CHAPTER FIVE

The Lily Trail

“What do you mean by that?” I rub my sweaty palms down the side of my pyjama bottoms.

“I’ve got to go, see you in a couple of days,” Timmy says, ignoring my question. He waves again as he sprints away, and I watch him until his shadow fades into the wood’s belly.

I stand still with my confused thoughts. The Twig Man is awake? Maybe this is his idea of a silly joke. I wouldn’t put it past someone at school to have set the whole thing up. It wouldn’t be the first time. Except, Timmy doesn’t go to our school . . . unless he was lying.

“Ari? Is that you?” Mum calls, and I rush back inside.

“Yes, Mum, I’m just getting something to eat.” I slip the keys inside the drawer and pretend to be really interested in the contents of the fridge.

Mum appears beneath the archway; she rubs the corner of her eyes and yawns loudly. Her hair falls down to her waist, thick and shiny. “How about we watch a movie together? You can pick.”

It beats sitting in my room alone.

“Can we watch The Avengers?”

“Yes, why not, we’ve only seen it three times already.” Mum cracks a smile.

The Twig Man . . . he’s awake.

I’ve been hearing that name more than I’d like lately. Suddenly, I get an idea.

“Hey, Mum, can we go see Nan?”

Mum stops fiddling with the remote and looks at me.

“I haven’t seen her since she got hip surgery,” I add.

“You’re right, we haven’t been around as much as we should.” The guilt shows on Mum’s face.

“So, can we go this week?” I ask.

“If I don’t have late shifts, yes.”

I do miss Nan, really, but I have a more selfish reason for wanting to see her. If anyone knows Hanging Hill, it’s her. I’ll ask Nan about the Twig Man, and the cat with white eyes. Maybe Lana mentioned something to her that could help me make sense of all the strange things that have been happening lately.

“Well get over here then, the movie is about to start!” Mum taps the seat next to her.

I nod absentmindedly, thinking about Timmy’s words. They replay in my mind until I let out a short gasp. I never mentioned my name to him. How did Timmy know who I was?

*

“It’s half-term,” Dad states the obvious the next morning. He’s funny like that. “Why don’t I sign you up to the football club at the leisure centre? You can make new friends that way, and I’ll happily come and cheer you on.”

What Dad means is that he’ll supervise and get all anxious if he loses sight of me for a second.

“So . . .” Dad rubs his hands together. “What do you want to do today? Anything you fancy!”

I’m trying to think of something when I spot Lana’s notebook on top of the bookshelf. For a crazy moment, it feels like she’s here with us. She’d sit on the red armchair for hours at a time, scribbling down the stories in her head. She told me she was going to be the next Agatha Christie. I don’t know who that is, but she must be important in the book world because Lana’s eyes would go all dreamy whenever she spoke about her. That’s how I get whenever someone talks about Cristiano Ronaldo.

Dad turns up the volume on his old-fashioned speaker. He loves classic junk and has a collection of things in the garage that only he will ever use. A Kurdish song bounces off the speaker.

“What a classic.” Dad shakes his head.

“Sounds old.”

“My friend, God rest his soul, wrote this song when we were at University.” Dad gets to his feet and pretends to play the guitar.

 

Chawakam har chan to bewafabe

Zor Jar bo dilm maya jafabe

Istash serim bikay ba girjoomony

Har la sar raeaki nalay choni . . .

 

My eyes, even if you are harsh to me

You will remain in my heart

Even if you look at me with disdain

And on the way not say hello . . .

 

“Urgh . . . don’t ever do that in public.” I watch as he glides across the living room with a wistful smile on his face.

Dad is such a romantic. He’s always listening to mushy Kurdish and Arabic songs. It’s so gross when Mum joins in because they act like lovestruck teenagers. Lana and I used to cringe whenever we saw them loved up. I bet no one else’s parents are like that. They must be normal and not sing love songs to each other in the middle of the day.

Dad starts belting the chorus out at the top of his lungs. He picks up a tissue from the table and swings it in the air for effect.

“Your father was quite the dashing lad back in the day. The sarchopi I used to do was out of this world,” he shouts over the music.

“No one says dashing anymore, and those moves are ANCIENT!”

“What do they say then? Oh yes, it’s peng, isn’t it?”

“Never say that again please. Like ever.” I want the ground to swallow me up.

Dad carries on waltzing around the room. I can’t help but laugh at how goofy he looks.

“Join me,” he shouts over the music.

“No way!”

“Come on . . .”

“I’d rather do double algebra,” I joke. I watch Dad being Dad and wonder if I should tell him about Timmy. He seems in a good mood, so I go for it.

