by Suki Fleet
His mysterious employer seemed to choose to live in very poor conditions. Everything was old and in some state of disrepair. The whole house neglected and uncared for. A damp rancid smell filled the air as though the inside of the house had been preserved in a jar. In one of his science lessons at school, Cai had accidentally dropped a heavy glass jar with the bleached remains of an animal inside it. The smell had turned his stomach. As had the mess on the floor. Though less intense, that was the smell he thought of now.
With a prickle of unease, Cai glanced around. Three doorways led out of the kitchen, but there was not even a whisper of where Nicky had gone. Nicky the disappearing water nymph would be a more appropriate name.
After the lengths Cai’s note leaver had gone to to keep their privacy, being inside the house on his own was beginning to feel like crossing a line. And he didn’t want to put his job at risk, even if he did have the urge to go around and open a few of the mansion’s many windows, to feel the fresh autumn breeze drifting through.
“Here.” The voice made him jump. Nicky stood in the nearest doorway, a pile of dry clothes in his arms. His braided hair hung over one shoulder, dark as blood. His leaf-shaped eyes were as electric as a summer sky. Everything about him seemed made up of equal parts ice and fire. “You can change into these.”
“Thank you.” Cai was staring and he needed to stop. “The pipe is leaking….” He gestured at the water behind him as if Nicky had somehow missed the puddle covering the floor. “I could fix it.”
“Do what you want.” Nicky shrugged, looking completely disinterested.
Maybe Nicky had no authority to have anything fixed. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be in the house either.
“Would the owner mind? I mean, should I ask them first? Leave a note pinned to the window maybe?”
Surprisingly, Nicky laughed, a loud bright sound that lit him up for a second, but he stopped himself, his expression quickly returning to an unsmiling blank. He stepped forwards and shoved the dry clothes into Cai’s arms. “You can stop staring now.”
Heat crept up Cai’s neck and into his face. He looked down at the massive bright orange jumper, the track suit bottoms and long-sleeved T-shirt Nicky had handed him. Whoever they belonged to, he doubted they were Nicky’s.
“You’re tall. These were all I could find that would fit you,” Nicky said with a shrug that might have been apologetic. His voice was nice, deep, interesting—the tail end of an accent like Cai’s warring with occasional BBC vowels.
Trying to keep his gaze away from Nicky, Cai placed the clothes on a dry section of floor and began unpeeling his soaked T-shirt from his skin.
“So what are you doing here, Nicky the water nymph?” he asked, feeling a small thrill of excitement when he glanced up and caught Nicky’s gaze flicking over his bare chest. Nicky flushed and looked away, pressing his lips together so tightly they paled into a thin line.
Cai almost laughed. Instead, he made a bit of a show stretching up, arching his back, feeling his muscles flex, hoping Nicky liked what he saw. Even if he pretended he wasn’t looking, Cai sensed that he was.
Being the tallest in his class all the way through school, Cai had spent much of his youth wishing he were smaller, slighter, with limbs that didn’t end up where they weren’t supposed to. He’d never liked standing out and had longed for an existence that was less noticeable. It was only in the last year or two that he had begun to realise tall and broad caught some people’s eye, and they kept looking even if he was clumsy and a little graceless.
“I take it your job doesn’t involve answering the door,” Cai said, trying to get Nicky to laugh or smile again, though he was still unsure what it was that Nicky had found amusing a moment ago. There was definitely fire burning somewhere beneath all that ice, but he had no idea how to reach it.
“No, the butler does that…. Oh wait, I forgot, there is no butler.”
Everything Nicky said was delivered with the same blank expression and Cai wasn’t quite sure how serious he was being. But Cai had always tried to assume the best in people, not the worst, so he just smiled and pulled the long-sleeved T-shirt over his head. “So, what do you do here? Is it a secret? Are you hiding out?”
He tried to catch Nicky’s gaze, but Nicky just stared out the window behind him, where rain had begun pelting the glass so hard it sounded like tiny stones.
