I find myself standing in a long corridor. Ahead of me, a broad flight of stairs ascends. The polished wood is dulled by a layer of dust, but I can tell that this must have been a grand entranceway. A curving bannister is fringed with ornate metal lattice-work. The house looks old and fancy. I wonder whether Dr O’Reilley was paying for this place with just his GPs income? If so my mum is doing something seriously wrong. More likely it was a family home that he inherited, lived in by generations of O’Reilleys, so all that he had to do was keep it from falling down. And not die. I swallow.
I’m about to turn away when I notice something. It’s only a tiny mark but somehow my eye is drawn to it. On the edge of the skirting board. A stain. A dark brown smudge, no bigger than a five-cent piece. Blood. My mouth feels dry and my head is spinning, and suddenly I see it, as bright and clear and real as though it were right there in front of me.
Blood all down the stairs. Pooling, spatters, desperate handmarks on the bannisters and the wall; so much blood, a dull, dark red river of it, like the set of a horror film. My stomach lurches. I somehow manage not to spew, though my inside is twisting itself into knots. I turn away from the staircase, look towards the front door, then stop. For an instant, I freeze, unable to move, to think. I can’t believe it. My mind is playing tricks on me, surely.
I hear a noise, a strangled cry and then I realise: it’s me. I’m making the noise.
It doesn’t make sense. The corridor ahead of me, the door at the end.
It’s just like the corridor I’ve been seeing in my nightmares.
I look down at the floor and for a moment I can’t breathe. Blood is dripping on the floor, trickling in a steady stream from my hand. Pooling.
It’s not just like my nightmare.
It is my nightmare.
Chapter thirty
‘Tell me again from the beginning.’
I’m struggling to catch my breath from running back up the hill. I ran so hard that I ran through the need to cry. I ran so hard the only thing I could do was try to breathe. I didn’t stop running until I was far enough away that I couldn’t see the house anymore, until I had some reception on my phone.
‘I went… I went to their house… I went there…’
‘What house, Abbie? Where are you? What’s wrong?’
‘The house, the house. The O’Reilley’s house. The place where they were killed. Leah, I went there…’
‘Bloody hell are you crazy?’
I find myself laughing and it’s like I can see myself from a little distance and I realise that yes, I do sound pretty crazy right now.
‘I just… I needed to see it. And I was right. It’s the same, Leah. It’s exactly the same. It’s the same as the house in my dream…’
For a few seconds there’s silence.
‘Okay. You need to go straight home. Get home as quickly as you can. And tell your mum exactly what you’re telling me.’
At last, the tears. I knew they were coming. They’re gushing down my cheeks and I go to wipe them away and then I see the blood covering my hand. I’m still bleeding. I imagine turning up at home, covered in blood and crying and making no sense.
I’m pretty sure Mum would have a heart attack.
I wipe my face carefully with my forearm, keeping a good hold on Zelda with my other hand, trying to stop the blood and tears from mixing and spreading.
There’s a long silence on the other end of the phone.
‘You have been pretty stressed. Like, you’ve been through a lot recently, haven’t you?’
‘Shit, Leah, I’m not making this up. And I’m not imagining it. I don’t know what it means but there must be an explanation. I’m a rational human being, I believe in explanations. But I don’t know what it is. I look like her, Mum has her Dad’s job. I have her dog. And now she’s in my dreams. If you know how to explain it, please let me know. I’d really like an explanation.’
‘Okay. Okay, Abs, it’s going to be okay. You’re right, there’s got to be an explanation. And I’ll do my best to help you figure it out. Okay?’
I sniff. ‘Thanks.’ It feels good to think that Leah believes me, or at least is willing to pretend that she does for the sake of my feelings.
‘Now, where are you? How far is it to your house?’
‘A ten minute walk, I guess?’
‘Well keep walking. And keep talking to me. I’m on the train. My battery’s running low so if I cut out, it’s not that I’m hanging up on you it’s just that my phone’s out of charge. How’s your hand?’
