by Abby Davies
Beyond the door was a dark wood floor and a few steps away was a staircase with a white banister. There was nothing on the floor. No drink cans in sight. Only a clean, flowery smell, like roses before they died.
A grey cat with pale green eyes appeared in the doorway. It stared at me for a few seconds then clearly decided I didn’t pose a threat. I watched in wonder as it curled itself around my ankles, purring, its body vibrating as I bent to stroke its silky-soft fur. I suddenly felt light-headed. The urge to lie down was overwhelming. I leaned against the wall beside the front door and closed my eyes.
A sound made me look up. I shrank back.
A tall, grey-haired man with a long face and bent body eyed me up and down. He wore grey slacks and a short-sleeved white shirt which looked clean. He smelled clean too and his eyes didn’t jiggle; they looked directly at me. These eyes were a twinkly, light blue and right now they were wide with what I thought was concern.
‘Come in, child, come in,’ he said, stepping back and beckoning me into the house, his voice low and serious. ‘Dot, go and make her a glass of milk and something to eat.’
I didn’t move, just stared at him, trying to work out if he was evil or good.
‘What’s your name?’ he said.
I had to think for a moment. I hesitated. Should I tell him my real name? What if he knew Mother? What if they were friends? But then I pictured Mother in this room talking with these old people and the picture didn’t make sense.
He shook his head. ‘It’s fine. You don’t have to tell me. Come on into the living room. Let’s give those feet a rest.’
Numbly, I followed him into the house, flinching as he shut the door. He didn’t lock it, which I took as a good sign. He led the way into a large room with a green and orange-patterned carpet and matching curtains. The walls were white and they looked clean too. Clean and light. I wanted to tell the man – Harold – that I liked his house. Before I could speak, the old lady – Dot – rushed into the room holding a tray. I sat down on a squishy cream sofa, immediately relishing the lack of pressure on my feet.
‘Drink some milk, dear,’ Dot said, passing me a glass.
I did as she told me, spilling milk down my chin and onto myself and not caring. The cold, fresh milk felt wonderful against my dry throat and I smiled at her gratefully.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘Oh dear. Look at your poor feet. I’ll fetch something to clean those, shall I, Harold?’
Harold nodded, his eyes never leaving me.
‘You need to call the police,’ I said, taking a small bite of the sandwich that Dot had made me.
‘OK,’ he said, scratching his chin. ‘Can you tell me why?’
I took another bite of sandwich, chewed it quickly. It was amazing what a little milk and bread could do for energy levels. I felt more awake and sat up straighter.
‘There’s a man. Patrick. He’s hurt. He needs help. And there’s Emma. I don’t know where she is and it’s my fault – I never should have told her to go. I—’
‘Take a breath,’ Harold said, ‘Tell me who Patrick is first.’
‘He’s this man who showed up at the cottage and then I got him involved and she stabbed him and—’
‘Who stabbed him?’
‘Mother. I don’t know her real name. She’s not well. She needs help too but not as much as Patrick. He’s dying.’
‘OK, OK. What about Emma? Tell me about her.’
‘She’s only five. She’s out there alone, all alone and she’s so little, so scared – and it’s all my fault!’
I started to cry, tried to stop, knowing I needed to explain better, but completely unable to fight the sobs that took over my eyes and mind and body. I tasted salt. My tummy lurched and saliva flooded my mouth. I jerked forward and threw up. I trembled as another wave of nausea built in my throat, and tensed, expecting it to overwhelm me, but it rolled back down into my stomach. With a shuddery breath, I sagged against the sofa and closed my eyes.
There was a hand on my shoulder. Someone taking the plate out of my hand. A gentle voice saying soothing things. I felt myself being made to lie down, being covered with crochet blankets, someone saying they were going to drive to the police station. I was so tired and the sofa was so comfortable and the blankets so warm and my eyes were heavy, so heavy.
Someone was stroking my forehead.
Saying nice things.
Stroking and soothing and stroking and soothing and stroking, stroking, stroking.
