ust as I reached the end of the passageway, Rosaleen swung herself round the corner to block me. She’d obviously left through the front door. She reached out and grabbed my arm, but I moved just within her grasp and her nails dug into my skin as she pinched me and tried to hold on. I screamed.

‘Follow me,’ Weseley said, and turned and ran.

I was running but was abruptly jerked backward, feeling a pain in my neck as Rosaleen grabbed my hair and tried to pull me back. I elbowed her hard in the stomach and she released me. Despite her behaviour to me over the past hour I still felt bad and stopped to see if she was okay. She was doubled over, winded.

‘Tamara, come on!’ Weseley shouted.

But I couldn’t. This was ridiculous. I didn’t understand why we were fighting, why she had turned on me. I had to see if she was all right. As I came near her, she looked up, pulled back her right arm and slapped me hard across the face. I felt the sting long after her hand left my face. Weseley tugged on me and I had no choice but to run.

We ran down the back garden and past the workshed which separated domestic life from the secret field of glass. Once in the field I realised how much the wind had picked up. It was blustery now and my hair was billowing around my face wildly, sometimes blinding me, sometimes stuffing my mouth with a lock of hair. Weseley was squeezing one of my hands so tightly I needed the other to balance myself as we ran across the lumpy grass, so I couldn’t move the hair from my face. The glass was swinging violently in the wind, back and forth but with no rhythm so it was hard to judge whether it was going to come flying at our faces as we darted past. It was difficult to dodge and an effort to avoid being scraped by its jagged points.

I held on tightly to Weseley’s hand and I just remember thinking, don’t let go, don’t ever let go. Every now and then he turned round to make sure I was still there, although his hand was wrapped so tightly around mine it was crushing my fingers. I saw the worry in his face, the panic in his eyes. We were in this together and I had never been so grateful to have such a friend. We ducked under lines of glass mobiles and made our way to the edge of the garden. Weseley began to figure out a way we could get over the wall. I stood there keeping watch, feeling my arms stinging as the scrapes on my arms and possibly on my face started to bleed and the cold air blew on them. I kept watch for Rosaleen who quickly appeared at the workshed and was scanning the garden for us. Our eyes met. She surged forward.

Weseley moved quickly, gathering crates and concrete blocks, layering them up, building them up so that we could get over the wall. He stepped up and finally he could reach the top of the wall.

‘Right Tamara. I’ll lift you up.’

I put the diary down and he lifted me from the waist. I scrambled to pull myself to the top, my bare elbows scraping the concrete, my knees banging against the wall, but finally I was there. Weseley handed me the diary and I jumped in to the field on the other side. Pain shot though my ankles and up my legs as I landed. Weseley wasn’t far behind. He grabbed my hand again and we ran.

Across the road and straight into the gatehouse, I screamed for Arthur and Mum between heaving breaths. There was no answer, the house stared back silently at us, with its empty rooms, the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall the only response. We both ran up and downstairs, flinging open doors, shouting into every eave. I had been worried before that, then I started to panic. I sat on my bed, the diary in my arms, not knowing what to do. Then, as I hugged it tightly and started to cry, it became clear.

I opened the diary. Slowly but surely the burned pages began to uncurl right before my eyes, unfolding and lengthening, and words no longer neatly looped and lined appeared in jagged and messy scrawls as though written in blind panic.

‘Weseley,’ I called.

‘Yes!’ he shouted up the stairs.

‘We have to go,’ I shouted.

‘Where?’ he yelled. ‘We should call the garda? What do you think? Who was that guy? My God, did you see his face?’ I could hear the adrenaline pumping through his words.

I stood up quickly. Too quickly. All the blood rushed to my head and I felt dizzy. Black spots formed before my eyes and I tried to keep walking, hoping they’d eventually disappear. I made my way out to the hall, holding on to the wall, trying to take deep breaths. The pulse in my forehead beat an insane rhythm, my skin felt hot and clammy.

‘Tamara, what’s wrong?’ was all I heard.

I felt the book fall from my hand and hit the ground with a thud. After that—nothing.

