by Ryan Casey
Ashley laughed a little bit too enthusiastically before planting his knuckles against the hard wood door once again.
“How regularly do you meet with Susan Vickers, then?”
Ashley felt his body crumble. He wanted a sinkhole much like the ones that had eaten up one hundred and fourteen Preston residents to swallow him up on the spot and spit him out somewhere where he could be alone with Grace. He gulped down more sickly phlegm. Cleared his throat again, his cheeks burning up.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Steve said, smile even larger than ever. “I understand. Couldn’t expect the world to just stop when my sister died, could we? And I’m sure Grace understands too, right?” He opened his mouth wide. “Oh. Oh. She doesn’t know? Oh my. Well, I’m not sure how I feel about this. I mean, this could be really damaging to your relationship if she were to find out.”
Ashley felt the heat in his cheeks replaced by something else entirely. It was a tenseness, right the way through his body. He turned and looked right at Steve. “What the fuck do you want, Steve?”
Steve laughed again. “Hit a nerve, did I? Sorry for that. Anyway, I’ve been doing my research. Doing a bit of digging into why my sister might suddenly disappear then turn up again. And at first, I thought it was the pair of you. Some kind of plan so you can get a load of cash, only to get more cash and media attention when Grace ‘miraculously returns.’” He stopped. Knocked on the door himself this time, the echo ringing in Ashley’s ears. “Now, I’m not so sure. Now I’m starting to wonder whether you and this Susan piece had some idea of what was happening all along. Maybe—maybe one of you took Grace away. Took her away, kept her prisoner, traumatised the fuck out of her while you and this Susan enjoyed your cash prize.”
Ashley shook his head. He actually felt more upset that Steve would think this of him than anything else. “You’re wrong, Steve. I love your sister. I love—”
“But you fucked Susan Vickers, didn’t you? You fucked her. And she’s got history as a money-grabbing tart. Yeah, I bet you didn’t know about that did you? Tax evasion. Not paying her rent. Not to mention a stint in a mental hospital when she was younger. She certainly could’ve done with some cash. And she certainly would’ve been capable of it.”
Steve’s smile had dropped and his cheeks had gone red. He bashed his fist against the door of Ashley’s flat again. Ashley had no idea what to do. Grace was going to find out about Susan. And then Steve was going to pitch this bonkers theory to her. A theory that was bonkers, admittedly. But for Grace to know Ashley had met Susan today…that would take a lot of fixing.
“It’s not true,” Ashley said, his voice shaky. “Believe what you want to believe, but it’s not true. And the one thing you just haven’t been able to accept all along is that I love your sister, and your sister loves me. More than she’s ever loved you. More than you’ve ever loved her.”
Steve stopped bashing the door now. He pushed Ashley against it, bloodshot-eyed. Ashley felt the metal handle dig right in to his left-hand side, knocking against his lower rib.
“She’s never known what’s best for her,” Steve said, holding Ashley up against the door. He pushed Ashley again, digging his rib further into the handle. “She’s never known what’s—”
It was then, as the door handle dug further into Ashley’s back, that he felt a sensation akin to flying.
No. He was falling. Falling backwards into his flat, the weight of Steve falling on top of him.
He smacked against the floor, his head cracking right back and his teeth sinking into his tongue, sending an immediate metallic wave of blood around his mouth.
He was dizzy. He pushed Steve away and clutched at the back of his head, which felt like an elephant had just sat on it. He looked down at Steve as he rose to his feet in the dark room of his flat…
Wait. His flat wasn’t dark when he left. Not completely dark. He’d partly opened the blinds. Had all the lights on.
He realised then that Steve was on his hands and knees, looking around the room with wide-open eyes.
Ashley turned around in the direction of the main part of the flat, with the bed and the kitchen worktop.
He realised right away what Steve was so fixated on.
The candles, in a circle on the floor.
The hexagonal drawing etched into the floor.
The knife.
