by Phoebe Locke
‘Here you go,’ Amber said, noticing and sliding a bowl across in time to catch the portion before it fell. ‘Thanks so much for this, Leanna. It looks great.’
I simply smiled at her; I found I couldn’t speak. I was overcome by that easy intimacy, the comfort, the beauty of the place. By that sense, again, of an ending; a beginning. She belongs here, we all do. And here we are.
The girls sat down, their bowls full. I took a sip of my wine. I had lost my appetite, but I was content. I moved my fork through the food, occasionally lifting small morsels to my mouth, letting their easy, dull conversation about music and gossip pass over me like the lapping water of the loch.
I had made an error, Sadie. I know that might surprise you. I had let myself relax too far; I had reduced the gap between the things that I think and the things that I say until it was too small to consider, until the words slipped out unchecked.
I called her Anna, Sadie. I wasn’t paying attention; I was thinking of you and all those years ago and then I drifted back into their conversation and realised I had been asked a question. They were both there, watching me expectantly, and before I knew it, it was out: ‘Sorry, Anna – what was that?’
Amber looked at me strangely though she was too polite to say anything; it was Billie who squealed ‘Mum! Who’s Anna? She’s Amber!’
I laughed it off, I told them that I was tired after the drive. Amber was calm, understanding. I suppose the sight of a drunken mother isn’t exactly unusual to her, is it? But Billie kept watching me after that. Unnerved. Amber tried to draw her back into conversation but the atmosphere had changed, just a little, and I tried to repair it, I tried to bring us back to that idle ease. I talked about the things we could do, the walks we could take. Perhaps you wouldn’t think that that would interest them, but it did. They seemed younger, there. Happy to be in a small house in the great outdoors, happy to have an adventure. I began to relax again.
The music ended, and Amber got up to put something else on. I was watching Billie, trying to reassure her; I could see that my slip was still bothering her. I heard Amber say ‘Oops!’, and I turned in time to see my handbag tip on to the floor, its contents spilling out. I must’ve left it on the counter in my excitement. My brain was slow and foggy with the wine, so when I saw Amber bend down to scoop everything back into it, I kept on sitting, smiling along to the music she’d selected: Madness, this time. Surely not one you and Miles play at home? That seems rather close to the bone. I thought of you and I felt pity again, warm in my gut with the wine.
And then I realised, Sadie. I realised.
I leapt from my seat, my legs unreliable, and pushed her out of the way. I think I managed to scream ‘Leave that’ as I did, though I can’t be sure. I was too intent on grabbing the things that had spilled out and stuffing them back in the bag. I only looked up when Billie said ‘Mum.’ She was staring at me, open-mouthed. I glanced at Amber, the bag clutched to my chest. She was watching me too, her face impassive – interested and not yet afraid.
She doesn’t scare easily, does she?
I apologised, I gave them a half-baked line about having a surprise for them in there. Billie was instantly appeased, returning her attention to her food. Amber went back to her seat, still watching me. Still watching, and yet not yet afraid. She sees me, Sadie. She sees me and she is here, and everything is going to work out the way it should.
32
2016
Billie had been loudly asleep for hours, flat on her back. The house had long ago stopped settling, its small creaks and taps petering out, and Amber, wide awake, was glad of Billie’s snoring. The silence was eerie. It was heavy in its totality, unbearable. It reminded her how far away the nearest town was, the nearest house.
Sadie had once lived somewhere like this – she’d told Amber about it, drunk, one night, when she’d had to ask Amber to log her phone back on to the Wi-Fi. ‘I’m not used to any of this,’ she’d said. ‘I’m used to being in a place where there’s only a bus out three times a week.’
Though it hadn’t sounded like a brag, Amber remembered feeling slighted, like Sadie was trying to prove how independent she was, how she didn’t need gadgets or company to survive. She’d told herself she’d be as good as Sadie in such a situation, better even – but now she was here, she was afraid of the dark, of the silence.
She was not her mother’s daughter.
