After She Died

by Collette Heather

“Quite a lot, I should imagine. You were brought up in a perfect example of it.”

  “Why are you glamourizing my pathetic life? I’m not sure that’s appropriate.”

  “Bad things happen when good people do nothing, Cassie. Your parents might’ve nipped Chloe’s problems in the bud, had they been better parents. Do you ever dream of them?”

  “What? No. I mean, I don’t remember…”

  “Do you ever dream of me?”

  “What?” she asked, genuinely confused.

  Was he hitting on her now? That was simply unthinkable, not to mention downright illegal.

  “How about your boyfriend from University? The one you met a few weeks ago? Do you ever dream of him?”

  “No,” she gasped in indignation, for his rapid-fire, seemingly unconnected questions were making her dizzy. “Where the hell are you going with this? I don’t understand.”

  “Dreams, Cassie. The most commonplace thing in the world, yet the one thing that is most shrouded in mystery within the field of psychology. On the face of it, it is just the psyche sorting through the dregs of the day, trying to make sense of its own existence, but it is so much more than that. No one understands how, or why we dream. You will find all of the answers in your dreams.”

  “The answers to what? I don’t want answers, I want peace. I just want to get on with my life and bury the past. I’m so tired of being a victim of my past. I’m so tired of the pain.”

  “I know this, Cassie. But you also seek answers to questions that you don’t even yet know that you want to ask.”

  He was talking in riddles again and irritation churned inside her.

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “Dreams, Cassie. Every person that you ever dream of, be it your husband, your twin, or the man you wanted to have sex with last night but didn’t because for unknown reasons he slipped Rohypnol or Ketamine into your wine, are a version of yourself. They are not them, they are you. And you are trying to tell yourself something.”

  “How can you say he slipped a roofie into my drink. You don’t even know that!”

  “I would bet my house and career on it, but that is irrelevant. The point is that not only are dreams a reflection of our unconscious mind, of our own emotional truth, they also reveal feelings that we’ve hidden or repressed. They can be more real than reality itself.”

  “I’m still not sure what it is that you’re trying to say. My dreams are crazy.”

  “Yes, they are. As Freud himself famously said; dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy. So tell me, Cassie, what aspect of your psyche was Hugh representing? Your guilt, perhaps? Where you inwardly beating yourself up for your attraction to another man?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “Yes, yes you do, my dear girl. Don’t be frightened of what your subconscious mind is trying to tell you.”

  To her dismay, he jumped to his feet and she cringed in surprise when he sat down on the couch by her waist, so close that his hip lightly grazed hers. She was too shocked to react and just continued to lie there, stock-still, in a state of numbness.

  “You are an incredibly beautiful woman, Cassie. Such beauty can be a curse, rather than a blessing. Such beauty will garner you admirers from the shadowy corners of your life that you are unaware of. How well do you know your own life, Cassie?”

  With that, he jumped to his feet and went over to the door, holding it open. He lowered his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

  “Our session is over for the day, Cassie. I have a migraine coming on. I’m sorry. I will make sure that you are not charged for today, and our next session will be free for you.”

  She just lay there unmoving for a moment, truly stunned.

  When she did speak, she found that her mouth was bone dry and her heart was racing. Her tongue made a funny clicking sound as it detached from the roof of her mouth.

  “Dr Thornton? Are you okay? Are you sick?”

  Then she thought of the creepy way he had just sat next to her like that. For the second time that day, confusion clawed at her mind, leaving her disorientated with the strength of it.

  “Just go, Cassie. Thank you.”

  Shakily, she got to her feet and left the room.

  “Bye, then,” she said as she passed him, still incredulous that this was happening.

  “Good bye, Cassie. I’ll see you again, soon.”

  “Yeah.”

  But she didn’t mean it for a second.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  A few hours later, Cassie was still utterly stunned from her bizarre session with Dr Thornton. She hadn’t wanted to go home, instead electing to sit in a trendy coffee house in the centre of town. It was a hip and happening place, milling with people her own age who had the starving artistic/student/intellectual look down pat.

  Ethan would fit right in here.

  She hated how her thoughts repeatedly strayed to him.

  And more than that, she hated the thought that he had possibly drugged her.

  No, he didn’t. Why would he?

  It just didn’t make sense. Truth be told, nothing made much sense to her today.

  She sipped her coffee, her thoughts bouncing between Ethan and Dr Thornton’s outrageous behaviour. Maybe her psychiatrist was having a nervous breakdown, or something, because what other explanation could there possibly be?

  Yes, his behaviour today was definitely the final nail in the coffin, given that it was the second time he had pretty much acted like a prick.

  Yes. No more Dr Thornton for me.

  A group of hip, twenty-somethings spilled into the coffee house and she threw them a cursory glance. Her heart stopped. Because in the cluster of those six bodies, there was a girl with her back to her who reminded her of Chloe.

  She stared hard at the girl, her heart hammering. It wasn’t just the long mane of blonde hair and the fact that she was tall and slim, it was something about the tilt of her head, the way she carried herself. Cassie sucked in a sharp intake of breath when she caught a glimpse of her profile.

