Nemesister: The gripping women's psychological thriller from Sophie Jonas-Hill

by Sophie Jonas-Hill

I tried it again, and it still did not fit. In frustration and despair, I pressed my face against the door. I’d assumed it was the key to the padlock, because my fevered, beaten up brain was focused on nothing but the padlock. I closed my eyes and swore at the wood. Then I forced myself to inhale slowly, straightened up and fetched the lantern. I inspected the chain threaded through the door; it was solid. I could force it, perhaps lever the door off the hinges, if I could find something long and strong enough, though right now there was nothing obvious to hand.

  I turned the key over in my hand. It had been placed under the couch with care, left for someone to find. Looking at it more closely, it did not look like the padlock key I’d held earlier. There was something domestic about it, something small. The locked room upstairs, the one Red said he didn’t use … could it be for that? He wouldn’t be deep enough asleep yet not to hear the noise of the padlocked door being forced; in the meantime, I might find something in there to do the forcing with, as there was nothing obvious down here. With the lamp throwing shapes against the wall, I crept up the stairs.

  The light showed me the ceramic doorknob, painted with pink flowers, into which the key fit snugly. I paused, visions of Bluebeard’s chamber flickering through my mind, the doorknob like the virgin’s egg in my hand. I did not have to go in, but even as I registered the thought, I turned the key and heard the click of the lock.

  The door opened towards me, and for a moment I thought it was going to be nothing more than a linen cupboard, but it wasn’t. It was a small bedroom, with another, smaller iron bedstead, a grey striped mattress and sagging pillow. As the light washed the room, there was more scurrying. I caught the whisk of movement and a sharp, acrid smell. There was a tall, top heavy wardrobe, with fancy carving that the lantern-light turned into the face of an owl, two eyes and an ornately scrolled beak. There was nothing much else, just a huge floral bloom of damp on the faded, nursery print wallpaper, ducks in bonnets and baby rabbits eaten away by shadow.

  Was this once a family home, out here in the backwoods? Was this a room where a child slept, little feet in summer shoes slapping up the stairs, running in to climb on the bed? I let go of the handle, stepped in and sat down on the mattress. Little feet running up the stairs with a secret, something they wanted to hide. Something joyous, or terrible, or stolen, or found? Little pearl buttons on blue velvet.

  ‘I’ve got him, it’s okay, it’s okay – I’ve got him!’

  I put the lantern on the floor and turned the flame up as far as it would go. The floorboards under my feet were dark and grained with age, though they looked firm enough. I straightened up and, as I moved my foot forward, felt one of the boards give and heard it creak. There was a knothole halfway along just big enough for a little finger, big enough for my little finger anyway, even with the nail. I pulled, and the board came free after a moment’s hesitation. Kneeling down, I peered into the space below. Inside was a pink fabric bundle, printed with a delicate floral design and a luxury brand name. I eased it out; it looked like a jewellery roll. Buried treasure? I glanced up and slid the lantern closer before I worked the tiny gold buckles open.

  Nestled against the soft pink lining was a small glass vial of clear liquid, a syringe, a length of tightly folded and bound nylon rope, and a set of handcuffs. I sat back against the bed, hand on my mouth. What the hell was this place? What did Red do here? Then something else in the alcove caught the light from the lamp. It was a snub-nosed revolver. I picked it up and checked the safety and that it was fully loaded, all before I realized that I did so instinctively, false nails clicking against the metal. This was familiar to me, this gun, or a gun like this. I knew how to load it, I knew how to shoot it, though I’d no memory of ever doing so.

  ‘You gonna shoot me, you crazy bitch?’ The image came to me again, my hand, those nails, holding a gun. This gun?

  I dropped it like it was burning me, stood up and paced round the room, walking on the side of my feet, trying to calm the panic rising in my throat. A gun, Jesus, with these nails too. Gnawing one of them, I looked back down at the cache. The jewellery roll was very pink, and very feminine, despite its sinister contents. Would a man like Red keep his secret torture kit in such a pretty thing, when ex-army camouflage was so much more his style?

