The Killing Woods

  I want to be wrong.

  But I feel different and heavy and strange as I crawl into bed. It’s like I’m falling, tumbling into a deep, dark pit, getting closer to something. Something I don’t want to see.

  22

  Damon

  She’s still not at school, that’s two days now. I grab Joe Wilder’s arm as he slinks past me in a corridor, just go ahead and ask him.

  ‘What do you want her for?’ he says.

  I study his face to see what he thinks of me now: it might be the first time we’ve talked since I dropped him from the cross-country team. First time I’ve stood this close to him since that day in the woods. He still doesn’t meet my eyes.

  ‘Just checking she’s OK, that’s all,’ I say. ‘Thought you’d know.’

  ‘Why do you even care?’

  He turns away, and I’m suddenly thinking about that day in the woods all over again, when I’d wanted to hit him, when he’d run. What would happen if one of us told the police about that day? Which one of us would the cops think of as a weirdo then?

  ‘You been watching anything in the woods lately?’ I ask him. ‘Following anyone?’

  He pinks up. ‘Get lost.’

  ‘Hey, I haven’t finished talking to you!’

  But he doesn’t care. Already he’s hurrying towards the canteen, joining up with that Mina girl again. I’m glad I kicked him off the team. He wouldn’t make it this year anyway, wouldn’t take it serious enough: he’d spend too long with his head behind a lens concentrating on things he shouldn’t. Perhaps I should’ve punched some sense into him while I had the chance.

  ‘Wilder!’ I call out. ‘Wait!’

  But he’s proper ignoring me now, hurrying up to his friend.

  I go in late to Biology, don’t apologise. Charlie shuffles over from where he’s saved me a seat. I’m buzzing after talking with Wilder, angry. Maybe I could’ve got some answers off him. Wilder knows Darkwood. He knows a lot.

  ‘What’s up?’ Charlie says, noticing.

  I don’t know whether I should tell him all that stuff I said to Mack yesterday, or whether I should keep quiet ’til I’ve figured things out. As I turn to him, Ms Mitani comes over to our bench.

  ‘Charlie!’ she warns. ‘No talking!’

  She ignores me, though, teachers give me an easy time these days. I look out the window, don’t even pretend to concentrate on the book open in front of me. Once I would have cared about stuff like this. Now, learning about photosynthesis seems a bit bollocks. When Ashlee used to sit next to me in this class she’d draw hearts on my arm, press her thigh against mine and whisper in my ear. She’d always want to go further with whatever experiment we were doing: always wanted to know what would happen next, wanted to test the theories a little more. If she wasn’t so clever we’d never have got away with it. I think I learnt more in biology from the stuff she did by accident than the stuff we were meant to be doing. There is still one of her long, blonde hairs caught in my textbook: I haven’t opened up Chapter Five because of it, don’t want to lose it. I clench my fingers into my palms. These thoughts aren’t helping anything.

  So I think about Emily Shepherd instead. What’s she doing away from school? Is anyone else even bothered that she’s not here? When I missed school for a week, not long after everything happened, the school was ringing just ’bout every day, and a counsellor and a doctor came round to check on me. Maybe killers’ daughters don’t get the same treatment.

  Ms Mitani is handing out what looks like weeds; she drops a few scalpels and a pile of toothpicks on each bench too. As she strolls around the lab, she’s describing a plant’s sex organs, explaining how to open ovaries. She says the word pistil really slowly and someone sniggers. She’s gone mad if she thinks our class can have any sort of serious lesson on this. If Ashlee were here, she’d be leaning over and repeating pistil really low in my ear, her fingers digging under my shirt at the base of my spine and pressing at where my tatt is.

  ‘You do it,’ I say to Charlie, pushing across the plant.

  He bypasses the toothpicks, cuts straight through the middle of our stem with a pair of scissors. Yellowish pus spews out. When Ms Mitani is at the other end of the lab I lean over to him. ‘You ever found Shepherd’s bunker? You ever seen it when we were playing the Game?’

  He shakes his head, frowns. Perhaps he’s wondering why I’m asking this now, here.

  ‘It’s got to be somewhere in the southern section,’ he says.

