Kimmy goes to Silent Simfield, Part 4
Kimmy trudged through the snow on the ground as more flowed down around her, shining white in the torch light. She was not happy. Okay, true, she'd hardly been happy before what with how she couldn't escape and she was being attacked by mutant zombie things all the time, but now... No, there was no way a hug had been enough for her to have been punished for killing Terry - not when she had met blonde woman Mzyra: there had to be more. So she was constantly listening and bracing for another sudden attack. There had to be one, it didn't make sense otherwise.
But nothing was happening wherever she was, so she continued following the light wherever it lead her - yet again away from downtown and towards the Ryman patch of countryside. According to Mzyra, there were five things, and she'd already been through three, but she couldn't even think of two more things she might have to be punished for. She'd been killed not that long after she killed Terry, and she hadn't managed to do much more since she was resurrected, so what else was there? Given that she'd only lived in one place in the countryside since she was a teenager, she guessed she must be headed back to Christian's though. Maybe she really would have to do something for him, but she didn't see how she'd done him any wrong.
Eventually she was proven right about the location as the light lead her to the old semi-castle's front door. She sighed and just hoped that the next time she was attacked by mutants she wouldn't have to run all the way back to downtown again; that was really annoying. She exanimately pulled open the gate and the door and walked into the only-slightly-less-cold-and-dark inside. There was a flickery image floating just inside the door again, so she heaved another sigh as she took a picture with her phone and listened to the voicemail message she got back.
"I thought I was your babysitter, not your maid-"
"You're living in our house, eating our food, sleeping on our sofa, stealing our heating-!" Hang on, she'd only just heard this conversation - had Mzyra got her stupid punishments stuck on repeat?
"Heat?! Ha! It's freezing in here, though you monsters are so cold hearted and cold blooded you probably can't even tell! And as for taking your food, sofa and 'heat'' - I'm also looking after your son! Your child, who you've never paid any attention to! Your child, who probably doesn't know who you are! You, who are probably the worst mother ever!"
"Could I just chip in here?" Again, the sound of Christian punching Terry and Terry choking...
"Unca Tewwy?" Oh crap...
"You will never insult my wife like that ever again or the consequences for you will be dire. Do you understand?" The sound of Terry getting kneed in the face... "Do you understand?!"
"Yes."
"Unca Tewwy..."
And there it ended. This was definitely a Tom thing. Buggeration. But how was this fair? Why was Kimmy getting punished for Tom? He'd murdered her - hadn't that been his revenge? Why did she have to do anything for the little bastard again? She decided to put that point to Mzyra by text message, with even more language thrown in.
You don't understand just how much of an impact you had. And murder really doesn't solve the past, it just changes the future. And you can debate all of that as much as you like, but you're going to have to do it anyway because we say so and you can't leave until you're finished.
Ugh! Kimmy threw the phone of the floor as hard as she could and then went and sat on the sofa, arms and legs crossed, not even looking at the phone. She can't make me do anything! she thought, before remembering that time she'd been forced to change her aspiration. Okay, she can make me do things, but she won't, and I refuse. The phone didn't even go off with any new messages or anything as Kimmy sat there resolutely for what probably should have been a few hours, had time been passing.
Eventually her resolve wore down and she finally got up again and begrudgingly picked up the phone, which only then showed a new message:
Feel better after your tantrum?
She threw the phone against the wall, where it still didn't break. Kimmy may have hated everything about this whole thing she was being put through, but that was a damn good phone. She glared at it in place of Mzyra for a few minutes before picking it up again and turning to the newest flickery memory thing she'd been trying to ignore.
"What happened to your eye, Uncle Terry?"
"I... fell over."
"You're lying!"
"I know. But it's getting on to your bedtime and we don't have time to have this discussion now."
"I'm not going to be able to sleep until you tell me what happened!"
"Then you're going to be awake for a long time, Tom."
Well that was a pointless little scene, she thought. And one that Kimmy didn't remember. But from the sounds of it Terry must have had a black eye at least, which wasn't Kimmy's department - Christian was the one who'd beat him up! Why wasn't Mzyra torturing him? It was a bit odd though - why even bother to lie about it? Why not say 'Your parents are evil monsters' and have done with it - that was clearly what he thought. Terry was weird.
Rather than delve any deeper, Kimmy turned to the front door, which was lit up again. If Tom was a child in that memory, it must have almost been the time she killed Terry again.