  I rolled it all up again, my fingers shaking, the buckles stiff as I refastened them. I went to force both gun and roll back into the alcove, then decided against it. Not wanting to leave the telltale recess in the floor open, I moved the plank back into place, after which I was panting more heavily than the effort warranted. I leant on my hands to catch my breath then glanced under the bed, meaning to shove the things away against the wall, but the lamplight hit upon something protruding from under the mattress, caught between it and the bed frame. It was a hard, grey point, flat and thin.

  Not sure if I wanted to know, but unable to resist, I touched it, then pulled it free, drawing it out like a splinter. It was a grey document bag. It looked as new as the roll, untouched by the fetid, creeping damp that had gnawed its way up the walls. I knelt on the floor with it, drawing the lamp up close, unclipped its straps and flipped it open. Inside were sheets of white paper, printed all over in dense type. I read the first few lines on the first page.

  Message “mailto:alabasterbaby@hotmail.com” alabasterbaby@hotmail.com to “mail-to:nemesister@gmail.com” nemesister@gmail.com

  Yes, it’s me! I am so, so sorry I haven’t been in touch sooner, but what with everything it’s taken me this long to even get my feet back on the ground. You got my text right, so you know I’m not dead or nothing?

  For a moment, I wondered if this was meant for Red too, then knew at once it wasn’t. Just like the jewellery roll, this was all too feminine for him. I flipped through the pages; words jumped out at me but at first, none made any sense. My eyes fogged over and when I wiped them, I realized they were watering. When I blinked and looked up, the owlish wardrobe looked back at me, as if it had seen it all before.

  I folded my legs under me and, with the tick and crack of the house and the shadows lurking on the walls, I began to read:

  Sis, I know I screwed up. I know they think I’ve ruined my life, but I haven’t. I’ve made a mistake and I’m going to put it right, that’s all.

  God, I miss you, I miss you so much. Whatever I’ve done I will always, always love you and always be your big sister.

  I have to go now, but I’m gonna sit down and write you a proper long email when I’m set and I’ve got time. I know they might try and hack your account like they did with mine, and I know it was them no matter what they say, so I’m not gonna tell you where I am exactly, because I don’t want them to make you tell them or something, or try and find out somehow, but I’m okay and I’m going to make it work.

  Tell me how you are; tell me you’re okay,

  L xxx

  I put my finger on the signature; such intimacy in four characters, a code between sisters rendered mundane by the uniform sweep of a digital printer. I remembered what I’d said to Red as we sat on the floor, ‘I’m sure I had a sister, a brother also—older? A … a sister …?’

  ‘L’ had a sister, one she trusted enough to write to, one who was safe; a little sister in awe of her, perhaps? Running after, loyal, feeling blessed to be included in the game; running through the backyard, running down the street on an adventure, ripe with forbidden thrill, daring the dog that always snarled at them through the fence. Little feet in summer shoes, slapping on a sun-baked sidewalk.

  ‘’I’ve got him, it’s okay, it’s okay – I’ve got him, I’ve …’ I rubbed my forehead with my fingers, squeezing my eyes shut. The words seemed to glow on the inside of my eyelids. Lisa! ‘Lisa! It’s okay, Lisa, I’ve got him, I’ve got him!’

  My heart pounded at the base of my throat. Lisa. My hand flinched, the papers flinched; I looked down expecting to see that I was holding something else, not papers but something lost, something found. For an instant, I thought I heard laughter, a screa
m of delight. I jerked round and glanced behind me, but all I saw was the open door of the bedroom, now an oblong of black. The darkness seemed complete, just the glow of the lamp spreading my shadow over the wall and the bed behind me. There’s nothing in the dark that’s not there in the light, I thought, but that didn’t help. What was there in the light, was bad enough. I got up and went to close the door and listened, and the house seemed to listen with me.

  If Red came downstairs, passing the door that he’d told me was locked, he might not try it, but he might look over the banisters to the couch below. It was lost in darkness, but when I raised the lantern and a little light fell on it, you could see at once it was empty. I went back into the bedroom and picked up the old pillow from the bed. It was clammy to touch, sagged like something neck-broken, and God knows what was nesting in it, but that didn’t matter. I went down the stairs slow as I had to, so as not to make them creak. Some of the blankets Red and I had sat upon were still on the floor; so, together with the pillow, I arranged them to look, I hoped, as if I was still there, asleep.

