Rachel Bennett - The Flood

Daniela took another step down the stairs. She’d thought Auryn had left the house days ago. If she’d believed otherwise, even for a moment, she would’ve searched the house properly. She never would’ve wasted time going up to her old room.

A little more light slipped through the upstairs window behind her. It didn’t improve the situation. All it did was let Daniela see her sister’s face.

Auryn had slumped against the door, falling sideways so her head rested against the wall. Her nose and mouth were underwater. It appeared that she’d let her hair grow out past her shoulders, normally worn short as a teenager. Loose strands stuck to her forehead and cheek. Her eyes were open. Auryn had always been the odd one out – a blonde-haired, blue-eyed anomaly among her dark-haired sisters.

Daniela dropped what she was holding and came down the stairs fast. She jumped down the last two steps before remembering she wasn’t wearing her boots. The shock of the cold water barely slowed her. She grabbed Auryn’s shoulders and dragged her upright.

Water flowed from Auryn’s slack mouth. Daniela stifled a cry. She shook Auryn by the shoulders as if the woman might suddenly snap out of this. Auryn’s head flopped forwards. She was a dead weight.

Daniela pressed a hand to Auryn’s neck. She held her breath, willing a pulse to flutter beneath her fingers. There was nothing. The skin was cold and waxy and lifeless. When Daniela moved her hand, the imprint of her fingertips remained indented on Auryn’s throat.

Daniela stumbled away and half fell against the doorway that led to the sitting room. Her feet sent waves bouncing off the walls. The reflections from the water gave the illusion of movement on Auryn’s face. As if at any moment she might blink and sit up. Auryn’s black vest billowed around her stomach. The flesh of her arms and face was the colour of dead fish belly.

Automatically Daniela glanced into the front room, where the phone always sat on the windowsill. It was disconnected, the cable wrapped around the handset.

She managed to get her mobile out of her pocket. With shaking hands, she dialled Stephanie’s number.

The line rang four times then went to voicemail.

‘Steph, I’m at the old house.’ Daniela’s voice sounded loud and panicky in the close confines of the waterlogged house. ‘Something’s happened to Auryn.’

She tried to say more but the words jammed in her throat. Her eyes stung with tears. She shut the phone off and held it gripped tight in her hand.

Turning away, she stared into the front room. It was difficult to tell when the house had flooded. Water lapped the big oak dining table. The table was strewn with papers and magazines, their edges curling. Already the wallpaper was beginning to peel. The threadbare sofa was saturated, and a low coffee table was now an island. Several empty cups sat on the table. Some effort had been made here to move books and magazines to the higher bookcase shelves, and there was a conspicuous empty spot on an entertainment stand where a television and DVD player had been removed. A sodden cushion wallowed in the water like a half-sunk iceberg. The water had an oily sheen.

There was also a lot of rubbish. Cigarette ends and empty beer cans bobbed on the waves. A pair of whisky bottles nestled together in the corner. One was still half-full and rode low in the water.

Auryn … what happened to you?

Looking into the sitting room, Daniela’s gaze flitted from one irrelevant object to the next, searching for something solid. The dusty mirror above the fireplace reflected her pale, shocked face, almost unrecognisable. The semi-opaque glass made her look drowned. Daniela stared at the ornaments on the mantel, at scraps of paper and postcards, at the books on the shelves next to framed photographs that’d belonged to Dad. Some of the items were hers. A carved wooden bear brought back from a school trip. The shell casing from a Second World War mortar that she’d dug up in the woods. Small, meaningless things that she’d left behind without a thought, and which had long since vanished from her memory, yet remained here, awaiting her return.

Daniela took a few stumbling steps back to the stairs. Eddies of greasy water followed her. She sat down on the third step before her legs gave out. Her mind sloshed and tilted in her skull. Her jeans and socks were soaked with dirty water. She lifted her wet feet out of the flood.

Again, she tried Stephanie’s number. Listened to it ring.

Dad died here as well, Daniela remembered with a jolt. She raised her eyes to the upstairs landing where, three years ago, her father had stumbled, drunk, and tipped headfirst over the banisters. Broke his neck on impact then lay for twelve hours until the postman found him.

Is that what’d happened to Auryn as well? From where Daniela sat, she could see one of the empty bottles that bobbed about in the sitting room. Had Auryn fallen?

Her phone bipped as the call went to voicemail again. Daniela hung up and immediately redialled.

Closer to the water, the bad-drain smell was stronger. Daniela wondered whether the smell and the oily glaze had leaked out of Auryn. The thought made her stomach roil so badly she had to close her eyes.

Voicemail again. Daniela swore. It came out as a sob.

You don’t even know if Stephanie’s using the same number, Daniela realised. That hadn’t occurred to her. Likewise, it hadn’t occurred to her to call 999. Despite the years, she’d reached instinctively for Stephanie.

Daniela leant back against the stairs. Her arm brushed something solid and wrapped in plastic. The package of money. She picked it up and let it sit heavy on her lap.

She was about to redial when her phone burst into life, the ringtone loud enough to make her jump. Stephanie’s number appeared on the screen, so familiar even after all those years.

When the police arrived, Daniela was sat on the wall at the bottom of the front garden, her knees pulled up so her booted feet were clear of the water. She was shivering and red-eyed, not just from the cold.

She heard the police before she saw them. They’d commandeered a tractor – the best way of traversing the flooded roadways – from a local farmer. The steady chug-chug-chug was audible long before the vehicle popped into view.

Daniela didn’t recognise the thickset woman driving the tractor. Her wind-burned cheeks and earth-coloured clothes suggested she was either the farmer or the farmer’s wife. It stood to reason she wouldn’t trust the local bobbies to drive the vehicle themselves. Stephanie stood on the footplate, stony-faced, hanging on with both hands.

The tractor stopped in the flooded turning circle, and Stephanie jumped down with a splash. Daniela took one look at her sister’s face then dropped her gaze. She didn’t know what she’d hoped for. Sympathy? Forgiveness? Some human emotion, at least. But Stephanie could’ve been arriving at a train station for all the sentiment she showed. She started up the path with barely a glance at Daniela.

‘You’ll have to go around the back,’ Daniela called after her. ‘Front door’s blocked. I’ve opened the kitchen door.’

Daniela didn’t follow Stephanie. The idea of going inside again made her stomach churn. Instead, she remained on the wall, lit another cigarette, and watched the tractor perform a six-point turn. The farmer tipped her cap and set off back along the road. Daniela waited.

Within a few minutes, sloshing footsteps indicated Stephanie’s return. Daniela studied her cigarette, which had burned down to the filter. She cringed at having to face her sister.

‘Dani, what happened?’ Stephanie asked. There was a raw edge to her voice that Daniela had never heard before.