Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher

Author:Lucy Christopher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Australia

27

Emily

I breathe out so I can hear myself in the dark.

A nightmare, another one.

I stretch my fingers through blackness, grasp at air. I have the strangest feeling of brushing fur with fingertips. I’m home, in my bed. But something woke me. There was a noise, something that had sounded like an animal. I’m used to the sounds of the woods at night – the yip of a fox, the moan of a stag, the screech of a barn owl – but this was different.

I pad to the window and press my fingers to cold glass. This is like how it was two months ago when I was up and waiting for Dad to return. Like that night, there is a full moon again, pretty much. Unlike that night, my dad is not in Darkwood. If he were, I might race down our garden path and through the gate. I might pelt down tracks towards the bunker. I might launch myself at Dad. And she might have run.

I open the window, gasp in the cold air. It’s like I’m starting to believe, all of it. I get a glimpse of understanding of why Mum’s drinking every night. Right now I want to forget these thoughts I’ve been having too, forget what I found in Dad’s car . . . everything.

I look down the row of houses. No one’s lights have gone on, the back gardens are still and grey. If I crane my neck I can see the very edge of Joe’s garden at the other end of the row. When we were younger Joe would stick his hat on a fence post to show me he was home and free to play. Now his fence post is empty. There is no one walking on cobbles in our lane either, no glass shards tinkling against each other as another brick goes through another of our windows. No shake and hiss of a spray can as someone scrawls out their hurt on our walls.

I go back to bed and light a candle. Once Dad would tell stories by candlelight until I fell asleep. Now I watch the candle’s shadows on the walls, leaping and lurching like demons. As the flame flickers I start to drift. And, just for a moment, I think I hear it again: that noise that woke me. It’s something like a howl, something far away. I try to keep listening but my brain is heavy. What’s real and what’s in my dream feels the same, I’m sinking. But this time someone is sinking with me, watching me breathe. I can feel him waiting too.

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