Unfinished Business (The Shades of Northwood 3)

  “This is wrong. So so wrong.”

  It was halfway through Katie’s shift at the club and she was more bored than anything. The last couple of weeks at Shimma had seen a steady drop in numbers as people started to get back into the swing of their studies and partying took a backseat. There were still a good few dozen hanging around the bar and sitting in seats and a clump of bodies writhing together on the dancefloor, but she was nowhere near rushed off her feet. Less shouting voices to drown out meant the music could be a little quieter. So that was a bonus.

  A couple of the other staff were covering the floor and the other end of the bar. It was running like a well-oiled machine for once. Everyone was getting their order orders quickly and they hadn’t messed up once; no-one had fallen over or started a fight; there was not even any graffiti in the toilets (it was her job to check). She shoved a glass under the rum optic and added a splash of coke. Then repeated the action with vodka and cola. “It feels weird, serving you.”

  “It’s weird being served by you.”

  Katie slid the two glasses across the bar to Adam and glanced behind him to where Lainy was ripping it up on the dancefloor. “She’s… energetic.”

  “We both needed a night out. It’s been a long couple of months.”

  “Yeah. I guess I haven’t exactly been the poster child for house guests.”

  “No, it’s not just you but you know… with Dina and everything. She feels really responsible for not noticing.”

  “There’s nothing either of you could have done. I mean, who knows what was going on inside her head.”

  “Dina’s got this idea she’s going to die soon.”

  “We all die sometime, I guess.” She decided to leave out the par where Dina had been literally standing on the very edge of death not so long ago. It was for the best. “Hey. I’m going to see a psychic at the weekend. Maybe she’ll tell me everything’s going to be fine for the rest of the year.”

  “You think so?”

  No. Not even slightly. But she just gave a crooked smile and shrugged. “We’ve been through the mill, huh? I’ve lived here – what? – six or seven weeks and where-ever I go, there’s trouble or danger.”

  Adam leaned over the bar and touched her arm. There was a neon yellow line painted down the middle to show clubbers how far they could go without getting bounced but she would waive the policy just this once. “It hasn’t gone unnoticed.” She frowned at him but no further explanations were forthcoming as Lainy started to make her way over to the bank of worn out leather loveseats and flopped down into one, breathing hard and sweating. Adam turned and went to walk away but Katie called him back. “Hey. You going to pay for those?”

  He did. After sorting out his change and serving lager and peanuts to some lads watching football on a tablet computer, Katie shot a look at the couple on the loveseat, cuddling and giggling, playing with each other’s hair like loved up kids and sighed. When Lainy had decided to go back to nursing, the pair had been on rocky ground. It had been touch and go whether they would make it for a couple of days. The whole thing had seemed to revolve around Lainy going back to work too quickly but Katie had picked up on the slightly too long pauses before they answered he questions, the flash of shadows and secrets when Lainy tried to spin a story, the flash of panic in Adams when he thought he shouldn’t answer a question truthfully.

  “Hiya!” A new, cheerful voice broke into her thoughts. “Margherita time!” it was Marcie.

  “Night out?”

  “Mrs Daeburn’s sitting Freddie and probably sending him hyper on that blue pop. Which means I’m out for a night on the razz.”

  “So you came here?”

  “It’s not so bad. Good music… usually, good company and good prices.” She thought about it for a second. “Plus, there aren’t a whole lot of other choices around here.”

  “And I thought you were here for the scintillating atmosphere.”

  Katie stirred her friends’ drink to create bubbles and watched them dissipate. It was a little trick she had developed to keep the aggressive ones calm while they waited, and it ha just become habit to do it every time now. Marcie slid over some coins, downed her margherita in one with a shudder and pointed towards the cooler and a bottle of her own blue pop.

  “I’m due a break.” Katie uncapped a bottle of alcopop and one of orange juice. She followed Marcie over to a cluster of tables and hopped up on one of the tall barstools. “Anything interesting happening in your world?”

  “Absolutely nothing. Getting a bit tipsy tonight might liven things up for a while. The cast. It’s gone.”

  She had clean forgotten that the weight on her wrist had gone. A hospital appointment earlier in the day had shown Dr de Rossa that her broken bones were beginning to knit back together, so he had decided to replace the heavy, clunky cast with a tight and stiff brace. It was still looped close to her chest but it was much more wieldy. “They want to see how I get on with this for a while.”

  “Did they let you keep it? I kept Freddie’s when he broke his leg learning to climb stairs. All the babies did hand prints on it. I’ll have to show it to you one day – it’s really cute.”

  “Uh-huh,” she agreed. “I didn’t keep mine. I don’t want a reminder of how I got it.”

  “You never told me.”

  “There was a fight when I was trying to help my friend. She just grabbed my wrist and squeezed until I screamed. She didn’t mean it though – I know she didn’t.”

  “Sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself more than me.”

  “I know she didn’t mean to. She just wasn’t in her right mind.”

  “And this sparked the whole ‘I need to learn to fight back’ thing?”

  Had it? Was the real reason she had been pestering Adam to teach he self-defence because she was worried one of her friends might turn on her once again? It didn’t seem right. Then again, plenty of things didn’t seem right in Northwood. “Recently, a lot of people have hurt me and working here makes me a lot more vulnerable. I don’t want to be an easy target.”

