by Dan Scottow
Mylo reaches across and takes her hand in his, caressing her skin with his thumb.
‘It’s fine, honestly. For a while I thought it was the end of the world. He was all I’d known for such a long time, I genuinely didn’t know how to be me without him by my side. That’s partly why I came here.’
‘Running away?’
‘I suppose so, yes. But also… to find myself. Rediscover who I am. And it’s helped. It really has. Being here. The beauty. Fresh air. Meeting new people who don’t look at me with pity in their eyes. Don’t judge me on my failed relationship. I feel like I’m healing.’
Mylo nods.
‘Let’s go,’ she says abruptly. ‘I’m sure Valentina has had long enough to say her piece by now.’ She stands, heading into the woods. Mylo straightens, brushes dirt from his jeans, before following her into the darkness.
71
Lucy
Mylo drops her on the pontoon but doesn’t stay; doesn’t even cut the engine. She understands it must be difficult for him to go in there. Especially after what he was subjected to this afternoon. She watches as he speeds away, around the outcrop.
She’s glad they’ve cleared the air. She likes him. Round here, she needs all the company she can get. She considers what this place is like in the winter. A different experience entirely, no doubt. Fewer hours of daylight. Less warmth. No flowers or colour.
Shivering, she wraps her arms around her body.
The earlier sunshine of the day has disappeared behind thick, ominous-looking clouds which crept in from nowhere while their boat whizzed back across the water. The sky is quite spectacular. A living, ever-changing canvas.
Diana doesn’t have a thing on you, she thinks.
The distant hillsides on the opposite shore are nothing more than grey silhouettes in this light. The loch, a glossy black mirror. Midges swarm around her face. She swats them away, but they are relentless.
As a heron swoops down to the adjacent banks, letting out a harsh cry, she smiles. Even in the fading light, the beauty of this place surpasses. Winter may not be so bad after all, she thinks. Will she still be here in winter? Who knows?
She watches the bird as it stalks about, looking for food. The size of the creature astounds her. She was lucky to see a sparrow down south. She’s constantly amazed by the wildlife here. Mylo can tell her what any plant, any bird is. She hasn’t a clue. Didn’t use to care. But since she has been living here, her love of nature has evolved. She appreciates it far more. The silence at night, aside from the odd hoot of an owl, or scream of a fox, was hard to get used to at first. But now, she can’t imagine sleeping with anything else. The constant drone of traffic outside her window twenty-four-seven, a distant memory these days.
She slips off her shoes, rolling up her jeans. Sitting down on the edge of the boardwalk, she dangles her legs over. A shudder flows through her body as her feet slide beneath the icy surface. It really is freezing.
She can’t bear it for long. A searing pain radiates through her ankles. She pulls her feet up, hugging her knees close to her chest, staring out across the water. She thinks about the woman, Annette, at the seance. Her face… her voice.
She honestly believed that what she was doing, the things she was saying, were real. Lucy recalls what Annette had said to Mylo.
You may not believe… but that doesn’t stop it from being true.
She shakes her head, letting out a little laugh. It’s a shame he has had to become involved. He doesn’t deserve it. She tried to keep him out of it… keep him away. But that woman, she seems to pull everyone into her drama. She’s like a magnet, attracting bad things.
A flash of doubt creeps into her mind again, as she thinks about Mylo and Claire. His appearance at the cottage at the strangest of times; but she shakes it away.
She stands, carrying her shoes. When she reaches the beach, she crouches to pick up a flat stone. Tossing it out over the water, it skips a few times, before sinking into the murky depths. She realises she’s procrastinating; doesn’t want to go inside. She imagines this must be how Rose had felt… towards the end. Uncomfortable in what was supposed to be her home.
Poor dead Rose.
She tries not to think about the girl, lying at the foot of the stairs, bleeding out, while Diana was in a drunken stupor a few metres away. She may even have heard the commotion and been able to help her immediately, if she hadn’t been out of it. Perhaps she did hear, and simply didn’t care.