But most of all, he noticed the picture. He noticed the photograph, right in the middle of this hexagonal etching, and he realised right away that somebody was in very great danger.
“Grace?” Ashley shouted, as the candlelight flickered in the darkened, silent room of his flat.
But he knew she wouldn’t answer. He knew she wasn’t here.
As he looked back down at the smiling photograph of Susan Vickers in between those knifed-in hexagons, he realised he probably should have listened to what she had to say all along.
TWENTY-NINE
“What…What is…What happened here?”
Ashley looked around the room of his flat trying to take in what he was seeing. The lit candles all around the floor. The hexagons, etched into the tiles, just like she’d tried to do at her parents’s, only this time complete. The knife.
Then, the photograph of Susan in the middle.
“This—What have you done here?” Steve shouted. “What have you done with Grace?”
Ashley turned away from the flickering white candles, which dripped wax down their sides and onto the floor, and he looked at Steve. His heart raced. His mind spun as the fumes from the candles filled up his nostrils. “Grace…Grace did this,” Ashley said. “We need to find her. We need to find her before she finds Susan.”
Ashley rushed away from the candles in the middle of the room and brushed past Steve, who was still on his knees. As he passed him, he felt a tug on the back of his shorts.
“This—You said she was here. You said you’d gone for a run and—”
“Like I said,” Ashley said, yanking his shorts away from Steve’s grip. “You might have these shitty ill-cooked theories of yours, but the truth is, I’m worried about Grace. Everything I said about the hexagons, about—about her behaviour, none of it was a lie. And I don’t give a shit whether you somehow manage to convince the police that Grace’s disappearance was some badly pulled-off plan of mine and Susan’s. Right now, I need to find Grace before she does anything.”
Steve frowned. Sweat dripped from the lines of his forehead, as did the greasy gel from his hair. “Does…Does anything? What do you…What does that mean?”
Ashley rubbed his tongue against his teeth, still tasting the blood from his collision with the floor upon entry to the room. What did he mean indeed? He wasn’t sure. The Grace that had had the seizures, drawn the hexagons, she was unpredictable. She was somebody else. Something else.
Ashley had zero idea what Grace was going to do. And that’s what terrified him the most.
“I don’t know,” Ashley said, straight up. “All I do know is that if we don’t get to Susan Vickers before your sister, before my girlfriend, then I worry what might happen.”
Steve shook his head. He lifted himself slowly to his feet, readjusting the collar of his white shirt as the candles continued to burn behind him. “You’re insane,” he said, still shaking his head. “You’re—you’re insane.”
“More insane than your dead sister turning up almost a year after her death without as much as a mark on her?” Ashley could feel a weight releasing from his body as he spoke, like he’d been pent up for far too long with these words he was speaking . “More insane than that, really? Because believe me, Steve, I’ve tried to accept this new Grace. I’ve tried, despite these weird blackouts, despite these etchings on the floor and—and the scales on her back. Despite her being pregnant. I’ve tried. And it did work for a short while. These last few days, they’ve been better. Not perfect, but better. But I see now. That woman who’s come back. I…I don’t think she’s Gr
ace.” Ashley’s throat welled up. He felt pressure behind his eyes. “I think I’ve known that all along but only now am I starting to really see it.”
Steve rubbed his sleeves and shook his head. The flowers that he’d brought for Grace were scattered on the floor now, the plastic wrapping unsealed as they’d tumbled towards the hexagons and the candles in the middle of the room.
“So I’m going to go find Susan. She’s probably back home now. I’m going to go to her place and I’m going to get there before Grace does, somehow. And if Grace is already there, then I cross that bridge when I come to it. I just…I really would like to stay and talk, Steve, but I’ve a bus to catch in five minutes.”
Steve gulped. He shook his head some more as he stared at Ashley, standing in the middle of Ashley’s and Grace’s darkened flat like a polar bear that had suddenly woken up in the middle of the desert. “It’s…It’s just wrong,” he said. “It’s wrong. All of it.”
