We were sitting on the floor with our backs against my bed, all quadratic equations solved. “We need to find out who was following her,” I said.
Freya drew up her knees. “Her parents aren’t going to know, are they?”
“We might get a clue.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.” I lobbed a pencil across the room. “But if we don’t go, we’ll never know, that’s all I’m saying.”
She sighed and dropped her forehead against her knees.
“It was someone with a black car, and maybe blue headlights.”
I felt her twitch. “How do you figure that?”
“Ryan told me ages ago that some cars have these fancy xenon lights that shine a kind of —”
“No, I mean, why should it be a black car?”
Then it struck me. She didn’t know yet that there might be a link between the two accidents. The look on my face told the whole story.
“Oh my God. You think that whoever went for Rafferty might have come after you as well?”
“It’s possible,” I said.
She twisted away from me and started rocking gently on her knees. “This is really scaring me, Michael. What if we’re walking into some sort of trap?”
I screwed up my face. “Aileen Nolan wouldn’t hurt you. She loved Rafferty.”
“What about him, though? Doctor Nolan.”
Our eyes met. She had a point.
“I’ve watched a lot of detective programs,” she said. “The first people the police suspect are the parents.”
“Then they’ve talked to the parents already, haven’t they?” I shuffled over and knelt in front of her, until our knees were just about touching. “All we’re gonna do is show the Nolans you’re okay with Trace — and see what happens.”
“And what if Rafferty shows up?”
“She’s not going to throw stuff in her own house.”
“I mean in me, Michael?” She pointed to her face. “She changes me. She makes the birthmark come.”
I got brave then and picked up her hands. She was right. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I had no answer, other than touch. “I’ll look after you, Freya. We’re in this together.”
“Well, that’s very obvious,” said a voice from the door.
I dropped Freya’s hands like a pair of hot stones.
“In what together?” said Mom.
Yet again, Freya came to our rescue. “Homework club,” she said meekly. “I’m helping him with math, he’s helping me with history. If I don’t get my grades, I might have to drop to a lower class. I get a bit weepy about it. Michael’s being really supportive, aren’t you?”
“Um,” I grunted. Boy, this girl could work a parent.
“I see,” said Mom. “Well, it’s a quarter to seven. If you want this lift, you’d better get moving.”
“Bathroom,” said Freya, skipping out of the room.
I stood up, face-to-face with Mom.
“What?” I said, trying to duck the invisible searchlights of her mind.
“I’m proud of you.”
“You are?”
“Don’t waste the chance of a compliment,” she said. “You can be very thoughtful when you want to be. I’m pleased you’re helping Freya with her homework. It’s a very kind thing to do. Just promise me you won’t let any … other thoughts distract you.”
Like a secret organization, a tattoo on my ankle, an unpredictable ghost, or a potential hit-and-run killer?
Nah.
“We worked really hard tonight,” I said.
“I know. And that’s just one of the reasons I love you.”
Oh, no. Not the kissy thing again. Yep, right on top of the head.
“I’ll wait for you downstairs.”
Which left me time for one last thing.
I took out my phone and quickly texted Chantelle.
Going 2 Nolans with F
She texted right back: Time?
Now, getting a lift
I waited, but there was nothing else.
Not even a smiley French face.
The rain was almost slashing through the Rover’s windshield as we pulled up beside the Berry Head cottages. Freya peered out anxiously, running her gaze over the Nolans’ house. She’d been noticeably quiet throughout the journey, but I could hardly blame her for that. Not only had we driven past the very spot where Rafferty had fallen from her bike and died, Freya was now about to meet the dead girl’s parents.
“Eight?” Mom said. “Or are you going to call?”
Some leeway. Cool. “I’ll call,” I said. I turned to Freya. “Ready?”
She nodded and opened the door.
