Chapter 4

Four

"H arry sucks, Harry sucks, Harry got told off," Alfie sang as he rode around the hardware store on the trolley. I didn't particularly like him riding on the trolley, but if I made him walk, he'd only wander off. Harry was dragging his heels behind us with a face like a winter thundercloud.

"Alfie, don't be rude to your brother."

"Why not? It's his fault we have to paint stuff at the creepy haunted house. I want to watch a movie. You said I could have popcorn."

The discussion with Harry had gone about as well as I'd figured it would. At first, he'd denied everything, which was a trick he'd probably learned from Shawn, who'd learned it from his mother. When I arrived to pick Harry up last night, I'd broached the subject of the boys' excursion with her while Harry used the loo, and she'd flat-out denied it had happened. Even when I showed her the video, she'd assured me that "Shawn would never do something like that." Shawn had stood behind her, smirking in his royal-blue sweatshirt, and I realised I needed to find a backup babysitter, fast.

"If you both behave, we can go to the cinema next week."

"Why can't I go to Dad's house? I don't want to watch Harry paint stuff."

"Dad's helping Luisa to fix a water leak at the salon today."

There, that sounded better than "Dad's helping Luisa to find her tonsils and doesn't want to be interrupted." I didn't believe the water leak excuse at all. Not only was Steven useless at DIY, but Luisa's cousin was also a plumber.

"I don't like Luisa. She flushed Harry down the loo."

"She did what ?" I turned to Harry. "Is this true?"

"He means Harry the woodlouse," Harry the human said. "Alfie was keeping him in the plastic thingy from a Kinder egg."

"I made air holes," Alfie said indignantly. "And I gave him pencil shavings to eat."

"Alfie cried for, like, an hour."

"I did not!"

For Pete's sake. "I'll ask your dad to make sure Luisa puts the woodlouse outside next time."

And there would be a next time, I was sure of it.

"Why couldn't I just keep him?"

"Because a plastic capsule isn't a good home for a living creature."

"So can we make a better home?"

Boy, I'd walked right into that one. "We have to fix up our own place first."

Harry made a gagging noise. "Yeah, if I have to share a bedroom with Alfie, he's not putting creepy-crawlies in there."

"Let's talk about this later, okay?" I'd kicked so many cans down the road at this point, my toes were bruised. "We need to find sandpaper, paint, brushes, undercoat, gloss, and white spirit."

I'd spent last night lying awake, googling paint removal techniques, and come to the conclusion that Chip was right—the door needed to be repainted. And after I updated Steven on the situation, he'd texted to say that it wasn't our problem, that Harry's face wasn't even visible in the video so the police wouldn't have enough evidence to prosecute, and the guy should claim on his insurance. He hadn't offered to buy so much as a paintbrush.

When we had the Big Talk last night, Harry's face had crumpled when he realised there was a video, and he'd sniffed back tears when I told him that he had to make good on the damage. Shawn had dared him to throw paint at the creepy old haunted house on the hill, apparently. Yes, Shawn was definitely a bad influence.

As for the house, I couldn't disagree with the description. Marissa and I used to give Twilight's End a wide berth when we were kids. Some of the boys from school had snuck in—to ring the bell and run away, not to throw paint—but I'd never dared to cross the fence line. The place was a huge old gothic mansion, hidden away at the edge of the village, not too far from the new housing estate where Shawn's family lived. The boys had taken a shortcut along a bridleway to get there.

After Harry's reluctant confession, I'd called Marissa to see whether she knew anything about the man who lived there now. Chip. As far as I recalled, a rich old crone used to call the place home. Or rather, "second home." She'd never been around much, and she certainly didn't slum it with us regular folks in the village. Marissa had no idea who lived there these days. Mum might have the gossip, but if I called her to ask, she'd want to know why, and I didn't want to ruin her holiday by crying through the phone.

The paint aisle stretched into infinity, and I realised that fifty shades of grey had been a conservative estimate.

"What colour was the door?" I asked Harry.

He shrugged. "Black? Or blue?"

Gee, that was helpful. Okay, we'd buy the basics, work out what we still needed—because there was no way I wouldn't forget something—and come back to get the rest later. My credit card was going to hate me this month. I needed to check in with my lawyer again, but every time she wrote a letter to Steven, it cost me two hundred pounds, and I didn't have two hundred pounds, so I'd been putting it off.

Finally, we had what we needed, and both boys helped—grudgingly—to carry the bags to the bus. My next driving test was booked for three weeks from Tuesday, but the way I felt right now, I might as well cancel it. Every time I took the wheel beside the examiner, I panicked, which meant I made mistakes, which meant I failed. Seven times and counting. When the boys weren't around and I didn't need to carry shopping, I rode a moped, and in Bristol, that had always been enough because Steven drove. But now? Now, I knew the bus timetable by heart, and I had the number of every local cab firm saved in my phone as a backup.

The bus wound its way back to Engleby, past Marigold Lodge, past the parade of shops, past a group of horses, one of whom skittered sideways on the road. Past the primary school, past the church where I made my biggest mistake, past the Hand and Flowers, where I'd made my second-biggest mistake. Past the entrance to the rambler's car park, past the chocolate box cottage I'd always dreamed of living in, past the turnoff to the nature reserve where I'd lost my virginity to an arsehole.

Good memories, bad memories.

At the time of the whole Hand-and-Flowers-nature-reserve disaster, teenage me had thought the world was ending, but now I understood. It had merely been a lesson that all men were bastards. At least Eyes had only blocked my number afterwards. He hadn't left me high and dry with two young children. Plus he'd known what to do with his fingers, tongue, and dick, a concept Steven had struggled with throughout the whole of our eleven-year marriage.

The bus stop was a quarter of a mile from Twilight's End, but the driver was a regular, and I think he felt sorry for me, so he bent the rules and dropped us off right outside with a cheery wave. I felt sick. The gates were ten feet high, imposing metal monstrosities that made the place seem more like a prison than a home, but the intercom was modern.

"The miscreant has come to pay penance," I said to the box.

"You can park outside the door."

"I can't park anywhere since I don't have a bloody car."

"Mum said a bad word," Alfie sang.

"What's a miscreant?" Harry asked.

Chip was probably rolling his eyes. "Then I guess you're in for a walk."