Page 8 of The Ordeals
I blink back slow tears, staring at our surroundings, and when I see Banks’s sad old eyes turn to me, I know I’ve picked a good place.
‘I brought you and her here for a walk once, years ago when you were little,’ he says quietly. ‘She liked the trees. Said the colours made her feel happy. You loved it too, didn’t you?’ He doesn’t mention how I complained that day about the bracelet, how it chafed my wrist, how it dawned on me for the first time what it was, what it did. ‘You don’t have to help, miss.’
‘I want to,’ I say, staring out into the dark and the trees. I rub at my left wrist, and the bracelet seems to encircle it tighter, snaring my bones, whispering that I need to return to the city, that I’m notsupposed to be so far from him. But I’m only dimly aware of it. I can barely feel anything.
Banks sighs, long and deep, before getting out of the car. He extracts a shovel from the boot, and I hear the call of a bird in the distance. There’s silence here, but also peace. Restfulness. It’s a different kind of silence to the deafening kind in that townhouse. I should have insisted Dolly wait outside. If I had … if I had, she would still be here with us.
What I can’t understand is why the Collector sent us there, why there was no mark, no woman for me to find. And who was the man we heard scream? The half-written letter in Allowayan? What would I have found if I had opened those two other doors? Had the mark been behind one of them, or was it a trap? I mull over this as I dig, the minutes stretching to hours, my arms growing heavy. But all I have are more questions, and only one answer.
Dolly is dead.
We take it in turns to dig her grave under a tree with branches that curve over in an arc, like they’re weeping. It takes us into the night, both of us coated in dirt and blood by the time we are done, the moon trailing silver over the trees and fresh-dug dirt. When we lower her body in, my feet slip on the edge of the grave and her body slumps in at an angle. Banks sighs again, looking down at her. He’s covered her face, but she’s still wearing that peacock robe. My stomach twists again, but this time all I feel is cold.
‘Dolly, I loved you and I never told you enough,’ Banks says. ‘I never asked for your hand, girl. I should have done. I should have done everything differently.’
I open my mouth to say something, anything. But all my words are spent. My lower lip trembles as Banks looks at me, raising his eyebrows in silent question. All I can do is nod. No words would ever be enough to describe all she was to me, how it feels likeI’m burying pieces of myself along with her, and I can already feel the sharp edges of absence. How my heart doesn’t feel like it’s the same shape anymore, like it’s pressed up against my ribs, how I can’t imagine a world where her laughter, her voice, are mere memory. I can’t say any of this; I have to keep my shit together. So I bury all those words, like I’m burying her and just nod.
He shovels the first scoop of dirt into the grave, and it lands on her feet. We take this part in turns too, covering her over until it’s just the tree and a mound hidden beneath its branches. Then we stand there, staring at it. I realise I am shaking. The rain and the night have chilled me to the bone, robbed me of a warmth that will never return. I fix this place in my mind, the tree and the peace and the moonlight, then turn away.
We both get back into the car and I stare out of the windshield at all the deep, endless green. ‘What she said, before she died?’
Banks rests his hands in his lap, flecks of dirt smearing his trousers, waiting for me to go on.
I grip the steering wheel so hard, my knuckles blanch. ‘Is it … is it true? About my uncle?’
Banks looks at me, his features closed off and watchful. ‘Yes.’
I swallow, taking in the enormity of it. The deception, the years they’ve all known and never told me. The Collector, the man who raised me, trained me, sent me out on his assignments, strapped this bond, this bracelet around my wrist, all in the guise of looking after me, protecting me … he’s no more than a liar and a stranger. A dangerous man who has manipulated me. Made me sign a contract as achild… ‘He-he told me I had my mother’s eyes, that we all had the same green eyes … I can’t believe. I can’t …’
Banks sighs, closing his eyes as though he can’t bear to face up to this, not today, not after burying Dolly.
‘I’m not going back,’ I say with cold certainty. It’s not just fear,it’s the betrayal. Everything I’ve done for that man, every time I reasoned with myself that he’s my uncle, he’s blood, it was for my own good, he was only protecting me … it was all a lie. I’ve allowed him to rule every one of my decisions, and the only times I pushed back or tried to leave, I’d end up in the vault. I should have fought harder to break his hold over me. I should have found a way to leave long ago, burned the damn antiques shop down, smashed the bracelet to release myself from his merciless grip.
But I was so sure he was my only family, that I couldn’t break the contract. Now all I have left is the Crucible, this one chance to get into Killmarth. To be free of him. ‘I’m not going back,’ I say again, starting up the car.
‘As you wish, Miss DeWinter,’ Banks whispers as I pull away from the clearing.
‘Did he even know my parents?’
Banks looks at me, his grey eyes turned down at the corners. ‘Your parents left you with him. That’s all I know. He swore us both, Dolly and me, to secrecy when he arrived with you in his arms. We weren’t allowed to tell you, and we weren’t allowed to question why. Me and Eddy, we don’t have heart-to-hearts. You know I have a contract too. So did Dolly.’
I snort, picturing the man who just sent me to that address. Who sent Dolly to her death, all because he couldn’t stand that I might slip from his clutches. Even now, the dirt from her grave is under my nails, the rain of the night shivering from my hair. ‘That bastard doesn’t have a heart.’
I park a street away from Alabaster House and Banks shuffles through his pockets, handing me a few floren notes before offeringan awkward hug. The uneasy thought sweeps through my mind that he’ll be punished for allowing me to get away. But I can’t stay. I can’t. It’s another weight of guilt I will have to live with.
‘Miss DeWinter … Sophia,’ he says and swallows. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but you shouldn’t return. Whatever the reason was for your parents leaving you with him … perhaps they didn’t know what he would have you do. Collecting marks and such. Make a life. An honest one. Dolly … she wanted more for you. I should have interfered, maybe then, maybe …’ He sniffs, blinking rapidly. ‘I have … I have something that I found in his office, only recently. Dolly was going to share it with you. She was trying to find the right moment.’ He holds out a black-and-white photograph, a group portrait, the features all pale and smudged, the sea in the background, a garden surrounding them. I take it with shaking fingers, discerning a baby sitting on the knee of a woman. And when I turn it over, on the back is written a single word. My heart misses a beat.
Killmarth.
‘Your parents, and you.’ His voice wavers. ‘Take care, Sophia.’
‘Banks …’ I say, wrenching my gaze away from the photograph. ‘You know you can leave as well? You don’t have to stay. Not after tonight. There are ways to break the contracts he made with us. There is magic …’
He gives me a forlorn look. ‘There’s nowhere else for a man like me, miss, contract or no. Dolly was the only person who ever cared for me.’
‘And me, Banks,’ I say quietly. ‘And me.’
A sob catches in his throat and he turns away, rubbing at his eyes with his rain-soaked sleeve.
