by James Dawson
She couldn’t take the risk. Delving deep within, she struggled with muscles she’d never used. Snarling, she pulled herself through the swollen stream, biting her lip against the cold. She crawled for everything she had: Sarah, Max, Logan and her mother. Kitty, Jack, Delilah. And Danny . . . all the things she needed to say to Danny. There was no ice water on the planet that would stop her, no bleeding nose, no twisted ankle or throbbing hip.
Lights. In the distance she saw lights: houses, people and safety. She was going to make it! Relief broke like dawn in her heart.
There it was. The strong, silent hand in her hair.
She should have known better.
Through the billowing, lavender-infused smoke, stepped two figures, arms outstretched. The first carried a stone mortar, from which the thick smoke billowed. The second figure coughed and spluttered, wafting her way through the fog.
Ms Dandehunt pulled back her hood and fully entered the room. ‘It seems we got here just in time, Celeste.’
Mrs Gillespie extinguished the smoking bowl and rested it on Mr Gray’s desk. ‘So mote it be,’ she finished her incantation.
‘Kitty, Delilah and, er . . . Jack. We’ll have you out of here in a jiffy.’ Ms Dandehunt strode over to Jennifer and hauled the sobbing woman out of the corner. Mrs Rigg was pale and stiff with terror.
Jack looked over at Kitty and Dee, both blinking hard against what was left of the dizzying smog. Mrs Gillespie soon had Delilah free, and started work on untying Kitty. Jack’s head was still throbbing and he could hardly see straight. Whatever was in that bowl was strong stuff. His vision gradually came back into focus, and he regained his senses.
‘Daniel was coming around,’ Ms Dandehunt said as she tied Jennifer Rigg to a chair with her own tape. ‘He’ll have called the police by now.’
‘Where’s the librarian?’ Kitty asked, as Mrs Gillespie pulled the tape from her mouth. Delilah was busy unwrapping Jack from the table legs.
‘She’s resting,’ Celeste Gillespie said flatly.
‘Now, I think we’d better get our stories straight, don’t you?’ Ms Dandehunt nodded at each of them.
‘But Ms Dandehunt,’ Jack begged. ‘Lis! She’s in trouble!’
‘I’m sorry, Lis. This is the only way.’
His empty apology was the only new chapter to this experience. Lis pulled away, gasping, filling her lungs with much needed air. He was so strong! Her wet body had managed to slip through his fingers a couple of times, but he always regained the upper hand.
Even though she knew how this ended, with a vacuum of nothingness, she wasn’t going to go without a fight. She dug her fingers deep into the flesh of his forearms and spat in his face, deriving satisfaction from the brief flash of red-hot anger he exhibited before he regained control.
‘Relax, Lis. It’ll be better for you if you just let go.’
‘Go to hell!’ she screamed, but he just pushed her down into the black brook. The sky vanished. She pushed and kicked and squirmed but his grip held fast. Rearing up, her face managed to break the surface, but Gray took a hand off her neck and forced her face back under.
Water rushed up her nostrils. She remembered this bit vividly from her nightmare. Soon everything would become peaceful; the battles in the forest and in her head would momentarily cease fire, allowing her a moment’s silence before the end.
If death is like this, it’s nothing to be afraid of, she thought as the calm set in. She knew she should be fighting, but the sense of peace was oddly gorgeous, akin to going under anaesthetic. Lis didn’t want to die. She thought of all those things she wanted to do, all those places she wanted to go. They were nothing now. Only dreams.
It could be worse. She’d come this far. Maybe the others could overpower the older women?Without Gray, they might have a chance of escaping. That is a good last thought. Hang on to that, Lis told herself. She felt Gray’s stranglehold relax slightly as the life ebbed out of her body. Is this how he killed Laura? Death wrapped its soft petals around her and started closing up.
Suddenly, Lis felt Gray let go. Why? She wasn’t dead yet. Did he think she’d gone already? His hands left her throat and she felt him stagger away from her. With a last surge of energy she forced her tired body to sit upright. Her face broke the surface of the stream, and as muddy water poured out of her mouth, sweet, sweet air flooded in. She choked and coughed, spluttering as she cleared her eyes.
