The Secret Dead (London Bones Book 1) (33 page)

68

Malcolm sat beside me, our bare feet side by side in the cool water of the pool. A blistering sun shone overhead. Sweat beaded along the back of my neck, but I was quite stubbornly dressed in jeans, rolled up to mid-calf, and a long-sleeved shirt. Not-real waiters darted around, holding trays of cocktails and sun-hardened sandwiches. On balance, it wasn’t a bad death.

‘You remember this place?’ Malcolm asked.

‘Sure.’ I said, and I did. It had been the location of my first Lipscombe work function. We were supposed to do team building exercises. Instead we all got drunk and sunburned.

‘I’m glad you’re dead,’ I said.

He looked at me, startled.

‘That’s not what I meant. I meant I’m glad you didn’t last long in the pit. I’m glad your soul’s passed over.’

He gave a low chuckle. ‘Me too. They got me too fresh. Rest of the rotters got me down the gullet before my eyes had a chance to adjust to the darkness. Actually, now I think about it, I believe my eyes went first.’

I shuddered, and he laughed. He’d always been fond of making me uncomfortable. I couldn’t help but laugh with him.

Malcolm dangled his fingers in the pool and ogled a not-real woman sunning herself on the sun bed opposite. ‘You know I never touched her.’ He didn’t look at me.

‘Who?’

‘Rosa, of course. Who did you think I meant?’

I shrugged. I could feel the skin on the back of my neck beginning to burn. ‘How’d you get infected then?’

He glanced at me, then looked away again. ‘Promise not to laugh?’

I smiled despite myself. ‘No.’

He grabbed a cocktail from a passing tray and glugged half in one go. ‘It was Patricia Stull.’

‘Seriously? Please don’t tell me that’s the real reason you were avoiding her.’

‘Could have been.’ He gave me a sideways glance.

‘And you didn’t even think to use a condom? Jeez, Malcolm.’ I shook my head at the waste of it all.

‘Oh, come on, Vivvie. You know how it goes. Heat of the moment and all that.’

‘You’re an idiot,’ I said, but I was smiling.

‘I know. When do you think you’ll go home?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. When I figure out how to do it without eating my family.’

He laughed again, but this time it had no humour in it. ‘I know that feeling. God, I thought I’d have more time, you know? It’s so unfair. When Ben brought Alister to me, I thought I had a second chance. He was my firstborn. It doesn’t matter how many other children you might have, you never forget the one you lose. It was a dream come true.’

‘I know.’ 

‘And worst of all, I didn’t believe him. Not even when he showed me Leslie’s body in that car. I couldn’t believe my own nephew would do something like that.’ He snorted out a laugh. ‘I believed him after Adam held that pillow over my face. And even then I was too scared to call the police. Too scared they’d throw me in the pit. I just didn’t know what to do. I should have done it anyway.’

He sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. ‘Is it normal to have this many regrets after you’re dead?’

‘I think it is,’ I said.

He patted my knee and left his hand there. I moved it. Somehow it didn’t irritate me the way it once had. It was nice to talk to a familiar face. ‘You sure your body’s safe?’ he asked.

‘I hope so.’

I didn’t want to talk about my body. It gave me the heebies. Me, the woman who was used to coming back to life partially decomposed, who’d had a body in the attic for years.

Malcolm ran his fingers through his hair, and I caught a whiff of coconut conditioner. ‘I didn’t say thank you. For looking after my boys. I appreciate that. You didn’t have to do it.’

‘It was a pleasure.’

‘I owe you one. A big one.’ For once I didn’t catch even the slightest hint of innuendo.

‘Thanks, Malcolm.’ But there was nothing he could do. He was as dead as I was.

The underworld sun baked my skin. I could feel it burning and growing red, but I didn’t want to move. Going back with a sunburn was the least of my worries. It might even be a boon. Maybe I could use it to practice my haggery and finally learn how to get the underworld to do as it was told.

My thoughts strayed back to the living world. Some things were better there. Sigrid was alive. So was Ben. I wanted to go back. I didn’t mind being dead, but who would want it to be permanent? I didn’t want to find my mother or my aunts or any of the other hags. They were all crazy, ancient, and scary, and getting a life out of them would likely come at a price I wouldn’t want to pay.

So I stayed instead and waggled my feet in the cold water. I tried not to think of the living world where my body decayed in the darkness next to my mother, two mildewy Snow Whites waiting to be awakened.

Thanks and Acknowledgements

This story has been the result of a substantial distillation process whereby I wrote it, then a
lot
of other people helped me improve it, little by little, until it reached its current state.

Firstly, thanks to everyone at Critters. Sending out my work for the first time was terrifying, but it’s thanks to you that I discovered positive feedback is like happy drugs.

My lovely beta readers, Susan Boesner, Valentina Buffetti, and Darrell Johnson, provided me with invaluable feedback, as well as support, and I am very much in their debt.

I have to give special thanks to everyone at Red Adept Editing Services, especially Lynn, Joann, and Laura. This is a much better book for their involvement, and I am very grateful for all their patience and hard work.

Final thanks have to go to my husband, Brent, without whose unquestioning support, I’d likely still be struggling on the first draft.

