The idea of sitting in a lab and blowing things up—which is how she liked to imagine she’d spend her time—seemed like a perfect career goal. She didn’t particularly mind that it had never come to fruition, since it’d only been an idea in the absence of any others. And she still found the kitchen a satisfying alternative to a laboratory. Admittedly, the bubbling alchemy of baking soda with water was tame in comparison to, say, the explosive satisfaction of red phosphorus with potassium chlorate, but it still remained rather magical nevertheless.
Scarlet had noticed the signs only slowly. At first, Esme started forgetting the names of simple things: a plate, the fridge, cinnamon buns. Then