She took her phone – not currently functioning as a phone – out from under her pillow. Still no signal; SOS calls only. It made her feel itchy and anxious, and she checked again in case a random open Wi-Fi network had magically appeared on the list. There was only the one she’d seen the last time she’d looked: Ardvorlich01, password-protected. She remembered a carved sign – Ardvorlich House – a mile or two back down the track, a creepy-looking drive snaking off into the trees. She’d have to trek up that way tomorrow, try and find a signal somewhere. Miles would be going mad that she hadn’t texted to say they’d arrived or to tell them the new address, and she felt a twist of guilt that she’d only just remembered, that she hadn’t thought to remind Leanna earlier. That until now, she’d only been worried about whether Leo might have tried to call or text her.
Leo. The thought sent a familiar wave of cold dread through her. That Dictaphone with its calm observations: Miles stopped outside library by unknown female. Like Leo was David Attenborough, observing a dull but endangered species of bird. And Amber had done nothing. What was Leo doing without her around? Would he be watching her dad again – was he watching him even now? The idea of him outside the house, looking up at its dark windows, made her shiver. She had made a mistake, she knew it instinctively; felt the subconscious knowledge of it start to swirl and press at her. Something was wrong, and Amber had done nothing.
Leanna was kind of worrying her too. She was acting . . . differently, that was the only way Amber could think to describe it. It wasn’t that she wasn’t being nice – she was, way nicer and more relaxed than usual. Amber had never really seen her have a drink, let alone pound two bottles of wine like she had over dinner. But there was something unsettling about the way she kept smiling at them, smiling and staring, always looking at one or other of them in a kind of unfocused, emotional way that Amber couldn’t read. She thought of the moment Leanna had called her ‘Anna’. Not a big deal, it kind of sounded like ‘Amber’ – but Billie had completely overreacted and there was something about the whole thing that had chilled Amber; she couldn’t put her finger on it. Then there was the way Leanna had flown across the room to pick up the dropped handbag, the way her happy woozy face had dropped for a second. Amber knew what she had seen there instead: panic.
She knew a person hiding something when she saw one.
The more she thought about it, the more her suspicions grew. There’d been something slightly off about both of them since Billie showed up at school and singled Amber out as the friend she’d follow around like a puppy. Leanna equally keen to befriend her freak of a mother, when it was pretty clear to anyone who spent more than five minutes in her company that Sadie was not a lady who lunched; the last person you’d invite round for cocktail hour and sharing recipes.
And Amber had seen something, in that neat cascade of Leanna’s things as the handbag had tipped over. Of course she had – she didn’t like surprises; she had to do what she could to stop people from springing them. She had always been good at spotting the things someone wanted to keep out of sight. Her memory was forensic and she could skip back through it like an Instagram feed, knowing when and how to zoom. So, yes, she’d seen the fat envelope slide out with Leanna’s fancy purse and pristine address book, her keys and a neatly clipped bundle of coupons from the local paper, a folded up reservation for the cottage, a receipt for something else. She’d seen it, she’d noticed it, and she’d seen the way Leanna clung to it as she slid it back into her handbag.
Most importantly of all, she’d seen the first line of writing on the envelope: Sadie Banner. And she
couldn’t help wondering why exactly Leanna was carrying around a letter to her mother, when she had seen her in person not one day ago.
She got up with care, the bedsprings squealing traitorously. Billie mumbled in her sleep and Amber froze, a draught creeping round her ankles. When Billie settled back on to her side, Amber kept moving, bare feet placed slowly and carefully, eyes adjusting to the dark.
She tried to tell herself that she was being stupid. That she should get back into bed, try and trick her brain into sleep. But something kept her moving, an animal thing pacing inside her chest. That letter. So fat in its envelope; something solid and hard at its centre. Who sent letters anyway? What would you put in a letter to someone you barely knew and had boring lunches with once a week?
The windowless landing was pitch-black, without even the faint wash of moonlight that had picked out the bedroom furniture. Stepping into it felt like stepping off a ledge, a freefall. She stood for a second, listening to her own breath. Her phone was in her hand but she was too afraid to use the torch on it.
