Glimpse (29 page)

Hot wet blood trickled down my back.

Only then did the pain splinter my body. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t. Inky blackness ate my vision. I sank to my knees, and fell onto my side.

‘Elizabeth! Elizabeth!’

Zachary’s face appeared over mine, out of nowhere. I clutched for him, but my body wouldn’t work. My fingers groped uselessly on the wooden floor.

His face was white with terror. Blood streaked his skin. I tried to speak but my tongue wouldn’t work. Nothing existed but my pain and Zachary’s face—

Then, as easily as taking a breath, the pain fell away. Just like that.

‘Zachary.’ His name burst from my lips like I’d been holding it back for centuries. I reached for him, and this time it worked.

He scrabbled back from me, taking me with him. His eyes were pure white, the green almost eclipsed in his panic. ‘No,’ he choked.

And I froze. I looked down at my hands, which were grabbing his arms. Long brown sleeves covered my arms, lace at my cuffs. A black plait, longer than my own, swung over my shoulder and into the space between us.

I let go of him. I felt my own body. I stumbled upright, almost tripping on my long skirts. I put my hands to my hair.

I stared at Zachary and then at Scott, who stood rigid in the doorway, white as a corpse, his mouth open. I looked at the gun hanging limply in his hand.

Then I turned very slowly, and looked down at . . . at me . . . lying unconscious on the floorboards, blood oozing from my back.

‘Bess?’ Zachary said.

And the whole world tumbled in.

Scott made a strangled sound and ran from the doorway, dropping the gun with a clatter. Zachary’s arms, more solid than they’d ever been, were a vice around my waist, stopping me from falling.

‘Bess.’ Zachary was embracing me and I clung to him, the right shape for him. I knew every part of him, though we hadn’t touched like this before. He leaned back from me, holding my face. Tears ran down his cheeks. Questions spilled from him, barely coherent. ‘What were you doing? Where have you been?’

I had no answer. I didn’t understand anything. But I felt like I was starting to. My dress fitted better than skin. Zachary’s arms were the structure the world had been missing.

But the girl on the floor . . .

I looked back at her.

‘Ann told me. She told me I was Bess.’ I frowned. ‘She told me—’ I pointed at the girl, at me ‘—she told me . . . in the car accident, I . . . went in someone else’s body . . . she shoved me into that body.’ I shook my head. My thoughts were so confusing, they were painful.

Zachary put his lips to my forehead.

I put my hand to my mouth. The shape was unfamiliar and familiar at the same time, like the worst case of déjà vu.

‘She’s dying.’ My voice hitched. My eyes blurred, turning the girl on the floor into a kaleidoscope of white and red.

Zachary gasped for a breath. ‘Don’t go anywhere,’ he said. And he ran from the room.

I didn’t know what to do. I ran to the doorway, then stopped and ran back. I stooped to the girl, tried to put my hand over the hole oozing blood, but pushed right through her body. I staggered back, careening through the bed, gasping as the mattress floated around my knees.

A shout from outside turned my head to the window. I staggered there so fast I almost fell, but when I looked outside, everything inside me went still.

Below me, Scott raced down the driveway towards the road, kicking gravel, stumbling, arms flailing, crying like an animal that knows it’s caught.

Zachary ran behind him, straight and solid as a bullet. Scott turned back and saw him, yelped again, ran faster.

The two of them stumbled through the open inn gates, out into the road. Zachary flew around Scott, a vicious whirlwind. He couldn’t touch Scott, but Scott ducked and spun and cried out in terror all the same.

Brakes squealed. A car ploughed into view. On the pavement, a woman shrieked. Zachary backed away, hands raised. But I wasn’t looking at him. I was looking at Scott’s body, a crumpled heap in front of the car.

The woman stumbled from her position by the inn’s gates. Meg! She called out to Zachary.

My grip on the windowsill loosened. I grabbed for a handhold – the bed frame, the wardrobe – but my hands slipped through everything. I tipped backwards, landing on the body on the floor.

And suddenly, there was pain again. My body exploded with it. I screamed for Zachary, screamed for the pain, screamed until everything went black.

The lights were too bright, even through my eyelids. I kept my eyes closed until I was forced to open them.

