by Jo Watson
I reached down quickly and picked at the corner of one of the stickers with my nail. It peeled back and I pulled it off. And then I pulled another one off for good measure. I walked back to my car as casually as possible, whistling a made-up tune as I went. I walked around to the back of my car and looked down at my license plate. A smudge of mud on it caught my attention . . . Dare I do it?
But I did. I reached down with my finger and, using the smudge of mud, I turned the P on my license plate into an R. I burst out laughing. The P was finally getting its little sloping line! I was pretty sure fiddling with your license plate really was breaking the law, and I realized it probably wasn’t enough to fool Detective Mike. Mike . . . the irritatingly attractive policeman who’d tackled me and then shackled me. Who’d cuffed me and kissed me, but not in the way women fantasize about. Who’d locked me up and then released me. Who’d made me want him more than I cared to admit to myself . . .
“Whateves,” I hissed under my breath, as I stuck the Persian-cat stickers on to my bumper and climbed back into the car.
Now to (hopefully) find some kind of accommodation. I opened the booking app and typed in the parameters of my search. I clicked and waited with bated breath, and there, lo and bloody behold, two places miraculously came up. One was right in the center of town, a typical-looking budget hotel, and the other one was slightly out of town, five kilometers away. The one in the center of town was probably a bad idea—more chances of bumping into Mike. I looked at the pictures of the out-of-town one, and a strange feeling welled up inside me. The house seemed familiar in some way, and yet I’d never seen it before. But there was something about it that seemed to make it impossible for me to look away from the photos. And they were gorgeous. It was an old colonial-looking mansion, set in a magnificent green garden. The available room was huge. Wooden floors, pressed ceilings, a fireplace, and a desk that looked out over the river. It was perfect—much better than that beanbaggy Ibiza desk I’d had in the other place. I could imagine myself writing there. I quickly pressed the Book Now button and breathed a sigh of relief when the transaction was approved on my credit card.
I sat there and thought about what I was about to do, and I quickly realized that the illusion I was trying to create was not yet complete. I needed one more thing before I could head back to town. And I knew where I would get it.
CHAPTER 29
I drove up the long driveway to the house. I parked my car and looked up at the cat key ring that was now swinging from my rear-view mirror. I’d found it in the back of the second-hand shop, along with some soft cat toys which I’d bought and placed on my dashboard. The house seemed even bigger in real life and looked like it had been here for hundreds of years; the way the creepers had grown over it, encasing it in their green fingers, and the way the trees that lined the driveway reached all the way up to the sky, told me that this house had been part of this land forever.
Looking at the place, I had the feeling of stepping back in time. Round archways led up on to a gorgeous wrap-around veranda, with intricate patterned tiles. Upstairs was a balcony, and I could see chandeliers hanging from the ceiling of the room beyond. Bay windows, terracotta-colored chimneys and white shutters completed the look. I half-expected a butler to come running out to meet me with a cup of tea and a warm towel for my face. But no one of the sort came out; instead, I was greeted by a young, happy-looking woman, who came bounding down the stairs, her long, purple skirt billowing behind her. She looked like an artist, and this was confirmed when I saw a long, red paintbrush pushed through the messy bun on top of her head. She stopped in front of me and smiled.
“Hi! Are you Sam?” she asked.
I cringed at the sound of that name coming from her lips. My name was Pebecca Samantha Thorne, but I’d lied about my name in case Mike had some way of scanning all the bookings in the town. Or was that just something they could do on TV?
“Yes,” I said, extending my hand. We shook.
“I’m Ashley. But call me Ash—everyone does. I see you’re here for the Persian parade.” She pointed at the cat hanging from my rear-view mirror.
“Yes. Yes, I am,” I said, lying through my lying teeth. If teeth grew every time you told a lie, like Pinocchio’s nose, I would have fangs by the end of this and would be left with an inability to close my mouth ever again. Front teeth so long that they dragged on the ground as I walked.
She looked around. “Where’s your cat?”
“Oh! Oh, yes.” I giggled. I went to the car and grabbed the cat cage I’d bought from the charity store. I’d draped a towel over it, hoping no one would ask to see her. I really had thought of everything. Maybe I would make a good criminal, after all. Well, if my career as an author didn’t pan out, I’d be sure to check out all jobs requiring criminal maneuverings, although I seriously doubted those were advertised on Craigslist.
“Oh, let’s see!” she said, stepping towards my invisible cat.
“NO!” I said quickly. “She’s resting. Big, big day tomorrow.”
Ash nodded, as if she understood; I was pretty sure she didn’t, but I gave her a big smile anyway. I grabbed my suitcase and started walking towards the house.
“Don’t you need a cat box?” she called after me.
“Uhhhh.” Shit. “I’ve trained her to use the toilet,” I blurted out.
“Really?” She looked surprised. I was surprised.
“She even flushes it herself with her little paws. She’s very clever.”
“That’s amazing. I didn’t know they could do that,” she said.
I should have effing left it there! But I didn’t. “Yeah, it’s actually incredible what cats can do with their paws, when given the right training.” Why?! Why had I just said that? Whhhyyy?
Ash stopped walking. She looked at me, genuinely interested. “What else can they do?”
