Love Me to Death

by Susan Gee

  He rested the thick plastic bag on the palm of his hand, and moved closer, closer and closer to the boy’s face. Somewhere in the distance the sound of a siren hung in the air and the boy’s eye twitched. Mr Anderson moved fast. He pressed the bag hard over his nose and mouth. The boy struggled, inhaling plastic, as Mr Anderson pushed down, pressing the bag harder over his mouth. He tried to kick out, but he was trapped under the cardboard.

  Mr Anderson allowed him to fall in and out of consciousness as he worked. The remains of the tent were the brightest yellow and Mr Anderson thought of the sun over Cage Hill on that beautiful day. He remembered endless sky on every side and a green patchwork of fields and trees below. The thick grasses peppered with brown seeds and the pale dead ones that rattled like shafts of corn. He thought about the words, ‘Vive Hodié’ engraved into the sundial on the tower as he pushed the knife through the cardboard. He pulled out the knife, he grabbed a handful of his hair and started to cut. As he stared into his eyes, he felt a rush – the greatest rush – and then peace.

  24

  Jacob was woken by the sound of the sleet against the window. The slate-grey night cast shadows on the floor of the bedroom and he followed the moonlight to the door and saw what looked like two dark lines underneath it. He pulled the cover to his chest and glanced at the clock: five in the morning.

  The floorboard creaked and he waited for her to come in, but she didn’t. There was the sound of a toilet flush and a door slam and then another sound, but from outside, coming from the garden.

  The shadow was just from the open curtain and Jacob rubbed his eyes and sat up with the covers against him.

  His back was hot with sweat as he stared at the crack underneath the door and waited for it to come back, but it didn’t. An orange light moved across the room as a car passed by and it made him feel better, as though he wasn’t alone. He sat up in the bed. Perhaps he was just imagining things, but he stayed facing the crack in the door. He watched the clock until the hands were on five, while sleep circled the ceiling above him, just out of reach. He opened the curtain and looked outside.

  The light had started to come in through the window and there was a loud bang from outside. He went to the window. His tired eyes found it hard to make out the detail at first, but he could just about see the silhouette of a person at the back of the garden. Mr Anderson was out there, his face looking straight up at the moon. He grinned at the sky as though he was looking up at the sunshine on a beautiful day. It felt as though Jacob was seeing something he shouldn’t. As though this was a private moment that he’d intruded on. He’d already heard his car coming and going tonight.

  Jacob moved back from the window and grabbed the sheet to pull around him. He rubbed his eyes and wondered if he had imagined it. He didn’t want to look out again in case he saw him. Or worse, see that he’d moved up the garden and was underneath his window.

  He went under the covers and was glad that the curtains were closed. Somewhere outside he was sure he could hear the sound of Mr Anderson’s laughter from the back of the garden.

  25

  The snow glittered over the Cheshire Plains as Joyce Taylor and her partner stood at the bottom of Cage Hill. Above them the building they called The Cage towered over them, the sandstone bricks glinting with the coating of last night’s snow. The avenue of lime trees by the great house was heavy with snow and the view on every side was white, as far as the eye could see.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Joyce Taylor said as she looked down at the little figure on the ground.

  ‘Sick bastard,’ Harry replied, with a look of disgust at the doll near his feet.

  The tiny figure stared out across the hills. The ice crystals on its clay face made it look like it had been coated in glitter and the thick black hair was stuck out in tufts from the clay.

  ‘Do you think it’s a copy of the other one?’ Harry said.

  Joyce looked at the piece of yellow material that had been neatly stitched around it.

  ‘It’s the same. Look at it.’

  Harry shuddered. ‘It gives me the creeps. Do you think that’s real hair?’

  ‘Yep.’

  The snow had fallen thickly over the last couple of days and any footprints were long gone. It was going to be difficult to find anything.

  Joyce Taylor sighed. Her breath hung in the air above them. She felt like turning around to walk back up the long pathway and out of Lyme Park.

  ‘Why’s it in a blanket?’

  Joyce frowned as she looked at the figure in the snow, wrapped up in a yellow piece of material.

  ‘How should I know?’

  Harry’s nose wrinkled. ‘I wonder if there’s more.’

  ‘Doesn’t bear thinking about,’ she replied. ‘Why here though?’

  ‘Maybe it’s someone who works at the park.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Harry glanced through the trees towards the road. The car park was further down the hill near Lyme Hall. It was a big estate, 1300 acres. Big enough for someone to take off in any direction.

  ‘We need to check up there.’ She nodded up towards The Cage, but Harry walked around the side of the building.

  Joyce looked up at the sundial on the top of the old hunting lodge with the words ‘Vive Hodié’ etched in sandstone along the top. A dark shadow fell from the black metal sundial and she inadvertently shivered.

  ‘I’ll go up to the car park,’ he said.

  Joyce let him go.

  ‘You coming?’ he shouted back to her.

  She shook her head and turned her back on the doll. There was no point in checking the car park, she could see from here that it was empty, but she let him. He might come up with something.

  ‘Have a word with the ticket guy,’ she shouted, as he made his way down the hill.

