Chapter 3
The fuel light on the dashboard flashed in Anna’s eyeline, despite her best efforts to ignore it. Damnation.
She’d hired a car at Aberdeen station and set out to find Lily’s new home with all the excitement and enthusiasm of beginning a grand new adventure. She’d not stopped to get fuel. Or supplies. Or even a drink. She’d been sure she’d reach her friend’s house long before she needed to.
Now, that decision was turning out to be yet another of her blunders. Just like the fact she’d not even bothered to go home and pack before she’d set out and therefore had only the clothes she was wearing. Just like the fact that she’d forgotten her phone charger and now her phone was precariously low on battery. Just like the fact she’d not even brought a map and was reliant on the sat nav that seemed determined to lead her into the middle of nowhere.
Aargh! Why could nothing ever be simple?
The road she was following was little more than a rough track through wild country. She’d not seen another car or building for miles. This couldn’t be right. Lily wouldn’t live all the way out here, would she? Her friend had always beenabout apartment living, cafes on every corner, and shopping centers within walking distance.
No. The sat nav had definitely gone wrong somewhere. She bit her lip, glancing at the fuel light again. The gauge on the dashboard said the tank was just about empty. Perhaps she ought to turn around and head back the way she came. At least she knew there was civilization in that direction. But just as she was about to slow the car and look for a turning space, she spotted a house in the distance. It looked to be an old farmhouse and it was perched at the base of a hill.
Ha! Perhaps the people who lived there would have a phone charger. Or, if she was very lucky, they might have some fuel they’d give her. At the very least, she could ask for directions.
She drove up to the farmhouse, brought the car to a standstill, and applied the brake. She got out of the car and turned in a slow circle, looking around. The farmhouse stood alone, its roof half-collapsed and its windows boarded up. Beyond the ramshackle building, a field of wild grass rippled in the wind, a sea of green under the darkening sky. The silence was broken only by the cawing of crows sitting on the remains of the crumbling chimney and watching with beady, intelligent eyes.
Anna felt a chill run through her, despite her thick coat. She didn’t think she’d get a phone charger here. This place looked like it hadn’t been lived in for years.
She crossed her arms, chewing her lip. This was just getting annoying. She’d traveled for hours to get here and she’d ended up in the middle of nowhere. What she wouldn’t give for a gin and tonic right now!
She’d passed a very cozy-looking hotel several miles back—one that had a bar. If she couldn’t find Lily’s place today, she would check in there for the night, spend the evening propping up the bar, then resume her journey tomorrow. The stay would max out her credit card, but what the hell. She didn’t have much left to lose.
She approached the tumbledown farmhouse, stepping carefully over the cracked paving stones and weeds.
“Hello?” she shouted. “Anyone here?”
She felt faintly ridiculous. Of course there was nobody here. Who would live in a ruin like this? She set her hand to the wooden door and pushed. It swung open with a creak, revealing a shadowy interior within.
“Hello?”
No answer.
Anna ducked under the lintel. Inside, dust particles floated lazily in slanted beams of sunlight that cut through the boarded windows, painting ghostly stripes on the wooden floor. The air was stale with a faint scent of years of abandonment and cobwebs fluttered in corners, their residents long gone.
Anna looked around warily. All around her lay remnants of what this place had once been—a broken chair, a rusty fireplace, a wooden staircase that looked as though it might disintegrate at the merest touch.
Deliciously spooky, she thought to herself, and a bit sad too. Whatever history this place had was lost and forgotten now, swallowed by time and replaced by decay.
“Bloody hell,” she muttered to herself, batting away a large web that hung down from one of the exposed beams. “I know there are such things as a ‘fixer-upper’, but this is ridiculous.”
“Greetings, dear.”
Anna squealed and spun to see a woman standing in the doorway behind her, her figure silhouetted by the dimming light outside. The woman was tiny, her slate gray hair worn in a tight bun and her face a map of wrinkles.
