Portraits of Celina (20 page)

I am consumed with a beautiful calm.

But eventually, calmness allows my mind to drift. Infuriatingly, it drifts to Celina. Celina and Robbie watching this same sky, locating the same constellations, feeling the same reassurance that life is going to be sweet.
Together forever, sweet pea
.

A breeze tickles the ends of my hair, and I am suddenly cold. Determined to ignore it, I grit my teeth and will the feeling away. But it won’t go. My arms and legs become covered in goosebumps. I flinch and sit up.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Nothing.” I fold my arms across my chest. “It’s just getting cold, don’t you think?”

“Ah – no. It’s hot and it could get hotter.” Oliver gives me a cheeky grin, and beckons for me to join him.

But I can’t. My senses are on overdrive. “Can’t you feel it?” I say. “I reckon someone is watching us or something.”

“Don’t be dumb. Come on, Bayley.” Even in the moonlight, I can see the flush in Oliver’s cheeks, the look in his eyes. And it excites me. But not enough to shake the feeling that someone or something is lurking nearby.

“Really. I can feel it. Someone – over there. On the shore. I feel like someone is watching us. Like someone is following us.”

“Don’t be crazy, Bayley. Come on; forget it.”

“Maybe it’s your pop again.”

I regret it as soon as I say it.

Oliver pulls himself up and back onto the seat with a sigh. “Are you for real?”

“Well, it could be. I keep getting this feeling that he’s following us.” I am trying to justify myself, but know that I am failing.

“Can you leave the old guy alone? He’s not out there and even if he is – what does it matter?”

“It matters to me,” I squeak. “It’s just–”

“You don’t need to explain.” Oliver picks up both oars. “I get the message loud and clear. And you know what? I’m sick of it.” He turns the boat and heads for shore.

I sit stiffly beside him, determined not to cry. The silence is far from easy now. And my heart is breaking because of it.

The last thing I do before going to bed is to write in the notebook.

It’s him. It was Bud, wasn’t it?

I write it out of anger and frustration and, frankly, embarrassment. I have no evidence, only some bizarre kind of intuition that has probably resulted in Oliver never wanting to speak to me again.

Perhaps I am venting. Laying my stupidity onto someone else. But my anger and frustration is making me brave, and it feels right, putting it out there, as though I am somehow taking control, instead of waiting for her Supreme Ghostly Highness to decide when she is going to let me in on her big scary secret.

I wait, and wait. And nothing. Not a peep – only the creak of the front door when Amelia rocks in around two. I think about confronting her. Scaring her as she sneaks up the stairs, but what’s the point? And anyway, I am too exhausted and strung out to be bothered. I listen for her as she slips past my room, and then tunnel under my sheet, sheath myself within it, and pray for sleep to put me out of my misery. It’s obvious Celina isn’t going to reveal anything more until she is good and ready.

I am jolted awake by a loud bang. The moment my eyes spring open, I sense that something is wrong. Terribly wrong. Groggy from lack of sleep, and with only pre-dawn dimness sneaking into the room, it takes a second before I am able to take in the scene before me.

The room is trashed. Stuff hangs out of open drawers, while other drawers rest empty on the boards. The clothes that were hanging in my wardrobe are in a pile on the floor as if they have been flung off the rail in one swoop. Papers and books and make-up are scattered everywhere and the things from Celina’s chest are strewn about as though hurled in a rage. Beside me, the curtain billows out from the window, thrown open wide – wire screen missing. Outside, the air is still, the branches of the Norfolk not moving even a whisper. The lacy material brushes my cheek.

I sit in a squat on my bed, gather the sheet around me and clutch it to me. My eyes are frantic. They dash around the room, taking it all in. I slide my feet to the ground and, with the sheet still draped around me, step clumsily over the items littering the floor, trying to make sense of what I am seeing.

Celina’s portrait lies facedown. I reach down and pick it up, the glass falling out in jagged pieces, the blue crystals from one eye scattering onto the floorboards.

Have I pissed Celina off somehow?

I let go of the sheet and gather up the pile of clothes that have spilled from my wardrobe, weighing up what to do next. My hands tremble as I hang the clothes back up. I slip the last dress onto its hanger and onto the rail and, as I close the wardrobe door, I catch something written on the mirror. I barely stifle the scream that rips from my mouth.

YES BUD

BASTARD!

There is an obvious rage in the way the words are cast across the mirror in what looks like red nail polish. Bile stings my throat. I trace over the words with my finger. The nail varnish, not even dry, stains my fingertip.

Bud! It
was
Bud.
Oliver’s
grandfather, Robbie’s father – the man who lives right across the lake and seems to be stalking me, the man who I saw by the jetty that night. The man who, let’s face it, I have known from almost the beginning was the one.

Oliver’s grandfather!

Oliver’s grandfather killed Celina.

The weight of this awful knowledge drops me to my knees.

I don’t know how long I sit on the floor, unable to move, my brain clogged. I can’t seem to wrestle out a single clear thought. My phone beeps, the noise coming from within the mountains of stuff covering the floor. On hands and knees, I push aside clothes and books to locate it. It beeps again, and suddenly it becomes all-important. I have to find that phone. But where is it? I become frantic, tossing stuff out of the way like a madwoman until I spy it lying under my bed.

There are two messages. One from Loni and one from Oliver.

I open the message from Oliver.

Hey
, it says.

