Siobhan
NOW
Every few minutes, her thoughts return to Zara’s email, lurking in her trash folder.
Four years ago, she’d decided that the only way to survive was to convince herself that Hex House had never happened.
But Haina is dead – Haina, whose striking face often returns to her unbidden, sending her teetering off-balance for days after – and that changes everything.
She can feel the claws that have been buried deep in her skin for so long start to come loose.
She could rid herself of it, unburden herself of every awful detail.
There are so many consequences to telling her story that feel like routes down a foggy road – she can’t see where they might go, or what she might be freeing by putting what she knows out into the world.
She follows her thoughts around in circles, trying to pin them down, all the way down Leith Walk.
Fine, have it your way. But I’ll never speak to you again. That’s the deal.
Just leave me alone Shiv. Remember the deal.
She hasn’t tried to contact him since. Sometimes she dreams about him, but he’s always screaming at her. He’s always leaving.
Siobhan lets herself into the main stairwell and makes her way up to the second floor.
Stepping inside her mum’s flat is always like going back in time: the twinkling sound of the bead curtain as it parts, the way the light falls across the hallway in the afternoon.
She knows that in the bedroom down the hall, the one she shared with Theo, the faded Green Day and Sum 41 posters will still be Blu-Tacked to the walls, that inside the kitchen cupboards will be the same Nutella jars repurposed as water glasses, and that on the lounge bookcase there will be no books but rows and rows of Dallas VHS tapes, proudly displayed.
Siobhan slips out of her trainers. She can hear Nora humming in the kitchen as something spits and crackles in a frying pan.
She makes her way instead to the living room, where she’s almost surprised to find Theo, surprised to find that he is, in fact, real, that he didn’t disappear for good that day in the woods.
He’s curled up on the sofa watching an old episode of The OC, wearing a grey sweatshirt and black jeans.
He’s turned towards the TV and doesn’t see her straight away, so she has a moment to observe him uninterrupted, to indulge in the details that have been forbidden to her for so long.
At first glance, even though it’s been four years, he looks no different: dark hair curly and unkempt, tortoiseshell glasses framing melancholy eyes, a long, slightly crooked nose she could draw in her sleep.
His lean body is folded in half as he concentrates on the TV, back rounded and one arm looped around his knees.
But the more she looks, the more she can see the subtle changes: the way he’s filled out slightly around the shoulders, the silver watch around his wrist she never would have thought he’d like.
He’s twenty-seven now, she realises. He’s gotten older.
Maybe he’s a different person entirely. He’s acquired four years of memories and tiny bursts of happiness and aching lonely moments that she has no idea about, and maybe never will.
Her throat feels tight and a small sound escapes her, making Theo turn towards the doorway.
When he sees her, he straightens, eyes widening like she’s a burglar.
His feet swing from the sofa and onto the floor, as if he’s considering making a run for it.
“Theo,” Siobhan starts, but he’s no longer looking at her.
“For fuck’s sake, Mum,” he shouts as he gets to his feet. “You promised you wouldn’t do this.”
“Just five minutes, Theo. Please.” Siobhan hates how her voice sounds – there’s a needling quality to it, the shrillness of desperation.
Theo pushes past her as though she isn’t even there, out into the hallway.
Siobhan watches him reach the kitchen in three strides.
She hasn’t seen him in this flat for so long and had forgotten how much space his tall body inhabits.
The idea that the three of them lived here once, spending every day together, feels almost magical now.
It feels like a fairytale childhood she’s dreamed up.
She follows him silently into the kitchen.
Nora stands at the stove, tending to sausages.
When she sees Theo’s expression, the way his face has drained of colour, she sighs and turns off the gas.
Her dark hair is twisted into a bun on top of her head, thick kohl around her eyes.
Siobhan has only seen her mum without make-up a handful of times and always hated how fragile it made her look, with her small eyes and pale lips.
She much prefers her like this, brownish-red liner framing her cupid’s bow, almost cartoonish.
Brash, bold. She’s wearing the apron Siobhan and Theo had bought her one Christmas, the characters from Dallas printed on the front.
“Hi, Shivvy,” Nora says, ignoring Theo and giving Siobhan a light squeeze on the arm. Siobhan catches a whiff of her perfume – sweet vanilla, soft jasmine. “Thanks for coming.”
