I reluctantly felt the corner of my mouth turn upwards. “Since when did you become a shrink?”
He shook his head, clearly not amused. “I’m serious.”
“Well, so am I. The last thing I need is you thinking I’m crazy and avoiding me too.” This hadn’t actually occurred to me before, and as soon as I said it, I shivered. Will was pretty much the only friend I had left.
“I promise I won’t start avoiding you. Hell, that’d leave me with no one to hang out with either.” He smiled cheekily, obviously hoping his attempt at lightening the mood would persuade me to open up.
I took another deep breath, thinking, ‘What the hell’! “You know I saw Emma outside The Pit when we left?”
Will nodded slowly, then shook his head. “You said it wasn’t Emma.”
“No, the police said that. I’m convinced it was Emma.”
“Oh, OK…”
I sighed in exasperation. “Rick told me that Emma died between eleven and midnight. And from the sounds of it John thinks it was around then too when she ran off into the woods.”
Will wasn’t getting it. “So?”
“Well, don’t you remember what time we left The Pit? It was after one.”
I could tell the cogs were whirring round slowly in Will’s brain, and he finally looked at me, eyes wide. “Well, you must have seen someone else then…”
“No!” I was getting angry now. “I saw Emma, she was wearing the same red dress - the same red dress but with some of the fabric missing - and she was bent over, hair all messy and dirt on her face, as if she’d been trampling around the woods. She was looking in my direction but not at me, and what John said he heard, well, she shouted something at me too…” I could feel my voice wavering and I peered up at Will, not able to say it.
He looked confused; I didn’t blame him. “What did she say?”
I nodded, vaguely wondering if I was going to throw up the many cucumber sandwiches I’d put away. “The exact same words.”
Will shook his head again; the cogs had obviously stopped moving altogether now. “Wait, the time thing. What exactly are you saying? That the cops and John, they’re both wrong?”
I bit my lip and shook my head. I didn’t know how to explain this without admitting that there was either something extremely wrong with me, or that I was crazy.
Again, ‘what the hell’ came to mind. “I read this book once, it was sort of trying to explain weird stuff using scientific reasons. One chapter described how people are made up of energy, and that even when they die, their energy would still linger around.”
Will was already looking at me like I was mad.
“Well, anyway. There was a case study of this woman, Diana, who thought she was seeing the… energy… of her dead sister. The energy was wandering around Diana’s house, doing exactly the same things her sister used to do, exactly the same routine in exactly the same way, but she was doing it in the wrong house, because her sister never lived with Diana when she was alive. It was like she was stuck on a loop, but she was lost. Exact same actions, different place. Do you know what I’m saying?”
Will exhaled. “Sorry, not a clue. Something about energy?”
“Never mind…” I stood up abruptly, needing to get away from that house, away from Will, away from John. He hadn’t come outside yet but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t. I couldn’t deal with any of this now. “I just want to be on my own for a bit.”
Will stood up and took hold of my hand. “Are you sure? Because I’ll blow off work this afternoon, we can talk some more. I meant what I said.”
I smiled, grateful. “Thanks, but I’ve just got to go.”
I ran off towards Forest Way, trying to think of anything but Emma’s dazed, dirt-smeared face and John’s haunted look of despair.
***
As I strolled back from Emma’s parents’ house, I thought about that book again, with Diana and her dead sister. Maybe I should go back outside The Pit, to where I’d seen Emma that night. Or maybe not. The thought of what that would mean if I did see something (or someone) was just too much to take.
Better to avoid that area for the foreseeable future.
Denial. Denial sounded pretty good.
I walked past Cocktail and automatically looked in through the large glass windows (I’m generally a nosy person, even when my mind is in tatters). Connor was at the bar, seemingly the only bar staff in there, staring into space and looking bored out of his mind. From what I could see, there were only two punters in the entire place and they were sitting far away from Connor in the corner of the room.
