She could see Jenny trying to act all superior like she hadn't started things off in the first place with her pictures and her gossip, and Tom was stirring up trouble and egging them all on, and everyone – everyone – was just using her here, treating her like an exhibit, public property, just like the window dummy Jessica pictured herself as on her worst days. Pretty dolly everyone's property and nothing of her own, no person no self just laughter and whispers and all the wrong attention from people who wanted to have her for themselves.
First last night and then Jack was missing now this. She couldn't cope. Her thoughts were tripping over themselves, speeding by so fast that they hurt.
Jessica made a strangled noise. She flicked to the bottom of the post and typed so fast her fingers kept sliding off the screen.
"What the hell is this what are you all thinking don't any of you ever talk to me again, I MEAN IT"
Her mouth felt like a sandpit. She needed a drink of water, and she needed to get out of here. Amy, at least, wouldn't laugh at her like that.
Shuddering, trying to calm herself enough to walk steadily, Jessica descended the stairs.
Drawing curtains and turning lights on as she went, Jessica reached the kitchen light switch, flicked it on. The bright new bar flared into life, illuminating the room as clinically as a dentist's surgery.
"Hey Jess," said Jack.
Jessica stumbled, and nearly hit her head on the doorpost.
Her brother was sitting calmly at the table. Same short neat hair, same stupid band shirt. Jessica wanted to hug him and yell at him all at once.
"Where were you?" she demanded, leaning on the doorframe to keep herself upright.
Jessica could feel her anger vanishing as quickly as it'd come. The surprise of the moment was too much for it – and besides, what did those other things matter if her big brother was back and safe?
"I just went out," Jack said. "I didn't worry you, did I?" He was sitting with his arms tucked behind his head, leaning back on the kitchen chair so that two of the legs rocked off the floor. It always drove Jessica beyond annoyed to the kind of white fury that could only be brought about by siblings, but right now it wasn't bothering her at all.
"You did!" Jessica levelled her finger – they always got theatrical with each other when things were going well.
"Hey, I'm sorry." Jack sounded like he meant it, but his face was a parody of sadness, drooping mouth and puppy dog eyes. "Really am." The table in front of him was completely bare, and Jessica wondered what he'd been doing while he sat there. It looked perfectly clean – she could see every bit of the wood grain, every scratch in the varnish.
"Well," Jessica wanted to move forward and sit down, but part of her was oddly reluctant to move, "you'd better be."
"I'll find a way to make it up to you, okay?"
Jessica squinted at her brother. The light was too bright, and he was being too nice all of a sudden. Was he making fun of her?
He'd been wearing that same shirt the other day – she remembered the logo, and the skull-faced creature below it. It couldn't have been washed and dried since then, and Jessica wrinkled her nose. Where had her brother been that he hadn't even bothered to change?
"Why're you sitting in here, anyway?" she asked. "Could've told me you were back."
"I didn't want to wake you." Jack shrugged, somehow still keeping his hands fixed behind his head. He'd barely moved since Jessica came in.
"So you came in and saw me asleep?" she complained, half-joking. "Nice work on the creepy."
"I can't win here, can I?" Jack grinned, and didn't blink. Jessica looked at him again, and got a strange feeling that he'd been pasted on top of the room, like computer effects. She was finally feeling steady enough to let go of the doorframe, and walked across the room to get her much-needed water. That glass from yesterday was still beside the sink, unwashed.
Jack's head turned to follow her, but he still didn't move much. Jessica was suddenly irritated by him and aimed a kick at the chair-legs, and Jack finally lowered his arms and grabbed hold of the table-edge to steady himself. "Whoa," he said, "said I was sorry."
"Whatever. Come on." Jessica drained the glass and dumped it in the sink, heading for the door. Her brother still didn't get up.
"Are you coming or aren't you?" Jessica paused in the doorway and turned, laughing. Jack grinned back, and she felt sure all this behaviour was a deliberate plan to wind her up. "Fine, stay here–” Jessica teased, and flipped the light-switch, plunging the room and her brother into darkness –
Jack didn't make any protest.
It was dark in the kitchen with the bulb off, and what little light there was filtered from the hallway behind Jessica. She could barely see the shapes of the kitchen sides and cupboards, but the table was clear enough, and so were the two empty chairs pulled up to it.
Jessica couldn't hear her own breathing.
She reached for the switch, and her hand shook so badly that she bruised her knuckles on the wall.
There was a moment's delay between flicking the switch up and the bar pinging back to life, just long enough that Jessica thought the light might have died again. The room lit up, and Jack –
– was sitting exactly where he had been, arms behind his head and a smile on his face, in the chair that had been empty an instant before.
"Quit playing around," said her brother.
Jessica stood frozen, and he laughed at her. There was something subtly wrong in the way Jack's face moved, as if someone had taken a recording of his expression and was playing it back.
Jessica glanced at the floor behind her brother, unable to think about anything large right this instant and focusing on the little details, and saw the shadows across the tiling cast by the chair and the table and by nothing else. Jack had no shadow.
