

INDIGO

Ophelia Keys

Smashwords Edition

copyright 2012 Ophelia Keys

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INDIGO

Let's get one thing straight before we even start. I am not a hunter. I'm the bait, the decoy. I create a moment of attention. And then I let others take over. Usually it's a bunch of men all psyched up for a fight. Funny thing is, the fight just never comes.

Most animals would rather run from a confrontation. It's the same with them. They'd rather slip into the shadows at the first sign of trouble. Most of the time, they never come back. Direct stares, bright lights – that's what gets them. I really don't know why, but they're afraid of being seen. I bring them out into the light, name them, create attention. And then I get the hell out of there – just in case.

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Chapter 1. INDIGO LOST

tuesday, november 3

Indigo

I walked into the bar keeping my face very still, setting my jaw a little. The place was full of men. They all watched me walk in. It was clear to all of us – I was not where I belonged. I sat down at the counter. The air stank of old beer. The barman gave me a look. I appear much younger than I am. Not glamorous young. Child young. But he said nothing when I ordered a drink, just shook his head a little. I didn't really want a drink, but I had this feeling someone would offer to get me one if I waited too long. And I wanted to be on my own. It looked awful when it came, luminous green. I didn't drink it, just sat with my fingers resting on the damp glass, trying (and failing) not to think too much. There was a score of reasons why I should never have come. When ten-thirty passed and my client had still not arrived I was about to give up. A bit relieved really, but he sat down beside me very suddenly and was talking before I even turned.

'You're Indigo? I've got him. I just need the bait.' He was older than I expected. He looked like he'd been drinking, but he waved away the barman.

'Where is he?' I asked. I was careful to say 'he' rather than 'it'. I didn't want to scare him away. He handed me a crumpled piece of paper with the address of a grand, old hotel. He must have been from out of town, to think I needed it written out.

'I'm the bait then?'

'That's what we agreed.' He had gone red. 'I thought you said you could handle it? You look just like her from the back.'

I gave back the paper and stood up.

'That's not enough. What did you bring?'

He pulled out a green scarf. I took it quickly and shoved it into a plastic bag. It was perfect. It would have her scent on it.

'Ten o'clock Friday night. At the bar,' he said. 'He's there every night. But I can't seem to get hold of him. I'll have two men with me. Don't talk to us. Don't even look at us.'

He actually had a nervous tick next to his eye. I tried not to think about what his stupid plan might be. It shouldn't even matter, once I looked this thing square in the face and said its true name.

'Five hundred dollars,' I said. 'And if you ever see him again, I'll give it back.' As you can imagine, I regretted that last part as soon as it came out. I really had no idea what I was doing.

'We'll see.' Clearly he was as unconvinced as I felt. 'Cheque's in the post.'

I needed it now, but I'd never been great at confronting people. The electricity bill would have to wait another couple of days.

'That's great,' I said. I don't think he even caught the sarcasm. We walked out together. He glanced at me, hesitated. He smelt of too much aftershave and fear-sweat.

'I just hope you can do this,' he said.

I didn't answer, just waited until he got uncomfortable and walked off. I knew he had a new car. He had new car smell on his hands. I had seen the way he glanced away as he spoke to me. He was thinking about where he had left it. Whether it was safe. It's not that he wasn't worried about his wife. He just didn't understand yet. He didn't know what followed her. Well, I thought I understood and I was worried.

When I turned to go I saw that they were all watching me through the bar window. It must have looked like we'd done some sordid deal. But the truth is so much stranger.

When I said _they'd_ rather run from a fight, I wasn't talking about ghosts. Perhaps that didn't even occur to you. But just in case it did I want to say, for the record, I have absolutely no skills or understanding when it comes to ghosts. Of course, I've had as much experience with creepy houses as the next person. Like the share house in Canning Street where I always found my clothes thrown onto the floor each morning. Or the bed in the spare room of my Park Street house. It wasn't ever used but the sheets were always getting twisted up – you'd swear in the shape of a sleeping child.

Even in my current house there were what I liked to call Unexplained Happenings. It was a grand old Victorian place, gone shabby over the decades, and the whole ground floor was blocked up. I got in through an outer stairway at the back, where they'd knocked in a door at the second floor. The creepiest place was the inner stairs that went up to the highest level. That's where you could normally have gone down to the first floor too, if they weren't all blocked up with panels. I heard things all the time on that hidden stairway. Mostly these noises were just below the range of real hearing. But often it was the almost imperceptible, quick melodic sound (boomp-boomp-boomp) of an animal's feet ascending the hollow wood. I guess we had a feral cat living down there. But it made the back of my neck creep every time I heard it. Let's just say I'm no specialist on hauntings and I never want to be. That's Dylan's thing and he's welcome to it. My area was a little different. More practical, you might say.

Have you ever passed someone on the street, met someone at a party, who just gave you the creeps for no reason? Granted, some of them are just creepy people. But you should be aware that some of them aren't people at all.

I was sixteen when I found this out. I'd just moved out of my parents' place and I was desperate to be a proper grown up. A man asked me out. He was what I'd been half dreaming of for a long time. He had dark eyes and a lovely smile. Not handsome, but there was definitely something there. Funny thing was, when he looked into my eyes I had the strangest feeling. It was as if on the inside, all my fur went up and my back arched and my eyes went into little slits. I put it down to childish jitters. Just a little hurdle you had to jump before you became a proper woman. I was going to be brave and take the plunge. Yes. I was a fool. You don't have to tell me.

When did I realise I was in over my head? It wasn't over the first drink when he brushed his hand against mine and every muscle in my body went hard and painful. It wasn't when the band started up, loud enough to hurt my ears and he grabbed my arm and drew me into the hot mass of people (his fingers on my arm turned me ice-cold, but how was I to know that wasn't how it should be?). It wasn't when he took me outside, my ears singing painfully, my legs all befuddled from drinking. It was the first kiss. Through the haze of cigarette smoke, I saw his eyes. They were flat and black and not even slightly human. The silly thing was that even then I didn't say or do anything about it. Because it was all just intuition, airy-fairy stuff, as my dad would say. The embarrassment of seeming young and naïve was the worst thing I could think of. Of course, it didn't take long to discover what was actually worse.

It was his dirty apartment, where he played heavy, claustrophobic music. It was being all tangled up in the messy sheets and having him speaking to me in another language that I somehow understood, but wished I didn't. I came over all queasy and had to be sick in his bathroom, but that didn't bother him one bit. He came right in after me. I don't remember much after that. Which is kind of a blessing.

Eventually I found I was walking fast down a too-dark street in an unfamiliar suburb. I didn't have my shoes on. It was horribly quiet out there. Like I'd landed on the moon. I kept looking behind but he didn't follow. At last I found a train station and sat on the platform, feet and hands like ice, blowing out frigid clouds with each breath. The first train was at 5.18am. It was only three. There was a youngish man waiting there too, which had me in a kind of panic. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with him. He had a notebook that he was scribbling in, and perhaps he was a bit disheveled (thought she, in bare feet). But he kept looking at me strangely. I was close to getting up and searching for a taxi, only I had this idea that I wasn't safe out on the streets. Not to mention I had no cash at all. I'd spent it all getting drunk in order to be brave enough to 'lose my innocence'.

Well, I was feeling pretty wise in the ways of the world at that stage. I was cold and miserable and my feet were caught between pain and numbness. There was an itch on my neck. I kept scratching at it. And this boy would not stop looking at me. I tried to tuck my feet under the bench and be as small and unnoticeable as possible. At last he stood up and walked over, causing my blood pressure to shoot up so fast I could hardly hear him talking.

'Hello, I'm Dylan.' (Thump, thump, thump...). My heart seemed like it was trying to burst through my ears.

'Hey,' I answered, not committing, not even looking at him. I was just waiting for him to plant himself next to me and start some spiel. Or something worse. I was pretty jittery to tell the truth. He leaned a little closer and my heart was going so hard it was actually hurting.

'What happened to you?'

It was only then I looked down and saw the mess my clothes were in. That's when I realised that annoying itch on my neck was a great big wound. It was only when I saw the blood that it started to hurt. But it was the look on his face that really got me. Funny how you only freak out when someone else looks frightened for you.

You could call it our first date. Possibly the worst first date in history (except, of course, the one I'd just had). We talked until dawn. Only I didn't really know it was dawn, because it was just one long fluorescent haze in the emergency room. He must have got me there in a taxi because I don't remember any sirens. Frankly, after I'd seen my clothes I got a little woozy. Intermittently there were doctors and questions about haemophilia. Dylan seemed to be constantly lapsing into another language ('desmodus rotundus salivary plasminogen activator' he later repeated for me). The doctors would look at him in a pitying fashion and leave for another hour. Let's face it, doctors hate when you speak medical talk to them. Meanwhile I was seeing stars, literally. Beautiful little white points of light that hurt my eyes. But, on the plus side, when Dylan held my hand it made me feel peaceful and warm and I realised that terror was not a necessary prerequisite for romance.

That was my first night with Dylan, but it was also my first encounter with _them_. And Dylan seemed to be full of information. Although, to be honest, he shared very little of it with me. He did let slip that the night we'd met he was doing ongoing research on the paranormal in the Footscray area. Cue disoriented girl with bare feet and neck wound. It was meant to be. Why did I believe him straight away that this was not just an ordinary creep? I can't really tell you. But I suppose if you'd seen those strange, black eyes you'd believe it too.

'I'm doing something about this', I told him a few weeks later. 'You can't just sit around taking notes.'

He looked at me with deep misgiving. I knew he was already regretting he'd told me anything at all. I suppose with all the blood and bright lights he'd got a little bamboozled and forgotten his usual policy of total non-communication.

'We'll do it together,' I said.

'Can I be chevalier Dupin?' he asked, all sarcasm.

'Whatever. But what's the point of all this research, if you don't do anything with it? This is real. We can't just let these things happen to people.'

Let me just pause for a moment and say that I've always been prey to delusions of grandeur. A single example: once we had to make _papier mâché_ heads for my primary school's performance of _Wind in the Willows_. I decided I was not just going to make the weasel I'd been assigned. I was going to make everyone's. And they were going to be so good, they would just have to use them. I don't know why it was so important to me. Maybe it was because I wasn't noticeably good at anything. I pictured them amazingly life-like. By the time I was on the second weasel I was in tears. They looked like lumpy amoebas. But I did about seven of them anyway, sobbing brokenheartedly the whole time. My mother was so concerned about it she sent me to the school counselor the next day. We can all laugh about it now.

Anyway, that gives you an idea of how I can be when I get an idea in my head. It was a little less obvious how this latest project of mine was going to work. I threw myself into it anyway, with Dylan's reluctant and very occasional help. Actually, in retrospect, I think he just did it to keep an eye on me. He always thought it was a bad idea. I kept messy notebooks full of sketches and quotations and ramblings. Lots of them were just things like – 'heard someone telling a story on the tram the other day – another Victorian house'.

By a Victorian house I mean the ones that are spread all over Melbourne, sweet little single stories covered in cast-iron lacework, or pompous two-story monsters with pediments and balustrades. Anything that has been lived in for over a hundred years is bound to have an interesting atmosphere. Anyway, without going into too much detail, these houses seemed to be a particular source of trouble in all shapes and sizes.

Dylan's work was on a different scale. From what I understood he was compiling some kind of massive account of Melbourne's supernatural life. He had shelves and shelves of hand-written books, but he always said they were 'personal' and kept the cabinets locked. I guess he thought that if a little bit of knowledge was a dangerous thing, then a whole lot might be even worse. I pretended not to care, in the deluded hope I could work on him through reverse psychology. But he was much too set in his secretive ways. I had just about the opposite approach. I felt it was my duty to tell everyone what I was doing. Most people politely changed the topic. But some didn't. Friends of friends were starting to call whenever anything slightly unusual happened. Most of it led nowhere. Or to bad-vibe houses (all I can say is move out, there's nothing I can do). But now and then there'd be something real.

That's for another time, though. If I start telling those stories we'll be here forever, and I just want to sketch in some sort of background for you. The point is I knew Dylan had loads of useful knowledge, and I was pretty confident I could get more out of him, given time and careful planning. Except that he left me after six months. He said I didn't know what I was doing. I was just stirring things up. The world was no better than when I started. Maybe it was worse. And I was moving toward trouble. I was focusing on _them_ , asking them into my life. He wasn't going to watch me get hurt. That's how he put it – funny how you always resort to clichés when you're breaking up with someone. I might have said that stomping all over my heart was a funny way to protect me from being hurt, but I was so mad at him for patronising me, I told myself I didn't even care that he was gone. And then something happened that made me think he was quite possibly right. A child was taken. And I'm pretty sure I was responsible.

It's better I don't talk about it, I think. That was the end of everything. I stopped answering my phone. And people stopped calling. I started working in a market research office. Data entry. Fours years later, out of the blue, a man calls about his wife. Friend of a friend gave him my number. He was desperate.

Did I hesitate? I'd like to say I did. That I'd learnt something. But I simply needed the money. And to be honest I was bored. It seemed so long since it had all happened. Besides, there was no child this time. This time it would be completely different.

wednesday, november 4

When I woke up I just lay quietly for a while, watching a bird pecking around the window box outside. Then I reached out and played the message again.

'I don't know if you can help. A man has been following my wife. For a long time.'

Hearing his voice again, I could just about see that nervous tic by his eye. I had suspected a follower as soon as I got his message. It was the sudden weakness in his voice. 'For a long time'.

I never really gave names to them. None of the standard names seemed to convey what they were. 'Ghost' for example, doesn't that just conjure up a kid in a white sheet? What's the name for that feeling you get at home alone when you see someone disappearing quickly into the passageway, so fast it's almost imagined? And I'm hardly going to say aloud what I thought my first 'lover' had been. In a way, it was unspeakable.

Well, this 'man' had been following the woman for ten years. Without making any contact with her whatsoever, without even looking her in the eye. Just there. I really would be amazed if he turned out to be a human being. Of course, it was a possibility. It just didn't seem very likely.

I reached out for one of my old notebooks. I had reread the passage over and over in the last few days. It was one of the rare occasions that Dylan ever said something useful. Oh, again with the child! I guess I just won't be able to let it go until I write down the whole thing. You see it began while he and I were still together. A woman called me on the phone for help. Dylan had overheard it all.

Dylan calls it a follower. It's been following the child for four years. Since it was born. Don't know what it wants. It just follows. Looks like a young woman with a thin face. Dylan says you should confront it. Call it by its name. But keep the child away from it.

Of course, he was only talking about it in theory. It was a non-specific 'you'. He was just reacting to the child's story as if it was something he was hearing on the news. Something we couldn't do anything about. He'd let slip those few useful words, then stopped suddenly.

'But, seriously, you'd better let this one go,' he said. 'Trust me, Indigo.'

That was three days before he left me. We weren't really speaking to each other after that. Truth be told I was feeling pretty angry, reckless you might say. I called the woman back and told her I knew how to get rid of this 'person' who was following her child. It's painful to think how stupid I was. How utterly arrogant and stupid. Though I suspect I'd have been far less ignorant if Dylan actually shared some of his precious notebooks with me.

I waited with the both of them in the Exhibition Gardens, right near the pond. That's where it had last appeared. What better way to catch it? The mother was standing there nervously, with the little boy in the pusher. She was looking at me as if I was slightly mad, but she was too desperate to really care. I was the first person who'd offered to help her. Sure enough, the 'woman' was suddenly there, thin-faced and hungry-looking as a junkie. I had marched up to it.

'Hey you! Follower!' I shouted. It was gone. I was looking right at it and then it was gone. I couldn't tell if it had vanished or flitted away into the trees. Losses of concentration were common around these things, according to Dylan (so, just keep away from it, Indigo). Then I heard a terrible sound. Not really a scream. More like strangled gulps of air. The child was gone, his mother searching frantically through the bedding. I almost laughed, but that was only because I was on the edge of hysteria. For a moment it looked as if she believed he'd become tiny and she would still find him in there. It was the worst thing I ever saw.

The answering machine had played out its message and was beeping for my attention. I pressed the palms of my hands into my eyes to try to control the nauseating guilt that still took me whenever I thought about it. That woman had screamed and screamed at me, right there in the park, in front of everyone. And I had deserved it, of course. And more. Quite frankly she could have killed me then and there. I deserved it. There was no evidence at all that I had taken the child. I was interviewed only three times. I think they even suspected the mother for a while. Her name was Grace. I hadn't thought of her name in a long time.

I fumbled to turn off the answering machine and just ended up playing his message again. _A man has been following my wife..._ I wasn't sure that I was ready. But it was only myself I was risking this time. His wife would be nowhere near us. This was the key. I tried to picture how it would happen. It would see me in the bar, wearing her scarf. It would follow me out. My client would be waiting with his friends. And then? And then it wasn't my problem anymore. I'd just bring it out into the open. Just like Dylan had said. No child this time. I took a very deep, calm breath, but my hands were shaking.

Dylan wasn't at home, but I found him at the grubby, laminated laundromat beside his house. There was no air-conditioning; the humidity was horrible. The humming, banging machines pretty much drove me crazy. He said they helped him work.

He was sitting in his regular place, scribbling away. But I was kind of glad to meet him there. His apartment was full of tiny bird bones.

'I need you as back-up at this bar on Friday,' I said, casually.

He didn't say anything. Just kept scribbling.

'I'll give you a fifty, just to sit at a table and get yourself a drink.'

'Back-up?' Dylan stopped writing and looked at me. It seemed my words were finally sinking in. 'Back-up for what?'

'For me, obviously.' He just looked at me, not the hint of a smile.

I had a vague memory of finding his grey eyes rather compelling, but I'd got too used to them boring into me accusingly. Like they were right at that moment. It wasn't going well. Time to try the guilt thing.

'A man's been stalking my client's wife. I'm going to help them out. I just need to know someone's looking out for me.' I really had his attention now. He put down his notebook.

'What kind of man?' he asked. He leaned forward. 'What do you mean 'client'?'

'There's a creepy guy following this woman. I just want to help her.'

He sat back, suspicious. 'Didn't you get a job at some phone company?'

'I quit two weeks ago. I already told you that.'

'Sorry, I'm busy Friday.' He went back to writing. 'If he's an ordinary guy, why don't they just report him?'

I sat for a moment, but I couldn't admit it was a follower. He would bring up the child. I couldn't bear to have him bring that up. Couldn't even bear he knew I was responsible for something as bad as that. I guess he would have found out anyway, if he'd come with me. But it seemed very different to telling him right there, in the harsh summer light in the laundromat. I walked out with a hot core of anger inside me. But the further I walked, the more I wanted to turn around. By the time I reached my laneway, I realised I was really scared. It was like a fist squeezing all my insides, and I was cold, even with the sun beating down on me.

I'd left my back gate open, but I still got a horrible fright when I saw that someone was standing at the top of my stairs. It was a girl, stretched up on tiptoes and trying to peer the wrong way through my peep-hole. She looked down and saw me and didn't seem at all embarrassed. For a moment I thought she might be my client's wife. But he had described her as looking just like me, while this leggy, tanned blonde looked pretty much my opposite.