“Mum,” Theo hisses, incredulous, one hand raking through his hair. “Are you serious? I’ve told you a thousand times. I do not want to speak to Siobhan.”
“What about what I want?” Nora says. Her voice is level, calm. She has obviously prepared herself for the onset of this particular storm. “I want my two children to speak to each other. It’s been long enough.”
Theo splutters something incomprehensible and then seems to think better of even trying. He still won’t look at Siobhan. “Whatever. I’ll just go.”
He stalks back down the hallway, and Siobhan hears the front door open. She reaches it just in time to catch him at the top of the main stairs.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she tells him, breathless, lightheaded, desperate to delay him for even a couple of seconds. To keep looking at him just a little while longer. “I’m going to talk about it. All of it.”
Her words are enough to make him pause, one foot on the first stair. There’s a terseness to his face, which he turns sharply to one side, as if he’s trying as hard as he can to ignore her. “What?” he growls eventually, hands white-knuckled around the banister.
“Someone reached out, about a documentary,” Siobhan says. “I’m going to talk about Hex House.”
Theo stares at her now. Siobhan can’t quite meet his gaze – she didn’t even know his face could look that unkind.
One of his sleeves is rolled up, and she can see the scar from where she’d dared him to hold a lighter to his skin when they were little.
Neither of them had known it would burn. “Why?” he says quietly. “Why now?”
Siobhan bites at the inside of her lip. “Haina is dead.” She remembers Zara’s email, the pointed way it closed. I’ll share more when we meet. “Maybe you were right. When we left, we should have told someone. After Elly…”
“Stop it,” Theo snaps. There’s something simmering about him now, on the brink of tipping over.
“Theo, just listen to me…”
“Don’t you dare talk about Elly.”
“You didn’t own her,” Siobhan bites back. “She was my friend, too.”
A long, heavy moment of silence. Siobhan can hear Nora moving around the flat and wonders what she’s overheard. She’s never told her mum anything about Hex House, and to the best of her knowledge, neither has Theo. That was part of the deal. Mum can know nothing.
“Don’t pretend she was your friend,” Theo growls. “Don’t fucking do that.”
“Just come over to mine,” Siobhan says on an outbreath. She feels like all the energy has been squeezed out of her body; it’s an effort to stay upright. She sags against the doorway. “We can talk about all of it. It’s so stupid, not talking. I feel like you’ve died half the time.”
Theo scoffs and rubs a hand over the shadow of stubble around his chin.
“I haven’t changed my mind,” he says, and takes a few steps down the stairs.
“I want nothing to do with you. But by all means, go and talk to some stranger about all of it now that Haina’s dead and you’re finally brave enough. You’re only four years too late.”
He descends the stairs out of sight, and Siobhan watches the blank space where he’d been standing.
She hears the main door slam. Her blood is sluggish in her veins.
She closes the door to the flat and retreats inside, finding Nora still in the kitchen.
The hob has been switched back on and the whole room smells like grease and meat.
“Went well, did it?” Nora asks drily, poking the sausages back and forth.
Siobhan slumps down at the kitchen table, running her hands over her face. She suddenly, fiercely, wants a drink. No, five. “I don’t know what you expected,” she grumbles. “He hates me. I tried to tell you.”
“He doesn’t hate you. You’re his sister.”
“I don’t think that matters.”
“I wish you’d just tell me what happened. I wish you’d help me understand. I feel like I’m breaking apart with the two of you not speaking.”
Me too, Siobhan almost says, but stops herself at the last minute. Outside, the drizzle has turned into a downpour, droplets pelting insistently against the sash window. It’s open a crack, and Siobhan gets up to close it.
“Leave it,” Nora says, quiet but firm. Siobhan had almost forgotten.
Nora always likes more than one escape route: an unlocked door, an open window.
There’s nothing to run from anymore, but of course, that makes no difference.
Siobhan sits back down at the table. She watches the rain, thinking of Theo walking, head down, to the station, then boarding a train back to Glasgow.
This very second, he’s getting further and further away from her.
For him, it’s probably never far enough.
Nora puts a plated sausage sandwich in front of her. Siobhan’s stomach turns.
“Eat it,” Nora warns. “All of it. You look like a waif.”