Something about the cottage feels off. Ellie is at the kitchen table, trying to claw back the time she’s lost, attempting to focus on some of the more intricate details of her artwork, but her paintbrush won’t cooperate. Every stroke feels laboured, every dab of paint wrong. There’s a tension in her shoulders and her gaze shifts constantly to the window, where outside, dusk is already falling. The grey day mirrors her mood. Dark. Heavy. Oppressive. Beyond the unruly garden the trees loom, skeletal branches waving in the breeze, their last leaves releasing with a silent gasp before tumbling away. It’s like the walls of the cottage are closing in on her, the wooded hills crowding closer, the air she breathes thick and cloying.
It had been another bad night. A night disturbed by a dream of Sarah, standing at the end of her bed, blood pouring down her face, flowing onto her hands, hands she held out to Ellie, first imploring, then reaching, pulling at the covers as she’d begun to crawl up the bed towards her.
Ellie had woken pinned by her sheets and drenched in sweat, and now all she can think about is Sarah, and that night in the woods, and what she wouldn’t give to go back and do everything differently.
That stupid Ouija board. She wishes she hadn’t watched their game, the way the jar had slid across Saul’s improvised board. Everyone had said it was Sarah pushing it, but what if it hadn’t been? What if there was an evil spirit lurking in the woods? The ghost of a murdered girl. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility, was it? The local stories had to be rooted in some sort of truth.
A noise outside the cottage draws her attention, a sharp, snapping sound, like a branch breaking. She goes to the window but there’s nothing to see, just the trees swaying in the gusting wind, leaves drifting across the small, unkempt lawn. The sky threatens rain. She eyes the woods. If anything, the trees look even closer now. God, she’s properly losing it.
Returning to her seat, she grabs her phone and opens a search browser.
Do Ouija boards work?
Evidence life after death?
Are ghosts real?
First signs of madness.
She scrolls the results but finding nothing of comfort, gives up and cycles through reels and posts from the activists she follows, images of protestors gluing their hands to motorways and masked women splashing paint over a valuable artwork in Paris. She knows it’s radical. Divisive even. She knows what her parents think, their worries. But isn’t that the point? The world is sliding towards an irreversible ecological crisis and no one is listening. They have to get extreme. If they lose this fight, it’s over. Start small, start local. That’s what all the accounts she follows tell her. Drive change in your own community.
There’s another sound outside, this time closer. She glances out, just in time to catch the wisp of something gliding past the window. Something white and indistinct, fleeting, like a feather in the wind. A chill comes over her. When her phone beeps, she knows who it will be before she’s even checked. sally@inthewood.
How did you feel in the woods that night?
Blood on your hands.
Did it make you feel good?
Did it make you feel strong?
Ellie swallows, a frightening thought rising in her mind as she watches the typing dots at the top of the screen. Whoever is sending these messages knows about her fight with Sarah. Which isn’t possible. The only people who know are her parents, and the police… and Sarah, of course.
You like to destroy things, don’t you?
Unfortunately for you, so do I.
She swallows. A cold dread creeping over her. Blood on your hands.
Whoever else had been up at the folly that night must’ve been watching. Waiting. Whoever it was had seen Ellie fight with Sarah, then waited for her to leave.
Ellie rises from her seat and darts about the cottage, drawing the curtains, shrouding the ground floor in a gloomy half-light. Whoever is out there, whoever hurt Sarah, now seems to have her squarely in their sights.