I sit at the kitchen table with a mug of strong coffee, waiting for my tears to stop. I think about Joel growing up listening to Michael’s stories—all the drama and sorrows of their neighborsturned into gruesome tales to entertain and scare little children. I never saw any malice in his tales when I was a child, but of course he’d have saved the Summerbourne stories for a different audience. How many of the villagers grew up hearing about Summerbourne sprites and curses and ill-fated twins?
And suddenly, I wonder whether Michael is capable of scaring people in other ways, despite his memory lapses and his failing strength. Does he have more lucid days? Could he have sneaked onto our front lawn under cover of darkness and scorched a warning into the grass with weed killer? But Michael seemed happy enough to talk about our family history today, even if his accounts were jumbled. The “STOP” message can’t have been from him. I shake my head.
“Just stupid kids,” I say aloud. But the possibility of a more sinister explanation continues to gnaw at me. I still don’t know what happened here on the day I was born; I still don’t know why Mum and Dad appeared to be celebrating one baby rather than two. What if someone is warning me to stop asking questions? What are they trying to hide?
The sun is high, and Vera’s pills glint at me from their square-shouldered pot, and I decide that a soak in the bath might make me feel better. I carry my mug upstairs, but at the entrance to the bathroom it slips from my grasp. Scalding coffee splashes up my legs, and shards of crockery fly in all directions, but my gaze is fixed on the mirror over the sink. A message is scrawled in dark red lipstick across it: “STOP ASKING QUESTIONS OR LOSE YOUR FAMILY.”
Someone has been here, inside my house.
All doubt vanishes with those seven red words. Someone has been here, inside my house, and they want to stop me finding out the truth.
I step back onto a sliver of broken mug, slicing my heel. The adrenaline that’s making my heart hammer overrides any pain. I need to tell someone. I need help. I need to call the police.
My phone’s downstairs somewhere. On the kitchen table? I stagger lopsidedly down the stairs, gripping the banister, leaving a trail of blood spots behind me. There’s no handset on the landline base in the hall. Did I leave it somewhere? My mobile lights up seconds before I reach it, cheery green and blue notifications oblivious to my fear.
I tap nine twice, but hesitate before the third one, straining my ears for any sound in the house, feeling the drumming of my pulse start to ease. Is a message on a mirror an emergency? I need to think.
This is the first time I’ve been in that bathroom since I came back from London and Leeds: I collapsed in bed fully dressed last night, and shot out to see Pamela this morning after finding the scorch marks in the lawn. The lipstick message might easily have been written forty-eight hours ago; the perpetrator surely long gone.
I picture a police car skidding onto the drive; me leading frowning officers upstairs, pointing at some lipstick writing. The police officers annoyed, or—worse—amused. I clench my jaw.
The nonemergency number, then. The local police station. Martin Larch.
I’d have to tell Martin about the letters burned into the grass as well, of course, and the address that was taken from my handbag. Which means I’d have to tell him about tracking down Laura, and the threatening letter she received, and its mention of Summerbourne and Dad. I’d have to explain about the photo and the missing baby, and my fear that I’m not really Seraphine Mayes at all.
Can I face that?
As I have done many times before in moments of doubt, I turn to the fail-safe mantra of my childhood: Edwin will know what to do.
I dial Edwin’s mobile, but it rings on and on unanswered. I try Winterbourne, then Danny, then Vera. No one picks up. For a brief moment my thumb hovers over Dad’s number, which I still can’t bring myself to delete, and then I let the phone clatter onto the table. I could run back to Michael’s, ask Joel to come and take a look at the mirror—but what would I say to him? What could he do?
I should ring the police. I press my phone back into life. The earlier text was from Pamela:I’m sorry if I upset you this morning. I hope you’re all right. Pamela.
The blue notification is a Facebook friend request. I’ve been avoiding social media even more than usual, conscious there may be birthday messages from acquaintances who hadn’t heard about my father, followed by a trickle of awkward condolences.
I tap on the notification, and a picture of a young woman pops up. A young woman with a pink streak in her short black hair. I sink onto the chair, the phone trembling in my hand.
You have a friend request from Kiara Kaimal.
I tap on the picture. Her profile has high security settings: just her name and photo, and a background picture of a turquoise sea beneath a cloudless blue sky. I hesitate over the accept button. A tiny red flag indicates a string of unread messages, and I open the list. A message from Kiara Kaimal sits at the top.
Hi, I hope you don’t mind me contacting you. My father won’t talk to me about you, but I have a feeling that you might have some connection to my mother. My mother died when I was very young. I don’t remember her. My father used to tell me he was too sad to talk about her. But I think there must be something he’s not telling me. Can we meet? I’ll understand if you’d rather not. Best wishes either way. Kiara Kaimal.
16
Laura
November/December 1991
LIFE AT SUMMERBOURNEacquired a prickly edge after the night of the blue moon. Dominic was full of mumbled apology and regret the next morning, sending Edwin out to play in the garden so that he could explain to me with an earnest expression that it must never happen again.
“Ruth can never find out,” he said, his voice husky, his eyes managing to meet mine for a split second before sliding away again.
“Of course not,” I said. “It was a stupid mistake.”
I held out my hand after he left, watching it for several seconds. The tremor was mild. My breath seemed too shallow that morning, as if I was tiptoeing a narrow path between looming guilt on one side and a sense of hurt indignation on the other, trying to avoid provoking either of them. Neither would do me any good. Either could see me dismissed from Summerbourne.
I continued to watch my hand until the tremor was almost imperceptible. If anything, Dominic’s words had brought merelief: my greatest fear had been that he would fire me. I’d lived at Summerbourne for not quite eleven weeks, but already I felt like a different person. Here, I was respected, listened to, treated kindly. The thought of being banished, having to spend the rest of the year at Mum and Beaky’s house until I could escape to university, was a huge incentive to put this awkward episode with Dominic behind me.
