The Shadow House(13)

Ollie was standing in his old bedroom in Stuart’s house. He’d tried to disguise it by covering the back wall with a bedsheet, but I could see the corkboard poking out and the edge of his RL Grime poster. He’d dragged his desk into the middle of the room and was sitting behind it, holding a large cardboard box with a fold-over lid. He was wearing blue surgical gloves.

He introduced himself, then explained how he’d purchased a ‘mystery box’ from the dark web using bitcoin. ‘I literally have no idea what’s inside,’ he said, ‘so I’m a little nervous to find out.’

His voice was weird; he’d affected a faux-American accent.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’m opening the box. It has a small tear in one side, but otherwise it’s undamaged. Okay, I’ve got it open, I’m going in … ew, the whole box reeks.’ He waved his hand in front of his nose. ‘Okay, okay, oh my god, wait a minute. There’s something in here. I can’t quite make it out, but it looks like a bag? It is, it’s a lunch bag.’

He pulled out a pink lunch bag with a picture of a butterfly on the front. ‘Oh, yuck, it stinks. I don’t know why, but it does.’ He unzipped it. ‘There’s, like, this smell coming from inside it. And look at these stains.’ The bag was streaked with a rusty red substance. ‘Is there anything inside it? Yeah, I think there is.’ He peered inside, then his eyes returned to the camera. ‘Guys. This looks bad.’

Reaching into the bag, he pulled out a small yellow T-shirt with a unicorn motif. The T-shirt was grubby and stained with the same rusty marks as the lunch bag. He also pulled out a ball of twine. A USB stick. A mobile phone. A roll of black bin liners. And a small plastic bag of white powder.

I pressed my fingertips into the corners of my eyes. What had I just watched? What was going on? Trying to understand my son these days felt like opening a door to a pitch-black room and peering around inside. Where the problems had once been more or less simple (toilet training, temper tantrums, unexpected questions about death), they were now so far out of left field I couldn’t keep up. It was, of course, all my fault. I’d been so busy with the move, so distracted by Kara and the logistics of leaving Stuart that Ollie had been left largely unsupervised.

Fuck.

It was just one problem after the next, like the Hydra’s heads. You chopped off one and two more sprouted immediately in its place.





ALEX





5


Outside, the sun had passed its highest point and was now on the downslide to the ridge, passing behind tiger stripes of cloud and painting them pale gold. Sloshing a glass of the wine Kit had brought, I sat on the bottom step and breathed in a lungful of sticky-sweet afternoon air. The cicadas were loud, a noisy chorus of lovesick men, as were the village kids returning from school, but underneath it all I could hear the familiar clatter and roll of a skateboard. Ollie hadn’t gone far, then.

I sipped the wine – a little vinegary but drinkable – and watched the clouds for a bit, then I checked the mailbox just for something to do. It held a single piece of brown Kraft paper, torn from a roll and folded once; junk mail, I assumed, or a community round robin. But when I opened it up I found the house-shaped box I’d seen in the woods, drawn with what looked like a black Sharpie.

Putting my glass down, I smoothed out the paper. The three symbols were clearer here than they had been on the trees: the one at the apex looked like a wishbone, and the two at the bottom were a stick figure and what might’ve been a teardrop.

I glanced around. There were people about – a neighbour pegging out laundry, a boy riding his bike – but no one was lurking nearby, watching me. I looked back at the piece of paper. What did it mean? And why was it in my mailbox?

‘Hey,’ I called as the boy on the bike pedalled towards me. ‘Hey, kid, can you help me with something, please?’

The boy slowed and eyed me suspiciously. He was about six or seven with matted hair and bare feet. His T-shirt showed a picture of the Earth; the slogan said, There is no Planet B.

‘Can you tell me what this is?’ I held out the piece of paper and tapped the drawing.

The boy craned his neck. When he saw the mark, he stiffened. Shot me a look from beneath his floppy fringe. He looked nervous.

‘Someone put it in my mailbox,’ I said, ‘and I don’t know what it means. Can you tell me?’

‘It’s a house,’ said the boy. There was a gap in his front teeth where the top two had fallen out.

‘And what’s inside the house?’

The boy looked down at the drawing then quickly away again. ‘Things,’ he said.

‘Okay. What kind of things?’ When he didn’t reply, I pointed at the first of the symbols, the one that looked like a wishbone. ‘What’s this one?’

The boy’s eyes bounced from me to the drawing and back again. He scratched his nose. ‘A bone,’ he said eventually.

‘Hmm. Thought so. And this?’ I pointed to the stick figure in the bottom left corner.

‘A doll.’

I nodded and tapped the third symbol. ‘This one is a teardrop, right? Or rain?’

‘No,’ said the boy. ‘That’s blood.’

‘Blood?’ Despite the heat, I shivered. ‘Is it a puzzle or a game? Like, a scavenger hunt or something?’