“Maybe it already has. I do remember feeling very attracted to you well before we opened it.”
“Me, too.”
She nudged his coat off his shoulders. “I think, in the interests of science, we should continue to test the theory.”
“Science, huh?” he said, extracting his arms from the coat.
“Science.”
“You should know, I deeply respect science. Maybe I can earn thirty-one million pounds by synthesizing salamander goo.”
“Seems like that would require … extensive research.”
A loud, husky cough broke the silence of the wood. Amelia flinched, and then froze, her eyes wide. Even Tom’s heart was racing, and he’d heard the noise thousands of times.
“The hell was that?” she whispered. “It was close. Not one of their dogs, unless it’s mutated with an elephant.”
“Just a deer.”
“Deer make that kind of noise? That was spooky.”
They stilled, blinking at each other, being slowly veiled by the night. Spell broken. She climbed off and lay beside him. Her breath audibly slowed.
An image came into his brain, and it took a few seconds to figure out if it was a hallucination or a memory, before heconcluded it was neither. It was wishful thinking: he and Amelia picnicking on the lawn in summer, watching a concert, like in his artist’s impression. This woman was in his head, even as she lay next to him. He was unlikely to even see Duncan’s early spring bulbs emerge, let alone make it to June.
“I think we can confirm the salamander is still doing its thing,” Amelia said.
Tom rolled onto his side, propping his head up so he could look at her. “And here’s me thinking it was my pheromones.”
She laughed quietly, her teeth glowing in the moonlight. “It got dark.”
“Yes. We should start walking, if you’re up to it. But at some point, we should definitely explore this touch theory in a lot more depth.” He lightly touched her jaw.
Abruptly, she sat up, turning her face away, but not before he detected a flinch of doubt in it. Because he’d suggested a future for them? More likely, they’d get to the village and raise the alarm, and she’d flee the country ASAP, forever regretting her visit. She’d intended to escape her trauma, and he’d just heaped a whole lot more on her.
The best thing for her would be to leave and never return.
He rolled onto his back, looking into the darkness framed by the windows, which Duncan had salvaged from an old garden shed. Before the canopy thickened, he and Eddie would gaze up at the stars and talk whatever shit you talked when you were teenagers. If he brought Eddie up here now, would something stir, deep in his brain? But he wouldn’t get a chance. This was likely to be the last time any of them came here. The thought clunked inside him. It was going to be like that, wasn’t it? It was impossible to comprehend losing the entire estate, but this would be his next week—looking around at the place he’d lived for most of his life, and thinking, “Never again.”
Maybe they should both walk to the village and never return.
Chapter 17
Tom
Tom climbed down first, cradling the shotgun, and then held the rope ladder steady while Amelia followed. He hooked the ladder back and took a last look into the dark canopy, bidding a silent goodbye to his younger self.
“Heads up,” Amelia called softly, as he turned. He registered her lobbing something to him and instinctively caught it. The paperweight. “We might need your lucky charm.”
“I hope we won’t need luck,” he said, pocketing it. “We’ll go around the house and onto the moor, to the village.”
They walked in silence, Tom’s shotgun raised. In every shadow on the ground, he saw the shape of a curled body. His hope that Duncan would reappear had trickled away as the day had progressed. It was still possible he’d been keeping to the shadows, just as Tom and Amelia had, and there was a logical explanation for everything, but the worry sat heavily under Tom’s ribs.
“Is the stream water okay for drinking?” Amelia said, looking at its inky trail.
“I wouldn’t risk it, even in an emergency—especially in an emergency. Too much farm runoff.”
She quietly sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. She seemed weary, buckling under the weight of a long day with little sustenance and a lingering hangover. He could relate. They were a very long way from the escape of yesterday afternoon.