  “I still can’t believe you got a job here. I mean, you wouldn’t even get in if you were legal age.”

  Thanks, Marcie. I want to lose my job for being underage. “Seems you have to be 18 to do a lot of stuff around here. All the fun stuff anyway.”

  “Trust me, things are not all they’re cracked up to be.”

  “Mikey!” Katie yelled out, and signalled to their fast emptying bottles. He brought more over and frowned at her. “Five minutes more.”

  “We’re hardly snowed under.”

  “Still. I’m not going over my break”

  “Suit yourself.” And then he wandered away.

  “So, any exciting plans for the weekend?”

  They had fallen into a tradition recently of spending the afternoon and evening together every Saturday – a film and dinner with Freddie and then wine and a film after he was in bed. Marcie hadn’t been at all happy about letting her drink or watch 18 certificate films, but Katie had assured her it was all fine. After all that had happened, she doubted there was much left to scare her. “That new animation with the talking food comes out tomorrow. We should take him to see that.” Taking the kid to the cinema was also a good excuse for Katie to see all the films she was excited about but to embarrassed to go and see alone. “And then I’ve won this free reading with a psychic. Mademoiselle Romani. You ever heard of her?”

  “Mademoiselle Romani!” The name alone seemed to get Marcie bouncing around. “Oh, Katie, she’s meant to be really good. I’d kill for one of her readings.”

  “You should come with me. Maybe she can do you at the same time. It should be a laugh at any rate.”

  “Don’t you believe in that stuff then? It’s pretty good if you remember it’s open to interpretation.”

  Katie drained her juice and glanced at her watch, tilting it this way and t
hat until it caught the light just right. “I haven’t made my mind up yet.”

  When she got home at half past eleven that night, she walked into a silent house. And it wasn’t the comfortable kind of silence which meant everyone was asleep. No, this was the strained silence of a house that had just seen another row. Not the kind of atmosphere she would go to sleep happy in. But finding out what the row had been about this time seemed like it might take a while. Conflict resolution was so not her job. The adults could deal with it but the kitchen, their usual stomping ground, was empty. Lainy and Adam must both still be at the club, even though she couldn’t remember passing them on the way out. A bowl of fruit salad lurked in the back of the fridge. Quieting her roaring stomach sounded like a very good idea. Taking her fruit through to the living room and knowing she was walking straight into the eye of the storm, Katie noted that Dina was curled up on the sofa with Jaye sitting protectively at her side. Leo was on the edge of the chair opposite them and staring the girl down. No-one noticed her in the doorway.

  “You don’t hate me. One day, you’ll be like me. And you’ll never want to be anything else,” said Jaye after a while.

  “Look at her,” replied Leo, flapping his arms at an oblivious Dina. “She never wanted to be one of you.”

  “She was scared.”

  “And she thought she found a solution. But you couldn’t let her go, couldn’t not bring her back. And now look. You call this a life, knowing it’ll all be over soon?” He carried on speaking but Katie wasn’t in the mood to listen to any of it. She took the rest of her fruit salad up to bed and sat in her room eating it. Nights were starting to get chilly now, but they were still a good way above the sub-zero the thermometer would read in the next month or two. Even so, Katie swapped her shoes for fluffy slippers and her clothes for cosy PJs and a dressing gown. There. Eskimo chic. Just as she was settling back down to the rest of her snack -

  KNOCK KNOCK

  A moment of silence. If Katie was really quiet then maybe who-ever was knocking would assume she was asleep and go away. It didn’t hurt to hope.

  KNOCK KNOCK again. The door cracked open and Dina poked her head through. She looked around then slid all the way in, closing the door firmly behind her. “Hey. Is it okay if I come in?”

  Katie didn’t bother answering because the other girl was already in. Instead, she waved her into the desk chair, easing her aching wrist onto a pillow. It was cushiony and took away the dragging effects of gravity. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “Just pretending. I was listening to the others though. Why do they think they have the right to debate my life and death and whatever happens – or doesn’t happen – after it?” Dina pushed her short dark hair back and repeated the action over and over, nervously. “I mean, how can they know what will happen to me? Maybe I don’t deserve to come back after what I tried to do.”

  “Dina, of course you deserve it. I doubt you’d still be here if you didn’t.” She badly wanted to go over to the girl and hug her, pat her arm, something to make her feel better, but she wasn’t sure yet how comfortable the older girl was with hugs. Katie herself wasn’t the most touchy-feely person in the world but a good cuddle eased any kind of pain.

  “I know we haven’t really talked since… the hospital.” Dina fell into a silence.

  Katie dropped her head until she was staring at the carpet. That week or so when Dina had been clinging on to life by straws and the entire house had taken shifts beside her bed had been one of the longest in memory. How much did Dina even remember about what had happened? “Things have been kind of crazy since – well, since I turned up. Maybe none of this would have happened if I’d never come here.”

  “But it probably would have and there’d have been nobody around to save me.”

  “There’s-“ The name about to trip off her tongue stuck in her throat.

