“Carrion is a dark, edgy read”
“Perfect for fans of Stephen King”
“Fast paced… kept me on my toes”

After surviving a fatal accident Monica is left wondering what happened to her life.Why did the car crash and why is she being haunted by a crow?Unable to remember the events that led to that fateful day and plagued by frightening visions Monica is determined to get some answers.But sometimes the truth is best left buried.From the bestselling psychological thriller writer comes Betsy Reavley’s chilling second novel.

And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:

When I looked into those eyes I knew nothing would be the same again. The blackness from within the stare was spellbinding. It was an echo of something long forgotten, something dangerous and pure. It spoke of horrors beyond my wildest nightmare and I doubted the fabric of my existence.

But I told myself I was being stupid. It was just a bird, a harmless bird. Then I came back. I looked past the shattered windscreen and the spatters of blood and brains that decorated the world. All I saw was the crow. He sat on the wire, watching. Perfectly still, like our car.

The smell of petrol mixed with burnt rubber mingled with the stench of fear and caught in my throat. I stopped looking at the bird and remembered where I was. I could feel shards of glass sticking into my face. The seatbelt was tight around my torso, making it hard to breath. My neck ached. I looked down at my trembling hands and felt the warm blood drip off the end of my nose.

I looked to my right. It was like I wasn’t there. This was not happening. I watched myself examine reality with a detached calm. I could not see the face. The body was hunched, lifeless, over the steering wheel. A mass of bloody hair covered a smashed skull. I could see the inside of the head. It was pink and messy, like a child’s first attempt at decorating a cake. Until I could lift the head and see the face it would remain unreal.

My ears were ringing. Smoke poured from the collapsed bonnet. Above us stood the solid trunk of a tree. This was not where I was supposed to be. And then I felt a kick. I glanced down at my round belly and remembered the life growing inside me. A lump was pushing out of my pregnant bulge, a lump that had not been there when we left. The muscles were contracting around my belly. This is a mistake, I thought, staring around at the mess of crunched metal and glass and blood.

I willed myself to move but my legs were trapped, pinned down under the weight of the car bonnet, which had been crushed in on itself. I tried to wriggle free. I could not see my feet or ankles. I thought they were moving. I thought they were.

The car felt hot. The slimy fabric of the seatbelt cut into my neck. I needed to release it, and I fiddled with the button but it wouldn’t come out. It was stuck.

I looked over to the driver’s side again. The body hadn’t moved. Wake up, I thought. Come on, wake up. It looked bad. There hadn’t been any movement. I sat very still and watched for signs of life, the rise and fall of the chest. There was nothing. I felt frantic as I stared at the wrist, hoping to see a pulse. The flesh looked alive and warm but I could not bring myself to reach out and touch it.

My head was spinning. More smoke poured from the front of our silver car. Panic surged through my body with the speed of the crash. And then I remembered my mobile. I felt about for my bag. Where was it? Oh shit, it was trapped along with my legs. If I could have got my fingers through the contorted metal then maybe…

Then I felt those eyes on me again, piercing my soul with a deadly grimace. And I looked up to see it was closer. Standing only a few feet away. It sat on a branch of the tree we’d collided with. It was looking down at us. Emptiness surrounded everything. The world had decided to hide and all that was left was the blood, the crow and me.

 

 

CHAPTER 1

 

 

When I arrived at the hospital I thought I might be sick. I had known something was wrong. It was a feeling that I’d woken up with and had been unable to shake. Walking along the corridor towards the intensive care unit I focused on the echo of my footsteps. For a hospital it seemed very quiet. I passed a nurse in a blue uniform alongside a young man, her hand around his shoulder. He sobbed. I walked faster.

Pushing open the heavy swinging doors, I ignored the sign that told me to wash my hands. I didn’t have time for that now. My daughter was in there along with my grandchild, and I needed to get to them.

An elderly Nigerian nurse with grey hair around her temples stood up from behind a desk at smiled at me. I gave my name, Ingrid, and my daughter’s, Monica. The nurse stopped smiling. The matron nodded gravely and whisked me towards one of the closed doors. My stomach did a flip.

