Stranger in the Woods: A tense psychological thriller

by Anni Taylor

  I almost had all the photos I needed. The landscapes, Alban’s architecture, his house and child. And now Alban himself. The only thing left were the family shots. Alban, Jessica and Rhiannon together. I didn’t know how to jump that last hurdle. But I’d do it, and then I could go home.

  I opened my laptop, checking the photo shoot. I sighed in relief. They were as good as I’d thought they were. It had been a happy coincidence running into Alban up there in the hills. The portfolio brief had asked for the man behind the public image, and the photos I had couldn’t have come closer. I couldn’t take all the credit. It was Alban himself who made the photos come alive, his old clothing giving him a timeless look.

  Outside, the wind had increased in strength, bending the branches of the trees.

  An ill wind.

  Alban didn’t know yet that I’d known Trent from before. It was me who’d brought the trouble here. Trent had outright refused to admit that he’d rigged up the scarecrow. But if not him, who else? His bitterness over our past relationship was obvious. I wished I knew what he’d done to me. The not knowing was surely worse than knowing.

  I grabbed my laptop and went to sit on the sofa, right next to the heater. I brought the stool with me, too, propping my leg up.

  What had the web address of his website been? It was just his name, wasn’t it?

  Trent Jay Dor—something.

  Dory? No.

  Dorian? No.

  Dorring? That was it. Trent Jay Dorrington.

  I browsed the internet and found his website.

  His artwork was very creative—it caught my attention first. Lots of fantastical drawings of animals and people merged together. Next, I swiped through some of his photographs. He’d been to a stack of different countries. Thailand, Bali, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, USA and Europe.

  I didn’t know where to find the picture he’d shown me of myself. Every picture on his website was neatly labelled in detail. Would he have photos of me neatly labelled as well?

  My finger paused on the search button of his website. Then I tapped in the letters of my first name.

  Two photos sprang up.

  The photo of me at the nightclub and another one.

  God. It was me, again. With the same shoulder-length red hair and the fringe. This photo wasn’t as closeup as the one in the nightclub, but it certainly looked like me. I zoomed in. Yes, it was definitely me. Why didn’t I remember wearing my hair that way? I’d never known my hair to be anything other than long and brown. The photo was taken outdoors, in the country. A road ran along in the foreground. The background lush and green, but not tropical. Cows with thick fur stood behind a wooden fence. Maybe the photo was taken down in the southernmost part of Australia. Tasmania even.

  I looked happy in the photo, my cheeks bright pink from the cold. Sitting back, I stared at the image, trying to make myself remember. The more I stared, the more familiar Trent began to seem. Or was I just tricking myself? I could almost hear him laughing,

  I squinted, trying to make out the lettering on the sign that was located around the bend of the road.

  A-R-D-N-A-G-R-A-S-K.

  I’d never heard of it. I tried looking it up, but there was no Ardnagrask in Australia. I frowned at the suggestion that Google had come up with. Ardnagrask, Inverness.

  Chills swept through my body.

  There had to be another explanation.

  Browsing to a Google map, I looked up Ardnagrask. It was a tiny place in the country. Full of country roads, wooden fences and cows.

  Unmistakeable.

  He had to have edited the photo and pasted me there in the scene. I’d never been to Scotland. This photo was a lie.

  Why would he do that?

  Copying the photograph, I ran it through some apps that would show me how the photo had been altered. The software examined photographs at a forensic level, checking for areas where the light and edges and textures didn’t quite match.

  The photograph tested as original. Straight off the camera and unaltered.

  Stunned, I sat rigidly, watching a flock of birds fly across the pale sky outside the window.

  No. The photo wasn’t real. Because if it was, it meant that I’d been here before. In Scotland.

  A carnival ride of thoughts spun in my head, making me dizzy and nauseous.

  I don’t remember dating Trent. Could I forget coming to Scotland, too?

  I picked up my phone from the kitchen table. I felt as if air was exploding like firecrackers in my chest as I called home.

  Jake answered.

  “Where’s Mum?” I asked breathlessly.

  “Hello, Jake,” he said in a mock annoyed tone. “Well, hello there, Isla. Nice to hear from you.”

  “Sorry. I…need to know something in a hurry.”

  “Mum’s asleep. Call back in a few hours maybe?”

  “Look, you can answer it. I just need you to tell me the truth okay?”

  “Is this going to be some kind of trick question?”

  “No, no tricks. This is serious. Okay? I just want to know one thing. I’ve never been to the UK before, right? This is the first time.”

  “Er, wouldn’t that be something you would know?”

  “Just…tell me. Is it true that I’ve never been here—to the UK and Scotland before? Please. I know this sounds strange, but there’s a big chunk of time that’s missing from my life, and I—”

  “You should talk to Mum, ‘sis,” he cut in. His voice sounded different—careful and serious. He should be telling me I was nuts and trying to make a joke of it. But he wasn’t.

  “Jake,” I whispered. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

  He blew out a heavy breath. “Yeah, okay. I don’t know much. I was still at school back then. Mum had to fly over to the UK and get you. All I know is that you came back sick. Like, really sick. Mum told me we’re never going to talk about your trip. You’d forgotten it and she said it was for the best.”

