I’ll never get to tell her I have a job at the gallery. Ben’s okay, but Patrick put him in the hospital so I’m helping out. Mia wants to go back to her old school for her GCSE year, and I’d be closer to Joe if we move back to Cardiff. But for this summer, I have sea views from the caravan we’re renting, I have a job, and I’m painting again in the studio above the gallery. Patrick’s ghost has gone. Ben invited us to stay in his cottage, but he still sees Patrick when he looks at me. There’s a shadow that wasn’t there before. I don’t think he’ll stay in touch when we leave.
My exhibition was postponed, but it’ll happen before the end of the summer. There’s a half-finished seascape on an easel, one I think Anna would approve of, full of all the colors from her secret beach.
“Mum?” Mia walks over and we stand and watch the house together.
There’s a collective gasp when it comes down, followed by a sigh I may have imagined. I shiver as a cold breeze creeps around me, one of Mia’s cold spots set free.
That’s it, it’s gone.
Mia stretches out her hand and I take it, holding it tight. I’m not letting go this time.
“They should have done this fifteen years ago after the first murders,” the man next to me mutters, coughing as he lights a cigarette.
I look up the cliff path where a figure watches the house fall. I hope Tom will be able finally to move on now that the house is gone.
“Yes,” I say. “They should have.” They should have done it a long time before that.
Mia and I walk away from the ruins of the Murder House without looking back.
Vanessa Savage is a graphic designer and illustrator. She has twice been awarded a Writers’ Bursary by Literature Wales, most recently for The Woman in the Dark. She won the Myriad Editions First Drafts competition in 2016 and her work has been highly commended in the Yeovil Literary Prize, shortlisted for the Harry Bowling Prize and the Caledonia Novel Award, and long-listed for the Bath Novel Award.
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The Woman in the Dark Page 34
