Small Spaces

by Sarah Epstein

  Mum watches me speak as though lies are hiding in the gaps between words. It takes me back to when I was eight and everything I told her was met with a flash of concern that all was not right with me.

  “Mallory Fisher coming back to Port Bellamy,” she says, delicately. “It’s important that you don’t make this all about you.”

  “Mum! Of course not. I’d never say anything.” I step towards her and detect the tiniest flinch. “I’m not a kid any more.”

  “The Fishers will want the past left in the past. It’s the best thing for you too.”

  “I don’t even think about any of it,” I lie. “I’m seventeen, Mum. All that Sparrow stuff–” she flinches again, more obvious this time, “–all that stuff is gone. You don’t have to worry.”

  She gives me a long look that tells me she’s never stopped.

  “Look, I don’t think this waitressing job is a good idea,” she says, reaching for the phone. She starts scrolling through the saved numbers. “I’ll call Kiri and explai–”

  “No, don’t!”

  Sadie can’t find out like this; she doesn’t know about my connection to the Fishers. I’ve told her everything else, just not that part.

  The truth is, I want to see her. Mallory. I need to see her up close after all these years. To be able to look her in the eyes and …

  And what?

  I don’t know.

  Yes, you do.

  “I can’t leave Kiri and Sadie in the lurch like that,” I say. “They’ll never find someone else on such short notice.”

  “It’s best if–”

  “Mum, really.” I keep my voice light but firm. “This won’t be an issue. You can trust me on this. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  There’s a rare glimpse of weakness in Mum’s eyes. This year is about proving I’ve grown up, and waitressing at the Fishers’ is a good place to start. It will show my parents that troubled phase of my life is over and all those sessions with Dr Ingrid actually worked.

  “Let me show you I can do this,” I implore. “There’ll be no trouble. I promise.”

  Mum releases a long breath and returns the phone to its base. Her hand hovers over it for a moment before quickly moving to a nearby notepad.

  “Well, anyway,” she says, switching gears. “Your aunt called to speak to you.”

  She tears the top sheet off the pad and wiggles it at me. Ally’s name and number are scrawled across it in blue pen.

  I blink at Mum. “What does she want?”

  One fleeting look last week and now Ally’s keen to reconnect after all these years of silence? Maybe she was serious about that invitation to her house, but would I seriously consider going back there? The last time was the summer Tim was born, and that was only because Mum and Dad were desperate. I think they even paid Ally to babysit me for those two weeks – that’s how little relationship we actually have.

  “No idea,” Mum says, feigning disinterest. “You don’t have to call her back if you don’t want to. In fact, it’s probably best if you don’t.”

  She trails past me into the family room, plucking Tim’s dirty socks from the armchair. When she glances back at me, I make an obvious point of scrunching up the note.

  I wait until she’s well inside the laundry before slipping the balled-up paper into my pocket.

  6

  THEN

  “It’s just that I don’t know what you mean, Tash.”

  Aunty Ally slides the glass milk jug across the table towards me and I try really hard not to crinkle my nose. My aunty doesn’t drink regular cow’s milk – it has to be this soy stuff that looks off-white and tastes sort of off-white too. I pour some over my muesli and watch as raisins bob to the surface, then push one under again with the tip of my spoon.

  “Explain it again,” Aunty Ally says, shoving her own cereal bowl to one side. She puts a cigarette between her lips and flicks a green plastic lighter until a small flame appears.

  “Which part?” I say.

  “From when you woke up in the dark. Let’s see if we can’t figure this out.”

  Figure it out? It’s not a puzzle. Somebody was in my bedroom last night. I don’t know why I have to say it all over again.

  It might have been the thunder that woke me up, or maybe a door blowing closed upstairs. The wind was squealing through the old house’s cracks like the brakes on Aunty Ally’s ute. I remember opening my eyes and blinking at the wallpaper – old-fashioned aeroplanes and hot air balloons. For a second I couldn’t remember where I was. It was my dad’s bedroom when he was a kid, and that’s why I chose it when my aunty said I could sleep anywhere. I don’t like the other rooms. This house is cold and nobody laughs here.