I clanged up the spiral stairs. They always felt particularly rickety with two people on them.

'Hi, I'm Ani,' she said, thrusting out her hand at me. 'I'm here about the room.'

I had a vague memory of leaving a note up on a Carlton billboard, but that had been months ago.

'Come in out of the hot,' I said, at last, a bit alarmed to see anyone in singlet and tiny shorts in the ferocious midday sun. I unlocked the door and she followed me into the coolness.

'Wow!' she said straight away, and I wasn't sure that she meant it in a good way.

She walked in slowly, looking all around her. I started to feel a bit self-conscious about the crumbling plaster and dingy carpet. I took her past the blocked off stairs, up to the front room. It had a balcony and looked down onto the street through two huge windows. It was crowded with junk, but I was still sure it was pretty impressive. She was starting to look happier.

'Fifty a week, are you sure? This place is totally amazing.'

'That's fine,' I said, wishing I'd asked for more. 'It'll take me a while to clean out.'

'That's no problem, I'll help. Can I take it now?'

I was speechless. She was smiling at me, thrilled, as if I'd already said yes.

'I'll pay you a hundred straight away. I've got nowhere to stay tonight.'

'Okay.' I couldn't think of a good reason to say no. I could hardly tell her I was in the middle of some sort of supernatural crisis.

'Great!' she actually clapped her hands together and bounced up and down. I've got some suitcases in the car.

'Don't do any cleaning without me.' She rushed out without waiting for a reply.

I just stood there and looked around the room, with the uneasy sense that there were all sorts of things I didn't want her to see in there, including a virtual library of occult books hidden in various piles. I started for the nearest stack, hoping I could get rid of the worst of it before she returned.

friday, november 6

Ani said she'd be out late, which suited me fine. She didn't have a key yet, but I was sure I'd be back before her. I washed very carefully and put on an old dress that I didn't much like. I had new clothes that didn't have any recent human smells on them. I would put them on just before I reached the hotel. I closed my door and breathed in the air. It was a very clear night. Warm. No moon yet. I had to go sideways down my metal stairway, the shoes were so high.

It was a fifteen-minute walk into the city. My heels clicked loudly, telling the whole neighbourhood – young woman, walking alone, hampered by stupid footwear. But he had described her as always wearing heels. It seemed an important detail. Five minutes into the walk I was furious at myself for not carrying the heels and wearing flat shoes. Complete idiot. I would have to wash them too. They'd be all sweaty. Worst of all was the way they slowed me down. I had to take little delicate steps. It made me feel shackled somehow.

I walked through the park, strange and shadowy. Possums darted between the trees, looking down at me with their sweet faces and harsh hissing. The shopping bag swung against my legs. I had a bottle of soapy water. Her soap.

Sounds strange I know. But I had a theory about this creep. It was all about the smell of her. It was like an animal. That's all it really was. Perhaps I was just trying to make myself feel better about it with all these theories. Because really I had no idea what it was.

I stopped before I reached the hotel. I slipped into a laneway. Really it was quite a public laneway and I had to sink into a shadowy corner and hope no one happened to look down it. Not that I was ever really bothered about that sort of thing. I pulled off my dress. I poured the bottle over myself, over the stupid heels. Then I dried myself with a hand towel from the plastic bag. I was washing away my own smell. It felt strange and dangerous and when I put on the new clothes I felt entirely different, as if I really had transformed. It was such a warm night the soapy water tightened across my skin immediately. My heart was starting to race. I brought out her scarf and wrapped it over my head. It might sound dumb, but I'd always wanted to wear a scarf like that. And I wasn't that tall, the top of my head would probably be the closest thing to its nose, even with the stilettos on.

I wove through the gaudy theatre crowds. The hotel was one of those grand Victorian places that have seen better days. The linen tablecloths and chandeliers barely covered the smell of rising damp. To be honest, I loved it. It was a Melbourne institution. Shabby-grand, was how I would describe it.

There was a van parked, right in front of it. I saw the little glow of a cigarette. I stopped. It must be them. Oh God, surely they're not going to put it in the van? I don't know what I was expecting. I clicked quickly past, a panicky feeling was rising. Stay calm, stay calm, I told myself. It will probably disappear the moment you say its name. Anyway, you just need to get it outside. Then it's not your problem anymore. I'm pretty sure it wasn't going to go for them out in the street. I wasn't even sure you could touch a follower. Or that it could touch you.

I put my hand against the glass and hesitated. It was really too late to think about it. I had already accepted the money. There were three men waiting with a van. Turning around right in front of them and going home didn't seem like an option.

So this was it. I breathed out slowly and pushed open the door. I walked into the bar. It was covered in sporting paraphernalia and the flicker of plasma screens. There were three men there watching the golf. I sat down at the bar. Everything I did felt mechanical and obvious. The scarf must look ridiculous.

As I ordered, the barman glanced over my shoulder. And, just like that, I felt it behind me. I'm not exactly sure how I knew, but there was an awful prickling sensation up the back of my neck. And a feeling I had forgotten with the one in the park, but now came right back to me, a heavy feeling, as if I were locked up in a closet full of stale air. I wasn't expecting it to appear so soon. I didn't turn around. What should I do? Confront it right here? I tried to slow down my breathing. Stay calm. I would just quietly stand up and leave, without meeting its eye. But would it follow me? The van out the front seemed so damn obvious. So I just sat there, stiff as a startled cat, feeling it right behind me.

I couldn't seem to turn around. The prickling had become a tingling that spread right down to my fingertips. Then something truly horrible happened. I felt fingers brush against my head. It was like a nasty electric shock into my skull. I jumped up and twisted around.

It looked just like an ordinary man. Except for the smell. Actually, to be specific, it was the total absence of smell. Definitely not the scent of a person, or even an animal. Just nothing. You don't realize how important smell is until it's just absolutely gone.

'You,' it whispered, in a strangled voice, as if it was not used to speaking.

And even though it was looking straight at me, I knew it thought I was her. I could see it in the soft line of its mouth. I saw its eyes, blank and ordinary. Not at all unusual. That unsettled me, because there should be some sort of clue in its eyes. Windows to the soul and all.

'Follower,' I whispered. There was not even a flicker of hesitation. I don't think it even heard me. 'Follower,' I said, louder. 'I know what you are. You don't belong here.'

No one was watching the golf anymore. I could see out of the corner of my eye that they were all staring at me. One old guy had half-stood up, as if he could see something wasn't right. It raised its hand very slowly, as if to touch the scarf again, leaving its fingers hovering in front of my face. I felt like I was going to be sick. Ten years of waiting, of following. Never speaking or touching. And I had broken the ice. Good one, Indigo. I wasn't thinking of the plan now. I just had to get out of there. The non-smell of it was setting off a million panic synapses in my brain. But I just stood. And then something really bad happened. It leaned forward, staring at me, and spoke very clearly.

'Indigo?'

A glass dropped and shattered. Someone swore. I bolted. I burst through the doors, out onto the street. I pushed past a man, I guess it was my client. I was running fast, tearing off the scarf. It clung to my throat for a moment, like a horrible web. Then it slipped away. I weaved through the crowd outside the theatre. I couldn't stop running. Some primitive part of my brain had taken over. I flew across the big intersection on Victoria Street, cars swerving and beeping. I was still running when I reached Cardigan Street, passed the looming façade of my house, wishing I could somehow fly straight up through the windows. Finally I reached my laneway, fumbled to unlock the gate and to lock it again.

I was past the abandoned servant's quarters, the blank windows breathing malice down my neck. I crashed up the stairs, banging my shins on every step. At the top of the stairway I stopped, pressed my back against the door, and looked down. I could see my little narrow garden. It was too deep-shadowed to see anything clearly. I could see the high metal gate. I could even see the back street, over the wall, still and very empty. I was listening hard, but all I could hear was the heavy whooshing of my own blood, loud enough to drown out any stealthy sounds below. I unlocked the door, still watching. I slipped inside, slammed the door behind me. Then I pressed my back against it and all the breath heaved out of me in a strangled little noise.

I slid right down to the floor and just slumped there. Now I was safe I could feel the deep marks from the horrid strappy shoes. I began to unbuckle them and ease them off my feet. Little lines of blood were appearing where the straps had been, making perfect red outlines, like ballet-shoe ribbons. I was shocked. I didn't even think it was possible for me to run so fast for so long. I suppose I hadn't been thinking at all. But it had said my name. And I knew that was very bad. With all the thoughts crowding through my head it took me quite a while to notice that the light was on. I sat there, gulping for breath, looking down the bright passageway, at my peeling white walls and the grand plaster roses of the ceiling. I was pretty sure I hadn't left my lights on. And I knew Ani didn't have a key yet.

Someone stepped out of my bedroom. My heart contracted. It was Dylan, holding my notebook in one hand.

'Dammit, Dylan!' I yelled. He seemed surprised but walked up to me and gazed down.

'You don't look so good' he observed. He pushed his reading glasses closer to his eyes. Having got a better look, he frowned, put the glasses in his pocket and sat down beside me. I shut my eyes and rested my head against the door.

I sort of remembered the non-smell of it. I remembered it reaching out to touch the scarf. But I couldn't call up the feeling that I'd had. The feeling that had made me run and run until my feet were bleeding. I guess I'd simply panicked. Lost my nerve at the crucial moment. My client would think I was an idiot. I would have to agree with him.

'I didn't know you still had a key,' I managed, finally.

'I kept one. In case of emergency.'

'I'm fine. Just an ordinary creep, I told you.'

Gingerly I touched the lines criss-crossing my ankles. My knees were throbbing. I had taken the skin off my shins on the stair. Really, my whole body was aching from the sudden tension release.

'What are you doing here anyway?'

Quietly, Dylan opened up my notebook. I had left it on the table by my bed. I saw my writing there. _Dylan calls it a follower_. He looked pointedly at my battered legs.

'Why don't you tell me what's really going on?'

I didn't answer straight away. I dragged myself to my feet, using the door handle, and went to the kitchen. I would need a stiff drink if I was going to tell him the whole story. It didn't take long to tell. 'Man' follows innocent woman. Plucky girl takes on 'man'. Apparently not so plucky girl panics and runs away. It sounded much worse when put into a few short sentences.

Dylan didn't say much but made me a cup of tea, which I think was his way of heading me off from the liquor cupboard. Once the tea was ready we just sat for a while. The kitchen window was open, and I was not happy about it, though we were more than two stories up. I was trying to appear calm while my teacup rattled against its saucer. It seemed that now that the panic was over, a deep shaking was taking control of my whole body.

'I'm not used to running so far,' I said, in explanation.

He just looked at me. He had the unnerving habit of just looking, with no effort to say anything that might make the moment easier. In his defence, there was no 'I told you so's. No lectures on the dangers of meddling with the Unknown. But I was filling in his silence with all sorts of imagined accusations. I sipped on my tea and managed not to meet his eye. I must have jumped about a foot when I heard the banging on the metal gate below. Dylan simply frowned, as if this jumpiness was further evidence of my messed up state.

'Oh, it's Ani,' I said, embarrassed. 'I just got a house mate.'

'I'd better let her in,' he said.

I was relieved. I couldn't face the thought of walking down alone, the empty windows of the house looking down on me. Yes, I was afraid of my own house. I was in a bad state. Even now, I turned my chair around a little to keep my eye on the doorway, while not fully turning my back on the dark square of the window. What I hadn't told Dylan was really playing on my mind. That the follower had said my name. And I couldn't help but think that now, just maybe, it was my follower. I had meant to tell him, but as the story came out it all sounded so bad. And the whole time he was looking at me with that penetrating look, as if he was seeing right past whatever angle I might be trying to put on things. Seeing right to the heart of it. To the fact that I'd messed up again. I didn't want to give him any more ammunition. Flimsy excuse I know. But the truth was I wanted him on my side.

I was glad when I heard he and Ani coming up the outside stairway. Even more when they were in the house and I heard their steps on the stairs. Ani was smiling her huge smile, but it faltered a little when she saw me.

'What happened?'

'I just got mugged,' I blurted out, seeing Dylan giving me a look from behind her.

'Oh no!' she exclaimed, with such a look of dismay on her face that I'm embarrassed to say I immediately dissolved into tears. She rushed up to me and enfolded me in her narrow arms. And I just couldn't stop sobbing. I'm not much of a crier at the worst of times, and not all that fond of being hugged by people I barely know, but it seemed I was in some sort of shock and I no longer had any say in the matter. I was painfully aware of Dylan, still standing in the doorway and looking everywhere but at me. I didn't blame him.

'I'm alright,' I said, finally disentangling myself. 'They didn't manage to get my bag.' I added, having noticed at that moment that it was sitting on the table right in front of me.

'Still,' she said. 'How terrible!'

'I'm just going to have a bath, I think.' I stood up and winced at the stiffness in my back. I really just wanted to get away from the embarrassment of it all. The shame really – because Dylan and I both knew that I had walked right into it, and so all of Ani's sympathy was just the product of a big lie.

I didn't have a bath, just hobbled into bed. In the distance I could hear the vague hum of Dylan and Ani's voices. I wondered, with an unwelcome sting of jealousy, what they could be talking about. I suppose Dylan was simply elaborating on my mugging lie, though I think I'd been pretty convincing in my role as shaken street-crime victim. I shut my eyes and tried to breathe calmly. I'd thought all my aches and stings would keep me awake, but I fell asleep almost instantly.

saturday, november 7

When I woke up there was a book on the foot of my bed. I couldn't quite believe it when I picked it up. It was one of Dylan's 'secret' notebooks. I just sat there and stared at it. After so much time wanting to read one, I felt strangely hesitant to open it. I flicked through it quickly first, seeing Dylan's regular, sloping letters all the way through. I was kind of touched at the thought of him bringing it back for me while I was asleep. With the guilty feeling of peeking at someone else's diary, I settled back in the bed and began to read.

Interviewer: The recorder's on now. It's the sixth of March, two thousand and five. So, you wanted to tell me about this boy?

Int. 3: Yes. My grandfather was followed by a young boy for twenty years. I know you won't believe this (laughs) but the boy never aged.

Interviewer: What did he look like?

Int. 3: I only saw him twice. Once when I was younger and then a few days before granddad passed away. He was kind of sweet. He had blonde hair. He was about seven. The second time I saw him walk past the door. I was in the study. I thought he was heading for granddad's room, but when I went in he wasn't there and granddad was asleep. I guess he was some sort of ghost (laughs). You know, I don't actually believe in ghosts.

Interviewer: You think it was a ghost?

Int. 3: I don't know (laughs). What else could it be? My grandfather always thought he was a real person. He used to tell us whenever he saw him around, but we just thought he was joking. He did that a lot. But then I saw it. I remembered seeing it when I was little. And on the night he died I thought I heard it talking to him. But it wasn't there when I went in. If it wasn't a ghost, what was it?

Not surprisingly, Dylan didn't answer this. Just continued with the next question. At least, I was assuming Dylan was the interviewer. I thought I recognised his particular way of asking all the questions and not answering anything. I read through the whole book. There were nine cases described in it. It was always the same. Either it ended in the person's (apparently) natural death, or the person would disappear. Only two of the people he'd interviewed were actually the ones being followed. Their later disappearances were described by Dylan, briefly and (I thought) much too dispassionately, with the date and a note of where they were last seen (walking down Queen Street, on St Kilda beach).

Dylan never mentioned the word 'follower' to any of them. It seemed like he didn't share any information with them at all. Just recorded. I was deeply angry about that. But it made me feel better about the pathetic wreck I'd been in front of him last night. Because at least I had nothing to be ashamed of. I was trying to help. He never did anything at all, just sat safely on the sidelines.

After the transcripts Dylan had written my story – the story of the child – as if I were a stranger. 'The attempted intervention failed. Only the child was taken.' And then a passage that really froze me:

These followers never acknowledge anyone, except the object of their obsession. They have been known to speak to this person, usually saying their name, or expressing their devotion. The occurrence of these conversations generally presages the disappearance of the person soon afterwards. Once the person disappears, the follower is never seen again.

I paused for a moment, really just having a bit of a blank. A note slipped out and I picked it up a little numbly.

Indi, I hope you have read all of this. It is all I have on followers. They're really very rare and I haven't looked into them much. I used to think they were something like the Irish superstition of the 'fetch', but they don't quite seem to fit. Perhaps you can add to this now? I'll be back tonight because I imagine you don't want to be on your own. I think you'll understand now why it's best not to contact your client or his wife again. I don't think there's anything you can do to help them. You may simply speed the course of events. Rest up today, it can be draining just to be near these things. But I don't need to tell you that. _D_

I read that phrase a few times – 'speed the course of events'. Couldn't have put it better myself. And I guess the 'draining' bit was his way of saying, don't feel bad for blubbing like a little kid. For which I mentally thanked him. He had used his old nickname for me too, which showed he was worried for me rather than disapproving. Not that it really mattered to me. Frankly, the idea of participating in his infuriating research did not appeal. Honestly, an Irish 'fetch'? What planet was he living on? I shut the book with a snap. But I couldn't seem to resist those blank pages. At last I grabbed a pen and wrote it all down, even the bits I'd left out last night. It occurred to me that if I disappeared, at least there would be some sort of record of what had happened. I was going to get up when I finished. But I found I was exhausted. I just lay back down and drifted into an unsatisfying sleep.

When I woke up it was quite late, I could tell straight away from the golden light and the changed songs of the birds. I was still feeling pretty drained. I decided I'd better eat something at least. A kind of evening breakfast. Ani didn't seem to be at home, but she had filled the fridge with health food and had left a little note telling me to help myself and signed it with about ten kisses. I took out some carrot and celery, thinking some sort of hearty soup was in order. Really I felt quite strange, kind of insubstantial and empty. I was having to really focus as I chopped the vegetables. The last thing I needed was a slip of the knife.

The funny thing is that I'd always prided myself on my instincts. Not my forward planning perhaps, but my instincts in the moment. And when I heard the creak of the carpeted stairs I just assumed it was Ani. It was that moment of twilight where everything is becoming indistinct. And I was dreamily feeling that I was becoming indistinct too. I was pretty glad to have Ani back – she would cut through my strange mood at least. I was even opening my mouth to say hello, still chopping away. Only, as you've probably guessed, it wasn't her at all.

By the time I felt a prickling at the nape of my neck and turned around, the follower was standing in the doorway, effectively blocking it. I'd been calling the follower 'it' the whole time, in my mind. But the more I saw it, the more I had to admit it had its own consciousness and was very definitely in the shape of a man. I can't really say if that was a shape it had chosen, or whether it was some sort of spirit and had been a man in life.

Even now it's still so hard to describe him. It's not that I could ever forget any detail of his face, it's just that he was so unremarkable. He wasn't very tall, but still a little taller than me. His hair wasn't particularly light or dark. His eyes were a kind of mid colour, I couldn't even say if they were grey or brown. I don't know what age he was, if he was an age. He neither seemed particularly young nor old. The one thing that was remarkable was the look on his face. It was a kind of bland, soft look – the way a mother might look dotingly at her child.

