I giggled. Not because it was funny but because I didn’t know what else to say. It was all just so much to come to terms with.
Lost in my mind again, I didn’t realize how far ahead Henry had climbed. He stood at the top of the staircase. “C’mon, babe, you’ve got to see this.”
Babe was a new pet name that he hadn’t tried yet. One that I didn’t mind but one that I had to admit didn’t exactly feel comfortable being spoken from his usual eloquent mouth. I sped up the rest of the stairs and Henry took my hand. I gasped; I was literally standing at the very top of the island. It looked as if we were on the edge of a volcano, but the top of the spout was nothing but an open pit of bushland, with a tall waterfall falling down a thin strip of rushing water on the far side. As I spun around, I could see 360 views of the whole island. In thedistance was nothing but the horizon. It felt like we were the only two people in the world.
“Can we get closer to the waterfall?”
“Of course,” said Henry pointing to the right of the path in front of us that followed all around to the top of the waterfall and back towards where we were standing. “Just stay back from the edge,” he said as I skipped in front of him. I could see the steppingstones on top of the waterfall in the distance, and I couldn’t wait to step across them. I didn’t think to bring my phone because it was the last thing that I wanted with me in nature. Now I was really kicking myself that I didn’t have a camera.
Henry was right in warning me about the edge of the track. It was incredibly thin, with no railing. It would be the worst nightmare for anyone with a fear of heights. But here I was on top of the world with the love of my life. I wanted to skip towards the rocks, but one wrong move and I would be falling towards the bottom of the waterfall, and down into the deep pit of the middle of the island. I had no idea how high up we were but high enough for the trees below me to look like nothing but little broccoli stumps.
Step by step, I watched the dirt beneath me, feeling Henry right behind me, planting each foot firmly on the ground, avoiding the many loose rocks that lined the path. A railing out here would have been very beneficial, but I still stood by how beautiful it was to be left completely untouched.
As I kept my eyes down on the ground, watching every single step, my body came to a halt as one of the large rocks blocked my path, was protruding out and not giving me much room to step forward. It wasn’t how the rock was sitting that had caused my body to freeze but the large red stain that covered it. My hands began to shake, with my voice as I tried to speak clearly, “Henry, Henry,” I whimpered as though I had already completely lost my breath. “Is that? Is that what I think it is? Is that blood?” I finally forced the words out as Henry grabbed hold of my hips, keeping me planted still. He leaped past me to get a closer look at what I was staring at.
Henry’s face tensed as he shook his head, “No I don’t think that, that’s…”
I screamed, leaning down towards the rock as I got a closer look. I had kept my cool, I was trying to keep my cool. But that part of me was now far gone. This was not a dream; this was not a hallucination. I was standing here, and this was real. My eyes caught on the strands of long blonde hair wedged underneath the bloodied rock. I grabbed hold of it, I felt it in my hands and suddenly it was like I was under water again. Feeling the long red strands of hair in my hand. But this was real as I tugged at the hair, it broke off from underneath the rock with ease as I felt the brittle black hair all clumped up in my right hand. I took a small step away from the rock, my body shaking.
“What is this?” was all I said waving the hair that was held tightly in my palm. Unsure if I should have said, “Who is this?”
Henry’s eyes were wide, looking at the hair I held in my hand and back down at the rock. His jaw dropped open and he shook his head. “I have no idea what that is, Molly,” he said as he gulped. “I can’t tell you the last time that I was up here. I can’t tell you who was the last person up here either.” His eyes flooded with fear.
That was the moment when it began raining. Not just raining, pouring. The rain bucketed down on the two of us, leaving us both saturated within a matter of minutes. And with the hair in my hand, lump in my throat, the tightness began to take over my chest. The instant rain on my parade, was the perfect analogy for how we were feeling right now. Henry tried to pull the hair out of my hand, but I held tight and swiped my arm away from him. I stepped back and my body began to shake on the thin path. He grabbed hold of me, holding me tightly underneath his arm.
“We need to head back,” he said, “Stay close to me and we will both get back safe.”
I didn’t say a word, I just nodded. The last thing that I wanted right now was to slip on the thin path, falling to my death. I could be just like the woman or the man whose hair I was holding. Another body that someone would find, the next time someone hiked through. Although there was no body, I didn’t see a body, but there was hair. A whole lot of hair. There had to be a body somewhere underneath their rocks, didn’t there? My mind ran wild, as I stayed close to Henry following his every move back towards the stairs.
Was he telling the truth? He had to have been. But whatever I saw… that blood was not old. It couldn’t have been. Surely, blood didn’t stain like that, from where it was so close to the waterfall… it would have had to have been fresh? And the hair, although it was brittle, it was in my hands, and if that hair was attached a body… well, how long would it have taken to disintegrate?
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Are you okay?” Henry said, grabbing a tight hold of my shoulders. We had finally made it back to the building, hours later, drenched. The cream that was once soothing the lips between my legs had worn off. I was not only cold, shaking but now also in burning pain, while holding what I believed to have been a dead woman’s hair in my hand. I really didn’t know how he wanted me to answer that question.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, that’s such a stupid question. Come with me,” he said, taking my hand he dragged me towards the kitchen. I stood in the corner as I watched him rummage through the cupboard to find a pair of rubber gloves and a sandwich bag. He threw the gloves on, holding his hand out to me.
“I know that you have touched it, and that’s okay. But we need to report this….” His face turned pale as he looked down at the hair. “We need to report this as soon as possible.”
I opened up my hand and Henry took the clump of wet hair and placed it into the sandwich bag. After this, we stood opposite each other in silence.
Henry took a step towards me, wrapping his arms around me, holding me tight. As I nuzzled into his body. I wanted to cry, I wanted to completely break down inside of his arms but I also felt numb. Numb but filled with pain and the only other person who understood that very feeling was the man that was holding me. Death was not new to us.
We had become immune to it. It was just something that happens when you’ve seen the lifeless bodies of those you loved the most. It takes the shock away from the notion of death. It numbs you and makes the very thing that the world seems to fear the most, completely certain. As much as I wanted to cry, as much as I wanted answers, as much as I didn’t want this to be the thing that he found in his backyard on a day like today, I kept my poise, and I didn’t say another word.
“You should go and have a shower, warm up. You’re freezing. I’ll be right behind you. I need to find Jackie and get all the details of the last people that were here and then I need to figure out how exactly I’m going to get the police over here,” he said, and my body involuntarily shivered again.
“Oh, Miss Molly, you really need to get yourself warm.”
I nodded. “I’m going to have a hot shower now, I’ll head upstairs, but are you sure there’s nothing else that I can help you with?”
“You can help me by getting warm, and I’ll meet you up there soon, I promise,” said Henry squeezing me tighter as he placed a kiss on the top of my head, lingering a little longer before he pulled away.
I took myself straight up to the penthouse. As I walked through to the bathroom, I avoided all mirrors. I didn’t want to see how pale my skin was or how blue my lips had become. I didn’t want to see how much of a drowned rat that I looked like in front of Henry. I didn’t want to catch the expression inside my own eyes. I didn’t want to see the sadness that sat behind them because as soon as I did, I would not be able to stop the tears from flowing. Right now, the most important thing was to get warm.
I stripped down my wet clothes, leaving them in a pile at the opening of the shower. As I stood under the hot shower, still shaking, I waited for the moment that I no longer felt the chill underneath the heat. I curled up at the bottom of the shower, steaming the whole bathroom up, as my body shivered. I called Ruth. Still nothing. I called her name again.
“Ruth?”
