Page 56 of The Man Made of Smoke

As James digs his own grave over the next few hours, he forgets about the pain in his body. The trembling muscles. The heat of the sun as it begins to burn his shoulders. The fact that his right foot is so badly hurt now that it won’t support his weight. He’s determined to do this. He will keep going.

The whole time, the man is whistling softly behind him.

The tune is the same one as always, as maddening and strange as ever. James hates the way that it has begun to worm its way into his mind. Every night in the darkness of his room, it plays in his head, and sometimes he’s even found himself humming it without realizing. It’s as though the tune is an infection that’s gradually spreading to him from the man.

He doesn’t want it to be the last thing he ever hears.

But he knows it will be.

Eventually the whistling stops. James assumes that’s the man’s way of signaling that he’s done enough and that the grave is ready. With his hair bedraggled and sweat running down his face, he leans on the spadeand looks down at the hole before him. A shiver of pride runs through him. His body is weak and the ground is hard, but he’s done a good job. The hole is long and deep. And he’s so exhausted now that he just wants to lie down in it, and for this all finally to be over.

Except… that’s not quite true.

He looks up at the sun streaming through the mist between the trees, and for a moment he thinks he sees his mother standing there, half illuminated by a ray of light. It’s only his imagination—a vision driven by the delirium. He knows that. But he still feels a small fire burning inside him. He wants to go home. He doesn’t want this monster to beat him.

He wants to live so very badly.

He leans there, breathing heavily, his body trembling.

Waiting.

From back up the farm, he hears the sound of the camper van door slamming shut, and he realizes the man is no longer standing behind him. He hadn’t even been aware of him moving. But that’s no surprise—it’s one of the powers the man has. He seems able to appear and disappear at will.

James risks glancing in that direction.

And what he sees there catches his breath.

The man is walking back toward him again. As always, his face is a black absence, but James’s gaze is drawn instead to the figure beside him.

The little boy that the man is dragging by the arm.

With his heart pounding, James looks down at the hole he has dug. Not his own grave at all. The relief that understanding brings washes through him like ice-cold water. But it also brings a burst of shame. He only saw the boy for a second, and he looked nothing like James, but it still feels as though he was seeing a reflection of himself.

But he’s done a good job, hasn’t he? He needs to cling to that.

He is still alive.

A part of him knows that’s what the man wants him to think. That there is a purpose to everything he’s doing. That out of all the words James might use to describe this place, the worst one of all might be this:

Home.

But all that, along with the shame, is overwhelmed by the relief. He is still alive! He hears the man and the boy approaching. And as he looks up again at the trees ahead of him, he sees that his mother is gone now.

PART THREE

BARGAINING

Sixteen

Dawn was breaking as I arrived at the ferry terminal the next morning.

I stood out on the deck, watching the gulls wheeling above, like calligraphy etched onto the rose-gold sky. The sea air was freezing, and within minutes I was shivering from the cold.Bracing, I reminded myself. And God knew, I needed that this morning. I had slept badly, and the takeaway coffee I was holding was barely warming my hands, never mind taking the edge off my tiredness.

When we reached the mainland, I followed the instructions on the GPS as I drove. The journey took me down a stretch of motorway that I had always been able to avoid until now, but half an hour later, I found myself driving along it for the first time in decades.

My heart began beating harder as I approached the exit to the Rampton rest area. The site was occluded by trees but my skin started to crawl as I reached it, and then a sick feeling settled inside me as I looked up and watched it disappear behind in the rearview mirror.

Because it felt like I’d picked up a passenger.

---