What she had seen. She knew it to be true. Joanne and Christine. Wrestling control of Danni’s mind. How many times had Danni’s personality been taken over by one of the people in her mind? Who was she and where did she end and they begin? Questions she’d never find answers to, she feared. Another semi-trailer barrelled past them, rocking the small car. Dust flew over the windscreen, momentarily obscuring her view. Frantically, she flicked on the wipers to clear her vision, then used the water to wash away the dead bugs. She watched as the wipers smeared the tiny corpses all over the window. A parent should never have to bury a child, let alone two. The thought caused pricks of pain behind her eyes which then welled with tears. They flowed down her face faster than she could wipe them with her hand. They made it hard to see through the darkened night. It wouldn’t do any good for them to crash.
Pull over, the voice suggested, but Danni ignored it, she didn’t want others to be in control of her any more. She was in control goddamn it. Her life might be in free fall, but it was her life.
Let us help you. Pull over.
She didn’t know how they could possibly help but she mumbled, ‘Go away,’ quietly anyway.
A large four-wheel drive flew past her, followed by another semi-trailer, again rocking the car so much that she had to hang onto the steering wheel tighter. She was so tired, emotionally and physically. She felt like she hadn’t had a good sleep in over a month. She guessed she hadn’t. All the stress with her family’s deaths, the insurance company’s refusal to pay out, Beth, and now Andrew, had taken their toll on her. She had lost weight, was tired yet couldn’t sleep and was a nervous wreck, jumping at shadows. She sometimes wanted to be like Mia, oblivious to what was going on around her. Off in her own world, where the pain and guilt couldn’t touch her. She wanted it all to end, but she could never do that to Mia.
So she kept driving, blinking a few times to try to get the grit out of her eyes. They had to keep moving.
A loud blare of a deep horn brought her back to reality. The car had wandered across the double white lines. The semi’s rumbling blast warned her to get back on her side. Heart hammering, she quickly yanked the wheel, swerving back into her lane. She put a hand on her chest to stop her heart from beating so fast. Her phone rang and, in the close quarters, it sounded like a scream, and she jumped with fright. She quickly silenced it and wondered who was calling her so late. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, making her grip the wheel tighter. Danni didn’t look. She looked in the mirror at Mia, but she hadn’t stirred with the phone ringing. In fact, she hadn’t moved in hours. Danni reached behind her and touched her wrist, feeling for a pulse. She found one and breathed a sigh of relief.
Driving through the black of night, Danni decided to put the radio on. She listened to the news and a couple of old songs that she sang softly to. The next song that came on was ‘Sherry’ by the Four Seasons. It reminded her of one of Mia’s favourite old time songs, ‘Oh, What a Night’.
Danni was instantly transported to a different time. A time and place that was very familiar to her. Danni was in her bed, the old springs digging into her back, Joe’s loud snoring beside her. He had woken her up yet again and she had the urge to smother him with his own pillow. She was so tired and she had to work tomorrow morning, not to mention get the kids off to school. Once she had woken, she realised that she’d have to go to the toilet and soon. She was busting. She reached for the dressing gown in the dark and folded it around her, tying the belt up tightly. She realised that it was Joe’s but she didn’t care, she’d give it back to him before he woke up.
Danni walked quietly across the landing. She went into the bathroom, careful not to close the door. Once closed, the broken knob held you prisoner until someone set you free. She didn’t want to yell the house down for someone to come and rescue her. Once she had washed her hands, she stared into the bathroom mirror. She leaned forward and breathed on the mirror. She drew a love heart. No idea why, she just felt like it.
Danni walked back across the landing to the cupboard door next to Mia’s room. She opened the cupboard quietly on its oiled hinges. Oiled by her a week ago.
Danni grabbed out lengths of polyurethane rope and a box cutter. She could hear a song playing on the radio from Mia’s room. ‘Oh, What a Night’. She hummed along with the song, enjoying the peace and quiet that the early hours of the morning afforded her. She nodded her head along with the beat. Putting the rope and box cutter on the small stained wooden landing table, she reached back into the cupboard and grabbed a jerry can, the liquid sloshing around. She could smell the pungent petrol, even though the yellow lid was on the nearly-full red plastic container. This was it.
Danni walked over to Noah’s room first. He looked so sweet and innocent lying there, a teddy tucked up under his neck, gripped firmly in his arm. She kissed him on the cheek and stroked his hair. He slept with the door open, always, a hangover from his nightmares when he was younger. When he had nightmares, he would scream the house down and Danni would run in and comfort him, holding him and stroking his hair until he fell asleep. Joe didn’t agree with her methods, but she didn’t give a shit. She opened the cap of the can and poured a line from the middle of his room out into the middle of the landing. She blew a kiss to her youngest.