Chapter 33
I woke with a start, heart hammering, thinking I was back there, with Mother, trapped in the darkness of the cottage. I sucked in sharp breaths and stared around, my mind slowly piecing things back together. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom and my nose picked up a flowery scent, I remembered where I was: Harold and Dot’s house. I wasn’t in the cottage any more. I jerked upright – I hadn’t spoken to the police yet – told them about Patrick or Emma! I had let myself fall asleep and now it might be too late to save them. I dreaded to think what might have happened to little Emma. Out there all alone, just five years old.
I pushed back the bedcovers and climbed out of the bed, wincing as my feet took the weight of my body, surprised to see my feet clean and bandaged. Dot. She must have cleaned them while I slept.
The swirly curtains were drawn tightly together. Panic ballooned in my chest; what if they were sewn shut? What if boards had been nailed behind those curtains? No. Dot was kind. She was a good person.
I tugged the curtains apart. They opened with ease and I saw a starry, navy sky. I marvelled at the glittering dots of light, moved to tears by their prettiness.
I wanted to stare at them for longer but dread erupted in my tummy: the sun had set. It was night. How long had I been asleep? How long had Patrick been lying on the floor bleeding? How long had Emma been wandering around in the wilderness?
I looked down at myself. I was still wearing the brown sack dress but my arms and legs had been wiped clean. The wound on my leg had been bandaged too. Dot had cleaned every inch of me that she could without taking off my dress. I couldn’t believe how kind she was.
A glass of water sat on the bedside table. I drained the whole glass then walked to the bedroom door and twisted the knob. The door opened and I slipped out onto a landing which had a green and white flowery carpet. Up here, the lights were off so it was dark. Trailing my hand on the banister, I descended the stairs, pleased to see soft light coming from downstairs. Dot and Harold must still be awake. I remembered suddenly that Harold had driven away to get the police, and realized that Harold and Dot must not have a telephone.
I turned right at the bottom of the stairs and hovered outside the living room. The door was shut. I could hear Dot murmuring to Harold, but no other voices. Alarm crept up my spine. Where were the police?
I hesitated, my hand on the door. Dot and Harold were good, kind people. Maybe the police were on their way. Maybe Harold had told the police then driven back here with the police following him and the police car had broken down. Yes. That must be why the police weren’t here yet. I knew that if the police were here, I would hear loud, male, bossy voices. And someone would have woken me up. Someone would be questioning me right this second, desperate to find out everything they could in order to save Patrick and Emma.
Reassured, I pushed open the door and walked into the living room.
Dot was sitting on the sofa, wringing her hands. ‘Harold ought to be back by now …’ She looked up and saw me, stood and rushed across the room.
‘You’re awake! How are you feeling?’ she said gently.
I didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak. Another woman was in the room sitting on the sofa with her back to me. I couldn’t breathe. I knew that body. That long, bony back. That short, blonde hair.
I watched, unable to draw breath.
Mother stood up and turned around, a smile pasted to her thin lips. A smile that did not match the triumphant brightness in her small, dark eyes.<
br />
‘Mirabelle! Thank heavens you’re alive!’ She rushed forward and I staggered backwards, putting Dot in between us.
‘Mirabelle? Darling, what’s wrong? Aren’t you happy to see Mummy?’
Dot turned around, her brow crinkling in confusion and concern. ‘We thought we’d let you sleep a little while longer. Your mother arrived only a few minutes ago. She’s been looking all over for you. She’s told me all about your father, but don’t worry. He’s gone now, isn’t he, Mrs Stone?’ Dot looked at Mother then back at me.
‘Oh yes. That evil man’s gone now. After you ran away, I threatened to call the police and he drove off. You can come home now, Little Doll. You’re safe now.’
Mother stepped forward, reaching out a hand to me. I darted around to the other side of Dot and held Dot’s hand.
Dot looked down at me, a question in her eyes.
‘It’s OK now,’ she said, her eyes flicking from mine to Mother’s. ‘You can go home with your mother now, OK?’
‘She’s not my mother.’
‘What? I don’t understand,’ Dot said.
