“I won’t be long. Just go inside, okay?”
Overhead the sky is a vast, soaring blue. Sunlight glitters on chrome and glass, the air dusty in my throat. The news report this morning said two hundred and thirteen people had been treated for heat exhaustion in a traffic jam yesterday, with four people pulled dead from their cars. The words “You are advised to stay indoors” flashed up on the screen, bookended by red exclamation marks. No wonder everyone is so jumpy. Even the weather is against us.
Billy. Why had Mary talked about Billy? As far as I knew, he was the only one of the children that hadn’t spent a lot of timewith Bert and Mary when he was growing up. I wonder if I’ll get the chance to speak with him. Paul said Lisa would be back today. I resolve to try.
The video store is open, dark and cool inside. There is a faint odor of incense and damp carpet and the ripe, fruity smell I recognize from my first year in a student flatshare: weed.
“Fern?” I call out to the empty shop. I turn to the hagstones stacked on the knotted string which hang in the doorway. The pebbles are washed smooth and streaked with veins. “You here?”
There is a doorway opposite, standing ajar. Beyond, it is dark. I move closer, trailing my hand along the ice-cream freezer that drones noisily like a swarm of bees.Or wasps,I think.
“Fern?”
The doorway leads to a narrow staircase that crooks out of sight. Upstairs I can hear the rustle of movement. Had Fern told me she and Stevie lived above the shop or had I just assumed it? I lift my hand and knock at the door. Outside, a car engine backfires and I jump skittishly.What’s happened to you, Mina?
“It’s this town,” I whisper to myself. “That’s what it is. It’s all the bloody witches in it.”
“Mina?” I look up. There’s Fern at the top of the staircase, peering down at me. Her face is a study in concern; puckered brow, pinched, frowning lips. “You talking to yourself?”
I give her what I hope is a reassuring smile.
“Only way to get a sensible conversation,” I reply. “Can I come up? I just need five minutes.”
The stairs are narrow, the floor not quite level. I follow Fern through another doorway that opens into a large, open-plan room with oriel windows that look out over the green and the peat-colored hills beyond. The floorboards are covered with a patchwork of rugs and a tiny kitchenette has been sectioned offwith a small bamboo divider. A little table sits in front of the window and Fern leans across to unlatch it, looking at me curiously.
“You sure you’re all right, Mina?”
I smile tightly.
“People always ask that, don’t they? But they’re never really interested in the answer.”
“Maybe you’re just talking to the wrong people.”
I stare at her. Kindness will undo me. I don’t have time for it. I feel another wave of tears and I swallow against it, the backs of my eyeballs tingling and burning.
“I’m fine. Just had some bad dreams.”
“I’m making coffee. Do you want one?”
“Yes. Thanks, Fern.”
I take a seat at the table. On it is a scattering of drawings—child’s drawings of little chubby animals and tall stick people in crowns and robes all sketched out in chalks of pale green, pale pink, a soft baby blue.
“Those masterpieces are Stevie’s,” Fern tells me, looking over the door of the fridge. “She’s decided she wants to be an artist when she’s older so now I’m finding chalky fingerprints and blobs of paint all over the house. Just put them to one side.”
I do so, letting my gaze drift toward the green. It is empty of course—no dog walkers, no picnickers, no children playing by the pond. Fern seems to read my mind because she looks over from the hob and says, “Weird, right? How quiet it is out there. Summer holidays and not a soul around. I’m starting to find it a bit creepy.”
“Bert said the curfew is playing havoc with his shopping.”
“Tell me about it. No milk yesterday, this morning no bread. It’s a worry.”
I brush aside a sprinkle of tobacco into my cupped palm and scatter it into the ashtray. Upstairs, a thud and Stevie’s voice exclaiming, “Kabloo-hoo-hoo-hooey!”
“She’s got them all,” Fern tells me. “Michelangelo, Donatello. The whole bloody set. It’s cost me a bomb but it keeps her busy and what price a little freedom for her mother, huh?”
“I like your place.”
She looks at me over her shoulder, one eyebrow perfectly arched as if judging whether I’m being sarcastic or not.