Glimpse (7 page)

Susie followed my gaze. ‘Those guys are bad news. They walk around the school like they own the place, and the village too at weekends. But you’re all right as long as you stay out of their way. That’s what the rest of us do.’

A memory lurched up in my mind, like a half-remembered dream – the boy under my window last night, with the green eyes and pale face.

Too late, I wished I’d looked more closely at Scott’s friends. I was sure I’d recognize the trespasser again.

‘Are there more of them? Scott’s gang, I mean?’

Susie rolled her eyes at me. ‘God knows. I think they hang out with some older guys in the village, but I avoid them when I see them. Why?’

‘No reason.’ I chewed my lip. If one of Scott’s gang had been at the inn last night, Scott was worse than I thought. I really hoped Dad had spoken to Crowley today.

‘Seriously, forget about it.’ Susie took Matt’s hand and looked at me. ‘Now, please tell me you’re coming with us to the dining hall for break. I’ve heard a very reliable rumour that there’s chocolate crispies.’

I smiled gratefully. ‘Best news I’ve heard all morning.’

The moment I saw the car I had a bad feeling.

It was boxy and red and parked right in front of the outbuildings when I got home from school. It couldn’t be anything to do with Dad. When Scott and Crowley emerged from their office brandishing cups of tea and a toolkit, my fears were confirmed.

I scuttled, head down, towards the inn’s front door.

‘Hey, Liz!’ Scott called. ‘I got a car! What do you think?’

I lifted my head just long enough to smile and shout, ‘Looks great!’ before bursting in through the front door like a Tasmanian devil.

Dad practically fell off his sofa with shock when I stomped into the kitchen. ‘Liz, what’s wrong?’

‘I thought you were speaking to Crowley today!’

He exhaled and turned back to the TV. ‘Well, I did.’

I dropped my satchel and stood in front of the television, hands on hips. ‘And?’

‘And I’ve decided it’s not appropriate to tell him what hours he can work here.’ Dad didn’t meet my gaze.

I sighed and slumped onto the sofa.

‘I invited him in for coffee—’ I rolled my eyes, but Dad continued, oblivious ‘—and we got to talking. He lost his wife too, back when Scott was small. It’s clear he thinks of the inn as his home. I’m not going to treat him like he’s just an employee.’

‘Da-ad.’ I flopped back against the cushions.

‘Tell me what the real problem is here.’

I gave him a sideways glance. He looked back at me steadily. ‘It’s Scott,’ I said. ‘He reminds me of Derek.’

Dad’s face softened. ‘Liz, Derek was a bully. It’s natural you’d be wary after what he put you through. But Scott seems nice. Helpful. He carried my shopping the other day, remember?’

‘I knew you’d say that.’

Dad sighed and ran a hand through his hair, which was flat at the back from leaning against the sofa all day. ‘Give the boy a chance. I thought you’d be happy having someone your own age around. I thought you wanted to make friends.’

‘I do, but . . .’ I chewed my lip. Nothing I could say was going to sound right.
But the only people who seem to like Scott are his horrible gang. But he’s already told his friends about me. But there was a man outside my window last night, and I think Scott had something to do with it.
All based on nothing more credible than a bad feeling, a sixth sense.

I crossed my arms and legs and stared at the wall beyond the TV. There was no point arguing with Dad about this any more, not without making him worry. But he didn’t need to think I was happy about it.

If and when my suspicions about Scott were confirmed, I’d talk to Dad again. In the meantime, I’d have to make sure I didn’t put on any more displays of weirdness at home that Scott might see.

I thought of my Normality List, and remembered the new line I wanted to add. I shifted my head to look back at Dad. ‘Can I have the old photos? The ones with Mum?’

Up in my room, I closed the window so I wouldn’t have to hear Scott and Crowley tinkering with their car. Dad had given me two dusty shoeboxes of photos: the ones with Mum in them, and the ones without. I changed out of my new school clothes and put on my tattiest dress – a shapeless, grey velvet thing that didn’t mind the dirt. Then I sat on my bedroom floor and went through each box, taking out all the photos that showed the inn. I spread them out on the floorboards. The last photograph dated from before the accident.

I’d seen a lot of these photos back when Dad first told me we’d inherited the Highwayman – to show me what it looked like. It was strange, looking at the same pictures again now, sitting right here in Hulbourn. After Mum died, I thought I’d never see this place again.

