‘You’re losing it, Lil.’
‘No, it was. It was something.’
She grins, grabs hold of my hand and pulls me up. ‘Come on, two minutes and we’re heading back.’
I want to say let’s go back now, I’m hungry too, but we keep going. We scuff our feet along the track, bursting the dry dirt into mini explosions around us, and turn the final bend.
The air rushes at us. It’s cold and angry. Ruby and I clutch each other’s hand as we step closer, trying to get a look down over the bank of the river. I was expecting a trickle, a creek that some local had optimistically called a river, in the same way whoever had named Gideon a town was having a big laugh. But it’s a river all right. I can feel how strong it is even from up here, and it’s like we’re being pulled closer and closer.
There’s a crack on a branch behind us and I spin round, but there’s nothing there. Just trees and scrub and dirt. Then something pings at me, flicking me on the cheek.
‘Ow!’
‘What?’
‘Something just hit me.’
Then something pops against my bare arm.
‘Ow! It happened again.’
‘It’s probably just gumnuts from the trees.’
‘Not at that angle.’ Then one falls on my head, I grab it and Ruby’s right: it is just a gumnut. I hold it out to her and shrug.
‘You can’t help it, Lil. You’re just a city girl.’
‘So are you.’
‘Well, it is a bit creepy,’ she says.
As we reach a sharp overhang, I see this little bridge. It’s wooden, old and rickety looking, even from here. But the bridge doesn’t actually go all the way across the river. It seems to stop before it touches the other side. It’s actually more like a jetty than a bridge. Why would anyone build a jetty across a river?
Then the wind blows down through the giant ghost gums and across the bridge, and there’s a flash of colour. I charge ahead, pulling Ruby behind me. I need to know what it is. She yanks free, so leaving her behind I slide down a dirt slope on my bum, not caring how muddy I get. I’ve got to reach the bridge. There’s an old railing on either side, but nothing at the end.
As I step onto it, the wind blows again and I see all the colours are actually little ribbons hanging down under the bridge. They must be tied onto bolts or nails underneath so they can’t be seen until the wind shoots them up through the gaps, making them dance and shake. It looks beautiful, the reds and pinks and greens all shining against the dark water. The ribbons fly up and skirt around my ankles like they’re dainty fingers pulling at me.
As the ribbons blow up, I touch a handful and let them fall between my fingers. They’re the sorts of ribbons I wore in my hair when I was younger. Mum would braid my hair, tie a ribbon around the end and I’d usually lose it at school or outside and she’d have to buy more. As I stroke them, one comes loose and I grab it, a jolt throwing me forward, dangerously close to the open end of the bridge. I move back, preferring the safer end, the part that hits land.
Stepping back off onto the muddy bank, I look down into the river. Somebody’s made a calm little pool by arranging a circle of rocks, and in the murky water a face peers up at me. Like someone’s trapped underneath, desperate to be saved. This is what the dog would have seen when I was drowning. My face! It’s staring up from under the water, mouth open, terrified. But as I look closer, there’s a ribbon tied in the hair, a ribbon like the ones under the bridge. I pat my hair just to check, but of course there’s nothing there. This isn’t a reflection. I feel shivery. Cold, even. My skin is covered in goosebumps.
‘Lil, come on, let’s go.’ Ruby’s still up on the track. She sounds worried, but I can’t leave yet. I have to know what this is. Then the mouth opens like it’s screaming and the sight is so hideous, so terrifying, that I go to scream too, but there’s just a sharp intake of breath. I reach down and stab with my hand, shattering the face with ripples, and I watch as it spreads across the water until it’s gone and the water is thick and brackish again.
Ruby yells, ‘Lil!’
I look up and see her on the edge of the track. ‘There’s someone coming,’ she hisses.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah, quick. Come on!’
I scramble up the bank and together we run across the track and hide behind a ghost gum.
