Chapter 1
Liz
June, 2017
Saturday, 7:17pm
We’re wet to the bone, teetering on tipsy feet and laughing as we reach the front door. Adam scoops me up and takes a wobbly step forward.
‘You don’t have to do this!’ I protest, though I’m secretly thrilled. ‘We don’t even live here!’
Adam grunts and digs determined fingers into his pocket until I hear his keys jangle. He fumbles with the lock and kicks the door open. ‘Well, it’s ours for the time being. And I want to. I want to do this right.’ He flashes me a dazzling smile as he carries me over the threshold. ‘Welcome home, Mrs Dawson.’
My heart feels so full it might explode. ‘You’re a sap,’ I tease, but I love that he’s doing this.
Inside, we trip about peeling off sopping clothes before tumbling into bed. His hot mouth on mine, those determined fingers finding all my spots, I’m devouring him while being devoured. It will never be enough.
Afterwards, still catching my breath, I murmur, ‘Shit. I hope the neighbours didn’t hear.’
I know Adam’s smiling, though at some point during our frantic coupling the room had grown dark. ‘I hope they did.’
‘Adam!’ I shove his shoulder. ‘What if there are kids next door?’
There’s a merry plink! as Adam turns on the bedside lamp. He stretches out his long, broad torso, still tanned from San Sebastian, and yawns. ‘I was kidding. No one would have heard. Nobody lives on this side of the creek.’
‘Oh?’ I pull the blankets up around my neck against the evening chill. ‘Nobody lives in any of them? But there’s, what, eight?’
Adam shrugs. ‘They’ve all been abandoned.’
‘But could people be on the other side?’
‘Not sure who’s there now. I think Rob and his wife still live in the middle house; they’re a bit older than you, I think. And I used to know the couple who live in the end house. Erica and Samir. Bit older than me, been there since the old days.’
‘Ah, yes. The golden summers when you and the lads gallivanted around town, breaking hearts.’
A smirk steals over Adam’s lips. ‘Long before you were born, of course.’
I smile. It’s silly, I’m only eight years younger than him, but it gives me a thrill to think of myself as the younger woman. I think Adam likes it, too.
I kiss him and snuggle against his chest, breathing in the smell of my new husband. My husband! His arms close around me and he presses his lips to my forehead with a tenderness that steals my breath. It’s impossible, this kind of bliss.
Adam’s breathing slows and evens and I feel myself slipping with him, down into oblivion.
***
2:07am
I wake with a start. For a moment, I don’t know where I am. My head is fuzzy with jetlag and the remnants of too many drinks. What exactly were we celebrating this time? And then I remember. All those months of dreading it and now we’re here. We’re actually here.
I glance at my phone and smother a groan. We must have fallen asleep just after dark and now it’s only, what … around 5pm, UK time? It would take a miracle for me to fall back to sleep. Just as well I’m prepared.
Glancing at Adam’s hazy silhouette, noting the slow rise and fall of his chest, I slip out of bed. I’m still naked, so I throw on my fluffy winter robe and some slippers and tiptoe out the door. It’s cold in this house, draughty. The wind blowing in from the water is like ice. As if it weren’t bad enough that we had to come here, we’re doing things the wrong way around. Sacrificing summer for winter.
Padding across the uneven floorboards, I approach the staircase that leads to the loft. Our honeymoon luggage sits at the foot of the stairs; unpacking seems too much like giving in and I can’t fathom it yet. The thought of the next couple of months makes my jaw clench, but it will be okay soon – at least for now – because my sleeping pills are somewhere in that luggage and when I take one, I’ll be out like a light. The luggage can be tomorrow’s problem.
I unzip the front pocket of my carry-on and slip my hand in until I hear the tell-tale crinkle of foil. As I pull my hand back, something comes with it: a crumpled pack of the Camel cigarettes we bought in Champagne. I smile and slip the cigarettes into the pocket of my robe, pop two pills from the foil pack and swallow them dry.
It’s still raining, but only lightly now. I can hear the pitter-patter on the roof beyond the loft. An eerie light bathes the stairs in a pale glow; I don’t know this house yet, but I imagine it’s the moon shining through the loft’s bay window. It should be safe up there. Adam won’t smell the smoke.
I lift my foot to ascend the staircase when I hear it – a sharp, high-pitched keening. My foot pauses on the stair. I don’t need to wonder at it; it’s the most universal sound in the world. The sound of a baby crying.
I must be imagining it. Adam said that no one lived on this side of the creek. I tiptoe up the stairs and on to the creaky wooden floor of the landing. It smells of mould and dust. The wailing continues, louder up here. I get a shiver, as I always do at the sound of a crying infant. A flash of porcelain skin, a halo of soft, downy hair and blue eyes flash through my mind and I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the image away.
I’m either going mad or there is undoubtedly a baby crying nearby. Where is the sound coming from?
Pulling my robe tighter around my body, I approach the window. Moonlight touches the windowsill with its icy fingers and when I look up, sure enough, the moon is full and low in the night sky.
The cries have reached fever pitch; I’m tempted to cover my ears. Leaning close to the glass, my breath mists its dusty surface and my eyes are drawn to another light across the water.
A wide, oblong window marks the top floor of a house, the middle of the three identical houses visible from this side of the creek. The creek must be at least ten metres wide, but sound travels across water, especially at night. The flanking houses are dark, but in this dimly lit window a shadow flickers and a figure appears. It’s a woman; I can see her quite clearly, swaying to and fro like a branch in the breeze. Thick hair, dark red or auburn – it’s hard to tell from here – tumbles over pale, rounded shoulders. She’s nude, Botticelli-esque in the soft lamplight, cradling a child to her chest.
The wails ascend like a siren. The woman rocks and sways and the infant squirms as she presses its tiny face to a large, white breast. Her hair falls over the child, her gaze on its face, and there’s a stab of something, sharp and deep, in my chest.
The woman stills, straightens. She turns to the window. It’s as if she’s seen me; she’s looking right this way. I’m paralysed for a moment, unable to breathe. She stands, motionless, as the child’s cries ring through the night.
The sound reaches an abrupt end, as if a switch has been flicked. And then the woman moves swiftly, and the light goes out. The window reveals nothing but blackness.
Chapter 2
Dee
December, 2016
Thursday, 7:59pm
I can see the lights flickering on in the house across the water. It’s that time of year, high summer, so I’m guessing the Dawsons have arrived. The father, at least, and maybe the son, although I hear he’s moved abroad. I used to wonder about the mother. I saw her once, all shiny silver bob and powder-blue cashmere, carrying boxes. Now she visits once, maybe twice, a year. Town gossip is she ran off with some Frenchman when the son was only six.