Glimpse (13 page)

Scott stood up when he saw me. He looked from me to his dad and back again. He didn’t smile. ‘What’s up?’

I held up the piece of paper, dirty now with my fingerprints. ‘This is what’s up. Have you been in my room?’

Crowley slid the paper from my unresisting fingers and opened it.

I kept my eyes on Scott. He blanched, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. ‘No,’ he said, ‘why would I?’

‘What is this?’ Crowley held the paper up, so the word ‘FAMILIAR?’ was visible. ‘Scott?’

Scott said nothing. He refused to look at the note.

‘Why on earth do you think my son was in your room?’ Crowley asked me.

‘Someone took a painting from my granddad’s closet,’ I said. ‘They left the door open and dust all over the carpet. Then they left the painting on my bed, with that note. It definitely wasn’t my dad. Scott was upstairs this morning, so it must have been him.’

‘Really—’ Scott’s voice was low and desperate, as if he wished I’d shut up ‘—it wasn’t.’

Crowley stayed silent. ‘What was the painting of?’ he asked, not taking his laser-beam gaze off Scott.

‘A girl at a window,’ I said.

‘Well, that sounds very odd.’ Crowley pulled his thumbnail hard over the fold in the paper, zip, zip, zip, as though he was about to rip it apart. ‘Very odd.’ He looked back at me. ‘But I don’t see why Scott would do that.’

Crowley’s gaze was solid and cold. He didn’t blink. Zip, zip, zip.

The certainty I’d felt a moment ago that Crowley would be on my side fell away.

‘You don’t think it was Scott?’ My voice was flat.

‘He says it wasn’t him. It certainly doesn’t sound like anything he’d do,’ Crowley said. ‘Scott can be a joker, but this doesn’t seem very funny. I was out this afternoon, probably your dad had friends over in the day and one of them went sniffing around.’

I looked from Crowley to Scott, letting my disbelief and outrage do whatever they liked with my face. Crowley’s expression was hard and very still in response. Scott was pale, his eyes trained on his father.

‘This is stupid,’ I muttered under my breath. I looked at Scott. ‘Don’t go in my room again.’

There was nothing else I could say. I stomped past Crowley’s fat stomach and outside, not bothering to close the door behind me.

Propped up in bed in my pyjamas, I studied the painting by the light of my bedside lamp. I was still sure it was Scott’s doing, but it unsettled me that I didn’t know why he had left it in my room. That aside, it was hard to keep my eyes off it. Something about the painted girl kept dragging my gaze to her.

I got out of bed and padded to the mirror hanging over the painting. I swept my plait over my shoulder, then, feeling slightly silly, turned my profile from one side to the other in the age-spotted mirror until I found a pose that looked something like the girl’s.

She looked so calm. So sure of herself. Maybe that was why I couldn’t stop looking at her. I’d made a friend since coming to Hulbourn, and I’d managed to avoid the weird things about me becoming general knowledge, but I still didn’t feel the self-confidence the painted girl clearly had.

I was more determined than ever now to tick off the points on my Normality List. I refused to turn out like crazy Meg. All I wanted was to recover the real Liz, the Liz I’d been before the car accident, and get on with my life.

I climbed back into bed. I was meeting Zachary tomorrow, I reminded myself. If anyone knew how to stop seeing Glimpses, if anyone could give me answers about my past, it was him.

In my dreams, I’m the painted girl.

I open my eyes and sit up in bed. Excitement leaps in my chest. Anticipation. I’m not sure what for.

Familiar shadows toss and turn against the far wall of my bedroom and with a jolt I remember – Zachary! I jump from bed and run to the window.

Joy saturates me as he steps from the shadows at the base of the tree trunk. He smiles, his face lighting up the night.

There’s a posy of wild flowers in his hand. His golden hair and green eyes and the blues and reds of the flower petals have taken all the colour from the world for themselves. He takes a rose from the bunch, throws it up to my window for me to catch and press to my chest.

A thorn snags my skin, and I flinch. Something warm and wet runs down my finger. But when I look down, there’s no mere trickle of blood, my hands are slick with it.

After dinner on Saturday evening, I excused myself as soon as seemed reasonable, telling Dad I was going to read in bed then get an early night. He’d never have let me leave the house alone if he knew what I was really doing.

