“Yes, please. Actually, I’ll take all of them.”
With a massive box held in front of me, I recommence charging: through Soho, around Tottenham Court Road station, past the Shaftesbury Theatre, down Bloomsbury and into Holborn. Everything is getting louder and brighter, but there’s also a strange clarity I didn’t have last time: a sharpness, like the edge of a piece of paper.
I know exactly where I’m going: I’m being tugged there, as if on a string.
That wasn’t The End at all.
“Men have rights too!” I turn a corner and a leaflet gets thrust into my face by a man in a vest top; peanut breath, possibly honey-roasted. “Stop letting the feminazis control the narrative! Let men speak!”
I step around him—no, thank you—and continue to my destination.
Will’s studio is in an enormous coworking space: exposed brick walls and black leather chairs and light bulbs hanging on cords from steel ceiling beams that have no structural purpose at all. It’s nothing like my gold-leafed agency, but it’s equally horrendous. Will says that people just turn up with their laptops and sit wherever they like, a different seat every day, like some kind of lawless Lord of the Flies with Ping-Pong and free coffee.
Spiraling now, I reach the outside of the downstairs coffee shop (neon signs, steel tables) and hesitate, unsure exactly what my next move should be. Do I text Will and wait for him to come down? Go up there? Accost him over lunch? All I know is that there are going to be many questions, and comprehensive answers will be required for all of them: repeated in extensive detail and ideally written down.
Questions like: What?
And: What?
And: Will, what the actual fuck?
I’m just trying to get my breathing back under control when I feel my hairline prickle again. As if there’s a bolt of electricity from me to an unknown nearby source; a connection I can’t see; the static sensation when you touch a cheap nylon jumper and there’s an audible crackle.
And I know before I’ve even looked up: she’s here.
Holding my breath, I lift my chin.
They’re sitting in the middle of a huge steel window, as if held in a giant picture frame. Will is drinking a coffee with one hand, and she’s got her hands wrapped around a large gray mug. They’re both chatting—animated, easy—and as they both laugh at the same time, I see something I’ve never seen before: the same color pouring out of them both, at the same time.
It’s pink: simple, beautiful, smooth like a bright pebble.
And it finally hits me: I did this. I am the architect of my undoing, the weaver of my own story, and—much like Oedipus—everything I have done to avoid my doom is exactly what has brought it about. Which is funny, because—also much like Oedipus—now I’m going to have to rip my own bloody eyeballs out.
Frozen, I watch as the couple finally stop laughing.
Will drains his coffee, and I hold my breath as he stands up, leans over the table and kisses her smooth cheek. They exchange a few more lines, then he leaves through an internal door and I watch her sit for a minute or two: long neck stretched, head tilted back happily, absorbing the sun like an animal. And I knew she could be many things—impulsive, thoughtless, cruel—but I didn’t think she would break my heart twice.
With my head dipped, I wait in the shade with damp eyes.
Finally, Artemis walks into the street, ramming most of a pastry into her mouth, and I feel an additional emotion: that she looks so pretty with her cheeks puffed up like a hamster. She pauses for a moment, examines the remaining bite, then frowns and abruptly looks up, as if she can finally feel me too.
And the world should be detonating, erupting, falling apart, but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen her anymore and all I feel is...still.
“Oh.” My sister smiles. “Hello.”
31
So...I have a sister.
In my defense, I said I have no close family, which—to be fair—I’ve done my level best to ensure remains true. It’s not my fault that Art has spent the last decade tracking me down like a hunting dog. She was the part of my story I ripped out, and I tried as hard as I could to make sure she stayed missing.
It’s less of a lie, really, and more of a retelling.
“Artemis,” I say, my jaw clenched. “What the actual fuck?”
“Cassandra,” Artemis says in what seems to be genuine amazement, pastry poised. “Umm. That’s an incredibly broad question. There’s a lot of time to cover. Could you maybe ballpark it for me?”