Nicky had zoned out again.
“You’re shivering. You should probably get some warm clothes on too before you turn completely blue, you know,” Cai said kindly, hoping to bring him back.
But, like a switch had been flicked, Nicky narrowed his eyes, his sharp gaze fixing on Cai. “Maybe I like being cold. Shouldn’t you get back to working instead of standing in here asking questions that are none of your damn business?”
Cai raised his eyebrows, unable to help the huge smile creeping over his face. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the one who leaves me the snarky notes on the windows. You’re not at all what I expected.”
“What you expected?” Nicky’s gaze was icy.
“It’s not an insult.” Cai went for another disarming smile, but Nicky remained somewhere on the frosty side of expressionless. “I guess I was expecting someone really posh. And I assumed you’d be older, though I don’t know why! I guess young people get rich or inherit stuff too. This is some impressive pile of sticks, you know. It’s just you, then? In the house?”
Nicky rolled his eyes. “I wish it was just me—but I seem to have acquired some stalkers.” Nicky’s tone was sharp and pointed, but as Cai watched he seemed utterly deflate. He was small as it was, but now he just seemed like some skinny kid in need of a bit of looking after. And more than that, he looked exhausted.
“You could call the police about that. Have you seen people hanging around before?”
“Believe me the police wouldn’t give a fuck.”
Cai frowned. “Why not?”
Nicky shook his head. The lack of information was making Cai wonder what he’d gotten himself involved in.
“What Cyril said, about you not having the right to get rid of the garden, was there any truth to it?”
“Cyril is an entitled dick.” Nicky ran a shaky hand through his hair. “Until Lance’s will is officially read I can do what I want. Cyril can’t do anything about it.”
“I’m on supervision. I can’t afford to get into trouble.” The words just came out—not that Cai had ever had any intention of lying about being in a young offenders’ institute, he’d just never intended to volunteer the information so freely and without thinking. What he’d meant to do was ask about Lance. Cyril had mentioned Lance too.
The gaze Nicky fixed on him turned glacial, and Cai immediately regretted his admission. “Supervision. You have a fucking prison record?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, this is great, really fucking great.” Nicky ran his hands up and down his face.
Cai hung his head, wishing he’d considered Nicky’s reaction before saying anything. These protective feelings he was developing were going to have to be well and truly squashed too. Nicky was as prickly as hell. He obviously didn’t want any more to do with Cai than he had to. Even if that glance at Cai’s chest a few minutes ago had been a spark of interest, Cai could tell Nicky wasn’t likely to give in to it. The bleak possibility that Nicky might now want him to leave and not come back was very real.
“I shouldn’t have said anything.” Cai said.
“At least now I know why you’re a fucking useless gardener—you’ve got an excuse.”
“Come on. You’re not being very nice.”
“No? I’m not a nice person. I’m a giant prick, but being a prick doesn’t give you a… a criminal record.”
“I’m not here to rob you or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m not a thief and I’ve never intentionally hurt anyone. I made a stupid mistake. Honestly, I just want a job. I need it. I’ve got someone to look after and we need the money….” He
tried to think of other reassuring things to say but before he could say another word, Nicky had turned and vanished back into the gloom he’d appeared from a few minutes before.
“I would have told you but you’ve never bloody spoken to me. You never asked me anything about myself,” Cai said to the empty unlistening kitchen.
Somewhere deep in the house a door slammed. An unexpected flicker of emotion that wasn’t quite anger ignited in Cai’s chest.
He leaned back against the wall behind him and closed his eyes. Wow, that hadn’t gone too well. He tried to console himself that Nicky hadn’t told him to leave there and then.
The pattering of rain on glass drowned out his thoughts as he stripped out of his trousers and changed into the rest of the dry clothes Nicky had brought him. Leaving his wet clothes bundled by the French doors, he headed outside, determined to go back to work, even if work ended up being just for today. If Nicky wanted him to leave he was going to have to come and ask him to his face.