Too afraid of what? she wondered, and she thought again of Sadie. Of the things she saw in the shadows. The curse she carried with her, that she had passed on to Amber. And didn’t that corner, where the darkness swirled thickest, look suddenly like the profile of a man? Wasn’t there something small crouched there, by the stairs? Something small and rocking, something reaching out to her?
No, she told herself. You are not your mother’s daughter. And the prowling animal thing inside her drove her on. Down the corridor, into its mouth. The floorboards remained silent beneath her and she felt weightless, as if she were in a dream.
Leanna’s door was ajar, lamplight leaking out and finally breaking up the dark. Amber hesitated, fear suddenly dagger-shrill in her chest. It was an instinct, but she had learned to listen to her instincts. She hesitated. Was that the cool flutter of someone else’s breath against the skin of her neck?
Another draught – air creeping from somewhere, from everywhere. She moved forward again slowly, so slowly that the light seemed to expand and loom ahead of her until she reached it. Her hand found the door handle.
And she could hear it now, her heart rate slowing; that wet ratcheting sound with its steady rise and fall. Like mother, like daughter: Leanna was snoring. Confidence growing, Amber pushed the door slowly open. The lamp was on the nightstand, its pale green shade making the light sickly against the frills of the bed and the curtains. Leanna was fully clothed, flopped on her back with her tasteful top riding up to reveal a stretch of skin, wrinkled and red-marked from her jeans. Her feet were bare, toenails painted a pearlescent pink. Amber stood in the doorway, watching her. And then her eyes strayed down the bedspread, where Leanna’s hand lay palm-up, fingers half-curled; a spider on its back. Beyond it, that same white envelope, its flap open, a pen abandoned beside it.
Ten steps away; even seven. She looked down at the floorboards, wondering if they could be trusted, and then up at Leanna’s slack face, that same thick snore every minute or so. She’d seen Sadie in a similar position plenty of times over the last half year (it wasn’t exactly an alien position to Amber, either). Leanna wouldn’t wake up. Almost definitely. She’d probably stay that way until morning.
Amber took a step into the room and then another. Suddenly it was the most important thing in the world that she had that letter, that she felt the thick paper of the envelope in her hands and laid out its contents to examine and understand. She was beside the bed, close enough to see the feathery blue veins in Leanna’s neck, the crumbs of mascara under her eyes. The air smelled fermented and vinegary, the cottage’s mildew and wood beaten back. Something changed and it took her a moment to realise that the thing that was different was the silence.
No snores.
Her eyes flicked up from the letter to Leanna again, certain she’d see eyes open, expectant. What the fuck are you doing in here?
But Leanna’s eyes were closed, her mouth lax. There was a long second of silence, of total stillness— and then she snorted in her sleep, her forgotten breath gulped in, and the snoring began again.
And then the letter was in Amber’s hand. It felt silly, suddenly, anticlimactic. What, really, was she going to find in it? She started slowly to worry that it might be a love letter or gift of some sort, something private; a secret of Sadie’s, for once, that had nothing to do with Amber. It was too late now. The letter was in her hand. She could feel that solid form inside the envelope again, squat and thick. She wanted to know. Somehow she knew that she needed to know.
She didn’t dare to breathe until she was back out on the landing, creeping towards the stairs. At first, she planned to go all the way down, away from Leanna and Billie, but she was so glad to make it to the top step without a sound that she sank down on to it, close enough to hear them both.
She leaned against the banister and pulled out the object from inside the envelope. She fumbled for her phone and thumbed on its torch. It was a notebook, warped slightly with use, its cover soft and leather. Embossed small and gold at its centre: 2016. A diary. She opened the cover and began to read, her mouth dry with fear.
The pages were packed with dense neat handwriting which occasionally looped erratically, the pen pressed so hard on certain sentences that the letters darkened and bled into the paper. At first, she was confused. It was a diary, but a diary that was addressed to her mother. A diary that focused on the mundane details of the ways in which their lives had intersected. Who would take the time to note such things down? To record them as if they were special or important?
