Dark Lullaby by Polly Ho-Yen (ready to read books .txt) 📕

On the way home, though, with no Evie there, he wanted to talk about it more.

‘What is this course?’ he said. ‘Had you ever heard about it?’

‘Stop questioning everything,’ I told him. ‘Just be glad that Jakob’s with us again. It’s like a miracle.’

‘It is a miracle,’ he said back.

NOW

Jakob stares, not scared but astounded by the sight of us.

He is the one who speaks first.

‘Who is this, Mummy?’ he asks, his eyes large.

I always thought that if we had given them the chance to know one another that Jakob and Mimi would have loved and doted on each other. I imagine that we would never have been able to leave them in the same room because he would always want to pick her up.

But they are strangers. Jakob does not know who I am. The gulf between Evie and me has extended to our children.

‘Hello, Jakob,’ I manage to say without my voice wavering too much. ‘It’s good to see you.’

‘What happened to our house?’ he asks. ‘Did you see who made the hole? Is that baby okay?’

He’s curious and articulate, kind and caring; he’s everything that Evie hoped for.

‘She’s sick,’ I say.

Evie’s head snaps up as I say it, as I knew it would. Through it all, there is still a part of her that cares.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Jakob asks. He takes a step towards us but Evie keeps hold of his hand and pulls him back.

‘What do you want?’ she says. ‘Thomas called a couple of hours ago. He sounded upset. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about but when he realised that you weren’t here, he hung up.’

‘We need your help,’ I say.

‘I can’t do anything, you know that.’

‘Please,’ I say. ‘She’s not very well. She was drugged, I’m not sure what with, to make her sleep, and I think she’s having a reaction to it.’

There must still be a way to reach my sister.

‘Who drugged her?’

‘Some people who were trying to help,’ I say in the end.

‘You’re on a watch list, aren’t you? You and Thomas, you’ve been… evasive, haven’t you?’

‘What does evasive mean?’ Jakob asks. He almost stumbles over the word.

‘It means someone is avoiding something that isn’t going to go away.’

‘Word gets round quickly.’

‘You can’t keep running,’ she says.

‘If only you’d helped us,’ I say. Again, it’s been said before. It didn’t work then.

Evie shakes her head, a violent quiver.

‘Come on, Jakob,’ Evie says. ‘Back in the car.’

‘But—’ he protests.

‘Back in the car.’

They both turn, their footsteps grind against the gravel.

‘Why didn’t you?’ I say to their retreating backs. ‘Why didn’t you help us?’

Evie stops. Jakob looks up at her. He is a beautiful boy; he is the most beautiful boy. His eyes are wide and wondering. Evie stares back at him. The gaze between them seems visible in the air, like a trace of a spider’s web, a dew drop catching the light and making a rainbow.

‘Get back in the car, darling,’ she tells him. ‘Wait for me.’

When she turns back towards us, she is empty-handed.

She seems like she is about to speak. She is hesitating over which words she should use.

‘I couldn’t help you – or I would lose him again.’

THEN

‘Do you want to have children, Kit?’ Santa asked over brunch. She’d made another spread of bowls for the meal; sunny chunks of mango, golden-brown granola, yoghurt sprinkled with seeds and steaming walls of toast that were shaped in thin ovals because of the profile of the loaf. We’d stopped by to see her the morning of Thomas’s birthday because we were going out together, just the two of us, that evening.

‘Mum,’ Thomas said in warning, a little sternly, a little whingey. I had a sudden flash of him as a teenager.

‘No, it’s fine,’ I said. I gave Santa my formulated answer, which by now I recited as though it were poem at school, more concerned that no words were missed out than what the meaning of them was. I told her that I didn’t think that I could do it, that I’d been an out for years.

‘And now?’ Santa asked. ‘You still feel the same?’

‘Well, I suppose I hadn’t planned on getting married,’ I said. ‘I never thought I would have children and now…’ I stopped myself abruptly.

Thomas studied my expression. ‘Mum, this is something that we need to talk about, alone.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Santa said. She lifted her hands up as if to say that she meant no offence.

Thomas went out to get more milk and I found that I couldn’t move. I sat immobile on the chair as if I were glued to it.

‘I suppose,’ I said to Santa, ‘there’s everything that’s happened with Jakob too. That has clouded everything.’

‘How are Evie and Jakob doing?’ Santa asked.

‘They’re both well – I believe,’ I said, remembering guiltily that I had not seen them for a little while.

‘It will take time. For everyone.’

I didn’t want to admit that there was still a gulf between Evie and me. Though we hadn’t openly spoken about it, I could tell Thomas thought that there was something suspect about the course she had told us about, despite the fact that some stories turned up on the Spheres about similar circumstances in the following weeks.

Santa started clearing up her little ceramic bowls carefully; she had a story about the origins of every one. ‘It’s one of the hardest things,’ she said. ‘Having a child extracted. I used to believe that it was worse than if they had died. That sounds awful, doesn’t it? But I used to think that all the time when they took Sean away.’

‘Sean?’

‘Has Thomas not—?’ She stopped herself. After a moment, she started to speak again, slowly, carefully. ‘Has Thomas not told you about his little brother? Sometimes I wonder if it’s too painful to him. Or if it’s just that he’s forgotten, he was so young.’

I tensed. I saw the things on the table in front of