by Abby Davies
‘It’s not lies,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘It’s the truth. You kidnapped me ten years ago, then two weeks ago you took Emma. You know that’s the truth.’
‘No! You lie. You’re evil, just like Olivia. As soon as age claimed you, you changed, just like she did. First, you hid things from me, then you snuck behind my back, and then you tried to manipulate Clarabelle into liking you more than me and having vile thoughts about me, exactly like Olivia did with Grandfather.’
She laughed nastily. ‘Well, it came back to haunt her, didn’t it? When he finally succumbed to his darkest urges and acted on them, she came running to me – begged me to help her, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. She didn’t deserve my help. She did it to herself. She ruined my life.
‘And then,’ her breath hitched and her eyes shone with madness, ‘then, she got pregnant and instead of having the baby and giving it to someone like me who would love and care for it and give it everything it needed, she got an abortion. She killed her own baby.’
She clutched her stomach as if in pain. Misery dragged down her features.
I shook my head. ‘She needed your help. She was only twelve when he started hurting her. You could have helped her. Even though she was mean to you, you should have helped her. You knew what was happening and you did nothing. You could have told someone. Anyone. She was too scared to speak up. She told you because she needed your help.’
She acted like she hadn’t heard me. ‘Rotten. That’s what she is. That’s what you all are.’ Her eyes became glittering jewels of black hatred and she advanced quickly.
‘Get back!’ I screamed, but she kept coming, moving faster, holding the knife high so that it caught the light.
‘You have to be punished. You were never going to learn your lesson; I see that now.’
She lunged forward with an unearthly scream that echoed round us. The knife came. Long and lethal. The knife she used to slice through raw meat.
I threw myself to the side, hit ground, saw momentum carry her forward then down, down, down into the place I remembered.
Her body thwacked hard earth and I thought I heard bones crack. She gave a bitter, twisted screech.
I rolled onto my hands and knees and crawled to the edge of the hole. It was deeper than Mother was tall. Cube-like in shape, its steep walls were formed out of dark soil. She lay on her side on a bed of green and yellow leaves, her greasy hair snaking out around her head like Medusa’s serpents in the myth. Both of her legs were bent at awkward angles. The knife was planted in her thigh. Blood bloomed and spread around her like lava on snow, puddled in the leaves and seeped into the soil. She looked like a bleeding scarecrow. She stared up at me, eyes glistening, and raised one arm.
‘Mirabelle, please help me. Please help Mother. Mother needs you. Mother loves you.’
Tears filled my eyes.
I turned to go.
‘Mirabelle! Don’t you dare! Come back! Help me! Help Mother!’
I turned back and looked down at her crumpled body and dark, crazed eyes. More blood oozed from her leg onto the fallen leaves, turning them black.
I sighed. In a low, steady voice I said, ‘My name’s not Mirabelle and you’re not my mother.’
Chapter 48
I edged away from the hole and collapsed.
For a long time – too long – I knelt on the damp soil and stared at a tree, my body racked with shivers. Mother continued to cry for my help. I put my hands over my ears and rocked back and forth and attempted to block out her voice, but it was useless.
When I thought I could stand without passing out, I pushed myself to my feet and turned my back on her. I tried to ignore her screams, but they chased me like thunder, rolling closer and closer as I stumbled further and further away.
With screams ringing in my ears, I moved on, running, knowing I had to be quick. Olivia was bleeding. She was also starving. If I didn’t help her reach a hospital soon, she was going to die.
My body shook all over. My knees wobbled and my heart throbbed, but I kept moving. I didn’t look back even though she still called to me, her voice echoing through the wood like a howling spirit, tempting me to return.
But I wouldn’t go back and help her out of the hole. I needed to move on. I needed to get back to the garden and help Olivia.
