He closes his laptop at exactly twelve o’clock, leans back in his chair and stretches his spine. With an afternoon of freedom in front of him, he decides to turn his attention to research instead. He needs to find something to occupy his mind when it’s not in work mode. He wants another case to investigate, but it can’t be merely any missing person or mystery. He receives dozens of emails every day from people, reaching out to him for help in solving a multitude of cases, ranging from the disappearance of their children to the mystery of who keeps stealing their bins.
Stephen’s not interested in any of them.
None of the stories have jumped out at him, not like the Cherry Hollow case did. Is he chasing some illusive story that doesn’t exist? Searching for a high that may never come again? He hopes not.
After eating, Stephen rolls up his shirt sleeves and slurps his coffee, his second of the day, pulling his laptop closer from across the table. He types various keywords into the search engine. Oh yes, there’s plenty out there to choose from, but to him, it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack. But he’ll know when he sees it.
The mystery of the cursed lake sounds promising. Apparently, dozens of tourists disappear every year while taking boats out to row across to the large island situated at the centre. He reads on, his breath catching in his throat when he sees the wordscurse,bodiesandwitchcraft.
The article is from a year ago, but as he reaches the bottom, he realises his mistake. It’s a goddamn clickbait article, designed to lure in pathetic readers starved for some sort of juicy piece of news that has been warped and twisted into a story, delicious enough to keep them reading to the end. Exactly the type of articles he used to write.
Stephen tuts and scrolls to the next page of results.
A headline stands out.
Where do souls go when a person dies?
It’s an interesting concept that has always fascinated him. Death, morbid as it may be, is fascinating in its own way. He does like the idea that souls stick around, though. Not like ghosts, because there’s no such thing, but maybe some form of the human spirit remains on Earth even after death.
His phone buzzes on the table, disrupting his train of thought. Usually, he turns it over while he’s working, ensuring it’s on silent, but during lunch he’s forgotten to do that, so the noise jolts him out of his focus zone.
It’s the call he’s been avoiding.
Sighing, Stephen answers. ‘Hello, Stephen Mallow speaking.’
‘Good afternoon, Mr Mallow. This is Jenny from Westmorland General Hospital. Doctor Simmons has asked me to call you to organise a time for you to come in to talk about your test results, which you should have received by email. The first available appointment is Friday at quarter past one. Will that be suitable?’
Stephen’s heart thuds wildly in his chest. ‘Erm … sure. Fine.’
‘That’s perfect, Mr Mallow. I’ll send you a confirmation email with the details.’
‘Okay, thanks.’
‘Goodbye, Mr Mallow.’
‘Yeah … bye.’ He places the phone face down on the table after turning it to silent.
Great. Now he has to re-focus all over again.
Where was he?
A dull ache settles behind his eyes, then he feels the tickling inside his nostril. Slowly, a small drip of blood trickles down to his top lip. He takes a clean tissue from his pocket and wipes it away, tossing the tissue into the bin on his way to the coffee machine.
Chapter 5
GRAHAM
Graham stares at the crumpled poster in his hand; the one he found in the pocket of the scarecrow’s overcoat, along with the sketch of the tree from a hundred years ago. It’s a poster about a missing teenage girl called Sophia Hammel, who disappeared on the twenty-ninth of October, 2015.
Ten years ago, almost to the day.
There’s no photo of her though and the poster is very crudely made. It looks as if no effort was put into making it. In fact, it’s not even printed. It’s hand-written and holds next to no details about the girl, nothing about what she looks like or what she was last seen wearing. Just her name, the day she went missing and that’s it.
A horribly familiar ache forms in his gut, similar to when he found out about the missing teenage boy from Cherry Hollow all those years ago. Not a time he likes to think about. It’s odd that he’s lived here almost a whole year and this is the first time he’s heard about any missing teenager from the area. That is, if she is from the area. He doesn’t know yet.
Graham puts both the pieces of paper into his own pocket, then drags the scarecrow and the ladder down the hill, dumping both inside his garage. He lays the scarecrow downon its side, but those oddly-shaped eye sockets give him pause …
He shudders, quickly turning away from the eerie creature.