Hey? Is that all he can come up with? His pop is making me live a nightmare and I have no idea what to do and all he can say is, hey? Stuff him.

The phone beeps again, startling me so much, it jerks out of my hand.

Oliver. Again.

Sorry about last night. Want to do something later?

I toss the phone onto my bed. Oliver can wait.

I become aware that the sun is well and truly up now, the bird and insect choir in full swing. I hear the bathroom door close and the sound of someone doing a wee into the toilet. I look around the room. I have to clear this up before someone sees it, because frankly, how would I explain it? They’d be escorting me out in a straitjacket if I even try.

I start with Celina’s things. I roll up the purple scarf and put it on my bed – I’ve grown curiously attached to it. The rest of her things I fold and place back into the chest. I place her portrait, glass fragments, missing eye pieces and all, on top and close the lid, wishing it was that easy to close the lid on this whole Celina horror movie.

It doesn’t take long to tidy the rest, and now I am left with Celina’s message on the mirror. I snatch my nail polish remover from the drawer beside my bed and stand staring at the words, tissues in hand. I hesitate. This is the only evidence – flimsy though it is – that I have. I grab my phone and take a photo, then get to work scrubbing off the ghastly truth.

There is only a horrible red smear left, like a bloodstain, when my door opens and Seth peers into the room. His eyes are owl-like and his face paler than normal.

I put the tissues on the floor, and crouch beside him. “What’s up, mate?”

He shrugs, his chin quivering.

“Hey, you can tell me. Did you have a bad dream?”

Seth nods and nuzzles into my shoulder.

“What was it about?”

“Nothing. I don’t remember. But I got really cold and really scared.”

“Well, it’s only a dream. Don’t let it worry you.”

Seth wiggles out of my hold. “It stinks in here.”

He’s right; it does. I close the door to keep the smell in. “Nail polish remover. I spilt some.”

Seth points at the mirror.

“Yeah, I tripped and spilt the nail polish on the mirror. Don’t tell Mum. She’ll be cross if she knows I’ve been a klutz.”

Seth squints at me, tugging at his ear.

“Deal?” I say.

He nods.

“Let’s go down and get some brekkie then. Is Mum up?”

“Nah. No one is. Just me.”

“Perfect,” I say. “Let’s cook up a feast for the two of us, eh?”

I take his hand and we tiptoe down the hall. And I am very glad to leave my worries hidden behind my closed door, if only for a while.

Sitting here on the end of the jetty, with the mechanical thump of nail guns from the verandah reminding me I’m not alone, I stare across at Lakeside, consumed with a hideous feeling of foreboding.

What am I supposed to do? Tell someone? Mum? Gran? Deb? Confess everything to the police? To Oliver? And what would I say?
Hey, Celina O’Malley’s ghost has been writing to me and told me Bud Mitchell killed her
.

Yep, that might work.

Every way I look at it, it’s useless. A definite case of
be careful what you wish for
. What does Celina want me to do? Expose Bud? Seek her revenge? But how? When? Why? Then I remember her words:
Make him pay, Bayley. Make him pay
. Crap! I become goosy all over. How am I supposed to do that?

I wonder if Celina feels let down or anxious. Waits almost forty long years to disclose the horrid truth, only to divulge it to a coward who hasn’t a clue what to do. A coward who has been hanging out with the accused’s grandson; a coward who, if she cares to admit it, is falling for said grandson. Am I willing to risk that? For something that happened in the distant past? For a ghost?

Is exposing Bud worth losing Oliver? Worth destroying his family? Haven’t they suffered enough already? Haven’t I suffered enough? Is there no end to all this? I think Celina may have chosen the wrong person to reveal this to. She can disclose whatever she likes, but she can’t make me do anything about it. Can she? Scratch that. I don’t want to think about the answer to that question. After the fury Celina unleashed on my room this morning, I suspect Deb could be way off in her belief that Celina wouldn’t even hurt a cockroach.

There’s a creak of wood behind me and I turn to find Amelia walking down the jetty. She is wearing nothing but her pink bikini. Towel over her shoulder, over-sized sunglasses sitting on the end of her nose, my red bangles jangling up her arm, she struts down the boards as if on a catwalk. I notice the turned heads of three of the guys working on the verandah, the smirks on their faces as they watch her.

She slides elegantly beside me, and drops my mobile in my lap. “Don’t say I never do anything for you,” she says, pushing her sunnies up the bridge of her nose. “It’s been ringing and beeping nonstop. Must be the bogan boyfriend.”

I stare at her. She really is a dick. I must be adopted.

“Quit staring, pinhead. And what have you been doing in your room – you’ve stunk out the whole house. Mum’s on the warpath – says you’ve given her a migraine. I think it’s those workmen. Wish they’d hurry up and finish and get the hell out of here.”

I don’t bother answering. I scroll down through the list of messages and calls. Most are from Oliver. A couple from Loni and one from Deb. I wonder what she wants. I push myself up to my feet and head off down the jetty, away from my adopted sibling.

“A ‘thank you, sis’ wouldn’t go astray,” she calls.

“Thank you, sis,” I say, turning and bending in an elaborate bow, before marching away.

I swallow hard and call Oliver. He answers on the first ring.

“Hey. Where’ve you been?” The blood rushes to my head at the sound of him.

“Here.”

“I’ve rung like a hundred times. I was about to row over.”

“Sorry. I had my phone off.” There is intensity in Oliver’s voice that is unsettling. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I was an idiot last night, crazy eyes. I …”