Lucy wonders how long Rose lay there, dying. Wonders if she realised it was the end. She must have, she supposes, shaking her head sadly.
She glances towards the cottage. No lights on inside. She can make out Richard’s dark figure, sitting in his window. Watching. Taking it all in. She’s sure he is. He’s no fool.
Perhaps he doesn’t want to be drawn into Diana’s games like everybody else. He’s got the right idea.
She crosses the lawn. The long grass feels pleasant between her toes.
Entering the house, her shoulders slump. Cupboard doors are open. Chairs are in disarray. She walks to the sink. There’s an empty soup bowl, and a wet cigarette butt sitting in it. She shakes her head and begins to tidy the mess. When the kitchen is back in order, she goes to Richard’s room, knocking before she goes in, as she always does. Diana thinks she’s foolish. But it’s common courtesy.
As she enters the room, she glances around. Darkness. Diana hasn’t left a light on for her husband.
Shaking her head, she clicks on a bedside lamp, throwing the room into an orange glow.
‘Hello, Richard,’ she says, turning his chair to face her. ‘What did you make of all that drama today? Exciting, huh?’
She stares at his eyes, which flicker a little from side to side. She leans in closer, putting her face close to his.
‘Do you think there are ghosts in this house?’
His eyes are watery. She reaches up, wiping them with her thumb. She undresses him, empties his colostomy bag. Does all the things that she has to in order to make him comfortable.
Using the heavy harness, she lifts him onto his bed. Tucks him in. Shows him the compassion that any good nurse should. She kneels down beside him, leans close to his ear.
‘I guess it depends if the ghosts are metaphorical or real. We’re all haunted by things from our past, aren’t we? I know I am.’ She glances towards the wall through to Diana’s bedroom. ‘But some people’s ghosts are worse than others.’
Smiling, she kisses him on the cheek, turns out the lamp and leaves the room. His eyes are wide open, staring up as she closes the door.
72
Valentina
Valentina Moretti is vexed. Something has been bothering her since her visit with Diana, but she can’t put her finger on it. Granted, her friend’s erratic behaviour had been worrisome, but it was something else.
She draws on a cigarette, inhaling the smoke deeply into her lungs, enjoying it, before letting it stream out through her nostrils. She stubs it in an ashtray, crossing to her filing cabinet, rifling through the drawers, finding Diana’s section. The folder is thick, heavy. Ancient.
They have been friends for years. She started as Richard’s agent, but quickly struck up a relationship with his wife. Although they had worked together forever, they had managed to retain their affection for one another. That didn’t mean that Valentina was incapable of telling home truths, or cracking the whip when need be; she’d demonstrated that.
She’d nursed and supported Diana through her darkest of days, following the accident. Seen her at her absolute lowest. Almost at breaking point.
Her behaviour recently is something different. Given her mother’s history, Valentina will have to keep an eye open.
She flips through the file. Photographs of various artworks spill out onto her desk.
A newspaper cutting falls to the floor. She bends, picking it up. The headline reads:
Renowned artist and wife hospitalised after taxi hit-and-run smash horror
> She fondles the dog-eared, yellowing paper, biting her lip, skimming over words, and stares at the grainy halftone photograph. Twisted scraps of metal spiral off in all directions. Shattered windscreen, driver, lifeless behind the wheel, blurred out, of course. She shudders. The van had hit Richard’s side and was mostly a mangled mess. Valentina lights another cigarette, sighing.
It’s a marvel anyone survived.
She scans the image, tapping her finger on the top of the file. Breathing out a plume of white smoke, this time through her mouth, she stops. Eyes widen.
‘My God!’ she whispers.
Scrambling around for her mobile, she remains staring at the cutting. Diana’s landline rings a few times before her answerphone kicks in.
