by Emma Rous
Teacups rattled in the doorway behind me, and I knew Leonora must be standing there, hastily grabbed tray in hand. I gazed into the older man’s eyes, and I tried to communicate my real feelings to him, even as I opened my mouth to parrot Leonora’s words.
“I couldn’t bear to leave Raven Hall, Grandfather,” I said mechanically. “Please don’t make me go. It would break my heart.”
His blue eyes looked beyond mine into my skull, into my soul, and my skin tingled with the certainty that he knew I was acting—that he saw the real me underneath. And I wanted him to see me. I kept my gaze fixed firmly on his, and I pleaded silently with him, with all my might. Help me. Get me out of here.
“I understand,” he said slowly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. And then, in one swift movement, he caught hold of my hand, as if to give it a conciliatory squeeze, and he slipped a small rectangular card into my palm. “I’m sure we can sort everything out,” he said, without breaking our eye contact. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you’re happy.”
The clink of china came nearer, and Leonora set the tray down on the coffee table.
“Tea?” she said brightly.
But Hendrik was already rising. “No, thank you.” He frowned at Markus. “I meant what I said. I won’t put up with this any longer. Let me know Nina’s exam dates, and I’ll take that into account. But this house has been a curse on our family, and it’s going to be sold, whether you like it or not.”
He stalked from the room, and as Markus and Leonora hurried after him, I dropped my gaze to the small rectangular card in my hand. It was a business card, with hendrik meyer printed across the center, and several phone numbers. I now had the means to contact my supposed grandfather whenever I wanted.
I was still sitting there, feeling dazed, when I heard a new note of urgency in the voices from the hall.
“Is that smoke?” Hendrik said. “What’s going on?”
“My God!” Markus said, his voice rising to a shout. “Something’s on fire!”
I ran out to the hall. Thick gray smoke obscured the landing and billowed down the stairs. Markus was already disappearing into it, his arm held across his nose and mouth, and I couldn’t see whether he turned left or right at the top. A sharp, acrid smell filled my nostrils, and a moment later, I began to cough.
“For God’s sake,” Hendrik bellowed at a frozen-looking Leonora. “Phone the fire brigade. We could lose the whole house!”
Hendrik started up the stairs after Markus, calling his name. Leonora turned to me, white-faced.
“Nina,” she whispered, and the sound of her own voice seemed to snap her into action. Ignoring Hendrik’s instruction, she, too, ran up the stairs and was swallowed by the smoke.
The sound of crackling flames reached my ears, and I heard a choked shout from Markus, followed by a prolonged bout of coughing that could have come from any of them. My heart battered in my chest like a bird trapped in a chimney. Nina was up there, sick or asleep in her turret bedroom—and what if she couldn’t get out? Before I could change my mind, I held my sleeve over my own nose and mouth, and I ran up after them.
She didn’t know she had so many tears saved up inside her. She pedals furiously toward the village, feeling her heart shattering into thousands of tiny jagged-edged pieces. The Backstabber is Raven Hall’s new owner. And Markus is the Backstabber’s son.
She’s lost everything. Her parents, her home, and now Markus. All gone.
She swipes angrily at her eyes and swerves closer to the grass shoulder as a car approaches from behind. It slows, and she’s horrified to see Markus’s concerned face glide alongside her. The Backstabber himself is in the driver’s seat—she remembers, now, that his name is Hendrik. That’s what Daddy used to call him before Daddy started drinking, before everything went so horribly, terribly wrong.
“Lara, please,” Markus says, “let us give you a lift somewhere, at least . . .”
“Go away!” she shouts. “I don’t need you! Leave me alone, or I’ll—”
She looks around wildly, wondering if she should discard the bike and run into the fields, but a car is approaching from the other direction, and she feels a glimmer of triumph.
“I’ll flag these people down,” she shouts, glaring through the open window at both of the men. “I’ll tell them you’re trying to kidnap me.”
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Hendrik says loudly, and a moment later he accelerates away.
