The Things She's Seen Read online

  I could help him with that. “Well, if Cavanagh was at the Sholt place, maybe Flint was there too, hiding out from the cops. Last night, there was some kind of fight—which is how the window got smashed—and Alexander Sholt killed them both. Then he dumped the bodies here because…um…”

  “It might have just been the first place that came to mind,” Dad said. “Everyone around here seems to have known about the old drain. But there’s something else.” He nodded toward the fence. “See the gate? It was locked. The police had to use bolt cutters to get in, and there’s no sign of any tampering.”

  “Then how did Sholt—or whoever it was—get the bodies in there?” I asked.

  “I don’t know! It’s like they fell out of the sky. But they couldn’t have, of course.” He shrugged. “Someone probably tampered with the lock in a way that isn’t immediately apparent. Except that means someone went to all the trouble of concealing the break-in, only to leave the bodies where they could be easily spotted. Although, I suppose it’s possible that Sholt thought the bodies were better hidden than they were, especially since they seem to have been dumped here last night. It would’ve been dark—he would’ve been panicked…”

  He fell into silence, frowning his thinking frown.

  After a moment, his gaze sharpened, focusing on something past me, and he put the phone back in his pocket. I turned to see Allie approaching.

  As she neared us, Dad asked, “Did you know the victims well?”

  “Not at all, really. Just to say hello to. Those two kept themselves to themselves.” She shifted to look toward the drain and then past it, staring at…a bus stop?

  “It’s so strange,” Allie murmured. “We were only talking about Sarah this morning.”

  “What’s the connection?” Dad asked.

  “This is the last place she was seen,” Allie replied. “She got off the school bus there, and she would’ve walked right down this street to get to her house, which was a block away. She vanished somewhere between here and her home.”

  “Maybe it’s all linked somehow!” I exclaimed. Then I thought about it. “Except…Tom Cavanagh and Martin Flint couldn’t possibly have known Sarah. They weren’t from around here. So probably not.”

  Allie had reached the same conclusion. “There’s no real connection, of course. Just coincidence.”

  Dad nodded his agreement. “Did any of the residents see or hear anything?”

  She shook her head. “We’ll need to conduct proper interviews, but no one’s volunteering any information.” Her face lightened. “Well, except for Tansy Webster and her angels.”

  “Angels?”

  Allie nodded at the crowd. “See the woman in green?”

  There were several women wearing green, and I was trying to figure out which one she was talking about when Allie added, “With the dogs?”

  Oh, that woman: the old lady in the tracksuit with four fluffy white mutts sitting at her feet.

  Dad nodded, and Allie continued, “That’s Tansy. She’s a big believer in…well, lots of things. Anyway, she’s insisting she heard wings beating in the air above her house last night, only they sounded too large to belong to a bird. The dogs heard it too, she said; barked half the night.”

  Wings in the air. Too large for a bird.

  My heart slammed against the walls of my chest.

  “Dad. Fetchers!”

  My father gave a slight shake of his head.

  “I don’t care whether you believe Catching or not,” I told him. “I do. The Fetchers could be looking for her, and I’m going to see if she’s okay!”

  I ran, so worried for Catching that I was streets away from Dad before it dawned on me that I didn’t know how to get to the hospital from here. But I could always get to Dad by focusing on him. Maybe it would work the same way with her?

  I closed my eyes, picturing Isobel Catching’s sharp-edged face in my mind. After a second, I began to have a sense of her. It was faint at first and difficult to pin down, almost like she was moving, but then it grew steady and strong. I concentrated. Everything shifted around me, as if the entire world was a deck of cards that was shuffling itself into a different order. When I felt it all settle back into place, I opened my eyes again.

  I was standing at the end of Catching’s hospital bed. Words rushed out of me: “Catching, there might be Fetchers around—Fetchers who’ve come into this world. Some people have died—”

  “I heard. It’s all the nurses can talk about.”

  “—and there was a witness who heard wings beating in the air, too big for a bird, and I think they might be coming for you.”

  Catching held up a hand. “Slow down, Teller. It’s not Fetchers.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yep.”

  “Are you really—” I substituted a more useful question: “How can you be sure?”

  “No one’s coming to get me. Promise.”

  She sounded absolutely positive. Maybe Dad was right and there weren’t such things as Fetchers. And yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was truth in Catching’s story. Either way, I felt dizzy with relief now that the threat was gone—or, okay, it seemed the threat had never actually existed, at least not in this dimension. But I’d thought it had.

  Catching pointed to the end of the bed. “You’d better sit before you fall.” I sat, and she added, “Thanks anyway. For coming to help me.”

  “Yeah, well. It’s what fr—” I caught myself on the word. Catching wouldn’t want to be called my friend.

  But to my astonishment, she said, “Guess it is what friends do.”

  “Um. Are we friends, then?”

