It took almost fours to get to the tiny town of Northwood. It seemed longer. Dad had gotten Katie and Dan to help cram the last of the boxes into the van, said his goodbyes and started the van up to get a headstart. All the girls would pile into the car and follow him later, meeting up with him at a service station nearly two hours down the road for lunch, when the worst of the traffic was over. Just under half of the drive was motorway and the directions they had said the rest of the journey would be A- and B-roads.
“I’ll have a double cheeseburger, fries and lemonade.” Katie gave her order to her mother and carted her little sister off to find a table that was relatively clean. “Dad phoned when you were asleep. He’s about twenty minutes behind us. Some moron of an Uncle Billy decided to leave us with less petrol in the van than I can spit. Isn’t family oh so wonderful?”
“Is this conversation meant to convince me or you?”
“Huh? Of what?”
“That your family’s no great loss.”
“I’m not. It’s just that Uncle Billy really is a prize dick. It’s really only fair that the world is warned.”
“Not that I’m arguing but some of your relatives are kind and compassionate and basically great people.”
“Honestly, I don’t know why I ever thought you were delusional.”
A minutes or two later, their mother came over with a plastic tray of food, being careful to dodge the wrappers and chips that dotted the floor. “Goodness, they really need to employ a cleaner here.”
“Mom,”
The older woman sat down and put a finger to her lips before doling lunches out. She was famous for bemoaning the lack of cleanliness in restaurants and cafes. A neat freak by nature, not even eating off a surgically sterilised plate would be completely faultless. Too cold or chemical. The girls dug into their burger meals. Katie would normally have something with a little salad and fruit but today she was ravenous and craving something so covered in grease her arteries were blocking as she ate.
“Why does food just taste better and better the worse it is for you?”
“It’s the law,” Dan said around a mouthful of fries. That girl had the biggest mouth of anyone in the history of always. “So, I always say, why the hell do they even make food that no-one enjoys eating? Fruit and stuff is sweet a lot of the time so I kinda get that but brown bread or carrot cake… it’s a waste of perfectly good cake.”
“Cherish this moment Mom. It’s the most words she’ll say until she grows out of her teens.”
“You’re one to talk. All this smiling and saying you’re okay and crap. Everyone knows you’re just pretending.” Dan stuffed the last few bites in her mouth and gave a wide, beefy grin.
“Gross!”
“Now girls.”
“Dadda!” In the excitement, Dan succeeded in spitting out a shower of crumbs and worms of meat. A commendable achievement really but not one she should consider putting on her CV in a few years. Katie realised she might already be thinking of it, and it likely made her more qualified than the dead-eyed man who had served.
“Couldn’t wait for me to start, I see. I need my dinner though and I hate eating alone so who’s up for ice cream?”
The four of them had poured out of the burger place an hour later, the car and the van both had a quick check over and their petrol tanks filled up and then they were off. Katie found her MP3 player out of the tiny backpack she’d brought along and pushed the earphones in. She swiped a thumb over the touchscreen and found a country radio station. Country music and a handful of blues tunes thrown in were good travelling sounds. She laid her head back on the back of the seat and closed her eyes. For the next hour and a half there was nothing between her and sleep but the music, the feeling of movement and the growing need to sing. Country songs, especially those of the 1970s and early 80s, were invariably about women sticking by husbands that were basically shits or sticking in crappy mind-numbing jobs or staying home to cook and clean and raise kids because it was women’s work, but it held the unwavering sense of going somewhere; of always roaming across wide open plains and making everywhere you go your home. It was amazing that these girls from the sticks could speak to souls that deeply.
Just travelling, sitting here while somebody else did the driving, was tiring but something was keeping Katie from slumber. She opened her eyes a crack and peeked at the grey felt roof of the car then leaned further back to see the bright sky through the back window. Too bright. She pulled her baseball cap from the door pocket and jammed it on her head, yanking it far down over her eyes to block out the light. Her ears were aching from having the earphones in and she had packed the new cushioned ones away so she turned the music off and put the tiny music box away. Dan and Mom were yabbering away in the front seat about something that had happened at school and Dad was in the van right in front of them. The rocking of the car was lulling her towards, not exactly sleep but a state of half-consciousness where she knew what was going on around her but her mind was powerless to process any of it.
