‘That was different.’ I force my tears back. I don’t want Blue to see me cry. I don’t want anyone to see me being vulnerable about anything, ever again.
‘Thanks for nothing.’ I walk away, my fists crammed deep into my pockets.
Blue hurries after me. ‘Stop, Carey. Wait.’
I spin around. ‘Get away from me.’
Blue’s eyes flash for a second. Then he stops walking.
I start running: along that street then down the next. At first all I want to do is get away from Blue, but as I stop at a sign for the bus station to catch my breath I have a new purpose, a new direction. Never mind horrible Blue. And never mind the stupid police.
If they won’t believe Taylor is guilty, I’m going to have to prove it myself. I’m going to the Haunted Hut to look for Amelia.
31
Two hours later, the light is fading from the afternoon and I’m back in my home town at the top of the high street. I am literally at a crossroads. In front of me lie the shops and CCTV cameras and, beyond them, Taylor’s place and the police station. To my left is Lower Cornmouth and the squat. My own house is to the right.
Keeping my hat pulled low while I’m in the ticket office, I spend the last of my cash on a bus to the big Sainsbury’s on the edge of Cornmouth and the industrial estate which lies just beyond it. I get off with a bunch of women whose empty shopping bags flap in the wind. It’s almost five in the afternoon now and the clear skies are darkening. It’s cold with a chill breeze, but at least there’s no sign of rain. I shiver as I hurry through the industrial estate and out to the wasteland beyond.
I haven’t been here before so I’m relying on what Taylor told me: up the unmade road and along the mud track. It’s almost completely dark now. The only light I can see is coming from the small white-painted house at the end of the mud track. That must be the hut. As far as I can make out there are two floors, with boards over all the windows. How on earth am I going to get inside? I haven’t brought any tools with me. I stare up at the light that shines through the cracks in the boards over one of the first-floor windows. Is Amelia in there? Is Taylor with her?
I hesitate for a second. Maybe I should go back after all. Call the police. But I’m here now, I need to look for myself. I draw closer. The front door swings off its hinges. My heart thumps. That doesn’t make sense: why would Taylor need to break in? He already has a key.
The door creaks as I push it open. I’m in a living room – or a space that was once a living room. There’s a stained carpet and marks on the walls where pictures once hung. Cables and broken pipes extend from the skirting board, which is cracked in several places. There’s no light in the ceiling, just a piece of dangling wire. I can see a kitchen off to the left and a set of stairs leading to the first floor where the light is shining.
A floorboard above my head creaks. My heart is in my mouth as I creep towards the foot of the stairs.
The stupidity of what I’m doing hits me. I shouldn’t have come, and definitely not alone. I want to turn back, to run away as fast as I can, but my feet keep moving me towards the stairs. I have to see Taylor. I have to know for sure Amelia is being kept here.
Shadows and slivers of light through the cracks in the boards over the window fall across my path as I reach the stairs. The footsteps are directly above, on the landing. My stomach twists into a tight knot as I peer up to the darkness of the first floor. A figure appears at the top of the stairs. I’m so expecting it to be Taylor that my mouth gapes in shock as I realise who is standing there, eyes glinting as she looks down at me.
It’s my sister. It’s Poppy.
32
Poppy and I stare at each other. It may be my imagination, but my sister looks a hell of a lot less surprised to see me than I am to see her.
‘What are you doing here?’ I blurt out.
Poppy beckons me up the stairs. ‘After you told me about the hut I . . . I guessed you might come here looking for Amelia.’
I hurry up the steep uneven stairs, gripping the narrow bannister for support. ‘So is she here?’ I hiss.
‘No, the place is empty. But I think she has been here.’
‘What about Taylor?’
‘No.’ Poppy hesitates as I reach the top of the stairs. There are only two rooms, one on either side of the landing ‘Actually, I’m sure Taylor doesn’t have anything to do with this.’
‘What?’
‘Look.’ Poppy disappears into the room on the left.
