As she moved to enter the front bedroom, she thought she heard a noise from the box room. She paused, breath held, heart thumping. No, it was just the pipes in the attic. She took another step and heard it again. One hand flew to her mouth and the other to her stomach. Acid rose into her throat and the black spots returned to her vision.
‘Is there anyone there?’ she said, once she had found her voice.
Silence.
What had she heard? Was it the thud of a footstep? Don’t be silly.
‘Hello?’ she said tentatively.
Should she run or stay? Reaching out a hand, she pushed open the box room door. There couldn’t be anyone here. Only she and Jeff had keys, and they’d been in and out most days over the last few months.
She took a step inside and screamed.
The animal lunged at her, scratching her face with one vicious swipe. Its claws caught in her hair, and she flailed at it, trying to dislodge them. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it fled, and she slid down the wall, her body convulsing in tremors. How had a cat got stuck up here? The room was empty, except for an old chipboard wardrobe standing in one corner. She’d joked with Jeff that if they turned it on its side, they wouldn’t get another thing into the room. Now it seemed to glare at her as if it was threatening her, with one of its double doors slightly ajar. Had the cat been in there? Maybe it had kittens and was only trying to protect them. Could that be why it had attacked her?
She really didn’t want to remain alone in the house any longer. But something continued to niggle on the inside of her skin, pushing up the hairs on her arms. And she wanted to find the skull.
Still crouched against the wall, she waited and listened.
There was only the rattle of the pipes overhead and the dripping of the tap in the bathroom. Nothing else apart from her own breathing.
Getting to her feet, she moved towards the wardrobe, its partially open door challenging her to peek inside. She pulled it outwards quickly; too quickly. The handle came away and the nail that had held it in place impaled itself in her hand.
‘Shit!’ She looked at the blood oozing from her hand. She’d need a tetanus injection for sure now. She was about to turn away, to go down the stairs and out into the fresh air, when her eyes were drawn to the shelf at eye level inside the old wardrobe.
The tiny skull.
Eyeless sockets staring at her.
She turned and fled.
Thirteen
‘I really hate school, don’t you?’ Sean Parker leaned against the canal bank wall and kicked out at his rucksack. The canal skirted around Ragmullin, and he liked this section because it offered seclusion from the school down the road.
From under his too-long fringe he eyed his friend Ruby O’Keeffe. She had a cigarette in her mouth and a lighter in her hand and was trying to look cool, which was difficult dressed in her school uniform. Her hair was styled in a short dark bob and her cheeks had a few acne craters, but Sean supposed she was pretty. He liked her, but not that way. They shared an interest in gaming and had become good friends when his school turned co-ed last year.
‘Want one?’ she said, offering him the packet.
He shook his head as he looked down at her. Ruby was tall but nowhere near Sean’s height. He was almost six foot. He’d turned sixteen in April, though his mother still treated him like a child.
‘You know I hate them. My dad died from cancer and now my mam’s friend, her boyfriend, has leukaemia.’ Sean dropped his eyes to the grass at his feet to avoid Ruby’s watchful stare.
‘Did your dad smoke?’ She pulled her light jacket around her waist. Sean knew she was self-conscious about her weight, but she looked fine to him.
‘No.’
‘If it wasn’t the fags that killed him, you need to chill out.’ She lit the cigarette.
Sean watched her blowing smoke out the other side of her mouth, away from him. ‘Boyd, that’s my mam’s boyfriend, he smokes.’
‘Does he still smoke even though he has cancer?’
‘He has an e-cig, but I’ve seen him sneak a cigarette a couple of times.’
‘Do you like him?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You don’t think he’s trying to … you know … take your dad’s place?’
Sean couldn’t put his finger on the reason why, but this remark annoyed him more than Ruby’s smoking.
‘No one could ever take my dad’s place. Boyd knows that. He’s a nice guy. He’s good to my mam and to me. He notices me. Do you get that?’
‘Yeah, I do. That’s good, you know; it can’t be easy living in a houseful of girls.’ She grinned.
‘Tell me about it.’ Sean gulped down a breath of fresh air, catching the entrails of Ruby’s cigarette smoke. His two older sisters were crowding him out of the house. Even his little nephew Louis was a pain in the arse at times, now that he was walking and pulling everything from the cupboards.
‘He’ll eventually come to live with us,’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘Boyd.’
‘Have you got a room for him?’
Sean had given this a lot of thought and wasn’t sure he liked it very much. ‘He’ll probably share my mam’s room.’
‘That’s gross. It’s like … disrespecting your dad or something.’
Now Ruby had truly pissed him off, because this thought had plagued him over the last few months. Despite that, he felt he had to stand up for Boyd.
‘It’s five years since my dad died. I think Mam’s entitled to some happiness,’ he said defensively. ‘Anyway, the house we shared with Dad burned down and we’re living in a rental now. All our stuff went up in flames, Dad’s stuff and—’
‘Hey! I was only saying.’
‘Yeah, and everyone else will be saying it too, but I don’t care. I like Boyd.’
‘But … will he die on you too?’ Ruby threw down the butt and scrunched it out with her shoe.
‘Shut up. Come on, we’ll be late back to school.’
‘We’re already late,’ she said. ‘We should have stayed in Pizzaland.’
‘The pizza was gross. Anyway, I’ve computer science now and I don’t want to miss it.’ Sean picked up his school bag and hoisted it onto his shoulder. Ruby’s words bounced around in his brain, knocking at the inside of his skull. She had asked the one question he was terrified to answer.
Death.
When would it come knocking on his door again?
Marianne O’Keeffe closed her laptop. Two thousand words wasn’t bad, even if it was all rubbish. First drafts were universally terrible, she’d heard. Hers were anyway. Perhaps that was why she had yet to have a book published.
He would be here any minute. The appointment had been agreed weeks ago, but she had to be sure Kevin would be at work, so she’d rung the office half an hour ago to confirm the visit could go ahead.
She sprayed a dash of her best perfume behind her ears. Millions. Not like you’ll ever make millions, Kevin had said the Christmas before, when he’d presented her with the expensive perfume in a gift set. ‘I will if I have my way,’ she muttered as she spritzed her hair and down her legs for good measure. She grimaced in the mirror, thinking how Kevin hadn’t even paid full whack for the perfume. The skinflint. She’d found the Boots half-price sticker on the back of the box. She was sure he’d left it there on purpose.