by Sue Wallman
My mind is whirling. What could Poppy have said? I think of her ghost sighting, the defaced paper-doll people, her strangeness… I could stab someone else if I wanted, she had said.
Someone in this house will die. It was Poppy’s prediction.
“Poppy?” I say, cautiously. “Poppy, what did you say to Tatum?”
She’s staring down at her fur-lined boots, visibly shaking. I can’t tell if it’s from the cold or not.
Tatum marches over and grabs Poppy’s arm at the elbow, and Poppy winces in pain. “Come on, let’s get a move on,” Tatum says. “We’re done here.”
“Wait!” shouts Ivy. “Poppy, come back. It’s not safe with her!”
Tatum whips her head round. “Poppy is way better off with me, Ivy. You know that.”
They keep walking, into the woods, skirting round the muddier patches, and we follow.
“Poppy, stop,” shouts Ivy. “I’m not leaving you alone with Tatum.”
We hear Tatum say, “Ignore her. Don’t let her control you.”
The muscles in Ivy’s face and neck tighten. “Poppy, Tatum killed Baz!”
Poppy stops in her tracks, jerking her arm away from Tatum, and turns towards her sister, her face drained of colour.
“OK,” says Tatum, stooping down. “Poppy, listen to me.” She takes a deep breath. “I didn’t hurt Baz. She’s making it up. And I didn’t push Jakob down the stairs either. I swear on my life I didn’t do anything to make him fall.” Then she looks up at Ivy, hatred flashing in her eyes. “I felt you push me, Ivy. I thought it was an accident at first, but the more I think about it now, you wouldn’t have fallen sideways.”
Ivy makes a snorting noise. “Nobody believes anything you say. You’re a liar; Leah and I proved it. Why would I want to push Jakob down the stairs?”
“You tell me, Ivy,” says Tatum. “The window bar that fell. Where were you when that happened? I was filming. You were pretty out of breath. Was that from running up and down to the attic?” She turns to me. “Leah. You’ve got to believe me.”
“You’re twisting everything again,” I reply, my heart beating faster. Her manipulation is astounding.
“I’m not listening to any more of this,” says Ivy. She steps forward and grasps Poppy’s arm. “You’re coming with me.”
Poppy yelps in pain. There’s a resigned look on her face that’s only there for a second before it passes. Then she wrenches away her arm, makes herself more upright and says, “No. I don’t want to.”
“Of course she doesn’t,” says Tatum. “She told me everything, Ivy. Everything. And I recorded all of it.”
Ivy’s face contorts in anger. “You—”
“Ivy, don’t waste your breath on her,” I interrupt. “She’s vile. She’ll say anything and do anything. Don’t let her upset you. Leave them. Mum and Steve will be back soon.”
Tatum shakes her head slowly at me. “Don’t you have suspicions, Leah? I’m sure Jakob did. He could see something didn’t add up about Poppy and her illness. All those questions, and ideas for getting help. I reckon that’s why Ivy was keen to get him out of the way. I bet he couldn’t quite believe anything bad of you, though, Ivy, what with you being Amigos and everything.”
“You’re evil,” whispers Ivy. Her cheeks are flushed and her forehead gleams with sweat. “Don’t listen to her rubbish, Leah.”
Tatum points her clipboard at Ivy. “Those banana milkshakes Poppy likes so much? You never let anyone else taste them. Well Baz did, after Jakob dropped one on the floor. He got pretty sick, before he got hit by that car. Or maybe there never was an accident, was there, Ivy?”
Ivy stares at Tatum, her breath heavy. Poppy drops the reflector and cowers against a tree.
“Let’s take a sample of that milkshake mix,” says Tatum. “Let’s run some tests, shall we?”
“Tatum, why would Ivy want to hurt Poppy?” I ask. But nausea rises as my brain sifts through everything she’s said. Poppy’s so fragile. I think of her yelping when Tatum grabbed her. And again when Ivy grabbed her. I picture her plant tattoo winding up that arm with the big purple flower in the middle. It was an odd sort of purple. There were other colours in it. As if it wasn’t drawn on. As if it was a bruise.
It’s not the sort of place you knock easily, the inside of your elbow.
