by Amanda Fleet
I hoped someone had stopped the bastard.
***
The gym was fairly quiet when I started my shift and I wished I’d brought either my design or the weird book with me. Having neither, I let my mind run potential interview questions, mentally rehearsed my defence of why I’d chosen the design I had, and planned what I would wear. Between Maggie’s comments and the feedback I’d had from Finn, Rick and Billy, I was happier with the 1940s style of font – reminiscent of old London Underground signage – and the colour palette of pinks and greys felt right. Finn popped by when his shift finished and said he was off to pump iron until I knocked off at five. We agreed to meet in the foyer once my shift on reception was over.
“I’ve got a backpack with me so I’ll take everything home,” he said.
“Thanks.” Rather him than me.
By quarter past five, Finn was stowing the last of my bits and pieces in the rucksack and levering it on to his shoulders.
“No hills, no intervals. You promised,” I said. “And to be honest, I’m not in the humour for miles and miles, either.”
“Too many toxins still circulating?” There was a distinct lack of sympathy.
“Mm.”
He laughed, fastened the straps on the rucksack so that it wouldn’t bounce around on his back and we set off.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we jogged through town and out towards the hills.
Finn outlined a route we’d done a few times and I was relieved that although there was one hill, the circuit was fairly short. All things are relative of course. It was a brief foray for Finn but about as much as I could face today.
We passed the last of the shops and cut through a children’s play park to get to a footpath which ultimately led to the quiet roads near our cottage. As we turned on to a country lane, lined with hawthorn hedges, Finn picked the pace up. “Manage this?”
“Uh huh.”
It was Finn’s bliss-pace. After about a mile of it, he would be on an endorphin-high and happy to eat up the miles. I’d yet to experience a runners’ high and thought they belonged in the same category as unicorns. We were running at a pace too fast to talk, but not so fast that I would be breathing out of my arse after a few minutes. I’d manage to keep up with him for the circuit. Probably.
We settled into a steady rhythm. I tried to keep my core strong and my limbs loose, the way Finn always told me to, but however much I did, I never made it look as effortless as he did.
“You gonna manage the hill?” Finn squinted at me.
I glanced ahead. A track led off the tarmac road and climbed steadily for a few hundred metres before eventually levelling off. “Maybe.”
“Choice is short and sharp up the hill, or round the long route.”
“How long?”
“Another mile.”
“Short and sharp it is then. Don’t leave me behind.”
The hills near the back of the cottage made a fantastic running route, if you didn’t decide to sprint up them when you were hungover. I would pick trail running over running on tarmac any day and the only things you encountered up here in March were amber-eyed sheep and other runners. In the summer there might be a rambler or two but most of them walked the more scenic side of the fell.
After the rain of the previous few days, a rivulet of water ran down the track making it muddy. And slippy. Finn, with his ability to impersonate a mountain goat with his sure footing, charged up it. There was no way I would manage to match him, even if I hadn’t been hungover as hell. Three quarters of the way up the hill, my legs screamed and my chest burned and we still had the steepest bit of the hill to come. Finn had barely broken sweat.
“Nearly there!” he lied, running ahead, loose-limbed, his scruffy blond hair ruffling in the breeze.
I scowled but he couldn’t see me.
I made it to the top of the hill without dying, but only just. Finn grinned at me, already part of the way down a bottle of water. I leaned on my knees, breathing hard, trying to pay off an oxygen debt of my own making.
“Don’t get comfy,” he said. “We’re running to the bench.”.
The bench was probably only about four hundred yards away but to my legs it felt like four miles. Finn was already sitting on it by the time I joined him. He pulled on the hoodie he’d had tied round his waist, his legs stretched out, his feet caked in mud. I flopped on to the seat next to him.
“Put your top back on; don’t get chilled,” he said.
I yanked it back on, drew the cuffs over my hands and flipped the hood up.
“Told you the view was worth it.”
“Ah, Finn, Finn. You’re always right. At least in your mind.”
