by Emma Rowley
I’m nearly done now. I must have covered most of the house, moving quickly, and I’m about to head downstairs for a final look, when I realize I’ve missed a door, in a corner I thought I’d checked. It’s shut. But the old iron key turns smoothly in its lock, the door opening into a small set of stairs, and I start climbing, my head close to the ceiling.
I must be under the roof now, in a little hallway under slanting eaves. I explore; the rooms here are smaller, oddly shaped, light coming through the boarded-up windows close to the floor. Servants’ quarters, once upon a time? No, I think, they’re too nice. The outer, original walls, have the same wooden paneling, the rose decoration, as the showier rooms on the lower floors. Perhaps this was a nursery, or some quiet living space for the lady of the house, that’s since been sectioned off. My footsteps sound on the threadbare carpet as I emerge at the end of the hallway.
I’m at the last door, now. This one’s shut too, but the key’s still in it.
There’s a light coming from under the door. And there’s a bolt at the top, and the bottom.
Heavy steel bolts, I can see. Locking only from the outside.
The skin on my arms is prickling. I look down: I’ve goosebumps, I notice absently.
I bend to unslide the bottom bolt, then the top. I turn the key, feel the gears of the lock shifting.
I open the door.
The room’s empty, one glance tells me that. Now I see why it’s lighter in here, even before I flick the switch to turn the bulb on. The modern partition walls have cut off the room from the attic’s original windows, so they’ve put in a modern skylight overhead, through which the sky is a dark violet square. No one’s bothered to board it up—I suppose it’d be hard to climb in from the roof.
I check around with care, anyway, my last hope dwindling. The wooden roses run around the wall panels, below the sloping eaves. Behind a door in the corner is a small loo and sink; old-fashioned black and white with a hanging flush. Maybe they put it in when this was a place to send the kids—a den, or games room. But that’s it.
And that’s the house done.
There’s nothing here.
Fantasist, my mind whispers. Paranoid.
She’s not here.
I’ve looked everywhere now. This house gives me the creeps. And no wonder, with its sad history. I suppose Nancy and her sister could have played in this room. But Sophie’s not here.
I go over to the window, and look up: fat drops starting to hit the glass, one by one. Rain, finally. Of course she’s not here. What did I think; she’d just be cowering behind some door? So I thought she was telling me it’s all to do with Nancy. Or Nancy’s house. That didn’t mean she’d actually be in here. She meant something else, maybe, that I’ve misunderstood.
And now it’s time to go home. Face the reality. Sophie left. I’ll talk to my family then, maybe Dad—if I can get the police to . . . Exhaustion overwhelms me. I don’t know what to do now. I’m failing her. Again. She’s leaving me these messages, and I’m failing. Wearily, I walk to the doorway.
I start to pull the door closed behind me, just as I left it.
The pain’s like a bite. I snatch my hand away—a splinter. “Ow!”
In the dim light the bead of liquid swells up on my fingertip. I suck it automatically, and wanting to see what I cut it on, swing the door round.
Someone’s forgotten to take these down. That’s my first thought, when I see the drawings pinned to the back of the door.
There must be dozens of sheets of paper tacked to the wood, stuck on with Scotch Tape, and they’re all covered in crayon scribbles—blue, green, purple, yellow. On one sheet, there’s a wobbly red spiral—a snail? Or perhaps it’s just a shape that’s fun to draw, if you’ve little fingers and a bright red crayon. On another, a rainbow splodge. Whoever did them can’t manage stick people yet—and there are no trees or flowers or farmyard animals. But someone’s bothered to keep them, all the same. Just like I did, with Sophie’s first drawings.
Another drawing catches my eye now, and I step closer to look at the big buck teeth and cartoon eyes—it’s a bunny character to color in, drawn in pencil by a skilled adult hand. Colorful scrawls burst out of the lines. The artist’s initialed her character—SH for Sophie Harlow, just like she always did—but I’ve already recognized her confident, easy style.
