Two women will do whatever it takes to protect their own – no matter the cost to anyone else.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Laura Jarratt’s Without Saying Goodbye, which is out May 2nd.
Cerys leaves her life behind in a fiery wreck. Lily slips away from hers early one morning, silent as a shadow. Both are mothers. And both are desperate.
When the two women are thrown into each other’s paths, they strike a tentative bond. Cerys is a mother with no children to care for anymore, and Lily is doing all she can to take care of a four-year-old on her own. But each keep secrets from the beginning—the scars, the loneliness, and, most importantly, who they actually are. They need to work together to survive, but how can they trust each other? Because everybody knows: the longer a secret is kept, the worse its consequences will be when the truth comes out.
As the past catches up with them in the form of a deranged father with a shotgun, Lily especially finds herself backed into a corner. But mothers will do what they must to protect their children, no matter who else gets hurt along the way.
A deeply emotional and complex thriller that explores motherhood, love and the desperate need to protect it… at any cost.
This had to end here, one way or another.
Her head was a jumbled mess of chaotic panic. All her senses were running on maximum alert as she hurtled forward.
No, this could not be happening. Not now.
Her heart pounded almost too hard to bear, not from exertion, but utter terror, as she took in everything around her.
They say time slows in events like this, but it didn’t slow at all. Instead, everything assailed her all at once. Overwhelming, horrific. The chill of desperation holding back the sweat of fear.
The gleam of sharp metal as the car headlights glinted off the blade of the knife. The smell of the burning rubber where the tires had skidded to a halt on the cobbles. The scream of terror piercing her ears as the blade came toward her.
She could die here. Worse—so could they.
Then she could feel the cold, hard metal in her hand again, and the heft of the shotgun to her shoulder came easily.
The taste of hate was bitter on her tongue. All those life-changing months that had gone before tonight, months of confusion and worry, but also of discovery mixed with newfound freedom. Those memories all scrabbling like rats in a barrel to win out against her past life. Driving her into action, giving her the strength to do this. All that fear. So much fear. Now turned into power. Turned into the will to fight back.
A mother would die to save her children. And sometimes she would kill.
The gun fired—a crack cutting through disordered senses. Then there was the heavy thud of a body slumping to the ground.
1
Five months earlier
Let it burn.
The explosion shattered the night as the car windows and tires blew out.
Shock waves of noise echoed out across the hills, but there was no one to hear them.
No one except her.
Cerys huddled on the rocky outcrop, her arms wrapped around her body as she watched the flames from the car lick up into the darkness. The drizzle falling around her wasn’t enough to put them out. There’d be little left of that comfy old SUV soon. And that was okay—that suited her.
She’d heard the crackle when the rear of the car had first sparked up and then the crash as the windows had blown out. She hadn’t even flinched. For eight years, this car had been hers. It had carried her to work every day, run their old dog to the vet for that last time, and taken two of her three children off to university; it had been a reliable comrade, and she’d resisted changing it for a newer model every time Gavin tried to persuade her it was getting old and shabby, but right then she hated it.
Let it burn.
Along with the rest of her life.
She’d considered staying in the car and going up with it, rather than sitting here watching, but she was a coward and afraid of the pain. Afraid she might not stay the course, might get out—screaming and horribly burned—to die in agony on this cold hillside. No, that wasn’t for her. Far better to end it like this and let the cold take her down slowly. A farmer’s daughter like her knew that was a kinder death. She just hoped it would drown the blackness out as she went under. She didn’t want that to follow her down. It had kept her in its clutches long enough now. Time to end that.
Cerys had grown up in these hills. A night out here in this weather would finish her, painlessly. It wouldn’t take long for her shivering to stop. Maybe a couple of hours, and then she’d become sleepy and drift off. Once she got to that point, the worst was over. They wouldn’t find the remains of the car, or her body, for a good while. Long enough for the winter weather to finish its work. Cerys had chosen her spot well. She might not have been here in over a decade, not since her father passed, but she still knew this valley like the back of her hand.
Her bones would be found in this hallowed land of her childhood, and that was fitting. Her dad would understand her reasoning, even if nobody else did.
Suddenly another explosion ripped through the quiet of the soft falling rain. She felt as if it juddered through her very bones as a flash of light tore the dark apart.
Cerys shook like a wet dog. She’d been so lost inside her own head that she hadn’t noticed the flames reach the fuel tank. For a brief moment, she felt a faint warmth as the heat traveled through the night, but then it was gone. The fire raged inside the car, a November bonfire, burning up all the heartache of these last few years—the loss of the people who’d mattered most that still ate away at her—until there was nothing left but twisted metal and emptiness.
If she took her coat off, maybe it would be over quicker, but she couldn’t move. Her limbs were lead and her head too sad and sore to force the effort. Never mind, it would happen soon enough anyway.