  “I wanted to believe it was Jaye. I kept trying to tell myself it was her.”

  “But you knew it wasn’t?”

  “It was. Everything about Her was Jaye… just meaner.” In her coma, Dina had been whisked away into the End Place – a world which served as a kind of limbo for souls who had died before they were meant to. It was an oddly beautiful place. The weather was cool and calm, the land was a verdant green, but there was no life. Literally. The Shades there were the only life. And they were only alive in the very loosest sense – hanging somewhere between death and life, whilst it was decided whether they were ready to be a ghost. “She pushed me to the edge and I thought… I thought I was going over. It was that close. And I was so scared.”

  “Everyone was scared.”

  “If I’d known what was going to happen… Anyway, it doesn’t matter now, does it?” She shrugged, her pale brown skin glowing in the full moonlight coming through the curtains. The scars on Dina’s wrist were barely visible in the harsh day but were like pink slashes in her even skin. She saw Katie staring at them and quickly pulled her jumper sleeves down further to hide them. “It doesn’t scare you?”

  “Only if I think about it.”

  Dina sat for a moment and thought about it herself. Katie had risked so much to save her life a few weeks ago – was it fair that she had to die herself after all that? Well, no, nothing in this town was fair. In all honesty, no-one had asked Katie to come running to the rescue. Make no mistake, Dina was grateful that she had, more grateful than she would ever have the words for, but the young girl was too feisty; she was going to get herself in real trouble one day.

  Katie drew the curtains and then slept. She saw herself do it but when she woke up, she wasn’t in her bed, her house, nor any part of town she recognised. She didn’t know where she was or how she had got there. It didn’t seem to matter. What was important was that she had fallen asleep while there was still a job to do. Only she had no idea what that job was. Wait… something was coming back to her. Run. She had to run.

  Ahead of Katie stretched a long white corridor. The floor she was sitting on was cold and smooth – bleached out concrete. Her back screeched when she tried to get up. Must have been asleep, half lying there on the floor with her shoulders and neck twisted awkwardly into the wall for hours. Funny how she didn’t ever remember falling asleep. Slowly, Katie eased herself to her feet and stretched up. Her rightarm was no longer looped to her neck. It didn’t even feel sore.

  RUN. You need to run NOW.

  Where the voice had come from was unknown – everywhere and nowhere at the same time. But it didn’t sound like the kind of voice she could afford to ignore. In one direction was an endless looking stretch of corridor, gradually darkening the further it went. Behind her was a shorter corridor and this one had a thin rectangle of shadow where another corridor emptied into it. Right along the left wall were small windows at waist height and set deep into the wall. She crept over to one window, tiptoeing though not knowing quite why, and peered out. There was nothing outside. Not nothing worth noting or nothing much. Just, literally… nothing. Grey swirled beyond the glass. Slightly different shades of grey all drifting through each other and this was interesting/boring when something unexpected happened.

  The glass rattled.

  Something practically took hold of it and shook it.

  Katie yelped and jumped back. She wanted to go closer and see if there was anyone out here, anyone at all. Footsteps, too many sets of them to count, shuffled towards the corner of the corridor. Toes of shoes, trainers, boot, peeped over the edge.

  I told you.

  The wall Katie was backed up against was oddly smooth. She smacked her palm against it, suddenly remember she was here to do something. This was happening to her because she wasn’t doing it. Wasn’t running.

  Run and they’ll follow you.

  “I’ll take my chances,” Katie breathed as those feet crept closer. She glanced behind her to make sure no-one else was coming from the other dir
ection, trying to close her down, and when she turned back, bodies filled the opening.

  Breakfast was already on the table. Cereals and toast. There were two spaces at the table - Dina, who had decided to take some time off college to get her confidence back and was probably still in the land of Nod, and Adam. That absence was more unusual. He was always buzzing around the kitchen, trying to feed everyone to bursting point.

  “Hungover?” Katie asked.

  “He decided to spend the night with some friends. I expect he’ll be back later.” But Lainy didn’t look convinced.

  Sharing breakfast that morning was a strained and quiet affair. Civilities were retained, and violence did not erupt – something to be thankful for – but neither was there that ebb and flow of friendly ribbing. Katie was the only one who had not been on the sharp end of an argument, and had no grudges to bear. For once. “Anyone going to finish that?” No-one answered so she took the last slice of toast and spread butter on it.

  After breakfast was done with and the four of them had cleared away, Katie ran back up to her room to make sure her bag contained her running clothes and all the homework she needed for the day. She had let her books at home one day last week and had felt so bad about it she had grown paranoid about double and triple checking it. When that was done, Jaye and Leo were standing by the front door, arms crossed and staring daggers at each other. Ostensibly, they were waiting for her so they could walk to Levenson Academy together. It felt like a forced truce in war. “Show me those Friday smiles.” And that only got a ghost of a smirk. No way was Katie going to try to build bridges between these two. “Come on, then. I hope they’ve got the heating on today.”

  The trio – Katie slotted herself between Jaye and Leo so they had to go through her to batter each other – walked along in a tense hush for a few minutes, and the Jaye broke it. “Jack hangs around a lot, huh? Things getting serious?”

