‘I know.’

Norah sat and thought for a long time after Grimm had left. So many of the supposed coincidences of the past few weeks—big and small—had been orchestrated by Balder, but Valerie and Grimm really had known one another. King Coincidence had struck after all.

Norah’s gaze fell on the kitchen cupboard. She climbed on a chair, took out How to Disappear Completely, sat down with it, opened it and pulled out the letter that she had slipped between the pages.

A perfectly ordinary white envelope. Her name in Valerie’s schoolgirl handwriting, like a slap in the face. No address. No stamp. No postmark. The letter had been delivered by hand. For a long time Norah had driven herself half mad, wondering when Valerie had brought it round.

Norah had been at home that evening. She had sat in her room, reading, trying to ignore Valerie’s devastating texts and smiling at Milo’s messages, waiting impatiently for a suitable time to elapse so that she could reply to him without appearing uncool. She hadn’t felt guilty for a moment. For months Valerie had claimed to be in love with some mysterious stranger she couldn’t talk about; Norah had sometimes wondered whether it wasn’t all made up. But Valerie had insisted. And now, all of a sudden, Milo was supposedly the love of her life again. Norah was, quite frankly, pretty sick of Valerie’s moods.

She turned the letter over in her hands. When had Valerie written it? And when had she brought it round? What if Norah had seen her posting it? Would she have gone down to her? Would they have made it up? Would everything have turned out differently? Norah tried to avoid stepping on that carousel of what ifs. The fact was she hadn’t found the letter until the following afternoon; her mother had emptied the letterbox while she was at school and left it on her bed. By then everyone knew that Valerie had disappeared.

Norah ran a finger over the paper—the same finger she had used to slit open the envelope all that time ago. She pulled out the letter. She had read it only once before. Almost twenty years ago.

Norah,

I’ve called and texted you hundreds of times, but apparently I’m not worthy of a reply. I loved you. More than I loved Milo, more than I loved anyone—even myself. I don’t know how you could hurt me the way you did. It’s all so fucking unfair. YOU’RE so fucking unfair. You’re probably just a bad person, only ever thinking of yourself. First you use people, then you chuck them. I’m sorry for you, Norah. You’ll never understand what love is. You’ll never find anyone else who loves you the way I loved you, because YOU DON’T DESERVE IT. You’ll never have a real home. You’ll never marry, never have children. You’ll never have any friends and no matter how hard you try, you’ll never belong anywhere. You don’t deserve that either.

I want you to know that I’m doing what I’m doing because of you. Because of what you’ve done. Don’t ever forget that. You’ve broken my heart. And I know I should make peace with you, I know I should write something forgiving, but I can’t. I’m not a fucking liar like you.

V.