  It’s Chloe.

  That tantalising glimpse of the slightly snubbed nose and the smooth, pale complexion was enough to make the crowded space lurch around her. She clung to the high, chrome table, tilting slightly on her stool. She closed her eyes for a second, bathed in a cold sweat.

  Chloe’s dead, remember?

  Is she? You sure about that?

  When she opened her eyes again, the girl was looking right at her, and she was smiling, the cruellest glint in her big, blue eyes.

  It was also unmistakably her twin sister.

  Everything then happened in slow motion. She reached out for the table edge, missed, and slipped forward, toppling sideways on the stool. Her trembling, shaking body was as slack as a new-born babe’s as she tumbled to the floorboards. Sounds distorted around her – the hiss of the industrial-sized coffee machine, the clatter of crockery, the hum of voices, some non-descript, synth-wave dance track playing in the background.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  She didn’t immediately discern the voice from the buzz of the background noise – it was only when she focussed on the face looming above her did she realise that this was where the voice was coming from. It was a female face with dark hair hanging straight down either side of the youthful – if slightly blurred – visage.

  Cassie blinked, trying to clear her vision, a buzzing fuzziness in her head, like her ears were stuffed with cotton wool after being subjected to a deafening explosion of some kind.

  “I’m fine,” she said, struggling into a sitting position.

  “Let me help you up,” this stranger was saying.

  “I’m fine,” Cassie said, becoming aware of a small crowd of onlookers clustered around her.

  A hot rush of humiliation mixed in with the residue of the panic attack and she scrambled to her feet, ignoring the girl’s hand that extended down to her.

  Except it wasn’
t a panic attack. It was pure, unadulterated shock that had made her act in such a way.

  “I’m fine,” she repeated, more loudly this time and to nobody in particular.

  When she looked over at the spot where Chloe had just been standing, she saw that she was gone.

  It wasn’t Chloe.

  But she knew what she had seen. Dr Thornton’s words echoed in her head – all that stuff he had said before he had gone weird on her. That stuff he had said about the primary delusionary experiences intruding into waking consciousness, or some such thing. That she might start hallucinating. That she could end up in a state of hyper-arousal and her dreams and reality could become blurred.

  Oh God, what’s happening to me?

  She stumbled away from the scene, the small crowd that had gathered around her parting to let her pass. Well-meaning voices called after her, asking if she was okay. Asking if she should perhaps sit down for a moment and if she would she like a lift to the hospital… She ignored the lot of them and ploughed on through towards the door.

  Outside, she found herself scanning the pavement for her twin.

  A whimpering noise reached her ears, and dimly, she realised that the sound was coming from her.

  It wasn’t Chloe. Chloe is dead.

  It didn’t stop her looking, though. It didn’t stop her from lurching blindly along the street, unmindful of the passers-by that she rudely knocked into with no mind at all.

  Then suddenly, she stopped.

  Chloe’s dead.

  This time, that thought sunk properly into her worked-up brain. It took root, unfurled, began to make a kind of sense.

  Chloe’s dead.

  She stopped walking. What was she doing? Chasing ghosts through Whitstable high-street? Maybe Ethan had drugged her, and her seeing things was the residue of it, coursing through her system. Without it being a conscious thought, she turned around to walk home.

  * * * *

  Back at home, there was an envelope waiting for her on the doormat.

  Not another one.

  For a moment she couldn’t move, her legs weak and trembling and her heart racing so hard she thought that she might drop dead of a heart attack there and then. She leaned against the closed front door, staring down at the offending while envelope. It took all she had to perform the simple act of bending over and picking it up.

  With shaking hands, she ripped open the envelope, pulling out the folded sheet of A4 copy paper within. On the middle of the blank page were six, typed words:

  I know that Chloe isn’t dead.

  A low moan escaped her lips and she slithered down the door until she was sitting on her backside with her knees up around her chin.

  “Who are you?” she whispered to the letter.

  Maybe it was time to call the police.

  No. I can’t.

  She let out a strangled sob. The police installed a near pathological dread within her, what with everything that had happened. But at the same time, she knew that she had to. She clutched the letter to her chest, scared that it might evaporate into thin air, much like the other letter had.

  She shuddered. Shit – she so hadn’t wanted to think about that disappearing, poison-pen letter. She had been hoping beyond hope that it had been a one off, that its mysterious arrival, and subsequent disappearance, was something that she could quietly forget about.

  Yeah. That’s not happening, is it?

  I should call Hugh.

  When had she last spoken to him? Was it yesterday, or the day before? No, it was definitely yesterday, she was sure of it. Things had a habit of getting a little hazy for her sometimes, with events tending to blur into one another. Yes, there was no doubt about it, occasionally the stuff that occurred in her day to day existence had been known to get a little woolly.

  The phone ringing snapped her out of her reverie. A strong sense of déjà vu washed over her; this was exactly what had happened last time she had received one of these letters – the phone had rung.