“Wake up, Katie. We’re nearly there.”
A sign welcoming them to Northwood flashed by and then they were driving through the town proper. Not that it could really be called a town. It barely resembled the city she had left behind. Roads were busy with people walking around – few people appeared to drive but Katie had looked on the map – most places were within walking distance of everywhere else. Worn stone buildings crowded the streets. Patches of wasteland festered between buildings. Some of the barren land contained skips or scaffolding and, she craned her neck to see, further building work seemed to be taking place at the backs of buildings. A few streets further into Northwood were more modern buildings; a library, a leisure centre, a few restaurants and shops. There weren’t any shopping centres like there had been at home – none that she could see but maybe there was an out of town one like there used to be years ago.
“Seems like a nice place. At least no danger of you getting run over. Everyone walks!”
“Yeah, Katie. You’re such an alien to exercise.”
“I know I am. Maybe I should get some of those trainers with the wheel in the heel to help me get around. Don’t suppose I can borrow yours?”
“Please! As if I would do something so tragically uncool.” In truth, Dan had not had a pair of wheeled trainers although she had hounded their mother mercilessly for some. She had refused for a long time and then the week she gave in and promised to pick a pair up after work – surprise surprise – Dan didn’t want them any more because they were so last year and the next fad had begun – those little computer pet thingies.
Beyond the few blocks of retail and eateries was a sprawl of houses, mostly quite old but there were a few that seemed to have been built this side of the second world war. It was into this estate that the van grumbled and coughed, sounding distinctly unhealthy. The car seemed to be making some strange noises too. Something must have been up with the petrol they bought at that no-name service station. Been in the pump too long or something. No, Katie was pretty sure there must be laws about petrol pumps in case it exploded. As long as the car had the decency not to turn into a fireball while she was in it. Or any of her family.
The van took a right turn, the car followed. Katie stared out at the passing scenery as the car growled along, twisting and turning. The car eventually braked and idled there, the engine cooling after two hundred miles of motorway and country road. The three of them unbelted and climbed out onto a short, gravelly drive with a few pushbikes lying on it.
“Healthy way to get to campus.”
“Come on girls, let’s meet the housemates and get a drink before we unpack.”
“Okay. Sounds like a plan.”
Dad took the keys out of the van door and put them in his pocket. They all walked up and down the drive a time or two to stretch their aching legs, Katie’s ankle was stiff and sore again, and then reached up to t
he front door. They made Katie knock since it was to be her new home. Dan was holding hands with her father and Mom had linked her arm through his. Katie suddenly wished, while she waited for the door to open, that she could trade places with one of them and be the one clinging on to Daddy. What if the door opened into darkness and some shape with only the skeleton of a hand reached out to take her inside? Where had that thought, so real it was like a memory, come from? Just as that thought was creeping by the door was flung wide and a young woman leaned out to gather her in a hug after seeing her for just a couple of seconds. The young woman looked up from the embrace at the rest of the family who were looking a little uncomfortable.
“Hi” she said far too cheerfully for someone who didn’t know them from Adam. “I’m Lainy. Well, Elaine, but that sounds like such an old lady name don’t you think? So… Lainy it is.”
“I’m Katie Cartwright. My family were helping me move all my crap out here.”
“Sure, sure, we understand that. It’s not like you can drive your own stuff out here. Anyway, come on in and rest for a bit first. No-one wants to lug all that around on an empty stomach.” She waved everyone inside and shouted into the house, “Adam, put the kettle on!”
Adam turned out to be the same as Lainy in terms of his friendliness, although, thankfully, a lot less touchy-feely than Lainy. The two of them had known each other since secondary school, had gone to different colleges and then met again here a few years ago when they had both attended the academy for their final years of education, fallen I love, gotten engaged and became house parents. That was more information than Katie could cope with without a decent meal and a good nights sleep.. House parents were, apparently, the people who looked after students.
Teas, juices and sandwiches rapidly disappeared. Most of Dan’s went down her top but Lainy cleaned it up without a harsh word and fetched her a clean top that was far too big for her but clean and dry. While Dan was changing and Her parents were unloading the van with Adam and Lainy, Katie peeled the now dry and warm rag from her ankle and threw it on the bin. It was beginning to smell funky. Besides, the bruising had all come out now. It didn’t look that bad. Maybe a little swollen but four or five days would see it right. She poked it and prodded it.
“Eeww! Must you?”
“It’s not like you’re eating. This is a foot. You’re half-naked and if I have to look at your scrawny little body much longer I may have to bleach my own eyeballs.”
“I’m twelve. I’m not old enough to get fat.” All the same Dan slid herself into the grungy t-shirt as quick as a particularly self-conscious snake. It hung to her knees.
Katie sent the girl out to help with the boxes and then followed the instructions she had been given. The door straight in front at the top of the stairs was the bathroom if she needed to use it quickly. She didn’t. They had said to turn left and her room would be the one at the end. It was the second smallest room, Adam had apologised, but that was fine by her. If there was a bed, a desk and a chest of drawers, it was fine. Functional was the key. She walked up the stairs, noting that two or three of them creaked rather loudly. The bathroom door was decorated in cracked white paint with a yellow and black toxic sign stuck to it. She passed it by but reminded herself she really needed to check it out before her mother did. The neat freak trait had obviously passed Katie by but she had no desire to shower in a bathroom that could give her scabies or something. The door at the end was bare wood and looked freshly sanded – Adam had said something about doing some repairs to the house but Katie had hardly listened. Stripping off the thin shirt she had worn for the drive down, Katie hooked it over the door handle and pushed it open.
The room was a little smaller than her old one but the furniture looked new, if basic and flat-packy, and there was a comfy looking bed. Floorboards creaked under the cheap maroon carpet. Katie bounced on her heels and looked around her. Far from over-whelmed and very, very small, a wave of pride and confidence hit her. This was her domain. A few years of education stretched out but it was an education she was choosing for herself.
Katie spent the next hour flitting from the back of the van to her new room, not carrying boxes but nervously making sure she had not left anything behind. Finally, everything was piled up again and she was saying her last goodbyes.
“Don’t be scared to come home if it gets too much. And call if you need us…”
Katie gave her mother for a few seconds and then tried and failed to peel her off. “Of course it’ll be too much and of course I’ll want to go home but I’ll get over it. I’ll never be grown up if I don’t push myself.”
“Speaking of pushing, I noticed a great big cliff thing not too far away.” Dan raised her eyebrows and gave that dark, playful grin that only sisters really understand. She was next for a Katie hug that neither really wanted to pull out of. Then it was Dads turn. Dad the hero. Dad the big cuddly bear.
“Go on, go, before you start me off.”
None of them seemed very eager to leave but long, extremely awkward minutes of staring and not wanting to be the first to show emotion made Dad put an arm around the two he was taking home and start backing away. Oh, Katie wished so hard that she was going with them that she thought she might fall over for a moment. The three of them climbed into the car - it had been decided earlier that they would leave the van here for Uncle Billy to pick up whenever he could be bothered because Dad was not driving another centimetre in that contraption – started up and screeched away a bit too fast for her liking. The Fiesta disappeared until it was a dot at the end of the long road and then it was gone altogether and then it was likely halfway out of town and still Katie stood there, half-focussed on something and nothing on the horizon. And then she collapsed.
The ground rushed up to meet her and then two strong arms grabbed her. She felt the arms scoop her up and into the air just before she expected the cement and gravel ground to send her bones into shock. Were her eyes closed? Had everything in the world suddenly turned black? Her over-worked mind kept trying to absorb the information it was picking up but her body refused point blank to even move. Outside was blue sky, a grey house, only she couldn’t see any of it so Katie turned her eyes inward instead. There were tiny parts of her face that stretched and tightened with her breathing. Yes, she was still breathing. Cords and tubes vibrated as if in some semblance of a laugh. Vital signs all present and correct – she traced another, thicker trail up to a mushy looking thing – a brain. Synapses fired and neurons connected. Little impulses shivered off into her body shimmering and shiny like something magical. Ripples of endorphins bulged out and then dripped away, receptors taking what they needed and returning what they didn’t.