  She regarded me with an expression that said I’d failed to understand something. “I told you what I thought about your dad, didn’t I?”

  I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything. “Yeah.”

  “So we’re friends. Because friends always tell each other the truth. Even when it hurts.”

  That was a very…Catching definition of friendship. But I’d take it. I grinned at her. She didn’t exactly return the smile, but one corner of her mouth pulled up. Close enough.

  She shook her head at me, still with the almost-smile lingering on her lips. “You’re an idiot! If there were Fetchers here, what were you gonna do? Haunt them?”

  “I don’t know! I probably should’ve waited for my dad. I’m pretty sure he’ll follow me here, by the way. Oh, and I haven’t told him that you can see me. I didn’t want…that is, I…”

  “You didn’t want me telling him he’s sad? I think he already knows.”

  “I don’t want you reminding him!”

  “Relax, Teller. I won’t tell him I can see you.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I told you what I think, because that’s what friends do. Now I’ll keep your secret. That’s what friends do too.”

  I wondered if Catching had a list of rules written down somewhere of how to be friends. I’d never met anyone like her. I didn’t think there was anyone like her. “Thanks.”

  She nodded, her gaze turning inward. “I had a friend. In the beneath-place. She used to tell me true things. Or true as she saw it.”

  “Things that hurt?”

  Catching’s almost-smile vanished and her hand clenched into a fist, bunching up the sheet where she was gripping it. I’d spoken without thinking, and I felt terrible. Her friend had told her things that hurt.

  I was more convinced than ever that Catching had been through something awful—and apparently she hadn’t been alone. But her friend wasn’t here now, and the fact that Catching hadn’t mentioned her before made me worry about her fate…and about whether Catching herself was still in danger, whatever she said.

  “I know you haven’t exactly seen my dad at his best,” I told her, “but he’s the
person I’d call if I was in trouble. He can help you. You just have to give him a chance.”

  “I’m not telling you what happened to ask for help,” she said.

  “Then why are you telling it?”

  Catching drew her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. “To be heard.”

  I was silent for a moment, thinking about that. Then I said, “Well, that kind of sounds like asking for help. And even if it isn’t, just because you’re not asking doesn’t mean you don’t need it.”

  Catching said nothing; she just watched me out of those fathomless brown eyes. But it wasn’t uncomfortable sitting here together. In fact, it was nice to sit quietly with someone out of choice, instead of doing it because they didn’t know I was there. It had been nice to have a normal conversation too. Well, okay, not totally normal—but Catching telling me I was an idiot was an ordinary thing for one friend to say to another.

  I suddenly found myself missing the cousins. They were the ones who usually teased me over my mistakes. And they defended me, if anyone outside the family dared to laugh at even the stupidest things I did. Like the time I’d thought I could sing. I’d been ten years old and halfway through my big performance at the school assembly when I’d realized the teachers were wincing and the kids were clapping their hands over their ears. It had been such a shock; Aunty Viv had always said I had a lovely voice! It wasn’t until the horrible moment on the stage that I’d remembered she’d said the salt cake was lovely too. I’d stuttered into silence. Kids had begun to giggle, and I’d almost burst into tears. Then the cousins had started shouting.

  First Dennis: Shut up and let her sing!

  Then Trisha: Like any of you could do as good!

  Angie: None of you are better than her!

  And finally six-year-old Charlie: None of you are better than any of us!

  Catching and I sat in a comfortable silence that was broken only by footsteps in the hall outside. I recognized my father’s brisk tread and stood up just as he came bursting through the door.

  “Hi, Dad. No Fetchers after all. Sorry.”

  He shot me a look that said I told you so. But he couldn’t have been sure, or he wouldn’t have come charging in like that. Dad wasn’t completely convinced he was right about Catching making everything up, no matter what he claimed.

  “Come to hear the rest of the story, policeman?” Catching asked.

  “I suppose I have,” Dad answered. “If you want to tell it.”

  I remembered he’d said he wanted to talk to Catching again, back when we discovered that the person who died at the home had been stabbed. It seemed like we’d found that out a thousand years ago. It had only been this morning.

  Dad pulled a chair away from the wall, placing it beside the bed and sitting down. “Would you like to tell me about the fire this time?”

  She sniffed. “We haven’t got to that part yet. And the next part…” Her gaze drifted to me for a moment and then away again before Dad could realize she was seeing me. “The next part is about my friend. And the gray.”

  I wake.

  There’s a light above.

  It shines on the center of the room. Leaves shadows at the edges.

  A voice speaks: “Hello, girl.”

  I sit up. “Who’s there?”

  “Me is here.”

  I turn toward the sound.

  Corner of the room.

  Too dark to see into.

  The voice sings:

  “One more for the Feed.

  Dead girl, dead girl.

  One more in need.

  Dead girl, dead girl.

