19 – HIDE

The deserted streets are illuminated a pearlescent gold by the street lights. My breath is loud in my ears as I pedal furiously out of the city. A car zooms up behind me, casting my long wobbly shadow on the road ahead. It honks its horn then overtakes. My bike judders as we're buffered by the car's wake turbulence, nearly sending me into the ditch. My lungs and my leg muscles burn but I can't let up.

Soon, the lights become more sparse. The road darkens and I become more reliant on the feeble light of my bicycle lamp. It's dark and lonely out here and I wish I had Max with me. Or Spock even, although he'd probably blow my cover like usual.

At last, I slow. My legs stop screaming with pain as I pull up at the Cottenham bus stop. Still astride my bike, I pause to catch my breath and to find my bearings. I look around. It's a full moon, but it still feels very dark out here. Obviously city people need more light than country people. Through a gap in the trees I see Kiln Lane Farm's water tower gleaming in the moonlight. I rummage through my rucksack squashed into my bicycle basket and pull the map out. Using my bicycle lamp as a torch I trace my finger from the X at Kiln Lane Farm to the red X of Genie's Nissen hut.

I look up in its approximate direction and take a deep breath. 'I'm coming, Holly.'

Tucking the map away, I lean forward and switch off my bicycle headlamp then set off pedalling again into the darkness.

I've cycled only a couple of minutes more when I have to refer to the map again. I can see a lane up ahead but on the map the Nissen hut is before it. I look around, but the moon has gone behind a cloud and all I can see is countryside, dark forested countryside. I ditch my bicycle in some bushes and set off on foot.

The ground is mushy underfoot from a recent downpour but thick with underbrush and soon my boots and jeans are saturated. I creep through the trees, winding my way between the silvery trunks, hearing the fear in my own hoarse breath. Unless I've gone wildly off-course I should be at the hut by now.

Then I see it.

Instinctively I slip behind a tree, and dart a quick look around. No one's about, it's just me. Crouching down, I peer through the undergrowth at the Nissen hut. It stands in a small clearing amongst thick fir trees. It's just as Genie described it, moonlight streams through the trees and highlights the curved corrugated steel shell.

I can't help looking at the ground around the hut for disturbed earth, for Holly's grave, but it's impossible to tell anything from this distance. I notice a small window partly overgrown with ivy and creepers in the side of the hut, a blind pulled down, from behind which a dim light seeps out. I catch my breath as a shadow passes the window and I instinctively crouch lower. I wonder if the impossible might be true.

Suddenly, there's a snap of twigs to my right and I almost leap out of my skin. A rush of someone thundering through the overgrowth. I cower back, shielding my face as a shadow hurtles towards me. At the last second it changes course and gallops off, the graceful leaping of a deer.

I exhale and try to recompose myself. My heart thrashes about in my throat and I try to gulp it down. I so wish Max was here with me right now. I look around at the hut again. I can't be sure who it is inside. Is it one person or two, maybe even three? If I take them by surprise, I might have the advantage against one person, two would be pushing it, three I should really rethink my limitations.

I need back-up though. That much I now realise. I pull my phone out and crouch lower so the light of my phone doesn't attract any attention. I dial Dad's number.

It rings and rings and finally goes to voicemail.

'Crap. Come on, Dad,' I mutter.

I dial again, and again it goes to voicemail. How drunk is he? Or has he recovered from passing out in the living room and stumbled to bed, leaving his phone behind?

I try a couple more times, urging it ring louder, to wake him, to wake Spock even. Okay, maybe waking Spock won't make a difference. He's never answered my phone before so there's no reason he'll suddenly become Lassie now. Finally, I'm forced to just leave a whispered message. I hang up and try to think. Who else could I call? I mean, who else could I realistically call? I can't go to the police. Even if they believed me, the Winslows didn't want them involved – the Winslows!

My hand instinctively pats my jeans and sure enough I can feel Dad's address book that I pocketed in his study through the denim.

The Winslows number keyed in, I wait while it rings. My heart gives a stupid jump when it's answered by Henry Winslow.

'Hello?' His voice is crusty with sleep.

I try to keep my voice as low as possible, but the stakes are so high, my adrenalin is pumping so hard, that I'm having a hard time not squeaking.

'Hello, Mr Winslow? It's Noa Drury.'

'Who?'

'Noa Drury.' I peek through the bushes again to make sure no one has come out of the hut. 'My dad was working on your daughter's case?'

'Oh – um – hello,' Mr Winslow sounds surprised and I can imagine him scratching his thin pillow-messy hair. 'What – why are you calling here? What time is it?'