‘Did you hear them?’ Ruby holds her finger up to her mouth. I listen, but all I can hear is the sound of the water snaking along and the leaves swaying in the wind. I hold the ribbon from under the bridge out to her. It’s a lolly pink colour. She’s too busy listening to care, though, and I slip it into my pocket.
Then I hear them. There must be at least two, from the sound of their feet crunching along the track. Ruby’s holding my hand so tightly, she’s almost snapping my fingers off as we crouch on the ground. There’s a boy’s voice. He’s talking about someone called Tilly, and a girl snaps at him, but I can only hear her tone, not the words she uses. Then she stops for a second. It’s almost like she can sense us. He says, ‘Come on, Julia, we don’t have all day,’ and he must slide down the bank to where the bridge is, because they don’t go past us.
I can’t help myself. I lean forward and peep round the tree. Ruby punches me on the arm, telling me to get back out of sight, but I won’t before I see the girl. She has long hair and she’s holding a bunch of ribbons like the ones that were hanging under the bridge. And then she steps forward and disappears down behind the bank of the river, to where the boy must be.
‘Now we’re stuck here, aren’t we?’ Ruby says.
‘Why?’ I say. ‘We’re not doing anything wrong. Why are we even hiding?’
Ruby must think about it for a second, because she gives this silly grin and shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I just thought we should hide.’
‘Well, we can go back now, can’t we? We know they’re not killers.’ As I stand up, my knees hurt from being scrunched up. Ruby grabs my hand and starts dragging me back along the track and I think – although it might be all in my mind – that she’s tiptoeing, as if she doesn’t want to attract attention. Before we go, I really want to see what they’re doing. So I pull Ruby’s hand and make her stop. She glares at me, but doesn’t say anything.
I creep over and, half hiding, peep down to see where they are. They’re on the bridge. The girl’s lying on her stomach on the wooden boards and leaning over, maybe to tie more ribbons on or to take some off. My skin’s clammy and I feel almost dizzy as I watch them. It’s a strange sort of ritual. Neither of them talking, him holding her legs as she leans over the edge and down into the black of that water. I should’ve just kept walking away, but now my feet seem stuck to the ground, like I’m waiting for someone to come.
Then something does. There’s a blur and a dog runs in front of me. A big tan and black Alsatian. I can’t breathe. It’s my neighbour’s dog. It runs from the bushes, right up to where I’m standing, and stares at me. It’s baring those teeth and I’m suddenly there in my neighbour’s backyard, a five-year-old kid, terrified. Its eyes are cold and watching; its ears forward and ready. I know if it starts barking, I’ll probably scream.
A voice yells, ‘Luther!’ and the dog tenses. If it’s got a name then it’s not my neighbour’s. It’s real. It belongs to someone. I gasp and as the dog looks around, so do I, straight at the boy on the edge of the bridge. I know he sees me. I wait for him to tell the girl, but he doesn’t say a word. He just stares. And I stare back. It’s the boy from before who was on the bike.
‘Luther, here boy!’ he calls again and this time the dog runs down to the bridge.
As I back away, ready to go, there’s another flash behind me. I whirl around and it’s like I’m being held and I can’t move and I can’t cry out, because something’s gripping my wrists so hard that I’m trapped here. And when the cold air rushes off again, my wrists are wet.
4
saying goodbye
Looking around my old room at the Blu Tack stains on the walls, where all my posters have been pulled off, I feel sad. The carpet too is marked in lines, where my bed, dresser and bookshelf once stood. My things are on their way to Gideon and I’m saying goodbye to all the years I spent in this house. First sleepovers with Ruby. Disco parties. Secrets. That’s the thing with a house. It’s not just where you sleep, or where you eat dinner each night: it’s knowing how the house breathes, how it moves, where it creaks, and you can’t take those things with you when you move.
Since we went to see the new house, Ruby has been trying to help me work out which room I want. She keeps telling me to take the little one downstairs, near the lounge with the pretty window. But I’m not sure. I can’t stop thinking about the attic. I guess I’ll know in a few hours when we drive back to Gideon. For good.
Last night my small group of friends had a party for me and I cried most of the night. It finished early because no one knew what to say, and because I kept crying. It wasn’t much of a party and I felt bad for Ruby, because she’d organised it. Although everyone kept saying they’d keep in touch, I know they won’t. I’m rubbish at keeping in touch when a friend moves away. Like my old friend Tina, who left for England with her family back in Year 8. We were going to Skype every week and I think I emailed her once. A year ago.
Also I’ve been having these weird dreams. Creepy ones that wake me up and I’m sweating and my heart is racing, and it’s all about Gideon. That house, the attic. And in the dreams – well, actually it’s only one dream, over and over again – I see a shadowy outline of a girl’s face. She’s got long hair, she looks a bit like me, but she’s under water and she can’t breathe. It’s like the memory I have of almost drowning, but in my dream I can see her silently screaming, terrified, horrified at what’s happening. Maybe that’s what I did when I was trapped in the neighbour’s pool and it’s not a dream, but a memory. Maybe it’s about leaving.
‘Lil, you ready?’ Dad’s in the doorway smiling at me. I take a last look around my old room. Without my stuff, it doesn’t feel much like mine anymore.
‘We’d better go. We want to arrive when the truck does,’ he says gently.
‘Okay.’
‘Thanks, Lil.’
‘For what?’
‘Not making it impossible.’
‘I tried to.’
‘I know. But thanks for stopping.’
The estate agent has very white teeth and a suit that doesn’t quite fit him. ‘Welcome to Gideon.’
‘Thanks,’ says Mum, as he hands her the daisies. She hates daisies, but she won’t say anything because she’ll be polite. That’s what she does. But I bet they’ll end up in the bin or the compost if there is one.
‘Excited, kids?’
I expect Max to rattle off something poxy, but even he doesn’t say anything. Maybe the grinning white teeth are too much for him as well.
‘So excited you can’t get the words out!’ The agent laughs, looking at Mum and Dad and expecting them to join in. Thankfully they don’t, and his laugh just falls flat as we all wait for him to move on.
‘Well, here are your keys. This is all of them. You can keep the others I gave you, but these are the rest,’ he says, holding up a bunch of keys that is ludicrously big.
Dad takes them and drops his arm like they’re too heavy to hold. ‘Whoa!’
‘Yeah, there’s a lot,’ says the agent, still smiling.
‘What are they all for?’
‘No idea. You’ll have fun finding out.’
As he says this, somebody rides down the street towards us. It’s the boy from the river. As he goes past, I seem to be the only one who notices him. Mum and Dad are still deep in a conversation about keys, and Max has run off to meet the removalist’s van that’s pulling up behind our car.
The boy from the river looks over his shoulder, right at me. And then, as if something frightens him, he straightens up and speeds off down the street. As he goes, I take a photo with my phone. It’s only his back, but at least I can text Ruby the picture and feel like she’s close. She’s always so fast to answer a text. Her phone’s never off. Even at night she sleeps with it near her. We often joke that her phone’s vibrations are like her heartbeat.
‘Lil? You coming in?’
‘Yeah.’
Dad’s holding the door open for me. The house is waiting.
Stepping inside, I get that feeling again, like whenever I went swimming after I nearly drowned. My body tenses. My breathing gets faster. And I know something’s coming.
‘Find a bedroom, Lil. Then the removalists can put your stuff away,’ says Dad.
‘I already have,’ I say, hoping Ruby will understand my strange choice.
‘Oh, great. Hope it’s not the same one Max picked.’
‘I doubt it.’
He’s just about to ruffle my hair and stops, remembering maybe that I’m too old for that. Or perhaps he still feels guilty that he’s dragged me here. Whatever the reason, he smiles and walks off to look for Mum.
Leaving me alone. Without Ruby here, I don’t feel quite as brave as I did. So the stairs can wait a bit, while I check out the other rooms.