I woke up to find myself staring at a painting of Mary, smiling down upon me in a baby-blue-coloured veil. Her thin lips smiling and telling me it was all going to be okay, her hands held out and open as though giving me some invisible gift. Then I remembered what had happened in the bungalow and I sat up with a start. My head felt like it was being crushed, as though the atmosphere was pushing down on me.

‘Ow,’ I groaned.

‘Hush, Tamara, you must lie down. Slow down now,’ Sister Ignatius said calmly, taking my hand in hers and placing another on my shoulder to coax me gently back down.

‘My head,’ I croaked, lying back down and taking in her face.

‘That’s a nasty bang you got,’ she said, taking a cloth dipping it in a dish and carefully dabbing at my skin above my eye.

It stung and I tensed.

‘Weseley,’ I panicked, looking around, and pushing her hand away from me. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s with Sister Conceptua. He’s fine. He carried you all the way here,’ she smiled.

‘Tamara.’ I heard another voice, and Mum came rushing over to me and fell to her knees. She looked different. She was dressed, for one thing. Her hair was scraped back into a ponytail and her face was thinner, but it was her eyes…despite being bloodshot and swollen as if she’d been crying, her eyes had life back in them again. ‘Are you okay?’

I couldn’t believe she was out of bed I just kept staring at her, studying her, waiting for her to go into a trance again. She leaned forward and kissed me hard on the forehead, so much it almost hurt. She ran her hands through my hair, kissing me again and telling me she was sorry.

‘Ouch,’ I winced as she grabbed my wound.

‘Oh, love, I’m sorry.’ She let go immediately and moved back to examine me. She looked concerned. ‘Weseley said he found you in a bedroom. There was a man, with scarring…’

‘He didn’t hit me.’ I jumped to his defence immediately though I didn’t really know why. ‘Rosaleen showed up. She was so angry. She kept spouting all of these lies about you and about Dad. I ran at her to tell her to stop and she pushed me…’ I placed my hand on my cut. ‘Is it bad?’

‘It won’t scar. Tell me about the man.’ Mum’s voice trembled.

‘They were having a fight. She called him Laurie,’ I suddenly remembered.

Sister Ignatius held on to the couch tightly as though the floor were swirling beneath her. Mum looked at her, her jaw tightened, and then she looked back at me. ‘So it’s true. Arthur was telling the truth.’

‘But it’s not possible,’ Sister Ignatius whispered. ‘We buried him, Jennifer. He died in the fire.’

‘He didn’t die, Sister. I saw him. I saw his bedroom. He had photographs. Hundreds and hundreds of photographs all over the walls.’

‘He loved taking photographs,’ she said, quietly as though thinking aloud.

‘They were all of me.’ I said, looking from one to the other. ‘Tell me about him. Who is he?’

‘Photographs? Weseley didn’t mention that,’ Sister Ignatius said, shaking, her face pale.

‘He didn’t see, but I saw everything. My whole life was on the walls.’ The words caught in my throat but I kept going. ‘The day I was born, the christening,’ I looked at her then and an anger came flooding through me. ‘I saw you.’

‘Oh.’ Her wrinkled bony fingers went flying to her mouth. ‘Oh, Tamara.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you both lie?’

‘I so wanted to tell you,’ Sister Ignatius jumped in. ‘I told you I’d never lie, that you could ask me anything, but you never asked. I waited and waited. I didn’t think it was my place, but I should have. I realise that now.’

‘We shouldn’t have let you find out this way,’ Mum said, her voice trembling.

‘Well, neither of you had the guts to do what Rosaleen did. She told me.’ I pushed Mum’s hand away and turned my face away from her. ‘She told me some ridiculous story about Dad arriving here with Granddad, wanting to buy the place to develop it into a spa. She said he met Mum, and he met me.’ I looked at Mum then, waiting for her to tell me it was all lies.

She was silent.

‘Tell me it’s not true.’ My eyes filled up and my voice trembled. I was trying to be strong but I couldn’t. It was all too much. Sister Ignatius blessed herself. I could tell she was shaken.

‘Tell me he’s my dad.’

