Francesca

I APPROACH THE GATES. IN the rearview mirror I see flames uncoiling from the lower windows. Secretly, almost sneakily. I almost wish I could stay around to watch. A little thrill of anticipation. The same thrill I felt all those years ago in the woods, ready for the terror to appear on Sparrow's face. Or as I handed out the brownies I'd made that night, waiting for the consequences to unspool.

Then I glance through the windscreen and think I glimpse several of those horrible hooded figures ebbing swiftly from the farthest end of the woods. Another glance in my rearview mirror and I can see a running figure, gaining on me. Owen. And as I near the gateposts someone steps out of the shadows. I catch the gleam of bright blonde hair: Michelle, her face grim, determined.

But the gates are opening to release me and I press my foot down on the accelerator and speed through, leaving them behind. The gates are closing now and I can breathe again. I'm going to get away with it. Just like before.

And now it's all behind me and I'm moving faster than anyone could travel on foot, even along this winding country lane, and I feel I have all the time in the world. As I brake for a sharp bend something falls out of the bag I took from Sparrow and into the footwell. I stop the car, allow myself a moment to pick it up. It appears to be some sort of diary. Leafing swiftly through I see the dates. My name. I tear the pages from the spine and feed them to the hot breeze. Fling the empty shell of it behind me, robbed of any power it might once have contained. It feels good. A physical purging of the past.

Then I press my foot down on the accelerator once more.

Now I'm rounding the bend that leads toward that terrible, stinking farm beside the cliffs, the eyesore of a caravan park beyond.

I'll need a new site, obviously. Somewhere abroad. Perhaps we can pivot slightly: offer therapy sessions, week-long mental resets. A Mayr Clinic minus the masochism. I can practically see the deep-dive interviews now. You'd think this sort of thing—this kind of scandal, because I suppose that's what it will be—would put people off. Far from it.

The wind is warm in my hair, the summer night air velvet soft upon my upturned face. The stars are so bright. In fact, they seem to be shining just for me. Glowing, vibrating almost with this crazy beautiful energy as though the universe is speaking directly to me, as it often does. I look down and I can see that some of them are scattered in my lap, sparkling up at me. I blink. How strange. How wonderful!

I grab a handful and toss them into the air. They land in the midnight sky like strewn glitter, like the flecks in my black opal ring. I laugh and my laugh is carried off on the warm breeze like wind-blown blossom. I feel a little odd. Not bad odd, though. Just... unleashed. I let my gaze drift out to sea, dreaming of new horizons.

When I look back at the road there's a figure in the middle of it. I wave my hand to brush it away, like I scattered the stars. Nothing happens. I close my eyes and open them again. The figure is still there. A dark apprehension trickles through me. A bad feeling. I try to get back to the stars, the warm wind. I know it must be a trick of the shadows creating a blot on my vision.

No: they're not real.

But even when I blink it's still there: the tall figure in black, the cloak billowing up behind it like a deeper patch of night. Arms raised as though it's signaling me to stop. As I speed closer I see the hideous shape of the head, the hooked beak.

The dark feeling billows up, a mushroom cloud of dread. Something strange is happening to my vision because the figure, too, seems to be swelling, growing in front of me. The outstretched arms become two black wings opening to envelop me whole. I'm nearly upon it but it's not moving. I turn the wheel a little, try and swerve. I honk my horn. But it moves further into my path. It looks as if it's going to spring at me, on top of me: jump right onto the bonnet of my car. I fling myself, the car, sideways and there's a thud and a scattering, tinkling sound. When I press my foot on the accelerator nothing happens beyond a terrible grinding noise. I fling open the door and glance up and it is coming for me.

There is a howling all around me—I am howling, the universe is howling. I think I can hear her howling, too, all those years ago, as she fell to the woodland floor.

I shove out at the dark figure and a small soft fragment comes away in my hand. I am running now, running away. Am I in the woods? There's something—branches?—tangling around my legs. No: it's brambles, twining themselves around me. I push through and suddenly they give way as easily as if they were clouds of smoke. And now there is nothing beneath me, nothing in front of me, but warm midsummer night air. I am sailing, soaring, into the starlit sky.

Oh. Now I am no longer soaring I am plummeting and—