“And nothing would happen to him, obviously, because…”
“Because society only punished women for that kind of thing?” I raise an eyebrow at him.
The faintest tinge of pink passes across his cheeks. “I was just about to say that, actually.”
It’s very hard not to laugh. Very hard.
Everything feels different this morning: the library, the paperwork, the whole hotel. Hal.
Me.
I feel different. I feel…almost like me again. Like I’ve been wearing a mask, a shell, a suit of armour – and suddenly I can let it open just a little, because in here it doesn’t matter. I don’t need it so much. Do I?
The school nurse’s shoe squeaks as she leads me down the corridor to the office. Only one shoe – not both. And it suddenly seems so important that she knows that I want to yell it at her at the top of my voice. I would, too, if my head didn’t feel so weird. They don’t know what to do with me – should they punish me? Should they call a doctor? They leave me on the little sofa in the office reception while they decide. Outside, a couple of Year Sevens lean around the door to stare at me. “Is she okay?” one of them whispers to the other. I’m about to tell them I’m fine, to get lost, when I realize my face is wet. I’m crying, and I didn’t even notice. And now that I know, I can’t seem to stop.
I peer into the closest box. “Is the ribbon in there?”
“No. I checked. Maybe it got lost, or fell apart?”
“Or maybe he really did keep it with him.”
“Maybe.” He considers this, his eyes fixed on a spot somewhere halfway up the shelves covering the walls. “There’s been nothing of hers, though. Only his. Why?”
“You mean there are no letters from her – all these are technically hers, aren’t they? He wrote them to her. Maybe they got packed up and moved to an archive or something. Maybe the only reason these are here is because they got put away and forgotten, or lost. Maybe she hid them somewhere and then couldn’t get to them again?”
“Because it was a secret?” Hal scratches at his eyebrow.
“Exactly! We’re always finding stuff in the rooms – things people have hidden and then forgotten. Maybe that’s what happened.”
This seems to catch his attention, because he folds himself into the nearest chair, stretching his legs out in front of him and looking curiously at me. “Stuff like what?”
“Small things, mostly. Although Mira did find an engagement ring once, shoved under a mattress. It was still in its box.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “I’m guessing things didn’t go to plan.”
“And what about you? What have you found?”
“A pair of shoes.”
“Shoes?”
“I know.” I lean on the table just along from where he’s sitting. “It sounds rubbish. But they were…I don’t know. They felt like they were special.”
“Shoes?” he says again – but it’s the warmth in his voice that I hear.
Even though I found them ages ago, back when this was just a Saturday job, I can still see them. “They were black patent shoes, with a strap across the front – the kind little girls wear to parties. You know the kind I mean?”
“Not personally.”
“Well, you get the idea. They were really small, maybe for a six or seven year old? And they were sitting in the cupboard by the bed, all lined up.”
Why are you telling him this? Why does he even care about you finding somebody else’s shoes in a cupboard two years ago?
I don’t know. All I know is that telling him feels…easy.
From his chair, Hal watches me. His expression doesn’t change, but his eyes do. They soften and warm, and the colour of them shimmers from faded blue to sea-green. The line of his jaw shifts…and everything about him is a question. A puzzle. A secret.
A secret…
“The letter. The ruin letter – it makes sense now!” The words come out so fast it’s like I’m tripping over them and judging by the look on his face, Hal’s struggling to keep up with me too. Not that I get the chance to worry about that – it’s taking all my energy to rein in my brain, which is bolting for the next idea.
Sanjay’s office, and even though the blind is down as always, I can hear the rain outside.
“They’re called ‘flights of ideas’. It’s perfectly normal…”
“Normal? Are you kidding me right now?”
“Normal for this type of condition, Flora.”
“So, the new normal.”
“If that’s how you want to see it, yes. When your brain is in a manic phase, it can be harder to stay focused – your thoughts will skip from one thing to the next much faster than usual. You have to learn to pull it back.”
“Why? Thinking fast doesn’t sound so bad. It’s like a superpower.”
“Have you ever run on a treadmill?”
“A couple of times.”
“What happens if you’re running on that treadmill, and I turn up the speed?”
“I run faster.”
“And if I keep turning up the speed?”
“I’ll probably trip over and land on my face?”
“Yes. Now picture that, but with your brain.”
“Oh. So not a superpower then?”
“No, Flora.”
“Somebody knew they were together. That’s what that first letter you found is about. Somebody knew, and was telling Iris to end it. Before it was too late.”
“Jane.”
“Maybe we should try and find out who she was?”
“I’ll do some digging. You said something about an archive, didn’t you?”
I nod. “There’s a small local one at Fallowmill. It’s another old house, a couple of villages away.”
“Maybe there’s something there.” The Hal who was sitting in the chair listening to me talk about finding shoes slips away. His legs retreat, tucked closer and crossed, one ankle resting on his knee. His back straightens and his shoulders drop and his thoughts are wheeling away. “I’ll see if I can call the curator. Now I’ve got more of a lead, this one might actually let me in.”