I paused to catch my breath and leaned against an upturned tree. Mother’s voice stopped abruptly. I exhaled with relief then sucked in a breath; was she dead? Visions flitted through my mind. Had an animal jumped into the hole? Was it tearing her to pieces? Was it eating her alive? Patrick had said there weren’t wolves in England any more, but there were bound to be other creatures stalking the woods. Creatures turned mad by hunger. Creatures starving enough to feast on a helpless human being.
I tried to swallow and saliva stuck on my tongue. It was like I’d forgotten how to swallow. Panic bit and I tried to relax my mouth. I tried again and this time it worked and saliva slithered down my throat.
I looked back and strained my ears for her voice, but the trees were thick with silence. Dusk melted them into each other, creating a ghostly army dressed in grey. I swallowed with difficulty. Imagined a badger tearing a chunk of flesh out of Mother’s hand – a hand that had stroked my head when I was poorly. A hand that had kept me clean and fed for years.
I bowed my head as memory after memory of me and Mother swept through my mind. She was crazy, yes, but for years she had taken care of me. For years she had been my mother.
I didn’t want to face her again, but I couldn’t let her die down there. Not like that. I knew I’d never forgive myself.
I pushed myself off the tree and looked back the way I’d come. Though pale grey, there was still enough light to see the way. I scanned the ground and spotted a large branch. Whether it was big enough to fend off an animal, I didn’t know, but it was better than a nail.
Knowing speed was important, I ran back through the trees, eyes darting up and down, heart frantic. I couldn’t believe I was going back to help her, but I knew I had to. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t. And I couldn’t let myself become like her. She hadn’t helped Olivia because Olivia had been horrible to her, but she should have helped her when she was at her weakest. If she’d helped her, everything might have turned out differently.
Besides, she didn’t pose any threat any more, so the least I could do was help her out of the hole then give her something to protect herself with while I went to help Olivia.
It didn’t take long to reach the hole. I crept up to the edge and peered down.
She was gone.
Chapter 49
Spiders’ legs crawled across my neck. I scanned the silvery trees. Listened. The wood lay silent and still. Shivers criss-crossed my spine. I looked back down at the hole. Blood darkened the leaves and soil, turning the ground purple-black. One side of the cube-shaped well had caved in a little, its wall crumbling and full of stab marks.
She must have pulled the knife out of her leg then used it to help drag herself up and out of the hole.
A trail of blood led away from the hole, further into the woods. I followed the path as far as I could with my eyes, but it was soon swallowed by shadows.
I wondered how she had the strength to haul herself out of the ground like that. Her legs had been bent at strange angles; I’d thought they were broken, but they obviously weren’t. I bit my lip, annoyed that I’d wasted time going back to help her.
I looked down. I’d dropped the branch. I picked it up. If Mother came after me, I could use the branch to defend myself, but I doubted that she would have the energy to do more than sit and wait for help. I told myself to relax; it was good she was out of the hole – she could defend herself from wild animals much better now, but she was too weak to come after me, too injured to do anything but crawl. She was harmless.
For a moment, I hesitated, stunned by the calmness of my thoughts. Despite everything, I was using logic to survive. I thought about my trick with the tights and smi
led; how clever of me to come up with something like that.
Hope lifted my shoulders and I ran away from the hole, back towards the cottage. I had made it this far – I could make it to the end. I could help Olivia reach a hospital and I could make it to the police. I wouldn’t give up. I would keep going until I found my parents. My real parents. Jane and Peter Dalton. My MUMMY and DADDY. The words sounded so special. So magical – like they ought to be written in capital letters.
Fear nibbled and gnawed when I thought about how they might react to me, but an explosion of happiness came when I imagined seeing them. At the same time, my need to see them was so strong I worried my heart would pop out of my chest and fly into the sky like the kites in Mary Poppins.
As I weaved in and out of the trees, I entertained myself with exciting questions. Did I look like them? Did I have my mummy’s nose and my daddy’s eyes? I’d always thought how unlike Mother I looked. In books, sons and daughters usually resembled their parents in some way or other … it had been another clue that I had missed. Another clue that she had not been my real mother.