Next, she walked into her daughter’s room. Alexandra, her middle child, ever the peace maker, was lying with the cover pulled almost over her head. Danni leaned down and gave her a kiss on her hair, moving the blanket slightly, running her fingers down her soft cheek. She murmured in her sleep, a wordless sigh that Danni couldn’t understand. Again, Danni uncapped the can and ran a length of petrol to the middle of the landing, meeting the one from Noah’s room. She whispered, ‘I love you,’ to Alexandra.
Danni headed to the opposite side of the house, slowly walking into Mia’s bedroom. Her first child, seventeen now, almost a woman. She didn’t give her a kiss or stroke her hair as she had the others. She didn’t want to wake her. Danni’s eyes felt like they had sand in them, so she rubbed them hard, but ended up making it worse. Mia’s radio had changed songs now, but there was still a golden oldie on. Mia said she found them comforting and relaxing when she was drifting off to sleep. Like she had done to her other children’s rooms, she opened the jerry can and drew a line of petrol out onto the landing, linking it up with the others, a pool of petrol soaking into the threadbare carpet where they converged.
She saved the best for last, heading towards her own bedroom. She stood quietly at the bedroom door, listening to her husband’s loud breathing, interspersed with even louder snoring. The noises that always woke her up nearly every night. She thought back to Joe coming out of Mia’s room late at night, the frostiness between the two, Mia pushing the boundaries with her father. It all added up. She didn’t want to think it, but she remembered the website. Determined, she walked into the room, confident that Joe wouldn’t wake up. She coated the floor around the bed with petrol and poured some on him for good measure. She had to make sure that the job was done properly.
She thought back to when they were first married, the love, the promises, the future. All gone now. Nothing left.
Putting the jerry can on the floor where all of the lines of petrol met, she picked up the rope, woven tightly together. The best rope she could find for the task. She started with her bedroom door, tying the rope around the door handle, securing it with zip ties that she had found in Joe’s shed. Danni then ran the rope to Alexandra’s room, repeating the process, and then to Noah’s room, tying off the last of the rope. She tested the doors; they were now locked securely from the outside, intertwined. There was no way they were getting out unless one of them had a knife, but by then the petrol would have lit their rooms, engulfing them in smoke and flames. She walked over to Mia’s room and repeated the process, tying the rope to the hall cupboard, zip tying it off, so even if she could open the door a bit, she’d never be able to get out.
Smiling, she pulled a box of matches from the waist b
and of her pyjamas, put there at some time in the night. Walking down to the second step, she pulled two matches from the box, struck them against the rough side, the sound deafening in the near silent house. She held the matches for a second, watching the flame burn towards her fingers and inhaled deeply before she flicked them towards the middle of the room. Instantly, the fire whooshed as it connected with the petrol, flaming blue for a moment before an oily black cloud started to fill the landing, snaking out towards the bedrooms.
Danni ran down the stairs and out the front door, knowing it would lock behind her and she wouldn’t be able to get back in. She quickly walked over to the dog’s kennel and unclipped Pooch’s collar from the chain. The dog ran in circles around her legs, yipping and trying to lick her hand but she kept pulling away. Eventually he gave up and trailed after her silently, nudging her leg every now and then. Maybe she wanted the company, or maybe she didn’t want Pooch to burn, too.
Danni went around to the back of the house, feeling the heat as she turned the corner. The smoke boiled around the house. She couldn’t see Noah’s or Alexandra’s rooms from her vantage point, but she could see Joe’s and Mia’s. Danni stared intently at her bedroom window, waiting for Joe to appear, on fire. He had had petrol doused on him and she wanted to see him burn. Needed to see him burn.
Suddenly she was rewarded. Joe’s flaming body appeared in the bedroom window, screaming, yet making no sound at the same time.
He hadn’t even tried to open the window, but had he tried, he would have found that his had been nailed shut, as had everyone else’s. Nobody would be able to get out now. Suddenly she heard a faint scream cut through the roaring night. Danni turned to see her daughter, Mia, at the window, her face a mask of terror.
The girl moved into action, throwing her desk chair through the window, breaking the glass. The sudden rush of oxygen fanned the flames even higher as they licked the ceiling, coming ever closer to the teenager. She jumped through the window and stood on the veranda for a long moment, watching her mother. Danni looked at her and began to laugh as she watched the look of terror on Mia’s face turn to one of shock.
Mia slid over the veranda and dropped heavily to the ground.
46
Danni saw all of this flash before her eyes. She cried out, screamed, banged her hand against the steering wheel and pulled over in a hurry, the car screeching to a stop, rocking on its suspension. With the engine still running, she stumbled out of the car, fell to her knees and vomited on the ground, over and over, until there was nothing left inside her. She put a hand on her stomach which was seething with pain, bile coming up her throat, vomiting again. She was clammy to the touch. Her hands were shaking, and her mouth tasted foul.
You’re welcome. Joanne.
I’m so sorry, Danni. Christine.
Joanne’s voice filled her head again.
Now you’re free.
‘Why?’ she yelled, the question echoing through the night.