Bewildered, I follow her. A small lamp stands on a rickety table next to a pack of AA batteries. There’s a blow-up mattress on the floor covered by a sleeping bag with a pink teddy bear peeking out of the top. A bin bag and various shopping bags are scattered across the room. A red jumper spills out from the top of one; an empty sandwich wrapper from another. A row of water bottles are lined up under the window and shoved in the corner I can just make out a scattering of Superdrug and Bourgeois make-up on the threadbare carpet.
‘Does this look like a prison?’ Poppy asks.
‘No.’ The truth lands, punching like a fist: Amelia wasn’t kidnapped by Taylor. Or anyone else.
She ran away on purpose.
‘I’d say she’s settled herself in nicely,’ Poppy says, gazing around the room with arched eyebrows. ‘Unbelievable.’
My mind reels. ‘But if Amelia pretended to be kidnapped,’ I gasp, ‘that means . . . she’s the one who framed me.’
‘You deserved it,’ Amelia snaps.
I spin around.
Amelia is standing in the doorway, glaring at me. Several long, slow seconds pass as the words I need to say roil up inside me.
‘You’re admitting it,’ I say, numb with shock. ‘It was you.’
She nods. The enormity of the revelation weighs down on me like a rock, weakening my legs, tensing my entire body. I lean against the wall for support as Poppy takes a protective step towards me. I instinctively move closer to her, grateful beyond words that she’s here.
‘Why?’ I gasp.
‘You betrayed our friendship,’ Amelia spits at me. ‘You devastated me.’
‘How?’ I ask, tears springing to my eyes. ‘That doesn’t make sense. You know I didn’t do anything to hurt you, you did it to yourself. You’re SweetFreak.’
‘Lying bitch,’ Amelia snarls.
‘Carey’s not lying,’ Poppy says quietly.
I shake my head, now completely confused. ‘Amelia, you’ve just admitted that you’ve been pretending I was the one trying to hurt you; that you went missing all by yourself. Which means you put the dead bird in your own locker and before that you sent yourself the SweetFreak messages and the death threat.’
‘No,’ Amelia insists. ‘I did the pigeon and set up the phone call about our “argument” in the woods, but only because you started it. You sent me messages as SweetFreak first. This is all because of you.’
‘But—’
‘Amelia’s not lying, Carey,’ Poppy interrupts. ‘Neither of you is lying.’
Her face is riddled with guilt and shame.
‘What are you saying?’ I ask, my throat hoarse.
‘Neither of you sent the SweetFreak messages,’ she says, her face flushing a deep red. ‘It was me. I started it.’
My mouth gapes. The many conversations my sister and I have had over the past few months flash through my head, how before the messages Poppy was angry with me for exposing her fling in Spain, how afterwards she took my side and supported me.
‘You sent them, Poppy?’ I gasp.
Amelia frowns.
My sister takes a deep breath. She faces Amelia head on. ‘I was mad at you for deliberately showing your brother that video of me kissing someone else,’ she says. ‘George said you taunted him about it.’
‘Is that true, Amelia?’ I demand. ‘Because you told me George stole your phone to snoop on it.’
Amelia shrugs. ‘I don’t see why that matters now.’
‘Of course it matters—’ I star
t.
‘Wait, Carey, let me explain.’ Poppy swings around to face me. ‘I sent Amelia the first few SweetFreak messages and was going to send some to you too, for being so stupid and mean as to send the video to her in the first place. But then I started thinking how much more satisfying it would be if I could break up your friendship, if I could get Amelia to think that you were SweetFreak. Then I would get back at you both and nobody would ever know it was me.’
I stare at her, my head spinning.
‘You sent me those horrible messages?’ Amelia’s voice shakes. ‘You threatened to kill me?’