  “He’s not good for you.” Leo chipped in with his contribution. “He’s one of them.”

  “Just ‘cos a guy is life-challenged, it doesn’t make him a bad person.”

  “You’re biased. O’course you don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.”

  “There’s not! I died young, Leo, before I even had time to start living.”

  “But you came back and, for the last time, the dead don’t belong here.”

  “You think I had a fucking choice?! First time I opened my eyes, I knew I was dead. Hell, I even went to my own funeral. And I hated it at first. Thought I didn’t deserve it because… I didn’t deserve anything good. I’m here and you are not getting rid of me.” That last part sounded more like a warning than a promise. Maybe it was… for him.

  “Guys, please!” Katie hung back a step so both of them had to turn and look at her. She’d had enough of the fighting. “This has gone on long enough.”

  “I can’t help what I am.”

  “I don’t care. We have to live together, whether you two get on or not, so can you just agree to hate each other quietly and leave the rest of us out of it.”

  “Never started nothing,” Leo grumbled.

  “Who started it, why it started… couldn’t care less. I‘m not dealing with this crap off you!”

  Two pairs of blue eyes stared back at Katie, shocked at her sudden fire. Wasn’t she the mediator? The one who wanted to keep peace and harmony in the house? They watched her storm off towards the college, shaking her head, slowing to a resigned trudge by the end of the street. There wasn’t much chance that Leo and Jaye would ever be the best of friends or even any kind of friends. He had barely trusted Jaye not to stab him in the back with every blink when they had been forced to fight together a few weeks ago. Something – some-one – had possessed her and made her do some horrible things towards her friends. Katie had evicted the dark spirit, but only after it had hurt her badly, put her in the hospital in fact. Jaye wanted to make the spirit pay before it had a chance to find another body to possess and wreak more damage, and ad teamed up with Leo and Jack to send her back to the End Place. For the moment, it had worked. Leo could be counted on to step up when it mattered but he was never going to be happy about it.

  “What’s up with her?”

  “Not sure, but I’m gonna find out.”

  It was still dark when Katie went out on Saturday morning. She had woken early and showered and dressed as quietly as possible so as not to wake the entire house. She had done it successfully which was kind of amazing actually although there was a slight noise issue when she tried to unlock the front door and it stuck.

  Outside, no lights went on in any of the upstairs windows. Katie laced her running spikes and headed down to the track.

  No-one was around at this (admittedly stupid) hour of the morning. The athletics stadium the academy owned wasn’t even open but she knew how to slip the lock on the chain link gate. Roy, the supervisor of the stadium, had told her in secrecy that the lock could be picked with a coin and the ink tube of an old biro. The office was empty. It was early for anyone to be down here on a weekend. It was too early for any sane person to even be awake. Warm up first. A few stretches, jog a couple of circuits, some jumps and lunges. Never the most fun part of the workout but if she exercised with cold muscles she risked straining something, and with her wrist starting to ache again, further damage was high on the THINGS TO AVOID list. Running endless circuits of the track had seemed like a good idea when she woke up. Bad dreams had disturbed Katie’s sleep pattern and she was hoping that she could tire herself out this morning and then be able to go home and sleep for a couple of hours before meeting the psychic that afternoon. There was nobody around. Katie decided she would have a little fun messing around in the jump pits and bouncing on the crash mats. This was the kind of simple pleasure she’d needed all of her running career so far but been too shy to do. When her former teachers had been watching over her, she had done nothing but work and train and now there was nobody to frown at her for having some fun.

  But, eventually, the games grew boring and she started running laps.

  Jogging around a springy, purpose-laid oval was much easier on the joints than road running. No pot-holes to dodge or lumps and bumps to negotiate, but neither was there that glorious feeling of transitioning from the pavement to grass; pushing through over-grown brush and picking over fallen leaves and branches, the wind streaming through your hair as you raced over open green fields towards the edge of a cliff and then-

  Woah! What the fuck?

  Katie stamped a foot down hard, braking as hard as a muscle car pulling an emergency stop at 150. She tried to chase the thought but the brightening day and the steady yet slow trickle of people into the stadium was already distracting her. Whatever the thought had been, it was nice. It held so many promises of reward and release. She hated feeling that way; so out of control and wildly dangerous. So free…

  “Going already?” asked a tall, red haired man she vaguely recognised.

  “Been here since nearly six,” she answered back.

  “Sure.” He didn’t look like he believed her – no reason why he should really. “Go on, you little skiver.”

  “I’m going, I’m going.” Katie held up her hands in mock surrender and edged past him. Most of the students were nice and friendly but there were a handful she wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. Luckily, she had heard rumours and done her best to stay out of their way.

  “G’mornin’ Miss Katie!” a new voice rang weakly through the air. It was coming from Roy’s tiny office some yards away. He didn’t have the usual mad scientist, just-been-electrocuted hair thing going on today. In fact, he looked positively frozen wrapped in a thick coat with the collar turned up to cover his ears.

  “You look like you need defrosting.”

  “Oh, me heaters broke.” Roy kicked the dull bars of his portable heater. “Academy say they ain’t gonna buy me a new one till Novem
ber.”

  “Well, that’s mean.”

