A Hollow Sky Read online

“Thank, you Simon,” Anne said, sitting down behind the desk and clearing her throat.

  She gestured for Ian to join them and, as he hesitated, Jane turned awkwardly in her chair to look at him. Her expression nearly broke his heart. Silently willing him to toe the line and not make a fuss. Just do what they ask so I can have this. He would do anything to make her happy. Especially now. He sat down beside her and took her hand in his, giving it a little squeeze.

  Anne had been right, the paperwork was light. Ian filled in Jane’s name and their address, details of her condition and a contact number. There was a disclaimer at the bottom about healing not being guaranteed, which Ian dismissed as a statement of the obvious.

  He handed Jane the pen and let her sign it herself. Her hands were so thin now. Her grip strength almost non-existent. He could see the bones and veins through her papery skin. It hurt him to see her labouring now over something which had once been so automatic.

  “Right,” Anne said, tucking the paperwork into a folder. “Shall we?”

  On cue, Simon stepped forward to open a set of double doors on the far side of the room, revealing a bedroom decorated in bright, childish colours. Ian stood up before the young man could come back, and turned Jane’s chair, wheeling her towards the door.

  Simon hesitated, clearly uncomfortable with this part of his role being removed. Ian noticed the firm nod from Anne to her young helper. Let him do this. Simon smiled insincerely as they passed.

  The room, though brightly decorated and full of youthful expression, felt creepy and oppressive. Macabre almost. Megan lay propped up on pillows, painfully thin and almost translucent white, eyes closed, hair in dark ringlets. Someone had applied a little colour to her cheeks, and Ian couldn’t help thinking she looked like a doll, dressed and painted and waiting to come to life. None of it could mask the tubes and drips feeding her, keeping her alive in ways that her body was no longer capable of. What kind of life was this for her?

  Ian stopped, unable to walk further into the room. Jane looked up at him, her eyes full of questions and fear. Are you going to stop me? He shook his head. They’d been married long enough to know each other’s minds. He wouldn’t stop her, but he didn’t think he could be part of it.

  “I’ll just…” he stuttered. “I’ll just wait for you out here. Okay?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she replied, still reassuring him, even now.

  He wheeled Jane across to Megan’s bedside, pausing long enough to see her face soften as she tentatively reached out and took the young girl’s hand.

  He caught a strange look on Anne’s face when she realised he was leaving. It was the first time he had seen anything like genuine emotion in her eyes. She looked hurt. Not angry or sad, but hurt. She could obviously sense his cynicism and it clearly pained her that he didn’t believe in her daughter’s gift.

  He shut the double doors behind him and retreated into the waiting room. As soon as they clicked shut, he questioned his decision. Should he at least try to be more supportive? He took a deep breath. No, he was right. Having him in the room would distract Jane. This was her thing. Her last hope. If he was honest, he knew he was reluctant to be there because he didn’t want to see the disappointment on her face when nothing about her condition improved.

  He turned to the water cooler, poured himself a cup and downed it. Choral music started up from a set of speakers set high on the wall. Ian caught himself sneering. It was all so choreographed. Like those hideous New Age retreats, or massage parlours with whale song and incense, all designed to create the perfect mood. A placebo, rather than a real cure.

  He’d better snap out of this negative funk before Jane came back out. She would need his support, not a smug ‘I told you so’.

  He sat down on one of the sofas and glanced at the collection of leaflets and magazines on the coffee table—all of them either advertising a local church or promoting Megan’s work.

  He picked up a glossy pamphlet for a group prayer meeting with Megan. A unique experience. Open to everyone. He tossed it back onto the table, shaking his head. What would they do? Wheel that poor girl out in front of a baying crowd? How much money would that rake in? Judging by the cars in the drive and the equipment he’d seen, none of this was being done on the cheap.

