by Gayle Curtis
‘Interesting. Need someone to try it out on?’
Sebastian hesitated. He was thinking about Cecelia; he’d really wanted to try it out on her first, as he always did with everything.
‘I need to work out what I’m doing first. But thanks.’ Sebastian began clearing up the pieces of material he’d already cut, and folded them around the roll of linen. That was enough for him for one day; he wasn’t going to spend his entire Saturday with people he didn’t particularly like. At the farm, they were all used to one another, it was easy to escape, snatch some time to yourself, but it was very different in this house. It always seemed like there was nowhere to go.
Eleanor sat down at the table and began dealing out some tarot cards, something she seemed to do on a daily basis, like it was a ritual.
‘What do you get from looking at these?’
‘Quite a lot, as it happens. I can see what’s going on in the house, get a feel of the atmosphere.’
Sebastian nodded, unsure what she could possibly detect from a load of old cards. He remembered his mother visiting tarot readers or going to clairvoyant evenings at the town hall. She always came home slightly euphoric, hysterical almost. The fortunes that were told to her were always backed up by information the messenger couldn’t have known. The joy this brought was always quickly destroyed by Roger, who ridiculed the whole event, and eventually his mother would plummet quite spectacularly and a dark mood would descend for days afterwards.
Sebastian recalled the last time Yvonne had visited a psychic. With all that had happened the last few months, he’d completely forgotten about it. Yvonne had arrived home and he and Cecelia were eagerly awaiting an update in the sitting room. They had loved the intrigue it stirred before Roger ruined it all. When Yvonne had got home she’d not said a word to anyone and had taken herself straight to bed. Cecelia and Sebastian wondered for quite some time about what she’d been told, but on this occasion, she had kept it to herself.
It was ironic that Cecelia and Sebastian had been placed in the care of a woman who appeared to have the same interests as their mother and in a house that Yvonne had never approved of them visiting.
Sebastian became distracted by something else as he watched Eleanor turning the cards over.
‘Where did you get that pendant from?’ He sounded more accusatory than he’d meant to.
Eleanor stopped what she was doing and reached for the sea-green stone.
‘I can’t really remember . . . I’ve had it for years. A craft shop near the coast I think. Unusual, isn’t it?’ She continued turning the cards over, unveiling the strange pictures.
‘My mother had one just like it, same markings too, as I remember.’ Sebastian felt confused; he was racking his brains to remember if his mother had been wearing it the last time he’d seen her. Then he recalled that last time, on the kitchen floor. He’d bent down to look at her under the table, the long silver chain had been draped across the base of her neck, the pendant lying on the floor near her ear lobe. The necklace he’d associated with his mother since he could remember.
All the time they were children, they’d been fascinated by the unusual wavy stripes of dark green and pale sea-blue polished stone that always reminded them of candy rock from the fairground. The memory punched him in the gut, he hadn’t realised how much he missed her until now.
Eleanor gathered the cards from the table and began to shuffle them. She tapped the deck and handed the cards to Sebastian.
‘Shuffle them.’
‘No thanks, I need to get this coursework done.’
‘There is always time for everything that’s presented to us.’ She thrust the deck towards him, taking the choice away.
Sighing, he shuffled the cards and handed them back to Eleanor, where she laid them on the table face down and began to peel each one from the top, laying them face up.
Silence descended like a misty spray as he waited for her to speak, to inform him of some doom ahead, or an amazing event that would astound him, but she didn’t, her face barely altered from her usual expression. She observed the pictures for a few moments, gathered the cards up and began shuffling them again.
‘Aren’t you going to tell me what you saw?’
Eleanor leant back in her chair, observing him with the same interested expression she used for everything.
‘I didn’t say I was going to read your cards, I just asked you to shuffle them.’
‘OK, but I’m interested to know what you saw.’
‘Whatever I saw, you know already. You’re just having trouble plucking it from your subconscious. But you will. Eventually.’
