by Simon Lelic
Shit.
I don’t know. The truth is I didn’t know then, and I’m not sure even now.
The ironic thing is, before the search party, I suspected Mason least of all. I’m not saying he didn’t have a temper, that he couldn’t be a bit full-on. You only have to look at what happened on the bridge. But that was just . . . it was just everything boiling over, that was all, and anyway, Ian had it coming. That’s what I told myself at the time. Mason wasn’t dangerous, not the way people were making out. And that’s why I was walking beside him. Because, out of any of them, at that point, it was Mason I trusted most of all. More than Abi, more than Fash, more than Luke even.
Can you believe that? Given what happened?
I was walking next to Mason because he made me feel safe.
ABI
I HATED IT. Every step.
It’s like, the others might have known where they were going, because they still went out into the woods all the time. Not to climb trees and that anymore, just to smoke, to drink sometimes, to hang out without worrying about anyone bothering them. Me, I tended to make up some excuse, or try to convince them to go to the quay instead. It was always way better down there anyway. We could blag our way onto the fairground rides in the summer, or take over one of the benches and talk about school, or our parents, or even just the people passing by. The tourists, Lara Sweeney and all her lot, the weirdos who ran the rides. We were never cruel or anything, except maybe if we were talking about Lara. We were just having a laugh, passing the time. But out in the woods it was never as much fun. I never thought so anyway. For some reason, out there, things always seemed to get all deep and meaningful. Like, in a depressing way. You know? Probably because it was so depressing being surrounded by all those trees.
So yeah, the truth was, I hadn’t really been out in the woods much, not since we were younger, and I’d never liked it even then. It was just so creepy. If you caught the trees at the wrong angle they looked like people, and you could never be sure you were really alone. Sadie used to go into the woods by herself sometimes, just when she needed to clear her head, she said, but there’s no way I would have gone out there without someone else with me. Not if you paid me a gazillion pounds.
So I hated it anyway, is what I’m saying. Every single step. And that was before you consider why we were out there. Because the thing was, as we were walking along, I kept imagining I’d seen her. Sadie, I mean. Parts of her. A shirtsleeve that turned out to be a root. A flash of blonde hair that was really just a patch of dead grass. At one point I almost screamed out loud, because for a second I could have sworn I’d almost trodden on one of Sadie’s hands.
But it was just a leaf.
I don’t know if the others were thinking the same, but me, personally, all I wanted to do was go back. I couldn’t believe I’d gone along with Fash’s plan in the first place, that I thought being out there might actually make things better.
“Guys?” I said, after we’d been walking for what felt like hours, weaving back and forth the way we said we would. “Has anyone else got a signal?” I was holding my phone up in the air, as high as I could get it to go.
“Nope,” said Mason.
“Uh-uh,” said Fash.
Because that was the other thing about being out in the woods. The signal on my phone had given out when we’d crossed the river, and if everybody else’s phones were the same, that meant we had no way of contacting anyone. If it got to the point we needed help.
“Seriously,” I said. “You’d think we were in the middle of nowhere, not a couple of miles from the center of town.”
I noticed Cora making a face. “Like, hello?” she said. “The center of town is the middle of nowhere. And what do you expect when we’re surrounded by all these trees?”
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I was just trying to check if there was any news, that’s all. If the police had found anything in the river.”
“And they said they’d text you, did they?” said Cora. “And anyway, you’re supposed to be looking for Sadie, not trying to get a signal on your phone. This is a search party, remember?”
“But if they have found something, there’d be no reason for us to be out here, would there?” I told her. “Besides, I—”
I stopped moving. The others turned and stopped, too.
“What is it?” Fash asked me.
“What the hell was that?” I said.
“What the hell was what?” said Cora.
“That noise. I swear to God I just heard a noise.”
And then, as I stood there listening, I heard it again. I’d been trailing behind the rest of them and I went rushing to catch up, scraping my arm on a tree.
“Ow! Shit!”
“Calm down, Abi,” said Cora. “Jesus.”
I ignored her and focused on the others. Luke had come back from up ahead and I went and stood next to him, on account of the fact he was holding a massive stick.
“Seriously,” I told them. “I heard a noise.”
“A noise?” said Cora. “In the woods? Well, there’s a fucking surprise.”
“Fuck off, Cora!” I snapped back at her. Just because I’d had enough. You know? Of her constant bitching.
“Jesus,” said Luke. “What is it between you two at the moment?”
I looked at Cora, daring her to answer, but for once in her life she kept her mouth shut.
“You’re bleeding,” Fash said to me.
I pointed my elbow at him so I could see the underside of my arm. And there was, there was a massive scrape. Look. See? You can still see the scab. And even though I knew Mason had been joking when he’d mentioned bears, all I could think was that if it was a bear or something I’d heard, it would be able to smell my blood. Like sharks do. Is it sharks? Who can basically tell when something’s bleeding from half the ocean away. I saw that in one of Mason’s movies once, and I haven’t gone swimming in the sea ever since. It’s like, what if you’re on, you know?
“What was it you heard, Abi?” said Mason.
