2 – FLEETING SPIRIT


Max is an anomaly when it comes to spirits. He's the only one who's appeared to me more than once. When I was younger I didn't even realise he was a spirit. I just used to think he was a dashing young man who spent a lot of time riding horses or rather wearing riding gear. I've never actually seen a spirit horse with him. I presume they must exist. Max calls himself my 'spirit guide', but I don't know. I've seen blind people with more guidance than him.

On my way to bed later that evening I pause outside Dad's study to blow on and take a sip of my hot chocolate. In the solitary light of his desk lamp Dad is unpinning the photos and timeline cards of the Holly Winslow case from the corkboard wall and stacking them into a box resting on the corner of his desk. Dad's not so keen on Max. Back when he was still in denial about my 'gift' I used to say Max was my imaginary friend. My mother never used to say that. I remember her sitting across from me, her straight black hair falling in waterfalls off her shoulders, her coffee-coloured complexion smooth over her pronounced bone structure. She'd leant forward and cupped my jaw and pressed her thumb down my forehead between my brows and whispered, 'You have a gift, carina. You must use it well.'

I watch my father pause to take a gulp from his tumbler of gin. I see the bottle on the desk is already half empty. He calls it his painkiller. I think of Genie Ackroyd and wonder if she's doing something similar.

My life is surrounded by pain. Every message that I deliver has razor blades attached, ready to cut and slice the recipient with its every word. Why do I do it then? I don't know – well, maybe I do. You see, I don't really understand it all. I don't know why I was 'chosen'. It's not like I'm some divine child or anything. I'm tactless, I don't particularly know what to do when people start crying around me, especially adults, and I don't recall ever having attended a church service. But all these visits that I get, all the messages, all the requests, they come from all sorts – young, old, black, white, kind, brusque, always different, never the same person twice. And every day I wait and the one person I long to see never comes. So, I guess I do this in the hope that one day I will be rewarded with a visit from my mother.

Dad chucks another bundle into the box. The box becomes unbalanced and it falls onto the floor, spilling out its contents. Dad curses and lowers himself carefully to his knees to start restacking.

'Want a hand?' I ask.

He looks up. 'You off to bed?'

I nod and walk over and set my hot chocolate down on his desk. 'In a minute.' I try to ignore the gin bottle beside the telephone and the empty glass tumbler next to it. 'They didn't give you much choice,' I tell him. 'And if they're really that anxious about her they'll have gone to police by now, right?'

Dad sighs and climbs to his feet and hefts the restacked box back on the desk corner. 'I guess so. They're obviously not as worried about her whereabouts as they are about the police finding out about her drug problem.'

I unpin a picture of Holly, taken in front of a statue of two hands morphed onto bodies. She is smiling, her eyes bright as sunshine on a pond, her cheeks like polished apples, a swarm of freckles over her nose. Her hair is a forest fire of colour.

'She doesn't look like a junkie,' I say.

Dad takes the photo, glances at it briefly before tossing it into the box. 'That was taken about four months ago just before they left Germany to come live over here. She only got mixed up with drugs when they moved over here.'

'You mean she's only lived in England for four months and she's run away?' I can't keep the doubt out of my tone or my expression.

Dad shrugs. 'Three months actually. The family move around a lot for Henry Winslow's work. Before Germany it was Croatia, Belgium before that. They're British originally though.'

'Might she have gone back to Germany?'

Dad pulls a face and unscrews the lid of his gin bottle to refill his glass. The metal scratches against the glass, squeaking, it's a sound so familiar to me now I hardly hear it.

'Maybe,' he says. 'Nothing that I could find though without raising suspicions.'

I think of Holly's father, tall and weedy with an Adam's apple that made his neck look crooked, his plaintive desperation switching to adamant hostility when Dad had suggested involving the authorities. 'Are you sure there isn't another reason her parents doesn't want to tell the police?'

Dad doesn't look up from his task of pouring out another gin. 'He was my number one suspect to begin with, but his alibi checks out. He was in Frankfurt, at the book fair there. He's an author. Holly's mum reported her missing, pointed the finger at this guy.' He turns back to the corkboard and gestures to another photo still waiting to be taken down. It is of a boy in his late teens with dyed black hair moulded into impressively sharp spikes. There is more metal in his ears and eyebrows than on a janitor's keyring.

'Who's that?' I take it down to get a closer look. The lamp in Dad's office isn't the brightest.

'Holly's boyfriend, Jonathan Kilpin.' Dad looks unenthused. 'Henry Winslow says he's the one who got her involved in drugs, but there's nothing to pin on him, despite what appearances might suggest.'