Mum started to cry and then stopped again, took a deep breath and found strength from somewhere. When she spoke her voice was firm and deeper. ‘Okay listen to me, Tamara. You have to believe that we didn’t tell you this because we believed it was the right thing to do all those years ago, and George…’ she wavered, ‘George loved you so much, with all of his heart, just like you were his own…’

I yelped at that, couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

‘He didn’t want me to tell you. We fought about it all the time. But it’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry.’ Tears gushed down her cheeks and though I wanted to feel nothing, to stare her down and show her how she’d hurt me, I couldn’t. I couldn’t feel nothing. My world had shifted so viciously, I was spinning out of orbit.

Sister Ignatius stood up and placed a hand on Mum’s head as she ferociously tried to stop her tears, wipe her cheeks and comfort me instead. I couldn’t look at Mum so my eyes followed Sister Ignatius as she then crossed to the other side of the room. She opened a cupboard and brought something back over to me.

‘Here. I’ve been trying to give this to you for some time now,’ she said, her eyes filled. It was a wrapped present.

‘Sister, I’m really not in the mood for birthday presents right now, what with my Mum telling me she’s lied to me my whole entire life,’ I spoke with venom and Mum pursed her lips and her forehead creased. She nodded slowly, accepting whatever it was I threw at her. I wanted to shout at her more then. I wanted to use that opportunity to say all the bad things in the world that I’ve ever felt about her, just like I used to do when fighting with Dad but I stopped myself. Consequences. Repercussions. The diary had taught me that.

‘Open it,’ Sister Ignatius said sternly.

I ripped off the paper. It was a box. Inside the box was a rolled-up scroll. I looked to her for answers but she was kneeled beside me, her hands clasped and her head dipped as though in prayer.

I unrolled the scroll. It was a certificate of baptism.

This Certificate of Baptism is to certify that Tamara Kilsaney was born on the 24th day of July, 1991, in Kilsaney Castle, County Meath and was Presented to the World with Love by Her mother, Jennifer Byrne, and her father, Laurence Kilsaney On this day 1st January 1992

I stared at the page, reading it over and over, hoping my eyes had deceived me. I didn’t know where to begin.

‘Well, first things first. They got the date wrong.’ I tried to sound confident but I sounded pathetic and I knew it. This was something I couldn’t beat with sarcasm.

‘I’m sorry, Tamara,’ Sister Ignatius said again.

‘So that’s why you kept saying I was seventeen.’ I thought back over all our conversations. ‘But if this was right, then I’m eighteen today…Marcus.’ I looked up at her. ‘You were going to let him go to gaol?’

‘What?’ Mum looked from one to the other. ‘Who’s Marcus?’

‘None of your business,’ I snapped. ‘I might tell you in twenty years.’

‘Tamara, please,’ she pleaded.

‘He could have gone to gaol,’ I said angrily to Sister Ignatius.

Sister Ignatius shook her head wildly. ‘No. I asked Rosaleen over and over to tell you. If not tell you, to tell the garda? She kept insisting he’d be fine. But I stepped forward. I told the garda, Tamara. I went to Dublin to Garda Fitzgibbon and gave him this certificate myself. There was a breaking-and-entering charge too, but bearing in mind the circumstances, it’s all been dropped.’

‘What’s been dropped? What happened?’ my Mum asked, looking at Sister Ignatius with concern.

‘God, Tamara, if you don’t know that by now, then you’ve far more problems than I thought. Listen, I wish you good luck with everything but…don’t call me again.’

That had been our last conversation. He’d known then why the charges had been dropped. How messed up was I that I didn’t even know my own age? I had been so relieved for Marcus that my anger subsided momentarily. Then that faded and I was fuming again. My head pounding, I held my hand to my wound. They had been feeding me lies, dropping a trail of breadcrumbs in their path which I had been forced to follow in order to learn the truth for myself.

‘So let me get this straight. Rosaleen wasn’t lying. Laurie is my father. The freak…with the photographs?’ I shouted then. ‘Why didn’t anybody tell me? Why did everybody lie? Why did you all let me think I lost my dad?’

