In the Woods

"I…I guess I sort of panicked. I mean, it hadn't seemed real up until then, you know? I guess I hadn't thought we were actually going to do it. It was just something we talked about. It was sort of like, you know Sean Callaghan, Sean from the dig? He used to be in this band only they broke up, and he's always talking about 'Oh, when we get the band back together, when we make it big…' And, I mean, he knows they're never gonna do it, but talking about it makes him feel better."

"We've all been in that band," Cassie said, smiling.

Damien nodded. "It was like that. But then Rosalind said, 'Next Monday,' and suddenly I felt like…it just seemed like a totally crazy thing to do, you know? I said to Rosalind, maybe we should go to the police or something instead. But she freaked out. She kept saying, 'I trusted you, I really trusted you…'"

"Trusted you," Cassie said. "But not enough to make love with you?"

"No," Damien said softly, after a moment. "No, see, she had. After we first decided about Katy…it changed everything for Rosalind, knowing I'd do that for her. We…she'd given up hoping she'd ever be able to, but…she wanted to try. I was working on the dig by then, so I could afford a good hotel-she deserved something nice, you know? The first time, she…she couldn't. But we went back there the next week, and-" He bit his lips. He was trying not to cry, again.

"And after that," Cassie said, "you could hardly change your mind."

"See, that was the thing. That night, when I said maybe we should go to the police, Rosalind-she thought I'd only ever said I'd do it so I could…could get her into bed. She's so fragile, she's been hurt so badly-I couldn't let her think I was just using her. Can you imagine what it would have done

to her?"

Another silence. Damien wiped a hand hard across his eyes and got himself back under control.

"So you decided to go through with it," Cassie said, evenly. He nodded, a painful, adolescent duck of the head. "How did you get Katy to come to the site?"

"Rosalind told her she had this friend on the dig who'd found a, a thing…" He mimed vaguely. "A locket. An old locket with a little painting of a dancer inside it. Rosalind told Katy it was really old and like magic or something, so she'd saved up all her money and bought it from the friend-me-as a present to bring Katy luck in ballet school. Only Katy would have to go get it herself, because this friend thought she was such a great dancer he wanted her autograph for when she was famous, and she'd have to go at night, because he wasn't allowed to sell finds, so it had to be a secret."

I thought of Cassie, as a child, hovering at the door of a groundskeeper's shed: Do you want marvels? Children think differently, she had said. Katy had walked into danger the same way Cassie had: on the unmissable off-chance of magic.

"I mean, see what I mean?" Damien said, with a note of pleading in his voice. "She totally believed that people were, like, queuing up for her autograph."

"Actually," Sam said, "she'd every reason to believe that. Plenty of people had asked for her autograph after the fund-raiser." Damien blinked at him.

"So what happened when she reached the finds shed?" Cassie asked.

He shrugged uncomfortably. "Just what I already told you. I told her the locket was in this box on a shelf behind her, and when she turned around to get it, I…I just picked up the rock and…It was self-defense, like you said, or I mean defending Rosalind, I don't know what that's called-"

"What about the trowel?" Sam asked heavily. "Was that self-defense, too?"

He stared like a bunny in headlights. "The…yeah. That. I mean, I couldn't…you know." He swallowed hard. "I couldn't do it to her. She was, she looked…I still dream about it. I couldn't do it. And then I saw the trowel on the desk, so I thought…"

"You were supposed to rape her? It's OK," Cassie said gently, at the flash of queasy panic on Damien's face, "we understand how this happened. You're not getting Rosalind into any trouble."

Damien looked uncertain, but she held his eyes steadily. "I guess," he said, after a moment. He had turned that nasty greenish-white again. "Rosalind said-she was just upset, but she said it wasn't fair that Katy would never know what Jessica had been through, so in the end I said I'd…Sorry, I think I'm gonna…" He made a sound between a cough and a gag.

"Breathe," Cassie said. "You're fine. You just need some water." She took away the shredded cup, found him a new one and filled it; she squeezed his shoulder while he sipped it, holding it in both hands, and took deep breaths.

"There you go," she said, when a little of the color had come back to his face. "You're doing great. So you were supposed to rape Katy, but instead you just used the trowel after she was dead?"

"I chickened out," Damien said into the water cup, low and savage. "She'd done way worse stuff, but I chickened out."