It may sound strange, but we simply stood there for a long time. At the edge of my vision I could see that the sky was gradually taking on that kind of turquoise, underwater look it gets when yellow sunset dissolves into blue evening. I was aware of the changing light quite distinctly, as if the situation in the room was not entirely related to me. I think we could have stood there like that forever, except there was a sudden clanging of feet on the outer stairs and a loud knock at the door.

Still, I couldn't seem to say anything. I don't think Ani could have heard me anyway unless I really screamed, and I was not a screamer even, it seemed, in the midst of a life-threatening situation. Although I couldn't be sure he was threatening my life. Really, all he was doing was standing there in the doorway. Yet my hand was curling around the sharp little knife on the bench behind me, as if it had a will of its own. I heard the key in the door, and knew that it must be Dylan. At the same moment I realised the follower was moving slowly toward me. He was already halfway across the small room. I had no memory of him starting forward at all.

The sound of the key had galvanised me. I was completely focused now. I held the little knife ready for when he would come within range. He had touched me before, so I knew he had some kind of physical body. And if he had a physical body, I could hurt him.

I like to think it's not just me, that we all carry the instinctive readiness, the expectation even, that we may need to defend ourselves to the death at some stage. I'd like to believe I'm not a danger to others. But let's just say, if he'd been human, he'd be in very serious trouble.

I let him move slowly toward me and stop just within arm's length. I was vibrating with a kind of sick expectation that something huge was about to happen. Slowly he reached forward to touch my face and I knew this was the moment. He would have no time to jump back. He was too close. But even as the knife arced around towards him I realised that I had made a mistake. You see, his fingertips touched my forehead. And, just like that, I was gone.

****
Chapter 2. DYLAN ALONE

tuesday, december 15

Dylan

Indigo's been gone for over a month. At first I measured it in hours. Six hours missing. Fourteen hours missing. That's when I still thought that looking in her notebook would render up some clue. Then it got to big numbers like forty-two hours and it seemed much better to count in days and weeks.

I was proactive at first. I called her last client. His wife answered. She was still frightened. I suspect she always will be now – because she was followed so long. She couldn't tell me anything – hadn't even heard of Indigo. Then her husband grabbed the phone and he was yelling. He wasn't happy that Indigo had run out in the middle of everything. Well, it sounded to me like the first sensible thing she'd done. I hung up on him mid rant because I was just on the edge of shouting back, 'Are you happy now your wife's free and it's taken Indigo?'

After two weeks I'm still running on adrenalin. It's a like a drug coursing through me all the time, leaving a metal taste in my mouth and a kind of electric buzzing at my fingertips. I've had trouble with insomnia before but I never knew you could be quite so wired and so burnt out all at once. The problem is that there's nowhere for that adrenalin to go. No heroic rescue to be made. Nothing to do but go back to the same places, secretly letting myself into Indigo's building while her house mate is at work. Walking through the rooms with the bad feeling that the house is watching me and it knows I'm missing something huge. That's what it seems like anyway – some huge and obvious clue that will lead me straight to her. Only I'm too stupid to see it.

Most of all I go to the kitchen. Because that's where it took her. I know this, because I saw her go. It's pretty much burned into my skull. Really, I kind of knew it the moment I knocked on the door – that something terrible was happening inside. If I didn't still have her key I probably would have broken a window or something. It felt that bad. Once I was in I ran up the stairs and just about crashed into the wall, I was going so fast. They were standing in the kitchen. Its body (shaped just like an ordinary man) almost blocked her from view, but I could see a fragment of her face and her arm. I guess it would have been out of its line of vision, but I caught a glint from her hand, a little knife.

Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but for a split second I was sure she looked past it and right at me. And so I think she must have had a moment of hope. That some sort of help had arrived. But I just stood there as it reached up, really quite slowly, to touch her face. I was in shock I suppose – to see it in the house. It didn't belong there. It was Indigo who acted, bringing the little knife around in a sudden, savage arc. But it never struck. All I could do was stare as its fingers connected with her forehead and they both stuttered and flickered off like a broken projector image.

I've seen some really strange things over the years. I was once taking an account from an elderly woman who believed her dead sister was watching over her. Part way through the interview a little porcelain dog from the mantelpiece shot past us and burst into smithereens against the opposite wall. Things like that were happening all the time. I had journals full of that stuff. There's always an explanation. And I know it will all be explained scientifically some day. I don't have the background to do that. I'm a recorder really. I take down the accounts, do the research. I don't know why, but I just know that someone needs to do it. It needs to be witnessed before it can be explained. So, I've seen some unusual things. But this was different. I saw them both flickering in and out like guttering candles. And then nothing, just the empty kitchen. I don't really know how else to describe it, except to say it was the most unscientific thing I ever saw.

So now I regularly stand in the kitchen, looking at that spot where I last saw her. It gives me a kind of link to the moment. I have this idea that if I remember it clearly enough, I'll know what action to take. But no matter how hard I think about it, no matter how much detail there is, I still have no idea what to do. The truth is she just vanished. She was there and then she wasn't. Kind of like a car accident, only with nothing left behind to prove that it was real.

After I go to her house I generally come home and sit and watch TV, and watch the clock. There's a big empty space with me all the time. Or, rather, a little Indigo-sized space. It's like her absence is beside me all the time. While I'm looking at the five o'clock news (five o'clock, that makes another hour gone), I'm thinking of all the things I used to hate about her that I can now see were the best parts of her. Her stubbornness and the way she always did things secretly, and then would try to coerce me into helping her once she was in real danger. Well now I saw her stubbornness as courage, and it was my cowardice that had forced her to trick me into involvement.

I've tried to cope with what happened my own way. It's left me burnt out and empty. I think the only thing to do is what Indigo would do in my place. A way to honour her, I suppose. I'm going to drink myself into oblivion.

I started methodically. And maybe you're already seeing a fault in my plan. I've never been a happy drunk at the greatest of times. I'm the one who suddenly turns nasty just when everyone else is reaching the peak of enjoyment. But I forget that quite easily, because I'm not generally a drinker. Truth be told, drunks kind of disgust me.

It begins with a flood of remarkable insights. This time was no different. Only no one was with me to suffer through it. I just sat there having realisations about my life. I've never told anyone this before because I'm kind of ashamed of it, but my father is a very rich man. I don't ever have to worry about money. Indigo doesn't know about that and I wish it wasn't true, because for some reason it makes me feel pretty worthless. My mother was a free spirit who left me with him – knowing he had the cash to bring me up. As if that's all it took. I guess she thought that an illegitimate child was going to be hugely popular with the strait-laced family he already had. I don't think I need to even go into that. It wasn't a great success.

So here's the amazing insight. It suddenly dawned on me that one of my parents was a big empty space that I filled up with whatever. My father was a man and my mother was absence. And what did that mean for who I was? Did it make me a changeling – something half from another world – I mean half-born of my own imagination? I started to picture myself as some sort of lumbering minotaur, blundering about, ruining everything I touched. I'm a terrible drunk, like I said. I just kept on and on, as if I was stuck in some kind of pop-psychology labyrinth. Oh, it was complicated. Sometimes my mother wasn't absence. Sometimes she was a sliver of memory – of sitting in enormously high grass while she held a buttercup to my face. Only in my mind I can see its reflection, a yellow coin on my chin, and I start to wonder if it's a real memory or just something I saw in a movie.

So after drinking a magnificent amount of horrible cheap Scotch, followed by something liquorice flavoured (which was all I had) I just sat at my table with my head resting on my arms and felt I was in some dreary existentialist novel. The flood of energy was over. All the insights I'd had were empty and I was a disgusting drunk. Worse, I was a coward for anaesthetising myself against what I'd done to Indigo. That was it. At the heart of it. What _I'd_ done.

I'd kept her in the dark. I should have given her all the information I had right from the beginning. If she had known how dangerous it really was she might have hung back. If I'd told her that followers always took someone. But I hadn't and now she was gone. The equation was starkly and beautifully simple. It was almost a relief. I guess this was the moment of true insight when I could have stopped drinking. But I didn't. If you had a bit of a literary background you might say I'd waded out so far, it seemed just as hard to come back as to go all the way. And I've always been very goal driven. Well now oblivion was my goal and that's where I was headed.

wednesday, december 16

Everyone knows that the problem with that kind of oblivion is that it's quickly replaced by something ten times worse than what you started with. I suppose I'd forgotten about that too. The full reality. When I woke I was aware that the sun had been blazing through the shut blinds for hours. Only now I couldn't block it out anymore because there was a shrilling noise with it. A part of me knew perfectly well it was the phone, but another part was still lost in that black, primitive emptiness that had been such a blessing, when I finally felt it coming.

Each ring tore another layer back, bringing me closer to a harsh reveal that I didn't want. On the sixth ring I finally acknowledged it was the phone, but didn't want to answer. By the seventh ring Indigo's disappearance had hit me again. By the eighth I was back in my body and it was a terrible place full of pain and lurching nausea. The ninth ring reminded me that the phone was important now Indigo was gone. It could even be her. I flung one arm over my eyes and reached for it.

She had a pretty voice and it was saying very quickly who she was and why she was calling, but I was in such a terrible way I couldn't grasp it.

'Sorry?' I whispered, when there was a silence.

She started again, voice just as bright. 'It's Ani. Indigo's tenant, remember?'

I sighed deeply. It was rude of me. It's not that often I get called by beautiful women. At least, I'm pretty sure it was not that often, as I usually had a strict policy of not answering the phone.

'I'm going to have to call you back...' I began, cursing her for waking me out of my blissful nothingness, but she was starting again.

'Look, Dylan. I know you said that Indigo's gone away for a while, and I'm not really sure if you know what the real situation is over here. But I'm getting this crazy vibe in the kitchen and I'm pretty sure something really, really bad happened there.'

I sat up pretty quickly when she mentioned the kitchen, but then had to double over in a wash of nausea. She must have taken my struggle not to be violently ill as an emotional moment, because she said, worriedly; 'Don't freak out on me though!'

That made me laugh. I laughed for quite a while. Which made me realise she was right – I was 'freaking out' in rather a huge way.

'What do you mean 'the kitchen'?' I asked, stupidly. 'How could you know that?'

'Well, I think it's obvious something happened in the kitchen. And I don't think Indigo's gone away at all. I think she's still in the house.'

I stood up so fast at this that, to be honest, I almost blacked out. I had to sit down again and actually press the phone into my forehead to get rid of the darkness at the edge of my eyes.

'The house?' I managed, finally.

There was a bit of silence. 'Dylan, I don't think this phone thing is working out. Why don't you give me your address and I'll come over?'

Well I got the address out before, I'm sorry to say, I had to stagger to the bathroom and be copiously sick. It's not necessary for you to judge me. I was totally disgusted with myself. Rest assured this is the last time I plan a course of action on what Indigo would do. She always has big ideas but she's never been much of a forward thinker.

Afterwards I slumped numbly against the bathroom wall with evil little white flashes going at the edge of my vision. But I didn't stay there long. I had only met Ani a few times, but I had a very clear memory of her magnificent long legs and wide-set blue eyes. Not that I was in a condition to make a good impression, or that I even really wanted to. I just didn't want to horrify her with my evil-smelling kitchen and mail-strewn passageway. I was a clean person usually. A bit obsessive compulsive. But the last month had been a sudden slide into chaos and I'd stopped even seeing it as mess. Until Ani called. Yes, I could think about these things even with Indigo gone. I'm only human.

The apartment was kind of presentable when she arrived twenty minutes later. But I was still a total mess, and she saw it as soon as I opened the door.

'Sorry to tell you that stuff over the phone,' she said, walking in with a good smell (vanilla perfume and sunlight). She was almost as tall as I was and could look me straight in the eye. Maybe I shouldn't have noticed but, in my defense, I was in a pretty vulnerable state.

'It's kind of a shame,' she said, looking at my intricate collection of bird skulls, but not commenting, 'that you're so hung over. You're totally in the wrong place for this.' She sat herself down on a linoleum chair, legs stretching out like some crazy Bambi creature. 'But I'm really glad it wasn't you. I mean, I had to _read_ you to be safe, but I can see by just looking at you that you didn't do it.'

I didn't understand anything she was saying. 'Do you know where Indigo is?' I asked, enunciating carefully.

'Well, I'd like to hear what you think, but the kitchen seems to be the last place she was when she was definitely anywhere.'

I just stood there and looked at her. I was really stunned.

'You're sick,' she said, brightly. 'You'd better sit down before you puke.'

I sat down.

She was still looking around the apartment, eyes passing over my locked cabinet of notebooks. 'I'm glad it wasn't you. I mean, I was starting to think you might have done it.' She laughed. 'I've got no idea what a 'follower' is, but I can tell you, the kitchen feels like the Bermuda Triangle or something.'

I registered the word 'follower' and was just alert enough to guess where she'd found it. 'You read her diary?'

She shrugged. 'It was on her bed.' She leaned forward and fixed me with her big eyes. 'And I should have known that kind of negative energy could only be something from another plane.'

I laughed. 'I don't mean to be rude, but you sound like a new age freak.' I really meant it as an apology, but I don't think it came out that way.

She sat back and glared at me. 'Well, I guess you have your own ideas, but if I were you I'd be looking at the house.'

She was right, of course. I stood up very slowly, head throbbing. 'Let's go then.'

'If you think you're up to it.'

She was definitely not happy with me. I suppose I deserved it. Politeness is about the first thing to go with me when I'm sick. Add to that the shock of it all. Because it was impossible she knew about what had happened in the kitchen.

It was already too hot outside. It usually took twenty minutes to walk to Indigo's place, but I guess I made it a little longer. I couldn't move very fast and I think the sun was literally killing me. It must have been high thirties Celsius and I was dehydrated and at the point of passing out any moment. Strangely, it was the fear of passing out and making a spectacle of myself that I was most worried about. I guess it was easier than thinking about Indigo.

I followed Ani's long legs up the outer stairway and waited for her to unlock the door, politely pretending that I didn't still have my own key, and that I hadn't been letting myself in and poking around for the last month. The house blew cool air over us as we went in. I swear Indigo's place has its own weather system.

I stopped in the passageway, looking at the high white walls and letting my eyes adjust to the gloom. Ani shut the door behind us and I had a memory of Indigo slumped against it, peeling the straps of her shoes away from red marks on her legs. I could see she'd run so fast and so far in those shoes that she must have been in total panic. Which was not really like Indigo at all. She was generally pretty cool, which just means she puts a high priority on hiding any fear she's actually feeling. I think that's what scared me the most, even more than knowing she had seen another follower and it had seen her. To realise that she had been running from something in pure terror. But I suppose it was an improvement in a way – for her to be heading away from trouble instead of straight toward it.

Ani touched my arm and made me jump. 'Do you want to go to the kitchen?'

I just leaned up against the wall and she stood there looking at me. It was pretty clear that neither of us wanted to go.

'I guess you read about it all in Indigo's diary,' I said. 'The follower.'

She didn't even blush. 'And that notebook too. I read about it but I don't know what it is. Some sort of dark idea that's become material I suppose. You have to wonder why she's invited _that_ into her life.'

I couldn't help it, I laughed, and she looked pretty annoyed.

'Well, at least I've got a theory. What are you doing about it? Just taking endless notes and like 'case histories' and never having a real opinion about anything?'

I wasn't laughing anymore. She really had been reading Indigo's diary.

'Let's just go upstairs.'

We went up to the third level, which was mostly taken up by a big front room stretching across the width of the building. Just before it was a poky little space, which I guess had been a maid's room or something in Victorian times. Now it had a battered table and a little kitchenette. Maybe it was my aching head, but I couldn't feel anything strange there. Just the kind of sick feeling you might expect from a hideous hangover and the memory of Indigo's white face as she disappeared into nothingness.

I'd walked straight in, but Ani was standing just outside the door, arms crossed. There was a half-made coffee on the bench, and I guess she had decided, mid-way through, to call me. It awakened another memory. It was a while ago now, when I was living there. Indigo had been making coffee and I'd walked up behind her and kissed her softly on the back of her neck, burying my face in her hair. Ever since she'd been missing I'd been thinking of stupid things like that. Wondering what it had been that had made me so fed up with her in the end. I was drawn out of my maudlin loop by Ani suddenly walking in and crouching down to press her palms against the floor – pretty much exactly where I'd seen Indigo disappear.

'Oh yeah, she's definitely still here,' she said, sitting back on her heels and wiping her palms on her bare legs. 'But she's...' she stopped. 'Underneath.' She pronounced the word strangely, as if it was coming to her syllable by syllable. She stood up slowly and seemed to look right through me, lips parted as if she was about to continue.

'What do you mean?' I asked. She was starting to make me edgy with her wall-eyed look.

'She's underneath,' she repeated.

If there's one thing that really creeps me out it's mediums, and it was becoming more and more obvious that's what she was. I wasn't all that surprised. Indigo couldn't seem to do anything without attracting some kind of supernatural trouble, even subletting her house.

'You mean downstairs?' I tried.

She shrugged, finally seeming to see me and looking miserable. I walked straight down to the landing. The stairs leading to the street level were totally boarded over and had been ever since Indigo first got the place. It was one of her bizarre rent requirements that she didn't try to open it up. The landlord used to come look at it once a week, sometimes twice, just to make sure she hadn't opened it. Pretty creepy and not technically permitted for a landlord, but if you're getting a massive Victorian terrace for a hundred a week, you don't complain. Eventually he seemed to trust her a little more and I'm not sure that he came at all anymore. We never wanted to look down there anyway.

It was a pretty messy job, just big slats of wood leaning over the stairway and awkwardly nailed down straight into the carpet. I had to go searching for a hammer, which I eventually found beside Indigo's bed. I guess that said something about her state of mind before it took her. The nails weren't too difficult to get up. Though it would have been easier if I wasn't so horribly ill and cramping up every two minutes. Ani had gone dead quiet and just stood behind me.

I'll tell you what I really hate about mediums. There can be two of you there, but you're actually completely alone. To be fair, not all of them were like that. Some of them seemed kind of chatty and normal and would just drop odd things into the conversation now and then, as naturally as if they were commenting on the weather. Ani was not one of those. She was of the full on trance type, and that was not something I wanted to be around.

I went up the little flight of stairs to rip the top of the panels from the base of the wooden banister up there, pretty relieved just to get away from her for a few seconds. She was crouching down again, running her fingers lightly over the loose nails like someone reading braille. After a moment she looked up at me and said in a surprised tone, 'He just nailed it all shut. He didn't even bother to clean up. He just nailed it all shut and waited for a few months.'

She really had a very sweet voice. No matter what she was saying. At that moment I just wanted to tell her to shut up. I assume it was the landlord she was talking about. I didn't want to know what he'd done or what was down there. I just wanted to find Indigo. Even though it made no sense, I was totally convinced we would find her. Ani thought she was there. And though I'm not at all superstitious, I just knew at a gut level that it was true.

I came down and lifted the planks away, leaning them up against the walls. They were heavy and I was pretty unwell but I could see Ani was in no condition to help. When I was done, I stood at the top of the stairs and looked down into the dimness, feeling cool air wafting past, as if the house was able to breathe again. The steps were covered in the same dark carpet as the landing, making it hard to see where they ended. I let out a deep breath. There was no point putting it off.

