As the breeze blows, there’s a flash of colour from under the bridge and the ribbons are dancing, flying out in all their colours, like mysterious tails. Danny sees them too. He sees them and he sees my face, and he turns his back on that side of the bridge, on the ribbons, on me.
‘Have a seat.’ He sits down on the edge of the bridge and pats the space beside him. I wriggle my legs under the low wooden railing, but make sure I’m not sitting too close to him. If I stretch, I can almost touch the water with my feet. I don’t like looking down. The water’s so dark that I can’t see the bottom and I don’t know what’s down there. There’s that pull I feel whenever I stare at water, like I’m going to be sucked under and swallowed up.
Danny breaks into my thoughts. ‘We used to float our lilos all the way downstream and have a race.’
‘So there are some good things about the country?’
‘Three: the river, the cows and –’
‘And?’
‘Okay, only two.’
He’s funnier than I realised. ‘You forgot Julia and Mrs Jarvis.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘How could I?’
‘You were born here?’
‘At home. Like a calf. Or a litter of puppies.’
‘Well Julia can be a bitch,’ I say a bit nervously, but it’s his turn to laugh.
Then he looks at me and sighs. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Lil.’
‘Thanks.’
‘No, really. There’s not much choice when it comes to friends, and Julia usually gets in first so I’m left with the dregs.’
‘Thanks, again.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’ He bumps against me then, the skin on his arm warm as it touches mine.
‘Lil –’
‘Mmm?’
‘Do you mind?’
I don’t get to answer, because he’s already leaning towards me, his eyes closing and his mouth finding mine. And then we’re kissing, awkward, uncomfortably half turned to each other. Then there’s a splash and cold water sprays up my legs, and it’s so sharp that I pull away from him.
‘What was that?’
‘It’s called a kiss.’
‘No, that splash.’
‘I didn’t hear anything.’
‘Look at my legs.’ I pull my legs out from under the railing and they’re wet. I peer over the edge into the water, but it’s just dark and totally still.
I frown. ‘There’s nothing there,’ I say.
‘Was it that bad?’
‘What?’
‘Me kissing you?’
‘No. Of course not –’
And he leans in again; maybe he wants to check whether I mean it. This time it’s even better. I haven’t really kissed that many boys and the ones that I have kissed are not boys I truly liked. They might have just been okay, so kissing Danny is quite different because I do like him. When we stop kissing, we both look at each other and then back at the river. It’s all a bit much, seeing someone that close up.
‘I knew I wanted to do that when I first saw you,’ he says.
‘Why?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Not the answer I was hoping for. I was thinking more along the lines of because you were beautiful, amazing, hilarious, talented, creative, and funny.’
‘Okay.’
‘Or do you just kiss all the new girls in town?’
‘Yeah.’
I can see half a smile on his face, but he doesn’t look at me. My back pocket is buzzing and I have to decide between breaking the moment and checking who it is. It might be Mum. ‘I thought there’d be no reception out here.’
‘Oh no. One thing about the country is that we have pretty good reception. It’s to make up for everything else.’
I pull my phone out and it is Mum. ‘If I answer it I’m going to get in trouble for not telling her where I was going, and if I don’t answer it I’ll get into even more trouble, but not straightaway.’
‘What about if I answer it?’
‘Not a good move.’
I answer it.
‘Lil? Where are you?’
‘At the river. With some friends.’
Danny pretends to look around wildly, searching for them and I try not to laugh.
‘It’s after five.’
‘Sorry, Mum. I meant to call.’
‘Be home in half an hour, please.’
‘Okay.’
I flip the phone and put it back in my pocket. ‘I’d better go.’
Danny tries to grab my arm but I dodge, and jump up.
‘What’s with those ribbons?’ I ask.
When he turns to look at me, his face is tortured, like something’s very wrong. His eyes aren’t shining: they’re dark and angry. ‘They’re for Tilly.’
