“My foot,” she yelled, juddering along on her front. “It’s caught.”
Tom jumped up. Her ankle was wrapped up in leafy branches that were fast sliding off the cliff. The car and the tree looked like they were defying gravity, frozen in mid-air above the chasm like aRoadrunnercartoon. Tom dived at the foliage, tearing it away, as Amelia twisted around, clawing at it. Tom yanked at the last branch and it gave, releasing her, before it whipped and hissed over the cliff. Stumbling, he managed to grab her waist, and they rolled away from the edge.
Unable to tear his gaze from the tree and the car, Tom flailed for Amelia and held her tight. The car angled up in slow motion, grunting like it was in pain, until it was face down, impossibly suspended, waiting for the starting flag of some vertical car race.
“What is even holding that—?” Amelia started to say. And then time found its footing and the whole lot disappeared with a final, sickening groan—car, tree, rocks. A dust cloud rushed over them, and Tom tucked Amelia’s head into his neck. Just as he braced for the crash, it came. Three crunches, same as before. A thumping, splintering trio of metallic screams that shook the earth under his back. His hearing was still muffled from the loud cracks, but every crunch registered with high-definition clarity. And then, silence, but for a patter of dirt drizzling from the cliff.
Tom gathered Amelia so close there wasn’t a puff of air between them. She buried her face in his neck, her arms tightaround his back. He sure as hell didn’t want to let go, either. “Are you okay?” he panted into her hair.
“Yeah.” She sounded surprised.
He drew back so he could check her head, moving his hands gently through her hair. “Did you hit your head in the crash?”
“No. Just got winded from the seat belt. And the airbag thumped into me. I couldn’t breathe for a while.”
“You have a cut above your eyebrow.”
“I do? Areyouokay?” She patted his chest like she was checking for holes. “That was quite a fall—and I landed on top of you!”
“I’m fine.” His back was throbbing, though. He must have fallen a couple of meters.
“There was a figure on the road,” she said shakily.
His blood went cold. Everything went cold. And yes, itwascold, and his jumper was at the bottom of the gully, and he couldn’t remember what he’d done with his coat—but this was a different kind of cold. “What kind of figure?” he said, failing to keep his voice level.
“It came out of the fog,” she said, wiping dirt from her eye. “From nowhere. Wearing a big cloak. Everything was gray. The face was…” She stared blankly. “Therewasno face. I swerved and braked, but… Did I crash because of a hallucination?” She planted a hand on his chest and then moved it to one side of his neck. “I swear, you’re shaking more than I am. You’re cold. You’re so cold!” She went to slip out of her coat, and he stopped her.
“Keep it on. You’ll need it, once the shock sets in. I’m not cold. My coat’s somewhere around.”
“Xanthe mentioned a ghost that stood on the road.”
“She did? That’s not supposed to be part of the tour.”
“Tom? You’ve gone white. What’s going on?DidI see a ghost?”
He swallowed. If she hadn’t earned an explanation after all this…
“Remember when you asked about my brother, and I said I didn’t want to talk about it?”
She nodded, concern etched across her face.
“My brother and Connor… They crashed in exactly the same spot, seventeen years ago.”
“Oh, shit.” She looked around, as if expecting to see some evidence.
“Afterwards, Eddie spoke of seeing a gray, cloaked figure walking out of the fog. It’s the only thing he’s ever remembered of the crash. He kept saying it, over and over. He was clutching at my arms, clawing me, he was that agitated. But we just thought it was…”
“It was?” she prompted quietly.
“We didn’t know it straightaway, but he suffered a brain injury. Everyone hoped it was temporary—a bad concussion—but a few months later it built up to cause an aneurysm, and that…” Tom’s eyes watered and he looked up into the shifting layers of fog. “It permanently damaged his brain. We thought the boys had had a lucky escape—thrown clear.”
“Oh, Tom, I’m so sorry.”
“We assumed the ‘ghost’ was a symptom of the knock to his head. Plus, both boys were steaming drunk. Connor didn’t see it, and he was the one driving, so…” Tom shook his head. He absolutely did not believe in ghosts. “When I heard the crash, just now… It was…”
“Oh, Tom.” Amelia hugged him and he closed his eyes tightly and hugged her back. Thank Christ she was okay.
“Can you walk?” he said, pulling away. “We should get you back to the house.” His adrenaline had blocked out the chill for a while, but if he was feeling cold now, she would be too. And she might well go into shock. He shakily pushed to his feet, taking asecond to find his balance before he pulled her up. When he was sure she was steady, he retrieved his coat from the roadside and pulled his mobile phone from his jeans pocket. “I’ll drive you to a doctor, get you checked out. And call the police. They’ll want to know why there’s a car at the bottom of the cliff, when this fog clears enough to see it.” He held the phone high and walked around.
