Tragic Silence Page 3

  “You wore the badge all day, so I think you’ve earned this!” she grinned. “Happy birthday!”

  I smiled warmly at her and gently took them. “Köszönöm!”

  I opened the envelope and set the card on the mantelpiece before turning to the present. It was heavy and hard, and I threw her a baffled glance before tearing off the wrapping. A glass picture frame fell into my lap, bearing two greyscale city panoramas; one above the other. The first was of Buda Castle with the Chain Bridge in the foreground; the magnificent dome rising up into a sky laced with small clouds. Below it was almost the same image, except that beneath the Millennium Bridge ran the steely waters of the Thames, and the facade of Saint Paul’s Cathedral towered above London’s streets.

  It was a view that Lucy had often told me about; having mentioned it the first time she’d crossed the Chain Bridge into Buda with me. I’d heard so much about her home and had fallen in love with the tales and the history. And now that I saw the two cities side by side, I understood how truly alike they were.

  “I love it,” I said. “I’ll put it on my wall as soon as I can find some nails.”

  Lucy’s beaming smile reached me as I carefully placed the frame on the coffee table. We passed the rest of the time by idly watching a history documentary before Lucy glanced at her phone, and announced that her Dad would probably be close. She got to her feet, grabbed her coat from the wrack on the wall, and pulled it on.

  She glanced at the stairs as she opened the door. “Say thank you to your Mum for the pancake,” she said.

  “I will,” I replied, slipping my feet into my sneakers and hurriedly tying the laces. We stepped out into the cold winter air and I immediately shuddered. Since we’d been inside, the mist had intensified, and the whole street was now hidden under a heavy blanket of icy fog. It was so thick that even the bottom of the steps leading to the pavement was slightly blurred. Our breath rose in clouds.

  Lucy pointed. “There he is.”

  I glanced up and noticed a dull yellow light further down the road. From where we stood, it seemed like just one pulsating orb, but then I reminded myself that the fog was probably distorting the car’s headlamps and making them look like a single light.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Yes, it’s got to be him. It’s been twenty minutes and it’d take that long for him to get here,” Lucy insisted.

  As I felt myself continue to fall through my own mind, I tried to shout, don’t say it’s alright, don’t say it’s alright! I hoped against hope that there was a cut-off point at this moment: that an alternate reality had taken over and was the reason why I was seeing this all again. But the truth is that I held her gaze for a moment, and then my shoulders sagged in defeat.

  “Alright. But send me a text as soon as you get home so I know you’re okay.”

  “I will,” Lucy promised. Then she glanced at the fog. “I’m sorry your birthday wasn’t sunnier.”

  I held my arms up. “It’s the middle of winter, not exactly the best season for sun.”

  Lucy smiled. “Good point.”

  A sudden wind blew over us and we bid each other goodbye with a shiver. I let her step into the night in the direction of the single light, before gently closing the door behind her.

  CHAPTER III

  When I first managed to open my eyes, I found that four weeks had passed. The nurses appeared in flashes, speaking to me in slow and defined voices. I forced myself to listen and clung onto every word. They explained that I’d slipped into catatonia and had been transferred to the psychiatric ward. I had held the same rigid posture, with my hands up beside my head, ever since hitting the alarm button. I was told that I’d been caught in a nightmare; and in a fit of thrashing, had broken a stitch in my back and inflicted a deep scratch on my neck. They asked me if I’d set off the alarm on purpose, but I just stared through them as though they weren’t there. Blood was dripping down the walls and I screwed my eyes shut against it.

  Even in my moments of lucidity, I kept my arms where they were. I had no control over whether I could move them or not. I felt trapped in my own body, and all that was left of it was a fleshy weight, about as pliable as a marble statue. I was fed liquid food via a drip, because I’d clenched my jaw shut. My wounds were mending quickly, and I thought I heard something of concern about my back, but its meaning was lost on me as unconsciousness dragged me under. I was forever falling down that dark hole, seeing and reliving episodes of my life every single time. Whenever I closed my eyes, there was no escaping what awaited – and no matter how much I mentally screamed at myself, I would not wake.

