Chapter 14: Valley of the Shadow
Restless, I dreamt all that night, mainly about my dad and Vanessa. A little about my mother, images of her three-years-out-of-date tired face, in her ugly brick house in Land’s End. Glimpses of the Gaunt House group, but not Cain. Even my subconscious knew not to go there. One short dream was the most vivid of them all. In it I sat on a park bench by the lake, watching people walk past. And―dear God―one of them was the dead man, Mark Lyons. Skinny-legged and red-faced and dressed in a navy blue work shirt. I gawped as he stopped and sneered at me.
“You’re alive!” I cried, warm joy coursing through me.
I woke a moment later, lying in my aquamarine bed, and swore at the loss of the dream. Albion’s face peered around my door.
“Did you wake me?”
“Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry. “The door needs oiling. You woke me, in fact, yelling out like that.”
I didn’t want to speak to him but Albion sat on my bed. I rolled over and stared at the wall, despair looming.
“Want to talk?” he said.
“No.”
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “Are you depressed?”
“My heart is breaking.”
Albion was shocked. I’d never come near telling him the truth before, so now he floundered. I no longer cared what Albion knew or thought. I wasn’t going to see Cain again: that was all that mattered. I dragged myself out of bed, Albion trailing after me in silence. Through the lounge room window I caught sight of Vanessa’s little BMW pulling into the driveway. Great. I really couldn’t face my sister right now. I made a dash back into my room and shut the door, listening while Albion fixed Vanessa a coffee. They had a low, muttered conversation. Hopefully he wasn’t betraying me by telling her what I’d been like lately. What if she reported back to Dad? After what happened with Vanessa, Dad would completely flip out if he thought I was going off the rails as well. He’d probably send me to some sort of convent finishing school. Things went quiet beyond my bedroom door. Perhaps they’d gone out together. I emerged, heading to the lounge room to put something inane on the television and attempt to block my thoughts. Then my cousin and sister appeared, coming inside from the veranda, having finished their cups of coffee.
“Hey, Frankie,” Vanessa said.
From the concerned expression she wore I knew Albion had blabbed. I shot him a swift glare.
“Hi, Nessa.” I fidgeted my hands. “Uh, just heading in for a shower.”
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, fine.”
“I can see you’re not. Albion says you’re upset. What’s going on?”
“Albion doesn’t know shit,” I said, giving him another hard stare. He rolled his eyes.
Vanessa pointed to the sofa. “Frankie, sit down and tell us what’s going on.”
“Screw you.” I found myself shaking with anger. Misdirected, probably, but that was later’s problem. Right now I had some irrational fury to spray at my cousin and sister. “It’s my business.”
Albion raised his eyebrows. “You live with me so it’s my business, too. You go out every night to hang out in some godforsaken ruined building with a biker. You date Jude McBride, and then dump him but there’s no interruption to this secretive nightly routine. You’ve missed classes, I know you have. And you got me to write that essay for you. You’re scaring us.”
“And it’s my business because you’re my sister,” Vanessa added. “So, tell us. Maybe we can help.”
I seethed. “You? You help me? After what you did? After you ruined my life?” All my anger―everything I’d kept under control―burst out in an atomic blast, flattening everything in its path. “You fuck my tutor while he’s supposed to be getting me through senior year. You are so incredibly stupid you don’t even use birth control and get yourself pregnant. Then you have an abortion, even though your father’s career and livelihood depend on his credibility as a spiritual leader!”
“Shit, Frankie!” she exclaimed. “None of that was fun for me, either, you know! We did use birth control but I got pregnant anyway. It was an accident. I was devastated about the abortion. It wasn’t just Dad who suffered―”
“No shit! I kind of suffered, too, know that? You ruined Dad’s trust in us so badly that he won’t even let us come on tour anymore. He gave Starr my job. The job you and I were supposed to be sharing, by the way, but you were so damn lazy that I had to do it all for you. And for what? So Dad could just rip my job away and give it to that dumb bitch he married and I could spend the next few months solving all her stupid work problems by email because she’s too thick to fix them herself. And that’s while I’m supposed to be studying for university, something I don’t even care about. Dad will probably never let me back on tour because of you and touring was the only good thing that ever happened to me!”
“Frankie!” Albion was stunned. “Cut it out! You’re way out of order―”
“Screw you, Albion. Go paint your nails or catch up with your fuckbuddies. Go do nothing all day and live off your father’s money. I’m sick of you. Both of you. Leave me alone.”
I was shaking so much by now that I started to feel dizzy. I headed for the bathroom and locked the door behind me, slumping onto the toilet lid. Then I had to turn around fast so I could puke the meagre contents of my stomach. The bitter vomit burned my throat and choked me, but I was sobbing as well, so I didn’t know what made me cough more. This was crazy. I was so mad, I was literally choking on my own bile. When the heaving ended I collapsed, lying back on the cold bathroom tiles while the world swam above me.
Cain.