A Dark Inheritance

by Chris D'Lacey

  “Nothing.” She laughed. “You’ve done nothing wrong. They just … well, when something like this happens, they need to ask some questions.”

  Chantelle swept in again. “Sorry, no one is available at the moment, but a doctor will come in and see him shortly.”

  “I’ll stay with him,” said Mom. “I’ll call Josie and tell her I’ll be late.”

  “He’ll be perfectly all right with me,” said Chantelle. “You go if you need to. He can watch TV while we run some checks on him.”

  “Well …” Mom picked up her bag.

  “Don’t leave,” I pleaded. I’d been dead to the world for a week. I wanted to know what was happening in my life. I wanted to actually see my mom.

  Chantelle stepped forward and felt my pulse. “Hey, no jumping around. I don’t want you disturbing this IV.” She retightened the tape on the thing on my wrist.

  Mom leaned over and gave me a kiss. “I’ll be right back, with Josie. Better prepare yourself for an onslaught. She hasn’t seen you since … this happened. Be good. Do exactly as Chantelle tells you.”

  “I’m hardly gonna party in here, am I?”

  “Boys,” Mom sighed. “You can knock the stuffing out of them but never the lip.” She gestured to Chantelle, who followed her out.

  Just beyond the doorway, I heard them whispering.

  “He seems a bit confused. I’d like Dr. …” Kay, I thought Mom said. Dr. Kay to look at him.

  “I’ll arrange it,” Chantelle reassured her. “He’s off duty at the moment, but shall I …” something “him, for you?” Page him, maybe? “You’ll need to be here when the police speak to Michael.”

  “Yes,” Mom said.

  And that was that.

  Something like half an hour had passed before Mom came back. True to her word, Josie was with her. By then, the police were waiting in the corridor. Josie managed to pop her head into my room and wave like a frantic clockwork doll before being physically restrained by Mom. She was made to wait outside.

  There were two of them, a man and a woman, detectives, both young and sharply dressed. They didn’t look much like police at all. They asked me what I could remember of the accident. How fast did I think the car was going? Did it pass me and turn around? Did it seem to veer toward me? Did the driver lose control? Did I see the driver? Did the driver have anything in their hand? Could I describe the car? Make, model, color, license plate, any memorable or unusual features? Anything at all. No matter how small.

  It was black, I told them. That was it.

  They sat back, looking disappointed. The woman tapped her pen against her notepad. After what seemed like an age, she said, “Does the name Rafferty Nolan mean anything to you, Michael?”

  The man glanced sideways at his colleague.

  “I know that name from somewhere,” said Mom.

  “Please, let Michael answer,” said the woman.

  But the suddenness of the question had caught me unawares. I started doing that goldfish thing, where you’re not quite sure what you want to say and your lips are moving but no words are coming out. I remembered the figure at the side of the road. Was that Rafferty, trying to warn me about the car?

  The policewoman gave me another prompt. “Are you aware it was the Nolans’ dog you rescued on the cliffs that morning?”

  “Why are you asking him this?” said Mom.

  The policewoman tightened her lips. She did that thing women sometimes do of dropping her shoe away from her heel. “Do you know the Nolan family, Michael? Is that where you were going — to the fishermen’s cottages on Berry Head West?”

  Mom said, “As far as I knew, he was going to see a friend.”

  I was?

  “All the kids meet on the headland,” she added.

  The policewoman stared at me. My head felt like a strongbox she’d like to split open. “We talked to Michael’s best friend, Ryan …”

  “Garvey,” the man filled in.

  “He didn’t say anything about a meeting that day.”

  Mom folded her arms. “Are you accusing Michael of lying?”

  The policewoman cradled a smile on her mouth, the look of a woman who was getting nowhere. She stood up and circled around the back of her chair, sliding her notepad into her bag. “I was just trying to clarify why Michael was there, yards from the spot where a young girl lost her life three years ago, also in a bike-related incident. I find that an odd coincidence, don’t you?”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence,” Mom said.