Mom waited with the engine running, but there was never any doubt that Aileen would be there. I could hear Trace howling before we’d reached the gate. A piece of stained glass above the door lit up. A fishing boat on a stormy sea. Freya shuddered and felt for my hand.
“You don’t have to do this,” I whispered.
But we did. Aileen had already opened the door and was beckoning like crazy for us to get out of the rain. We ran ten yards and were in the house. The door closed with a tinkle of wind chimes.
Rafferty Nolan’s heart had come home.
“What horrible weather,” Aileen said. She smiled at Freya, but there was no recognition either way. Freya threw a startled glance toward the kitchen. On the other side of the kitchen door, Trace was scratching like a dog buried alive in its kennel. Before I could speak, Aileen burst forward and hugged me so hard I almost stopped breathing. “Oh, it’s so good to see you,” she gushed. “You can’t imagine how shocked I was when I heard what had happened.” She pulled back, bridging her hands beneath her chin. “And you must be Freya?”
Freya had shrunk into a corner of the hall, holding herself so taut and thin that she could have hopped out of an umbrella stand.
Aileen extended a hand.
Freya looked at it as if it were an alien projectile. She had buried her hands in the sleeves of her sweater, adopting what Mom called the straitjacket pose. She looked as brittle as a black rose dipped in liquid nitrogen, ready to crumble at the slightest touch. I was just beginning to think this was all a big mistake, when Freya muttered, “I like your ring.” Aileen was wearing what looked like a wedding ring — gold with a small bouquet of diamonds.
“Thank you,” she said, withdrawing from the handshake.
“Why is it on your right hand?”
Personal, but Aileen did respond. “It’s from my first marriage.”
I glanced at her left hand. There was a plain gold band on her third finger. So who was Rafferty’s father, I wondered, the first husband or the second?
“Liam’s been delayed at work, I’m afraid, but he should be home any minute. He doesn’t know you’re coming. Please be tolerant if he seems a little gruff. That’s just his way. I’m sure he’ll be fine. Why don’t you both go into the living room before Trace digs a tunnel out of the kitchen?”
I stepped forward and guided Freya by the elbow. She had turned milk white and was beginning to breathe in nervous snatches. This was not a great start. Aileen must have been wondering what she was doing, letting this awkward girl cross her threshold. I wondered if she’d checked her charts for vampires that day.
I stepped into the living room and drew Freya in. She immediately took another sharp breath and laid both hands across her heart.
“Is she here?” I whispered.
Freya shook her head. “The music.”
From a small stacking system on the sideboard opposite came a few eerie notes of piano music, played as lightly as puffs of smoke. It was a classical piece I’d heard before on TV commercials. In the middle section, the notes rocked back and forth like the perfect accompaniment for a monster creeping up from behind: de-dun, de-dun, de-dun, de-dun, de-dun-dun. I liked it, but I couldn’t tell if Freya did or not. She had drifted toward the upright piano and was dragging one finger along the keyboard as if the music were c
oming out of there by magic.
“Here we are,” said Aileen.
Trace swept in like a furious patch of tumbleweed. She ran straight into Freya, knocking her into a sitting position on the larger sofa. She thumped her paws onto Freya’s knees and frantically set about licking the visitor. Far from being scared or overwhelmed, Freya wrapped her arms around the husky, soaking up her frantic need for comfort. If dogs were capable of crying tears, Trace would have produced a tsunami.
“My goodness,” said Aileen, clutching a star-shaped pendant at her neck, “that is a powerful bond. Um, sit down, Michael. I’ll go and put the kettle on while those two …” She ran out of words.
I perched on the edge of an armchair seat. “Aileen?”
“Yes?”
“What’s the music?”
“Satie,” she said, unable to take her eyes away from Freya. “Gnossienne number one. It was Rafferty’s favorite performance piece.”
With that, she slowly backed out of the room.
“I’ve missed her so much,” Freya said quietly.
“What? Sorry?” I twisted toward her.
