Nine Letters Long (9 page)

‘Evie?' Her father taps on the door. ‘Who are you talking to?'

‘Oh, I'm just … practising a poem, Dad.'

Silence. Evie holds her breath.

‘Sounds dramatic.' Then his footsteps fade away.

‘Get it together.' Evie runs her fingers through her hair. ‘I can't lose it. Not here. Especially not here.' She sits back on her bed and hugs the pillow. ‘There's got to be a way through this.' She buries her face in the feathers. ‘There's got to be. I've just got to …' She breathes into the pillow, suddenly pulling away. The scent of the down has thrown her. It's dry and dusty. It wants her to remember something. But what? She sniffs it again but it's gone.

‘It must be nothing.' A tiny white feather sits on her top lip. She picks it off and studies the fineness of each strand on her fingertip. ‘It's nothing,' she tells herself as she flicks it off. ‘Nothing. Come on; get a grip, girl. Not everything has to mean something.'

From under the mattress, Evie pulls out her diary and begins to write to Athena. ‘You got me into this,' she tells her. ‘So the least you can do is point me in the right direction 'cause I don't know where to go next.' Evie pulls the doona over her. It's almost six-thirty and a southerly is rustling the tree outside her bedroom window. Its branches scratch the glass. ‘How am I meant to help someone who won't even
talk
to me? I feel like I'm back where I started, not that I even know where that is. All I do know is that I need something more to tell Paris. And I need some strength to face her. There's something really wrong with that girl. I have never felt the way I felt when I saw her today and I'm not sure I know how to handle a feeling like that again. So what am I going to do?'

Evie taps the pen on the page. ‘I need some
help
! I actually need someone to help
me
. There's nooooooo way I'm asking Alex this time. But I keep wondering – has Zac's parents being Romanian got anything to do with this? 'Cause I can tell you now, I
am not under any circumstances asking Zac for help
. But it's all looking like a bit of a coincidence. Roxy's sister working at the Penis, all these Romanian connections suddenly popping up everywhere. So why isn't it making sense?'

There's a knock at her bedroom door. Evie sees the handle start to turn. Quickly, she shoves her diary under the doona.

‘Hi, darling.' It's her father – again. ‘Mum wants to know what you're doing for dinner?'

‘Eh?'

‘We're going out with Theo and his new squeeze. Remember?'

‘Oh yeah,' Evie nods. ‘That's right.'

‘Nothing on with Al and the girls tonight?'

‘Nothing I want to go to.'

Nick ruffles her hair. ‘You didn't get to the hairdresser?'

‘No. Couldn't be bothered.'

‘Still looks cute.'

Evie shrugs. He cocks his head and looks at her. ‘You okay, Evie?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Sure? You seem, I don't know, a bit distracted.' Evie can feel him searching her face for an answer. But she will give nothing away. ‘We've been through so much, you know. I really hope you'd tell me if …' He pauses. ‘If there was some
thing going on. I know that business with the séance didn't amount to anything but don't feel like you've got to protect us, Evie. We're the grown-ups, remember.'

‘I'm fine, Dad. Really.'

‘Well.' He gets off the bed. ‘We're here if anything gets … too difficult.' He walks to the door then stops, not turning to face her. ‘So I'll tell Robin you'll get your own dinner?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Okay.' He still faces the door and now Evie knows he suspects.

 

Evie heats up the leftover pasta from the other night. She flicks through the TV channels but her mind isn't up to concentrating. It's filled with the face of Paris Cuza. Evie closes her eyes, watching the girl in her head. She's frightened. She keeps a dark secret; Evie knows that. What Evie doesn't know is how to reach her. ‘Tell me,' she says to the face in her head, ‘tell me – anything.'

At first, Evie thinks the groan and rattle is coming from the pipes in the upstairs bathroom. But, when she hears it again, she realises it's not that sound. It's different. Evie tiptoes to the stairs and looks up. It's like a tapping now. Like something is trying to get in – or maybe get out.

Slowly, Evie climbs the first few stairs, stopping each time she hears a tap. It's definitely coming from up there.

‘Hello?' she calls. ‘Hello?'

Nothing.

