The Family Game by Catherine Steadman (87)

At the maze’s entrance, I raise my right hand to the wall and start to run, branches whipping across my open right palm as I go.

“Fiona,” I call ahead, doubting a response but eager to interrupt whatever might be going on ahead of me. Then I recall that when I was talking to Fiona earlier, she was carrying a shovel.

It’s only now that I wonder why.

It crosses my mind that she might be waiting for me in here. She has a weapon; this could all be a trick of some kind. And just as I’m thinking how unlikely it is that Fiona might want to hurt me, I remember what the baby inside me stands to inherit. Everything she would get would be taken from Fiona’s children. People have killed for much, much less.

I round the next corner and pull up short. There is a spray of blood in the snow, the ground disturbed, like in the aftermath of a struggle. Beyond the patch of scrambled mud and meltwater, I see another set of footprints in the snow. Someone was waiting in here for her. She must have run straight into them. The new set of footprints is the only one that continues on into the maze, but the red drip continues with it, a red dotted line in the whiteness.

Something about the trail of blood up ahead makes me steel myself. I finally release my right hand from the maze wall and raise my weapon in both hands. I pause again before the next corner as I take a steadying breath before propelling myself around it.

A monstrous stone fountain looms over me and I stumble back, surprised to find myself at the heart of the maze. My gaze darts around the center of it, searching for a person, but there is no one here. I shuffle hesitantly around the fountain to make sure. Snow fills the fountain’s tiers; no water is flowing from the gaping mouths of fish and sea creatures, which instead seem to scream silently up into the moonlight. I shiver. Lila was right; it is a creepy fountain.

Carefully I continue to make my way around the center of the fountain, following the line of blood, and as I do the shovel Fiona was carrying comes into sight. The soil beneath it has recently been turned. It is a mound; there is something buried beneath. A shallow grave.

In the silence the soil gently moves and I fly back from it, letting out an animal noise as I do. Whatever is under there is still alive. I edge closer to it once more.

“Fiona,” I whisper gently, and from my tone it’s clear I don’t really want an answer.

The mound remains still and I step closer. It suddenly shifts and I leap back again, hand to heart, as its soil crumbs tumble and settle.

I dive to the ground and use my numb hands to scrape the soil away from her. A hand, an arm, a nose, lips, and, for a second, I really think she might be okay. But when I clear the soil from her face I see the wide set of her mouth and the dirt filling it. I continue to uncover her, scooping her onto her side, into the recovery position, but as I turn her, I feel a warmth spread across my own stomach, across my arms. I look down and see the thick blood pouring from her, congealed and soupy brown. I release her back onto the dirt and see the wound in her abdomen: deep and wet and dark. I gently place a hand on her chest; she’s warm, but not warm enough. I hold for a heartbeat but there is none.

One of her legs kicks out again, reflexively, and I realize what is going on. Cadaveric muscle spasms. You can learn a lot of things researching novels. Bodies can move even after death: muscles contract, mouths open, faces twitch. I pull back from her, my arms and coat thick with her blood, the skin of my arms and thighs drenched in it. Fiona is dead.

I jerk up to standing, my breath coming in sharp snatches.

The game, already terrifying, just kicked up a gear into something else entirely.

Robert is picking off members of the family. It suddenly occurs to me why I might be here: my USP. I have a history of violence, and now Fiona’s blood is all over me. I was also one of the last people to see her.

I realize how easily her death could be pinned on me. Anyone’s death could be pinned on me. Robert has literally invited me here to get away with murder. He’s sent me on a wild goose chase around the property in order to give himself time. I will take the blame for this if I don’t end up dead myself. I need to stop him.

I rise, remove my phone from my blood-soaked puffer coat, and pull it off, wiping as much of Fiona’s blood from me as I can before discarding the coat entirely.

I abandon the paperweight, grabbing the shovel instead, and head out of the maze. Fiona said she’d seen either Stuart or Edward outside too, and with a jolt of terror I wonder if I am too late to warn him.

I dial Edward’s number on my phone. The game has changed; none of us are safe.

Edward answers after one ring. “Where are you?” he huffs, his breath short, his concern knocking the emotion clean out of me. Wherever he is, he knows what’s happening too. Floodgates open inside me.

“Ed, something awful is happening,” I say to him, my voice quivering with cold and fear. I look down at my trembling body in a blazer dress and trainers, my arms filthy with mud and blood and God knows what else.

His voice is a whisper when it comes; he must be hiding inside the house. “I know. Same here. Listen, listen to me, Harry. Are you safe where you are?”

I look around at the moonlit garden. “Um, I think so,” I tell him.

“Great, where are you, exactly?” he asks, and there’s an urgency in his voice. “Tell me and I’ll come get you.”

“Is everyone okay there, Ed? Is everyone in the house okay?”