One by one, the butterflies in my stomach turn to ash. I and me not we. Not us. Is that it? As soon as things start to make sense, he doesn’t want me here.
That’s what happens when you let your brain get ahead of you.
Why would someone like him want you around?
Then, quieter, he says: “Maybe you can come back tomorrow – just in case?”
“Tomorrow. No problem.”
He leans forward and starts flipping through the papers on the table. The walls of the library push back and the sunlight streaming in through the French windows turns cold…But as I walk out of the door, I’m sure – just for a second – he looks up at me. His voice stops me halfway out. “I’ll let you know what I find out, if you like?”
I’d forgotten about Fallowmill until this – the house Felix says gives him the creeps. I made myself forget about it. It’s one of those places owned by the National Trust – the kind of place Hopwood could have become if it wasn’t a hotel, I guess, only bigger. Much bigger. It’s also where my old school’s end-of-exams party is always held – in a huge marquee in the grounds by the lake. Jumping in at the end of the night is a tradition, like signing shirts on the last day, and leavers’ hoodies with everybody’s names on.
“Did you find a dress yet?”
“Nah. There was one, but I think it’s too…it’s just not me. You know?”
“No. But whatever. Aren’t you worried you won’t find one? I got mine last month!”
“There’s loads of time. I’ll get one after the exams.”
“There’s three weeks, Flora. That’s not loads of time – not to find a dress for Fallowmill. You can’t just wear any old thing. We’re meant to remember this party for the rest of our lives.”
I never did get my dress. I never got to do any of it.
Because while everyone else was busy having fun at the party, dancing a
nd laughing – and yes, having their photo taken sitting in the water, throwing it around like confetti – I was lying on my bed, watching the ceiling spin, every thought crashing through my head like a spiked ball, and wondering whether this was what dying felt like. Or how, if this was what living felt like, I was meant to keep on doing it day after day after day.
I missed out on the dresses and the laughing and the dancing and the jumping.
I saw it all, though, in tiny little frames on my phone. It was like watching my life – the life I thought I had – through a window, and seeing the world moving on without me. There wasn’t even a space for me in it. I might as well have fallen through a gap in the earth. Nobody messaged or called me, nobody emailed. Nobody posted anything on any of my pages or profiles online – and yes, I checked. I checked them over and over and over again until Charlie asked me whether obsessively staring at my phone was really the best thing for me. He was right, I guess. I’m not sure what was worse – scrolling back to the day of The Incident, and seeing all the stuff people wrote on their pages about the weirdo being led out of the exam room after freaking out (that would be me), or the fact that after that they didn’t write anything at all. It was like I was erased from existence. I mean, I get it – now, anyway. Why would anyone want to be friends with someone like me after that? Why shouldn’t they keep their distance – afraid that maybe I’d somehow infect them, that madness is catching? Maybe they were embarrassed, maybe they didn’t know what to say or how to act around me. Or maybe they knew exactly the same thing that I did, instinctively and unavoidably – that there was something wrong with me, and that I should be ashamed of it. That being broken was my fault, even if I didn’t know why.
I scrolled and I scrolled, and I looked for the hole in my friends’ feeds where I should have been…and it felt like being left behind – being forgotten – was what I deserved. I wasn’t good enough to be remembered, wasn’t whole enough to belong.
No wonder they stared at me from the bus. It must have been like seeing a ghost, because that’s all I am to them. A ghost, an urban legend. A cautionary tale. “Remember the girl in school who went mad…”
Dismissed by Hal, I head home, my feet dragging through the dusty grass of the deer park. I could have gone down to the break room, but I don’t want to talk to anyone right now. Not even Mira. After all, she won’t be here long, will she? Not with the course she’s applying for. And then it’ll just be me left here while everybody else moves on.
Just. Like. A. Ghost.
“Felix?”
Charlie’s voice drifts out from the kitchen when I slam the front door.
“No. Just me.”
“What are you doing back so soon?” My brother’s head peers around the door frame, a pencil tucked behind his ear. He’s still working on the planting plans for the new flower border the garden team are putting in next spring.
“I’m surplus to requirements.”
He gives me a puzzled look.
“He’s going to Fallowmill.”
“Is that so?” The pencil slips, and Charlie catches it, rolling it between his fingers. “You don’t look particularly happy about it.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“I’m here to listen, if you want.”
“Nothing to talk about. I’m going up to my room.”
He shouts something after me about whether I should be going back in, whether I’m meant to be working-working – but I’m already halfway up the stairs so I just pretend I didn’t hear him and close my bedroom door behind me. I ignore my bed, and instead wedge myself onto the tiny shelf under my window that acts as a kind of window seat, my head grazing the low sloping eaves. Taking a deep breath, I pull out my phone.
I’m not a ghost. I don’t want to be.
But somehow, that’s what I’ve ended up becoming.
A couple of finger-taps and my screen fills with pictures.
Are you sure you want to do this?
Yes.
No.
Maybe?
It somehow feels like the right thing.