‘Elizabeth? Liz?’ a woman called softly. I opened my eyes to see a kind face looking down at me, but even that movement sparked pain. I moaned and closed my eyes again. There was an odd, tugging sensation at the back of my hand, and the pain flowed away with my consciousness.

The touch on my arm woke me. The room was darker now, the only light yellow and unnatural. Dad’s face was haggard and lined. I smiled at him as best as I could, my muscles working hard to locate themselves.

Thank God. He was okay.

Dad smiled, and patted my arm with his fingertips, as though I was glass that might shatter. Behind a veil in my mind a hundred dim shapes took form – a gun, a girl on the floor, Zachary, blood, Scott, a car. And pain. So much pain.

I let myself sink back into oblivion.

A few times, the fog lifted. I felt around in my consciousness, probing for something to hold on to. And I found it. Instead of a meagre trace of memory, a thousand rushed in. Zachary and the inn and my dad and another dad, and a mother – a mother with a soft stomach and a dimpled smile who was not the woman in my locket—

A cool cloth touched my forehead, wiped tears from my eyes. I was in a hospital, and I was hurt, and Dad was by my side.

All the rest of it – Zachary, and . . . Bess – could wait. It was too immense. An unintelligible puzzle. I couldn’t look at it now.

Awareness flicked in and out. Daylight came and went. When I opened my eyes tubes would be gone, replaced by smooth, plastic-sheened bandages. My lucidity grew longer and stronger. I tried to keep it under control. I knew understanding was there but I tried not to look at it.

The knowledge of Zachary. The knowledge of Bess.

There was a soft cough by my bed. A doctor squinted down at me, a clipboard tucked against his chest.

‘How are you feeling, Elizabeth?’

I struggled to focus my vision. It was hard, like staying awake after being disturbed from a deep sleep. My eyes kept slipping from his face; it was uncomfortable to keep them steady. When I succeeded I saw a balding head and glasses, and an expression of detached concern.

‘I’ve felt better.’ The crisp syllables I’d formed in my head came out slurred, but the doctor smiled, some of his worry lifting.

‘You’ve been very lucky. I’m sure your father will tell you everything when you feel up to it.’ He looked towards the foot of the bed, to Dad, arms rigid across his chest.

Guilt tugged at me. I’d made Dad worry, again.

The doctor continued, his voice quiet and professional as though he said this kind of thing every day. ‘You have sustained a gunshot wound in your back. Fortunately, the bullet missed your spinal cord and didn’t hit any organs, but it shattered a couple of ribs and you lost a lot of blood. It was lucky the ambulance was able to get to you as fast as it did.’

The doctor pretended to look at his clipboard, but his eyes stayed on me. I looked back as steadily as I could.

‘We’ve got you stable, and your temperature’s down so we’re not worried about infection. We’ll be moving you to the main ward within a few days. The nurse will be round to see you later, and maybe we’ll try solid food in a couple of hours. It’s looking good, Elizabeth.’ He flashed me a smile, like the final act in a much-practised routine. ‘I’ll tell the nurses you can receive visitors now.’ He replaced the clipboard at the foot of the bed and headed for the door.

Dad walked over and made a show of plumping my pillows. I winced as the small movement shot pain through my torso. Dad froze.

‘I’m okay,’ I whispered.

He sank into the chair next to my bed, his shoulders hunched. His hair was unbrushed and flat on one side as if he’d just woken up. ‘Oh, Liz. I’m so sorry you’re here again.’

‘It’s not the same as last time.’

‘No. You remember who I am.’

I didn’t say anything. If what Ann said was true, if I was really someone else – if I wasn’t Liz – it explained why I hadn’t known my own dad after the car crash.

And it explained a lot more than that. My amnesia, my nightmares, the way I was so different from the little girl in Dad’s photos, the reason I didn’t remember my mother, my feelings for Zachary, my connection with him that made him so alive to me . . .

But just because it made sense, didn’t mean it felt real. I was less disorientated than the last time I’d woken in hospital, but the life I’d woken into – the one where I might be someone else – still didn’t seem quite my own.

I moved my hand across the blanket towards Dad. All I knew was that, whatever the truth, he would always be my father.

‘I’m okay,’ I said. ‘Really.’

He squeezed my hand. ‘I know. You’re going to be fine. I’m just so happy to still have you.’ His face crumpled, but he held himself together. ‘And I’m not the only one. Look at all these.’