Cai would even return the rest of Nicky’s damn money he hadn’t had a chance to earn, if it came to it, though that would leave him utterly fucked with everything he needed to repay. He hoped things wouldn’t come to that.
First, though, he needed to go and heft his van out of a bloody ditch.
Nicky the note leaver
Curled up naked beneath a pile of fluffy blankets, Nicky closed his eyes and listened to the rain. It had taken nearly an hour for his shivering to stop. The palm of his hand was throbbing from the massive splinter he’d gotten when he’d snapped the probably antique ruler on his desk in half. He’d managed to pull the splinter out but it still hurt like hell. He would’ve taken a trip to the bathroom to clean the wound under the icy tap if he’d been absolutely certain Cai wasn’t still in the kitchen. Instead he’d washed it in his drinking water jug and wrapped it in a clean T-shirt.
His last tin of soup was on the bookshelf behind him—it was tomato, his favourite—but he didn’t even have the energy to eat it.
This morning’s achievements of finally going further than a few metres outside the door, of walking through the copse on his own (or so he’d thought), of diving in the pool (it sounded ridiculous now and yet he’d done it), had been utterly negated. The whole goggle thing had had to be a joke. He’d nearly drowned at the bottom of that creepy pool. There really was someone or more than one person following him, watching him. And he’d employed a convicted criminal who was worried about getting into trouble.
A convicted criminal who’d also saved his life.
As much as Nicky tried to ignore the fact that Cai might actually be a good person, he couldn’t. It was just, he didn’t want the complications. He didn’t want to owe anyone else anything. He’d owed Lance. He’d spent the last two years owing Lance. The debt hung like a block of concrete around his neck. His feelings for Lance confused the hell out of him. Sometimes his chest ached. Sometimes they gave him the urge to run and run, to get away from this place. He didn’t have the space inside him for feelings about anything, or anyone, else.
Exhausted, Nicky eventually stopped thinking and drifted off.
A draught of musty-smelling cold air woke him. There were never any draughts in the study. Still half dipped in sleep, his brain fuzzy, it took Nicky what seemed like an aeon to fully process this realisation. The draught was behind him, blowing in from the direction of the doorway—the doorway that he’d locked with the key that should currently be under the seat he was curled up on. Nicky snapped his eyes open and gasped.
The barrel of a rifle rested on the arm of the chair, pointing at his face.
“You move, my finger slips.” The voice was female, rasping.
Nicky dragged his gaze away from the gun and saw a woman with a child’s knitted ski mask pulled down over her head. The mask had a fox’s face knitted into it and two orange ears that had been stretched too far drooped to the side. Most of the mask was brown but the colours were very faded. Both the small holes for her eyes and the slightly larger hole for her mouth were badly frayed. The bottom of the mask barely covered her chin. She looked ridiculous. She had a gun.
Unconcerned by Nicky’s stare, she lounged with her feet up in one of the comfier chairs. She wore a dirty grey hoodie with holes in the sleeves and a pair of track suit bottoms that were a few sizes too big. The rifle was balanced on her legs and as Nicky watched, her chapped lips curved into a smile.
“What do you want?” Nicky croaked.
It was funny but when Nicky had imagined scenarios like this—and he’d imagined a few in the past two years—he’d be panicking and on the verge of passing out by now. As he had been when the Duke had taken him. Rationally, he knew he should be completely terrified—that his heart should be pounding like something tribal and basic—but the reality of what was happening didn’t appear to have reached the right processor in his brain. Perhaps now that what he had dreaded for so long was happening, this weird sense of numbing relief had taken over. Nicky felt as though he was watching this happen to someone else, like a slightly horrified, but not particularly involved, bystander.
“I want to know what you found at the bottom of the pool,” Fox Mask said.
What? The question threw him. He hadn’t really been looking for anything at the bottom of the pool.
“What I found?” he repeated slowly.