And I almost missed seeing them. It’d be easy, with the door open like that. You might forget the drawings were there, if you were clearing a room, say. Taking everything out, removing any sign that someone was ever here. Perhaps rushing a little, for whatever reason. You might not remember to check behind the open door, flat against the wall. You might walk straight out, if you had other things to think about.
Like he did. He missed them. He’s forgotten to take these down.
I’m on the floor now. My legs gave way, I register in a corner of my brain, as both my hands reach out to the door. This is it. Sophie. I know it, I can touch it. Here she is.
My beautiful girl. And her baby.
CHAPTER 41
Sophie
It wasn’t a lie, what I wrote in my leaving letter. Runaway note. I don’t like the sound of that. Runaway sounds cowardly, like you couldn’t face the music. I thought what I was doing was brave. But who am I kidding.
I got Holly to do the test with me. And at the last minute, some instinct told me to go into the bathroom alone. I don’t know why, not really. She would walk around without a top on, would chat away with the toilet door open, but I’d never been like that. And he’d always warned me that we needed to be careful, to keep this just between us.
So she believed me. Somehow, I’d walked out of there with a smile. “Negative,” I’d said, then taken a deep breath. I’d wrapped the wand in tissue, quietly slipped it into my bag to get rid of later. I wouldn’t leave it in the house.
I don’t know how I forgot about the packaging; I was flustered, I suppose. Holly took the blame. She was a good friend to me. I wish I could talk to her now. But I felt like he would know what to do. He was always so reassuring, always so capable.
I remember when I told him. I said to Mum and Dad that I was taking the dog for a walk, then slipped out to the end of the road. They always believed me. I ran to his car, the rain pelting down, pushed King into the back seat and climbed in the front, my heart racing.
Afterward, he was so quiet.
“Because they’re not always reliable,” I said. “They can tear, I read, and you might not notice. . . .” I trailed off. Of course he knew that. But I needed to fill the silence.
“I know. Don’t worry. It’s OK.”
I was so relieved. He didn’t even seem that surprised.
And I told him I wanted to keep it. I didn’t even say the word—abortion. It might make the idea more real, the only way forward.
“I’m sixteen soon,” I kept saying, as he stared ahead, over the steering wheel. “It’s OK. We’ll be OK.” We spent so much time in that car. There weren’t many places that were safe for us.
When he turned to face me, his face stayed in shadow. “No.” He was shaking his head. “You don’t understand. You were fifteen at the time. And they’ll be able to work that out.” For a moment, it was strange. I had a funny feeling like—like I didn’t know him, not really. He seemed so distant. I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking.
Then I’d reached out, touched his arm softly. “Let’s go away,” I’d said. “Like we’ve talked about.” It was like breaking a spell.
“You’d do that for me?” His voice came out of the darkness. I wished I could see his face.
“Yes.” I had no doubts. “For you I would.” I couldn’t lose him.
“Let me think,” he said. But he sounded pleased, speculative. He’d leaned forward to kiss me then, his eyes dark. Dark with emotion, I thought. It was so romantic, how much he cared. The things he’d say, so lovely and surprising from someone like him. I can’t live without you. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m not l
etting you go.
Now? Now I know better—he reminds me of something else. I couldn’t get it out of my head, once I realized. It was a nature program I’d seen at Grandpa’s on TV, when I was little, so it scared me, when the big fish swam past too close to the camera. That’s what he reminds me of, funny as it sounds. He’s got shark’s eyes. Alive but dead, at the same time.
I suppose I panicked. My stomach was still flat, but somehow hard now. Alone in my bed, before I went to sleep, I’d press a hand to it, feeling its solidity. In the end his idea seemed like . . . not just the best option. The only option. There would be much less upset, he said, if they were only looking for me. Then we could explain things in our own time—when we were ready.
