Cecelia Ahern - The Book of Tomorrow

The woman who made the glass. If I shouted out I could get some help but I heard a man’s voice and that made me nervous. It wasn’t Arthur’s voice. It wasn’t Weseley-oh, where was he? Had he been hurt? He’d gone to the field of glass, all that glass. I’d had nightmares about that glass almost every night. Blowing in the wind, it would scrape and scratch, pierce and stab as I ran up and down the field, trying to get out, and the woman would be watching me. Where was the woman now?

‘Why don’t you go into the kitchen and I’ll make you a cup of tea? Wouldn’t that be nice? What do you mean? How long have you been standing there? But she ran at me. I was only trying to defend myself. I’m going to bring her back to the house now as soon as I sort her out.’

He said something else and I could hear the sound of the plastic floor. A footstep, followed by a dragging sound, a step again, then a dragging.

I pulled myself up to a sitting position and then I held on to the bed to try to stand up. Rosaleen was so busy talking to the man that she didn’t notice me stand. I couldn’t hear what the man was saying but her voice got harder then. It lost its nervous sweet edge and was back to the Rosaleen from moments ago. Possessed.

‘Possessive,’ Sister Ignatius had pondered my surmise of Rosaleen weeks ago. ‘That’s an interesting choice of word.’

‘Is this why you never let me into the room? Is this how you intended me to find out? This isn’t right, you know.’

His voice again, followed by a stamping sound, then a dragging.

‘And what’s this?’

Finally her arm came out from behind her back and she whipped out the glass mobile that had been given to me. I wanted to shout out that it was mine but there was so much commotion in the hallway.

‘This wasn’t part of the deal, you know, Laurie. I was happy to let you play around with the glass because you wanted it so much, I thought the fire and the glass would be healing for you after…well after everything, but you’ve taken it too far. You’ve ruined everything, you’ve ruined absolutely everything. Things have to change now. Things most certainly have to change.’

Laurie. Laurence Kilsaney RIP.

I was chilled. She was imagining him. Or she was seeing a ghost. No, that wasn’t right. I could hear him too.

There were some angry words and then Rosaleen swung her arm back and flung the glass mobile down the hall. I heard a scream. Then she dived at him and I saw a walking stick being swung and it knocked her away, and she fell back against the wall with a thud. She looked at him fearfully and I backed into the corner, huddled my head into my legs tightly just wanting to get out of there, wanting to be anywhere else but there but not able to move.

‘Rose?’ I could hear a voice call.

‘Yes, Mammy,’ she said, scrambling to get to her feet, her voice trembling. ‘I’m coming, Mammy.’ She gave the man one last look, then ran down the hall to the television-room door.

The man stepped into the doorway and I prepared myself but when I saw him, I screamed. Beneath long scrawny hair, a face which was so distorted stared back at me. One side of the face looked as though it had melted and had been pulled at and the skin had been put back in the wrong place. He quickly lifted a hand to his hair and tried to cover his face. He was wearing a long sleeve but as he lifted his hand to his face it revealed a stump. His left side was completely burned, his shoulder drooped downward as though it were candlewax sliding down the side of the left-hand side of his body. His eyes were big and blue, one was perfectly framed against soft smooth skin, the other was pulled down so much that it appeared to leap from its socket, revealing the white of the eye and all that was beneath. He started to come towards me and I began to cry.

I heard the back door open and the wind whooshed in. I heard steps on the plastic covering and the man Rosaleen had called Laurie turned in fright.

‘Leave her alone!’ I heard Weseley shout, and Laurie raised his hands in the air, looking shocked, sad, shaken. Then Weseley came in and saw me. I must have looked a mess because his face changed, anger took over, and he pushed Laurie up against the wall, his hand around his neck.

‘What did you do to her?’ he growled in his face.

‘Leave him,’ I heard myself say, but, I couldn’t get sounds out.

‘Tamara, get out of there,’ Weseley said, his face red, the veins throbbing in his neck from the effort it was taking to hold him off.

I don’t know how but I finally stood up, grabbing the diary, and pushed myself forward. I managed to lay a hand on Weseley to stop him. He let go of Laurie, grabbed me and pulled me from the room, pushed Laurie inside, slammed the door and locked it. He took the key and put it in his pocket, while I heard the man shouting to let him out.

Just as I reached the end of the passageway, Rosaleen swung herself round the corner to block me. She’d obviously left through the front door. She reached out and grabbed my arm, but I moved just within her grasp and her nails dug into my skin as she pinched me and tried to hold on. I screamed.

‘Follow me,’ Weseley said, and turned and ran.

I was running but was abruptly jerked backward, feeling a pain in my neck as Rosaleen grabbed my hair and tried to pull me back. I elbowed her hard in the stomach and she released me. Despite her behaviour to me over the past hour I still felt bad and stopped to see if she was okay. She was doubled over, winded.

‘Tamara, come on!’ Weseley shouted.

But I couldn’t. This was ridiculous. I didn’t understand why we were fighting, why she had turned on me. I had to see if she was all right. As I came near her, she looked up, pulled back her right arm and slapped me hard across the face. I felt the sting long after her hand left my face. Weseley tugged on me and I had no choice but to run.

We ran down the back garden and past the workshed which separated domestic life from the secret field of glass. Once in the field I realised how much the wind had picked up. It was blustery now and my hair was billowing around my face wildly, sometimes blinding me, sometimes stuffing my mouth with a lock of hair. Weseley was squeezing one of my hands so tightly I needed the other to balance myself as we ran across the lumpy grass, so I couldn’t move the hair from my face. The glass was swinging violently in the wind, back and forth but with no rhythm so it was hard to judge whether it was going to come flying at our faces as we darted past. It was difficult to dodge and an effort to avoid being scraped by its jagged points.

I held on tightly to Weseley’s hand and I just remember thinking, don’t let go, don’t ever let go. Every now and then he turned round to make sure I was still there, although his hand was wrapped so tightly around mine it was crushing my fingers. I saw the worry in his face, the panic in his eyes. We were in this together and I had never been so grateful to have such a friend. We ducked under lines of glass mobiles and made our way to the edge of the garden. Weseley began to figure out a way we could get over the wall. I stood there keeping watch, feeling my arms stinging as the scrapes on my arms and possibly on my face started to bleed and the cold air blew on them. I kept watch for Rosaleen who quickly appeared at the workshed and was scanning the garden for us. Our eyes met. She surged forward.

Weseley moved quickly, gathering crates and concrete blocks, layering them up, building them up so that we could get over the wall. He stepped up and finally he could reach the top of the wall.

‘Right Tamara. I’ll lift you up.’