Despite mine and Will’s ridiculous conspiracy theories, and despite his rather scary temper, Connor still intrigued the hell out of me, and not just because he was drop dead gorgeous.
Anyway, I decided I needed a big distraction; getting yelled at by a furious Irish man would fit the bill nicely.
He looked up when I opened the door and after a split second of annoyance, his face settled into a welcoming, customer-friendly smile.
I felt extremely nervous as I walked up to the bar and sat down on one of the padded stools. “Hey Connor.”
He put on his best customer service voice. “Welcome to Cocktail, Miss Powers. Would you care to try today’s special?”
I smiled at him, trying to look friendly. “It’s a bit early…”
His smile faltered and his fake voice disappeared completely. “You do know you’re in a cocktail bar? The clue’s in the bleedin’ title.”
I laughed anxiously. “I know, I actually came here to… apologise.”
He immediately seemed more at ease; he relaxed his shoulders and the creases in his forehead smoothed out. “Really?”
“Yeah, I was completely out of order the other night. I’m sorry.”
He studied my face for a few seconds, as if trying to decide whether to believe me or not. Then he smiled, a real one this time. “Thank you. I’m sorry too, I kind of overreacted. Though you did put on a bit of a holy show, to be sure.”
I laughed, relieved he’d forgiven me so quickly. This Connor didn’t scare me at all.
This Connor I could definitely get used to.
“No you didn’t! I screwed up your book club and made an idiot of myself. Did you know I hadn’t even read that book?”
He rolled his eyes. “You don’t say.”
I blushed. “And for the record, I wasn’t stalking you in the cemetery…” I cringed to myself as I remembered following him home with V. “I just heard about the argument from… er, someone else.”
He seemed annoyed that I’d brought up the graveyard again but he obviously didn’t want to get into it now. “Nice and vague, I like it.”
A few seconds of silence followed and while I was trying to think of something to say, a thought occurred to me. “Hey, Connor? That night of the book club, you guys didn’t hear a weird sound outside, did you?” If no one had heard it, then it didn’t bode well. I’d just have to push it to the back of my mind like I did with hundreds of other things.
“What kind of weird sound?”
I hesitated, but only for a second. “Like a kind of laughing, cackling sound?”
Connor started to smile, but his brow was furrowed and he seemed extremely confused. “No… why? Were you cacklin’ outside Rach’s house?”
I laughed again nervously, shaking my head, and as I couldn’t think of anything else to say, I looked at the ‘Specials’ board mounted on the wall. “Never mind… so, ‘Seductive Strawberry’… you know, I think I will try one.”
“Yeah, go on. Start early, that’s what I say!”
I laughed at his response. “You’ll fit in well around here.”
I watched in fascination as he went about his job. He’d obviously worked as a bartender before he came to Little Forest; he made the cocktail so quickly I didn’t even see what alcohol he’d put in. Which was probably where it started going wrong.
He winked (that heart-stopping wink again) as he handed
me the bright red drink in a tall glass, lowering his voice as he said, “On the house, but don’t tell anyone.”
He couldn’t be too bad if he was giving me free alcohol; I guessed he was trying to clear the air after my awkward apology. “Thanks Connor. Thinking about it, a drink is just what I need.”
Understatement of the century. I felt my mind slipping back to that scene with Emma in the semi-darkness and shivered.
He leaned forwards with his elbows on the counter, looking me straight in the eyes. “Are you alright?”
I forced myself to come back to the present. I’d become pretty good at blocking things I didn’t understand from my mind over the past few years, and I wasn’t going to give up now; those thoughts would stay locked up for a while longer yet. “Yeah, I’ve just come from Emma’s funeral.”
Connor’s smile faded, and I wondered briefly if mine and Will’s stupid gossiping about Connor actually had some substance. “Oh, sorry. Did she… get a good send off?”
I nodded, thinking of the whole church singing ‘Jerusalem’ in perfect unison, and Norman unapologetically breaking down. I didn’t even want to begin thinking about the look on John’s face or Will asking me why I’d run out of the house.