  But that’s as much as anyone knows. That’s where the police were looking the week after Ashlee died, the section where the woods were closed off. I watch Charlie scrape slimy stuff from the plant to the bench.

  ‘It’s near Game Play,’ I say. ‘Has to be. Maybe it’s even in Game Play.’

  Maybe it’s near Ashlee’s shortcut home too.

  Like the missing collar, the location of Shepherd’s bunker is bugging me. If I could work out where it is – if I knew how close it is to Ashlee’s shortcut track – something might make sense. Maybe I could work out how Shepherd could’ve watched her – how she got to his bunker – maybe something about him would make sense too.

  ‘It’s weird we never came across it,’ I say again. ‘Weird we never saw Shepherd in the woods either . . . I mean, if he was meant to be watching Ashlee all that time.’

  Charlie gives me a look like I’m an idiot. ‘It’s a bunker, that’s why. And Shepherd was a soldier. We wouldn’t see him, would we, wouldn’t find it.’

  I look out the window. Just because Charlie’s from an army family he thinks he knows everything. But my old man was a corporal, higher up than Charlie’s dad, and decorated; Charlie’s dad hasn’t even got an active service role. And just because my old man’s dead . . . I’m still an army kid. I know about bunkers.

  ‘Why’d you want to find it anyway?’ Charlie says.

  Now he’s looking at me like I’m some sort of sicko, like he’s thinking that if it was his girlfriend who had died there he wouldn’t want to go and see it. But what if that bunker is where Ashlee’s collar is? What if this is why I can’t find it? What if I didn’t take it from Ashlee’s neck that night at all, and Shepherd did? What if he kept it as a souvenir? Because they say that, don’t they, about murderers . . . that they take souvenirs of who they kill? The police might not have picked it up either; they wouldn’t have known it was important. Finding Ashlee’s collar near that bunker would be proof Shepherd did everything.

  I push the plant guts about in front of me. Then I pull my phone out of my pocket, don’t even care that Ms Mitani might notice. I click on to the internet and go to one of the pages I started looking at last night when I couldn’t sleep. It’s about memory, all the different ways you can lose it. Alcohol-induced blackouts don’t stop the memories entirely – it says – rather your ability to access them.

  Is this what I have, an alcohol-induced blackout? And does this mean that I can still get the memories back somehow? Access them? Does it work the same for fairy dust-induced blackouts too?

  I scroll down the page on my phone. I read comments from people who’ve managed to get their memories back after they’ve been drunk or drugged. There’s a section that gives tips on how: Talk to someone . . . write down everything you can remember, revisit where the memory took place . . . relive what you were doing at the last point you remember . . .

  When Charlie looks over I shove the phone back in my pocket. But I’ve decided – I’ve spent long enough sitting around waiting for these memories to come back by themselves, I need to force them. I need to find answers for the questions Emily Shepherd was asking me. I need to be certain.

  ‘We should play the Game again,’ I say.

  Charlie stares. I’m thinking that he’s going to say no – that playing the Game again would be the last thing he’d want to do now.

  ‘It’ll be different without Ashlee,’ he says slowly. ‘You really want to?’

  I nod. Charlie has to agree, they all do. If th
at article is right, playing the Game again might be the only way to remember where I last saw Ashlee in Darkwood, what happened to her collar, how I got home.

  ‘Maybe it’s time to start training again,’ I say, remembering Mack’s words about this from the Leap. I turn my head to the window. I actually don’t give a shit about training to join the army no more; I’m not sure I even give a shit about pretending to. ‘Or maybe we just play it to remember Ashlee.’

  Charlie thinks about this. ‘Kind of like our own private funeral, you mean? Like a let go?’

  ‘Yeah, kind of.’

  Charlie nods. ‘Letting go is good.’

  I watch him swallow. I see stubble and shaving cuts on his neck. I try to remember when I’d seen Ashlee’s collar there too. He hadn’t won it very often, probably the least out of all of us boys.

  When I ask him why, he shrugs. ‘It’s not like I held back or anything. I played hard like she wanted.’ He looks down at the desk.

