I wasn’t allowed to go and search the forest with the others. Once they’d decided Mum wasn’t in the house, they all went out into the darkness with torches. I was told to stay inside with the door locked. I thought about what I should do if Mum came back with the knife and wanted to be let in. But I didn’t ask about it as I wasn’t convinced any of them would know the answer.
The night was cold and blustery. Rain started to arrive with occasional loud slaps on the dirty glass of the windows. I felt chilly, so I did what Mum used to do sometimes when I was very little; I turned on the oven, opened its door and let the warmth spread through the kitchen. I got a chair and sat in front of it now, feeling my shivers change to goosebumps, the rest of my body unbunching, the heat flowing to the tips of my fingers and toes and making me less scared. But I was still scared. Very.
It felt like they were out there for hours. I thought about going to bed, settling down to sleep, shutting everything out, waiting until the morning to discover if I still had a mum or if she’d harmed any of the adults that pretended to care for me. But before I could drag myself from my warm seat, I heard the scratchy scrape of the door opening, followed by the sound of it banging against the wall as people flowed into the house.
‘Get him in the lounge. On the coffee table! Hurry!’
That was Amanda’s voice.
‘Quick!’ she said again.
‘He’s heavier than he looks.’ That was Dad. What was he talking about?
Then I heard the sound. The sound of rasping, gasping breaths. And crying. The cries were from a man. Or a boy.
And so I went to the doorway of the lounge. And saw the horrible sight. An image of horror I would never forget.
Dad was lowering something onto the coffee table. The table legs trembled as they took the weight of whatever it was. Or whoever it was.
‘Fucking … fucking … crazy … bitch.’ These words came from the figure lying on the table in gasps and sobs and a flail of hands, slipping and sliding through something that looked a lot like—
‘BLOOD!’ Even though she wasn’t in view, this was unmistakably Mum, wailing her high-pitched, panicky wail. She ran out from behind Father Tobias as he walked in, wiping his face with a handkerchief.
‘Amanda, keep hold of her,’ Dad shouted. ‘Take her upstairs, for God’s sake. Have you still got the knife?’
‘I … I threw it in the stream,’ Amanda stuttered.
‘You did what?’ Dad looked around, but the writhing body on the coffee table grabbed his arm and croaked, ‘Hospital … I think … I need … to go—’
‘No you don’t,’ Dad said and pushed him, rather roughly I thought, down onto the table. And that was when I realised who it was. His once bright-blond hair was now a murky dark colour – wet and covered in dirt and leaves – but it was him. It was Levi. He was wearing his tracksuit bottoms and t-shirt, only the t-shirt was splashed with red, and at the front it looked more like ribbons than something you could actually wear.
‘BLOOD,’ Mum shrieked again. ‘HE WILL BE PLEASED. HE WILL BE PLEASED. HE IS COMING. HE IS RISING—’
‘No he fucking isn’t,’ Dad said, turning round, looking almost as wild as Mum. ‘Get her upstairs so I can deal with this,’ he roared at Amanda, who looked quite frightened herself, then did as he’d instructed and dragged Mum through the other door into the hallway. She didn’t put up much of a struggle. I heard them go up the stairs in loud clomps, then Dad said, ‘I knew I should have packed a goddamn first aid kit.’ He knelt down and said to the quivering Levi, ‘It really isn’t as bad as you think – stop making such a fuss.’ Then he looked up and saw me, standing at the doorway to the kitchen.
‘Christ Kitty, how long have you been standing there?’
I didn’t reply.
‘I think Kitty should go to bed,’ Father Tobias said. His face was bright red, and even though it was chilly, especially after the door had been open, he was fanning himself with his handkerchief and sat down on the sofa with a thump. ‘All this is rather taking its toll on me, I must confess.’
‘Kitty, go back into the kitchen and get me some tea towels – definitely the clean ones in the drawer – and a bowl of hot soapy water. And some scissors.’
I stayed silent for a bit longer. Then I nodded and went to do as I was told.
‘Don’t burn yourself,’ Dad called after me as he heard me filling up the kettle.
I had the soapy water and kitchen towels ready for him in less than three minutes. I felt quite proud of how well I’d done this little job, but Dad said nothing when I went into the lounge with them – he just took them from me whilst tapping Levi’s face.
‘Fuck … stay awake. Oi, don’t go to sleep. Shit!’
‘He’s not dying,’ Father Tobias said limply from the sofa, ‘it’s just the shock.’
