Laura Jane Cassidy - Angel Kiss. Laura Jane Cassidy

RAZORBILL

Laura Jane Cassidy was born in 1986 in County Kildare in Ireland and has taken time out from her Drama studies at Trinity College Dublin to write full-time. She dislikes it when people use the Internet to cheat at table quizzes, but likes it when they use it to visit her popular blog, laurajanecassidy.com , where she talks about book-related matters, as well as playlists, fashion and lots of other stuff. Angel Kiss is her first novel.

Id like to thank:

My agent Faith OGrady, my editor Paddy ODoherty and everyone at Puffin for making my dreams come true. My first readers and researchers, especially Kitty, Charlene and Conal. Anthea, Liz, Martina and Laura for all their help and encouragement. My grandparents, godparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends for their enthusiasm. My beloved blog readers. Vanessa OLoughlin for her support at every step and for being my literary angel. Sarah Webb, Claire Hennessy and David Maybury for giving such great advice and for welcoming me into their world. John Kilfeather for brightening up mine. My brother, Liam, for all his help and for always believing in me. And my parents, Joe and Jean, for everything.

I watched the funeral pass by from the window of our cluttered caravan. The renovation of our new cottage was not yet complete, so that summer we were living in a little caravan at the top of our lane, overlooking the winding country road. My mum was among the cluster of darkly clad mourners headed to the graveyard. The body in the coffin was that of Jim Cullen. He was a popular man who had lived in a stone cottage about ten minutes walk from the village of Avarna. Jim had died suddenly of a heart attack aged seventy-two. He was survived by his wife, Lily, and two children. Id never met him.

We had been living there only two weeks. Mum had met him several times when shed been house hunting in Avarna the previous year. It was Jim Cullen who had told her about one particular house that would be coming on the market, as its eccentric owner, a farrier named Alf, was moving to an island off the south coast. The moment she saw it Mum put in an offer and set about selling our house in Dublin. Thanks to the late Jim Cullen she had her idyllic country residence. Id begged Mum not to accept the job, not to move. I really didnt want to live in the country. Id screamed and cried and pleaded with her not to make me leave Dublin, but it was no use. Shed never understand just how hard it was for me to leave my friends, my school, my band, everything that was important to me.

When I protested about going to Jims funeral she presumed it was because I was still mad at her. That was true, but there was another reason. I really disliked funerals. Id always found myself sensitive to other peoples suffering; I seemed to soak up their grief like a sponge. I already felt unwell that day; I had a headache and just knew I wouldnt be able to handle it. I watched until the large crowd passed and then went back to strumming my guitar.

Mum didnt go to the Cullen house for tea afterwards because she only vaguely knew Jims relatives and didnt want to intrude. I noticed how her eyelids were red when she dozed off later. No doubt she felt just like me: the days events had reminded her of my dads funeral. Hed died of a brain tumour when I was nine and even after six years I could still recall the small details of that day. The navy woollen tights that made my legs itch, the smell of the white lilies laid out on the coffin and the grip of my mums hand on my own small trembling one. Hed been sick for a while, but then suddenly he was gone and the funeral was the first time I began to accept this. Mum and I had learned to cope since then, but we still thought about him all the time. We liked to remember the happy times, how hed always made us laugh and the way he used to sing along really badly to the radio.

The caravan was a poor replacement for our suburban terraced house, but Mum had assured me that soon we would have a beautifully refurbished cottage, a home unblemished by memories, a fresh start. I missed Dublin so much that I couldnt really appreciate this. I was still coming to terms with the fact that I would have to move to a new school in September, make new friends, find a new band, basically rebuild all these vital parts of my life. I wasnt exactly looking forward to that. I was looking forward to moving into the house though. The caravan was unbelievably cramped, which didnt make things easy between me and Mum when we both needed our own space.

Id thought living in a caravan would be great fun, kind of like living on a tour bus. And it had been fun for about ten minutes. Mum had rented it online and somehow it looked massive in the images, but in reality it was more like one from an episode of Father Ted except nobody was laughing when it was delivered and we saw how tiny it was. My head almost reached the roof, and Im only five foot five. At one end there were two single couch beds with some very compact storage space underneath, and there was a table in between them that you could have either up or down. At the other end of the caravan there was a counter top with a hob and a kettle and two cupboards underneath. And in the middle, beside the tiny space that joined the bedroom and kitchen (as the website had put it), was an even tinier bathroom. My bed was the most uncomfortable thing on the planet and I dreaded getting into it.

The night of Jim Cullens funeral I slept uneasily and awoke from the strangest dream with the scene still vivid in my mind: a drunken man stumbled up a lane, struggling to stay upright. A car pulled up beside him, almost knocking him to the ground. The window rolled down. A hand emerged, clutching a brown leather handbag.

Here. Take this and burn it. Do you hear me? Burn it! This and everything in it. The hand was trembling but the voice was steady.

Why the why the hell should I?

Because if you dont Ill tell everyone what you did. Do you really want me to tell them about

Fine Ill burn the bloody bag. Whose is it anyway?

He got no response. The car reversed out, leaving tyre marks in the earth. The drunken man continued up the dark lane, the bag dangling from his right hand.

Once was unsettling enough, but Id had the same dream nearly every night that week. The way it was so clear in my mind was starting to scare me, and there was one particular thing about it that really freaked me out. I recognized the lane. It was the one that led to our new house. I didnt recognize the men though. Id never seen them before and I certainly had no desire to. Particularly not the one sitting in the car. His pale eyes held a vicious manic stare that I couldnt forget.

As I tried to get back to sleep, the image of the bag kept coming into my mind. It was a satchel made of chocolate-brown leather, with a little handle as well as a longer strap, and it swung back and forth as the drunken man moved hesitantly along, the moonlight glinting off its gold buckles. The bag looked familiar, like something Id see when I was searching through vintage shops for clothes.

I hate it when Im trying to get back to sleep in the middle of the night and my mind wont stop racing. I tried hard to think about something else. Maybe I was so fixated on the dream because I didnt have anything more exciting to distract me. Clearly my anxiety over the move to Avarna had created a recurring nightmare composed of random memories. Once I felt settled I was sure it would go away. I should spend more time exploring the village , I thought. Im sure there were interesting little corners I hadnt yet discovered. Places like that caf and the garden by the river, and that cute little clothes shop. It looked expensive but maybe Id call in anyway Eventually, after the distraction of planning my tour of the village, my brain shut down and I fell into a welcome dream-free sleep.