Evie creeps up the next flight of stairs. It starts again. More distinct this time. She stops, terrified to even breathe. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap … TAP TAP TAP TAP … Evie runs up the stairs, two at a time. With each stride, the sound grows more frantic until it's become a BANG BANG BANG BANG.

The floor trembles under her feet as she charges down the hall. She pushes open her bedroom door, throwing herself in the doorway, then stops so suddenly she falls back against the wall and goes crashing to the floor.

‘Oh god! Shit!'

BANG BANG BANG BANG … The doors of Evie's cupboard are opening and closing. The hinges jump and rattle as they fly in and out, faster and faster each time. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG.

On her hands and knees, Evie tries to crawl out of her room but it's like a vacuum is keeping her in.

‘Please. Please.' She curls up in a ball. ‘Stop it. Please,' she cries, covering her ears and face with her arms. ‘Please stop it. Stop it, Caz!'

The cupboard doors keep flying open then banging shut. BANG, open – BANG, open, BANG, open.

Evie is crawling towards them. ‘Pleeease. Pleease. I want to help you. I do.' Her arm is stretched out in front; she can almost touch the doors as they swing out. ‘Please make it stop.'

They open and bang shut, almost catching her hand. Again they fly open then … nothing. Suddenly, the room is silent.

‘Thank you.' Evie buries her head in the carpet. ‘Thank you,' she mumbles. ‘Thank you. Thank you.'

For a couple of minutes she stays there, unable to move, her heart pounding against the floor. Finally, she sits up and stares into the open cupboard. Her shelves lined with jumpers and jeans and boxes of photos seem like they belong to someone else's life. How could anything so normal be part of her?

She peels herself off the ground. Her knees feel like mush, barely able to hold her up as she staggers to the open doors of the cupboard.

‘I'm getting it. I'm getting it.' She leans into the shelves, whispering, ‘Just wait, Caz. Just wait. I'll be with you, Caz. Just wait. Just wait.'

 

Sitting on the floor, she sets up the board and lights the two white candles.

‘Please keep this room safe. And the people in it. I ask to call on the spirit world with good intention and reason.' Evie speaks quickly. She's not sure how long she has. Caz's impatience still echoes from the cupboard doors. ‘If your sister Caz may speak, I call on her in the hope I may help her and give her … peace.'

The second Evie places her finger on the planchette it starts to move. Up and down the board it travels.

‘I want to help Paris,' Evie says. ‘I know something's happening to her, Caz, and I know you want to tell me. But I need more …'

Impatiently, the pointer swings around clockwise and travels to the letter S. Evie grabs the pencil next to her foot and scribbles ‘S-A-Y-T-O-H-E-R'.

‘Say to her,' Evie writes. ‘Say what?' she whispers. ‘Say what, Caz?'

The needle moves to the next letter, A. For a second, it waits then moves to the next. It does the same at each one, pausing long enough for Evie to jot it down. ‘S-A-Y-T-OH-E-R-A-N-D-R-A-A-N-C-A-C-O-S-M-I-N-P-E-T-A-R-IR-I-N-A-N-I-S-T-O-R.' Evie looks at the line of letters. All she can decipher is ‘say to her'.

Evie scans the jumble scrawled down the white page. Her finger still rests on the pointer as she waits. Waits for more. Waits for something to make it all make sense. But she gets nothing. For now there is no one there. It seems Caz Cuza has left the room.

Evie can't work it out. Why the urgency to give her a message that makes no sense? Why leave it just like that? Blowing the candles out, Evie begins to pack away the board. Suddenly, a rush of air flaps across her. She squeals, throwing her hands up to guard her face, smelling a dry, dusty scent on her hands. Evie sniffs her fingers. They smell like the feathers in her pillow.

‘What is this all about, Caz?' she asks, pushing the board under the bed. ‘How am I ever going to figure it out?'

 

The new letters are copied into the exercise book Evie has kept as a record of the messages. Even with them sitting neatly on the line, nothing is clearer.

‘A N D R A A N C A C O S M I N P E T A R I R I N A N I S T O R.'

She tries breaking them up, splitting them into groups – everything, anything, to try to understand what they mean.

Then she recognises a name within the jumble – IRINA. A girl in Evie's maths class is called Irina. She takes out those letters and works backwards. The word ‘PETAR' forms, and gradually Evie identifies what she thinks could be a list of names.