  Ian checked his watch, straining to hear anything through the closed doors. The choral music had reached a stirring crescendo, and from the hallway outside, the sound of the two young siblings bickering, followed by a loud wail drifted over the music. What kind of life was this for them, either?

  He stood and paced back and forth in front of the door. He hated waiting at the best of times, and it felt like they had done a lot of that over the past year. Waiting for consultants, x-rays, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, therapy, counselling, more consultants, nurses, doctors, specialists. Bad news heaped upon bad news, all delivered with that same, measured calm. Difficult, yet familiar to those giving out the news. Devastating for Jane and Ian.

  Through it all, Jane had remained strong and stoical. She had kept praying for the strength to fight the cancer that was eating away at her. Ian had tried to stay strong for her too, but he knew she could feel his growing frustration. It wasn’t fair! Why her? Why was this happening to his beautiful, caring, wonderful Jane? Only the good die young.

  When they had told her that the last round of treatment hadn’t worked, and there was now nothing more they could do, Ian had felt the last bit of fight drain from him. She was terminal. They talked of end-of-life planning. Palliative care. Hospices. He couldn’t listen to any of it.

  Jane had spent a lot of time talking to the hospital Chaplain, who gave her strength, if not hope. Ian had only met him briefly and found him to be upbeat and charismatic. Friendly and supportive. Exactly what Jane had needed, and just what Ian was afraid he was failing to provide.

  It was through him that Jane had found this place. He had introduced her to Reverend Francis Rodwell, who had told her about Megan, dangling that irresistible hope of a cure in front of her. Ian couldn’t help worrying how Jane would feel when she realised that this, too, would fail to save her.

  He poured himself another cup of water, pressing the plastic to his lips. A strangled cry echoed from the bedroom beyond. Jane! He dropped the cup, water splashing on the floor and up his leg. He shouldn’t have left her alone in there.

  Bursting through the doors, he stopped dead in his tracks. Jane was standing beside the bed. She was holding herself up on the bed frame, but she was standing! On her own. She hadn’t stood unassisted for over six months. Her cry had been one of pure happiness. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she was laughing. Ian couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “Janey? Are you okay?”

  It was a ridiculous question. She was standing up! He couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked this okay.

  “Megan darling,” Anne intoned, still gripping her daughter’s hand, and wrapping her other hand over Jane’s. “Give Jane the strength she needs to cast out this illness for good. In the name of God, Megan. Use your gift to heal her pain.”

  Ian took a step towards Jane, arm outstretched to offer support, but she shook her head. She wanted to do this alone. She reached up to her side and unclipped the rigid, plastic back brace.

  “Jane, no,” Ian said, unable to hide the panic in his voice.

  The brace was the only thing that was giving her cancer-weakened spine any support. Without it, her vertebrae could collapse into each other. She shook her head again as the brace dropped to the floor beside her feet. She didn’t even flinch. If anything, she stood a little taller.

  She smiled at him, eyes wide with joy and relief, as though her pain had fallen away along with the back-brace. Even Ian had to admit that something miraculous had happened to his wife.

  He walked towards her, hands outstretched as she took a tentative step away from the bed. She lifted and placed her feet with cautious precision. She laughed. An explosion of delight as she took his hands in hers, look
ing him in the eye.

  Her eyes glistened, dancing over his face. She looked radiant. She took another step. And another. Ian stepping slowly backwards, leading and encouraging her like a toddler taking her first steps. They both laughed. They both cried. Nothing else existed but this single beautiful moment.

  “It worked,” she half-whispered. “I’ve been healed.”

  And Ian believed her.

  JANE AND IAN had talked all the way home in the car. An excited buzz of disbelief, amazement, and elation. Every time Ian had glanced across at her, she’d been glowing, radiating happiness. Her whole demeanour had changed.

  Of course, they had no way of knowing yet what medical reaction her illness had actually had to the encounter with Megan, but Ian couldn’t deny that something had happened. She had walked out of that house on her own two feet, resting on his arm, stepping slowly, but she had done it.

