Twiceborn (3 page)

“So you think I
am
in danger? Why?”

“Look—”

The bell on the counter dinged. “Yoo-hoo! Anyone there?”

“I’ll get it,” said Ben. “You stay here. I’ll be right back.”

I glared at his back as he escaped into the shop. Talk about saved by the bell. He was my closest friend—one of my only friends, since the accident—but how much did I really know about his past? Only that he’d been Jason’s best friend till Jason had dumped us both, and that he ran a costume shop and occasionally a rather peculiar courier service. Like me, he had one sister and a couple of nieces, and he kept pretty much to himself. No girlfriend, despite looking like Eric Bana’s sexier twin.

And that was about it. He was a pretty private guy. I’d trust him with my life, but I knew I couldn’t trust him on this. He knew something he wasn’t telling.

In the shop the customer asked for Elizabethan costume ideas and their voices receded as Ben led him through the racks to the English historical section. There were a lot of choices on that rack. They could be lost in Elizabethan England for a while.

I massaged my aching temples. I could wait here, but if I didn’t get a headache tablet soon my head would explode, and the kitchen cupboards held nothing but a couple of chipped mugs and some teabags and biscuits. Was I really going to let some nutjob keep me from my own comfy bed and well-stocked medicine cabinet?

I grabbed my bag and headed out the back door. If Ben wanted me to stay at his place, at least I’d get a chance to worm the truth out of him—but I’d need to collect some clothes first. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to duck home for a few minutes. I could grab a couple of Panadol for my head at the same time.

My little car beeped a welcome as I unlocked it. I wouldn’t be long—and maybe if I could get this headache under control I’d be able to figure out what had leaked out the hole in my brain.

***

I drove home with one eye squinted shut against the pain. My head felt like someone in heavy boots was trying to kick their way out of my skull. When I finally pulled into my driveway and cut the engine, I dropped my pounding head on to the steering wheel, trying to work up the energy to open the door. Maybe I’d sit in the car for the rest of my life instead.

Only the siren call of Panadol got me to open my eyes again.

I shrieked. A thick coating of blood dripped from my fingers. I slammed them against the wheel and the blood disappeared, leaving me shaking. Enough with the crazy! I jack-knifed out of the car and stood panting, leaning against its sun-baked metal.

It was still hot. The cicadas were going for their lives, screeching up a storm in the trees. There’d be no relief till it got dark, which at this time of year wasn’t till after eight. Daylight saving was a great idea, but it had its downsides. I’d certainly had my issues with it when Lachie was alive. Trying to get him to go to sleep on summer nights was always a battle.

“But Muuum! it’s not night-time yet!” No kid wants to go to bed when the sun’s still shining through his window.

“I’ll make it night-time,” I’d say, pulling the blind down with a flourish. As a single mum, I was always desperate for some child-free time back then. Ironic, isn’t it? I’d give anything now to have that time over again. “Abracadabra! See? Night-time! Now go to sleep.”

He’d lie down again, his bright curly head sweaty on the pillow, and try some other strategy to keep me there. A drink of water, another story—or a sudden compelling need to tell me every last detail of his latest Lego construction. The kid could talk underwater and he was never chattier than five minutes after bedtime.

“Goodnight, Monster.”

“’Night, Mum.”

I sighed and pushed myself upright. Panadol, here I come.

Tanya was watering her roses next door. “Hi, Kate!”

I gave her a little wave and kept walking, but she came over to the fence, dark hair bouncing with the force of her strides and her fierce tugs on the hose to make it stretch the distance. She was tiny, with all the energy of a Jack Russell and just as exhausting.

“I haven’t seen you in weeks,” she said. “How are you?”

Tanya was the only person besides Ben still trying to be my friend. Everyone else had taken the hint and drifted out of my life, but Tanya didn’t do hints. She threw herself one-hundred-and-ten per cent into any project, including her current favourite: rehabilitating me. We’d been close once, with her oldest starting school at the same time as Lachie. The kids had been in and out of our houses all the time, treating both like home. I didn’t need the reminder of her happy family in my face, but admitting defeat was another thing Tanya didn’t do.