I think of those paper-doll people. The Ivy one was left alone. Was Poppy too scared of her to make fun of her, even in paper form?
Or was it Ivy who defaced Poppy’s dolls?
“You’ll regret this,” says Ivy. She turns and heads back to the house.
I turn to Tatum. “You have done so much damage,” I spit. I’m exhausted by it all, but Mum and Steve will sort this out, the lies and the accusations from the truth.
Tatum holds up her phone. Has she been recording this conversation? “You should see what Poppy said.”
I’m aware of a strange shouting. Ivy is running back towards us. She no longer has Poppy’s coat but she has something else. As she comes closer I see she’s holding some kind of spade. Black metal.
She raises her arm. Words push themselves to the front of my brain. “I thought there was an old coal shovel in the garage, but I could only find the gardening spade.” Clive said that when he came in from burying Baz. This is the old coal shovel.
I’m close enough to see there’s stuff on the spade part. It’s thick … like congealed blood with lumps … like bits of mashed meat.
Baz. Yelping and not comprehending. Brutal blows. Crushed face. Unimaginable pain. Pulped brain. Discarded by the bins.
I dry-heave. “Nooooooo,” I half scream, half-choke as Ivy brings the shovel down on Tatum’s head.
THIRTY
Tatum doesn’t have a chance to fight back against the frenzied blows. As she slumps to the ground unconscious, I leap towards Poppy and take her hand.
“Run,” I sob. For a panic-drenched moment I can’t tell which direction the house is in, but when I do, I drag her towards it.
“I can’t run,” she says. Her whole body’s quaking.
I pull the enormous coat off her so she can move more easily. “You can,” I say. “Run!”
As we stumble towards the wall, she says, “You go on.” Her face is screwed up with pain and fear.
We hear the sound of Ivy smashing Tatum’s phone with the shovel. This can’t be about destroying the documentary. It’s what Poppy told Tatum, the words which were recorded. I don’t understand what’s going on, but I know I’m petrified of Ivy and I have to get Poppy to safety.
I don’t have time to argue with Poppy. I scoop her up like a baby, and I run through the mud, wide-legged to help me balance, my back arched too far, burning with the strain. At the garden wall, I say, “Run to the first house. Get help,” and then I drop her over into the flowerbed. She lands on her feet, and steps unsteadily down on to the lawn.
I glance back and see Ivy making her way towards us. She doesn’t have the shovel, but the determined look on her face is chilling.
It’ll only take minutes before she catches up, but at least I’m not going to be caught off-guard like Tatum. “Run!” I scream at Poppy as I clamber over the wall.
Poppy’s run is a strange sort of jog. She’s terrifyingly slow and Ivy has almost caught up to us. I lift Poppy up and carry her for as long as I can before I feel Ivy tugging me backwards. “Run. Go. Please,” I gasp as I’m forced to drop her.
I pivot round and punch Ivy. It makes contact but has no meaningful impact because she’s gripped my arm. She doesn’t look like my cousin and Amigo any more. She’s a person possessed with fury. She lunges for my hair. I lift my other arm to stop her.
“Did you really do those things?” I ask, playing for time, so Poppy will make it down the driveway. Maybe someone will be passing by.
“You wouldn’t understand,” says Ivy. She’s twisting my arm behind my back.
“Stop it, you’re hurting me!” I cry. I duck down and get out of the twist, breaking free and backin
g away. I slip on the wet grass and Ivy gets hold of my coat.
“Yeah, well, I hurt too, Leah. And poor, poor Poppy? She hurts all the time. So she needs help. She needs me.”
I have a chance to break free. My coat’s not done up. All I have to do is pull one arm out then the other. Fast.
Now.
First sleeve. Second sleeve. I’m free.
I sprint down the side passage. Poppy isn’t even at the back door yet; there’s no way she’ll get down the drive. “Go inside,” I shout and shove her through the door, tumbling in after her and then pressing my weight against the door to slam it shut behind us. I turn the key in the lock, pull across the bolt and breathe out.
“Leah!” Ivy is pounding on the door. “Let me speak to you. Leah!”
