Adam

ADAM

I take better care of myself than my wife, she spends too long taking care of others. By the time we reach the top of the hill, she is red in the face and more than a little out of breath. I could have made it easier, gone a little slower perhaps, but I wanted to get us both as far away from that cottage as soon as possible.

“I can’t see anything,” she says.

“That’s because there is nothing to see.”

Strictly speaking, neither of these things are true.

There is a full three-sixty-degree view of the valley from up here—just as I predicted there would be—with only snowy mountains and wilderness as far as the eye can see. It’s stunning, but a view of another house, or a petrol station, or a phone box, might have been preferable, given the circumstances. A beautiful but barren landscape is exactly what I feared: nowhere to run. Or hide. We are completely cut off.

I did see something though.

Back at the cottage.

It’s been bothering me ever since.

I didn’t recognize the woman—I never recognize anyone—but I did get a strange sense of déjà vu. I try to tuck it away in one of the darker corners of my mind—out of sight—and look at my wife instead. She has her back to me, busy taking in the view of the valley. I can tell she is trying to catch her breath and gather her thoughts, both seem to have escaped her. I wish I could see my wife the way other people do. I recognize the shape of Amelia’s body, the length and style of her hair. I know the smell of her shampoo, her moisturizing cream, and the perfume I give her for birthdays or Christmas. I know her voice, her quirks, and mannerisms.

But when I stare at her face, I could be looking at anyone.

I read a thriller about a woman with prosopagnosia last year. I was genuinely excited at first—not much has been written about face blindness. I thought it might be a good premise and make a good TV drama, as well as help raise awareness of the condition, but sadly not. The writing was as disappointing and mediocre as the plot, and I turned the job down. I spend so much time rewriting other people’s stories, I wish I was better at rewriting my own.

Sometimes I think that I should have been an author. An author’s words are treated like gold, they’re untouchable and get to live happily ever after inside their books—even the bad ones. A screenwriter’s words are jelly beans in comparison; if an executive doesn’t like them, they chew them up and spit them out. Along with whoever wrote them. My own real-life experience would have made a better thriller than that novel. Imagine not being able to recognize your wife, or your best friend, or the person responsible for killing your mother right in front of you as a kid.

My mother was the person who taught me to read and fall in love with stories. We would devour novels from the library together in the council flat I grew up in, and she said that books would take me anywhere if I let them. Kind lies are the cousins of white ones. She also said that my eyes would turn square from all the TV I insisted on watching, but when our battered old set broke, my mother sold all of her jewelry—except for her beloved sapphire ring—at the pawn shop to get me another one. She knew that the characters I loved in books, films, and TV shows, filled the gaps left by absent family and nonexistent friends when I was a child.

Watching her die will always be the worst thing that ever happened to me.

“What shall we do now?” Amelia asks, interrupting my thoughts.

It was a long and steep climb to the top of this hill, both of us are unsuitably dressed for the hike and the weather, and it seems it was all for nothing. Neither of us has a signal on our phones, even up here. There’s no sign of Bob or any way of calling for help. I can see the chapel in the distance down below, and it looks so much smaller than before. Less threatening. The sky, on the other hand, has darkened since we left. The clouds seem determined to block out the sun, and Amelia is shivering. It was okay when we were on the move, but I feel the cold too since we stopped, and I know we shouldn’t stand still for long.

When you reach the top of a hill, you can often look back and see the whole path you took to make the journey. But while you’re on the path, it’s sometimes impossible to see where you are going or where you have been. It feels like a metaphor for life, and I’d be tempted to write the thought down if I wasn’t so damn cold. I take one final look around, but other than the chapel and the cottage, there really is nothing to see except a snow-covered landscape for miles in all directions.

“I guess we really are in the middle of nowhere,” I say.

“I’m freezing,” she replies through chattering teeth. “Poor Bob.”

I take off my jacket and wrap it around her. “Come on, let’s go. We’ll light the fire when we get back, get warm, and come up with another plan. It will be easier going down.”

I’m wrong about that.

The ground seems even more slippery now than it did on the way up, and a combination of snow and ice makes our progress slow. The muddy sky turns a darker shade of gray, and although we both do a good job of pretending not to notice the first few drops of sleet, seconds later it is impossible to ignore. Our clothes are not designed to withstand extreme winter weather, and neither are we. The wind blows the sleet at us from all directions, and within minutes we are both soaked to the skin. Even I’m shivering now.

Just when I think things can’t get any worse—weatherwise—the sleet turns to hail, raining down from the sky like bullets. I predict we will both be covered in bruises when we get back. If we get back. Whenever I dare to look up, risking a face full of tiny ice pellets, I notice that we don’t seem to be getting any farther down the hill. The chapel still looks tiny and very far away.

The pelting from above eases off, and the hail turns into snow.

“Let’s try and make a bit more progress while we can,” I say, reaching out to help Amelia down from one part of the rocky path to another. But she doesn’t take my hand.

“I can see someone,” she says, staring into the distance.

I shield my eyes, scan the valley below, but see nothing. “Where?”

“Going into the chapel,” Amelia whispers, as though they might hear her from what must still be over a mile away.

Sure enough, I spot the shape of a person walking up the chapel steps.

I feel for the giant key I locked the old wooden doors with before we left, and start to relax when I find it in my pocket. But my brief sense of comfort evaporates as I watch the shadowy figure open the doors and disappear inside. I’m sure I must have imagined it—though it’s hard to be certain of anything from this distance—but it looked like they might have been wearing a red kimono. Just like the one my mother used to wear when she invited … friends to stay. I try to Control-Alt-Delete the thought, as always, but the keys in my mind get stuck. I might have imagined what they were wearing, but someone did just go into the chapel. Even if I ran down the hill, and managed not to slip on the ice or fall in the snow, I guess it would take at least twenty minutes to get back down there and confront whoever just let themselves in.

“Tell me how we ended up staying at this place again,” I say, in a shaky voice that sounds like a poor imitation of my own.

“I already told you. I won the weekend away in the staff Christmas raffle.”

“And you found out when you received an email?”

“Yes.”

“And the email was from…?”

“The housekeeper. I told you already.”

“Did anyone else you know at work win something similar?”

“Nina got a box of Quality Street chocolates, but she bought twenty raffle tickets so was bound to win something.”

“How many raffle tickets did you buy?” I ask, already dreading the answer.

“Only one.”