“Oh, you know,” I said, trying to keep it vague. My pounding head wasn’t up for one of Tanya’s long chats. “Been busy at work.”

“You still working at the costume shop? With that good-looking fella?”

“Ben. Yeah, he’s great.” Except when he kept secrets from me.

“How are things going? Any chemistry there?” Tanya played the hose over her azalea bushes, pretending it was a casual question, but I knew her better. “He’s pretty hot.”

“You think so?” I knew if I agreed with her she’d be planning our wedding before she’d finished the watering. Hey, I had eyes, didn’t I? I could see the man was gorgeous, with his black curls and chocolate brown eyes.

Since Jason and I broke up Ben had been the glue that held my shattered world together. Even more so after the accident. But did people truly think it was that easy?
Sure, my husband dumped me, then killed our child with his lousy driving, but I’ll just jump into bed with the next hot guy who happens along.
Romance wasn’t exactly top of my priorities. Love was a country I wasn’t planning on travelling to again. If other people wanted to go there, well, good luck to them. They could send me a postcard.

As for Ben, he hadn’t had a steady girl in a while, but I’m pretty sure he’d held a bucket for me a few too many times to be interested. Maybe if I’d met him before Jason, things might have been different. Sometimes I wondered. But it was too late now.

Besides, he had such crap taste in novels. It would never work.

“We’re just friends,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger. My sinuses were about ready to explode. Even the gentle patter of water on the leaves sounded like thunder to my aching head.

“Rubbish. I’ve seen the way he looks at you—like he could eat you up with ice cream on top.”

“He does not. Truly, we’re friends, that’s all.”

“Shame.” Tanya grinned. “He could fit my costume any old time.”

“I’m sure Roy would be thrilled to hear you say that.” There was no getting away from Tanya when she wanted to talk. I sighed and gave in. A couple of minutes wouldn’t kill me. Probably. “Your roses look great.”

Her whole garden looked fabulous, in fact, in complete contrast to the scorched-earth vibe going on in mine. Tanya had a green thumb for sure. All her plants were the vivid green of blooming health.

Water from the hose dripped through the leaves and soaked into the rich loamy soil, releasing an earthy scent that teased at my memory. I’d walked down a shaded path past garden beds bursting with colour and breathed in that same smell just recently. Today? A woman had waited under a tree in dappled sunlight. She’d had her back to me, but as she turned the image froze, like a DVD on pause, and try as I might I couldn’t find the play button.

Had she given me the envelope? And maybe a spiked drink? Did that mean the blood was hers?

Tanya chattered away, smiling at her garden like a proud mother. It took me a minute to realise she’d asked me a question.

“Well?” she prompted. “Would you like to come in and have dinner with us one night this week?”

Dinner with Tanya and Roy and their two adorable little girls? I’d rather chew my own arm off.

“Oh, that’d be nice.” I’m sure she knew I was lying, but even after seven months I wasn’t ready. Time for another lame excuse. “It’s just—I’m kind of busy at the moment, with work and everything. Maybe some other time.”

Sometimes I thought it would be easier if I moved away, somewhere people didn’t know me. But then I’d lose my last connection to Lachie. He’d lived here his whole short life.

I’d brought Lachie home here from hospital, a red, squalling newborn, and watched him sleep with the exhausted wonder common to new mothers everywhere. He’d fallen down those front steps when he first started toddling around, all pudgy legs and fat inquisitive fingers, and he’d carried a scar on his chin for the rest of his life.

It had been a fine house once, and it still had good bones if you looked beyond the peeling paint and sagging gutters. I loved the old-fashioned walled veranda, its high ceilings and roomy bedrooms. I loved its dark hardwood floors and the cheerful green exterior it showed the street. But I loved it most for the memories it held.

So many memories: story times and bath times; meal time battles—what
is
it with kids and broccoli?—tears shed and kissed away; homework at the kitchen table with the afternoon sun streaming in the window. Every room echoed with his non-stop chatter and the clatter of small impatient feet.

I could no more leave this place than fly.

But one day soon I’d have to tackle the garden. More grass rioted through the garden beds than on the patchy lawn, and the only time any of it got watered was when it rained. Summer in Sydney had scorched the whole thing to a brown and desiccated crisp. That this pile of neglect festered next door to the best garden in the street—maybe in the whole suburb—was just the icing on the cake. I definitely didn’t share Tanya’s green thumb.