I back away. Think: where else could she get in? Hide Poppy, or tell her to go upstairs and wait with Auntie Gabs? I know every hiding place in this house … but so does Ivy.
“See if you can wake your Mum,” I say.
Poppy stares at me, her face almost expressionless with trauma.
“Go! Please go.” I’m crying; I don’t want to cry; it’ll blur my vision. I race out of the kitchen, down the corridor and across the hall to the front door. It’s locked, but I attach the security chain in place. I run to the conservatory and check the door, looking through the glass into the empty garden, knowing I should be calling an ambulance for Tatum in the woods beyond. If we had phone service.
No windows are open, not in this weather. Would Ivy break one to get in? After seeing what she did to Tatum, I wouldn’t put it past her.
I can’t hear any sounds from outside. Ivy has stopped shouting. Where’s she gone?
I run upstairs to Auntie Gabs’s bedroom. The door’s open but I don’t see Poppy.
“Auntie Gabs? Get up. Ivy’s gone beserk.” I rush to the other side of the bed to shake her, and see Poppy, sitting on the floor against the bed in a tiny ball, knees tucked up to her chest.
“You couldn’t wake her?” I say.
Poppy shakes her head.
I pull the duvet back. Auntie Gabs is still wearing the same clothes I last saw her in, days ago, when Ivy pushed Jakob down the stairs.
She half-opens red-rubbed eyes.
“Please!” I scream near her face and she flinches.
“In a minute,” she croaks and closes her eyes.
“Leave Mum to sleep.”
I wheel round to see Ivy. There’s a quiet smile on her face and blood on her hands.
Words fly out as my mind spirals. “How did you get in?”
“The conservatory. The door’s so flimsy.”
Fear pulses through me like a new heartbeat. I push Poppy with my leg, indicating for her crawl under the bed.
“Where’s Poppy?”
Where are Mum and Steve? Keep Ivy away from Poppy. Distract her.
“She went out of the front to get help.”
“You’re lying.” Ivy comes closer. There’s a fake plant on the chest of drawers. A white pot and some kind of fern. I reach for it and throw it at Ivy, then run. I don’t even know if it hit her, I just run.
I run on boneless legs. I stumble down the stairs, Ivy three – now two – steps behind me.
I fly past the front door, locked and chained, with no time to fumble with them. There’s no choice but to keep running, through the hall, up the first set of stairs, where I glance out of the window.
Please let there be a car coming up the drive. Or Evan. Anyone.
I can hardly see through my tears. I run to my bedroom and hesitate for a split second. The door to the attic room is sturdier. It’s a proper fire door. I can wedge a sofa up against it. That will buy me more time.
I fall up the last step to the door, and that costs me. When I reach it, I feel a hand grab my ankle.
“Final Amigo get-together?” she says.
There’s a deadness in her eyes; I tell myself it wasn’t there before. If it had been, I’d have seen it, surely?
I kick out, breaking free, and scramble out of her grasp and into the attic. I slam the door and hold my foot against it while she rattles the door handle. “Ivy, what are you doing? What’s happened? We’re Amigos,” I plead, and my body slides down to the floor, my back to the door. I eye the room for the closest heavy object.
I hear Ivy laugh derisively. “Amigos!”
“What about Jakob? He’s our friend!”
I brace myself against the door as she gives it a shove. I hear her say, “Friend? Friends don’t interfere! I told him he couldn’t have a milkshake. I didn’t want to have to kill Baz. It really hurt me to do that, but Mum would have taken him to the vet. And then, well, then the questions would come.”
I shake my head, tears flowing freely now.
“I’ve always known Mum prefers Poppy over me. I overheard her tell someone that she had a gush of love for Poppy as soon as she was born, and that hadn’t happened with me.” She sighs impatiently. “You wouldn’t know what I’m talking about. You’re an only child. You’ve become spoilt since your dad left. Always moaning. But you can see him whenever you want.”
“So you tried to kill Jakob?”
“He’s not dead, is he? He just fell and had to go to the hospital. He’ll be fine.”
There’s very little saliva in my mouth but I ask, “Why didn’t the doctors work it out?”
“Poppy’s illness?”
I hate how she calls it an illness.