Ashley nodded. “I know it is. But I really need to go. Just, please. Look around. Look at the facts, not the theories. I love Grace. I want her back more than anybody. But the person who’s back, she’s not Grace. Not completely. I see that now.”
He turned around before Steve got a chance to see the warm tears creeping down his cheeks and hitting his lips with their saltiness, and he rushed outside of his flat.
He had a bus to catch. He had to get to Susan. Whether this was astrological, astronomical or whatever-the-fuck-else, he needed to get there before Grace did.
Before whatever was in Grace’s place did.
THIRTY
Ashley looked at his phone. 10:25. The bus should be here now. It should’ve been here minutes ago. It was never late. Always early. Or on time at the very least.
He looked down the road towards town as he perched on the hard metal seat of the bus stop. He could hear horns honking at one another. He could smell petrol ripe in his nostrils. The smell of a packed road. The smell of a traffic jam.
The taste of Hubba Bubba.
No. No Hubba Bubba taste. That day was gone. That day was in the past. It had happened. Grace had died. She’d come back, but not completely.
Saturn. The hexagons. The miscarriages. Eromus Reptilia.
Grace was gone. She had to be gone.
He peered down at the roundabout where flowers were scattered over the memorial of the sinkhole. More flowers than usual were there today. Building up for the first anniversary in two days’ time. Red flowers, yellow flowers, blue flowers.
The hexagons.
The taste of Hubba Bubba.
The sound of screeching metal.
Ashley jumped from his seat at the bus stop. The rain was pouring freely from the grey clouds above now. He listened as the cars honked their horns, sniffed up the smells of fumes. He was stuck here. The bus went the route that was blocked with traffic. His only other option was to get a taxi, but even they came from the middle of town, so they’d get stuck in this mass of cars too.
He lifted his phone out of his pocket. Scrolled to Grace’s name. What harm would there be in calling her? Maybe it would help. Maybe if he could just speak to her—reach out to her—she’d snap out of her trance again and come back home to rebuild. They could go to the beach after all. Zip up their hoods and hold hands as they ran down the wet, sloppy sand of the rain-drenched beach.
They could fix things. Work on things again.
But for how long?
Instead, Ashley moved away from Grace’s name and went back to the numerical keypad. He hit in a “9,” and then another. He could phone the police. But what did he say? How did he explain himself or Grace’s behaviour? How did he explain this entire fucked-up sequence of events and expect them to take him seriously?
He hit in the third “9.” Lifted the dampened screen of the phone to his face. He had no other choice. No other options.
“Hey, Ashley.”
The voice came from behind him. From behind him, where an engine was rumbling. He turned around, the phone still pressed to his face, expecting to see Carlo or Will or one of his other flatmates.
Instead, he saw Steve Wisdom in his navy blue BMW edging out of the gates of Ashley’s flat block car-park. He was looking right at Ashley.
Ashley turned around again. Looked down towards the honking traffic. He had no more time for Steve. No more time for fucking around. He had to call the police. He had to get to Susan. He had to make sure she was safe, regardless of how insane it might’ve made him—or Grace—look.
A horn pipped to his side. He looked again, ready to bollock Steve and tell him to get screwed for good.
But when he looked at Steve’s car as it edged further out of the car park, he realised Steve was waving at him.
“Get in,” Steve called. “Let’s get this done with.”
THIRTY-ONE
Ashley and Steve didn’t exchange many words for the first part of their journey. In fact, sat in the passenger seat of Steve’s BMW, which was immaculate and smelled strongly of minty air freshener, Ashley wasn’t sure whether he’d ever actually truly been alone with Grace’s brother at all.
“It’s not right, you’re right,” Steve finally spat out, as he peered out through the rain-soaked windscreen that the wipers were having a hard time clearing.
Ashley again wasn’t too sure what to say. His heart raced, he could feel and even see that underneath his black v-neck shirt. They were so close to Susan’s house. Just a few more turns and they’d be on Chapman Road. Ashley hoped she hadn’t gone back home. But then he hoped she had and that they’d be able to get to her before Grace did.