  Halfway up the stairs, I looked back down. At a glance, in the dark, if you were expecting me to be there, it wasn’t too bad. You might really believe it, and as I stood there, I almost began to wonder if I was still down there. The light caught on a fold in the blanket, and the pool of shadow it cast gave it such solidity, that I could almost imagine it really was my shoulder. The longer I looked, the more it seemed as if the shape below me breathed, flinched in its sleep, sighed, safe in the comfort of dreams. My good-self asleep, my bad-self up to no good. I turned away, and when I looked back, the illusion was gone. It’s just got to fool Red, I thought, enough for him to relax, to make a noise if he’s out here so I hear him, that’s all.

  The key was still in the rose-painted lock on the outside of the door. I pulled it free, closed the door and put the lantern down to lock up. But when I tried to fit the key into the ceramic knob on the inside of the door, only half concentrating on what I was doing, it wouldn’t go. I bent to look, and saw the keyhole on this side was blocked. I ran my thumbnail over it, and felt a sharp, protruding edge which, if I had to make a guess, was the remnant of another key, snapped off at the shoulder. The door had been fixed, intentionally or otherwise, so that it couldn’t be unlocked from the inside.

  The pull of the printed papers I’d found became too much to bear, so I turned back to them, slipping the key into my pocket. Red thought the place was locked, had said as much, so that would have to do. I had to read, I had to know.

  I sat back down in the dark of the chamber. As I struggled to read, leaning close to the lantern, a creeping sensation tickled over the back of my neck, and my shoulder blades itched. The sound of my breathing closed in on me, grew loud and interior, almost as if I pushed off into water, as if I dived.

  ‘Gentle, ma Cherie.’

  The water was purple, the water was soft. It whispered of another time and another place, the scent and sound of it creeping in under the sound of the swamp. I was too aware of it, too eager for it to come, I grabbed at it, but reality snatched it away and I gasped.

  ‘Gentle, ma Cherie, soft now’.

  I shifted position, angry that I’d thought for a moment that this dream, or curse or whatever it was even existed, or could be something I could use.

  ‘Just read it,’ I muttered, then, ‘am I reading this?’

  ‘Are you?’ the voice asked me, a smile at the edge of its words. ‘Haven’t y’always been a swimmer?’

  Yes, I had. I was a swimmer, I was swimming. I could feel the water as it flowed over me, feel myself bright in azure blue, sound and light dancing in my vision and stars in my lashes. I was a swimmer, and I broke the surface into cheering. The world was cheering for me, but when my fingers grazed the hard tiles of the pool, when I bobbed up into air, I was turning to one voice, picking it out in the crowd.

  ‘Am I reading this?’

  ‘Or do y’ feel it? You think, maybe ya don’t need read the words at all, because you seen them? Or because, ya once read them so much, they dance in ya eyes like lightning bugs?’

  It was true. I knew what was written before my eyes devoured it from the page. It was not like reading, it was cold water down my throat, and me gulping desperately against thirst, as if I swallowed in what I swam. Like when I’d looked at the stranger in the mirror this morning, so gradually I saw her, both as the observer and the observed. The darkness closed down the light from the lamp, and I saw beyond the words and the white paper into something more than dream, more than memory. The world of the swamp slowed, the noise of insects faded, ticking into silence. The night breathed, deeply asleep, and I slipped beneath the water.

  ‘Ya don’t have to look, ma Cherie. Ya don’t have to remember. God don’t like ugly.’

  Chapter 8

  OH NO, I’M SO SORRY that they did that; it makes me so angry! It’s outrageous that they’re not letting you have your privacy even now! At least they don’t know about this, and you can message me away from home and they’ll never know …

  I saw hands that I knew were mine, typing at a keyboard. An Internet cafe a block away from home, unobserved for a dollar an hour, where a fat Turkish man lounged behind the counter and people came in to buy phone cards. Nowhere I was known, somewhere our parents would never go, a place that smelled of cheap coffee and stale bodies. I could see the yellow advertising banner over the counter and the soda bottles in rows, but I couldn’t see my family, just my fingers, typing.