  The big room didn’t scare me as much as the night before because I’d figured out what made the tall bendy shadows. I knew where the lumps in the mattress were, and if I curled my body just right I couldn’t even feel them. And to help me fall asleep I could dig my hand under the pillow and find the satin label poking out of the pillowcase. Rubbing it between my fingers almost felt like home.

  But I’m not at home.

  I’ve never come here without Mum and Dad before.

  I don’t really know Aunty Ally.

  He made a small sound; that’s why I turned over. He was so super still that at first I couldn’t even see him in the dark. I blinked a few times to make my eyes see better, and that’s when I noticed a dark shape in front of the window, like a black hole blocking the sparkly raindrops on the glass.

  There was a big flash of lightning and the room went bright. And there he was, crouched on the window seat facing the bed. He was wearing a hood pulled down low so I couldn’t see his face, and his knees were tucked up to his chest like a cat getting ready to pounce. When the lightning flashed again, I saw his bare feet covered in bits of grass. His bony toes were curled over the edge of the window seat like the roots of that tree I tripped on out near the driveway. He looked like one of those stone statues you see on the side of old buildings. Always frozen. Always watching.

  “Who are you?” I whispered. If he answered then I couldn’t be dreaming.

  His head flicked in my direction, tilting to one side like a curious little bird. It reminded me of the sparrows that sit on the fence at home. Mum lets me feed them breadcrumbs if I’m gentle so I don’t spook them.

  I was very careful not to spook my visitor. He was much, much bigger than a sparrow.

  “What’s under your hood?” I asked him. He didn’t take it off to show me. Instead he moved a hand up to his face and held his pointy finger to his mouth.

  “Sssshhhhh.”

  His hand trembled like he was holding in a giggle. Even in the dark I could see his shoulders wiggling around.

  “Is this a game?” I asked, hoping I was right. There’d been no one to play with since I got here. Aunty Ally told me children should make their own fun.

  “Yes,” he replied. His voice was scratchy like he needed a cough drop. He smelled like wet socks drying on the oil heater.

  “Close your eyes and count to fifty,” he said. “No cheating.”

  “I’d never cheat!”

  To prove it, I quickly rolled onto my back and covered my eyes to start counting. I’m not sure what number I got up to because the counting made me sleepy. Maybe thirty-five? Forty? I wasn’t sure what would happen once I reached fifty and now I’ll never find out. I started dreaming about my aunty’s labrador, Benny, and when I woke up it was morning. My visitor was gone.

  “Tash?” Aunty Ally says now, the cigarette dangling between her lips. She leans forwards and waves a hand in front of my face like she’s wiping invisible glass. “Whoa. Where’d you go, kiddo?”

  “Nowhere. I’m right here.”

  “Your parents know you space out like that?”

  “I–I wasn’t doing anything.” I put my spoon down because I’m not hungry any more. “I was just thinking about my dream.”

  My aunty watches me as she reaches behin
d her for a coffee mug on the kitchen bench. She places it on the table next to her green lighter and flicks her cigarette ash into it. “So, now you’re saying it was all a dream?”

  “No, the dream came after, when he told me to start counting. We were playing a game. I don’t know what it was.”

  She drops her cigarette into the coffee mug. “Do you have bad dreams a lot, Tash?”

  “No, I hardly ever dream. And it was a fun dream. I was playing with Benny.”

  Aunty Ally’s voice sounds calm but her eyes don’t blink, like maybe she’s getting a little bit cross with me. “I mean the part of your dream when you saw someone in your bedroom.”

  “I didn’t dream that part.”

  Her fingernails tink against the coffee mug over and over again. “Your eyes can play tricks on you in the dark.”

  “No,” I say loudly. Mum says raising my voice is rude, except she isn’t here. Neither is Dad. “He was right there beside the bed. He spoke to me. I heard him. I could smell him.”