What was going on? Lis peered around. Gray had fallen backwards and now sat in the fast-moving brook, looking stunned. A huge, sleek crow squawked as it flew at the teacher’s face, pecking at his skin. Lis had been saved by a bird. If she weren’t so cold, she’d have laughed out loud. Velvet, blue-black feathers flapped in Gray’s bewildered face.
He struggled to his feet and stumbled out of the stream, staggering left and right. As he did so, another crow joined the first, needle-sharp talons clawing at Gray’s eyes and face. Then another. The teacher slapped at himself, trying to hit out at the birds. Lis seized her chance to scramble out of the brook and onto the bank. Then, with a whispered ‘thank you’ to the crows, she started running towards the comforting orange windows of Hollow Pike that glimmered just over the hill.
With a last swipe at the birds, Gray came after her again, but she felt stronger now – as if Death himself had given her a second chance. Gray grabbed her shoulders, but Lis whirled around and scratched at his already bleeding face.
‘Get off me!’ she snarled.
Gray tried to wrap his hands around her throat, but she yanked his head back by his hair so he couldn’t get a firm grasp on her wet body. Sliding through the waterlogged mud, the pair slithered away from the stream. They trampled through the undergrowth, throwing body blows at each other. There was no way Lis was giving up now. With a final war cry from her gut, she threw all her weight at him. They both fell forwards into a black abyss.
She could be flying. Her hands grasped uselessly at thin air, the shock of the fall taking all the scream out of her. It was slow, effortless, silent and weightless. Freezing air rushed up around her and she tumbled away from Gray, closing her eyes. When the flying ended, this was going to hurt. A lot. As she fell, Lis braced herself for impact.
She squealed when she hit the ground, but needlessly. Whatever was underneath her was wet, but soft. Her face smacked into it, reminding her of Mr Gray’s punch, but she was fine. She heard a loud, moist snap beside her – and then near silence. Only the cawing of the crows could be heard faintly over the polite whisper of the rushing stream.
Lis finally dared to open her eyes. The rubbish dump. Of course. The fly-tipping heap had broken their fall. Lis was face down on a stained yellow mattress, but Mr Gray was motionless. She didn’t understand – why wasn’t he coming after her? Then she saw why: Gray had landed at an impossible angle on a mound of derelict furniture and a metal chair leg now protruded through a ghastly red hole in his neck. His blood trickled down the long, thin metal pole as the rain ran off his perpetually shocked face.
If this were a horror movie, Lis knew she should shoot the bad guy in the heart or chop his head off, or something; the killer’s never really dead, he always comes back for one last scare. But from where Lis was, crouching on her dirty mattress, he looked pretty bloody dead. Yep, he was dead. And at this point in time, she couldn’t find it in her heart to feel anything but relief.
From the other side of Pike Copse she heard the beautiful singing of police sirens and started to cry.
Ms Dandehunt led the three scared youths down G Corridor, ready to face the police. ‘Now, are we all clear on what we’re going to say?’
‘Ms Dandehunt, stop! We have to go after Lis. He’ll kill her!’ Kitty seized Ms Dandehunt’s arm.
Mrs Gillespie smiled, her face ghoulish in the candlelight. ‘You don’t need to worry about Lis,’ she said. ‘A little bird tells me she’ll be just fine . . .’
Drip
Lis had dozed all through the night, cushioned by the drugs the d
octors had pumped into her. It had been a shallow, unsatisfying sleep, fraught with panicky moments where she’d woken and not remembered where she was. Now it was morning, although it was almost as black as night outside her window. Clouds remained like steel giants in the sky, a stark reminder of last night’s storm. She was propped up in bed, Sarah’s blonde head resting on the corner of her mattress.
A plump, jolly nurse entered the room and as she did so, Lis glimpsed the fluorescent jacket of the police guard posted outside her door.
‘Good morning, my sweetheart,’ the nurse said in a thick Jamaican accent. ‘You feeling any better? Hypothermia is no laughing matter now, is it?’
Lis pulled herself up, waking Sarah in the process. ‘Yeah, I’m OK,’ she replied.
The nurse smiled. Lis hadn’t seen a mirror, but if the padding across her nose looked how it felt, she didn’t want to.
‘Sorry, Lis, I must have dropped off,’ Sarah apologised.
