Hollow Pike (23 page)

One new message. From Danny:
I meant it – I can’t stop thinking about you! Sweet dreams xxx

He’d meant every word. She’d be safe and sound with him. Although she knew it was a little selfish, Lis couldn’t help feeling a certain lightness inside. Her heartbeat
quickened, and, closing her eyes, she smiled and replayed the kiss in her head.

Offerings

The best way to tell if a boy is a virgin is to engage him in a conversation about sex, as Lis discovered the Monday after the half-term break.

‘I think it went pretty well . . .’ she told Jack.

‘Did you have sex with him?’

‘Jack!’ screamed Lis, as they walked towards their lockers. ‘Do you mind?’

‘OMG you did! What was it like?’

‘Jack!’

‘Well, is that a yes or a no?’ he demanded, grinning salaciously.

‘It’s a no, you pervert!’

The hallway seemed especially downbeat that morning. First day back after the holidays, and it looked as if most of the pupils were already counting the weeks, days and hours until Christmas.
The week off had gone far too quickly for Lis’s liking; her body had reacted angrily when her alarm had gone off at 7 a.m. The only saving grace was that she would get to see Danny again.

Laura’s funeral had come and gone during the holiday. It had barely made a blip on the news; some other, newer atrocity was more exciting for the TV channels. People were quietly
forgetting about Laura Rigg.

‘I was only asking!’ Jack protested. ‘Have you arranged a second date yet?’

Lis scrunched her face slightly. ‘No. He’s been texting all the time, but he hasn’t actually asked me out again. I’m starting to worry.’

‘Why would he be texting if he wasn’t interested? Chillax.’

‘I will as long as you never use the word “chillax” again!’

Jack smiled, stopping at his locker, onto which someone had kindly scratched the word ‘faggot’. He pulled out a sealed envelope.

‘What’s that?’ Lis asked.

‘My weekly excuse for not doing PE. Mum’s stopped fighting it. This week I have a bad back. Next week, who knows?’

‘You’ll have to do it at some point,’ Lis laughed. How come she was the only one of her group who actually participated in PE?

‘When Mr Coleman stops referring to me as “Dolly Denton”, I’ll start doing PE!’ Jack told her.

Lis’s stomach growled. ‘Do you wanna head to the canteen?’

‘Yeah, cool, I’m starving.’

‘OK.’ Lis sighed. ‘I’ll just get my kit ready for next session.
Some of us
have netball.’ They moved down to her locker, ominously close to where
Laura’s was now sealed up with wasp-coloured police tape. Both fell silent. The tape made the red box look like a gift-wrapped Christmas present.

‘That’s grim,’ Jack said, chewing on a nail. ‘What do you think was in there?’

‘I don’t know.’ Lis paused, fumbling for her padlock key in her bag. ‘I guess the police cleared it out.’ Only then did she see the padlock on her locker hanging
open. She unhooked it and gave it a squeeze. The lock was broken, refusing to click shut.

‘What’s up?’

‘My padlock’s broken . . .’ Her voice trailed off, her hand reaching for the handle. Broken or
been
broken? Her heart was suddenly in her mouth. She started to open the
locker door.

‘Lis . . . Maybe we should—’

A messy black shape swung out at her. Lis could only freeze as her mind tried to process the image. It was Jack who cried out first, jumping away as if he’d seen a shark’s fin in the
water.

Crudely stapled to the inside of the locker door was a dead crow, its wings grotesquely snapped open, crucified. Feathers tumbled from her locker and scarlet blood had soaked into her PE kit and
textbooks. The bird’s lifeless eyes gazed at her accusingly.

It took Lis a second, but then she screamed.

She fell back into Jack’s arms, flooring him, as Ms Dandehunt emerged from her office.

‘What on earth is all this noise?’ she started, but seeing the terrified pair flailing about on the floor, she crouched to help them.

Mr Gray flew out of G2 and reached Lis at the same time. By now they were attracting attention from milling pupils.

‘Lis?’ Mr Gray grabbed her by both shoulders, trying to steady her. ‘What’s happened? Tell me!’

‘Look,’ she hissed. ‘My locker!’

Ms Dandehunt looked up at the locker.

Mr Gray teased open the door, before whipping it shut again in disgust. ‘What the—’ he gasped. ‘Lis, Jack, are you OK?’

Jack nodded, dumbstruck.

Lis struggled to her feet. ‘Yeah. I’ll be fine.’ It was sick, what kind of person would do that? With the teachers there, she felt calmer, but dirty, very dirty. She had dry
blood on her hands, sticky and brown. ‘Can I go and wash my hands?’

Mr Gray looked to Ms Dandehunt, who nodded approval.

‘Yeah, sure. I’ll get someone to sort this out for you,’ Mr Gray told her. ‘Jack, will you make sure she’s OK?’

‘Of course,’ he said quietly, cripplingly shy in front of the teachers.

‘God, why would someone do that?’ Mr Gray grimaced.

