Siobhan
NOW
It’s just a conversation, she reminds herself now, sipping at her espresso, grateful for its heat and unapologetic strength, the way it assaults her tastebuds. She’s only here to find out what she can about Haina. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that, not if she doesn’t want it to be.
“Thanks so much for meeting me,” Zara is saying. “Everyone at SunWolf is really excited. Did you have to come far?”
“How did you find your source?” she asks Zara. “And how did you get my email address?”
“Oh yeah, sorry,” Zara says, laughing. It makes her look younger and Siobhan briefly wonders how old she is. Twenty-eight, maybe thirty. “I probably should have explained that. Let me give you a bit of background to the whole thing. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the HexHeads?”
“The what?”
“It started out as an internet forum, really, but it’s a whole community now. Hex House conspiracy theorists. Mega fans.”
“Mega fans,” Siobhan repeats flatly.
“People who really, really, want the house to be real. They post supposed ‘sightings’, blurry pictures of faces between trees. A few say they know someone who’s been, friend of a friend, cousin’s best friend’s dog, you get the gist. They arrange meet-ups in the woods down in the Borders to hunt for the house, share links to any new rumours, that sort of thing.
There’s even a HexHeads podcast. It’s pretty popular. ”
“That’s fucking weird,” Siobhan says, draining her espresso.
“Yeah, I guess it is a bit.” Zara laughs again – she’s so quick to laugh, Siobhan thinks – and shrugs.
“Anyway. I’m a total HexHead.” She must sense Siobhan’s hostility, because she rolls her eyes in a way that somehow manages to be both self-deprecating and dismissive.
“Some of them are real nut-jobs, let me tell you. But we’re all allowed our obsessions, right?
And a sanctuary for women in the wilderness that no one can find?
Come on. Ever since I heard of it, I knew there was a story there, that there was so much more to it than some Atlantis-style conspiracy theory.
I pitched it to SunWolf last year.” A brief pause.
“I’m so glad that they’ve been receptive to the idea, that they saw the potential in it. ”
Siobhan imagines Zara sitting with a bunch of other beautiful young people – and perhaps a few stern-faced, older men – talking about how much money Hex House might make for them. You think you know what you’re getting into, she almost says out loud, but you have no idea.
“A couple of months ago, things were drying up a bit. We were in the early research phases but not really getting anywhere. I had no idea about you or your documentary, and I didn’t have any sources.
All my leads came to nothing. But then someone reached out to me.
Willow. Via post of all things.” Zara laughs into her drink, shrugging.
There’s something slightly forced about her nonchalance.
“Apparently, she’s still inside the house.
Using some kind of network to get the letters out. ”
Siobhan’s breath catches in her throat. She bites down on the inside of her cheek, hard.
“People have pretended to be at the house before, obviously, on the HexHeads forum,” Zara is saying, “but their posts were usually pretty transparent: hyperbolic, vague on the details. Plus, I doubt Hex House is the kind of place with a high-speed internet connection, you know? Willow’s letters are just…
different. She’s so specific. She writes about what the women eat, what they wear, what they do all day.
It’s bizarre. She’s never included an address, so I can’t write back, but she just keeps on sending them.
So much information, so much detail. It doesn’t feel feasible that she could make it all up.
Whatever Hex House is, I feel like she could really be there.
” Zara’s speaking quickly, her voice high and excited.
“She told me all about Haina.” Zara pauses. “And all about you.”
Siobhan stares down into her espresso mug. She feels suddenly warm, and regrets the old fleece she’d shrugged on this morning.
“It wasn’t hard to find out more about you, and your email address, once I had your name,” says Zara. “You should probably tighten up your internet security a bit. There are weirdos out there, you know.”
“You don’t say.”
Zara gives her a wry smile. “Touché. Anyway. From what Willow has told me, I think Hex House is so much more than some cult in the woods.” Her smile fades. “I think it’s the place where missing girls go.”
Siobhan holds her gaze, fighting the instinct to bolt.
Zara leans over the table, and Siobhan can smell coffee on her breath. “Were you really there, Siobhan? At the house? Is it actually real?”
Siobhan wishes she could give any other answer but the truth. She wishes she were nothing but a HexHead, obsessed with the idea of escape. She doesn’t answer Zara’s question. Instead, she says, “What does Willow want? Why is she writing to you, telling you all this?”