I decided not to push the whole Emma thing with Connor. I just wanted some escapism. “Yeah, thanks.” I took a sip of the velvety smooth strawberry cocktail. “Wow, is this your own recipe?”
“Sure. It’s my favourite, too. You like?”
“I like. I definitely like.”
I liked it so much that I ended up having two more, and all before three in the afternoon. Now, I can talk for England, but if I’ve had a few daytime drinks, God help anyone who is within thirty feet of my endlessly moving mouth.
With each sip of the smooth, fruity cocktail I became more comfortable with Connor, and with each top up I found myself actively enjoying his company.
After my second drink, I started giving him the low down on the village and surrounding area; whether he wanted to hear it or not was another matter.
“So, Little Forest is kind of like the social hub for the other villages around here. Renfield and Durwich don’t have their own cinema or club, or cocktail bar, so the people come here if they can’t be bothered to go into Willowton or down to Birston. I moan about it a lot but we have a lot more stuff here compared to most small villages.”
Connor nodded. “I’d noticed. I have to say, when I came here I was half expectin’ just the one run down pub and a local shop that sold weird artefacts and strange things in jars.”
I laughed. “If you’d come about fifty years ago you might have found that. We’re not totally in the dark ages anymore. There’s this local business mogul guy, Henry Windcliff. He runs pretty much everything around here. Before him, Little Forest didn’t have a lot going for it. You know, apart from one run down pub and a local shop that sold weird artefacts and strange things in jars.”
Connor laughed with me.
“You been to Renfield?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “It’s the village directly to our west, slightly smaller than here. They do just as well with tourists though, they have a pub called the ‘Doctor’s Surgery’ and they serve ‘Poison Punch’. You should do something like that here, something gimmicky.”
“People like buyin’ drinks with ‘poison’ in the title? Jesus.” He didn’t look convinced.
By now I was in full on ramble mode. “Yeah… oh, you probably wouldn’t know. There was a doctor in the 1800s or something, he lived in Renfield but actually worked at the doctor’s here in Little Forest. Anyway, he went mental and poisoned loads of his patients. Loads of his family, too, actually… they hanged him in this village, where the market square is now.”
“Wait, he killed patients at the Little Forest Surgery?”
“Yep! Well, on the same site. It’s been modernised since then, but it still has bits of the old building. Actually, there was a doctor in the ‘70s who left the place suddenly, refusing to work there anymore. Some say he started hearing voices coming from the dispensary. Of course, some say that he left because his seedy affair with the receptionist went bad.”
I shrugged before carrying on. “The pub in Renfield is actually in the same building he used to live in. It’s one of those stories that puts this area on the map.” I paused, knowing I was straying into an area I really didn’t want to get into, but with no way of back-tracking now. “Shame it’s only bad stories that put us on the map.”
Connor looked really interested now, and I supposed I couldn’t blame him. Little Forest residents had grown up knowing all of these stories, true or not, and therefore we never really questioned them. People didn’t like to think too deeply about their origins.
“Right, so what other stories are there?”
I searched through my mental catalogue of the many legends that saturated the area. It was kind of fun, finding someone who wasn’t well versed in all the weirdness of Covershire. “OK… well you know the castle, where my dad works?”
He paused for just a second. “I didn’t know he worked there, but yeah, sure.”
“It’s been home to loads of people over the years, but a couple of centuries ago this really rich eccentric villager lived there. He had an affair with his best friend’s wife and it didn’t end well.”
“Sounds like a nice guy! So everyone found out?”
“The friend found out… and murdered him. Then everyone else found out. My dad’s obsessed with the story; he makes all the displays at the tourist centre.”
Connor shook his head. “Jesus… any other lovely stories like that?”
I put some money on the counter and gestured to my nearly empty glass. “More than you’d believe.”
Connor took the money and started making another Seductive Strawberry. The two customers from earlier had left and we were now the only ones in the bar. “And here I was thinkin’ Little Forest was all sweetness and light. Go on then.”