Up in my room, I shrugged an old blazer on over my navy tea dress and slipped my phone into my pocket. Then I crept back down the stairs, hoping Dad wouldn’t hear the floorboards creaking over his TV show, slipped on my pumps, and darted outside into the waning light.

I couldn’t believe this moment was here. I’d been nervous all day – worrying about lying to Dad; worrying that Scott or Crowley would see me; worrying that Zachary wouldn’t be there, or that he would; worrying that I wouldn’t get back before Dad found I was gone.

I crunched as fast as I could across the gravel by the outbuildings, head down, and darted into the woods that bordered the inn.

It was only 6.30, but there was less than an hour of daylight left, and it was already close to dark under the trees. The air was damp and cool and smelled of rotting leaves. I wound between the trunks, stumbling over roots and through clumps of ivy and mulch, trying not to panic. Tonight was about getting answers, about reclaiming my life – about facing my fears and laying them to rest.

But I couldn’t deny that I was very alone, about to meet a boy who was practically a stranger to me. To talk about Glimpses and ghosts. My blood raced in my veins, and I had no way of slowing it.

I’d taken a good look at the woods from my bedroom window, and guessed that if I walked through them in a straight line it would take just a few minutes to reach the field on the other side. To my relief, a dull light broke through the tree canopy and dappled my blazer. Up ahead, the flat plain of a field was visible between the trunks. I was there.

I stopped at the final line of trees and looked around. I wrapped my arms around me, against the chill of the evening. ‘Hello?’ I called into the field.

No one answered. Disappointment drowned out my flicker of relief. Perhaps I’d got the wrong time, the wrong place. Or maybe the boy had decided not to come.

‘Elizabeth.’

He was here! I turned in the direction of Zachary’s voice. For a moment, I didn’t see him; then, as if he was an optical illusion, he materialized before me. His clothes, his red-gold hair, blended so well with the hues of the trees that he appeared almost more woodland animal than boy. Then he lifted a black-gloved hand in greeting, and beamed his huge smile, and some of the tension released from my muscles.

‘You came,’ he said, as he walked closer. ‘I wasn’t certain if you would. I was concerned I might have frightened you to excess the other night.’

‘It wasn’t the most relaxing night of my life,’ I said. ‘You left me with a lot of questions.’

Zachary stopped under one of the trees next to me. He was just as tall as I’d remembered – I had to crick my neck back to look at his face – and built solid as the tree trunk. I could see the muscles in his arms as he leaned back against the bark, supporting his weight.

I did my best to look calm. If he wanted to hurt me, he’d had plenty of chances already.

‘Good.’ He smiled. ‘We both have questions for each other then. I’ll abide by tradition and let the lady go first.’ He pushed his weight off the tree trunk and held a gloved hand towards the field. ‘Shall we walk?’

I stepped out of the shadow of the trees after him and into the field. In the dimming light, Zachary’s skin was as luminous as it had been in moonlight, his eyes as vibrantly moss green.

I hesitated, and glanced behind me into the dark woods. ‘Actually, I’d rather stay near the inn. I don’t want to be long.’

He turned his whole body to face me. ‘I realize I’m asking a lot of your trust. But you have my word – you can trust me.’ His eyes darted over my shoulder, towards the woods. His voice turned grim. ‘We were disturbed last time we spoke, and we have a strong chance of being disturbed again if we remain near the inn. If we are to speak properly, we should move further away.’

I remembered the tap-tap-tap of the Glimpse-feet outside my door, and everything inside me tightened. But I still hesitated. I wanted answers, but being here at all – with a stranger who looked, I now realized, strong enough to lift me under one arm and run off with me if he wanted to – was already so risky.

‘Answer one question first,’ I said, ‘so I know you’re for real.’

He hesitated, then dipped his head. ‘Ask away.’

‘You said you saw me when I was little.’ I bridged the space between us, my hand at my locket. I opened it and held it towards him. ‘Did you know her?’

My whole body burned as he leaned down to look at the tiny picture between my fingers.

He drew back and looked at me. ‘The older lady? Your mother?’

I nodded. He knew!

‘I have seen her before. But a long time ago, just like I saw you.’

‘So you haven’t . . . seen her spirit?’

‘No.’

I nodded again. I closed my locket with a click. ‘If I come with you, will you tell me what you remember of her?’