‘You’s can’t go in dares. Wet for dem dactars. Day will tell you’s what’s is happenin’. Sit yourself dawn and I’lls get you a nice hat cap of some din to help steady dem nerves.’

I did as she was told and perched down on a plastic chair by the door. I didn’t want tea. All I wanted was to be with my daughter. I fiddled with my keys, busying my hands. Glancing at a clock on the wall I saw that it was nearly five o’clock. Then I remembered I was meant to be at the hairdresser getting my roots done. I should not have been sitting outside a room waiting to hear the fate of my family.

The nurse turned and slid away to fetch me a drink as I sat in the eerie silence of the ward. All I could hear was the beeping from life support machines and it made me want to cry. I am meant to die first, I thought to myself. I hoped and pleaded I would never have to bury my child.

For the first time since I was a little girl, I prayed. As a young teenager I’d lost my faith, much to the disapproval of my pious parents. I closed my tired eyes and imagined my daughter recovering. Suddenly I felt old, as I looked down at my hands and noticed the ageing skin. They were not soft like Monica’s hands. Monica had lovely soft white skin and long delicate fingers. I wished I could hold my daughter’s hand in my own.

As I got up out of my seat deciding I would seek out a doctor and demand to be told what was happening, the doors into the ward swung open and I saw Mary and Richard approaching.

Richard was a short, portly man who was balding and always appeared to be frowning. He had deep lines around his eyes and on his forehead. From behind him appeared Mary, who looked ashen white. Her hazel eyes were sunk back into her skull and her dyed strawberry blonde hair looked dry and brittle. She was a bony woman with a large nose and plump mouth. I liked them both but we had nothing in common apart from the marriage of our children. We shared a friendly but formal relationship. I suspect I was too bohemian for them. Mary and Richard were nice enough, but square.

Suddenly I felt very guilty. I hadn’t given much thought to the wellbeing of Tom. The couple approached me, and Mary and I hugged. Mary began to cry while Richard walked over to the door and tried to peer through the frosted glass to see inside. It was hopeless.

‘Hello, Ingrid. What have they told you?’ Richard was brisk and to the point. No time for niceties.

‘Nothing as of yet. I’m waiting to see a doctor.’

I held tightly onto Mary’s skeletal hand. Mary’s eyes were pricked with tears and she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Her husband looked around furiously as though he was hoping to find a more satisfactory answer.

‘I’m sure they will all be all right. We would have heard if…’ My words trailed off as the kindly nurse reappeared holding a steaming polystyrene cup. ‘Richard Bowness, Tom’s father,’ he said, extending a hand formally as though it was a business meeting. The nurse, who wore a badge bearing the name Denise, handed the cup of beige liquid to me.

‘You’s need to come wit’ me,’ she addressed the couple, ‘Dis way, please.’

Mary turned and I saw the horror that filled her eyes. I gestured encouragingly and sat back down as my in-laws were led away down the corridor. I was alone again and could not shake the feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was seriously wrong. All I wanted was to be close to my daughter. With sudden urgency, I stood up and pushed open the door into my daughter’s room.

It was a small sterile space filled with machines and wires and tubes. The room smelt of disinfectant. I held my breath as I took a few tentative steps towards the large mechanical bed. The woman lying in front of me, purple and swollen, did not look like my daughter. Suddenly I felt giddy and reached out a hand to steady myself.

Monica was attached to various machines and had a large tube coming out of her mouth. Her face was covered in splintered cuts and there was a large gash over her left eyebrow that had been recently stitched. It looked sore and raw and I wanted to stroke it and sooth her pain away.

I inched closer and gently rested my hand on top of Monica’s. It felt small and warm. There was no response from my daughter. I hung my head and let out a long sigh. At times like this I wished my husband were still alive.