“I can shoot you in the face and search the place. It makes no difference.” Fox Mask stroked the gun. Under the blanket, Nicky pinched his bare thigh to make sure this really wasn’t one of his fucked-up nightmares.
In the distance the awful can of bees began to drone. Cai. Fox Mask didn’t seem to notice the sound. If Nicky had been breaking into someone’s house and threatening them with a gun, he knew he’d have been more attentive.
Fox Mask swung her legs down off the chair. Her trainers were held together with parcel tape and mud. Pine needles were scattered across the floor. Cai hadn’t been lying about someone else following him.
“This is boring. Get up,” she said.
“No.” Nicky pulled the blankets higher up his chest. “If you were going to shoot me, you would have already.”
Shit. Why had he said that? He felt panicky when someone knocked at the front door for fuck’s sake, so what was he doing pissing off the person holding him at gunpoint?
The numbness he felt was all pervasive. And that shotgun looked like one of the broken ones that Lance collected. The ones he’d kept in the east-wing library.
“You’re really willing to give your life for some sicko?” Fox Mask spat the words. Sicko? Who did she mean? Lance? None of this made sense. Did she have some sort of vendetta? “Perhaps you’re a sicko too. Or were you his whore, Nicky? Did you work together? Are you going to tell me you didn’t know about the things he did? I haven’t worked you out.” She stared at him and Nicky stared back. Her bloodshot eyes were yellowy at the edges.
Poking the barrel of the gun into Nicky’s neck, Fox Mask suddenly turned towards the window, her eyes narrowed.
Behind them, the open door banged lightly against the frame, blown by the subtle winds that trailed through Thorn Hall like ghosts. Out the corner of his eye, Nicky saw the lock was perfectly intact, which meant Fox Mask somehow had his key. He must have been half dead not to wake up when she’d opened the door—he was an incredibly light sleeper, especially with Lance gone. He couldn’t work out why he hadn’t woken up.
Without moving his body, Nicky slid a hand under the seat, feeling around until his fingers closed on cold metal. Where had she got another key from? Lance had been super careful about keys—for security there was only one for each door. Was this woman family? Was she as detached from reality as Cyril?
Or had she somehow picked the lock?
The gun moved from his neck as Fox Mask took a step towards the window. “I really should have done something about that gardener,” she muttered under her breath.
Blood thundered in Nicky’s ears.
“Wait….”
He quickly sat up, feeling as though the room was swaying, and trying to keep the blanket covering his nakedness. “There was something in the pool. I’ll show you.”
What was he doing? He wasn’t brave or courageous—the most notable traits of his personality were currently bad-tempered and sarcastic. He’d always been a coward through and through. That’s who he was. That’s why he was here. “It’s in the desk.”
This was not a good plan. This was no plan at all.
Fox Mask turned and gestured at the desk with the gun. “Find it.”
“And then what? You’re going to shoot me?” He wished the wobble in his voice was imaginary. Stay numb.
“It’s a possibility.”
She needed something from him, though. He didn’t know what it was, but until she got it he was still valuable alive. He needed to work out exactly what it was she wanted. “Did Lance’s family send you?”
The can of bees had stopped buzzing.
Go home, Cai, he thought, a sudden flicker of desperation breaking through the numb fog shrouding his emotions. Whatever his feelings were, Cai leaving with both arms and both legs and a strongly beating heart was vitally important.
“Family?” She screwed her face up. “Any fucker related to that sicko is a sicko too, I reckon.” In one swift movement she cocked the gun, resting it on her raised arm and pointing the barrel straight at his head.
Nicky’s heart crawled up into his throat, and he froze, terrified, and at the same time relieved to be feeling something like what he thought he should be feeling at last.
He stared at the gun. There was a distinct possibility this wasn’t one of Lance’s broken specimens. If thinking the gun wasn’t going to go off was giving him the courage for these little shows of bravado, then he was completely fucked.
“Don’t think I won’t, Nicky.”
