Chapter 8
EIGHT
KAT
Morning comes with a stripe of light across my face, making me groan. My mouth is as dry as tarmac on a sunny day, and there’s a thumping at the base of my skull telling me I consumed too much wine last night.
‘Oh god,’ I groan, rolling over and stretching before bundling deeper into the duvet.
An itch in my palm has me opening one eye. There’s something small and hard there.
I open my fingers to see a small grey stone heart, with a shock of black down the centre.
Squealing, I drop it and scramble back on my bed.
It’s not a heart stone I’ve seen before.
Turning, I check my window, but the latch is still firmly in place. Dashing through the flat, I check the door and other windows. Nothing. Locked up tight.
Ellie is fast asleep in bed, and alone.
What the fuck?
Returning to my room, I take stock of it. Nothing looks out of place. There are no notes. But the stone…
Is the boy back?
No.
No. I’m going crazy.
If he is back, why is he doing this? Does he hate me?
I wouldn’t blame him if he did.
I move back into the kitchen, narrowing my eyes as I look around. Nothing’s changed, but it feels different.
Or I’m losing my mind.
I go to Ellie’s door and knock.
‘Ellie.’
A groan drifts from under the duvet.
‘Ellie, wake up.’
‘I’m sleeping.’
‘I know. Wake up.’
The duvet shifts, and one eye appears.
‘Kat, it’s barely even morning. Go back to bed.’
‘I think someone was in the flat.’
Ellie sits up and looks at me like I’ve grown two heads.
‘Like who?’
I can’t answer that. My head pounds as I already regret mentioning it.
‘I don’t know. But I woke up with a stone in my hand, and it wasn’t there when I went to sleep.’
Ellie scrubs at her eyes. ‘A stone?’
‘Yeah. A little heart-shaped one.’
‘God, Kat, how much wine did you drink last night?’ Ellie flops back into her bed. ‘Were the locks broken?’
‘Well… no.’
‘Anything taken?’
I pause, feeling stupid. ‘Also no.’
‘So this mysterious person broke in, not to hurt you or me. Not to steal anything. Not to break anything. Just to give you a rock?’
Well, when she puts it like that, I begin to doubt myself all over again. I did have a bottle of wine. What if I found the rock somewhere and picked it up?
That’s more likely than a ghost from fourteen years ago resurfacing.
‘Maybe you’re right,’ I say, sagging against her doorframe.
‘It’s probably just the stress from uni, and Darren pestering you to commit, and your parents. Come here.’ She lifts the duvet.
‘Ellie—’
‘Kat. Come here.’
I give in and crawl into bed beside her, letting her sling an arm over my waist. The warmth of her soon lulls me to calm. As we lay there, I go over and over everything. Surely, I’d have woken up if someone were here? And if it was the boy, why wouldn’t he talk to me?
But what if it’s not him? What if it’s the note leaver, trying to scare me? I shiver against Ellie, worry clawing at my stomach.
‘Don’t worry, babe, I locked the door when I came in, and no one was here.’ She pulls the duvet over us both.
Since when has anyone telling you not to worry made you worry any less?
‘Thanks for letting me borrow your car,’ Ellie says as we take the third set of stairs up toward the fourth level of the multi-storey car park.
‘It’s not like I use it,’ I say. ‘Probably needs a good run anyway.’
I so rarely leave the campus that if my parents didn’t fund the car and parking space, I’d have ditched it long ago. But it does come in handy for Costco runs and the occasional trip home.
It loiters in the cavernous multi-storey most of the time. Gathering bird poop and dust.
The wind is biting, and I tuck my fingers up into the sleeves of my jumper, the metal keys biting into my palm. Ellie has a seminar out in some backwoods country manor, so it’s the best way to get there.
Ellie shrieks as we head for the back wall.
‘Your car!’ she squeaks.
Then I see it.
The car lurches to one side, the driver’s side tyres completely flat. No, not just flat, torn open. Unease grips me tight as I look up to the side of the driver’s door. Scratched deep into the white paint as a series of ragged lines.
YOU’RE NEXT.
Each letter is dragged the full length of the door. They don’t look harried. Like someone took their time to score them with maximum impact.
Ellie makes a horrified sound beside me.
‘What the hell?’
Across the way, a group of students are recording the car, and turns the camera on us.
Rage meets fear as I take in the scene. If someone who could do that to my car was in my home, I’m in trouble.
