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Conor frowns. “What?”
“There were muddy footprints in the kitchen, before we all went outside and found Nancy in the garden. Now the floor is clean,” Rose replies.
“I thought Lily might have done it,” I say.
“It would have been easy enough for Lily to come back inside, send Trixie into the lounge to watch TV, then clean up the mess while we were still out there,” Rose agrees.
“But… why would she?” Conor says. “Have you ever known Lily to clean or tidy anything before?” Rose shakes her head. Conor takes a step closer and lowers his voice. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe thereissomeone else here. But what if there isn’t?”
“You can’t possibly think that Lily is behind all of this?” Rose whispers.
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” Conor replies. “It’s only fifteen minutes until the top of the hour. I say we keep a close eye on Lily until then. I think she’s been acting strangely all night.”
“I think you’re wrong, but okay. I need to get dry first, though,” Rose says.
Conor stares at her wet clothes, then at his own. “You sure you’ll be okay alone?” She gives him a look involving one raised eyebrow. “Fine. Shall we meet here in five minutes?”
We all go our separate ways, and something feels wrong as Rose disappears inside Nana’s little library, where she slept last night. I wouldn’t want to be alone right now. But I suppose she does have a gun, and Rose has always been very good at taking care of herself.
Conor and I head toward the stairs, and the wooden punch clock by the front door catches my eye on the way. The cards in the cubbyholes next to it remind me of old-fashioned paper library cards. They are not just for visiting family and friends; there are some other names written on them too. Nana made everyone punch in and out… it was one of her many quirks. It was also something that used to annoy Conor’s father, along with all the other things that he got so upset about. I spot a card with another familiar name. It’s sticking out and at an angle. According to the time and date stamped on it, Nana’s agent was here at Seaglass yesterday. Just a few hours before I arrived. There is no stamp for when he left, but maybe he just forgot to punch out.
Upstairs, Conor grabs some dry clothes from his bag, then disappears down the hall, presumably to change in the bathroom. Seeing him in my bedroom is still a surreal experience, and I’m relieved to have a couple of minutes to myself. I try and fail to gather my thoughts, but I’m scared of what might happen next. I don’t say aword when Conor returns and starts packing his things as though getting ready to leave. He forgets his laptop, though, and I see that it is still open on the desk in the corner of the room. The wordBoothat I typed last night seems in poor taste now, even if today is Halloween.
I could tell that Conor was genuinely worried about Rose when we were downstairs, even after all these years, and don’t quite know what to make of it. He doesn’t ask ifI’mall right, but I try not to hold it against him. Sometimes other people can see when a couple are in love long before they can see it for themselves, and that’s how things were between Rose and Conor for years when we were children. But they were inseparable after that first kiss in the cupboard under the stairs. A long-distance relationship followed, and it continued even when Conor was stuck here in Cornwall and Rose was away at school. They were always writing and calling each other, and I confess I felt jealous. I wonder if we are all just echoes of the people we might have been if life had unfolded differently. The by-products of a crease in time.
Sometimes I think Rose and Conor fell in love the first time they saw each other on the beach, when they were both nine and Nana invited him to come to Seaglass for lemonade. Something happened that day. It wasn’t something you could see or explain, but it was there. You could feel it. I often wonder whether we are born with love in our hearts and life just slowly erases it, eating it away little by little, until all the empathy and warmth is completely rubbed out. We learn to love regardless of whether there is anyone in our lives to teach us how. Love is as instinctive as breathing, but we don’t have to give it away. Like our breath, we can hold on to it if we choose to. But not forever. Because then it starts to hurt.
I wasn’t the only one who was jealous of their relationship. When Conor turned eighteen, Rose gave him her virginity as a birthdaygift wrapped in black lace underwear. Lily—who already felt a bit abandoned—wasfurious.Conor was the only boy in Blacksand Bay who Lily really wanted to fool around with, and the only boy she hadn’t. And she wasn’t the only one secretly in love with her sister’s boyfriend. The eldest sibling inevitably wins most of life’s unspoken races. Rose was the first to fall in love, but also the first to experience the sorrow and grief of breaking up.
When Conor says something in the present, it’s so unexpected, I jump.
“Daisy, I can’t imagine how awful it would feel to see what is happening to your family tonight.”
He’s speaking to me.
After all these years of him acting like I don’t exist, I am overcome with emotion. I just wish it hadn’t taken something so awful for him to forgive me.
“Thank you,” I say.
Conor sits down on my bed right next to me, and I’m a little girl again, in love with a boy who never really noticed her.
“I blamed you for what happened all those years ago for such a long time,” he says. “But it wasn’t your fault. I know that now. Deep down, I always knew, and I’m sorry for everything that has happened since.”
Tears are streaming down my face. I’ve waited so long for him to say these words.
“It’s okay,” I say, and consider reaching for his hand. But the sound of a door slamming downstairs interrupts the moment and it is lost. Conor’s face is now filled with fear, and I imagine my own must look the same.
We hurry back down the staircase and see that the muddy boots are gone. Conor knocks on the closed library door, where Rose said she was getting changed, but nobody answers. I feel a strangesensation, like when your heart skips a beat, but it’s more than that. He’s about to knock a second time when Rose opens the door. She has changed into a white T-shirt—and clearly isn’t wearing a bra—along with another pair of skin-tight jeans. The jacket is gone, and she has untied her long dark hair so that it falls down past her shoulders in damp, wavy curls. Something unspoken passes between the two of them, and I feel like a spare part again.
“We left the back door open and I think the wind slammed it shut,” Rose says, answering the question before we ask it. Then the clocks in the hallway start to chime, and they sound even louder than before.
“What is that?” Rose asks, looking over my shoulder.
Conor and I turn and see what she is staring at. The door on the front of the grandfather clock—the largest of the eighty different varieties of clock in the hall—is open. And there is what looks like another VHS tape covering its face. My mind whirs like all the clocks I’m surrounded by, and is just as loud. Lily and Trixie could have put the tape there while the three of us went to get changed. Or Rose could have put it there while Conor and I were upstairs. Or Conor could have put it there when he left the bedroom. Or someone else could have done it while we were all distracted, then let themselves out the back door. For a moment I can’t decide what is worse: the idea that a stranger is here doing this to us, or that it might be one of the family.
Unpleasant thoughts tend to outstay their welcome, just like unpleasant people. I stare at Conor and Rose and can see that they are thinking the same thing: wondering if they can trust each other or anyone here at Seaglass. They both reach for the tape at the same time, their hands grazing just like they did before. I’m not imagining the chemistry between them, and it’s making me feel a bit peculiar. I know I have no right to feel anything at all, and there arefar more important things to worry about, but the last of my nerves are being gotten on, and I feel sick with fear.
When Rose picks up the latest VHS tape, I feel even worse. The cover has a new message spelled out in Scrabble letters stuck to the front of it:
