When I Find You

by R. A. Casey

  And that is just another step on my road to recovery.

  “Give me a sec,” I say. “Just grabbing a cardie.”

  “Can you grab my hoodie while you’re in there? Freezing my balls off.”

  “Your hoodie isn’t going to do much for your balls; I’m afraid to say.”

  “Hey. It’s a large hoodie. And I have such microscopic balls, of course.”

  I laugh. Both of us laugh. It’s been like this for a month. Perfect. Almost teenage.

  And sure. The sex isn’t quite there yet.

  But we’re taking our time. Freddie is being super patient. I’m so, so grateful for him.

  I step into the kitchen to get my cardigan and Freddie’s hoodie, and I notice my phone flash on the side. I walk over to it. Pick it up.

  And that’s when I see something that makes me stop, right in my tracks.

  There is a Facebook message there.

  It’s from a profile I don’t recognise.

  A little grey figure and no name.

  Just “Facebook User.”

  I read the words, and right then, my whole world stands still.

  Woodplumpton Village Church. Tomorrow. 3pm. Be there. We need to talk.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Woodplumpton Village Church. Tomorrow. 3pm. Be there. We need to talk.

  I read the words repeatedly, and I have to pinch myself a few times to check I am not imagining things.

  The rest of the room has dissolved around me. And suddenly, I am back in a hole, back in that void I was in four months ago. I can feel that same darkness inside. That sense of dread. The memories all coming back, rearing their head once more.

  The stalking.

  The message and the parcel I received.

  All of the shit that happened.

  Everything that followed.

  I’d cast it aside. Put it down to my fragile mental state.

  But now I am here, staring at the message, and I can see it is true.

  I hear Freddie outside, shuffling around. I know what I need to do. I need to go out there. I need to show him this. And then maybe he’ll believe I was telling the truth all along. Maybe he’ll see I’m not crazy. Maybe it’ll make him reassess everything.

  But then even I’m fucking confused. Even I’m not sure what I’m seeing is real right now.

  But this message. It’s still right here. Still right in front of me.

  I close the phone. Lock it. And I walk outside. Shaking a little.

  Freddie is still sitting around the fire. Rubbing his legs in the cool winter air. “You okay, Sarah?”

  “Freddie,” I say. Reaching for my phone. Shaking. I can still hardly believe this is actually happening to me. “I… I need to show you something.”

  He frowns. That momentary flicker of concern across his face. A reminder of how he used to look at me three months ago when everything was falling apart. “Are you okay?”

  I reach for my phone and go to open up the message when I realise it is gone.

  Gone.

  Completely gone.

  Not a trace of it.

  I stand there and stare at the screen, and I wonder. Either it was a disappearing message, which is a distinct possibility on Facebook nowadays.

  Or I imagined the whole thing.

  I swallow a lump in my throat. I want to tell Freddie what I saw. But at the same time, I know it’ll only worry him. It’ll only make him fear I’m deteriorating. And I can’t have him thinking that.

  I lower my phone. Put it in my pocket. “Nothing,” I say.

  He frowns even more. “You sure? You looked a little alarmed for a moment there.”

  I take a deep breath.

  “I… I thought I saw something. On my phone. A message. But—but I didn’t. There’s nothing there. No evidence of it existing. So it mustn’t exist. Right?”

  He stares at me. And I can tell he is a little concerned, now.

  “What did the message say?”

  I open my mouth to tell him, and for some reason, I want to keep the details to myself.

  “It was just to do with—with Charlie. But I… The doctors told me I will have relapses occasionally. It’s natural. But I know what’s real and what isn’t anymore. It’s nothing. Really. I’ll log it and tell the doctor about it.”

  He stands up. Walks over to me. Smiles. And then he leans in and kisses me, wrapping his big arms around me.

  “I’m so proud of you,” he says. “You’ve come so far. I love you.”

  He steps away from me, then.

  “Actually, I was going to ask you something. I realise it’s early days. I don’t want to stress you out. But I, um…”

  I narrow my eyes. “What?”

  “I was wondering if… if maybe… well. I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to get on one knee, isn’t it?”

  “Are you… wait. Is this your elaborate way of asking me to marry you right now?”

  He laughs. His cheeks are flushed. “I—I guess it is.”

  I laugh. Shake my head. And then he gets down on one knee and holds out a marshmallow. “You’ll have to bear with me for the ring. A marshmallow will do for now, for my queen?”

  I laugh. And as much as I feel uneasy about the message, as much as I feel like the tentacles of the past are wrapping around me, I laugh, and I reach down and wrap my arms around Freddie.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’ll do it. I’ll marry you.”

  I am happy.

  So happy.

  But I can’t deny the slight hint of discontent as I feel the weight of my phone press against my thigh…

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  I lie awake in bed, and I can’t stop thinking about the message.

  We’ve had a beautiful evening, Freddie and I. I can hear him snoring away now. Not surprised after all the sex we had. It was very romantic. Very slow. Very emotional, very intense. And that in itself was tiring.