Then again, how had Grace even got to Susan’s if that’s where she’d gone? Fuck. Weirder things had happened, in truth.
“Knew it was off from the start. Her being back.” Steve clicked up his indicator and turned onto Albert Road. “Wanted to believe it was something to do with you. Maybe it still is. But I dunno. Just…just getting my head round it, probably.”
“I’m serious, Steve. This is nothing to do with me. It’s…There’s something weird happening with your sister. I know you don’t want to believe that, but—”
“I still thought you were involved right up until I saw those candles and those—those shapes for myself. Right up until that point.” He turned to Ashley. Peered at him with his intense eyes. “Don’t be fucking with me after all this, Ashley. Please.”
Ashley sighed as they turned off Albert Road and onto Lower Bank Road. “What made you change your mind anyway? I mean…I could have laid out those candles.” Fuck. Stupid thing to say. “Not that I did. Just—”
“I know, I know. I guess I got my head out of my arse and realised that you did actually care for Grace. And you were probably right, back at your flat: you looked out for her more than I ever did. I do care for her, obviously. I dunno. Big brothers. Sometimes we can be a pain.”
Steve put his foot down on the accelerator, kicking up a wave of water as the car went through it. Ashley could see Chapman Road emerging in the distance. He prayed he’d see that Susan’s car still wasn’t home. Another part of him kind of wished it was there. But that it’d just be her, and they’d be able to get her away. That Ashley would finally be able to actually listen to whatever it was Susan was trying to tell him.
“So what’s the plan now?” Steve asked. He rubbed his hands against the steering wheel, an action which squeaked and got on Ashley’s nerves.
Ashley took in a deep breath. He could still taste a dull hint of blood in his mouth from where he’d bitten his tongue earlier, and it was starting to knock him sick. He could see Susan’s house emerging on their left. “Pull up outside. If she’s in, her car will be round the back. I’ll see if anyone’s in.”
Steve pulled up on the pavement outside Susan’s house. When he stopped the engine, the sound of the rain peppering against the roof would’ve been relaxing if it wasn’t for the situation, or the fact that Ashley was actually on
e-on-one with Grace’s brother.
Ashley turned to Steve. Steve was looking back at him, straight-faced.
“Well, cheers for the lift,” Ashley said, as he opened the door of the BMW and let the warm spring wind carry the rain towards him.
“Just…just get this sorted,” Steve said. He turned away. Rubbed his palm across the BMW emblem in the middle of his steering wheel. He didn’t look back at Ashley again.
Ashley closed the door of the BMW and turned towards Susan’s house. He wasn’t totally sure why Steve had helped him, but he sensed that Steve saw what he saw too. That something was wrong with Grace. And really, that was why he’d been so gunning for Ashley and even for his sister since her return. So desperate to find a logical answer and explanation as to why she was suddenly alive again, because that wasn’t possible.
But now he’d seen the hexagons, the knife, the candles and the photograph of Susan. He’d seen it for himself, and something had clicked inside him. Whether he changed his mind again in five minutes or not, Ashley figured that counted for something.
He hopped up the steps, the cold rain contrasting with the warm breeze and sending his bare arms and legs into a mess of confusion. He stood close to the white plastic front door of Susan’s house. Downstairs, he saw that old woman again, sitting by her wide-open window, smiling out at him. He smiled back at her this time, pressed Susan’s doorbell, then knocked on the glass.
He didn’t hear any movement upstairs. Usually, when he’d gone to visit Susan in the past, her flat was so flimsily built that he’d hear her jumping off her sofa and opening the upstairs door to come and greet him. Not today, though. Shit. Maybe she’d seen him out of the window. Maybe she’d seen his missed calls and put two and two together. Chosen to ignore him. Ashley poked his head around the side of the house. Looked at the parking spaces to see if he could see Susan’s blue Corsa.
It was there. There, in its usual spot. Which meant that Susan had got home. She was in. She had to be in.