“Doctors aren’t as clever as you think. I make sure she doesn’t snitch. I make her think she’s going mad.” She pauses for a moment, then adds, “I’ve always had lots of ideas, haven’t I, Leah?”
“Yes,” I say in a low, hoarse voice. I’m listening for a door slam, footsteps on the stairs, somebody to rescue me. The door stops rattling and Ivy is quiet. I think I can hear her going back down the stairs but I can’t be certain. I call her name, unsure whether it’s a trap, yet worried she’s gone to hunt down Poppy. I wait more minutes before standing up, keeping my foot in place against the door. I weigh up the risk of leaving the door for a second and dragging the big armchair over, the one that Ivy always sits in.
I count myself down then rush at the chair. Once it’s in place, I drag over the chest of drawers as well, but I’m still panicked. I have to get help for Tatum and Poppy.
I go over to the attic window, looking out to see if there’s some way I can lower myself to the ground, make a proper run for it. My fingers graze the random grooves in the window seat, the ones Tatum said fit her fingernails. I realize with a creeping dread she might be right. They aren’t random. They fit the pattern of someone clinging on to the window.
The door crashes against the armchair and the chest of drawers, and to my horror they shift just enough in less than a second to let Ivy through. “Taking in the view?” she asks. “Or are you still fixating on Rose?”
I back up against the window seat, and everything seems to go into slow motion as I notice she has a large knife in her hand.
We sit within a circle of lit tea lights, holding hands. Me, Jakob and Ivy. Poppy is fast asleep on the sofa; Ivy will carry her down to their bedroom later. We knew she wouldn’t last until midnight but we’d promised she could join in.
“Two predictions each,” Ivy says. “We’ll go around twice.”
“I’ll start,” I say, and take a deep breath.
Jakob is trying to stifle giggling.
It needs to sound weighty, like a phrase from an old book. “Something of great value will be lost,” I say, then pull my hands away to write it down on my notepad, pleased with it. “Your turn, Jakob.”
Ivy crosses the room and comes right up to me, and I can’t breathe. Do I try to fight her? Scream?
“I wish I didn’t have to do this,” she whispers in my ear, and my heart spasms. I think of the sparrowhawk Steve pointed out earlier in the week, circling for its prey. “We’re family. And we’ve had such nice times together.”
I sit rigid. If I d
on’t move and don’t speak she might talk until someone comes. Except I’m shaking uncontrollably.
“Even this time was good in parts,” says Ivy. “Learning about Alice and Rose. I respect Alice. She was smart. No one suspected a thing until she told them.”
“Alice didn’t kill her sister,” I manage to say, desperately stalling. “It was her husband.” All I can think about is that knife.
“OK, OK,” Jakob says. “Ommmmm…” He lifts his face to the ceiling. “Errmmmmm… Ummm…”
Ivy sighs. “Jakob! Take this seriously.”
“All right. An actual ghost will be seen,” he says.
“That’s creepy,” I whisper, as I write it down. Did I set the wrong tone with my prediction?
Ivy looks at the bookshelves. The book we were reading to each other the last couple of nights is there, face up on the edge. It has a horrible cover of twisted trees in a dark wood. “Someone in this house will be in a car accident.”
We look at her.
“Sorry,” she says.
We get it. The parents of the teenage siblings in that story died in a car accident.
Her hand descends quickly, grabbing my hair, and the shock and the pain gives me a strange vision of Doug Billings grabbing Rose Strathmortimer in the same way. Ivy and I are the same size, but she’s stronger than me. She leans over me and I shrink away.
Somehow she manages to open the window with one hand, and cold air streams in behind me.
My second prediction is, “There will be an unexpected twist of fate”. I don’t even know what it means. It sounds like a riddle. I say it again as I list it as the fourth prediction.
Jakob mutters, “Nice. My prediction is, ‘An Amigo will be unlucky in love their whole life.’”
I give his hand a gentle squeeze.
We hear a noise from the sofa. “Have I missed it?” Poppy is on her feet. There’s a crease mark on her cheek where it was squished against the blanket. “Why didn’t you wake me?” she wails. She walks up to my notebook and squints at it.
“We’re on the last one,” says Ivy. “That’s the most special one. We saved it for you.”