“Bring her over here Ad. Watch the step.”
Something flared behind her eyes. Katie felt as though she were floating. She tried to drag her eyes open, the total darkness she was seeing was boring and disorienting.
“Here on the sofa.”
“Clear it off then.”
“No, not the chair. It’s too small and she’ll get all scrunched up. Here.”
“Oh right.”
“I’ll get a cold cloth.”
“Hang on, help me get her feet up. She keeps kicking them off.”
Was she fighting the man keeping her from a very close encounter with the floor? Katie had no connection to her body. It could be flamenco dancing for all she knew.
“Better. Now what?”
Katie tried to make a sound of thanks but it was a waste of effort. Lainy and Adam shuffled out of the room and that was it. The loneliness was so complete but, as she allowed her mind to lose grip on reality and touch the black she felt, if not happy, less alone.
“You awake now?”
Lainy was squeezing a damp cloth over the carpet. It was the spot where Dan had spilled her juice.
The young girl had only been passed out for a few minutes. It proba
bly seemed longer.
“God, I feel stupid. Dumb little girl can’t even be away from her parents without fainting.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Lainy said. “It happens.”
“Some kids come and go straight home because they can’t make it without Mommy and Daddy.”
“Afraid I’m here to stay.”
“I hope you don’t mind but I went through the box for the bathroom in case you needed painkillers or anything. We’re not allowed to buy them for the whole house in case someone’s allergic or what not.”
“You went through my stuff?”
“Sorry. Lainy just thought you might need anything.”
“It’s fine. I just was looking forward to unpacking myself.”
“Everything’s still here. When I couldn’t find anything, I just closed the box and put it in the bathroom.” Lainy dropped the cloth into a bowl and sat on the edge of the sofa with Katie. “We share most things in this house but if you have anything special not in your room then just write on it.”
Katie braced her arms at her sides and pushed up to a sitting position. A grey rag slipped over her face, leaving tepid, moist tracks. She picked off with one hand and tried to scrub her face dry with the other. Lainy tossed the rag in the bowl with the other. “Take that out, will you, Adam?”
The clock told her it was late afternoon, just after five. There would just be enough time to unpack most of her stuff and find homes for it. No. That would have to wait until tomorrow. No way was Katie up to that. “I’m just really tired. I think the heat and the move have just done me in. Sorry about the fainting thing.”
“Katie, stop apologising,” Lainy scolded her. “This is partly your home now and…” She carried on speaking, something about the other housemates, but Katie was stuck on those words your home now. However manic the last month or two had been she had never imagined that home would or could be any place other than the house she grew up in with Mom and Dad and Dan.
“How long was I asleep? It felt like forever.”
“Not long.”
“I felt like I was in another world. Not another planet but not quite this one either. It was… I don’t remember really, but it was beautiful. The details are faded, as if some-one tried to rub out my dream, but I couldn’t see anything anyway. I dreamed that… I sound like the resident crazy don’t i?”
“Kinda.”
“Glad to’ve filled that gap.”
“That job already went,” Adam added. “But if there’s a house lacking a certified basket-case…”
“Adam!”
Katie laughed at the couple unsure which one she liked best –Adam for teasing her and making her forget her sadness or Lainy for taking care of her and trying to defend her honour. “You two are definitely marriage material.”
“Hey, Lainy, do they make bridesmaids strait jackets?” That comment earned him cushions thrown at him from two directions.
“Your dream?”
“Oh, I’ve already forgotten him.” Katie stood up and stretched her long legs out. There was a bookcase by the large window. The bottom shelf held a few board games and quiz books. Obviously, the people in this house liked old-fashioned entertainments. There was a TV in the corner with a games console and some video games. Maybe there was more to college life than studying, partying and casual sex the way they portrayed it on TV.
“Why don’t you go have a hot bath and an early night?”
