32

Ella stepped onto the bus, and Conor saw that she was far calmer here than last she’d stood before him. More human. That made it worse. She knew he needed time, more than this bus ride would give them. She sat in the very first seat, by the door, facing away from him. She knew there was nothing to be done until they alighted. The coin was spinning. Heads - it’s the same man, tails - something else. Conor no longer hoped the man would be good, he just hoped he’d be different. But he was the one who always paid for Conor’s journeys. So since he’d made it on, he knew they would see him again soon.

Ella watched out the window as they passed through mirages of places they’d been together. Conor had travelled a long way out through the years. It was a long way back to the viaduct. The bus passed through Devonshire towns, skirted around Dartmoor as quickly as possible. Conor lay across the back seats and pretended to sleep then, bloody boring Dartmoor.

Conor could feel Ella’s presence on the bus as acutely as holding two fingers to your carotid artery. She was like the very blood pumping into his brain. As always, he waited for her to speak. He wondered where she would eventually start: apology, explanation, justification, or perhaps she would just will herself back down into darkness, abandon all attempts at coercion and opt for penal servitude. Chain him up for his misbehaviour and flog him until he slipped and fell in pools of his own blood.

Eventually, as they were passing through North Wales, Bedgellert, she turned to him.

“Remember Gellert?”

He did. She continued regardless, putting on her grand storytime voice. Conor’s stomach smiled.

“That great hound, so loved by Prince Llewellyn. Remember? One day, the Prince returns from a hunt, finds his hound, Gellert, with his mouth covered in blood. He looks to the cradle and finds it so - dripping red. This trustworthy hound, turned mad and dangerous, killed his heir! What else, Con, he kills the faithful hound, runs it through, and wounds himself the more deeply when he hears the baby hidden away beneath the cradle. Reaching down for his son, he finds behind it the dead body of a great wolf. The wolf that the brave and faithful Gellert had killed protecting the Prince’s boy. And you recreated his town down here. It’s bloody excellent, Conor, it's just like it.”

They passed by it then, the bronze statue of the hound, at the door of the ancient grave. Conor had not expected her to mention this story. He despised how he loved hearing her tell it, remembering the three of them together when she’d first recounted it for her brothers, recalling her lifting the two of them onto the model hound as she played Llewellyn.

“I know the story, Ella.”