  I felt my own bedclothes against my cheek as I fell asleep, running through a conversation with Emily. Long after Lucy should have contacted me, I’d phoned her house and been answered by her excitable sister, who had barely arrived home from Rákosliget. I explained that I had tried to call Lucy, but her phone hadn’t registered. I decided that was because it was an old device and occasionally lost its reception. When I mentioned to Emily that her father had come to collect Lucy, she’d told me that he must still be driving because neither of them was back yet. I had glanced out into the street, and upon finding the light and Lucy gone, Emily and I concluded that William must have collected her and were on their way back across the river. Emily had cheerily promised to let me know when Lucy arrived, before we said goodnight and I headed to bed.

  After a heavy slumber, my phone rang and I jolted awake. My eyes strayed to a photo of me and Lucy from two years ago, resting on my bedside table. I took up the phone and glanced at the clock. It was almost one the morning. I frowned, wondering who could be phoning at this time. Then I remembered, as though I was still dreaming, that Lucy still hadn’t sent me a text. I inspected the small screen. EMILY.

  I pressed the green button. “Jó napot?”

  Emily didn’t say anything at first, but I heard her breathing: frantic and ragged. Lucy’s shock-ridden face in the cinema flashed back into my mind, and I sat up, turning on the light. It threw shadows across the walls.

  “Emily? Are you there?”

  “Bee!” her voice finally broke through. “Did Lucy come back to yours? Is she there?”

  My eyes widened. I threw back the duvet and ran into the hall. I hit the switch and the lamp exploded into life. “No, she’s not here. You mean she’s not home yet? It’s one o’ clock!”

  “No!” Emily cried. “No, she isn’t! Dad went to pick her up and she wasn’t there, and we tried to phone her, but it’s saying her phone’s not recognised...”

  Her voice trailed off. I put a hand against the wall to steady myself. Time froze as I listened to her anxious sobs, and my heart slammed against the confines of my ribcage. It was beyond comprehension. I’d seen Lucy every day for five years. I couldn’t think of my life without her friendship in it. And in the course of a few hours – a few minutes – it was gone.

  My throat had dried up, and I swallowed so I could speak. “She doesn’t have a key to my house, so she can’t have come back here without me knowing.”

  “I know; my Dad knocked at your door, but you must have all been in bed or something, because no-one answered.”

  “Have you phoned the police?”

  “They’re here now.”

  I nodded, and reached for a pair of jeans on my desk. “Alright, I’m coming over.”

  I hung up and dressed the fastest that I ever had in my life. Then I stumbled into the corridor – pulling socks onto my feet in mid-step – and hammered on my parents’ door.

  “Apa!” I shouted. After a moment, he appeared in his raggedy pyjamas; blinking groggily in the glare of the light overhead.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, words drawling as he tried to shake off his sleep. “Why are you being so noisy?”

  “Please, I need you take me to Lucy’s house!” I cried frantically. “She’s missing!”

  That seemed to wake him like a slap across the face, and before long he had thrown on a coat and t
he three of us were in the car, speeding through the streets. The fog was still thick, but when we finally arrived on the Denboroughs’ road, I saw the blue flashes of police car lights before anything else.

  The next couple of hours blurred, in an attempt to shut out the horror. William and Charlotte were terribly anxious, as I knew they would be: Charlotte was finding it difficult to hold back tears. Emily was sitting silently on the couch, staring into the middle distance with a mug of tea in her hands. She was two years younger than me, but the look on her face was the same kind that a terrified child might show, when they’re convinced there was something evil lurking under the bed.

  Two police officers questioned all of them, and then turned to me and Anya. I’d squeezed in beside Emily and put my arm around her comfortingly, but I became the centre of attention when I mentioned about the strange young man that Lucy claimed to have seen. I relayed the description of him that she had said, and they took down the details of everything.

