Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd

Author:Siobhan Dowd
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780375891540
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2008-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

Twenty-four

That night, he dreamed not of Mel, but of Cora.

Cora floated into his room and slipped into his bed. He’d his hands under the soft cotton of her outsized T-shirt and they lay still like two quiet question marks. Somewhere over them, a goldfinch hovered like a tongue of fire, frenzied. Then Cora was gone and he was calling her name, running down the corridors of the H-block, past the blue-painted gates, searching, desperate. He’d a can of Coke in one hand and a lock of hair in the other, but she was nowhere. A pale face appeared instead in the darkness. It was Michael Rafters, in prison garb. ‘Dafters!’ he yelled. ‘What are you doing here? Did they catch you too?’ Michael shook his head and his skin started drooping from his cheekbones as if he was melting. He turned into beige dough, with eyes of currants. ‘Fergus,’ he said, ‘don’t forget the packets.’ He laughed as if he’d cracked a gag. As Fergus watched, Michael’s body tilted upside down and floated from the ceiling. Fergus’s body followed suit. They roared, laughing, the two of them, like characters out of Mary Poppins. Then Fergus realized. They were hanging from hooks, with the blood flowing into their faces, suffocating them. They were laughing carcasses, the pair of them. He bolted awake.

Jesus. A slither of lamplight fell across his coverlet through a crack in the curtains. He panted. Outside, he heard a distant clatter, as of a dustbin lid falling on the pavement, then nothing. He breathed out long and slow. He picked up Joe’s watch from beside the bed and made out the time in the half-light: 4:17.

He lay back down, calling Cora’s name under his breath. He willed the door to open, but there was no sound through the paper-thin wall. He shut his eyes, flat on his back, his arms crossed behind his head. Everywhere inside him the heavy silence grew, as of the sleeping dead.

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