The Becoming of Noah Shaw

  The panic I felt, Simon! “Is it the boys? Elliot, Simon, are they—”

  “They’re sleeping, they’re well,” Mrs. Dover assured me. It’s—the police, my lady. They refuse to tell me their business. They refused Albert as well. They demand your presence immediately. Come now, let’s get you dressed, all right?”

  I didn’t answer, but I stood, trembling, and allowed her to slip on whatever clothing she could over my dressing gown; my fingers were frozen. I felt a terror I couldn’t yet grasp, but I felt it.

  Mrs. Dover led me down the stairs, arm in arm, as if I were feeble. When we reached the brightly lit sitting room, my eyes skimmed their faces, some of which seemed to mirror mine, which terrified me further.

  “Lady Shaw,” one of them began. “There’s been”—he struggled for the appropriate word—“there’s been a murder.”

  My hand covered my mouth. Mara. My Mara.

  “Is it my—” I almost said “daughter.” “Is it my niece?” She was Mrs. Christensen now.

  The inspector met my gaze directly. “Her husband, Mr. Christensen, I’m afraid. The servants heard nothing, but one reported passing their bedroom earlier than usual, unable to sleep, and said that though she heard nothing, she felt compelled to check on them. When she knocked on their door and received no answer, she took it upon herself to fetch the master key, and unlocked it. Her screams woke the house.”

  “Mr. Christensen was found in their bed. Mrs. Christensen was not,” a different inspector said.

  “I don’t understand,” I insisted. “Was she taken? Kidnapped? Could her husband simply be ill or—”

  “There was blood. On the bed.”

  “Well, naturally,” I said, losing all sense of propriety. “It was their wedding night!”

  “No, my lady.” The inspector looked down, embarrassed. “There was much of it. And none in him.”

  “We must find my niece at once!” I insisted. “She’s in danger!”

  “One of the other servants reported seeing her in her travelling cloak leaving the house at about that hour. We are searching for her now, rest assured.”

  But I could not rest, not that night nor any thereafter. I will not mourn her, cannot believe that she has died. I cling to the desperate hope that she had been stolen, somehow, but was alive, and we would be reunited someday in life.

  But there are whisperings, Simon. That she fled in the night with a demon. That she was a demon, one we had foolishly welcomed into our home and let settle into our family to feed on our kindness and generosity and love like a tick, until she’d grown full, and found someone else to feed on.

  I cannot believe it. I must not. But God forgive me, husband, I dream it. A vision covered in blood in her dressing gown, staring down at her new husband—it haunts me every night.

  I am cursed.

  36

  DEPLORABLE SUCCESS

  I AWAKEN WITH A SCREAM perched in my throat.

  Flames licking at boxes, melting metal shelving. I glance down—I’m not holding the journal any longer. It’s morphed into a bottle of lighter fluid, and my hand is no longer my own. It belongs to a girl, her fingernails painted blue, wearing a delicate ring on her middle finger made of twisted gold. Her lungs are full of smoke.

  Please I don’t want to die please I don’t want to.

  I fall through a hole in the floor of my mind, landing hard in my own reality; back in the flat, back in the office. But my body still feels what hers does—my lungs shudder, trying to expel smoke that isn’t there. I stumble to the door to get everyone up, but it opens before I make it there. Mara and Jamie are in the doorway, together.

  “Something’s happening to one of us,” I tell them, thirsting for oxygen. “It’s happening again. I don’t know if it’s Stella but —”

  “It’s not Stella,” Jamie says.

  “I need to stop talking,” I say, trying to catch my breath. “Search her mind—but I wanted you to know—” A coughing fit grips my body. “It’s happening,” Mara says, and takes my hand, tugs me down the hall. It takes every cell, every neuron firing to make sure I don’t fall down the stairs. I’ve got my back up against the wall when I reach the bottom, and when I catch my breath, I manage to ask, “How do you know it isn’t Stella?”

  “Because she’s on the news.”

  In the living room Goose is hunched forward, elbows on knees, watching a video of her on CNN, the massive screen split with an anchor speaking over Stella’s voice. I can’t hear what either of them is saying because the noises in my skull are too loud.