Our house in the city was custom built for my parents, so it never felt like we were living in someone else’s memories. But here, in this kitchen, there’s a wall of line markings, where someone’s been measured. Someone called Matilda. It starts when she’s only two, and then every three or four months or so, the markings grow, snaking their way up the wall until they stop altogether when she’s fourteen.
As I stand against the wall, trying to compare myself with her, there’s a weight on my chest, like something’s pushing me hard into the wall. I try to move away, but I can’t. I’m trapped. I know there’s nothing there, but I throw my hands out in front of me to try to fend off whatever it is. And the air in front of me is freezing. ‘Dad!’ I yell his name louder than I mean to. I’m scared. I can’t move.
‘Lil – there you are.’ As he marches in, lugging boxes, the pressure vanishes. I fall away and drop onto my knees.
‘What are you doing?’ He laughs. Then he notices the markings on the wall. ‘Oh. You’re measuring yourself?’
‘Not really,’ I say, standing up.
‘Ooh, I wonder who Matilda was.’
‘What?’
He’s reading the names on the wall, and as he steps aside, I realise there’s a new line marked above the one with Matilda’s name against it.
‘Is that you?’
I can’t answer him. It must be me, but I didn’t draw it. So how did my height get marked on the wall? That line wasn’t there before. I can’t breathe. Maybe it was there, but I just didn’t notice it. Weird, though – there’s no name next to it.
‘She must have been about your height.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Wonder when she left the house.’
‘Don’t know.’
I stagger back against the wall, my breath caught in my chest.
‘Lil? You okay?’
I shake my head. I can’t speak.
‘Honey, sit down.’
Dad slides me down onto the floor and I’m propped up against the wall with all the markings on it. I feel like they’re winding around me.
‘Breathe. Slowly.’
I try. But it’s hard. As Dad holds me, speaking quietly into my ear, telling me to breathe, I’m back in that pool, in that moment when all the sound stopped and it was so quiet and all I could see were Dad’s lips moving, making words that I couldn’t hear.
As I take in another breath, the air warms around me and the feeling of terror has gone. ‘I’m okay, Dad.’
‘You sure?’ He looks worried.
‘Yeah.’<
br />
‘I’ll get you a drink. Maybe you haven’t drunk enough,’ he says.
He leaps up and rummages around in the box he’s just carried in. My parents always think that’s the answer. If you’ve got a headache you need more water. If you’re tired you need more water. If you half faint on the floor then you need more water.
He laughs as he fills up the glass. ‘Might have to let it run a bit before you can drink it.’
He holds up the glass full of rusty brown water.
‘I guess no one’s been here for a while. So the pipes are all a bit funny.’
‘That’s okay. I’m not thirsty anyway,’ I say.
He’s disappointed. A glass of water would have been just the thing. ‘This kitchen’s a goodie isn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Needs a paint, though. Get rid of all those line markings on the wall.’
As he says this, the water pipes groan. Then the tap comes on, thundering murky brown water down the drain.
‘Weird. I’m sure I turned it off.’
I stand up, watching him dash over and try to turn the taps off. He turns and turns, but still the water pours out. ‘We might need a plumber –’
‘Here, Dad. Let me try.’ As I touch the cold tap, my hand buzzes, like electricity is running through it and into my skin. Then I turn it sharply, and as I do, the water stops. Not even a drip falls.
‘Thanks, Lil. You must have the right touch.’
There’s another groan in the pipes.
‘See, even the old pipes agree.’ He smiles at me.
I’d love to be able to smile back, but I don’t feel up to it. ‘Dad. Do you think this house is a bit—’
‘Old and rundown? Yep. But that’s probably why it was so cheap.’
‘Was it cheap?’
‘Ooh yeah. Bargain of the century. It had been on the market a while and we put in an offer—’
‘What’s a while?’
‘Nine months.’
‘Right. And that didn’t bother you?’ Why would my parents think it was a good idea to buy a house that had been on the market for nine months?
Haunting of Lily Frost Page 4
