The Burning Air by Erin Kelly Page A

would never do something like that, that she didn’t understand how it had got there, that it was a mix-up, a mistake.
    Will was crouching beside her, half his left eyebrow missing.
    “Soph,” he said. “Sophie, what happened?”
    “It must have been Kerry,” she said. “She was the only one who knew it was in the bottom of the wardrobe. She’s jealous of my mum.”
    “Sweetheart, what are you talking about?”
    “I couldn’t bear to see Mum’s stuff burned,” she said. “I had to stop it.”
    It sounded as absurd as it had seemed reasonable moments before. Will said nothing more, but she could see what he was thinking. Lying on the grass, lungs scorched, knuckle singing out in pain, she was for the first time terrified that he might be right. She looked up at Will, Kerry standing behind him, the pair of them shadows through the smoke, and for a second she was forcibly, painfully reminded of the grainy photographs, a sheet of hair behind him, and she allowed herself to wonder if—
No
. Last time it had started like this, a slow loss of confidence in her own judgment, wild conclusions jumped to. She was sure she had put her mother’s sweater aside, but then Kerry had come in with Edie, Sophie’s concentration had been broken. Just because she couldn’t remember having done it did not necessarily mean it hadn’t happened.
    Someone threw a switch and the glare of the outdoor light dulled the bonfire’s glow. She squeezed her stinging eyes closed. When she opened them, Will was still there, but Kerry had gone. This was how it had started the last time, different realities presenting themselves to her between blinks.

7
    O UTSIDE FELIX’S ROOM she raised her hand to knock, trusting that the right words of apology would come to her as soon as she saw Kerry’s face. But from within came sounds that barred her like a locked door: a slap, a giggle (Felix?), a groan (definitely Felix,
ugh
), and the sudden thud of a headboard. Hastily she backed away, creeping along the corridor and tiptoeing down the stairs.
    The sitting room was empty. High-pitched battle cries from outside told her that the boys were playing Death in the Trenches by the security light. At the kitchen table were Edie and the adults who were talking in hushed, not-in-front-of-the-children tones. Sophie smiled; they flattered Edie if they thought she was old enough to understand, let alone repeat, their conversation. But as she drew closer and she could make out the odd word, her smile was knocked off its perch. She heard her own name and Kerry’s and the words “bonfire” and “lost it.”
    Heart kicking at her rib cage, she pressed herself against the wall and approached the kitchen so that she could hear without being seen. If I stay here, she thought, perhaps they will tell me something about myself that I cannot grasp.
    “I thought she was better?” said Tara to Will. “She seemed fine until just now. She’s been her old self since before Edie was born. Hasn’t she? None of us want a repetition of the Charlie thing . . . you’d tell us if it got that bad again, wouldn’t you?”
    Matt said, “The Charlie thing?”
    “Didn’t I tell you?” said Tara, in a tone that suggested she had deliberately kept it from him; Sophie felt a warm rush of gratitude at this unexpected loyalty that immediately began to ebb. “She had acute postnatal depression after Charlie was born, but nobody picked up on it. We all just thought she was knackered, as you would be with two boys and a baby, and it all came to a head one day when she just dumped him in a supermarket, left the buggy in the middle of the cereals aisle.”
    Tara was wrong there. It had been the rice and pasta aisle. Sophie would never forget the way all the labels on the food had seemed too vivid, all the colors turned up to neon and glowing as if lit from within, with Charlie’s face the brightest, hottest light of them all.
    “Shit,”
said Matt.
    “I know. I know. It was