‘That’s OK, don’t be daft.’ Lis’s throat felt sore. It must be from all the screaming. She dimly recalled collapsing into the arms of the policewoman who’d found her, although it was all a flashy blur of torches and searchlights and rain. For a brief but terrible moment, Lis had thought they might not find her in the labyrinth of trees and she’d be left there to die.
The nurse pressed a plastic cup of water into her fingers and watched her swallow some more pills. As she did, the door opened again and Kitty’s father entered, his imposing bulk filling the doorway. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been with Kitty in the back of an ambulance, clinging to his daughter, hugging her to his chest and kissing her forehead.
The nurse angrily stepped up to him. ‘You leave her alone to get some rest!’
‘I just need five minutes.’
With a frosty glare at Monroe, the nurse left the room.
Sarah gave him an equally warm reception. ‘Do we have to do this now?’
‘I’m afraid so.’ He was so different this time, so much softer. ‘How are you feeling, Lis? Last night must have been awful. Quite a storm, eh?’
Lis just about managed to nod.
‘Well, you can rest now. It’s all over. Mr Gray is dead.’ Was he going to tell her something she didn’t know? ‘You were the only person to see what happened . . . I’m sorry, I have to ask . . .’
Closing her eyes, Lis saw the same image that had played on a loop all through the night. ‘The weather was so bad. He was chasing me and we fell off the edge. It was impossible to see where we were going.’
‘That’s what we assumed. Don’t worry, Lis, you’re not in any trouble. The dagger recovered at the school is a positive match to the injuries on Laura’s body. We can’t be certain it was Gray who used the knife on her, but it had his prints on it. It seems a safe bet.’
‘Good. Did you hear that, Lis?’ Sarah asked.
‘Jennifer Rigg and Daphne Gray are accessories to murder, of course; they aren’t even denying it. Once they’re out of hospital they’ll be detained until trial.’
‘They’re here?’ Lis gasped.
‘No, love. Different hospital in Leeds, and they’re under armed guard, don’t you worry. We haven’t even begun to question them yet. Lord knows what possessed them . . . but we’ll get to the bottom of it.’
But Lis knew they wouldn’t; somehow Hollow Pike always kept its secrets. She looked over at Sarah who smiled warmly. Her poor sister, what was she meant to make of this mess? ‘What about my friends?’ Lis asked.
‘Danny, Jack, Delilah and Kath– Kitty are all doing fine. They only had minor injuries. They’ve already given statements.’
‘Can I see them?’
‘No!’ Sarah put in. ‘Not yet. Wait until you’re better. You need to rest.’
Lis saw tears well up in her sister’s eyes. Did she blame Lis’s friends? Did she think they’d dragged her into this mess?
Monroe shifted his enormous frame around her metal bed and pulled up an armchair. ‘Lis, there are just a few more questions. What happened in that classroom? I’ve never seen anything like it.’
There was a clatter at the window. All three turned to see a huge black shape beat its wings at the glass. The bird’s feathers glistened the colour of sapphires as it perched on the window ledge.
Hollow Pike awaited her answer. The crow was its messenger.
Lis turned back to Monroe and lied through her teeth. ‘I don’t know. When Jack distracted the others, I just ran.’
Monroe’s eyes bored into her. She noticed that the white parts around his irises had a slightly orange tint.
‘I’m sorry, I just don’t know,’ she repeated.
‘And you have no idea why you and the others were targeted?’
Oh, she had a very good idea. But though the reason was ridiculous, she knew to say nothing. ‘No. They just seemed fixated on us for some reason.’
Monroe flopped back in the armchair, apparently exhausted. ‘OK, last question. We still haven’t recovered Laura Rigg’s diary. Danny Marriott says he dropped it on the floor of the main school office, but our team has been unable to recover it. Any ideas?’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ Lis whispered.
‘Me too. We might have found some answers there.’ He seemed sad, a knowing sadness. How long had he served in this town? What kind of things had he seen? How many ‘unexplained’ cases? How could the police ever tackle the darkness she’d witnessed?
He stood and shook Sarah’s hand before patting Lis on the shoulder. ‘Get some sleep, Lis.’ The police inspector regarded her thoughtfully one final time, before gliding out of the room, his long winter coat flowing behind him.