Yes, Becca . . . What else can cats do with their paws when trained correctly? “They can paint!” I blurted out.
Her face lit up at that; she looked genuinely excited by this prospect and maybe that’s why I stupidly decided to weave my story even more.
“Mine is quite the artist, actually,” I said. “A real little Pi-cat-so!”
Ash laughed at my stupid joke and I laughed back. It was a nervous laugh, an I-can’t-believe-you-found-that-funny laugh.
“Well, I would be honored if Picatso would come and paint with me sometime,” she added.
I nodded. What was I doing? “I’m sure she’d love to,” I said, and started walking again. I needed to keep my feet moving so they didn’t keep landing up in my mouth. We climbed the steps that led up to the magnificent veranda.
“This is the guest section of the house,” Ash started saying. “You have your own entrance and driveway, and, back there—” she pointed to the other side of the house—“that is where I live. But, don’t worry, we have our own entrance and parking, too, so you won’t be disturbed.”
“Oh, great—that’s good to know.” This was exactly what I needed to get my book done.
“And you’re the only person staying inside the house; the three guest cottages are full, but they also have their own entrance and are situated on the other side of the garden, so you shouldn’t bump into them, either.”
“Great!” I said happily. This place was perfect.
We walked inside, and I gaped. The entrance hall was massive; the ceiling was the highest I’d ever seen, painted a deep blue that gave it the feel of a sweeping night sky. Huge, elaborate crystal chandeliers hung overhead and, when you looked down, the floor was a vast chess board of black and white tiles, that if you looked at for too long, played tricks on your eyes.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, taking it all in.
“It’s been in the family for over 200 years, but it’s too big for us. We turned it into an Airbnb so other people can also enjoy it. It’s called Sugar Manor because this used to be a sugar plantation.”
I ran my eyes over the majestic place and felt somet
hing prickle at the back of my neck, as if something had suddenly walked behind me. I swung around and looked; there was nothing there. I shivered to myself, hoping this place wasn’t haunted. Not that I believed in such things, but still, the feeling I was getting from Sugar Manor was completely strange, as if my subconscious knew something about it that my conscious mind didn’t. As if it had sensed a secret that I wasn’t privy to yet.
We walked down the hallway and passed a few closed doors as we went. “We’ve only turned one room on this side of the house into a guest room. When there’s more time, we’ll do the rest. We’re doing everything by hand, ourselves. But you’re staying in the best bedroom,” Ash said, slipping a key into an old wooden door. The door opened with a creak and I stepped inside. The room was exactly like the photos, and the big bay window immediately beckoned to me.
“There’s firewood for the fire; it gets a little chilly here at night, by the river. Breakfast is served between six and nine, and that’s in the room at the end of the passage. If you need anything, I’m on the other side of the house. You can go outside and walk round it, or there’s a door at the end of the hall that leads through. We don’t use it that much, so it could be full of spider webs. Or you can just call me anytime, if you need anything!” she said happily, and I found myself smiling at her. She seemed to be one of those genuinely happy people; you don’t meet them very often, but when you do, you know. The kind that breezes through life, not because their lives are easier than yours, but because they approach everything with a certain upbeat, roll-with-the-punches kind of attitude. I definitely wasn’t that kind of person. I didn’t take things in my stride, my glass was usually half-empty and I found navigating the corridors of life hard at the best of times, let alone the times when stuff was hitting the fan, like now. I’d always envied people like this. I usually didn’t like them, for that reason, but Ash seemed different. There was something about her that I instantly liked, and I didn’t instantly like many people.
I gazed around the room again; everything looked perfect, especially that free-standing bathtub that was just calling my name.
“I love it,” I said, with a smile.
“Great. Call if you need anything.” She started to leave.
“Do you do dinner here, or is it just a bed and breakfast?” I didn’t really want to venture into town, for fear of bumping into a certain man in uniform.
“Sorry, only breakfast.”
“No worries; I’ll just run into town, then,” I assured her.
Ash exited and I was on my own again. I put my invisible cat down on the floor and started unpacking my suitcase. I needed to get some work done. Now that I knew what the engraving on the tree said, I could use that in one of the letters—not that I fully understood what it meant, at all. I took a handful of the letters out and started reading them. I’d transcribe them later and creatively color in some of the blanks.
CHAPTER 30
By the time I’d read almost all of the letters, I was getting a good sense of the man behind the words, and a good sense of their relationship. But, as I settled down to write, I found I was still having trouble finding my female voice. Obviously, it had a lot to do with the fact that I didn’t have any letters from her, except the one. But maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was the strange feeling I got every time I tried to think about her or picture her in my head—a feeling I couldn’t quite name or pinpoint. Not to mention the fact that making up her words felt fundamentally wrong. It was one thing copying his words, but making hers up . . .
How could I do this? And, if I did, surely there was no way I could do their story justice?
These two had been so deeply in love and they had been so cruelly separated by the world. It was an injustice so great and profound, I couldn’t even wrap my head around it properly. A strange feeling churned in the pit of my stomach, and little voices started whispering in the back of my consciousness.
