by Abby Davies
‘You have three seconds to tell me. Three, two—’ She slowed the car down.
I turned to her, thoughts of trying the door vanishing, and blurted, ‘You need to turn around. Go back the way we came. I last saw Emma at a farm a few fields away from Dot and Harold’s house. I left her there. I can tell you how to get there, just please don’t hurt Dot.’
She smiled at me. ‘Good doll.’
She spun the car around, tyres squealing, and sped back up the road.
For a second I hoped that someone had heard the squealing car and decided to follow us, see what the hurry was all about. But it was night-time and no one sped after us. Heart sinking, I stared out of the window at the last of the houses as we pulled away from a town. I thought about Emma wandering around alone in the middle of the night. I didn’t think Mother would hurt Emma. Couldn’t believe she was that far gone.
I ran over everything I had told Dot. Had I told her my real name? I had definitely told her about Emma and the fact that I had been kidnapped ten years ago. I gritted my teeth; I had not told Dot anything about the cottage, about where it was. Would the small amount that I had told her be enough for the police to go on? She had told Dot that her name was Mrs Stone. Could that be useful information? Was that the truth or was it another lie?
My stomach began to settle, grown used to the bumpy journey. I looked at the gun on her lap. I could easily reach it.
‘Where now?’ her voice cut through my thoughts.
We were edging past Greenfield House. The large, white door was still open, the lights still on. No black car sat in the drive. Harold wasn’t back yet.
‘It’s five fields in that direction,’ I said, pointing.
Her eyes lit up. She smiled at me. ‘I know it. The knacker’s yard. Good doll. You don’t know how relieved I am. I was beginning to fear you were as bad as Olivia. Always lying. Rotten.’
I licked my lips nervously. Emma wasn’t there but Mother didn’t know that. Somehow, if I could work it, maybe I could get away when she went into the man’s house to look for Emma. Maybe I could get away, find Emma on my own and get to the police before Patrick died. Maybe not all hope was lost.
Swallowing thickly, I tried to work out what to do, discarding idea after idea. The main problem was the gun. I didn’t think she’d shoot me, but she was crazy and angry. What if, in a fit of rage, she pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger before she could stop herself?
Mother turned off the main road onto a bumpy side road. Not far away, the light from the strange man’s house glowed like the entrance to Hell.
Chapter 35
I’m going to die. I’m going to die.
I couldn’t stop the four-word sentence rotating around my brain. It was because I had decided what to do when we reached the farm. I had made my decision.
Mother slowed the car down, jiggled a stick in the middle of the car directly between us and yanked up another, straighter stick. The car jerked to a stop. The engine cut out. For a moment, we sat in the dark pool of the car, staring out at the light coming from the small house. The dogs in the cage had not barked. Neither had the dog chained to the building. Either they were asleep or they were not bothered by the car’s arrival. I could hear her breathing. She sounded wheezy, out of breath, despite the fact that we had been sat down for a while now.
‘She’s in there?’
Her question sent a shiver down my spine. Her voice was so cold and calculating. She had lost something and she wanted it back.
She called us dolls. I had never thought how strange that was until recently, but a real mother with real love would never call her child a doll. A doll was dead. I was alive. Emma was alive. We could hurt. We could bleed.
I will bleed.
Mother slapped me around the face. ‘Answer me!’
I stared at her through the gloom, glad that the darkness hid the tears in my eyes. ‘Yes. I left her here.’
I held my breath, certain she would hear my lie. She reached out and I flinched away, thinking she was going to strike me again, but she stroked my hair back from my forehead, her touch gentle.
‘You’re a good doll. I’m sorry I hit you. I’m just anxious about Clarabelle, that’s all.’
I wanted to scream – to yank her hand away from me and give her a taste of her own medicine, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t raise my hand to her. Instead, I stared at her lap. At the gun, which looked like a dead, black snake in the darkness. I imagined myself snatching it off her lap, turning it around and pointing it at her. I pictured her reaction: shock, dismay, anger. Pictured her running away …
It all played out so perfectly and I began to believe I could do it. I could beat her. I could win. I could regain my freedom, save Emma, save Patrick, live a normal, happy life.