  I suddenly feel jealous that he’d played with her at all. That he’d played hard. Fought her.

  ‘Most times I couldn’t ever find her,’ he says. ‘She was always after you.’

  I turn to watch a rugby match get going on the playing fields outside, see the teams bash against each other in the scrum. I’m waiting for Charlie to ask me about Ashlee’s collar – because I’m thinking it too, ain’t I? – that maybe we should bury that collar in the woods, in the place we always start the Game, that this would be a proper let go.

  If I had it to bury, that is.

  I remember when Ashlee came into the pet shop with me to get it. She’d chosen the collar that was pink and sparkly with fake diamond things on it and fluffy padding inside.

  ‘It’ll be too easy to see you with that on,’ I’d said. ‘You’ll get caught straight up.’

  She’d wanted it anyway; she was stubborn like that. She’d chosen a heart-shaped dog tag to get her initials engraved on to. I’d paid.

  ‘Don’t go all scaredy-cat on us,’ I’d said. ‘The boys play rough.’

  I’d been grinning, half-joking. None of the boys would play rough with her; they wouldn’t play proper rough. She’d get caught whatever collar she had on. But she was real serious about wanting to join, ever since the first time I’d accidentally blabbed about the Game to her. Eventually she’d worn me down to play, and eventually I’d bought her the collar.

  ‘I can handle it,’ she’d said. ‘I’m as tough as you – it’ll be fun!’

  She’d said that, since she wanted to join the army like we did, it was only fair that she had a chance to play too.

  So where did her collar go?

  Charlie’s prodding a scalpel in my arm. ‘Damo?’ he’s saying. ‘You OK?’

  I rest my head on the lab bench. ‘Peachy. Don’t I look it?’

  He laughs and goes back to the plant. I hear him snipping the petals off. This bench smells like dead things and formaldehyde, it’s hard against my cheekbone; I’m so desperate for sleep that I try shutting my eyes. Maybe if I can sleep, I’ll dream, and if I dream I’ll remember. And I almost do it, almost slip. My head sinks down, heavy. And there, for a moment, is something: Darkwood; running; chasing Ashlee through the forest; her kissing me hard and saying do it . . . do it . . .

  Useless . . .

  But already I’m out of the dream before it’s even started. I’m coming back to class, hearing the voices and laughter around me. Maybe they’re talking about me – look at that poor fucker that everyone dies on . . . look how he’s not coping at all.

  I open my eyes. There are broken bits of plant all over the lab, people laughing as they chuck pieces at each other when Ms Mitani’s not looking. I see the ripped petals on our bench, the spewed out seeds . . . the destruction.

  I’ve realised something, though – that internet article is right. The more I force my mind on to Ashlee and that night, the more I do remember. It’s a start.

  ‘Tomorrow night,’ I say to Charlie, sitting up from the bench. ‘There’s a full moon then, near enough. Tomorrow we’ll play.’

  He nods. ‘Sure, mate. If you like. One more Game to remember Ashlee then.’

  23

  Emily

  Idon’t leave my bed. I sink to somewhere deeper than sleep. Mum comes in a couple of times offering food and cups of tea, smelling of booze. I don’t tell her about the sketch I found in Dad’s car – I can’t. I don’t tell her anything about what I’ve done today. Though it’s as if she guesses something.

  She smoothes my hair back from my forehead and whispers, ‘It’s fine to admit things – to let go. No one’s going to judge you for it.’

  She thinks I’ve finally accepted that Dad’s a killer, that his manslaughter plea is right. Maybe she thinks it was the argument we had two days ago, bringing it all out. But I can’t accept anything, not out loud anyway, not yet. I can only sink.

  Manslaughter?

  Murder?

  Just thinking about saying these words out loud and my throat closes over.

  When Mum leaves I untack the photographs from my wall, snap them shut in my bedside drawer. Now I understand why the ones downstairs are gone too. They’re reminders of how much things have changed, reminders that life now is spoiled and strange. And it’s easier anyway, without Dad’s smiling face beside me.

  When Joe comes, he brings homework. ‘People have been asking about you.’