It’s been ten years and my sister has stayed almost exactly the same, as if she is, actually, immortal. She must be twenty-nine now, her cropped brown hair suits her—I will never tell her this—and there are a few lines around her mouth, but she still has the nimble, gray-eyed prettiness that led everyone to say our parents named her perfectly. Artemis Helen Dankworth. Artemis, goddess of the hunt; Helen, so beautiful she kicked off the Trojan War. Somehow I got a murdered prophetic priestess and an abandoned wife with a passion for embroidery—cheated on, somewhat ironically—and my sister got two of the most beautiful and powerful women in Greek mythology.
Artemis is also goddess of chastity, but clearly that didn’t pan out.
“Stop being so obtuse.” I gesture in frustration at the café window. “What are you playing at this time, Artemis? Is this some kind of new strategy? Sending smelly letters and stalking me across London didn’t work out, so you’ve upgraded to casually destroying my entire life?”
“So you did get the letters!” Art beams, chocolate between her teeth. “I wasn’t sure. Pomegranates! Which, if you remember from Mum, are fruit of the—”
“—dead,” I finish for her. “Yes. I got it last time. Answer the question.”
“I would answer it.” Artemis frowns. “I’m ready and raring to answer whatever you want me to answer, Cass. But I’m not entirely sure how to, given that I haven’t seen you for a decade. You look wonderful, by the way. I know that’s not relevant, because you’re clearly still super angry with me, but I feel I should bring it up anyway. You’ve gotten so stylish. Time suits you.”
I open my mouth to yell at her, then shut it again. I’ve seen Artemis a lot over the last few weeks; I suppose it isn’t her fault that she doesn’t remember any of it.
“Tell you what.” Art plops herself down on the curb, like a dismantled frog. “We have quite a lot to talk about, don’t you think? So why don’t you sit down and we can have this all out, finally.”
I should have realized this would be her next move; it is so very Artemis. Once, when we were little, Art followed me around the house all day, begging me to play with her, and when I wouldn’t, she went into my bedroom and smashed my favorite ceramic owl as punishment. Artemis will get my attention, one way or another—even if it means making a mess—and now she’s done it again.
The story is starting to make sense, but pieces are still missing.
By my calculations, I undid seeing Artemis at the exhibition, but I didn’t undo the phone call where Sophie told her exactly where I’d be. So Artemis went anyway, hit it off with Will—who was feeling rejected by me—and I didn’t show up to prevent it. Which answers some questions, but not all of them. What happened in the original timeline? I didn’t go to the exhibition then either. Did they meet the first time too? I was in the office the whole evening that time, so why didn’t I get her phone call?
The Greek version of Artemis is famous for her aggressive nature—turning people into bears and deer, just so they get ripped apart in front of her—but stealing your estranged sister’s boyfriend seems mean, even for her.
“Sit down, stalker,” Artemis says, tugging on my trouser leg. “Come on, Cass. I think this has gone on long enough now, don’t you? Ten years is enough. I don’t know about you, but I’m bloody exhausted.”
I stare at her, then realize she’s right: I’m exhausted too.
I’m also going to need answers to all my questions, and frankly, I don’t think it’s possible for me to leave without them anymore. Finally defeated, I put the banana muffin box carefully on the pavement, then take off my jacket and place it neatly next to it so my emerald jumpsuit doesn’t get covered in floor grime.
Then I lower myself slowly onto it like an old lady at a picnic.
“How am I the stalker?”
“You tell me.” Art grins. “Only one of us followed the other one to a first date, Sandy-pants, and it wasn’t me.”
I narrow my eyes at her, ready to start snarling again—my pants haven’t been sandy in a very long time—then stop. There’s a strong color radiating out of my sister (golden, like a buttercup under the chin), but it doesn’t fit the color I was expecting. There’s guilt, definitely, but it’s the wrong shade. The wrong intensity. She’s hiding something, but it isn’t anywhere near the color it should be. With Artemis, I could normally tell what she was thinking and feeling immediately, but—after a ten-year gap—I’m extremely out of practice.