“No, Celeste.”
“Don’t you think so? Do you feel no guilt, then, for what has happened? You are quite happy to live on, with her gone? I think it would be easier to step off, to fall and to go with her. Far easier.” She gazed at the distant little girl with an awful intensity, her mouth open, an unhealthy sheen on her skin.
“Come away, Celeste! You still have another daughter! What about Delphine?”
“Delphine?” Celeste blinked, looking across at Dimity. “She is my daughter still, but how can I love her as I loved her before? How can I? She meant no harm, but she has done harm. Great harm. And she never needed me, not like Élodie did. She always loved Charles better.”
“She loves you,” said Dimity, and then gasped because something speared into her empty head, as it always did when she thought of Delphine. Something so painful that she swayed, tipping precariously towards the open air in front of them. Celeste saw this change in her, and for a second it seemed as though she might smile.
“You do see, don’t you? How much easier it would be.” Just then, Dimity did see. All the long years of her life stretched out in front of her, and this emptiness would have to be her constant companion, because the pain would never go. Things could not be undone. Her dreams would always be dark; the wide world would always be a distant, imagined thing. She would have Valentina’s scorn for company, and nobody else. Charles was not free, and perhaps he never would be. But it was the thought of him that saved her. Rushing through her blood like a drug, like magic.
“No! Let me go!” She used all of her weight to pull free from Celeste, staggering back a few paces to sit down on the turf with a bump. There she sat, and watched. Celeste was still right at the edge. The violence with which Dimity had pulled away made her teeter, and fight for balance. She put out her arms, like fragile, fledgling wings. Wings that could never save her, if she fell. She wobbled, her toes tipping over the edge, breaking the lip of the cliff, and as she turned to look at Dimity the wind caught her hair, and lifted it around her face; a dark veil, a veil of grief. Go, then, if you want to, thought Dimity. She stayed still, she watched; she felt the reassuring solidity of the ground beneath her, curled her fingers into the grass, hung on. The wind circled Celeste, and tempted her with the promise of flight. But then her wide eyes settled on Dimity, and they hardened, and she stepped back. Dimity realized she’d been holding her breath, and this time Celeste did smile; a thin smile with no amusement in it, no pleasure.
“You are right, Mitzy. I have another daughter. And I have Charles. And my life is not over, though part of me might wish it was. Yet I remain. I will remain.” Her words were a slamming door, and Dimity’s crowding thoughts, her chaotic feelings, made her stupid and slow. “Perhaps you would prefer me dead, and that is the warning I feel when I look at you. But soon it will be all the same. I will not stay here. This place is like an open grave.” She stood over Dimity but did not seem to see her. She cupped her hands, raised them to her face, and inhaled; an odd, alien gesture. “Je veux l’air de désert, où le soleil peut allumer n’importe quelle ombre,” she said, so softly that the words were almost lost on the breeze, and only one was clearly heard. Desert. Dimity did not rise for a long time, and when she did, Celeste was already halfway back to the house, a thin, upright, lonely figure, walking onwards without her help.
Celeste was as good as her word. Two days later, Dimity was walking through the village when Charles came bursting from the shop and ran right into her. He gripped her by her upper arms and shook her before he’d even spoken.
“Have you seen her?”
“What? Who?”
“Celeste, of course, you foolish girl!” He gave her another little shake and she could not understand his expression, or his tone. Anger, fear, frustration, scorn. He was muddled, overcrowded.
“No, not since Monday! I swear it!” she cried. Abruptly, he dropped her and pushed his hands through his hair. It was a gesture he made frequently now, when she’d never seen it before that summer. “Has she gone away?” she said.
“I don’t know… I don’t know where she’s gone. She was so strange on Monday… when I got back from town she was so strange. She said she had to leave right away. I said we had to wait for a few days, until she’s a bit stronger… she said she couldn’t wait. I said… I said she had to. And now she’s gone and I don’t know where and I can’t find her anywhere! Did she say anything to you? Anything about where she wanted to go?” Dimity thought about Celeste at the edge of the cliff, arms outstretched, hair swirling around her; ready to take flight, ready to fall. She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. This place is an open grave. “Mitzy! Are you listening to me?”
“This place is an open grave.” It was true. Blacknowle was a place to die. Her home was a place in which to die.
“What?”
“That’s what she said. She said… ‘This place is an open grave.’ ” Charles went still.
“But… but she can’t go back to London on her own! Where will she stay? How would she even get to the station? She’s too weak… anything could happen to her… She’s not well enough yet.” His lips were dry and cracked; shreds of skin clung to them and Dimity wanted to brush them off with her fingers, and gently kiss his questions away. She pictured Celeste walking away from the cliff without her, slow but resolute. She was strong enough to travel alone. Celeste was strong enough for anything. “And you’re sure she didn’t say anything else? No clue as to where she would go-did she mention any names, friends in London, anybody?” Dimity shook her head again. There was the one word she had understood. Charles would think of it, eventually. But she would not prompt him. She would give Celeste a head start, a chance to disappear. Desert. A quiet word, full of longing. Desert. Let her go; she sent the thought silently to Charles. Let her go.
Charles was quiet for a long time, as they walked slowly back to Littlecombe. “She’s right, isn’t she?” he said at last. “This place is full of death. I can’t… I can’t…” He trailed off as a sob clenched his throat. “This place… it’s so different now,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Can’t you feel it? It’s like everything good and right went with her, and only the bad, the corrupt, was left behind. Such a heavy, lonely feeling. Do you feel it, too?”
“Every time you leave,” she said, but Charles didn’t seem to hear.
“I think… I will never come back here, after today. I think there are too many terrible memories…”
“Then we’ll go away! Anywhere you want to… I’ll go wherever you want to go, and we can start our new life. A fresh life, with no ghosts, no death…” Dimity stepped closer to him, took his hand, and placed it on her heart; she gazed up at him intently, but Charles snatched his hand away. His eyes went wide and stormy.
“What are you talking about?” He laughed suddenly, an ugly, barking sound. “Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t you see? Everything is ruined! I am ruined. I can’t draw; I can’t sleep or think since… since Élodie died. Only dark, horrible thoughts.” He shook his head abruptly, and his face collapsed into itself. “I miss her. I miss her so much. And now I’ve lost Celeste as well. My Celeste.”
“But… you love me! In Fez you… you saved me. You kissed me. I know you love me, as I love you! I know you do!” Dimity cried.