He was right – the view was worth it, though would be even better in summer. The bench – provided by the wife of someone who died thirty-odd years ago who had loved the view – faced out over the valley towards the south-west. To the right lay a thin track down to a quarry; to the left lay a valley clothed in crops. Dead ahead, in the distance, a high fell loomed, craggy and atmospheric and clamouring for someone to stand at the top, yelling, “Heathcliffe!” The sun was sinking fast but the light, even at this gloomy time of the year, was delicious.
Finn passed me the bottle of water and I drank deeply.
“Did you manage to read any more of that book?” he asked as he took the bottle back.
“Yeah. It talked about one of the Guides going rogue and murdering loads of people so he could stop being made of shadows and have a body.”
“Nice! Anything else?”
“No. Reading it gives me a screaming headache, so I left it.”
Finn wrinkled his nose. “How the hell can you read it?”
“I don’t know. I look at the words and in my head I hear this weird language, and then it all makes sense.”
Finn cocked one brow at me, but I had no better explanation.
“Ready to go back?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
We set off and turned down a beech-lined road, the umber leaves still clinging on, ready to be ousted when the new shoots finally emerged. A light breeze rustled them, sounding like a whisper, and the birds tweeted and sang to one another across the road. Maybe Finn was right. Maybe running was the perfect panacea.
“This is not your place.”
I blinked. Surely that was just the wind in the leaves. But it had sounded exactly like a voice.
“You need to return. This is not your place.”
My pace slowed and Finn turned. “Okay? Stitch?”
“No. Nothing. Sorry.”
We ran on.
“Aeron, this is not your place. You must return.”
I stopped in my tracks. “Finn, can you hear that?”
He jogged back to me. “All I can hear is you breathing like Darth Vader.”
I shook my head. “Forget it. Sorry.”
We started up again. So did the whisper.
“Aeron. You must return.”
“Seriously, Finn, did you not hear that?” I stopped and stared at the hedge, seeing only dead leaves and the splintered ends of branches from where the hedge had been cut back badly.
“Nope. Still just you breathing. And birdsong and country stuff. What did you hear?”
“It sounded like someone whispering.”
I stepped forwards, peering at the hedge, my head tilted, listening.
Nothing.
I reached out one hand and rustled a few leaves.
Still nothing.
Finn frowned one brow and arched the other, making his face completely lopsided and I stepped back.
“Okay. Forget it. Let’s go,” I said, shaking my head and setting my shoulders.
I set off again. Finn caught me up and I could tell from his face that he was listening out to try to hear whatever it was that I had heard. The whispering had gone though.
***
Back home, after a hot shower and some left-over bolognese, Finn and I were curled up together on the sofa, ca
tching the end of the main news and then the local news. The headline on the local news was about a woman’s body being found up by the quarry. Police were treating it as suspicious and were asking if anyone had seen anything there.
“Oh, shit,” said Finn. “That’s close.”
The quarry was barely a mile away. One end of it was still working; the other had been allowed to return to nature and was loved by dog walkers and runners and those just wanting a ramble in the countryside. We’d run within 200 yards of the path to that end this evening, and frequently went running there. It was at this end of the quarry that the body had been found. A picture of the woman flashed up on the screen – a snapshot taken at a wedding given the hat she was wearing. I sat up.
“I recognise her.”
Finn rolled his head towards me. “Yeah? Who is she?”
Her name was given as Elaine Cooper and I screwed my nose up. “I don’t recognise her name but I’m sure I’ve seen her before. Recently.”
Finn turned back to the screen. “You’ve probably seen her in Tescos or round the town.”
“Maybe.”
It felt like I’d seen her more recently than that, but I couldn’t place her. It would come back to me once I stopped thinking about it. I twitched my shoulders, trying to shake off a feeling of unease.
