She could hear a mewling sound. At first she thought it was Mrs Bilby and that she’d somehow rolled on the rabbit in her sleep. Once, about a year ago, when Mrs Bilby was still small, she’d done that. Snuck the rabbit under the covers, cuddled her to sleep, only to wake in the night when Mrs Bilby clawed her and started making a horrible squeaking noise, squashed beneath Shayla’s arm.
This time it wasn’t Mrs Bilby making the mewling noise.
It was her.
She was crying from the icy ache in her bones. She’d never minded the dark before, had never been a cry-baby. Now that there was nothing else but dark, she hated it.
She lay rolled in a ball, knees jammed into her chest. As far away from the door as she could get. At first she couldn’t remember why she was here, so far from the door. She had started sleeping up against the door, her back pressed to the cold steel. It seemed somehow comforting to know that life went on out there on the other side.
But then she’d heard the whisper. A sort of rasping murmur that was different from the other voices she’d been hearing lately – her mum, or Jesse her best friend, or sometimes even Mrs Cartwright, her favourite teacher. No, this voice was none of them. It was outside her head. But when she screwed her eyes shut and listened hard to what the voice was saying, all she could hear was the rapid thump-thump of blood in her ears.
She couldn’t remember what the voice was saying. Something about the night, or the moon. The words rolled in her mind like marbles in an empty jar, around and around, making her dizzy. She wanted them to stop, wanted her head to stop spinning so that she could get to her feet and be prepared. That was the plan. Be prepared.
Only, she couldn’t quite remember what it was she needed to be prepared for.
She crossed her arms and buried her face in the sleeves of the denim jacket she wore. It wasn’t her jacket. And it wasn’t the glittery one of Mum’s, it had no scratchy sequins. Where had it come from, this jacket? She liked the way it smelled. Sharp, like lemons. Faintly of honey. Or at least, it had smelled that way in the beginning. Now it was like the rest of her, rank and grubby and sour.
Her stomach gurgled. She’d gone beyond hungry. Now she was just numb. Dipping in and out of her thoughts. Not sleeping but not awake either. And the marbles kept rolling, the shadows kept slipping and sliding, the voice kept rasping somewhere in the dark.
A loud rattle came from the door. Shayla jerked in fright, her limbs shooting out, her head jolting back, bumping the wall. The air turned solid in her lungs. She brought her knees up under her chin, and hot tears – the tears she thought she’d run out of – spilled over and scalded her face.
The door cracked open with a shriek. Light erupted so bright it hurt her eyes. Squinting through her lashes, Shayla glimpsed someone standing in the doorway. They spoke to her, the words jabbing sharp and urgent. But Shayla didn’t want to hear. She clamped her hands over her ears and closed her eyes.