Afterlight (5 page)

As our eyes met for the first time in recorded history, and I suddenly stopped remembering
how to breathe, the blood drained out of
his
face.

Should be the other way around
, I thought, startled. Then Jordan turned his back
on me, quite deliberately, and walked away.

A locked bathroom door usually signalled
trouble
and kept the punters away, just
grateful it wasn’t them inside, begging for mercy. But I was stupid, and I was busting,
and just before the final class of the day I tried the door handle on the third floor
girls’ toilets once too often.

Sharys F.—Claudia P.’s chief goon—suddenly opened the door and yanked me inside,
where I fell into a scene out of
Mean Girls
redux. Only, this being here and not
Hollywood, no one was good looking and everyone was dressed badly.

Turned out Claudia had her nemesis—Linda Jelly—in a chokehold, up against the wall
of the last cubicle. Sharys frogmarched me right up to the action, making certain
I couldn’t look away. Linda Jelly, with her mild scoliosis, Coke-bottle glasses,
dumpy figure and inexplicable chin-length perm, had always been an easy target, Biddy
had once confided. ‘I never join in the general Linda-bashing that goes on,’ she’d
chattered, pointing out the back of Linda’s head over her open textbook, ‘but I’ve
never tried to defend her either, I’m sorry to say, because I like to pretend I’m
Switzerland
.’

Claudia didn’t miss a beat—not acknowledging me exactly, but still somehow making
me feel included. ‘Got your period today, Jelly Belly?’ she said conversationally
as Sharys and Goon Two—a girl whose parents had named her after a musical term like
Cadence
or
Rhapsody
, I forgot what—crowded around to watch.

Even if Linda had been able to answer, she didn’t have to. A huge patch of blood
had leaked through the back of her school uniform and whenever Claudia gave her a
shake, I could see the leading edge of it. Poor thing, it was a bad one, like something
cooked up between Mobil and the Exxon Valdez. It didn’t help that Linda was already
a walking offence in Claudia’s book, whose other specialities
included throwing Year
7 kids into lockers and slamming the door.

Anyway, Linda began to cry, and I shifted uneasily as she wailed, ‘Why won’t you
guys ever leave me alone?’ It was a good question. Shame there would never be an
answer.

Linda snivelled harder. ‘Was g-gunna w-wash it off, if you let me…’

Claudia showed her teeth, light glinting off her super-stay-on lip gloss. ‘So now’s
your chance.’

She set Linda down, almost gently. Linda hesitated, then tried to push past the wedge
of girls blocking the door. Neither of them, built like a pack of perfectly coiffed
frost-free refrigerators, gave an inch. Standing just behind Sharys, her French manicure
still digging into my arm, I realised with a sinking heart what Claudia had in mind.
She was so predictable.

‘Uh, excuse me,’ Linda added, gesturing helplessly at the sinks beyond us.

Claudia laughed, moving forward so the backs of Linda’s legs pressed against the
toilet bowl. ‘
Excuse you
is right, Jelly Belly. Where you going? Water’s
right there
.
So start washing.’

Linda gaped, finally comprehending. Seeing no way out, she began to scoop and cry,
scoop and cry, while Claudia, Sharys and
Cadence? Rhapsody? Prelude?
almost
wet themselves
laughing. All the while, the sound Linda was making as she scrubbed at her bloody
skirt with toilet water made my skin crawl. I tried to pull out of Sharys’ grasp.
In reply, she just dug her nails in harder.

But then something really strange happened.

Linda was still sobbing and scooping water out of the dunny with her bare hands when
a message appeared on the mirror opposite the stall. I saw it first out of the corner
of my eye, then Sharys—who’d felt the shock run up the muscles of my arm—turned.
Suddenly, everyone went quiet.

She is You
, the message said.

They looked like words you write in the fog that appears on a mirror after a scalding
shower. They were clear and distinct for a moment, then they faded. But we’d all
read the message, which had got to Claudia’s two goons, who’d gone white.

‘You do that?’ Claudia said sharply, looking at me. I shook my head, pointing numbly
at Sharys’ big hand, still curled around my arm, like a claw.

Confused, Linda started crying again, and the sound infuriated Claudia so much that
she backhanded her across the face to shut her up. The sound of flesh on flesh shocked
everyone motionless once more, including Linda, who was standing in a puddle of bloodstained
water, her wet skirt and white socks stained pink, her mouth a round
O
.

Claudia’s blue eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘If I find out one of you has been taking
the piss, especially you…’ She pulled a fistful of my jumper close for a moment.
‘
I’ll have you
.’

Then she stormed out of the toilet, not bothering to wait for her backup, who filed
out in wordless confusion a second later. Which left Linda and me standing there—hot
tears misting up the backs of Linda’s lenses, snot running down over her mouth and
chin.

I helped clean Linda up as much as I could, as much as I could bear to touch her.
Even helped her dry her pink socks and skirt under the automatic dryer before I remembered
I was seriously busting and locked myself in a cubicle. Linda had been so ashamed,
or so grateful, that she hadn’t been able to string a complete sentence together
and had beaten it as soon as the coast was clear. When I was finally alone, I exhaled,
wondering what was around the corner, because something was coming like a freight
train, it had to be.