Jim had died nearly three years earlier. When playing tennis at his club, he had suffered a fatal and unexpected heart attack. Both Monica and I had been devastated. He was a wonderful father and a doting husband. I had gone to Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge to identify his body. Now I was there in the Whittington Hospital in Archway, this time standing over the battered figure of my daughter. My stomach did a somersault.

I jumped as the door opened behind me. A young male doctor with trendy glasses glanced down at the notes that hung on a board at the end of Monica’s bed. A freckled nurse with a short boyish haircut and a number of stud earrings in her lobes stood inspecting the various monitors.

‘I’m her mother,’ I said, stepping out of the nurse’s way while she read long reels of paper decorated with indecipherable charts.

‘Ah, yes, Mrs?’

‘Whitman,’ I answered.

‘Mrs Whitman, you’ll be glad to hear the operation was a success.’

The doctor fiddled with a biro, repeatedly clicking the end.

‘Operation? What operation?’

From where I stood by the machines I could feel the nurse glaring at the doctor, who moved uncomfortably on the spot.

‘The hysterectomy.’ The young doctor looked grave. I looked down at my daughter. None of it made sense.

‘Hysterectomy? But she is pregnant…’

The words echoed around the room. The doctor looked down at his tan loafers and I noticed how tall he was. I could see that, although he was young, his mousy hair was thinning. He stopped playing with his pen and lifted his face to look at me.

‘What do you mean?’ I grew aware of the high pitch of my voice. ‘The baby … her baby … what about the baby?’ my words lost momentum.

‘I am very sorry.’ The words travelled through me like a bullet. Monica was only thirty-one years old. Her whole life should have been ahead of her.

The nurse in blue overalls approached and put her hand on my shoulder.

‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’

I sank into a grey chair and put my head in my hands.

‘No. No thank you. I don’t want any more tea.’

The nurse addressed the doctor, ‘Her stats look normal.’ He gave a small nod of satisfaction as she excused herself and left the room. I remained slumped in the chair and could feel the doctor’s eyes burning into the top of my head. Slowly he approached and pulled up an orange plastic chair close beside me.

‘Mrs Whitman, I am Dr Frampton, your daughter’s consultant.’ He had a soothing voice.

‘I suppose Tom gave you the go-ahead?’ I sounded defeated.

‘We had no choice. She lost the child in the crash. She was bleeding heavily. The operation saved her life. She should make a full recovery.’ The doctor paused. I could see he was struggling with something else he wished to say.

‘I’m afraid I have to inform you that your son-in-law passed away. His side of the car took the brunt of the impact. He was brought to us with severe head injuries. He suffered a fatal brain haemorrhage. There was nothing we could do. I am very sorry.’

I shook my head. This could not be happening. All the information that I needed to absorb swirled around my head. My daughter had lost everything: her husband, her child, her womb. As I looked over at the small skeletal figure that lay lifeless in the bed, my eyes filled with tears.

‘Oh, dear God, my baby.’ I squeezed my daughter’s hand tightly.

‘For the moment we are keeping her heavily sedated. As I say, she has lost a lot of blood and sustained some quite serious injuries. She has two cracked ribs, damage to her neck and has broken one of her legs. We have put pins in it and she will be able to walk without any problems but she’ll need weeks of bed rest. For the moment we are going to keep her here in intensive care but she should be moved to one of the other wards in the next twenty-four hours. If you would like to stay, we have a relatives’ room. Do you live nearby?’

‘No. No, I’ve come from Cambridge.’

Dr Frampton looked at my face. He looked at me as though I reminded him of a favourite teacher who had taught him at school.

The young doctor stood up and edged towards the door. My gaze was fixed on my daughter’s wounded face.

‘I have other patients to see.’ He was apologetic.

‘Yes, of course. Thank you.’

‘Denise, the ward matron, will be doing her rounds and can be found at the reception desk any time. I appreciate this must be a very difficult time for you but your daughter will be all right.’

He slipped away quietly, pulling the door closed behind him.

‘My poor darling. My poor, poor darling.’