"Hey, what're you staring at?" asked her older brother, her band-shirt-wearing neat-haired jolly big brother, and he shifted in his seat. There was a vicious scraping sound as it pushed back across the floor, and Jack rose from the table like a bad meal.
Jessica looked at his too-perfect smile, his shadow-free face, and slammed her hand on the light switch. The room went wonderfully dark and empty, and her legs shook so badly she thought she might fall and crack her head on the kitchen tiles.
She stood in the doorway, staring at the blank floor, and it occurred to Jessica that Jack might still be there somehow, unseen to her, even now making his way –
She slammed the kitchen door, and collapsed backwards onto the hall carpet.
There was a crack at the bottom of the door, a sliver of darkness, and all Jessica could do for some seconds was look at it. She had a picture of it opening up like a mouth and pulling her back inside.
Nothing happened. No sound from the kitchen, no movement. Jessica's gaze drifted upwards, to the stairs and the hall ceiling, and a wave of such alarm came over her that her chest hammered and her lungs burned, leaving her with barely enough breath to scramble to her feet.
Light. Light had made it happen.
Seven
Terry wasn't used to worry. It was an emotion he normally gave no time to, bottling it up and pushing it down while he concentrated on the important stuff. Regret was the same – life was too short and too full to waste it looking backwards and forwards.
He was worried now.
It undermined and coloured everything he tried to do that evening, like trying to eat with a bad taste already in your mouth. The bustle of the town square was muted, and the faces of passers-by were as grim as old propaganda posters. No-one worth fighting or annoying or connecting with.
Terry wasn't used to thinking like that. He was acting like some mopey teenager, and knowing that only annoyed him all the more.
He had to have her or forget her. None of this obsessing.
What if she wasn't just ignoring him? The hospital had said Jessica's head was fine, but they'd barely bothered to look at it and what could you tell in five minutes?
If sh
e was all messed up and he got to her first, think of how it'd look. Think of how grateful she'd be.
Terry started to put a message together, warn her he was coming over. He found his post from earlier, Jessica's comment fresh at the bottom.
it took a couple of moments for the impact of what she was saying to sink in.
Maybe she didn't mean it – she couldn't, not after everything he'd done for her. She was pissed at everyone and he'd been caught in the crossfire. That was all. Terry tried to make himself smile, but it wouldn't come.
He'd made the post after all, and if Jessica was angry at it she'd be blaming him. Women were never reasonable about that kind of thing. He needed to talk to her, and quickly, before any resentment could set in.
Steven was the direction her anger should be going in, and Terry intended to make sure it kept pointing that way.
Heading out of the square, he broke into a run. No time to lose.
Jessica was busy and she couldn't spare any time.
People kept messaging her over and over, cares and concerns and questions. That smug scumbag Terry again and then finally Amy, though why Amy hadn't got back to her before she didn't know. Her thoughts were running even faster now, coupled together like a train.
All finished. She put the pillow over her head and curled up.
Amy stood under the showerhead for almost half an hour, watching the water go green as it swirled down the bath. Even when it ran clear she stayed, feeling as if parts of herself were draining away with the dye.
The hot water trickled and ran out, and freezing cold followed it. Amy moved then and moved quickly, towelling herself off and shivering. She dressed with the speed that only comes close to winter, but even in her haste Amy still found time to worry over what best to wear – picking out a leafy long dress that would match her new hair perfectly, and positioning her pentagram just above the neckline. She wanted to make up for the mess she'd been earlier, to remind Jessica –
– to remind Jessica of what? How pretty she could be? But that was a lie and wasn't how it was supposed to go anyway. Tonight would be friends and nothing more allowed.
The dress only made her belly and hips bulge out all the more. Amy fretted at her reflection, but didn't have time to change again. After all the time she'd taken, Jessica could arrive any minute.
She checked, and there was still no word. Maybe Jessica really had changed her mind, or maybe Jack had showed up by now.
The more Amy told herself not to overthink it, the larger her worry grew. She could picture it swelling like a boil.
She had promised, after all, and if Jessica wasn't okay that only made it all the more important.
Besides, Amy told her reflection, what was the point of getting herself dressed and made up if she didn't show it to anyone?
It was later than she'd thought, and by the time she reached Jack and Jessica's place the sun was only a memory. Amy swallowed, checking that her hair was straight and her dress in order, then pressed the doorbell.
The door stayed shut. There were no lights on in the house, and that was strange, as Amy remembered Jack liked to leave one on to deter burglars.
She pressed her ear to the door, listening for footsteps. None came from inside, but there were some echoing behind her. Amy spun on the doorstep, seeing a dark figure running along the far pavement, weaving between the streetlights.
The figure crossed the road, heading towards the house. Towards her. Amy shuddered, pressing her back to the door, and it was with no relief at all that she saw Terry emerge into the pool of lamplight outside the gate.
"Wotcha," he said, making a mock-salute.
"Hello." Amy could feel herself going all brittle and polite. She always did when someone was poking fun at her, and it only made things worse.
"You here to see her too?" Terry leaned on the gatepost, standing a little closer than Amy would have liked. He was breathing heavily, but even that didn't seem to shake his usual poise.