“We’ll have to go to a hospital,” I’d kept saying. We could go out of the county, he’d said when we made our plans, it would be fine.
“Don’t worry about that. It’s all under control. Don’t you trust me?”
I never knew how to answer that. So I tried not to worry, once I was in here. I ate the vegetables he brought. I read the books he gave me. My belly felt like it wasn’t part of me, huge and swelling and marbled with blue. I couldn’t quite accept it, even then. It was like a dream.
When it started, that cool autumn evening when the pains got really bad, he was there. He was checking up on me all the time back then. He talked me through the breathing and the rest of it.
“We need to go,” I said. I knew I needed to stay calm. “Soon.”
“Not yet.”
“Soon.”
And at some point, as the day turned to night, it dawned on me—I’m not going anywhere, not at this stage. I think I must have said as much. It was all blurry by then. Maybe a part of me, the bit that I’d buried deep down, knew that this would happen all along.
“Keep going,” he kept saying. I didn’t want to hold his hand. I was fine. I made it through it, anyway. He gave me something that made the pain less. Far away, I could hear someone whimpering, then I realized it was me. Then I must have slept.
Eventually, I woke up. It was daytime again. He wasn’t there. The baby was sleeping in a cot by the mattress. I propped myself up on one arm, carefully, and looked at his tiny eyelashes, his little fists. I stroked one with a finger. His skin was incredibly soft. Slowly, very gently, I picked him up.
He’d told me I could pick the baby’s name. I knew he wouldn’t like family names: Mark for my dad, or Harlow for me. And suddenly I knew: those button eyes and so cuddly. Teddy.
“You know, that’s the beauty of having a baby young,” he told me when he came back. “You’ll bounce back quickly.”
I said nothing. I felt . . . so different. He’d said we’d go to the hospital. He’d promised me.
You lied. I couldn’t stop thinking that—you lied to me—as I watched the tall figure moving around at the bottom of the mattress, tidying up the wet towels and other things. Who are you? What am I dealing with?
Then I looked down. Little starfish hands, dark eyes. I knew the baby couldn’t really see anything, not just yet, but it felt like he was peeping at me. I held him close and sniffed his baby smell. And that’s when I felt it. Totally silent, nothing you’d ever notice from the outside. I know he didn’t. But my whole world shifted. You come first now, little Teddy.
Suddenly, now it was all over, I felt it. A wave of pure fear. So strong, I almost couldn’t breathe. Later I couldn’t understand why it hit me then, after I’d come through it, but I do now.
Some part of me realized what I couldn’t fully face back then: what I now had to lose.
There’s only been the one time I forgot, just for a second. That evening soon after he’d strangled me, when I rushed for the door, was almost through it—and then I heard that small cry from the corner. That’s when I froze, stunned I’d ever forgotten. Teddy—
And then his full weight was on me. I’d missed my chance. But I’d never really had one. I couldn’t leave without the baby. And now I couldn’t risk doing anything that might hurt him.
I wasn’t the only one who was different after the baby. Even when he made me put the cot in the corner, away from the mattress, we could still hear Teddy cry to be fed, so he stopped staying over all night, and when he did stay it was less often. I slept a lot in the day, like Teddy. That annoyed him too, when he’d find me dozing.
But it was more than that. Once, I’d just finished feeding the baby. He’d been sharp since he came in, annoyed that I hadn’t got up.
“Do you have to hold him all the time?” he said tightly. “You’re spoiling him.”
“Spoiling him? But he’s just a little baby,” I said, and snuggled Teddy to me.
The way he looked then—so calculating, like he’d just worked something out.
So I played it down, and I still do, when he’s around—how much I love the baby, his brown eyes smiling half moons above his pudgy cheeks. Now, he’s bigger, he’ll toddle over to me unsteadily, wrap his chubby little arms round my neck and give me a clumsy kiss. I have to ignore it, if he’s here with us. Watching.
