Carly shook her head; a strange, bitter sound emerged from her throat, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. ‘What’s it got to do with her? Everything, Scott. Robyn’s death was Hannah’s fault,’ she said. ‘Hannah killed her.’
Robyn had told Carly about her bipolar disorder in Peru, the first night they met. Her diagnosis had come a few years earlier, when she’d ended up in a South London hospital after a manic episode that saw her survive on nothing but cigarettes and Red Bull for nearly two weeks, before collapsing at Denmark Hill station.
‘There’s no point in me hiding it anyway, not with those group leaders watching me like a hawk,’ she’d said, laughing, in her South London accent. She’d been taking a mood stabilizer for eighteen months now, quite a high dose, and sometimes it made her a bit flat – sort of numb, she said, like she wasn’t really feeling her emotions. But it was worth it. ‘Keeps me from going doolally,’ she said. ‘Trust me, babe, you don’t want to see me thinking I’m the next artistic prodigy or trying to buy the whole of the bleeding internet on my credit card again. Don’t reckon you’d be so keen on me after that.’
But Carly would have been. She’d thought Robyn was wonderful: funny and clever and strong. And sexy as hell, with her hourglass figure and wavy balayage bob and deep, gurgling laugh. When they got back from the rainforest, things moved fast. Within a couple of months, fed up of long train journeys and unsatisfying Zoom sex, Robyn decided to rent out her studio flat in Camberwell and move up to Cardiff, into Carly’s flat. Robyn worked remotely – she could do her web design job online from anywhere – so it was easier for her to move than Carly, who had rented her therapy room on a long-term contract and had clients to think of.
For one blissful year, they had everything: lazy Sundays in bed, scary movies on the sofa, laughter and fun and electrifying sex and a deep, heartfelt connection; a belonging. They fitted together; they were each other’s person.
And then someone, one of her work colleagues – someone well-meaning but stupid,so fucking stupid– had told Robyn about Hannah.
Scott stirred from his spot sitting on the ground, wincedas the movement jarred his ankle. ‘Hannah killed someone you loved – I don’t understand... how?’ he said.
Carly looked at him, saw shock, disbelief even – but also genuine sadness in his face. She closed her eyes for a second; saw Robyn’s last moments on earth behind them, as she so often did. ‘Robyn watched Hannah’s videos. She actually believed all that rubbish Hannah preached – that stuff about how Western medicine shouldn’t be trusted and antidepressants mess up your brain for ever. About how we should allow our bodies to heal themselves by coming back into energetic balance – all that shit,’ she said.
Then she told him the rest of the story. About how it was as if Hannah had cast a spell on her; Robyn was enchanted. She’d taken Hannah’s word as gospel when she said that mood-stabilizing medication was harmful and unnecessary. Hannah had even made an entire twenty-minute TikTok special on lithium carbonate, the drug Robyn had been taking for years, the medicine that kept her on an even keel. The day after she’d watched it, Robyn told Carly she was going to lower her dose; see how she felt. ‘I’ve been on thirty mil a day for years, doll,’ she’d said. ‘It’s the highest dose. God knows what it’s doing to my body – or my brain. I reckon it’s about time I give it a go, try to see how I am on a bit less. If I start getting a bit wobbly, I’ll go back up.’
Carly had been terrified. She knew the risk of a manic episode was at its peak in the days after stopping or reducing mood stabilizers; she was afraid for Robyn, for what she might do. But she had no choice except to trust her; she knew it wasn’t her place to force drugs down her partner’s throat, or to speak to Robyn’s GP on her behalf, asking them to break patient confidentiality, for simply cutting back her dosage.
Carly should have put more stock in her first instincts; she would never forgive herself for not having fought harder against Robyn’s decision. Because when the love of her life had taken a flying leap from the balcony of their sixth-floor flat, believing the angels would save her, Carly had been the one to run to her, desperate and praying, ignoring the screams of horrified pedestrians floating up to her as she rushed down the stairs.
And then she had been the one to find her cracked and shattered on the concrete pavement, a mashed, bloodied pulp where her beautiful face had once been.
Carly hadn’t known when, or how, she’d make Hannah pay for what she’d done to Robyn. She’d just known that she would. She’d waited, and watched, andpretendedfrom the sidelines, following all Hannah’s channels, offering nothing but heart emojis and comments like ‘Love this – and YOU – so much!’ as Hannah spouted her dangerous nonsense online to more and more unwitting followers on TikTok and Instagram and anywhere else people would listen to her.
She’d known it was time to act when she saw Hannah’s giveaway. The chance to come here, to see Hannah in person, to confront her in the presence of people who admired her – it was too precious to pass up. She knew she had to at least try.