‘I never, ever meant that as a serious threat,’ Poppy pleads. ’I nearly didn’t send it at all.’ She turns to me again. ‘I put the NatterSnap graphics together, then it took a couple of days to catch you inputting your password. Even then I had second thoughts. In fact I’d almost decided not to go through with it, when I heard you go out through the bathroom window to meet up with Amelia and I thought how I was never going to see George that way again . . .’ She grimaces. ‘It’s hard to explain but this rage came over me . . . anger that you and Amelia were going on like nothing had happened when my life was ruined. So I went into your room, put on gloves so there’d be no fingerprints and sent the death threat from your laptop. I used the delay function to try and disguise the time it was sent and also so it would arrive when you were both at school the next morning. Maximum impact. I know it sounds really calculated but . . . but I swear I wasn’t thinking straight. I was just so angry.’
There’s a long pause.
I draw myself up, my fury building. ‘And you being angry justifies devastating Amelia and making me look like a total cow in front of Mum and all my friends?’
‘No of course it doesn’t.’ Poppy’s eyes fill with tears. ‘I never dreamed it would go this far. I was just so furious. I thought you’d been deliberately cruel, both of you. I didn’t realise that you were just thoughtless. And I definitely didn’t realise how much the SweetFreak stuff would upset you . . .’
‘I thought I’d been betrayed by the one person I relied on, my one true friend,’ Amelia says, her voice shaking. ‘My mum and dad didn’t understand me and Taylor wasn’t interested. Carey was literally all I had.’
Poppy nods. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She meets my shocked gaze. ‘I’m so sorry I did that to both of you.’
‘I went through hell thinking Carey had sent those messages,’ Amelia says, voice rising. ‘I thought she didn’t care about me at all.’
I can’t take it in. My sister was SweetFreak. She lied to my face, covered up what she’d done.
‘You let me take all the blame,’ I whisper. ‘Why didn’t you say something when you saw how bad it was for me?’
Poppy gives an uneasy shrug. ‘When the police got involved I was scared and . . . and I thought things would blow over if the messages stopped. Which after a month or so they did sort of start to. Amelia was coming back to school; I thought you’d make up and it would all get better.’
‘But instead it got worse.’ I look at Amelia. ‘Because you decided to keep the whole thing going by putting that stupid bird in your locker?’
Amelia stares at me, her jaw clenched defiantly.
‘Why did you do that?’ I demand. ‘What was the point?’
‘That wasn’t my fault,’ Amelia insists. ‘I swear I didn’t have a choice.’
‘How d’you figure that?’ I ask.
‘After the SweetFreak thing it . . . everything changed at home,’ Amelia stammers. ‘Mum took time off work so I didn’t have to go to school and it was nice, you know. She was suddenly interested in me again – paying attention for once. But then her work got busy, so she said it was time for me to go back to school.’ She pauses again. ‘I tried to contact Taylor but he had blocked me which made me feel worse than ever. When I saw Poppy say how you’d got rid of the pigeon on NatterSnap I crept over to your house and took it out of your bin and took it into school the next morning . . .’
‘So that everyone would think it was me and you’d get your mum’s attention back and not have to come to school,’ I breathe.
Amelia acknowledges this with a tiny nod. ‘Things got better again after the pigeon. Mum was home mostly and people started being nice to me, like Rose and her friends coming round.’ She pauses. ‘But then it started to wear off and I realised Rose was only my friend for show. I didn’t want to go back to school after Christmas and Mum said it was OK for me to take a few weeks and got me some tutors. But by February she was on my case again, moaning about the cost, and I kept hoping I’d hear from Taylor but I didn’t. On Valentine’s I even sent him the necklace he’d given me.’
I exchange a look with Poppy. So Taylor had told George the truth about that.
‘But he still didn’t get back in touch and . . . and soon after that I found out you’d been seeing him.’ She glares at me and the venom in her eyes is hard to bear. ‘It was the last straw. Even after everything I thought you’d done to me, I couldn’t believe you’d do that.’
I open my mouth to protest, but close it again. After all, I did start dating Taylor even though I knew it would upset her if she found out.
‘Who told you I was seeing Taylor?’ I ask.
‘Rose,’ Amelia says.
Of course.
‘I could see Rose was loving breaking the bad news,’ Amelia explains. ‘It was so humiliating. I hated you so much and felt alone all over again. Mum kept going on about the cost of my tutors and how I needed to get back to school . . .’ Amelia goes on. Her voice shrinks as she speaks. She sounds unbearably miserable. ‘I had to do something to make a difference again.’