What would have happened if I had realized earlier, when I was nine or ten? Would I have known what to do?
No. You’d have done or said something stupid and she’d have punished you. Badly.
It was a horrible thought. One that made me feel sorry for my younger self. I had been so trusting, so willing to believe her lies. It also made me think that it was just as well I hadn’t realized the truth until now. Though I had never stepped foot outside the cottage until recently, I had read and learned enough of the outside world to survive. If I had escaped sooner, I probably wouldn’t have known how to cope in the real world. And now I was free, and I was going to see my real parents for the first time in ten years.
Excitement bubbled up inside me. I ran on and jerked to a stop as a black board slid down over every happy thought. It was Patrick. Patrick’s body.
I glanced around and saw a large leaf. I picked it up and placed it gently over his face, shivering as I did, unable to look at him. A sweet-sick smell filled the air around his body. Flies buzzed. I stumbled away and headed for the back garden.
‘Olivia? Olivia? It’s me.’
The garden was empty. Nothing but wild, tangled grass filled the space. I hurried over to the door in the ground, knelt down and called her name again. The idea of going back down there was chilling, but if Olivia was still in the hole, I had to get her out.
‘Olivia? Are you in there?’
I heard a groan and looked around. There, sitting on the ground, leaning against the back wall of the cottage, sat Olivia.
I rushed through the high grass and sank to my haunches beside her. She cradled her wounded hand in her lap. Her eyes were pink from crying. This was the first time I’d seen her. She looked like a prettier, skinnier version of Mother. Although I knew it wasn’t her, the similarity of their appearance brought bile to my throat.
‘Can you walk?’ I said.
‘You’re alive,’ she said, ‘I thought you were dead. I thought she was coming back to kill me.’
Her chin trembled and fresh tears trickled down her cheeks. She was milk-white and smelled worse than before, sort of un-human.
‘Come on. I’ll help you walk. We need to get going. She’s injured and I think she’s harmless, but I don’t know where she is.’
I slipped my arm under Olivia’s shoulder blades and almost gasped. Her bones stuck out like shards of glass.
‘Where’re we going?’ she croaked.
‘To the closest house.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s too far. I’ll never make it.’
‘No, it’s not. There’s this farmhouse I found before, Knackers Yard. There’s a telephone inside. We can use that and call the police.’
‘I don’t think I can walk.’
‘You can. Lean on me.’ I helped her stand.
Despite her thinness, I struggled to hold her up. We tottered to the side and almost fell.
‘See?’ she said.
‘You can’t let her win,’ I said, trying to think. ‘There must be a way …’
Her head snapped up. She looked at me, eyes alert. ‘Her car! If we can find her keys, I can drive us to the hospital.’
I frowned. ‘She kept all of her keys on her belt.’
‘But she must have a spare somewhere. Everyone has a spare car key.’
‘OK,’ I said, trying to hide the doubt in my voice. I’d looked for keys before and only found the one that opened Mother’s bedroom door. I thought hard and realized that when Patrick had tried to help us get out of the cottage and I’d searched her bedroom for the front and back door keys, I’d been in a frantic rush and had searched quickly – so quickly that I could have missed a small key. Besides, a lot had happened since then. She could have moved everything around. Maybe there was a spare car key in her bedroom. I concentrated, racked my brain. Other places that seemed likely hiding spots that I’d never searched properly were the attic and Emma’s bedroom.
Thinking about Emma sucked the air out of my lungs. An image of her drowning in mud scuttled around my mind like a black beetle.
‘Polly? We need to move.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, helping her towards the back door.
Dread at going back inside the cottage made me stop. Nausea raced up my throat and saliva pooled on my tongue. I turned away and threw up all over the wall.
Chapter 50
I stared at the back door. It was wide open as if beckoning me back inside. I shook my head at Olivia.
‘It’s going to be OK,’ she said, ‘I’m with you. We’ll be in and out in a matter of minutes.’ She sucked in a sharp breath. Her face trembled.
