The night of the party
I found my hand easily slipped into his once more as he led me out of the marquee and onto the driveway. We began walking back down the gravel drive, the small pebbles crunching under our feet. We walked in silence for a while, my heart thudding in my chest, wondering if I should speak.
I apologised for Bill, and Chuck made a joke about his lost dog.
‘The sky is so vast and clear out here in the countryside,’ Chuck said.
I looked up at the sky, and it did look spectacular. I began to think of something suitably poignant to reply with when I was suddenly yanked sideways. Chuck and I were alone in the doorway of an outbuilding, the moonlight blocked by the high brick wall. And so there I was, pressed against Chuck’s chest, the darkness engulfing us, and all I could hear was the thumping beat of his heart in my ear.
We heard the crunch of pebbles as Ava made her way past us, back to the main house.
‘I’m sorry, Sasha,’ Chuck whispered. ‘I wish things could be different, but I am afraid the planets are already aligned. I am meant for Caitlin.’
‘And you can’t possibly be seen alone with me,’ I said, sounding bitter.
‘It’s not that, it’s tricky with this family—’
‘You don’t have to explain, Chuck. I get it.’
‘Friends forever?’ Chuck gave me a lopsided smile.
I sighed. ‘Yes, of course. Friends forever.’
‘Listen, I’m going to head back, I’ll go first in case we get spotted at the gates arriving back together. Count to about a hundred, slowly, and then follow on. Okay?’
Chuck kissed me firmly on the forehead and headed out up the drive. I listened to the sound of his feet crunching on the gravel driveway until they became a faint noise.
I counted to one hundred and left the outhouse. But I turned right instead of left. I didn’t have a torch, so I relied on the moonlight and the stars as they lit the sky and the path ahead of me. When I reached the wall to the tennis court, I walked along the rough terrain until I hit the bush. I bent down and crawled through. I would have to go in blind, although there were slivers of light coming in through the trees above and the bushes, but I knew this was where Ava had just come from. I was the only one who had discovered her secret hiding place, and I needed to know why she went there again this evening. Once I was through the bush clearing, I got down on my hands and knees; I could feel a slight dampness to the ground and I knew my trousers would be stained with mud. I felt along to the end and then I felt with my right hand until I found the clearing. At the gap in the foliage, I bent down and moved my hand around, and I could feel a few of the trinkets. Then my hand hit a cardboard box, shoe-box size. That wasn’t there last time. I hit at it with one hand, until I could pull it close enough to the clearing to get it with both hands. I pulled it out and held it before beginning the descent backwards, dragging the box with me until I was out of the bushes. I stood up and held the box close to my chest.
I had no idea what was inside, and I had intended to take a peek in the comfort of my bedroom and then return it the next day, but I got stopped by Mum and Dad at the gates at the top of the driveway where they were just leaving the party. I could see Ava in the background, and even in the darkness I could feel the weight of her stare. Was she worried about where I had come from?
I made it past Mum and Dad on the premise that I was busting for a wee and then once I was alone in my bedroom, I opened the box. Inside, wrapped in layers of brown paper was the small Japanese vase I had seen when I was in Ava’s study. But why was it suddenly in the spot where she was laying trinket gifts, which, I now realised, could be some sort of homage to her other daughter?
I had every intention of taking the vase back the next day. I stuffed the box inside a suitcase on top of my wardrobe and left it there, where it would be safe until morning.