The students laugh and whoop as I step closer to the car, reaching out to touch one of the scrapes.
With the heat radiating from my face, I can only assume my cheeks are red as can be.
The paint curls up at the edges of each groove. It’s too deep to be from a key. It had to be something sharper, more deadly. I shudder and snatch my fingers back.
First, the note saying you’ll pay, and now this. You’re next.
Ellie pulls out her phone.
‘We should call someone?’ she says. ‘Campus security, or the police.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ I turn around and give her a shaky smile. ‘I’ll ring the insurance. It’s just some stupid kid playing a prank, I’m sure.’
‘Kat, that’s not just some—’
‘You’ll be late.’ I squeeze her arm and give her a little nudge. ‘Seriously. Go. I’ll sort it out here. You’ll need to be quick if you’re going to catch the train.’
And two buses.
She goes after a little more insistent urging. She looks back twice before she gets to the stairwell, and I hold the smile until she’s gone.
The minute she’s gone, I let it drop and glare at the group of students, still filming. It’s enough to abash them into lowering their phones and getting into their car.
I look back at YOU’RE NEXT.
It had to be him. No one else knew.
Ten years old and already wicked.
Martha’s voice slips into my head. I can still see the angry look on her face when she caught me at the cottage, peeking through the windows one evening I’d stayed out too long.
She always said ten. But I’d only been eight. She got it wrong every time she said it in the years that followed.
I’d been out after supper, which was against the rules, but Martha was usually too deep into the brandy bottle to notice me slipping out.
The woods were my playground, and other than the cottage, there was nothing but trees and roots.
Not that there wasn’t danger. Between the stream and the well, there were plenty of ways to hurt myself.
In the confidence of youth, I thought I was invincible.
I knew every root and branch. Exactly which stones wobbled when crossing the river.
The bottom of the old well was littered with pennies.
Whenever I found one in the house, I’d go and make a wish.
The same wish. I’d wish for a friend. After that summer, I hadn’t thrown any more pennies.
I’d gone to the cottage, crouching in the undergrowth below one of the filth-covered windows.
Grime and cobwebs everywhere. The boy didn’t have a gardener or housekeeper to take care of it.
And not even a mother to take care of him.
I cleaned a small corner of the glass with the cuff of my cardigan.
I wish I hadn’t.
Branches snagged in my hair and caught on my clothes as I ran home, the woods far scarier after the sun had set. Martha, my nanny, stood in the kitchen in her housecoat, eyes rimmed red and unsteady on her feet. She slapped me before I could open my mouth. Hard enough that my ears rang.
It was the first and last time she struck me.
What were you doing out there?
Nothing, I said. I couldn’t sleep.
You don’t go near that cottage. You don’t speak about it. You haven’t seen anything. Do you understand me? If I catch you near there, you’ll never go into the woods again.
I went to bed with a stinging face and a headful of images I didn’t have words for yet. If Martha thought that we should be quiet, who was I to doubt her? She was a grown-up. She knew more than I did.
I lay under my blankets and shook, holding my flaming cheek.
Martha called me wicked the next day when I’d tried to bring up what I saw. To find a way to help the boy.
Sighing, I take photos for the insurance company and ring my mother.
‘Katherine.’
‘Hi Mum. Someone’s scratched the car.’
A pause. ‘What kind of scratch?’
I look at YOU’RE NEXT. ‘A fairly big one,’ I say. ‘Both tyres too.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake. I’ll get Marcus to deal with the insurance. And Katherine, I have told you about keeping the car there. We can pay for a garage to keep it in…’
‘It’s fine, Mum.’
‘Clearly, it’s not fine. Anyway, while I have you, Daddy and I have been talking about graduate positions. There are a few very good options coming up, and it would be worth—’
‘I’ll call you later, Mum.’
‘I just think it’s—’
‘Later,’ I say. ‘I promise.’
I hang up and try to ignore the bite of guilt. I’m sure my parents mean well, but it’s like they don’t know me at all.
My feet slow as I take the long way home, unease following me through the streets.
As I walk through the concourse, my shoulder blades prickle. That familiar, crawling sensation of being watched.
I spin around, taking stock of the people around.
Students everywhere. Grabbing coffee, spilling out of the art store. No one minding me at all.
You’re being paranoid.
To be fair, it’s feeling pretty fucking justified.
I’m being targeted.
I wrap my fingers around the heart stone at my throat and keep moving.
Telling myself that it’s fine.
But feeling anything but fine.