I tucked my daughter’s white bedsheet up under her chin and felt a wave of exhaustion swell along with a gush of tears. The moment I received the news, I’d driven as fast as my ageing red Volvo would go. I had come home that afternoon to discover a number of messages from both Mary and the hospital on my answering machine. I cursed myself for not having a mobile. I’d been convinced that owning one was unnecessary and now I bitterly regretted it.

My fingers gently brushed the dark fringe off Monica’s brow, as I used to when she was tucked up in bed before I told my little girl I loved her and kissed her goodnight. Her pale forehead felt clammy to the touch. She looked much the same now as she had done as a child. I remembered her as a ten-year-old, in bed with flu. I was glad to be able to touch my daughter and thought of Tom. Poor Richard and Mary. I felt torn. Part of me wanted to stay with my daughter but I knew I should go and be with the grieving parents. I crossed my arms on the bed and rested my forehead. The sheets felt cool and smelt clean. I wanted to go to sleep and for it all to be just a bad dream.

The noise from the various machines whirled around my head. I felt sick and watched as my hands began to shake. How was I going to tell Monica that she had lost her baby and her husband? My brow furrowed with pain as I looked at my child.

‘Sleep now, my darling, sleep. I need to be with Richard and Mary. I will be back soon, I promise. I love you.’

I kissed my child’s fingers and touched the top of her head as I got up out of my seat. Before leaving the room I took a last look at my delicate girl lying in the hospital bed. Then I closed my eyes and quietly said to myself, ‘Dad is going to look after you, my angel. He will watch over you while I’m gone.’ Although I have no faith in religion I believe strongly in the spirit world. I left the room and made my way back towards where I had met Tom’s parents.

Returning to the waiting room, I looked around, not knowing where to go. A young Indian man was pushing a mop around the vinyl floor, listening to an MP3 player and bopping his head. I shifted in my boots and rubbed my heels together. What could I say when I saw them? What should I say? I remained there locked inside my own thoughts when I noticed that the hospital worker had stopped mopping and stood with his head cocked to one side, watching me.

‘Is you all right?’ the young man asked.

‘No, not really.’ I responded with more honesty than I intended. The tall slender man rubbed his forehead and looked at the floor.

‘I need to find a couple who are here. I saw them earlier. They’re not ill, they are relatives. Where might they be?’

‘All depends where de patient is, like.’ He rubbed the mop between the palms of his hands. I ruffled my blonde hair and tried to think.

‘I need to find them now. They aren’t here to see a patient. It’s their son. He’s dead. He died.’

My eyes began to fill with tears. It suddenly hit me that the death of my son-in-law would have a momentous effect on me too. I had only been thinking of Monica before and the emotional impact it would have on her. Now in the stark waiting room the sadness of it all hit me. Losing all control I crumpled to my knees, while the young man stood helplessly in front on me. I could feel his awkwardness but was unable to restrain myself. The floor felt hard and cold through my trousers. I realised it was still damp from mopping.

After a few moments the young man bent down.

‘Can I do some fink for you?’ He was kinder than his rough exterior appeared.

‘I … I …’ I blubbed. The man inched closer.

‘I can take you’s to the relatives’ room if you like.’

My shoulders shook but no sound came out. I felt like a fool. How dare I react like this? I still had my child, unlike Monica. Unlike Richard and Mary. That thought snapped me out of the misery.

‘Do you think that’s where they’ll be?’ I wiped my eyes with the sleeves from my jumper, smudging mascara down my cheeks. A small drip of snot hung from the end of my nose and I gave a quick deliberate sniff.

‘Well I can’t be sure but it’s worth a go.’

I nodded silently and got up off the floor and gestured with my hand for him to lead the way. He put his mop back in the bucket and pushed it against the cream-coloured wall. Then the man sunk his hands deep into his overall pockets and headed along a corridor I had not been down. He took long quick strides and I tottered along behind, struggling to keep up on my chunky high heels. The sound of us walking echoed around and bounced off walls that were decorated with various murals intended to inspire peace and tranquillity.