The second car whizzes past, and she focuses on the road ahead and continues pedaling. But Hendrik must have swung his car around in the farm track farther along; he and Markus are heading toward her again, this time on the other side of the road.
Markus leans across Hendrik and calls out, “Please, Lara . . . Leonora . . .”
She doesn’t even look at him. And a second later, they’re gone, heading back to the house they stole from her.
She cycles on toward the village, knowing she’s entirely alone now. There’s no one left in the world who cares about her anymore.
Her tears have run dry by the time the village finally comes into sight, and she hops off the bike in front of the B and B. As she slots it back into the bike shed, Stephanie appears at the side door again, frowning.
“Are you okay?” Stephanie asks.
She draws herself up, forces herself to smile. “Yeah, I’m fine.” She nods at the baby on Stephanie’s hip. “Is he yours?”
Stephanie presses her lips into the child’s chestnut hair. “He sure is.”
“He’s gorgeous. Thank you for the loan of the bike.” She turns away.
“Do you need help with anything else?” Stephanie calls out.
But a familiar car is drawing to a halt in front of the bungalow next door—a mink-blue Ford Capri—and her heart lifts.
“No, thanks.” She doesn’t glance back.
It’s fate. It must be.
She hurries toward the car, a tentative smile forming as she sees the young doctor spring out from the driver’s seat. He never misled her, she thinks. She always knew exactly who he was, and where he lived, and who his family was.
“Leonora?” The man’s startled gaze runs over her tearstained face, her sweat-soaked T-shirt, and the rip in her skirt where she caught it on the roadside brambles. “What on earth are you doing here? Are you hurt?”
She shakes her head, her pulse jumping as she takes in his familiar sharp-jawed face, his wiry frame, the doctor’s bag in his hand. She glances at the bungalow behind him.
“Are you on a visit?” she says.
“I am.” He tilts his head. “How about you? I haven’t seen you since . . .”
They blink at each other, remembering that awful scene in her father’s study.
“Oh,” she says, “I’m—I’m living with a kind of aunt now. But she doesn’t care where I am. No one cares . . .”
He glances up the road behind her. “Ah. Boyfriend jilted you, has he?”
Leonora’s knees feel weak—he knows her. The young doctor knows her. He can read her emotions, just like she thought she could Markus’s.
Stop thinking about Markus.
“Could I—” She lifts her chin, tries to smooth her skirt. “Is there any chance you could drive me back to my aunt’s place tonight? I hitchhiked here, but—” She gestures down the road. “It’s been an awful day, and I’m just so tired . . .”
The man studies her thoughtfully. “I can’t tonight,” he says slowly. “But maybe in the morning. If your aunt won’t worry . . .”
“Oh, thank you, Roy. Thank you.” She hurls herself into his arms, almost knocking the bag from his grip. He glances across the road to the B and B, and he pushes her gently away, but he’s smiling.
“Wait in my car while I just get this visit done. We’ll have a nice evening together, then, okay? We fit rather well tog
ether, I think, you and me.”
Sadie
January 2019
Sadie pauses at the top of the spiral staircase and listens outside the door for a moment.
“Genevieve?”
There’s no reply. She can hear Nazleen’s and Zach’s voices calling out the same name on the floor below, and it gives her a moderate amount of reassurance. Gently, she pushes open the door and feels around on the wall for a light switch; her fingers find it easily.
The room is circular—of course it is—and it must once have belonged to a child. There are children’s books mixed in with classics in the bookcase, and collections of dusty feathers and pinecones and bead necklaces scattered over a long, curved dressing table. Cobwebs drape from the high ceiling, and the air smells musty, but when Sadie studies the bed, she thinks it looks recently slept in. The pillow has a dent at its center, and the covers are thrown back, and there’s a glass of clear water on the bedside table.
Slowly, Sadie turns, and she almost screams when she sees a whole bank of glassy eyes staring back at her. Dusty carnivorous creatures wearing human clothing; their malevolent glares bore right through her skin. She presses her hand over her thudding heart.
