Liarholic Read online

  Sometimes, Diana is real. Remembers. It never lasts. I take my window of opportunity.

  I put Diana’s hand back on the bed, and take the letter out from my inside pocket. I find the photo and give it to her.

  ‘You were right. My mum did leave a letter with me. My mum . . . she was Violet Adams.’

  Diana whistles through her remaining teeth. ‘Dear God . . . You’re Violet’s little baby.’ She edges upright in bed.

  ‘Did you know her?’

  ‘I did. Such a tragic life she lived.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘She was pale, blue-eyed. She was very much like you, except for the eyes. She was the wild, bad girl of Greystone. She lived at the edge of Devil’s Woods in a broken-down cottage with a drunken mother and a long-gone daddy. By the time she was thirteen, she was knocked up and this small town’s dirty little secret.’

  We sit in silence while I try to make good on my wild thoughts. My brain can’t hit the spot, can’t stop rocking. It’s like trying to pin a jellyfish to the wall.

  ‘I tried to look out for her,’ Diana says. ‘But I was ancient compared to a teenage girl. I did my best. I did.’ She smiles. ‘She had real in her singing voice. Sang like an angel. The girl would have burnt the stage down.’

  I keep still, feel the dead drawing in. ‘Have I any family here?’

  ‘None at all. Your grandfather left when your mother was a child and your grandmother died long ago. They had no other children.’

  I swallow hard. ‘And my father?’

  ‘None as would admit to it. Your mother was thirteen years old when you were born. She kept the father a secret. I think . . . I think she was a very frightened little girl.’

  I tap my boot against the wooden floor. The need to fill my lungs with a nicotine hit consumes me.

  ‘Shepherd, I’m so sorry what they did to you in the children’s home. I didn’t know.’

  ‘I know you didn’t. Don’t carry guilt that isn’t yours, Diana. Don’t ever blame yourself.’

  She swallows a lump in her throat. ‘It broke my heart when they took you away and locked you up in that hell.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  Bad choices, it was mine.

  Where I sit in my head it’s like being on the bottom of a hot sunken pit. I can’t see anything else around me, no matter how hard I try.

  A scuffling noise from the doorway tugs me out of my depressing thoughts.

  I twist around and see . . . Amy.

  She’s hiding like a little mouse. Just off to the side of the door, in a halo of light from the corridor.

  ‘Amy,’ I say. ‘I can see you. Don’t make me drag you in.’

  She turns around slowly and treads into the room. She’s in a thin white cotton dress. Her long straight sunshine hair is twisted into the shape of a little white brain on the back of her head. She’s not wearing makeup, but her face is flawless.

  Amy clicks and un-clicks a ballpoint pen in one hand. Again and again and again.

  My heart starts to thump hard like a bass drum.

  Were you eavesdropping, Amy? Did you hear something not meant for your ears? You’d better not have, because it’s none of your goddamn business.

  ‘Were you listening in on private conversation, Amy?’

  ‘N-No . . . ’ Amy says.

  Diana cuts in. ‘Shepherd, mind she doesn’t get her hands on your willy. Just look at her — she’s sex-mad.’

  I laugh. ‘Yeah, she looks it, Diana. Gotta agree on that.’

  I can see a tiny snarl starting in Amy’s lip. Her bubble cheekbones crease. I wager she wants to stab me with that pen she’s clicking.

  A second later, just like that, I’m Diana’s younger brother who died from leukaemia. I offer to get Diana a newspaper.

  In the corridor, it’s musty despite the night air coursing in through the open window. Moths cast dancing patterns, circle the single ceiling light.

  I tower over Amy. She sways a little, like she’s waiting for my approval to move. Amy is awkward in her spindly body. Her white dress makes her look like a princess out of some goddamned fairy-tale, woken after a thousand-year sleep.

  Twenty years old, her skin is virginal. Never touched by the sun, unmarked, all the hidden scars undone. She's alabaster statuary, her big green eyes the colour of the coral sea, and her sunshine blonde hair coils like sunning snakes on her head.

  She’s the pretty rainbow in the sky, but it’s the promise of gold that hooks me in.