I try to keep my voice steady and grip the phone with both my hands. 'I think I've found Holly,' I whisper.

'What? Where?' Mr Winslow's voice is suddenly wide awake.

'Ssh! I'm in – actually it's a bit complicated to explain. Near Cottenham.' I bite my lip. I hadn't thought this bit through. I've no idea how to give him directions to get here. I don't even know what road the bus stop was on and that feels miles away already. 'I know, I'll send you the co-ordinates,' I say, remembering the navigation app on my phone.

'Are you with her? Is she all right?' Henry rushes.

My feelings towards Mr Winslow soften. He does sound so genuinely concerned. 'I don't know yet. I'm still outside. I'll send you the co-ordinates now, okay? Look for an old Nissen hut.'

'Fine. I'm on my way.'

Mr Winslow hangs up and I take a moment to co-ordinate my position and send it to his mobile phone. The message goes through and I put my phone away. I look over at the hut and take a deep breath.

As carefully as my wobbly legs will allow, I creep through the undergrowth, unsnagging my clothes from the thorns as I go. The foliage diminishes, the twigs stop crackling underfoot and suddenly I'm in the clearing. I pause and look around, feeling terribly exposed. Heart pounding in my mouth, I sneak closer until I can reach out and feel the cold damp steel beneath my fingers. I peep through a gap between the window and the blind.

Jonathan is there.

He's moving around. At first he is all I can see then he moves towards the door and I glimpse someone else, someone with wild red hair sitting on a camp bed.

I gasp, but before I can compute what I've just seen, the door of the hut bursts open, letting out a dim shaft of electric light. I duck down and take cover along the side of the hut where the ivy is thick.

'See you in a minute,' I hear Jonathan say. 'Don't go anywhere.'

Not daring to breathe, I watch the light shaft shrink as the door is closed, then footsteps stamp through the undergrowth.

The back of Jonathan's black spikes are highlighted by the moon riding overhead. He walks quickly away, hands tucked into his jacket pockets, jogging every few steps.

The light in the hut remains on. I wait for Jonathan to disappear from view before rising out of my hiding place. I peep through the window again. This has to be Holly Winslow. It can't be anyone else.

But then how was I able to see Holly's spirit? Did she die and come back? Was it some sort of Herculean cry for help that enabled me to see the spirit of a living person? Whatever. I don't have time to figure out the whys and wherefores. Jonathan had said he would be back in a minute. I have to work fast.

I hurry around to the front and gingerly open the door. It's a noisy door though. Holly's the only person inside, and for a kidnapping hide, the hut feels awfully cosy. She's busy moving a gas burner to the side. She hears me but doesn't look around.

'What have you forgotten this time?' she says, her back to me.

I close the door and rush over to her. 'Holly? Holly Winslow?'

Holly yelps in surprise and jumps back from my touch. The gas burner falls over, knocking over a box with mugs on it.

She tries to scramble backwards, to escape, but I grab her by the shoulders and wrestle her to a stop on the camp bed. She stares at me, eyes wider than a deer in the headlights.

'Who are you? What do you want?'

'My name is Noa.' I use the voice saved for my traumatised and grieving message recipients. 'I've come to rescue you.'

I frown to myself. Even to my ears that sounds corny.

'Rescue me?' echoes Holly. 'Who – what – have you got an ark sitting outside or something? Where have you come from?'

'It's okay. I'm a friend. My dad's a PI, he was hired to find you. I just got here quicker. Help is on the way but we've got to get out of here before Jonathan gets back.'

'What? Why?' Holly doesn't look in the least bit reassured. Perhaps she's got that weird Scandinavian syndrome thing, what was it? Stockholm Syndrome, that's right, where you grow attached to your kidnapper.

'It's okay, Holly. You're safe now. You can go home. Help is coming.'

'Help? Help like who?'

'Your dad?' I don't really want to tell her that her parents never got the police involved.

'Oh my God,' says Holly, looking so horrified even her freckles seem to pale. 'What have you done?'

I hesitate. This really wasn't what I was expecting. If Max were here, he'd at least tell me if I was imagining Holly acting weirdly. 'I – I'm saving you. Jonathan and Dylan kidnapped you. We thought you were dead.'

Holly scuttles back again. 'They didn't kidnap me!' she hisses. 'They were helping me!'

I hesitate, thoughts rejumbled in my head, scrambling for a fresh solution. 'But – but you'd disappeared – the fire at Ackerman's, your necklace was found in the ashes, the burns on Jonathan's arms, he and Dylan plotting –' I babble out all the clues that had led me here, but all Holly does is shake her head in despair.

