14. Starling
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
STARLING
There was once a serial killer who chose his victims based on whether their front door was unlocked.
He took it as an invitation, he said, that they hadn’t locked their door.
He came on in, welcomed in his own mind, and murdered the occupants inside.
Ever since then, I have crept downstairs when everyone else has gone to bed and checked our front door, pulling it to make double sure. I check the back door too.
The front door at Bishop’s House was boarded up. There was no stronger signal: Go away, you are not welcome here.
And yet, when we arrive tonight, Bishop’s House tells us a different message entirely.
Wren spots it first. The rest of us are distracted, and I’m leading the conversation with a dumb story about my parents when Wren makes a gasping sound. She flushes, which she often does anyway, but her terrified eyes are even worse than usual. She opens her mouth and whispers something indistinct.
“What?” Cuckoo says. “What’s wrong?”
“The front door,” Wren whispers.
We have come up from the basement, which comes out from under the stairs. We are facing each other, rather than toward the rest of the house, but now we all turn, in unison, to look at the door ahead.
The boxes that were piled in front of it are gone, vanished from the hall completely.
A lone toy remains on the floor, fallen to freedom before its friends were moved.
The floorboards show where the boxes once were, clean squares surrounded by borders of dust. And the door itself, which used to be boarded up, warding off all intruders and serial killers, is exposed.
The boards used to block it are gone too.
It is a beautiful door, faded olive green with a silver letter box and plenty of complicated locks and chains, though none of them are in use.
I am tempted, wildly, to use them all now, lock us in safely, but the hairs that stand up on my arms tell me I am already too late.
Someone has been here.
I think of Crow before, mentioning the chairs. I look around for them, and they’re still here: three chairs, two stacked together. But had they really started as three stacked together? What else has changed? Who has come into our house?
“Oh my God,” Goldie says. “Someone really has come in. They’ve unboarded the front door.”
“Was it not boarded up outside either?” Cuckoo asks. “Did anyone notice?”
But we didn’t notice. We’re so used to our routine now: jump over the gate, walk along the overgrown path, sneak around the back to our broken window, and get inside via the cellar.
We don’t even look at the front of the house, don’t think to check on things.
This has been our space, and it’s like someone has thrown cold water over us.
My heart is thudding.
“What if it’s the owners of the house?” Crow says. “What if they’re back?”
What if it’s some horrible serial killer intent on making us his next victims? What if he’s been watching us sneaking in here and thought it was the perfect opportunity?
Because it would be, wouldn’t it? Five teenage girls, no one knows they’re out, no one else is out . . .
My heart is practically hammering out of my chest when Cuckoo says, “If it was the owners of Bishop’s House, why aren’t they here?”
“How do you know someone isn’t here right now?” Wren hisses, aghast.
This stumps Cuckoo, who stares at her, openmouthed.
“Hello?” Goldie shouts, startling us all. “Is there anyone there? Hello?”
“Jesus, Goldie!” Crow says. “What are you doing?”
“Finding out if we’re alone,” she says. “It’s not like we have time to get out of here if we’re not. Hello?”
Thankfully, mercifully for my heart, there is no response.
“Alright, they’re not here now,” I say, “but someone was here. So what the hell do we do?”
“If they don’t come here at night . . .” Cuckoo folds her arms across her dark tracksuit. “We can carry on.”
“We can’t,” Crow says. “This is too risky now. You know it. You’re not stupid, Cuckoo. None of us are stupid.”
“But . . .”
She knows. She visibly slumps.
Behind her is her drawing on the wall. The five of us, in our nest.