I started down, keeping one hand on the wood of the banister while the other trailed against the wall, dislodging drifts of old plaster. When I got halfway down I made out the tiny seams of light around the front door and began to see doorways on my left. I looked back. Ani was descending very slowly. I'd been feeling pretty unfriendly towards her, what with the fact she was scaring the hell out of me, but now she just looked like an animal being herded into a slaughterhouse and I felt bad for her. I went back up and touched her arm, a bit awkwardly I suppose. She'd lost her blank look, and I was glad to have her fully with me, even if she was scared out of her wits.

'You don't have to come down,' I said.

She looked surprised. I guess she had no reason to think I wasn't a complete jerk all the time.

'No, I want to,' she replied, actually stepping past me.

We came down almost together, her pale head just a little before mine, but we both stopped at the foot of the stairs. The front hallway was very dark and it was undeniably cold, with no sense that the sun was burning outside. I could see the nearest internal door was boarded up pretty solidly and didn't like to think about that too much. Ani was walking a little deeper into the coolness of the house, but she stopped beside the stairs and gasped as if someone had tapped her on the shoulder. I came closer, skin prickling and very willing to acknowledge that the 'vibe' was pretty bad.

There was a little closet under the stairs. I could make out the handle of the door. Ani was pressing herself right up against the panels in a very strange way. I waited, but she didn't move. She had simply laid herself against the door, breathing deeply, as if she was asleep. I hesitated before I gently pushed her aside, even at that moment too aware of the heat coming off her skin. I opened the little door, fingers tingling. Needless to say, it was utterly black. I had to stoop to get in, aware of Ani's shadowy form out in the hallway next to me. I waited for a few moments, hoping my eyes would adjust, but nothing happened. Meanwhile I breathed in the air, stale and strangely warm. Then I did it quickly, without letting myself think about it. I crouched down and reached out, into the darkest corner. I felt it right away – the soft give of a body. I jumped back. It startled me, even though I kind of expected it. I reached forward again, felt cool skin under my hands, though I couldn't tell if it was an arm, a shoulder, or a leg.

'She's not there,' said Ani, in her sweet, absent voice.

'Oh, yes she is,' I told her.

It was awkward getting Indigo up the stairs. Partly because I was doing it on my own, and even though she's very little she was still quite a weight for one person on a stairway. Also because I wanted to get as far away from Ani and the darkness as quickly as possible in the way that a little kid will take a panicky flying leap into bed to avoid the thing that might be lurking underneath. I pretty much fell onto the landing and Indigo fell like a rag doll with me. It's horrible to say but her head hit the carpet with a thud, and she still didn't show any sign of life. I half lifted her up again.

'Take her away. To her room,' said Ani, emerging from the darkness breathlessly, pupils huge and black.

She grabbed Indigo's legs. Together we carried her up and laid her on the bed. I was sure she was dead, the way her head lolled back on the covers. My brain was pretty much failing to absorb this. In just the same way, it wasn't able to bridge the disconnect between seeing her flickering out like a fey candle in the kitchen and finding her very real body stuffed in a cellar under the stairs. I can't say I was even upset. I just felt hugely focused and amazed. My hangover had dissolved in a warm flow of adrenaline. I could see Indigo in extreme detail, each eyelash lying against her cheek and the soft bruised colour beneath her eyes, as if she'd been awake too many nights.

'She's breathing,' said Ani, touching my arm to get my attention. I had a strong feeling then that I was a crazy, swirling kite that she had by a string. Only her hand was keeping me from some kind of reverse-plummet into the sky.

She said it a little louder. 'Dylan, she's breathing.'

I finally saw Indigo's chest rising and falling. It knocked all the breath out of me, to realise she was alive. It was only then I registered she was wearing a flimsy slip of some silky white material. I don't think I'd ever seen it before, and she certainly wasn't wearing it when she was taken. It was not something I wanted to think about too much. It just seemed too corporal, and this whole thing was meant to be some kind of a metaphysical situation.

I closed my hand about her arm and shook it. There was no change. She really just appeared to be sleeping. A piece of her dark hair was sticking to the edge of her mouth. I brushed it away, very carefully – it was the only useful thing I could do. Ani was looking at me.

'You'd better stay with her,' she said. 'Keep her warm.'

I wasn't really sure what she meant. It seemed warm enough in Indigo's room, oppressive you might call it, but Ani left without any explanation, shutting the door behind her. I knelt on the bed and opened up the windows to let more of the hot afternoon air in. A blackbird was singing. Maybe it will sound strange, but I pulled off my t-shirt and then carefully peeled off Indigo's dress, throwing it as far away as possible. I lay down behind her and wrapped my arms around her small body. She felt cool and kind of insubstantial. I thought if I held her too tightly she might dissolve away and leave me holding nothing at all. It occurred to me that an ambulance might be appropriate, but instead I just watched the tiny rise and fall of her chest under my darker arm, and listened to the soft whoosh of her pulse right up against my ear. Outside the door, I could hear the sound of nails being driven into wood but it seemed very far away.

I shut my eyes. Skin against skin I felt I could pass my awakeness to her by some kind of mysterious osmosis. All the terror of the last weeks was drifting off and I had a strange feeling that our breathing had become one, as if I were drawing air through Indigo's mouth and she was breathing out through mine. I wanted to stay awake for her, but gradually, the rhythm of her soft breaths was taking me over and carrying me, breath by breath, into sleep.

****
Chapter 3. INDIGO FOUND

thursday, december 17

Indigo

I woke with the beautiful sensation of being held by someone bigger than me. Granted, I'm pretty small, so just about everyone is bigger than me. But it was still one of my favourite feelings. I just lay there, breathing quietly and feeling them breathing, until the unsettling realisation started to grow on me that I had no idea who was holding me.

I sat up, fast. Two unwelcome facts hit me simultaneously. First, that I was lying in bed with Dylan. Second, that I was completely naked. Thankfully, I hadn't woken him. He had just rolled onto his back. But my confusion only got deeper when I leapt up and scrabbled around for some emergency clothes. All I could find on the floor was Dylan's t-shirt and a crumpled white slip that I had never seen before. I stared at it for a while, ridiculous threesome scenarios occurring to me, while I turned it this way and that. Definitely not mine. It was made of some flimsy, synthetic fabric with faint blue and pink cross stitches around the hem. Really it looked like something from the fifties.

Dylan made a sudden huffing sound and it struck me that I really didn't want him to find me standing naked in the middle of the room, staring at lingerie. In-fact, the time-honoured course of action would be for me to get dressed as quickly as possible and vacate the area, thus allowing him to disappear with grace and ensuring we could pretend the whole thing had never happened. That's what we'd done the last few times anyway. But that was a couple of years ago, and I really thought we'd moved on from all that. I knew I had to get out of the room but the problem was, once I'd found some clothes and was fully dressed, I just had to look at him. Because I had the weirdest feeling that it had been ages since I'd seen him last.

He was still wearing his jeans, but his chest was bare and I was kind of shocked at how gaunt he looked. He had one arm flung out and it was so wiry it seemed that his forearm was actually wider than his biceps. He had bruised streaks under his eyes too. Truth be told, he looked rough as guts. Kind of like one of the guys from the half-way house nearby. Just out of prison and apparently open for suggestion as to how to get back in as fast as possible. Granted that Dylan's control-freak tendencies never seemed to extend to his own person, but I hadn't noticed how bad he was getting. As for the shadows under his eyes, I guess we must have had a huge night and I probably looked no better.

By this stage I'd been staring at him so long that the inevitable happened and he woke up and looked right at me.

'Oh,' I said, backing off and actually blushing. 'Hi...'

But instead of giving me the awkward 'just friends' line I'd been bracing for, he jumped straight up and hugged me so hard that my toes actually lifted off the ground. Then he held my arms, stood back and stared at me. His eyes looked terrible, red-rimmed so their grey was almost blue. I was just opening my mouth to ask (sarcastically) about his drug problem when he shook me, really hard. It was just for a second but it frightened the hell out of me.

'Indigo!' he said, angrily, still not letting go. Then it seemed like he was lost for words. He just bored into me with his strange, new blue eyes and his fingers bit into my arms.

'Let go of me,' I said, so startled I was shaking. 'What's wrong?'

'Indigo, _where have you been_?'

Up until that point I'd been fine. A little trembly at the knees maybe, but basically fine. That question changed everything. It was lucky he had such a death grip on my arms because the whole ground suddenly swung sideways under my feet. A huge realisation had grabbed me. I couldn't really say what it was, only it was so big that I had to hold onto him while the world swung crazily around me.

'Indigo?'

I was lying underground, I remembered it now. Lying on my back in the darkness for ages. I couldn't speak or lift myself up. I was sinking down into the earth and my mouth was filling up with sand.

'Sit down. I can't hold onto you.'

I found myself sitting on the edge of the bed gasping like a landed fish. Dylan was crouched in front of me.

'Just try to breath slowly,' he said. He'd moved on from the angry thing, and for once I was happy at his gift for detaching at crucial moments. He was just about smiling at me in his effort to be reassuring.

'You're fine,' he said. 'Just breathe.'

I breathed. 'How long have I been gone?' I asked, once I'd stopped gulping in air and could speak.

He hesitated for about five seconds before answering, so I knew it was going to be bad.

'Over a month.'

'Oh,' I said, and at last my own brain was kicking in with the detachment trick. Total dissociation might be a better description.

'We found you under the stairs,' he added, as if that was the most normal thing in the world.

'Under the stairs,' I echoed, politely. It was really as if one of those security screens in a bank had suddenly come down. I couldn't make enough sense of that wisp of underground memory to even begin to share it. Plus the mental numbness was now spreading throughout my body in an almost pleasurable way.

'Indi, what happened?'

He might as well have been talking about a stranger. I was so entirely blank I couldn't even say, 'I don't know.' I just sat there, staring at him, until that got too awkward and then I stared at the ground.

He stood up. 'I'll get you some water.'

Pleasant as the numbness was, I knew I didn't want to be alone. Silently, I got up and followed him out of my room, (legs really shaking now), past the blocked stairs, up to the kitchen. He gave me a look as we went in, but if there was something I was meant to be worried about, I couldn't work out what it was.

Ani was sitting at the kitchen table, but she jumped up when I came in and pulled out a chair for me, helping me into it like I was a hundred years old.

'I'll make you some camomile tea,' she said – like _that_ was the answer to all the world's troubles. I just sat there, staring at my upturned hands as if they belonged to someone else. Dylan sat opposite me.

'You can walk,' he noted.

'Yes,' I answered. We sat in silence for a while. I wasn't sure what his point was.

'You can't have been lying down there very long.'

I didn't say anything to that. It was interfering with my pleasant disengagement. _Under the stairs? Missing for a month?_ Ani was stuffing handfuls of camomile into the teapot.

'Well, of course...' she said, banging the strainer against the sink. 'She may have only been gone a few seconds. You know, if you consider time being totally relative and all that stuff.' She seemed to be waiting for a response, but Dylan was acting as if he hadn't heard her and I was trying to understand her without success. _Over a month_. It was impossible.

'You're very white though,' he said, still staring at me. 'So you've been in the dark for a while.'

I stood up. 'I need to go to the bathroom,' I said.

I just couldn't bear to hear them discussing it like that – discussing my absence, which I did not fully believe. And it sounds childish but I really didn't enjoy watching Ani bouncing around in her singlet and tiny shorts (actually I was not entirely convinced they weren't just underpants). Although Dylan didn't seem to have noticed. And I shouldn't really care if he did notice. It seemed like all I could focus on was the insignificant stuff, and the only way I could think about my absence, was to wonder what might have happened between those two. In an imaginary world – where I really had been gone for a month.

I went down to my garden, if you could call it that, just a long stretch of bricks running alongside the house and the empty servants' quarters, shadowed by a very high wall. When I stepped out into the sunlight I had that feeling you get when you've been in bed for awhile with a bad flu. You get outside and everything looks new and amazing. I just stood there, feeling the heat passing up through the soles of my feet and watching the sunlight beating against my bare arms. They were startlingly pale, like the underbelly of a fish. Definitely paler than I remembered. I stopped looking at them and looked around instead.

Everything seemed weird and over-exposed. My eyes were really aching. I had filled a long, wooden box with flowers and herbs and someone must have been ignoring the water restrictions and watering them all the time because they were absolutely thriving – so insanely green that I went over just to run my fingers through the leaves. There was something about the light and the growing things that was allowing me to feel alright, even though I knew that the protective barrier was getting thinner and thinner by the second. Every few moments I could feel it, my mouth blocked and filling. A wave of panic would crest in my body, then slowly and magically dissolve into the warmth of blankness.

I really didn't like any of the options I had come up with. Had the follower taken me down into the sealed rooms? Had I been awake the whole time? And if I had been, was the memory of choking on sand just a nightmare, or my way to think about something more appalling and visceral? Perhaps it had simply stored me under the stairs, the way a butcher bird will hang its prey in the fork of a tree. In which case I must have been in some sort of strange hibernation. In which case it must be coming back. I knew I wouldn't work it out simply by thinking about it. If I knew the answer it was too neatly sealed off inside of me. I pictured it like some massive surgery that only shows as a few neat stitches on the outside. I had so little to go by, but I sensed something huge and terrible had happened.

I found myself looking at the blank downstairs windows. I'd tried to peek in when I first moved there but I could only catch glimpses through the cracks in the blind. Everything had been dim, just lumps of furniture and the dark rectangle of an inner doorway. I drifted over to them now, without really thinking about it. I didn't really feel nervous, it was all half imaginary anyway. The bricks got cooler against my feet as I reached the part that was always in shade. Despite the dry summer, the velvety moss was pushing water up between my toes. I ignored the padlocked door and pressed up against the first window. It's where I'd had the best view in the past – the edge of an empty fireplace and half a doorway – but this time it was totally covered by the blind. The next window was no good anymore either. I tried not to think about this too much. It was only when I reached the final one – right at the end – that I found I could see underneath the blind. If you can call bumpy black shapes against a charcoal background 'seeing'. It looked like a junk room. I guess it was the room pretty much opposite the space under the stairs. I was cupping my hands around my eyes to block the reflections on the glass when I realised there was someone standing right behind me. I span around. It was only Ani, holding a cup of tea. I had no idea how she had come down the metal stairs without me hearing. I let out a pretty unsteady breath.

'You'd better drink this,' she said. Then she glanced at the window behind me in the funniest way. It was kind of a knowing look, I guess. And all of a sudden, and quite unfairly, I was thinking of one of those sorcerous pre-raphaelite paintings, the way her hair was whisping out around her face and the little cup held cradled in both hands. All that was really missing was an absinthe-green, semi-transparent gown. Of course, I took the tea and it was just plain old camomile tea (which I hate by the way) but I still felt pretty unsettled. I guess my mind was a bit of a mess at that point.

'Are you okay?' she asked. I walked past her, toward the sunlight.

'I'm fine. I'm okay.' Too brightly.

Dylan was coming down too now and I wondered whether they'd ever let me be on my own again.

'I'm still here,' I said, kind of smiling.

He didn't smile back. I guess it was clear to him what I'd been doing.

'We need to talk,' he said, cutting through the politeness in his customary way.

I wasn't sure I wanted to talk with Ani-of-the-knowing-look standing right behind me, but he was already starting.

'You shouldn't be on your own. For a while anyway. It could come back.'

'And what will you do?' I asked. 'If you're with me?'

He had no answer to that.

'I need some space to think,' I said. 'You can't follow me around forever.' I took my tea and clanged back up the stairway, wishing I could take back the last sentence. It sounded like the most ridiculous kind of Freudian slip. What I was really wondering was – _can it follow me around forever?_

It might seem odd, but after that nothing happened. For a little while, at least. Dylan was pretty much living on my kitchen couch by then. We didn't really discuss it. He just never went home. I was relieved. Not that you'd know he was there. He had a way of cleaning up all his stuff, the bedding and everything. It all went into the top cupboards, that I couldn't actually reach, and usually by the time I was up everything was packed and put away with an almost military neatness.

Christmas passed and was pretty weird because I spent it with my whole family, just a normal Christmas. My disappearance was still unreal to me. It was ludicrous actually – just the idea of it. When they commented on how pale I was looking, I just had to smile and shrug. I couldn't tell them I hadn't answered my mobile for a month because I'd been trapped downstairs in my own house (I'd found about twenty messages from my mum from that time, just little things but it seemed like she knew something was up). When my dad asked me, sort of jokingly, where the hundred dollars was that I owed him, I couldn't say – well, actually I've been in the thrall of some sort of supernatural being for weeks and now I'm completely skint. The measly five hundred I'd made from my client all went in repaying Ani my part of the rent, and keeping up with the next lot of bills. Not that she'd asked. But I felt bad about it. I was so disconnected from what happened (whatever that was), I could only focus on the little things.

Dylan and Ani came to Christmas too. It was clear to me that neither of them had anything else to do – just sit boredly in the kitchen listening to Christmas carols through my laptop. Of course, dad had to give Dylan a big hug and joke about how he needed to get to the gym, build himself up a bit – because girls liked that sort of thing, et cetera, et cetera (looking from Ani to me the whole time, as if trying to work out what the romantic situation was). Dylan took it in pretty good part. I was even kind of enjoying myself, sitting round fondly heckling the Queen's Christmas speech and all that. Only every so often, Ani would give me this funny, thoughtful look. I know that she'd helped Dylan pull up the boards, when he got that idea I was downstairs. And she even carried me upstairs with him. But I still got this weird vibe from her and avoided her as much as I could really. It was unfair of me perhaps, but I couldn't shake the feeling she wasn't completely on my side.

As for the follower, I never saw it. But I couldn't sleep properly. And sometimes when I got up to creep to the bathroom, I would hear the TV on in the kitchen, and I would realise that Dylan couldn't sleep either.

thursday, december 31

Everyone knows that New Year's Eve is the most irritating time of the year. It's impossible to decide what to do. Do you wander down to South Bank, through the shoals of drunken teenagers and their blaring plastic horns? And then hobble home because it's just that bit too close to justify waiting in massive queues for a taxi? Or do you sit at home, grumpily, telling yourself you didn't want to go out anyway and regretfully dashing outside at the last minute to catch the fireworks? I opted to go out. I made it pretty clear to Dylan and Ani that I was going out with my friends, it was just getting too claustrophobic with the three of us. Of course, it had been so long since I called any of my friends – they were already full of plans for the night – intimate, friend of a friend's parties that they just felt a bit awkward taking someone else too. I persisted in the fiction anyway. I was already dressed up with (small) heels and everything, it would be too tragic to admit I had no plans. Of course, it turned out that Ani actually had a party to go to and would have been quite happy to invite me if I hadn't had my fictional social life. In-fact she seemed strangely disappointed that I wasn't free. And that just left Dylan sitting, cross-armed in front of the brainless New Year's coverage. I hesitated a moment before I left.

He had no plans for New Year's. He'd long ago made a concerted effort to get rid of the few friends that he had. Not because he hated people (I assumed), just because he was always busy with writing and things (though he sometimes had long mysterious absences during the day, when he knew Ani would be home with me). I think it was harder for him than it was for me. I couldn't remember much that had happened (just odd dreams), whereas he'd had a whole month of just not knowing where I was and thinking I might be dead. It was like he was still getting over it somehow.