‘Levi?’ I said as I got closer to him. His eyes were droopy, like he was very tired, but he kept muttering things. Almost like talking in his sleep. At my voice, though, his eyelids flickered open a little. ‘Where am I?’
‘You’re in my cottage, Levi. The little cottage in the woods.’
He looked confused. ‘Witch’s Cottage?’ he said, then sniffed a few times, as if he’d got an itchy nose. ‘Everything … hurts … she fucking slashed me.’ His words were slurring together and I looked up at Dad, worried, then looked down again at his chest and had to stop myself from shouting out. Three large, straight slits in his chest gaped before me, coursing down his chest to his tummy, blood dripping from the edges.
I only discovered I had started crying when I tasted the salt of the tears on my lips.
Dad was now talking to Father Tobias, asking him for some help, but he gave up after a few words. The older man was apparently feeling ‘a bit woozy’ at the sight of the blood and had half-collapsed onto the armchair.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Dad muttered. ‘Kitty, I need you to be a big, grown-up girl and just hold his head for me while I take his t-shirt off.’
I nodded, and put my hands under Levi’s head where he told me to. Dad set about snipping off his messed-up top, dropping the bloody folds of material onto the floor.
‘What you doing? It … it really hurts …’ Levi murmured.
‘It will be OK,’ Dad said.
Amanda appeared in the room and came over to the coffee table. She looked exhausted.
‘Marjory’s asleep,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘Went straight out like a light, more or less. Some more muttering about the blood. And how “he’s rising”. But she didn’t “rise”, so to speak. She just lay down. She’s breathing steadily.’
Dad didn’t comment on any of this, and instead just said, ‘I need you to drive to the nearest chemist and get supplies—’
‘But … I really think casualty would be the best—’
‘No! Just get some bandages. Disinfectant. I’ll do what I can with what I have here for now, but it’s not going to be enough.’
Amanda looked stunned, her eyes fixed on Levi, her hands on her face, eyes wide. She must have been seeing the wounds properly for the first time. Then she took her hands away from her cheeks and clapped them loudly, making me and Dad jump.
‘There’s no need! I should have some in my car.’
With that, she walked quickly out of the room. Dad looked at the space where she’d just been standing, apparently surprised, then turned back to Levi and started dabbing at the drips of blood down the side of his chest, soaking the kitchen towels in the bowl first, then dabbing some more. After each soak, the bowl’s water turned a darker shade of browny-red.
Amanda came back with a dark green box clasped in her hands.
‘Here,’ she said, offering it out. Dad took it, snapped it open and started going through the little compartments. After removing a flat, white pack of something, he found what looked like wet wipes and continued dabbing at Levi’s cuts. Levi responded loudly.
‘Ahhhh fucking … what …?’ He started writhing again and even managed to lean up a little, but Dad pushed him back down.
‘I’m cleaning your wounds; stay still. The alcohol might sting a bit.’
Amanda crouched down now. ‘Look, he’s covered in dirt, and it’s in the wounds. We’re not going to be able to do this properly. I say we take him to the hospital and just say we found him—’
‘For the very last time – we are not going to the hospital. Do you want to jeopardise everything we’re doing here? I’ve trusted you on all of this so far. You said you were sure we could avoid sending her away somewhere, to some institution. If people find out that she’s capable of this, do you think we’d stand a chance? She wouldn’t just get put on a hospital ward, she might end up in prison for God’s sake!’
‘OK, OK. But … What about his parents?’ Amanda’s voice was getting tight and stressed. ‘They’ll ask questions. And what’s to stop him going to the police anyway?’
‘He doesn’t have any parents.’ I found myself saying it in a small voice, almost more to myself than Amanda. ‘Just a foster family who’ve stopped caring for him. They’re having their own baby now. They let Levi sleep in his shed and don’t bother looking for him.’
After I’d said this, a wave of anxiety flooded through me. For some reason, I feared giving this information meant I’d chosen a side. A side that wasn’t Levi’s. I’d betrayed his trust – or any trust that existed between him, Adah and me.
‘And as for the police, leave that to me,’ Dad said. ‘I think I know a way to make it worth his while not to talk. Plus, a little reminder of the risks he runs if he decides to. As we heard from Kitty earlier, if messing about with little girls is his thing, I doubt he’ll want to talk to any cops.’
Amanda seemed to be thinking, her face stern in concentration. Eventually she sighed again and ran her hands through her short hair. ‘Well, we at least need to clean him up properly. He’s going to get an infection, otherwise. Don’t use any more of those until we’ve got him washed. We’ll have to take him to the shower.’