She hadn’t written a note for them. That had been a deliberate choice. Because what could she say? She didn’t have the words to explain why, just that deep, deep blackness wouldn’t leave her no matter how hard she tried to get rid of it, and she couldn’t live with that any longer.
Words couldn’t make it better for those she was leaving behind, so it was as well not to try. They were better off without her. She’d only drag them down if she stayed. A nuisance, that’s what she’d become to them all.
Oh, this darkness inside her had hold of her good and tight. But not for much longer. Not now. This way she’d be rid of it for sure.
She lost track of how long she sat on the hard rock, but the car fire burned out completely while she did. Thoughts galloped through her brain, but she waved them away, turning them from her so they raced off into the night.
Numb. Empty. That was how she needed to be to carry this through. No memories to pull her back, no thoughts of the future. Just a nonthinking machine whose power supply would shut down soon.
She’d thought sleep would come much faster than this though.
***
Lily closed the door behind her softly, so softly, her fingers trembling as she prayed the slight click of the lock wouldn’t give her away. The sleeping child, draped like a blanket over her shoulder, stirred and snuffled into her neck but didn’t wake. Shifting the carryall in her palm to get a tighter grip, Lily tiptoed down the drive, her breath held, picking up speed only as she escaped into the street.
She made a silent, desperate plea that the cold wouldn’t wake her child. A frost had settled on the branches of the trees already, and she could hear the crackle of twigs snapping beneath her feet as she hurried along, trying not to slip on the icy patches along the wet pavement.
The car was parked on the next street; she just had to get there safely. Only one street. She could do this, right? Even she could do this much.
When she got to the end of the road, she dared to look back. Her heart raced as she searched for signs she’d been discovered missing, but there were no lights on in the house, no open door. She swallowed down the nausea brought on by the adrenaline swirling in her blood, and she hurried on.
That precious weight across her shoulder kept her going. This was why she had to succeed. Nothing else mattered.
She got to the car, finally. It was an old white hatchback bought yesterday for a few hundred quid. A cash buy before he noticed the hole in his bank account.
She placed the sleeping child gently in the car seat. “Shush, sshhh,” she soothed, but the four-year-old was deep in sleep, and she was able to get in and start the car to the sound of soft snores. She pulled off down the street and headed out of the city, still trying not to retch. It would take a while for that adrenaline to ebb away. For now, it was still doing its job and aiding her flight.
Nothing and nobody was going to make her go back there.
She didn’t have much of a plan, but she knew where she was going. She had a scribbled note of hasty road directions beside her on the passenger seat. Lily had a destination, and for now, that was enough.
She gripped the wheel harder and followed the blue signs for the highway.
2
There was an old legend in these remote hills that if you slept here through the night, the faeries would steal you away to their country while you slumbered. And when they returned you to wake to a cold dawn, you’d either have gone mad, or they’d have blessed you with a gift.
It was an old story her nain, her dad’s mother, used to tell her, cuddled on her aproned knee in front of the open fire in the farmhouse.
That was the first thought that came to Cerys when she woke.
The second was why the hell was she still alive.
She uncurled her stiff, freezing limbs from where she was huddled on the rock. The morning greeted her with a faint light and a soft, mild breath that answered her question. The temperature had shifted in the night. She looked west to where the sea lay over the mountains. A warm front had blown in, dismissing the rain and stoppering Jack Frost’s bottle.
The faeries’ gift? Not a gift but a curse.
She buried her face in chilled fingers. Now what was she going to do?
I’m fifty-three years old, and I can’t even succeed at killing myself. Dear God!
How had she got this useless? She didn’t used to be this way. Did she?
Or is that why Gavin had no time for her? Her kids too. Because she was this powerless, drained lump who’d given up on everything. But she hadn’t even been able to get giving up right, had she?
She couldn’t go back. She couldn’t. What would she say? And it’d all just be the same.
But what would she do now?
She waited for the blackness inside to rise and overwhelm her.
She waited a long time but it didn’t come. In its place was something else instead.
The blackness was a dragging, sinking thing that sucked her away.
This new feeling wasn’t like that. This was different. Pain—sharp and screaming pain inside that split her head and made her want to yell out.
Or was it fear? Was that what was hurting so much?
She was shaking. And it wasn’t with the cold. It was the shock that she was still here, and she still had no answers. All her bridges were burned, and there was no way back.
But no way forward either.
She let out a sudden shriek because it hurt too much not to. But only the hills were listening. She wanted to scream it all out, but then she thought she might be screaming forever because it kept coming and coming, as if there was no end to it. All that rage inside that she hadn’t known was there. What even was this?
What have I become?
The hills couldn’t answer her.