She was right:
"No Terry, you won't. You haven't figured out anything here, have you Terry? You won't be back every night and I don't expect you to go and get a family of your own. I don't expect much of you at all, in fact. It's 6:55am, Terry. The nearest house is miles away. You've done all you can for this family now. So, to your former question: 'No, Mr Ryman, I expect you to die.' And try not to make too much of a mess on our pathway, 'kay thanks." That was an odd place to start, right at the end of the conversation...
"Uncle Terry!" Oh for f---'s sake - Tom was there for that too?! Arrrgh... "I can't open the gate! It's too strong! What are we going to do?! Where are you going to go?!"
"Shhh Tom, it'll be okay."
"But- But she said-!"
"I know, I know. We can't do anything. If we could she would have prevented it already..." Darn right.
"But- But you're going to- to-!"
"Look, look. Come on, sit down, there's some stuff I want to tell you. Look, I... may be going away for a while, but there's stuff you should know and remember. I love you and always will, no matter where or how I am." Get your own life, Terry!"You should also know that you have more family out there - particularly aunts called Marina and Nicola -" Ha, take that Sean, even Terry wouldn't recommend you... "if you have to go somewhere else or need help, try to find them, they will help you. And there is nothing, nothing more important to me than you and your safety. You may find that you get... angry at your parents, but please don't trigger them off and risk yourself if you can help it, it's exactly the opposite of what I would want. Stay safe. So long as you're around and remember me, I am still around." God, how Disney. "Okay kid?" Really though? No 'Your parents are evil, avenge my death'? She guessed that really wasn't a Terry thing to say, but...
There was a bit of a pause in the sound before a slight - and familiar - sizzling noise started up.
"Come on, we have to go get help! Turn into a bat! Fly away! Break the door down!"
"No, no... It's- It's not so bad... You know, like a tickling sensation really, nothing to worry about..." Kimmy knew from personal experience that that was complete bullshit. Death by sunlight was painful. She almost, almost felt a begrudging respect. She would have expected Terry to have curled up in a ball crying or something.
"You're lying!" No shit, Sherlock.
"I know. And I'm sorry. For lying, for this, for everything. Goodbye Tom. Good luck."
And then it faded out on the sound of Tom crying. God, was why her son such an emotional wimp as a child?
And then the crying turned into a scream - Kimmy had been so caught up and confused that she'd almost forgotten about the fact that zombies kept trying to kill her every so often. The sky and ground froze over and she looked around, but she saw no running zombies. She hesitantly walked forward, away from the house when something more specific screamed from behind and above her - on the roof there was a zombie thing, but twice her size and carrying a spiked club. Oh crap, she thought, backing away slowly. She hadn't seen where she was meant to be going, but she didn't want to take her eyes off the zombie in case it moved when she did.
Then it jumped off the roof anyway and she ran for dear life before it could land on top of her. She saw the light above a house - almost literally down the road, and she recognised it as the house she'd been resurrected at: Tom's house as an adult. It was odd that he hadn't moved far, but she didn't have time to be thinking about things as one of the spikes on the zombie's club scratched across her back, tearing her jumper and causing pain as she felt the warmth of her own blood begin to run down. Crap! She ran faster, into Tom's house and slammed the front door behind her. But most of the door was glass and the zombie had its club... She backed away and ran upstairs, then up another flight of stairs, to the top of the house, before pushing the bed up there over the stairs, hoping the thing couldn't get up there, even if it managed to get inside. As barracaded as she could get, she tried to calm down and go through her thoughts.
Why had Tom been awake when she killed Terry? The kid got everywhere! She supposed that even if he hadn't actually been there for it, he would have possibly figured it out anyway from what had happened before, but still... And Terry hadn't told Tom to get revenge - if anything, he told Tom not to get revenge; he clearly thought that would be too dangerous. In retrospect, had she known Tom was going to kill her, she would have let Terry have Tom and get lost; they clearly deserved each other. And then she would have kicked Christian out and been a hell of a lot happier. In fact everyone - except maybe Christian - would have been happy. That's what she got for trying to be a parent.
But Tom lived almost literally over the road from where they'd lived, even to that day. Wouldn't you move far, far away and never come back? What was wrong with him?
As if to answer that question, Tom appeared on the bed over the stairs - he didn't look quite like an adult, but he was more than a teenager. Maybe he had gone to university after all.
There was one thing she wanted to establish first: "Can you see me or not?"
"I wish I couldn't," he said coldly.
"If I go away will the monster go away?" she asked patronisingly.
"Nope. It's mine, not yours. It'll kill both of us."