One of these voices, I’m guessing the sensible one, was telling me not to do this. This was not my story to tell. I had no permission to tell it, and, if I did, I would be nothing more than a common thief—and a common thief of the worst kind: the stealer of other people’s stories.
And then there was the other voice, the one telling me that, if I didn’t do this, my life as I knew it would be over. No doubt a public humiliation of some sort would follow, some article or other out there in the publishing world about Becca Thorne’s fall from grace. I didn’t think I could live through something like that, again. I grabbed my stomach as anxiety made it bubble and growl at me. I felt physically uncomfortable in the chair, and in my skin. I stood up and tried to take a deep breath, count to five, calm myself, inhale into my third eye or chakra or spiritual vortex, or whatever. I looked out the window; the river at the bottom of the garden was flowing calmly and smoothly, and I focused all my energy on looking at it. I could feel myself starting to spin out a bit, starting to feel that terrible sweaty-sticky-itchy feeling that comes just before . . .
Shit! I gripped the desk and held on, trying to steady myself as the waves of panic made my heart beat faster and my fingers tingle. I’d suffered from anxiety for as long as I could remember. Waking up in a new bed, in a new town, with a new family, and experiencing more first days of school than any other child I knew, had certainly helped cultivate that anxiety, and now it was a fully developed dark monster that always seemed to lurk somewhere in the back of my mind, waiting eagerly to sneak up and pounce on me, usually in the moments when I least expected it.
I told you I was flawed. There was something intrinsically wrong with me. I’d even rushed myself to the hospital a few times, so sure was I that I was having a heart attack, only to be sent home with some tranquilizers and told to go to therapy. And this situation had really opened the door for the dark monster to sink his claws in.
I couldn’t do this! I couldn’t write this book. If I did, I would probably spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, waiting for someone to bust me as a fake, a cheap stealer of words and stories.
But this was the only idea I’d had in over a year. Do you know how many days, weeks and months I’d sat and stared at the empty white Word document, while that little cursor flashed at me, taunting me? But the longer I’d sat, the more it felt like I couldn’t move. Paralyzed. As if my muscles had atrophied. The cycle was vicious. The more I did nothing, the more I couldn’t do anything at all.
I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths, like I’d been taught. In—five, four, three, two, one—hold—five, four, three, two, one—out—five, four, three, two, one. My heart started to beat a little slower; the dizzy, nauseous sensation started to lift a little. I opened my eyes again and looked out over the river at the bottom of the garden. I focused all my attention on the rushing water until, finally, I felt better. I let go of the table and stood up straight.
I had to do this. I had no choice. Because, if I didn’t, I would be right back where I started. A nobody. A failure, even. And there would be those who would relish my failure. He would relish it, my ex-boss. He would absolutely love to watch me publicly humiliated again, to watch me crash and burn, just like the last time. It had been almost three years since my previous life had fallen apart, and I was still so desperate to prove him wrong, especially after that review he’d given me in the papers. I’ll never forget it: A vacuous attempt at literary fiction that has no poetry, no passion and no substance to it. Nothing more than the immature ramblings of an “author” out of her depth in the genre.
I took another breath. I imagined the look on his face that day that he’d fired me from the job of my dreams, and, as if that wasn’t enough for him, he’d then humiliated and shamed me publicly, after also breaking my heart.
But then I started to smile to myself when I remembered the look on his face when he’d discovered that, despite his scathing review, my book had become a bestseller, that it had sold hundreds of thousands of copies and I was now driving around in the car of his dreams
.
I pulled the chair out and sat back down at the desk and flipped my laptop open. But, before starting, I looked down at the surface of the desk. I ran my fingertips over an old carving in the wood. A small heart, the letter A and what was clearly meant to be a small flower.
The sun was setting, and I watched it paint the sky pink as it started disappearing over the hills on the other side of the river. The sun cast colorful reflections on the usually brown waters. It was really beautiful and for some reason, spurred me on to start writing again. But a knock on the door soon disturbed me.
“Sam?” Ash called out from the other side of the door.
I got up, walked over to the door and opened it.
“Would you like to join us for dinner?” she asked immediately, with a bright, breezy voice. It was such a kind offer. “It’s nothing fancy. But you would be more than welcome.” She smiled at me. Her smile was big and wide, and something about it set me at ease immediately.
“Sounds good,” I heard my usually antisocial self say, before I could stop myself.
“Come by at seven? In an hour?”
“Sure.”
“I just used that passage I was telling you about, at the end of the hallway. I managed to clean some of the cobwebs out, so it’s safe, if you want to use it. It’s a bit cold outside.”
“Great. I’ll do that,” I replied.
“See you soon.” She turned and walked away.
CHAPTER 31
At seven, I walked to the end of the passage and, sure enough, there it was: an old, wooden door that looked like it hadn’t been used in years. I opened it and peered inside. It was dark and not very inviting. In fact, it was reminiscent of any scene from a horror movie—take your pick.
Girl walks into strange, dark passage, only to be eaten by a man wearing a clown suit and holding a red balloon . . . The It soundtrack started playing in my head. My head has always been filled with soundtracks for as long as I can remember. Listening to music when I was younger was a kind of escape for me.