Katie rubbed her hand over her eyes and sat back down, rummaging in her backpack for a pack of cards to add to the game pile. Then she worked an old Monopoly box from the stack and pushed it across the floor to Adam. “One hour to tire me out. Otherwise I’ll be up at three tomorrow morning which generally means anyone within yelling distance is up at three. I’m the car.”
The long, hot bath had been a nice idea although it only lasted about half an hour in total. About fifteen minutes into it, a loud and urgent bang had come at the door.
“It’s occupied!” Lainy had shouted up the stairs. Whoever it was walked down the stairs again, maybe got a drink or something, and then Katie heard them come back up. The handle rattled but then they got bored and footsteps clipped down to another room. It was the footsteps that alerted her to the person coming back to try the handle again a few minutes later, just as she was letting her eyes slip shut and allowing all her tense and scrunched up muscles relax in the warmth. The door remained tight shut. She gave herself another ten minutes to get clean and relaxed enough to sleep when she finally gave up, dried and dressed herself in the PJs she’d found and padded down to her room. The person rattling the door would have the bathroom to him- or herself now. Just in case Adam’s lunatic was just randomly invading rooms, she closed the door fully and flicked the lock.
There were stacks of boxes piled around the room but they seemed less than they had in her old room. Funny considering it was a smaller room. All of them needed sorting out and emptying but her brain was so tired there was a very real possibility of putting her toothbrush in her pencil case or her trainers in the bedside cabinet. To put her lazily but persistently nagging mind at rest, Katie found herself a scrap of paper and a pencil and wrote herself a to do list, making sure to put empty boxes at the top, above even go for a run. She always tried to run in the morning but she hadn’t really done it in a while. The academy needed to be checked out and she guessed she could run there.
Lainy had been kind enough, or maybe it was Adam; guys could be domestic too, to dress the bed with a clean sheet over the mattress and then just another sheet in place of a duvet. The duvet would have spent most of the night getting dirty on the floor so Katie had only wanted a sheet. It was with great relief that she crawled under that top sheet and closed her eyes, almost instantly falling into a deep, dark sleep.
She fell hard and fast and so vey very far. And all she could recall upon waking was blackness. Shiny eyes deep in shadows and a feeling that something was coming up behind her. In the dark it could have been anything, any one, but she looked at these pools of light and knew that whatever it was would not hurt her. It wanted to, because she was there and for some unknown reason, she shouldn’t be. Then the darkness was bright sunlight, summer rain was tinkling down on the window and Katie awoke with one hand stretched out, reaching for something that was no longer there. She was smiling too.
When she dressed and went downstairs to join her friends for breakfast she was still smiling. Maybe leaving the big city behind had been just what she needed. The smell of frying bacon called her downstairs to find Lainy and Adam buzzing around the kitchen and another person at the table.
“Morning guys!”
“Some-one’s cheerful this morning.”
“New house, new friends, new life as a student. What’s not to love?”
“The part where it’s still the holidays and it’s morning?” tried Adam.
“It’s summer and there’s bacon for breakfast. There’s joy in the smallest things if you look hard enough.”
“Ah so.” He slid a full English in front of her and bowed like a Japanese guy before he chop-sockied the hell out of someone else.
Was she really expected to eat all this fried and fatty stuff? Not that she would probably leave any of it – Katie was ravenous this morning – but she would have to wait a while before running. Damn. “Not so long ago, I wasn’t sure I’d even be here because stuff went really bad and dark for a while. I couldn’t find anything that made me happy any more but over the last few weeks… it’s strange but little things are starting to make me smile again. And I feel like I have this job to look for the joy in everything in case I get sad again.”
“Leo, take note,” said Lainy. “This is how you have a conversation.”
Over the course of the morning meal, Katie learned through statements from the older couple and the odd affirmative grunt from Leo, that her arrival had been preceded by more than two weeks by this
young boy who seemed to be only a few years older than Katie herself. He had spent most of the last fortnight in his room and rarely spoke to any one. Lainy wondered if he was shy or overwhelmed. Katie already decided she didn’t care. There was something about him and the way he hunched himself up that felt almost sinister. Looking at Leo for mere seconds sent a shiver through her.