Then, like a cloud passing over the sun, the darkness of the words reached her. The hatred she could tell had been inked on to the pages, tied up tightly in the knotted, swooping words. By the time she reached the account of the previous evening, she was shivering. Those last words (scrawled: wine) – She sees me – stuck in her like darts. She turned the page, but Leanna’s words ended there.
Other people’s words took over.
‘The Tall Man spoke to me again last night,’ Justine said.
They were sitting in their place by the river. There was no one else around, the wind biting at their faces, the low sun almost invisible in the white sky. Sadie fiddled with the metal cuff she’d bought from the market, already pinching the top of her ear.
‘He says it isn’t enough,’ Justine said, hitching herself off the bench and skipping the couple of steps to the river’s edge. She sat down on the low wall there and faced them, hands resting under her thighs. ‘He says he should take one of us.’
Sadie felt a bolt of fear travel through her. He had not told her this when he visited her in her dreams. Was it her he planned to take? Maybe Justine was the only one who was special. She clenched her fingers into a fist, traced the edge of the scar tucked into her palm like a secret.
‘What are we supposed to do?’ Marie asked, though her voice was flat and she was looking sideways at Helen. Sadie had noticed that Marie was not as enthusiastic about being special as she’d once been.
‘It’s time for us to prove ourselves,’ Justine said, standing up. ‘We have to give him what he wants. Now come with me, all of you.’
They trudged away from the river, towards the woods. The clearing was mulchy underfoot. The air iron-scented. Sadie thought of the letters she had written to the Tall Man, the letters they continued to write and burn here, their words turned silver and lifted up, carried away. It wasn’t enough. She thought of the cat winding its way between Justine’s legs, the sound it had made as she grabbed it by the head.
Fingers grazed the back of her neck, gone almost immediately. He was with them. He was with her, as he often was when she had doubts or felt afraid, and the thought warmed her. She longed to step away from the clearing, to move into the embrace of the shadows. To feel his hand slide into hers. His voice in her ear, telling her she was special.
But perhaps it was Justine he had come for, Justine he had made special. Perhaps Sadie would be left
behind, left alone – a fate even worse than being taken, she thought now. She glanced into the trees, thought she saw a figure move there.
‘A long time ago, the Tall Man killed his daughter,’ Justine said. She always enjoyed telling this part of the story the best. ‘He knew that, even though she was still small, she was very bad.’
‘I don’t want to do this,’ Marie said suddenly, arms crossed in front of her.
‘We have to!’ Helen looked frantically from Justine to Sadie and back again. ‘Tell her!’
Justine stepped closer to Marie, studying her face. ‘He told me you were weak,’ she whispered. ‘He’ll take you, you know. When you’re alone and asleep at night—’ She clicked her fingers in front of Marie’s nose, and Sadie jumped, her insides clenching. ‘Poof. Gone.’
A bird fled from its tree with a shriek, wings ripping at the air. Helen let out her own scream, her hand clutching Marie’s.
‘You have to do it,’ she said. ‘Come on, Marie, he only takes the bad ones. We have to be special now.’
‘No, we don’t.’ Marie pulled her hand free from Helen’s. ‘Let’s go home.’
‘I’d stay here with us if I were you, Hel,’ Justine said, still watching Marie. ‘Your sister is making him very angry. He’ll punish her.’
‘Shut up, Justine,’ Marie said, but her eyes had filled with tears and her voice quivered. ‘He will not.’
Justine smiled, glancing behind Marie at the dark space between the trees. And then she took a step closer to her friend, put her face up close to Marie’s. ‘Wanna bet?’ she whispered, and her eyes flicked to the trees again.
Marie spun around and for a second Sadie thought she saw the shadow there again, a figure standing tall at the edge of the shadows.
‘Are you scared yet?’ Justine whispered in Marie’s ear, and then she shoved her, hard, sending Marie sprawling to the ground at the edge of the clearing.