It was so dark as to seem solid, and there was a breathless heat to the air. Amy fumbled helplessly in the empty space – Jessica was away from her again, and Amy could hear her moving but couldn't tell where. She could hear the other girl hyperventilating, sounding as if she'd run up and down the stairs a dozen times.
There was a creak of bedsprings. "Sorry, I'm sorry," said Jessica, and Amy could hear her shifting around on the mattress. "I can't stay down there."
Amy wanted answers, but more than anything she wanted to see where she was. She stood rooted to the spot, and her wandering hands found the edge of the bed, the wooden corner of what felt like a chest of drawers. There should have been a window, but she couldn't make out curtains or blinds – the bedroom was as dark as if it were underground.
"Jessica," she ventured. Her friend didn't answer, but Amy heard an indrawn breath and carried on talking. "Are you okay? What's happened, what's wrong?"
"It's Jack," Jessica said, and the words that followed were so quiet they were almost swallowed by the protests of the bed. "He – he came back."
"He did?" Amy wanted to sit down but didn't dare move. "Where is he?"
"It wasn't him." Jessica made what sounded like a sob. "It looked and talked like him but it wasn't, and the light made it happen."
"Wasn't him?" Amy crept forward, trying to find the window. She had a powerful need to check the outside world was still there. The total darkness was playing tricks on her senses, making the dimensions of the imagined room shift and stretch.
"I don't know what it – what it was." Jessica giggled, and the sound had tears in it. "It was in the kitchen then it wasn't and I don't know why."
"You're starting to scare me." Amy reached out and felt cloth brush against her fingertips – not the billowing of curtains, but something thicker and coarser. Blankets. Fumbling out the edges, she found a square of them stuffed and tucked around the blinds and the curtain rail.
Taking the corner of the blanket, Amy tugged. There was a rattle of curtain rings, and streetlights streamed into the room.
Jessica screamed. Amy caught only a glimpse of the other girl before she flew off the bed and burrowed into the corner, trying to hide somewhere between the door and the wardrobe. "No-no put it back! Put it back!"
Amy saw her friend shaking and crying, arms wrapped around the top of her head. She saw the bedside lamp fallen over, the unscrewed bulbs lying in the far corner. She turned to the window and managed to jam the blanket back up and pull it across the blinds, obliterating the outside once more, and still Jessica shook and cried and wouldn't come away.
Amy felt her way across the room and knelt beside Jessica and put a tentative arm around what she hoped were the other girl's shoulders.
"It's the light," Jessica whispered. "The light brought him back." Her voice had a terror Amy had never heard coming from a human being.
There was an awkward intimacy in the close darkness, Amy thought, in the hush and stillness of it. It took some minutes before Jessica stopped trembling, and some minutes more before Amy could coax her from the floor and back onto the bed.
The mattress was rough, stripped bare of sheets and comforters, and the springs poked up from it at awkward angles. Amy sat uneasily, her arm still around Jessica – for Jessica began to tremble every time she tried to take it away. She had an immediate awareness of every movement of the other girl's body, of her frightened breathing and her smell and the feel of the muscles knotted across her shoulders.
She'd lost all sense of time, sitting there. Amy pulled her phone out, turning the screen away from Jessica for fear it would blind her, and found the evening flying past. Soon the buses would stop, and the streets would belong only to the late-night clubbers and the police.
"I've got to get home," Amy ventured, and found her voice stiff and reluctant.
"Please don't." Jessica's hand wrapped around Amy's, clinging on for dear life. "Please. I can't."
Those last words hung without meaning. Amy tried to gently disengage her hand, to talk reason. "I came straight over, so I didn't have any of my things."
Without intending to, she'd promised to come back. To stay. All Amy could think was how badly she'd wanted this situation last night when her head was swimming, and how little she wanted it now.
"I–" Jessica choked. "I don't know where he went. Before. It isn't safe. Not even here."