‘I can’t,’ I said.
‘Polly, look at me. You can. You must. I can’t wait much longer and you can’t leave me in case—’
‘I’ll run. I’ll run as fast as I can to Knackers Yard and call the hospital. I know the way. I know the numbers to press. I’ll be really quick and—’
Tears filled her eyes. She looked up at the sky. I followed her gaze; dark clouds that looked like bruises crowded the very top. Below them sat an orangey-pink colour; a shade so delicate and unusual I couldn’t tear my eyes away. The sun was hidden behind the dark clouds as if scared to come out.
‘What if she comes back and you’re not here to help me?’ Olivia said. ‘I’m too weak to run. I can’t fight her, not in this state. Please. We have to go inside and find her keys. We have to do it now.’
I thought about Mother hurting Olivia, maybe even killing her like she’d killed Patrick and Derek, and my gut churned. A cold sweat broke out over every inch of my skin, but I nodded and helped Olivia up the small step into the kitchen.
As soon as my foot touched the floor, gloom seeped into my mouth, down my throat and deep inside my heart, making it race so fast I thought I was going to pass out.
Sensing my fear, Olivia held my arm and I clung onto her fragile frame. She murmured reassuring things and my feet moved, and then I was guiding her through the room as quickly as possible, somehow managing to stay upright, my gaze locked on the ground, my breathing shallow and fast.
Focusing on my feet, I hurried her down the hallway. We reached the foot of the stairs and Olivia used the banister and my support to drag herself up each step, her grunts of pain and the creaking floorboards creating an unsettling melody that made me shiver.
On the landing, I flicked on the light and led her to Mother’s bedroom. Out of the three rooms where she might be keeping a spare car key, I thought her bedroom was the most likely. She nearly always kept it locked. It might have been to stop me from seeing her crazy doll display, but it also might have been to stop me from finding any other keys. Or something else too horrible to name.
To my surprise, her bedroom was unlocked. I realized she’d probably stopped bothering to lock it when she moved me into the hole in the back garden.
I tried Emma’s old room and that too was u
nlocked.
‘I can kneel on the floor and search through drawers and behind things,’ Olivia said. ‘As long as I’m not standing, I think I’ll be able to help look for the key.’
‘OK. You look in here. I’ll look in Mother’s room. If we don’t find it in either of those, I’ll have to look in the attic. And if I don’t find it up there, we’ll have to look downstairs.’
It was a struggle to speak without crying. My body seemed to have frozen, making my movements stiff and jerky. I knew it was because I was back inside the cottage. Back in the dark. Back outside Mother’s bedroom.
She nodded and I left her kneeling in Emma’s room rummaging through the drawers of the little white desk, looking as though she might faint at any moment.
I paused, took a breath and wiped sweat from my forehead. I didn’t want to be in the cottage again. I definitely didn’t want to go back inside Mother’s most private place. A place that could contain more horrific displays of craziness that would stay in my head for the rest of my life.
‘Hurry!’ Olivia’s voice was quiet but urgent.
I jumped, exhaled a shivery breath and entered the room.
Chapter 51
I tried not to breathe in the scent of her, but the smell found a way in. Orange-blossom soaked into my skin, drifted into my eyes and oozed up my nose. It was like a toxic mist with a mind of its own. I could taste her, feel her presence in the room even though she wasn’t there.
I dry-heaved then dropped to my knees, lay on my front and edged as close to the bed as possible. With trembling fingers I lifted the valance and peered underneath. Unlike before, I took my time and scanned every part of the space. When darkness prevented me from seeing further, I crawled around to the side of the bed and checked under there. I moved to the back of the bed and there, tucked right at the back against the wall, was a small box. I couldn’t believe my luck. I lay on my front again and stretched my arm under. My fingers hit the edge of the box, but I was too far away to pull it towards me. I turned my face and pressed my cheek to the carpet. Like that, I could wriggle under and get hold of the box.