My mobile rang. Polly, our immediate neighbour. I frowned. We weren’t especially friendly with Mike and Polly, mostly because they saw only the tattoos and the motorbike and made a lot of unfounded assumptions. The couple in the cottage nearest the road, Ösk and Lena, were both nearer our age and better friends.
“Hi, Polly.”
“Reagan? Sorry to bother you. There’s a man outside your cottage, just staring at it. He’s been there for a while and he seems really creepy.”
“A man?” Next to me, I felt Finn tense up. “Describe him?”
“Tall. Chunky. Rough-looking.”
Stephen?
My heart galloped and I wriggled away from Finn to scoot up the stairs and peer out of the bedroom window. I prayed it was nothing. After all, Polly would describe Finn as “a bit rough-looking” and I shuddered to think how she described me. But given that random objects kept appearing on the kitchen table, I didn’t like the idea of anyone staring at the house.
“Okay. Thanks for letting us know,” I said as I reached the bedroom door, Finn hard on my heels.
“No problem. I heard from Lena that your brother was coming out of prison, that was all.”
“Step-brother. No relation. But thanks.” My voice was clipped and I forced myself to breathe. “Thanks, Polly. I appreciate it.”
“It’s okay. Is Finn home?”
“Yeah. He’s right here.”
“Good.”
Finn cocked a brow at me as I rang off.
“Polly,” I said.
I kept the light off and sidled to the window, bile rising and my breath catching as I recognised the figure outside. Finn stayed in the doorway, frowning. “What’s did she want?”
“She said there was someone looking at the house.”
Finn made as if to join me but I held my hand out to keep him back. I peered out at the lane below the window, keeping my body hidden from view.
“Is it Stephen? Feck, he’d better not come near this place!”
I wasn’t sure what to say. My hands shaking, I fished my phone back out of my jeans pocket to snap a picture of Stephen before calling Helen. “Helen? Yeah, it’s me.” I crossed the room to Finn, grabbing the back of his sweatshirt and stopping him from pounding down the stairs to get to Stephen. “Stephen’s here, staring at the cottage. You’d better get John to come and get him, or I’ll call the police… Yes, Finn’s with me… Helen, just get Stephen away from the house before something happens.”
Pulling Finn after me, I went back to the window and peeked out again. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I realised there were two figures opposite the cottage.
“Finn? Who’s that next to Stephen?”
Finn looked out, still thrumming. “I don’t see anyone else. Just Stephen.”
“Next to him. About three feet away on our left, Stephen’s right. He’s wearing black. About the same height as Stephen. Is it one of his pals that came to the gym?”
Finn’s head dipped closer to the glass, his breath misting it. “I don’t see anyone else, Rea. I’m gonna go and ask Stephen to leave.”
My hands tightened on his sweatshirt. “No, you’re not, because I’m not sure you’ll manage to ask nicely. And how can you not see the other guy?”
He was as clear a figure as Stephen. Was he the fucker breaking in and leaving things in the cottage? My heart lurched and my breathing faltered.
Finn frowned at the dark. “I don’t see anyone else. Where is he?”
“On Stephen’s right, almost directly opposite Mike and Polly’s.”
Finn shook his head. “Nope. Not seeing anything.” He moved to where I was standing but still shrugged.
I took a harder look at the figure next to Stephen. As I did, he lifted his head and locked eyes with me. They were red.
I caught my breath, making Finn curl an arm around me. “It’s okay, Rea. He comes one step closer to the house and I’ll kill him.”
I rested my palm on his chest. It wasn’t Stephen I was suddenly scared of. The shadowy figure next to Stephen looked exactly like the thing called Aegyir in the weird book. After he’d killed the man.
Headlights swung into the lane, picking out Stephen’s features. The light didn’t illuminate the thing next to him. The car parked up and John got out. There was a muffled conversation and Stephen moved towards the car, his gait belying how drunk he was. As he turned, he walked straight through the other figure as if it wasn’t there, though he staggered fractionally as he did so. John bundled him into the car and reversed back out of the lane. The shadowy figure gazed up at the cottage again – straight at me – and I shrank back from the window.