'No! No! The fire at Mr Ackerman's was my fault. I knocked the candle over and it just got out of control. I was trapped until Jonathan saved me.'

Jonathan saved her? My mind boggles at this new turn of events. 'But – but what about Jonathan and Eyra. They're –' I clamp my mouth shut, not wanting to upset her further with tales of her cheating boyfriend.

Holly looks unimpressed. 'No, they're not. Eyra might like to think they are, but they're not.'

'But I –' I stop myself again, for the first time noticing the sweet smell of perfume in the stuffy air of the hut. It's the same as Eyra's, in which case that make-up bag in Jonathan's bathroom might very well have been Holly's.

Holly misinterprets my hesitation. 'The fire was my fault, not Jonathan's.'

'But what were you doing there?' I ask in astonishment.

'Getting away,' she says through clenched teeth. 'I wasn't going to stay there for long, but things have just – I don't know, they haven't gone the way we planned!'

'So you did run away then? I don't understand. Why?'

Holly holds her head in her hands, letting her hair fall around her like lava streams, then she looks up at me with panic in her eyes.

'You told my dad? Does he know where I am?'

I look uncertainly at Holly. Now that's she's regained some colour to her cheeks, she has a lot more freckles than when I was visited by her spirit in the garden. I gulp. Maybe it was the different lighting.

'Yeah?' I say, really not knowing if Mr Winslow knowing is such a great thing anymore. I'm not sure of anything anymore.

'Oh God. We've got to go. He'll kill us.'

I reach out a hand to reassure her. 'I'm sure he'll be fine. Honestly, he just wants you back home safe and sound. You don' know how worried your parents have been.

'My parents?' Holly exclaims. 'You have no idea who my parents are or what they're capable of! I'm not exaggerating. He is going to kill us.'

I'm so dumbfounded that I'm slow to react to Holly jumping to her feet. But she grabs my wrist and drags me with her.

'Wait,' I gasp. 'What are you doing?'

'We have got to get out of here. You're in as much danger as me now.'

'From your dad? Come on, Holly. Don't you think you might be overreacting just a little bit?'

I stumble behind her to the door where she spins around and points at me. 'Overreacting? Do you even know what they did? Of course you don't, you naïve fool!'

'Hey, hang on just a minute,' I say, more than a little put out that she's being so ungrateful. 'I'm trying to help you here –'

'Well, you're not. You've just put us in even more danger. Why couldn't you just mind your own business?'

Anger creeps into the fear that Holly is installing in my heart. 'Because I was visited by a spirit that I was led to believe was you.' I'm so angry I don't even care if she thinks I'm mad. 'I know that probably makes me seem insane to you, but it's a gift, a psychic gift, that I have. And I wasn't allowed to – allowed to move on with my life until I'd found you.' I think of Max and how he'd react to this glorious mess I now find myself in. 'You were lost! You needed help! That is what you said!'

Holly looks at me, indeed as if I'm insane. 'I'm not the one who needs help.'

'Trust me, all this time I've been expecting to find a dead body. I don't understand how I could've been visited by your spirit if you're still alive.'

'Yeah, still alive and not wanting any help from – oh, holy crap.' Holly's eyes turn from accusing to horrified.

'What? What's holy crap? Can you hear someone coming? What is it?'

She looks at me, a little more trusting, still wary. 'You're telling the truth? You can see dead people?'

I cringe. 'Not like in The Sixth Sense of anything, but yes, "I can see dead people".'

Holly rummages through a bag on the floor and pulls out a crumpled photograph. 'Was this who you saw?'

I look at the photo. It's of Holly – but then I look closer, notice subtle differences, less freckles, slimmer face, different smile.

Holly taps the photo and swallows hard. 'My sister, Georgia.'

I stare at her. As far as I know, Holly is an only child. 'Y-you have a s-sis-sister?'

'Had a sister. She's dead.'

I look again, realising that what Holly is implying is correct. It wasn't Holly who visited her that night in the rain at all. It was Georgia Winslow. Georgia wanted help, not Holly. Then I remember how she had been as wet as I was, standing in the rain, how I'd just presumed she was being rained on too. But what about Max? How he never got wet when we were caught in the rain? How I always see him dressed in dirty breeches and boots, the same clothes he wore when he died. If Georgia had been wet when she died…

'She drowned, didn't she?' I say.

Holly nods with difficulty. 'But not by accident,' she says, her words clipped and pained. 'She was murdered.'

I stare at her. No wonder the Winslows didn't want to tell us about another daughter. 'Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry.'

Holly's mouth tightens in annoyance. 'So you should be because you've gone and told her killer where we are.'

Copyright © H.R. Aidan, 2016