Outside the window, the crow took flight.
A couple of weeks passed in a mix of the hospital’s regime and Sarah’s. Lis was allowed books, magazines, her Nintendo, Max, Logan. She was not allowed her mobile phone, her friends, newspapers, to watch TV. In Sarah’s eyes, she wasn’t ‘strong enough’. Perhaps Sarah was right. The nightmares stopped, but were replaced by an unnatural black absence when she slept – a peaceful nothingness, worryingly close to her final seconds under the water of the stream. It was too quiet.
Dealing with her mother had been tricky to say the least. Deborah had travelled up from Bangor the day after Gray died, bringing a tide of questions that Lis couldn’t answer. Her mum blamed Sarah for not looking after her properly, they’d bickered non-stop, and Lis had felt even worse. Things had calmed down by the time Deborah had gone back to Wales for work, but no doubt the arguments would flare up again when she returned for Christmas.
On the plus side, they were letting Lis go from hospital tomorrow. She’d be home in plenty of time for Christmas. Though once they let her out she’d have to face the journalists, of course. Sarah said the news people had been camped outside the house.
Lis often thought about Mr Rigg, alone in that enormous house in Upper Hollow. How many TV cameras were pointing at him? That poor man. He’d lost his daughter and his wife. She quickly turned the page of the magazine she was reading. Every time she thought about Laura, even for a second, a new wave of guilt swept over her. Could they have helped her? Could they have saved her? Maybe if Laura had had friends like Kitty, Jack and Delilah – people she could really talk to . . . But she had kept everyone at a distance. In the end, although it was Kitty, Jack and Delilah who were considered ‘freaks’, Laura had probably been more alone than they ever were.
There was a gentle knock at the door.
‘Come in,’ Lis called.
Behind a towering bouquet of flowers, Ms Dandehunt entered the room. ‘Hello, dearheart, these are from the school.’
‘Oh, thanks!’ Lis smiled. You couldn’t not smile when Ms Dandehunt was around. ‘You didn’t have to.’
Her headteacher sat down in the armchair. ‘Of course we did. I think it’s the very least we could do, given . . . what happened.’
Lis stared at her hands, unsure what to say.
Reaching into her handbag, Ms
Dandehunt produced a DVD and placed it on Lis’s lap: The Crucible. ‘I thought you might enjoy the film.’
Lis laughed. ‘Just what I always wanted!’
‘I won’t keep you long, Lis, dear. I just wanted to make sure you were all right. I know your view of Fulton High School must be astoundingly poor at the moment, but I like to think that a brave, strong girl like you will be ready to join us again after Christmas. It’d be such a shame to lose you.’
‘I wouldn’t say I was brave or strong.’
Ms Dandehunt’s kind, round face beamed at her and she took Lis’s hands into her own. Her skin was warm and soft, reminding Lis of her old Gran Rushworth.
‘Oh, I would,’ Ms Dandehunt insisted gently. ‘We make ’em strong and brave here in Hollow Pike. You and your friends . . . What you did . . . Quite, quite spectacularly bonkers! You ought to have your heads examined, all of you – but it was extraordinarily brave and very, very strong.’
Lis choked up with tears. She looked out of the window, sensing some of her birds not too far away in the nearest trees. It was comforting. ‘Yeah, but I’m not from Hollow Pike, am I?’
Ms Dandehunt stood to leave. ‘Oh, you’re definitely a Hollow Pike girl. It’s in your blood, my dear.’ She gave Lis a tender smile and trundled towards the door.
‘Ms Dandehunt?’ Lis sat up. ‘Did you have a relative called Reginald?’
‘Yes, dear. He was my grandfather.’ She lingered in the doorway. ‘A thoroughly insightful chap.’
‘Who . . . What are you?’
Ms Dandehunt smiled an old, world-weary smile, and returned to Lis’s bedside. ‘The most important thing you need to know about me is that, first and foremost, I’m a teacher. Like any good teacher, my priority is to protect the children in my care. Remember this: as long as you remain in Hollow Pike, Lis, there’ll be someone on your side.’
Once more she reached into her bag and pulled out a sprig of lavender, sealed with a black ribbon. ‘Lavender. For protection. Black is the colour of protection, you see.’