Luna sets down the glass and heads upstairs to check on Clover. The bedclothes in the smaller bedroom are ruffled, and she sees a foot hanging off the end of the bed. Clover must be fast asleep. She heads into the other bedroom.
Her torchlight falls on a shape on the bed. It’s Gianni, Clover’s fluffy toy. Only, his head has been cut off and set neatly beside his body. As she moves the torch across the body, she sees his belly has been slit, all the stuffing pulled out and thrown across the room.
A creak from the doorway makes her start. She turns her torch toward the sound—the light falls on Clover, who stands there silently, arms by her sides.
“Did you do this?” Luna says. She’s trying to stay calm, but her emotions are getting the better of her. She picks up Gianni to show Clover, more stuffing spilling out to the floor. All these years she’s kept him like treasure, the one link back to her sister, and she can’t help but gasp at the damage. Why would Clover do this?
Clover merely stares at her, her face completely blank. It’s then that Luna hears it: she’d thought the rushing sound was rain, but it’s louder up here. It sounds like it’s inside the house.
“What is that?” she says.
A second passes before she locates the whereabouts of the sound, then races to the bathroom and pulls open the door. Both taps have been turned on in the bathtub, and it’s brimming with water. It slops over the side, pouring onto the floor. She’s standing in about an inch of water that now seeps out into the hallway and down the stairs.
There’s a moment where she can barely think of what to do. Without the lights on, the scene is revealed only in the small pools of light afforded by her phone. She has to set it on the windowsill and fumble for the taps. Finally, they’re off, but the floor feels soggy underfoot—it isn’t tiled. Just cheap lino rolled unevenly over ancient floorboards that are now giving way under the weight of water, pouring into the kitchen.
VI
Luna hates the rain, and this fucking cottage, and it’s dark and why the fuck did she send Ethan home again?
Enough self-pity—right now she needs to find buckets to catch the water that’s gushing into the kitchen. She finds a couple of pots—barely big enough to boil an egg—and positions them under the drips before turning back to the cupboard with her phone light and rummaging for something else to catch the water with. The water damage is going to cost her a kidney, she knows it. But she has no money.
There is one small mercy, however—Clover has curled up on the sofa, right on the spot warmed by Luna, and fallen asleep.
It’s a good thing, too, Luna thinks. Otherwise she’d be tempted to throttle her.
Of course, this is bravado. Deep in her belly is a knot of confusion, which the baby must sense because he kicks and squirms wildly now. It doesn’t help that she’s in a strange house in the pitch black of night with a child who is meant to be a grown woman, a grown woman with whom she otherwise should have been having a weepy reunion over pizza and mocktails. It doesn’t help that she seems to have forgotten all her training in the face of this emotional and deeply strange situation.
Finally, the flooding is stanched. The bathtub gurgles loudly upstairs, and once the water level has dropped, she uses a large beer glass to scoop up the remaining puddle from the floor, to pour it back into the tub and into the sink. Downstairs, the pots are full—she pours out the contents and returns them to their places on the floor to catch the remaining drips from the bathroom above.
It is after midnight by the time she’s able to sit down. Her back aches and she’s ravenous. Her phone is almost dead, too, the battery having been drained by the torchlight. She considers using the last of her battery to phone Ethan, but it’s too late—and also, she has no idea how to explain what has just happened. Hey, so Clover dissected Gianni and tried to drown us both. How are you?
She spots two candles on the mantelpiece and a box of matches. She moves slowly to light them—the thought of spending the night in total darkness with Clover is a little unnerving—and as she strikes the match against the side of the box, Clover rolls over. The light of the match falls on the dressing that covers the mark on her hip.