Er, that was weird... "So how do we stop it?"
"We don't. We deserve it," he said flatly.
Great, she was trying to get help from somebody who was apparently suicidal. Fan-freaking-tastic. Oh, but she bet she'd have to talk him out of it. Not only was she going to become an olympic athlete, she was going to be a psychiatrist too! "I don't think Terry would say you deserve it."
"No. He wouldn't. But he wouldn't say you deserve it either. Just because he wouldn't say it doesn't mean it's not true." He gazed at her with a dead look in his eyes. "I know you deserve it. You deserve so much worse than I gave you. But I'm just as bad as you are. We're both murderers and we'll suffer for what we did." And as he said that, Kimmy could hear the sound of the front doors smashing in.
Kimmy began to panic - they didn't have much time. "But- But if you regret it-"
"I don't regret it. I wouldn't take it back, like I know you don't regret what you did and could do it again. I thought, once I'd done it, it would be over, but then when I had done it... How can you be a part of a normal society? How can anybody else ever understand? I was always lying, always hiding, always afraid. Why did I even think it was my place to do that? I'm beyond help or redemption. Now I'm just waiting for it to come back to haunt me."
AKA: a monster's going to come and smash us both to death. Shit! She had to get through to him, she had to get through to him! "Okay. So you killed your parents," you little bastard, "you don't regret it, but you think you should be punished for it. Um..." Think of something. Lie if you have to, but think of something! "Don't you think you've been punished enough?" I don't think you have, but whatever... "I mean, if you still thought this way by the time I was resurrected, then you've probably been torturing yourself for decades-"
"No. I've been getting away with it for decades," he said without a trace of doubt.
Arrrrgh! "Okay, you really don't think there's any form of redemption? That there was no amount of good deeds you could have done that might have lessened how much punishment you deserve? Surely if you'd gone and killed more people you would have deserved worse, so surely you could have done things to make it a bit better?!"
Tom hesitated for a frustratingly long time - We don't have time for this! - before conceding "I guess so."
"Right! So, you didn't kill anybody else and you've lived for ages afterwards, haven't you done good things?" Kimmy asked desperately.
"Not really. I became an architect, but that was just what I wanted. I mostly stayed alone and away from people."
Graaaaahh! "At least that's better than killing people? Oh - but what about that alien girl? You had a daughter, didn't you?" Tell me I'm remembering that right!
"Tessa..." he said quietly.
"Yeah! I met her! She seemed nice and well-adjusted -" Heck, she was stupidly naive, but that could be a good thing if you call it: "Trusting! It was obvious nothing bad had ever happened to her, she was practically nothing like you, so you must have been a really good parent!"
"I tried..."
"You succeeded!" she asserted forcefully. "You managed to bring up a happy, nice little alien girl who loves you."
"Lots of people manage to do that as a matter of course," he pointed out. "Without the alien bit, anyway." Kimmy could hear the sound of thumping on the stairs below them, but she knew she was on to something.
"Yes, but that's because they were brought up happily themselves! Look, you're comparing yourself to Terry, right? Well Terry was brought up by two loving, if a bit dim, parents and three nice older siblings; it's easy for him to do 'the right thing'. But all the crap you had growing up far outweighed the good, so your being able to raise a happy child is far more of an achievement than it would have been for anybody else; they don't understand. Maybe you should be judged a bit for what you did, but you shouldn't - nor should anybody else - be beaten to death by a zombie with a club." I do not deserve to be beaten to death by a zombie with a club.
Tom was wavering, she could tell. Maybe just one more push...
"And you're wrong; I do regret something: I should have just let Terry take you and go. I didn't love you because I don't love anyone but myself, and I should have just let you - and your father - go. Then you would have been happy and normal and nobody would ever have been murdered by either of us. It was my fault."
And then Tom disappeared.
She'd been lying, hadn't she? She wanted the little git to suffer for killing her, she just didn't want to suffer with him. She'd mostly been repeating what she'd heard other people say before, whether she believed it or not.
But that alternative... Terry going off and raising her child while she did whatever she wanted. Part of the reason she would have hated that was that she was certain that the kid would have been brought up being told awful things about her so he'd hate her - she knew that would have happened if Marina or Sean had done it - but... Terry had never said anything like that to Tom, even when he was willing to say it to her face. Maybe it would have worked...
She was really, really confused. She text as much to Mzyra.
Just one thing left and we can discuss it properly.
