Chapter Twelve
TWELVE
Lisa is ironing and smoking a cigarette when I walk into the kitchen to ask her for a map. The iron hisses as she sets it down, jettisoning steam. She doesn’t question what we need a map for, and doesn’t offer directions of her own. It’s clear she hasn’t slept well—her eyes are bloodshot, hair scraped away from a face which is tight and brittle with worry. She crosses to the dresser and slides open a drawer. I notice it is not the same one she reached into for the psychometry tokens the previous day, and I don’t realize she is deliberately blocking my view until I try to stand beside her. Then she turns her back to me, angling herself just right so that I can’t see past her. I don’t say anything, and when she finally pulls the map out and hands it to me I notice how her eyes skim over me, how fast she slams the drawer closed.
I think about mentioning this to Sam as we head into the silent street, but I’m struck dumb by sunlight so bright it saturates everything. Smoke thickens the air, a perfume of burning heather and dry kindling, something peaty and rich. We walk without speaking, passing a house with a paddling pool in the front garden, two teenage boys lolling in it, stripped to their waists, heads back, sunglasses tilted up to the sky. It is so quiet. No birds, no dogs barking, no insects. Just that still, heavy air already blossoming into torpidity.
We reach the little parade of shops just beyond the Village Green and stop outside the video store, peering at all the posters in the window. There are handwritten notices, too: cleaning jobs and missing pets and a Raleigh racer for sale. As we stand there, a woman appears in the dusty window and fixes another little card down in the lower left corner. She sees us and grins, poking her head out the doorway.
“Interested in the Scarecrow Competition, are you? First prize is a carvery dinner for two.”
Sam looks at me, eyebrows raised as if to say, What do you think? I laugh.
“Ha, no thanks. I got stuck in a corn maze when I was a little girl and cried until I was sick. I had nightmares about scarecrows for months.”
The woman grins, stepping out the doorway and into the sunlight. She has coppery hennaed hair growing dark at the roots and a soft, plump figure draped in fringe and tie-dye, a skirt studded with little round mirrors. Her eyeliner is sharp black wings.
“Hang about, I know who you are. You’re that reporter from the paper I heard about. The one writing about Alice Webber.”
“Yup. Sam Hunter.” He holds out his hand and she shakes it warmly. There is a mesh of thin scars on her forearm, just below the elbow crease. Like she has dragged a razor blade there, or the edge of a scalpel. “This is Mina Ellis. She’s a child psychologist, and very much the brains of our investigation.”
The woman laughs and takes my hand but I notice the way her eyes linger on Sam just a little longer. I’m surprised at the small frisson of jealousy I feel in my gut.
“I hope you don’t mind my saying so but you look very young to be a child psychologist.”
“Technically this is my first case.”
“Ah!” The woman arches a brow conspiratorially. “But what an interesting one.”
Sam lifts his chin toward her. “Do you know her, then? Alice?”
The woman looks at him, eyes moving up and down. Assessing. She tilts her head. When she smiles, dimples deepen in her cheeks.
“My name’s Fern, if you want to print that in the paper. F-E-R-N. The plant spelling, not the Scottish one.”
“Oh no, this isn’t— This is off the record.”
“Well, here’s the thing. It’s a small town and everyone knows the Webbers. I used to live by them, when I was younger. They’re good people, especially Lisa. I babysat Alice when she was a little girl, before the other two were born. She was a normal kid, just like any other. Up to last Christmas she would come in the shop, her and her friend renting videos at the weekends. Like a pair of parrots they were—bright and loud and a bit wild. Always laughing.”
I think of the photographs above Alice’s bed, the two girls with their faces pressed close together, laughing. Best M8s 4 Ever!
“That must be Vicky,” I say. “Alice has talked about her.”
“Well, like I said, they were joined at the hip right up until the cold weather blew in and Alice got sick. Why don’t you come on in out of the sun for a moment?”
Sam and I exchange a quick glance as he follows Fern beneath the awning into the cool of the store, me trailing behind them. Inside, it is cramped and fairly run-down—the carpet bulges in places and the glass lid of the freezer is cracked and clouded like a cataract. The videos are stacked on shelves that reach the ceiling, blocking out most of the natural light. I notice another of those strange stone arrangements hanging on a nail inside the doorway. “Hagstones,” the little girl had called them. To keep the witches out. I reach out and touch it.
“Huh. I keep seeing these. It’s the equivalent of putting garlic on your door to ward off vampires, is that right?”
Fern looks at me, head tilted. She gives me a small, pointed smile.
“I suppose.”
“It’s unusual though, isn’t it? To see them everywhere like this. Most of these old beliefs, they…”
A pause. She holds my gaze, still smiling.
“Go on.”
“Well, they die out, don’t they? There’s no need for them anymore. Old superstitions.”
“Really? You never wished on a shooting star? Never knocked on wood or thrown salt over your shoulder?” She leans on the counter. “Never got told stories about witches as a kid?”
“Fairy stories? Sure.”
Fern shakes her head. Her voice is soft, buttery almost. She looks at Sam and me with real intention, as though she is spelling something out.
“No, I mean real stories, about real witches. The kind with the black throats and tongues. The ones who creep into your house through all the cracks and crevices.”
“Not those stories, Fern, no.” I glance toward Sam to see what he is making of this, but his expression is closed, hands in his pockets.
“I can tell, else you wouldn’t be asking me about the hagstones. They’re protection, just like locking your door.”
I’m convinced she is teasing us, can imagine her laughing later about how gullible we are, how na?ve. Fern keeps right on smiling that same, impish grin as Sam picks up a video box, turning it over in his hands.
“What kind of films were Alice and Vicky renting? If you don’t mind me asking?”
“Huh, let’s see. Dirty Dancing, that was a big one. Reckon they hired that about six times a month. Mostly fun stuff, you know? Teen Wolf, Cocktail. What I think of as bubblegum movies.”
“But no horror? No Exorcist or Nightmare on Elm Street ?”
“Well, I’m going to overlook what you’re insinuating about my ID checks on teenagers but no, at least not from me. That isn’t to say they haven’t seen it elsewhere, or got someone older than them to hire them out. That happens a lot.”
Sam nods. He puts the box back on the shelf.
“Okay. It was just a thought anyway. I need to find out what her influences are, I suppose.”
“Well you could do worse than speaking with her friends. If you can find any, that is.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like I said, this time last year I’d see her and Vicky Matherson going everywhere together like conjoined twins. Then, nothing.”
I nod. The timeline fits with Vicky luring Alice to Tanner’s Row last winter. Alice said the two of them hadn’t spoken since. Sam looks at me and taps his watch, mouthing the word “curfew.” I nod and we say goodbye to Fern, who waves at us airily as we step outside. According to the map, Sam tells me as we cross the road, Tanner’s Row is just fifteen minutes away.