How I Found You (7 page)

My eyes widened a fraction. “This is an extreme emergency,” I pointed out.

Oscar stopped walking. For a long while we were silent. Then at last, he said, “I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t. Forget I said anything.”

My shoulders sagged.

Oscar changed tack. “Is there any other way to shut you up?” He must have noticed my insulted expression, because he swiftly re-worded. “I mean, is there any other way to
cheer
you up?”

I smiled in spite of myself.

Oscar’s copper-coloured eyes softened for a moment. “You didn’t lose the dress on purpose,” he reassured me in a gentle voice. “Your aunt will understand. It was an accident.”

“I know that. It’s just...” I gazed at the interlacing branched around us. “It meant a lot to Mary.” I paused, then added, “It meant a lot to me.” 

Oscar lowered his eyelids and exhaled tautly. “Okay,” he said through gritted teeth, “if I could get the dress back, would the crying stop?”

I blotted my tears with the back of my hand. “Well, yes. But it’s impossible. It must be a one-hundred-foot drop, and there’s no way down. Unless you know a way down?”

His mouth curved up at the corner. “Do you want the dress?”

I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Yes, please.”

Oscar flashed me a puckish grin. “Then I know a way down.” He rubbed his hands together. “Right. I’m going to get that damn dress back, on one condition.”

“Go on,” I urged.

“That you walk over to those trees,” he pointed to a cluster of oaks on the other side of the clearing, “and close your eyes.”

“What? Why?”

Oscar held up his hands. “Those are my terms. Do you accept or not?”

How could I not accept? I was in no position to argue. I nodded my head in concurrence.

“Good girl.” He gave me a little shove in the direction of the oaks. “Go. And don’t open your eyes. Remember, a verbal contract is binding in the town of Hutton Ridge.” He winked.

Confused but compliant, I walked to the shelter of the trees and reluctantly followed orders. Standing around in the rain with my eyes closed seemed well and truly absurd.

“This had better not be some dumb practical joke,” I yelled into the breeze. 

“Are your eyes closed?” Oscar called to me.

“Yes,” I replied.

In the next second, I heard the pounding of feet on the muddy ground, as though Oscar were racing to the edge of the precipice.

Of course, my eyes instinctively shot open. And it was a good thing they did, because I was just in time to see Oscar hurtle off the ridge.

“No!” I screamed, clutching my heart. I raced across the clearing, severely dreading what I was about to see on the ground below.

I braced myself for the sight of Oscar lying motionless, broken and bleeding. I felt as though I was a heartbeat away from seeing something that I would never recover from.

What happened over the next few seconds, though, would forever be one of the most significant moments of my lifetime. I could honestly say that imagining Oscar dead changed my life forever. It was surreal, as though I had floated out of my body and was watching myself run to the ridge. For a brief instant, everything became clear. For the good and the bad, I couldn’t live without Oscar. It wasn’t a romantic Romeo and Juliet-esque proclamation, it was simply a cold, hard fact. I mean, it wasn’t as though I knew Oscar, or even particularly
cared
to get to know him for that matter. But I knew that, somehow, on some bizarre level, losing him would lose me.

But as I peered over the edge of the ridge, I came crashing back down to reality.

Oscar stood staunchly at the foot of the cliff, completely unaffected by the jump.

“You absolute, brazen liar!” he shouted up at me. “You swore you wouldn’t open your eyes!”

“You jumped off a cliff!”

Oscar raked his hands through his rain-soaked black hair. He cursed under his breath.

“Are you hurt?” I yelled down to him. “And also, are you crazy?”

“No,” he snapped. “You shouldn’t have opened your eyes. Now I’ll never trust you again.” He spat out the words with disdain.

I shrugged my shoulders. “You’re not exactly the most trustworthy person yourself, Oscar.”

He looked up at me with what I vaguely made out to be a sarcastic smile. “
I
haven’t done anything to merit untrustworthiness,” he stated. “
You
, however, have. You duped me, Rose.”

I crossed my arms. “I’d hardly call it
duping
you,” I called down to him. “It was a shock. It’s not every day that someone leaps off a cliff.” I paused. “You did jump, didn’t you? I didn’t imagine it?”

“Yes, you imagined it,” he replied.

“No, I didn’t. You jumped!” My gaze travelled down the sheer rock face. He really jumped! “How are you going to get back up?”