Really, I should have asked him to come out with me. But I needed to get away. He gave me a look, up and down. I was wearing a nifty black dress from the actual thirties that my great grandmother had made.

'You look nice,' he allowed.

'Why, thank you.'

'Do you need a lift?'

He had the saddest old bomb of a citroen parked outside his house. It would take as long to walk there as it would to get to the city.

'No, I'm good. I've got my mobile.'

I clicked down my laneway in a business-like manner. I was not as nervous as I expected, being on my own. And before you start to yell at me – _what the hell were you thinking?_ – let me just point out that no one can live under 24-hour surveillance. Not happily anyway. I think Dylan understood that. That's why he had to let me go. I needed to reclaim my independence before I became one of those people that are too afraid to poke their heads out the front door. New Year's Eve seemed like the perfect time to do it. People everywhere.

You'd probably rather I told you straight up and didn't leave you in doubt (with a drawn out description of clicking heels, dark alley). I never made it to the city. I wasn't even halfway up Queensberry Place when Ani stepped out and stopped me. She didn't say anything at first but she had a strange, solemn look about her. Almost like a child. Her eyes looked even bigger with kohl around them and she looked really tired – kind of haggard. It was like something was worrying her so much it was changing her whole face. She touched my arm with her narrow fingers. A sort of chill ran across my skin.

'There's something I need to show you,' she whispered. 'Take off your shoes.'

She didn't even wait for a reply, just started walking fast back towards my gate, her own shoes held in one hand. I hesitated, wanting to say I was going to miss the fireworks, I'd get holes in my patterned stockings et cetera, but I could see something important was happening. For one thing, she must have been waiting about an hour in the laneway for me to come out. By now she'd reached my heavy metal gate and was trying to lift it as quietly as possible. I slipped off my shoes and ran to catch up. I took her place and lifted and pushed the gate in a way I knew would be quietest. We left it open. There was no way to close it quietly.

We tip-toed through the narrow garden, shoes in hand – like naughty girls sneaking out to a party only, for some reason, we were sneaking in. I could see the rectangle of light, high up from the kitchen and could hear the TV. I wasn't sure why we were trying so hard not to involve Dylan. It worried me a little, as it was already clear where Ani was leading me. I had this feeling that if I was going to brave the underbelly of the house, I wanted to let someone know. Like when you go bush walking and are meant to register your plans with someone in case you tumble down a cliff and no one realises you're missing for the next week. Of course, it would be impossible to tell Dylan without him getting involved and clearly Ani was doing everything she could to make sure that didn't happen. I was so curious I just followed.

She stopped at the darkened window beneath the kitchen, putting her shoes down, carefully standing them upright so the moss didn't stain them. Her dress was just a pale shimmer in the dimness. To my surprise she simply pushed the glass upwards with her hands, then inserted her fingers under the window and lifted. It opened easily. I just stood there gaping at her like an idiot. She lifted herself up lightly to sit on the sill, then ducked her head and slipped her long legs into the room. The darkness ate her up straight away.

I suppose you already know that I'm kind of an adrenaline junkie. Like anyone, I don't really like being afraid, but I love that moment when you launch yourself into something new and dangerous. My fragments of memory of being down there had just about slipped away and I was mostly left with curiosity. Not an idle curiosity mind you. It was a desire to know, to really fully understand what had happened to me while I was gone. It just hadn't occurred to me to do something as simple and daring as this. Dumb I suppose. Or maybe really smart.

The windowsill was a little tricky, given my height, and my desire not to rip my heirloom party dress. I dragged myself up until my hip bones hit the sill, then half fell into the darkness. I stood up as fast as I could. It really was black in there. I reached my hand to my throat instinctively. The room had an unused smell. The warm night air was too still to change it. It took me a moment to make out Ani's silhouette against the different darkness of the inner doorway. She was just standing there, very still. There were some tall shapes in the room too, I guess hat stands and old skis or something like that, but it was impossible to tell how close they were. The gloom made everything seem too close.

I picked my way towards her, stretching one hand in front of myself, my feet and legs coming up against boxes and books, something falling and banging so hard against my shins, that I forgot Dylan was right above us and swore pretty loudly. Ani turned to shush me – at least I think that's what she did, it was really too dim to tell. I just heard the hiss of her breath. I saw the glimmer of her dress as she moved into the hallway, beside the stairs. There must have been a little street light slipping in there. It glinted off her eyes too as she turned to check if I was following.

'What is it?' I whispered as quietly as I possibly could.

I regretted speaking straight away. The darkness muffled my voice and amplified it. A listening feeling came down. It was like a whole crowd of people had suddenly stopped talking and turned to stare at me. I pressed my hand over my mouth, wanting to take the sound back. Ani just turned and disappeared from view. I hurried to follow her, looking left to right as I moved into the passageway by the stairs, fearing some sudden death blow from the darkness. I didn't really expect the follower would be there. I just felt that _something_ was there.

Ani was standing near the front door. I could hear a straining metal sound and a kind of scrabbling. I passed the stairs and crept up behind her. It was the front room. I could just make out that there were boards across the door and she was working at them quietly but furiously. She had a small metal tool in her hand that she must have brought in her purse. She was forcing the nails up and they were pulling free one at a time and falling quietly to the carpet.

'Ani!' I hissed. 'What are you doing?' I glanced behind me as I spoke, checking that there was no one by the stairs.

She just kept working at the nails.

'I'm going out!' I whispered, my fear finally cresting. 'We're not meant to be here.' I started back down the hall, but the deepening blackness stopped me. I turned again, saw her leaning in, using her whole body to slowly force a board loose.

'What are you doing?' I whispered again, my voice catching. It was just too strange. I stared at her for a while but the darkness behind me suddenly swelled and seemed about to grasp me. I quickly pressed my back against the wall. There was nothing there, of course. I could almost see in each direction now, but I still felt as if something were about to grab me from behind, through the wall itself. I just stood there breathing painfully. I was waiting to raise the courage to pass the closet beneath the stairs, to rush through the black room and to the open window.

'Ani, there's nothing there.' I said it so weakly that she couldn't possibly have heard.

She stopped. She pretty much had all the boards free now. She walked back to me and stood just a little too close, not even glancing at the shadows around us.

'You're wrong, Indigo,' she said, in a hoarse little whisper. 'There's something she wants you to see.'

I just stared at her as the words sank in.

'What do you mean _she_?' I said, finally.

She stared at me for a moment, only it didn't seem like she was looking at me – more like she was listening. She suddenly turned and walked straight back to the door, ripping the last board free with a groan of metal against wood. She pushed the door open and went straight in.

'I'm not going in there,' I said, to the empty hall.

Of course, I already knew that was exactly what I was going to do.

****
Chapter 4. HOPELESS CHOICES

thursday, december 31

Dylan

Everyone knows New Year's is pretty much the worst night of the year bar Christmas. Especially when you're living with two attractive women, who both unexpectedly ditch you at the last possible minute. Not that there was much hope with either of them. I was not suffering under any delusions. Unless you call vivid daydreams delusional.

Ani, for all her forthright talk and bouncy friendliness was really pretty mysterious and wasn't even around most of the time. Don't get me wrong, she was very wantable, and I wanted her, but I wasn't stupid enough to think that she would do. It was Indigo that I was stuck on. It was taking me a while to face it, but I knew the moment she was taken that I actually loved her. True, I couldn't fully unravel how much was being 'in love' and how much was the shock of losing a friend, like losing a limb, and wanting it back. Fiercely wanting to have held onto her. To fix her safely to the spot. Thinking _why did I choose to give her up? Now I can't choose_.

But I knew why I'd let her go in the first place. Her instinct that led her stubbornly and unerringly to danger and utter chaos. I did not want chaos. It could exist on a book shelf or a disordered room, and (I admit) I spent much of my time managing it. She seemed to move around in it somehow, like she was native to it – in her element. It kind of trailed after her. So now you know. It hadn't been to protect her from my world that I had left her, but to protect my cowardly self from where she was leading me. The vast unknown, the unclassifiable mess of not-knowingness that I guess is truly at the heart of what people call 'the supernatural'. The thing was, while she was gone, her kind of chaos didn't seem so bad anymore. Because I'd found a worse kind of chaos. A big grey void of it where nothing seemed to make any kind of sense.

She was back now, but no more available to me than before. She was going for long walks or shutting herself up in her room (decisive click of the lock). These days I considered extended eye contact a success with her. She'd withdrawn from me and was so patently 'not mine'. Even when I offered to take over her rent for a while, just a loan, that rebellious look of 'not in _your_ debt' as she thanked me. I was not so clueless as to miss the message. So I was stuck between two hopeless choices (door number one – too beautiful, not interested in me, don't love her anyway, door number two – distracted, distant, possibly still hates me for dumping her).

And yet, I'd kind of assumed we'd all go out for New Year's drinks together, and one thing might lead to another between at least two of us (I was unsettled on the configuration). I don't want to seem shallow, but anyone who's lived with two beautiful girls who show not the slightest interest in you will know how powerfully humiliating life can be. How full of yearning and resentment.

Despite all this, I was not so far gone as to doubt that Indigo was right. It was clearly unhealthy that not one of us was socialising outside our little group of three. At least that's what I'd thought until they'd both materialised, dressed to the nines and announcing they had plans with friends. New Year's angst complete.

Of course, they'd left two bottles of champagne in the fridge and I'd spent a few minutes considering whether it would be sadder to drink it on my own, or not to drink at all. The decision came down on the side of drinking. (Lure of black emptiness? Only not quite enough). And then the sound of it. Is there anything sadder than the sound of a champagne cork popping in an empty house? Especially a listening house, like Indigo's.

I was onto my third glass, (and who knows how tragic the evening might have become?) when I heard a sound from downstairs. It had somehow filtered through the stupidity of the TV. I stood up and turned it down, listening hard. Nothing. I waited a few counts. Still nothing. I sat down again, turned the volume up. Obviously I should have gone down to investigate straight away, but to be fair, I was kind of sleep-deprived and not thinking clearly.

But now there were voices, I heard it even past the TV. I went out to the landing. It was very clear then. Nails groaning out of wood somewhere downstairs.

'Indigo?' I called, looking at the wooden boards still shut down tight. I was pretty sure it was her voice. It would take too long to pull up the boards. She must have gone in one of the windows. Which didn't surprise me at all (selfish and strange stab of joy – she didn't have a party to go to either!). But then there was something like a thud, barely audible, and a cry and I was running down the hallway and throwing the outer door open before a thought had fully formed in my mind.

It started forming as I clattered down the outside stairs (I was in real danger of breaking my neck). Who was down there with her? And what had they done? And what exactly was I going to do about it? I jumped down the last three steps. And stopped for a moment. At the end of the narrow garden, the window was open. I could see a gaping hole in the wall. I was afraid. I'm not proud of it. It wasn't a supernatural fear. It was simply this: If she was hurt beyond help, I didn't actually want to see. There was no question the follower was physical – could do physical harm. I had no light and I had no weapon (where was that hammer?) and I didn't want to go in there and see what it might have done to her. I stood there for what was probably only five seconds, but seemed like five minutes, feeling like I was being tested and failing horribly. The high walls were looming, the window stretching away, a closing tunnel.

I felt it in my chest first. The crackle and boom of the fireworks. The light of them was pulsing on and off in the sky, turning the brick walls pale then dark. But between the explosions I heard more muffled noises, something like a piece of furniture falling. I ran for the window. As I reached it there was a movement. I went forward instinctively and caught Ani in a warm tangle of arms and legs. She slid to the ground and sat there like an unstrung marionette. Indigo scrambled out after her and pulled down the window with bang. Ani was clutching the back of her head, swaying forward.

'She needs help,' said Indigo. 'She's bleeding.' She had a wild look on her face, I could see it with the pulse of each new light – a smudge of pale blue, pale green, and her eyes very big.

'Get the first aid,' I said. She left. I heard her clanging up the stairs.

'What happened?' I asked Ani.

'Indigo hit me,' she murmured, dazedly. It came out like one slurred word. She was reaching for the back of her head but her hand wasn't quite connecting. She kept suddenly tilting forward as if she were going to black out. It was kind of nightmarish with the fireworks flickering on and off. I couldn't see anything properly. I reached to the back of her head and pressed my hand against the warmth there.

'Why?' I asked, running through a series of scenarios, but pretty much at a loss.

She shook her head, dazedly.

'Keep still, you're bleeding.'

'We had to go in,' she said.

'Don't black out.' Ridiculous thing to say. As if it was a decision she could make. I glanced up at the window behind her. 'Was it just you two in there?'

'Yes, just us... and...'

'And?' I tried not to yell it out, I was so impatient. The adrenalin was flowing again and I was getting ready to drag her as far as possible from the window. _And?_

'No. I think it was just us.'

This wasn't very satisfactory, but she was clearly too dazed to be more specific. Indigo was back, flinging open the first aid case and scattering it all over the ground. 'I don't know what we need. Gauze? I can't see a thing. What do we need?'

'Just give me that, and that bandage. You'd better call an ambulance,' I added, seeing how fast the blood soaked through the gauze.

'No ambulance!' gasped Ani, trying unsuccessfully to stand up.

'Calm down,' said Indigo. 'We're going to emergency.'

'Then we're going to my place,' I added.

'No,' said Indigo immediately. I could see her eyes very dark and wide. 'This is my house. I'm not leaving.'

As far as I could tell, they'd both gone completely crazy. 'Let's talk about it later,' I suggested, but Ani was shaking her head.

'She's right,' she said. 'She has to stay. We all do.'

Ani absolutely refused to get an ambulance. I guess we could have called one anyway, but I suspected there'd be a pretty long wait on New Year's. A taxi in the early hours of New Year's Day was out of the question too. Still, it didn't seem right that she had to walk. We only had to cross a block, then go through the Exhibtion Gardens to the hospital, but it started raining when we were halfway through the park. Really raining, like a tropical downpour. We went slowly, one of us on each side of her. If Indigo had hit her, Ani wasn't bearing a grudge. She let Indigo support her, was even holding tight to her arm. Or maybe she was just too stunned to know what was going on. 'I'm so, so sorry,' Indigo had said, a few times, as we crossed the park. But when we passed the pond she just went very quiet and had been silent ever since. I knew about the pond of course, what had happened with the child there. But it didn't seem the time to say anything (and what could I say anyway?).

If you've never been to the emergency room on New Year's Eve – my advice is, just don't go. We thought we might have to make up some story but the place was full of people with head wounds. Every so often a 'code green' would go off – which basically meant someone had gone nuts and needed restraining. We sat there waiting for quite a while. Indigo had her face in her hands and her head kind of resting back against the wall. I knew from experience this either meant she was crying (rare and hence alarming) or that she was thinking really, really hard. The fluoro light was shining on her throat and I was remembering when I first met her. There was still a scar there if you looked closely. I could see it now, under the harsh light. Not neat, Hollywood punctures, but a whole row of savage half-moon teeth marks, top and bottom. They had been so rude to us that night, the emergency room staff. And I only realised in retrospect they must have thought it was some weird consensual thing that got out of hand. In which case they really should have reported me, instead of just glaring prudishly at me from behind the desk. She had healed really fast though. Within a few weeks you could barely see anything. You only really noticed it now if you looked for it. That was something I noted pretty carefully. _Healed much faster than a normal wound_.

'She doesn't need stitches. But it's a pretty nasty hit,' said the nurse, briskly. 'They might want to do an MRI. Do you think you could watch her for concussion while you wait?' He handed Indigo a little sheet with hasty, handwritten notes on it. I'm not sure strangers were meant to hang around assessing the patients, but they seemed a little desperate. Indigo was looking at the sheet of paper as if it was written in ancient Greek. I took it from her and read down the list. Unevenly dilated pupils. Was I meant to just sit and stare into her eyes for the next half hour? I gave it back to Indigo.

We waited outside the door when Ani went in for the MRI. Indigo still had the list clutched in her hand. Hours had passed by that stage, but we were still damp from the rain. Indigo's dark hair was hanging stringily by her cheeks, and she looked like a half-drowned escapee from a garden party.

'What happened?' I asked. It was the first time we'd really been alone.

'We went in the front room,' said Indigo. 'And someone was there,' she said it so quietly I had to lean in to hear.

'What do you mean?'

'Ani wanted to go in. I followed her. And there was someone else.'

I couldn't hide the look on my face, but she was staring at the floor.

'As soon as we got into the room they grabbed my ankle and I fell over. I took a plank and I got up and I just swung really hard. It was stupid of me – kind of a panic reaction. It's all a mess after that. I realised I'd hit Ani.'

'Ani grabbed your ankle?'

She looked strained. 'No, she was standing right in front of me...'

A nurse appeared and Indigo shut up. He stood in front of us, looking compassionate. I was so drowsy by this time, I couldn't honestly tell if we'd seen him before. He looked about my age and I had this feeling that I wasn't ready to totally trust someone in their twenties with life and death situations. Which says something for my own self-confidence I guess. I tried to look alert.

'I probably shouldn't tell you this yet, but the doctor's had a look and the MRI seems fine.'

'Oh thank God,' muttered Indigo. 'I thought I'd brained her.'

He seemed to hesitate. I was a bit unclear whether ER nurses were bound to secrecy on assaults, or whether we might end our night writing out statements for the police.

'Piñata,' I said, just in case. 'A piñata accident.'

Indigo actually laughed, but somehow it seemed to be the right thing to say.

'Those things should be banned.' He was shaking his head. 'The amount of accidents they cause is absolutely unbelievable. We'll just keep her here for a few hours. I'll write down what you need to look for when you take her home. Just bring her back in if there are any problems.' He looked at us, somewhat pityingly. 'Aren't you a bit old for piñatas?'

'What are you? My mum?' asked Indigo, glaring at him.

'It's been a long night,' I said, quickly.

Luckily he was smiling (though I guess if I'd talked to him like that, he would have kicked me out). 'Tell me about it,' he said, widening his eyes in mock horror. 'And there's more to come.'

Ani finally reappeared, looking blotchy-faced, her shimmery dress clutched in her hand, replaced by a blue hospital gown from which her legs stuck out like a gangly deer's. 'I think I need to be sick,' she whispered.

The nurse disappeared promptly and reappeared with a totally inadequate looking pan. Ani sat down and clutched at it. They'd cleaned away the blood and it wasn't that bad. Cuts on your head always look ten times worse than they are. Mostly it was just a pretty bad bruise. You could see it quite clearly through her pale hair, a red/purple stain under the harsh lights. You couldn't hide anything under hospital lights.

'I am so, so sorry,' said Indigo.

We did eventually get Ani home, though it was at that grey, predawn time when you feel at your most tired, before the buzz of a new day has kicked in to prop you up. We didn't say much as we crossed the park. Lorikeets were already whistling and squawking and revelers were trailing by, the girls looking cold and miserable and carrying their shoes. I guessed we didn't look much better. Ani was walking delicately ahead of us, her dress shimmering in the half light, her head swathed in a too-white bandage. Indigo and I walked close together, too tired to speak. She had her arms wrapped around herself for warmth. We were so tired we just filed slowly up the stairs and into our respective rooms without saying a word.