‘Irina Petar Cosmin,' she repeats. ‘Who are these people?'

She runs her finger along the hidden names lost in the remaining letters. ‘ANDRAANCANISTOR'. ‘Who are you?'

Evie goes back to the original message. ‘SAYTOHER ADRAANCACOSMINPETARIRINANISTOR.'

‘Say to her something, something, Cosmin, Petar, Irina. That means the last name has to be Nistor. Cosmin, Petar, Irina, Nistor? I don't get it. But that doesn't mean Paris won't.'

Suddenly Alex's words from last week come flooding back. ‘Only that weird-looking skinny chick hangs around there on a Sunday.'

‘Yes!' Evie tears out a sheet from the book and begins to write.

‘Dear Paris,' she chews her top lip, racking her brains for the right thing to say.

She seals the letter in an envelope and puts it in the bottom drawer with the exercise book.

 

When her parents get home, Evie's downstairs watching TV.

‘Hi,' they say. Her mum looks tipsy.

‘Hi,' Evie answers. ‘Good night?'

‘Interesting.' Robin sits on the arm of the couch.

‘Yeah? What's Theo's new squeeze like?'

‘Interesting,' Robin says again.

‘Interesting? Interesting how?' Evie laughs. ‘Tell us.'

Nick comes out from the kitchen. ‘I think what your mother means is interesting – young.'

‘Interesting young?' Robin slips onto the couch. ‘Interesting underage, more like it!'

‘Like how young, Mum?'

‘Oh, like twenty-two, maybe.'

‘No way,' Nick scoffs. ‘Twenty-seven up.'

‘Alex's dad's girlfriend is twenty-five,' Evie reminds them.

‘Exactly.' Robin points at Evie. ‘And that ain't been good for Alex.'

‘But Theo doesn't have kids.'

‘Still. We fifty-year-old women don't want to have dinner with twenty-five year old women. Unless,' she chuckles, ‘unless there's very soft lighting.'

‘See! So it's you, Mum, who doesn't like it.'

‘That's right.' Robin burps. ‘'Scuse me. I'm off to bed.'

She takes the stairs very carefully. Evie and Nick watch her.

‘She's had a few.'

‘I think it all got a bit much for her,' Nick laughs. ‘The other thing she didn't mention is that Trixie – I mean, Tracey – is also a bikini model.'

Evie starts laughing. ‘Theo with a … model?'

‘The women have always liked Theo,' Nick says. ‘He's dark, rugged, exotic –'

‘Smelly!'

‘Some girls go for the aftershave.'

‘Don't ever put Mum and me in that category, Dad! Ever!'

‘Pew!' Robin calls from upstairs. ‘Phoar!'

‘What?'

‘Either Evie's been having a fight with the perfume or Theo's stinking cologne's stuck to me.' They hear her laughing down the hall. ‘I'm having a shower. Pew!'

‘See,' Evie nods. ‘Told you so.'

‘Well, just because the women in my life …'

But now Evie smells it too. It's not Theo's cologne.

Evie jumps off the couch. ‘Well, I'm off to bed.' She pecks Nick on the cheek. He's still mid-sentence.

‘Oh? Okay. Sorry I'm so boring,' he mutters. ‘I'll have a hot chocolate on my own then.'

Evie is cautious not to take the stairs too quickly. Inside, a voice is screaming ‘Run, run', but her head is saying, ‘Keep calm. Act like nothing's wrong.'

Down the hall, Evie hears the shower running. She slips into her room and shuts the door.

‘Ooh!' Evie throws her hand over her face. The scent is overwhelming. Caz is everywhere. She pulls up the blind and opens the window. Frantically, she fans the air with a magazine. ‘Caz, what are you doing?' she mutters. ‘If you don't want adults to know then don't turn up like this when my oldies are around. You're making it very hard for me. I know my dad already suspects. You can't do this. I'll … I'll …' Evie grabs her dressing gown, rolls it up and shoves it against the bottom of the bedroom door. ‘I'll get caught. I'll get caught and then they'll know and then I won't be able to help you. Please, please, Caz. Don't … complicate things. God, as if they're not complicated enough!'