  My aunty’s mouth tightens and she runs a hand over her short, fuzzy hair.

  “It’s my fault,” she says. “I let you go to bed way too late. And with all the thunder and lightning? I’m not surprised you had a nightmare.”

  “It wasn’t–”

  “It was a nightmare, Tash,” she says. “You can trust me on that. I came to your room, remember? You called out for me.”

  I frown at my soggy muesli. I don’t remember doing that.

  “You must have looked right at him then,” I say. “He was crouched on the window seat beside my bed. He was right there!”

  Aunty Ally reaches across the table and cups my cheek in her hand.

  “Tash, honey, I didn’t see anyone.”

  7

  NOW

  As I trudge up Banksia Avenue, I can’t shake the feeling that something’s clinging to me like a shadow. I have to turn around once or twice just to check Mum isn’t hovering nearby in her car. She’s made a point all week of not mentioning the Fishers’ party until this afternoon when she offered to drive me over here. I lied and said Sadie was picking me up from the corner, afraid Mum would find an excuse to invite herself inside and keep tabs on me all night.

  I double-check Sadie’s most recent text.

  Follow driveway to the back door. We’re just setting up.

  My eyes find the Fishers’ home near the top of the hill, its upper level painted with hazy evening sunlight. It’s been a warm afternoon, but now long shadows drape languidly across the road, a cool night promised in their murky depths. A light breeze dusts the fine hairs along the back of my neck, and I shiver a little in my black polo shirt. My watch tells me I’m–

  Wait.

  What was–?

  A footstep?

  I glance over my shoulder at the street rolling out behind me, at the patchwork of paved driveways and trimmed lawns. A boat trailer here, a caravan there, a handful of pink galahs picking their way through a patch of dandelions.

  Wiping my hands across the thighs of my pants, I feel foolish for being so jumpy.

  Too much talk about the Fishers. Too much thinking about the past.

  I resume walking, a little faster now, my black leather shoes slapping against the bitumen. The white So Delish van is parked three driveways away, the gates of number eight thrown open like welcoming arms. The party doesn’t start for thirty minutes, so Sadie and her mum will be getting down to the last minute–

  There! Again!

  I whirl around, my gaze sweeping left and right. Banksia Avenue mocks me with its robust walls and boxy hedges like an expert game of statues.

  Don’t think about games.

  Don’t think about him.

  “Who’s there?” I call, causing one of the galahs to take flight. I feel conspicuous and silly, but I can’t deny that prickly sensation of being watched. As I turn to keep going, my eye catches movement. Two houses down are a pair of stacked stone columns flanking a driveway. A shadow moves behind one of them.

  Shit.

  Panic roils in my stomach.

  I spin and sprint flat out towards the Fishers’ house. When I reach the So Delish van, I skid around the side of it, placing it between me and the road like a shield. I press my back against the hard metal, clamp my lips together and listen.

  The only sound I hear is the frenzied swish of blood in my own ears.

  You’re being paranoid.

  You really think you’re being followed?

  I wait until my pulse slows before peeling myself off the van. This is ridiculous. I’m ridiculous. I need the distraction of work to stop my mind from sliding into dangerous territory.

  No more than three steps further, a thick clump of azalea bushes quiver below the Fishers’ front window.

  For a second I think I imagined it, then the branches rustle again. I want to write it off as a cat or a possum, but even in the dimming light I can distinguish the outline of somebody crouched against the house.

  He’s come back.

  Impossible.

  Is it?

  Hot saliva fills the back of my mouth.

  Backing up to the letterbox, I seek out a garden stake or rock in the flowerbed. I snatch up a broken tree branch, sharp on both ends and maybe threatening enough if held the right way.

  I creep towards the house again, stick raised. A mix of fear and anger roars up from my belly and into my throat.

  “Come out!” I growl. “Come out and face me!”

  The bushes shake violently as someone stumbles out of the garden bed. I jerk backwards, clutching my stick like a baton.

  Then–

  He’s too big, logic tells me. It’s not him.

