Two weeks of healthy convalescence in the hospital, and he came home. As fate would have it, somehow it contrived that I didn't get a chance to leave in all that time either.

The workload, which I had naively assumed would somehow fall off into a relatively gentler stream as time passed, somehow never did, and somehow I always ended up getting to a bed at night with only one eye open. Aside from working at the restaurant, I was also, albeit in a more indirect way now, helping Geric manage Alex's affairs-and sometimes, under supervision, ventured into more serious stuff than being a human diary. The double jobs were taken a heavy toll, though I refrained from mentioned it to the others.

I was still openly looking for a house too-the idea of which I had finally shared with the rest of my family-and several interesting prospects did happen to circulate within my sight now and then, but nothing would settle as the perfect one I looked for.

Granny Tonks was the only person I had had apprehension over when I thought about bringing the idea to the others' notice but, surprisingly, she was one of its most fervent supporters. One sometimes thinks that old people are never comfortable with changes, one way or the other-and perhaps they are not, in general-but, as I came to understand almost daily, Granny was one of those people who never did confirm with the rest of humanity.

Apparently, the idea of getting out of those dark and dingy streets she had been living in for most of her life fascinated her, this feeling multiplied many folds through the days we had lived out of it and in Alexander Rodwell's relatively opposite neighbourhood. She had had friends there she didn't much like leaving, true, but, according to her, she liked the idea of breathing fresh air better.

And so, we didn't leave.

Sometimes at night, burrowing my head on a pillow that wasn't mine, hunching under a blanket that wasn't mine, I couldn't understand why I felt so much at peace, instead of conflicted and unsure like I was supposed to. Perhaps it was this feeling of peace that wasn't allowing me to get the hell on with it and move out. It had been ages since I had felt calmness and tranquillity, and now, feeling the warm little glow that engulfed me all the time almost reduced me to tears.

I suspected everybody else was still labouring under the impression that we stayed here and not with Tasha because the threat of Frank had not been completely neutralised yet, and perhaps that was another part of the reason behind this multi-faceted idiocy. Who knew...

Suffice to say, we weren't leaving, and I was tired of reasoning it out.

I had told Alexander about our unplanned longer stay in one of my many irrational moments of visiting the hospital and, contrary to my earlier assumption that he would be shocked and everything would be awkward, he couldn't understand why I was telling him.

"Of course you are," he had said, looking at me with confused eyes as he sipped at the soup his mother had asked me to feed him. Now that he wasn't high anymore, I had started hyperventilating at the very thought but, thankfully, he had saved me from the predicament and taken the bowl himself. "Where else would you be?"

"Er...I thought...well, I thought you would be surprised," I said, cocking my head, wondering at what the hell there was in the soup. It looked entirely too unappetising to be legal but obviously tasted great, for he was obviously relishing every bite. "You know, because I was so against the idea before. Not to say," I hurried to add when the left side of his mouth started to lift up, "that I am not against the idea now, but somehow everything has been shitty lately and I haven't had the chance," I explained. "So, yeah." I shrugged. "We are still there."

"I see," he said, deliberately slurping at the spoon now, like a cartoon character. "That sounds...interesting." He grinned at me.

I thought it about time to change the subject.

The day he returned, only Mrs. Rodwell and I were in the living room.

Sighing, I finished off the last stitch on Hannah's torn uniform. Looking up, I found Clara still sitting on the sofa adjacent to mine, tapping away on her laptop, a huge red mug of strong black coffee before her on the table. Her spectacles had slid down the bridge of her nose, close to tripping, and she leant so near the screen that the reflection of an open word program was clear on the glasses. Her brow was furrowed, the groves between her eyes extra prominent.

Tasha had accompanied Christopher, Ella and Hannah to get Alexander back, citing as reason that she could by no means satisfactorily explain not seeing him reduced to a wheelchair. Granny Tonks, when offered to tag along, had instead chosen to play bridge with one of her sailor friends down at the docks; she had been doing a lot of that lately, so I was getting understandably suspicious-not that she knew, or would care.

The house was as silent as a tomb with the girls gone, and I could almost imagine the sound of air whooshing through the ventilation.

My sigh made Clara look up with a smile. "Done with that?" she asked, glancing at the skirt in my hand as she straightened her neck, making it crack. "I could have offered to help, but I am about as good with a needle as the plumber at my house right now." Apparently, her plumber was at her house.