  “This is going to be very helpful in finding him,” one of the officers told us. “We’ll get an artist to draw an impression. Don’t worry, Mr. and Mrs. Denborough, we’ll find your daughter.”

  “Will they, Bee?” Emily breathed next to me. “Bee? Bee, tell me she’s going to be alright.”

  “She’ll be fine, Em,” I assured, but my words were full of nothing but my own dry hope. It was all that any of us had. The fact remained that Lucy was gone, like a great hole through the chests of everybody in the room, and which we all were trying our best to ignore. Everything was crystallised: instantly frozen in time; and the whole world seemed broken and full of nothing but frantic heartbeats and prayers.

  Please let her be safe, I thought. Please let her come back. If there is a God, then bring her back.

  The days dragged by. I counted each one as they passed with no sign of Lucy. Snows fell; storms blew over and the nights gradually began to shorten. I spent the majority of my time at the Denboroughs’. Our families became even closer and tried to take comfort from each other.

  Emily was hit particularly hard and soon fell into a deep depression, because she had been so close to her sister. She became almost silent – which was horrendously strange because she was usually always talking – and lost her appetite, to the point where she dropped a whole dress size in three weeks. She and I were excused from attending school every day, and were told to only come in if we felt able. I preferred to occupy my racing mind by putting it to use in my classes, but Emily was a different story. Her parents were also given temporary leave from work.

  Time passed by like a stream of traffic as I stood motionless at the side of its busy road. Vague details floated numbly before me, and I remembered everything. There was a special announcement at the school to inform the students. All of us were cautioned about walking after dark, and encouraged to remain together in groups of two or three whenever we could.

  I went to the police station to give an official statement. So did Apa and Anya, and the Denboroughs. Recalling the events of my birthday was almost like hearing a story told about somebody else, that somehow didn’t concern me. Even my own voice sounded different as it shaped the word “I”. It was strained, broken by the monotone that had become my own.

  I did this, I did that.

  I told her it was alright to leave.

  With Anya and Apa both busy at work and preparing for their upcoming business trip, I hated being in the house alone. To escape the familiarity of both home and school, I fled to the nearby public library in my spare time, finding solace in escaping into happy stories. I began with fairytales, but the shadows eventually crept back into my mind, and I strayed to the darker folk legends of Hungary. All those beings of lore that I’d heard named by Apa during my childhood danced on the page in front of me. Turul: the Great Falcon of God that guided the birth of the Magyar; Sárkány: the seven-headed dragon; Lidérc: the flying bringer of nightmares; Napkirály: the King of the Sun.

  January turned into February. None of us gave up hope. It became difficult to go outside, because everywhere we went, we saw notices issued by the police, blaring out in stark red writing: hiányzó. Missing. Next to that was a photograph of Lucy: smiling her brilliant smile, with her hair pooling over her shoulders and eyes alight with life. And beneath her, sketched in harsh graphite, the drawing coined from my description. Every time I saw it, hate burned in my chest like a brand. She had tried to tell me. Each poster, with the two portraits side by side, was like I was stabbing myself in the back.

  You’re so stupid. It’s all well and good trying to convince yourself that you could have done something, but everything happens for a reason, Bee. If it didn’t, then Lucy would still be here. Nobody could do that to someone like her.

  But then I’d think: nem. Anybody who saw Lucy would want her. She was just that kind of person. And if she chose to want you back, to have you in her life, then you knew you were lucky. There were too few people with such kindness, to ever take such a friendship for granted. But you did. You let her go. To him.

  Everybody knew the reason for my own silence, just as they shared the same basic idea of the stranger. It had been determined by the police that she had been kidnapped by the man I’d described. But no-one was able to understand how she seemed to have disappeared with no trace. There was literally no proof at all to point to where she’d gone, and no witnesses. And despite how hard I worked, nothing could drive away the knowledge that I was the last person to have ever seen her. Guilt worked into me.

