“If you’re desperate,” he echoes, looking up at Cathy again. He slowly hands her back the note, and if she notices a bit of resistance when she tries to pull it from him, she tells herself it is only in her imagination.
“I have to go now, Andrew. We want to head back to Idless before the snow properly arrives.”
“Yes, you do. It’s a long drive. Be careful. Think of your sons.”
She waves goodbye as she leaves the small hut on the outskirtsof the grounds. The snow is not yet settling but the dark sky is ominous looking, a threat hanging so heavy it pins her to the earth.
She is relieved to see Suzie waiting in the car for her, leaning over to open the front passenger-side door as Cathy approaches. Suzie is already shaking her head, interpreting Cathy’s puzzled look as an unspoken question.Did you find her?But it isn’t that. Cathy is thinking about Andrew sayingthink of your sons. It had sounded like an admonishment, a dire warning of the consequences of driving too fast in bad weather. Blunt, reproachful.
“No luck?”
Suzie shakes her head. “She took the sherbet lemons, if that helps, but she absolutely did not want to talk to me about Hazel, other than to say she isn’t there and won’t be back.”
“Won’t be back?” Cathy freezes in the act of putting on her seat belt, her eyebrows drawn together. “That’s an odd thing to say. How does she know?”
“She wouldn’t elaborate. I just got the impression she just wanted me out the door. I’m sorry, Cathy.”
Cathy turns those words over in her head all the long journey home. The traffic crawls, sluggish. The windscreen wiperstick-tick. Both women are silent, thoughtful. By the time they get back to Idless a little after dusk, the snow is falling heavier, skittish and wind-blasted. By midnight, a hard knot has formed in Cathy’s throat, and the words are ringing like a funeral bell.
She won’t be back.
Something about them feels bad, like a hard, bloody lesson. Like they are a threat. A warning.
27
“Maria.” I say her name as I sit up very slowly, my eyes not leaving the dark, occupied space beneath the bed. “We need to go downstairs.Now.”
I grip her hand in mine as we hurry through the doorway. Behind us, my other sister makes a sound like a clogged plughole draining slowly away. A rich, horrible gurgle from the broken black hole of her mouth.
I push Maria ahead of me as we run down the hallway. There are pale patches on the walls where picture frames have been removed, nails jutting out of the plaster. The lights are dimming. I suppose the generator must be running low. I can hear the wind picking up, rattling the eaves. Not a howl but a banshee wail, high and hopeless. Foretelling a death.
“What’s happening, Hazel? Where are we going?”
“To the cellar.”
I don’t know this house, I don’t know what stands behind the doorways we’re passing, but Idoknow that the cellar is a place where I feel safe. I’m sure there’s something in that—some version of Stockholm syndrome which I can’t quite identify—but I can’tthink about it right now, because I think I hear my other sister creeping up behind us. It sounds like a brush with long horsehair bristles dragged along the floor. I shudder.
“Please, Maria, come on!”
Down the stairs, our footsteps pattering like soft rain. I let my hand trail over the fleur-de-lis, damp beneath my fingers. Our breath melts into the air. Lights flicker.
“Don’t look round. Keep going.”
Maria hesitates at the cellar. I understand her reluctance. It’s dark down there, and the smell coming through the doorway is expelled like foul breath. Her thin fingers grip the doorframe, and I worry that I’m going to have to push her through.
“They’re all dead now,” she tells me quietly. Still she doesn’t move. I grit my teeth. Behind me I can hear the wet, slithering sound of my other sister coming down the stairs.
“Who are?”
“The women.” Maria looks up at me. With her big, luminous eyes and ashen skin, she reminds me of an abyssal creature, one who has spent their life dwelling in the dark. “The ones my brother brought here. They went down there, and they came out screaming.”
I give her a smile that I don’t feel. “You’re safe with me. Come on, quickly now.” I keep smiling as I peel her panicky grip away from the doorframe.
At the last moment, her gaze drifts to something behind me and I see her mouth dropping open into a shocked O of horror. I hear the snickering laugh of my other sister, and then all the lights go out.
I press Maria through the doorway and she stumbles, scuffing her knees and crying out in pain. I slip through behind her and shovethe door closed using my full weight. I’m expecting resistance from the other side—a rattling of the door handle, a hard pull outward— but there is nothing. Notap-tap-tapwith a spindly finger, no disembodied voice saying,little pig, little pig, let me in. For now it is just me and Maria, who is quietly sobbing. We descend into the basement.
There are no more cereal bars down here, but there is water, and we share a bottle between us. The house creaks and groans, and I can faintly hear the thinsqueeeof metal as the weather vane turns on the roof. I realize I still have the can of hair spray in my hand, but it doesn’t make me laugh anymore and I slide it into my pocket as I sit on the edge of the mattress, pulling my holdall toward me. I dig through it, looking for a pair of socks, eventually finding some beneath a clean pair of striped pajamas that my mother had bought me for my stay in Belle Vue.