Chapter 28
Through the mottled glass in the door was a silhouette I didn’t immediately recognise. I peeled the door open, chain still on, and peered out.
Maggie—or who I assumed was called Maggie—from Maggie’s Café was on my doorstep.
“Alright, hen,” she said without a smile.
“Oh, hi.”
How did she know where I lived? I wondered if she’d come to formally accuse me of planting all those flowers around the village.
This is a citizen’s arrest! I am charging you with the crime of grand illicit gardening.
Anything you say or think or might think or might possibly be perceived to have thought will be used against you in a court of your own head.
Parked behind my car on the driveway was a muddy, navy flatbed truck with the hardware store’s name along the side and a learner’s ‘L’ stuck in the windshield. Rowan was examining my smashed windscreen and politely ignoring the vomit next to the front wheel. He spotted me looking and waved.
Oh God. There’s no hiding it now.
I undid the chain.
It was startling to be visited. By someone from the village.
At this house. I didn’t know what to say, who to be.
The house and the village had been two separate realities to me.
Having someone from there here felt like universes colliding, like when you see your police-recommended therapist at the big supermarket on your exodus out of town.
“Sorry to bother you”—she squinted inside the house—“but Viv said you left this at the pub last night.”
She held out a tartan scarf.
“Viv?”
“Aye, Viv. Owns The Curtyard. Loves a zebra.”
“Oh, right.”
“Anyway, I thought you’d come by the café this morning, but when you didn’t Ro offered to drive me over on my way home so I could drop it off. And now I have.”
She pushed the tartan scarf toward me.
“That isn’t mine,” I said.
Maggie’s face somehow found a way to be even less smiley.
“Really? She swore it was yours.”
I took it from her. I recognised it now. The last time I’d seen it, it had been tied over my neighbour’s eyes as she aimed a hoop.
“Oh, this belongs to…”
Definitely not a ghost then. Unless ghosts go to the pub. In the middle of the day.
“You alright, hen?” Maggie took a step back. “You’ve gone awfully pale.”
I didn’t know what question to ask so I asked them all.
“Were you there last night? At the pub? Did you see her?”
I prepared myself to hear Maggie go on about her being the ‘sweetest thing’ or a ‘good laugh’.
“No. Who’re we talking about?”
I squeezed the scarf in my hands.
“Did you hear about a party? A house party. Anyone go to one last night?”
Maggie shook her head. “I’m hardly the partying type. Though we have the odd poker night at Viv’s…”
Rowan appeared at her shoulder.
“Hey, mate, you doing alright?”
My head swam.
“I’ve had the weirdest night. I was kept up by—”
I looked up at the quiet house next door. I shook my head and pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Sorry, I’m fine.” I nodded toward 1a. “I think this is my neighbour’s. I can drop it off.”
I stumbled out my door and took the four steps to her door and went to push the scarf through the letter box. I stopped. Thought better of it. This was my only concrete proof. Proof of what, I didn’t know yet, but I didn’t want to let it go so easily. I tied it onto the door handle instead.
“Hey, do you happen to know who lives here?” I asked.
“I thought it was empty, like yours,” said Maggie, watching me carefully. “Have you been eating alright?” Her voice was suddenly soft. “You should come by the café. Get a macaroni pie. I saw you didn’t get a chance to eat the last one.”
I am a capable woman. I can chop wood and work a boiler and move house all by myself.
“I’m perfectly alright,” I said, tucking my escaping hair back behind my ears.
Rowan gave me one of his assessing looks again.
“Well, if you’re perfectly alright then you can give me a hand. Remember we were chatting about maybe getting your help on some things at the shop?”
I straightened up. Oh yeah! That job! I fought back the anxiety and forced a smile.
“Um, sure! Yeah. What do you need?”
“You can drive, right?”
I blinked. A driver? I’d hoped he’d wanted help with a website, some emails, maybe a little social media work, not a lift.
“Uh, my windshield—”
“I don’t need your car. I just need someone who can sit with me while I drive the van.” He knocked a thumb back toward the truck behind him with its ‘L’ in the windscreen.
“Oh, I thought you…”
He frowned, then sighed and slapped his forehead.
“The email thing! God, yeah. Sorry. Should have thought about that. I am totally going to ask you about all that, but right now I just need a co-driver as I go up the hillside. I got a tree delivery, but the root bulbs are going to dry out if I don’t put them in the ground soon.
And Fergus’s too busy with the store to come with.
” He grinned. “I was going to make Maggie chum me up in return for driving her over.”
“I said I’d be happy taking the bus,” she huffed.
Rowan gave her elbow an affectionate squeeze.
“And miss out on your sparkling company? Never.” He turned back to me. “I’d let you have a go driving the truck.”
I looked up and down the driveway littered with papery elm seeds.
“I’m not sure— I mean, is that legal? I’m not on your insurance.”
Rowan shrugged. “Eh, it’s only a problem if we knock into someone, but the roads are quiet once we get up there and it’s not far. You could walk it if you had the time. And weren’t lugging several trees with you.”
I bit my lip. A cool breeze ruffled my hair.
Rowan seemed to notice the thoughts buzzing around my head.
“If you’re not comfortable with it…”
He’d asked me for a favour. I wanted to be someone people could ask for a favour. That was part of building friendships, wasn’t it? And this favour could turn into a bit of paid website work. Maybe the whole new-life-new-me thing wasn’t completely out of my grasp after all.
“Sure,” I said.
“Great!” His shoulders relaxed. “Thanks, Tamsin. You’re a lifesaver. A tree lifesaver, but a lifesaver, nonetheless!”
I smiled, genuine this time. It would be good to get out of the house for a bit. Get away from whatever was happening and gather my thoughts.
“Let me get my stuff,” I said.
I went indoors and grabbed my hoodie—despite sleeping on it, it was the only clean top layer I had left—and my house key.
As I tucked the key in my jeans pocket, my fingers caught against something heavy and metallic and sharp.
Spring traps flashed through my mind and my hand quickly retracted.
Then I remembered. I took out the needle I’d found in the basement.
Still in my pocket. Still as vicious as ever.
I hooked the eye of the needle onto the key’s ring.
It felt like a fitting keyring for now. Then I popped them both back into my pocket and left the house.
I headed down the steps to Rowan’s truck, kicking through the papery seeds from the elm tree. For the first time in a long while, I had a feeling that perhaps today was going to be alright.