‘You’ve reached the residence of Diana Davenport, artist. I am unable to take your call right now, so please leave a message after the tone, and I’ll endeavour to get back to you at my earliest convenience.’ The machine beeps.
‘Di… it’s Val. I’m coming to see you, right now. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I must talk to you immediately.’ She draws in deep from the cigarette.
‘It’s extremely important…’
She reels off a quick explanation before ending the call. Grabbing her coat from the stand, she drapes it loosely over her shoulders. Hurrying out to her pillar-box-red Porsche, she starts the engine, pressing her foot to the floor. The tyres spin as the car pulls away at speed.
73
Diana
Something had woken her. A familiar sound… was it the telephone?
She hasn’t had such a deep sleep in the afternoon for a while… not since Lucy’s arrival. As she sits up, feeling as if she’s moving in slow motion, she raises a hand to her face and it appears to leave a trail behind itself, like a sci-fi television effect.
She stares at her fingers, which seem to turn into fleshy corkscrews, spinning up towards the ceiling.
It’s daylight. She can see slivers creeping in between the crack of the curtains. Her senses are heightened. She sniffs. The room stinks. Stale sweat, and unwashed clothes. She clasps her hand to her mouth, holding down the urge to empty her guts.
Feeling around for her stick, she’s annoyed and surprised to find it’s not there, yet again. She’s sure she left it beside the bed. Shaking her head, she heaves herself up. As she limps forward, she feels as if she is rocking back and forth, like one of those egg-shaped toys from the seventies. The slogan from the advert runs through her brain. Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down. Except there is every possibility that she may.
Taking a few slow, deliberate steps forward, she lunges towards the window, throwing the curtains apart. Daylight streams in, hurting her eyes. Outside looks like a wash of white. No detail. No trees. No loch. Nothing. Only white.
She narrows her eyes, pulling at the bottom of the sash frame. The window opens wide, and she swallows down the fresh air into her lungs. Sidestepping to the door, she pushes it open, moving out into the hall. Turning her head from side to side, something catches her eye. Halfway up the stairs. Resting against the wall. Her cane.
She hobbles to the other side of the passageway, supporting herself on the bannisters. Reaching through the gaps, she attempts to grab at the stick, but it’s too high. She shuffles around to the foot of the stairs.
‘Lucy!’ she shouts. Her voice is hoarse, throat dry and rasping.
‘Lucy… are you here?’
Her calls are met with silence. Sighing, she places her left foot on the bottom step. A wave of nausea washes over her. She holds her fingers over her mouth, but it’s too late. Stinking yellow bile spews out, splattering over the steps, and down her filthy clothes. She abandons the attempt to walk up the stairs, opting instead to lower herself to her knees, and begins to crawl. She has to stop frequently, fighting back the urge to vomit again, but she finally arrives at her stick. She grabs at it, pulling it close to her body. She sits there for what feels like an age, breathing heavily, trying to regain her composure.
Why is her cane halfway up the stairs? She can’t understand.
She would never have left it there. Perhaps Lucy was tidying and placed it there absent-mindedly. She will have to speak to her. Remind her she needs it to be accessible at all times. When she is finally ready, she edges her way down. On her buttocks, the way a small child would. Can’t bring herself to stand yet. At the bottom she heaves herself up, using the bannisters for support, letting the cane take the bulk of her weight. She glances down the hallway to the kitchen, and emitting a sigh, heads towards the door, to make a cup of coffee. Or maybe a glass of wine. She’ll have decided by the time she gets there.
Although she already knows which it is most likely to be.
74
Valentina
Having just caught the ferry in time, she now drives quickly through the twisting roads, staring up at the brooding dark clouds gathering above her head.
There’s a storm coming, she thinks.
She’s aware that she should probably slow down, but too much rides on this. So she speeds. She needs to speak to Diana immediately; must show her what she has found. She tries the cottage again, but it just rings through to the answerphone once more.
‘Damn, Diana, where are you?’ she curses under her breath, tossing her mobile onto the passenger seat.