"She invited me earlier." Amy wanted to be really crushing, say something that would get rid of him as quickly as possible, but the best she could come up with in the face of that swagger and that freckled grin was "I don't remember her mentioning you though."
Why did she say 'though'? That made it sound much weaker, and she could tell from Terry's smirk it hadn't got to him at all.
His next words surprised her. "Bet she isn't answering you now, yeah?"
"How – how do you know that?" Amy was off-balance.
"You're standing out here in the cold for starters," Terry said, "and she's not talking to me either."
Much as Amy's skin crawled whenever she was near Terry, he had a point.
"I don't think she went out." She peered through the spyhole in the door, but could only see blackness. "She was worried about Jack, so if she didn't come to meet me she must've been waiting for him."
"What about Jack?" Terry come into the garden, peering through the front window, but the curtains were drawn tightly together. "It's normally him who fusses about her, yeah?"
"You didn't – " Amy cut herself off. Of course he hadn't heard. "He wasn't at home this morning, and none of us know where he went."
For the first time in these few minutes, she felt Terry was looking at her properly. It was more unnerving that his usual habit of glossing over people – he had an intense stare, making Amy feel like a specimen under a microscope.
"Not like Jack to bunk off," he said. "He's too straight for that, am I right?"
"Anyway, that's why she wanted me over." Amy tried to shut Terry out, make him feel unwelcome. She could feel his gaze moving over her, taking in her dress, her pendant.
"Nice hair," he said, and Amy could see him laughing. She looked away from him, up at the house. Even the upstairs windows were covered over.
"Doesn't look like she's in," Terry said, and came over all sincere. "If you do see her, tell her I was asking after her, yeah?" There was something repressed about his voice, as if he were trying not to shout, which wasn't like Terry at all – Amy had never known someone so disposed to sharing every horrible thought they had.
"Sure." Amy would have said anything, and the knowledge that he was finally leaving was like a bubble bursting inside her. Cold and isolated, she wanted to sit down and cry.
"Don't do anything I wouldn't," Terry leered, and he was off and away before the unpleasantness of that had sunk in. Amy leaned her full weight on the door and started to slide down it, shutting her eyes. She tried the bell again, but the house was as unresponsive as the first time.
She realised what had been bothering her about Terry. He'd actually seemed upset, which was a new and worrying mood for Terry Martin. Amy pushed him out of her mind, refusing to let his winks and smirks disturb her any further.
This dress left her arms bare, and the cold air was turning them into icicles. Amy shook, and couldn't face the long walk home.
Giving it one last desperate shot, she pulled her phone out and with numb fingers texted Jessica again. "I'm outside if you need me. Are you okay?"
The street was quiet. Sighing for no-one's benefit but her own, Amy prepared to walk away.
There was a blip from inside her bag. Amy pulled the phone out again and nearly dropped it, her hands now so stiff that it took her some moments to bring the message up.
"Wait there I'll be down in a minute," said Jessica.
Amy stood there shivering for several minutes before the door opened. Eventually, she heard muffled footsteps descending stairs, and the door scraped and rattled and opened a crack.
"Inside, quick," hissed Jessica's voice. Amy couldn't see anything of her, just darkness. She stepped forward and began to open the door, and was stopped by a weight on the other side. "No, don't push it! Come through the gap, quickly."
Amy had to breathe in to fit. The hall was almost impenetrable, with only the barest hints of light escaping under the curtains. She looked for Jessica, and saw a movement behind the door. A hand grabbed her b
y the arm and pulled her inside, and the front door clicked shut behind her.
"Come on, it's not safe down here," whispered Jessica, and the tone of her voice was far from normal. She began to tug Amy towards the stairs, and Amy resisted. "Wait, what's going on?"
"It isn't safe!" Jessica's voice cracked, revealing panic underneath. "Please, come up."
Amy let herself be dragged up the darkened stairs, stumbling on the unfamiliar steps, barking her shin on the corner of the banister. She yelped in protest, and a hand flew over her mouth as Jessica's voice went "Ssssh" in her ear.
Amy had thoughts that this might not be Jessica at all – all she'd seen was a suggestion of long hair and a movement among the shadows. She struggled and felt the figure behind her overbalance. Both of them swayed in the middle of the stairs, coming perilously close to falling head-first.
There was a cry of "Please, what're you doing?"
"Let–” Amy struggled harder, head full of pictures of hands and dark rooms and cobwebs , "– go!" She finally broke free, clinging to the banisters.
"Amy please just come with me I can't stay here I can't." Jessica – if it was Jessica – had dropped back to a whisper but wasn't pausing between words. She sounded like she was about to faint, and Amy relented.
"All right," she whispered back, letting herself be pulled to the landing. Amy was blind up here and couldn't picture the shape of the space – she hadn't been this far into the house since Jessica first went away.
Jessica let go of her arm, and there was the click of another door, but the darkness didn't relent. Amy felt Jessica's hand fumble and find hers, tugging her into what must be a bedroom, and again the door was shut behind them.
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