One thing left? she wondered. Who was left? If it was going in rough order then there was surely nobody left. Christian hadn't hated her and all that had really happened was her resurrection and then she'd left Simfield...
Maybe it'll turn out that I've been unwittingly traumatising a mailman or someone without even noticing it, she thought, rolling her eyes.
But nothing was happening wherever she was, so she continued following the light wherever it lead her - yet again away from downtown and towards the Ryman patch of countryside. According to Mzyra, there were five things, and she'd already been through three, but she couldn't even think of two more things she might have to be punished for. She'd been killed not that long after she killed Terry, and she hadn't managed to do much more since she was resurrected, so what else was there? Given that she'd only lived in one place in the countryside since she was a teenager, she guessed she must be headed back to Christian's though. Maybe she really would have to do something for him, but she didn't see how she'd done him any wrong.
Eventually she was proven right about the location as the light lead her to the old semi-castle's front door. She sighed and just hoped that the next time she was attacked by mutants she wouldn't have to run all the way back to downtown again; that was really annoying. She exanimately pulled open the gate and the door and walked into the only-slightly-less-cold-and-dark inside. There was a flickery image floating just inside the door again, so she heaved another sigh as she took a picture with her phone and listened to the voicemail message she got back.
"I thought I was your babysitter, not your maid-"
"You're living in our house, eating our food, sleeping on our sofa, stealing our heating-!" Hang on, she'd only just heard this conversation - had Mzyra got her stupid punishments stuck on repeat?
"Heat?! Ha! It's freezing in here, though you monsters are so cold hearted and cold blooded you probably can't even tell! And as for taking your food, sofa and 'heat'' - I'm also looking after your son! Your child, who you've never paid any attention to! Your child, who probably doesn't know who you are! You, who are probably the worst mother ever!"
"Could I just chip in here?" Again, the sound of Christian punching Terry and Terry choking...
"Unca Tewwy?" Oh crap...
"You will never insult my wife like that ever again or the consequences for you will be dire. Do you understand?" The sound of Terry getting kneed in the face... "Do you understand?!"
"Yes."
"Unca Tewwy..."
And there it ended. This was definitely a Tom thing. Buggeration. But how was this fair? Why was Kimmy getting punished for Tom? He'd murdered her - hadn't that been his revenge? Why did she have to do anything for the little bastard again? She decided to put that point to Mzyra by text message, with even more language thrown in.
You don't understand just how much of an impact you had. And murder really doesn't solve the past, it just changes the future. And you can debate all of that as much as you like, but you're going to have to do it anyway because we say so and you can't leave until you're finished.
Ugh! Kimmy threw the phone of the floor as hard as she could and then went and sat on the sofa, arms and legs crossed, not even looking at the phone. She can't make me do anything! she thought, before remembering that time she'd been forced to change her aspiration. Okay, she can make me do things, but she won't, and I refuse. The phone didn't even go off with any new messages or anything as Kimmy sat there resolutely for what probably should have been a few hours, had time been passing.
Eventually her resolve wore down and she finally got up again and begrudgingly picked up the phone, which only then showed a new message:
Feel better after your tantrum?
She threw the phone against the wall, where it still didn't break. Kimmy may have hated everything about this whole thing she was being put through, but that was a damn good phone. She glared at it in place of Mzyra for a few minutes before picking it up again and turning to the newest flickery memory thing she'd been trying to ignore.
"What happened to your eye, Uncle Terry?"
"I... fell over."
"You're lying!"
"I know. But it's getting on to your bedtime and we don't have time to have this discussion now."
"I'm not going to be able to sleep until you tell me what happened!"
"Then you're going to be awake for a long time, Tom."
Well that was a pointless little scene, she thought. And one that Kimmy didn't remember. But from the sounds of it Terry must have had a black eye at least, which wasn't Kimmy's department - Christian was the one who'd beat him up! Why wasn't Mzyra torturing him? It was a bit odd though - why even bother to lie about it? Why not say 'Your parents are evil monsters' and have done with it - that was clearly what he thought. Terry was weird.
Rather than delve any deeper, Kimmy turned to the front door, which was lit up again. If Tom was a child in that memory, it must have almost been the time she killed Terry again.
She was right:
"No Terry, you won't. You haven't figured out anything here, have you Terry? You won't be back every night and I don't expect you to go and get a family of your own. I don't expect much of you at all, in fact. It's 6:55am, Terry. The nearest house is miles away. You've done all you can for this family now. So, to your former question: 'No, Mr Ryman, I expect you to die.' And try not to make too much of a mess on our pathway, 'kay thanks." That was an odd place to start, right at the end of the conversation...
