Behind us, there is a sound.
I turn around smartly and see Bee moving to the door. It leaves without waiting for me, without hesitation. Betty remains still, beside Thomas.
‘What?’ he says.
‘I don’t know. Stay here.’
By the time I’ve reached the front door I can hear the shouting. William’s voice is as loud as I’ve ever heard it; I scramble to the campfire, shoeless, feeling the bite of the icy ground under my feet. William’s strident voice becomes distinguishable words. He says, ‘…must be done. Stay back, we’re making the rules…’
…and I see the men who wait outside William’s house. On the ground there are two beheaded bodies of the Beauty, leaking yellow-grey liquid from the stumps of their necks. The other Beauties have formed a line, Bee in the centre, walking slowly towards the house.
The men hold out hoes, shovels, knives: weapons that jut from their readied hands, making the sharp shapes of battle. Hal and Gareth are as tall as pillars and sitting between them, underneath the bell, are Adam and Paul, their faces the colour of paper.
William shouts: ‘It must be done, for the sake of us all. We have ruled that it’s a crime to put such things in us against our will.’ Are his words directed at the Beauty? They walk on, showing no sign of stopping, and William’s voice pours on in a scream. I see it like a ribbon spooling from his mouth: ‘Judgement has been passed, and now must be carried out, do it, do it–’
Hal and Gareth raise their long knives and swing them, down and round, into the sides of Adam and Paul. The knives stick in the bumps. I see Hal and Gareth working to tug the blades free and Adam and Paul’s blood is like glue on the knives, their bodies moulding to the blades, and red and yellow intermingle while their arms and legs and heads twitch. They slump down dead in deference to the knives, the knives are the masters of the body now. And yet the blades won’t come free. Hal and Gareth tug, tug, tug, and the knives don’t work free.
The Beauty reach them. They start to pull Hal and Gareth apart, beginning with the heads, which are twisted round and popped off. Then the arms, then the legs. The knives are forgotten. There is blood as copious as a river after rainfall. It soaks and sprays William’s porch like the painting of a child who can’t resist the thrill of the deep rich red.
The Beauty go on, moving through the other men. I see William disassembled, and Eamon, and Landers and Keith D and other men I have known so well. Some of them run for the woods, and some even make it, but a few of the Beauty peel off in the shape of an arrow and follow to the trees, in silence, with certainty.
The other teenagers, Jason and Oliver, come out of the orchard. They stand stock-still, their faces a picture of terror. I think, if I am to describe this day, I must remember their faces, and so I fix the stretched cheeks, the peeled-back lips, in my mind. Then I touch my face and realise I am making the same expression.
Jason and Oliver stumble away into the woods. I am alone.
I reach for Bee with my mind and feel nothing. There is the sound of wailing amidst the trees. It goes on and on. It’s surely not a human sound. The Beauty must be making it. I listen to it, waiting for it to stop, for something to happen. Maybe Uncle Ted will appear and start to issue commands, clean up that mess, bury those bodies. But there’s nothing. Just the ceaseless wailing.
Eventually the cold penetrates my feet, and brings me to the knowledge that I must move. So I do. I return to Thomas, who sits in the room just as I left him, Holly in his lap, his eyes closed.
‘No,’ he says. ‘Don’t. I can’t hear it. I can’t hear it.’ His voice shoots up, spiralling into shrill denial.
But I must speak. I say, ‘They’re dead.’
Thomas says, ‘No.’ When he opens his eyes, they are alive with confusion and dread. ‘Don’t let them hurt her.’
‘Nobody will. They’re all dead. The Beauty killed them all.’
‘All of them?’ The worst thing is the hope in his face. Holly is more important than the rest of us, to him. ‘The whole Group? William? Everyone?’
‘Some ran. The Beauty have gone after them.’
‘Everyone,’ he says. Then he adds, ‘I’m very tired.’
‘Me too,’ I whisper.
I can hear the wailing of the Beauty through the window. I crawl up next to Thomas and Holly, and I make us into a protective pile. I need an answer, a different ending to this story.
An answer must come to me.
The icy depths of the graveyard remain undisturbed come the morning. The frozen cobwebs hang in tatters from the bare branches and the Beauty bury their dead lovers elsewhere, out of sight. In the woods, I think. With the bodies of the women that Uncle Ted strangled once upon a time, to protect us. The things that get done in the name of protection.
Maybe new Beauties will erupt from the fresh corpses. Is this a circle, a journey in which we come back to the beginning and feel so much more complete in our knowledge? I’m losing my taste for such easy words.
I sit next to my mother’s grave. Bee stands outside, silent. I am never truly alone now. Bee will always pull on my senses and I would give my voice, all my stories, to go back to how things were. Loneliness – that was a rare gift, like a hole in the brain that I worked hard to fill with my thoughts. Now I no longer have a hole to fill, and so I do not think so much. I only feel. How I hate such feelings.
My mother would flick through her glossy magazines and sigh. ‘We never appreciate what we have until it’s gone,’ she would say, and I used to think in my head, never out loud, that it wasn’t too late. If she wanted that life so badly she could go back. How little I understood.
I put a hand on the cold wooden cross that marks her spot. It’s not that different from touching Bee.
A voice says, ‘I thought I’d find you here.’
Ahh, the relief I feel in hearing that voice! I can’t help it; I spring up, I go to Uncle Ted and I put my arms around him. He has a smell so familiar that I close my eyes and imagine myself young again, young enough to be swung up into the space between his arms where happiness lives. But when I open my eyes I see his Bonnie standing next to my Bee and I step back. I pick up my problems once more, and own them.
I say, ‘I thought you were dead.’
He says, ‘They knew I was no threat. I hid in the woods. I know them well enough to keep out the way when it’s needed, and to come out when trouble passes. I wish I could say the same of you. You can’t hide in here all day. There’s work to be done. I’ve called an emergency meeting.’
I laugh. I didn’t know I could make such a sound again. The graveyard soaks it up. ‘A meeting?’ I say. ‘Did you not see what happened? Who do you think is going to show up?’
‘Typical overblown Nate. You’re alive. I’m alive. Thomas and that thing he calls a baby, and Oliver and Jason. No doubt more of these bastard crosses will start growing inside all of you soon, and if we want them to be more human than mushroom then we need to have order. Agreement.’
‘And you,’ I say. ‘A baby will probably grow in you too.’
I see the flare of disgust on his face. He steps back and rests his hand on the stick on his belt. ‘That’s not going to happen,’ he tells me, and Bonnie makes a strange wail. Then I understand – the way he makes Bonnie keeps its distance, walk behind him, never touch him. This is not only in public. He does not touch it at all. I can’t imagine the strength of will this must take, or what it might do to a man. I wonder if it isn’t sending him crazy.
‘How can you–’
He cuts me off. ‘Meeting. Now. In the kitchen. There aren’t any answers in here, Nate.’