She grabbed my chin. ‘If you try to leave, you know what I’ll do.’
She opened the door and got out of the car without another word. I gawked at the car door as it banged shut. She had taken the gun with her. I scrabbled with my door handle, but the door was locked. I tried her door, the two back doors: all were locked.
Mother marched up to the house and hammered on the door with her fist. In her free hand she held the gun down by her side. She didn’t even try to hide the weapon. She looked back, her eyes warning me. I watched, fearful for the man even though he was a pig. He didn’t have a clue about Emma’s whereabouts.
When there was no answer, she pounded on the door again. Five times, louder than before. She waited, foot tapping the ground. After only a short wait, she raised the gun and smashed the door with the thick end. The door held despite her efforts, so she aimed the gun at the door and fired. The explosion made the car windows vibrate. If the man was asleep before, he had to be awake now. Mother staggered back, reeling from the shock of the gun, dust and debris flying into her face. She coughed and dragged the back of her hand across her eyes. Without a backward glance, she kicked down the door and strode into the house.
I heard distant shouting. A man and a woman. Him and Mother. I looked at the window beside my face then at the back seats. Mother’s winter coat lay in the back. I grabbed it, wrapped it around my right elbow, turned to face the headrest and knelt up on the seat. Raising my elbow high, I pulled my arm back from the glass, gripping one fist in the other, took a deep breath and rammed my elbow as hard as I could into the passenger window. Pain ricocheted up my arm and I cried out. Breathing slowly and deeply, allowing the pain to ebb a little, I drew my arm up again, counted down from three then smashed my elbow into the glass again. This time a tiny crack the size of my thumbnail splintered the centre of the window. Fighting waves of pain and nausea, I turned around, wrapped the coat around my other elbow, closed my eyes and aimed my left elbow into the crack. Groaning with pain, I gritted my teeth and hit the window again, but it didn’t shatter. I sank down onto my knees and hugged myself, breathing through the stabbing pains in my arms. My eyes fell on the door, on a handle of sorts. I grabbed the handle and pushed it down and around; the window slid down a notch. My heart leapt and I turned the handle again, unwinding the window some more. I turned faster, unwinding the window as far as it would go. I unravelled the coat from my elbow and threw it onto the driver’s seat. Stealing a glance at the broken front door of the house, I crawled through the window head first, the top of the window digging into my stomach. Stretching out my arms to the ground, I wriggled forward, lowering my upper body and performing a handstand of sorts in an effort to extract the rest of my body from the car.
Before I could get to my feet, Mother’s voice rang out: ‘Mirabelle, stop.’
I turned. Mother pushed the man to his knees in front of her. He looked at me through swollen, bruised eyes. Blood poured out of his nostrils onto his stained vest. He swayed on his knees then threw up over his own lap. The stink of vomit filled the air.
‘You saw this girl,’ Mother said, waving the gun at me, ‘and another one. A smaller girl. Emma. Where is she now? What have you done with
her?’
She pointed the gun at the back of his head. His eyes rolled. He groaned and wiped his mouth with his hand.
‘Tell me, Derek, or I’ll put a fucking bullet in your thick head.’
Derek tried to turn to look at her and she kicked him hard in the back, sending him forward onto all fours. He grunted and shook his head. Saliva dripped from his mouth onto the dirt. With difficulty he pushed himself onto his knees.
‘Please don’t hurt me, Mrs,’ he slurred, ‘I’ve got a kid.’
‘Tell me about Emma.’
There was nothing I could do but stand there and watch. Derek seemed to be trying to find the right words. He frowned and wiped his nose, smearing blood across his cheek. Tears dripped down his cheeks.
‘I don’t know no Emma.’
