Fractured A Slated Novel

Chapter NINETEEN



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When I get home, something isn’t right.

The front door isn’t locked for a start. Dad’s car isn’t out front; Mum and Amy are both at work. Could I really have left without locking up? I think back, and I’m not sure. When I left to meet Aiden, I was in a hurry of panic in case he was gone by the time I got there. Yet I would have done it automatically, without thinking. Wouldn’t I?

My instincts are screaming danger.

I open the door and push it forward without stepping in. The hall is empty, and I listen, not moving, not breathing.

There! Footsteps, upstairs. My throat constricts: my drawings! I didn’t hide them away before I went out, did I? Stupid.

Careful, quiet, slow: up the stairs. My door is open; I scan the room. Drawings still all over the bed, the one I started of the hospital face up. Not quite the way I left them, I’m sure. My stomach sinks.

Footsteps, behind me! I spring round, ready for, well, anything.

Amy jumps about a foot in the air. ‘Oh my God, Kyla! You scared me. Why don’t you yell hello or something when you come in?’

I shake my head. ‘I scared you? You scared me! You’re not supposed to be home yet.’

‘You were so out of it this afternoon, I asked to come home early to spend some time with you, you nitwit. But when I got here, no sign. Where’ve you been?’

‘I… I’m sorry. I went for a walk, to clear my head.’

Her face softens. ‘Are you all right? Really? You’ve been so odd this week. And ever since Ben…’ And she looks away, doesn’t finish the sentence.

‘Let’s go downstairs and have some tea,’ I suggest.

‘Not so fast.’ And she walks past me to my room, pushes open the door I’d left ajar. Goes straight for my bed and the hospital drawing I’d left. ‘Tell me about this, first,’ she says.

I shrug, stomach in knots. ‘Just the usual. You know me: I draw everything. And what were you doing, snooping around in my room anyway?’

‘You didn’t answer the door; I thought you might be upset, or that your levels had dropped and you couldn’t.’ She sighs and sits on the bed. ‘I’m worried about you.’ She holds out her hand and I take it, sit next to her.

She is dangerous.

No. This is Amy, not the enemy.

She picks up my drawing of Dr Lysander’s floor of the hospital. ‘Explain this to me,’ she says, and there is no way round it, really, so I do. About the attack, and how doctors disappeared and I wondered where. I was curious, it was a puzzle and I was drawing it.

She shakes her head. ‘Kyla, you are SO stupid. Think of the trouble this could land you in if the wrong person saw it! Why waste time drawing boring stuff like this anyway, when you are so good at people and faces?’ And she turns over Nurse Sally. ‘This is gorgeous. She is so warm and alive. Who is it?’

‘Nobody. Just a made-up face.’

‘Really? Funny, she looks familiar. Can’t place her, though.’

Was Sally at the hospital when Amy was Slated? When was that: five years ago. She could have been.

‘But this,’ she says, and picks up the hospital one again, ‘has to go. And don’t do anything like it again. Promise?’

I do, and together we tear it in half and in half again and again, until all that is left are tiny squares. She flushes them. ‘That is the end of that,’ she says. ‘Time for that cup of tea?’

Downstairs in the kitchen I put the kettle on.

‘Where’d you walk?’ Amy asks.

‘Oh, you know. Just around the village,’ I lie, the footpath being off limits solo.

‘Mum would have a fit if she knew you went walking alone. Ever since that Wayne Best was found.’

‘Have you heard anything else about him?’

‘Oh, didn’t I say? He is talking and remembering things now.’

I turn to get the cups out of the cupboard, not trusting myself to keep a neutral face. He is remembering? Oh, God. The room seems to darken and spin in my eyes, as if it is turning into a black pit that will suck me in. I shake my head and my vision clears.

Tell Nico.

My stomach squirms. Nico will be furious it is the first he’s heard about it. I can’t tell him now. It’s too late.

‘But he’s got, like, traumatic amnesia,’ Amy says.

‘What’s that?’

‘He can remember everything, except why he was in the woods that day, and what happened to him there.’

‘Oh?’

‘He might remember, eventually, the doc said. I heard Lorders were annoyed with him for not answering.’ She shuddered. ‘That’d be enough to get your memory back quick, I should think.’

The phone rings as I’m pouring the tea, and Amy runs to answer. I dash upstairs and carefully gather the rest of my drawings and hide them in a folder with others.

Amy almost recognised Nurse Sally. I shouldn’t have lied about who she was: what if she remembers that she works at the hospital, and puts it together?

Did Amy actually say she wouldn’t tell anyone about the drawings?

I think hard. Not in so many words, but she got me to destroy the one of the hospital. What would be the point if it wasn’t then secret?

I shrug, uneasy, but the moment to make her promise not to tell has passed. If I bring it up again she’ll wonder why. Silence is best.

Late that night I creep out of my room to the dark study downstairs. Shut the door and turn on the desk lamp.

Mum is a bit of a local history buff. The shelves in here are stuffed with books on local villages and towns, current and historical, and maps: both usual road ones, and detailed Ordnance Survey maps that show every footpath and canal.

I can’t wait for Aiden’s careful investigations. Is it really Ben? It has to be. I cannot accept any other alternative. My thoughts twist around each other over and over, jumping between bubbles of joy and anticipation, and fear that it will all be a lie. That any hope will lead to disappointment.

A running track, twenty miles from here. I visualise a circle and carefully go over each village and town that fits the distance. The footpaths and lanes to reach them from here.

I’ll find you, Ben.