The Queen of Sinister by Mark Chadbourn Read Free Book Online

days: the sheet-changing, the bed-washing, the administration of what sparse painkillers she had to hand, but most of all the talking. She would sit at their bedsides for hours at a time, letting the words come from the depths of her mind and heart, a trance state in which she had no idea what she was saying. Part of it was a simple attempt to impose order on a situation that had none, a discussion of the mundane chores as if Grant and Liam were both up and about, just out of sight, ready to respond once they had finished whatever they were doing.
And she talked and talked so they wouldn't have the opportunity to respond; if they couldn't get a word in, there was still the possibility that they might. And at other times, she spoke of her love for them both, that deep, deep well of emotion that she hadn't visited for a long time, and which surprised her with the volume it contained.
And there was the tragedy, for it shouldn't have surprised her at all. She didn't know if they could hear her, didn't really know if it was for their benefit or her own, but she hoped and prayed, and talked.
And on the fourth day, they died.
    The first hour was one of utmost peace, a chrysalis state
of numbness and nothing. Caitlin was gone; her life was over. Afterwards, she sat by Grant and thought of what had been lost, never to be regained; and then she sat by Liam and considered what might have been and now never would.
Then she retired to the kitchen and brewed herself a pot of the infusion they laughingly used to call tea as the thin light of a cold, grey dawn gradually leaked through the windows. Hunched over her mug, she saw Grant and Liam's shoes next to the back door, muddy from their last walk together as a family. The image hit her with an inexplicable power, and then she was sucked away in an uncontrollable torrent of grief that dashed her on the rocks of her own bitter sorrow.
Shortly after noon, in a light rain with the clouds shimmering like silver, Caitlin took a spade into the garden they had all tended in the days before the Fall. At the end, underneath the gnarled oak where Liam had climbed and Grant had built a tree-house, she dug. The topsoil went down for two feet and then she hit the thick, yellow-grey clay, water-sodden and dense. Her muscles burned and her joints cracked and complained, yet she forced herself on, relishing the pain. The rain plastered her hair against her head, soaked through her clothes so completely that she felt as if she were wearing water.
Grant, holding her hand when the tiny, warm bundle of life was placed on her sweat-streaked chest, saying, 'We're in this together. You never have to stand alone again.' Holding her on New Year's Eve, watching the fireworks light the sky.
And when she had finished one hole, she started on the next, a smaller one.
Liam, three years old, at Christmas, putting out a mince pie for Santa. Waking her up on her birthday with a present he'd wrapped himself and a home-made card. Kissing her cheek when he caught her crying...
Three hours later, the job was done. She returned to the house in a dream, where nothing could touch her, and was content with that state. But the moment she attempted to lift Grant from the bed, she realised it was only transitory. His skin was cold and he didn't respond when she said his name; he would never answer. It looked like Grant, but it didn't feel like him, not warm, not loving, not laughing any more; it made no sense, and that only made things worse.
The tears came again, this time squeezing out silently to run into the corners of her mouth, where the saltiness made her feel sick. He was too heavy for her to carry. She fell twice, smashing his head against the bedside cabinet. His arms and legs wouldn't go where she wanted. With a tremendous effort, she managed to get him half on to her back, and then she dragged him from the room, crying out every time some part of him cracked against a door jamb or piece of furniture, as if he could still