He buried his head in his hands. ‘When I got home, I was starving. I remember that day so well-school dinner was supposed to be some sort of roast. It was disgusting, y’know? The meat was grey, the gravy was lumpy, and the vegetables were either squashy or hard.’
Hannah nodded mutely, and caught his eye. She gave a small smile. ‘Yes,’ she said softly, ‘I know exactly what you mean.’
He seemed to take strength from her smile, and after a deep breath, continued.
‘I was starving,’ he repeated, ‘and I went straight into the kitchen. And she was there, at the sink, sort of slumped over it. I called over to her.
‘Funny old place to go to sleep, Susie!’
She didn’t move, and now Tom was spooked. He approached her slowly, wary of her suddenly turning around and shouting “Boo!”
He touched her shoulder, and she still didn’t move. Puzzled, he put his hand on her shoulder again, and tugged. She slumped backwards, into his arms, and immediately he saw why she hadn’t responded. Her arms were pale down to the wrists, where scarlet lines served only to highlight her cream forearms.
The bloodflow had slowed down, but Tom could see by looking in the sink that it had been stronger. He knew that there were six pints of blood in the human body, and by the look of her, Susie had lost nearly all of it. Tom realised exactly what the phrase “dead weight” meant. She was so heavy, even without all that blood in her. Her eyes were shut, and she hadn’t moved a muscle. A knife slipped from her unresisting fingers, and Tom knew, without needing to check for a heartbeat or a pulse, that she was dead. He checked anyway, and felt tears welling up to choke him as his last hope was crushed. His sister was dead.
He laid her gently on the floor, still cradling her head, and cried until he felt like he didn’t have a drop of liquid left in him. Blood was still dribbling out of her wrists, staining her dress and seeping into the boards.
When he had wiped his eyes on the back of his hand, he noticed a little green book by the sink. Wondering why Susie had been reading as she bled to death, he crawled over to it. He didn’t want to touch it, to taint the purity of the white pages with blood, but he had no choice. Trembling, he let it fall open. It was a diary. He looked at the date. It was three weeks after they had moved in. He read:
“grandad came into my room this evening. He touched me. I didn’t like it, but he said I had to. He said I’d be his special girl. He said I mustn’t tell anyone. I heard him beating Tom this morning, but I put my pillow over my head, and I couldn’t hear anymore.”
He turned the page again. The entries were nearly all the same, and each one sickened him to the core. There were other children staying here as well; had his sick, disgusting relative done this same thing to the other children? Tom didn’t doubt that he had.
The door opened behind him, and Tom heard his grandfather enter. Click. Click. Cli-
-ck. Hannah span on her heel as the sound echoed through the house, and there, slouched over his cane, was the man himself. His piggy eyes examined her minutely, and he ran a thick tongue over his fat lips.
‘Well, Thomas. This is a nice young lady. Did you bring her back for me?’
Tom turned on his heel, apparently too engrossed in his memories to hear the noise. A look of surprise crossed his face, followed by sad recognition.
‘I wondered when you’d be back,’ he said coolly.
‘I’ll always be here,’ replied the monstrous man. ‘As will you.’
‘Hannah,’ said Tom, lightly. ‘Could you stay here for a second?’
‘No chance!’ she replied hotly. ‘I’m not going to let you go against this…git…by yourself.’
‘It wasn’t a request,’ he said flatly. ‘Stay here, or you’ll get hurt. This has to happen.’
She watched, open-mouthed, as they walked out. They were both acting as though they were taking a quick stroll in the park, although tension was etched in each of their bodies. She walked to the door, as if to leave, but changed her mind. If he was going to be that bloody-minded, she would stay here. Arrogant son of a-
A noise rang out in the hall, like a hammer hitting a piece of flesh. Forgetting what she had just said, she rushed into the hallway, just in time to see Tom punch his grandfather a second time. They were a the top of the stairs, silhouetted by the half-moon that streamed through the tall windows behind them. Hannah could see tears shining on his cheeks.
‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,’ he was shouting, roaring into his grandfather’s face. ‘I want you to die!’
Something shone in his hand. A knife. In one movement, so quick that Hannah wondered if she’d imagined it, he brought it over his head and stabbed it into the shoulder of the man in front of him.
