I didn’t know what to think or how to
feel. I loved him – more than I had loved
anyone before. He had meant everything to me.
But he had cheated me – fooled me, and that
made me angry. Covering my face with my
hands, I sobbed uncontrollably and turned
away from him.
“Sophie,” he tried again, “You don’t
have to be scared.”
“Get away from me!” I shrieked,
kicking out with my feet.
“Sophie, let me explain,” his voice
boomed. “I love you!”
I peered back at him over the top of the
sheet. Part of me wanted to go to him. I loved
him, and even as he sat like a giant bat at the
end of my bed, a part of me still wanted him.
He had a look of brutality about him that I
knew had always been there – and that’s what
had turned me on about him. He wasn’t like
other guys – he didn’t make love to me like
other guys had. But to know that I still wanted
him now, that I was aroused by this beast,
scared me – I felt ashamed and repulsed by
myself – not him.
So, staring at him over the top of the
blankets, I screamed, “Get away from me! You
freak – you animal! Get out!”
“I love -” he begged.
“GET OUT!”
He jumped from the bed, where only
moments before we had been making love, and
went to the windows. Throwing them open, he
climbed onto the ledge. He looked back at me
with his dead, black eyes, and to know that I
still loved him and always would, broke my
heart.
“I’m so sorry,” he growled.
Then, leaping from the window, he
spread his wings and shot into the night sky.
Throwing back the bed covers, I raced to the
window and watched him disappear into the
night as tears...
...
ran down my face. I opened my eyes and brushed them away. Even though I was free from my nightmare, those feelings of love and loss for the creature I had seen were still raw inside of me. It was like I was in love, but I didn’t exactly know who with or why. How could I have such intense feelings for someone I had never met, let alone seen? As I swung my legs over the side of the bed, I knew that the creature in my dreams was the letter writer – he was called Potter. I might not have met him – but he was a real and living person – the cop who I’d shot had told me so – and for reasons I didn’t understand, I was in love with him.
Sophie
I spent the next few weeks hiding out at the farmhouse at the top of the hill. On the morning I had woken from the dream about the man called Potter, I had thrown on my dirty old clothes and made my way back down the narrow coastal path to the small town of Beechers Hope.
I knew I was in trouble and by now, most of the police force would be looking for me. The cop who had killed the Skin-walker had probably been discovered on the road by now. The gun that had shot him and the Skin-walker was covered in my prints. They were going to believe him over me any day. Everyone would be ready to believe that I had shot them both in my escape. I had no one to turn to other than my mother and father, and did I really want to drag them into the nightmare that I now found myself in?
I had switched off my mobile phone, removed the battery, and tossed it into a stream minutes after running away from that cop as he bled on the road. I had been around enough police investigations in my role as a pathologist to know that my phone could be traced – even if it was switched off. The battery had to go too. I had enough cash on me to last a week or two, if I was careful – but then what? Credit cards were a big no-no as well. They would leave an electronic footprint every time I used them. I might as well fire a flare into the sky and scream, “come and get me, boys!” But I knew the longer that I hid, the longer I went on the run, the guiltier I looked.
I needed time to come up with a plan.
This man Potter was somehow connected, I was sure of that, but all I had was his letters. The young woman, Kiera Hudson, was also a big part, but where was she now? If I could find either of them, then perhaps I could prove my innocence somehow. The blood would have helped me prove to the authorities that something crazy was going on, but that cop had taken the vial.
With my brain working overtime, I reached Beechers Hope. Although the streets were pretty quiet, I was paranoid that everyone I passed would somehow know that I was on the run and call the police. It didn’t help that it was mid-January, winter, and the seaside town of Beechers Hope was yet to fill with tourists and holiday makers. That wouldn’t happen for months yet. I could have disappeared amongst them and no one would have given me a second look.
With my head bent low, I cut across the town square and disappeared up a narrow side street. Halfway up, I spied a charity shop. In desperate need of some new clothes, and with little cash, I thought it would be an ideal place to find myself something new to wear. I pushed open the door and a bell tinkled above my head. The shop smelt musty, and someone had tried to disguise this by placing small bunches of lavender around the shop in glass vases. There were racks of clothes and shelves with second-hand books.
There was also a display case that was full of odd-looking knick-knacks that had been donated to the charity shop.
Along the far wall was a counter and behind it sat an old woman with a fuzz of white hair. Her skin was wrinkled up like an old prune and her puckered lips had been smeared crudely with red lipstick. Hearing the bell ring, the old woman looked up from a book that she was reading. She waved a gnarled looking hand in my direction and then went back to her reading.
I slipped between the racks of clothing, looking for anything halfway decent. The hangers made a jingling noise as I pushed the clothes aside, checking out each garment. I wanted something that would be completely different from the clothes I would normally wear. If I were to stay on the run, I needed to look different than how I usually looked; I needed a new identity somehow.
A lot of the clothes on display were more suited for the older woman. Then, as I looked about the shop, something caught my eye. It was a pretty-looking dress that was covered in a faint floral pattern. It wasn’t something I would normally have been seen dead in. I took the dress from its hanger and held it against me for size. It looked as if it might fit, but it was more like something a hippie would wear. There was another dress very similar a couple of rows down, so I took that from its hanger, too. Again, it was something a tree-hugger might wear, but it was different from my usual tastes. Folding the dresses over my arm, I knew that I would also need a coat. I found a long brown coat with a fake fur collar – very seventies – and knowing that it would suit the whole new hippie look I was reluctantly going for, I took the items to the counter.
