The night went very slowly. I kept waking up and then going back to sleep, but not a proper sleep – a strange, sort-of sleep that made me feel like I had a temperature. Eventually I gave up and put my light on. I tried to read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for a little bit, but none of the words on the page seemed to make much sense.
I got up and went to look out onto the landing. There was complete silence throughout the house – all I could hear was the occasional patter when the rain grew stronger, or a bird rustled nearby.
I tiptoed down the stairs, trying not to make them creak; the few that did happen to let out a low noise didn’t cause anyone to shout or run out to stop me. Eventually, I got to the door of the lounge. It was pulled to, but wasn’t fully closed. I pushed at it, very, very gently, and peered through the darkness.
Amanda was lying back, asleep on the armchair near the door. Dad was on the floor, slumped up against the chair, his face leaning on her legs. Both of them were completely still. I looked over at the sofa and saw a light figure stretched out lengthways, the cream-coloured blanket Amanda usually kept folded up at the end now covering Levi’s body.
I walked, very carefully, over to Levi and looked down at his face. As if he could sense me, his eyelids started to flicker. He opened them both, slowly and dreamily.
‘Kitty?’ he whispered. ‘Is that you?’
‘Yes, Levi,’ I whispered. ‘It’s me.’
‘I got hurt, Kitty. I got cut.’
I nodded. ‘I know. It was my mum.’ I didn’t know why I was telling him this, but his eyes were making me feel bad. Perhaps I thought I could make things just a little bit better by being as good and honest as possible.
‘Why did she hurt me?’ he said. I looked down and saw that there were tears in his eyes. One fell quickly, down the side of his face and into the pillow he was resting on.
‘I … I …’ I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I couldn’t say anything at all. It was too much.
‘I’m scared, Kitty,’ he whispered, and I nodded and felt the tears slide from my eyes.
‘I am too,’ I whispered. After a few seconds, I brushed my tears away with my fingers and said quietly, ‘Will your parents be cross? That you didn’t come home?’
He gave a tiny shake of his head. ‘They don’t care. I sleep in my cabin for days and they don’t notice.’ Just as I’d told Dad.
In that moment, I wished Levi did have people who cared for him. People who would run through every inch of forest and come hammering on the doors with flaming torches and pitchforks, demanding he be set free. I glanced over at Dad. Did he care about me, still, I wondered? Or did he just care about Mum, now? Had all his caring been so used up by her that, one day, he’d stop caring about me at all? And I’d be like Adah and Levi, wandering the woods without anyone expecting me home.
‘I care, Levi,’ I said.
He looked at me, blinking a little, then said, ‘Maybe Adah was right about the river.’
I let the words sit between us for a bit, growing to something terrifying and huge in the darkness; then I asked, even though I knew the answer, what he meant by them.
‘She always said that I shouldn’t touch the river … that bad things would happen.’
‘She said that to me too,’ I whispered.
I heard him draw in a breath. ‘I touched the river. I’ve been swimming in it. Do you think … do you think …?’
Rather than saying something, I did something instead. I didn’t think much about it – I just reached down, took up his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. More tears slipped from his eyes. He didn’t say anything. Just looked at me.
‘I should go back up to bed now,’ I whispered. ‘They might wake up and get angry. I’ll see you in the morning.’
He nodded slightly, but I could tell he was already falling asleep again. Maybe he wouldn’t even remember I had been there in the morning. I turned and walked as silently as I could back through the living room and into the hallway.
As I was going up the stairs, though, I missed the third step and my foot fell down flat onto the second with a loud slam. Instantly I heard someone give a gasp from the living room. And then I heard Dad.
‘What the fuck was that?’
He must have startled Amanda awake too, because seconds later I heard, ‘What … what’s going on?’
‘I thought I heard … never mind. I thought he was running out on us.’
‘He’s still there.’
‘I know … I think I was dreaming. Dreaming that he escaped.’
‘He’s not our prisoner,’ said Amanda, softly. ‘Although we might have to prepare for a bit of a fight in the morning. The cannabis will have worn off by then. He’ll be more lucid. And I doubt he’ll be happy.’
‘I think I’ve got an idea of how to settle it all. We’ll see.’
A slight pause, then Amanda said, ‘You know … we’re reaching the end of the road with what we can do for Marjory.’ She sniffed.
A deep breath in from Dad followed this, then, ‘Don’t say that.’
‘I mean it,’ Amanda continued, still talking very quietly so that I had to strain to hear. ‘We’re either going to have to admit defeat or … well …’
‘Well what?’
Another pause. I heard a slight creaking, which must have been one of them turning to face the other.
‘I mean, we might have to … step it up a level. Take things a bit further. Try some things that might seem more extreme. But I think they could work. I’m confident we could see results if … if you were less squeamish … more open to the whole thing.’
Another sniff and silence from Dad.
‘Perhaps now isn’t the time to talk about this,’ she said. ‘Look, we’ll swap places – you sleep on the chair for a bit. Your back must be killing you down there.’
‘It’s fine,’ he said stiffly.
Amanda sighed, then they both returned to their silence.