Ani stayed in bed for most of the next day. All of us did, though every few hours Indigo would go in to check on her. I'd hear her coming up the stairs, see her tip-toeing past the kitchen door. Then I'd hear the sound of their murmuring voices. She'd pass again, looking towards me but apparently not seeing that my eyes were open. It might sound callous, but considering how much worry Indigo gave me generally, it was a relief to know she could wield a plank with such good effect. If only everything could be despatched so easily.

It must have been around four in the afternoon when I finally went in to see Ani. I'd been putting it off, but I knew I had to do it. It really was a beautiful room – the two tall windows big enough for you to step out of – right onto the balcony. A huge tree stroked right up against the building and turned all the inside light green. I'd never really understood why Indigo didn't take that room but she said she didn't like having windows onto the street. Ani's bed was just a thin mattress on the floor. She was curled up tightly, her eyes watching from over the sheets.

'I've been waiting for you to come in,' she whispered.

I didn't know what to say to this. 'How are you?'

'My dress has a little pocket,' she said, looking behind me.

I looked around and saw the dress hanging from the back of her chair. I went and caught hold of it and it slithered off the chair with a kind of sibilant rustle of beads. I felt something out of place straight away. It was an envelope, tucked away inside the silk. There was no address on the front, just Indigo's name. I turned it over and kind of froze when I saw the sender's name.

Ani pushed herself up on her elbow. 'I didn't want to give it to her at the hospital, it's going to be a big shock.'

'Where did you get this?'

'I guess it was downstairs by the door.'

'You guess? She needs to see this.'

'Yes, but not from me. She doesn't trust me right now.'

I knew a polite lie was required, but I didn't say it with much heart. 'No, she likes you.'

'It's actually better if she doesn't because...' It seemed she didn't know how to say it. She shifted her long limbs under the sheets uncomfortably. I tried not to stare.

'You see... I'm not always me.'

'Not always you?' But I was already getting a cold sensation of possibility.

'Well, I don't remember much after the last time we spoke. You know, just before I left last night. I know I said I was going to a party, but I wasn't. So it had already begun. I was already lying for her.'

'Well, you've been concussed. It's not surprising you might have trouble remembering what happened...' _Lying for who?_ I was thinking.

She wasn't listening to me. 'I do remember being in the front room. But nothing before. It was really black in there. I heard someone call out and fall, and then a moment later there was this like... pain explosion at the back of my head. But before that...' she had a kind of vague, sweet smile on her face, and was shaking her head as if sharing some insignificant little foible. 'Well, you know, sometimes I'm just not myself at all.'

'I see.'

'Give her the letter. It's better if you do it, Dylan.'

I always got kind of a shock when she said my name. Like a pleasant little electric shock. But I was not a complete push over.

'You should have given it to her right away,' I said.

She didn't say anything, just looked at me. I put the dress back on the chair, glad to be rid of its cool weight. Then I left, feeling her eyes on my back the whole time.

saturday, january 2

Well, I let a whole night pass without giving Indigo that letter. We were sitting in a café on Sydney Road the next morning and I was pretty much out of ways to procrastinate about it. Indigo said she wanted to talk without Ani. So this was clearly my moment. She was steadily eating honey-soaked baklava, one after another. 'Comfort eating', she called it, quite happily.

'You know, if they didn't do the MRI I'd think she'd got some sort of brain damage,' she said. 'She looks totally stunned. She can't seem to speak to me properly.'

'You're lucky she's not in a coma. How hard did you hit her?'

She was watching a tattoed man with his arm in a cast, floating by (I guess he was on a skateboard) and she didn't really seem to hear me. 'She was so strange down there, Dylan. Like someone else.'

I shut up for a bit because I was trying to think of how to tell her about the whole medium thing, without seeming like I'd been lying about it. It was just that it had never come up (though how could it, if she had no idea?) and I wasn't really sure I had permission to tell (but wasn't I on Indigo's side first and foremost?). I was pretty confident that now was the time to tell her though – with Ani's voice still echoing in my head – _sometimes I'm just not myself_. I was trying not to analyse it too much, but I didn't like the sound of it at all. There was no point beating around the bush.

'She's some kind of medium.'

Indigo looked at me and I couldn't tell if she was taking a while to process it, or just furious that I hadn't told her sooner.

'Well regardless,' she said, and I still couldn't tell. 'She wasn't the one that grabbed me. She was just in the way when I swung.'

We sat in silence for a while. 'I know that's what you think, but you can't know for sure.'

She shrugged and neatly licked the honey off her fingertips in a way that told me, yes, she was angry. 'I do know it. The problem is you don't believe it.'

'It was the follower?'

She shook her head decisively. 'No. It wasn't a man.'

'The follower _isn't_ a man.'

She ignored this. 'It was definitely a woman.'

'How could you know that?'

She gave me really quite a dark look. 'So you believe in mediums but not intuition?'

There was no point arguing about it. It seemed to be moving into some sort of weird jealousy territory. I couldn't bear those relationship games.

'That's right, Indigo. I only believe Ani now.'

She managed to smile.

'But you should know, Ani was the one who found you. If it wasn't for her you might still be down there.'

She looked thoughtful at this news and I was only half regretful that I had to give up my role as rescuing hero. Then again, there's nothing worse than getting credit where you don't deserve it. I took the envelope out of my pocket, but held onto it for a moment.

'She gave me this letter. She thinks she found it downstairs. But she kept it, because she thought... it wasn't the right time.'

Indigo's eyes were locked onto the letter. Maybe you don't know this about Indigo, but she has kind of hazel eyes. Sometimes they look brown and sometimes almost green. I'm never sure if it's her surroundings or the mood she's in that changes them. They were looking kind of green now. She was sipping on her coffee but her eyes hadn't left my hand.

'It's for you.' I handed her the envelope with her name showing on the top. I couldn't bring myself to turn it over.

She took it, looking at me – and I had a feeling I was doing something horrible to her.

'She _thinks_ she found it? Who's it from?' she asked, with a kind of suspense in her voice. I didn't say anything and she opened it without looking at the sender address. I guess she already knew who it was by my face. She read the letter. She put it down, smoothed it out with her fingers. She seemed to hesitate, then pushed it towards me. I took it very carefully. It must have been sitting near the front door for a long time. It felt kind of stiff and fragile. The writing was large and looping and had become all cramped up towards the end as if the writer had written more than they at first meant to.

Dear Indigo,

I hope you don't mind me writing to you. It's been so long since it all happened. I've joined a church and they're helping me to see that Forgiveness is the only way I'll ever be truly happy. You remember Jason. My lovely boy. Well, you should know that in a way he wasn't really mine. I adopted him when he was eight months. He was only with us a year. You can't understand how long a year is until you have a kid. They wouldn't tell us anything at the time. Except that they didn't know who the mother was. So he was abandoned. I just wanted to say sorry for the things I said to you. I still don't know what happened, but I know in my heart you weren't to blame. The truth was I never really felt he was mine. It's as if God decided to give him to us just for a short time and then take him away. Just so I'd know how precious he was. I thought it was the hardest time of my life – all that work looking after him – but it turned out to be the best. I hope you can forgive me for blaming you so long.

Grace.

It seemed like we couldn't look at each other. 'Why don't you come and stay with me for a while?' I said.

She'd taken back the letter and was folding it up into a very small square and pushing it into her purse, although it didn't quite fit. 'I want to be home. It's my house – why should I have to move?'

It was clear she didn't want to talk about the letter yet. There was a red flush in her cheeks and her eyes were shining. The house suddenly seemed like a neutral topic.

'It might be dangerous for you to stay there. For any of us. We've always known there was something about the house. And now I've been downstairs. It's pretty clear that it's haunted.'

Her eyes were really luminous now and I was starting to worry that she might cry.

'Well, I guess we'll find out if that's really true,' she said. 'It certainly doesn't take a medium to know there's something weird going on downstairs. She held my gaze as if she was about to jump up and fight me. 'I want another look.' She seemed to get energy from making crazy decisions.

I couldn't help it. I smiled. She was kind of charming when she was reckless. She didn't smile back but took a little sip of coffee.

'So what's next then?' I asked.

'I'm thinking a séance with Ani, and then you and I have a proper look downstairs, with lights.'

She'd managed to undo my smile, but I tried to speak lightly. 'Low profile then?'

She laughed, but there was a dark edge to it.

'I've had enough of sitting upstairs, waiting for something to happen.' She looked at the edge of the letter, sticking out of her purse. 'I'd forgotten he was called Jason,' she said, her voice changing quite suddenly. 'He'd be going to school now.'

'It wasn't your fault,' I said.

I think she chose not to hear me. 'Dylan, would you do me a favour?'

'Of course.'

'Would you ask Ani if she'll help us with the séance?'

Long silence. The séance was a terrible idea. And, on top of that, I seemed to be becoming some sort of messenger between them. I could see us all over dinner in a few days' time, sitcom style – Dylan, would you ask Ani to pass the salt? Dylan, would you tell Indigo it's right in front of her?

Indigo wasn't looking at me, but was using her nail to push the edge of the letter deeper and deeper into the purse.

'Okay,' I said. 'I'll ask her.'

sunday, january 3

I found Ani in the kitchen sipping tea. I wasn't going to bother making small talk – it didn't really seem to be her way.

'We need to find out what's going on in the house. Indigo says something grabbed her downstairs.'

Ani looked at me. I was waiting for her to say who or what she thought it was. But she just nodded and blew on her tea.

'Well, you've got to face that stuff you know,' she said. 'It just gets bigger when you don't face it.' She sipped her tea philosophically. 'I mean sometimes you have to like face death and all that before you can really know who you are.'

I waited to see if she'd run out of clichés. I was starting to wonder if it was all just an act with her – because who really talks that way?

'Well, I'm kind of hoping death isn't on the cards,' I said. The cliché thing was catching.

She fixed me with her big blue eyes. 'All we can do is wait and see.'

'Indigo wants to do a séance.'

There was a tiny pause. Then she shrugged. 'Sure – if she feels it's right.'

I knew that the idea of the séance was wrong, wrong, wrong. There was a lot I wanted to specifically point out, but I confined myself to noting it down in my light blue book that afternoon (light blue was for 'spiritualism and miscellaneous').

First, we are all in a state of heightened suggestibility, given the events of the past few months (and as far as I can tell, Ani is constantly in a state of heightened suggestibility anyway). Second, given this collective frame of mind we are likely to achieve an altered state of consciousness. Third, achieving an altered state of consciousness is in no way conducive to a successful séance and is likely to lead to personal ideas leaking into the exchange (like some sort of uncontained, collective stream of consciousness spelt out via ouija board – fascinating, maybe, but not at all useful in terms of the matter at hand).

On the other hand, I most definitely do not want to have a successful séance for the following reasons:

1. Spirits are unreliable and frequently incoherent.

2. The dumbest teenage dabbler knows the theory that opening a board risks creating a locus for unfortunate supernatural events in the future (although I'm starting to suspect that Indigo is in herself already a locus for unfortunate supernatural events).

3. For various reasons I don't want to record right now, I believe that séances are immoral, reckless and just plain wrong.

What I didn't write was why I'd agreed. Basically, I was at a loss. The sorts of things that were happening to Indigo were completely out of the ordinary. The way we'd found her after the follower took her. The hand on her ankle, strong enough to pull her down. Sure, in horror films maybe. But in real life that stuff was off the charts. I'd thought of asking Ani if she could help, but realised that was out of the question. Please Ani, go into a trance. See what you can randomly pick up. We'll watch your back. Maybe we'll get really lucky and you'll be possessed by a malevolent spirit. As it was it seemed safer to let the board be the medium. Mostly I was trying to convince myself that because Indigo had come back through the most irrational means, perhaps it was through irrational means that we would bring it all to an end.

Evening arrived much too soon. We were in Ani's room. It had been a junk room since Indigo had moved in (she called it 'the study') but it had always been the nicest space. Now it was Ani's, it looked strangely bare, except for her mattress on the floor, a rack of clothes and a dresser covered in scarves, jewellery and mysterious little phials. The air smelt of Ani in more concentrated form – vanilla perfume and something indistinct but pleasant that I noticed whenever she passed too close on the stairs.

We'd been caught kind of off guard and didn't even have a proper board, if there was such a thing. A Parker's game board for example. Ani turned a round drinks tray upside down, then carefully wrote out the alphabet on a piece of paper and tore it into separate letters. Then she wrote 'yes' and 'no' and placed them at opposite sides of the board. She looked like a twelve-year-old, with her hair actually in pigtails tonight and her tongue just about poking out with concentration. But her girlishness hid something dark and not at all appealing. That she could become 'not herself' at any moment. And when she was not herself, she could lie about it. It was dawning at me that whoever she'd been (if that's really what she was suggesting) it had been aware enough to pretend to be Ani. To tell us it had a New Year's party to go to. To lure Indigo downstairs. To take her to the source. Whatever that meant. I tried to bury my thoughts as she placed the letters neatly around the outside of the board. And I suddenly realised I hadn't spelt this all out for Indigo (secrecy can become such a strong habit you no longer notice when you're doing it). But Indigo was smart and open-minded. And she had said that Ani hadn't seemed herself. But it was just an empty phrase. I wasn't sure if she'd thought of the literal possibility that something else had been in Ani's body.

Indigo put a glass coffee cup, the kind you'd use for caffe lattes, turned upside down on the tray. She gave me a look to show she was noticing me staring at her.

'If there's one thing I know about vengeful ghosts, it's that it's always better not to pay attention to them,' I observed. I couldn't help it. Maybe it was just to assuage my guilt – if something did go wrong. A supernatural disclaimer.

Indigo was ready for this. 'But I thought you were meant to find out what they need, so they can move on?'

'Spoken like a person who's picked up her knowledge from the collected works of Dickens.'

'TV actually,' she said.

It was impossible to intimidate Indigo with scorn. I always liked that about her. Ani lit some candles and switched off the light. She hadn't said a word since she'd started cutting up the letters. The windows were open, curtains billowing inward then sucking outward. The candles guttered pretty fiercely in the breeze, on the verge of ominously winking out at any moment. Well, that would add to the suggestibility, I supposed, with the growing sense that we were poised on the edge of disaster.

We sat down around the board. Ani closed her eyes and intoned slowly, 'We are protected by white light. Anything that might wish to harm us will be burnt up in light.'

I looked over at Indigo and had the terrible feeling she was about to laugh – that it was just going to come snorting out in the most ridiculous way possible. Instead she bit her lip and looked very solemn.

'Let's begin,' said Ani, opening her eyes and looking right at me. I was struck by the kind of power she had by being totally without irony. Or maybe it was just that she was beautiful and she startled me a little whenever we locked eyes. We reached forward at the same moment to place a fingertip on the glass.

'Left hand or right hand?' Indigo asked.

Ani looked at her a little pityingly. 'Really, there's so much energy in this place, we barely need any of this stuff.'

Despite her claim, we sat there for quite a long time, outstretched fingers just gently connecting with the glass. I was starting to wonder when would be appropriate to break the mood and speak, (relief – it hasn't worked) but suddenly the glass jumped a little and slid a few centimeters off to the side.

We all kept our hands on it and waited. Slowly, dragging a little against the surface it began to move, round and round in lazy circles.

'Is anyone there?' asked Ani.

The glass was circling a little faster now, singing against the metal, like a finger drawn around a crystal rim. It span briskly around the tray then slid to 'no' and stopped.

Ani frowned a little. 'Are you sure there's nobody there?'

The glass didn't move.

'I know you're there,' Indigo interrupted. 'And I really need to talk to you.'

We waited. There was a humming feeling under my fingertips, I assumed the others could feel it too. It was like holding a moth enclosed in your hand, the million barely felt beats of its wings. Either something real was happening or suggestibility was kicking in. Slowly the glass shifted across to the right, then the left, making little angles across the tray. Clearly we'd all done this before so we skipped the bit where everyone says – are you doing that? No, it must be you! I was trying to write down the letters now – I, L, I, L, I, L, but then it was darting everywhere and the hum was becoming a kind of whine.

'Please stop that,' said Ani, and something in the plaintiveness of her voice made me start to feel afraid. 'Who is this? Lily?'

It just went faster and faster.

'We should stop,' I said. 'This is pointless.'

'Wait!' said Ani, but her voice was strained and different.

It felt then as if someone had grabbed the glass and shoved it right off the board. We all snatched our hands back at once.

'Well, that was useless,' said Indigo, after a moment.

Immediately, there was a heavy thud downstairs. We sat there for a moment, registering the sound. I looked at Indigo and she looked at me and there was something almost comical about it, although my heart was thudding.

'That's bad,' she said, with a nervous smile.

'We should say a prayer,' said Ani.

'I think it might be a little late for that,' I said. 'But we should close the board.'

'No!' Indigo said, suddenly decisive. 'Keep it open!'

I was tired of telling her she was nuts, but I was just opening my mouth to do it once more when she sprang up and rushed from the room. The candles flickered out in the draught, leaving Ani and I in near darkness. I could make out her head and shoulders against the dappled street light outside, but she didn't say anything.

'Yes, let's split up and get picked off one by one,' I said, loud enough for Indigo to hear.

It was then I got the feeling. A crawling up the backs of my arms and on either side of my spine, up to the top of my neck where it started to spread hotly across my skull.

'Go and stop her,' said Ani.

****
Chapter 5. HAUNTED

sunday, january 3

Indigo

The way I saw it I had two problems, I was being followed by... something and my house was haunted. I had no idea what the connection was. Perhaps there wasn't one at all. I'd always felt there was a kind of randomness to the world of the supernatural. Like a little bit of chaos was leaking into our world from somewhere else. Or maybe our relatively ordered lives were glitches in an otherwise random universe. I hadn't shared that thought with Dylan. He'd call it cheap sci-fi philosophy (as opposed to serious sci-fi, which was apparently acceptable). I know he liked to think there was an answer to everything, if only we had the right information. Of course, I knew he thought a séance was absolutely the wrong thing to do. It was pretty much the equivalent of going into the dodgiest, darkest place in town and yelling 'Hey, everybody! I'm over here!' On the other hand, it seemed like I was already pretty much marked. I knew, the moment I heard that sound downstairs, that I had to go down there and face it, whatever it might be. That was the whole point of the séance anyway – no more crawling suspense.

So I rushed out onto the upper landing, seeing the candles gutter out as I left. I switched on the stair light, blinking against the glare. Nothing. Below was the blocked off stairs, beside me the blank kitchen doorway. Ani and Dylan had come up behind me.

'I don't think it went right,' said Ani. 'She didn't really know how to talk to us.'

So, she knew it was a woman too. 'I think we should go downstairs now,' I said. She didn't answer, just went past into the kitchen.

Dylan looked unimpressed. 'Don't you think that's more of a daylight thing?'

'I have this feeling we've woken something up.'

'Exactly.'

Ani hurried out with a bowl in her hands and passed into her room. I could smell burning sage and see a little trail of smoke going out behind her ("we are protected by white light! The house is protected by white light!").

