Perfectly Preventable Deaths by Deirdre Sullivan

Author:Deirdre Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471408243
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Published: 2019-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

25

Agrimony

(cure-all, slumber, calm)

I was in a cavern. I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d gotten there. Implausible things were happening all over the shop in Ballyfrann, I mused, deciding to go along with it. Maybe the cave would be full of self-esteem and biscuits. I peered around hopefully. In a world where teleportation was possible, biscuits could definitely happen. I mean, biscuits are not an impossible dream, defying God and science. My stomach growled.

This place was wide, and large, and dimly lit. Filled with stalagmites and stalactites, the points of them a-drip. Everything was velvety and moist. I didn’t feel drunk. Not exactly. But I certainly felt something. Not myself.

Through the dim, I could make out the tall figure of a man. I moved towards him, dispersing mist. I knew the way it smelled, this fog. It belonged to somewhere, or someone maybe. I couldn’t place it though.

It wasn’t real.

I looked down at my hands and they were still mine. My feet too, though they were bare. The ground should have been cold, but it was warm and soft. More like a rug than gritty cavern floor. Where was I, really?

He smiled at me. I couldn’t see him smile but I could sense it, trickling through my body like relief. He beckoned with one hand and I approached. There was music playing. Something like a theremin, or a synth. Hard, high sounds through soft moist air. I felt the doughy ground part beneath my feet and I was falling. I was falling down. He caught me.

Strong arms tight around me, pressing against the white cotton of an unfamiliar nightgown. Lifting me up. Carrying me somewhere. To a bed. A big soft bed, with silky black sheets. I could see the cavern around me. Something written on the walls. The letters chipped. I couldn’t make out what they were exactly, like I had forgotten how to read. Or like English was Cyrillic. I knew the shapes meant words, but not which ones. I tried to focus on them, but the more I worked at it, the fuzzier they grew before my eyes.

A needle on a record player. The music changed, to something older. Throbbing. I tried to get up but it felt like all the blood had left my body. Like I was light and heavy all at once. Black and grey and spattered red on white. I closed my eyes. The world was spinning. The mist, when I tried to part it, was thicker. There are things I’m not supposed to see.

The man was there beside me. And his face … I knew that face. I knew him.

It was Lon.

He was wearing black, a T-shirt and waxed denim jeans. He smiled at me. His hair was slicked right back like he had recently climbed out of some sort of sexy swimming pool or hot tub.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘My dove.’

In one swift motion he removed his shirt. His chest was hairless, lithe. He wore a little chain around his neck. I glanced awkwardly at the rock formations, pointing up and down.

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