Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Which may explain why I like the idea of bonfires carrying away the less useful hitchhikers. It’s like giving a gift to the universe, I think. Saying to the night sky, “All these things that have been mine… I want you to have them back. They aren’t mine anymore. Maybe they meant something to me once upon a time, but now… now I don’t need them.”
Unusual choice for me, maybe—a bonfire—given that I’ve seen enough things burn up and explode in my time that watching shit get torched might feel kind of dumb and… PTSD-y. But, for whatever reason, I like it. Light cutting through the blackness of night and all. I think it’s pretty. The colors. The blue and orange and red all blending together. Colors are my thing. What’s the name…? Oh. Synesthesia.
That’s what it is. I think I have that. My senses are all kind of interconnected, I think. Maybe I should have been a painter. Anyway.
I realize the dress matters more than it may actually, really matter. To anyone else. But to me its colored existence in a world that was grey for a long, long time is a symbol. A symbol for all those times when light wouldn’t shine and life seemed dark. A physical, tangible thing I could hold and look at that would always remind me of a bright, sunny day.
Sunshine. Another thing we look forward to but that, when you think about it, is actually odd to enjoy. The sun is this pretty, hopeful image we all look to that signals the start of a new day. But it’s also a big, orange-yellow ball of flame. It is a trillion-ton nuclear explosion of violence that would destroy you if you came within a billion miles of it.
Beauty and destruction are more closely connected than we like to think.
In any case, when I found the dress I really did debate what I should do with it. Should it be worn again? Should this symbol that represents beauty and hope and violence and destruction all at once be donned again and paraded around in front of the world for everyone to see?
Of course it should. Why shouldn’t it? On this day of all days. Why shouldn’t it?
Knowing the reality of what life is and isn’t and embracing it rather than running from that truth; being able to hold it close?
That is a true gift.
And at the end of what could be called a very, very long day…
It’s the best one I have to offer.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEN.
Brilliant. We’ve got Brasil Lynch on the phone.
Now what?
It is incredibly evident to everyone gathered here that we’re not all going to make it out of this business alive. The only question remains who’s going to die and when it’s going to happen. We cannot put what’s spilled out back into the jar, so let’s stop fucking about and get on with it, I suppose.
Eliza talks into the phone’s speaker: “Brasil Lynch?”
A long beat. Followed by a non-answer answer. “Feck is this?”
“This is Eliza Watson. You have my daughter?”
“What? Who? Feck are you on about?”
The boy who we just learned is called Angus shouts, “Brasil! Crazy feckin’ bitch shot Rory and—!” That’s as much as he’s able to get out before Eliza pistol-whips him across the face and he emits a long, tortured yowl.
From the phone’s speaker…
“Who? What? What the feck is going on?”
Without warning or asking for permission, Danny starts toward Eliza, presumably to speak to his old partner, but before he makes it two steps, Eliza has swung the pistol on him. He steps back, both hands in the air, and shouts, “Brasil! It’s Danny!”
There is a long, long, long pause. Followed by Brasil’s almost smug-sounding voice. “Fortnight. Where are you? You found the note I left for you, did you? Who all’s there with you?”
“Just fucking shut up and listen for a second.” Danny takes a breath and looks deep into Eliza’s eyes, trying to reassure her, I imagine. He doesn’t know her. It’s futile. The only person in the world Eliza Watson trusts about anything is Eliza Watson. Still, she summons whatever patience she has and lets Danny continue. “Brasil, listen to me. This thing can still be walked back—”
“Which thing? The thing with the van den Berg lad? He made the choices he—”
“Just shut up and listen! All you have to do is tell us where you are. Where the kid and her uncle are. And we can arrange to meet up and trade both of your cousins for the two of them.”
There is now an even longer pause than the previous one, at the end of which Brasil finally says, “I dunno the feck yer talking about.”
Eliza shouts, “Well then, how about we trade you just one of your fucking cousins, then?” And swings the barrel of the pistol in the direction of the freckled laaitie Rory. But before she can pull the trigger…