Chapter Forty-Six

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Glasgow

May 2024

CLEM

Clem is driving to the hospital with Elizabeth and Senna. They are going to see Erin, and Clem is clinging to the hope that a visit from Senna will coax Erin back to the surface.

Senna looks more rested than she did in her home yesterday, and her eye contact with Clem is better, too. She and Elizabeth gown up and follow Clem into the room.

Erin is awake, her eyes turned to the window.

“Erin?”

Clem watches as Senna takes in the sight of her friend with horror, her face falling. Elizabeth nudges her, and she reins in her shock.

“Hi, Erin,” Elizabeth says softly. “Are you feeling any better today?”

Erin stares blankly. But then her eyes turn to Senna.

“You see Senna?” Clem asks her.

“Who?”

“Oh God,” Senna says, breaking into tears. “I’m so, so sorry I left you. I freaked out. Honestly, I didn’t even know what I was doing. I just ran.”

“It’s you,” Erin says, her face changing, “You know about the fire. You and Erin.”

“Erin?” Senna says, confused. She looks to Elizabeth, then Clem, who steps forward.

“Erin, the fire is over, love,” she says gently. “This is Senna. She’s safe, and she’s here to see you…”

“You have to stop it,” Erin says angrily.

“I’m sorry,” Senna whimpers. “I didn’t mean to leave you like that. I never would have. And Arlo…”

“I’m going to give you one last chance,” Erin says. “If you don’t stop the burning, I’m going to hurt Erin.”

“Stop what?” Senna asks. She turns to her mother. “What is she talking about? Why is she like this?”

Erin opens her mouth wide and gives an earsplitting scream, before lifting her left arm and bringing it down, hard, on the metal side bar of the bed. With another hellish scream, she brings it down again and again, until Senna and Clem lunge at her, grabbing her arms and holding her down while calling for help.

“Erin, stop !” Clem shouts. Her eyes fall on the arm Erin pounded against the metal bar, writhing under Senna’s desperate grip. Blood begins to bloom through the bandages.

“I’ll get the nurse,” Elizabeth says.

···

As the nurse tends to Erin, Senna bursts out of the room and races down the hospital corridor, past Quinn, who has returned from the café downstairs. Clem follows, pulling off her protective clothing.

“Senna!” she calls. “Hold on a minute.”

She catches up with her as Senna reaches the end of the corridor.

“Stay away from me,” Senna snarls.

“Stop lying, and I’ll stay as far as you like,” Clem says.

Senna hesitates, catching her breath. “What the fuck was that?” she gasps. “What’s wrong with her?”

“You tell me,” Clem says in a low voice. “What happened in Orkney to make her say these things?”

Senna’s aggression shifts a gear. “I don’t know,” she says, bewildered.

“You’re lying,” Clem says, leaning into Senna’s face. She knows what she risks by acting so forcefully with her, that she’s a grown woman intimidating a teenager, but she hasn’t got time for this bullshit. “Where’s the book, Senna? I know you know.”

It’s a bluff, but it works—Senna’s eyes move nervously to hers, and Clem realizes she knows after all.

“I promised her on my life I wouldn’t tell anyone,” she says, glancing at her mother and Quinn over Clem’s shoulder.

“Whatever promises you made, forget them, okay? Erin is seriously ill and she needs you to be honest.”

Clem looks behind her and sees Elizabeth, Quinn, and Bee heading toward them. “We need to speak in private,” she tells Senna, and to her relief Senna nods.

“I need a minute,” Senna tells her mother.

Clem looks at Quinn. “You’ll look after Erin for us?” She nods to Senna and hopes that Quinn understands what she’s doing. Quinn frowns but then gives her a swift nod. He takes Elizabeth by the elbow and they follow Bee back toward Erin’s room, where nurses are working on Erin’s arms.

Clem and Senna take the lift downstairs. They don’t speak until they’re outside, in Clem’s car.

As soon as the passenger door closes, Senna breaks down into huge gulping sobs. Clem senses this is the first time she has cried since the night of the fire. She has held it in all this time.

“Senna,” she says gently, “I know this has all been very hard on you. But please…you must see how urgent this is. Erin is really, really ill, and the police think she killed Arlo.”

Senna gulps as she seems to take that in.

“Can we take a drive?” Senna says, looking nervously at hospital visitors crossing the car park.

