The sky from the office window looked almost turquoise, like the sky from a manga cartoon. It was going to be another hot day.
Monday, July 28th. 9:35 a.m. Office/nursery. Hot and sunny.
Gordon and Penny left together in their blue Fiat at 09:34 a.m. Old Nina’s lamp is on as usual in the front room window of the Rectory. Jake Bishop is cycling around in a figure eight in the middle of the road. He stops now and then to look at his phone and then carries on. Leo left for work earlier in his car that sounds like a tank.
Leo was Jake’s older brother and was famous in our area. On his last day of high school he organized a group of kids to lift the headmaster’s car and wedge it between the school gates. A crane had to be hired to get it out. A photograph of this, along with the headmaster watching through his hands, made the front page of the local paper with the headline:
SCHOOLBOY PRANK CAUSES HEADACHE
Not long after Leo was approached by the owner of a local garage who said he liked his initiative and would he be interested in an apprenticeship? He’d worked there ever since and could regularly be seen taking his silver Mini to pieces on their oil-stained driveway.
“Jake! Your inhaler!” called Jake’s mum, Sue, from the doorstep of number five. She went back inside, leaving the door ajar.
Jake did two more figure eights and then sped toward his driveway, his legs pumping furiously, braking just at the last second before hitting the step. Discarding the bike with a clatter he went in, slamming the door.
I sat back in the office chair. My reflection in the computer screen showed a blank face with hollow eyes, my skin almost translucent. I rubbed at the small dent of a scar above my right eyebrow, which seemed more noticeable than usual. I hated that scar. It was always there: my little reminder. The beetle in my guts twisted.
Callum would have been five now, probably incredibly annoying and fussing over me all the time, wanting my attention. He’d be getting to the age where he’d be embarrassed by the baby-yellow walls, maybe asking Mum and Dad for a new “big boy’s bedroom” with a dinosaur theme. The elephant mobile would have been packed away in the attic as Dad painted the room a prehistoric green. When it was ready, I’d appear with my old tub of dinosaur figures, which I’d found at the bottom of my wardrobe.
Here you go, Callum. You can have these if you like.
He would have skipped around his room shaking the tub excitedly while I pretended to be irritated, telling him to calm down a bit. He’d yank his new T. rex duvet off his bed to create a large, swirling mountain in the middle of the room. Tipping the tub of figures upside down, he’d make each one walk up the fabric’s winding pathways, finishing with a mighty battle between a triceratops and a brontosaurus at the top. I’d wander off, leaving him roaring and squealing in delight.
It might sound strange, but I miss the brother I never met. The one who died because of me.
My daydreaming was distracted by voices in the street. Melody was at the end of the alleyway beside Old Nina’s house, attempting to get across the cul-de-sac and home to number three. It looked like she’d been on one of her secret trips to the graveyard again. She had some small pieces of white paper in her hand.
Jake was circling around the road, blocking her way each time she tried to cross. Her long hair was tied back and she was wearing black leggings, a black T-shirt, and the same old black cardigan. The only evidence that she was aware we were in the middle of a heat wave were the bright pink flip-flops that slapped against her feet as she walked left and right, trying to get past. He was saying something, but I couldn’t hear what. Finally he pedaled off, and I thought he was leaving her alone, but then he raced back, skidding to a halt just a few inches in front of her. Melody flinched, not looking at him. Stepping to one side, she went to go forward but bluffed him, turning away and walking in the opposite direction, toward my house. Even though I was watching, I still jumped when the doorbell rang. I stayed at the window but stood to one side so I couldn’t be seen. The doorbell rang again as Jake shouted at her.
“Why aren’t you answering my texts? Who do you think you are, ignoring me?”
He’d stopped at the end of our path, his bike barring her exit. I could see the top of Melody’s head as she waited for me to answer.
“What ya knocking at his house for? I thought dead people were your thing, not freaks.”
He threw his head back and laughed, showing the bright red creases of raw eczema in his neck. My stomach was in knots.
The doorbell rang once more and then Melody turned away, giving up on me. When she reached Jake at the end of our path she said something quietly to him, but I couldn’t tell what. Her head was low, her hand up to her face as she chewed on a nail. This wasn’t the happy, chatty girl I’d met in the doctor’s waiting room.
Jake leaned forward on his handlebars and glared at her. She tried moving from one side to the other, but he just rolled his bike back and forth, blocking her way.
“You’re forgetting the magic word, Melody.”