After working our way through a maze of corridors that all looked the same, we came upon a door marked ‘Relatives’ Room’. I felt lost, both physically and mentally. The cleaner who had been so kind took a step back and waited for me to enter. I stood still, holding my breath. I needed to be ready and wanted to be strong for them. A rush of cold ran over my body and I hugged myself.

‘Good luck.’ The young man with dark eyes stepped away and hurried off back in the direction from which we came. The solid door was all that stood between death and I. It was an unusual feeling. I pictured Mary inside and it pulled my heartstrings. I straightened myself and lifted my head up. Then, holding my breath, I slowly pushed open the laminate beech door. In doing so, I noticed my knuckles turn white.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 2

 

 

When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was how dry my throat felt. It took a few minutes before I realised I was in a hospital bed. Gradually my circumstances became clear. My leg was in plaster and my body in a brace. The needle from a drip was sticking into my right arm, secured by medical tape. A blue paper curtain was pulled around my bed. On a table next to me stood a get-well card, a potted azalea and a vase of yellow lilies. Mum had been here. I knew that much. Yellow lilies meant my mum had come.

I tried to swallow but found the pain too much. My throat felt like a cheese grater. The rest of my body felt numb. It was a strange sensation. I couldn’t really move, although if I had been able, I am not sure where I would have gone. I looked down at my static frame and wondered whether I was paralysed. And then I began to think. How had I got here?

It took a moment for my memory to order the events and begin to process my reality. I was in hospital. I felt battered and bruised. I was scared. I was alone. Panic started to set in when I realised I couldn’t remember how I had ended up there. And then the sudden memory flashed across me like a comet. Being in the car. The crash. And Tom.

I tried to move. I hadn’t believed I was capable of it at first but the thought of Tom, the sense of him, made me try. I wriggled in my cast. My leg swung about as though it belonged to a puppet. Claustrophobia set in out of nowhere and I tried to scratch the drip out of my arm.

Someone must have heard me struggle because it was at that point that a fresh-faced nurse arrived and efficiently pulled the curtain back.

‘Well, Hello!’ She spoke as if we knew each other. ‘We’ve been waiting for you to wake up, love.’

I hated that expression. How could she call me love? What did it even mean? All I wanted was answers. I didn’t require her patronising kindness.

‘Tom,’ I croaked. ‘Where is Tom?’

By now she had a hand on my shoulder and was forcefully guiding me back into a lying position. She had more strength than I expected. Her narrow face and dirty scraped back blonde hair gave the impression of someone weak and naïve. From a glance into her eyes I established I was wrong. She was a strong young woman in every sense. It had been a mistake to underestimate her.

‘You need to lie back. I am going to get the doctor. You’ve been in an accident. The doctor will be along to explain. Just lie back please.’ By then she had restrained me and I was helpless once again, a victim in a hospital bed.

Once she was satisfied that I was going to obey her, she stood back and straightened her uniform and then my bedsheets. Her glare held the authority of a true professional and I accepted I was powerless. I let my chin drop to my chest and gave a loud sigh of acceptance as she pulled back the curtain. It sounded like a zip being fastened and my eyes flashed open with surprise. Noises sounded strange, like they were one-dimensional. Perhaps it was the drugs they had me on.

As the short blonde nurse disappeared, I looked around the ward I was in. It was a large room with five other beds. Only three were occupied. The other patients were so different from one another. There was an old boy, who must have been in his eighties, who lay motionless staring into space on his bed. His body was skeletal and his skin was so thin and frail it was almost translucent.

On the bed opposite him was a young man with both arms in casts. He had a thick dark beard and long dark hair he wore in a ponytail. His face was round and chubby and his cheeks glowed pink. He was wearing an AC/DC T-shirt instead of hospital robes. As I glanced at him, he offered me a friendly smile. I didn’t feel like smiling back.

On the other side of him was a bed surrounded by people. I could just make out a woman in her fifties lying there. She was ghostlike, her skin was so pale. Her lips looked blue and her hair was colourless. I was sure she was dying.

