Page 1 of Atlas
CHAPTER 1
Red Manor House
Atlas
Complete silence filled the car the moment we drove into Howth. Nathan was driving, and from the way his knuckles turned white around the steering wheel, I could tell he felt as tense as me. I was in the passenger seat and took a quick look at the back seat where Maximum sat between Lumi and River. All three of them had solemn expressions on their faces as they looked out the window.
The gravel driveway leading up to the house had once been a beautiful sight with the pruned trees creating a canopy above, but now the trees were overgrown, and some of the branches scraped the top of Nathan’s Jeep as we drove through.
“Look at all the weeds,” Maximum said from the back.
My eyes fell to the ground lit up by the headlights of the car as he continued in a low mutter:
“I used to love using the flamethrower to burn weeds from the gravel.”
“You were probably the last one to do it.” River’s tone was dry as she leaned forward to see the manor come into sight in front of us.
When Nathan stopped the car, all five of us got out. No one spoke as the sound of car doors closing filled the night. We gathered in front of the stairs leading up to the main entrance.
For a moment, we stood shoulder to shoulder, and then I felt a hand in mine. River was the youngest of us, and even though she was twenty-three now and no child, I squeezed her hand.
“Why did we have to do it at night?” she whispered. “The house looks scary, and we haven’t even gone inside yet.”
I answered her in a calm voice, hiding that my heart was beating fast too. “Because we don’t want anyone to see us. We don’t need a stupid article about how the five surviving children from the suicide cult in Howth returned to confront the demons of their past.”
River sighed. “No, you’re right.”
“Come on!” It was Lumi who took the first step, and we all followed up the stairs, watching her unlock the double doors.
Stepping inside, Nathan turned on the light so we could see, and it made me gasp. The entrance that led into the living room had always been bright and welcoming with fresh flowers and a constant scent of home-cooked food. Now the place looked like a squatter’s house. Only a few pieces of furniture stood around, and walls and floors were painted with graffiti.
We were quiet as we moved further into the house, and it was only then that I realized that it wasn’t graffiti. “It’s markings from where the bodies were.” I counted the outline markings of the twenty-eight friends and family members whom we lost that night.
“Why are most of them in a line?” Nathan’s eyebrows were knit together as he took in the twenty-five markings in one long line and the three that were spread out in the living room.
“You don’t know?” I asked him.
“Why would he?” Maximum walked closer to Nathan. “Some of us had no interest in seeing pictures or reading articles. Nathan and River were led out of the house without getting a look at what happened here, or did you forget that detail?”
My brother, Maximum, hadn’t wanted to come tonight, and his tone told me he was pissed that I’d pressured them until they agreed for us to go together.
Lumi stood with a stern expression looking at the drawings on the floor. “Conor had them sit in a long line, like a human train on their way to the next destination. My mom fell over here, and those two markings are of Conor and Ciara.”
I took a step closer to her, placing my hand on her shoulder. Of the five of us, only Lumi and I had been in the room that night eleven years ago, when the emergency response unit had stormed the house and saved us from my father’s madness.
“If any of you want to see photos, I have copies.”
River looked up at me. “You have copies?”
Nathan shook his head at me. “You can keep them. I’m happy the guards made sure we didn’t see the bodies then, and I have no need to see it all now.”
I shrugged. “No one is forcing you to.”
Maximum walked around the living room and stopped by the dusty French doors to look into the darkness of the garden. “I wonder how it looks outback. The garden is probably overgrown.”
“Yeah, probably,” I agreed.
His hand rested on the doorframe, and his eyes glazed over. “The garden was my favorite part about this house. The bonfires in the evenings, the tennis court, and the hours of playing pétanque with Carlos.” Maximum turned to us. “He always cheated, but I still played with him.”