“Sure,” Clem says. “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t care,” Senna says. “Actually, McDonald’s.”

Clem starts the engine and types “McDonald’s” into Google Maps on her phone.

“I know about the Triskele,” Clem says. “Or the fake Triskele, rather.”

“Fake?”

“The cult you belong to isn’t the real Triskele.”

There’s a long silence as Senna takes it in. “I don’t believe that.”

“You need to tell me if that guy—the Brother—ever laid a finger on Erin.”

Senna shakes her head. “No. He never did.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, but…”

Clem’s heart begins to pound. “But what?”

Senna covers her face with her hands for a moment. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this,” she says.

“Go on. I can take it.”

“Do you know how Erin and Arlo first met?”

“Erin said they met online.”

“They met at a Triskele weekender. Erin got a scholarship…”

“What scholarship?”

“It basically means she was trained by the elders of the group about life and magic and things.”

Clem rolls her eyes. Such bullshit. “Okay. And then what?”

“The graduation ceremony is called Crossing the Boundary. Basically, when Erin and Arlo met, they had to have sex. As part of the ritual.”

Clem has to grip the steering wheel, as though she might veer off road at this information. Senna all but whispers it, and the car feels as though the doors and roof and windscreen have pulled closer together, squeezing the inhabitants.

“Were you there?” she asks Senna, who doesn’t answer. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

They pull into the McDonald’s drive-through, which feels disorienting in its banality. But the shift in the journey—the drive-through intercom reminding them of why they’re here—gives Clem time to think. She has questions of her own, questions that hurtle through her mind like bullets. Was Erin forced? Why did she go through with it? Was it filmed? The timing of it hits her. Was this how Freya was conceived?

“She wasn’t forced,” Senna says once Clem has paid the cashier and passed her the food. “She joined the Triskele because it made her happy.”

Clem reads the tone of Senna’s voice. “You were the one who got her to join,” she says, thinking of the timing. “Aren’t you?”

“I never forced her. And anyway, she left.” Her tone shifts again, and she sounds disappointed.

Clem processes that. “And you’re still involved?”

“Yes, I’m involved.”

“Then why did Erin have the book?”

“Not long after Erin got pregnant, the Brother gave her this old book and asked her to look after it. But as time went on, she said it was driving her mad. She said it made her think about killing people.”

Clem thinks of the night she woke up to find Erin standing next to her bed, clutching the pair of scissors. How she’d lied when she said she was sleepwalking.

“She tried to give the book back,” Senna says, haltingly. “But the Brother had killed himself. Really awful. Erin thought the book made him do it. No one would take it, so she threw it in Loch Lomond. And it came back.”

“Came back?”

“I watched her do it. She literally threw it into the water and we watched it go under. And then, when we got back to your flat it was sitting on her bed.” Senna shudders. “Every time she threw it away or chucked it in a manhole or tried to shed it, it would reappear.” She looks at Clem. “I know what you’re thinking, I do. But honestly, I saw it happen. I hadn’t believed her. How can a book just reappear? And it didn’t even look like anything special. Just this old, strange book. But nothing, and I mean nothing , would get rid of it.”

They pull up in the hospital car park. Clem presses her face into her hands.

“So what was the ritual in Orkney about?” she asks. “On Fynhallow. What really happened?”

“Erin contacted someone,” Senna says. “She tried to speak to people in the Triskele but nobody knew anything about the book. She finally found this bookseller who knew about the Triskele. He knew about the book.”

“Paul Renney,” Clem says, and Senna nods.

“Yeah, the antiquarian. He said the book was probably The Book of Witching . He told Erin that the book was cursed, and the only way to break the curse was a spell. It involved a fire ritual.”

“Arlo’s hands have to be bound,” Clem mutters.

“Right,” Senna says. “He was to perform a role. The Green Man. And it had to be on Beltane. Erin and Arlo were counting down the days.” She falls silent, recalling that terrible night. “It all went wrong. I don’t know what happened but it did.”

“And where’s the book now?” Clem asks.

Senna bites her lip. “I put it in the fire on Fynhallow,” she says, growing upset. “I saw Arlo and Erin were burning and there was nothing I could do but put the book in the flames. They’d said the words of the spell. I watched it burn, and then I ran for my life. But it came back. It followed me.”

“Where, Senna?”

Senna’s voice drops to a whisper. “It’s in my bedroom.”