Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone (books for 6 year olds to read themselves txt) 📕

I feel dizzy. My head throbs. I don’t know what to say. What to do. If I tell Rafiq about the emails, I have to tell her about Mirrorland, El’s diary. I have to tell her what happened on September the 4th, 1998. And I can’t.

I want to get up, I want to run. I want to keep on setting fires no matter how brutally efficient Rafiq is at putting them out. Because if I don’t, all I’m left with is this leaden savage knowing, this terrible emptiness that’s bigger, deeper than everything else. Than being more special than a hundred thousand other children, rare like owlet-nightjars or California condors. Than lying sick in bed and still being able to fly, to feel the fast, cold air against my skin, the tickling scratch of leaves and branches, the terror of falling, the agony of landing, the wonder of knowing. Than being half of a whole, never alone; days, hours, minutes away from being fused into something new, like sand and limestone into glass. I don’t want to be left with only savage emptiness. I don’t want to realise that nothing before it was true. That we were never special at all. That El died and I didn’t feel it. That I can survive alone in the world after all.

I’m crying again, I realise. Crying and choking and crouching on the floor, clinging to the legs of my chair like a toddler.

Anna was right. I’ve done all of this wrong. I’ve let El down. Worse, I’ve betrayed her in every way. I stole from her, hated her, disbelieved her, deserted her, over and over again. I thought only the worst of her for years, when I was the coward. I was the one who ran away. And now I can’t even get justice for her. I can’t even say sorry.

*

Rafiq doesn’t try to calm me down. She stays with me until my grief runs out of fuel, and then she helps me back up onto my chair, produces a bottle of whisky from her desk drawer.

I gulp down one measure, and she pours me another. Every few seconds, tired tremors shake through me like aftershocks.

‘She always said she wanted to be cremated,’ I whisper.

‘It’ll be a wee while yet before you can start making arrangements,’ Rafiq says. ‘The procurator fiscal has to see our report and the post-mortem report and make his own ruling before the body can be released to the next of kin. And if El did want to be cremated, the PF has to sign off on that as well, I’m afraid.’

‘But why? If it was an accident, or if she killed herself like you say she did, why do you—’

‘Because no matter what we might think or know, all evidence must still be collected, reported upon, and ruled upon in exactly the same way, in every single case, without prejudice.’ She looks me square in the eye. ‘Besides, there have been some complications in this particular case. Some anomalies, uncertainties.’

I sit up straight. ‘What anomalies? Why didn’t you tell me about them earlier?’

And I recognise far too late the return of that speculative look. The sharp scrutiny in her too-dark eyes.

‘These days, we can ID a body in a variety of ways, but we always follow the same checklist: personal effects, distinguishing marks, visual ID, dental records, DNA.’ She holds my gaze. ‘In El’s case, like Dr MacDuff said, there was significant trauma and decomposition, so distinguishing marks and visual ID weren’t possible.’

Just like in the viewing room, I suddenly can’t let go my breath, can’t breathe in another.

‘And I know this is a traumatic time for you, I understand that. But what you want is what I want. For El’s body to be released, for her case to be correctly and properly closed. Which is why these … anomalies need to be addressed.’ She blinks. ‘Explained.’

I don’t speak. Don’t breathe out. Don’t breathe in.

Rafiq leans forwards until we’re nearly touching. ‘Do you remember I said there were questions I had to ask you, Catriona?’

I don’t nod, even though I do remember. And even though I know now what those questions will be. What has been behind all those sidelong stares and pregnant pauses, as if she always thought I knew something she didn’t, as if she was waiting for me to trip up, to give it away. She was right. And I think I just have.

‘After the forensic divers went down to collect any personal effects,’ Rafiq says, ‘we moved on to El’s dental records. What do you think we found, Catriona?’

I swallow.

‘We found no dental records for El at all.’ Rafiq’s smile is small, humourless. ‘So I had Logan run a more detailed case history on her while we started DNA investigations. Just the basics: birthplace, parents, schools. And what d’you think we found then, Catriona?’ Her voice is still kind, but her words are steely.

I manage to shake my head.

‘Nothing. We found nothing.’

I close my eyes.

‘Because before September the fifth, 1998, it’s as if El – and you – never existed at all.’

CHAPTER 21

El and I are sitting cross-legged on the bed in the Clown Café. El, in shiny pantaloons held up by spotty braces. Me, in tartan dungarees, an orange wig. My face is painted to match Dicky Grock’s sad eyes and sad mouth. El is white-faced and red-lipped, grinning like the terrifying Pogo.

We’re sitting at a plastic table in a fifties American diner. Drinking black coffee and eating fried doughnuts. Pogo sits next to us, while Dicky Grock mans the deep fryer. A jukebox plays ‘Teddy Bear’, ‘Love Me Tender’, ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’. I whisper to El, When can we leave? When can we go? Because we’re not really Clowns and they might know it, they might work it out. Because Clowns are clever, Clowns are scary, Clowns are a species entirely separate from people. Clowns hate people. Everyone knows that.