Author’s Note

Thank you for reading
The Secret Dead
. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have the time, a review on Amazon would be hugely appreciated (even if it’s only a line or two).

A Murder of Crones
, the sequel to
The Secret Dead
, is out now. You can read the first two chapters at the end of this book, and find the rest
here
.

Want to know when I’ve released a new book? Sign up to my newsletter
here
. No spam or non-relevant waffling emails. I promise.

I love to hear from readers! Pop by my website at
http://swfairbrother.com/
and say hello. You can also find me on pretty much every social network site that attracts procrastinators:
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.

A Murder of Crones

S.W. FAIRBROTHER

1

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of the dark and the damp, accompanied by the scent of wet fur. Then my mother’s voice told us to hush, and the door above shut with a
snick.
Her footsteps receded, and the only sounds left were our breathing and the
dub-dub-dub
of my sister Sigrid’s heart as she held my head tight against her chest. Cold water trickled down the wall behind me and soaked into the back of my shirt.

On the other side, Harriet—the source of the wet fur—said, ‘Where’s the light switch?’

‘Ssh.’ Sigrid’s grip on me tightened.

‘Come now, girls. It’s not like there are any windows. No one can see in.’

‘
Ssh!
’

In the complete darkness, I couldn’t see the weasel-woman smile, but I could hear it in her voice when she said, ‘And no one can hear us. We’re completely underground.’

‘Those are the rules,’ I said, ‘until Mum says it’s safe.’

‘Come now, little hag. You can’t tell me you two just sit quietly in the dark every single time.’

Neither of us answered. We did just sit silently in the dark. It was what we had always done. I’d even grown to like it—the damp, earthy scent, the rare quiet, nothing but the sound of us breathing. I usually fell asleep.

‘Huh-uh, little hag. Look. This’—Harriet rapped on the wall; it made a hollow sound—‘was built so light couldn’t escape. All these old bomb shelters are sealed like that.’ Her clothing rustled as she stood. Her fingers whispered along the walls. ‘Your mother doesn’t understand. She is how old? A zillion? And she can’t die. Or, rather, she can come back if she does. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be truly afraid, or what it’s like to be a child and scared of the dark…bloody hell, where is the damned switch?’

There was more rustling, then a scraped click. A small flame flickered to life at the top of Harriet’s cigarette lighter, and I had my first opportunity to get a good look at her up close.

Harriet had been camping in the garden under the oak tree out back, where her dome tent was in the process of ruining Stanley’s lawn. She wasn’t usually allowed in the house—none of the weasels who camped out during the summer ever were. My mother included them in her delusions. When they were here, they had to go into the shelter too. Sure, Harriet had been around, and even argued with our mother a few times when we were close by, but we weren’t allowed to talk to them. We were hardly allowed to look at them.

Keep away from them, girls. They’re bad as rats… or worse. They’re dirty.

Harriet didn’t look dirty. She kept the short fur that covered her lanky figure clean and neat. I thought that if I were to stroke her cheek, it would feel as silky soft as a kitten’s. Only the soles of her feet and the palms of her hands were completely hairless, but they looked soft too—pink and smooth like those of the hamster someone had once brought to school. Her black eyes flashed in the flickering light, and frustration showed on her triangle-shaped weasel face.

She didn’t smell too good, though. Not unwashed, but musky—an almost-sulphuric scent that wasn’t completely pleasant.

Harriet’s mouth curled into a smile, displaying inhumanly sharp canines. Her black eyes flicked towards us, then up at the ceiling, and its lack of light bulbs. ‘No electrics, huh? Ow!’

The flame disappeared, the lighter clicked, and it reappeared.

Harriet stared around at the shelter with undisguised curiosity. It was one of the old Andersen ones left over from the war—not much more than some corrugated steel panels bent into a half tube, half-buried then covered with earth to make a space just big enough for six adults to huddle inside. Red stains made V shapes on the walls, and earth bulged through in pockets where the steel had rusted away. New tin sheets covered some of the rust at intervals around the shelter. Pine beams propped up a reinforced roof.

Shelves of dust-covered mystery jars—my stepfather’s attempts at pickling—stood against the far wall. Sprigs of lavender were nailed to the curved sides: an attempt by Stanley to make the place smell a little better. A thick layer of pine needles covered the floor, as did a generous sprinkling of rock salt. The rest of the space was bare.

‘How long do you normally have to stay down here?’ Harriet asked.

‘Depends,’ I whispered. ‘Maybe a few hours.’

‘Ssh,’ Sigrid said. Two years older, she was less intrigued by the weasel-woman than I was.

‘Maybe a few days,’ I said.

‘Why doesn’t she just rough in an electric cable? Stanley’s pretty handy. He could do it in a couple of hours.’

Because she thinks electricity is the devil.
I kept quiet. I’d said too much to the weasel already. I’d be in enough trouble if Desma found out about those. I didn’t even want to think about what would happen if I started jabbering. The weasels always wanted to talk.

What was out there? What was so dangerous that an ancient creature like my mother was scared of it? Why did it want weasels?