  The girl in my mind is stepping on broken glass in her boots.

  The girl on the television is in a dark room, her face glowing in the light her mobile gives off.

  The girl next to me, my girl, has her hands in my hair and is whispering my name as I try to hold on to it, hold on to Mara’s voice. Get control, enough so I can look for a sign, something to tell me where the burning girl is and who she is, though I think I already know.

  On the underside of her wrist is a small heart tattoo, the letter F inside of it. She turns it up as she reaches for something, I can’t see what—the flames are too bright, searing her retinas. It’s like she’s standing in an oven; I watch as her hand reaches out for something, and hot metal brands her skin instead. The fire roars, the smell of burning plastic, fabric, and paper, so much paper, and something under it, something dizzying, chemical—

  Glass explodes; the shards fall like glitter, showering her body, a thousand stinging pieces piercing skin that is already blistering. Felicity stares up at the ceiling, and I know—

  “She’s in the archives,” I say out loud, and I know Mara and Jamie and Goose hear me, though I can’t hear them, not anymore.

  The explosion rings in my ears, swallowing my consciousness, but I know one thing: She is alive when she begins to burn.

  37

  AN INTERNAL INDUSTRY

  I DREAM OF FIRE, BUT when I awaken my clothes are soaked through.

  “She’s dead,” I say to no one. The white ceiling towers above me, hundreds of kilometres away. I’m not even entirely sure I’m on Earth until I hear Daniel’s voice.

  “We know,” he says, and any horror I felt is drowned by the relief I experience knowing that he’s here, alive.

  I sit up anxiously, remembering what Mara and Jamie said before Felicity burned. “Stella—”

  I get a brief glimpse of Daniel’s face, deeply uncomfortable, looking away.

  “Where’s Mara?” I ask, trying to sit up, but Daniel stops me.

  “She was just here,” Daniel says. “Bathroom, maybe?”

  “What happened to Stella?” I ask.

  He exhales slowly. “She made, is making, a video. Right now. Nobody knows where she is, but she’s—she’s talking,” he says, his voice lowered. “She hasn’t outed you guys . . . yet . . . but she’s talking about the fire, and Felicity, and whatever’s happening to her right now.”

  “And what is that?”

  “What’s been happening to the other Carriers, the ones who’ve gone missing. Or that’s what she’s been saying.”

  “She’s been at it for a bit.” Goose’s voice, from somewhere beyond my field of vision. When I twist my head, everything blurs.

  “Since when?” I ask, trying to collect myself, or at least hide that I’m so wrecked. I hate the thought of them seeing me like this. Even Mara. It’s unbearable.

  “Since you started having your fit, mate,” Goose finishes, then claps me on my shoulder as he sits beside me. My teeth rattle in my skull. “Glad to have you back.”

  “Show me,” I say immediately, first to Daniel, then to Goose. He points at the telly, but the anchors are dissecting what Stella’s saying, playing parts of it over again. “I need to watch it straight through.”

  “I’ve been recording it,” Jamie says. “Sophie and Leo are on their way over.”

  Daniel’s expression changes, perhaps at the mention of Sophie. But he’s given over to i
t, I suppose, given the circumstances.

  “Should I play it?” Jamie asks from the kitchen. I turn carefully around. This time is better. I’m getting better.

  Goose mutes the news, and Jamie lopes over with his laptop, swinging his long legs over the sofa. He sets the screen on the side table nearest to me. Stella’s video’s got more than fifty thousand hits already.

  “When did this go up?”

  “Not even half an hour ago,” Jamie says. “It was cross-posted on social media first, then finally the news picked it up, because obviously.”

  “Obviously . . . ?”

  “You’ll see.” He presses Play.

  All I see is Stella’s face, her skin tinted bluish from the screen. She’s staring straight into the lens.

  “It’s happening again,” she starts, and there’s an unsettling smile on her mouth. “It’s Felicity. I didn’t really think I’d be next until I realised I was driving. And this was next to me, in the passenger seat.” She picks up a gun.

  “Jesus fuck.” I breathe.

  “Yeah,” Jamie says. “Keep watching.”