I chuckled, putting the dress aside and leaning my head back as I fixed my eyes on the beautiful ceiling, watching from the corner of my eye as she did the same. "I suck at it myself, really," I confessed. "My stitches as absolutely filthy. But they hold the dress together and, with kids, that's more than you can ever hope for." For some strange reason, I felt fifty years old when I said that, which I most assuredly wasn't.

She snorted in response, and we descended into a comfortable silence. I closed my eyes. The faint whine of a television left switched on could be heard from the girls' room.

After about half a minute, I gulped a lungful of air and made to get up, figuring I could work on Ella's clothes too, now that I had nothing to do but wait. Only, when I looked up, I found Clara still gazing at the ceiling. There was a deceptively bright spot by her right eye which, as I watched, rolled down in a pale drop and into her hair.

I looked up too, instinctively sitting back down. The girl on the ceiling had both our attentions. Her hair looked like a sweep of bright copper in the light streaking in from the windows, the flowers in her hand a pale pink. I could imagine the feel of a light wind on my face, like she no doubt did, sitting as she was in her heavenly, yet lonely, glade.

Who was she? I had asked myself that so many times, but never been able to put this question to those that knew. Could I now?

I bit my lip and glanced at Clara again. The tear had vanished and there were no others following, though a small smile graced her lips.

Who was she?

"Clara?"

I expected her to start, like she had only just remembered my presence, but she did no such thing. Instead, she smiled broader, not looking at me, sinking deeper into the couch and putting her heeled feet on the coffee table. Her chest rose and fell a little faster than was normal. "Yes?"

I swallowed, shooting an apprehensive glance up before clearing my throat and whispering, "Clara, who is she?"

She was silent for a long moment, long enough for me to settle back down and fiddle thoughtlessly with the recently sewn-on seam. My fingers stopped fidgeting only when one of the too-long stitches snapped. I hastily put it down, looking up instinctively, like a cookie thief.

"You know who she is," Clara was saying, apparently not having noticed my little mishap.

I looked at the ceiling again, letting my head fall back once more. Did I know who she was? I could have hazarded a guess with my eyes closed. Hadn't I just seen a grown man almost driven to the brink of madness-if not into the dark crevice itself-after having been blamed for her death? Hadn't I seen Alexander Rodwell, that man who never bent against the most extreme of pressures, reduced to downing glass after glass of inebriating drinks after she had been merely mentioned?

She must have been a truly singular woman, I thought.

Arianna Rodwell.

I sucked in a deep breath as the realisation struck, making me bite my lip. "You had this made?" I asked, not looking at her.

She took a deep breath, then thought better of it and chuckled softly. "He did."

This made me look up. "Alex?"

I guess I should have been shocked, or at least surprised. Instead, all I could feel was an almost overwhelming feeling to sadness. I could not even hope to imagine what kind of desolation and loss would drive a man to do something so explosive, so permanent and bold. I felt my eyes prickle.

"Why?" I breathed, almost to myself than her. Suddenly, I was seeing the Mr. Rodwell I knew in an entirely different light, a light I almost didn't want to see him in. Who was he? The man who told me he would not catch a murdering seventeen-year old because it wasn't in his priorities, or the man who rushed to save me from his equally murdering brother, almost without a plan? Was he the man who shouted off and was rude to every other person he saw, almost as if he wanted them to hate him, or was he the man who immortalised his dead sister in the tiles above his head, happy in a heaven he imagined for her?

"You don't know how those days were," she said. I straightened my back and gave her my full attention, clenching my hands together. She didn't look at me. "When she-when they brought her body back, I think we all went mad for a second. Alex wouldn't speak for days afterwards, and he didn't attend her funeral. He couldn't, he said." Her fingers were wound tight, like she feared to let go of whatever she was holding on to. "We thought he had locked himself here. We didn't try to come to him, to see how he was doing, since he won't let anyone near. Everybody was scared he would snap.

"It was only after six months that anybody ever came to his apartment," she continued, smiling sadly at the memory, "and by that time...this." She waved her hand to encompass all that above. "The scenery has always been like this, but he had her likeness added." Her eyes were growing wet again.

"You saw him after six months?" I asked, incredulity seeping into my voice, wanting to bring her back from the memories. I didn't think she would appreciate it if I made her break down.

This made her laugh. The wetness vanished from her eyes. She looked down, glancing at me briefly before concentrating on her lap again. Her hands had a tremble to them, the pale digits almost white with the pressure of being coiled together. "No," she said. "He used to come by the house sometimes, for family gatherings and such. It was just that he never let anyone come here." She took a deep breath. "He wouldn't let anyone into his house, into his space. He didn't want anyone near, as near as where she had been." She descended into silence.

