‘Is there something wrong? You’re terribly pale.’ Mrs Deptford peered at her with concern.
‘No, I’m all right. Thank you.’ Erin passed her hand over her eyes. Her knees had turned to jelly. ‘Just a bit tired, is all.’ She tucked the envelope into her bag and hurried through the door.
Outside in the freezing air, she shuffled along the icy path to the entrance of her flat, fighting to keep her unease from ballooning into panic. Had she given Julian her home address? Anyone in London? She didn’t think so. But you could find everything on the internet these days. Privacy was a thing of the past, all boundaries dissolved. Like living in a fish bowl. Or, worse, a bell jar, gasping for air.
As soon as she entered the flat, Erin hurried to close the curtains, shutting out the darkness and the vacant windows across the street. Her mind somersaulted as she switched on the lights. Who would send her something? After she’d fled America, her few contacts had dwindled, fading to nothing as the years went on. Even her dear friend Hannah didn’t have her home address. They kept in touch by email.
She sloshed wine into a glass and drank it down before retrieving the blue envelope from her bag. The handwriting on the front gave nothing away. Block letters, black biro. She tore open the envelope and pulled out the card. A cartoon drawing of a cake decorated with burning candles. Chunky gold letters spelled out Happy Birthday. Birthday? Her knees gave out and she sank to the floor. Her birthday was a week ago. A day she always allowed to pass without notice.
She picked up the card and flipped it over. But there was no note, no signature. The thought that her presence back in the country had been discovered made her feel ill.
Working fast, she stuffed newspaper into the fireplace and struck a match. As the flames leapt higher, she tossed in the card and watched it burn. Greedy for fuel, the fire roared, and in seconds the card was reduced to ash.
Go back to your room!
That voice, long quiescent, hissed in her ear.
12
Belle River, Maine
May 1977
He squints into the sky above the treeline, wishing he’d worn his baseball cap to shade his eyes from the sun. But Jeremy says it makes him look like a dork.
Clouds of golden dust from the trees billow in the air. He sneezes and rubs his eyes. On the playing field, the girls flash and shimmer like a flock of jays, scrambling after a little white ball, their striped skirts swishing around their thighs. When the team captain thwacks the ball into the opponent’s net, it sets off a frenzy of jumping and screaming. Way to go, Jilly! High five over here.
He hates sports. Wouldn’t have cut his last class and be out here at all if it wasn’t for Angela, the new girl in his American History class. Dark eyes and dimples. Hair that smells like raspberries. He hasn’t pictured her as one of the girl jocks, but there she is, gliding and swerving with the rest of them. He used to snooze through Mr Vinelli’s class, lulled by the teacher’s droning voice, but with Angela six feet away, his nerves are fired up for the full fifty minutes, a chorus line of dancing bees. Heart beating out of his chest, ba-boom, like a cartoon character, the second she walks in the room.
If he could just work up the courage to talk to her. School’s out in two weeks, so he doesn’t have much time to get her attention.
Fat chance. His father’s voice booms in his ears.
But he’s not a loser. Just last week he won second prize for a sketch of a great blue heron he drew for art class. Not that his father would ever see it. Or care.
The light shifts and he turns his head. Three guys are ambling across the open field, heading towards the woods, probably to smoke weed or smirk at porn mags.
‘Hey, pervert. I’m talking to you. Watchya doing, getting an eyeful? Scat, scram.’
The tallest of the three boys, that idiot from out of town with the wavy blond hair, curls his lip. ‘You guys smell that?’
His two lackeys, Fat and Slim, smirk and bob their heads like puppets. The skinny boy from biology class, in frayed jeans and a lime-green polyester shirt, theatrically holds his nose. ‘You stink.’
‘Get along little doggie.’ The blond guy takes a step towards him, his hands curled into fists. ‘You’re stinking up our air.’
He shoves his hands in his pockets and slinks away, ashamed of his cowardice, but what can he do? One wrong move and those three will beat the crap out of him.
He sneaks a last look at the girls on the field. Angela stands apart from her teammates, her eye on the three boys hanging on the metal fence. They make a big show of lighting their cigarettes. Too cool for school. He can see the blush rise to her hairline. She giggles and scurries back to her friends.
A hard knot calcifies in his ribcage. If Mister Golden Hair has his sights on Angela, there’s no hope for him. A pain stabs his left eye and the world shimmers. He squeezes his head between his palms, riding a wave of nausea before it rights itself again.
When he looks up, Angela is smiling at him. But before he can smile back, she flits away in a flash of green to join the other girls,