‘It’s starting to hurt a bit now,’ I say, trying not to look. I’m bad with blood and there’s a lot of it. I reckon I’d have just passed out if it wasn’t for the fact that some part of me with a decent survival instinct knows that I absolutely have to get home before any form of unconsciousness is permitted. I hide the hand behind my back and keep walking.
‘Do you think you’ll need stitches? Can your mum do that stuff at home?’
‘If it needs stitches she’ll probably take me in and do it at the surgery.’ The thought makes me feel shivery and faint. My hand starts to throb harder.
‘Okay. Now promise me that next time, you’ll let someone know before you go and do something like this. Promise.’
‘Sure, I’ll send you a memo,’ I say.
‘Not me. Not that I don’t like to know what’s going on in your life. But you need to let someone know who’s closer than five hours’ drive away. Yes? That Zeke sounds like a nice boy. I’m sure he’d look out for you.’
‘Zeke would kill me if he knew what I just did.’
‘There you go. That’s an approach I can get behind. Please Abbie, this isn’t a joke. This isn’t a game. Someone out there has threatened you. Don’t go looking for them.’
I swallow. That was never my intention. In fact, I hadn’t even thought that it could be a consequence of my actions. I just needed to see, with my own eyes, whether the house was the same one I’d been dreaming about. Not that seeing it with my own eyes helped. There’s a gap between what I saw and my ability to grasp it. When I try to think about it I just feel blank, uncomprehending.
‘Are you almost home yet?’
‘Getting there.’ We’ve reached the top of the hill now and are passing the reserve, heading for the more open country near home. ‘Hang on,’ I say. I hear a car in the distance. The sound of the engine carries like a murmur on the breeze, getting louder.
‘I think someone’s coming.’ My heart starts to pound double-time in my chest, bang-bang-bang, and I feel shaky and cold and sick all at once.
‘Stay on the phone with me, okay? You’re almost home.’
I pull Zelda in so she’s walking right next to me, and step off the dirt road onto the broad, grassy verge. The engine is growing louder. I want to turn but force myself not to. I need to keep walking, look confident, act like everything is fine.
A big four-wheel drive comes around the bend in a cloud of dust, passes me and then slows. I grip Zelda’s lead tighter. ‘Leah, I’ve got to go, I’ll call you back.’ I ignore her protests and hang up. I need to concentrate on what’s happening here and now.
The car pulls off the road and stops ahead of me. I feel a sudden wild panic – I’m not sure if I should run or turn back the way I came from or keep going. But before I can think about it, a man climbs down from the car and starts walking towards me. He’s wiry-thin, with white-grey hair that puffs around his head like clouds and skin that’s tanned and leathery from too many hours in the sun. He limps slightly.
‘You right there, love?’ he says. ‘I saw you were bleeding and thought I should check if everything’s okay…’ As he gets closer, his words trail off and I see him slow, his mouth opening slightly.
‘I’m fine,’ I say quickly. ‘I tripped over while I was running. It’s just a graze. But I’m almost home.’
The man’s expression is changing as quickly as a sky at an oncoming storm.
‘You must be Abbie, right?’ he s
ays finally. ‘I’m Duncan’s dad. Rick O’Reilly. He… he told me about you. Sweet Jesus, and he wasn’t lying either. You’re the spitting image…’
As soon as he says it I pick the resemblance. Zeke was right, Duncan’s dad is wiry, but he has the same eyes, the same square jaw as Duncan. Relief floods me and then guilt at what I’ve just done – breaking into the house of his dead family – but more than that, I feel guilty for being myself, for looking like I do, even with the haircut. I know it must be like a knife in his guts seeing me, because I still look like Rebecca, and he lost her in such a terrible way…
‘Nice to meet you Mr O’Reilly,’ I say, doing my best to keep my tone bright and cheerful despite the pain in my hand and the constriction I feel in my chest. ‘Duncan’s been really great. He’s helped me out a lot. And I saw him at the wood-chopping, he was amazing.’