  ‘I’m not sex-mad,’ Amy says.

  Her face puffs pink, her body turns wooden like a doll.

  ‘Pretty sure I can change that tune.’

  I could charm a snake, yet Amy isn’t singing the same tune as me. Under her scrutiny, feels like my dark soul burns in the light.

  Something gold shines around her neck, glinting off the ceiling light like a diamond. I realise it’s my gift. The seahorse pendant.

  That seahorse was a wish I won’t ever fucking forget — one girl for life.

  I nod my head in the direction of the necklace. ‘You never got rid of it? Why?’

  I feel angry for some reason. At her or myself, I don’t fucking know.

  Her eyes glaze over. ‘My sister used to say: Before you give it up, think about why you held on for so long . . . Too many memories inside this seashore for me to let go.’

  My heart turns crossways.

  I lean against the wall, look into the dark secret inside of her ear.

  ‘What happened to your sister . . . it must’ve been hard.’

  Elizabeth, Amy’s much older sister, had a bad accident three years ago. From what I read in the newspaper, Elizabeth cracked her skull on the concrete ground, then fell into a coma. She woke up brain damaged.

  Amy’s real quiet and when she looks at me, her eyes are red and wet. Emeralds dissect my very existence.

  ‘How can I sum up the pain of thinking she would die? I can’t . . .’

  She’s shivering, even though it’s hot as hell in Crow Ward. I want to offer her my leather jacket. Then remember, I’m not the fucking gentleman.

  Instead I say, ‘How’s she doing now?’

  The skin along the parts in her hair, the skin above and behind her ears, is as clear and white as snow. If she knew how her ears come across, the fleshy edge, the little dark hood at the top, all the smooth contours coiled and channelling me to the tight darkness inside, well, she would wear her hair down when I’m close.

  Her eyeballs are like fire. ‘Why are you pretending to care?’

  Her eyes turn a darker shade of emerald. They silently scream Liar!

  Liar.

  Liar.

  Liar.

  Amy’s right. I burn every day with lies. Except she burns me in a different kind of way.

  ‘It’s been six years, Shepherd. Six years since you’ve spoken to me. You think you can just waltz back into my life and act like the sweet-boy Shepherd who cares about me? You really think I’m going to talk to you about my sister’s brain damage?’ She rattles her head. ‘Why? Why come back now and pretend to have a heart?’

  Guys like me, we’re automatically dumped into the bad basket. Like water is wet. The sky is up. Too fucking right.

  ‘Big fucking deal. It’s called small talk, love. You’d be less emotional if you didn’t stop looking at me like you want me to fuck you.’

  ‘God, you’re an arrogant prick. When you left this town, it was the best thing to ever have happened to me. Now you’re back . . . it’s the worst thing.’

  ‘The feelings mutual. You think it was my choice to return to this hellhole? I never planned on this. Never wanted to set my eyes on you again.’

  ‘Then why did you buy Swan Lake?’

  Whole lot of silence after that.

  I never promised Amy anything. Never promised her I’d be there at her side at all times. Never promised her commitment and living together and buying groceries and sharing space. Hell, we were never i
n a relationship.

  And fuck if I can’t stop feeling guilt, like my guts are burning in hellfire.

  Her eyes are swirly marbles of pity. ‘Whatever’s going on with you, Shepherd, I hope you figure it out.’

  I hurt her, and all she can do is be kind to me?

  Anger boils in my veins. I grit my teeth, grind my jaw. ‘The hell you mean by that?’ My eyes narrow like a snake’s. I stand then, push my back off the wall, tower over her. The monster and the princess.

  ‘You were eavesdropping, weren’t you?’

  Her cheeks blush pink. ‘No I . . . Just leave Greystone. For good, this time.’

  Amy is sweet as pie. Her hatred for me heats my blood, makes my pulse hammer hard between my heart and my cock.

  I get close, too fucking close. My arm brushes hers. There’s a sudden sparks of a hundred touches. The way Amy looks stunned, she feels it too.

  I’m her living nightmare.

  The chemistry between us is on fire. Always has been.

