by Sanjida Kay
There was a scraping sound from the kitchen and Autumn gripped her mother even more tightly.
‘Quick,’ she whispered. ‘We have to hide.’
Still holding each other, they looked around Autumn’s plain little bedroom. The row of stuffed toys at the end of the bed contemplated them, their flat, fake eyes gleaming in the blue light from Autumn’s clock. There was a bookcase, a chest of drawers and a small desk against one wall, some boxes they still hadn’t unpacked and the wardrobe she’d assembled last week. It was tiny, the perfect size to hang a child’s dresses in. Laura didn’t think she’d fit inside. And, in any case, thanks to her shoddy DIY skills, the door didn’t quite close.
She seized the blanket from the bottom of Autumn’s bed and rolled it up loosely. She pushed it lengthways under the duvet and shoved George the lion on top, leaving his wispy mane poking out. In the darkness, it might look as if a small child were in the bed. She grabbed Autumn’s hand and they ran across the bedroom to the Wendy house. She helped Autumn in and squeezed through the narrow door after her.
The Wendy house was made of wood. Laura had bought it second-hand on eBay for Autumn after they’d moved to Bristol. It was intended for the garden and Laura had thought it would be a project for the two of them – to paint the house and varnish it, make window boxes and a little path and a miniature garden for the house. Autumn, as indecisive as Laura, hadn’t been able to choose a colour scheme, and because Laura’s priority was to create a design for the garden, she hadn’t got around to it.
Inside the house was a toy oven and a sink that Vanessa had bought Autumn when she was four. Laura had planned to find a table and some chairs from a second-hand shop but, like so many things, she hadn’t done it. It did mean that there was room for both of them in the house since it was relatively empty. The one item that Laura had made was two sets of curtains. She pulled them across both windows and shut the door. They huddled together in the far corner, their knees to their chests. Autumn was shaking. Laura put her arms around her and pulled her close. They could hear the wind rattling through the Scots pine outside the window.
There was a click and a whine as if the man who’d broken in was opening the door from the kitchen, followed by a creak as he started to climb up the stairs.
It had to be a burglar, one man on his own, she thought, listening to the footsteps. Surely Aaron would not risk breaking into her house? He had too much to lose if he were found out: his business, his reputation, his son… But if it was him, and not a burglar, she had no way of predicting what he might do.
‘Mum, I need to pee,’ whispered Autumn, her voice rising.
Laura seized one of the toy pans from the top of the oven and helped Autumn pull down her pyjama bottoms and crouch over it. The child cried silently. The sound of her urine splashing into the plastic container was unbearably loud. Laura dug her nails into her palms to stop herself from telling her daughter to hurry. When she’d finished, Laura helped her up and moved the pan into one corner of the Wendy house.
They could hear the man taking one slow step after another. The stairs groaned as he gradually grew closer. Autumn whimpered and Laura put her hand over her mouth again. They waited. It felt as if hours were passing. Her left leg started to twitch and jump with cramp. Autumn’s hot tears fell on her hand.
There was a loud crack, much louder than before. It came from the landing directly below them. She found she was praying, long-forgotten words from her childhood…
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us… Save my little girl…
There was the soft tread of the man climbing up the second flight of stairs. Towards her daughter’s room. It seemed to take forever. Laura had her arms wrapped tightly around Autumn, her breath hot and wet against her palm, the smell of her hair in her nostrils.
There was another creak. Perhaps he’d head straight into the spare room – as a conventional burglar would do, looking for computer equipment or jewellery. But then the door to Autumn’s bedroom started to open. One step. Two steps. He must be standing just inside the room, right by Autumn’s bed, she thought.
What was he doing, leaning over her sleeping child? Why was he in the house?
Suppose he pulled back the duvet and realized that Autumn was not in the bed? Would he start looking through the rest of the bedroom? And what would he do when he found them? Their breathing sounded loud in the confined space of the Wendy house. Laura resisted the urge to lean forward and try and peek through the curtains. She buried her head in Autumn’s hair. There was a long, slow creak. She couldn’t tell if he had walked further into the room or was simply shifting his weight as he stood by her daughter’s bed.
The alien blue light from the clock filtered through the cherry-patterned curtains in the toy house and strange shadows played across the walls: fragments of light and dark as the trees in the park tossed in the wind, splintering the light from the street lamp. Autumn’s bedroom curtains were open a fraction – no doubt she’d been staring into the park as she so often was when Laura came to check on her.
She wasn’t sure which direction he’d moved in, if he was now directly in front of the Wendy house or if he’d left the room. She allowed herself a fragment of hope. He was going to search each room for anything of value. Any moment now, he’d leave when he realized that there was nothing he wanted.
And then there came the sound that she’d been dreading since they’d been hiding. A ripping noise. The man was tearing back the sheet and duvet. There was a muffled howl and he kicked Autumn’s bed. The wooden frame shook. They felt the tremor through the old floorboards. Whoever was in the room knew Autumn was not in her bed. Worse, they knew that she and Autumn knew there was an intruder in the house – only an adult, a mother, like Laura, would have thought to protect her child by hiding a stuffed lion in the bed. And then Laura realized that the man must have been searching – not for computers or gems – but specifically for her child. And right now, he was about to start hunting both of them.
