“Jesus, how awful for the driver,” Wim said.
“I don’t know what he saw, or what he thought,” I said. “I wasn’t in any state to ask.”
“But you stopped her? Your mother?”
“We stopped her. But Mor was killed.”
The waitress interrupted me by putting two red cups of black coffee down on the table. One of them was slopped into the saucer, onto the packets of sugar. Wim paid, before I could offer to.
“And then what happened?” he asked.
I couldn’t, of course, tell him about those awful days after Mor was killed, the bruise on the side of her face, the days when she was in a coma, the time when my mother turned off the machine, and then afterwards when I started to use her name and how nobody challenged me, though I’m sure Auntie Teg knew, and probably Grampar too. We might have been identical, but we were different people after all.
“My grandfather had a stroke,” I said, because however unbearable that was it was the next bearable thing to say. “I found him. They used to call it elfshot. I don’t know if she made it happen.”
I tried my coffee. It was horrible, even worse than instant coffee if that was possible. At the same time, I could see how it could become an acquired taste if I tried hard to like it. I’m not sure it would be worth the effort. After all, it’s not as if it’s good for you.
“So what are you going to do about her?” Wim asked.
“I don’t think I need to do anything. We stopped her. Her last chance was Halloween.”
“Not if your sister didn’t go under the hill like she was supposed to. Not if she’s still there. She could use that again. You have to do something to really stop her. You have to kill her.”
“I think that would be wrong,” I said. The other girls from school were all getting up, and I knew it must be time for the bus.
“I know she’s your mother—”
“That has nothing to do with it. Nobody could hate her more than I do. But I think killing her would be the wrong thing to do. It feels wrong. I could talk to the fairies about it, but if it would have helped, I think they would have told me to do it already. You’re thinking about it in the wrong sort of way, as if it was a story.”
“This is just so damn weird,” he said.
“I’m going to have to go. I’ll miss the bus.” I stood up, leaving the rest of my coffee.
He gulped his own coffee. “When will I see you?”
“Tuesday, like always. For Zelazny.” I smiled. I was looking forward to that.
“Sure, but on our own?”
“Next Saturday.” I shrugged my coat on. “It’s the only time there is.”
We started walking out of the cafe. “They don’t let you out of there at all?”
“No. They pretty much don’t.”
“It’s like prison.”
“It is in a way.” We walked down to the bus stop. “Well, Tuesday then,” I said, as we reached it. The bus was there, and the girls were pouring onto it. And then—no, this needs to be on a line of its own.
And then he kissed me.
TUESDAY 5TH FEBRUARY 1980
It took me until today to finish writing up what happened on Saturday.
I’m not sure I really like The Number of the Beast. There’s a lot to like about it, but it’s all over the place as far as plot goes, and as far as location goes as well. I’ve never read Oz or the Lensmen, and I’m not quite sure what they were doing there.