I expected Dad to object to this, but he just paused for a moment with his eyes closed, thinking, then gave a short, sharp nod.
‘Agreed. OK, Kitty. Bed.’
I stayed where I was.
‘Kitty, leave, now.’
‘He’s my friend.’ I said it quietly, but he and Amanda heard it all right. I saw the look they shared.
‘He’s not your friend. What’s happened here isn’t right, but what he did to you wasn’t right either.’
I didn’t understand what he meant at first, then I remembered. The fuss at dinner. The fuss that started all this. Then I realised – this was my fault. All my fault. If I hadn’t been silly. If I hadn’t tried to make Dad embarrassed and cross, or tried to upset Amanda, none of this—
‘Kitty, upstairs. Now.’
Tears fell from my eyes as I ran, leaving the horror behind me in the lounge, taking the steps as fast as I could manage. I slammed the door shut behind me once I was in, then, thinking better of it, pulled it open a crack and sank down. I may not have been allowed to stay with him, but I was definitely not going to let anything else happen to Levi.
I sat on the floor for what must have been five or ten minutes, then I heard them coming up the stairs.
‘Take his other arm,’ hissed Dad. ‘He’s a dead weight.’
‘Fine, you go backwards – I’ll make sure he doesn’t fall back down the stairs. Christ, if only he wasn’t so stoned – then he’d probably be able to walk for himself.’
‘If he wasn’t fucking stoned out his head, he’d probably have run off and called the bloody police himself,’ whispered Dad loudly in response.
I heard them shuffle onto the main part of the landing, and then risked a peek out. They were holding Levi between them, his arms flung over their shoulders, his head lolling down, although now he drew close I could tell he wasn’t asleep. He was making a constant, strange moan, halfway between a grunt and a whine, and gave little shakes of his head every few seconds.
‘Get him into the bathroom,’ Amanda whispered. Dad backed up to the door and reversed himself inside and Amanda followed, with Levi between them.
I scurried out onto the landing. Staying very, very still, trying not to let the floorboards creak, I watched them through the open bathroom door. Dad was laying Levi down in the tiny bathroom and Amanda was gathering up the faded pink shower curtain and pushing it out of the way. ‘He’s got another wound on his knee,’ she said, ‘where he tripped on the bridge and fell into the stream.’
I felt my heart start to beat rapidly. He’d been in the stream. Into the Poison Stream. And something bad – something terrible – had actually happened.
‘OK. You go and get the first aid box, and some clean towels from on top of the washing machine. I’ll get the rest of his stuff off and get the water on.’
I saw Amanda nod. ‘Not scalding water though. Test the temperature first. Gentle warm.’
I heard Dad huff a little, then before I could move, Amanda came out onto the landing and saw me standing there. She hesitated for a second, gave me a weird look, and continued right past me to walk hurriedly down the stairs.
Turning back to the bathroom, I saw Dad struggling to get Levi in a manageable position. He finally got him lying down lengthways, as if ready to enjoy a relaxing bath, his head tilted back, then he started to pull down his tracksuit. There was more blood underneath. All around his right knee there was a whole load of it. He must have scraped himself during the struggle. I couldn’t make out the wound properly in the low yellow of the bathroom light, but it must be a proper gash to cause that much bleeding. His underpants were ripped at the side, like his t-shirt. Mum must have slashed him all the way down his body. Dad chucked his tracksuit bottoms aside and then moved him a bit roughly to the side so that he could pull down his underwear too.
‘Ehhh … fucking … fucking pervert,’ Levi murmured.
Dad pulled the ripped material free from each of his legs and dropped it on top of the trackies, then, suddenly, put his hand on the boy’s throat.
‘No,’ he said in a half whisper that managed to be both strong and quiet at the same time. ‘You’re the fucking pervert. And part of me would like nothing more than to give the knife back to her and let her finish the job.’
Levi started to shake now. It began as a shiver in his face, his eyes opening, looking terrified, then the trembling seemed to ripple through his whole body until he couldn’t remain still. And then he started to cry. ‘I’m not … I haven’t done … Please … just let me—’
‘Shut up,’ Dad hissed in his face. He let go of the boy’s neck and then, with the other hand, turned on the shower. It must have been cold, as Levi let out a shriek and pulled his arms over him, causing more blood to ooze out from the slashes on his chest.
