“How?” Norah asked, raising an eyebrow. “Where?”
“Please, miss,” the girl spoke again, doll-like eyes wide as she looked up at her. “Please let us in. We need help.”
Norah stepped a foot out of the door and into the outside. She looked up and down the street below, registering the familiar dusty cars and crumbling, neglected houses. Everything was still and quiet, apart from the rustling of leaves and grass in the distance. She retracted, then cocked her head, eyes full of suspicion as she studied the children.
“Please may we come in, miss?” the boy repeated.
At that, Norah scoffed. The way they spoke was so perfect as if their words had been planned and perfected right down to every last syllable.
But, as bitter and twisted as she had become over the years, Norah wasn’t evil. Despicable deeds were more her brother’s forte.
“Fine,” she said, stepping aside to let the children pile in. “I’m calling the police to come and get you, though.”
“Thank you so much,” both children said in unison, eyes twinkling sweetly as they obediently stepped over the threshold and into the house.
It struck Norah as odd that they seemed so calm. She watched them enter the house and glide like effortless angels down the hallway, not an inch of discomfort or concern on their cherub-like faces. The little darlings had lost mother and father, but to look at them, you’d think they were off to a tea party.
Still, she slammed the front door shut and followed them up the carpet.
“Go through to the kitchen; that’s where the phone is,” she instructed hastily, deciding that parading children around in front of Norm was likely a very bad idea. “Sit down at the table, and I’ll call the old bill…” muttering and grumbling under her breath, she padded in her woollen slippers onto the kitchen tiles, beady eyes watching the children take seats at the old, wooden dining table.
“What’re your names then?” she sighed, as if the whole thing was a real chore, turning her back on them to reach the landline down from its cradle on the wall. “I’m a very busy woman, you know…” she lied.
But as soon as her fingers grazed the plastic receiver, a sharp, breath-taking stab of pain pierced her side. The phone did a bungee-jump from its cord, clattering against the kitchen sides as it bounced, then hovered limply just above the floor.
Gasping, Norah collapsed onto her knees and attempted to turn around, but before she could, another shot of agony plunged into the flesh beside her spine, causing her rickety frame to convulse. Her head smacked on the ground, colliding hard with the kitchen tiles, ragged breaths grabbing in vain for final shreds of air.
The woman lay, writhing in her suffering, summoning her very last strand of energy to open her eyelids and gaze up at the familiar, pasty-yellow ceiling.
Above her, three heads stared sombrely downwards- each of them solemnly contemplating her slow, excruciating death as if watching a particularly unremarkable game of chess unfold.
As the darkness crept in around the edges of her vision, and the word slowly began to fade away into nothingness, Norah Jenkins had just one resounding thought, echoing in her dying brain.
Although she could not pinpoint exactly how, she knew that, in one way or another, this was definitely Norm’s fault. For the longest time, she’d always harboured the notion that her demise, when it eventually came, would be at her younger brother’s hands.
And she was right.
Chapter Fifty-eight
Spring, 2008
Darkness.
And pain.
It leaked through Norm’s bones, stretching out from his armpits right up to his fingertips like a tree root growing too fast for his flesh to catch up. Instinctively, he jerked his body and discovered that he could not move his wrists. He could feel that they were stuck, tight and rigid in the small of his back, constricted together so firmly that the ties sent shocks of pain flying up his arms.
“Norah?” he called out, his voice croaky, his throat dry and sore from where he very rarely used it anymore. The foul stench of his breath tickled his nostrils and congealed in a moist film on his upper lip.
Norm lifted his head, a motion that made the back of his neck ache. He realised that he was lying on his stomach, and something was securing his wrists and hips, rendering him immobile.
“Norah?” he snarled into the blackness, venom simmering in his temples. “Norah, cut this bullshit right now.”
The bitch.
Norm had always known that he couldn’t play his sister forever. Not really. For their whole lives, she had been his elastic band, bending in every direction, stretching, chopping, and changing her form and her life, all for him.
But even elastic bands had their limit.
Even elastic bands would eventually snap.
He shivered, the movement causing the surface beneath him to creak like old floorboards.
“Nor…” he began again, his call chopped abruptly in half as an overhead light was suddenly switched on, and a luminous yellow glow spilled into the room.
Blinking wearily, Norm glanced around, blinking as the light stung his eyeballs. Around him, the familiar, old-fashioned kitchen somehow seemed sinister, particularly with the pitch-black night visible through the thin, decrepit windows.
“Norah,” he shouted, dread beginning to ebb into his call. “Norah, what the hell is this?”
Footsteps.
Loud, heavy clunks somewhere behind him, circling the table. Then, they paused, and there was a grunt of effort followed by more footsteps and the sound of something being dragged along the floor. He could hear them, but he could also feel them, their vibrations prickling his senses in a forbidding rhythm.
“What are you doing?” Norm raised his voice in a vain attempt to sound brave. “Hm? This your idea of a joke, Norah?”
The man held his breath as the footsteps stopped.
Deathly silence crashed into his