  “Me, neither,” said the woman, buttoning her jacket. “We’ll want to talk to you again, Michael, when you’ve had time to clear your thoughts.”

  She nodded at her colleague. And with that, they were gone.

  “Well, I didn’t like her attitude at all,” Mom said.

  “She is a cop,” I said in the woman’s defense.

  “There’s no harm in being polite.” Mom fluffed her hair. It was different, her hair. Darker. Less bobbed. I wasn’t sure I liked it. “I’ll let Josie in,” Mom said.

  “Mom, wait.” I took her arm. “Why did they ask so much about the car?”

  She paused and rested her hand on mine. “Whoever knocked you down didn’t stop to help you. They were probably too afraid of the consequences. That’s why the police are being prickly, I suppose. Someone from a cottage up the road heard the bang and called an ambulance.”

  “Aileen — Mrs. Nolan?”

  “No, a man. He — So you do know the Nolan family?”

  “I …”

  Luckily, Josie spared me an explanation. She came in carrying a bunch of flowers. She slapped them on the bed by my ankles. “Hi! Oh, sorry. Those are for you. Freesias. Your favorite — so Mom says. I thought you hated flowers, but what do I know? We were going to bring grapes, but they had none in the store. Wicked bruise.”

  She was gawking at my eye.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Mom tutted.

  I hadn’t seen my face yet. “Is it bad?”

  “Mega.”

  “Josie, you’re supposed to be making him feel better.”

  But I was feeling better. Josie mouthing off, Mom clucking like a hen. Normal. This was exactly what I needed.

  Josie said, “You were in the papers again.”

  “For all the wrong reasons,” Mom muttered. She picked up the flowers, looking around for a nonexistent vase.

  Papers. Something swam into my consciousness about newspapers. That’s why I was cycling on the headland that morning, to meet Candy Streetham, to talk about Rafferty. “Has Candy been around?”

  Josie whipped her hair back and forth. “They sent a reporter, but it wasn’t her. A man this time. He was really good-looking. Hey, they held a special assembly at school. Solomon said we had to pray for you! I saw Ryan, like this.” She did a hands-clasped pose. “Ryan Garvey, praying — for you. Do you think he’s gone soft?”

  “Josie, that’s enough.” Mom whopped her with the flowers, spraying yellow petals all over the bed.

  That made us all laugh.

  “You sound better,” said Chantelle, coming in with a glass of water and some pills. “Don’t laugh too hard; there are stitches you don’t know about yet.” She pressed her fingers to a wound on my head. “Sit up further. You need to take these.”

  As I gulped the pills down, Josie started banging on some more about school. I wanted to hear it, if only to get some reference points for this latest shift, but her words started sounding like the sea in a shell as I focused instead on the conversation Mom and Chantelle were having. I picked out Mom saying, “Did you speak to Dr. Kay?”

  Chantelle replied, “He’ll see Michael later, after visiting is over.”

  They both looked at me and smiled. Smiles that said, Yes, we’re plotting, but it’s in your best interests, dot, dot, dot.

  I was exhausted by the time Mom and Josie left, and ready to sleep again. But when Chantelle came in to close the blinds, I was surprised to hear I had another visitor.
“She’s been waiting for your mother and Josie to go. I’ve told her she can have a few minutes; that’s all. I think she’d like to be alone with you.”

  Chantelle went out. Seconds later, a small bundle of gothic rags came in.

  Freya.

  She walked up and put a red rose on my chest. “Hi,” she said in a squeaky little voice.

  “Hi,” I squeaked back. A rose? From Freya?

  She stroked my bruised hand. “Look at you, all broken.”

  “I’m okay,” I muttered. “Um, why are you here?”

  She sighed and lifted her hand away. “I’ve come to steal your bandages for the school play. I’ve got the leading role in The Mummy this year.”

  “What?”

  She tutted. “Why do you think I’m here?” She looked back at the door to check that no one was watching. “You’re an idiot,” she said. “You know that, don’t you? But I guess that’s always been part of your charm.”

  Then she bent over.

  And kissed me, softly, on the tip of my nose.