  ‘OK, I’ll grab us a brew on the way back.’

  Joyce made her way around the side of the hill. The team had already taped off the area and she wanted to go higher up before the snow started again. It was hard to get up through the undergrowth and the sticks scattered on the ground.

  At the top she could see the groups of people busy with their work. It felt weird that they’d put up an area around the doll. The whole thing wasn’t normal though. The thing sitting there in the snow reminded her of the shrunken heads she’d seen in a museum as a child. Her parents had insisted they weren’t real, but she hadn’t been convinced. They’d given her the creeps, the same way that this did now. Looking out over the distant snowy hills, she knew this wasn’t going to stop until they were caught. Whoever it was must have a taste for it now. The yellow material that the doll had been sewn into was the only colour on the white landscape.

  The snow had come down in drifts. She hadn’t seen anything like it for years and they said there was more to come. It made everything difficult, but without the woman who’d come sledging with her kids this morning they wouldn’t have found this; it couldn’t have been there for longer than a day. If it had been there any longer the snow would have covered it. Two lines that ran down the hill on the compacted snow were still visible from the route that the kid had taken straight past it. She was glad that it had been the mother who found it and not the child. It was the thing of nightmares.

  The old hunting lodge they called The Cage was bigger than it looked from the road. She remembered it from being a kid. They said it was haunted and the black windows unnerved her still. The place was iconic. It was where walkers headed to for the views. People would trudge up the hill along the well-trodden path towards the Elizabethan building. It was an easy route for families and dog walkers. Joyce Taylor knew that whoever put their weird little dolls up here wasn’t afraid of them being found.

  As she walked over the snow, she trod on a twig that broke under her shoe. The ground was compacted and frozen. She was aware that there could be footprints frozen underneath a new covering of snow that had come in the night. She dreaded to think what else they would find up here when the snow sta
rted to melt.

  26

  The next time that Jacob went to the library, the shelves had changed around. Jacob clutched his drawings and swallowed.

  ‘We’ve moved things,’ said a voice from behind him.

  ‘I don’t know where anything is.’

  ‘Nature’s better over here, I thought. Near the desk where you like to sit.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Mr Anderson nodded to the little desk. ‘I put that in there too. In case anyone needed a quiet space to work in. It’s got good light and Noreen can’t complain then.’

  When he said her name, he grimaced. Jacob nodded. It felt odd seeing him after the other night in the garden. He’d seemed like a different person then and Jacob wondered if it had been real. He had been so tired that he’d fallen straight back to sleep again and it felt like it was a dream, maybe it had been. He’d been getting odd thoughts lately, thoughts of Jayne and thoughts of his mother. He didn’t like to think about where he might end up.

  ‘You can set up here whenever you want to.’

  Mr Anderson patted the bookcase to the left. ‘Oh, and I moved Calculus. It’s not very popular. Whoever uses the desk won’t get bothered too much. Crime’s over on the far side now.’ He nodded towards the desk where an old woman had her back to them.

  ‘Right. I’ll carry on.’

  Jacob walked over to the little desk and his face dropped when he saw the sign ‘reserved space.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Mr Anderson nodded. ‘Yeah, just put that back on it when you’re done. It’s reserved for you.’

  Jacob looked back at him wanting to say thank you. He didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Maybe one day you’ll show me some of your drawings,’ Mr Anderson said to him, looking down at the big black folder he had under his arm.

  Jacob’s face dropped. He’d only ever trusted Maggie with that. He felt like they had a connection though, they knew things about each other. He wanted to mention what he’d seen, but he thought about what his mum had told him about the badgers and how he should be kind to his neighbour, because he was different to other people.

  ‘I’m not much good,’ Jacob said.

  ‘I’m sure you are. I can’t draw.’

  ‘You’re good at watching though,’ Jacob told him.

  Mr Anderson’s face changed.

  ‘The badgers.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I know you’ve been watching them. My mum told me how much you like animals. She told me you went out at night to see them. It’s OK I haven’t told anyone else.’

  Jacob wondered if he’d said too much. Mr Anderson probably didn’t like the idea of someone knowing what he did, but he was curious. He saw Mr Anderson look up to the side and wondered if he was remembering the other night when he’d been sitting by the curtains and had seen him come in through his secret gate.

  ‘That’s why you followed me that time? Because of what your mum said?’

  ‘People hunt them, don’t they? That’s why you go out the back way,’ Jacob asked.

  ‘You’ve seen me?’

  ‘I won’t tell. Not even Maggie.’ Jacob bit his lip.

  ‘You’re good at keeping secrets. I can tell.’

  ‘I’ve never seen a badger in real life,’ Jacob told him.

  ‘They mate for life. Live in big communities like a family.’

  Jacob nodded. ‘Right.’

  ‘In India, honey badgers have been known to dig up corpses. They’re carnivores. Can you imagine?’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  Mr Anderson smiled and gestured at the books around him. ‘It’s all in here. You’d be surprised.’