“I . . . I don’t know. Just . . . something. In the trees.” I checked behind me. “Are you sure there aren’t any bears out here? Not wild ones maybe, but . . . I don’t know. Couldn’t one have escaped or something?”
“Escaped from where?” said Cora. “A traveling circus?”
“Or a zoo, perhaps?” I said.
“The nearest zoo is in London,” said Cora. “What do you think, it took a train from Paddington Station? A suitcase full of marmalade sandwiches?”
I shot her evils.
“There aren’t any bears, Abi,” said Fash. “I’m pretty certain of that.”
“Fash is right,” said Cora. “There aren’t any bears.” She paused for a moment. “It’s the wolves you want to be watching out for.”
And then, when I turned to her, Mason put his head back and let out this enormous howl. And Cora started wetting herself, obviously, like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. And even Fash was smiling, and Luke was looking down toward his feet. Like it was all one big joke to them. Like I was, you know, just because I’d got scared. It was like the way they always laugh when I say something stupid. Which I can’t help sometimes. It’s not my fault. The words just start coming out and then, by the time I hear them, it’s too late to take them back. It doesn’t mean everyone always has to constantly take the piss. And anyway, I couldn’t see what was so funny. For me, personally, when Mason howled like that—it made my skin crawl.
What could I do, though? They didn’t believe me. But I bet they’re wishing they’d listened to me now.
CORA
IT WAS GETTING dark by the time we reached the stream. In the summer holidays, when we were younger, we’d sometimes go to the stream to splash about. You couldn’t swim in the river, obviously, and the beach was always crammed with tourists. So the stream was like o
ur little secret. A place we knew no one else would come.
“Do you reckon here’s a good place to stop?” said Luke, when we came within sight of the bank.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved. I mean, I would have been fine if it hadn’t been for Abi. Not fine, obviously, but it was only because she was acting so jittery that I’d started to get freaked-out myself. Not because of bears. I mean, seriously. Fucking bears. What planet was she even on? But she was constantly looking over her shoulder, and after a while I started checking behind me, too. And obviously the darker it got, the harder it was to see. It had got to the point that, from imagining I was seeing Sadie in every shadow, I probably wouldn’t have spotted her if she’d been swinging right in front of me from a tree. I—
Jesus.
I can’t believe I just said that.
I just meant . . . You know what I meant. Right? I didn’t mean to imply . . . I didn’t mean anything, I swear. I’d just . . . I’d been trying to make sense of it, you know? Walking along, trying to figure out how we’d got to the point where we were doing what we were doing. As in, searching for our best friend in the middle of the woods, and praying we wouldn’t find her dead. I was comparing it to the beginning of the summer, to that night we spent on the beach, the day we finished our exams. The start of the evening anyway, before Mason threw a Mason and ruined it for everyone else. But at first, as we were passing around the bottles of wine, nothing else seemed to matter. Not school, not exams, not our parents, not being stuck in this shithole of a town. Nothing except being out there in the sand dunes with our friends. And it wasn’t like we were setting the world to rights. We were just . . . having a laugh. That’s all. And what I couldn’t work out was why couldn’t life be like that all the time? Why did all the bullshit have to come along and ruin things? And when I thought about that, I had to bite down to stop myself crying.
So yeah, when Luke suggested we stop, I was the first one to agree. But nobody objected. The others were obviously flagging as well, which wasn’t surprising given the heat. Because there was no breeze out there. No oxygen, it felt like. Just this thickness in your throat, like the air was something you could have chewed.
There was a clearing by the stream, and without anyone saying anything, we dumped our bags and collapsed down next to them. I had no idea how much ground we’d covered, but it felt like we’d walked for miles. And it was tough going in the forest. The ground was hard because it had been so hot, but there were still lots of twigs and stuff underfoot. It was as tiring as walking on sand.
Abi was trying her phone again, and the boys began feeding themselves sips of water. I’d caned half of my bottle already, so rather than wasting any more I figured I’d take a drink from the stream. I splashed my face first, and the water was deliciously cool. I made a scoop with my hands, and brought the water to my lips—but then Luke appeared out of nowhere and batted my hands away.
“Hey!” I said, turning.
“You can’t drink that,” he said.
“Why not? It’s clear.”
“But it’s barely running. And anyway, it doesn’t matter what it looks like. It’s what’s in it that matters. Like, microbes and stuff. You’ll make yourself ill.”
“He’s right,” said Fash. “Here.” He tossed me a full bottle of water. “I’ve got plenty if you’re running low.”
I fumbled the bottle, but caught it before it rolled into the stream. I looked down at the water and, rather than clear, this time the stream looked like it had turned black. It was just the light, I expect, or lack of it, but it made me think of something in a fairy tale. One of the old ones, the type that always gave me nightmares, where people drown, or have their eyes pecked out, or end up being eaten alive. It gave me the creeps, and I crawled back up toward the others.
