by Sarah Dalton
“A man is dead! A man is dead.”
Lemarr bursts into tears when he says that.
Of course we can’t tell him what we were really doing on the moors at night. We can’t tell him about our dangerous mission, and about how we stopped Little Amy from claiming any more lives from Nettleby. We can’t tell him any of that, because I will end up back in a psychiatric facility.
After he leaves, I manage to get some time alone with Seth. We walk to his mother’s ward in silence. When we’re alone, I tell him about the knife and his father’s shirt in my bag.
At first he’s quiet, and I’m unsure whether he is going to agree with me about taking it to the police.
“Amy showed you where it was buried?” he asks.
“Yes, she made me dig it up.”
“Then she wants the world to know who killed her. You should give it to the detective with the spittle.” He flashes a half-hearted impish grin laced with sadness.
“What about you and your mum?” I ask.
“Mum is never going to wake up again. I have to face up to that. And me… well, I will tell the police everything.”
“But you could implicate yourself. You could be seen as an accessory to murder,” I insist.
“And if I don’t, I live with this burden for the rest of my life. That, to me, is a prison cell anyway.” He turns away and stares out of the window.
“You were fine before I came along,” I say, following his gaze. The sun is in the beginnings of rising, but it is blocked by an outbuilding. Still, the sky is tinged pinky-blue and laced with thin clouds. It reminds me of candy floss from the carnival. That seems like so long ago now. “I brought all of this back up. I pulled open the past—”
Seth moves to me and takes my hands. “Are you kidding? I thought I was going to die, last night. I thought I had until I was twenty-one, and then that was it. I carried that for a long time. No one ever knew. Then you came along. Have you any idea what it feels like to share that kind of secret?”
Tears burn at the back of my eyes, and my throat thickens. I can only nod.
“Well, then you know what it’s like.” His fingers find their way to my hair. He strokes my cheek, moving down, trailing the scars on my neck. “You’ve changed everything, from the way I see the world, to the way I want to live my life.”
My face flushes. I know I’m turning red, but there’s nothing I can do about it. “Seth…”
“I know,” he says. “You don’t have to say it.”
“It’s time to let go, Seth.” My eyes mist with unshed tears.
We kiss for the last time. When I leave, he stands by the window with his profile to me. The pinks and yellows of the sunrise light up his face, like on the first night I saw him.
*
When the young detective sees the knife, he stops shouting. He goes very quiet and hurries off back to the police station. I’ve probably just made his career.
Mum and Dad decide to cut the holiday short. They are reluctant to let me say goodbye to Neil and Lemarr.
“I’ll email you my address in Brum so you can visit.” Neil lowers his voice. “Bring the Athamé, yeah?”
I’ve already agreed to go ghost hunting with them both. What am I getting myself into?
As I pack up my things in the caravan, Lacey sits on the bed and we talk in whispers. It’s going to be a while before I have the same sort of freedom as I’ve had this week. I crossed a line with my family’s trust, I know that, but I also know it was necessary.
“You know, in a weird way, I’m going to miss Nettleby,” Lacey says. “I’m going to miss Neil and Lemarr a lot. I might pop in on them, every now and then.”
“You’re going to end up making them poo their pants, Lace, if you keep popping in on them,” I remind her.
She grins. “Yeah, that might be an added bonus.” She pauses as I try to fit my clothes into one suitcase. Even though I haven’t bought anything extra, for some reason I can’t fit everything in. “I’m sorry I said those things about Seth.”
I look up from my suitcase. “It’s okay. You were right to be cautious.”
“You’re going to keep in touch with him, though?”
“No, we’ve decided not to. He’s going to the police about what he saw his father do to Amy and I think he’s got too much on his plate.” I think about Seth’s mum in the hospital. He’d faced up to her death, at last. He didn’t say it, but I know he’s going to turn the machines off.
“I’m sorry,” Lacey says.
“Thanks. That means a lot.” I flash her a grin. “Seeing as you didn’t like him.”
She feigns incredulity. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, come on.”
“All right, yeah, but it was because I didn’t trust him. He seemed all right in general.”
“Wow, that almost sounded convincing.”
Lacey stands up and paces the room, swinging her arms from side to side. We’re avoiding saying the rest—about how Lacey became jealous of a minor change in my life, and about how she turned on me on the moors. Somehow it doesn’t feel like the right time. It feels like one chapter is ending, and another is beginning, and somewhere along the story, Lace and I will have to face up to our issues. Right now, we just need to move on.
“Lace,” I say.
She turns to me with her eyes open wide. It’s one of those moments when she looks so real, so alive, that I almost forget she’s dead. “Yeah?”
“I want to carry on Igor’s work. I want to help ghosts like Amy. And I want you to help me.”
Lacey smiles. “I want to do that, too.”
Later that day, as Dad’s car pulls out of the Five Moors car-park, I can’t help but think about how much was let go in the last week. Seth let go of his dark past, and faced up to letting go of his mother. Amy let go of her revenge and moved on to the other side. Igor let go of one life and accepted his new journey, whatever it is. Lacey let go of me for a short time, and found her own feet.
I let go of Seth.
Mum was right about my holiday romance, and what a romance it was—all intense, and mysterious, and passionate, and all-encompassing. But it belongs in Nettleby. It was destined to last a week and, somehow, that seems perfect.
It has been a week where many things have fallen into place for me. I’ve figured out what I want to do with my life. I want to listen to those without a voice, and Lacey is going to help me. In the boot of my parents’ car, nestled amongst many suitcases and bags and old blankets, is my backpack. Inside my backpack, tucked in a leather sheath, is the Athamé that once belonged to Igor. Now it’s mine.
~ A Note from the Author ~
A huge thank you for supporting independent authors by buying this book. As an author who has self-published her book, I rely on readers to spread the word. Why not take a moment to do just that and leave a review?
If you haven’t already, check out the novella that started it all: My Daylight Monsters described by reviewers as “creepy and atmospheric” and “intriguing and suspenseful”.
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About the Author:
Sarah grew up in the middle of nowhere in the countryside of Derbyshire and as a result has an over-active imagination. She has been an avid reader for most of her life, taking inspiration from the stories she read as a child, and the novels she devoured as an adult.
Sarah mainly writes speculative fiction for a Young Adult audience and has had pieces of short fiction published in the Medulla Literary Review, Apex Magazine, PANK magazine and the British Fantasy Socie
ty publication Dark Horizons. Her short story ‘Vampires Wear Chanel’ is featured in the Wyvern Publication Fangtales available from Amazon.
Sarah is currently working on an upcoming YA fantasy series. Keep in touch for more information!
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