I was snatched away from absorbing my surrounding when Mum appeared in the ward and rushed towards me, arms outstretched.

‘Oh, my darling girl!’ she whimpered. I surprised myself by smiling.

‘Mum.’ The word sounded good to my ears.

‘God damn bloody bad luck. I’ve been here for hours! I wanted to be here when you woke up but I needed to pee, and oh, it’s just typical.’

She parked her bony frame down on the bed and somehow managed to jolt it.

‘Mum…’ My voice was distant. She immediately reached for a jug of water and poured some into a small plastic tumbler.

‘Here, shhhh,’ she said, ‘drink, sweetheart,’ and held the cup to my lips.

Since my body was confined to the brace, it made drinking difficult. She did her best to help but most of the lukewarm water ended up dribbling down my chin. Still, it felt good.

‘Mum, Tom…’ I managed to say more clearly. ‘Where…?’ The words petered off. My mother couldn’t look at me. She silently put the cup back down on the bedside table and looked down at her feet. It seemed like an eternity before she spoke.

‘Monica, darling…’ Her words trembled and it seemed that time stood still. ‘The accident. Sweetheart, what do you remember?’

I clenched my fists and tried hard to get to grips with a memory that danced just beyond my reach.

‘We were driving along … the car.’

The pictures were jumbled up in my brain and the memory was a mess. Mum had hold of my hand. Her grip was firm. ‘Tom was taking us … we were going out…’

Mum’s eyes were wide and searching my face. Surely she was the one with the answers.

‘Yes, you were in the car…’ She let the statement hang unfinished in the air. And then like a tidal wave it hit me.

‘The crow! I remember. The blood … Tom. Oh fuck, Jesus, the crow!’

The vision came pouring back over me, like photographs from the past. I felt my body tense and my heart rate increase. I remembered those dark eyes staring into me, cold and unforgiving. My mother looked confused.

‘No Monica, calm down. The accident, darling … you were in an accident.’ Her words were restrained and calming. She brushed my brow and I felt like a child again. I sank back into the bed. Everything was muddy. ‘Shhh.’

Her mouth sung the sound and I noticed how busy her mouth was with teeth. ‘Shhh now.’ She repeated the words over and over until I had relaxed again. Her fingers brushed my hair again. I noticed that although she did have make-up on, her hair was unkempt. It was so unlike her.

‘Monica,’ she said gravely, looking me right in the eye, ‘I have some terrible news. It is not going to be easy for you to hear but I’d rather you heard it from me. It’s Tom.’ By then my heart was in my throat. ‘Darling, he’s gone. I’m so sorry. He’s gone.’ It took a while for the words to compute. My face must have given away my lack of belief. ‘Monica, sweetheart, I am so, so sorry.’ I looked around the room again. I thought maybe I would find him there in one of the beds. ‘You were in a car accident. We don’t know exactly what happened but you crashed. The car hit a tree and Tom…’ She didn’t need to say anymore.

I think I stared blankly at my leg in its cast. That’s all I can remember from that moment – the sight of my broken, bandaged leg. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

‘There’s more,’ my mother added, but I doubted there was anything else that could be worth mentioning.

‘The baby…’ Just those words were enough to snap me out of my daze. The baby. I tried to sit up, forgetting I was held down by the brace around my torso. My baby. I looked frantically at my stomach. I could find nothing.

‘My poor girl.’ She gripped my hand in between hers. ‘The baby didn’t make it.’ By this point it all became too much for her. Her resolve crumbled and her mask fell away. She hung her head so that I couldn’t see her face but I watched as her shoulders shook up and down.

I instantly felt sick. The hollow space, which had once been home to my unborn child, began to ache. I’d been thrown onto a violent rollercoaster that would not stop. I closed my eyes to try to escape the nausea but it was pointless. The entire bed began to shake with the tremor that travelled through my body. I don’t know where it came from or why. Something alien had hold of me and I needed to expel it.