  But it’s been such a nice day. Such a nice evening. Our first evening as an engaged couple.

  It should be happy. It should be a time of complete and utter elation.

  But that message.

  Woodplumpton Church. 3pm tomorrow. Be there.

  I can’t stop thinking about it. I am torn. One part of my mind tells me it’s all in my head. The message disappeared, after all. There’s no trace of it. No way of proving it happened to anyone else and no way of even proving it to myself.

  And that was always touted as a key part of my recovery. Always ask the questions; can you verify it yourself? Can someone else verify it?

  The answer is obviously no to both these questions.

  And yet still, there is something about that message that draws me in.

  Especially with disappearing, self-destructing messages being a thing, these days.

  Freddie is back at work tomorrow. I will have a free day to myself. And if I go to Woodplumpton, maybe I can record whatever happens to show Freddie if I have to.

  But no. I am insane for even thinking about going to Woodplumpton.

  This is just in my head.

  It isn’t real.

  It’s just like the parcel and the I KNOW EVERYTHING letter.

  But then I think of the maize fields.

  I think of the rat.

  The rat.

  The dying rat that appeared in our kitchen that day.

  The way Freddie described it.

  Just like the rat from my childhood.

  Just like the—

  I hear crying.

  I feel the burning heat of the sun.

  I look down at him, and I feel tears rolling down my face.

  A cracking sound.

  Blood.

  Wet palms.

  Crying.

  And…

  I jolt upright. My heart races. I am covered in sweat.

  Because I feel like I’ve just had a memory.

  And whatever it was, as fragmented as it was… it felt real.

  I lie back down. Freddie stil
l snoring away. I look out of the gap between the curtains, out at the light. And as much as I want to let this go, it’s not in my nature.

  I know already exactly what I am going to do tomorrow.

  Regardless of the consequences.

  I take a deep breath, swallow a lump in my throat, and close my eyes.

  I won’t sleep tonight.

  That is absolutely guaranteed.

  But tomorrow, at 3 p.m., I am going to go to Woodplumpton Church.

  And I am going to find out the truth about the legitimacy of that message.

  Once and for all.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  I sit in my car outside Woodplumpton Church graveyard, and I am not sure I want to do this at all.

  It’s freezing cold. Cloudy. Woodplumpton is a sleepy little village, so there’s barely a soul around. I’ve always liked it here. Such a nice little graveyard. Always said I’d want to be buried here, as morbid as that sounds. Just something comforting about it. Something cosy about it. Fields all around, with cows and sheep. A cute little church. A warm feeling about it all.

  There is nobody in sight.

  I look at my phone. Three o’clock. Bang on. And it seems like nobody is here, which makes me question whether I really did receive that message at all. Chances are, it was all just a hallucination. All in my head.

  But still, that urgency to discover, to know, it plagues me…

  Freddie messages me.

  How’s the village? x

  I’ve told him the truth. Well. A version of the truth. I’ve told him I’m going for a walk around Woodplumpton. Clearing my head while he’s back at work.

  But I haven’t told him about the message.

  I don’t want to worry him. I don’t want him to think I’m going downhill again. Losing my mind. I’ve just come here because there are things I want to settle. Things I want to come to terms with at my own pace.

  This is a part of my healing. A part of my recovery. Coming to terms with the fact that this is some kind of hallucination.

  Or maybe something else…

  I shake my head. I know that’s probably not true.

  But a part of me can’t help feeling disappointed, somehow.

  A part of me wants to believe what happened four months ago wasn’t all the product of a breakdown.

  And what happened three years ago wasn’t just the product of a breakdown, either.

  I look at the little GoPro camera attached just under my shirt. I don’t know how it works really, and I’ve already had a nightmare setting it up. Tiny little thing with a big Share button that I keep accidentally hitting and uploading stuff to YouTube and social media. And that got me in a whole mess of having to change my passwords for every bloody thing.

  But that doesn’t matter. What matters is I have a camera on me now. And its sole purpose is so I can prove to others—and to myself—that I am not lying.

  Apparently, there’s a good six hours recording time on there because it’s one of the more expensive models, something I didn’t even realise at the time. I was desperate at the end of the day, and it was the only one in stock.

  I figure I can just keep it running throughout this conversation.

  I get out of the car. Figure there’s no harm in stretching my legs. I walk through the graveyard, past all the headstones. It’s so windy, so cold. My hair flies all over the place.

  I look at the years. Look at the names. This place fills up every time you look at it. Soon, it’ll be totally full. I wonder if they’ll expand. Or if they’ll just start ripping the old headstones out and replacing them with new ones.

  Quite sad, in a way. Seeing the newer headstones with all the flowers. The older ones, abandoned.

  A reminder that nothing is permanent. Not really.

  I reach the witch’s grave, and I stand by it for a bit. Apparently, a woman was executed for being a witch many years ago. They drowned her. Dunked her head in and out of the water, even though she was innocent.

  And sure. She would have her secrets. But she was still innocent of what they accused her of. She was still just a human. Just suffering.