‘Oh, Tamara, George was your father. He loved you more than anything in the world. He raised you as his own. He—’

‘IS DEAD,’ I shouted. ‘And everybody let me think I’d lost my dad. He lied to me. You lied to me. I can’t believe this.’ I was up then, my head spinning.

‘Your mother thought Laurie had died, Tamara. You were only one year old. She had a chance to start a new life. George loved her, he loved you. She wanted to start again. She didn’t think you needed this hurt.’

‘And that makes it okay?’ I addressed Mum, even though Sister Ignatius had defended her.

‘No, no, I didn’t agree with it. But she deserved to be happy. She was so broken when Laurie died.’

‘But he’s not dead,’ I shouted then. ‘He’s living in the bungalow, eating sandwiches and apple pie every bloody day. Rosaleen knew he was alive.’

Mum broke down at that and Sister Ignatius held her tightly in her arms, her face revealing her heartbreak. I stopped then, realising that it wasn’t just me that was lied to. Mum had just found out the man she loved hadn’t died after all. What kind of a sick joke had they all been playing?

‘Mum, I’m sorry,’ I said softly.

‘Oh, darling,’ she sniffed, ‘maybe I deserve it. For doing this to you.’

‘No. No, you don’t deserve this. But he doesn’t deserve you either. What kind of sicko must he be to pretend to be dead?’

‘He was trying to protect her, I suppose,’ Sister Ignatius said. ‘He was trying to give the both of you a better life, one that he couldn’t give you.’

‘Arthur said he was badly disfigured?’ Mum looked at me then. ‘What…what does he look like? Was he kind to you?’

‘Arthur?’ I snapped to attention again. ‘Arthur Kilsaney? He’s Laurie’s brother?’

Mum nodded and another tear fell.

‘It’s just one thing after another with you all,’ I said, but not as angrily this time. I hadn’t the energy.

‘He didn’t want to go along with it,’ she said, drained now too. ‘Now it makes sense to me why he was so against it. He said he wanted to always be your uncle. We never said he was my brother. Not until you just assumed it and then…’ she waved her hand, sensing the ridiculousness of it all.

Weseley arrived in the room then. ‘Okay the garda?are on their way. Are you all right?’ He looked at me. ‘Did he hurt you?’

‘No, no, he didn’t.’ I rubbed my eyes. ‘He saved me from Rosaleen.’

‘But I thought he…’

‘No.’ I shook my head.

‘I locked him in his bedroom,’ Weseley said guiltily, producing the room key from his pocket. ‘I thought he was trying to hurt you.’

‘Oh, no.’ My main anger passed then. I felt sorry for him. He had been defending me. He had been reaching out to me giving me gifts. He’d remembered my birthday. My eighteenth birthday. Of course he had. And how had I thanked him? I’d locked him away.

‘Where’s Arthur?’ Sister Ignatius asked.

‘He’s gone to the bungalow, to Rosaleen.’

And then I remembered. The diary. ‘No!’ I scrambled to get up again.

‘Honey you should relax,’ Mum said trying to coax me back down again, but I jumped up.

‘He needs to get away from there,’ I panicked. ‘What have I been doing here all this time? Weseley, call the fire brigade, quick.’

‘Why?’

‘Honey, just relax now,’ Mum said, worried. ‘Lie down and—’

‘No, listen to me. Weseley, it’s in the diary. I have to stop it. Call the fire brigade.’

‘Tamara, it’s just a book, it’s only—’

‘Been right every single day until now,’ I responded.

He nodded.

‘What’s that?’ Mum suddenly asked, walking to the window.

Over the tree tops in the distance, plumes of smoke were drifting up into the sky.

‘Rosaleen,’ Sister said then with such venom, that it chilled me. ‘Call the fire brigade,’ she said to Weseley.

‘Give me the key,’ I said, grabbing it from Weseley and running from the room. ‘I have to get him. I’m not losing him again.’

I heard them all calling to me as I ran, but I didn’t stop, I didn’t listen. I ran through the trees and followed the smell, ran straight towards the bungalow. I had just lost the father who’d raised me. I wasn’t about to lose another.