Page 47 of Serenity Falls

I sighed and started to slip into the suit. It’s a fucker to put on, the armadillo, and although the costumes are supposed to be cleaned every few wears, this one still stank of stale sweat. Great. I popped the head on and untied the balloons.

The head is also stupidly cumbersome. Like I said, the eyes just aren’t in the right place. I could barely see the smallest sliver of trees and sky. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to wear it for long. I heard a noise behind me. The back gate. I frowned. Surely, the new people couldn’t be here already. It must be Frances. Probably here to chide me about the smell of weed.

‘Frances?’

No reply. I turned slowly, so as not to trip up over the huge feet. That’s when I felt the sharp sting in my neck. I slapped at it. Shit. Don’t tell me a fucking bee or wasp has got inside the suit. I pulled at the head, but my arms felt oddly weak and heavy.

‘Frances,’ I said. ‘Can you help me get this frigging head off? I’ve been stung.’

But my mouth couldn’t seem to form the words. What came out was: ‘Funces. Cun hel fugging head. Bin stug.’

What the fuck was wrong with me? Was I having an allergic reaction? I tried to tug at the head again, but it was impossible to keep my arms up. I needed help. I needed to get out of here. I took a step, but my legs gave, and I almost fell. Fuck and fuck. You can become allergic at any time. I read about it. Still, a tiny part of my brain was shouting that this wasn’t it. Something else was going on here … but before I could understand just what, someone shoved me, hard, and I hit the water.

Cold after the heat. Even through the suit. And it was grasping, pulling me down. I flailed wildly, flapping my useless, heavy arms and legs, made heavier by the stupid frigging costume. Even if my limbs weren’t weighted with lead, I wouldn’t know what to do with them. I never learnt to swim. Always hated water. Humans aren’t built for water. We’re land mammals. Not like fucking armadillos. But now, I wish I’d tried just that bit harder. ‘You never try.’ That’s what my mom always said. ‘You’re lazy. You always take the easy route.’ Like this was fucking easy.

Somehow, my head broke the surface, and I gasped in air, but before I could get enough, I was sinking again, and the damn costume was pulling me down, like a suit of fucking concrete. I fumbled for the zipper, but my fingers wouldn’t coordinate. My whole body was starting to feel numb, like it didn’t belong to me. Above, I could just make out a faint glimmer of rippling light. The surface. So tantalizingly close. But my head was fogging, my chest burning, and if I didn’t open my mouth to breathe, it might just burst. And even though I knew it wasn’t air I’d be taking in, I couldn’t hold it any longer. I opened my mouth and felt the sour sting of chlorinated water as it flooded my lungs.

People say when you drown you feel a strange sense of calm. A dreamlike serenity as you fade away.

Bullshit. I just felt panic and pain, and as darkness clouded my brain I thought: Chris. Fucking Chris. I shouldn’t be here. I’m not Arnie. I’m never fucking Arnie …

13

Sadie can’t sleep.

She lies in the dark, listening. The house is silent, or almost silent. There’s the faint hum of the aircon, the soft whoosh of the fan spinning above her. Nothing else. She reaches for her phone on the bedside table and squints at the time: 2.45 a.m. Great. Ten minutes later than the last time she checked. She lets her head flop back and tries to close her eyes. But it’s no good. She feels wide awake. Hello, jet lag, nice of you to drop in.

She sits up and flicks the light on, blinking, looking around the room. It still feels strange and alien, but the rest of their stuff should be arriving today, so hopefully she can make it feel a bit more ‘her’. She’s stacked the few books she brought on shelves. She plans to take down the weird abstract picture on the wall. She guesses that the whirling shades of purple and mauve are supposed to be soothing. But they just make her feel dizzy.

On her bedside table, she’s put two photos in frames. One is her gran – taken not long before she died, smiling widely in a café. The other one is of Sadie, her mum and dad. Sadie is just a baby in the picture, and Dad looks scarily young and gangly with long, curly hair almost to his shoulders. Far out, man.

They’re on a beach (Wales, she imagines). Her mum is laughing, dark hair blowing slightly in her face. She looks fun and carefree. Hard to line up with the woman who had mental health problems and walked out on her family, never to be seen or heard from again.

But then, Sadie was so young when she left. She barely remembers her mum. And like Dad told her once (after more than a few beers): ‘You can never really know people, sweetheart. We all hide stuff. Everyone has a place inside that no one else can visit. Not even the people we love – especially not the people we love.’

Sadie swallows down the lump in her throat. This isn’t helping. She’ll go and pour some milk, then maybe read for a bit. She stands, but instead of walking straight to the door she finds herself padding across the room to the window. She pulls the blind up and stares out. The street is dark and silent. Cutesy, gaslight-style streetlights glow warmly at regular intervals along the road, but there’s no one around. Unsurprisingly. No other signs of life, except … there’s a light on in an upstairs window of the house opposite. Home and Spry. The house Ellis told her was empty, a ghost house.

It doesn’t look like a lamp or a ceiling light. It’s bobbing around, more like a flashlight. Sadie watches, wondering if it could be an intruder. She doesn’t really buy the whole ‘crime free’ stuff here. There will always be people who want what someone else has got and won’t have any qualms about taking it, especially if they think they won’t get caught.

Maybe she should get her dad. He’s probably awake. Last night was obviously a fluke. Dad is a bad, bad sleeper. Always has been. She would often wake in the early hours and come down to get a glass of water and find him sitting at the kitchen table, marking essays.

Worse were the times when she came down to find him clutching a coffee cup but reeking of alcohol. He thinks she was too young to remember. That she never realized it wasn’t coffee in the cup. But she knew. She grew to recognize and hate that smell; to tense every time she heard the clink of ice in a glass or hiss of a can opening. Not that her dad was ever abusive or violent. If anything, alcohol just made him sad and emotional. But she hated that too. Felt embarrassed at how pathetic he looked, pale and red-eyed, driving them to school in last night’s clothes, mainlining chewing gum and mints.

That hasn’t happened for a long while. Sadie doesn’t know what prompted the turn-around. She just knows that the number of six-packs and bottles in the house slowly decreased. Dad would still have nights where he drank. But just a couple of beers. Three or four at the most. But Sadie remained wary. She guessed she always would. She loves her dad. So fucking much. She doesn’t want to see him slip back down that path of self-destruction.

She pads out on to the landing. Straight away, she can see that there’s a light on in the living room. She walks downstairs.

‘Dad?’

She takes a few more steps forward. Her heart is thudding, she realizes. Then she spots Dad. He’s sprawled on the couch, phone in his hand, head back against the cushions, mouth slightly open, eyes closed. Passed out. Disappointment stirs in her stomach.

She marches over to the refrigerator and pulls it open. There’s one beer left in the six-pack. The second pack remains unopened. O-kay. So, he sank a few beers, but nothing crazy.

She wanders back to his prone figure and shakes his shoulder. ‘Dad?’

He makes a faint murmuring noise, but doesn’t stir. It’s a little odd. Dad is usually such a light sleeper, if he sleeps at all. But maybe he’s just exhausted. It’s been a pretty insane couple of days.

She looks around. There’s a throw chucked over the back of one armchair. She grabs it and lays it gently over her dad. Then she kisses him on the forehead. ‘Night.’