‘Why?’
‘She always used to wear ribbons in her hair. So after she left we tied them on the bridge.’
‘Where do you think she went?’
‘I don’t know. No one does.’
‘Doesn’t it freak you out a bit that I’m living in her house?’
‘No. I like it.’
I’m not paranoid, but the idea that Danny likes me living in his missing ex-girlfriend’s house is a bit weird. ‘Why? Because you want her to come back?’
‘No,’ he snaps. ‘It’s not like that. Tilly was Julia’s best friend. We’d all known each other since we were in kinder. We’d grown up together and we went out only because that’s what you do here. But I liked her and I miss her.’
‘It feels like I’m just the new version.’ I sound meaner than I intended.
‘That’s a crap thing to say.’ Danny shakes his head.
And he’s right. I go to touch him, but he shrugs me off and walks away so fast the bridge rattles. I’m tempted to stay and not follow him home, but I don’t want to be alone in this place.
He’s gone. I can’t see him. I scramble up the bank and there he is, dawdling, kicking at the dirt but he starts walking as soon as he sees me, and I can’t quite keep up with him. I feel like I did when I was little and had to follow my mum after I’d done something wrong and she walked on ahead, fast.
‘Danny –’
He stops and I can finally catch up, bumping into him playfully to see how he’ll react. I’m not usually so out there with boys, but I can’t work this one out. He flips from distant to intimate with no apparent reason. I don’t think I’m very good at reading Danny. I can’t tell if he likes me or thinks I’m some annoying newbie he’s trying to be friendly to as a charity case. I need Ruby around to tell me what’s going on. I’m glad we’re leaving the river behind, though. It feels like I’m being punished for being something, or maybe for not being something. Maybe he’s held me up against his memories of Tilly and I’m just not her – or enough of her. So here I am, walking back home with someone not talking, as I slap madly at the mozzies. It could be so much more than this, but now it’s silent, and uncomfortable.
Mum asked me nothing when I got home from the river. She and Dad were playing Monopoly. No kids – it was just the two of them, drinking red wine in these massive blue glasses I’ve never seen before, and desperately trying to bankrupt each other. Dad at least pointed to his stash of paper money, and made some comment about Mum being a dirty, corrupt banker, but Mum was too busy trying to get round the board without being caught out to even ask me how my day was. And if she’d asked, I might have told her it sucked, well not the kissing part but everything else.
Parents move you to the country, but they forget that they have each other to play Monopoly with if things go a bit wobbly for them on the social front. But I’ve got no one. Feeling recklessly sorry for myself, I slouch off, and up to my room, where I try to call Ruby to tell her all about this bizarre day, and maybe apologise for hanging up on her earlier. But of course she�
�s not answering. I hate this town.
When I get to school the following day, it’s agony. Danny barely looks at me and he’s moved his desk further away again. I’m just pleased Mrs Jarvis doesn’t bring it up. Julia ignores me. And at lunchtime I sit under a tree, alone, with pine needles sticking into my bum, and try to force down my inedible lunch. I can see Max practising on the courts with his new friends. Ruby texts me once to say she’s walking home from school with Tom, and that Becka is now dating Jackson, which I take to mean she is still hanging with Tom and things are going along just fine, thank you very much. I’m a bit hurt that she texts me to tell me that, given that she knows how long I’ve liked Jackson for, but then she’s obviously cross with me too.
I’m tempted to respond and tell her about kissing Danny, but since I offended him at the river, I don’t have much to say about it. When I get home, Mum’s in the kitchen, wearing a gingham apron, with frills. Please. She’s got the handheld electric mixer going full pelt so I try to sneak past with just a wave for a conversation, but I’m unlucky today. She flicks the switch off, and stops me before I can make it through.
‘How was school?’
‘Great. I learnt this much.’ And I hold my arms as far apart as possible.
‘Why do you have to do that, Lil?’
‘What? Learn?’