  “It’s money, ain’t it. They gets the new winter budget then.”

  “Oh. I guess it makes sense then. Lots of hot drinks and a good lunch every day will keep you right. My Mom used to say that.”

  “Smart lady.”

  “I always thought so. How are you and Bernice doing? Haven’t seen you down at many of the night events lately.”

  “Ooh, I don’t like making her go out when it’s cold and dark. She’d like to but I get worried. Neither of us is getting no younger.”

  “I need to go but trust me, Bernice is the last person I’m worried about.”

  She’d seen Bernice around the town once or twice and caught sight of her at a few sports meets recently. Bernice was the typical old lady – short, grey – exactly how Katie pictured elderly women in general, and yet she was the most hale and hearty looking woman she remembered seeing.

  A couple of hours sleep, a shower and some lasagne later, Kate was ready to head down into town to meet this Mademoiselle Romani. The whole idea of fortune telling and predicting the future sounded like crap but she found she was a lot more open minded since moving to Northwood. A couple of months ago, she would have laughed at anyone who claimed ghosts existed, that men in her dreams could hurt her, that there were other worlds than this. Maybe there was a lot more out there she needed to learn.

  Where the main road began to morph into a less well-kept highway, Katie glanced down at the sheet of paper on which she had scribbled the address. Penniton Row. She was sure she had seen that street sign on her previous explorations but had never been along it. Penniton Row was a small street of two storey shops which looked run-down and half abandoned. There was a body at shop called Ink Exchange, an off license, a dress fitting shop whose sign was too faded to read, the most crowded stationery store she had ever seen called Write Now and a garage which she couldn’t imagine got much custom because nobody in town drove. Well, apart from one bus, one ambulance and the occasional brave (or foolish) person passing through. Nevertheless, there was a car outside and a man lying so far underneath it that only his feet were visible under the bumper. She checked the address again and walked back up to the tattoo shop. The email had definitely said she was meant to meet the psychic here. She peered through the smeary window. It looked clean enough inside, but the dilapidation of the area was enough to put her off getting inked here. Actually, the thought of the vibrating needle was enough to put her off getting inked anywhere. It was almost two o’clock. Marcie should be here already. Wandering back up the street to look for any sign of her friend, Katie found her mobile out of her coat pocket and speed-dialled Marcie. Another phone started shrilling not far away. It was coming from the garage. She tiptoed over, hoping that it would somehow disguise her arrival – not that the looming early afternoon shadow attached to her feet gave her away or anything.

  Katie took the phone away from her ear but didn’t end the call. It was definitely Marcie’s ringtone crazily beeping out the Mexican Hat Dance. The feet poking under the car twitched at the loudest part and some incomprehensible gibberish drifted out. What was this grease monkey doing with her friend’s phone? The run-down area suddenly took on a more sinister hue. Maybe he had done something to Marcie? Maybe he had stolen her valuables?

  And then a young boy ran out of the shadows of the garage, darting from darkness to darkness.

  Katie disconnected. It was time for her to go into the tattoo shop and meet with Mademoiselle Romani. Some tiny voice whispered that she needed to find Marcie. She wouldn’t just not turn up without letting her know. Something must have happened. She was just turning to walk off when the feet pushed out from beneath the old car, revealing dirty brown cargo trousers. Then, further, was an oil streaked peach coloured t-shirt and then someone sat up, got to their feet and wiped oily hands on a towel.

  “Hey. You’ll be late.”

  Well, this was unexpected. “Marcie?!”

  “Freddie, wait there okay? We shouldn’t be too long.”

  “You’re a mechanic?”

  “Not a very good one.”

  “Bet business is slow.”

  “I just rent space and work on my car. I just got this idea about it. Used to work for my grandfather, in his garage, when I was your age… loved getting greasy and mucky ever since.”

  “Ewww. Rather you than me.”

  Marcie grabbed her towel and tried to wipe the worst of the dirt from her face but mostly succeeded in smearing it around more, then zipped a clean jacket over her top and headed down the street to Ink Exchange. “You ready to see your future?”

  “No. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. I mean, what if she tells me something I don’t want to hear?”

  “Then it’s up to you to prove it’s not true.”

  “But what if it is true and it’s just full of doom and destruction? It’s freaking scary!”

  “Katie, whether it’s true or not, this lady only predicts the future as she sees it. You can always change it.”

  “So she can basically say anything she wants and if it doesn’t come true, I did something to change it.”

  “Mademoiselle Romani’s got a great history. I hear she’s very accurate.”

  And then they were inside the body art shop, idly browsing the displays of jewelled body bars. There were tongue bars, belly bars, sleeper studs with multi-coloured gems in. Just looking at them made Katie wince. She had pestered her mother to get her ears pierced for her tenth birthday, but once was enough. Besides, with all the training stretches, it just wasn’t practical to be constantly worried about a piece of metal pinging out of her navel all the time. And the risk of it getting caught on something and ripping her flesh… urgh, she shuddered again.

  A woman swept through the open door leading to what was presumably the back room. She was dressed in a long gypsy skirt with layers of thin gold and green muslin wrapping her torso in warmth. A headband of white roses kept her long blonde hair away from her face. It was impossible to tell her age beneath it all but she didn’t look much older than Lainy.