Sebastian stared at her for a few moments. ‘Very cryptic.’
It was like a slap around the face. Sebastian felt the sting, and realised once again why it was that he didn’t particularly like Eleanor or Samuel. They were subtly spiteful – subtle enough for most not to notice. Cecelia would tell him he was analysing things too deeply, that he’d taken it all the wrong way because he’d made the decision not to like Eleanor or Samuel. But he knew differently.
‘I don’t need to prove myself to you, Sebastian. My tarot is for my own interest.’
‘Did you leave the newspaper on my bed?’
‘Why does it matter who left the newspaper in your room? Information is delivered to us in all sorts of ways.’ She set her light blue eyes on his face.
Sebastian knew he should walk away but his ego was tugging at him, the draught rising, making him want to see her beautiful skull crack on the hard stone floor.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cecelia jiggled the bent hairpin in the lock and rammed her shoulder up against the door.
‘The lock is jammed!’ she hissed at Sebastian, who was busy trying to find another way in.
‘This window is on the latch. I just need something to poke through and release it . . .’
‘Can you stop messing about and shine the torch this way? I can’t see what I’m doing,’ Cecelia snapped. It was beginning to rain and she wanted to get inside, find what she was looking for and get out.
‘Move over, let me try.’
‘Why do you think you can do any better than me?’ Cecelia stepped backwards.
‘It would be quicker to break in,’ Sebastian said to the sound of breaking glass against his elbow.
‘What did you do that for?!’
‘Who cares? It belongs to us now anyway . . .’
‘You’d better sell a bit more on that stupid market stall to pay for that window pane.’
‘You’re a pain. What are we actually looking for?’ Sebastian pulled himself into the dining room, quickly followed by Cecelia, who fell into him. They were both slightly merry, having been to one of the pubs in town to celebrate their sixteenth birthday. They’d told Eleanor they were going for fish and chips but Sebastian had talked Cecelia into having a few drinks beforehand. It was getting dark and they would be in trouble.
‘You know the loft space in my bedroom where we used to sit?’
‘Yeah . . .’
‘Just after Mum went missing I was in there and I can’t be sure of it but I think I saw a green suitcase resting on the beam, right at the far end. It’s bugged me ever since and the discovery of that body in the woods has made me worry about it again.’
‘Why?’ Sebastian asked, holding her upright. ‘I thought you said you knew who it was?’
‘What if it was just gossip? I feel really pissed.’ Cecelia was straining to see his face in the dark room, but she didn’t want to switch the torch on and look at him.
‘I think Roger might have put Mum’s body in the suitcase . . .’ She realised how silly it sounded once she’d said it out loud and she began to snigger and giggle.
Sebastian laughed even harder. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’
Cecelia stopped giggling and glared at him, suddenly not finding any of it funny anymore.
‘How the hell would he have fitted a body in a suitcase?’ Sebasti
an’s laughter was subsiding.
‘I’m not going to answer that. Use your imagination.’
There was something different about Sebastian. She couldn’t help feeling he knew something she didn’t. He had a smug air about him, an arrogance she hadn’t noticed before. He was dismissive, unavailable to her and she didn’t like it. When Lola went to stay with her father, something she did every other weekend, Sebastian would sleep in Cecelia’s room with her. The twins would curl up together as they always had at the farm, but recently, even though he was present physically, he was somehow absent.
‘Stop taking the piss, Cece. We are not going into that loft space to drag out some old suitcase. We’ll probably fall through the ceiling before finding it’s been empty all along. And anyway, if Mum’s body is in there, we do not need it to appear. Remember?’
‘We need to look in the suitcase because if Mum’s body is in there, we need to bury her somewhere before anyone else finds it. The discovery of it could still be dangerous for us. When the police have finished searching the area where the body was found, they’ll come looking around the farm again for evidence. They’ve already said that woman died in suspicious circumstances. And once they start looking around the farm it doesn’t take a genius to work out that there was once a door behind Roger’s DIY efforts. This house will be torn apart. Do you see what I’m getting at, dear brother? If they did find Mum’s body in the suitcase they might work out that she was dead before Roger and therefore can’t have killed him.’
