“She was telling me about a pirate ship. And she called me the funniest thing. An insect, I think. A bee?” He looks up at Holly. “That’s not right.”
“A flea,” she says without thinking. “Because you were always underfoot, always attached to her. She used to call you Flea.”
They stare at each other in the dark. The golden light is fading. In another second it will be gone.
“Go to sleep,” she says unsteadily. She can’t tell either of them it was only a dream. “Do you want me to stay here with you tonight?”
He shakes his head. She’s about to tell him it’s okay, to reach out and caress his head, when she catches sight of his eyes. Just before the last bit of golden light winks out, she realizes that he is afraid.
But not of Eden. Of her.
* * *
She can’t go back to sleep. She turns the dream over and over in her mind. The sound of bells. The eerie glow. The impression of someone standing over her. She doesn’t know whether to nail the nursery window shut or throw it wide open in welcome. If it was truly Eden, how did she get here? What did she want? And why didn’t she stay? Holly thinks of that new scar on Jack’s wrist and shivers.
She’s the first one in the kitchen in the morning, ahead of even Jane. She makes tea, then decides there is no point in postponing the inevitable. She takes the syringe from the back of the fridge, prepares the injection, heads upstairs. She knocks on Jack’s door. There’s no answer, so she pushes open the door and steps inside, expecting to find him still asleep.
But his eyes are wide open and he’s staring at the ceiling. When she crosses the room to him, he sits up.
“Hello,” she says cautiously. So much has happened in the past twenty-four hours that she’s not even sure where to start.
He doesn’t answer, simply looks at her.
“Jack? Are you well?” She reaches for his forehead, but he turns his head away. “Jack?”
“I can’t remember what she said,” he says. “But I know that she was here.”
Holly doesn’t answer.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, but it’s as if he’s talking to himself. “It doesn’t matter what you say. I know what I saw.” He rubs his wrist absently, although whatever mark was there is gone. “She was here. She called me Flea. She talked about riding a boat. A pirate ship.”
Those last words stir something in Holly, a scrap of memory. She wants to chase it down, but all her focus is on Jack. She sits down on the bed beside him. “Jack,” she says, “I’m really worried about you.” She shows him the needle in her hand.
“I thought it was all gone,” he says flatly.
“I had a last supply, and had someone send it over. I think we should use it now. All of it.”
She waits, but he doesn’t speak.
“Jack . . . ,” she begins.
“It’s Eden, isn’t it?”
He’s looking at her the same way he looked last night, a mixture of fear and . . . something else. Repugnance? Her stomach clenches.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not stupid. When you have low iron, you take pills,” he says. He turns away. “I worked it out. That’s why there was all that medical equipment in Cornwall. Not because she was sick. But because she was some kind of perfect donor for me. And when she disappeared, so did the blood supply.”
“Jack, she was sick.”
“And all these years, you kept her that way for me?”
“No! Jack, listen. I—”
“You’re the one who’s sick. Not Eden. Not me.”
“Please, Jack, you need to listen. And you need to stay calm.” She tries to keep her voice steady.
“You kept my sister chained to a bed, and you’re telling me not to get worked up?”
“It’s not like that.” She reaches out to him, but he recoils, and it’s as if he’s slapped her. Too late, she realizes her mistake. By not telling him the truth from the beginning, she’s allowed him to imagine it now as so much worse.
“Listen.” She tells him again about the accident, how Eden never woke up. “I did everything I could. I took Eden to every doctor I could find. You have to believe me.” She blinks back tears.
“Right. If you loved her so much, why did you use her like that?”
“After the car crash, your right leg was destroyed, and your left wasn’t much better. You had so many injuries, had broken so many bones—you fatigued so easily,” she says. She looks at him and realizes some part of her still sees him, will always see him, as the frail child he once was. “You spent all your time trying to follow her, but you couldn’t. And then I came home from the hospital, from being with her, and you ran to me.”