***
Lily stretched her legs out. She was still cramped after driving for so long. It had taken hours and hours to get to this point. The solemn face of the little boy opposite her was smeared with hot chocolate. Lily forgot her aching legs and smiled. “Was that good?”
He nodded, smiling back. I can do this, she told herself. I can be who I need to be. For my child.
She smiled more tremulously, hoping she could make that thought true just by wishing.
Because if she couldn’t, what would they do now?
She split a doughnut in half and pushed the plate to him, but he shook his head. She wrapped his half in a napkin and put it in her bag. “Have it later then,” she said and immediately felt guilty when she looked over at a table nearby where a woman maybe ten or fifteen years Lily’s senior was having no difficulty persuading a spotlessly clean girl of about five to eat a pot of fruit salad.
Lily couldn’t even get her child to eat a doughnut, let alone a healthy breakfast. She looked at his little cheeks, still pudgy in that baby way, and her heart hurt. What had she done to him? Dragged from bed and towed across the country, cramped up in an old car, and all he had was a mother who couldn’t cope with life even at the best of times.
How did she ever think she could do this?
Panic rose like vomit in her throat.
Desperation had driven her to believe she could do this, but the hard reality of a crappy breakfast in a highway service station brought her back down to earth and to who she really was.
An unfit mother.
That woman at the next table, she could do it. Not like Lily. Her child was one of the lucky ones. She would grow up secure and happy, looked after, protected.
“Mummy?”
Lily blinked hard, pushing back tears. “Sammy?”
“I’ve finished now. I’m bored. Can we do something?” He ruffled his short brown hair, frowning. “What happened to my…? Oh, I forgot, sorry.”
She was useless, couldn’t even notice when her own child was wriggling with frustration after being driven around for hours, with longer to go, and she had no solution to that. Never mind that he shouldn’t have to be here in the first place. And that was her fault too.
Unfit mother.
She could hear those words spat at her like they were being said right now, right here.
A shudder ran through her.
And remembered pain. She could feel the tight fingers on her throat, choking. The look on his face as he tightened his grip. The look that told her she was nothing—she was dirt.
She couldn’t let herself remember that. She’d lose what little nerve she had. It had taken her too long to pluck up the courage to do this. She had to hang on.
After all, if she went back, it would be worse than ever now. Her child deserved better, even if she didn’t. This one deserved a future free from fear.
“Come on, back to the car.” She got up and lifted him into her arms. “You can have another sleep soon while Mummy is driving if it gets too boring.”
She strapped him back in the car and hid her tear-filled eyes from him as she wrestled with the seat harness.
“Sorry,” she whispered as she closed the car door and he couldn’t hear her. “So sorry. I hope I can do this right for you. Please forgive me for all this mess.”
3
Cerys let her hands hang limply at her sides as the sharp winter sun rose over the horizon gaining strength. She still had no answers.
I can’t just sit here.
But what can I do?
None of this felt real; it was as if she wasn’t really here. As if this wasn’t her anymore. As if she was someone else entirely now, but she didn’t know who that was.
No, that wasn’t quite right. But she wasn’t sure what version of her old self remained. It was like parts of her were lost and parts were found, but she didn’t know which yet.
And then finally a calm, quiet voice spoke inside her. It was the kind of voice you’d hear even through a storm.
You get up and walk out of here.
Really? That was impossible.
No, you do it.
She got to her feet, unsteady and uncertain, but that voice was the first thing she’d heard inside her head for months that sounded sane. It was miles and miles across the mountains to get out of this place, so sane probably wasn’t the right description, but at least the voice didn’t sound like the chaos and destruction that had been screaming inside her before.
That was enough for now. Small comfort, but comfort still.
She knew this land. If she walked to the west, and walked and walked, eventually she’d come to the sea. It might take days, but that’s where that path would take her. Through these hills, between the mountains, and down to the sea.
Cerys pulled her coat tighter around herself because it might not be cold enough to kill out here, but it was still chilly, and she started walking. No, this wasn’t sane, but it was all she had.
And sometimes when there was nothing else left, you had to go with that.
***
Lily glanced into the rearview mirror at her sleeping child. His tousled hair stuck up at the front like hedgehog spikes, and his little mouth quivered occasionally in sleep, responding to his dreams.
She didn’t know now where she had found the strength to do this at all. Desperation had given her wings that she never knew she had.
Because if I don’t fly away, I won’t make it.
And then what would become of her baby?
She knew the answer to that. That was why she kept driving, even though the tide of despair was beginning to rise and overwhelm her. That was why she’d keep on. She might be a crap mother…the worst…but she had to be better than the alternative.
She had to be.
She could hear his voice inside her head. It was always inside her head, whispering, threatening, telling her how she was nothing without him. The stench of burning flesh was there too—she could always smell that when she heard his voice speak in that way.
She took a left at the next ramp from the highway, going where they’d never find her.