“Genevieve?” she murmurs. “Where are you?” But the room remains silent, and there’s no obvious hiding place. Still feeling uneasy, she hurries back down the spiral staircase.
When she emerges in the corridor, she hears Zach and Nazleen talking on the floor below, so she goes down to join them in the hall. Joe is with them, swinging a heavy torch in one hand, and he gives Sadie a tight smile that holds no trace of amusement.
“You’ll come out with me, won’t you?” Joe says to Sadie. “Make sure I’m not seeing things.”
Zach grumbles at him. “I said I’d come, didn’t I? I just don’t feel very well . . .”
Nazleen tightens her dressing gown belt and waits for Sadie to answer.
“What have you found?” Sadie asks, but Joe merely indicates the front door. They leave Zach and Nazleen behind, and they make their way back out into the freezing darkness.
“Come on, what is it?” she says. They crunch across the gravel. Joe’s torch gives a much broader, brighter beam, but for some reason it makes Sadie feel more rather than less anxious.
Joe shakes his head. “You have a look first. See what you think.”
Her heart pounds as they approach the dock for a second time. The reeds are a ghostly silver, swaying and rustling, as if trying to escape the darkness behind them. The black surface of the lake rumples gently like oil. A sudden flurry to one side makes her cry out.
“Hey.” Joe touches her arm briefly. “It’s just a bird. We woke it up, that’s all.” He swings the torch beam away from the dock to the frosty grass beside it, and he slides the light left and right. “What do you make of these?”
At first, Sadie can’t see anything but white-tinged grass. She peers closer. Actually, there is something—a faint trail of impressions—two different sizes of indentations in the frost, half of them round-cornered triangles and half of them small circles. She straightens slowly.
“You think they’re Genevieve’s footprints?”
Joe nods and swings the beam away in the direction of the driveway. “High heels, don’t you think? And they join the drive just over there. And there’re no other tracks next to them.”
“Except yours.” Sadie blinks at him. “Presumably? If you followed the trail . . .”
“Well, yes, I meant—”
Sadie turns toward the house and gazes at the yellow glow seeping around the drawing room and dining room curtains. She’s not sure she can trust anybody here. But sometimes you have to trust somebody.
“Mrs. Shrew thinks Genevieve was planning to walk to the village. To stay at the B and B instead.”
“Yeah, Zach told me.” Joe rubs his mouth. “I suppose that must be what she did, then.”
Sadie peers at him in the gloom. “Do you know her? Mrs. Shrew.”
He takes his time replying. “I used to, when I was young. I grew up round here.”
Sadie considers this. Mrs. Shrew said she’d traveled a long way to get here this evening, but it doesn’t surprise Sadie that she, too, used to be local—it fits, somehow, with her uptight behavior and reactions tonight.
“Do you trust her?” Sadie asks. “She just seems a bit . . .”
He frowns, as though trying to weigh up the evidence to give Sadie a fair answer. “I feel sorry for her, mainly. And I don’t trust her, particularly, no. But equally—I can’t see why she’d lie about this.”
Sadie hates feeling so powerless; they ought to be doing something. “Well, we can’t phone anyone, can we? And we don’t have a car. Do you think one of us should walk to the B and B to check that Genevieve got there okay?” She tries to suppress a sudden conviction that the company won’t pay her if she ends up following Genevieve into the village and spending the night at the B and B. And all because the selfish young woman couldn’t be bothered to let them know what she was planning to do.
But Joe doesn’t need any more of a hint. “I’ll go. I know the route.”
“No!” Sadie grabs his sleeve. “Actually, no, you’re the only one here I can rely on. You can’t leave me with that lot.” She jerks her head toward the house, picturing the four remaining guests—self-centered Everett, arrogant Mrs. Shrew, cowardly Zach, and indecisive Nazleen. And how would they describe me? she thinks, cringing inwardly. A pathetic, desperate actor who puts money before her own safety?