  She steps back, rubs the goose bumps on her arm. ‘They warned me about you. Said you were a corrupting influence, mentally unstable, that I should stay away from you. I should’ve listened to them back then. Should’ve listened to my head and not my heart. I won’t make the same mistake twice.’

  Something bitter stirs in my gut and I snap. ‘If that’s what you think of me, Amy.’

  ‘I don’t know what to think of you. But I do know buying the estate I live in is cruel. Nothing’s changed, it seems. We were best friends, Shepherd. Then one day, you decided to hate me and you never gave me a reason why. So whatever game you’re playing with me — play it with someone else. If you want to own Swan Lake — fine. Just have the decency to move out.’

  Amy’s turned into a firecracker.

  ‘From what I’ve read on your notes, your therapy ain’t working. You’ve been living here for three years, Amy. I’ve sacked your therapist. He clearly didn’t have a fucking clue. I’m staying. So get used to it.’

  I get lost in her pretty, sparkling, spitfire orbs. They look like the portal to Emerald City. I want to land inside them and explore.

  ‘What? This has to be unethical,’ she says. ‘The other shrinks, the staff . . . they won’t let you do this, surely?’

  ‘This place was running a loss, I saved their damn jobs. I pay their wages. They’ll do whatever I tell them to do.’

  Her green eyes turn like black diamonds and she shakes her head. ‘What? What is it you want from me?’

  This is when I lie. Lying is at the tip of my tongue in the darkness, caged inside my head. I am a lost wolf here. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. I can be anyone I want to be.

  This is my Valhalla.

  ‘Nothing. I want nothing from you,’ I lie. ‘Like you said, nothing’s changed. My return has fuck all to do with you.’

  She makes this sound like she’s reached boiling point. It’s a little huff, sweet and untainted. It gets right under the bitterness in my skin, like when you rub salt on a cut.

  I don’t understand how she can even do that shit. Put that cute little infliction in her voice that instantly makes me half hard despite being in a goddamn mental health facility that stinks of bleach, death and piss, and every defensive wall I’ve erected against that very fucking thing.

  ‘I still get nightmares,’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m trapped in the woods. There’s nowhere to run or hide. The wolves are coming.’

  I had demons, Amy. Bad ones.

  ‘I still get nightmares,’ she murmurs painfully. ‘So I stopped sleeping. Then the monsters got real.’

  Amy’s the only one who can cut me right back down to size.

  She’s on a hundred different kinds of pain right now and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. There’s nothing I can say that’ll put the past to right.

  I gather my bones. I know my dead eyes are expressionless.

  Who fucking cares?

  I’m not Christlike.

  ‘Why am I not surprised that there’s nothing you have to say on that?’ she says. ‘Don't you get it? I hate you. I bloody hate you! I died that day the snow fell.’

  ‘Is that what you need, baby? You want to remember what I stole from you?’

  ‘Does it turn you on so much to hurt me that you’re willing to destroy me, all over again? No, don’t answer that. I don’t care what’s going on in that sociopathic head of yours. Take your black twisted heart and leave Greystone. Stay the hell away from me.’

  Her eyes leave mine to vanish round the end of the corridor.

  Despite knowing it’s the truth, I don’t want those to be the last fucking words Amy ever says to me and I feel my heart die at the thought. Every moment, every fucking moment shared between us in the children’s home reduced to dust with those emerald eyes glowering at me, begging me to stay the fuck away from her. To do the one thing that will get my soul back — leave her the hell alone.

  I’m a sadistic fuck of a human being. I won’t stay away this time.

  You’re broken, Amy. I did this. Can’t undo that.

  She just wants me to be the scary, dangerous motherfucker wrecking her world. I'm not supposed to be the hero in her happily ever after.

  I’m your poison.

  You are my cure.

  I don’t want fucking salvation.

  Amy’s always been my obsession.

  Now, it looks like . . . I’m her enemy.

  4

  YOU

  LYING ON MY BED, I can still feel the tremors Shepherd left in his wake. It’s left a trail of destruction in my heart.

  He is a fever, he sickens me.