Amanda came running up the stairs, the dark green box in her hand, along with a little packet. She sent one frightened-looking glance my way, then strode into the bathroom. ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded. ‘I said to make sure it was warm water.’ She pushed past Dad and fiddled about with the taps. After holding the shower head over her hand for a bit, she seemed satisfied and handed it back to Dad. ‘Gently run this over the wounds. Damn it, I should have brought a glass up.’
‘There’s one in the bedroom,’ Dad said, distractedly.
‘I really would prefer not to have Marjory waking up and trying to join in with all the fun,’ she replied. She was starting to sound more cross than worried.
‘I’ve got a cup in my room,’ I said in a tiny voice that I didn’t really expect them to hear, but both of them turned to face me.
‘I told you to go to bed, Kitty,’ Dad started, but Amanda held up a hand to cut him off.
‘That would be very useful, Kitty. Could you go and get it, please?’
I nodded and walked back into my room, picked up the cup of water I had on the windowsill and walked backs towards the bathroom.
‘Here,’ I said, holding it out, not quite stepping over the line where the old, wispy landing carpet met the bathroom floor.
‘Thank you, Kitty.’ Amanda took the cup and filled it with some of the water from the shower head. She then picked up the little packet she’d brought upstairs and popped out two of something from it. They were pills.
‘Here. It’s paracetamol with codeine. It will help with the pain,’ she said to Levi. He tried to lean up again and this time he managed it, and Amanda helped him swallow each tablet, one after another.
‘Good boy.’ Then she turned to Dad. ‘You ought to wash his hair too.’
‘Why the fuck would I want to do that?’
‘I’ll do it,’ she said, impatiently. They switched places, she soaking Levi’s hair so all the bits of twigs and dirt washed away. ‘I daren’t use shampoo – don’t want it getting in those cuts and irritating them – so this will have to do.’
‘We better use clean towels,’ Dad said, looking around him. ‘These are at least two days old.’
I didn’t wait to be told. I left the bathroom and ran downstairs. There was a pile of folded, clean towels on top of the old, clunky washing machine near the back door. It had already broken twice and Dad had nearly electrocuted himself trying to fix it the last time. But it was still going, just about. I picked up two of the new towels from the stack and went back into the hallway. Just as I set my first foot on the stairs, I heard a voice say something I couldn’t quite catch.
‘Hello?’
I turned and looked through into the lounge. It was Father Tobias. He was still looking around him, as if he didn’t know where he was. ‘What … oh … it’s you … dearest Annabelle.’
I stayed still, unsure why he was getting my name wrong. He usually called me Katherine, to my annoyance; but at least that was actually my name. Annabelle didn’t sound anything like it.
‘I’m not Annabelle. I’m Kitty,’ I said, simply.
He looked me in the eyes and smiled, then made a strange lunge forward with his hand. I took a step back straight away, clasping the towels to me. He looked surprised and hurt by my movement.
‘Annabelle? Why are you so afraid of me?’
He started to cry. Big, glistening tears started to fall down his red face and into his white-and-black collar.
‘I need to go upstairs now,’ I said. Seeing him cry made me want to cry again, and I didn’t like it. I really didn’t like it.
I left the warmth and light of the lounge and went back into the chilly darkness of the hallway to start my journey up the stairs.
‘That’s fantastic, Kitty. Thank you,’ Amanda said in a businesslike way when I handed the towels over to her. Dad was lifting Levi out of the bath, one of his limp arms thrown over Dad’s shoulders, making Dad’s shirt damp at the back. As he helped him step out onto the wet bathroom floor, I saw Levi’s thin chest crease and the large slashes in the flesh come properly into view. Now that they had been cleaned and the blood washed away, they looked very different; like slits in dead meat, thin flaps of skin parted by thin red lines. I could also see that they were not quite as bad as I had first thought. There wasn’t any bone visible, nor those muscles or ribs I’d seen in drawings of the human body. They didn’t seem deep enough for that. Strangely, though, I didn’t find Levi’s nakedness nearly as interesting as I had when Adah and I were spying on him through the gaps in the shed’s back wall. Here, with Dad supporting him and Amanda dabbing him dry gently with a towel, it reminded me of when I and some friends from playschool would run naked in and out of the paddling pool in the garden, not really caring what the others could see. Levi being older made it different, but not as different as I thought it would.
I was expecting Dad to turn round at any second and be angry I was watching, but his mind didn’t seem to be on me, for the moment at least.