I looked up at the old lady, meeting her eyes, willing her to believe me. ‘Please make her leave. She’s not my mother. She kidnapped me a long time ago. That’s why I look like this. That’s why I was running away.’
Mother laughed and grabbed my free wrist. ‘What a lot of silly nonsense. Come on, sweetie, you’ve been through a great ordeal. You—’
‘NO!’ I shouted, tearing my wrist out of her grip.
Dot pulled me behind herself. She stared at Mother and said in a low voice, ‘Please, Mrs Stone. The child clearly doesn’t want to come with you. The police will be here shortly. Please leave.’ She opened the living room door, still shielding me with her thin, frail body, and gestured with her head towards the front door.
Mother stepped towards us. ‘I’m not leaving without Mirabelle.’
‘I’m not going with you,’ I said, trying to hide the fear in my voice.
‘Oh yes you are. You are mine. You’re coming with me whether you like it or not.’
She lunged for me, pushing Dot out of the way. Dot stumbled and fell, hitting the ground hard, her hand slipping out of mine. I turned and ran out of the room. Mother grabbed my shoulder and yanked me back, wrapping her arms around my body, holding me to her.
‘Stop being so ridiculous, Mirabelle. We’re leaving.’
I struggled and twisted and turned. She held on tighter, choking the air out of my lungs.
‘STOP IT!’ she screamed.
I bit her forearm, tasted blood, and she cried out and loosened her grip. I pulled away and stumbled out of the room across the hallway into a large yellow kitchen. I opened the first drawer I could see and grabbed a rolling pin. Turning to face Mother, I raised the block of wood and glared at her.
‘Come closer and I’ll hurt you,’ I warned, panting for breath.
Dot appeared in the doorway behind Mother holding a shotgun. The gun looked huge against her tiny, frail form, but Dot’s voice was as strong as iron. ‘Please leave, Mrs Stone. Now.’
Mother turned slowly. Everything seemed so unreal all of a sudden. The room fell silent.
‘The police will be here soon,’ Dot said, pointing the gun at Mother. ‘You need to leave.’
‘I’m not leaving without my daughter.’
‘I’m not your daughter,’ I spat, lowering the rolling pin.
‘Yes, you are. Mirabelle, you’re not well. You are sick. Very sick, and the last few hours’ light exposure have made you delirious. I need to get you back home where you’ll be safe.’
‘What’s she talking about?’ Dot said to me, her eyes leaving Mother.
‘She’s lying again. She’s always lying. She’s been lying to me for ten years.’
‘Oh my God. Ten years?’ Dot said, eyes widening.
I nodded. ‘She took me when I was three years old.’
‘Shut up!’ Mother shouted. She swivelled round to face me. ‘Where’s Emma? What have you done with her?’
I twitched at her use of Emma’s real name. It was the first time she’d made that mistake.
‘Emma?’ Dot said, struggling to catch up. ‘Is that the little girl you mentioned?’
‘Yes. She took Emma too. On the twenty-third of April.’
Dot gasped. ‘Emma Hedges?’
I nodded eagerly and glanced at Mother, whose face had softened. She suddenly looked a lot older and utterly miserable. Her face seemed to have crumpled in on itself. Her voice turned whiny and pleading and she fell to her knees and clasped her hands in front of her.
‘Please, Mirabelle, please, Mrs Bancroft. Please, I’m not well. Please don’t tell. I just needed her. I love her. I only want to look after her. Make her safe. Make her safer than I was when I was a little girl.’
She dissolved into sobs and buried her face in her hands. Her bony shoulders crumpled forward and shook violently as she sobbed.
‘But she’s not your daughter and neither am I,’ I said.
Dot lowered the gun and stepped forward. She mouthed the words ‘You OK?’ to me. I nodded. My whole body sagged and I leaned against the counter.
‘Harold will be back soon,’ Dot murmured.
We watched Mother sob. She rolled onto her side on the kitchen floor still hiding her face in her hands. I felt a strange desire to comfort her and resisted it. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was midnight. Where were the police? Where was Harold? Why wasn’t he back yet?
As if reading my thoughts, Dot muttered, ‘Where is he? What’s taking him so long?’