“I’m not coming back up.” He folded his arms stubbornly. “Not now, anyway.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t trust you
not to watch,” he sulked.

“Well, obviously I’m going to watch. You just performed a death-defying stunt. You can’t expect me to look away while you perform the next one.”

“Exactly. That’s why I’m staying down here.”

“Why can’t I watch?” I pressed, frankly confused by the whole situation.

“Because it’s none of your business.” He dug his foot into the ground, agitated.

I sighed. “Okay. If it’s really that important to you, then I’ll close my eyes.”
Maybe
.

He looked up at me, rightly suspicious. “That’s what you said last time.”

“Well, last time
you didn’t warn me that you’d be jumping off a cliff,” I reasoned.

He puckered his lips, uncertain whether to believe me or not. “Do you swear?”

“Okay.”

“That’s not very convincing.”

I sighed again. “I swear,” I said, and I think I actually meant it that time.

After a brief mental deliberation, Oscar called back to me, “You’d better not be lying again.”

I watched while he picked up the pink shopping bag and stuffed it into the back pocket of his jeans. Then I returned to the oaks and reluctantly closed my eyes.

I began to count.

One, two, three…

“You can open them now,” Oscar whispered into my ear.

I gasped at the sound of his voice. It had scarcely been a few seconds since I’d seen him standing at the foot of the cliff.

“Oscar?” I choked.

He held up his hand to cut me off. “No questions.” With a nod towards the woodland, he strode off into the trees, apparently confident that I would follow him.

And I did.

“By the way,” he added, “don’t mention this to your aunt. Or to anyone.” There was a faint trace of anxiety in his tone.

“Okay,” I agreed uncertainly.

“Not just about the cliff. I mean
all
of it. I’ll make sure you get out of the woods, but then I’m out of here. Don’t tell anyone that you saw me.”

I chewed on my thumbnail. The idea of lying to Mary didn’t sit well with me.

“Can’t I tell my aunt that you’re here? Don’t you want a lift home?” I attempted to entice him with a free ride. Surely he wouldn’t choose to walk all the way back to Millwood in the rain?

“No, you cannot tell your aunt!” Oscar spluttered. “You’ve landed me in enough trouble as it is.”

“How?” I furrowed my brow.

Oscar didn’t reply.

“Okay,” I exhaled heavily. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Good.” Oscar stalked ahead of me. Then, without taking his eyes from the path ahead, he yanked the pink bag from his back pocket and tossed it over his shoulder.

I caught it and peeked inside at the mulberry-coloured dress.

“Reunited,” Oscar remarked, glancing back at me with a reluctant smile.

Somehow I knew that he wasn’t referring to the dress.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil

IF THERE WAS ONE THING
that I regretted, it was letting Rose see me jump off the cliff. If Caicus had ever found out about that, he would have absolutely flayed me. Ha! At least she didn’t see my vertical sprint to get back up to the crest. That would have taken some explaining. Dumb girl. She should have watched. 

Anyway, after that colossal slip-up, the next few days passed by reasonably uneventfully. Caicus and I made ourselves at home; we even managed to slot ourselves in as part of the family. No questions asked.

Caicus hung around in the kitchen a lot, making weird dough-based concoctions with Mary. Personally I couldn’t have thought of anything worse.  I tended to linger wherever Rose was. It worked for me.

We did all right, pitching in with odd jobs here and there. Although I always drew the line at cleaning duties. Cleaning wasn’t for me.

Apart from that, things were running relatively smoothly. I’d noticed a few signs that something was coming, particularly as the weather had been so grim. And, of course, that meant that we’d been penned in for the past week like a flock of clucking battery hens. Believe me, I was sick of the sight of every single one of them. The lone consolation was that Roger worked during the weekdays. I couldn’t have stomached him, too. 

As it happened, our first dry day came on a Tuesday, a week and a half after our arrival.

Outside, the sun shone brilliantly—a typical August afternoon. During a walk around the grounds, Caicus and I stumbled upon a truly inspired idea. But to pull it off, we would need to gather the necessary implements without rousing questions. As a general rule, the fewer questions asked, the less chance there was of being exposed. Anyway, we improvised some cock-and-bull story about how we’d love to do some gardening for Mary – calling it our way of thanking her for her kind hospitality.

It was hard to keep a straight face when reeling off that one.