Now they had both got him dry, Amanda washed her hands thoroughly by the sink, then took a little tube from the dark green box. She squeezed some white cream out of it onto her hand. ‘This is just an antiseptic ointment,’ she said. ‘Stay still. It might sting a bit, but it will help stop infection.’
She very gently touched some of the cream to the wounds. Levi flinched, but didn’t struggle. He was leaning against Dad and looked awake, but not properly. At least he’d stopped moaning and swearing now. Amanda started to open a roll of bandages and began to wrap them slowly around his body so that, bit by bit, they started to cover up the slits in his skin. She kept them in place with a bit of tape, and a large sticky plaster in the centre.
‘That’s the best I can do,’ she said, to herself more than to Dad, who was watching her every move. ‘I’ll put a plaster on this gash on his knee. We’ll have to look at that again closer in the morning.’ She did as she said, taking another sticky plaster out of its wrapping and putting it over his hurt knee. Levi gave a little sniff as she did so, but still said nothing.
‘Let’s get his clothes back on him,’ Dad said, ‘then we’ll take him downstairs. He can sleep on the sofa. I’ll keep an eye on him.’
I puzzled for a second about where Amanda was going to sleep if Levi had the sofa and Dad stayed up watching him. They didn’t seem to have thought this through, but I dared not say anything in case they started telling me to leave again. It was almost like they’d forgotten I existed.
Amanda was picking up his ripped and bloodstained grey tracksuit. ‘We can’t let him put these back on. He’ll have to wear something of yours.’
‘What?’ said Dad, looking horrified.
‘Do you have a better idea?’
‘I don’t think they’d fit him.’
Amanda tutted. ‘He’s hardly a tiny little child. He must be, what, sixteen? You’re not that different in size.’
Dad’s face twisted, as if he was trying to think of a reason to argue, but apparently he failed.
‘Fine,’ he said, sounding cross. ‘He can have a pair of my pants and a t-shirt, but I’m not wasting any of my jeans on him.’
‘Christ,’ Amanda said under her breath. ‘OK. Just don’t wake Marjory.’
‘Do you think I’m stupid?’
Amanda didn’t answer, she just took Levi from Dad’s hands, laying her palms on his shoulders. ‘Here, sit down on the side of the bath,’ she said.
Dad moved past me, laying a hand on my shoulder as he left the bathroom. I waited for him to tell me to leave, but he didn’t – it was like he’d given up fighting.
I looked back at Levi. He was shivering slightly, so Amanda picked up one of the towels and wrapped it round him, covering some of his nakedness. Dad returned in less than a minute, holding some white underpants and a grey t-shirt of the kind he normally used for sleeping.
‘The white will show up the blood stains if his cuts get on them,’ Amanda said.
‘Well I’m not going to get them back, am I, so it hardly fucking matters.’
He put his hands on Levi’s shoulders, pulled him up and then turned him around, so that he was facing the bath and the wall. The towel dropped down, and Levi stood there as Dad guided his feet through the leg holes of the briefs and pulled them up onto him, Amanda holding down the large plaster on his knee to make sure it didn’t get disturbed. Then Dad dropped the t-shirt around Levi’s head and both together, Dad and Amanda pulled his arms through the sleeves and gently smoothed the fabric down.
‘I can’t believe we’re bothering with all this after what he’s—’
‘We don’t know what he’s done,’ Amanda said, stopping him before he could finish. I saw her eyes flick towards me for a second. ‘But we do know what Marjory’s done. And like you said, I would prefer she didn’t end up in prison or some institution or for the police to start asking us questions about what’s going on, OK? Unless you want all that?’
‘Of course I don’t,’ Dad snapped in response, forgetting to keep his voice quiet. He turned Levi round again and looked at him. ‘Right. I think you need to sleep. You still look stoned out your head.’
Amanda straightened up, her knees clicking a little as she stretched. ‘The cannabis probably helped with the pain,’ she said.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Dad said, scratchily. ‘I’m not a drug-using pervert.’ He gave Levi a little nudge. ‘Can you walk?’
The boy nodded.
‘Great. We’re going back downstairs.’
‘Take it slowly,’ Amanda said.
I stepped out of their way as they went, but my hope of remaining in their company was ruined when Dad said, ‘Bed now, Kitty. Please. Just … just go to bed.’
Something in his voice meant I didn’t want to stand my ground this time, so I turned and went back towards my room, pausing to watch him and Amanda help Levi walk from the bathroom and, one slow step at a time, down the stairs.