I knew who’d written that message.

‘You there?’ I said wearily, pants around my ankles, studying the ceiling as though
Eve might be hiding up there, like the outline of the Virgin Mary. ‘You there?’

I was at my desk that night, my back to the room, thinking about that strange look
Jordan had given me, when I began to smell flowers.

I didn’t turn immediately, crossing my arms to stop myself from shaking. ‘This has
got to
stop
,’ I insisted in a low voice. ‘School’s hard enough without adding something
like you to the mix. Haven’t I done enough?’

But I could feel her just standing there behind me, waiting. Patient and inexorable
as time.

Turning away from my open laptop, finally, I got the same electric jolt I felt the
other times I’d seen her. She looked so much like Mum it brought the sting of tears
to my eyes.

Impassive, unmoving, Eve showed me a rundown house called
Hatherlea
.

That was it. Just an image of a sprawling Victorian weatherboard—with a prominent
nameplate—that probably used to be a pretty, sunny yellow but was now just an all-over
diseased grey. I saw an overgrown garden of long grass and sky-high feral roses,
rusting ironwork on the verandah, no one moving in or around the house. There was
junk mail frozen like a sodden waterfall coming out of a letterbox set into a low,
red brick fence that had half toppled over into the garden behind it.

‘Thanks for nothing, Eve,’ I said fiercely after she flashed the image at me a couple
more times for good
measure. Same thing, same camera angles. ‘This is the last one,
okay? After this, you leave me alone. You rest in peace and never come back.’

By way of an answer, she just winked out like a light.
Over to you, Storkie
, she
pretty much said.

5

How Eve found these people I was supposed to help was beyond me. Basket cases, most
of them. People I wouldn’t even notice if she didn’t tell me they were there. There
was definitely a pattern. The people Eve wanted me to find were all pretty badly,
um, the nicest way to put it was…
dented
.

Hatherlea
. It was like the name of a house you’d find in one of those set texts for
English. I never knew what those books were about and I never enjoyed them, and that
pretty much summed up my search for that house and everything that came afterwards.

I couldn’t sleep after Eve had shown me
Hatherlea
. Searching the internet at 4.21
in the morning for it didn’t
improve my mood. Try Googling the word and see what
comes up. A dentist, a guesthouse, an art gallery. A playwright, a porn star, a
logistics manager.
Hatter Lee
,
Heather Lee
—every combination except the one I actually
wanted. Pages and pages of bum steers. It was hopeless.

By the time Gran was up and strapped firmly into her Dr Rey’s shapewear, I still
had no clue where Eve wanted me to go or what I was supposed to do when I got there.

‘You okay, love?’ Gran asked over a heavily loaded ham, cheese and tomato toastie.
She still couldn’t believe how she’d turned on the mid-morning news yesterday and
seen grainy replay footage of
me
—shot on someone’s phone—saving some old codger’s
life. He hadn’t been grateful. He’d called me all sorts of terrible names that were
edited out of the news stories as the paramedics worked on his face. Hey, he’d had
to land on something.

The police had arrested the driver a couple of suburbs away. He’d probably had similar
work done to his profile because, apparently, he’d resisted arrest in a
big
way.
Pre-existing rap sheet longer than my arm. Eve had me mixing with interesting company.

‘My girl, the hero. Still don’t know what you were doing out there, but I’m glad
you were. You did good, love.’ Gran gave me a quick, embarrassed squeeze and looked
hard into my face, telling me I was looking peaky and could have the day off school
if I needed it.

Perfect. It was like Eve had set it all up.

‘If I wanted to find a house called
Hatherlea
,’ I asked Gran casually as she tipped
leftovers out of the recyclables into a bucket and put some elbow grease into wiping
down the scarred main bar, ‘how would I go about doing it?’

‘Now why’d you want to do
that
?’ Gran said, raising her eyebrows. Good question.
Hadn’t thought it through before I opened my big mouth.

I back-pedalled furiously. No one had twigged to the Crime Stoppers call I’d made
with that kid’s mum yet, or connected it with me saving the old bastard on Sunday,
but I didn’t want even Gran to know about Eve. It was all too hard to go into without
sounding insane and she already watched me, like a hawk, when she thought I wasn’t
looking.

‘History assignment,’ I babbled. ‘Important landmarks of early Melbourne. Since I’ve
got the day off—cheers—I want to try and find it, maybe take some shots for my project,
but I can’t remember the street name. Just the name of the house, silly me. It’s
old. Very, very old.’ I held my breath, feeling dishonest.

Gran’s face cleared. ‘Well, love,’ she said reaching under the countertop and feeling
around. She pushed an old street directory across at me and sailed off to the kitchen
to try and impose her will over Cook about the day’s menu.
I knew she would lose,
but hope sprang eternal with Gran.

There was only one
Hatherlea Street
in the book. It had to be a good place to start
since the name was so unusual. And a pretty expensive one to reach, too, once I figured
out I’d have to hop a tram, a train and a bus to get to what might not even be the
right place. But I had all day now. And there were worse things to do, I supposed,
than trek all over town doing one final good deed for a genuine, paid-up member of
the Undead. Who got to put that on their CV?