‘Of course, of course, he’s a good kid,’ he says, and then brushes the back of one hand against his face and I realise that he’s crying. Oh shit.
‘I’d better keep going. Mum will start worrying…’
‘Please, let me give you a lift. That hand looks pretty bad.’
I look at him and down at Zelda.
‘Don’t worry about her. Zelda stayed with us for a bit after, well you know… No problem for her to jump in the back. Whereabouts are you living?’
‘Just down the road. Not far,’ I say. In my pocket my phone starts buzzing. That’ll be Leah. I pull it out and press ignore.
‘Well, it’s no problem for me to drive you. I’m not in any hurry. But if you want to walk, that’s fine too, though I don’t really like to leave you with that cut….’
‘If you’re happy to give me a lift that’d be great,’ I say.
I know all the rules about not getting into a car with a stranger. But Rick O’Reilly doesn’t feel like a stranger. I mean he’s Duncan’s dad, I can see that as clear as day. And being in the car with him suddenly feels safer than being out on the road alone. The tsunami of adrenalin that hit me as his car pulled up is subsiding. I’m exhausted and sad and want nothing more than to be at home as soon as possible with four familiar, safe walls around me.
‘Good, okay, that’s good,’ he says.
He lets Zelda in the back first, and she jumps straight in without even being invited. This makes me feel better about my decision. I’m sure that if there was any danger, she’d be the first to sense it. Then he opens the front door for me and moves a few things off the seat and I climb in.
Being in his car is like being in the top storey of a skyscraper compared to the Clio. It’s so high up. I feel like I can see everything.
‘I drive around this way sometimes,’ he says, as he turns the key in the ignition and starts the engine. ‘They lived near here you know,’ he says. ‘I don’t go there but I just, I like to stay close.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I don’t know what else to say.
‘Nothing to be done about it now, love,’ he says with a sigh, then we bump down off the verge and back onto the road. ‘Straight ahead?’
‘Straight for a bit then second left. It’s Clearview Road, down the end.’
‘Ah, nice spot that.’
We fall into silence and I feel suddenly heavy, like my whole body is turning to stone, like I might never be able to move again.
‘So, how’re you all finding it?’ he says at last. ‘Big change, coming up from Sydney?’
‘It’s different,’ I say.
‘Ah, well,’ he says.
‘You can turn down here,’ I say as we approach the intersection. Rick slows and indicates, then turns. I feel myself starting to relax. I’m almost home.
‘Been hearing good things about your mum,’ he says. ‘People are glad to have her around. Hard to fill Pete’s shoes, I know, but I’m hearing good things.’
‘I’ll tell Mum,’ I say. ‘She’d like to know that.’
‘Of course, my brother had his own problems, but don’t we all,’ Rick says. ‘What with Damien and all that. Typical doctor wanted to prescribe a solution to everything. A bloody prescription wasn’t what that kid needed.’
‘Oh?’ Duncan has never talked to me about Damien. Whenever our conversation would get close, he’d just stop hard. I don’t want to ask his father anything outright, but I want to know more. I want to know what Rick thought of his nephew, why he thought this all had happened.
‘Sometimes the best medicine for a seventeen-year old boy is letting them stand on their own two feet. Damien would have been okay. I really reckon he would. I feel guilty to this day that I didn’t tell Peter that. Thought it wasn’t my business, at the time.’ He shakes his head.
‘Do you think that’s why…’
I see him suddenly become still. He looks straight ahead at the road and for a few moments doesn’t say anything.
‘Guess the police must have the evidence, but Damien? He was always such a gentle kid. And him and Becky were real close. He’d talk to her when he wouldn’t talk to anyone. But still, who knows. You never really know what’s happening inside anyone else’s head.’
I swallow. ‘So you don’t think he did it?’ I ask, my voice coming out shaky.
‘He’s my nephew. You don’t want to think that someone you’ve loved since they were born could do a thing like that. Just human nature, that. Here?’ he says.
