8 – DEAD ENDS

The air outside is fresh and welcoming and I gulp it in. People are still filing into Crazy 8s or else lingering around outside. I walk away, taking care to keep to well-lit streets and glance across at Max. He hasn't said anything since we left the snooker hall. He has a thoughtful frown on his forehead, but he lightens up when I look his way.

'What did you think?' he asks.

'I don't know,' I say in complete honesty. I was really hoping he would have a better idea. 'He doesn't seem the murdering type, but on the other hand, I could feel he was playing with me when he said he'd moved a friend the night Holly disappeared and that his girlfriend was "away". Don't you think?'

Max shrugs. 'Was your father ever able to get information out of him?'

I wait for a bunch of youths to pass out of earshot before replying. 'He'd said he was with a friend. The friend backed him up, but what friend wouldn't?'

'Well, there is an alternative…' Max says.

I stop in the middle of the street. 'An alternative?'

'I don't know. It's probably nothing.'

He carries on walking and I have to jog to catch up. 'What?'

'Well, I've been thinking it over, the way Holly just pitched up at your house, the fact you said she was more faded than spirits usually appear to you –'

'That could have been because it was raining.'

'– True, but also how the wind seemed to force her away.'

'Yeah?' I don't know where he's going with this and I'm desperate for him to get to the point.

'The more I think of it, the more I'm certain she must have transpirited from Limus.'

'The limbo dimension?'

Max nods. 'Yes. The place where spirits with unfinished business go and…' His voice trails off and his forehead becomes furrowed again in thought.'

'And?'

'When I told you about Limbus, I didn't mention that that is where people who have taken their own lives generally end up, at least until they've completed their trials.'

I stop under the glare of a streetlight and stare at Max. He takes on a slightly golden luminescence, like a more divine Edward Cullen, except glowing rather than sparkling.

'So, you're saying Holly committed suicide?'

Max doesn't look wholly convinced by his own theory. 'Perhaps. Yes?'

'I suppose,' I say with a shrug as we move on again. 'Her mother does suffer from depression, and they did say she had mood swings. But they said that because of the drugs.'

'But you don't think she was on drugs,' says Max.

'Exactly, so they're either lying or there's a different reason for the mood swings.'

'You wouldn't think a person who is happy would run away, would you?' Max queries and I have to agree. Maybe we've been so caught up in the fact that Holly's visit proved she's dead, that we didn't question the reason for her disappearance.

'That's right,' I say. 'Maybe she has killed herself. Maybe she was unhappy, ran away, and killed herself.' I ponder that depressing theory for a moment. 'But then why has no body been recovered?'

Max shrugs. 'The Fens are easy enough to get lost in, and rural and hostile enough not to attract too many passersby.'

I have no response. I think of Holly's ending her own life, of what place she must have been in to actually do it. Is it brave or is it weak to take your own life? I wouldn't have the guts to do it, I'd be too afraid of what pain I might put myself through. But suicides generally happen because people are already in pain. Not physical pain, but mental pain. So maybe it's not about courage. Maybe I just don't want it bad enough, which to be honest, I'm not that sad about. I remember Dad's words when we spoke about Emilie and the cause of her overdose, how he'd said suicide was selfish. That word pings a light in my brain – it wasn't so long ago that I heard him refer to selfishness in another moment. The time I'd snuck past the lounge to snoop through his office and he'd mumbled in his sleep 'Don't, Isabel, don't be so selfish.'

An unappetising thought worms its way to the front of my brain.

'Max?'

'Yes, Noa?'

I take a moment to word the question in my head first. 'Why has my mother never visited me?'

Max looks at me sadly and I blush. He holds out his hand and brushes the back of his fingers against my cheek in a tender gesture. 'I don't know,' he says. 'Transpirition isn't as easy as it sounds.'

'You manage it okay.'

Max laughs and again my cheeks heat up. I didn't mean it to sound so insulting.

'And I've had over a century to finesse the art,' he says.

'But Freda Ackroyd had only been dead three months when she visited me.' I argue.

'Perhaps your mother's guiding someone else?' he says with a shrug. He looks at my sullen expression and winks. 'Goodness knows I have to spend enough time keeping you out of trouble.'

I give him a look. 'What if she…' I bite my lip. I'm not able to finish the question, not able to handle the idea that my mother mightn't have visited me because she's in Limbus, and in Limbus for all the wrong reasons.

'What if she's what?' Max prompts and I shake my head forcefully.

'Nothing, I was just thinking out loud. Never mind.' I paste a bright look on my face as we near my street. 'By the way, why haven't I had to deliver any messages lately? I mean, apart from Freda Ackroyd's message to Genie, and Holly, I haven't had any visitors for at least two weeks.'

Max looks at me like he's about to challenge my change of subject but then averts his eyes. 'I don't know,' he says. Leave it with me and I'll see what I can find out.'

'Thanks. Now, back to Holly's case,' I say. We're almost at my house and I feel we need to make a plan before we part. 'We need to find out if she's the suicidal type.'

'Well, we've already spoken to her only two friends,' replies Max.

'Aha,' I say, raising a finger to counter him, 'but are there really only two? Remember that photo of her at her photography club?'

'Sharp Shooters?'

'Yup. I think tomorrow would be a good time to explore our photographic talents, don't you?'

Copyright © H.R. Aidan