Dylan and I just looked at each another. I already knew what he was going to say. The gist of it, anyway.

'I need to talk to it.' I tried to explain. 'It's hard to find this feeling in the daytime.'

'This feeling of dread and impending doom?'

'If that's what you want to call it. We need to go down now.' I was walking down to the landing and he was following.

'Indi, you were pulled down by it.' He actually caught me by the shoulder and I stopped at the landing, right by the nailed up stairway. 'It has a physical form. Don't you see that you're being provocative?'

'Well, I've been provoked!' I hissed back at him, surprised at the anger that prickled over my skin. 'I'm going down there and I'm facing it. I'm not spending another night waiting to be taken.' I stood there pretty much vibrating with fury and (let's face it) terror.

I can only describe it as an ambush. I didn't have any time to react (spring back like an importuned cat) before he had his hands on either side of my head and had kissed me very gently on the mouth. I smelt the lovely smell that made up his particular scent (I think it was something to do with book pages and too much coffee and just the warmth off his skin) and had the sense of being rushed backwards in time to when we had first met. When he finally pulled back my lips were tingling.

Ani had appeared in the doorway to her room, but he didn't look up at her.

'Please don't go,' he said, still too close for me to see his expression very clearly. The combination of his hands and the kiss created what I can only describe as some sort of hospital strength sedative effect. Weak knees. Really, I'm sure he was aware it was the action most likely to dissolve me into pliable mush. Ani was still standing there frozen at the top of the stairs, as if she didn't want to draw attention to herself by retreating. I stepped away from him. In fact it became necessary to draw back quite a distance in order to take a clear breath. I only stopped because I came up rather hard against the wall. But now I had some clarity.

'I have to do something.' I said, in a pitiable little inward gasp.

I know what you're thinking at this point. Oh, pull yourself together, Indigo! What is wrong with you? Okay, you may already be onto this fact, but let me just say that I was totally and utterly side-tracked. Should I be ashamed of that? Well, clearly I felt ashamed or I wouldn't have to ask. I felt utterly foolish and girlish. But, really, if I'd done the same to him (or if Ani had, more to the point) I'm pretty sure the result would have been the same. Side-tracked. Somewhere in the back of my mind (in a tiny region where rational thought still existed) I was aware that this was the whole point. His idea of my emergency braking system.

'Don't go downstairs,' he said again, looking down at me now. 'I've never said this before, but I have a bad...' he hesitated, as if the phrase was distasteful. 'A bad feeling. Let's close the board together,' he said. 'Maybe it's just symbolic, but it seems like the right thing to do.'

'I won't go now, but it's obvious we'll have to go down there eventually.'

He didn't answer. Let's face it, he knew he had me snookered. I couldn't stop staring at him.

We closed the board. But it was already too late.

monday, january 4

The first sign it was too late? We were all sitting at the kitchen table for breakfast. It was a habit we had. Ani made porridge with honey (much too warming for summer) and we all sat around and dutifully ate it together. For the sake of morale, I suppose. Only this morning was a little different. It began with Dylan saying (studiously nonchalant) 'I had the strangest dream last night.'

We both put down our spoons and looked at him.

'I was walking through the rooms downstairs. It was really bright. And under my feet I was crushing little bird skulls and wings. Every step.'

Ani looked as if she was reconsidering him somehow.

'They were so fragile. I didn't want to break them.'

'What does that mean?' I asked. He shrugged, not directly meeting my eye.

'It was weird' he said, with an almost smile.

I didn't want to share my dream. It had started to filter through the moment he said 'dream'. I'd been searching for the little boy in the park. Only this time it wasn't his mother screaming at me. It was the thin-faced one who'd stolen him away, screeching right up in my face. 'Don't take him away! He's mine!'

'What about you?' Dylan asked Ani. He wouldn't even look at me. From which I understood he was deeply regretting the whole kiss thing.

'I never dream,' she said, going back to her porridge.

And although I was ready with 'everybody dreams', I looked at her beautiful face, her wide-set blue eyes, serene as an animal's, and suddenly felt that it might just be true. Ani never dreamed. It was another way she was special and different from the rest of us. I took a gloomy spoonful of porridge. I was really starting to regret the whole subletting thing.

Dylan was still looking at her with interest. 'You don't remember?'

She didn't bother to answer, just stood up to make some more tea. That was the thing about Ani. She seemed too friendly at first, but it was actually impossible to get to know her. I didn't even want to ask her what she thought was going on in the house. I probably should have. Maybe I was afraid of what she'd say.

The second sign? It was the same day, in the evening, and I was in the bathroom. I was looking in the mirror. My hair was getting too long. Instead of the short, smooth helmet I wanted, it was coming down past my chin and starting to wave. I was compensating by wearing make-up more often. Darkened brows. Even a little blush, because I was still too pale from the time downstairs. The energy-saver bulb gave me just enough light to see by. It was a kind of grey, indistinct light that always made me feel an answering flatness in my soul. Like it was draining the colour out of the whole world.

Bathrooms are bad places. If you see a bathroom in a film it's likely that something bad's going to happen. Even worse, a woman in a bathroom, naked. The likelihood of her dying or having a near-death experience is astronomical. I can only think it's about vulnerability. And maybe bodies of water. Water was dangerous, transforming, or something. Well, I wasn't naked, but I was vulnerable.

Another dream from last night. It had been drifting up to the surface all day and it was finally free. It started with Dylan leaning down to kiss me. We were standing on the landing and there was a very bright light, like sunlight, and I was warmly and joyfully melting from my legs up through my stomach. But then it was black and it wasn't Dylan, but some other man – too smotheringly close, stinking of aftershave covering up cigarette smoke (familiar smell – from when?) and I was pushing at him with both hands, angry and scared, saying 'You got no right to shut me up!'

I would need more eyeshadow. More beautiful eyes, because I was going to confront Dylan. Do you think you can just kiss me out of the blue like that and pretend nothing's happened? (Yes, obviously, because that's exactly what he'd done). I opened the mirrored cabinet and found a smokey grey shade. I closed the cabinet. She was right behind my shoulder. Thin face and hazel eyes. I froze. Constricted lungs, heart labouring. I couldn't move. In that tiny room, there was really nowhere to move.

She had an ugly face. Oh, maybe it could be pretty if she had smiled. She was young. But her mouth was twisted down. Loathing on her face. She was really there behind me. Solid and real. The one that stole the child.

'You worthless, worthless bitch,' she said, and I was shocked to hear her voice so clear and strong. 'You don't deserve him. You're useless. That's why you need to be down here. I'm the only one who can stand you. Worthless, worthless, bitch.' She leaned in. Her breath stirred the hair at the back of my neck. Cold breath.

I span around. Nothing there. Exactly as I'd expected. But there was a creaking in the passageway outside. Now I could move I was all action. I leapt forward and flung the door open. Ani sprang backwards. I had the weird feeling she'd been pressing up against the panels.

'What are you doing?' I demanded.

'I didn't know you were there.' She blinked and looked at me more closely. 'Are you okay?'

I went past her and ran up to the kitchen. Dylan wasn't there.

'Dylan's gone out.' Her voice drifted from the bathroom. 'Indigo, are you okay?'

'I'm fine!' I called, voice shaking. Not fine.

I stood, undecided. I heard the bathroom door shut behind her. It didn't take too much thought. I was out of there. The evening was coming down, but it was way too hot for a coat. I just pulled on my boots, grabbed my keys and went.

I walked very fast towards Dylan's apartment. It was on the other side of the university. The last few weeks had been so hot that the leaves on the deciduous trees had died. They lay underfoot in drifts, as if it were autumn. Not bright autumn colours, but dull brown. I'd always loved crunching through them, but out of season it seemed vaguely apocalyptic. My whole life was starting to seem vaguely apocalyptic.

My body was tingling from the mirror incident. And I kept seeing things from the corner of my eye. Not actual things. Imagined grey shapes slipping away at the edges. Twilight had arrived, which meant it must be about nine. I felt followed. I kept looking behind. Twilight seemed even worse than night – like a fog in front of my eyes.

I knew to knock at least three times before Dylan was likely to answer the door. Maybe I overdid it – a flurry of loud knocks until he finally flung the door open, looking pretty angry.

'She was in the mirror. The woman. It's the follower, the other one, but she's in the house. It's not a ghost at all.' I hurried past him. 'You have to have something here that can help us...' I faltered as I reached the lounge room. There was a chaos of books strewn across the table and even laid out on the floor in significant and ragged semi-circles. I finally turned and looked at him.

'Hi, Indigo,' he said, a little coolly.

'Sorry, hi.'

He sat down at the table. 'In the mirror?'

'Yes, she called me a stupid bitch.' I felt kind of aggrieved, as if she were a real person.

He raised an eyebrow, but in a half-hearted way, as if nothing could really surprise him. 'Tell me what happened.'

I sat down. There was a very thick book open in front of me, a bookmark sitting sideways across it. I read a fragment. _The Fad Felen, a disease spirit with golden eyes that followed them in the dark_... I shut the book.

He gave me a rueful look. 'I can't seem to find a match. I mean, something that really fits with it. The follower. So tell me.'

'Don't you want to write it down?'

He shrugged. 'What would the point be? Tell me though.'

Ironic, I who was always challenging him over his 'scribblings' (at least in my mind). Now I wanted him to write it down. It would make me feel better. It would seem like we were doing something constructive. Because if we couldn't find a way to be free of them – these followers – we could at least be proper witnesses.

I described the woman in the mirror, what she'd said, and then the dream. The horrible man pressing against me (I left out Dylan pressing against me). How I'd yelled at him. _You got no right to shut me up!_ I thought he flinched a little when I described how afraid I'd been – of the aftershave smell. It was like it was reminding him of something. But, of course he didn't tell me what. He took a while to say anything.

'Thoughts?' I prompted.

He sighed. I had a sudden fear he was disconnecting from it all. Giving up. But I should have known better. He was just thinking extra hard.

'As far as the woman goes, there's some connection to the house. I still think she could be a ghost. You said her breath was cold? In which case you should move out. If you really want to protect yourself.' He gave me kind of a pointed look but I just waited. 'Sometimes there's a particular person in the house that just stirs things up. Once they move everything settles down again.'

'You think I've stirred things up?'

'Maybe ...' he said, thoughtfully. 'It may simply be that you disturbed something when you were taken down there. Under the stairs.'

He didn't like to talk about it – the time I'd been gone. I guess I'd been relieved about that. Although I had the feeling it might help to tell him what I remembered. The little fragments. That it might be healthy for me, or something. Even if it couldn't help with anything real. I kept imagining telling him. How I kept dreaming that my mouth was filling with sand. That I didn't want to sleep anymore. Just in case. Surely it would feel better to tell someone? But he was lost in the possibilities and wasn't even looking at me.

'Something that might not have surfaced otherwise,' he said, quietly.

'But I saw her before. In the park. We're already connected somehow.'

He shrugged, still not seeming to listen properly. 'We could try to clear the house, but I don't know how successful that would be.'

I had an image of us pacing around with burning sage leaves, chanting. 'So what are the other options?'

He scrunched his eyes shut and scratched at his head. 'I suppose we can find out what she wants.'

'You don't look enthusiastic.'

He shook his head. 'Despite what you might see on TV, it's not generally a good option. There is kind of a rule with this sort of thing. The more attention you give, the more things get... focused.'

'But that's just what we need. We need her to communicate.'

'Focused is different from coherent.'

'What does that mean?'

'Tell me something.' He leaned forward. 'When you saw her in the mirror, was she actually talking to you, or just looking in the mirror?'

I hesitated. I suppose I'd been so horrified I hadn't thought about it, but I couldn't actually remember her looking at me.

He nodded, slumping back and looking at the notebooks on the floor. 'Stuck in a loop,' he said. 'I'm sure she's a ghost. You know they might not even be her words. It might be something someone said to her. Something she can't let go of.'

'But she seemed so angry. It was awful.'

He leant forward across the table. 'Do you really want to give more focus to that?'

Well, it was a fair question but I didn't see we had a choice. Unless we wanted to stay the victims of random paranormal disturbances forever. I was certainly not going to move. It was my house and I loved it. I belonged there. That's what I kept telling myself.

I looked around the room. 'It feels safe here.'

'You know you can stay.'

'I know.' I stood up, avoiding his eye. 'But there's hardly room for two of us, and the idea of leaving Ani there alone just gives me the creeps.'

'She gives you the creeps, or you're worried for her?'

'Both.'

He stood up too. 'Just wait a minute and I'll walk back with you.' He went into his room.

I was deeply relieved at this, though I'd been too proud to ask. Walking back alone through the darkening university campus did not appeal. Arriving in the dark lane and walking through my dark garden did not appeal either. And getting into the house would be worst of all. Even if Ani was there. I considered asking him to move right into my room, but I was pretty sure he'd take it the wrong way.

He came back and stood in front of me. 'Just humour me.' He slipped something over my head and I felt a cool chain around my neck. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw the little St Christopher medal. It felt reasonably heavy, like it might be silver.

'I thought you weren't superstitious?'

He was unsmiling. 'Superstition is irrational.'

I sobered up a little, because he looked so worn out. 'Am I traveling somewhere?' I asked.

'I never know with you.'

We walked through the university in silence. I was pondering the unknowableness that was Dylan. Just when I thought I knew everything about him (a stupid thing to think about anyone), he would do something surprising. I realised that I'd never even asked if he was religious. I certainly wasn't going to now. It seemed crass. And although I didn't really believe in the medal, somehow I felt better now I was wearing it. Maybe just because he'd given it too me. It had already warmed to my body, so I kept reaching up to make sure it was still there.

I suppose it made sense, what he said. If you knew something was true, you wouldn't call it superstition. And I flattered myself for a moment that he had chosen to kiss me out of love. It hadn't come from nothing – just a device to throw me off course. I clutched at the idea for a moment that it was real. That something new could happen that wasn't entirely catastrophic. I looped my arm through his and crunched through the leaves with a feeling that was becoming close to optimistic.

'We're going to work it all out,' I said. 'It will be okay.'

'Just keep saying that,' he said. 'You might start to believe it.' But he didn't pull away.

'We're going to work it all out,' I repeated and he finally smiled. We walked for a while in silence. Back towards the house. The woman in the mirror was starting to seem real again. I didn't want to be there.

'Dylan, would you do me a favour?'

There was a noticeable pause.

'Sure.'

'Would you take me out to dinner? I don't want to go home yet. And...' This was less glamorous. 'I have no cash.'

'You really need to get a job.'

'You don't have to tell me that.'

'Where do you want to go?'

'I don't know, but I feel like walking.'

We walked quite a long way, towards Fitzroy, with the warm night coming down. And I was starting to feel there was an actual world outside my claustrophobic house. There were dogs tumbling together in the off-leash park and lorikeets shrieking and chattering in the palm trees on Canning Street. By the time we reached the pub, I felt like even the air had changed. The breeze was moving from the south. To tell the truth, there seemed more and more oxygen the further we got from the house. We ate a huge meal. I even seemed to have a bigger appetite away from home. I was too focused on eating to talk, but once we had finished, Dylan took a pen from his pocket (he was the kind of person who always has a pen somewhere).

'So these are the stages of haunting...'

He wrote very fast on his napkin. It was clear he'd thought about it quite a lot and I was sure he had a pretty lengthy dossier somewhere, of which I was getting the simplified (and probably censored) version.

1. Dream interference. Sensations of heaviness, sadness or fear.

2. Random energy. Quick glimpses. Noises. Tactile sensations. Things falling or being moved from their place.

I was reading upside down.

'Like a poltergeist,' I observed.

'No, not really,' he said, without looking up or pausing in his writing.

3. Re-enacting. Repetition of things done in life or repetition of a death scene. (Stuck in a loop).

4. Sentience (materialised or non-materialised).

'Your ghost has pieces of the whole list,' he observed. 'Although maybe not sentience. It's hard to tell. You don't really want sentience,' he added. 'You don't want any kind of awareness. Not if she died violently.'

'Why is that?'

'Because people who've died violently are pretty much always malevolent as sentient ghosts. It doesn't matter how nice they were as people. They just have so much fear and anger.'

'Sentient ghosts...' I repeated, pausing for quite a large draught of my beer. 'I don't think she's dangerous. I think she's stuck in a loop. How would she become sentient?'

'You already know that. Attention.'

'Like a séance?' I asked, meekly.

'Exactly like a séance. Or even just looking for her all the time, paying attention to every little sound that might be her.'

'It's going to be hard to ignore her if she keeps appearing in mirrors and yelling like that.'

'And that's why you should move out.'

'Not going to happen.' He met my challenging look and I was the one who looked away. Because my not moving out stance was seeming more and more ridiculous every time I repeated it.

'One more thing. How will we know for sure when she becomes sentient?'

He smiled a kind of wry smile. 'You'll know.'

'But how?'

'If she can talk to you, answer questions coherently, then she's sentient. But Indigo... don't try to talk to her.'

There was a silence in which I thought of ways I might get to talk to her and Dylan (no doubt) wondered what he could say to more effectively stop me.

I took the napkin from him. 'Do you have a list like that for followers?' I asked.

'Yes. But that's before... I knew more about them.'

'What is it?'

He hesitated for a moment. 'Stalking, communication, disappearance.'

'You need to add _return_ ,' I said. 'Now we know it's possible.'

'I will,' he answered, looking at me so solemnly that I found myself actually blushing a little and looking away. 'You're still going to go down there, aren't you?' he said.

'Yes.'

He sat back, looking deeply tired. 'We'll all go then.'

Dylan

I already knew that she wasn't mine. So why did I kiss her? I couldn't forgive myself for it. I was cauterized by her pulling away. Burnt and sealed up straight away. I knew I was too proud to try again. So it would probably be forever – this wordless 'no' from her. Granted, I'd already known. But as long as I didn't ask, it wouldn't have to be said aloud and finalised. It was just the impending loss of her that pushed me to it. Her hazel eyes and her hair and her skin – it was all right there in front of me and about to be swallowed up in the uncertain dark underneath. There was a feeling of calamity in the bare light of the stairwell – the way it lit up every little crack and imperfection on the walls. I knew that I was about to lose her again.

Well, at least she was still listening to me. And a postponement of catastrophe seemed better than nothing. We all held hands to close the board. Ani and Indigo's fingers were vibrating. I was no longer concerned about suggestibility. It was all real. All the doors were torn open inside us and everything was alive under our touch. And maybe that was another reason for the kiss. Anything was possible – just for a moment. But now we had to shut it down. You couldn't live like that all the time. It only took a few moments to close the board. I thought Ani should do it and was bracing for some long, flowery speech. But all she said was 'Thank you, Lily. Goodbye. The board is closed.'

We stayed linked together for a moment. Nobody questioned the name. Her hand was too hot and buzzing and Indigo's too cold. It might seem surprising but we had nothing to say after that. We separated and went to our rooms.