  He didn’t want to jinx anything by asking how she felt every few minutes. He was just enjoying seeing her so serene and so happy at the same time. Perhaps she had been right to believe. Maybe he needed to have a little more faith himself. If anything would convince him of an Almighty power, this would do it.

  Now as they sat at their dining table, a delicious dinner devoured between them, a glass of wine in hand, old favourites playing on the stereo, Ian felt a sense of contentment he could scarcely define. He’d given up hope, and now he had his wife back. It felt more than he deserved. He was happy to sit back and listen to her give thanks for her miracle.

  He’d even cast aside his cynicism and left a donation for Megan’s foundation as the smallest thank you for the gift she had given them. Perhaps he had been too harsh in judging Anne’s actions. What if there was some great plan, and Megan’s gift was part of it? It would mean she’d always been destined to fall into a coma and use her life force to help others. He couldn’t help but wonder if all of those that she helped were as deserving as his Jane. Were there that many good people out there?

  “We could go back to that little house in Paris,” Jane said, excitedly.

  She’d been running through hundreds of possibilities all evening. Places and things they’d given up on ever seeing or doing again.

  “That would be perfect, wouldn’t it?” he replied.

  It felt so strange, talking about a future the doctors had assured them was no longer theirs to enjoy. Wonderfully strange. Ian felt the long-held tension easing out of his body, too. He hadn’t realised quite how much of his energy was being absorbed by worrying about Jane. Or rather, worrying about life without Jane.

  She used the corner of the table to help her stand up. A movement so sudden and yet so cautious. She grinned at him.

  “Come here,” she said, holding a hand out to him.

  For a moment, Ian wondered whether he was imagining all of this. This couldn’t be happening, could it? He stood up and took her hand, realising now that it was their wedding song playing.

  They slipped into an easy, slow dance, his arms around her waist, supporting her, just in case. As Etta James sang about her love finally coming along, he thought; At Last. How appropriate. He couldn’t remember ever feeling happier.

  She lifted her head to face him, and he leaned down, kissing her gently at first, and, when she responded, more passionately. Kissing, intimacy, passion. These, too, had all been off the cards. Ian felt his stomach tighten as though it was their first time.

  When he lifted her and carried her to bed, she didn’t complain. She was still painfully thin and light as a feather, but she felt more real than she had for a long time. She smiled as he laid her on the bed, lifted her own hips to help him undress her. Sensual again, this time, rather than the functional, clinical way he had been preparing her for bed since she had lost the ability to undress herself comfortably.

  He lay beside her, naked, excited, but feeling cautious. Was this the right thing for them to be doing? Shouldn’t they wait for her to build her strength? She reached up and pulled him into another kiss. There would be no more waiting.

  JANE WOKE HIM in the early hours, her body rigid with pain, too agonised to even cry out. It was just coming up to five in the morning. They had been asleep for hours, but he leapt straight out of bed, dialled the ambulance and got her a shot of morphine. The response was automatic. As though the events of the previous day and night had been nothing more than a dream. This was the way they knew things to be—Jane in inconsolable agony, and Ian desperately trying to help, but knowing it was no use.

  He dressed her in loose-fitting clothes, doing his best to console her as he lifted her body. She felt frail again. Broken. Destroyed. What had happened? He had genuinely felt a change in her; he was sure it wasn’t just wishful thinking. They had made love, for God’s sake! Had he done this to her? Had he made it worse?

  As they waited for the ambulance to arrive, Ian held her hand in his, whispering over and over again:

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Whether he was sorry for her pain, sorry that nothing had changed the way they believed it had, or sorry for himself and his own shattered hopes and dreams, he couldn’t say. He was just so very sorry.

  Ian only let go of Jane’s hand briefly as they loaded her into the ambulance. Grabbing their bags, still packed and ready from countless overnight stays in the hospital, he joined her in the back, bracing himself as the vehicle lurched into action, the muted sound of the sirens piping overhead.