I let almost a minute pass by but, when she didn't look up, her shoulders drooping as I watched, I had to do something. So, pushing Hannah's uniform off my lap and spearing the needle into a seam to keep it out of the way, I got off the sofa and slowly, giving her a chance to push me away if she wanted, let myself slide down by her feet. She glanced at me. The tears in her eyes were no-one's imagination anymore. I scooted forward and wrapped my hands around hers, giving them a reassuring squeeze.

"You have to understand him," she whispered, letting her fingers relax in mine. "He loved her so much." Her chest rumbled with a sob, her voice cracking on the last word. "So much. He was thirteen, you know, when we brought her home. For two years, even with the other boys there, he had been discontent and sometimes violent. He liked the idea of having food in his belly, but he didn't trust us. He didn't want to go to school or be clean or anything. He hated baths," she added, chuckling slightly to herself. A tear, dislodging from where it hung precariously off her nose, fell in a dark splash onto her navy skirt.

"But when Arianna was there," she continued, sniffling as she looked at me and pulled her hands, along with mine, up in earnest, "he was a whole different person. It happened slowly, so slow that we didn't even notice." Her eyes were shining bright as she remembered, as if the past fought to get out of her frail body and play in the present again, as if it fought to live once more. "First, he stopped cursing as much around her. Then, he let me give him another shirt every other day. He stopped throwing tantrums and breaking things, because it upset her, and he started making weird faces and laughing because it made her laugh.

"She was only five them, but had the most beautiful copper hair, you know," she said suddenly, her eyes still streaming, even as her mouth split into the biggest of grins. A mother in grief was what sat before me, a picture in contrast-she who smiles and laughs at the antics of her babies even as she cries over the fact that they are no more. I could feel my own eyes tearing up. Nodding in earnest, I smiled too, wanted to let her know that I saw the beauty in her daughter's hair.

"He liked doing her hair." She was almost breathing the words by now. A hiccup climbed up her throat. "He would put slides in it. She liked ripping them off when she was little, did you know?" I nodded my head wildly, grinning. My nose was starting to leak. "And they would laugh together and he would do them once more, only for her to spoil it again. But she stopped doing that as they got older." She laughed a bell-like laugh, her eyes glassy. "He would swing her around the living room too, and she would giggle and scream and-"

She took a shaking breath, wrestling one of her hands out of mine and pressing it to her lips. She looked at me pleadingly, as if begging for me to take the images away. I pressed her remaining hand, feeling helpless. I wanted to hug her, but didn't know how. What would my hug mean? I didn't want to pity her, fearing she would lash back. And truth be told, I didn't pity her in reality either. I respected her, and was in awe of her strength. But I did not know what to do now, how to make the ghost of her past go away.

It took her a moment to calm down, during which time she kept squeezing my hands till I could feel the skin turn raw. I let her, even going so far as to press my cheek against her knee in a futile gesture of understanding.

When she finally stopped shaking, I looked up to find her watching me. Suddenly, she lifted her hand and pressed it to my cheek. "You have to understand," she said softly, once again. "Her death devastated us all. But him? It drove him over the edge. She was the only thing he felt worth protecting, the only thing he thought tethered him to the normal world. And then she left him alone."

I bit my lip. I couldn't understand. How could I possibly? Regardless, I felt something well up inside me, something that made me feel like I was disconnected from everything, a desolation that was all too familiar. "Did he get help?" I asked then, tentatively, feeling irrationally scared of the answer.

Clara smiled. "We tried, Zara," she said, letting her hand fall back to her lap. "We tried to get him to go to someone. We all went, obviously. But," she shrugged her shoulder lightly, "the old Alex was back. He wouldn't listen to anybody. He wouldn't talk to anybody. And then, after six months, he started getting better. Not the same, but not the husk of a man he had become either." Her voice was casual now, neutral.

My eyes widened. Something swirled in my chest. All of a sudden, I felt short of breath. "Did he...?" I blinked.

She smiled a dead little smile. "We didn't think anything of it at the moment, just thankful that he was back to normal again, or at least as normal as he was ever going to be. It took some time for the news to reach us. Of course," she said comfortably, "we knew it was him. We knew he did it."

I swallowed. "What did he do?" My voice was breathy and my head felt heavy.

She pressed my hands again. "He found every single one of them," she told me, nodding her head, "and he killed them all. Every. Single. One."