“So . . . boyfriend? Girlfriend? Pet cat?”
I shake my head, although I can’t help but think about Tommy and his dimples. “None of the above. Next question.”
“Come on,” she presses. “There must be someone at home?”
“God, no. We live in the back of beyond. The only lads I get the chance to see in real life are either relations or feral. Usually both.”
“Eurgh, that’s depressing. We’ll have to introduce you to someone here.”
I nod in agreement but can’t quite stop the smile that is spreading across my face.
“Wait, have you met someone you like already?” she demands. “Spill.”
“There’s a boy called Tommy,” I confide. “At the museum. We had a kind-of-accidental-date the other night.” I fill her in and she laughs when I tell her about the hand kiss.
“That’s kind of cheesy.”
“It wasn’t, it was . . . perfect.” I glance at her. “What about you?”
“Next question, please.”
“Seriously?” Jess nods. Her expression is tight, and I sense it’s more complicated than she’s letting on. “OK, OK, no love life stuff. Got ya.”
“Thank you.” She shuffles towards me, closing the gap between us and pulling her phone from a tiny backpack. “So, while you were getting changed before, I googled the museum robbery.”
“Oh, yeah?” I say, trying to sound enthusiastic. The unsettling display creeps back into my mind. “Find anything?”
“Nothing online – I guess it’s not major news, I mean it’s hardly groundbreaking. But then I found this.” She hands me her phone, pointing to a tiny, blurred article, as if someone has taken a photo of the corner of a newspaper page. “It was on one of the library archive sites; I used Mum’s password. Anyway, it lists all the things that went missing. Stuff like this.” She takes the phone and taps quickly, thumbs both flying across the screen before handing it back.
It’s a random Pinterest board, but nothing like the ones I’ve made in the past, when Meghan and I wanted to redecorate our bedroom or my list of free things to do in London. Instead there are tarnished silver rings topped with tiny coffins, black and white photos of people who don’t look particularly, well, alive and a long glass vial filled with liquid. I squint and see that the label saysMourner’s Tears. My God, Victorians were dramatic.
Oh, and creepy, I decide, as I scroll past a small doll, its white face and hands the only colour on a sea of black. She’s wearing a mourning dress and veil, and beneath her tiny, rosy cheeks a portrait of a man rests across her chest. It’s framed in bronze and a winged skull sits on the top. Clearly not a child’s toy, then.
“This isn’t the actual stuff that went missing, but I’d say it’s pretty similar. Fascinating, isn’t it?” says Jess.
“Horrendous, more like. Who would want to steal this?”
“Who knows? Keep going though, you haven’t got to the creepiest bit, yet.”
Seriously?
I sigh and keep scrolling. There’s a whole selection of brooches on screen now. All are that sepia tone of old photos. Some show criss-cross patterns, others tiny paintings of graveyards or weeping willows. A couple of others contain portraits decorated with ornate wreaths.
“They’re . . . kind of pretty, I guess?” I say, desperate to hand the phone back. “The wreaths.”
“Look closer.” Jess has a devilish glint in her eye.
I do. It takes a moment, but when I’m looking back at the braided material, I suddenly see it for what it is.
My chips threaten to make a reappearance.
“Is that. . .?”
“Yep.”
It’s hair. All of it: it’s plaited and woven, weaved into pictures and decorations, shades of browns and yellowed blonde, faded red. It’s all human hair, taken from people who have died.
Dead people hair.