She clutched the ruff of fur around Trace’s neck and looked right into her pale blue eyes. “I love you. I’ll never leave you again.”
What? Was this Freya talking or Rafferty coming through her?
I glanced at the bookshelf in the conservatory. Nothing appeared to have toppled over and the temperature in the living room hadn’t dropped ten degrees. No sign of Rafferty’s presence — yet.
“How do you want to play this?” I whispered. “What do you want to say to Aileen?”
“I need her, Michael. She has to be with me.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Trace,” she said. “She has to be with me.”
“Freya —?”
“You told me they were thinking of getting rid of her.”
“Yeah, but —”
“So why shouldn’t I have her?”
“Because …” But I couldn’t think of a reason to oppose it. It might even be the solution the Nolans were looking for. But just in case Freya didn’t understand that the random abduction of dogs was illegal, I said, “Okay, we can ask — but let me do the talking.”
“Whatever,” she said, as though the outcome were already decided. She had grown in confidence since Trace came in and was about to step it up a significant notch. “Here,” she said, “take her a moment.”
She tried to pass the dog over, but Trace stayed glued to her side as she stood.
“Freya, what are you doing?”
She pulled out the piano stool.
I looked toward the kitchen. Aileen wouldn’t be long.
“Freya, you should ask before —”
“Shut up,” she said. “I need to hear.”
She placed her fingers over the keys, touching them as if she were cracking a code, but not yet making any sound. Then, just as Aileen appeared with a tea tray, Freya played three notes, not in time with the stereo, but in perfect tune.
Aileen froze on the spot. Now she was the one losing color from her cheeks.
I opened my mouth to say something but was stopped by the ring of my phone. I dug it out of my pocket. The letters AK lit up on the screen. Klimt.
“Sorry, I … I need to take this.” I stood up, hovering over Freya. She was staring rigidly at the keyboard. Her hands were now at rest, in her lap.
Aileen blinked and came back to herself. She put the tray down on a coffee table. “Yes, of course. Go and sit on the stairs. The reception’s better on that side of the house. It will give me a chance to … get to know Freya.”
“I won’t be long,” I said to Freya.
She didn’t move.
This was getting seriously weird, but I couldn’t ignore the call any longer. So I scurried out and sat on the bottom of the stairs, taking the call as I steadied myself. “I’m at the Nolans’,” I said as quietly as I could. “Freya’s here with me. What do you want?”
“Has Rafferty appeared?”
“Raff —? No. I can’t talk about this now. They could hear me, Klimt.”
“I want you to meet her again,” he said.
Again? “What are you talking about?”
“The next level, Michael.”
The small hairs on the back of my neck stood up like a row of iron filings.
“There are strong similarities between the movements of spirits and your ability to jump across the temporal interface. This is a unique opportunity to study the boundaries between our world and theirs. I’m going to attempt to send you to Rafferty. If things become difficult, focus on the UNICORNE symbol. That will bring you back.”
“Look, I don’t have time for this. I’m kinda busy right —”
Before I could finish, a high-pitched tone came down the line, sending tendrils of sound into the core of my brain. The line went dead. I felt a sudden jolt, as if the world had stopped spinning. When it started again, Rafferty Nolan was standing in front of me.
“Michael!” she said, clapping her hands in glee. “Wow!”
I gaped at her in silence. She was dressed in a pair of khaki-colored cargo pants with straps hanging off the combat pockets. On top was a hoodie, too short at the waist, sitting over a plain white T-shirt. Ankle boots with soft fur linings, laces loose, bunching socks. White hoop earrings, way too big. Hair tied back in a frizzing ponytail. She looked cool, like she was going to a gig. She’d made no attempt to hide her birthmark. I could see no blood on the other side of her head.
“Hello? Rafferty to Planet Michael? You gonna sit there all night or what?”
She shot out a hand.