Finn coiled me against him. “It’s okay. He’s gone. I think we should tell the police he was here though, just in case.”
“Mm. Thank you for not losing it and going out there.”
He kissed the top of my head. “I was tempted. He shows up again, I may not manage to resist.”
I pulled up the picture I’d taken to see if it showed Stephen clearly enough to send it to the police. It did. It also showed the murderous creature, Aegyir.
“That’s the thing I was trying to get you to see.” I held my phone out to Finn.
He squinted at it. “What?”
“The thing next to Stephen! It’s the thing from the book!”
He took my phone from me and expanded the picture. “It’s just black, Rea.”
My breath huffed and I held out my hand. “Here. Head. Body. Legs.” I stabbed at the screen. “Here!”
Perplexed blue eyes lifted to me. “Rea, it’s just black.”
I trembled. Someone kept breaking into the house. I was reading books written in runes. And now I was seeing invisible people. I rubbed my brow, tears prickling my eyes.
Finn took my phone back, saying nothing. I leaned against him as he called the police and sent them the picture, wondering if they’d be able to see Aegyir.
The call over, Finn bunted me. “Come on. Let’s turn in; try to get some sleep.”
I nodded but I didn’t want to sleep. If I did, I’d open a window into my brain and Stephen would come marching in, trying to kill me again.
As we were settling down in bed and I was fighting to keep my eyes open, I remembered where I’d seen the woman whose body had been found at the quarry.
She was the woman who’d been glaring at me in the library, yesterday.
9
His fist connected with my cheekbone, whipping my head around.
“Slut! Traitor!”
Flecks of spittle landed on my skin. I opened my mouth, desperate to explain, but he raised his hand to me again.
“Save it. No one wants you here. No on
e.”
My eyes sought my husband, standing beside him, but he turned his back on me, lips pinched. My arms were wrenched behind my back and I was cuffed tightly and shoved forwards. I needed to explain. “Please? Please look at me?”
His broad back remained a wall of black leather. If only he would look at me, he’d realise that everyone was wrong about me. Surely?
“No one can bear the sight of you, Aeron,” said the older man. My husband stalked away, stiff-backed.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He had to turn and look. He wouldn’t let me be taken away without one final glance? Could he?
He could.
I was marched down to the cells. Long hallways full of hatred and misunderstanding. I passed the body of Torfan – my little brother – being dragged away, his dead eyes staring at nothing. Aegyir had plucked his life-force from him, killing him instantly, but leaving him unmarked. Along with everyone else in my family. My tears caught in my throat.
So many dead. Orian should have told them.
Tears tracked down my face. I was hurled into a small, windowless cell, my knees banging on the rough stone floor, the sour tang of stale air filling my nose. One of the guards wrenched my arms back to remove the cuffs.
“How much do you weigh?” he asked. “The hangman will need to know.”
I sat up, snatching at my breath, my heart thudding, sweat prickling my skin. Finn reached out and pulled me back to him, startling me, and I lashed out.
“Ow!” he said, voice thick with sleep. “Come here. Go back to sleep. It’s just a dream.”
Finn held me firmly against his bare skin, making small, drowsy, mumbling sounds. I nestled back against him and he was instantly asleep, as if the only thing that he needed was for me to be close. I rubbed my cheek against his chest, waiting for my heart rate to settle, wishing I could go back to sleep so easily, knowing I wouldn’t.
It was only a dream. I knew that. The problem was that it was a frightening dream about the Realm. I could normally rely on it to provide comforting dreams – ones where I was respected and felt at home. Not ones where I was cuffed and being told I was about to be hanged. It had all felt so horribly real. I could almost feel the spittle as I’d been taken past those people. My arms hurt from being pinned behind me by the guards. Maybe I was just blending the nightmares I had about Stephen into the Realm. Maybe the sight of the shadowy figure had triggered this.