Ms Dandehunt took another peek inside the locker. She pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘Hmm,’ was all she added.

As Jack led Lis away, she threw a glance back at the crow. She could think of only one reason why there would be such a morbid gift in her locker: it was a warning. From someone who knew
she’d been seen somewhere she should never have been.

Even after a shower, the unclean feeling lingered. In her mind’s eye, blood still coated her fingers. Lis wrapped her soaking hair inside a twisted towel and flopped down
on her bed. Grabbing a Spanish textbook, she hoped to fill her head with the language, blocking recurring flashbacks of the mangled crow. Her paranoia was working overtime. All she could think was
that it was a message from the phantom in their video, the hand on the tree –
I saw you, keep your mouth shut
.

Jack’s locker had been fine, and she’d texted Kitty and Delilah. They hadn’t got a warning. Just her. She’d been chosen specially.

Lis released the towel, letting her damp locks fall down her back. Someone tapped on the door and she jumped, knocking a cup of tea off her dresser. She couldn’t go on like this.
‘Come in,’ she said, mopping up the spill with a handful of tissues.

‘You left your phone downstairs in your bag, honey. It keeps ringing,’ Sarah announced, holding the phone out.

It
had
to be Danny. Lis crossed the room in a second. ‘Thanks, Sarah.’ She raised her mobile to her ear, her heart pounding. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi, darling. It’s Delilah.’

Lis’s face fell and she had to steady herself against the bed. She was pleased to hear from Delilah, but it was Danny she really wanted to call her.

‘How are you feeling? Any better?’ Delilah asked.

‘Oh, hey. Getting there. Two showers,’ Lis told her.

‘Oh, you poor thing. Jack described it. It sounds simply horrific.’

‘Yeah, it was. I just don’t get why someone would do that.’ She tucked her legs underneath her. ‘Do you think it’s a Laura thing?’

There was a pause on the other end of the line. ‘I honestly don’t know, darling. It could just be a very, very sick joke.’

‘You don’t really buy that, do you?’

‘No,’ Delilah admitted. ‘There are only two things I don’t believe in and coincidence is one of them.’

‘What’s the other?’

‘The government.’

Lis managed a wry laugh at that.

‘Darling, this might not be a random bird. It could be like an offering. A sacrifice.’

Lis scowled. What was it with the people in this town? ‘What?’

‘You know, Pagans, witchcraft, Satanism . . . Some spells require an offering. A
blood
offering.’

‘A blood offering to my locker?’

Delilah snorted down the phone. ‘It was only a theory. The sacrifice is usually to the Horned God. After you mentioned witches, I started to think there might be something in it,
that’s all.’

‘Yeah, well, witches are one of the things
I
don’t believe in, at least I don’t
think
I do,’ Lis said, increasingly uncertain.

‘Darling, you shouldn’t be so closed minded; it’s so last season,’ Delilah purred.

Two pieces of a puzzle connected in Lis’s mind. ‘Dee? Did you take the book from Mrs Gillespie’s shop –
An Occult History of Hollow Pike
?’

‘No,’ Delilah mumbled. ‘Not guilty.’

Lis sat up straight on the very edge of her bed, suddenly tense again. ‘Do you think Kitty could have it?’

‘It’s not really her thing, is it? You don’t
still
think we had anything to do with Laura’s murder, do you?’

Lis shook her head. ‘No, no, of course not.’

‘We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise,’ said Dee. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.
If
there was someone else in the woods, they certainly don’t
want to be found out, do they? Why would they draw attention to themselves by leaving dead things in your locker? It doesn’t add up. The police will catch Laura’s killer. Until then, we
lay low. Quiet as mice.’

Sighing, Lis flopped back onto the bed. ‘OK. I can do that.’

‘Good, now sleep tight. Sweet dreams, my love.’ Delilah blew her an air kiss and hung up.

Lis massaged her aching temples. Rolling over, she buried her face in the pillow, muffling a scream that kicked inside her like a wild horse. When was she going to wake up from this
nightmare?

At the other end of the line, Delilah hung up on her friend and gently put her mobile phone down – on top of an old, leather-bound volume entitled
An Occult History of
Hollow Pike
.

The Babysitter

The tall, stained-glass windows scattered beams of multicoloured light throughout the cavernous library. Lis wistfully watched tiny specks of dust pirouette through the rays.
Now that it was November, more and more pupils were piling into the study rooms, escaping the exposed outside areas. It was becoming a struggle to maintain their hold over the toasty cushion
corner, however much Daphne, the librarian, tried to reserve it for them.

Alone at a study bench, Lis flicked through her Spanish textbook, reading a feature on Mexico City. The Aztec ruins looked incredible – what was left of them. She imagined a time when
she’d have the money to go exploring. How far away would that be? Ten years? Fifteen? An optimistic fragment of her mind allowed her to imagine that by then, the albatross that was Laura Rigg
might have unwound itself from around her shoulders. Christ, she had a new-found understanding for Lady Macbeth – guilt sucks, and she hadn’t even murdered anyone.