The End is Where We Begin by Maria Goodin (open ebook .txt) 📕

unsure whether she’s noticed, but she has.

“Oh no, God, no!” she cries.

“Okay, just sit down,” I say, lowering her gently.

“Get help,” she whimpers, clutching my arm tightly.

I freeze, unable to draw my eyes away from the blood creeping along the inside of her jeans. And then I hear a voice shouting get help! but it’s not Irena’s, it’s Tom’s.

My vision blurs, the brightness of the yellow-painted nursery plummeting into darkness. I’m sucked into a sickening swirl of sounds and images: the black canal water flying past me, the glow of the moon, my heart thumping, the thud of my trainers, the smell of bonfire smoke… I feel like I’m being dragged down into a whirlpool, the present moment getting further and further out of reach. But I know I need to claw my way back.

Get help!

Tom’s voice echoes inside my head. I see blood dripping from my hands, from Libby’s face… I’m running, but I must turn around, I must get back to the present…

Irena’s nails dig hard into my skin, and I feel myself rushing back into my body. I look at my hands as if I’d forgotten they belonged to me, the reddish indentations where Irena’s fingers have been.

I stand up quickly, the room spinning slowly around me, a high-pitched ringing in my ears. I feel faint, but I have to act. I force my hands to move, to take my phone from the back pocket of my jeans. My hands are shaking and I’m terrified I’m not going to press the right buttons. I fumble with the digits, unsure if I’m hitting the correct numbers.

Irena cries something in Polish and clutches at her stomach. I crouch down again, taking her hand.

I think I hear Tom’s voice in my head once more, but it’s quieter this time, like it’s coming from far, far away.

And then I realise the voice is coming from my phone.

“Hello? Which service do you require?”

“Ambulance, please,” I say, astonished that I managed to dial the right numbers and pronounce the right words.

Irena clutches my hand and I squeeze back, relief flooding through me as I’m connected to the ambulance service.

Chapter 23

Panic

I toss and turn, trying to sleep, but when I do it’s fitful and plagued by nightmares. I wake fretful and disoriented, my heart racing.

In one dream, I trudge the length of the canal path for what feels like hour upon hour. As the seasons change, I sweat beneath the baking sun, plod through piles of autumn leaves, then lean into a winter snowstorm that freezes my hands. Suddenly I realise that this whole time I’ve been dragging a wagon behind me, and in it sit a couple of paramedics – a man and a woman – sharing jam sandwiches. I haul the wagon up the grassy bank, through a copse and over the allotments until, with relief, I spy the bonfire burning.

But I’m too late.

Everyone’s dead.

There’s no one here, just rivulets of their blood running between the dry, cracked earth.

The paramedics eye me scornfully. I’ve wasted their time and they have no more sandwiches left.

But then I hear a baby crying.

I rush over to the bonfire, following the high-pitched wail. Irena’s there, huddled in the darkness, blood dripping down her naked legs, weeping.

And on the bonfire there’s a baby. He’s screaming and screaming.

I want to lift him out, but my hands are still frozen from the snowstorm. I can’t move.

All I can do is stand, paralysed, and stare at the screaming baby as his skin blisters and burns.

And then, as I look closer, I realise with increasing horror that the baby’s not even Irena’s.

He’s mine.

I’m at home when my phone buzzes. Unusually, it’s Chloe.

Before I’ve even answered, I’m envisaging Josh in a terrible accident, a car coming too fast round a corner, a silly stunt gone wrong…

“Hi. I’m sorry to call you, I just, I wanted to tell you something about Josh,” she says, sounding stressed out.

“Right…” I say, cautiously.

“Do you know where he is right now?”

“Yeah, he’s gone shopping with Sam.”

“No, he hasn’t. He’s on his way to King’s Cross. And not with Sam. He’s gone to meet a total stranger.”

“What?”

“Did you know there’s this girl he likes?”

“Yeeesss…”

“Well, he’s gone to meet her.”

“Meet her? I thought… I thought the girl he liked was you.”

“What? No,” she says as if I’m a complete idiot. “I told you we don’t see each other like that.”

Yes, I think, cursing my own stupidity, and I didn’t believe you.

“So who is she?”

“I have no idea! I’m sure she’s not real though. I mean, I don’t think she is.” Her voice rises with a sense of urgency.

“Sorry, back up a bit—”

“They’ve been chatting online for months. They met on some, like, music forum or whatever. But every time he’s suggested, like, calling or FaceTiming or Skype or something, she makes some excuse, which is more than just a bit dodgy, don’t you think?”

“Hang on, I’m really confused—”

“I just don’t think he should be meeting up with this person on his own. I’m not sure she’s who she says she is.”

“So, he’s been messaging this girl, but he’s never talked with her in person?”

“No.”

“Or seen her?”

“Only in photos. And she’s, like, super pretty, and that makes me suspicious – not that Josh couldn’t get with a super pretty girl – but I’ve been watching this programme on MTV where, like, social outcasts go online and do exactly this kind of thing—”

“And he’s gone to meet her?”

“Yes!”

“And you knew he was going to do this? Why are you only telling me now?!”

“I didn’t know! I’d been telling him not to go, because I told him this ‘girl’ could be, like, some weird paedo or an axe murderer or something, and he said he wouldn’t go, but then I heard that he’s going anyway. He’s arranged to meet her at King’s Cross station at eleven and… hello? Are you still there?”

I hang up and immediately call Josh, my mind racing. What made me so convinced