As she glances back up, she gasps, slamming on the brakes. The car comes squealing to a stop, yards from a group of sheep wandering aimlessly in the middle of the road. She honks. They refuse to move. She presses it again, lowering the window and revving the engine hard.
‘Come on, you stupid animals! Levati dai coglioni!’ she screams, hitting her palm down on the wheel, letting out an extended blast of the horn. No response from the animals. Climbing out of the car, she teeters on her stilettos towards them.
‘Shoo, shoo!’ she shouts, waving her arms in front of her. They scatter as she climbs back into the driver’s seat. Pushing her foot down, she accelerates away quickly. The light is fading fast. These roads are hell in the dark. She passes a cliffside that she recognises, where an outcrop of rocks looks like a monkey’s head, and she knows she is almost there. Smiling, she rounds a sharp bend.
There’s a girl standing in the middle of the road. A flash of long blonde hair. Tattered white nightie.
Valentina is going far too fast. She’ll never stop in time. The girl doesn’t budge; stands staring straight ahead. As Valentina draws nearer, she squints, swerving suddenly. The speed is too much for her. She loses control and her beautiful pillar-box-red Porsche careers through the barrier, and into the trees.
She holds her arms up in front of her face as the Porsche bumps and tumbles over rocky ground, windshield shattering. Splinters of glass spin all around her.
And then she is flying. Hurtling over the edge of the cliff, high up in the mountaintops.
The car plummets down, down, down, towards the icy water below.
Valentina screams for her life. But there’s nobody to hear it. Nobody to save her.
No one will even know.
Only the blonde girl in the road. As the vehicle splashes into the loch hundreds of metres below, the girl smiles, disappearing into the woods.
75
Lucy
She wakes with a start. Something clatters noisily outside.
Groggy, she can’t place the sound… not entirely sure where she is for a moment. She glances to one side at her digital clock, surprised to see the display is blank. The wind howls as she has never heard it before. Like a roaring animal.
Having fallen asleep with her bedroom window open, the curtains now billow in the torrent that batters in. Horizontal rain flies through the opening, so forceful, it’s even reaching her bed, splattering across her face, making her sheets damp. Sitting up, she reaches for the bedside lamp, clicking the switch.
Nothing.
Now and then, a bright flash of lightning illuminates the room, but that is the only source of light. She climbs out of bed, cro
ssing to the wall and tries the light. The power is dead. A rumble of thunder follows closely after the flashes. Lucy can’t remember the last time she saw a storm… she’s certain she’s never witnessed one like this before. Rushing to the window, she stands for a second or two, listening, trying to locate the various sounds from outside.
As the lightning illuminates the landscape, she notices the dark water of the loch, raging below. The wooden boat at the end of the jetty bobs manically on the surface as waves crash over it, filling it with water. She pulls the window shut, crossing to her dresser to grab a towel, and wipes the rain from her face. Her pyjamas are soaked. She peels them off, tossing them into a laundry basket in the corner of the room. She throws open her closet, pulling out a hoody and a pair of loose tracksuit pants. They’re soft and warm, and smell of fabric conditioner.
As she opens the door, the house is in total darkness. Without the stream of white moonlight flooding in through the windows, the only light comes from momentary flashes which cast creepy shadows across the floor.
She crosses to the top of the stairs, as another burst lights up the hall, and sees with horror a figure standing at the foot. She squints into the darkness, but all she can see is black, blinded by the bright lightning.
Heart pounding, she steps backwards, away from the edge. A floorboard creaks under her weight.
‘Lucy?’
Diana’s voice is shaky, childlike and afraid. Lucy relaxes immediately.
‘Diana! Hold on, I’m going to grab my phone for some light!’
She feels her way through the darkness to her bedroom, fetching her mobile from beside the bed. She flicks the torch on, and the beam casts a bright arc through the room. She hurries back to the stairs, shining the light down towards Diana. She stands quivering at the bottom.
