The Burning of Juniper Slaide by Johanna Handley

Author:Johanna Handley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller, mystery, secrets, family, crime, murder, arson, twins, school, loyalty, guilt, friendship, love, obsession, lies, anxiety, fire, disappearance, pyromania, diary
ISBN: 9781785384622
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2016-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“How was your date?” Kata asks me, as I walk into the warmth of the Gatehouse. She gets up from the kitchen table, her eyes shining with smiles and excitement, ready to hear about Rory.

I swallow and shake my head. I watch the smile slide from her face. She tries to give me a hug but I feel stiff in her arms and I can’t quite return it.

“What’s wrong?” she says.

I sit and she sits opposite me. I take a deep breath. She’s watching me, waiting, fiddling with her thumbs.

“Nothing’s wrong, Kata,” I tell her. “Not really. It’s just that Rory took me to the library today and you won’t believe what’s there...”

But I stop. Kata’s gone pale, her grey eyes bulge. She tries to recover but it’s too late. I saw it in her face. She knew about the model.

I feel so deceived in that moment that tears spring to my eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me it was there?” I whisper, not quite believing she could keep something like that from me.

My Aunt sighs and leans back in her chair. “I’m sorry, Joo,” she says. “I... I didn’t think you’d want to see it. You’ve tried so hard to forget about the past. You won’t even look at the Castle and you never visit the statues... I didn’t think you’d want to have it thrust in your face like that.”

I take another deep breath, taking in her words. It makes sense, I suppose. She was just trying to protect me. And she’s right, I have tried hard to forget about the past. But not anymore. I swallow.

“Maybe it’s time I remembered,” I say, my voice quiet.

Kata’s eyebrows fly up in shock. She starts to shake her head but I press on. “Maybe it’s time we talked about it, Kata. Maybe it’s time we remembered. Together.”

“We don’t talk about the past,” she whispers, paler than I’ve ever seen her. And then something dawns on me. Maybe it was never me that didn’t want to remember. Maybe it was Kata all along. All those times she’d say those words, ‘we don’t talk about the past’, all those times she taught me how to focus my mind on other things. It was her that couldn’t take the pain of remembering. Not me.

I don’t want to hurt her like this, but I need to carry on. I need to know. “Kata, while I was at the library I did a bit of research... About the fire, about Philip Creed...”

The look on her face stops me again. In an instant, she switches from pale to flushed, from raw pain to blazing anger.

“That boy!” she says, hitting the table with her fist as she pushes herself up from her chair, almost sending it flying. I flinch. “Putting ideas in your head like this! What’s he been saying now? What’s all this rubbish about his father?”

I stop her. “Kata, James hasn’t said anything because he isn’t back yet.”

Her lips part in shock. She puts both hands on the back of the chair to steady herself.

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