  Once they were underway, he sat by her side again. There was nothing for the paramedics to do apart from get her to the hospital quickly.

  “I’m sorry, Janey,” he said again.

  “Shh,” she replied.

  A tear trickled down her temple from the corner of her eye. He wiped it away gently. In all the time she had been ill, through all the treatments and every indignity they brought, he had never seen her cry. He knew she must have done, but she had never let him see it.

  That single tear broke his heart. Because she wasn’t crying about the pain, or because she knew she was dying. She was crying because God had deserted her. She had given herself wholeheartedly, and He had abandoned her. Her faith counted for nothing in the face of this cancer. She would die anyway. And it was this understanding that had finally broken her spirit.

  “I love you so much,” he whispered, close to her ear. The familiar smell of her illness was back, lingering on her skin, stealing her from him.

  Her lips opened, as though she might reply, but she didn’t. A long, slow breath rattled through her teeth. She would die tonight, and there was nothing he, nor God could do about it.

  He had been preparing for this moment for months, ever since the doctors had sat them down together and told them that there was nothing more they could do. And now it was time. He wanted to curl into her. Go with her. Hold her close and give her every bit of life that still coursed through his own body. He had promised himself that he would be strong. He’d sworn to her he’d be fine. But, right now, he was neither.

  A fierce, burning anger consumed him. Not because he was losing her. Nor because of cancer’s indiscriminate destruction. But because they had stripped her of the one thing she held so dear: her faith. She had believed she was healed, they both had. And those frauds had let her believe it.

  As he gripped Jane’s hand, resting his head on her chest, listening to the faintest breath struggling in and out of her wracked body, he vowed he would make them pay for their deceit if it was the last thing he did.

  1st December

  ALEX RIPLEY HAD never thought of her flat as unwelcoming, but she’d had the strangest feeling since she’d arrived home after her last case. Somehow, it didn’t feel like home anymore. It was empty and cold. A stark reminder that she was still alone—still waiting for news either way of her husband, John, missing in action in Afghanistan.

  She’d been back for over a week now and still hadn’t worked up the energy to get on with even the simplest things. She hated food shopping anyway, but there was only so long
she could survive on what was in the cupboards.

  Besides the domestic banalities, she also had work to be getting on with, calls to return, a book to promote. And yet, she couldn’t find the motivation to do any of it. Whether it was fatigue, lethargy, or the lingering complications of her ordeal in the Lake District, she didn’t know.

  The haunting echoes of the strange case she’d just finished up in the Cuckoo Wood still disturbed her sleep. Perhaps coming so close to dying herself had thrown too harsh a spotlight on her current situation. What if she had died up there? She would never find out what had happened to John.

  As lucky as she’d been to escape her near-drowning, the residual damage to her lungs was giving her trouble breathing, especially at night. Maybe she should have listened to the doctors and stayed in the hospital a little longer. She had insisted that she would recover quicker at home, but ever since she’d got back she’d felt unsettled here. Like something was missing. And of course, it was. Not something, but someone.

  Lying on her sofa, clutching a photograph of John to her chest was not helping her state of mind, but she couldn’t put it down. She had been so sure she’d seen him up there in the Lakes, and the strange vision of him still haunted her. She’d imagined the whole thing, of course, but he’d felt so real. It had given her a glimmer of hope that John was still alive and made her miss him all the more.

  The whole case had unsettled her more than most. An old friend and forensic officer in the Lake District, Emma Drysdale, had called her in to help them understand why a spate of teenage suicides in a deeply religious, old-fashioned village were being attributed to a series of angel sightings. Within a week of arriving in the remote village of Kirkdale, Ripley had discovered a community so caught up in their faith and their past secrets, and so fearful of so-called contagious sin, that they had refused to see what was going on. It had taken an outsider to uncover the truth, and Ripley had nearly died doing it. Maybe it was time for a change of career.