  “Mademoiselle Romani? Wow!”

  Mademoiselle Romani nodded, smiled at Marcie and then zeroed in on Katie. “You’re her, aren’t you? The girl who knows too much.”

  “I’m Katie, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Yes, of course. You are here for your free reading, I presume. Come through, come through.” She waved them both past her and into a small room, which had apparently once been used for storage. There were shelves and cupboards everywhere but the place was decorated with lengths of twisted crushed velvet and silk, thrown roughly over surfaces and taped to the walls. In the middle of the room was a round table with names and crude diagrams carved into it. That surprised Katie. She had a vision – probably pieced together from every film or TV show she had ever watched – of a table covered with a multi-coloured covering, usually with beaded tassels at the edges, with a crystal ball on top. The closest thing to a crystal ball on show here was he goldfish bowl on one of the shelves – complete with plastic castle, astronaut and, if she looked closely, a shy little fish was poking his face through the castle drawbridge.

  “Ah, that’s my pet, Bobby Fish.”

  “Bobby Fish?”

  “I had to give him a last name.”

  “In case he forgets he’s a fish?”

  “You never know.”

  “Okay, so what do we do now? I’ve never been to see a psychic before.” Katie reached up and wiggled her fingers in the fishbowl. Bobby Fish swam up and kissed them. “Seriously, Marcie, you should try this. It’s so cute.”

  “Aww. I can’t reach. You have fishy kisses for me. I get Freddie kisses anyway.”

  “You ever been to one of these?”

  “Only at festivals and stuff. Just actors with crystal balls and a silk scarf. You know… you will meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger. As
if!”

  “You won’t,” said Mademoiselle Romani unexpectedly. They had been so engrossed in their own conversation, and watching Bobby Fish do his thing that they had practically forgotten there was even anyone else in the room. “There’s no more time for strangers. The only people that matter to you are right here.”

  Marcie swallowed hard. The reading was for Katie – how had she just got roped into it?

  When Katie turned to the table, Mademoiselle Romani had spread a silver silk sheet over it and had dragged two chairs over to face her. “Please. Sit down, both of you.”

  She did, trying not to bite her nails nervously. It had taken years to break that habit but it was so easy to fall back into bad ways. “So.”

  “Is there anything specific you’d like to ask?”

  “Umm…” Katie chewed on her lip as she thought. There were plenty of things she wanted answers to but right now she couldn’t think of a single one of them. “Not really. I think you probably see a lot more than I can imagine. That’s what you call it, isn’t it? Seeing?”

  “Seeing, knowing, reading, they’re just words.” Mademoiselle Romani had laid a deck of tarot cards on the table and she began to cut and shuffle with a practised hand as she spoke. “It all comes down to the same thing in the end. It’s intuition. There’s no rule to this craft, no good or bad. Sometimes you look at a person and you get a feeling of whether good things or… not so good things will happen to them.”

  “And what kind of feeling do you get off me?”

  The psychic sat back and stared at Katie for a minute. Then she leaned forward and touched her hand to the strapped up wrist. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant to happen that way.” Then she went back to shuffling her well-worn cards. “Let’s just see what the cards say. Cut.”

  Katie did as she was asked a few times and then glanced at the silk sheet as he cards were laid out. The rippling silver silk seemed strangely captivating. There were patches of white where it caught the light and thundercloud grey where shadow streaked the sheet. It reminded her suddenly of the sight she had seen inside herself a few weeks before. There had been a short period of death and all Katie could see inside herself was darkness. Organs, bones, blood; it was all black and dead. Nothing moved. And a moment of shock and anger later, she had felt… good. The pressure to keep living, the exhaustion from just remembering to breathe every day, it was all gone. She had been dead and she hadn’t minded. That fact alone should have been enough to shake her but it didn’t. She wanted to feel like that again: have that freedom once more. And she knew all of a sudden how she could get it back. All she had to do was touch that darkness inside, that ball of light energy laced with twists of black and deepest purple. Lose yourself to it. It’s so easy. And then suddenly all that darkness was filling her up, pushing at her edges and she had to let it out.

  Had to had to had to…

  “Katie, you okay? You look weird.”

  “Okay, the cards are out.”

  She looked up at Mademoiselle Romani, then across at Marcie who was staring at the spread out tarot deck, her comment seemingly already forgotten. What was she doing here? Sitting in a backroom of a tattoo shop in the bad part of town? It just didn’t sound like something Katie would do. And yet it sounded exactly like it. Curiosity had always been one her downfalls.

  “And?”

  There was an instant of total still in the room. Katie felt it even though she didn’t think the others noticed it. It was probably shorter than two heartbeats but for that second no hearts did beat. No-one breathed. Not even Bobby Fish swam. The world stopped. How she knew that, Katie had no idea, she just did. This utter peace – what did it mean? It just felt wrong. Really wrong.

  Then the world snapped back into action like an elastic band.

  “I’ve seen people with much worse readings than this… ut never in this town.”

  “That’s bad, right?”

  “Not necessarily. What do you know about your friends?”

