Mercy (16 page)

I struggle to keep my tone even, still wondering why, so many times, he and his brethren watched while all around them were lost or destroyed, transfigured forever.

And still they stood by and did nothing when they had the power in them to do anything … everything.

Uri pauses perceptibly and I watch the light bleed 180

from him in little drifts, in errant curls of pure energy.

When he finally answers, his voice is gentle. ‘It has already been decided. You know this as well as I do.

Everything now and to be has a past cause that may be known or deduced and from which all consequence flows.
We
are the masters of natural law through which all events may be viewed and given meaning. Further are we above all beasts and all men, the first caste, the foremost. Therefore, intervention is pointless. The girl is already lost and gone. She is nothing. Forget her.’

The answering fury I feel is swift and unexpected.

‘Surely,
we
are not the only ones with liberty!’ I cry. ‘
They
exercise free will every day, every second of their lives. The world is
chaos
, as are all who live in it.

Nothing is fixed from moment to moment. I have seen it. Lived it! How can you deny it?’

Uri’s face is impassive. ‘Consider your current state. Does
she
demonstrate any such freedom of will?

Everything she does is a direct consequence of
your
actions.’

For a moment I am speechless. It’s a good point.

When tested, it does not seem to yield.

‘But she is
constrained
,’ I rasp out finally.

‘Because we
willed
it,’ he replies calmly. ‘We have 181

always and ever been the masters of their fate, and our own. With one only having higher authority over us all.

Free will is an illusion. You would do well to remember it, if nothing else. Perhaps he
is
right. Perhaps you have altered beyond all recognition.’

I am almost begging. ‘But she is likely still alive, brother.’

As I say the word again,
brother
, Uri’s eyes narrow and soften momentarily.

‘If you will not free me,’ I sigh, ‘at least do this one thing I ask of you.’

His expression is unreadable once more as he shakes his head, his long, brown hair falling freely about his shoulders. Every strand straight, even and perfectly the same. ‘I cannot do it. Do not ask it of me.’ Is there sadness in his words? Pity?

‘Will not, more likely.’ Frustration roughens my tone. ‘What
are
you?’

When he replies, his bell-like voice holds a note of challenge. ‘No. The question is, what are
you
?’

We glare at each other fiercely, both freezing as we hear someone ascend the staircase outside Lauren’s room. Heavy footsteps head down the hallway before pausing and retracing their way to her door. There is a 182

soft tapping.

‘Carmen?’ It is Stewart Daley’s voice, weariness in it.

‘Is everything all right? May I come in?’

I see the handle turn a fraction, clockwise.

‘I’m fine!’ I squeak out, loud enough for the man outside to hear. ‘It’s nothing. Just a bad dream. Sorry I disturbed you.’

Did he often stand there, like that, when his daughter was home and asleep in her bed?

For a long, poised moment, he does not move away, only the door between him and my shining interlocutor.

Even as Mr Daley sighs, ‘Well, good night then,’ and begins to move away down the hall, Uri says softly, ‘Luc wants you for his own. He cannot be trusted. Do not allow past feeling to interfere with your judgment. Do not fall to him or all will be lost. You may not know it, will not necessarily thank us, but it has always been for you,
always
.’

Before I can reach out and hold him to me for another fleeting instant, before I can tell him I
want
to be found by Luc, now more than ever, Uri’s outline wavers and splinters into infinitesimal motes of light that wink out and are gone. And I am hit again by a wave of loneliness so vast that it feels for a second as if I am the one who 183

has broken apart and cannot be put back together.

I send fury, despair, grief shooting straight into the night sky, like a beacon.

Let someone hear it!
I scream silently.
Exaudi me,
Domine.

I realise anew the value of what I might have lost, and it is legion.

Who am I?
whispers that inner voice that is never silent.
What am I capable of?

184

Despite what Ryan told me the night before, I am determined to lay hands on Gerard Masson at this morning’s rehearsal and sift through his innermost thoughts. If he is as blameless as the lamb, something in me will recognise it. I know now that guilt will rise to the surface like oil on the water, like blood. I just need to look for it.