  The landline called out shrilly from its home in the kitchen and she lurched unsteadily to her feet, clawing at the door for support as she did so. As if in a nightmare, her feet carried her into the kitchen. She had the strangest sensation of floating, that events were hurtling along at breakneck speed without her consent, a horrible sense of gloomy inevitability clinging to her.

  But the inevitability of what, she did not know.

  Hugh’s name glowed in green on the tiny screen of the handheld set, and she let out a shaky sob of relief as she snatched up the receiver.

  “Hugh,” she gasped into the mouthpiece.

  “Hey, baby, I’ve missed you,” he said, seemingly oblivious to the angst in her voice. “I’m sorry I didn’t call last night but I was snowed under with paper work. But I’m wrapping this thing up, I think I’ve nailed it. I’ll be home tomorrow. God, I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you, too,” she said, clutching the phone to her ear with one hand and the letter in the other.

  “What did you get up to last night, then?”

  Oh, you know, she thought. I went round this cute guy’s house. I would’ve shagged him, actually, but I think he spiked my drink because I passed out on his sofa instead.

  “Not much. You know, the usual.”

  To her relief, he didn’t press her.

  “The day after tomorrow I thought we might invite a few people over, you know, to celebrate this case. And we haven’t thrown a dinner party for a while, have we? We went to Bob’s over Christmas, didn’t we, and we still haven’t returned the favour.”

  “A dinner party?” she gasped, her mind racing. “I can’t do that, there’s no time to plan it.”

  “Baby, there’s plenty of time. You’ve got today and tomorrow to shop for it, and the house is always immaculate so it’s not like you’ve got to rush round having a mad tidy up or anything. You don’t mind, do you? I’ll cancel if you want. I thought it might do us both good to be a bit more social.”

  In the light of her almost shagging another man last night, guilt made her more amenable than she otherwise might have been.

  “How many?” she found herself asking.

  “Just Bob and Mandy, and this older guy I’ve been working closely with a lot, lately. He’s a smashing bloke, you’ll like him. His name is Fred. He’s a widower due to retire next year. I’ve been meaning to invite him for ages, but didn’t, for various reasons.”

  Yeah. You mean you don’t invite people back because your wife is a nutcase.

  “I guess I’ll be going shopping, then,” she said reluctantly.

  “Atta girl, that’s the spirit. I’ll drive you to the shops,” he said.

  But throughout the course of their relationship, she couldn’t recall a single time that he done so. As there were only two of them, she shopped little and often, usually when he was at work. Occasionally, she got a taxi, but as the supermarket was less than a half a mile away, she invariably walked it, figuring that she had to get her exercise from somewhere.

  “Yeah,” she said, not bothering to argue the toss with him.

  “Look, I love you baby, but I have to go, I’ve still got to be in court soon, but I should be home tomorrow evening, with any luck. Hopefully before ten.”

  She shivered, that horrible nightmare briefly flitting through her mind. The last thing she wanted was for Hugh to arrive home in the middle of the night; she felt sure that she would be scared out of her wits if he came home when she was in bed.

  You’re just being stupid.

  “That’s great. I can’t wait to see you.”

  “Yeah. Me neither. I love you, baby. Goodbye, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I love you too,” she said, but she was talking to a deadline.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Since her telephone conversation with Hugh, she had been shopping in preparation for the dinner party the night after tomorrow. She had decided that she was going to make steak, mashed potatoes, mushroom sauce and a nic
e salad, figuring that it would be easy and a crowd pleaser. And now, as she unpacked her shopping bag in her swanky kitchen, a great sense of loneliness washed over her.

  What am I going to do with myself until Hugh comes home?

  Even as she thought it, she was thinking about Ethan.

  I can’t see him ever again. Not after what happened.

  She glanced at the clock – it was just gone four – the perfect time to crack open a bottle of wine.

  Large glass of wine in hand, she wandered into the living room. The pull she felt towards her laptop was nothing short of magnetic, and without it even being a conscious thought, she found herself perched on the sofa with the letter next to her on a cushion and the laptop balanced on her knees. Prising open the lid, she logged straight onto facebook and tapped his name into the search function as she had deleted her correspondence with him in the one-in-a-million off-chance that Hugh might see it.

  His profile didn’t come up.

  “What the…” she said softly, her heart fluttering at this new development.

  There had to be some mistake, some technical glitch with the site.

  She went into History, forgetting that she had switched browsers recently and this one didn’t store any information about the sites she visited.

  She went back onto the search function, deciding that she had to have missed him the first time around. A small whimper escaped her lips as she frantically scrolled through all the variations of Ethan Taylor.

  He was definitely gone.

  “He’s blocked me,” she whispered as the realisation dawned.

  But there was only one way to find out for sure. Like most people, Cassie had a spare email address that she used for the less important stuff and it was with that she began the process of starting up a new facebook account.

  Less than five minutes later she was in, under the name Jane Bloggs. And she still couldn’t find him, which meant his security settings were cranked up to the max or he had simply deleted his account.

  The worst feeling curled around her, just like it had been doing a lot lately. In fact, this constant state of anxiety was beginning to be her new default setting. She couldn’t remember feeling this bad since the first year after Chloe had died.