‘Tom!’ she screamed, as the older man grunted and sagged to his knees.
He spun. ‘Hannah, no, go back to-’
He didn’t get any further. Hannah squealed as the man rose suddenly from his knees and brought his cane round in a vicious arc which ended at the back of Tom’s head. He gave a soft grunt, and fell. He tilted forward, seemed almost to stumble, and fell down the stairs. He bounced, hitting each one with a crunch of jarring bones, before finally reaching the bottom. He hit the carpet head first, and didn’t get up.
At the top of the stairs, the man seemed shaky, almost unbelieving of what he’d done. He had only a second to examine it before he was hit in the midriff by a girl travelling at a flat run. She bulled into him, hardly able to see him through her tears, and her momentum overbalanced them. For a second which stretched into an eternity they teetered. Then time rushed back, and they fell through the window. It shattered, and in slow motion Hannah let go of him. He grasped at her, his thick fingers grabbing her-
-like they grabbed at Susie-
and she suddenly found the strength to push him off. He fell silently, his thick body making an audible crack as it hit the ground, twenty feet below. The only reason she wasn’t joining him was the fact that her ankle had hooked itself around the bar which ran the height of the window. She couldn’t swing her body up and if she let go, if her strength deserted her, she would fall to her death. She could feel her body giving up; her ankle joint was screaming at her and her strength seemed to be sucked downwards by the height.
The last dribble of her strength left her. Her blood pounding in her ears, Hannah gave herself up for dead. Her ankle worked itself loose, and she slipped-
-and swung, banging her chest on the wall. She twisted, snake-like, and saw a pair of arms grasping her ankle. She heard a grunt, and she suddenly found herself shooting up the wall. With one final heave, Tom pulled her inside. For a second they lay together, and then Hannah crawled painfully over to his head. He looked deathly pale, and Hannah knew, somehow knew, that his own death wasn’t too far away. His eyes had a faraway look in them, and his breathing was shallow. She cradled his head in her hands, like he’d done for his sister.
‘Sorry…’ he whispered.
‘Shh,’ she admonished him, tears springing to her eyes. ‘You’re going to be fine, so long as you shut up. Don’t talk.’
He managed to pull a small smile, and then licked his cheek, where a tear had fallen. ‘Listen,’ he said, weak but still forceful. ‘Listen. I’m not going to live. I can’t.’
‘Why not?’ she asked fiercely. ‘I’ll kill anyone who says you can’t!’
He stroked her cheek fondly. ‘I say,’ he said. ‘Now there’s a puzzle for you.’ He smiled again. ‘Didn’t you wonder how I managed to stay so young? I should be about seventy.’
Hannah considered it. If he really had been a child, then it was true.
‘Go to the library,’ he said, so softly Hannah had to put her ear to his mouth to hear. ‘Ask…ask them about me. And…Hannah?’
She looked at him, the tears running freely down her cheeks now. With a sudden movement, he pressed his lips to her. Then he sighed, his head fell back, and he died.
Hannah beat her fists on his chest, furious with him, furious with the world. She sobbed and howled and beat the chest of the young man lying in front of her, until she finally fell asleep. Bathed in the light of the half-moon which shone through the glassless windows, the two looked like Romeo and Juliet.
The soft light of the dawn replaced the cold light of the moon, and as the first rays struck the bodies, they disappeared, disintegrating into dancing motes of dust. When Hannah was woken by her parents, she was unable to explain why it was that she was lying at the top of the stairs, or why the window was broken, or-after a quick search-why she didn’t know where Tom was. She suggested that he had to go to work at the library, which was why he wasn’t here anymore.
Her dad bundled her into the car, and they raced into the village. There was an elderly lady standing behind the counter today, and by the look she gave Hannah, it was obvious that she thought little of her. Hannah herself was too tired and upset to care.
‘I want to find out about Tom Harris,’ she said, bluntly.
‘In the corner,’ came the crisp reply.
‘Thank you,’ she said, trying to remember her manners. She turned and hurried to the corner. And there was her Tom.
He was on the cover of a book entitled The History of Tannia House. There was a bookmark in it. She opened it there.