‘The little girl she left here a few hours ago. You know exactly who I’m talking about. Tell me or I will shoot you.’
Derek dropped his head and closed his eyes. He went very still and for a terrifying moment I thought he was dead, thought fear had killed him. Stopped his heart. Then his whole body jerked and he threw up again.
The air swelled with the sickly-sweet scent of vomit. My insides recoiled and I shifted my gaze from Derek to Mother. In the dimly lit yard she looked like a scarecrow, her straw-coloured hair sticking out at disturbing angles, her dark eyes staring blankly, unseeingly, and her skeletal body looking as if it had been frozen in time. For too long she stood there, unmoving, unblinking, the silence stretching on and up into the eternity of the space above our heads, into the stars, beyond the stars. She was all-powerful in that moment. Derek and I were nothing. She abruptly tilted her head to the side. Her eyes caught the light from the house and glinted. She smiled a smile that did not meet her eyes and then she fired a bullet into Derek’s head.
I didn’t scream. I was too shocked to scream or move or breathe. I stared as Derek’s face exploded into a million pieces and his body dropped to the ground like a stone. I stared as she walked over to me and guided me to the car, opened the passenger door, reached inside and placed the shotgun on the back seat. I stared as she sat me down. Stared as she strapped the safety belt around me then got behind the wheel. Stared as she drove away, face calm, hands calm, movements fluid. I stared the whole drive back to the cottage, unable to think anything except for the same four words over and over and over again.
Chapter 36
Mother was a killer. She’d shot Derek in the head and not even winced when she’d done it. She’d driven back to the cottage with the radio on, humming along to an upbeat song with a queer smile on her lips as though nothing had ever happened. As if Derek was still alive. As if both she and I weren’t covered with his blood. As if we were a normal, happy mother and daughter going for a drive in the dark.
She hadn’t said anything to me when we’d pulled up outside the cottage. She’d turned off the engine, exited the car, opened my door and lifted me out. I hadn’t protested as she had carried me like a baby into the cottage. Hadn’t protested when she’d injected me with some kind of drug and put me in my bed and locked my bedroom door.
Morning had come and gone. I lay on my back in bed, head and limbs heavy. I stared at the ceiling, glanced at the door. She’d left the house about an hour ago.
The silence and gloom seemed to consume me. I lifted my arms, let them drop back onto the mattress. Everything felt so heavy, so difficult. Pointless.
Patrick needs your help.
There was that nagging voice again. From behind that voice came a stranger’s voice. The voice of a person called D. H. Lawrence who had written the poem ‘Self-Pity’, a poem that I had found in one of Mother’s poetry books. The voice was harsh and angry: I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
I said the words out loud, testing them on my tongue. Then I screamed Patrick’s name as loudly as I could and listened. There was no response. How long had it been since Mother had stabbed him? I couldn’t work it out. The mathematical part of my brain seemed to be wading through the drugs, unable to perform as well as normal. I shouted his name again and again and again, listening in between each call and hearing nothing in return. I pushed myself out of bed and swivelled around to touch the floor with my bandaged feet. My entire body ached. I stood up and walked to the door, tried the handle. It was locked. She would be more careful from now on. Now that she knew I could not be trusted. Perfect, obedient Mirabelle was gone, replaced by naughty, rebellious Polly Dalton. In Mother’s mind, I was untrustworthy and crazy, but she was the crazy one. She was the killer.
Needles trickled across my shoulders. I forced my thoughts away from Derek’s headless body onto the here and now. If Patrick was still alive I could not just sit here and do nothing. Mother was out. This was my chance.
I turned my back to the locked door and surveyed the small room, looking at it with new eyes. I had no tools with which to prise the wooden boards from the windows and no weapon of any obvious kind. I walked over to my desk. A small black pot held my pens and pencils, a sharpener and a ruler. I picked up a pen, made a stabbing motion with it. I imagined stabbing Mother and my insides clenched.