‘I will.’

I felt for the reassuring shape of my phone in my pocket. ‘Come on then. I want to be home before it’s properly dark.’

Zachary set off down the side of the field, keeping in the shadow of the trees. I had no idea where we were going; presumably – hopefully – just away from the inn so we wouldn’t be overheard by anyone, or any . . . thing.

I walked by his side, my hands in my pockets. Even though it was chilly, my palms were sweating.

‘I have so many questions,’ I said. ‘I don’t know where to start.’

‘Begin with the basics.’

‘How long have you seen Glim—ghosts?’

‘For almost as long as I can recall.’

‘Have you always seen them?’

‘No.’

‘What made you start?’

He paused, considering. ‘An encounter with death.’

That made sense. The Glimpses had only started for me after the car crash that almost claimed my life. ‘Same for me,’ I said. ‘But if you’re not Scott’s friend, how did you know to find me at the inn? That’s the part I don’t get.’ I looked down at the furrowed soil, watching my feet move back, forth, as I waited for his answer.

‘I’ve been visiting the inn for a long time,’ he said, as if choosing his words carefully. ‘I witnessed you seeing a spirit.’

I frowned. ‘But the other night was the first time there was a ghost around at the same time as you.’

I looked sideways at him. He looked back at me. His face was set, but his eyes scrutinized me like I was the part of this that didn’t make sense.

‘It astounds me that you don’t know,’ he said.

‘Know what?’

He gestured ahead. We’d almost reached the end of the field. A blackberry hedge blocked our way. ‘Follow me to the road, and I’ll show you.’

Before I could ask what he meant, he darted forward and disappeared through a gap in the hedge with the ease of a person half his size.

I looked back the way we’d come. The inn’s roof poked through the trees in the gathering dusk, and it looked a long way away. An owl hooted, making me jump and reminding me how close we were to nightfall.

‘I don’t want to go any further,’ I called.

‘Trust me.’ Zachary’s voice floated through the hedge. ‘I promise you. One minute longer and you’ll be in full possession of the truth.’

I bent to look at him through the brambles. He gazed steadily back at me.

I sighed. Too late to turn back now. I shoved myself into the hedge. Thorns ripped at my tights and tangled in my hair, tugging some of the curls loose from my plait.

On the other side of the hedge was the road Zachary had promised. It crumbled at the edges into an overgrown verge. The white lines painted down the middle were faded out to barely there, and a little further along the way this road met another, forming a crossroads.

Zachary walked to the crossroads. He stopped on the grass verge there, his arms poised at his side like a boxer’s, his back to me.

I followed him, uncertain. When I got close, he turned around, and my whole stomach tightened. His jaw was clenched, making his face appear angular; the effect was to highlight his scar. His chest rose and fell under his brown sweater, like he was full of adrenaline.

‘I’ll tell you the truth now,’ he said. ‘You should prepare yourself. I don’t want you to be alarmed.’

I had no idea what he could tell me that could be so much worse than ‘I know you see ghosts’, but there was something, and I was afraid to hear it. I hugged myself tight. His gaze on me was intense, hopeful and fearful at the same time.

‘Okay.’ I sounded stronger than I felt. ‘Tell me.’

‘Elizabeth, there is a reason I knew you could see spirits from the first time I saw you.’

I raised my eyebrows.

‘It was because you could see me.’

My brain ground to a halt, then started up again twice as fast. ‘What?’ I snapped.

‘The inn has been my second home for centuries. That’s the reason I’d seen you before, that’s how I saw your mother, and that’s why neither of you saw me. My physical body was buried here.’ He gestured at the grass beneath his feet. ‘I’m spirit.’ He said it without flinching.

Tears pricked at my eyes. I hardened my jaw, not letting them out. He’d lied to me, made me look such a fool.

‘I should have known I couldn’t trust you.’ My voice trembled. ‘Scott put you up to this, didn’t he?’

‘No. I speak the truth.’

‘Yeah, right. I’m not an idiot!’ I looked at the hedge. I should just run. I couldn’t believe I’d let this happen. I’d known it was dodgy, him just turning up at the inn. I’d seen Scott watching us. I was beyond stupid to have thought he could help me.

The pain and humiliation and disappointment were so strong, they burned in me like acid. I had to get out of here before I corroded. I refused to let him see me cry.