She turned to look at the front door and Mother launched herself at the gun, ripping it out of Dot’s grasp and pulling Dot onto her hands and knees. She smashed Dot around the face with the barrel of the gun. I heard a crunch as Dot’s jaw broke and she toppled onto her side, unconscious.
With a scream I threw myself at Mother, raising the rolling pin over my head in both hands. But she was too quick. She hit my tummy with the gun, winding me. I staggered to the side and she tore the rolling pin out of my hands and tossed it to the ground. She wrapped her arm around my neck, still gripping the gun in her free hand and forced me out of the kitchen.
‘Open it,’ she snapped when we reached the front door. She tightened her grip on my neck and I opened the door, gasping for breath.
Mother’s car was parked on the drive where the black car had been earlier. She bundled me into the passenger seat, pointing the gun at me as she hurried around to the driver’s side and got in behind the wheel.
‘Strap in,’ she said.
I did as she said. She stabbed a button and the doors clicked.
‘Sit on your hands and don’t move. If you move, Mirabelle, I will drive back here and kill that old lady.’
She put the gun on her lap, strapped herself in and started the engine.
Silent tears rolled down my cheeks as the tyres crunched over the drive and we reversed away from Greenfield House. Away from hope.
Chapter 34
We drove in silence, and I bit my lip, forced myself to stop crying and huddled over to the door, curling my body as far away from hers as possible.
In the closeness of the car sour sweat radiated off her in one, great, disgusting swell. My hands ached with the desire to grab the gun off her lap, but what would I do with it if I actually managed to grab it? I couldn’t shoot her. She had been the closest thing to a mother I had ever known. I could never shoot her. And yet the notion zigzagged across my thoughts like volts of electricity. Returning to the cottage filled me with a kind of dread that was as intense as thoughts of dying. If I did go back to that place, I was as good as dead. I felt sick with panic at the thought. What kind of life was a life behind locked doors where the one person you got to interact with was her? I thought about all of the times I had behaved like her perfect little doll, sat there so quietly and dutifully as she painted my face … I could never go back to being that person. I would rather die.
<
br /> ‘You’ve been very badly behaved recently, Mirabelle,’ her words sliced the stillness in two, jarring my thoughts. ‘You’re usually such a good doll. I don’t know what’s got into you. I’m just relieved you’re alive. The light must not have been strong enough to hurt you.’
‘I’m not allergic to light. I never have been,’ I said, teeth chattering despite my defiant words. I wanted to be brave, to stand up to her, to fight.
Mother fell silent. My stomach cramped. She accelerated up the road faster and I fought the urge to throw up.
‘Slow down. Please,’ I said as we swerved round a bend that sent me crashing into the side door.
‘I can’t. We need to find Clarabelle before something happens to her. Where and when did you last see her?’
Nausea billowed in my throat. ‘I’m going to be sick. You have to stop.’
Mother shook her head. ‘Hold it in. I’m not stopping. Where did you last see her? Tell me or I’ll drive straight back to that house and shoot that woman in the head.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘You’re not a murderer.’ As I said the words, I tried to believe them, and a series of images pirouetted around my mind’s eye like a deadly dance; Mother marching up to the house, opening the door, looking for Dot, standing over her, smiling and pointing the gun at Dot’s face, pulling the trigger, Dot’s face exploding, blood and flesh dripping off the walls. Blood and flesh. Dot’s headless body.
‘You saw what happened to Patrick,’ she said, glancing at me.
I clenched my fists. ‘How is Patrick? Is he …’ I couldn’t finish the sentence as another series of gory images attacked.
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t stop to check. I’ve been out here searching for you two all day. You don’t know how worried I’ve been. Now, tell me where you last saw Clarabelle. This is your final chance before I turn around and go back to that house.’
Up ahead I could see houses and tall lights on the side of the road. Were we in a town? My heartbeat jackhammered. I sat up straighter, staring at every house we passed, pressing my nose to the glass. One of those houses could be my house. My real parents’ house. I looked at the car door. It was locked, but maybe …