  I don’t believe him; the only text message I’ve had was from Mina and that was just asking how the detention went. Joe’s only come to see me because he thinks he should, because he lives down the road and can’t ignore me. Once my other friends wouldn’t have left me alone if I’d missed school for two days; Kirsty would have been round by now bringing gossip and chocolate.

  Now Joe sits awkwardly in my desk chair. My coat is draped over the back of it. If Joe dug his hand inside its pocket, he’d find what Dad drew. Maybe he’d be able to tell me that it doesn’t mean anything – that Dad didn’t sketch Ashlee Parker at all, that he only sketched a deer, but I can’t open my mouth to tell him to look, can’t take the risk.

  After a while he digs inside his own pocket, pulls out the crumpled list of possible suspects we’d made. He still has that, then.

  ‘Do you want to go through it again?’ he asks. ‘Try and work out scenarios? Better than just lying here?’

  What’s the point, though? The police aren’t going to change their opinion because of our ideas, we know that already. And then I almost do it, almost tell him about the sketch. I take a breath to. But it’s too big, too terrible. If I tell anyone about it, even Joe, everything will change. There’ll be no turning back then. So I turn and face the wall, keep quiet until he leaves.

  I sleep.

  And sleep.

  And sleep.

  When Mum comes in next she tells me, ‘You’ve been asleep for over sixteen hours, Emily. It’s Friday morning!’

  She goes to the window, opens it. A rough wind blows in, rattles things on my desk. I see a grey sky that’s the same colour as the walls in Dad’s prison visiting room. It feels like only a second since I shut my eyes when Joe was here, not sixteen hours. Time is moving strangely. It’s more than four days since we’d listened to Dad enter his plea for manslaughter, isn’t it? It has to be more than one week before the prosecution decide if Dad is guilty of manslaughter.

  Mum picks her way unsteadily over my piles of untouched schoolwork, washing, junk . . . the room feels very small, crowded with feelings and things unsaid. She doesn’t even ask if I want to go to school, she just places a cup of tea on my bedside table and glances out of the window at Darkwood. It’s already almost ten so I guess this means Mum isn’t going to work today either. For one crazy moment I want her to crawl into bed with me like she used to, wrap her arms around. Like that, we could both sleep . . . hibernate like dormice until winter’s over.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Mum says eventually, with a tone that almost sounds like an apology. ‘All this
isn’t really your dad’s fault, not entirely – you should know that. Maybe I shouldn’t have sounded so firm the other night. Your dad saw things in combat he could never talk about, things that twisted his mind.’

  Dad’s sketch is less than a metre from where Mum stands. If I showed her, would she still believe that Dad killed Ashlee by accident? Would she still believe it happened because Dad was suffering from PTSD? Or would she look at that sketch and see things differently – Ashlee as a deer. Dad watching her. Would she see it as evidence of murder?

  And maybe, if she did, she’d hit the booze even harder – maybe it would be enough to send her right over the edge. Because imagining someone you love is screwed up is one thing; thinking that he meant to do something terrible is different. Really different.

  She draws her mug of tea closer. ‘They should have been checking he was taking his pills,’ she murmurs. ‘There should have been more help. Someone else should have noticed the way he was going.’

  She looks at me with eyes so big and questioning I have to nod. I’ve heard her say things like this before: she feels guilty about who Dad’s become, she thinks it’s her fault. I prop myself up against the pillows so I can see the woods too.

  Mum tries to smile. ‘Feeling any better? Your headache? Do you want to eat?’

  I shake my head. I see that it’s a dark sort of autumn morning, the hunkering down kind, with tree branches bending from the wind and leaves splintering away and spinning like tops. I watch them and think of Dad splintering away from us too, of everything getting further to reach and claw back. I’ve read cases on the internet where prisoners have got as few as five or six years for being convicted of manslaughter. I know, also, that being convicted of murder is a sentence for life. If I tear up Dad’s sketch no one else will ever know about it, it can’t be evidence for anything. And maybe, if Dad got convicted of manslaughter, he’d be back with us in no time.

  But all this still gnaws at me. Because, if this sketch does mean that Dad was watching Ashlee before that night, can I hide it? If I do, what does this make me?