So, whistling as we went, we trundled off to the garden shed. I especially liked the fact that we wore our matching navy polo shirts that day - it really made me feel in uniform.

I unbolted the wooden shed door and switched on the light. A solitary bulb swung from the ceiling, providing a spotlight of colour in the windowless, dingy room. We selected a few grubby tools and took them to the garden. Neither of us spoke. There was no need to.

Mary’s garden was a patch of land at the back of the house. It was okay. A couple of flower beds and rose bushes. It was a garden; what more could be said?

I watched as Caicus jammed his pitchfork into the soil and rested his foot upon it.

A pitchfork?
I thought irritably.
Right. ’Cause that doesn’t look suspicious at all. We’re not farming crops, idiot.
      

“Snapdragons!” Caicus remarked brightly. “Isn’t that nice?” His powder-blue eyes and fair hair made him seem almost angelic under the glow of the sunlight; it must have been an extreme contrast to my darker attributes. I guessed I was the fallen angel.

I looked down upon the snapdragons, some of which had wilted in the mid-summer climate. I flipped my spade into the air and caught it by the handle. “Is anyone watching?”

Caicus subtly glanced over to the house. “No one’s in the kitchen,” he confirmed. “Or the dining room.”

“Good. You keep lookout.”

I stabbed my spade into the ground and began unearthing the sprigs of snapdragons. Damn, it was fun. Authorised destruction. That was only one step below my personal favourite—
un
authorised destruction.

With complete reckless abandon, I uprooted the flowers and handed them to Caicus, who began methodically plucking off the snout-shaped petals.

“That ought to do it,” Caicus said, giving me a little nudge with the toe of his boot.

“Sure?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He opened out his fist to show me the contents. “What do you think? Is that enough?”

I pushed his hand away. “How am I supposed to know?”

“Well,
I
don’t know. What do you
think
?” He waved the snapdragon petals at me again.

I contemplated it for a while. “Eh, whatever,” I said at last. “It’ll do. And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Isn’t it enough that we had the idea at all?”

Caicus nodded his head enthusiastically. “It was a good idea,” he reflected. “We should give ourselves more credit. We’re really good at…” he paused. I could tell he was trying to think of something profound to say. “Ideas,” he finished.

Oh. Well, good enough.

I hopped to my feet and brushed the soil from my hands. “Yes, we are,” I agreed matter-of-factly. “And we’re always so underappreciated.”

“True,” Caicus agreed with a sombre sigh.

We had no modesty. It wasn’t a trait that applied to us.

“I wish the others could see us now.” Caicus licked his lips in excitement. “The look on their faces when they found out that
we
were the chosen two!”

I grinned. “That was a great day. If only I’d had my camera.”

“To think they ever doubted us.
Us
,” Caicus boasted. “I mean,
they
didn’t find her, did they?” he went on, feeding our egos. “No.
We
did. All that time wasted searching, and we’re the ones to find her!”

I laughed under my breath. “It must make them sick.”

“Sick!” Caicus echoed.

“Speaking of sick, I don’t know how much more of my pleasant attitude I can stomach,” I grumbled. “Or yours, for that matter.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” Caicus jeered. His face contorted in distaste. “I’ll be glad when this is all over.”

I felt the familiar lurch of foreboding.

“Yeah,” I grimaced.

I looked up to the sky, squinting in the bright light. All of a sudden I was overcome by what could only be described as extreme
irritation. I stabbed my spade into the soil, relishing the sensation of the blade plunging into the ground.

Caicus cocked his head to the side. “Something bothering you, brother dearest?” he asked. I could sense a touch of misgiving in his tone.

“No.”

“Hmm.” He raised a cynical eyebrow. “Far be it for me to say, but I hope you’re not getting too comfortable.”

I laughed bitterly. “I am far from comfortable, my friend. In fact, I am categorically
un
comfortable.” My gaze drifted up to Rose’s attic window. There was no sign of movement from inside the room. I didn’t like that. I liked to know where she was at all times. It made things easier.

“I can’t figure her out,” Caicus mused, joining my line of vision. “She infuriates me. My powers are useless on her. It’s as though she knows who we are. I mean, that’s the only logical theory I’ve come up with; she’s found out our secret and is now immunised from our powers.” He let out a howl of impatience.

I tapped my index finger to my mouth. “No,” I muttered. “There must be some other way. She has no idea who we are.”