Mum jumped up off of the bed and brought her hands up to her mouth. I watched as her lips formed the words ‘N-U-R-S-E!’ but I heard nothing. A woman in uniform appeared and began pressing buttons on the machine next to me. I felt my eyes go back into my head and then there was darkness.

 

***

 

When I came too, the first thing I saw was my mother sitting at the end of my bed reading a book. Her trendy red glasses were perched on the end of her strong nose. She’s in her mid-sixties and has steely eyes. Her hair is shoulder length now, peroxide blonde and wavy. It frames her narrow face. A charcoal-grey mohair jumper hung loosely from her slender frame and she was wearing tight black jeans. She is a slight woman who looks like she knows how to enjoy herself. She always wears chunky silver rings on her fingers and that day had deep brown painted nails

I didn’t speak. I just watched her for a while. During that time I had forgotten what I had been told moments before. The only thing in the world I thought about was my mother. I watched her silently as she thumbed through each page she read. She had no idea I was awake; her book had total control of her concentration. I was glad she had some way of losing herself. Looking at my beaten-up body, I wished I did too. And then I remembered. I remembered what my mother had told me about Tom and the baby.

My skull began to ache. For a second I entertained the idea that perhaps it was just a sick joke or a nightmare. I closed my tired green eyes and let out a long breath. Just then I felt Mum’s movement on the bed and my eyes sprung open. She smiled as she closed her book and removed her glasses. Lightly, she placed her hand on the sheet which covered my leg and gave a squeeze. She didn’t speak. Clearly she didn’t know what to say. But I wanted her to say something. I wanted her to tell me that everything would be fine and that nothing bad was going to happen, but the worst had already happened and there was nothing in the world either she or I could say to change it. We just looked at one another for what seemed like an eternity. For the first time, my mother looked old to me. It was as if the news of the accident and everything that came with it had aged her ten years.

My mind felt heavy with medication. All I wanted to do was sleep again. I felt like I’d done ten rounds with Mike Tyson. Suddenly the world felt like a very unfair place. I tried not to think about Tom. I couldn’t deal with it. It was too raw. It made no sense. I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye. What had my last words been to him? What were we talking about before the crash?

And then I remembered the crow; its black eyes staring into me. In that moment I knew it was the crow that caused the accident. I couldn’t explain how it did it but I knew it was responsible. And it had been deliberate. The crow had taken my life away from me but left my body behind.

My mother cleared her throat and asked if I was hungry. I shook my head. What was the point in eating? I wanted to die, to be with Tom and our child.

‘Was it a boy or a girl?’ I asked urgently.

‘What are you talking about, darling?’

‘My baby. Was it a boy or a girl? I want to know.’

‘I…’ The confusion swept across her face. ‘I-I don’t know darling, but I can find out for you.’

The words were helpless and hung in the air along with the smell of the yellow lilies. It seemed morbidly appropriate that they were Mum’s favourite flower.

‘Yes, please.’

My mother patted my leg and got up off of the bed. Before leaving the room she turned,

‘Would you like me to get you a magazine from the shop or something?’

‘Quite frankly I don’t give a fuck what William, Kate and George are doing in their happy bubble. Thanks anyway.’

‘Sorry.’ My mother blushed and looked embarrassed.

‘No Mum, I’m sorry. I just don’t fancy reading at the moment. I can’t take in any more words. I have enough going round my head at the moment.’

‘I know, darling, I know.’ And she slipped out of the room.

I lay static, staring at the card my mother had brought. It featured a large bunch of watercolour flowers lying on a sun-drenched table. It was a warm scene but I felt cold. I only had a sheet over my body and outside the grey October wind clattered the world. I remembered it had been windy on the day of the accident. I wondered how long I had been in hospital. My head ached as I tried to search my memory for answers. Why had we crashed? I couldn’t remember. It seemed so unkind of my brain to withhold this information. I had nothing left. My husband and my child had both been taken from me and I needed answers.

Continued….

Click on the title below to download the entire book and keep reading

CARRION