  “I know that I can trust them with my life,” she said instantly and regretted it right away. Could she trust them that much? They had all saved her life or prevented her risking it over the last few weeks. But would she have let them if she had known there was a choice? Would she give any of her friends the responsibility to choose whether she lived or died? What if they made the wrong choice? “They’ve been good to me. They made me feel really welcome here, really accepted, when I was afraid of everything. I can trust them with anything.”

  “No. You can’t.” Mademoiselle Romani stared at the tarot cards. The one in the middle was Justice – one of the Greater Arcana. And it was upside down. “You see this card? It’s for Justice and upside down it means the opposite. For you, it means you can’t trust all the people you think you can. They will betray you. I can tell they don’t mean to hurt you, don’t mean to be disloyal…but they will. Some-one will come.”

  Sounded ominous. “Some-one will come. Who? Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Aah. Now this is more what Katie had expected. Vague predictions that sounded like they meant more than they did.

  “I can’t see their faces. I’m not even sure they have faces. And they don’t want to hurt you. It’s the last thing in the world he wants to do. It looks like a he. Have you had any strange visions? Déjà vu? Things that are just too big a coincidence to be chance?”

  “Only most of my life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve always felt like I never really fitted into my old life. And then I came to Northwood and the strangest things have been happening,” and one shared glance told Katie that she did not have to explain all her recent history to the woman before her. A good thing because she had no desire to face up to Marcie, who still thought Katie was blissfully ignorant of the ghostly aspects of town. “And I think, at first, I just went into some sort of survival mode because I didn’t want to die. And now I feel like I belong here. I was brought here for a reason and maybe that reason is to fight. To live life in the way I never could have before.”

  “That’s interesting.” It was? “None of my clients have ever been this open or honest with me. Mostly they’re impressionable and believe anything I say – some will leave convinced black is white if I say so. Or they are sceptical and closed off; determined to prove this is all a sham.”

  “And is it?”

  “I don’t think so but you can decide for yourself. One will come. One will destroy you. One will obliterate everything you know and love.”

  “Cheery future isn’t it?”

  “I want to tell you something better but the cards… so many reversed. Let me see if the crystals say anything.”

  She opened a drawer in a cabinet under the table and rummaged around for her crystals. In the meantime, Katie glanced across at Marcie. She seemed fascinated by every move the psychic made. At least one of them was having a good time.

  A handful of lilac tinged crystals scattered over the table. Some skittered over the cards, but Mademoiselle Romani seemed not to mind, even gave a satisfied snort when they landed anywhere but on top of the Justice card. One landed on another of the Greater Arcana – the High Priestess. It meant something when these things happened, but for the first time in her career, Mademoiselle Romani didn’t know what it was. The formation of the crystals appeared random. It was anything but. “I don’t think I can tell you anything else today.”

  “Oh.”

  “I wish I could but these stones… I don’t know. I can’t see anything.”

  “I’m invisible?”

  “That’s right. Things are going to happen and they haven’t been written yet.”

  “Okay. Well, thanks for… thanks.”

  “Wait.” Mademoiselle Romani grabbed two of her cards and the crystal that had landed on one of them. It was Justice and the High Priestess. “These are your cards.
What you are and what you will be. The crystal – it chose you. Maybe they will help.”

  “I’ll… take your word for it. Come on, Marcie.”

  Marcie, an inch shorter than Katie but still feeling so much bigger, put a maternal arm around her shoulders and guided her back out to the street. Over the last couple of months, she had become almost a surrogate mother to Katie. The young girl had become a bit like the daughter she had never had. Of course, she wouldn’t let her underage daughter drink, watch 18 certificate films, work in a club famous for it’s clients drunken antics. In fact, Marcie wouldn’t let her own child live in Northwood at all if he was old enough to leave.

  “Maybe she was just having an off day?”

  “Just because she couldn’t give you anything specific doesn’t meant she isn’t right.”

  Katie dropped the tarot cards and crystal in her inside pocket. “I’m not saying I don’t believe her. She might have got something right. I don’t know. I guess I just expected… I don’t know.”

  “Psychics don’t see individual events. They get these images and feelings and they have to try and marry them up with what they can learn from you.”

  Down on the corner, a small, sandy-haired boy was kicking a football against the front wall of the garage. Katie watched, hand in pocket, as he turned tricks with the ball that she had never seen done outside Premier League matches. How could a kid of six, going on seven, be this talented? Freddie caught the ball and started bouncing it with one hand, suddenly a child once more, looking up in wonder as the ball soared metres above his head.

  “Something wrong?”

  Katie winced.

  Yes, something was horribly wrong. Thankfully, it was something she might be able to stop.

  A hand – big, invisible, undeniable – squeezed her insides. There was a familiar coolness to it. Not a good time. The hand loosed her stomach but she could still feel it there. Not now, she thought at it, warning now. “Left my phone back there,” she said, jerking a thumb back at Ink Exchange. “Won’t be long.”

  Marcie watched the young girl pivot on her heel and head back towards the tattoo shop. It wasn’t that she was worried for her exactly, but she did wonder if Katie actually knew what she was getting into. And then she looked at her young son playing keepy-uppy at the end of the road and the only person she was concerned for was him.

