He tilted his head to one side, his voice soft. “Your car had crashed. I found you. You were bleeding out, so I brought you back here.”
She closed her eyes. She remembered driving into the forest. But what happened after that? She strained, but even though scraps of memories teased the edges of her consciousness, they stayed blurred.
Dorran was watching her closely. The scrutiny made her feel self-conscious. She pulled the blankets a half inch higher. “I don’t remember crashing.”
“Sometimes traumatic events can erase the memories immediately preceding them.” His eyes flicked towards her arm. “You lost a lot of blood. But there are no broken bones. You were lucky in that regard.”
She didn’t feel lucky.
Dorran rose. He was moving slowly, but Clare still flinched as he walked around her bed. “I tried to call for an ambulance,” he said as he opened a massive wardrobe. “But the storm has brought down the phone lines, and the roads are impassable. We must stay here until the storm clears.”
Clare looked at the room’s double doors. “Is there anyone else here?”
“Just us.” He returned to her side and draped a dressing gown over the back of the chair he had been sitting in. “This is one of mine, but it is clean. Will you need help putting it on?”
“No,” she said quickly.
“Then I will bring you some food. You were asleep for two days. You will be hungry, even if you don’t feel it yet.”
Clare watched him cross to the door and let himself out. All of his motions seemed careful and precise, as though he considered every movement before he made it. Once the door clicked shut, she held her breath and listened. Footsteps gradually faded. They seemed to go on a long way, though. How big is this place?
Still holding the blankets around her throat, Clare grabbed for the dressing gown. It was thick and too large for her. She struggled into it as quickly as she could, jarring her arm in the process. She squeezed her eyes closed and hissed as she waited for the pain to fade.
He says I crashed. Did I? I’ve driven down the Banksy Forest road hundreds of times. I know it like the back of my hand.
She gingerly slipped her feet over the edge of the bed. The floor was carpeted, but it still felt cool, and her toes curled. I’ve never seen any sign of a property inside the forest. Around it, yes. Farmhouses and barns. But inside? He’s lying. Isn’t he?
She tried to stand. Her legs threatened to buckle again, and she clutched at the bed’s headboard to stay upright. Her body seemed to have forgotten how to walk. She had to gradually coach her legs through the process of balancing and carrying weight, and even then, she staggered when she tried to step forwards.
A table along the closest wall held a collection of odd items. As Clare passed it, she recognised her shirt. She grabbed it, but as it unfolded, she saw dark stains spread across the blue fabric. She touched them, but they were dry.
She flipped through the rest of the items gathered on the table, including her jeans, her shoes, and her bracelet. Everything was tinged with blood, even the jewellery.
Again, she tried to remember what had happened. She pictured her home, the little rural house she’d bought for a bargain and fixed up. It had been a Sunday morning. She’d woken up early, brewed a cup of coffee, and prepared to curl up in her reading nook for a few hours, like she did every Sunday. She’d run errands and cleaned the house the day before. The following morning, she would be back to her job as an assistant at the nearest town’s bookstore, unstacking new deliveries and returning misplaced books to their designated spots. Every day of the week had its fill of responsibilities, except for Sunday. Sunday was for relaxing.
But everything after brewing the coffee was a confusing fog. Scraps of memories and sensations taunted her. She’d been driving, but she couldn’t remember why. She’d entered Banksy Forest. Beyond that was a blank slate.
Clare used the walls and furniture for balance as she made her way to the windows. She was laboriously slow. Every step was an effort, and when she finally reached the wall and rested her weight against the window ledge, she was breathless.
She pulled back the curtain. The window reached nearly to the ceiling but was only about as wide as her shoulders. Dark metal divided the panes. She looked for a latch to see if she could open the window and climb through, but its supports only allowed it to open a few inches. She would need to find a way to break them if she wanted to use the windows as an escape.
Clare leaned closer to the window and shivered as cold air rolled off the glass. She looked down to check how far away the ground was and discovered she was much higher than she’d expected. The shrubs poking through the snowdrifts looked miles away. She had to be on the third floor, at least.
Steeling herself against the cold, Clare pressed her cheek to the glass to see along the building’s length. One wing curved away in the distance. The house was immense—there had to be hundreds of rooms.
Everything about this is strange. I’ve never seen or even heard of a house this large. Where am I? Her eyes burned, and she rubbed her hands over them to quell the tears.
When she looked straight ahead, she could pick out small shapes amongst the endless white. One looked like a cottage. Others might have been greenery—trees or shrubs, she wasn’t quite sure. And far in the distance, a massive dark shape, like a giant wall, ran across the horizon. It was barely visible, but as she watched it, she thought she could make out the tips of pine trees.
Is it… could it be possible… that it really is Banksy Forest?
The door clicked, and Clare shrank back into the curtains. Dorran paused in the doorway, a tray held in his hands, then he nodded at the chairs and table spaced around the fireplace. “Come and get warm.”
Clare watched the door as her companion nudged it closed behind him. She tried to draw strength into her voice. “Can I have my phone, please?”
“I didn’t find one with you.” Dorran placed the tray on the coffee table. “Everything of yours is on that bench.”
“Then… do you have a phone I could borrow?”
“I am afraid they won’t work.”
She looked for signs he might be lying, but she couldn’t read him.
He lifted his shoulders into a shrug. “It is as I said earlier. I tried to call for an ambulance. I have continued to try since then. The lines are down.”
She wasn’t ready to believe him. If she could just get a phone, just try calling Beth—
Wait. I remember…
It was just a flash, but she thought she saw herself going through those motions in the car, dialling a number and growing frustrated when the call wouldn’t connect.
Who was I calling? Marnie? No… Beth. I remember calling Beth. The snow was disturbing the signal and disconnected us. I tried to call her back because she would worry if I didn’t.
Beth was worried. Worried because…
The memory danced away before Clare could grasp it. She had a vague sense of deep, crushing unease, as though they had heard very bad news. It felt like something out of a nightmare. Maybe it was a nightmare, a terrible dream she’d had while in the stranger’s house, and she was conflating it with reality.
Dorran was watching her, standing beside the table, patient but expectant. The scrutiny felt too intense, and no matter how thick the dressing gown was, it didn’t seem thick enough. Clare couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. “Bathroom?”