“Hey, Dad . . .”

He turns the volume down and gives me the I’m-listening face.

“I made a new friend the other day. He lives near the woods and his name is Timmy.”

“That’s great!” Dad beams and I relax a little. “Does he go to school with you?”

“No, he’s home schooled. I’m going to teach him how to play footie tomorrow.”

“Brilliant! I can take you to the park myself. Where did you meet him?”

“Outside our house, I think he was lost,” I mumble. I can’t tell Dad the truth because he would worry, and he does enough of that already.

“I should meet his parents beforehand and exchange information.”

I get to my feet and give Dad the death stare.

“And be careful . . . friends . . . bad influence . . .” He carries on, unfazed by my best I-am-annoyed look.

I stop listening because I’ve rehearsed this part before.

“Ari! I’m talking to you.”

“You always make such a big deal out of everything,” I moan.

“That’s not fair, son.”

“It’s just a game of football!”

“What time is he coming round tomorrow?” Dad ignores my outburst which only makes me madder.

“I don’t know.” I shrug, angry at myself for even mentioning Timmy. It’s so much easier if they don’t know. When Lana disappeared, my life changed too. All the things I was allowed to do before, I can’t do now.

“Don’t be like that, Ari.”

“Like what?”

Dad sighs and scratches his beard. The keys rattle in the door, and Mum walks in with a bag of groceries in each hand. She looks tiny in her baggy clothes.

“We’ve got a huge problem!” she says without looking up. “I’ve just spotted a wasp’s nest near the drainpipes up on the roof. When did that get there? I could’ve sworn it wasn’t there this morning.” She looks at Dad’s face before turning to me with her sharp eyes. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I say quickly.

“I don’t believe you. Out with it.” She crosses her arms and pinches her lips together.

“Ari has made a new friend, which I’m very happy about, but I was just in the middle of explaining to him why it’s important we meet him first,” Dad explains. I glare at him. He can’t keep anything from Mum. It’s so frustrating.

“People make friends all the time, I thought that was what you wanted?” I point out.

“Who is this friend?” Mum says.

“Just some boy.”

“You shouldn’t be keeping secrets from us,” Mum responds.

“How does that even count as a secret? Secrets are supposed to be interesting.”

“All your Dad and I are saying is that we need to know more about him,” Mum says sternly.

“I’m never allowed to do anything unless you or Dad are there. It’s embarrassing!”

“That’s not entirely true,” Dad chimes in.

“Yes, it is! Why do you think I’m never asked to go anywhere? You say you want me to have friends but then you do this.”

“It’s only because we care, making the wrong kind of friend can . . .” Dad’s voice trails off. “After everything with L-Lana,” he stutters.

“That’s not what happened to Lana! She didn’t run away because of her friends! She’d never do that!” I look out of the window at the woods, shaking from anger, when I spot a human-shaped shadow in the distance. I open my mouth to tell Mum and Dad, but the shady figure disappears from my sight.

“You’re acting very strange.” Mum follows my gaze to the woods.

“Let’s all go out to eat, what do you say, Ari?” Dad says a little too cheerfully.

“I don’t want to go anywhere, especially with both of you!” I storm up to my room but not before I hear them whispering about me.

“I’m worried about him, I thought he’d have accepted the truth by now,” Mum says.

“It’s just his way of coping with it; sometimes it’s easier to believe a fantasy than the cold hard truth.”

Not long after, I hear Dad’s car roll out of the driveway, and Mum’s footsteps coming up the stairs. I jump into bed and curl up into a tight ball so that she thinks I’m asleep.

“Ari,” Mum says softly.

I keep my eyes shut and my breathing steady. Mum sits on the edge of the bed and strokes my hair. Guilt squirms its way into my thoughts, but I don’t get a chance to say anything because Mum gets to her feet and walks back out of the room. I climb out of bed as soon as she leaves and pause by the photo of Lana and me. I was always jealous of her perfectly straight teeth because mine are a little wonky.

I straighten my shoulders and make myself a promise to prove Mum and Dad wrong. I have to make them see that Lana didn’t run away, and that maybe there really is a curse in the woods . . .The Twig Man’s Hex . . .

The black cat pops into my thoughts and for the rest of the afternoon an eerie feeling grabs hold of me. I hear Mum turn the shower on in the bathroom, so I slip outside and head to the garage to see if I can find more of Lana’s photo albums. She might have taken other pictures that could help me piece all this together. I’m barely at the garage when I smell it, the subtle blend of white lilies and peach.

Lana’s perfume.