Sara Foster - Beneath the Shadows

A black Land Rover was parked a short distance up the sloping lane, just visible by the faint moonlight that cut through the clouds. It had stopped outside the redbrick house that crested the hill. The Land Rover’s headlights were now off and the interior light was on, but Grace was too far away to see anything more than a moving shadow inside. The light disappeared, the driver climbed out into a darkness her vision could not penetrate, she heard the slight creaking of a gate, and then all was silent.

She could feel her heart thudding beneath her nightshirt, but tried to calm herself, realising how silly she was being. It was perfectly reasonable for people to arrive home in the middle of the night. She must stop letting her imagination play games with her.

She settled back into bed again, but sleep wanted nothing to do with her now. She remembered the first night she’d ever spent here, when Adam had pulled her to him and wrapped her tight within his arms. He had been wearing a thick jumper – in fact they’d both been semi-dressed, having under-anticipated the biting cold of the northern winter. She could still feel the fleece soft against her skin, warming the cheek that had lain against it while the rest of her face stung with cold. ‘I’m scared too,’ he’d said, holding her close. ‘But I know we’ve done the right thing, Grace. I promise it will be all right.’

Grace remembered how she had relaxed at his words, so much so that she had slept soon after. But a week later he had gone out and never come home.

Now, she did her best to ignore the empty space next to her, and wrapped her arms around a pillow, trying to pretend she could bring Adam back for a moment, make believe that he’d kept his promise after all. But sleep kept its distance.

She tossed and turned for a while in an effort to get comfortable, then was disturbed again by what sounded like a bird screeching. Sitting up in frustration, she switched on the bedside lamp. She cast a glance around the room, at the old furniture, the sepia photo of Adam’s grandparents on their wedding day, which hung above her half-unpacked case. Then she remembered the small bookshelf on the landing. At least living out here without much else to do would mean plenty of time to read. She threw back the bedclothes and tiptoed across the carpet, hoping she wouldn’t wake Millie. The bookshelf was right outside her door, barely visible in the light cast by the bedside lamp, but she could just make out the spines on the top shelf. They were all classics. Wuthering Heights. The Turn of the Screw. Jane Eyre. Great Expectations . She’d read a few of them at school. Then her eye fell on a book she had always wanted to read, but never got to. Rebecca . She plucked the tattered copy from among the others and took it back to bed with her. She pulled the bedclothes over her, opened it and read the first few lines of a long-ago dream. And soon, her grip loosened on the book, her eyes closed, and she found herself lost amid thick over-growth, gazing towards the mullioned windows of a dark, abandoned house.

When Grace woke again it was to silence. Light had begun to seep through the curtains and saturate the darkness as the day broke. She was grateful, in fact strangely exhilarated, to have got through the first night alone in the cottage, and felt full of energy for the day ahead. She had a chance to have a bath before she even heard Millie stir, then went to get her little girl. Millie was sitting up, playing in her cot, and Grace observed her for a moment without being noticed. Millie was nearly fifteen months old, on the verge of walking, almost unrecognisable from the tiny bundle that Grace and Adam had first brought to the cottage. Adam had missed all the changes, big and small, that had happened over the past year.

Grace closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them again, Millie was holding out her arms, saving Grace from her daydream. Grace was relieved to see that whatever had terrorised Millie in the night seemed to have been absorbed by the morning’s light. ‘We have a visitor coming today,’ she told her daughter, smiling at her reassuringly, hoping Millie would smile back. Instead, Millie reached out to touch her mother’s mouth, watching her intently all the while, as though checking she was real.

After breakfast, Grace unpacked the rest of their cases while Millie played by her feet. She put away all her clothes except her jeans and thickest jumpers, looking longingly at a pair of high-heeled brown suede boots that she’d worn all the time in London. They were consigned to the bottom of the wardrobe behind the trainers and Wellingtons, which were all she needed right now.

When they returned to the lounge, Grace scanned the area and, satisfied there was nothing too dangerous within reach of little hands, set Millie on the floor to play. Then she picked up the phone and called her parents in France. Her father answered and sounded pleased to hear from her, even if there was a note of concern in his voice. She recalled their last conversation a few days earlier, before she had left for England.

‘What the hell do you want to go and live there again for?’ he’d roared when she’d announced her plans.

‘It’s only for a short time,’ Grace had replied. ‘There are things to sort out, and I think it’s time I went and did it. I can’t stay here forever.’

‘You can stay here for as long as you like,’ her dad had replied, his voice gruff and indignant. ‘You can’t fool me, Grace, I know why you’re going.’

‘I need to pack up the cottage properly, Dad. There’s nobody else to do that job except me. And it’s Millie’s inheritance, remember? Everything there is part of her family history.’

Her father made a noise that sounded like Hmph , and walked over to his lounge-room window, from where, if you looked between the huddled villas opposite, you could glimpse a patch of sparkling blue sea. Then he turned and glared at her. ‘I’m sure we could find someone there to do that for you.’

Grace had folded her arms, stood her ground and waited, until her father added, shaking a finger at her, ‘Just don’t you go chasing shadows, you hear me? Get in, do what you need to, and then go somewhere else – somewhere far away. Your mother and I have no idea why Adam took you there in the first place.’

She’d gone across to him and put her hand on his arm. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said softly.

He hadn’t met her eyes, simply patted her hand and said, ‘I know you will.’

She and Millie had left the next day.

Now, she was glad to hear their voices, though this time it was her mother who couldn’t hide her worry completely.

‘Remember to take any legal documents you find to a solicitor. You need to know where you stand. Your father and I will pay for it.’

‘We know where I stand,’ Grace replied miserably. ‘The cottage is in joint names, so I can’t sell without Adam.’

‘But there might be a way round it, Grace – you never know. Just get someone local to check out all the facts for you.’

‘I will, Mum,’ Grace replied, pulling an exasperated face at Millie. ‘I’ve only been here a day – give me a chance.’

‘I know, love. We only want to help. Oh, and before I go – James called. He was surprised to hear you’d gone back there, said you hadn’t mentioned it to him.’

Grace was riled by her tone. ‘I didn’t realise I had to report all my movements to him,’ she shot back.

There was silence on the other end of the line, and Grace immediately felt bad. After all, there was one reason she hadn’t told her best friend she was coming back: she didn’t want to listen to him trying to talk her out of it.