Page 7 of We Live Here Now

“My husband isn’t much of a reader either.”

“Well, maybe you should join our club.” The vicar holds out the book. “Take it and have a read. We meet in here every third Thursday.”

“Maybe.” I take the book, although I’m not sure I’m ready for some middle-aged book group in the country yet. “And thank you.”

I watch them leave together, Joe’s hand gently resting on the small of Sally’s back, his movements fluid like a cat and her beauty almost ethereal, and I’m momentarily too fascinated by them to move until my bladder twinges and I’m reminded of what sent me this way in the first place.

“You had me worried.” Freddie’s waiting for me by the door. “Thought maybe you’d been sick. Too much rich food too soon.” He holds the door open for me but doesn’t rest his hand protectively on the small of my back as I hobble out.

“I asked at the bar about local workmen for the garden,” he continues. “Ones with good reputations. He’s going to speak to a couple of people. Thinks we should be able to get someone to start pretty soon if the weather breaks. I think one was someone called Pete Watkins? I’ve given him my number to pass on.”

“Great. Sounds good.”

I can just about make out Sally’s and Joe’s faces as a low classicracing-green sports car pulls out of the car park. I smile and wave, but they either don’t see me or are too deep in their own conversation to wave back. Neither of them is smiling, their expressions intense, so different from the mood in which they left. I lower my hand, and then they’re gone.

11

Emily

I’m boiling in bed under the blanket and duvet. How can Freddie be cold? It’s baking in here. He’s always had bad circulation—a hangover from the chain-smoking that was one of the lesser bad habits of his youth—but this is crazy. I’m sweating in my pajamas. A worse thought strikes me. Maybe I’m coming down with something. Could my foot be infected?

I creep out to the bathroom and press the thermometer against my forehead, taking deep calming breaths until it beeps and tells me I’m exactly 36.8 degrees Celsius, normal for me. I peel the plaster off to check my foot and there’s barely any sign that it was hurt at all, certainly no red ring of infection. It’s more of a relief than it should be, and I remind myself I’m no more likely to get sepsis again than anyone else. Probablylesslikely because I’ll be so careful. I was unlucky. It isn’t some bullshit punishment for what I did. There is no karma. And anyway, I’ve already been punished. The hollow ache inside is a reminder of that.

I turn off the bathroom light and step through the gloom onto the landing. It’s a clear night and moonlight streams in from the hall window, a pool of white to light my way, and I’m almost in the bedroom when—

Scraaatch scraaaatch.

I freeze. In the quiet, the sound, like a secret whisper, barely carries to me.

Scraaatch scraaaatch.

It comes again. Not a thud or a flutter of frantic wings. Whatever it is, it’s not a bird. And whatever it is, it’s coming from upstairs.

The moonlight now seems to only enhance the dark shadows that fill the corners and doorways off the landing, and as I hear the sound again I reluctantly peer up to the next floor.

Maybe it’s a rat. It’s a grim thought. We had mice once in the flat but never a rat.

Scraaatch scraaaatch.

Definitely too loud for a mouse. In fact, it doesn’t sound like an animal of any kind. For a moment I’m not sure what it sounds like, and then when it comes again it strikes me.

Fingernails on wood.

I look back toward the bedroom and then upward, caught in a no-man’s-land, but I know I won’t be able to sleep until I’ve checked it out, and I don’t want to wake Freddie up two nights in a row. I’ve got no choice. Despite the niggling irrational fear in the pit of my stomach, I grip the banister and press my good foot down on the first stair.

One step at a time I climb the steep staircase, my good leg doing most of the work, but finally, a little breathless, I reach the top and flick on the light. A solitary bulb, no shade over it, pools soft yellow across the landing.

Dust motes hang suspended in the air against the pale green walls of the large landing—paint, not paper here—and the old gloss skirting boards are chipped, as are the cupboards covering the radiators in an old-fashioned way, as if perhaps the previous owners ran out of energy or money to make it as ornate up here.

I find a bathroom on the left with a double bedroom alongside it, as well as several storage cupboards lining the wall. I don’t find any evidence of mouse droppings or worse, and certainly no flapping bird. The landing and the rooms off it stay silent. In the faded dusky bulb light I wonder if I heard anything at all or if it was simply my imagination playing tricks on me.

There’s only one door left to open, on the far side of the staircase—the primary bedroom suite, the one we’ll be moving into as soon as my leg is more manageable. From outside, the large oval window is the centerpiece of the front of the house, hinting that the spaceinside is something special. Facing the wooden door, I hear the very faintestscraaatchcoming frominside, and then, taking a deep breath, I step forward, grip the cool metal handle, and twist.

As the vast room comes into view I have such a wave of cognitive dissonance that I can’t move or think. Itisbreathtakingly beautiful, the moon hanging at the window like a perfect bauble of light, dressing the polished floor in sheets of silky white, and from the pale walls the ceiling arches up to a point, running out to where the large oval window sits in the middle.

But despite its beauty, the air is punched from my lungs as I cringe backward. What I feel is a terrifying darkness. I stare, my eyes wide. An invisible foulness covers every surface in the room like a sentient oil, clinging to it, spoiling it like rot.

Darkness.

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