  The camera lens is so small the gun fills it—you can’t really see anything around her, nothing to give off any hint of where she is. Her face appears in the frame, and she smiles again.

  “I guess you wanted me to do this?” She puts the muzzle in her mouth, one eye looking at the lens, her lips still curved into a smile, showing teeth. She pulls the gun out.

  “I actually. Bought. A gun. In Vermont, apparently—you can get one at sixteen there, did you know? I don’t know how I know, but I do. You must know too.” Her eyes narrow, and she leans toward the lens, her pupils dark and blown. “I can feel you in here. Pushing me. I think you’ve been inside me for a while, but I never really noticed, even after I saw you again. I mean, you have to be careful, you know? Don’t wanna get caught now, after everything you’ve done. Right?”

  She’s vague enough that she could be talking about anyone, to anyone, but I know. Even though she hasn’t said Mara’s name yet, I know.

  Her face goes slack. “She’s still alive. Burning. He’s not going to save her in time.” She lets out a bitter laugh. “I knew he wouldn’t.” She blinks, looks down at something, then back at the lens. “I think you could, though, if you opened your mind to it. To them. But she’d never let you. She wants you broken. She likes broken things. Loves that she’s the one breaking you.”

  She picks up something else—she must have her mobile resting against something, because the lens goes dark, but we can still hear her.

  “I bought these, too.” In the next frame, you can see a hunting knife and a bottle of something, as well as needles. “I can feel you in here, but I’m still me. My time’s not up yet. I mean, I know there’s nothing I can do at this point”—she shrugs casually—“I was made this way, to not be able to fight you. But I figure, at least I can choose how I die?” Her face vanishes, and the shot pans over the knife, the needles and a syringe, the gun and a box of ammunition, lingering on each for a shaky moment. “But nothing here’s really speaking to me.” She inhales deeply. “The gun feels like you. The needles . . . definitely not you. You hate needles. You used to hate blood, remember?” She throws back her head, laughing. Her throat moves, fills the shot. “You’ve changed a lot.” Her expression hardens, her eyes distant again. “We all did. But you the most.”

  There’s a knock on the front door, and Jamie pauses the video just as I shake my head. “Goose, let them in. Daniel, how long does it go on?”

  “I think it’s still going,” he says, glancing back up at the TV. Jamie checks his mobile before getting up as well.

  I lower my voice. “You know what Stella’s saying,” I say to Daniel. “Do you think Mara . . . ?” My voice trails off. I can’t even make myself say it, not even to him. I twist around—Jamie’s still by the door, with Sophie and Leo and Goose. Where is Mara?

  Daniel shakes his head. “This points at her, yeah. But I don’t think it is.”

  “Why?”

  “Listen to how Stella’s describing it—this isn’t murder. This is—someone’s in their heads, influencing them to do it. Coercing them.” He glances back at the door. Jamie’s on his way back over, along with Goose and Sophie and Leo. “Did you do what you said you would?”

  I nod.

  “And?” he asks.

  “Gang’s all here,” Jamie says, standing beside Goose, Leo, and Sophie.

  I remember last night. The scalpel Mara hid. The secrets she’s kept. I swallow my words, put my fist out to stop the train of thought that’s barrelling toward me. I catch Daniel’s eye and shake my head. He would rather believe it’s got something to do with Jamie. But this isn’t Jamie.

  Sophie’s seated on another sofa, and Goose has taken the armchair. Leo’s standing, watching the silent news.

  “I’m sorry,” I begin, looking at him. “About Felicity.” No response.

  “The news picked up the explosion,” Sophie says. “Her parents . . .” Her cheeks and nose are red. She’s been crying.

  Daniel turns to me. “That building is in your name,” he says quietly. “You’re going to start getting calls.”

  “I haven’t heard anything.” I check my pockets. My mobile isn’t with me. Must’ve left it upstairs.

  “You should check your phone,” Daniel says. “People are probably trying to reach you.”

  I’m not sure how much I care, but I rise anyway. “Keep watching,” I tell them, though only Daniel and Sophie seem to be listening to me. “See if there’s anything that gives away where Stella is. Sophie, you haven’t seen her, have you?”