  The bell above the door was jammed with a rolled up newspaper so it didn’t ring when Katie re-entered. She was so focussed on what she had in mind that the cold pressure of a few minutes ago had been completely forgotten. She didn’t notice that the hand was larger and rougher than Jack’s. But it was familiar and it was not important enough to register. Jack could wait. At least until she got home. No. Thinking about Jack, which is what she couldn’t help but do as soon as his name popped up, was just a distraction. And distractions went useful.

  She opened the door to the backroom, half-hoping to find it deserted so she could find her new phone and slip out unnoticed.

  Only half.

  Instead, Mademoiselle Romani was standing on a plastic crate and sprinkling flakes of food into the fishbowl. She held a silver mobile phone in one hand. “I took the liberty of programming my number in. I think I’d like to know how things turn out.”

  “Everything will be fine.”

  “Of course.”

  Katie reached out, snatched her phone back and put it in her pocket. Mademoiselle Romani hadn’t so much as jumped, flinched, when Katie had first spoken. She told herself that her return could not have been predicted for any reason other than getting her phone back but a voice kept whispering. What if she knew? What if it’s true… what if it’s all true and she knows?

  “You saw something.” It was not a question. “Something you didn’t want to say in front of me or my friend.”

  The woman who called herself psychic stepped back off the red crate. Feeding her fish was one of the few pleasures she had now that was completely normal.

  “Marcie’s outside and as for me… well, there’s nothing you can say that could shock me.” Katie walked over to one of the chairs and sat down, arms folded. She wasn’t leaving here without some kind of answer. “Tell me what you saw.”

  “You won’t leave until I say, will you? And there’s no point lying to you. You’ll figure it out soon enough.” But she couldn’t turn around and look at this girl; this girl who was so young and so old all at the same time. Just couldn’t.

  “So?”

  “I saw what any psychic worth her salt would see. I saw the point where your future ends. And, if you’re not careful, it’ll be very soon.”

  “Oh.”

  Katie wanted to move around. She wanted to scream, stamp her feet, have some rational reaction to learning her future was about to end. But the words were too fresh in her mind, too new, they had no meaning yet. Or not enough meaning. “You saw when I die.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you’re destined to do something I’m not allowed to see. Maybe your life is going to change at some point and it just can’t be predicted. All I saw was you as you are now – with that brace on your wrist and stars in your hair – and then it went black. You blocked me out.”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  “Not you. The person you’re becoming.”

  Katie got to her feet and backed out of the room. Of course the other woman would know she had gone so she didn’t know why she was bothering to be quiet. Seeing fortune tellers had been the one activity she’d always made fun of at school. But she had known, hadn’t she, really deep down inside that it wasn’t always rubbish. Sure, the dressed up drama students were faking it to get a passing grade and a few laughs, but there had to be truth in it somewhere… it just had to be true when it came to her. Sods law. Never any good news on the horizon for Katie. There was just no way that doom and gloom could be too far out of reach around her. She had wandered, in a daze, through the shop front and was leaning on the glass-topped counter, staring down at the polished floorboards. It seemed to calm her, detach her further from this body and mind until she was a still, peaceful core inside herself. there was no point getting so depressed over this. Things had always worked out thus far; they would again. And if they didn’t… they didn’t.

  And that was okay.

  A hand, stronger than before, squeezed Katie, ripping breath from her longs, and she could not order this one away. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t have tried to. She just wasn’t fast enough. Everything that happened in the next minute seemed to happen in one awesome blur of movement. Katie closed her eyes tightly and thought of the running track – good things had happened there, she was safer there, stronger there, better there – and tried to ignore it as she felt her muscles reflexively contracted and tried to make themselves as small and invulnerable as possible. Something very important tore loose inside. Katie felt her short fingernails scrape along the smooth glass counter as she scrabbled for traction.

  Then her eyes were open and she knew she was awake and in Ink Exchange. Only she couldn’t see anything and she couldn’t move-

  And she was falling.

  I’ve got you.

  A large hand appeared under her head when Katie was just inches from the grave. Grave? she thought vaguely but couldn’t grasp the thought to explore it. It didn’t matter in the slightest. She was safe. Her cowboy had hold of her, was wrapping his arms around her and carrying her over to the threadbare trio of armchairs in front of the counter and sitting her in one, and he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. Wait. Her mind tried to swim back into logical thought. When did Jack start being able to lift me? When did his hand get that big? Why did it hurt that much? Wrong wrong something’s wrong. But it was Jack. She couldn’t see him just now, couldn’t focus on anything right now, but it was Jack. It smelled like sunlight and straw and a life gone stale. It was him.

  “G’d afternoon, lady,” a
voice said.

  Katie rubbed her brown eyes, vaguely thinking she could do with taking them out and dipping them in cold water before putting them back in, and glanced up at the older man looking down at her with concern in sea green eyes. Eyes she knew and trusted. They just weren’t in a face she knew. Just as she opened her mouth to ask a question, the wedged bell above the door didn’t ring. And until Marcie cried out with something akin to alarm, no-one even noticed her there, watching the two people in the shop stare at each other.

  “What’s going on in here? Katie, who the hell is he?”

  Chapter three