  I look at this headstone, and I think of the maize fields, and I wonder what people would say of me.

  Of the things I’ve done.

  I wonder if people would think of me as a witch.

  If people would…

  No.

  That’s the past.

  No. Not the past.

  It’s not real.

  This is all that’s real.

  This is all that matters.

  I put my hand on the cold stone and imagine that poor, innocent woman’s horror as she drowns. I imagine her keeping her mouth tightly shut. I imagine her kicking. Screaming. I imagine her reaching out, softly placing her hand on the back of those holding her down and—

  Maize fields.

  Stream.

  Damp hands.

  I step back. My heart picks up again. These visions. The same as last night. They keep on emerging in my mind. Sparking up, surfacing.

  And the weird part is, I don’t even know if they are real anymore.

  I look at my watch. Quarter past three. At least that’s something. The message. It was all in my head. There is no meeting. There’s nothing here.

  And that means everything else I’m seeing, envisaging, imagining… yes. That’s all in my head too. It’s not real.

  I turn around to walk away from the graveyard, and I feel somewhat disappointed not to be proven right. But I have to be humble. I have to accept the evidence before me.

  That’s when I see him standing right opposite me.

  “Hello, Sarah,” he says. “Thanks for coming. We really need to talk.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  “Hello, Sarah. It’s about time we had a proper conversation, huh?”

  I stare at the man standing opposite me, and I have to blink a few times to check I’m not imagining things. To check I’m not hallucinating.

  All I can do is stand.

  All I can do is stare.

  Because standing opposite me is a man I recognise.

  Slicked back dark hair.

  Short. With a paunch of a stomach.

  Not smiling with those yellow teeth as usual. Looking far more concerned and serious than the first time I saw him.

  And even from here, I can smell that onion breath.

  “Calvin,” I say. “Or is it Cameron?”

  He walks towards me, and I want to bolt. I want to run. Because this is real. The man who started this whole saga four months ago when he handed me the parcel. It’s him, and it’s real.

  “It’s—it’s Cameron,” he says, not sounding as over-the-top northern as he did when I first met him. “Sorry. I know you’re probably a bit spooked out right now. And I fully understand if you want to bolt. But—but I can’t have this shit go on any longer.”

  I do want to turn. I do want to run. I want to disappear back to the happy life I’ve been living for the last month, ever since I got back from the psychiatric hospital, ever since I recovered.

  But I can’t turn away from this.

  “How did you find me?”

  “You’re on Facebook, love. It ain’t too hard to find someone on there.”

  “The Snapchat messages. Everything else. Was that you too?”

  Cameron looks me right in the eyes, and he shakes his head very defiantly. “It wasn’t me. I swear.”

  And I know I should doubt him. I know I should question his every word.

  But I believe him.

  Weirdly, I believe him.

  “You came to visit me. You… you didn’t repair my boiler. Right?”

  Cameron looks at the ground of the graveyard path and nods. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I came to see you. I small-talked with you at the door. Handed you a parcel. Then I walked away.”

  I feel it hit me like a punch to the gut.

  “So I’m… I’m not crazy. I didn’t imagine it all.”


  “Sarah, I’m so sorry, love. I know this ain’t gonna be easy to believe, but I ain’t a bad man.”

  “You made—you made people think I was crazy—”

  “And I’ve lived with the bloody guilt of that every bloody day. I toyed with telling you. The day you saw me on the street, I was gonna tell you. And there was another night, too. I came by your house, and I was gonna knock on your door and tell you everything. But I didn’t. I didn’t, and I’m sorry.”

  I feel it all slipping into place.

  The night when I saw someone across the road staring up into my bedroom window.

  That was Cameron.

  “But then what about… the school field?”

  Cameron frowns. “I’m sorry. But I don’t know what you’re on about. But… Well, I should probably be honest about summat else, too. We did meet. A long, long time ago. Lytham Festival. You were there with your fella. I was there with my grandkids. Remember?”

  And then it hits me.

  Lytham Festival with Gregg.

  The heat of the summer.

  The live band playing.

  And Cameron and his onion breath commenting on what a nice day it was.

  My memories jumbled together. It did happen. I did remember him from a festival.

  Just not as I thought I did.

  “I remember,” I say.

  Cameron nods. “Look. I ain’t proud of what I did. And when I heard you got sectioned… shit, I’ve been living with the guilt ever since. I wanted to reach out to you. Wanted to tell you. But there was never a right time. Not until… not until he came to me again.”

  I frown. A shiver creeps down my spine as the breeze blows against me. “Who came to you?”

  He looks over his shoulder like he’s worried. “Four months ago, I was at a low ebb. I was low on cash and deep in debt. And some bloke I’ve never met comes to me and asks me to hand you summat. A parcel.”

  I cannot believe what I am hearing.

  I cannot believe this is even real.

  But it makes sense.

  It makes total sense.

  “He told me the job was simple. Hand you the parcel. Tell you some bullshit about a fake address. And then disappear. Do all that, and he gives me ten grand.”