I picked up a photo of pre-accident Dad and me, eating breakfast at the inn’s kitchen table. Dad looked so young and happy, wearing a T-shirt printed with ‘Ripe Banana Studios’, the music studio he used to work at. Little-me beamed at the camera like always. The staff bustled around us with racks of toast and baskets of boiled eggs for the dining room next door. The kitchen was almost unrecognizable from today. Back then, it had been so full of life I could practically hear the chatter of voices from below the photo’s surface.

I had the absurd urge to reach out and pat my bedroom wall. Poor inn. Granddad had closed down the hotel in his grief, and let seven years of dust and spiders gather in its corners. This place had been scarred by the accident, just like we all had.

But there was nothing I could do about that right now. I needed to concentrate on my own scars.

I scooped the photos up off the floor, and stepped out of my room into the corridor. I paused, listening to the far-off chatter of Dad’s TV and the distant revving of Scott’s car engine. Then I tiptoed to the furthest end of the corridor from the stairs and pushed open the first door.

A musty smell gushed out. In the middle of a patterned carpet thick with dust stood a four-poster bed with dark-green covers. Dark-wood furniture, with chips and mug rings from its hotel days, crowded the walls.

I flicked through the photos, but none showed this room. There weren’t likely to be any memories here for me.

I crept in anyway, just in case, kicking up dust, taking shallow breaths so I wouldn’t sneeze. I went to the window and looked out over the tangled garden and woodland, the fields beyond, trying to feel some flicker of recognition.

In the garden, a broken swing hung from a gnarled old tree. Had I swung on it as a child? That patch of overgrown roses – had I thought they were pretty once? I could picture the little girl from the photos out there playing and exploring happily, but I couldn’t feel her, I couldn’t access her through memory.

After closing the door softly behind me, I went to the next room. Dad’s room. I opened the door but didn’t go inside. The furniture here was more modern, the dust hoovered away, but it didn’t feel much more lived in than the other room. An open suitcase lay on the floor next to the unmade bed. The packing boxes in the corner were in the same arrangement as the day we’d arrived.

‘Oh, Dad,’ I sighed, and closed the door again.

The next door I opened though made hope flutter in my chest. I flicked through the photos. I had three of this room. In the oldest, my teenaged mother stood next to the double bed with its headboard of carved roses. She was wearing a puffy eighties cocktail dress, and she was beaming.

The next photo was some years later. Mum and Dad sat together on the bed, a newborn baby – me – in their arms. Mum’s smile was even wider in this one.

The final photo showed the same room, but with the addition of a single bed in the corner. Young-Liz hugged a teddy on the bed, while my mother looked out of the window.

I stepped into the room, one hand gripped tight around my locket.

I eased myself onto the single bed in the corner, scrutinizing the squeak of the springs, as if they might tell me their secrets. I stretched out on the blanket, trying to lead my focus away from the immediate – from the ticklish catch of the dust and the tang of stale fabric – trying instead to open my mind and cast back . . . Just one memory, that’s all I want.

‘Liz?’

I half fell off the bed. ‘Dad.’ I coughed on the dust that poofed up from the mattress. ‘Don’t do that.’

‘What are you doing in here?’ He hovered in the doorway, frowning uncertainly. His eyes scanned the room like he was afraid something might leap out from a corner and bite him.

I held up the photos. ‘Tracking down memories.’

Dad walked towards me, carefully, like he half expected to fall over a tripwire or for an alarm to go off. He took the photos I held out to him and looked at the top one. ‘Ah.’

‘This is the room we stayed in when we visited, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. It used to be your mother’s room.’ He gazed at the photo, one finger tracing its edge, a gesture of both affection and discomfort.

Not for the first time, I wished I could reach into his head and take some of his memories. This was the irony of Dad and I. He was tortured by having too many memories. I was tortured by having too few.

I stood and turned to the window, giving him a moment. Mum’s old room overlooked the front of the inn, just like mine, but her view showed more of the driveway and less of the old tree.

I rested my elbows on the sill, taking care to avoid the dead flies. Did I remember this view? But all that came to me was a memory of that boy beneath my window last night.

‘I wish I could remember,’ I muttered to the glass.