She mumbled something else.
Jake put a finger to his chin as if he was thinking about letting her pass but hadn’t quite decided yet, and then he leaned toward her and grabbed her wrist. Twisting around, she looked straight up at me. She must have known I was there all along, watching her like an idiot. I held her gaze for a moment.
“Please, Jake, just let her go,” I whispered. He held up his phone and started taking photos of her before she managed to wrench her arm away and shield her face.
“Come on, Melody. Smile! I’m going to keep this one forever.”
I couldn’t bear it any longer. I raced downstairs and opened the front door using my shirt to cover the handle.
“Hi! Melody! Sorry about that, I was in the back …”
Jake scoffed. “Oh I see, the weirdos like to stick together, do they? You know she’s only got a thing for corpses, don’t you?”
He tipped his head back as if he was going to do that horrible snorting thing he does, but then he stopped, his mouth open as he looked across the street. The door of the Rectory had opened and Old Nina stood there watching us. After a long moment she made her way carefully down the steps to her gate. Very slowly she lifted her arm, and a long, white finger unfurled as she pointed directly at Jake, his mouth still wide as he stared back at her. Melody quickly ran over and stood beside me in the hallway. Jake hurried to get his foot on the pedal of his bike and then he turned around and sped off down the road. Old Nina dropped her hand, and Melody and I watched as she went back inside and the door of the Rectory was closed once more.
Melody paced around our small hallway, her flip-flops slapping against her feet as I tried to dodge her movements.
“Did you see that? Old Nina chased him off! Do you think she saw him being mean to me?”
“I don’t know, Melody.”
I looked down at her flip-flops on our carpet.
“He’s such a nasty piece of work. Ha! I can’t believe he ran off!”
She walked up and down, up and down. I felt dizzy. I wondered if I should ask her to take the flip-flops off inside the house, but then I remembered the verrucas.
In her hand she had some small, white pieces of paper, which she must have gotten from the graveyard. They looked like business cards. Maybe it was something to do with the church. A choir, perhaps? No, they didn’t have one. I knew this from Callum’s funeral and our feeble attempts at singing “All Things Bright and Beautiful” over my mother’s sobs. The black beetle woke up deep within my stomach. Its sharp little feet began to dig in as it scurried around again.
“He’s gone now … You can go back home if you like …” I said. I was going to pull the door open a bit more, but I didn’t want her to see me use my shirt to touch it.
“He was scared, Matty! He actually looked scared.”
She stopped and stared at me as I huddled in the corner. Beads of sweat began to run down my face.
“You okay? You’re not going to faint again, are you?”
I shook my head and tried to look calm, even though I wasn’t feeling it.
“I reckon he thought she was casting some kind of spell on him, don’t you? Did you see her finger? Maybe Jake knows something because he lives next door to her and he’s seen something we haven’t. Do you think she’s a witch?”
Her flip-flops slapped again as she walked back and forth.
“A witch?”
Melody was grinning at me, thrilled from the excitement of seeing Jake beaten for once. I must admit it did feel good seeing him scared, but at that moment I was more concerned about the tiny pieces of black fluff from Melody’s cardigan slowly appearing on our carpet. My heart was pounding. The girl in my hallway—the girl who hung out in graveyards—needed to leave immediately.
“And what about that lamp in her window? What’s that all about? I’ve never ever seen it turned off.” Melody was jumping up and down, and she clapped her hands together. “Maybe it’s some kind of beacon! Like a symbol to other witches that a real witch lives there! What do you think?”
I watched her for a second as she practically bounced off the walls, but when she saw my face she stopped.
“Matthew? What? What is it?”
I risked her seeing me use my shirt as protection and opened the front door widely as she stared at me.
“I’m sorry, Melody, but I’m really busy at the moment. Can you go?”
She looked outside, then back at me.
“What?”
“I said, can you go?”
Lots of little lines crinkled across her forehead and her bottom lip protruded over her top lip as she took in what I’d said.
“But … but we’ve got things to talk about. Don’t you want to discuss Old Nina?”
I shook my head.
She blinked at me a few times and took a step toward the door.
“But you let me in. You let me in when Jake was being mean!”
I could feel the germs from her cardigan nipping at my ankles, burrowing their way under my skin. The feeling brought tears to my eyes.
“I didn’t mean to. I made a mistake.”
She pressed her lips together and glared at me before stomping out of the house and across the street.
I quickly slammed the door and ran upstairs.