‘So you decided to pretend to go missing?’ I ask, hardly able to believe it.
Amelia nods.
‘You wanted everyone to worry about you?’ Poppy asks, clearly horrified.
‘I left a message for Mum, then I went to Taylor’s house hoping to see him, face to face, but when I saw Carey and Jamie leaving his house . . . well, that’s when it all fell into place, like it was meant to be.’ She sighs. ‘I followed them to Bow Wood, then paid a random boy to call the police and describe Carey and me arguing there. I left my mobile behind too, like a false clue for the police, to stop them looking anywhere near here for me.’
Poppy rolls her eyes.
‘I can’t believe it,’ I say. ‘You deliberately set me up.’
‘So what?’ Amelia’s voice hardens. ‘I thought you’d betrayed our friendship and sent me a death threat. It didn’t seem like that big a deal to—’
‘Not that big a deal?’ I echo, a fresh anger swamping me. ‘I was nearly arrested!’
‘So what! Even if you weren’t behind SweetFreak, you still stole Taylor from me!’ Amelia snaps, her voice rising.
‘You need to get real about Taylor: he’s an idiot,’ I snap back. ‘I’m sorry you were upset when I dated him but I didn’t steal him from you.’
‘Oh, really? That’s so typical of you, Carey,’ Amelia snarls, her sad fragility vanishing entirely. ‘You always think you’re in the right. Can’t you see how easy it was for me to believe you did the SweetFreak stuff?’
‘What?’
‘You were always insensitive to how I was feeling. You didn’t understand me at all though you thought you did. You were so . . . so self-absorbed and impatient. That night we met at the rec when you were late, the evening before the death threat . . . I could tell you thought I was stupid to get so upset over Taylor. And later I realised why – you wanted him for yourself.’
Is any of that true? My head is whirling too fast for me to work it out, but something tells me that although she has gone far too far, Amelia does have a point about how I acted when Taylor dumped her. I remember feeling irritated with her and, though I know I tried not to show it, maybe my lack of sympathy was more obvious than I realised. Which wasn’t very supportive of me. And when I think about how insecure I started getting over Taylor myself, I can kind of see how it happ
ened to Amelia too.
Thud! Downstairs the hut door slams open. Footsteps echo up from the ground floor. I start. Amelia gasps. ‘Who—?’
‘Ssh.’ Poppy puts her finger to her lips as the footsteps grow louder.
33
Footsteps patter across the concrete floor downstairs, right below us. I hold my breath as a girl giggles.
A familiar voice cuts though the cool air: ‘Maybe the lock broke, this place is ancient.’
It’s Taylor.
Amelia stumbles back dramatically. Poppy shakes her head.
I just feel numb.
The three of us stand in silence as the two sets of footsteps reach the bottom of the stairs.
‘Ooh, Taylor, this is sooo scary.’ The girl gives a high-pitched, nervous giggle. I don’t recognise her voice, but I know one thing for sure: it’s not Abi.
‘Just hold on to my arm.’ Taylor sounds ridiculous, all puffed up and phoney. ‘I’ll protect you from the ghosts.’
‘OK,’ the girl simpers. How come she doesn’t hear how pathetic he is?
‘I’ve never been here with a girl before,’ Taylor goes on. ‘It can be our special place.’
My jaw drops. He said exactly those words to me, less than a week ago. Amelia lets out a low sob. I glance at Poppy. She shakes her head.
‘What a douche,’ she mutters.
I glance at Amelia, her face creased with misery, and suddenly all our anxieties about Taylor seem silly. He wasn’t worth the amount of time I spent worrying about how he felt. He was never really interested in me or Amelia or, probably, the girl he’s got downstairs right now.
‘What’s upstairs?’ The girl giggles again.
‘Let’s explore. Come on, Estelle.’ The sound of Taylor striding across the ground floor turns into the creaking of the stairs as the two of them climb up. The girl, Estelle, lets out a constant series of shrieks and stage whispers.