"Uncle Terry!" Oh for f---'s sake - Tom was there for that too?! Arrrgh... "I can't open the gate! It's too strong! What are we going to do?! Where are you going to go?!"
"Shhh Tom, it'll be okay."
"But- But she said-!"
"I know, I know. We can't do anything. If we could she would have prevented it already..." Darn right.
"But- But you're going to- to-!"
"Look, look. Come on, sit down, there's some stuff I want to tell you. Look, I... may be going away for a while, but there's stuff you should know and remember. I love you and always will, no matter where or how I am." Get your own life, Terry!"You should also know that you have more family out there - particularly aunts called Marina and Nicola -" Ha, take that Sean, even Terry wouldn't recommend you... "if you have to go somewhere else or need help, try to find them, they will help you. And there is nothing, nothing more important to me than you and your safety. You may find that you get... angry at your parents, but please don't trigger them off and risk yourself if you can help it, it's exactly the opposite of what I would want. Stay safe. So long as you're around and remember me, I am still around." God, how Disney. "Okay kid?" Really though? No 'Your parents are evil, avenge my death'? She guessed that really wasn't a Terry thing to say, but...
There was a bit of a pause in the sound before a slight - and familiar - sizzling noise started up.
"Come on, we have to go get help! Turn into a bat! Fly away! Break the door down!"
"No, no... It's- It's not so bad... You know, like a tickling sensation really, nothing to worry about..." Kimmy knew from personal experience that that was complete bullshit. Death by sunlight was painful. She almost, almost felt a begrudging respect. She would have expected Terry to have curled up in a ball crying or something.
"You're lying!" No shit, Sherlock.
"I know. And I'm sorry. For lying, for this, for everything. Goodbye Tom. Good luck."
And then it faded out on the sound of Tom crying. God, was why her son such an emotional wimp as a child?
And then the crying turned into a scream - Kimmy had been so caught up and confused that she'd almost forgotten about the fact that zombies kept trying to kill her every so often. The sky and ground froze over and she looked around, but she saw no running zombies. She hesitantly walked forward, away from the house when something more specific screamed from behind and above her - on the roof there was a zombie thing, but twice her size and carrying a spiked club. Oh crap, she thought, backing away slowly. She hadn't seen where she was meant to be going, but she didn't want to take her eyes off the zombie in case it moved when she did.
Then it jumped off the roof anyway and she ran for dear life before it could land on top of her. She saw the light above a house - almost literally down the road, and she recognised it as the house she'd been resurrected at: Tom's house as an adult. It was odd that he hadn't moved far, but she didn't have time to be thinking about things as one of the spikes on the zombie's club scratched across her back, tearing her jumper and causing pain as she felt the warmth of her own blood begin to run down. Crap! She ran faster, into Tom's house and slammed the front door behind her. But most of the door was glass and the zombie had its club... She backed away and ran upstairs, then up another flight of stairs, to the top of the house, before pushing the bed up there over the stairs, hoping the thing couldn't get up there, even if it managed to get inside. As barracaded as she could get, she tried to calm down and go through her thoughts.
Why had Tom been awake when she killed Terry? The kid got everywhere! She supposed that even if he hadn't actually been there for it, he would have possibly figured it out anyway from what had happened before, but still... And Terry hadn't told Tom to get revenge - if anything, he told Tom not to get revenge; he clearly thought that would be too dangerous. In retrospect, had she known Tom was going to kill her, she would have let Terry have Tom and get lost; they clearly deserved each other. And then she would have kicked Christian out and been a hell of a lot happier. In fact everyone - except maybe Christian - would have been happy. That's what she got for trying to be a parent.
But Tom lived almost literally over the road from where they'd lived, even to that day. Wouldn't you move far, far away and never come back? What was wrong with him?
As if to answer that question, Tom appeared on the bed over the stairs - he didn't look quite like an adult, but he was more than a teenager. Maybe he had gone to university after all.
There was one thing she wanted to establish first: "Can you see me or not?"
"I wish I couldn't," he said coldly.
"If I go away will the monster go away?" she asked patronisingly.
"Nope. It's mine, not yours. It'll kill both of us."
Er, that was weird... "So how do we stop it?"
"We don't. We deserve it," he said flatly.
Great, she was trying to get help from somebody who was apparently suicidal. Fan-freaking-tastic. Oh, but she bet she'd have to talk him out of it. Not only was she going to become an olympic athlete, she was going to be a psychiatrist too! "I don't think Terry would say you deserve it."