  As changes of reality went, this one was a real wowzer. That’s, like, a zillion times greater than a wow and considerably weirder than a simple er….

  Kissed, by Freya Zielinski.

  Where in my head had THAT come from?

  “And she stuns him,” she said as she straightened up.

  She wasn’t wrong. I’d practically corpsed. Flatline time on the heart rate monitor.

  Beeeeeeeeeppppppppp.

  Followed by a sudden KER-THUMP!

  It lives (again).

  I gulped and slanted my eyes toward her.

  “You can say something now, if you like,” she said.

  But nothing would come. My mouth and brain were still trying to process what had just happened.

  She sighed and started to play with her bangles, rolling each one around her wrist in turn. “It was never like this in my fairy-tale books. You’re supposed to wake up when the dark witch kisses you and forever be a handsome prince among men, riding away to far-off lands and slaying marauding dragons and stuff — except I’d finish with you if you did.”

  “Finish with me? Ow.” Reminder to self: Sudden movement hurts.

  “Sorry. That would be very harsh. I shouldn’t really give you too much grief, not when there’s still a chance you might die.”

  “What?”

  “Joke,” she said, knuckling my arm. “You can’t croak on me yet; I need you to get me through my history test. Nice pad, by the way.”

  Not from where I lay. “I don’t like hospitals.”

  “Excuse me? More like private clinic. Your mom must be loaded. This place has got guards on the gate and everything.” She made gun barrels with her fingers and sounded a double kerpow.

  Was this real? Was this actually happening? Freya Zielinski doing … girlfriend stuff? I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again. Yep, she was still there. Still a girl. Still a friend.

  “Hey, you look good,” she spoke up suddenly.

  “Thanks, Freya, that’s really funny.”

  “It was a prompt, Michael.” She folded her arms. “Something you might say to me?”

  Oh. Right.

  Actually, she did look good. She’d made an effort, as Mom would say. She’d dabbed a little makeup around her eyes, painting the lids a light shade of green. And her hair was better. Still as wild as blackberry thorns, but not hiding her face anymore. She’d replaced her skull studs with silver stars and taken out the nose ring she wasn’t supposed to wear at school but did. Bizarrely for her, she had a sweater on. A chunky-knit thing in royal blue with a single wave of white across the front.

  Clocking where my eyes had rested, she said, “Present from my gran. I have to wear it. Some sort of family contract they make you sign at birth. Dad says I look like a Danish detective.”

  I frowned.

  “I know. I didn’t get it either.”

  “You look cool, Freya.”

  She curtsied. “Sire.”

  “I mean it.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do. You look …”

  “Do not say ‘nice.’ I am never nice. Nice is not an option for vampires, Michael. Try ‘I love the way your pale skin sparkles in the twilight.’ I could just about cope with that.”

  “Don’t make me laugh.” I pointed to my stitches.

  “Just these, in your head?” She ran her thumb along the area Chantelle had pressed.

  “Careful! I think so, yeah.”

  “Only five? What a lightweight. On the stitches count, I rock.”

  And my head might have felt like a wrecking ball, but the brain inside was still in high gear. Here, at last, was my chance to quiz her about the elusive operation. “How many did you have, you know — for your … thing?”

  She waggled my IV. Um, probably not a good idea, Freya.

  “Only boys brag about their scars,” she drawled. “Let’s just say I won’t be visiting any beach resorts ever.”

  “Is it really bad, then?”

  She linked my little finger. “Really bad.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Me and Freya, holding hands. And the weird thing was, it felt so right.

  I liked her like this. Truly liked her. Smart, but not moody. Weird, but not wasted. Confident. Sassy. Different from the crowd. Be careful what you wish for, Klimt had said. How long had we been this friendly? I wondered.

  She let go of my hand. Without prompting, she said, “I do like you, Michael, but I’ve had a heart broken once already. I’d need to be sure, really sure, before I let anyone get too close to this one. Is that fair?”

  “Course,” I said, though my brain was doing loops as it tried to unravel exactly what she’d said. She’d had surgery on her heart? At her age?