“Do you need a bag?” the old woman asked me as she removed the hand-written price tags from the clothes.
“Yes, please,” I mumbled, trying not to make eye contact with her. Then, taking the coat, I added, “I’ll put this on now – it’s freezing outside.”
“Okay, dear,” the old woman smiled sweetly at me, and I noticed that some of her red lipstick was stuck to her front teeth. It looked like she had been eating strawberry jam.
I took the coat and put it on. It had a belt that I fastened around my waist.
“It suits you,” she smiled again. “Funny time of year to come on holiday.”
“Oh, I’m not on holiday,” I smiled back.
“I’m just passing through.”
I gave the old woman the money for the clothes, and taking the bag, I headed out of the store.
“Goodbye, dear,” she called out.
Without looking back, I waved my hand in the air. The bell tinkled overhead again as I stepped out into the street. I pulled the fur collar of the coat up about my neck, and it felt warm and soft against my cheeks. I didn’t want to hang around in town for too long, so I headed back down the street to a small supermarket that was situated in the town square. I filled a basket with cans of food. I didn’t even know if the farm that I was squatting in had an oven or a stove, and if it did, would it even work. But there was a fire, even if I could heat up a few cans of beans, that would be something. I took some milk and bread and anything else that I could think of. As I headed for the cash register, I checked my pockets for my cash, then remembered I was wearing the new coat I had bought from the charity shop. My cash was folded away in the back pocket of my jeans.
Then, as I went to take my hand from the coat pocket, I felt something. It was small and square, about the size of a credit card. I pulled it out and realised that it was a driving licence and it must have belonged to whoever had donated the coat to the charity shop. I turned it over it my hands and looked down at the tiny picture of the face that stared back at me. The woman was pretty, about the same age as me, and we could have looked quite similar if it wasn’t for the fact that she had light blonde hair and mine was dark brown. Her name was printed beneath her picture and it read
Caroline Hughes
.
Then, with an idea creeping into my mind, I headed back amongst the isles of the supermarket and took a bottle of blonde hair dye from the display and placed it into my basket.
Potter
I closed the door to Kiera’s flat behind me. After what had happened in the Grandma’s flat, I was keen to make sure that this time I had the right place. Being shot and called “kinky” was enough for one night and I just wanted to get back to the manor. Like the other flat had been, Kiera’s was also in darkness. This time, I risked having the aid of some light, so I took my cigarette lighter out and flipped it on. A flame of orange light lit the darkness before me. I was standing in a small, tidy room. There were no newspaper cuttings tacked to the wall, and at first I feared I’d gotten the wrong flat again. Why did everything have to be
pushed
? With the light from the flame in my hand, I tiptoed across the room to the window. There was the chair that Kiera had so often described sitting in, and then I saw a picture frame by the window.
Holding the lighter above it, I could see that it was a picture of Kiera and an older-looking man. I could see the likeness. They both had those hazel eyes that lit up Kiera’s face and both had jet-black hair. I’d never seen Kiera’s father, but I knew that it was him in the picture. Kiera had spoken fondly of her father and had told me how close they had been. She had promised him, before he died of cancer, that she would find her mother for him. She certainly did that. I turned around, and taking the picture with me, I headed towards another door, which led into Kiera’s bedroom. In the light from the flame, I saw a rucksack on the floor by a set of drawers. I picked it up and put the picture inside it – Kiera would like to see that photo again. I then opened the drawers. As soon as my fingers felt the soft silk of the underclothes, I knew that I had the right place – there was no doubt this time. Beneath the bras and knickers, my fingers brushed across something similar in shape and size to a wallet. I pulled it out and the silver badge twinkled in the light. I placed it into the rucksack and then I snatched a handful of her underwear. As I was shoving it into the bag someone spoke from within the darkness.
“Who in the hell are you?” the voice asked.
“How does the same shit happen to me twice in one night?” I breathed turning around, half expecting to see another dried up old woman peering at me from the darkness.
But it wasn’t an old woman who was staring back at me; it was someone much younger by the sound of their voice. Holding the lighter up, I moved towards whoever it was.
“Stay where you are,” the female voice snapped.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Keep back,” the voice came again, and I could sense the fear in it.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I tried to assure her, the flame wavering before me. In the flickering light, I could see that whoever it was standing in the darkness had long, blonde hair. It was thick and curled around her shoulders. I moved closer towards her.
“Keep away from me or I’ll scream,” she threatened.
“You’re not going to scream,” I whispered. “You’re hiding in here or you would have come out of the shadows already.”
I moved closer still and as I did, the female rushed from the corner and tried to get past me. Shooting my arm out, I grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her towards me. Holding the light inches from her face, I looked into her eyes.
At first I didn’t recognise her, but when I did, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. Her hair used to be dark brown, but now it was blonde – something else that had been
pushed
perhaps?
Looking into her face, and my heart beginning to race, I whispered, “Sophie, is that really you?”
She yanked her arm free of my grip and staggered backwards. “My name’s not Sophie,”
she said, pulling something from the pocket of the long, brown coat she was wearing. Flashing a small piece of plastic I.D. in front of my face, she snapped, “See, my name’s Caroline Hughes. I don’t know who Sophie is.”
Maybe she wasn’t called Sophie now that the world had been pushed – perhaps her name was really Caroline Hughes? I wondered. But then again, her father referred to her as Sophie.
But I wouldn’t tell her I’d seen him. I didn’t want her to think I‘d been looking – searching – for her.
“You used to be called Sophie once,” I said softly, not really knowing if I should have told her that.
But I’d said it, it was out there, and I couldn’t take it back.