My door bursts open. Tim. The sports psych.
“There you are, Em!” He claps his hands together, and it’s as loud as a gunshot. My nerves are so shot, I choke back a yelp. “Get your ass to the pub, girl.” He grins at her and finally notices me. “Oh yes,” he says too brightly, “you’re welcome to join, of course.”
Behind him, someone calls his name. Tim reaches out to high-five the stranger and steps out of my door, leaving it open.
Emily slowly rises to her feet. “Would you like to come with us, lovie? We’d be happy to have you.”
I shake my head because I’m not thinking about the bloody pub.
“Emily!” I lean forward, my voice tinged with hysteria. “What was the name of the woman who lived at Black Wood before me?”
My mind drifts to the woman at the mailbox. The one who looked at me like I was a ghost. The one who called me Amanda.
You look so much like her…
Down the hallway, office doors are snapping open. Clients are escorted in and out. Emily clicks her tongue, thinking. “Let’s see now…”
The back of my neck feels unbearably warm, like someone’s pressing a hot scone against it.
“Amanda,” she finally says. “Her name was Amanda.”
Chapter 13
Let me introduce you to Friendly Neighbor Sarah! Friendly Neighbor Sarah is disarming, chatty, even a little clumsy! Harmless.
I knew a woman like her when Joe and I were living in Mitchell. Mrs.Short, her name was, though her husband had been dead for decades. She lived next door and was always popping over with a beaming smile, bouncing curls, and probing questions. Sometimes she brought scones, which were always slightly burnt. “Care for a scone, deary?” she used to ask, holding the paper plate up like she was offering me her heart. She was a dithery old dear who made a big fuss of Reaper—“Who’s a handsome boy there!”—and tottered off with her cane after hugging me goodbye.
I was lonely and grateful for the company. And so was she, I thought.
One day, we were chatting in the sun at my kitchen table, glasses drained of cheap moscato, when I said something about growing up in Queensland with my sister.
And I swear to God her eyes narrowed like a bird of prey’s. “I thought you were an only child?”
Amazing. She had easily gained my trust without me even noticing. Our kitchen conversations were interrogations disguised as friendly chat. Honestly, I was more impressed than angry with her.
Mrs. Short. This is who I will be today when I go to Kay Potts’shouse. Mrs. Short can be trusted with your secrets. So go ahead, fucker, and let them spill.
When I wave goodbye in a cloud of Gucci Bloom and disarming femininity, you’ll think to yourself,Isn’t she a dear?
And maybe you won’t even realize you’ve told me everything and I’ve told you nothing at all. You won’t even realize I’ve accessed all your valuable data like a hacker. Or a virus. I wrap an inch-long strand of caramel highlights around the curling wand and hold it there, pressing down until it burns. The mirror in my bathroom is cracked down the middle and stained with flecks of toothpaste. This is the bathroom where Bill Campbell killed himself.
I hold the curl longer, feeling the warmth of the iron against my chin. I release the curl, and it falls hot into my palm. I let it cool there, and while I wait, I glance slowly to my right. Bill was found slumped against the bathtub. The same one I’m currently staring at. The faucets are red-brown with rust, and the bottom of the tub looks like someone washed a pack of filthy dogs in there. I itch to clean it, but every time I try, something stops me. Last week I hauled a bucket of hot, soapy water over to the tub, and just when I was about to pour it in, I stopped. I felt like someone was tugging my arm urgently, pulling me away. I froze, the bucket hovering in the air, ready to spill, and I felt the wrongness of it right down to my bones.
The house doesn’t want to be clean. It doesn’t want to be fixed.
I turned around, trekked downstairs, the bucket sloshing in my arms. I carefully stepped out the back door and threw the hot, clean water out onto the blackberry bushes.
I didn’t tell Joe about this incident. He thinks I’m crazy enough already.
I lightly brush the curls out and spray them until they’re sticky and glistening. Critically, I inspect my Friendly Neighbor clothes. Blush-pink cardigan, cream slacks, and a gold pendant cross nestled between my collarbones. I feel like a sixties housewife. Mrs. Short would approve.
The neighbor at the end of the street, the one who called me Amanda,is a Ms. Kay Potts. A brief Google search informed me that she bought her house seventeen years ago. Husband worked at a bank and is now deceased. No kids. She’s just the type of neighbor who might have struck up a friendship with the young woman who moved in down the street.
And then disappeared.
I apply a dusty pink lipstick and one spray of Gucci Bloom to each wrist, then nod slowly at myself in the cracked mirror. This time when I come face-to-face with Kay Potts, I will not be caught out in sweaty leggings. I’ll bring a smile and a hundred innocent questions about the previous owner, who nobody knows about.
I spent hours after work googling Amanda, but I had little to go on. I don’t know her last name, where she worked, where she came from. Still, you’d think there’d be some trace of her buying Black Wood House. Some documentation.Something.
