Chapter 2: Goodbyes

Nine days is a strange amount of time. It's too short to fix anything and too long to pretend you're not counting.

Dad wrote to the mayor on the first day. The mayor wrote back that he was "deeply sympathetic" and could do nothing. Dad wrote to the regional council. They didn't reply at all. By the fourth day he'd stopped writing and started fixing things instead. The loose gate hinge, the squeaky stair, the leaking gutter he'd ignored for two years. I'd catch him on a ladder at dusk, hammering at nothing, and I'd pretend not to see his shoulders shake.

Mum cooked. She made every meal I'd ever loved, one after another, until the kitchen smelled like my whole life. Apple dumplings. Lamb with rosemary. The ugly brown stew she used to make when I was sick. I ate all of it, because refusing would have broken her.

The neighbours came too. Mrs. Corran brought a loaf and couldn't look at me. Old Mr. Bell from the market pressed a tin of tea into my hands and said, "You'll be all right, girl," in a voice that told me he didn't believe it. Nobody said the word vampire. Everyone said *them*.

On the eighth night, I started packing.

My old leather trunk sat under the bed, smelling of dust and lavender. I folded dresses, then unfolded them. Six months. What did you bring for six months among people who might kill you? I settled on practical things. Wool stockings. My good boots. The blue scarf Mum knitted, which was slightly crooked, and which I loved for it.

Then I stood at the mirror to try on the grey travelling dress, and my eyes caught on the scar.

It sat just beneath my left collarbone, a thin pale line about two inches long, curved like a crescent. I'd had it as long as I could remember. It never itched, never faded, never did anything at all. I'd stopped seeing it years ago, the way you stop seeing a crack in the ceiling.

But tonight my fingers wouldn't leave it alone.

"You've had that a long time."

Mum stood in the doorway, holding a folded nightgown. Her eyes were red.

"I don't remember getting it," I said. It was a strange thing to say aloud. "How did I get it?"

She didn't answer right away. She crossed the room and set the nightgown in the trunk, smoothing it flat again and again. "You fell," she said at last. "Off the garden wall. Landed on a broken flowerpot."

"Really? I don't remember that."

"You were small."

"How small?"

"Small, Lily." Her voice tightened. "It was ages ago. Why does it matter now?"

I didn't know. It just did. "Sorry. I'm nervous, that's all."

She pulled me into her arms then, hard, and I felt her tremble. "You're my brave girl," she whispered into my hair. "Whatever they say, whatever happens, you're *mine*. Don't forget that."

"Mum, I'm coming back in six months."

"I know." She let go too quickly. "Get some sleep."

She left. I stayed there, staring at the door, cold all over. It was such an odd thing to say. Whatever they say.

I closed the trunk and went downstairs for water, and stopped at the foot of the stairs when I heard voices in the kitchen.

"She asked about the scar," Mum was saying.

"What did you tell her?" Dad murmured.

"The wall. The flowerpot."

A long pause.

"That's not what you told me," Dad said quietly. "You said it was a kitchen accident. A knife."

I stopped breathing.

"Did I?" Mum sounded tired. "It was so long ago, Tom. I don't remember what I said."

"Nan. We agreed to keep the story straight."

"I *know* we agreed."

Silence. A chair scraped. I backed up the stairs on the balls of my feet, and my heart was pounding when I reached my room.

Two stories. Neither of them true, or maybe one of them was. I sat on my bed and made myself think it through calmly, the way I did with the market accounts. People forget details. My parents were frightened, exhausted, and losing a daughter. Of course they'd mix things up.

That was what I told myself. I almost believed it.

The morning of the ninth day was grey and cold. The carriage waited at the end of the lane, black and quiet, and half of Alder Lane stood on their doorsteps in silence. Nobody waved. It felt like a funeral where the guest of honour was still walking.

Dad carried my trunk to the carriage himself. He set it down, straightened, and couldn't seem to let go of the handle.

"Write to us," he said. "Every week. If you don't, I'll come and knock down their door."

"Dad."

"I mean it."

"I know." I hugged him, and he smelled of sawdust and pipe smoke, and I fought back tears. "I'll write. I promise."

Mum stood beside him with her hands pressed to her mouth. When I hugged her, she pressed something into my palm without a word. A small, worn photograph. I looked down.

It was me, standing in the kitchen doorway, squinting into the sun. I was seven or eight, hair in uneven plaits, one sock falling down.

"It's the oldest one we have," Mum said thickly. "Keep it with you."

"The oldest?" I tried to smile. "What about the baby ones? The ones with the horrible bonnet?"

"Lost in the fire. Remember? When we lived on Marsh Street."

"The fire." I said it slowly. "What fire?"

Her face changed. Just for a heartbeat, and then it was gone, smoothed over as if by a hand.

"Oh, Lily. Don't. Not today."

"Mum..."

"Please."

Behind me, the carriage door opened. Hallis stood there, avoiding my eyes.

I climbed in and sat with the photograph in my lap. Through the window I watched my parents shrink, holding each other on the road, until the lane curved and they were gone.

I turned the photograph over, not really thinking. The back was blank, except for a date written in Mum's neat hand.

Seventeen years ago.

The same year, I realised with a cold, dizzying drop, that my memory began.

I had no memories before seven. None. Not a single one.

And in twenty-four years, I had never once wondered why.