It was impossible to guess how long she’d been there; real, cognitive thought was dissipating by the minute – or at least it felt like minutes. The large knot in the centre of the upside down tree trunk melted, then reassembled into a human shape. Her sister. The sensible, rational part of Lorna’s brain knew that Marie was dead – diphtheria took her when she was sixteen years old, yet here she was, laughing and pulling faces, cheekier in death than she had been in life, if that was at all possible.
The Mechanic pushed down harder. He didn’t need her slowing pulse to tell him she was fading – it was all over her face. She was radiant. Her brain was dying from lack of blood, and it was sending her mad. She looked like a little girl, blissfully ignorant of the ways of the world, untouched by its filth and decay.
Innocent.
Lorna was losing the battle to keep her eyes open. The darkness came in increments, and each time it let go, her sister got younger. The first time Lorna blinked, Marie was thirteen, pulling at the hateful ribbons their mother insisted on putting in her hair. The second time, which seemed longer, Marie was ten, tearfully nursing the scratch her cat had given her for trying to dress him up in baby clothes. The third time, which felt like days, Marie was eight, but something was different. She couldn’t remember Marie owning a pair of daisy print pyjamas.
And why was she smiling like that?
The Mechanic could see Lorna’s soul leaving her body. It was inches away from passing through his fingers. He closed his eyes in anticipation of the rapture; no point keeping them open if she couldn’t appreciate it anymore.
ns 15.158.61.54da2
