Not Alone

NOT ALONESarah K. Jackson Contents12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243EPILOGUENote for the ReaderACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For Duncan (Dink) and Dad.The whole world died with you,And began again, painfully, anew. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you . . . We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams . . .Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass This book contains references to suicide and scenes depicting sexual assault. 1‘There’s nothing there, Harry.’‘You were staring. Your eyes are all big.’‘Sorry,’ I say, whispering – to remind him to use quiet voices next to the open window. ‘It’s nothing you need to worry about, just grizzling up to rain I think.’ I force myself to smile. Get a grip, Katie.And still, I can’t help but glance outside. Eyes scanning the same flat hard ground that always looks up at me from four floors below, snaked with algae and moss. The same grey buildings that press in on us all around, with dappled ivy-strewn alleys running between them. Searching amongst the rowan trees and snowberry bushes, thick and wild along the crumbling walkways. Pausing over the leaves piled up where they’ve been blown. Everything is alive, pink-red, yellow and golden out there, fluttering in the pale orange light. A scattering of something that could just be fine, powdery grey snow, if I pretended, swirling across the open air.Harry shrugs his delicate little shoulder and I realize I’m clutching it tightly, as if I only need to hang on to him to keep him safe forever. The kitchen-lounge comes back into focus. Together we lower the sloshing tin bucket to our feet. The cloudy water swirls with debris and the shield bug – iridescent-green shell that so mesmerizes me with its precious rare colour, red ‘socks’ up to its ankles – still thrashes on the surface.I catch Harry’s wrists before he scoops up the tiny creature. His face crumples, the bug’s six legs desperately flailing. ‘You know you mustn’t – we’ve been washing stuff that’s come from outside in there!’Harry flinches, scrutinizing the almost-clear water fearfully. ‘There’s bad in it, Mummy?’‘Could be. You know this. We must always be careful . . .’ I glance at the wood stove behind me.‘What if he’s breathed it or eaten it?’ Harry says, a whine creeping into his voice, the shield bug buzzing at the sides of the bucket.‘Try this.’ I grab the heatproof glove from beside the stove. Harry’s little hand is swamped by the thick padded material, but he gently rescues the shield bug and we watch together as it wobbles out onto the railing with the disorientation and weak limbs of something too clogged with dust to live for much longer. Too sick from inflammation or the toxins leached or bloated by the foreign particles – the slow way. Or just plain suffocating – usually quicker. Yet creatures like this that can reproduce fast, before they succumb, seem more successful at surviving in the world After.‘I’m going to call him a green,’ Harry whispers.‘A green?’He nods, eyes bright. ‘’Cause he looks like emerald-dragon-green from the book. Emer because that’s a brand new secret name and only we know it.’‘How do you know it’s a he?’ I smile, thinking about Harry’s dragon book and feeling that tug towards make-believe.Harry peers closer at the shield bug. ‘How do you tell?’‘Actually, I don’t know, usually male animals are prettier though, so they can attract females.’‘He is very pretty. Maybe that’s what dragons are, just lots of tiny pretty bugs all together. That would be cool! So dragons are not-real but kind of real in the end?’‘Yeah, it would,’ I say, wondering when Harry became this sweet imaginative little person.Emer opens his wings – a film of grey on the unevenly-swollen and oozing lung-like vents underneath – and jumps out into the open air. Gone. One way or another.‘Was it the only friend?’ Harry whispers gently, peering into the bucket, as if he might rupture tiny insect eardrums with his voice.I try to return his grin, but the make-believe feeling is already seeping out fast. Harry hurries back towards the kitchen, skipping and bouncing off the arm of the sofa on his way, as I shut the window and smooth down the seals.‘Did you see, Mummy? I added these when you weren’t here.’ He points at one of his artworks, stuck to the front of the defunct TV – some old hooped earrings of mine I loved wearing at uni and foreign coins have been added.They make his collage of gleaming red and yellow leaves look like the insides of an expensive glossy watch – an artistic autumnal leaf print beneath tiny perfect cogs.‘Where did you find them?’ But I know instantly. He’s been in drawers and cupboards I’d rather he left alone.He looks away.‘I don’t want you going through that stuff, Harry.’ But then I spot a pencilled motif repeated across several of the collages. ‘What are those overlapping circles supposed to be, rain?’He shrugs, eyes avoiding mine. ‘Raindrops on raindrops.’‘You didn’t uncover the windows when it was raining, did you? Go right up to the glass to trace it?’ I glance at the window – where there are the remains of vague smudgy circles where rainstorms have hit the other side of the glass.‘No, Mummy,’ he says, his voice flat – hiding something – and throwing me a worried glance as he hurries to wait by the counter.I clutch my forehead. Maybe it’s just been a long time since the Fear has settled inside me – that unbearable quality of fear, running deep and laced with dread and blind panic, that coloured most of that first year, and still threatens to drown me again every now and then. Different to what I think of as healthy fear, with its brief surge of adrenaline and