“There’s loads… you should go to the library, they have a whole local legends section.”
“You have a local legends section in the library? That’s so… English.” He smiled, shaking his head at the same time. “I’ll have to check it out.”
“Yeah, they have a kid’s area too, there’s a massive toy dog that’s supposed to be the famous ghost dog that lives at one of the local farms…”
Connor stopped his cocktail preparation and looked up. “Ghost dog?”
I didn’t like the G word. I didn’t like thinking it, and I definitely didn’t like saying it. I blamed the alcohol for making me bring all this up. “Yeah… a friendly one, though, or so I’m told.” I carried on talking, my speech getting faster as the drink took even more of a hold over my words. “Erm… the Abbey is usually surrounded by ridiculous scary stories, mainly because from the outside it looks really, really creepy. I guess nuns are creepy in general though.”
Connor tried to hide a smile.
“Oh God, you’re not religious, are you? Sorry.”
Connor laughed. “Me mam is. Me, not so much. I’ve never been totally convinced by Himself.” He raised his eyebrows upwards in case I didn’t understand who he was referring to. “You’re grand.”
“Good. And, of course, you must have guessed there are a lot of stories about weird, mystical things in the woods. A lot of residents still won’t venture into them at night. Or even in the day, some of them.” I wasn’t exaggerating; some people were downright terrified of entering the forest.
Connor gave me the cocktail. “Why? More murders?” He laughed, but it sounded flatter than his usual laugh, and empty somehow.
I tried not to think of Emma. “Well… yeah. People always seem to be hiding things in the woods, don’t they? There was one body found stuffed into a hollow tree in the ‘40s. Some woman, a stranger. They never found out who she was. A bunch of kids found her.” I shuddered; I remembered when someone in my Year 5 class had found out about the story and it was doing the rounds at school f
or weeks. I’d had a particularly horrifying dream that someone was stuffing me into a tree, and that story had made me cringe ever since.
Connor was staring off into the distance, and I drank more of the delicious strawberry cocktail while I waited for him to come back to the present.
He looked like he was taking this seriously and I was glad I was having a conversation with him that hadn’t ended in shouting. Well, not yet, anyway.
“No one believes them by the way.” I hesitated. “Well, most people don’t.”
Connor looked back to me. “And what about you?”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, not knowing how to answer that question. Instead, I ignored it. “I’m not freaking you out, am I?”
“No, I’m not freaked out. It’s really interestin’, it’s just so… dark.”
I pushed the image of Emma further from my mind and snorted into my drink. “Dark, right. Just wait until this year’s Fright Fest.”
“Fright what?”
“Fright Fest, it takes place over the weekend nearest Hallowe’en. Pretty much everyone from Little Forest, Renfield, Durwich - even Willowton - come to celebrate the weirdness of the area. There’s a parade down Main Street, shows at the castle, and lots of drunken adults dressed as the evil doctor and kids dressed as ghost dogs.” I laughed at Connor’s confused face. “It’s really screwed up, but it brings in the tourists. You won’t miss it, it takes place over three days - it’s a pretty big thing. I usually get roped in to help with the organising, so you probably will too.”
Connor grinned. “Sounds fun. So how do you get to Renfield from here? I might go and sample me some Poison Punch sometime.”
“You literally just take the Forest Way out of the village and keep going. Go past Hill Top Farm, and go straight ahead at the cross roads after that. If you turn left you’ll end up going to Willowton, turn right and you’ll find yourself at the Abbey.”
Connor seemed to be taking mental notes. “Hill Top Farm… now why do I know that name?”
I looked at his quizzical expression, trying to decide if he was being serious. “That’s where Norman Carter lives.”
His face suddenly turned dark; his mouth turned down to a grimace and his eyebrows bunched together. Even his eyes seemed to become darker. “Oh.”
I knew I shouldn’t have, but after a few cocktails I didn’t really have many inhibitions. “What is it with you and Norman?”