"I'll come straight back, I promise." Amy rubbed life back into her crushed fingers. She was about to say Jessica could come to hers like they'd first planned, but the hysteria her friend had shown at even the glimpse of the streetlights made that obviously impossible.
She should feel close to Jessica, after the connection they'd shared the other night just before things went wrong. She should be glad to be here, happy to help, to support and maybe even to earn Jessica's affections back.
Amy felt trapped.
It was worse than talking to Terry. For all her heart ached for Jessica and her terror, this was too much for her. She had to get out, get back to light and warmth and sanity.
Jessica had given up trying to argue, but was still pressed into the crook of Amy's arm.
Guilt still plucked at Amy's heartstrings, and she told herself she would really come back after all. No question about it. Just as soon as she'd got her clothes and toothbrush and called her work about tomorrow and told someone else about Jessica just to be on the safe side. She'd be back for certain after that, once she felt like herself again.
She tried to get up, and her dress tangled unhelpfully about her knees. Amy wanted to laugh. All the time she'd wasted on her hair and clothes, when Jessica would have been just as happy to see her if she wore a binbag.
The dark was getting to her, it must be. She never thought this way.
Amy patted Jessica on the back, and when that didn't work she carefully stroked Jessica's hair. Jessica still didn't say anything, but leaned into Amy's hand like a cat.
"I'll be back really quickly, okay?" Amy said, and forced herself up off the mattress. She headed for where she remembered the door being, but her outstretched hands found wallpaper, and it took further seconds of painful fumbling before she was able to escape.
"Goodbye," Jessica said as the door creaked. There was a tone of mournful finality to it.
The stairs were an even bigger obstacle, but Amy didn't dare hunt for a light switch, certain of the protests it would bring. She shuffled forward until she found the lip of the staircase, never lifting her feet from the floor. After that, it was simple enough to tiptoe down to the hallway and find the dim outline of the front door.
The streetlights were painful. She'd grown too used to darkness even in those few minutes.
Amy started to walk home, and the night wind caught her dress and bit into her skin. She sped up into a half-run, and the wind seemed to increase in velocity with it, battering her arms, her bare shins, her face.
Though her hands were going numb again, Amy hung determinedly onto her phone, dialling as she ran. She needed to talk to someone else, someone who made sense.
Cordelia. Cordelia was High Priestess this month and a teacher in her own right, unfazed by the natural or supernatural worlds. Cordelia would know what to do.
The phone was answered almost immediately.
"Hello, you're a bit early." Cordelia talked to everyone as though they were children in her class. "You don't normally ring unless you've forgotten our meeting dates."
"I haven't, have I?" Amy was rattled, and she could hear Cordelia giggling. Even her laugh was cultured, as if she'd practised in front of a mirror.
"No, of course not." Cordelia sounded brisk and business-like again, switching seamlessly between moods. "So what can I help you with, Amy?"
"Well." Amy stumbled on the words. Explaining seemed impossible, and her tongue grew awkward in her mouth. She could hear Cordelia sigh, and Amy suddenly grew irritated – after everything she'd put up with today, she was suddenly a burden to people?
&n
bsp; She nearly snapped, but that wasn't the way to handle Cordelia. Much better to flatter.
"I've run into something really weird," Amy said. "One of my friends is in trouble, and I can't make any sense of it. I thought you might be able to?"
She'd expected Cordelia to mock her, to repeat the word 'friends' with surprise, but the other woman did none of these things and Amy felt a sudden wash of shame. Stress was turning her into an unpleasant person, making her expect the worse of people.
"Really weird?" Cordelia managed to sound worried and intrigued all at once. "Please, tell me more."
"If you're sure you aren't busy." Amy's tongue was out of place again, an invader in her mouth.
"Nonsense." Cordelia laughed again, but there was no reason she shouldn't. "Anything for a sister. Come on, spill."