  I gasped silently, reeling from what Jake had just told me.

  It was true. Trent’s photos were real. I’d just assumed that when I used to date Trent, it’d been in Sydney. He was Australian, too, after all.

  But had I dated him here, in Scotland?

  “Thank you,” I breathed. “Can you tell me one more thing? What was I like…when I came back?”

  “You were nuts,” he said without hesitation. “Like a zombie. But a zombie that hardly moved. You just sat in a chair in your room, mostly. You didn’t even care what you wore.”

  “God. Why don’t I remember any of this?”

  “Why would you want to? There’s funner things to remember than sitting in a chair all day, sis’. Mum’s not going to be happy with me when she knows I told you.”

  “You didn’t tell me, exactly. So you’re off the hook. I figured it out myself. Hey, what time is it there?”

  “Two in the morning. I’m uploading videos of our band.”

  “Oh God, sorry. I didn’t realise it was that time of night.”

  “S’ok,” he said, yawning. “Take care, sis’.”

  After saying goodbye to my brother, I sat on the sofa with my arms tightening around my knees.

  How was I even supposed to process this? It felt as if my own mind had betrayed me, deleting memories at will.

  There was no record of my previous trips on my passport. It’d been blank. I’d had to get a replacement just before I’d come here, paying extra to get it quickly. I thought I’d lost my original passport—the one I’d gotten when I was eighteen for my trip to Bali.

  Had Mum thrown my old passport away?

  I had so many questions. I was desperate to talk to my mother.

  Why had I been in Scotland? What did I do while I was here? How did I meet Trent?

  I tried looking through his website for more clues. I found nothing. In frustration, I closed the web browser.

  My photography portfolio was still up on my computer screen.

  The pict
ure of the church caught my attention—the one that I had photographed on the way back from Inverness. For a moment, the church merged with a different image. It merged with the image of the house from my dream.

  I could no longer picture the hazy vision of the house without seeing the exterior of the church.

  In my mind, the door of the church opened. Inside, a long corridor stretched into darkness.

  The house is the church.

  The church is the house.

  How was that possible? The church had a spire and cross on its roof, but I’d never seen that in my dream.

  Feverishly, I flipped through all the pictures I’d taken of the church. From a standing position immediately in front of the church, the spire and cross couldn’t be seen. And at night, they probably couldn’t be seen at all. In my dream, it was always night.

  My breaths came in shallow gasps. It’s not a coincidence that I picked the church out when driving along the road with Greer. The church is a memory.

  What was special about the church? Why had I dreamed about it for years? It was small and very ordinary. Greer must have been bemused by the fact that I’d even noticed it or wanted to photograph it.

  I couldn’t answer any of these questions.

  But maybe Trent could.

  If I contacted Trent and met up with him to talk, it could well be the worst decision ever. This man had hurt me in some way—physically and mentally. He was almost certainly the person who’d hung a scarecrow outside my door. He wasn’t someone I should be wrangling with while I was alone in this country.

  He might be willing to talk with me over the phone. Any kind of contact with him could be dangerous. But I was desperate for answers. So desperate that I was prepared to do this. I hoped that he was somewhere far away by now—back in Australia even.

  There’d been a contact phone number on Trent’s website. If I didn’t call now, I might lose my nerve.

  My heart raced as I tapped in the numbers.

  I waited, swallowing, preparing myself.

  “Hello? Trent Dorrington speaking,” came his voice.

  “Hi, Trent….”

  “Isla.”

  “You knew my voice,” I said in astonishment.

  “Of course I know your voice.”

  “I’m…I’m calling to apologise. I still don’t remember anything, but I spoke to my mother, and she remembers your name. So, I know now that you were telling the truth.”

  A silence stretched and pulled tight.

  “How can you not remember me?” he said finally.

  “Two years ago, I had a severe illness. I don’t even remember being in Scotland. I honestly thought this was the first time I’d been here. But I saw a picture of me—and you—on your website, and it was taken in Ardnagrask. Scotland.”

  “I’m finding this extremely hard to believe.”

  “Did you know I have epilepsy?”

  “No. You never told me that.”

  “Well, I do. I had a series of seizures and it affected my memory. I was ill for months, apparently. My mother had to fly to Scotland and bring me home.”

  “I had no idea. This is insane.”

  “You didn’t know about that? About my mother coming to get me?”

  “Nope. Not a clue. You were fine the last time I saw you, so this must have been sometime after.”

  I don’t believe you. Did you take the breakup badly? Is that why you hurt me? I knew I couldn’t ask those kinds of questions. I had to remain calm and find out what I could about the church.

  “What were we doing, that day in Ardnagrask?” I asked.

  “We were with another couple that I knew,” he replied. “My friend Stefan and his girlfriend, Heidi. His father had a farm out that way and we went and had lunch there. Stefan was the one who took the photos of us.”

  “I remember none of it. What other kinds of things did we do?”

  “Just the usual. Movies. Sightseeing. Lazy Sunday mornings in bed.”