I reached for it and had the sensation of peeling, as if I’d stripped away the topmost layer of my skin. She gripped my hand and drew me forward, pulling a ghost of me off the stairs. I had left my physical body behind, sitting there rigidly, holding the phone.
“It’s all right,” she said as I started to panic. “Once you get used to it, it’s kinda neat.”
“Am I dead?”
She walked over to my body. “Feel this?” She ran a fingernail down “his” neck.
I felt a tingling sensation below my left ear. “Yes.”
She clicked her tongue. “Just visiting, then. So … why are you here?”
I closed my eyes and concentrated hard. To heck with Klimt and his temporal interface. “I need to know what’s going on with you and Freya.”
“Holy moly!” she cried. “Look at that!”
At the top of the stairs, a pure white unicorn had suddenly appeared, tossing its mane in slow motion. It turned away in a cloud of dust motes and disappeared out of sight. In an instant, Rafferty was standing where the horse had been, looking along the landing for it. “Come on,” she called down, “before we lose it. Just think yourself up here. It’s easy. Come on.”
I shook my head. This was just too weird. “No, I need to go back. I need to make sure that Freya’s okay.” I could still hear Satie on the stereo, though it sounded like two notes trapped in time, bouncing around in bubble wrap.
Rafferty reappeared right in front of my nose. “You can be with Freya in a minute,” she tutted, speaking her name like a puff of smoke. “Come on, Michael. You imagineered a unicorn. I LOVE unicorns, especially the white ones. It’s a sign over here. They lead you to places. They show you the light. Oh, please help me find it. You did promise you’d help me. If you follow it, you’ll get an answer to your question. That’s the way things work in this world.”
Still, I hesitated. “Just tell me what happened that night. Who was following you when you fell off your bike?”
She stood up straight and folded her arms. “Now you’re being boring.”
“I don’t care. You’re hurting Freya. She’s scared of you, Rafferty. Tell me what happened and I’ll do what I can to put it right. I want to help you. Both of you.”
“Then come on,” she said, her green eyes sparkling. “Whatever path you create here
, you have to follow. We have to see where the unicorn leads us.” She grabbed my hand. With a whoosh that felt like a million points of air had passed through my chest, we flashed to the top of the stairs. “Things move fast on this side,” she said. “But there’s loads of time where you are. Look.” On the lower steps, my body hadn’t altered; the phone was still pressed against my ear.
“Hey! It’s gone to my room. Come on.”
“Your room?” I held her back. Even on this side of consciousness, there were some things her mother would not have approved of.
“It’s just a room,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. She clicked her fingers and we were instantly there.
It was no bigger than mine in size, but nothing like as neat as I’d been expecting. There were clothes on the floor, shoes everywhere, headphones and an iPod nesting on a chair, a hair-clogged brush on the bedside table. A room in motion, Mom would have called it. A lived-in room, suspended in time. From a dressing table drawer hung an angel pendant. Rafferty walked across and stroked it with her finger, making it twirl back and forth. “You can touch but you mustn’t change things,” she said. “That would only make Mom cry.”
“Rafferty, tell me —”
I cut myself off. She had just flashed onto the bed, sitting cross-legged with her back to the wall. Above her head were two posters of Paris, one a silhouette of the Eiffel Tower, the other a woman in a brown fur coat at a café table in 1937. Next to them was what looked like a movie poster. Emblazoned right across it was the word …
“Amadeus,” I breathed.
“Totally love his music,” she said.
“Whose music?”
“Mozart, of course.” She gave a flick of her shoulders. “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Great movie. Cool poster, isn’t it?”
All it showed above the movie title was the silhouetted head and arms of a figure wearing a cloak and a crescent-shaped hat. It looked to me a bit like a highwayman. Or maybe the phantom of the opera.
“Do you like Mozart?” she asked.
“My dad did,” I muttered. The albums at home. Somewhere on them, I was going to find the name Amadeus. First Klimt, now Amadeus. There had to be a connection.
But what?