‘Do you remember when you used to lose your voice more often . . . I preferred your silences.’ Sebastian smirked at her as she held the bright torch in his face, his joke falling flat.
‘What is wrong with you? You’ve been a right arsehole the last few days.’
‘Nothing’s wrong. Nothing . . . I’m fine, sorry.’ He reached out to grab her, pull her towards him.
‘Don’t. I need to get on with this. If you can’t take it seriously, piss off home.’
‘Home?! That’s a joke.’
‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself!’ Cecelia hissed at him in the darkness of the cold room. ‘You don’t like it there, I get it, but what do you want me to do about it? It’s all we’ve got at the moment. And actually, I think it’s all right. It’s better than this place ever was, anyway.’
‘I know. I just don’t feel as close to you as I did before we lived there.’
Cecelia pulled him towards her sharply and kissed him on the cheek. ‘You’re so fucking needy. We’re fine. Nothing’s changed. Now let’s get upstairs, this room gives me the creeps.’
Sebastian followed her through the rooms and up the back stairs in the kitchen that led to her bedroom. They had avoided the main staircase, not wanting to be reminded of what happened with Roger. They walked in silence and Cecelia was glad for the peace. She wanted to think, to clear her mind.
Upon entering her old bedroom, Cecelia drew in a sharp breath. It was the only room in the house that evoked a mixture of feelings.
‘You OK, Mouse?’
‘Yep, let’s just get on with this.’ Cecelia began to kick at the plasterboard. She’d expected it to cave in with very little force.
‘You haven’t really thought this through, have you?’ Sebastian sat down on her old bed.
Cecelia looked at him as if he was stupid and turned her attention back to awkwardly bashing the wall with her foot.
‘You could help?’
‘Do you know how ridiculous this all sounds? Have you actually listened to what you’re saying? Roger has not put our mother in a green suitcase. She’ll be buried somewhere.’
‘Sebastian, we both know she’s dead. Why would a green suitcase suddenly appear? I’d never seen it before and then it appeared the day after Mum disappeared,’ Cecelia said, breathing heavily from kicking the wall, hands on her hips.
‘Maybe you just didn’t notice it before. Cece . . .’ Sebastian stood up from the bed and moved towards her. ‘I need to tell you something.’
‘What?’
Sebastian pulled her towards the bed where she sat down next to him.
‘The day that Mum went missing . . . the day she left . . . I was here. I heard a gunshot. I saw her.’
Cecelia stared at him in the half-light, her eyes flickering from side to side as she concentrated on what he was saying.
‘I don’t understand. What do you mean you saw her? What, being shot? Dead?’
Sebastian shifted uncomfortably on the bed, making Cecelia move a few inches away from him so she could look at his face. The moon was offering a dim light through the window, splitting his face perfectly in two parts, so one half was completely blacked out in a symmetrical silhouette.
‘When I came in from the farm, she was lying under the kitchen table.’
Cecelia looked puzzled. ‘How did she get there?’
Sebastian frowned. ‘I don’t know, do I? What does that matter anyway?’
‘Let’s just get on with finding that case.’ Cecelia got up from her bed and began ferociously kicking the plasterboard where a hole had already appeared. It wasn’t until she paused briefly, did she realise Sebastian was trying to talk to her.
‘Cece, what are you doing?’
‘You’re becoming really tiresome now, Sebastian.’
‘I’ve just told you I saw our mother dead on the kitchen floor and you’ve barely said anything.’
‘What is there to say? It doesn’t change anything, doesn’t alter our situation. We don’t need the body of our mother to be found, wherever she is. We’ve told the police she killed our father and fled the farm.’ Cecelia faced the dark room and the mess she’d made, not wanting him to see she was crying. ‘I knew she was dead, I told you that at the time.’