My encounter with the being called Uri last night confirms it. There is an inexplicable power in me that will not be denied, not even by something, someone, not of this world.

The meaning of his warning, however, continues to elude me. Random aspects of his words return to trouble me as I drag Carmen’s glittery pink hairbrush 185

haphazardly through the tangles in her hair, shrug my way into her doll-sized clothes.

What
has always been for me?

And
why
?

And what did Luc’s act of goodwill serve to prove?

Permit?

I chase the answers down the unreliable pathways of Carmen’s brain even though I know they are not there; they are buried somewhere within
me
, the ghost-in-the-machine.

When I recall again that moment of blank, white pain, I feel a terrible numbness, the echoes of some deeper grief whose cause I cannot yet bring to the surface.

And though
I
cannot cry tears —
was not formed to
do so
, corrects that small voice inside — I find tears on Carmen’s face as I apply cherry-pink lip gloss carefully to the tiny bow of her mouth, dust the bronzing powder I found at the bottom of her carryall across the bridge of her small, fine nose.

Tears for me, cried by a stranger.

By the time I head down to breakfast, Ryan has already left the house on some wilful errand known only to himself. I find myself missing him already. Beneath the 186

calm surface that Carmen presents to the world, I beat myself up about it. People in your situation, my inner voice informs me dryly, should not form attachments.

It’s a given.

You think I don’t know that?

Could have fooled me.

Smart ass.

As I rise from the table after Carmen’s usual meagre breakfast — her body a machine requiring very little fuel

— Mr Daley surprises me by offering me a lift to school.

Louisa Daley’s dark eyes settle on mine for a long moment before she says, ‘Have a good day,’ in a neutral voice, turning away from her husband.

‘We’ve hardly looked after you,’ Mr Daley says apologetically, as he holds open the front door, beckons me out ahead of him. ‘And here’s almost a week gone.

It’s the least I can do.’

What did he hear last night when he was poised outside Lauren’s bedroom door? I am immediately all caution.

‘Well, that’s very kind.’ I put shyness in my voice, hanging my head a little. ‘But after you, Mr Daley. The dogs, you know.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he replies, looking at me quizzically for a 187

fraction too long.

So like Ryan, I can see the son’s future mapped out in the older man’s face.
Let there be no more suffering in
it
, I think. And it’s almost a prayer.

Mr Daley disposes of the baying hounds in the usual manner, and installs me in the front passenger seat, both of us absurdly careful not to touch each other. I suppose I will have to reach out to him again at some point, to be absolutely certain. But I’ll tackle the little music teacher first. The echoes of Mr Daley’s mental anguish are still too fresh in my mind for comfort, and I trust Ryan.

Perhaps too much. Trust has been so long absent from my weird limbo existence that even acknowledging the fact is like a leap of faith.

Stewart Daley makes inconsequential small talk as we drive across town to school. I make the appropriate noises in return. Tell him politely how much I am enjoying my stay in his bucolic town, lying like the professional that I am, the leaf-shaped air freshener swinging like a pendulum between us.

As he drops me off just outside Paradise High’s main gate, he says approvingly, ‘It seems you’ve made a good impression on my wayward son, young lady. Ryan’s even talking about heading back to school in the spring 188

and I like to think you’ve had something to do with that.

Maybe he’s finally giving up on this … nonsense of his.’

I turn, on the point of swinging my legs out of the car. ‘It isn’t nonsense, Mr Daley,’ I reply seriously.

I almost touch him, think better of it, withdraw Carmen’s small hand, take a firmer grip on the daypack between my feet. Later, maybe. I’m no coward. But it’s like what Pavlov did to that poor dog, you know? Once burned.

I add reassuringly, ‘You have to believe she’s still out there, that she’ll come home. I do.’

Immediately, his open, friendly expression shuts down, his eyes go blank. He looks away as he says dully, ‘That way lies madness, you know? It’s what our therapist told us.
If you don’t accept she’s dead, you
don’t heal
. We have to “seal off” the incident. I have to believe he knows what he’s doing.’