‘No. Be sarcastic about everything. Be such a teenager.’
‘I am. A teenager, that is. I’m trying to be true to myself, Mum.’
‘Are you this sarcastic with friends?’
‘Friend. You overestimate my popularity.’
‘You have friends.’
‘Some. A few. But they’re a long way away, Mum. You guys saw to that.’
‘Oh get over it, Lil.’
‘Right. Thanks for our little chat.’ I turn to leave, but she, honestly, holds up the beaters with cream or cake mix or something white and gooey dripping off them and stops me.
‘Your father and I are out tonight, so just make sure Max is in bed at a reasonable time.’
‘Like six?’
‘Lil –’
‘Sorry, but I’m a bit surprised you’ve actually found somewhere to go.’
‘We’re going to try the Chinese.’
‘Oh goody.’
‘We won’t be late,’ she says, as the mixture starts dropping from the beaters and she quickly grabs the bowl.
‘No. I’m sure you won’t. It probably shuts at nine.’
‘Okay, that’s enough.’
‘Can you bring me home some of those little prawn crackers? I like the way they dissolve on your tongue.’
She sighs, turns her beaters back on, and that’s the end of it. Apparently Gideon’s so precious now that we can’t even make fun of it.
Walking back up the stairs to my attic, I have this uncomfortable feeling that something’s wrong. I reach the door, push it with my fingertips, and it swings back. Nothing unusual. I step in. Okay, these feelings are just silly leftover thoughts. But my left foot hits the ground, slides across the wet floorboards and I almost fall over.
I flick on the light. It sputters and fills the room with a bright glare then flickers off. I try again, on, off, but the bulb must have blown. Anyway, I don’t need the light to know what I saw. The long line of muddy, watery footprints snaking their way across the floor. They stopped at the carved letters. Great. Just when I force myself to accept the fact that all the weird stuff happening in my room is coincidence.
I charge downstairs, yelling, ‘Max, did you just go into my room?’
His voice floats back. ‘Nah.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah. I’m sure.’ He’s lying on his bed reading. It’s some stupid fart gag book that he loves reading over and over. He’s still got his socks on. So unless he walked around my room with wet feet, then ran downstairs and put his socks back on, it can’t have been him.
‘Where’s Dad?’
‘Dunno.’
Just as Max answers me, the pipes in the house groan. That’s what they do when someone’s having a shower or a bath.
Dad’s sitting on the edge of his bed, dressed except for his feet, and he’s running the corner of the towel around each of his toes.
‘Wash all the mud off, Dad?’
‘Mud?’
‘Yeah. You walked through my room and left footprints.’
‘No, honey.’
‘You sure?’
He looks up at me and frowns. ‘I’m sure.’
‘Right. Okay, then. Maybe it was Mum.’
‘Don’t think so. Your mum’s been in the kitchen the whole time, trying to perfect some lemon cake recipe she was given when she joined the library van.’
‘Library van?’
‘Yeah. There’s no library in town, so once a week a library van drives in with books in the back. You jump on board and borrow them.’
‘Great. A library van,’ I say.
So unless they’re all lying to me, no one has walked through my room with muddy footprints.
‘How you going, Lil? Happier?’
‘Oh yeah. Loving every minute.’
‘Glad to see you didn’t leave your spirit back in the old house.’
Why would Dad say something like that unless he knows something weird’s going on? I almost pounce on him. ‘So do you believe that? That people can leave their old spirit behind?’
He looks up, stops drying his foot and smiles. ‘What are you talking about? I meant your fine art of sarcastic retorts.’
I’m losing it. I can’t believe I actually thought Dad was talking about spirits. ‘Oh, yeah, course you did. Sorry.’
‘Lil, is everything—’
‘Yes, Dad. Fine. Thanks.’