Joe searches her expression in the torchlight, frowning, and she waits for him to reassure her, to tell her she’s overreacting. But instead, he tilts his head as if more confused than ever.
“You know, it’s been niggling at me all evening,” he says. “You really do remind me of someone. Do you mind me asking—what’s your mother’s name?”
Beth
December 1989
Ihesitated at the top of the stairs, coughing with every other breath, blinded by the thick gray smoke.
“Where are you?” I shouted. “Where is everyone?”
Someone crashed into me in the gloom. It was Leonora. And she pulled a frightened-looking Nina behind her.
“Get downstairs!” Leonora said. “We need to get out.”
We stumbled down the stairs, and as Leonora yanked open the front door, Markus and Hendrik emerged from the smoke behind us. Markus’s eyes were red-rimmed and streaming. Hendrik, coughing and wheezing, was bent double, gripping Markus’s arm for support.
Leonora tugged Nina and me across the threshold, and we all gasped in lungfuls of cold, fresh air.
“I’ve shut the door on the flames,” Markus shouted. The smoke in the hall was thinning, now that the front door was open. “It’ll buy us some time; the fire’s contained. Did anyone ring 999?” When nobody answered, he peered around and reached for the phone. He dialed the number, then turned to Hendrik. “Get outside, Dad. Go with Leonora. I’ll follow in a second.”
I tried to move back into the hall, wanting to help Hendrik, who was struggling to breathe and pressing his fingers and thumb against his streaming eyes. But Leonora’s grip on my arm was strong, and she shoved Nina and me down the steps ahead of her, as if she couldn’t get away from Hendrik fast enough.
“Leave him. He’ll be fine.” Her voice was surprisingly bitter. “He always is.”
“What happened?” I said. “Where’s the fire?”
Leonora’s fierce stare made me shrink inside my skin. “It’s in your bedroom, Beth. Were you burning a candle in there?”
I shook my head, appalled. “No, I—”
“Did you leave something switched on? Your hair dryer?”
“No!”
Leonora made a sound of disgust, but she cut it off sharply and checked over her shoulder. Hendrik still hadn’t emerged from the house.
Leonora glanced across to the stable block with a calculating expression on her face. It was dusk; in another few minutes, it would be completely dark.
“Go and sit on the wall,” she said, gesturing toward the shadowy end of the stable block. She dropped her voice to a hiss. “Whatever happens, he mustn’t see there are two of you.”
Wordlessly, Nina and I linked hands, and we stumbled away across the gravel together. My chest ached from the smoke I’d inhaled, but also from something else—this confirmation that the deception of Hendrik had never been a game at all. It was something far more serious.
Before Nina and I reached the stable block, a crash of shattering glass made us look up to see flames bursting out through my bedroom window. Clutching at Nina, I staggered backward, my heart racing. How had this happened? It wasn’t really my fault—was it?
When I turned away from the bright flames, the surroundings seemed even darker in comparison. I could just about make out Hendrik sitting on the gravel beyond the steps, batting away his chauffeur’s attempt to get him up on his feet, with one hand shielding his eyes. Leonora and Markus stood side by side a little closer to us, their upturned faces bathed in the angry red light from the flames at my bedroom window.
A sudden thought stopped my breath. They were going to blame me for this, weren’t they? It was my bedroom; of course they’d blame me. My throat tightened at the injustice of it; I dropped Nina’s arm and stepped away from her. It wasn’t my fault. I was sure it wasn’t my fault. But what difference would that make? I wasn’t really part of their family; I’d only ever been a guest.
Nina was still transfixed by the fire, and I took the opportunity to turn away and scan the frozen lake in the gloom, desperately hoping to catch a glimpse of Jonas. Might he have come over early? Might he already be waiting for me on the island? The idea of moving in with him and his mum was suddenly vastly more appealing.
I tried to creep away across the gravel, but before I reached the lakeshore, I heard Nina close behind me.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was heavy with bewildered hostility.