Autumn put her hand on her mother’s arm and whispered, ‘It’s Levi.’
Levi?
‘Are you sure?’ she mouthed back.
Autumn nodded. The room suddenly seemed to explode around them as the intruder kicked over Autumn’s boxes of toys and flung open the wardrobe. It would explain the rage; she couldn’t imagine Aaron losing control like that. Laura pushed the Wendy house door open by the smallest amount she could and peered through the crack. There was a dark silhouette in the centre of the room, shoulders heaving, smaller and thinner and narrower than a man’s. A boy.
Laura crawled out of the small door. Her feet were numb with cold. Pins and needles shot through her toes and the arches of her feet. She hobbled towards him.
‘What the hell are you doing in my house? In my daughter’s bedroom?’
Levi said nothing. He was wearing a grey hoodie and tracksuit bottoms and they were dark with rainwater.
‘I asked you a question.’
His breathing was loud and ragged. He still did not reply. Behind her she could hear Autumn clambering out of the Wendy house. She stood directly behind her mother. Levi gave a small smile when he saw Autumn emerge. A wave of heat prickled through Laura’s scalp, flushing her cheeks: he was enjoying seeing how frightened her daughter was.
‘I’m going to call the police,’ she said, holding out her hand for Autumn and walking towards the boy.
He backed away from her until he was blocking the door. She stood directly in front of him. She could see the rise and fall of his rib cage. Autumn’s hand felt fragile; her soft, small bones turning in her palm.
‘Why are you here? What are you doing in Autumn’s bedroom?’
When he didn’t speak, she stepped forward to push him out of the way.
‘I wanted to scare her,’ he said, his words tripping over each other, the whites of his eyes glintin
g in the watery light from the street, ‘as punishment, you know, for telling on me. And she wasn’t in school…’
Laura felt anger surge through her. He wanted to punish her daughter? And what had he planned to do to her? How had he even got in – to the garden, never mind the house? She reached towards him and he flinched. She yanked his hoodie down so she could see him properly. He wiped the rain from his face and tried not to look at her.
‘Telling on you?’ she said, her voice rising.
‘Yeah. You know. The Facebook page. Mr George called my dad. And he got mad.’
‘Your father didn’t know about it?’
Levi shook his head. ‘Nah. He made me tell him.’
Laura snapped on the lights. ‘Tell him what?’ She leant towards him and he shrank from her. His eyes, that strange green of a quarry pond, widened.
‘Everything.’ He paused, his breathing laboured. Reluctantly, his voice fading, as if speaking was an effort, he said, ‘I stole her pen and put it back so she’d look stupid – Dad borrowed the key to her classroom when he was fixing the computers and I copied it. Her bike, you know? Cutting off her hair. The garden where you worked. Painting on your wall.’
‘That was all you? By yourself?’
‘Yeah.’
‘But… how did you know where I worked? Or the key code to get into our garden? Or what to write?’ She thought of the words, Bone by Bone, scrawled in red across the wall of their house, a fragment of a poem that spoke of unendurable pain. ‘How did you know it would even mean anything to me?’
‘My dad’s got a file on you. All the stuff he took off your laptop. Notes he’s made about you. He’s so angry with you for pushing me, cutting my face, complaining about me. He thought I hadn’t done anything and you were being mental and it was his way of getting you back. Teaching you a lesson, he said – you know, the virus, and deleting all the photos of Autumn on your hard drive. He wrote a program specially.
‘He was reading one of your essays. I saw the start of it. This weird poem. I didn’t know what it meant but it sounded, you know, proper scary. Dad laughed about you having the same password for everything. He copied down the key code for the garden – he said how stupid you were to use Autumn’s date of birth. He said you were the sort of person who’d have a spare key hidden in the garden.’
Laura closed her eyes.
‘I’m still going to call the police, Levi. Get out of the way.’
The sound made them all jump. Incongruous in that small room, in the still of the night: it was a woman singing a catchy pop song peppered with expletives.
Levi fumbled for his mobile. ‘It’s my dad,’ he said.
She hesitated. Should she speak to Aaron? She wondered why he was calling Levi at this time of night – he could hardly know the boy was here and she didn’t want to risk angering him.
‘Answer it. Put him on speakerphone.’
Levi shook his head.
‘You either answer that phone now or I ring the police.’
Levi blinked. He looked smaller, frailer, not the malicious thug of her imagination. It came to her then that, in spite of what he’d done, he was only a child, a frightened boy who didn’t want to speak to his own father. The ring tone continued, the music sweet, the words vengeful. Levi hesitated and then pressed a couple of buttons.
Aaron’s voice barked, ‘What in God’s name are you doing in their house?’
‘How do you know where I am?’
‘I can track your mobile, you moron. Do they know you’re inside?’
Laura stared at him. She couldn’t believe a father – even a man like Aaron – would speak to his son like that. She thought of the suave way he’d spoken to her and the other mums when she’d first met him. Levi looked anxiously at her. She shook her head.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Well, get out, now. Start walking. Head towards the school. I’m almost there. I’ll pick you up.’ There was a click as he hung up.