  ‘I’m going to read up about them.’ Jacob tried to smile. He wondered if Mr Anderson didn’t trust him enough to show him where the badgers were. His mum used to take round a slice of cake for him sometimes; she had felt sorry for him. There was still something about Mr Anderson that he wasn’t sure about though. He was probably just being paranoid. He should trust him, but it was hard to see him like his mum used to. He probably just wasn’t as kind as her. But something told him not to, even though he knew that it was wrong.

  ‘Oh, and no eating in the library,’ Mr Anderson told him, as an old woman came closer. ‘I’ll have my eye on you, young man.’

  The old lady narrowed her eyes and smiled at Mr Anderson as if to say, you tell them.

  He smiled at him when the old woman had turned away. Jacob thought it looked odd the way he’d done it. It wasn’t natural, but then his neighbour wasn’t like other people. He was an odd-bod as his mum used to say. He wasn’t your average Joe, but then neither was Jacob. He knew that about himself. No matter how much he wanted to be, he wasn’t average either.

  *

  The next morning the wind carried the sound of the traffic through Jacob’s open window. There had been nothing from the garden last night. Next door had been quiet and he hadn’t even heard the gate click. He opened the drawer at the side of his bed and got out his drawings. As he laid them out, he stared at the face he’d so carefully re-created. As he’d drawn the lips he had almost felt them against his. Some of the pictures were wrapped in one of his old T-shirts so that none could find it, but this one was never finished. He ran his finger over the edge of the paper. The face of Maggie looked back at him from the table. Touching the picture connected him again. It didn’t matter what she thought about him and it didn’t matter what his stepmother said, or who mocked him. This was his, and that mattered more than anything else.

  On the top were the pictures of Maggie that he’d cut out of the local newspaper. They were taken outside the theatre to advertise the new pantomime. She was so beautiful and yet he could tell that her smile was fake. He knew her too well; he knew everything about her. Throughout school he’d sat on the desk behind her and stared at her long-plaited hair, watched her play netball and seen her grow up. Since her cousin’s death they might not have seen each other much, but he still knew her better than anyone else. He knew that he always would do too. They understood what each other were thinking.

  She was the only one who understood what it was like after his mum left. After she’d gone, Maggie drank warm lemonade with him on the front doorstep and they watched the road as though his mother had just gone to the shops and would be back any time. She never told him to go inside and he never told her that he knew she wasn’t coming back. They both just understood that he wanted to sit there. He wondered if that was the day he fell in love with her. It felt like he’d always been in love with her. They were meant to be together. That’s all he knew.

  As the floorboard creaked on the landing, he put the picture face down.

  ‘Is it still a mess in there?’ his stepmother asked through the door. ‘Locking yourself away like a crazy person isn’t good for you. Isolating yourself from your family. Isn’t that what she used to do?’

  His stepmother always used the word ‘she’ to talk about his mother. As though her name couldn’t be spoken out loud. Paula didn’t know anything about family. The word didn’t even sound right on her lips.

  His dad used to tell him how much he looked like his mother when he laughed. Sometimes he’d tilt his head as though he could see her in his smile. His stepmother stiffened every time it happened. He only got compared to her bad side now and the laughter was rare.

  He needed to see Maggie. It had been too long and Maggie was the only one that he could rely on. She was the only one that could make everything feel better again.

  I need to tell her, he thought.

  He could hear his mother in his head telling him, ‘I only ever wanted the best for you.’

  I know you did, he thought, but why did you have to leave me? Why did you have to let it all go wrong? He wanted a future, but as he heard the sound of Paula going downstairs, he knew that he could never escape her. She would never let him forget what his mother became. The past had made him everything he was and no matter how hard he ran he could never
shake it.

  Jacob put his drawings back in the drawer and made sure that they were underneath the clothes where they were before. He thought of his mother, as the snow came down outside. He hated the fact that his stepmother had got into his head because he did worry about becoming like his mother. He worried about it all the time. He had his mother’s looks while his sister had his dad’s. It was there inside him too. He didn’t want to end up just a shell of a person. As he lay on the bed there was a coldness and yet, also a warmth in remembering her. The way she laughed. The times she’d take his hand in hers and walk him to the shops to buy cakes on a Saturday. She wasn’t always the way she was when they took her away. In another time she was perfect – she was always kind. She had the softest hands.

  He knew that Paula would leave him alone tonight. His dad was back from work and she didn’t bother him when he was in. She wasn’t going to upset what she’d got. She’d dug in like a tick and was feeding off them all. He opened the window and closed his eyes. As the world slipped into darkness, he thought about Maggie and how she was the only one he could talk to; now that she wasn’t here, he had too many thoughts in his head. He imagined her sitting next to him on the bed and listening to everything he had to say, and when he woke up, she was gone. It was cold. It was so very cold.

  There was something running down his face. As he stared up into the clear black night at the stars, he thought of only two people. He thought of Maggie. If Maggie were here, she’d laugh, tell him to stop being soft. She’d drag him up and run off towards home with her beautiful long hair bouncing behind her. Then he thought of his mother. He could see her face so clearly and hear her voice. Every laugh line on her face and her hands as she cupped his face. The cold crept up through his body and out again. The snow had come in through the window and made a wet puddle on the windowsill.