  Losing my best friend in Shepherd was my crucible. It changed me when I was a teenager. When you love someone as much as I loved him, with all of your heart, then you, you can't just turn that emotion off when they’re taken from you. You still feel things as deeply, and if . . . if it can't be love that you feel, then . . . then it becomes hate.

  I can’t sleep, I drown in the stench of stewed cabbage and bleach permeating from the walls of the old estate.

  My sister was hurt bad on the night of my seventeenth birthday. My memories comes in pieces, like looking through a kaleidoscope.

  I remember I was in the kitchen. The table was set for a birthday party with a cake shaped like a heart. It was time to open presents. Dad gave me a camera, a special one. It was his when he was a boy. His special possession. Then it was Elizabeth’s. And now, he was giving it to me.

  I remember my sister’s hurt and anger. ‘You can’t give Amy that camera! It’s not right, Dad. You promised you wouldn’t. How can you do this?’

  It was her camera, her special prize. She spent hours in the shed with Dad, the dark room. Then she stopped one day. So Dad was giving the camera to me.

  It made Elizabeth furious and sad. It was the reason she ran out from the house and went inside the shed. I went after her . . .

  I should have stayed inside. Bad things happen outside. Bad things happen when you don’t hide.

  I remember the sickening sound of the crack as Elizabeth’s head hit concrete. It echoes again and again like a bad song lyric stuck inside my head.

  Elizabeth was about to move into her first flat. At twenty-nine, she was old to be leaving home. But she was thirteen when I came along. I suppose she got into the habit of helping Mum with me. And we were very close, so that stopped her leaving.

  She left school at eighteen. Dad got her a job with the entertainment team at Pleasurepark, working for Archer. He was a charmer. I always thought he was a bit oily, with his year-round tan and his big gold watch. She was always whispering to me about him and all the promises he made her. The fancy holidays and fast cars never materialised.

  At night, she would spin the scene of her big day. A princess colour scheme and magical doves. But when she kissed me goodnight, she reminded me it was a secret. Mum or Dad couldn’t know . . .

  I wish I could wake up from th
e nightmare that started on my seventeenth birthday. I can’t cradle this guilt anymore.

  Elizabeth is broken because of me.

  It was all my fault.

  Why didn’t I keep quiet?

  There is a chain round my ribs, an early warning sign I need to keep calm or I will tumble into an asthma attack. I rummage in my draw for my Ventolin, then take a couple of puffs.

  A selfish part of me wants to confide in my big sister. How the monster who crushed my heart has returned to do it again, over and over.

  An empty wish, but still I wish.

  I refuse Elizabeth any visits she requests. She needs a fresh start. She doesn’t need a constant reminder. And that’s what I would be. A dark reflection.

  I never reply to her letters. Seeing her, seeing my family, would break me.

  Of all the girls who come to Swan Lake, I’ve been here longest. Some girls stay a few weeks, usually a few months, but I’ve been here for almost three years.

  I liked the quiet.

  Now Shepherd’s return threatens to open up the box I’ve locked.

  The Black Magic Box.

  It was my old chocolate box, black with a raised red rose and the words ‘Black Magic’ on the lid.

  I keep it under my bed.

  It’s where I hide my secret.

  I don’t know anything, anymore. But I do know one thing.

  Shepherd can never find it.

  This secret I’m keeping . . . it’s his, as well as it’s mine.

  5

  ME

  FROM A DISTANCE, the church looks like a white marble castle rising from the cemetery grounds, haunted with ghosts.

  It’s New Year’s Eve. I decide to take a walk in the early evening. My new pad is too empty, too many places for the whispers to fill.

  I go to the church. The graveyard. I light a smoke.

  If I’m distancing myself from silence and death, why do I choose to sit in a cemetery?

  The graves are spotted with bell jars full of Virgin Marys and wreaths of plastic roses. To the right, the graveyard wall slopes down towards the bay. And to the left, there’s a clear view of Devil’s Woods.

  In the far corner of the graveyard is a quiet spot where Violet Adams is buried. The uncut grass is scattered with yellow daisies and black crow feathers.