Page 109 of The Edge of Always

Earl had been in the studio that afternoon working on what, Luna didn’t know. He was so frail.

He was meant to message when he was done so that Luna and Emmett could walk and get him, bring him back in his wheelchair.

But it was late now. They’d lost track of time and they hadn’t heard from him. Outside the window, blue lights started to flash. Luna knew that something was very wrong.

‘What’s that?’ Emmett asked.

‘An ambulance, I think.’

They got dressed quickly. Luna tried to ignore the sick feeling. Earl had to be okay; he said he’d be okay for a while longer.

But when they got outside and found Zadie, Ahmed and Mae all huddled together, Luna didn’t think that something was very, very wrong, she knew it. They were crying. Luna didn’t understand. Why were they crying? And why was Zadie holding Emmett back? Why wouldn’t she let him go to Earl?

There was a noise in Luna’s ears, like white noise. It buzzed and wouldn’t let her hear anything. But she could see people talking; half the caravan park had come to see what was going on.

‘He’d been sick for ages.’

‘Fucking cancer.’

That was Fred, the one with the horse who had picked Earl up from hospital last year. He’d taken his cap off, was holding it in front of his chest.

‘What do you mean?’ Emmett asked. He’d twisted round to speak to Fred. Next to him, Mae and Zadie were white as ghosts.

‘Picked him up from oncology myself last year, didn’t I? Poor sod.’

There was no time for any more questions though, because the ambulance people were backing out of the caravan then, carrying a stretcher.

‘Why is the blanket over his face?’ Luna heard shouting and then realised that it was her. ‘He won’t be able to breathe.’ They were all fighting to get through then, while some doctor who’d been summoned told them that there was nothing anyone could have done. That he likely died earlier this evening.

Luna was sick right there in the grass but she still didn’t believe it.

It was an awful, awful thing, shock. It refused to let you believe what you knew to be true, dragging out the pain of not knowing.

But right then, Luna couldn’t believe it. She just couldn’t accept that Earl, a man who lived a life with so much colour in it, was gone.