It’s ridiculous, really. I could almost laugh. Except I don’t.
In fact, if I think about it, it’s all I can do not to panic. Especially when he changes our routine.
It was this last winter, my second in here. Teddy and I would wake up to see ice on the inside of the window, and know the darkness would set in early. Teddy was so pale. I’ve done my best, making sure he plays in the light of the window, but it’s not enough. I knew he was more than a year old by then, but I didn’t know if he was as big as he should be.
So I tried to say it as gently as I could.
I’m worried, I told him. It’s not healthy for a little boy to be inside all the time. Your boy. Your son.
He’d seemed to want him so much, on the outside, but he never seemed to engage with him. Maybe it was more about what a baby represented, I thought. Or a way to get me in here, I thought later.
He’s been so careful since then that it couldn’t happen again.
But he did start paying more attention to Teddy after that, as he chattered and crawled.
Then one night, he started talking. “I’ve been thinking about Teddy.”
I was facing away from him, on the edge of the mattress. I think it must have been one of the very last times we were together. I can’t be sorry about that. The thought has crossed my mind: I might be getting too old for him, but that’s yet another thing I’ve tried not to think about. Not until I get out of here.
I stirred uneasily. “Oh?”
He shifted over to me and put a heavy arm over my waist. “He’s a big boy now, getting bigger.”
“Yes,” I said, too eager. “You’re so right, he’s growing, so he needs fresh air, sunshine—”
“So that’s why,” he interrupted, “I’ll be taking him with me, when I leave.”
I went stiff. “You’re—you’re taking him away from me?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” He said it so lightly. “Fresh air for him, a break for you.”
And he did it, too, as I sat up under the duvet, my heart racing. He woke up Teddy, confused and sleepy, and carried him outside, in the dead of the night. They didn’t take long, that time, me pacing about the place until they came back in a gust of cold air, Teddy’s cheeks chilled.
He wouldn’t tell me much about what they’d done. “We were outside. He seemed to like the plants.” And of course Teddy couldn’t say, though he seemed to be fine, even to enjoy his trips, after a while.
That’s how we made the call. He took Teddy out, handing him a bit of chocolate to keep him quiet. Within minutes he was back again, without him. He read my fear correctly.
“Don’t worry, you’ll have him back,” he said.
The words hung between us, unspoken. So long as you say what I told you.
But I can’t think about the past anymore. Despite the heat, I can tell this summer’s nearing its end: it’s been getting darker earlier, the shadows
lengthening across the floor. I don’t think I could bear another winter here, yet when he told me I wouldn’t have to, I didn’t feel anything but afraid.
“We’ll be leaving soon.” His back was to me so I couldn’t see his face. “Well,” he said, turning round. “Aren’t you pleased? Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“Of course.” I got up, trying to inject my voice with excitement. “That’s wonderful. Can you tell me where?”
He shook his head then, surveying the room, like he was thinking about what to take. “You’ll like it.” There’s this new air about him—it’s almost anticipation. He’s upbeat, nearly cheerful.
Now, he’s left me bin bags to get all my stuff together. There’s not much to pack, just some clothes and toiletries. I just need to stop and focus, to work out what I should do, but it’s all so rushed.
Something’s going right for me, at last. Or something’s going very wrong.
Because I try to tell myself it’s a positive thing, that we’re leaving at last. I’ve been so good, or at least he seems to think so. I just have to keep waiting, and watching, for my chance.
But then the thoughts come back again.
He’s had enough of you. He could get rid of you.
The hairs prickle on my arms.
No, don’t be silly, you’ll get through this.
I’ve got through it so far.
But I can’t stop thinking about what all this could mean. Him keeping Teddy away from me, getting the baby used to him. Making me end that tiny bit of contact with my family, the cover-up that he’d kept going. This sudden hurry to clear this place.
Because I can’t see how it can mean anything else.
That he’s going to do something. That no one is going to find me.