I waited in the darkness of the stairs for what must have been over three minutes, hoping that that would be enough for them to fall back to sleep. After that, I couldn’t hold my position any longer, so I half-crawled my way up the stairs and onto the landing, managing to get there with only the tiniest little creaks and groans from the wood beneath me. I shut my door properly this time when I got back into my room.
‘Police!’
I heard the shout come from down in the lounge and it woke me up. There was some talking – loud talking – but I couldn’t make out the words. After that there was more shouting: ‘I said I want the fucking cops!’
Levi had awoken properly, by the sounds of it. And, like my dad predicted, he didn’t seem to be very happy about what we’d done.
I pulled on my dressing gown over my pyjamas and ran downstairs to the lounge. Amanda had her hand on Levi’s arm, apparently trying to calm him down. He was standing in the middle of the room, still wearing Dad’s underpants and t-shirt, trying to bat Amanda’s hand away. I saw him wince with the movement and Amanda half pushed, half helped him sit back down.
‘You shouldn’t exert yourself,’ she said, tutting. ‘Your cuts aren’t as deep as they could have been, but I really would advise keeping still so the skin can heal over.’
He didn’t seem calmed by this – if anything it made him angrier. ‘Who the fuck even are you? What is this place?’
I walked in properly at this point, and Levi stopped and looked at me. ‘Kitty?’
‘Levi,’ I said, quietly.
‘So …’ He seemed lost for words. Confused. He looked back at Amanda and then at Dad, who was standing in the corner by the TV, his arms folded awkwardly.
‘So what?’ I said in response.
‘So … it wasn’t a dream. You really are here?’
‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘I came to see you last night. Don’t you remember?’
‘I …’ He rubbed his head and looked around him, as if seeing the room for the first time. ‘I thought it was a dream. So you really do live in the Witch’s Cottage.’
Dad stepped forward at this. ‘Witch’s Cottage? What nonsense is this? I think we’ve heard enough.’ He rifled through his pocket and brought out a wodge of something. Even though it was folded, I could make out the outline of the queen’s face on the notes. It was a handful of money. And he was holding it out to Levi.
‘Here. This is what we’re giving you. No more talk about police, no more shouting, no more fuss.’
Levi took the money silently. Turned it over in his hand so the banknotes unfurled like dried leaves. ‘What … what do I do with it?’
Dad made a sound of disbelief, like a cough with his tongue. ‘You can go and blow it all on more drugs, or save it for something actually worthwhile; I really couldn’t care less.’
Levi looked up at him, then down at the money again, then over at me, as if to see what I thought about all of this. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to think.
‘The main condition is that you don’t bother us, or my daughter, again.’
He looked properly confused now. ‘What … why …’ His glance went from me to Dad and back to me.
‘I don’t know what sick things you’ve been up to in that funny little cabin of yours. Maybe there’s a reasonable explanation for it, but from what I’ve heard it all sounds very …’
‘Inappropriate,’ Amanda chipped in, nodding like she was some kind of expert in inappropriate things.
‘Yes, inappropriate. And between that and the drugs, I doubt you’d like the police involved in this any more than we would,’ Dad said, nodding too.
Levi fixed me with a hard stare. ‘What you been saying? You been saying I’ve touched you or something?’ He turned back to Dad. ‘All I did was read them a fucking story.’
Dad held up his hand. ‘I don’t want to hear any more. Amanda here is going to drive you to the nearest shops where she will purchase you some new clothes. You can choose them, so long as they’re reasonably priced. Nothing outrageous. She’ll then drop you home.’
Amanda straightened up, ready for her task.
Levi had returned to looking at me. Tears seemed to be forming deep in the corners of his eyes and I found that, not for the first time, I could not look at him properly.
‘Come on, it’s time to go.’
Levi sniffed and got up. ‘And what about the mad bat who tried to kill me?’
Dad shifted where he was standing. ‘Let’s just say that she’s not very well and is being dealt with.’
‘Should be locked up, not allowed to run around the woods with fucking knives—’
‘Yes, we’re well aware of how unfortunate the whole thing was,’ Dad said, prodding Levi in the back so that he started to walk towards the door.
I was left standing alone in the lounge. I stood, listening to the burbling buzz of Levi’s protestations and Dad’s efforts to get him out of the house. When I felt the rush of cold air from the open front door, I went over to the doorway. Amanda had gone out and was getting into her car. The engine revved as she started it. Dad was crouching down doing up Levi’s shoelaces. It all looked very strange, Levi wearing shoes but no socks and no trousers.
‘Would you like my dressing gown, Levi? To keep you warm?’ I tried to say it as loudly and normally as I could, but it still came out small and teary. My tears fell properly when Levi didn’t reply. He just walked out towards the car without even a glance back at me.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Kitty,’ Dad said, frowning at me. ‘It wouldn’t even fit him. Now go and get dressed.’
I didn’t go straight away. I watched Levi get into the front seat of the car, next to Amanda behind the wheel, wincing as he slid in. Then the door closed and she reversed the car into the road through the trees and drove away.
Dad watched them go too, and then closed the front door. He looked down at me and at first I thought he was going to say something. Something important. Then he closed his mouth and eyes, and when he opened them both again, all he said was, ‘Do as you’re told, Kitty. I’ll make us some breakfast. Now go upstairs and get dressed.’
And so I did.