Siobhan doesn’t miss the way Zara’s expression alters, darkening slightly before she recovers. Eventually, she says, “Now that Haina’s gone, I think she’s tired of keeping all the house’s secrets.”
Siobhan’s mouth is dry. When she swallows, it’s as though there are stones in her throat. The house’s secrets have been drowning her since the day she left.
“She told me that you recorded loads of footage when you were at the house,” Zara is saying, her tone light, expectant. “Is that true? You’ve got evidence it exists?”
“I’m not just going to hand it all over to you,” Siobhan snaps, “if that’s what this is about.”
Zara shakes her head, one hand landing softly in the middle of the table as if she’d been about to reach for Siobhan’s, then thought better of it.
“Of course not. I just want us to work together, is all.” Zara takes a long sip of her drink, the mug knocking against her lip piercing, a delicate clinking sound.
“I just want to know what you saw. I bet it was some wild shit.”
Wild shit, thinks Siobhan. That’s one way to put it. Zara is older than Siobhan, but all she can think is, You child. You have no idea. She wishes she were alone so she could pick at the scar on her abdomen, rip open the barely healed skin.
Zara casts a glance over her shoulder, then lowers her voice. “Willow also mentioned a girl called Elly Carmichael.” Siobhan feels everything inside of her still. “She said something awful happened to her when you were at the house, and that’s why you left. She said you might have… proof.”
Siobhan blinks. It’s as though the world is tilting.
The rest of the coffee shop – its warm lights, its safe noise – seems to fall away, as if it had only ever been an illusion in the first place.
It’s no longer Zara sitting opposite her, but Elly – Elly pregnant, young, almost unbearably fragile. When she blinks again, Elly disappears.
“Are you alright, Siobhan? You look a bit pale.”
“I’m fine.”
“We don’t have to…”
“I’m sorry,” Siobhan murmurs, stumbling to her feet and sending her chair clattering to the floor. A few heads turn in her direction, frowning. “I can’t do this. I thought I could, but I can’t.”
Zara stands, too. “Siobhan, wait…”
But Siobhan is already making her way out of the coffee shop, she’s already at the door, she’s already out in the cold air. She breaks into a half-jog without looking back, not wanting to give Zara a chance to catch up with her.
A wild wind has picked up and it fights against her as she makes her way over North Bridge, into the tangles of people walking down Princes Street.
Every face she passes is so blank, so unknowing.
She wants to pry open each mouth and make them swallow her secrets, so she no longer has to carry them all.
She wants to smash open their skulls and examine the contents; to remember what it would feel like to not know.
When she gets to the Showroom, she changes into her black slacks and burgundy polo in the toilets.
The face in the mirror stares back at her, blank and pale.
There’s a smudge near her chin that she rubs at unsuccessfully.
When was the last time she had a shower?
She forces herself to take a deep breath then leaves the toilets and sidles into the box office booth next to Sylvie.
Today, Sylvie’s curls are slicked back, and she’s wearing magenta lip gloss.
She looks poised, regal. Siobhan wants to reach out and touch her little finger to the surface of her lips, just to disrupt the perfect lacquer.
Sylvie frowns at her and checks her watch.
“You’re early,” she says.
Siobhan shrugs. “I’m early all the time.”
“No, you’re not. You’ve literally never been early. Keith gave you a disciplinary last month for lateness.”
“Maybe I’ve turned over a new leaf.”
Sylvie rolls her eyes and returns to her phone.
The cinema is quiet. The Horror Film Festival ended last week, and now they’re back to regular showings, booming action films with next to no dialogue, swooning romcoms starring ageing film stars from the 90s.
Siobhan feels edgy, her body thrumming with excess energy.
Keith passes by the box office holding a dustpan and brush.
His hair is gelled up into improbable spikes, a spray of stubble across his weak chin. He gives Siobhan a surprised nod.
“You won’t get paid for the extra hour, you know,” he says. He turns to Sylvie. “Had some really great customer feedback about you, Sylvie. Kind and personable.” He gives her a beatific grin. “I’d have to agree.”
“Thanks, Keith.”
Sylvie waits until Keith has moved on before whispering, “Fuck, he’s weird. I cannot wait to get out of this place.”
“You’re leaving?” asks Siobhan.
Sylvie rolls her eyes. “Hopefully. Applied for a job at SunWolf, just waiting to hear back.” She eyes Keith, checking his hair in the mirrored bar, and shudders.