Despite the warmth of the room, cold chilled my bones. I pulled off the bloodstained brown dress and changed into a black doll dress with scarlet roses embroidered over the chest. I hated to wear one of her doll dresses again, but I had to get away from the blood.
The dress was so tight that I could barely draw breath, so I reached up behind my neck and ripped a tear down the back of the dress. The tearing sound was intensely satisfying. I stood in front of the mirror and craned my head round to look at the damage I had done to the dress. Mother would be mad, but if things went my way, she would have little chance to react to what I’d done. I pulled on a fresh pair of knickers and a pair of black tights that I found in the back of the wardrobe. My body grew warm. Panic fluttered in my chest as I turned my attention back to the pot of pens and pencils.
I sat down at the desk and began to write a letter to my real parents, Jane and Peter Dalton. I wrote the word ‘Dear’ then paused, unsure what to call them. They were my mother and father, but it seemed odd to use those words. It seemed too familiar, yet they were my family. They were my real mother and father. I thought about the police. They would probably be first to find the letter, which meant I had to make it very clear who the letter was addressed to. I scrunched up the paper and grabbed a fresh sheet. This time I began ‘Dear Jane and Peter’. Tears filled my eyes. I told myself not to over-think the words.
I wrote for two hours. Wrote until I heard the car pull up to the cottage.
I folded the letter up and tucked it down inside my tights, wrapping it around the bandage on my right foot.
She was back.
I grabbed my fountain pen, lay down on the bed and dug my teeth into my left wrist, tasting blood.
Chapter 37
I heard rather than saw Mother open the door. She stepped into the room. The door creaked and knocked against the wall.
Mother didn’t move towards the bed. I caught a faint whiff of orange-blossom moisturizer.
‘Mirabelle?’ her voice was quiet.
I managed not to flinch when she took a step forward. I kept my eyes closed and focused on listening to her movements.
‘Mirabelle?’
I tried to breathe with as little chest movement as possible. She took another step closer and a small cry burst from her lips. She mumbled something about blood. So much blood. She was crying. She was crying for me. My resolve wavered. I reminded myself what she had done to Patrick, Dot and Derek. How she had kidnapped Emma and me. How she would never stop unless someone made her stop.
Something clattered to the floor and I jumped. Keys. She had dropped her keys.
‘Mirabelle? Mirabelle!’
She rushed forward suddenly. I opened my eyes and sat up as she bent over me. Bringing my right hand over her arched back,
I stabbed the fountain pen into her left shoulder. She screamed. Her eyes widened and she grabbed at me as I crawled past her. I fell to the floor and she seized my ankle and dragged me backwards as I fought to claw forward. I kicked out and caught her in the face. She roared but released my foot, and I pushed myself up and ran out of the room.
I flew down the stairs and tried the front door, which was locked. I ran into the kitchen. Patrick’s body was gone. The floor was clean too. I opened a drawer, but hands seized me from behind. I cried out as she threw me into the kitchen table. My stomach smashed against wood, and fire exploded in my tummy. I dropped to my knees and began to crawl away, blinded by tears of pain, not knowing which way I was headed.
Mother grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me to my feet. She yanked my head back, exposing my throat, and smiled down at me. Blood soaked her blouse and the ends of her hair.
‘You conniving girl,’ she spat.
She seized the wrist that I’d bitten and looked at it then threw my hand away and shook her head bitterly.
‘You’re nothing to me any more. I’ve given you chance after chance and now this!’
She yanked out a chair and shoved me onto the wooden seat.
‘Don’t move,’ she said, nostrils flaring.
She opened a drawer and pulled out a knife. Turning around, she glared at me. She sat down opposite me and lunged forward, positioning the knife behind my right ear.
‘What do you do with a broken doll?’ she said, tilting her head. Her eyes looked black. They had taken on that faraway look.
I didn’t move. I stared at the table. Shakes overtook my body; I shook so violently that the table vibrated.
Silent tears ran down her cheeks and she looked at me with something like pity. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to give you what you’ve always wanted.’