He was up here. In there. Hiding behind the wood.
Tears filled my eyes, fright pushing them to my waterline as Igazed at the wood as if I was seeing through it.
But I couldn’t.
And I heard no noise. . . not from in there.
A hushed sound from my shared bedroom had me glancing down the hall. I felt my way through the dark until a prickly piece of dado-rail caught my finger and left a splinter in my skin.
Trying to squeeze it out in the dark was near impossible, and I gave up, figuring it would free itself by morning.
I reached for the doorknob to my room.
The door didn’t swing with ease. It had been barricaded with a toy chest, which wasn’t much of an issue for me, but it was the reason for Nessie’s exhaustion.
I looked around the room, the dark space filling my vision. The outline of Nessie’s blankets on the high bunk bunched where she hid and slept beneath.
I set the chest back in place, closing the door quietly. I knew it wouldn’t be any use keeping anyone out, but it would help my ears in discovering any unwanted guests.
On the floor at the side of the chest, was a doll—some kind of pink monkey holding an instrument. Its heaviness had created the bang leading me here. It must have been too close to the edge and finally decided to take the plunge and jump. I picked up the toy and placed it back on the chest, more into the center than it usually sat.
Cold toes pressed through the carpet. I stood on my mattress. My fingers around the side rails, pulling me up to find Nessie sleeping peacefully under her blanket. An army of soft toys stood around her, feigning protection.
I settled in my own bed, pulling the blankets up high. Nessie had somehow managed to find a semblance of peace amongst her terror, and that terror hadn’t found her in her dreams. . . I prayed for the same amity.
Prayed that Hell had done the same.
The room brightened as I sunk under my sheets, car lights landing on the house. If the window was open like every other night, I’d have heard Ville muttering obscenities about the dodgy handbrake, and heard him jump back into his battered old truck to pull it up much higher than it needed to be.
I felt glad he was home. For the first time ever, I felt at ease by his presence. . . and I felt relaxed enough to close my eyes.
Chapter 10
Woodrow—aged seventeen
Iignored the sound, the echoing amplification of my father’s pounding feet bringing him closer to my bedroom door. His heavy footsteps blared like the drums of war, and a war was coming.
Fuck knows what Hell had done to piss him off this time. He hadn’t told me. He’d written nothing in the diary. . . left nothing but drawings—mocking laughing faces on my last entry. All over my feelings for Jolie.
I didn’t dare go look for her. To see if she was okay. I knew I didn’t have the strength to potentially discover that she wasn’t.
I couldn’t move.
My head was pounding—a side effect of switching. My body ached from running, and my feet bled, broken glass still embedded in them.
My throat screamed for another liquid salvation. I’d already downed half a liter of my mother’s strawberry water, found in the stripy lounger on the porch. The crunched bottle now sat at my side, annoying me slightly that the label had creased. But I didn’t even have the energy to correct it.
I hunched on the floor, on all fours as I listened to the creak of each individual naked floorboard.
The house was ancient, built by a man with a beard in the eighteen hundreds; he wasn’t a relative, just someone who had an unfortunate descendant who’d had this place stolen from under his nose by my grandfather.
Time hadn’t been kind to the white woodwork, or any other part of the edifice. Evil had stained the home the moment it claimed it, and it continued to do so as it bred here.
Creaky boards sounded again. Creaks and whines were common occurrences. My mother called these sounds, the house settling, but that wasn’t true. This house settled long ago, in a space too pure and pristine for those who now lived inside it.
My closed door opened, swinging wide and violently, crashing into the wall, so hard, that flakes of old plaster sprinkled the carpet, dusting the brown fuzz like dandruff.
I dragged myself to my feet, holding up my pants as they sagged down my hips. I stared at my father from this side of the door, as he stared at me from the other for a long second.