After a moment Levi said, ‘Thanks.’ He didn’t look at her.
‘For what?’
‘For not telling him.’
‘You’d better get going,’ said Laura.
Levi didn’t move.
‘He’ll be really angry, won’t he?’ said Autumn. Her voice was soft.
Levi nodded.
‘Your black eye.’
His face twisted as if he was going to lash out at her, to say something hurtful and cutting, but then he stopped himself and his expression went blank. Laura thought it was worse than if he’d looked angry or upset, like a normal child would have done. There was a faint trace of a bruise on his upper cheekbone. It was the one she’d caused, she thought with a stab of guilt. And then she realized there was no scab where he’d cut his face on the rock when she’d pushed him – it was Levi’s other eye that Autumn was talking about.
‘Does Aaron hit you?’ she blurted out before she could stop herself.
Neither of the children said anything.
‘I’m going to call your mum. She can pick you up. Give me her number.’
‘You can’t. You saw his house,’ said Autumn.
‘What?’
‘Yeah. We followed you yesterday.’
There was a pause as Levi took in this information. ‘My mum is ill,’ he said defensively. ‘She’s, like, tired all the time. It’s a proper disease. ME.’
‘Does Aaron know?’ asked Laura. ‘I mean, does he know how bad it is? That you’re living like that – virtually caring for yourself?’
Levi shook his head.
‘Then perhaps calling the police really is—’
‘No!’ He shouted so loudly, Laura and Autumn jumped. He held up his hands. ‘I can take care of myself. I’ll just leave, okay? I’ll go through the garden, back to my mum’s. She won’t even know I’ve been gone.’
He opened the door and stepped out onto the landing.
‘I can’t let you do that. It’s the middle of the night. You can’t walk home by yourself in the dark.’
Levi snorted. She could tell he was about to make some kind of smart-ass reply, but then he looked at Autumn. His lips parted, his teeth blue-white, but he said nothing. He opened his hand, his palm pale in the moonlight filtering through the landing window, as if he were going to offer her a tiny gift, and then he laid his hand gently on her arm for a single second. He started down the stairs, his wet trainers squeaking.
She couldn’t let him go, she suddenly realized – a twelve-year-old child, alone in the early hours, crossing the city in the darkness. It made her shudder just imagining it.
He was a couple of stairs below her. She put out her hand to stop him. And then the kitchen door opened.
Autumn, her eyes wide with fright, looked at her mother. Levi froze. The door squeaked and closed softly.
‘I left the key in the lock,’ said Levi. ‘And my dad knows I’m still here.’
If Laura had felt frightened before, it was nothing to the terror that engulfed her now. It was overwhelming, like the emotional equivalent of white noise. There was something inevitable about this moment, crouched on the stairs in the dark with her daughter and her daughter’s bully; her ex-husband, her mother, her father, her brother all on continents so far away they could literally be on other planets, on other stars. And, all the while, the man she feared the most had let himself into their house and was coming to find them.
She dug her nails into the thin flesh of her wrists and made herself speak firmly. ‘Go to him. Pretend we’re all still asleep. And then leave. Both of you.’
Levi shook his head. ‘You don’t know my dad.’
His face had become mask-like again, the skin waxen.
They could hear the slow, stealthy tread as Aaron started to climb the stairs from the kitchen to the hall. Levi pushed past them and ran back into Autumn
’s bedroom.
Laura and Autumn followed and shut the door. Levi turned off the lights and started fumbling with his phone, trying to prise off the back.
‘He knows you’re here already. He won’t be fooled,’ said Laura. ‘If you won’t go and speak to him, then I will.’
Levi ignored her, scowling as he was unable to open the phone. Laura reached out to snatch the mobile from him but it was too late. He sprinted to the other end of the room, hauled up the sash window and threw his phone out. A blast of freezing air hit them.
‘We should hide,’ said Autumn. She held the door of the Wendy house open for Levi and he clambered in after her.
In that instant, Laura spotted something, half hidden by the toys Levi had kicked over. It was Autumn’s mobile.
What’s it doing here? She must have gone through my office, searched the drawers in my desk.
Autumn had been looking at something on it. Laura snatched it up and quickly pressed the On button. It was still working. The screen opened on Facebook. She started back in revulsion when she saw the image – just about visible beneath the network of cracks. It was the same picture Aaron had sent her just before he destroyed her laptop, but this time the naked woman had a photo of another person’s face crudely pasted over her own. Autumn’s face.
She felt sick. But there was no time to think about it right now, to worry how Autumn was feeling. She quickly pressed a few buttons. There was no time to write a proper message. She slid the phone under a teddy. She wanted to keep the line free, in case he called back, so she ran down the next flight of stairs, her footsteps sounding unbearably loud, to get the phone out of her office. She could hear Aaron had reached the hall, one flight below her. She grabbed the handset off the desk, dialled 999 and pressed the call button. Nothing happened. She pressed it again. She dialled again. She put the phone tightly to her ear. There was no dial tone. She felt panic swell inside her. She should have kept hold of the mobile.