Tap-tap-tap, and there’s the profile I was looking for. Eoin, the guy on the bus – the first one to see me. I’d almost forgotten his name, forgotten him, until the other morning. Boxed up the memories and put them in a corner of my mind, because everything to do with school means exams means The Incident means…awfulness. But now I remember. He used to sit in front of me in maths. He turned around once and wrote something on my folder. “That’s my number, that is,” he said, grinning at me. “And?” I’d said, because I was already slipping, already breaking apart. I just didn’t know it.
Tap-tap-scroll, rolling back time, and there’s the grounds at Fallowmill, a year ago. There they are – everyone I knew. All the friends I thought I had. The friends who left me behind.
That’s what happens when people leave. They leave and they don’t come back.
Dad, Mum, everybody from school.
Even Mira.
She’s leaving me here. She doesn’t want to be here. She doesn’t want to be my friend any more.
Is this a balanced reaction?
Is this a balanced reaction?
Is this a balanced reaction?
Hal Waverley, turning away.
Sixty-five friends and almost-friends, all of them in dresses and jackets and all of them laughing, smiling, dancing.
The sun setting on the party, on the exams.
On me.
Scoll-scroll-scroll.
But…what if I don’t want to be a ghost?
Staring at spaces where I should have been and wasn’t. Looking for the holes I left behind…
I’m across the room and down the stairs, the front door left swinging and Charlie’s voice, startled, following me out into the garden.
“Flora?”
But I’m not stopping.
“Flora!”
Out of breath from running (and speed-walking, because it’s actually quite a long way from the cottage to the Hopwood across the grounds) with my T-shirt clammy and my hair sticking to my neck, I race up the steps to the terrace and into the library – scaring the life out of the little old lady browsing the shelf of paperbacks left behind by other guests.
“Sorry…” I mumble, and slip out of the door into the lobby. He’s not here. I was sure he’d still be here.
A glance out of the windows at the drive tells me he is in the hotel somewhere. He must be – the squashed-frog car is parked outside. He could be out in the gardens, but…
I take the stairs two at a time, and I don’t stop until I’m outside the door to room fifteen. It takes a monumental effort not to add “Housekeeping?” to my knock.
I don’t want to just walk away from this. I need to see the whole of the puzzle, not just fragments of it, snapshots. I don’t want to just glimpse this story the way I’ve glimpsed the life I could have had. The ghost of the life I thought I was getting.
Hal opens the door and his face immediately changes when he sees me on the other side, quickly shifting through a series of different expressions. He opens his mouth to speak – but I’m faster. Me and my speed-racer brain.
“When you go to Fallowmill…can I come with you?”
It feels like longer than three days until Tuesday, the day we’ve agreed to go to Fallowmill to check the archives there. If it were up to me, it wouldn’t be so long – I have a couple of days off, but somehow this has stopped feeling like work – but Hal says that’s the next time the curator’s there. So Tuesday it is and for three whole days, I get to replay the look on Hal’s face when I asked to go with him to Fallowmill, over and over and over in my head.
“You want to come?”
“Yes.”
A pause, then: “Why?”
“Because…I want to know.”
The tips of his ears slowly turned pink, the colour seeping down like someone was painting them with watercolours. There was a long, long silence, then: “Okay.”
I
tried to sound casual. “If there’s anything you want to go through before then…maybe Monday?”
“We should probably wait until after Fallowmill. Besides, I have to be somewhere on Monday, so I won’t be here for a day or two.”
Don’t take it personally. It’s not about you. Don’t make it negative.
I steered my brain away from ninety-eight per cent of the places it wanted to go. “Oh. Then I guess I’ll see you Tuesday. My brother’s been nagging me about sorting out some stuff at home for ages, so…”
“The one who says you’re a pain in the arse?” The faintest glimmer of a smile appeared in his eyes.
He was listening. And he remembered.
“That one.” It was my turn to blush, and I could feel it all over my face. “But he mostly only says it when I’m being one. Mostly,” I added quietly.
He pushed his hair back from his eyes and it fell straight forward again. “Tuesday then. It’s nice to have somebody else around for this. All these old papers aren’t exactly good company,” he said. “Ten o’clock all right? I’ll meet you outside the front door of the hotel.”
I nodded. “Ten o’clock. I’ll be there.”
I try not to wake up early. I really try. So when my eyes snap open and my body decides it’s morning even though my room is dark, I check the clock.
2 a.m.
Okay.
By 5 a.m., I’ve gone back to sleep and woken up again three times, and the night has been endless. So I give in and get out of bed, and throw open my curtains. The sun is finally up and the world has turned warm gold, sparkling after the rain that came in over the weekend. Patches of pink-tinted cloud linger across the sky, and a group of deer pick their way across the park in front of the cottage.
By 6.00 a.m., I am dressed and eating a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table – much to Charlie’s surprise when he staggers downstairs in an old blue T-shirt and his pyjama bottoms, rubbing his hair and yawning.
“Morning!” I beam at him from behind my spoon.
“Christ!” He twitches so hard it’s a miracle he doesn’t dislocate his arm. “What are you doing up?”
The Pieces of Ourselves Page 8