We laid out my groundsheet and Fash’s blanket. Compared to elsewhere in the woods, the ground was weirdly soft. It was because of the stream, I suppose, and seeing as it was going to be our bed for the night, I guess I should have been glad. But the ground being so spongy felt wrong somehow. Sort of . . . rotten. Like touching a piece of gone-off fruit.
Nobody spoke much after that. We were all exhausted, and not just from the day we’d spent searching. It was everything catching up with us, the sleepless nights since Sadie had gone missing. If you’d asked me before we got there, I would have pretty much guaranteed we’d have sat up talking all night. The way we would have when we were younger. But Luke just rolled onto his side, so that his back was toward the rest of us. Fash started snoring almost the second his head hit the ground, and soon enough even Abi fell asleep. Her phone screen went dark, anyway, which was as much of a sign with Abi as you really needed. She was sharing Fash’s blanket, whereas Luke was off lying on his own. I ended up being next to Mason, slightly apart from the others.
We lay in silence for a bit, but I could tell Mason was still awake.
“Mase?” I said, keeping my voice down. “Do you really think . . .”
I paused.
“Think what?” he said.
“Just, that Sadie’s . . . that there’s a chance we’ll find her?”
“That’s why we’re out here,” he answered. “Isn’t it?”
I wriggled uncomfortably. There was something weird about his tone of voice. It was sort of . . . bitter. Cold. “Sure,” I said. “I guess.”
For a moment there was just the sound of the others breathing.
“I never believed what people were saying, you know,” I said eventually, because I figured maybe that was why he sounded pissed-off, and also because I’d been wanting to say it for a while. “Not even for a minute.”
“What part of what people were saying?”
I was lying on my back, staring up at the canopy, which looked like cracks in the dark blue sky. I glanced toward Mason, and realized he was looking right at me.
“Just . . . that you had anything to do with it,” I said. “With whatever happened to Sadie.” And I meant what I said, at the time.
“Yeah?” said Mason. He didn’t sound convinced.
“Yeah,” I told him. “And none of the others did either. Not really. Not even Luke.”
Mason didn’t respond.
“Do you . . .” I turned slightly away. “Do you miss her?” I asked him.
It was stupid, really. I’d only carried on talking because I wanted to hear someone’s voice, and because I was worried about everyone else falling asleep before me. And I don’t know what I expected Mason to say. Not what he came back with, anyway.
“Do you?” he said. Although maybe it wasn’t what he said, more the way he said it. Sort of accusing, you know? Which, looking back, should have been, like, a clue or something. My first hint about what he was really up to.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.
“I was just asking,” said Mason. “That’s all. The same way you asked me.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“But what?”
I paused again. “Of course I miss her,” I told him. “How could I not?”
Mason didn’t say anything, and I was beginning to wish I hadn’t started the conversation in the first place.
“I wouldn’t have wished this, you know,” I said. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”
I turned toward him. He was still looking at me, watching me, and I didn’t like the expression in his eyes.
“Mase? Truly. I wouldn’t have.”
Now he was the one to turn away.
“Anyway,” I said. “Don’t you think . . .”
“Think what?”
“That Sadie had changed,” I said, because I’d been dying to say that, too. “Just lately, I mean. Over the summer in particular. Since that night on the beach.”
I meant that night I was talking about earlier, with the wine, in the sand dunes, when Mason
and Sadie had ended up having an argument, and Mason had stormed off in a strop.
“Changed?” said Mason, and I could tell he was suddenly all ears. “Like how?”
“Just . . . I don’t know. She didn’t seem different to you?”
“No, she didn’t seem different. She was just Sadie. Just the same Sadie she’s always been. As beautiful, as kind, as funny . . .”
His voice kind of trailed off, and I could hear how much he loved her.
“Yeah, well,” I said, knowing I should shut the hell up. “Maybe you didn’t know her as well as you think you did.”
I rolled away, and I could feel Mason watching me again. I kept waiting for him to say something, to ask me what I’d meant. But instead he just stayed quiet.
I don’t know how much time passed after that. I’m pretty sure I heard Mason get up, but I refused to turn and look. Instead I just lay there listening, because the woods had suddenly come alive. There were all sorts of noises in the undergrowth. Up in the trees, too. Owls and stuff. Bats. All the other things that only come out at night. I wouldn’t have minded so much if Abi had been awake, because I knew she would have been more afraid than I was. As it was, it was just me and my imagination, and I was convinced I’d be lying there the entire night.
I wasn’t, of course. I fell asleep soon after. I remember thinking about Sadie, and that stream, and thinking the sound of it was like the sound of Sadie’s voice. But then I guess I drifted off. At one point I woke and thought I saw a figure watching us from the tree line, but when I rubbed my eyes and looked again, there was no one there. Then, later, I was sure I heard someone crying, but that could just as easily have been a dream.
In the end I guess I slept more deeply than I realized. I didn’t feel the cold, and I didn’t notice when the dark gave way to the morning gray. In fact, I’d probably have slept longer, if I hadn’t been woken by a scream.
FULL DARK, NO stars. Just the rain slashing at the curtainless window, the light from the streetlamps along the harbor walkway refracting sharply in the broken beads of water.