Damaged goods. You would never have come back from it and you should never have had children. You’re damaged, Danni. You forget, I can see into your heart, Joanne replied. You’re rotten.
Danni screamed. So loudly that she hurt her own ears, the scream ripping at her throat as she clawed her neck, drawing blood, primal and fierce. She stumbled back into the car, revving the engine and took off so fast that the tyres spun and she fishtailed all over the road. She gripped the steering wheel so tight that her knuckles were white and quickly began to ache. It was only when she looked over at the back seat that she realised.
Mia wasn’t there.
She slammed the car to a stop on a small rise. Her engine, ticking loudly, filled the night air as Danni yelled her name, checking the back seat again for her daughter. Where was she? Where was Mia?
‘Mia!’ She cried over and over until her voice was hoarse.
Suddenly she was standing back on the lawn behind the house watching it go up in flames. She was smiling as she watched Joe disappear from view, no longer able to stand up. She didn’t want to go around the corner to see if Noah and Alexandra had fared any better, she had a feeling that the smoke had put them to sleep and no fire had touched them. She thought of Joe, coming out of Mia’s room and her absolute belief that Joe had been abusing Mia.
Danni flashed back to her own youth. She remembered, now. She had been locked in a room with a boy who was trying to rape her. She had stabbed him over and over before Beth came in and took control. Danni had been made to help carry the wounded boy to the back shed, full of paint tins and flammable paint thinner. Beth had lit a cigarette and thrown it into the shed then locked the door. The boy had burned to death, the fire consuming him.
That was the night that Joanne and Christine had made their first appearance. Joanne knew. She knew that being abused as a child followed you, haunted, hunted you through the rest of your life, tainting every experience you ever had, making you suspicious of everyone and everything. Joanne was right, she should never have had children. They weren’t safe around her.
Danni stopped screaming as she finally understood what they were protecting her from.
Mia was never real.
She had died in the fire with the rest of her family.
You’re free now, Danni.
Danni never saw the headlights blazing into her car, never heard the sound of the air horn pumping, never heard the squeal of the exhaust breaks. Suddenly, there was a jarring impact, the sounds of metal screeching against metal, burnt rubber scenting the air and someone screaming in agony.
Her body ricocheted against the seatbelt and back again half a dozen times, breaking ribs, parting flesh, spilling blood. Danni, accepting of her fate, looked into the spiderwebbed rear-view mirror. She saw her beloved children, all together again, waiting for her. Mia smiled serenely at her. She whispered, I love you.
As the car flipped, skidding along the road, pushed along by the semi-trailer, Danni’s gaze was still fixed on her eldest daughter. ‘I love you too,’ she whispered.
Acknowledgments
This book centres around the mental health and wellbeing of a woman, a mother. Women’s mental health is a cause that I feel deeply connected to. Many women are fighting a daily battle with mental illness and most of the time you would never even know it. They hide their pain, paste a smile on their face and get on with their lives, all the while fracturing on the inside. If you see someone struggling, ask them if they are okay, you could make all the difference to them. Be kind to each other and always remember, it could be you one day that needs help.
On a lighter note, I’d like to thank the team at Boldwood Books, you’re all amazing and I thank you all for your help. I am truly grateful to you all.
I’d also like to thank my family and friends for their everlasting support, I couldn’t do it without you, and of course you, my lovely readers. I hope you have enjoyed my book and if you have, don’t forget to tell a friend. Drop by and say hi on my socials and keep an eye out for my next book.
Kirsty x
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Chapter One
Life wasn’t meant to be easy. This was the realization that Vanessa Sawyer had come to. Nothing in her lif
e had turned out the way she had planned, except motherhood, and even then, it had not been an easy road. But she loved her kids, Wren and Ty. They had saved her; they were the reason she woke up in the morning.
She’d married young, just gone eighteen. Mark, her husband, had been in her year at high school and had been dating her best friend Maggie for months. He was nice, charming, popular, and she’d had a crush on him for a while. Looking back, Vanessa could now admit that it was him who had put this whole thing in motion, but she had allowed it by letting herself be swayed by his advances. And she had paid for it.
The high-school dance. An evening of supposedly innocent fun, that ended up staying with Vanessa forever. Maggie left the dance early, saying she didn’t feel well. Mark called her parents to ask them to come and get her. Tucking her into the back seat of the car, he kissed her cheek like a good boyfriend. A truly good boyfriend would have driven her home himself, but he didn’t want to. That much was obvious. Perhaps Vanessa’s entire relationship with Mark would never have happened had he driven Maggie home, but then she would never have fallen pregnant with Wren, her beautiful boy. When Mark strolled back into the hall, his eyes caught hers. He reached for her upper arm and held it firmly. She felt the electricity between them, the thrill of the unexpected and forbidden. He rubbed his thumb along her skin in a way that was entirely too familiar. She tried to pull away.
The Silent Daughter Page 27