For a long time they said nothing. They simply stood, and the sea broke quietly against the shore, unperturbed. Delphine stopped crying and lifted her wet face to the horizon. She looked as calm as the waters, numb and untouchable.
“Have you heard from Celeste?” Dimity asked, unsure if she wanted the answer. Delphine blinked, and nodded.
“She wrote to me, after I sent a telegram to grandmère. She wrote me a terrible letter. I keep it with me, and I keep reading it in the hope it’ll say something different. It never does, of course.”
“What does it say?”
“She says she loves me, but she misses Élodie too much to see me. But what it really says, underneath, is that she blames me. She won’t see me because she blames me. And she’s right, of course. I am to blame-I killed my sister, and I nearly killed my mother, too.” She shook her head violently. “I was so sure! I was so sure I’d picked the right things! How can I have made such a mistake? How?” She looked at Dimity, desperate, mystified. Dimity stared at her with her mouth fallen open. The truth hovered there, on her tongue, waiting. Wanting to be spoken. I had gone black inside, she wanted to say. My heart had stopped. I wasn’t me. But she stayed silent. “I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I knew as much as you. I thought I was so clever.” Delphine voice was heavy with self-loathing.
“Why did you come back here?” said Dimity. It was an accusation, a plea for her to go. Delphine tore all the wounds wide open, wider than ever.
“I… I just wanted to… be where they had been. Mummy and Daddy, and Élodie. I’ve left school now, you see. I wasn’t sure where to go, or… any of it, really. I went to London but our house was… bombed out. Ruined. Like everything else. This was the last place I saw them. I was hoping… they might still be here. In some way.” Tears splashed onto her cheeks again, and Dimity wondered that she had any left to cry. “I wish I could remember what it felt like, back then. What life felt like, when we came here and played and messed about, and Father drew, and Élodie argued with Mummy, and you and I wandered around picking herbs and catching crabs. We’re the only ones left who know how good things were then. You and I. What did it feel like? Do you remember?” She stared at Dimity with an awful hunger, but didn’t wait for an answer. “What did we do wrong that our lives should be ruined like this? Ruined or finished, so soon? Why are we being punished like this?” she murmured. Dimity shook her head.
“Why don’t you go to your mother?”
“I… can’t. Not when she doesn’t want me.” Delphine paused and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I can’t believe she left me behind, Mitzy. I can’t believe it. I never meant to hurt Élodie… she must know I never meant to.”
“If Celeste saw you, she would love you again. You should go to her,” Dimity urged. But Delphine shook her head.
“Well, I can’t, even if she wanted me to. Not with the war on. I don’t know what to do next, Mitzy.” She looked up then, her face a plea, but Dimity knew only that she could not stay in Blacknowle. She could not, because being calm, being happy, not letting the black tide and the rats take her over, would be impossible if Delphine was near. “Perhaps… do you think I could stay with you for a while, Mitzy? Now that your mother is… gone. Just for a short time, while I think about where to go, and what to do next?”
“No! You can’t stay here. Don’t stay here. Too many memories.” Dimity spoke in a clipped, alien voice. Delphine stared at her in dismay, and the hurt on her face burned like cigarette ash on Dimity’s skin. “You can’t!” she gasped. “It’s… unbearable to have you here!”
“Of course. I’m sorry.” Delphine blinked, and looked towards the sea. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I might go for a walk, now. Before I leave. I’d like to… see some more of the places where we went, before. I’d like to remember how it was, for a while. How life was, when everything seemed so safe, and we were all so happy that we didn’t even realize how happy we were.” She sniffed and took a handkerchief from her pocket to blow her nose.
“Then you should leave here. This place will catch you, otherwise. It’s a trap, and it’ll keep you here, if it can. So go soon, before it gets a grip on you,” said Dimity. She wanted to grab Delphine and propel her away, far from Blacknowle. She could not have her friend near and live in peace, that much was clear.
“I understand,” said Delphine, though Dimity didn’t see how she possibly could. With another flash of excruciating clarity, she saw that Delphine had come to expect rejection, to expect to be unwanted.
“Don’t stay here, Delphine. Start over, somewhere new.”
“Yes, perhaps you’re right. It does no good, when those times are gone. But a walk, perhaps. To see them all again, one last time.” She took Dimity’s hand and squeezed it, then pulled her close and hugged her. “I wish you happiness, Mitzy Hatcher. You deserve some.” Delphine was walking away before Dimity could answer her, and Dimity was grateful for that.
She went back to The Watch at a steady pace, careful not to trip or stumble, careful not to startle herself in case she flew apart like a flock of sparrows. She went up to Charles’s room, where he was sketching the face of a young man, shut the curtains, and put the light on for him. He didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t know that his daughter had been at the door; that the warmth of her embrace still lingered on Dimity’s clothes. Again Dimity stood, and the truth was so heavy that she was sure it would drip from her mouth. His daughter. His daughter. A young woman who needed her father more than anything. But her father is dead, Dimity reassured herself.
“No one can know that you’re here,” she said, and Charles’s head came up from his drawing, quick and frightened.
“No one. No one can know that I’m here,” he whispered, eyes as wide as a child’s in a nightmare.
“No one will know, Charles. I’ll keep you hidden, my love.” He smiled when she said this, so grateful, so relieved. Dimity took a step back from the edge, felt his smile soothe and warm her. She breathed more easily and went downstairs.
All the rest of that day she watched from the windows, looking out for Delphine. She scanned the cliffs and the visible part of the beach, and had only just begun to relax and think her gone when she saw her, late in the afternoon, crossing the far paddock and into the yard at Southern Farm; knocking on the farmhouse door. From a distance she looked even less like a girl anymore-she looked like a woman, willowy, tall, and thin as a whip. She saw Mrs. Brock step out and hug Delphine. She hugged her for a long time, and then drew her into the house. And Dimity remembered the way Christopher Brock had always looked at Delphine, the way he’d smiled and dropped his gaze, abashed, and she knew with dreadful certainty that Delphine would never leave. The trap had closed, and she would always be there, like a wound that wouldn’t heal, to remind Dimity of what she had done, and what she should have done. To make the threat of Charles being discovered more pressing, more real. If Delphine found him, she would claim him. But she would never find him, Dimity resolved there and then. Delphine would never set foot inside The Watch, and Charles would never set foot outside it. She stood for a long time, staring down at the farm and knowing that she would not see Delphine leave. It was full dark before she finally roused herself, and realized that she could no longer see out through the window. She shook herself, took a deep breath; tried to remember what she had been so sad about, earlier that day, what had frightened her so. She shrugged it off, since it couldn’t have been important. Nothing was, apart from Charles. She hummed an old song as she began to prepare his dinner.