  I saw Lisa too, in another place, where the sun seemed spiteful and the nights were never dark. I saw her when she sat down and waited for the screen to be illuminated with my words – her words – and I saw her as the tears came to her eyes and she brushed them away, because she never cried. Not since we were children.

  I swam, alone. Late at night, late as I could, yellow light scribbled on the surface of the water behind me. I swam, I dived, and when I came up for air, the air I breathed was dust-dry and hollow.

  There was a house with four other girls. Pink nails with rhinestones, because everybody has them, everybody there, all the girls in the house. They were all friends, and they were great; it was as though she’d known them forever, as though they were real friends, not like all those losers at school. All of those sent-awayto schools.

  Do you like them? I got them done yesterday, everybody here has them. Cute or what?

  There was a fleece blanket tacked over the bedroom window to shut out the light, both night and day. The floor was tumbled with hair straighteners and half-read magazines, and pantiehose, and ground-in lipstick, all in the glow of the pink blanket at the window, like waking with eyes closed and sensing the light.

  Promise me you won’t let them treat you like they treated me? Get money together and get away, as soon as you can, promise me?

  There was a job at a casino, a good job because you could make your money in tips, like double, on a good day. But it was more than that, it was the first rung on the ladder, because it happened every day at casinos, people got discovered. She read it in the magazines, and all the girls in the house said so. Catching the bus in the morning, when the sky was high above and the heat hadn’t yet drawn the spike of the cold, that was what she told herself: first rung on the ladder.

  I do my face at work, in the restroom, because they give you nice soap and stuff.

  And because there’s no room in a house full of girls, always someone else in the bathroom or waiting. She does her face, and as she does, her reflection shows her eyes, mouth, nose, the same face she’d brought from home, the home she doesn’t let herself remember. Her hair is blond, but then she dyes it, because it’s that fair kind of not-quite-brown or blond colour people call mouse, and she’s not a mouse, whatever else she is. The brush pulls, the brush snags before it comes free, and she tells herself this is the first rung of the ladder.

  Was this my memory of who I was then, recalled by who I am now? Because I’d changed, I knew that, but the
thing was, so had she.

  ‘Ya know what they say when the sun shine but the rain fall? They say the devil’s beatin’ his wife.’

  She fetched drinks, she cleared tables, she saw the lights of the city as they caressed her face and painted her in. The light caught in her eyes and dazzled me. She looked at the people who passed the window of her coffee shop, as if she watched fish in an aquarium, all bright colours and strange shapes. She watched the world like that, as if there was a layer of glass between her and it, and she longed to go swimming.

  There was an acting class once a week, out in the suburbs where the sheep come down from the mountains. They call them sheep, but they look like goats, and sometimes she saw them from her bus, furtive brown bodies moving over a children’s playground, grazing in the dusk. The grass was smooth and perfect, smooth and perfect as a green carpet as seen from under a bed. The class was good, the class was the bright spot in her lit-up week, but the last bus home was twenty minutes after the class finished, and she always had to run. One night, she didn’t want to run, she wanted to stay and talk to the other people in the class, to be with people who had the same dreams as her, after a week of tables and beer and the buzz and click and hum. So she missed the bus. She missed the bus and she waited outside, not sure what for, reading the timetable over and over.

  ‘Can I give you a ride?’ It was nice of him to offer, the tutor. It was nice to sit in his car and talk about acting, to feel he saw something in her, other than waiting tables. ‘Can I give you a ride?’ It was nice of him to buy the coffee, while he explained that really, he and Susan, his wife, were all but over. Well, she knew how it was, after the kids, after they leave home; you look round and hey, there you both are, more like brother and sister than anything. It was nice of him to explain, so she wouldn’t feel guilty.

  Home, eventually, to the house with too many girls, but something’s wrong. She was late, and that made her look worse, somehow. Things had gone missing, and well, it wasn’t Cathy, now was it? Or Jules, with her arms jammed tight across her chest, or Candy, or Lauren, or Katie, or Tyler – is wasn’t any of them, now was it, Lisa? They’re all friends, they all know each other, like, for real, like forever? They wouldn’t do it, not steal from each other.