I watch as, to the accompaniment of shouted expletives and blaring horns, Stewart Daley, executes a ragged U-turn across two lanes of oncoming school-bound traffic, before burning back in the direction of Main Street.

Gerard Masson stops me before I’m about to sit down 189

on the fringes of the soprano section. Around us, people are still taking their chairs all over the room.

‘Good morning, Carmen!’ he says brightly, one chubby hand on my sleeve.

I pause, staring hard at him. He’s a toucher, and it’s instinctive, my dislike of being touched, like learned behaviour. Plus, he stinks of …
alcohol
? His skin exudes an overpowering odour, like the inside of a wine cask.

Can no one else smell it? I almost wrench my arm away, then I remember.

Should I do it now? Reach into his head right here and take what knowledge I need from his mind?

‘Good morning, Mr Masson,’ Tiffany interrupts loudly, her best sweetness-and-light game face on. As usual, she hasn’t missed a trick. She’s like a tabloid reporter camped outside my gates, always on my case. ‘Is there something you wanted to tell us before the rehearsal starts?’ she adds. ‘Something
we
— the sopranos — need to work on?’

She looks around at us, bats her tinted eyelashes, queen of all she freakin’ surveys.

Wretched Tiffany and her big, carrying voice. Every soprano’s suddenly focused on the fact that Mr Masson’s still holding onto me, and I can’t go into some kind of 190

off-the-wall trance with Tiffany’s eyes — not to mention all the rest — boring into me like … well, lasers.

Despite the slight tremor in Gerard Masson’s fingers, his voice is controlled. ‘Well, no, Tiffany. The sopranos are doing just fine. Nothing the general rehearsal can’t fix. I just wanted to corner young Carmen here to offer her a special solo in the upcoming concert. She’s quite the revelation! Really come out of her, ah ha, shell.’ As he speaks, his fingers dig into my sleeve momentarily.

‘I thought something still in the ecclesiastical mould, Carmen,’ he says, and I’d like to step back, but I’ve got nowhere to go, ‘but a little lighter, to leaven the vigorousness of the Mahler. Perhaps something by John Rutter? Or a Willcocks arrangement?’

Who? I have to remind myself sharply to shut Carmen’s mouth.

He beams at me, and I hope Carmen’s face is registering enthusiasm, though, in truth, I have neither the time nor any interest in committing more music to memory. Carmen, the real Carmen, would probably be feeling euphoria right about now. Followed in rapid order — and I’d put good money on it — by crippling self-doubt.

There’s no let-up from Tiffany. She comes right back 191

with, ‘Carmen and I often perform duets at St Joseph’s.

We have
plenty
prepared. Would you believe one of them’s actually a Rutter composition — you’d know it, I’m sure, Mr Masson —
Angels’ Carol
. It would be perfect to round out the program —’

‘In fact,’ I cut in quickly, ‘why not let Tiffany do the solo? She’s had
loads
more experience. She’d be a natural for a killer finale, right, Tiff?’

I feel a sudden twinge of discomfort— like a stitch in my side — see Delia and Marisol lock eyes in disbelief.

Tiffany’s expression dissolves, unflatteringly, into shock.

‘Why, thank you for your kind offer, Tiffany,’ Gerard Masson returns quickly, still standing way too close for comfort, ‘but I have a number of specific works in mind that I think would really bring out Carmen’s particular gifts. I thought we might
open
with you, my dear,’ he says, returning his full attention to me eagerly. ‘Give the audience something uplifting to begin the evening with before we, ah ha, hit them with everything we’ve got, so to speak. Can you stay behind after tonight’s rehearsal and we’ll get down to brass tacks? There’ll be a few extra rehearsals involved as well — all one on one with me, of course, there’s no time to waste — but you seem a quick study, it should pose no extra difficulty for you, I’m sure.

192

I’ve already cleared it with Fiona Fellows, who is all for you taking on more responsibility. Said it would do you good.’