  A hot blush travelled from my chest up to my cheeks. I was glad he couldn’t see that. “Oh, okay. Nice.”

  “We had fun together, Isla.”

  He could tell me anything right now and I’d have no way of judging whether it was true or not.

  “How did I meet you?”

  “This is so surreal, Isla. You were here to study photography. In Edinburgh. I’m a trust fund baby. I do a bit for my father’s mining company, but I was studying art when I met you. Still am.”

  I studied photography in Edinburgh, I mouthed to myself silently. I braced myself for my next question.

  “Thank you,” I said. “There’s just one more thing—”

  “Is this about the scarecrow? Because I’m telling you, that wasn’t me.”

  “Okay, I believe you,” I lied. “This is about something else. It’s about an old church that I spotted the other day on a trip to Inverness. For some reason, I thought I’d seen it before. Did we happen to stop at a little church when we were dating?”

  “A church? We did look at one in Edinburgh. It wasn’t little though. It was a cathedral. You thought it was beautiful.”

  “No, this isn’t a cathedral. It’s tiny. It’s probably nothing.”

  “Well, I have no idea. I don’t remember a church like that.”

  “It’s probably not important. Maybe it just seems important because it’s the first thing that I remembered.”

  “Seriously?” he said. “The first thing you remember about Scotland is an old church and not me?”

  “It’s a start.” I tried to inject a light tone into my voice.

  “Maybe we could try a reboot,” he said casually. “Go out for dinner. Might help jog your memory.”

  I hesitated before answering. “I would, but I—”

  “Please don’t come up with an excuse. Yeah, I fucked up when I kissed you at Aubrey’s house and then I fucked up more when I overdosed. It’s not who I am and it’s not who I was when you knew me before.”

  “Trent, I’m feeling way out my depth here. I still don’t know you.”

  “I could make you feel better. You won’t know unless you give it a try.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “Look, if you change your mind, I’m here in Edinburgh. Not too far away.”

  “Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that.”

  He ended the call.

  A tremor passed through my chest.

  I’d done it. I’d called him.

  But I had more questions than answers.

  I hadn’t sensed danger during the conversation and he hadn’t sounded like someone who’d been stalking me.

  But then, maybe I wasn’t a good judge of that.

  32

  ISLA

  I glanced out the window. This day was growing progressively dimmer and it was only midday. Every part of me ached for the deep warmth of the Sydney sun. I was shaken to the core. My mind had betrayed me, stripping months away from my memory.

  Trying to stay warm, I moved about the cottage, making myself a cup of tea. I switched on the heater and watched the fake flames spring to life.

  The image of the church sprang up before my eyes. I’d never seen it so clearly outside of a dream. It shocked me to be fully awake and picturing it like this.

  The door inside the church that had always been locked was suddenly wide open. I could see candles flickering inside. Thick, stubby white candles. Their light glowing in otherwise inky darkness.

  I gasped as more details of the room came into view.

  Cracked window.

  Coats hanging on the wall.

  Rosary beads hanging on a chain, slightly swaying.

  I felt cold. So cold.

  The piano chords that I always heard in my dream crashed into my mind. So clearly this time. Uneven, jarring chords that made no sense. And not just the piano but another sound.

  Screams. Tortured screams.

  I felt pain twisting inside my stomach.

 
I jerked to my feet, standing up straight.

  The screams I’d just remembered were my own.

  The bad thing that happened to me—it happened in that church.

  I paced the room, hearing my screams echo again and again in my mind. I could see the symbol of the religious cross that I’d always seen—the one with the rose in the middle.

  I tried to force myself to remember more.

  I remembered an agonising sensation of pain in my stomach.

  Had someone repeatedly punched me?

  Had I been raped?

  I could almost remember a bed—springs sticking into my back and hip bones.

  Oh God.

  Terror swirled inside me.

  The wheels of a car crunched the gravel outside.

  The sounds and visions vanished.

  I couldn’t see who was out there from here. For a second, I thought of Trent. But there was no way he could have driven from Edinburgh to Greenmire in that space of time.

  It was most probably Jessica returning from her trip with Rhiannon. But the car didn’t continue up the driveway, instead stopping outside my door.

  Could it be Greer? Anxiously, I smoothed my hair. I didn’t feel like seeing anyone right now—not in this state. I felt half-crazed, like a tiger locked in a tiny cage.

  A knock came at the door.

  That wasn’t like Greer. She was more likely to call me on the phone and tell me she was arriving.

  Stepping to the door, I cracked it open.

  Rory Kavanagh stood there, dishevelled, his eyes reddened.

  “Isla, I shouldn’t have come here. I just…there’s no one else in this town I can talk to.”

  “Come in,” I said automatically.

  Scents of sweat and whisky travelled inside with him.

  I closed the door as he dropped himself into the armchair.

  “Can I get you a tea or coffee?” I asked.

  He exhaled, shaking his head and combing his fingers through his shaggy hair repeatedly. “It’s too hard, this life. Too hard. Things hit you out of nowhere, and then what are you supposed to do? Just start again in the new direction that life has set you in? How many times can you do that?”