  Of course it’s not him, genius. He was imaginary.

  A young guy straightens in front of me, his tall frame unfurling like a flag.

  “Keep your hair on,” he grumbles. “Just wanted a few photos.”

  He holds up both hands in surrender, one clutching a DSLR camera not unlike my own. He can’t be more than twenty-five, his cheeks peppered with purple acne scars. He wears a satchel draped across his middle with a staff security tag hanging off it. The circular logo of The Mid Coast Times catches my eye.

  “What the hell?” I say. “You’re a reporter?”

  “Photographer,” he says. “Unless you’d like to give me a little info about the soiree here tonight? Do you know Mallory Fisher? Does she remember anything about her disappearance?”

  “Hey!”

  The photographer and I jump at a third voice from behind us on the deck. We turn to find Morgan glowering at us, an unlit bamboo torch in each hand.

  “You okay, Tash?” he says, dropping his voice to a gentler tone. I nod, lowering my stick behind my back as Morgan turns his attention to the photographer. “Take a hike, vulture. I’m about two seconds away from calling the cops.”

  “No statement then?” the guy asks, but he’s already walking. “Mallory Fisher’s homecoming is big news. There’ll be a story in Monday’s issue either way.”

  “If there’s a photo,” Morgan calls after him, “we’ll sue you for trespassing.”

  The photographer forces a laugh as he moves quickly down the hill. When I glance over at the deck again, Morgan is placing the torches to one side. He looks unintentionally nautical in a striped navy T-shirt and tan pants, his lofty crop of hair still defying the moist sea air.

  “Wow,” he says, breaking into a grin. “You were really going to bludgeon him with that twig, huh?”

  My cheeks grow hot as I quickly toss it into the garden.

  “He was around here the day we moved in as well,” Morgan says. “Although, that day he hid in his car across the street. He must be getting desperate for a scoop if he’s resorted to peeping in windows.”

  “That’s creepy,” I say. “He’s trying to get pictures of Mallory?”

  “I guess we’re asking for it, coming back to the town we lived in when she disappeared.”

  “What? N
o! She should feel safe here. This is her home.”

  Morgan angles his head, inspecting me closely like he did on Monday at school. “Maybe you could be her bodyguard, come at the paparazzi all twigs-a-blazin’.”

  I gulp out a laugh and Morgan grins again. I’m not sure how it’s happened – we seem to have picked up from our Year Two days of smiling at each other across our desks. It feels safe and comfortable. And also weirdly thrilling.

  “So, how does it feel to be back?” I ask.

  Morgan glances towards the horizon, considering this. “I’d like to say it feels like we never left. But it’s actually a lot more awkward than I thought it would be.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “People are tiptoeing around us now, the ones who knew us before. They’re making friendly chitchat and asking polite questions, but you can see it in their eyes – they want answers about the past. They watch you a little bit too closely like they’re looking for clues, you know?”

  I do know. I know precisely. “As though you’re hiding something from them.”

  “Exactly. I don’t feel like I’ve had a genuine conversation with anyone since we got here. Well, except maybe for this one.” He smiles and a silly wave of dizziness rushes over me.

  “Happy to hang out and talk anytime you want,” I say.

  “Okay, cool. I might hold you to that. None of the kids I knew before have bothered following me back on Instagram, so I’m kinda dreading starting school. I hate being the new kid as it is. Now I get to be the new old kid that everyone feels uncomfortable around.”

  “Not me,” I say. “Look me up on Insta. I promise I’ll follow you back.”

  Morgan chuckles lightly. “Okay. You’ve promised now, so don’t leave me hanging.”

  “I won’t,” I say, smiling at my shoes. I thumb towards the driveway. “Look, I’d better get to work.”

  “Me too.” He scoops up the torches, half-turning towards the front steps.

  We both wait a beat longer before parting ways, and I wonder if he feels it too: a flutter, a tiny ripple of possibility.

  Then I catch myself.

  I’m far too good at imagining things that don’t exist.

  *