‘You can’t force it, Liz.’ Dad’s voice was soft as the dust. ‘You can’t expect anything at all. You know what Dr Roberts said.’

I exhaled and nodded, still staring at the driveway.

Dad rested the pile of photos on the windowsill next to my hand. ‘I’ll put some food on. Come down in a few minutes, okay?’

He left, stirring the still air so it tickled my skin. I sank my chin to rest on my hands. In my mind’s eye, horse-drawn carriages clopped down the driveway, dropping hotel guests and their suitcases at the front door. Ladies in long dresses walked on the lawn. Stable boys lounged under the shade of the big tree. My imagination did its best, but nothing came to me that could be a real memory.

The hairs stood up on my arms, and I rubbed them, the scratchy inside of my dress tickling my skin. No, not tickling – tingling. I froze, my breath catching in my lungs. Goosebumps prickled my scalp.

Oh, no. Where was it?

I saw it almost instantly. There – under the tree outside. Two brown-shoed feet faced directly towards me, as if their owner was watching me.

One of the feet tapped the gravel, slowly. Tap, tap, tap.

Another Glimpse.

I span and hurtled from the room, slamming Mum’s door behind me.

I couldn’t sleep.

I stared up at my bedroom ceiling. It was pale with moonlight, striped with shadows that thrashed violently in time with the tree’s creaks outside my window. Every few minutes, the tip of a branch scraped the glass like fingernails, making every nerve in my body spark.

I glanced at my bedside clock. 01.53. This was torture.

01.56

01.58. I clutched my duvet to my chin. Sleep, I willed myself. There’ll be no more Glimpses tomorrow.

01.59

02.00

Crunch.

Oh no.

Crunch. Crunch.

I squeezed my eyes tight, as if that could block out the sound.

Images flurried across my mind. Whoever – whatever – was under that tree, they could just go away.

But the crunching didn’t stop.

Clenching my fists, I leapt out of bed and pulled a dressing gown on top of my nightie. This was the last thing I needed tonight. If it was that boy again, I was going to tell him where he could go – that, or scream for Dad.

My heart raced hard against my chest as I stepped to the window, eased it open and leaned out just far enough so I could see down to the base of the tree. I found myself staring straight at the boy from the night before. I felt him staring straight back at me. I stifled a yelp.

‘Don’t be alarmed.’ His voice was just loud enough to make out over the thrashing of the wind. His neck craned back to look at me. I had the horrible sense he’d been waiting for me.

The tree canopy shook above him, plunging him into shadow, illuminating him, plunging him into shadow again. In the flashes of moonlight he was vivid – bright green eyes, clear white face, red-gold hair. He wore clothes the colour of dead leaves.

He spread his arms. His smile was warm, as if to draw me in. ‘Will you speak with me?’

My throat was too tight to speak. When I eventually forced my words out, they were small and hard as bullets. ‘Who are you? Why are you here?’

‘I want to talk with you. I want to know who you are.’

It made no sense that he’d come here for me. He was lying.

‘Go away.’ The wind whipped my words down to him. ‘You shouldn’t be here. Leave now or I’ll call my dad.’

He took a step back. Lifting his arms higher, he turned his gloved palms to me. ‘I apologize.’

‘Stay away from my house. I’ll call the police if you come here again.’

‘I apologize,’ he repeated, ‘for upsetting you. I thought you would understand.’

He held my gaze for a long moment, then dipped his head in a funny little bow, and stepped back into the shadow of the tree. A moment later, his shadow raced across the grass in front of the outbuildings and disappeared at the edge of the woods.

I gripped the window shutter for support, my legs suddenly weak. My whole body shook with pent-up adrenaline. I strained my eyes towards the dark line of the woods. It made me uneasy that he hadn’t gone back up the driveway towards the road.

I stood rigid in the darkness, staring out at the night, clutching the neck of my dressing gown in the absence of my locket. I couldn’t move until I was sure he’d gone.

After a long while I gently lifted the latch on my window to ease it shut again, but as I was doing so a new noise from below made me jump. What the . . .?

My blood turned to ice as, looking down, I saw the driver’s side door of Scott’s new car ease open, and Scott sliding out, sneaky as a thief. He shut the door behind him, trying hard to be quiet. He didn’t look up. With painstaking care, like an animal sneaking up on its prey, he tiptoed across the gravel and disappeared inside the outbuildings.