It took Amy longer to explain than she'd hoped, and by the time she forced the final words out she'd reached her own flat and her own front door. Cordelia hadn't laughed again.
"Don't do anything tonight," she'd said. "If it's nothing, the morning will bring your friend around. If she's still like that tomorrow, call me again and I'll come over."
"Thank you," Amy had answered, finding herself embarrassed, and Cordelia had rung off with "Be careful, you hear?"
Now she was alone again, in her own street and free of dark rooms and drama. Amy nearly ran to the door, and once inside she switched on as many lights as possible.
The sofa welcomed her like an old friend. Amy clung to it and buried herself in tea. It was some minutes before she could think properly, and by then an inertia had crept across her. There was a deep ache in her legs that made them never want to move again.
She thought again of Jessica, sitting in that shut-up room. Waiting for her.
Amy rose from the sofa and regretted it. She looked down at her dress, seeing the creases in what had been so fresh and pretty only a couple of hours ago. Everything that had drawn her to Jessica yesterday seemed to have flipped around in her head, making her nerves scream at even the thought of going back.
Again, she'd promised.
Did she want to trap herself? It seemed to Amy that she dropped promises in her wake like breadcrumbs.
She should go back. Her friend needed her, whatever had been said the day before.
Would it make any difference if she did? Jessica would still be terrified and unstable, rocking back and forth. It wouldn't do either of them any good if Amy got dragged down with her.
She caught sight of herself in the mirror, the still-lovely green hair framing her face, and resented it. All that time and money wasted. However much she tried she was nothing more than a bag of blood and water.
If she waited until tomorrow, Cordelia could take over and sort everything out. Was that how useless she was, that she needed smarter friends with better jobs to come and solve her problems?
Amy wanted to hide in the bathroom, to somehow add an extra layer of being by herself.
Jessica was more alone than she was. Amy had never seen anyone in a state like that.
Standing in the middle of the room, unable to commit to sitting or going, Amy turned to her phone. Jessica had gone quiet, and there were no more angry comments from Jenny. Even the anonymous messages had stopped for the night.
She flicked around a bit further, and ran across Terry's post, and the argument he and Steven had had underneath. Amy looked aghast through the comments – no wonder Jessica had been so upset at the end of it.
Although it was all hours old, she messaged Steven. "Hi, I don't really know what happened last night but if you ever wanted Jessica to forgive you, you're doing it all wrong."
Maybe that was all it was. Stress from those idiot boys had made Jessica ill and got her seeing things.
Amy hoped so. She realised she was starting to pace the living room, still in her shoes, one-two steps towards the sofa then swivel-turn-one-two in the other direction.
She'd go mad in here. Besides, she'd promised, and when you stripped away all speculation and second-guessing the fact of the promise was still there.
Amy went to pack her bag.
Steven hadn't shed an inch of his bad mood, even by the time the last reveller staggered into the cold and the bar closed. He was exhausted, but that only served to make him more irritated, prickling all over as if he had ants lodged under his skin.
He had to run for the last bus, and his tired legs weren't up to it. Steven arrived at the stop about thirty seconds late, seeing tail-lights disappearing into the middle distance. He'd have to walk, and the night had somehow got even colder while he'd been working.
Frozen-fingered and swearing to himself, Steven checked his phone as he went.
He dismissed Amy's message in seconds – she might mean well but she was coming across as patronising as the rest of them and he couldn't be bothered any more. There was another message just below it, from – of all people – his newfound nemesis, Terry.
"Look what you've done you miserable scum, I am going to END YOU"
Steven blinked, wondered if he'd read it properly in the flickering streetlights.
Going back to Terry's older post was like picking at a scab. Steven blew on his hands to warm them, managed to scroll through until he saw Jessica's reaction.
That was that, and why.
He couldn't process it. It didn't mean anything.
She'd already been upset and it was another overreaction on top of that and hey, she was blaming Terry too. Finally.
Actually, it was pretty good to see Terry get riled up for once. Maybe it was about time the tosser got a taste of his own medicine.
Flicking clumsily back to Terry's threat, Steven shared it publicly, showing the world – and Jessica – just how violent and sociopathic her favourite new boy was. "Look at this psycho," he added.
What he needed now was to talk to Jessica himself. Get his side across, convince her to forgive him for the accident. She'd be home by now, and Jack would answer the door if she wouldn't.
Sticking his hands in his pockets, Steven headed towards Bell Street and the far side of town.
Campion Road where Jessica lived was more sheltered than the town square, and Steven found some feeling returning to his hands. Rubbing them together, he took his phone and hesitated, unsure whether to warn Jessica he was coming. She might pretend to be out, and then he'd never get a chance to explain himself.
He checked his new Terry-shaming post, but it didn't have any comments yet.
Jack and Jessica's place was completely dark. Curtains were drawn, blinds shut. It looked abandoned, not just empty, and Steven hesitated.
The streetlight outside the house was broken, so it was hard to make out any details. He headed a little closer, trying to see if there were any signs of life.
The moon was behind the house, and the other streetlights were some distance away, throwing the front door and garden into deep shadow. It looked like a pit had opened up beside the street, swallowing the ground floor of the building. Even standing closer, Steven couldn't make anything out beyond the vaguest of shapes.
There was something there, next to the front gate. He squinted. A flicker of movement, possibly a cat or piece of litter.
It was too big to be a cat, too high up. Maybe something was stuck on the gate itself, a carrier bag blown by the wind. Something was definitely there, flapping back and forth.
Steven stepped off the pavement and started to cross the road. There was a sheen of frost forming on the tarmac, and Steven was forced to pay attention to his feet in case he skidded. He didn't look up again until he was halfway across the street, the streetlights behind making his shadow outrun him.
The movement was definitely there, a small motion but not an imagined one. It was too high up to be on the gatepost, and Steven tried to remember the plants in Jessica's front garden. Though it was too dark ahead to tell now, he couldn't recall anything more than a few feet high.
There was an odd sound coming from the garden as well. It
was hard to pinpoint it with the wind battering the trees and the traffic rumbling nearby, but Steven was sure he could make something out that didn't fit, a metallic scraping noise.
He hesitated again, stopping right in the middle of the road.
Something long and thin reached out of the shadows of the garden and took hold of the broken streetlight. There was a harsh click, and the lamp flickered and spluttered and reignited, looking more like flame than electricity.
In the sudden clarity below, Steven saw the long metal pole that had stretched up to the lamp, and the figure who carried it. It was a man at first glance, or similar to a man, but its features were obscured by the big straw hat across its head. The battered hat was pointed at the top and flapped back and forth in the breeze. Beneath it, trailing rags hung from stick-thin limbs.
Steven was still dazzled, but he made out the figure swinging the pole across its shoulder and turning around, facing away from the light and the gate and towards him. Though it had the shape and proportions of a person, the way its arms and legs bent didn't fit, and nor did the way they seemed to move independently of one another.
Steven took a step back and his feet nearly went from under him. He'd forgotten the frost, and as he caught his balance he couldn't help but glance down.
When he looked up a moment later, the figure was standing on the edge of the kerb. Steven couldn't be sure without seeing its face – and he realised then that he didn't want to look upon that face, or see the figure any closer than it now stood – but it appeared to be staring at him. It wasn't moving, not even when the wind caught it.
Steven forgot Jessica, forgot phones and messages and arguments. All he wanted was to leave, but he didn't dare look away from the ragged figure. Its immobility was even more unnerving than its movements had been, now managing to look as fixed in place as if it were a scarecrow.
Steven edged backwards. He couldn't move his feet quickly with the frost, and he couldn't turn to see where he was going. The straw-hatted figure still stood there, and Steven almost wished it would hurry up and move, but imagining those spider-limbs powering across the street made him immediately change his mind.
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