The missing suitcase, Roger, the dead woman in the copse, it was all too much for Cecelia. She stepped forward and hit Sebastian hard in the face. As soon as she’d done it, she regretted it, throwing herself at him as she had at Lola.
‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,’ she cried into his chest.
‘It’s OK, Cece, it’s OK. Everything is going to be OK.’ He kissed her head and stroked her hair.
Cecelia reached up and gently touched his cheek where she’d hit him. Sebastian moved round and kissed her hand, her face – she could smell the sweet alcohol on his breath. She pulled away from him so she could see the familiarity in his eyes, but her thoughts were interrupted by those of Samuel. Sebastian placed his hand on her jaw, tracing the line of her lips with his thumb. Sudden movement from downstairs startled them both.
‘What was that?’ Cecelia whispered.
‘Shush . . .’
The door to the kitchen stairs creaked open. Cecelia gripped hold of Sebastian as they both held their breath, feet stuck to the floor, hearts pounding.
‘Hello?’ A voice called from halfway up the staircase. They stayed absolutely still and silent by the window, neither of them daring to move. The voice sounded again, clearer this time.
‘Shit!’ Sebastian whispered louder than he’d meant to. ‘That was . . . that was . . .’
Lights they didn’t even know worked suddenly flooded the hallway.
‘What’s going on?’
Cecelia pulled herself away from Sebastian to see Yvonne standing in the doorway of her bedroom.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sebastian wanted to stay at the foster house, regardless of how he felt about the place. The alternative – going back to White Horse Farm – wasn’t something he would ever want to do. He’d been asked whether he wanted to go and live with his mother again, as had Cecelia. Both of them had refused to answer and Cecelia had said she would stay with him wherever he went. He hadn’t been entirely convinced by her words. There had been a strange atmosphere between Cecelia and Yvonne, something he couldn’t understand. It hadn’t been anything either of them had said, but there was something underlying their words.
Now Sebastian was faced with anothe
r dilemma. The police had been searching for their mother because he and Cecelia had suggested she’d killed Roger. They wouldn’t have done this if they hadn’t thought she was dead. Now the police would be trying to find out who had killed Roger.
When they had recovered from the shock of seeing Yvonne, there had been no hugs or embraces and there was a complete lack of warmth from Yvonne, or Cecelia, for that matter. He’d found it so strange that Cecelia hadn’t sought it from her, he knew how close they’d been.
‘But I saw you under the table,’ Sebastian had said to his mother churlishly. ‘I saw you dead.’
‘Obviously not, son.’ Yvonne lit a cigarette as they sat in the sitting room talking. ‘Your father and I had just had an argument. I’d had a bit to drink and I fell over and smacked my head.’
Sebastian nodded. He hadn’t known what to say. His mother seemed different. Not the same, soft person he remembered. Yvonne had been replaced by someone matter of fact, cold and hard, and even her face had a sharp edge he didn’t recall seeing before.
‘You’ve been gone for more than a year,’ Cecelia blurted out, staring at the table, rubbing the dent in the veneer as she always had done.
‘Well, I’m back now. I’ve been staying with a friend.’
‘A friend?’ Sebastian couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Where?’
‘A long way from here . . . I wasn’t in a good place . . . we thought it was for the best, your father and I. When I got myself together, he drove me over there and told me never to contact any of you ever again.’
‘So Dad was telling the truth,’ said Sebastian.
‘We thought you were dead,’ Cecelia kept saying over and over again, making him want to smack the side of her head.
‘You haven’t even called us. Not once.’
‘I did, but there was never any answer . . . like I said, I haven’t been in a good place. Anyway, it’s not the first time I’ve gone away . . . you mice know what your old Mum’s like.’ She smiled half-heartedly. ‘Where’s your father?’