  Wow.

  That explained a lot about her vampire persona.

  “Freya, can I ask you something?”

  “If it’s about the doughnut I bought on the way here, I ate it while they kept me waiting. Sorry.”

  “No. A serious question. Why did you call me an idiot when you came in the room?”

  She gave me a look. “A ghost hunt? Come on.”

  “Sorry?” What the heck was she talking about?

  “It was Garvey, wasn’t it, who put it in your head?”

  Put what in my head? “I can’t remember.”

  She walked around to the other side of the bed. “After you were hit, he was mouthing off at school about some dead girl who’s supposed to haunt the cliff.” She lowered her voice to a pretty near perfect impression of Ryan. “ ‘This is totally true, right. If you cycle along the coast road, you can see the dead girl sitting on the stone where she died. You can, like, talk to her and everything. If you put your hand through her, it comes back with her blood on it and you can’t wash it off. Darren Egerton says if you make her mad, she comes after you with a bike chain, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.’ ”

  “A bike chain?”

  Freya shook her head in despair. “Garvey is a total jerk. He should be in a cage and have paying visitors. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about this.” She flapped her hands. “It freaks me out.”

  But I needed to tell her. She needed to know who the “dead girl” was. That Trace had belonged to her. That I’d met Aileen Nolan. That I’d probably seen Rafferty’s ghost on the road.

  “Freya —”

  “You haven’t gotten many cards, have you?” She was checking out the half dozen on the nightstand. “Did you like ours?” She held it up so I could see. A kid, like me, in a hospital bed, with his foot in bandages, winched up high. Inside, someone had written Any Excuse to Get Out of Math! and all my classmates had signed it. Freya stood it at the front of the group. “Can you believe that Lauren Shenton put two kisses below her name? I might have to seriously bite that girl.”

  I tried again. “Freya, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  She pulled open the drawer of the nightstand. “Hey, there’s another two cards in
here.”

  Oh? There was room on the stand for several more cards. Why should two have been left in the drawer?

  “They were underneath your med notes. Shall I read them to you?”

  “Yeah,” I said, a little confused.

  “This one hasn’t got an envelope.” She showed me the picture. Two swans gliding across a pond. “ ‘Dear Michael, I can’t begin to tell you how shocked I was to hear what happened. Please, please get well. Come and see us when you do. Aileen N.’ Who’s that?”

  Once again I tried to say, but Freya was on a crusade now. “What’s it doing in a stupid drawer, anyway?” She plonked it onto the nightstand and slid the next card out of its envelope. She opened it and took out a folded piece of paper. Her eyes twitched as she read the sender’s name. “Who’s Candy?”

  I only knew one. Candy Streetham. Candy Streetham had sent me a card? “She’s a journalist. Let me see.”

  Instead, Freya unfolded the paper. It looked like some sort of photocopy.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She took a sharp breath.

  “Freya? What’s the matter? What’s on the paper?”

  Her eyes skimmed it for about ten seconds. “How could you?” she said in a breathy whisper. “Not her. Anyone but her.” She let the article drop to the floor.

  “Freya?”

  She backed away quickly, fingers fluttering against her temples.

  “Chantelle!” I called out. “Something’s wrong with Freya!”

  And there was something very wrong in the room as well. A sudden gust of wind had swept through the window, billowing the blinds like a sail. My IV feed shook, the television flickered, the halogens blinked, the cart wheels skewed. Several petals were stripped off Freya’s rose. At the same time, Candy’s get-well card flew across the room and flattened itself against the wall. The piece of paper that had been enclosed with it spiraled through the air like bonfire ash. It landed on my bed within easy reach.

  Freya screamed. She collided with the chair and tipped it over. Then she just ran, almost flooring Chantelle in her hurry to get out.

  Shaking, I picked up the paper. On it was a picture of Rafferty Nolan, alongside an article about her accident.

  “Michael, give me that.” Chantelle was approaching with a hand stretched toward me. In the other, she held a gun. She was pointing it hard at the window.