  You could have stopped her, it would say inside my head, over and over again. You could have done so much. But you didn’t. And now she’s gone. It might as well all be your fault.

  It is all your fault.

  I hung up the frame of the cityscapes on the wall over my bed, where it lodged nicely in the alcove. I’d put it off, to appease the most broken part of me, but one afternoon when I had nothing else to do, the black clouds threatened to break in. I walked to a nearby store and bought some nails. It didn’t take me long, and I returned the spares to Apa’s toolbox in the shed, along with his hammer. Then I sat on my bed, staring through the frame, into nothing.

  I kept in very close contact with Emily. Before long, it seemed that the only person she would speak to outside of her family was me. I thought I knew why: her own friends in her school year – who hadn’t known Lucy that well – were trying too hard to cheer her up when it was still too early for her to have it. In contrast, I understood, because Lucy was to me like the sister I’d never had.

  We both knew that she could still be alive and we clung to it, but every day was another step further away from her. And that was, in its own twisted way, more painful than if a body had been found. The stained, frayed hope hovered in the air, not knowing where it belonged but never being able to leave. And every time it stirred over our heads, it had the sound of Lucy’s laugh.

  The snowdrops broke through their frozen white blanket, and the icicles dripped as spring began to sweep over the city. In the early days of March, I pulled back the curtains to see what had to be one of the last true snows. The morning began like all the others had. My face stared at me from the mirror in the bathroom: dark circles of worry beneath my eyes, my straight blonde bob following my jaw line. I was wearing my old blue coat, and a red beret. My messenger bag rested on my hip.

  My first class began early, but I needed to pay a visit to the library to return a book, so I set off before dawn. Thankfully, the school was open from seven o’ clock, so I would have arrived in plenty of time. But I wanted to take a brief walk to help clear my head, which led me to leave even earlier. So, the sun still having not risen, I took my torch.

  I slung my bag over my shoulder and turned on my iPod. I locked the door and started down the steps into the cold morning. The space where our car would usually stand parked was empty; Apa and Anya having left on their business trip the day before. I walked over there idly, so I could look back over my footprints in the snow. But instead
of then turning right, to follow the long road through the shopping district, I took a sharp left, and headed for the cemetery gates. It was the route that Lucy had taken towards the light, both of us thinking it was her father. I tried to imagine myself in her footsteps as I walked. What could have happened?

  My shoes crunched as the gravel appeared, and I paused, closing my eyes for a moment. I hadn’t been through there in a while. I’d mainly walked the other way to get to school. And it seemed harder when I returned to the road of standing dead: each time I took a step, it felt as though the blank eyes of the stone angels were watching my every move.

  I walked off the path and into the labyrinth. I let myself go further than I ever had before, knowing that I had time on my side and could follow my footprints back. I lost track of how far I went, but soon stood beside what was surely the largest memorial in the cemetery: a life-size angel, with huge sprawling wings, and arms held out in the gesture of a beckoning embrace. Underneath the snow, I could just see the sharp edges of fallen leaves on the carved stone base. Beside it was the gothic facade of a decaying mausoleum, with ivy and moss snaking up the crumbling brickwork. The monuments were bland silhouettes in the mixture of torchlight and semi-darkness.

  A raven settled on the crest of one of the angel’s wings and cawed loudly. I jumped, and dropped my iPod. It landed beside a rabbit hole. I was vaguely reminded of dropping my book next to the pencils in the cupboard, and knelt down to grasp the player. I was worried about dislodging it. The hole looked as though it burrowed straight down.

  Carefully, I picked it up. A sudden wind blew between the tombstones and down my neck. I went to get to my feet, but as my torch glanced one last time over the hole, I paused. Something had just glinted inside.

  I slipped the iPod into my pocket, and put my hands on the damp ground. I leaned over and peered into the darkness. At first, I saw nothing. But then I held the torch beside my face.