Ashley was visibly confused. “What is it? What’s happened?”
Ricky stopped screaming and bit down on his lip. He looked at Ashley and threw out his hand for her to see. It had shrivelled up like the clumps of ginger his mum kept in the cupboard beside the fridge. His fingers were twisted, his palm withered like the skin of a rotting peach. Even as they stared at it, Ricky’s hand curled in on itself even more.
Ashley and Jude exchanged a glance. Ricky had been about to punch her, but instead his hand had been destroyed. It didn’t seem a coincidence. Jude looked at Ashley and tried to figure out what the hell had happened. “He was going to hurt you. What stopped him?”
Ashley’s face had grown pale, and she stared at him. Slowly, she reached a hand into her jeans pocket and pulled out Rose’s locket. She tried to speak but faltered and had to start again. “M-My dad gave me a nosebleed. Then his nose started bleeding.”
Jude understood immediately what she was saying. “Because of the locket. It’s… It’s more than just a piece of jewellery, isn’t it?”
Ashley stared at the piece of old jewellery hanging from her trembling hand. “I think so.”
Ricky went back to screaming, and took off in a panic, which was hardly surprising. Jude couldn’t imagine how afraid he must be. He was a victim of witchcraft or some kind of evil spell. Would his hand stay that way forever?
Maybe Rose isn’t evil. So far, the only people she’s hurt are Ricky and Lily. Bullies.
Ashley and Jude stood in the playground, stunned. There was seemingly no end to the nightmare in which they found themselves. How much more misery would go around before it was over?
“We need help,” said Jude, “before more people get hurt.”
Ashley nodded. She still held the locket but wouldn’t dare look at it.
Jude leant against the railing, needing to take a breather. “If this were a movie, what would be our next move?”
“This isn’t a movie, Jude, so stop being an idiot.”
“I’m not being stupid. We don’t have any other frame of reference, so why not a movie? What would our next move be?”
She put a hand against her forehead and groaned. “Jesus, I don’t know. We don’t even understand what’s going on. I suppose we would go off in search of answers, visit the local library and go through old newspapers, or look for clues at a museum. Shit, maybe we would go ask Dora the fucking Explorer. Like I said, this isn’t a movie.”
Jude huffed. He knew he was being stupid, but sometimes he found it easier to think in plotlines. He enjoyed order, and movies and books always followed a formula. Perhaps life did too; he would certainly like to think so. Then it came to him. He smiled at Ashley, which only seemed to annoy her.
“Why are you grinning? Ricky lost his freaking hand because of me.”
“You were right. If this were a movie, we would go looking for answers. What’s the one lead we have? The one piece of information we have that might lead to more information?”
Ashley shrugged. She clearly didn’t want to play along.
“Peter Glendale. We have his address. His family is connected to the farmhouse. Maybe he’ll know who Rose is.”
“We’ve already been through this. There’s no way he could know anything. The farmhouse hasn’t belonged to his family in fifty years. Longer.”
“Well, what else do we have? If we stick around here doing nothing, more bad things are going to happen. Either the police will come and arrest us, or your dad will find us. Maybe Lily’s family. And what happens to the next person who gets nasty with you? Ricky’s hand might only be the start.”
Ashley held up the locket. “I’ll get rid of this. Then there’s no problem.”
“It’s more than that and you know it. Rose came for us last night before you even got hold of that locket. She’s been after us since the moment we first met her. This doesn’t end until we understand who she is and what she wants. We need to go see Peter Glendale, because that’s the only thing we can do.”
Ashley folded her arms and looked unhappy. It was her usual expression, and it was comforting to see it return. She shrugged. “Okay, so we walk to his house and hope he’s there. It’ll take us, what, two hours? Then what if he doesn’t want to talk to us? Or if he decides we’re crazy and calls the police?”
“Then we’re in no worse position than we are now. What do we have to lose?”
Ashley moved towards the playground’s exit. “Okay, then I guess we start walking.”
And so they did. Neither knew a way to get to Peter Glendale’s house via the footpaths, so they followed the main road, walking along the verge and stomping through the unmowed summer grass. Several times, Ash thought she saw her dad’s car coming and ducked into the weeds, but every time it turned out to be a false alarm. Eventually, she started to relax.
It was nice to just walk for a while, to get away from the playground and the woods and their parents. Jude even pretended in his mind that they were outlaws, fleeing the police and the murder and mayhem left in their wake. The problem was, things rarely turned out well for outlaws.
Walking on the grassy embankments alongside the main roads was tiring, and after an hour, Jude’s shins ached. Ashley was shorter than he was, and she had sweated a little through the back of her T-shirt. He imagined her moist skin, and a picture of her, naked and panting, appeared unbidden in his mind. It was bizarre and unwanted, and not how he had ever thought about her. They had always been close, but after the last few days, they had become more than friends. They were allies now. Allies against a world that