  Cry yourself to sleep.

  Dead girl, dead girl.

  Today monsters eat.

  Dead girl, dead girl.”

  I jump off the bed. Put up my fists. “Come out!”

  No answer.

  I take a step. Stop.

  I don’t know who’s in that corner. What’s in that corner.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “Who are you? A name for a name!”

  One of us has to go first. “I’m Isobel Catching.”

  “I’m Crow.”

  “Come out where I can see you, Crow.”

  “You’ll be afraid if I do.”

  I snort. “Yeah. ’Cause singing creepy songs in the dark isn’t scary at all.”

  I hear shuffling.

  Someone appears.

  She’s gray.

  Gray skin. Gray hair that trails to the floor.

  Gray dress made from her hair.

  She watches me with clouded eyes.

  “Are you afraid, Isobel-the-Catching?”

  No. Relieved. I drop my fists. “You’re a girl. Like me.”

  She comes—hops—closer. Her feet turn inward. Her nails are too long.

  “Not like you!” she says. “You have colors. So many. Soon they’ll come, and you won’t be full of colors. You’ll be full of screams.”

  “Who’s coming? The Fetchers?”

  “Fetchers!” she sniffs. “They are nothing. No heart, no guts, no core. Here, they serve the Feed.”

  The boss man. “What does he want with us?”

  “He eats what’s inside our insides. The colors that live in our spirits. Do you think I was always a gray girl?”

  Colors are not for Fetchers!

  The colors are for him.

  I had thought Crow was a gray girl.

  But Crow’s colors have been taken.

  All her colors.

  “How long have you been here?”

  Crow hops about. “Since the Feed began. I wait. I watch. I help those who come.”

  “Yeah? Help me, then!”

  “I am helping. I am telling.”

  “Tell me how we get out.”

  Crow slashes her fingernails through the air.

  “There’s no escape. Not unless you’re a dead girl.”

  Her head snaps around to the door.

  It rattles.

  She shuffles back to her dark corner.

  The door opens.

  First and Second are here.

  Second throws something at me. I snatch it out of the air.

  A bread roll.

  I’m hungry.

  But there’s only one.

  I look at Crow’s corner.

  She’s gone quiet.

  She doesn’t want it.

  Or she’s hiding.

  As if they don’t know you’re here, Crow.

  I tear the bun in two.

  Throw her half on my bed.

  Eat the other.

  She speaks from the dark: “Sometimes bread. Sometimes meat. Sometimes sleep.”

  My legs go numb.

  I fall.

  The Fetchers carry me out of the room.

  Crow’s voice follows:

  “One more for the Feed.

  Dead girl, dead girl…”

  I’m taken through tunnels.

  To a room.

  Dropped on the floor.

  Like luggage.

  The Fetchers leave.

  I stay.

  There’s a table in front of me.

  It’s made of gray branches.

  The branches rise up into thin sticks.

  The sticks curl open like fingers.

  On the other side of it, in the darkness, something moves.

  I get up. Fight. Escape.

  Only I don’t. I can’t move.

  Not my fingers.

  Nor my toes.

  I can only feel.

  Only look.

  The thi
ng comes out of the shadows.

  The Feed is large. White. Thin.

  He has legs like broomsticks and arms that reach to his feet.

  He bends to inspect me.

  His eyes are mirrors.

  I can see my frozen face.

  I look terrified.

  I am terrified.

  The Feed grabs my wrist.

  Drags me across the room.

  My head is clutched.

  Long fingers dig into my skull.

  He lifts me off the ground.

  I want to snarl.

  Yell.

  Bite.

  But I can’t.

  My body is placed onto the table.

  The Feed brings his face centimeters from my own.

  His breath is on my cheek.

  His mirror eyes peer into my brain.

  He keeps his gaze on mine. Rears back.

  Pushes aside the clothes covering my stomach.

  His fingers press below my belly button.

  My flesh tears in two.

  I scream.

  Only my mouth doesn’t work.

  He holds up his hand. Colors drip from his fingers.

  As if I’m bleeding rainbows.

  He eats what’s inside our insides.

  The Feed swallows down a strip of green.

  A faint glow fills his skin. Fades away.

  He peels away another piece of me.

  Then another.

  My eyes leak hot tears.

  My throat rips itself apart with screams I can’t scream.

  The pain’s going to kill me.

  It doesn’t.

  I live.

  I feel.

  I hurt.

  I’m a ball curled up.

  I’m a glass thrown against rock.

  Shattered. Bits of me everywhere.

  I’ll never find them all.

  No one will.

  Crow whispers in my ear: “If you are a dead girl, you won’t feel. You won’t hurt.”

  I turn my head into my pillow.

  Say nothing.

  “Are you angry, Isobel-the-Catching? About the bread?”

  She waits.

  I keep saying nothing.