Jonathan Kilpin does look a bit scary at first, but behind the piercings and extreme hairstyle I see soft grey eyes, a slightly haunted look that drug abuse probably hasn't helped, and a mouth as sculpted as yacht's hull. Sometimes I think adults are blinded by appearances, by "armour". I don't venture my opinion any further. Dad doesn't even like me mentioning Max; he certainly wouldn't appreciate me taking the side of a junkie whose girlfriend has been missing for a fortnight.

'Do you think she's dead?' I ask.

He shrugs and sits down in his swivel office chair, slouching, propping up his elbow on the armrest so his gin tumbler is at face level for easy conveyance. 'Parents seem pretty convinced she's run away. Might be that she did run away, but got herself into more trouble than she'd bargained for.'

That makes more sense to me. Holly strikes me as independent and slightly rebellious. Moving country the whole time must have been tough, she would've learnt how to survive by herself, with few friends. And if she was dating Jonathan Kilpin – well, no good little Daddy's girl would get involved with a character like him.

'How can someone just disappear like that though?' I muse.

Dad blows out his cheeks and raises his hands in resignation. 'Your guess is as good as mine.' He looks unenthusiastically at the half-packed box then his gaze drifts over to the gin bottle. 'Why don't you go on to bed, Noa? I'll finish up here.'


It's a warm night, but as soon as I step into my bedroom my body prickles with cold. At my heels, Spock growls. I pause. I know by now what this means and I hastily put my hot chocolate on my bedside table. My 'visitors' have a habit of sneaking up on me. I don't bother turning the light on, moonlight pouring through the open window is light enough. I lean out of it. From here I have a ground level view of our miniscule backyard and the cemetery beyond, partly obscured by the holly hedge that marks the boundary.

The hedge rustles.

'Max?' I call softly.

It can't be Max. He never comes back twice in a day. He says it's exhausting enough just making one trip. I think I catch the sound of crying but the wind is picking up and I can't be sure it isn't that. If it's a spirit then they may need some reassurance coming out, it can be a daunting experience for them. I hoist myself onto the window ledge and swing my legs round then jump to the ground outside. Spock jumps up to the ledge behind me, still growling. His hackles are raised.

'Ssh, Spock. Let me listen.'

The night is silky silent, only the distant drone of late night traffic passing through Cambridge disturbs the peace. Fat drops of rain start to fall. I hear another muffled cry. Despite myself, unease prickles my pores.

'Hello?'

I think of the Winslow girl. We're around the same age, same build. If she was murdered… I look around for some sort of weapon. Can I defend myself with a flower pot?

The hedge rustles again, then movement. My knees wobble but I take a step forward. I'm only scaring myself. I'm being stupid. No spirit has ever harmed me. Yet. My heart pounds in my ears. The rain becomes more persistent. Whatever is in there is about to break free. I hold my breath, bracing myself for the attack.

A hedgehog pops out and waddles over to investigate the rubbish bins. I choke out a relieved laugh and wipe the rain from my eyes. I'm glad Max isn't here to see my stupidity. I turn to my bedroom window thinking about my hot chocolate when a sudden gust of wind whips through the garden.

'Help me.' The words are no more than a whisper. But they are clear and desperate.

I spin around, clawing my damp hair out of my eyes. I glimpse a teenage girl running past. Her colouring, like all spirits, has a slightly desaturated tone to it, but nothing can hide her wild red hair.

'Wait!' I yell. I try to catch hold of her – not something I've ever tried to do before – but my hand folds on nothing but cold wet air, kind of like I've just put my hand in the deep freeze.

Spock barks from the open window.

She looks at me with round frightened eyes. 'Where am I? Please, you must help me!'

My heart thuds in urgency as I get a proper look at her through the downpour. Thunder crashes overhead. She's as drenched as me but there's no mistaking that hair. 'It's okay.' I try to keep my voice calm. 'My name is Noa. I can help you.'

'Where am I?'

The wind whirls around the yard, howling angrily as the space restricts its passage. She cowers away from the wind and rain, and even I'm struggling to keep my feet. The eucalyptus tree hisses like a pit of snakes. Spock is going mad. The girl begins to fade.

'Wait!' I cry. I reach out again, but it's too late. The wind has sucked her back through the hedge to the cemetery.

I run to it and scrabble against the foliage, but it's too dense. I stop. My hands and arms sting from the scratches. The wind dies down to a docile sigh and even the rain eases off. Spock stops yapping. A feeling of calm, of balmy summer rain, resumes. The girl has gone.

My gut twists in anguish because now I know for certain that Holly Winslow isn't a runaway. Holly Winslow is dead.


Copyright © H.R. Aidan, 2016