I back out of his room before he can ask me something I really don’t want to talk about, like why there are muddy footprints in my room. As much as I don’t want to go upstairs, I’ve got no choice. Each step I take, the air around me gets colder, until it’s almost freezing at the top. I’m forcing myself to believe it means nothing, so I go into my room, hit the light switch just in case and this time, it turns on. What? Must be the old wiring in this house.
But the prints are still there, so I wasn’t imagining it. And they are very muddy. Like someone’s traipsed through – but there’s something on the ground near my bed. It’s one of the ribbons from under the bridge. Not the pink one that I picked up – it’s blue. And it’s lying on the letters carved into the floor.
It’s a message for me. I’m not sure what it means. I really don’t want to know, but the ribbon, the muddy footprints and the letters all point to one thing. Somebody’s trying to tell me about Tilly Rose and the river, and they’re forcing me to listen.
10
back at the river
Grabbing the hoodie in case I’m cold, I run. Out of our house and across the road, not bothering to check for cars, because there won’t be any. I reach the big football oval. The grass is spongy and soft, not like any oval I’ve run across. Ours all had fake grass, but this is cool and damp. Of course it’s empty, except for one of those old-fashioned sprinklers that spray my legs with water as I run past.
I slide down behind the oval, and run through the picnic ground. As I dash past one particularly tall tree, I trip, and crash down onto the track. I don’t understand it. There’s nothing for me to trip on. Is it a sign? Should I be down here alone?
The air drops as soon as I step onto the dirt track. I’m glad that Julia didn’t take the hoodie back, because I sort of like having it with me. The zip’s had it, so I must have broken it last night but it’s still warmer than nothing.
I’m sure I’m being watched, but I can’t see anything except trees. As I reach a bend in the track, I see them. More muddy footprints on the ground. I start running, dodging them when I can. I know I
’m following them, like Hansel and Gretel’s trail of breadcrumbs. I also know where they’re headed: back to the bridge.
The enormous tree trunk has gone. The stump’s still there, but chainsaws have been and shifted the rest of the evidence, leaving only piles of fluffy sawdust. I keep running, desperate to reach the bridge, but as I round the final bend, I stop dead. There’s a girl about my age standing in the middle of the track. Her hair is long and draped down across her shoulders, and she’s looking at the ground. Maybe she’s lost something, because she seems confused. I try smiling, but I’m too far away for her to see me properly, and anyway she’s not even looking at me. So I wave and call out.
Usually when someone, even a stranger says hello to you, you look up, even if you don’t want to talk to them, but she doesn’t move. I step closer, but I can’t see her face through the thick screen of hair and there’s something about the way she stands that makes me feel threatened. ‘Hello. Are you okay?’
As soon as I’ve spoken, she staggers like she’s drunk, and then in one sweep, she starts moving towards me, her feet almost drifting along the ground. My whole body jolts backwards. It’s like she’s been waiting for me. She holds out her hands and I see the water that’s dripping from her bare arms and her skin seems almost blue. I know it’s ridiculous. No one’s got blue skin unless maybe she fell in the river. It must be freezing in there. I start walking towards her.
I call out, ‘I can help you—’
Suddenly she stops, lifts her head and her eyes bore down on me from fifteen metres away. Those eyes. That face – I know it.
I keep walking, I know I shouldn’t. Every part of my body is telling me to turn and run, but I can’t. I have to see her. I have to know she’s okay.
‘Tilly?’ I whisper because it doesn’t make any sense. What would she be doing back down at the river?
Her hair is matted with dirt and sticks. And her feet are bare and cut. As I stare at her, the terrifying thought hits me. She’s dead. And she’s come for me.
I turn to run, but before I can, she’s there. Suddenly behind me, all ragged nails, skin peeling and bulging eyes. Her wet hands grab my arms and I start screaming.
‘Go away. Leave me alone. Go!’ I keep screaming and she’s so close, the cold’s unbearable, her freezing fingers are like handcuffs around my wrists. ‘Let me go!’
Haunting of Lily Frost Page 12