"No. He wouldn't. But he wouldn't say you deserve it either. Just because he wouldn't say it doesn't mean it's not true." He gazed at her with a dead look in his eyes. "I know you deserve it. You deserve so much worse than I gave you. But I'm just as bad as you are. We're both murderers and we'll suffer for what we did." And as he said that, Kimmy could hear the sound of the front doors smashing in.
Kimmy began to panic - they didn't have much time. "But- But if you regret it-"
"I don't regret it. I wouldn't take it back, like I know you don't regret what you did and could do it again. I thought, once I'd done it, it would be over, but then when I had done it... How can you be a part of a normal society? How can anybody else ever understand? I was always lying, always hiding, always afraid. Why did I even think it was my place to do that? I'm beyond help or redemption. Now I'm just waiting for it to come back to haunt me."
AKA: a monster's going to come and smash us both to death. Shit! She had to get through to him, she had to get through to him! "Okay. So you killed your parents," you little bastard, "you don't regret it, but you think you should be punished for it. Um..." Think of something. Lie if you have to, but think of something! "Don't you think you've been punished enough?" I don't think you have, but whatever... "I mean, if you still thought this way by the time I was resurrected, then you've probably been torturing yourself for decades-"
"No. I've been getting away with it for decades," he said without a trace of doubt.
Arrrrgh! "Okay, you really don't think there's any form of redemption? That there was no amount of good deeds you could have done that might have lessened how much punishment you deserve? Surely if you'd gone and killed more people you would have deserved worse, so surely you could have done things to make it a bit better?!"
Tom hesitated for a frustratingly long time - We don't have time for this! - before conceding "I guess so."
"Right! So, you didn't kill anybody else and you've lived for ages afterwards, haven't you done good things?" Kimmy asked desperately.
"Not really. I became an architect, but that was just what I wanted. I mostly stayed alone and away from people."
Graaaaahh! "At least that's better than killing people? Oh - but what about that alien girl? You had a daughter, didn't you?" Tell me I'm remembering that right!
"Tessa..." he said quietly.
"Yeah! I met her! She seemed nice and well-adjusted -" Heck, she was stupidly naive, but that could be a good thing if you call it: "Trusting! It was obvious nothing bad had ever happened to her, she was practically nothing like you, so you must have been a really good parent!"
"I tried..."
"You succeeded!" she asserted forcefully. "You managed to bring up a happy, nice little alien girl who loves you."
"Lots of people manage to do that as a matter of course," he pointed out. "Without the alien bit, anyway." Kimmy could hear the sound of thumping on the stairs below them, but she knew she was on to something.
"Yes, but that's because they were brought up happily themselves! Look, you're comparing yourself to Terry, right? Well Terry was brought up by two loving, if a bit dim, parents and three nice older siblings; it's easy for him to do 'the right thing'. But all the crap you had growing up far outweighed the good, so your being able to raise a happy child is far more of an achievement than it would have been for anybody else; they don't understand. Maybe you should be judged a bit for what you did, but you shouldn't - nor should anybody else - be beaten to death by a zombie with a club." I do not deserve to be beaten to death by a zombie with a club.
Tom was wavering, she could tell. Maybe just one more push...
"And you're wrong; I do regret something: I should have just let Terry take you and go. I didn't love you because I don't love anyone but myself, and I should have just let you - and your father - go. Then you would have been happy and normal and nobody would ever have been murdered by either of us. It was my fault."
And then Tom disappeared.
She'd been lying, hadn't she? She wanted the little git to suffer for killing her, she just didn't want to suffer with him. She'd mostly been repeating what she'd heard other people say before, whether she believed it or not.
But that alternative... Terry going off and raising her child while she did whatever she wanted. Part of the reason she would have hated that was that she was certain that the kid would have been brought up being told awful things about her so he'd hate her - she knew that would have happened if Marina or Sean had done it - but... Terry had never said anything like that to Tom, even when he was willing to say it to her face. Maybe it would have worked...
She was really, really confused. She text as much to Mzyra.
Just one thing left and we can discuss it properly.
One thing left? she wondered. Who was left? If it was going in rough order then there was surely nobody left. Christian hadn't hated her and all that had really happened was her resurrection and then she'd left Simfield...
Maybe it'll turn out that I've been unwittingly traumatising a mailman or someone without even noticing it, she thought, rolling her eyes.