Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
Morgan
I hate the neighbours so much. They were so mean to Mum and I couldn’t do a thing because I’m meant to be inside.
I’m shaking with anger after hearing all that and I’m worried for her.
She sounds a little better now that Zoe is talking to her.
I enter the house for real this time. Jasmine was mentioned again and I really think this is all about her.
Mum knew her. Quinn knew her. I’m going to get to the bottom of all this.
As I kick my snowy boots off in the hallway, I hear Robbie and Jake talking in the main family room, but I can’t hear Dad.
He must be in the apartment with Cora. I glance through the letterbox.
Mum is still out there with Zoe, so I creep upstairs and head towards Dorette’s office using the torch on my phone to light the way.
We’re all missing something big. Mum hasn’t really been in there, and Dad wasn’t going to touch the room until Mum had cleared it out.
I need to work out why Dorette’s notebook was in Quinn’s bag.
I hurry along the landing towards the office.
With each step, I listen carefully, just in case anyone is lurking around.
On the way, I open each door as I pass. Most are filled with boxes that Dad has packed, and there’s lots of really big old furniture that smells damp and woody.
The smell from the old family bathroom makes me recoil as I pass it.
With all that’s been happening, people in our house, the dog, the general madness, I’ve learned to expect anything. The people around here are crazy.
The last door off the hall is the one to Dorette’s office.
I glance to my right at the balcony door.
It’s closed this time. I press the handle down to check that Dad locked it.
At the very least, if it wasn’t locked, I could fess up to Dad that I’d been looking around the house and discovered that the door was open.
He could then lock it before Mum found out. Phew, the balcony room door is locked.
I open the office door and step in. Robbie and Jake have been using Dad’s generator for power.
I continue using the torch on my phone to light the way and I sit at the desk.
The chair lets a poof sound out as the air escapes it and blasts up a cloud of dust. I catch a sneeze in my elbow crevice.
There are loads of notebooks, the same as the one Quinn had in her bag.
The spines are labelled with names. I open one of them and see that the name on the spine is the same as the main character in the notebook.
These are Great-Aunt Dorette’s character bibles.
All illustrations are described using Dorette’s black pen capital letter writing, but her notes are written normally.
The notebook in Quinn’s bag definitely came from this pile.
This is something I need to tell Mum about, but not tonight.
She’s upset about the letters and I worry for the baby.
I feel a twinge of guilt because I really don’t want another sibling.
I don’t think Mum and Dad will be able to cope at the moment.
But, I don’t want the alternative either.
Mum is really happy about the baby and I want to try to be grown up about it and support her.
I read the spines on the notebooks again and there aren’t any names that stand out. There aren’t any more books labelled up with the name Klara on them either, so maybe Quinn has the only one.
I leave the desk and wander over to the large bookcase opposite, where I poke my fingers between the old encyclopaedias, thick dictionaries and books of quotes.
That’s when I spot another notebook right in the corner of the bottom shelf, only this one doesn’t have a label on the spine.
On my hands and knees, I open it and flash my phone at the first page. It’s marked up Jasmine .
That name again. The missing girl. There’s only half a book here. The rest has been torn out. I go to flick the pages, but instead, I almost jump out of my skin as I feel a hand as cold as an iceberg touch my neck.