My head snaps up. “Dead?”
“Yup.” He sighs, shaking his head. “Dumb fucking kids. Everyone knows that quarry’s a death trap.”
“Who was it?”
Paul shrugs. His face is drawn tight. “Don’t know. Just some kid, I heard. Probably trying to cool off in this bleddy heat.”
I think of Tuff Shit saying“coming to set your hair on fire,”his face creased with tears. Buzz Cut with his thick neck and flat, mean face. I feel that worry again, deep-set and squirming in me like a clew of worms. I rub my hand over my dry lips.
“Can you find out who they are?”
Paul nods. He appears disinterested, nonchalant, but I think it’s an act. I think he’s thinking the same thing I am. Anotherone of Alice’s tormenters has gone. I close the notebook and turn to the dresser, pulling open the top drawer, the one Lisa seemed to try to hide from view when she found me the map. I forgot about that moment till now and then I see what’s in there, and I understand. I reach in and pull out a clump of letters, held together with an elastic band. The first morning we were here, Lisa told us the phone had gone down but I think she was skirting the truth there. It hadn’t gone down, it had been cut off. All these envelopes are official-looking, markedIMPORTANTorFINAL REMINDERorDO NOT IGNORE. I pick up one of them and readLegal Action Has Commencedthrough the little plastic window.
“Shit,” I hear myself say. I remember Paul saying“desperation makes you inventive,”and my stomach sinks. Just for a moment I entertained the idea that this could have been a genuine haunting—that long pale hand I thought I saw retreating into the chimney, the way Alice spoke about Maggie, that clicking in the back of her throat like insects building a nest there. Just for a moment I allowed myself to consider the possibility that it was real—because if itwasreal that meant Eddie might be out there, somewhere. But these bills, this desperation. That changes everything.
I give the batteries to Alice who takes them gratefully, sliding the headphones up over her head with a look of silent relief. I brush my teeth and change into my pajamas, climbing into Tamsin’s empty bed with theGarfieldcovers and array of small stuffed toys beneath the pillow. Even though it’s nearly ten, it isn’t quite full dark and in the dusky light I can just make out Alice sprawled on her covers, can hear the muffled beat of her music and her soft regular breathing as she falls asleep. She looks so peaceful that it’s hard to equate her with the same girl who said just hours earlier,“You’re going to die, Mina Ellis.”
I close my eyes and press myself as far back against the wall as I can. Some deep, primal reflex means I am unwilling to turn my back on that fireplace with the black, soot-streaked stains and the holes through which it’s all too easy to imagine a glaring eye staring back out at you. I let my mind drift, returning to Oscar and inevitably to Lucy, the girl with the stud pearl earrings and citrusy perfume who sometimes took rides to work with him in the car. Lucy, who probably knew the right way to hold a lump of meteorite in her hands, who could tell the difference between nebulae and galaxies and who knew that once someone got dead they stayed dead.
I fidget miserably, sadness pressing like a concrete block on my chest. It stung earlier when Paul told me“You don’t know what it’s like to be broke,”because thereisa truth to it, isn’t there? Oscar has a good income, disposable wealth, a long future in an ever-expanding field of study. Without that support I’m going to flounder.
“Flounder,” Mina?that internal voice sneers.Sweetheart, you’re going to fucking drown.
I look down at the engagement ring on my finger. I feel like the coyote in theRoad Runnercartoons who cycles in empty air in the moments before he realizes he’s gone over the edge of a cliff. I reach for a frisson of excitement at the new possibilities opening up for me, the endless small changes I’ll be free to make once I’m single. I’ll be able to take those evening classes I’ve always wanted to do. Pottery maybe, or jewelry making. I’ve always thought I had a creative side, but never explored it. Maybe now is the time.
TapTapTap.
I sit upright, suddenly wide awake. My head turns very slowly toward the fireplace. Alice is asleep, lips parted, hands slightly curled by her head.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
It’s a very deliberate sound. I slide my legs out from under the covers and stand up beside the fireplace, horribly attuned to the slightest noise. My blood roars in my ears, my pulse frantic. I’m almost dizzy with the anticipation.
TapTapTap.
No, not the fireplace. I move toward Alice’s bed, my eyes drifting to the wall above it. I take a couple of steps closer and lean over her carefully, putting my hand on the wall and then pressing my ear up against it, listening. The wallpaper is green with small pink balloons on it. It must have been hung when Alice was younger, before Tamsin was even born, maybe. It feels cool beneath my touch. I curl my fist. I rap back, three times. The tapping comes back right away, urgent, as if they have been waiting for a response.
Taptaptap.
Pause.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Pause.
TapTapTap.
“Are you kidding?” I whisper to myself, almost laughing. “Ess-o-ess? Really?”
Oscar loves Morse code. He actually bought one of the old machines from the Second World War at an auction, displaying it proudly at home. He’s fond of telling anyone who listens that the term “SOS” doesn’t, as is commonly believed, stand for Save Our Souls. It is simply a useful sequence designed to be easy to communicate in an emergency. I pull back from the wall, frowning. That’s Bert and Mary’s house there, I’m sure of it. Could one of them have had an accident? I knock against the wall again but this time there is no reply and when I press my ear to the wall there is no sound at all.
“Shit,” I say, my hands on my hips. I’m going to have to goaround there and check. I glance at my watch as I pull on my jeans, cursing the heat and the knot of anxiety in my stomach, pulling tighter and tighter.
God, I’m so thirsty.My throat feels stripped dry. I reach the bottom of the stairs and turn back toward the kitchen, thinking I might just grab a drink before I go. Might, in fact, just skip using a glass and stick my whole head under the faucet, letting the cold water run right into my open mouth. I push the kitchen door wide and there is a figure sitting there in the dark, hunched over a little as if in pain. As their head turns toward me I’m sure for a moment that the eye sockets are empty.
An empty, eyeless head.
I slam the lights on with the heel of my palm.