He wiped his eyes, and picked up a pile of already-open cards lying flat on the bedside table. He held a few up for me. There was a card from 12G, group cards from my History, English and Geography classes, one from Miss Mahoney, and one from Susie that read ‘Thanks for making me do the presentation on my own. Come back soon. Miss you.’

I smiled. I missed Susie too. I wondered what she’d say if she knew what had really happened to me.

I thought of the last time I’d seen Dad, slumped on the floor. ‘Dad, tell me what happened. There’s too much I don’t understand.’

He shifted in his chair. ‘Now? I want you to rest, Liz. We can talk about it when you’ve recovered more.’

‘No, Dad.’ I made my voice firm, though it hurt to work my lungs harder. ‘Please. I need to know now.’

He sighed and made a show of propping up my cards. ‘There was an attack on the inn,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you the basics, but I don’t want you to worry. It’s all being sorted out by the police.’

‘Just tell me. All of it. I can handle it.’

There was a long pause. Finally, he spoke. ‘The police think the inn was raided by burglars looking for your granddad’s antiques.’

Instantly, a weight lifted. Dad had no idea of the truth. But I, in turn, had no clue where the burglary idea had come from.

‘They didn’t take anything,’ he said. ‘The police think they scarpered when things went wrong.’ His voice slowed, each word dragging from his lips. ‘They drugged me, and left me in a cellar under Crowley’s office. The police found me down there. I didn’t come to till they got me to hospital.

‘As for what happened to you . . . The police aren’t sure, but they think the attackers panicked when they saw you. Maybe they didn’t realize you were in the house. Either way, you ended up . . .’ His voice trembled.

I gripped his hand and squeezed it as hard as I could without pain.

‘Crowley’s been arrested.’ Dad had to pause again. ‘The police think it was an inside job, that Crowley set it all up. They found the drugs that were used on me in his office.’

‘I told you he was bad news,’ I said.

‘I know. I should have listened. But I just can’t believe it. He worked for your granddad for years, ever since his last caretaker died. He knew your mum.’ Dad shook his head.

I moistened my dry lips. ‘What about Scott?’

Dad held my gaze, more steadily now. ‘Scott, now. He, Liz, is the hero in this.’

I did my best to keep my face blank. So Scott was still alive. But . . . hero?

‘It seems that Crowley tried to get Scott out of the way while he was doing the burglary. But Scott came to the inn anyway, and thank goodness he did, Liz. He was just in time to hear the gunshot. From what I understand, he ran into the inn, saw you, and ran into the street to get help. He was so frantic he ran straight into the path of a car—’ Dad’s eyes narrowed in pain ‘—but he managed to tell the driver about you before he blacked out. The ambulance mustn’t have known what was going on when they got a call about a shooting and a car accident all at the same address. Scott saved your life, Liz.’

Dad smiled but his lips wobbled. I squeezed out a smile. Scott hadn’t saved my life, he’d tried to end it. And he was alive; he could still come for me.

‘Poor boy’s been waiting outside for days. The doctors wouldn’t let anyone else in here but me. He’ll be overjoyed to know he can see you now.’

No. He couldn’t be here.

‘It must be tough for him, knowing his father’s caused all this,’ Dad carried on. ‘But he doesn’t seem to care. Says he’s glad his father’s been arrested, that he deserves it for what he tried to do. All he seems to care about is whether you’re okay.’

There was a funny look in Dad’s eyes now, as if at some private joke. If this was a joke, it was a sick one. I stared at him. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but it didn’t matter.

Dad let go of my hand and lifted his jacket from the back of the chair.

‘Where are you going?’ I clutched at the blanket where his hand had been.

‘To get a coffee. Give you a chance to absorb what I’ve said.’ He seemed almost in a rush now to get out of the room, or maybe my mind was speeding things up as my final moments of safety ebbed away. ‘I’ll be back soon.’ He patted my hand, left the room without looking back.

‘Dad!’ I squeaked.

He was already gone. It was too late. My ribs hurt with panic.

The door swung open. A familiar blond head bounded towards me. I struggled, ignoring the pain that screamed through me. I grappled with the wires attaching me to the bed. I had to get free!

Scott’s hand clamped down on my arm, pinning it to the bed and covering the tube I’d been trying to tear from my inside elbow.