So much for friendship. So much for love.
As I walked, I felt increasingly angry. I felt as if I were back at school. Bullied. Abused. Except this time, there was no hope of escape. No future happiness with Lana to look forward to. I was trapped here, for eternity.
Without realizing it, I found myself back at the ruin. I was standing in the circle of broken columns.
The ruin was eerie and desolate in the dawn light. Along with the dawn had come the wasps.
Wasps were everywhere, suddenly, swarming in the air around me, like a black mist. Wasps, crawling all over the marble columns, crawling on the ground. They were crawling over my hand, as I thrust it into the rosemary bush. Wasps crawled over the gun, as I pulled it out.
I was about to walk away, when I saw something that made me freeze.
They say the wind drives you mad. And that must be what happened to me—I must have been driven momentarily insane. For I was witnessing something that couldn’t possibly be real.
There, in front of me, gusts of wind were rushing together from all directions—swirling together, forming a giant spiral of wind.
A whirlwind—twisting and turning in the air.
Around it, the air was perfectly still. No hint of a breeze. Not a leaf moving. All the violence and rage of the gale was concentrated here, in this whirling mass.
I stared at it, awestruck. For I understood what this was.
I knew, with utter certainty, this was Aura herself. This was the goddess, terrifying, vengeful, and full of rage. She was the wind.
And she had come for me.
As soon as I thought this, the wind rushed toward me. It entered my open mouth, ran down my throat, and filled up my body. It made me expand, grow, and swell. My lungs nearly burst with it. It coursed through my veins; it swirled around my heart.
The wind consumed me; and I became it.
I became the fury.
7
Lana walked into the kitchen. She was followed by the others. But she barely registered their presence.
She looked out the window at the brightening sky.
She was deep in thought—but with no confusion or distress. She felt strangely calm, as though she’d had a restful night and had just awoken from a deep sleep. She felt clear, in a way she hadn’t for a long time.
You might suppose her mind would be on me, but you’d be wrong. I had faded almost entirely from her thoughts, as if I had never existed.
With my departure, a new clarity appeared. Everything Lana had felt so scared of—all the loneliness, loss, remorse—meant nothing to her now. All the human relationships she had deemed so necessary for her happiness meant nothing. She saw the truth at last, that she was alone and always had been.
Why had that been so frightening? She didn’t need Kate, nor Jason. She would set them all free, all of them. She would release her hostages. She would buy Agathi some land in Greece, a house, and a life, instead of demanding she sacrifice herself to Lana’s fear. Lana was no longer afraid. She would let Leo live his own life, pursue his own dreams. Who was she to hold on to him, to cling to him?
And Jason? She would throw him onto the street. Let him go to jail, let him go to hell, he meant nothing to her now.
She couldn’t wait to leave. She wanted to get as far away from this island as possible. She never wanted to come back. She would leave London, too. She knew that.
But go where? Wander the world aimlessly, forever lost? No. She was no longer lost. The fog had lifted, the road was revealed. The journey ahead was clear.
She would go home.
Home. As she thought this, she felt a warm glow in her heart.
She would go back to California, back to Los Angeles. All these years, she had been running away—fleeing who she was, fleeing the only thing that gave her meaning. Now, finally, she would confront her destiny, embrace it. She’d go back to Hollywood, where she belonged. And go back to work.
Lana felt so powerful now, rising like a phoenix from the ashes. Strong and fearless. Alone, but not afraid. There was nothing to be afraid of. She felt … what—what was this feeling? Joyful? Yes, joy. She felt full of joy.
Lana didn’t hear me enter the kitchen. I had come into the house through the back door. Silently making my way along the passage, I heard them, in the kitchen, congratulating themselves on their successful production. There was laughter, and the sound of champagne corks popping.
As I walked in, Agathi was pouring champagne into a row of glasses. She didn’t see me at first—but then she noticed a couple of wasps on the counter. She looked up.
She saw me standing by the door. She gave me a strange look. It must have been the wasps on me that made her look at me like that.
“A water taxi will be here in twenty minutes,” Agathi said. “Go get your stuff.”
I didn’t reply. I stood there, staring at Lana.
Lana was standing apart from the others, by the window, looking out. I thought how beautiful she looked, in this early-morning light. The sun outside made the window glow behind her, creating a halo around her head. She looked like an angel.
“Lana?” I said, in a low voice.
I sounded calm. I looked calm on the surface. But in the padlocked cell in my mind, where I kept him prisoner, I could hear the kid, rising up like a golem, wailing, screaming—battering the cell door with his fists, howling with rage.
Once again, abused; once again, humiliated. And worse, much worse—all his darkest fears, all the terrible things that I’d promised him weren’t true, had just been confirmed; by the only person he ever loved. Lana had exposed the kid, finally, for what he was: unwanted, unloved, a fraud. A freak.
I could hear him breaking free, bursting out of his cell—howling like a demon. He wouldn’t stop screaming—it was a horrifying, terrifying scream.
I wished he would stop screaming.
And then I realized it wasn’t the kid screaming.
It was me.
Lana had turned around and was staring at me, alarmed. Her eyes widened as I took the shotgun out from behind my back.
I aimed it at her.
Before anyone could stop me, I pulled the trigger.
I fired three times.
* * *
And that, my friend, concludes the sad story of how I came to murder Lana Farrar.
Epilogue
I had a visitor the other day.
I don’t get many visitors, you know. So it was nice to see a familiar face.
It was my old therapist. Mariana.
She had come to visit a colleague here—but thought she’d kill two birds with one stone; and she popped in to see me, too. Which lessened the compliment somewhat—but there you go. These days, I must take what I can get.
Mariana looked well, considering. Her husband died a few years ago, and she was heartbroken. Apparently, she completely fell apart. I know how that feels.
“How are you?” I said.
“I’m okay.” Mariana smiled cautiously. “Surviving. And you? How are you finding it here?”
I shrugged and answered with the usual banalities about making the best of things, that nothing lasts forever. “Plenty of time to think. Too much, perhaps.”
Mariana nodded. “And how are you doing with it all?”
I smiled but didn’t reply. What could I possibly say? How could I begin to tell her the truth?
As if reading my thoughts, Mariana said, “Have you considered writing it down? Everything that happened on the island?”
“No. I can’t do that.”
“Why not? It might help. To tell the story.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”
“Mariana”—I smiled—“I am a professional writer, you know.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I only write for an audience. There’s no point, otherwise.”
Mariana looked amused. “Do you really believe that, Elliot? There’s no point without an audience?” She smiled, as something occurred to her. “That reminds me of something Winnicott said—about the ‘true self.’ He said it is only accessed through play.”
I misunderstood what Mariana meant, and my ears pricked up.
“A play? Really?”
“Not a play.” Mariana shook her head. “To play. The verb.”