The Hiding Place(81)

I never did. Just like I never told anyone how I saw him that day.

Chris’s death had put me in a kind of paralysis. I had hidden the bag in the shed, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t seem to get my head in order. Every time I thought about the bag I saw Chris lying on the ground, his oddly deflated body, the thick, dark blood. So much blood. And then I would think of my sister.

Sometimes, I wondered if I was the one going crazy. Maybe there was nothing wrong with Annie. Maybe the knock I’d taken to the head had done something to my brain. Maybe I was imagining it all.

I was finding it hard to concentrate in school. Remembering to eat, to have a bath—those things didn’t seem important anymore. My long, repetitive treks around the village became longer and longer. One night, a police officer stopped me and told me to go home. It was almost midnight.

I woke several times a night, clawing at the air to escape the nightmares. In one, Chris and Annie stood on a snowy hill. The sky shimmered behind them, a dappled candy-pink. The sun was black, haloed by a silvery light, like an eclipse. Chris and Annie looked perfect again, whole. Like they did before they died.

All around them, there were snowmen. Big, round, fluffy white snowmen with long, twiggy arms and lumps of shiny black coal for their eyes and mouths. As I watched, their crooked smiles twisted into snarls.

You can’t stay here. There’s nobody here but us snowmen. Go back. GO BACK!

The sun plummeted below the horizon. Chris and Annie disappeared. The candy-pink sky bubbled and boiled, darkening to a deep crimson. Flakes started to fall. But not white. Red. And not flakes. Blood. Huge, fat drops of blood that burnt like acid. I fell to the ground. My skin was melting from my bones. My bones were melting into the ground. The snowmen watched with cold, black eyes as I dissolved into nothing.


—



The next morning, I knew what I had to do.

I got dressed in my school uniform, like usual. I left at the normal time. But my bag contained a few other items packed carefully under my textbooks.

I walked briskly out of the house. I didn’t head down the street, toward the school. I headed up, toward the old pit. They had fixed the broken fence. Put even more warning signs up. Danger. Keep out. Trespassers will be prosecuted. There was supposed to be a man from the council who patrolled the site to make sure no other kids got in there. But I didn’t see anyone this morning as I walked slowly along the perimeter. It didn’t look so secure. The fence was still a bit wobbly, and there were gaps between the mesh panels. It didn’t take long for me to find one that was just about big enough for me to squeeze through. Although it was a squeeze. My school blazer caught on a sharp bit of wire and snagged. I tugged it free and felt it rip. I cursed. Mum would tear a strip off me for that. Or she would have done before. Now, I realized, she probably wouldn’t even notice.

I trudged on, up the hill. It looked different this morning. It was cold, but the sun was shining. It didn’t exactly brighten the place but it did somehow soften its sharper, bleaker edges. It also threw me a bit. Which way was the hatch? At the bottom of the next steep rise, or was it the one after that? I stood and looked around. But the more I looked, the more uncertain I felt. Panic began to nibble at the edges of my stomach. I needed to be quick. I couldn’t be too late for school.

I started one way then changed my mind and doubled back the other. Everything looked the same. Shit. What would Chris do? How did he find it? And then I remembered. He didn’t find it. It found him.

I stood and breathed slowly. I didn’t try to think, or look. I just let myself be.

And then I walked—to my left, up one rise, down and then up another, steeper hill. I scrabbled down the rocky slope. At the bottom was a small hollow, shielded by scrubby bushes. Here, I thought. I couldn’t see it. All I could see was rubble and rocks. But I knew it was here. I could almost feel the ground humming beneath my feet.

I approached cautiously. Trying to train my eyes not to scan the ground. Not to look too carefully. And it worked. Suddenly, I made out the shape of the hatch in the earth. I crouched down. Up close, it wasn’t quite closed. There was enough of a gap for me to wedge my fingers underneath and move it. I tried and, satisfied I could do it, I lowered it down again. I didn’t plan on going down there right now. I couldn’t turn up to school covered in dirt and coal dust. Plus, I couldn’t risk someone spotting something and coming up here to investigate.

I had to come back later. When it was darker. When I could do what I needed to without anyone stopping me.

For now, I took the items I had carefully packed in my bag and hid them beneath a scrubby bit of bush. Then, because I didn’t want to run the risk of not finding the hatch again when I came back later, I draped an old red sock I had brought with me around one of the branches. It would do. The first part of my plan finished, I stood and made my way back out of the site and down to school.


—



The day dragged, yet it also went too fast, in the way it always does when you’re waiting for something, yet also dreading it. Like a trip to the dentist’s or the doctor’s. I’d happily have traded a pulled tooth for what I had to do this evening.

Finally, the bell rang and I walked out of class, worried someone might call my name or stop me, half hoping they would. No one did. I didn’t hurry, though. I still had time to kill before the day started to fade to dusk.