The smell of her roses was overpowering. If I could remember the damn roses from this afternoon, why couldn’t I remember anything else? Except the blood, of course, but that could hardly have been real, surely. My head pounded with effort, and a wave of nausea hit me. My stomach gurgled, loud enough for Tanya to hear.

She frowned. “I hope you’re feeding yourself properly.” Like a terrier, she refused to give up. “We’re going away on Monday for a few weeks. How about we make a date for when we get back, the last week of January?”

Damn. My brain was so fried. I was still struggling for an excuse when my mouth abruptly started filling with saliva. Oh, shit. I was going to chuck.

“Sorry, ate some bad sushi!”

I clapped a hand to my mouth and rushed up the path to the front door, leaving Tanya gaping after me.

Swallowing hard, I fumbled with the key in the lock. Sweat broke out on my forehead as I staggered inside, kicking the door shut behind me. Oh, God. The bathroom was too far.

I fell to my knees and chucked my guts up all over the tiled floor of the foyer.

When I was done I sat back on my heels, dazed and panting, and surveyed the mess. Why are there always carrots? I didn’t remember eating any carrots. And what the hell was
that
?

A black stone, the size of my thumbnail and covered with silver tracery, lay amid the rest of it. I
definitely
didn’t remember eating that.

CHAPTER THREE

I’m wearing long red evening gloves of shiny satin and holding a knife. Not a harmless knife for peeling apples, either, nor even a domestic “let’s cut up the veggies for our home-cooked dinner” kind of knife. It looks more like a hunting knife, with a wide lethal blade and a slight curve to its glinting edge.

Wait. That’s not satin. It’s blood; blood that gleams and drips in the sunlight. Blood coating both arms to the elbow, thick and viscous. It glues my hand to the knife’s hilt. The iron tang of it is in my nostrils—as is the heady scent of roses in full bloom. I’m kneeling on the ground, surrounded by flowers, grass prickling my bare knees.

Yes, that’s it,
says the voice, panting, trembling with the effort of forming words.
That’s it. Now reach in
.

I lay the knife down, not thinking, compelled to obey. The voice fills my head as my vision narrows to the blood. So much of it—and I see my hand reaching, reaching …

I came back to myself with a gasp, the floor tiles of my own foyer smooth and cool beneath my cheek. I didn’t remember blacking out.

Stretched out beside a pile of vomit—that was a new low. Could have been worse, I guess—I might have been lying
in
the vomit.

Head still spinning, I sat up. Movement made me retch again, but there was nothing left to bring up. After a moment I staggered to my feet and made it all the way down the hall to the kitchen. I wrenched open the medicine cupboard, knocking bottles over as I scrabbled for the Panadol. A shower of small boxes cascaded on to the floor.
Come on, come on
. Any minute my brain would explode right out of my head. I’d had bad headaches before but this was something else. Where the hell was the Panadol? I swept the lot out on to the bench with a crash. Nothing. Damn it, how could I be out?

Maybe I’d left the box in my room. God, that was all the way at the front of the house.

It was only a small house, with two bedrooms and a bathroom opening off one side of the central hall and a lounge and dining room off the other. The kitchen and laundry were at the back. Nowhere was more than a few steps from anywhere else in the house, but at the moment that bedroom felt impossibly distant. Back in the hall, I found I couldn’t even walk straight. Pain lanced through my head with every step. I lurched sideways against the closed door to Lachie’s room, knocking his door hanger to the floor. He’d made it himself in preschool.
Keep Out unless I say your alloud to com in!!!
it shouted in his best five-year-old printing.

I steadied myself on the handle, leaning my head against the door for a moment. Cool wood soothed my burning forehead. I kept the blinds closed during the day to keep out the heat, and it was dark in the hallway.
I’m not coming in, Monster. Mummy’s just resting here for a sec
.

I hadn’t been inside for nearly four months. Tanya said it was unhealthy to leave it as if Lachie might walk back in any day, and I should let her box up all his things and put them away. Tanya didn’t know what she was talking about.