  She shakes her head. “She’s missing, for me. Still. She didn’t . . . flare. If that’s what you’re asking.”

  It is. “So there’s still time.”

  “Uh, mates?” Goose has unmuted the television. “You should hear this.”

  Stella had been missing from the frame, but she’s picked up her mobile again, or whatever she’s using to record herself.

  “I want you to see it,” Stella says to the lens. “To watch me do it, not from inside my head but what it looks like on the outside, too. I’ve got all this stuff here, but it’s not . . .” She shakes her head. “It’s not what I want. Not that I want this at all, but since I don’t have a choice—since you’re bullying me into suicide, basically, at least I can still choose to go out the way I want. I still have some choices left.”

  The echoes from my conversations with Daniel, with Jamie, with Mara—it’s as though she’d been listening.

  “That’s why I’m recording it all. Everything. I know you think you’re the most loyal person alive, that I already betrayed you by leaving you—you realise I could name you, you know, right? All of you? I know you’re watching this. I want all of you to see me do it, but . . . this isn’t . . . right. It’s not . . . personal enough.” Stella looks somewhere else, then back at the lens. “I want your eyes looking at my eyes when she kills me. I want you to see what she’s really capable of,” she says, and a cold finger trails the back of my neck, because I know she’s speaking to me. “You won’t believe it any other way.”

  Then Stella reaches toward the lens, and the screen fades to black.

  38

  THE CHIEF END OF MAN

  LOOKS LIKE YOU GOT YOUR wish.”

  It takes me half a second to register that it’s Leo speaking. He’s still staring at the television screen.

  “Pardon?” I ask, because no one else speaks up.

  “The archives are gone, just like you wanted,” he says plainly. “Whoever killed her made sure she’d throw you a bone on her way out.”

  It doesn’t escape me that he uses the pronoun “she.” Unconsciously, I look for Mara again. “That’s not fair,” I say, unsure if I’m saying it in my own defence, or hers.

  “Not fair?”

  “Guys.” Daniel stands up, between Leo and me. “This is the exact definition of ‘unhelpful.’ Leo, I am truly, terri
bly sorry about Felicity, but we might still be able to help Stella. Sophie, is there anything at all, any way you can tell if she’s . . . around?” He’s grasping at straws, and Sophie’s the nearest.

  “It’s not like she’s wearing a GPS collar,” Sophie says flatly.

  Daniel closes his eyes. He’s not one to shout, but if there were ever a day to start . . .

  “I’m going to check if anyone’s called,” I tell him, hoping to redirect him for the moment. He meets my eyes. Nods.

  I avoid giving Leo the satisfaction of my attention as I pass, and climb the stairs. Not that I’d know what to say to anyone if they were to call, which version of the truth to hand over, and let them pick at. I consider shutting my mobile off when I find it, until I remember that Stella has my number and might call or text.

  My pace quickens—she might’ve called already. The office door is cracked open. I push it the rest of the way to find Mara sitting on the floor.

  She’s sitting cross-legged, holding the journal I’d just read from in one hand, while in the other, a letter, old, unfolded. The small silvered trunk is still open.

  She looks up at me through a fringe of black lashes. Her expression isn’t guilty, or ashamed, or even angry. It’s nothing.

  Mara speaks first. “You didn’t tell me.”

  I don’t know which letter she’s holding, I’ve no idea what pages she’s read, but it doesn’t matter. It’s enough that she didn’t ask, and feels entitled enough to accuse me of hiding things from her.

  “We don’t have time for this,” I force myself to say. She stares at me like I’m speaking another language, and I’m reminded of the way she looked when she got up from bed one night and threw out her grandmother’s doll, with no memory of it in the morning. Maybe Daniel’s right, and it is involuntary, and she’s got no control of it.

  I crouch, taking the letter and journal from her hand. Making contact with her skin. “Felicity’s dead,” I say. “And Stella . . .”

  The name brings her to life. “I saw.”

  I examine her face, search her eyes, but she looks like herself. Sounds like herself. “You didn’t see her big finish,” I say finally.