I was done speculating. The respective answers were: nothing, nothing and it didn’t, because there was nothing there but my mother’s contagious paranoia.

My sister shifted against me, and changed position. Her knees clicked as she stretched them out in front of her. She’d grown six inches in a year, and her bones creaked with the strain. I still hoped for my own huge growth spurt, even if I knew it wasn’t going to come. Sigrid was tall and slim and blonde and already starting to fill out. She hadn’t received our mother’s hag genes.

I had. I was going to be sharp-faced and bony. I’d only pass for human if someone weren’t paying attention. Sigrid would never have to worry about that.

‘I can’t stay down here for days,’ Harriet said. ‘I’ve got a
job,
which I’m already at risk of losing.’ She peered at her watch and grimaced. ‘You know what, girls? Treasure these days—the ones before you have to go out and work. Trust me on this.’

Sigrid and I both nodded as if we agreed. We didn’t. I’d spent hours with Sigrid in bed at night, huddled together under the covers while we made our plans. Sigrid was going to join the police and be a detective. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I thought it would involve animals. We were going to share a flat and we would each have our own TV in our bedrooms.

Harriet shifted from foot to foot then peered at her watch again. ‘Okay, I can’t do this. I have to go.’

‘Mum says you have to stay here.’ I said.

‘Yeah, well, she’s not
my
mother, and I have to get to work,’ and then she added, ‘If I see anything nasty, I promise to run for it.’

And with that, Harriet took two steps towards the door and shifted her weight into it. Light spilled in, followed by a gust of cool air that smelled like rain, and then she shut the door behind her, leaving us in darkness.

Sigrid stretched her legs again. Her knees clicked. She smelt like warm shampoo and the spoonful of mustard our mother made us eat every morning to stop our souls escaping. In our flat, there would never be any mustard. Not even for guests.

‘Did you hear that?’ Sigrid whispered.

‘What?’ I cocked my head to one side, listening, and heard nothing but the soft sounds of the rain. And then I caught it—a hiss, followed by a succession of sharp barks and shrieks. ‘Is that a fox?’

There were plenty around. They came into the house sometimes through the cat flap, after the cat’s food bowl. Once we’d had a pair of them come in, and they’d mated in the kitchen, screaming until Stanley chased them out with his cane.

The shrieking increased, became a long screech, and then stopped. ‘I’m sure it’s a fox.’ I said, but my voice wavered.

We sat in silence, our ears pricked, but we heard nothing further, beyond the gentle drumming of the rain against the door.

After a while, I fell asleep, and when the door finally opened, it was to a clear sky filled with brilliant, tiny stars.

I stretched and shivered as I followed Sigrid and Desma out into the fresh air. The rain had stopped, but the downpour had turned the grass sodden, and our feet made slushing sounds as they met the mud below. The white light of the moon highlighted the garden, neat and tidy, except for the space where Harriet’s tent and camping equipment spilled untidily onto the grass.

‘Where’s Harriet?’ Sigrid asked.

Desma stopped. Black was in that year, and she had dressed head to toe in black silk. Along with the sharp boniness of her nose and chin, it made her look like a predatory bird. ‘Gone.’

‘Gone where?’ Sigrid asked.

Desma shook her head, her green eyes hard and a little too intense. ‘It got her, of course. Stupid creature. Should have stayed where it was safe.’

Sigrid and I exchanged glances. We were old enough that we weren’t quite sure if we believed her. Desma’s brow furrowed. She grabbed my shoulder with one hand and Sigrid’s with the other. Her grip tightened painfully, and her long fingernails dug into my skin. ‘Just you remember what happens when you don’t listen to me.’

She herded us into the kitchen then turned her back. As she walked out, she said, ‘Eat something, then straight to bed. I don’t want to see you anywhere other than the kitchen or your bedroom. The rest of the house is off-limits until I tell you otherwise.’

Sigrid grimaced. ‘Do you think she meant the bathroom too? I really need to wee.’

‘No. That would be silly,’ I said, but Desma didn’t trust the toilet.
It’s not natural to crap where you live, girls. Go outside.
She always used the ancient outhouse at the end of the garden. ‘It’s just a wee. Go outside on the grass. Just in case.’

‘Ugh, that’s so gross.’

‘Then go to the bathroom.’

Sigrid looked from me to the door to the rest of the house, then evidently decided not to risk it because she disappeared out into the garden and came back looking miserable. ‘When we have our own place, we’re not even going to have grass.’

‘Yes, we will, and we’ll grow it extra long so that if Stanley ever comes past, he’ll automatically go into a rage,’ I opened the kitchen cabinet. ‘What do you want to eat?’

We settled on tinned spaghetti with toast. Stanley came in while we were eating, and went straight out back. We watched him dismantle Harriet’s tent while we ate. All her belongings went into paper bags, which he carried around to the front for the bin men to take away.

In the morning, if it weren’t for the yellowed circle of grass under the old oak, there would have been nothing to indicate she had ever been. Stanley watered and fed the grass, and after a few weeks even that was gone. I asked Desma about her again, but all my mother would say on the subject was a repeated, ‘Just you remember what happens when you don’t listen to me.’