I Belong to the Earth (Unveiled Book 1)
Page 15
Trepidation followed me to bed. Which wasn't surprising after the last couple of nights. It didn't matter. Amy's words kept scoring themselves over and over into my brain. Each repetition burning them in a bit deeper. I needed things to be alright with Amy before I could do anything. Especially sleep. I heard a foot fall on the stairs below. Amy must be up. Maybe she couldn't sleep either? I wouldn't wait until morning. I'd go and apologise now. If we could just hug and make up, I'd be calmer. Maybe then I'd sleep.
I headed down the stairs, Amy was just out of sight but I heard her footsteps. I sped up and saw a flash of blonde hair rounding the corner to the kitchen. The cold spot trailed icy fingers over my skin as I edged past and ran after my sister. "Ay Amy…" I hissed. "Amy!" In the kitchen, the door to the orchard was standing open. What on earth was Amy doing?
Shuddering to think of Amy out near the moor in the dark, alone, I slipped outside, my bare feet painful on the freezing ground. She was stood gazing out at the moor in her nightdress. Moonlight gleamed on her pale hair. Was she sleep-walking? She hadn't done that since she was a little girl.
"A-Amy!" I reached out and touched her shoulder.
As soon as my hand made contact I knew something was wrong. She felt cold, hard like the frozen ground. A smell like leaf mould and disturbed stale earth blew in my face. I gagged. Time had slowed down. Or my brain had sped up. Like a frame by frame reveal in an arty film she turned to face me. Before she was halfway round, I was recoiling because it wasn't Amy.
Her hair was loose and fair. Her hands, white and small. Maybe she was Amy's age when she died. But she was old. Very old. Black waves of revulsion crashed through me. No eyes. Just blank, empty sockets where her eyes should have been. She opened her mouth and the plaintive wailing I'd heard before, sliced into my ears. She reached towards me with bone-white, icy hands…
Adrenaline flooded my system in a dizzying metallic tide. I swiped her hands away and leapt backwards, half running for the door. I felt her nails graze the nape of my neck… Breath, heart and mind all stuttered - and I was through the door, bolting it behind me. Sharp gasps, fogging the air around me. In an ecstasy of terror, I pumped at the light switch. It wouldn't come on. I was in the dark. Waiting for a pale hand to press itself against the window…
Nothing.
Was she gone?
The skin on my face tightened. It was still too cold.
I was being watched. It felt wrong here, in the kitchen. Rotten. Bad eggs and blocked sewers. I was filled with hate and jealousy. But it was not me. It wasn't coming from me at all.
My heart punched my ribs like a fist. No escape outside. I had to go through the kitchen. Some primitive instinct stopped me trying.
Can't stay here anymore. Just can't. Let me go; faint; die. I don't care I just can't stay here…
The garden? Edging towards the window to peer out…was the cold girl gone…? No one there.
Cold breath against my cheek made me twist stiffly from the window.
A figure stood beside me gazing at the moor. Bitter hatred rolled off him. It was a dark spear of poison flung at the moor, where an answering darkness watched and waited. He turned. Glacial blue eyes bored into me. I flattened myself against the sink, shaking and shaking. Here. The danger was here. Not outside. His face contorted in a mask of primal fury.
You were supposed to watch her, Helen!
"I…I'm nuh not Helen…" I rasped in fright.
He raised a fist. I flinched away, screwing my eyes shut, braced for the pain…
It didn't come.
He was gone.
The atmosphere had lightened. There was nothing left now but the faint feeling of smug satisfaction coming from the moor, rolling on a dark under-belly of loathing. I braced my hands on my knees trying to whoop in enough air. The nausea was coming.
I'd been so busy thinking about the watcher outside the house, that I had completely missed the one already inside.