“I thought I might go checkout the college today, maybe mooch around town.”
“Just make sure you stay this side of Northwood Chase. Don’t go into Millford.”
Okay, that sounded like an ominous warning if ever there was one. “Why not?”
“It’s just real easy to get really lost down there.” Lainy shot a look at Adam – shut up you shitwit “Until you know your way around.”
“I need to sort my stuff out first. But you could maybe write me a list of places I might want to go.”
Lainy told her she doubted there was anywhere she wouldn’t find on her own – besides it was always more fun to discover things for yourself – but that she would have a think. Leo got roped in to help wash up and Katie headed back to her room. Following the corridor down to her room, she on a whim, turned and tried the handle on the room she had heard open last night. On entering Katie stopped wondering why Leo had been shipped off so early. His parents no doubt just wanted to get rid of him and the sooner the better. She already had sympathy for them. The room was already decorated in a dark mixture of fantasy and religious stuff. Statues, drawings, even a life-size crucifix with chains and ropes for his wrists and a picture of a half-naked woman being lashed while seemingly chained to said cross. Just being in here was making Katie feel increasingly uncomfortable. The room was smaller than hers and the clutter made it seem smaller and darker. The small desk was covered with papers and she started rifling through them. There were drawings in various stages of completion – mostly of creatures from fantasy like dragons and unicorns with twisted and hooked horns.
“What are you doing?”
Katie jumped and whipped her head up to see a shadow filling the doorway. She inched backwards. Light hit half of Leos face. He did not look happy at finding her in his room going through his personal creations. This was his personal, private place and Katie immediately felt a pinch of guilt at invading another persons privacy. “Sorry. Honestly, I’m so sorry.” She played at tidying the papers on the desk. “I’ll just scram, shall I?”
“You didn’t answer the question. Why re you here?”
“To go to college.”
“Stop playing silly bitches, bitch.”
“You didn’t say much over breakfast. I thought I’d find out more about you this way.”
“You never thought to ask.”
“I didn’t want to seem rude. Although snooping through your stuff might make it appear otherwise.” She tried to smile and giggle her way out of it but it only made her feel more guilty. Why was Katie protesting her innocence to Leo? Especially if he was who she thought he was. “I’m sorry again. But we both have to live here. We should learn to be friends.” Leo seemed to mirror Katie’s intention of doing no such thing. She shuffled from one foot to the other and looked for an opening big enough to bolt through. For one long and terrifying minute, Leo looked as if he was going to come closer to her or, at the very least, not move. He would advance on her until all she could see was his dark bulk and smell the musty smell of his tired-looking shirt. But he seemed to think the better of it and stepped inside and to the left, letting Katie sneak past and bolt down to her room. Leo watched her as she passed. He didn’t see the other young man at the top of the stairs watching her too but he had heard him yelling out, “Don’t touch her. You’ll smile and talk and let her go but you won’t touch her. She’s not yours.”
As Leo shut his door, all the while believing that those words and thoughts were his own, Katie entered her own room and the boy stood guard until well after noon, listening to her shuffling and clattering and swearing and cursing quite a bit. And all the time, Katie felt as though some-one was watching her. Only she was on the second floor and the door was firmly shut if not locked. Still, she could not shake the notion that she was not entirely alone. The boy with the green eyes vanished as she emerged some time later. Katie looked around for a second. She was positive there had been a person out here but the air was cool and still, the hallway deserted and – not silent. Far away, almost a echo or a memory, she heard footsteps. Boot heels. She stopped and took a deep breath. This was an old house – there were creaks and squeaks everywhere. Something seemed to riffle the air over her face.
“Stop being crazy. There’s nothing there. You’re just trying to imagine a friend you idiot!” Katie told herself. “Suck it up, girl.”
She glanced over at the hall window which was open just a crack with no real idea why she was staring at the frosted glass. It wasn’t as if she could see out of it. A sudden chill whispered through the window – like something had been blocking the coolness that should have been surrounding her all day. She wanted the warmth back.