Page 50 of Serenity Falls

Okay. There are only two explanations – someone is fucking with me, or the security camera in the back yard is screwed. The third – the one I am filing away in a dim, dusty corner of my mind designated Do not go there – is that I imagined it somehow. A hallucination or lucid dream.

The idea that someone is dressing up in the armadillo costume to freak us out isn’t exactly good news. But it’s plausible. Maybe people here have had their noses put out of joint by Sadie and me moving in. Perhaps this is some kind of juvenile attempt to scare us off? Of course, that doesn’t explain how the images have disappeared. Unless both things are true – someone is playing a nasty prank, and the security app is faulty.

I swig my coffee. The question is – what to do about it? First job – get someone to look at the camera. I scan through the contacts card stuck to the fridge. Halfway down is a number for Serenity Home Security Systems. Bingo. I’m just about to call them when the front doorbell rings.

Motion detected at front door, my phone tells me.

The camera shows two men in grey jumpsuits. Either escaped convicts or tradesmen. One of the men, a large guy with curly hair, peers into the doorbell camera and waves.

‘Hi, Mr Barker?’

I jump. I didn’t realize that the front doorbell had a speaker.

‘Serenity Relocation Services,’ he says.

His friend – skinny, bald – moves up to the bell. ‘Removals. We got your stuff.’

Removal vans are, in my experience, always late, and their contents delivered with the care of someone dumping horse shit on sewage. But not only are Serenity Relocation Services on time, they are fast, professional and careful.

Not that we have anything particularly valuable to transport. No family heirlooms or precious Ming vases. In fact, deposited here in this huge mansion, our belongings seem embarrassingly meagre. We didn’t bother with our old furniture because the house here was already furnished and, to be blunt, our saggy, stained sofa and chipped table and chairs wouldn’t exactly have improved the decor.

So, mostly the boxes contain ornaments and collectables, clothes and bedding, books, paperwork and all those other bits and pieces that you exhume from dark, cobwebby spaces, and wonder why you kept them, like broken Christmas decorations, Sadie’s primary-school paintings, my old Lego. Things you swear you will display properly or find a better home for and then just shove back into the loft/cellar/shed, not to be seen again until the next move.

Sadie emerges from her room just as the removal men are leaving. I rummage through my wallet for a tip, but all I can find is a crumpled five-dollar bill. I watch them depart with rather less good cheer.

‘Okay?’ I ask her.

‘Yeah.’ She yawns and looks around. ‘Our worldly possessions.’

‘Yep.’

‘Sad.’

‘Yep. You want some breakfast?’

She shakes her head and walks towards the kitchen. ‘Not really hungry.’

I follow her. ‘You okay?’

She slouches over to the fridge and pulls out a carton of juice.

‘Hmmm.’ I tap my chin. ‘What should I do with my powers of invisibility?’

She pours the juice and gives me a side-eye. ‘You know the house across the street?’

‘I’m aware of its existence.’

‘Well, you know it’s a ghost house?’

‘A what?’

‘One of the houses in Serenity that’s empty but the Conservators keep it maintained as if someone still lives there.’

The Conservators. There they are again.

‘That’s a bit odd.’

‘Yeah, well, I saw a light on in there last night – like a flashlight.’