For a while I thought she did. I thought she’d recognised me. But she didn’t. She didn’t know who I was. And she didn’t know who
we
were.

Witches.

Valero Witches, to be precise.

I went on, “I don’t know. She’s…” I paused. What was she? “Special.” As soon as the word had left my mouth, I knew I’d put my foot in it.

Special?
What was I thinking?

Caicus looked at me bizarrely. “What? You’re calling her
special
now?” He looked away again. “Anyone would think you’re fond of her.”

“Hardly!”

“Oh? What would you call it, then?”

More than fond
, I thought.

Instead I said, “Work. It’s my job to keep a close eye on her. We don’t want you-know-who finding her now, do we? Not when we’ve come this far.”

Caicus responded with a cat-like smile. “Eyes on the prize.”

“Precisely.”

“Well, this should help to keep her hidden,” he said. He handed over the petals, and I stuffed them into my jeans pocket.

There was an old trick where the shape of snapdragons would catch the eyes and ears of unwanted seekers—straight into the dragon’s jaws, so to speak. Ancient witch tribes would surround their camps with the flower so as to conceal their whereabouts from enemies. Normally I wasn’t one for tricks and illusions, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

An abrupt shout from the manor startled us both.

It was Mary.

“Hello out there!” she called, waving at us from the kitchen window. “We’re making sandwiches if you’re hungry.”

We exchanged a quick glance.

“The show must go on,” Caicus muttered under his breath. He raised his voice to reply. “Thank you, Mary!” he gushed. “That would be lovely!”

“Oh yes,” I harmonised in my most repulsive tenor. “Thank you!”

We dumped our gardening tools on the ground and crossed the lawn towards the house. Caicus led the way through the dining room entrance and we strolled into the adjoining kitchen.

Mary and Rose were already seated at the breakfast table, preparing sandwiches for lunch. The baby sat in his highchair beside them.

I couldn’t resist sneaking a glance at Rose. She wore white linen trousers and a cookie-coloured summer top. Her autumn-brown hair tumbled loosely over her shoulders.

I scowled. She was beautiful. No, scratch that—she was
way
beyond beautiful. That was the most annoying thing about her.

Whatever. Game face on.

I decided not to look directly at her; that was becoming a fairly practised way of keeping my focus. Instead I looked at the breakfast table. Fascinating.

On the other side of the table, Mary buttered bread whilst Caicus engaged her in harmless conversation. As she chattered back effervescently, Caicus slipped his mind onto a different frequency, speaking only through thought and reaching only my ears. We’d learnt to communicate this way from a very young age, it certainly came in handy.

Oscar
, Caicus signalled to me silently
, now’s the time. I’ll keep them distracted.

I acknowledged his words whilst simultaneously remaining blasé to anyone beyond the private conversation.  

Alright
, I replied to Caicus
. I need an exit strategy. We don’t want them getting suspicious.

He winked at me.
There’s only one strategy you need: charm. Now be a good boy and show me that pretty little smile of yours. 

Ha! I’ll show you my pretty little fist in a minute. Jackass.

He sniggered under his breath.
Yeah, yeah. Are you going or not?

I’m going. Make sure that you warn me if they leave the kitchen
, I added. Then out loud, I oh-so-politely said, “Excuse me, Mary, may I use the shower?” Gag.

She nodded her head, sending her strawberry blonde curls bouncing around her cheeks. “Of course, dear. There are clean towels in the airing cupboard.”

I flashed her an impossibly charming smile. “Thank you, Mary.”

I excused myself and sauntered out of the kitchen. I could feel Rose’s eyes on my back as I meandered to the staircase.

Once I was out of sight, I picked up my speed and, in the blink of an eye, I was in the upstairs hallway.

I went through the motions of collecting a towel from the airing cupboard and hanging it on a hook in the bathroom. After that, I twisted the shower taps until the water cascaded down, pattering against the pearl white base. In the background, the hum of the water heater droned loudly. A nice touch.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and smirked at my reflection.

Hello, me.

Now for the fun part. Noiselessly, I strode out of the bathroom, closing the door behind me with a click.

After a sly check that the coast was clear, I swiftly ascended the second flight of stairs—the stairs leading to Rose’s bedroom. And when I say swiftly, I mean my feet barely touched the floor. Add to that my exceptional lightness, which allowed me to strategically dodge all of the creaking floorboards.