She’d spent hours planning what she’d say in her application video: describing the passion she had for healing, for spiritual discovery. She’d spoken about all her experiences with plant medicine; how comfortable she felt in the jungle; her love for the rainforest. How much she wanted to serve people, to make an impact on a bigger scale by learning from Hannah thenspreading her message to help vast numbers of people at once, not just one struggling client at a time.
She could hardly believe it when it actuallyworked. Carly had obviously become much better at pretending than she’d realized; she’d been able to guess exactly the kinds of things that would win her a place on the trip. Hannah genuinely seemed to believe that Carly wanted to come and learn from her, be a part of her retreat. Unless, perhaps, Hannah’s ego was just so big and so keen to be flattered that she’d simplywantedto believe it.
More fool Hannah.
‘I’m... I’m so sorry, Carly,’ whispered Scott, his voice a sad husk. ‘For what you’ve been through.’
Carly startled; she’d almost forgotten he was there. ‘I came here to confront her about it,’ she said. ‘My plan – myintention– was never to hurt her. But when I got here – early on the first day of the retreat, a couple of hours before we were meant to arrive – and she was waiting at the pavilion, I told her it was time for her to change what she tells people – to confess that what she preaches is dangerous.’
In fact, Carly had told Hannah that unless she admitted to it – then, when everyone else had arrived, right in front of her precious followers – Carly would tell them herself. She would expose her. She would hold up the photo of Robyn’s beautiful face in front of them, and tell everyone who Hannah truly was: the kind of person that spreads dangerous, life-threatening lies while being worshipped by millions. And she knew she needed to do it face to face – Hannah’s social media presence was highly controlled. She could easily have deleted any comments Carly had left on her posts, or dismissed her as mentally ill ifshe’d interrupted one of her online talks. No, this was the only way – in person, where she couldn’t get away, where Carly would hold the cards.
‘I even showed her Robyn’s picture, her beautiful, happy face, to try and make her realize the impact of what she’d done – show her the real human beings behind her follower count, you know?’ Carly’s fingers grasped the edges of the photo in her pocket now; she’d felt such deep relief when she’d swiped it from Ben’s backpack after he’d fallen to the ground.
To her disgust, Hannah had simply plucked the photo from Carly’s hands, looked at Robyn’s face, and then turned her back and walked away from her. Her words rung again in Carly’s ears: ‘I’m very sorry for your loss, hun, but this wasnotmy fault.’ She’d almostlaughedas she said it; as if Carly’s anger with her was so ludicrous it could barely be believed. ‘I can’t take responsibility for other people’s actions – if someone I’ve never even met decides they want to die, you can’t blame that on me.’
Decides they want to die. How fucked up was that?Carly felt the heat on her cheeks at the memory, the adrenaline pounding through her again now, making her muscles tense and flex – just like it had yesterday, in front of Hannah.
‘I was fucking raging, Scott, and I yelled at her, and she told me to shut up and follow her. First, out of the pavilion, and then...’ Carly thought back to when Hannah had led her away from her house and deep into the rainforest, far away from the ears of any staff. As she’d walked behind her further into the jungle, Hannah had been telling Carly that she was wrong, that she just needed to breathe more deeply and absorb the magic of the rainforest and allow the healing of nature’sspirit into her heart – she was trying toconverther, for fuck’s sake, and then – and then...
Carly didn’t know how it had happened, exactly. She was behind Hannah, and listening to her spewing all her bullshit, and at the same time witnessing the scenes around her, this beautiful rainforest and Hannah’s perfect resort, and all she could see – all she could think – was that Hannah had this amazing, wonderful life and was adored by this huge community of people, and Robyn was dead, alone, in the ground.
She couldn’t bear it, all the pain and grief. ‘And then I shoved her, and she fell over onto the ground,’ she said. She felt a hot slice of guilt at the memory. But then she reminded herself:I did the right thing – the only thing I could do.Because how dare she? How dare Hannah have believed, so pompously, that she had the cure for illnesses that doctors had spent centuries trying to heal? Thearroganceof her.
No, she didn’t regret it. The world would be a safer place without Hannah, and other ‘healers’ like her, in it. Honestly, if she could, Carly would wipe out the lot of them.
‘She fell over – but then how did she die?’ said Scott.
Carly stared at the jungle floor. Even if the outcome was for the best, she didn’t take pleasure in thinking about how it had happened. ‘She banged her head when she landed. It was slippery on the ground. She must have hit a rock right on her temple, just on the soft part – anyway, it looked like she was gone.’ She paused for breath. ‘I panicked after that. I went on autopilot, thought the best thing to do was to drag her further into the forest.’ It had been hard work – Carly was fit and strong, but pulling Hannah by the arms through dense vegetation, into the heart of the jungle – it had taken everythingshe had. ‘I decided just to... let the rainforest do its thing,’ she admitted.
‘Do itsthing?’ said Scott.