‘Thanks,’ I say and he turns into the driveway. ‘Thanks for the lift. And I hope… I hope I haven’t upset you.’
‘Not your fault, love,’ he says.
Chapter thirty-one
My hand is still throbbing but Mum bandaged it up and after some umming and ahhing declared that it didn’t need stitches. Win. She decided that I should stay home from school today, which is also a win, kind of, I guess. It is my writing hand and it does hurt, and the whole experience of the morning has left me feeling shaky and disorientated, like I might suddenly keel over it I stand up too quickly. Stacey will be home until lunchtime, then Mum will come home early from work tonight so I’m only going to be on my own for a couple of hours in between.
It means I won’t see Zeke, though. Even after all the unbelievable strangeness of my morning, even after the blood and the almost needing stitches and the horrible adrenal-hangover I have now, when I think of him I still feel that warm, shivery, electric feeling I had when he was kissing me.
I try to push the feeling aside. I’ve got so many questions now, too many questions. I bite my lip, collect my thoughts, then begin:
Duncan,
Thanks for your message. And for the photo. Your dad might mention that I met him this morning. I was out running and I hurt my hand and he gave me a lift home. That’s what I told him anyway, and my Mum. If you want to know, I actually went to Becky’s house this morning. A window was broken and I cut myself on the glass getting in.
I stop writing for a minute. I’m not sure how much to tell him.
I know it’s weird me going there, but actually Zelda had taken me there already a few days ago, I just didn’t know. Until you told me about her and then I figured it out. I guess she likes going back to familiar places.
Your Dad talked a bit about Damien when he was driving me. I write, then backspace and delete.
Too much. Try again.
All these things that have been happening make me want to know more about Becky and her family. Your family. I’ve been having dreams about her almost every night.
Can you tell me more? What was she like? Who were her friends? What was she into? Did she have a boyfriend? Were you guys close?
If you don’t want to tell me anything, that’s okay too.
I’m staying home today because of my hand. Maybe see you at school tomorrow.
Bye
Abbie
I read over it again then hit send.
I was planning to use the day to get my head straight (oh by the way Abbie, you’ve been seeing the ACTUAL LOCATION OF BECKY’S DEATH in your nightmares HAHAHAHA) and get some work done on my biology as
signment, which I’m running behind on. But I really can’t do either. I keep getting shivers every time I think of standing in the corridor of the O’Reilley’s house. And it’s like, I try to think about what I saw, I try to come up with an explanation, and nothing takes. My mind just slides away from the thoughts and then I can’t really think about anything.
Eventually I see a new message in my inbox. It’s from Duncan.
Hi Abbie,
Dad mentioned he saw you though he didn’t say much.
You should stay away from the house. Please. It’s not a good place to go.
If you want to know more about Becky I’m not the best person to ask. We spent a lot of time together when we were little but not so much as we got older. You could try her friend, Christina Trick. Chrissy isn’t at Derro High anymore but she still lives in town. Think she’s in the flats on Farrier Street. Not sure what number. Sorry.
Hope your hand is better soon.
Duncan.
I find Farrier Street on Google Street View. It’s pretty clear which building Duncan’s talking about. There’s a big 1970s bessa block set of flats, with weeds growing around, an overflowing skip, and a few old cars parked out front.
Then I Google Christina Trick. Apparently, there’s also an adult movie star of the same name, which is awkward. The first twenty links take me to various highlights from her career. I assume she’s not the same Christina that Duncan’s talking about, since this woman looks closer to 40. I try typing it Christina Trick into Facebook, adding in a location to narrow it down. Nothing.
I pause. I don’t want to just randomly show up on this girl’s doorstep looking like her dead best friend. That would be cruel. But I want to talk to her. I need to talk to her. The only way I can make sense of everything that’s happening is that it’s happening for a reason. I can’t just ignore it. And that means I need to learn more – about Becky, about who she was, and about why she died.
Mirror Me Page 13