I lay awake in the kitchen for a long time, listening to all the settling noises of the house. I was trying to make the impossible distinction between architectural and supernatural noises. It only got worse when I fell asleep. I was walking through the rooms downstairs, crushing little bones under my feet, washed out in bright sunlight. I stood in front of the door. A feeling of dread was growing. I opened the little space under the stairs and there they were, bright-lit. Indigo and her follower. Wrapped together tightly with his bland hands pushing and stretching at her dress. Eating her up with his hungry, blank, reptile eyes and saying _Indigo, Indigo, Indigo_ like a broken record. And Indigo not pushing him away at all, just gazing emptily at the ground.

I woke up feeling like I was literally going to be sick. I was in the kitchen, on the too-short couch, and looking at that spot where she was taken. Only now Ani was there, making breakfast, giving me a sideways look. I decided not to tell them my whole dream at breakfast, I had the feeling it was too personal.

Maybe I should have been focused on the ghost, but it was the follower that took me to my place after breakfast. It was the dream of Indigo, wrapped up so close to him. I pulled every book off the shelf that seemed the least bit useful and soon I was surrounded by them. I was looking for any kind of being that latched onto an individual, stalked them. I searched for hours. Through dubious occult dictionaries, folklore and even Victorian novels, then online – at useful sites and stupid sites and pages of sleaze. Vampires, ghosts and incubi and demon lovers of all kinds. But nothing was the right fit. I was just left with a buzzy, spinning head and a hundred more possibilities, each more bizarre and lurid than the next. And the whole time Indigo was still looping in my head, backing away from the kiss with a look of shock.

I told myself – just keep working. Let time pass and keep working. It even seemed to help for a few hours. Until she turned up at my door. And then it kind of hit me that I had nothing to show for a whole day of research. And information was all that she needed from me. Even as she sat there, describing what had happened with the ghost in the mirror, only a part of me was afraid for her. A part of me was picturing kissing the side of her mouth, pushing away the strands of hair stuck to her humid cheek, backing her into my room.

I was messed up. It was lucky she'd just had a terrifying supernatural encounter because it gave me a kind of privacy – to be just as screwed up as I needed to be and not have to worry whether she would notice and suggest that we 'talk about it' in that scouring way girls had. Only, her not mentioning it at all was probably just as painful. We had a whole meal together and she didn't say anything about it. If I so much as looked at her too long she would blush and look away, like she was just embarrassed about the whole thing.

So I went into information mode. I gave her all the relevant ghost-related facts I could, which was not much. I warned her, which was useless. I sat and watched her ravenous eating and wondered if I would dwindle down to some sort of following ghost too. I knew it was the worst possible time to come unstuck in this way. She really was in danger and I needed to focus. She was wearing a singlet and leaning forward to eat and the little St Christopher medal was tapping against her collarbone.

'So these are the stages of haunting...' I said and I started to write them down, partly to help her remember and partly to stop myself staring at her. She read them very carefully. I hoped I'd frightened her a little. But it would take more than that to make her back off. In fact she would have to be pretty much paralysed with terror and that did not seem a safe way for her to be. So I left out some salient points.

She'd been grabbed and pulled down by this ghost, seen it for a long time (more than a few seconds was exceptional), and felt it's breath as it spoke (so it wasn't simply an image – it was becoming material). This same ghost had somehow gotten into Ani's head just to lure Indigo downstairs. So not only was it amazingly strong, it was also locked on to Indigo. I had heard of poltergeists attaching themselves, especially to troubled children or teens, and some had even theorised it was a person's inner turmoil made material. In these cases, it didn't matter where they moved – they brought it with them. This ghost – 'Lily' Ani called her – was not a poltergeist anymore than the follower was, but I wondered if there was some link. Something in Indigo. Because she was surely calling them. And they were following.

Another fear pulling at me (it was a very cold current, beneath the surface turmoil) was the idea that maybe the follower had once been a ghost – made gradually material by its hunger, fed and shaped by people like Indigo. And if that was the case, could Lily be in the process of changing? Finding something in Indigo that echoed her own hunger, or fed it. And could this ghost become strong enough to take her too – to make her disappear like the little child?

It was humbling. Because I thought I was the special one – the one that noticed and wanted her. But now these things were flocking to her, fighting to take her with them to their own particular worlds.

I knew she would have to go down there again. As much as I told her not to. It was something to do with the house and it couldn't be ignored. I would have to go with her. That was about the only thing that comforted me – and it was not a great comfort. Ani would come too. She seemed to have some kind of insight. And her change might be the first sign of something wrong. Like a canary down a mine. Maybe it was wrong to think of her in such utilitarian terms, but I wasn't sure what I wouldn't do to keep Indigo safe. Spurned though I was.

We got back late from the pub. I watched Indigo go into her room, wondering if I should say something. But her door clicked shut before I'd even found the words.

Indigo

After such a good night with Dylan you'd think I'd sleep well. But as soon as I got back in my door it all came back. The stifling feeling. I slid shut the little lock in my room. I got into bed. Covered myself with a sheet, put my earphones in and drenched myself in music. But I couldn't seem to lose myself. I was eroding and I was trying to hide it, but it was getting higher and higher. I knew I should say something to Dylan about my fragments of memory. If only to be reassured by how calmly he took it all. But it was too complicated now – by the kiss and the silence afterwards. I imagined it anyway. Telling him everything, having him stroke my head and comfort me. Well, maybe it sounds silly, but sometimes it's the simplest fantasies that are the sweetest. I drifted into sleep, all wrapped up in his imaginary arms.

Soon I was dreaming, clawing at my mouth and coughing out the dry dust and a hand was holding the back of my head and forcing in more and more.

I sat up in bed choking and coughing. There was no dust. No one else. Just me in my room. My heart was pounding. It felt like an enormous bird trapped in my ribcage, beating and scraping to get out. I lay back down, trying to breathe.

There was a soft noise at the door, a little click, and it opened enough for a silhouette to appear. I suppose someone had to notice all that coughing and spluttering.

'Dylan... I keep having this dream.' I gasped. I pressed my hands to my chest feeling my lungs heaving beneath them. The door shut very quietly and I knew that it wasn't Dylan, but I just lay there. I could see all the familiar dark shapes of my room. And another shape. I wasn't even sure where it was. Just that it shouldn't be there. I was paralysed, as if in a dream. I breathed, the sharp pains still scraping at me. But slowly they were easing, and a silence was falling. More quiet than the usual night. No sound of cars, or far-off voices or even the hum of the fridge. As if I'd lost my hearing completely. There was a waiting feeling. It wanted me to speak.

The sound of my own voice surprised me. 'I can't bear it any more,' I whispered. 'Please tell me what I should do. The way to stop it all.' The fingers closing around my arm were very cool but I wasn't afraid. I still couldn't really see it.

'Downstairs,' it said, very softly. And there was a growing grey light. It was sitting on the edge of the bed. Sort of formal, only with a look of compassion on its face. My follower.

'Will everything just disappear when you take me?' I whispered.

'Everything,' it said, soothingly. 'Everything.'

I woke to soft light and a pair of wide eyes right in front of me.

'It's me,' Ani whispered.

I rubbed at my face and half sat up. I saw the growing rectangle of light on the wall, wondering whether it was all a dream again and I'd just continue waking up into different segments of it.

'Who were you talking to?' she asked.

'I was dreaming,' I said. 'What time is it?' We were both whispering. Not that we were likely to wake Dylan. But the dawn had a hushed feel about it.

She looked out the window at the sky. 'Really, really early.'

I lay back down and breathed deeply.

'I know it was here.' she said, leaning in again. 'You were talking to it.'

I held my breath. 'Who?' I wasn't sure I wanted to tell her anything.

She sat back and stared at me. 'You shouldn't ask to be taken,' she said. 'Unless you actually mean it.'

I sat up. 'What do you mean?'

'You called it here, Indigo.' There was a harsh look to her face. 'It's time to take responsibility for that.' She stood up and seemed very tall beside my bed. She made as if to go, then suddenly turned back. 'You know what bothers me the most?'

She waited, but I didn't say anything. She narrowed her eyes.

'You're not even that scared of it anymore.' She stalked out of the room and the door shut firmly behind her.

Ani

My lovely girl.

I keep wanting to write but you know I hate email. We won't hear each other's voices and it's all wrong. Things are the same here. They still don't like me. But I didn't come here to be anyone's friend. I know we said we'd go away together – and we will, but I had to be here. When I saw that ad up for the house, I knew I had to come. I was called. I guess I say sorry every time I write – but if you'd only write back once, I could stop. It's all a big mess here. I can't get a clear reading on anything. It's just like white noise. Please tell me what you think.

I do know that this thing, Indigo's follower, it's not a ghost. Even Dylan and Indigo can see that. Maybe it was once. Who knows? It's some sort of dark energy now. I don't know exactly what it is. It looks like a man. It was here this morning, just a few moments ago. I was dreaming I left the front door unlocked and when I woke up, I knew it was here.

You'll say it was stupid of me, but I went down to her room. _It was leaning right over the bed_. And she was speaking to it. Lying there, flat on her back. Talking away to it like they were the best of friends. It went the moment I reached them. But I don't think it's afraid of me.

I'm really worried. Because it wants her downstairs. I don't know why. But it said 'downstairs' and the whole room really... shimmered for a moment – because its want was so big. It wants her to see what's down there. Wants her to know whatever bad thing happened there. But I don't think it really cares about Lily at all. It doesn't make any sense to me. I can't get much of a reading on it because it's not a ghost or a person.

The only thing I know for sure is that it's Indigo's slave. She called it to her. By mistake, but still. If she just said 'no, I don't want you here', and believed it, I really think it would vanish. I don't want to sound hard-hearted or anything, but tough as she seems she's got a victim mentality, just like poor Lily under the stairs. And if she keeps calling, it's going to take her and answer all her wishes. Only I'm really starting to worry she's just got one wish.

Things are moving very fast. So know that I'm coming home soon. Whatever happens. Please write to me and tell me what you think. I miss you and I'm afraid.

xxxxx Ani

tuesday, january 5

Indigo

'Why so urgent? I thought you were going to wait?' Dylan was squinting against the orange dawn. I shut the door behind us and we stood at the top of the spiral stairs, looking over the rooftops. There was a kind of a tang in the air. I guess it was smoke from controlled burn-offs in the leafy hills around Melbourne. Though for all I knew we might be encircled by bushfires – I hadn't seen the news for days. It was cool but the threat of heat was already there and the faint smoke turned the air a rosy colour.

'Third time lucky,' I said. I breathed deeply. I was wired. I'd actually woken Dylan by grabbing his shoulder and shaking him.

It would be better to go on my own. I was the one who had to find out – who had to go down there. All of the messages were for me. It would be the heroic thing to do. But I mustn't actually be a hero because I simply wasn't brave enough to go on my own.

He yawned hugely. 'Are you sure about this? It just seems to make things worse.'

'I'll be okay. I've got my St Christopher medal.'

'Don't be cynical,' he said, leading the way slowly down the stairs. 'Just so you know. I don't actually want to come with you. But I know you'll go anyway, so...'

'I appreciate it. Do you think Ani heard us?'

'I asked her to come but she's tapping away online. I didn't think she even knew how to open the laptop.' Again I suppose he was making a joke, but he had a listless look about him. We descended into the house's cool shadow and went to the window. I liked the look of it less and less. But the morning felt like a good time to go in there. A blackbird was singing a very pure series of notes above us.

'I thought she might try to stop me.'

Dylan had pushed open the window and now hoisted me up onto the sill.

'I'm still not sure what the emergency is.' He still had his hand on my waist, but I pretended not to notice. 'Did something happen during the night?'

'No. I want to have a look around.' I ducked my head and lifted my legs over the sill – to avoid having to lie to his face. 'Like you said, she's connected to the house. Maybe we can find a way to let her... you know, move on.' I couldn't tell him the actual reason. Because _it_ had told me to. I had the feeling he would not approve.

We stood in the first room. The daylight didn't make much difference. There was nothing much to see. It was all just ordinary junk, boxes, vinyl records and an old hat stand.

'We should split up,' I whispered.

'Why?' he asked, not bothering to lower his voice.

'We're not vulnerable enough like this.'

There was a silence. I turned to find him looking at me with deep misgiving.

'We need to communicate with whatever's down there. I don't think it's going to work in a big group.'

'Maybe,' he said. 'But this ghost doesn't seem particularly shy.'

I was just gathering myself to argue the point when Ani appeared at the window. I braced myself for further disapproval, but she wasn't even looking my way.

'Oh I have a good feeling all of a sudden,' she said, landing gracefully amongst the shifting junk. 'Something really amazing's going to happen today.'

'Right,' said Dylan. 'I have a great feeling too.'

Ani ignored him. She walked straight past him and we followed her to the front room. There were still boards strewn about the ground, some of them with jagged nails jutting out. It occurred to me how lucky it was I'd hit her with a nail-free one.

There was nothing particularly creepy about the front room. It was really just another junk room. Boxes were piled up against the walls and blocked the fireplace. Dylan opened the shutters with a snap and a cloud of dust.

'There was a body,' said Ani, circling and looking at the floor. 'It all got eaten up.'

Dylan and I exchanged glances.

'Eaten by what?' I asked, against my better judgment.

Ani put her head to one side, as if thinking. 'The sadness ate it all up. And the darkness and then... bugs and things. And then he took it away.'

'You mean the woman I've been seeing? Her body was here?'

Ani was rubbing circles into her arms, softly at first and then gradually harder and harder. She started to inspect her forearms closely as if there was something crawling on her.

'She's not really here now,' said Dylan, watching her in fascination. 'Who do you suppose ' _he_ ' is?'

I didn't answer because I didn't want to come to the obvious conclusion. I was pretty sure it was just a rhetorical question anyway. Though I was on reasonably good terms with my landlord, I knew boarding shut half a house was not normal behaviour any more than charging a single tenant a hundred dollars a week for a Carlton terrace that could have comfortably housed five or more students. Ani seemed not to notice us talking. She was absorbed in scratching carefully at her hands now. I thought about stopping her, but I was too nervous to go any closer. Dylan was giving her a wide berth, moving about the room, opening boxes.

'Clothes,' he said, drawing out a long, tie-dye dress and studying it as if it could give him some clue about whoever used to wear it.

I took the opportunity to drift away from them, out into the passageway, and inevitably, to the door under the stairs. I could see it more clearly now. There was a bolt on the outside of it. Quite thick and heavy. I reached forward and pushed. I guess I felt compelled. To see where I'd been for so long. Or maybe to make contact once and for all. Ani had said something good was going to happen. Perhaps it meant I could speak to _her_ properly, without her fearing me, or me fearing her.

I moved into the little space. It was a dark box really, much too stuffy. The idea that they'd found me here was as unreal as ever. My shoe scraped against something on the floor, but it was too dim to see. I was prickling all over. As if a thousand little tendrils were brushing the wrong way against every pore of my skin.

'Are you here?' I whispered. 'Lily?' There was just a moment of silence. Then the door slammed. I threw myself back against the wall. I waited in the blackness. Holding my breath. It wasn't necessary to ask again. I felt her everywhere. I waited, hearing the plaster drifting down, settling softly over my skin.

'Is that you?' I whispered, just because the silence was finally too much. My heart was banging but I was determined I would speak with her.

'Say something.' slightly louder now, speaking into blackness so heavy I might have been a hundred miles underground. But my voice didn't sound good. It came flatly back at me from the walls. There was a heavy, strained feeling. I didn't like it.

'Indigo?' Dylan's voice – seeming far off.

I moved towards the door, hands groping out, but something grabbed me. Hands around my throat – real hands. Cold fingers pressing deeper and deeper. I tore at them but couldn't get a grip. I was scratching at my own neck. I gasped but couldn't call out.

'I'm here! Down here!' she whined, right up against my ear. 'Can't you hear me?'

I made a muffled noise, kicked out against the wall. The fingers only tightened. I thrashed and bucked and suddenly was free. I sucked all the air in that I could. 'Dylan!' I shouted, 'She's here!'

There was banging on the door. Dylan and Ani's voices.

'Unlock it!' Dylan was yelling.

He sounded so close. But the door wouldn't move. I felt all over its edges – its hinges and handle.

'There's no lock here!' I was rattling at the handle when the strangling hands grabbed at me again. They were not pressing now – just holding me firmly. I froze. Hoping she might speak and even let me answer. Gradually I realised there was a noise, so low I couldn't make it out. A very low, forced voice, speaking words too quiet to hear. Not a woman's. Almost a man's but more like an animal's. The hands closed again, pressed deeper into my throat. I let my knees give way, trying to drop down and break free. But I was just hanging and choking and _she_ was too powerful.

_Shut up. Shut up_. An enraged growling right up close. With each syllable she jerked on my throat. _I... told... you... to... keep... quiet!_

'Indigo!' Banging on the door again. Blood banging hard in my head. The hands weren't pushing on my throat. My throat was swelling. Pressure was expanding my head to bursting. Black blots bloomed everywhere. My whole body was rigid. I was thinking – strangely calm – I'm actually dying and it's all over. I won't have to go with the follower. I can be free this way. Softly, I lifted off the ground, the sounds receding. Or was I plummeting down? Faster and faster, freer and freer.

It was all terribly clear in that inbetween space. I could stand and watch myself. Not quite in my body. Just as I'd been for all those days. Sand forced down my throat. But it wasn't sand, it was food. Something dry and old and near tasteless. I was choking on water, but I was drinking it too. I could feel the movement of my throat as I swallowed it, someone cradling my head. I was drifting numbly through the rooms in the darkness, as if sleep walking, and a little, bony hand was guiding me, resting on my arm. Not _him_ , my follower was long gone. I almost remembered it. He left when she came. She was the one who had dressed me, fed me, supported me like an infant. _You got to keep moving. You got to, or you die_. Her voice right into my head. _I was so confused for a while. I forgot. Forgot he had to eat. Forgot he had to keep moving. My little one. I didn't deserve him. But now I have you. And I'll look after you forever._

There was a thud and a crack. A burst of grey light.

'Leave her alone!' shouted Ani.

It was her voice that rocketed me back. I sucked in a breath. I was in my body. It hurt. My back was pressed against something very hard. I reached out my arms. They scrabbled at blank walls – or was it the floor? I couldn't tell which way was up. Something hard and hollow shifted under my fingers.

It was Ani's voice, coming from above me, that made me realise I was lying down. 'Get her out!' She sounded frightened.

I was lifted up. In the weak light I could see Ani and Dylan holding me. I stood there blinking at them, head and throat aching, trembling all over.

'Let's go,' said Dylan, sounding angry. 'This isn't helping at all.'

'Wait. There's something down here.' I pushed him off, went down on my knees, searching outward with my hands.

'Here,' I held it up. A tiny bone. I dropped it straight away.

Ani pushed past me and reached down into the corner. When she stood, I saw she was holding a small, delicate skull, both hands cupped around it – as if it were a bird and might fly away.

'Oh God,' said Dylan.

'Oh, he's a little boy!' cried Ani, as if startled. 'Oh, he's so little!'

'Put it down,' said Dylan.

****
Chapter 6. BURIED

tuesday, january 5

Dylan

There's usually some sort of recourse with a crime. An action that is the accepted response. It's a custom, or the law, or maybe (worst case scenario) you've seen it on some murder mystery TV show. You have an idea what to do. When you're dealing with the supernatural that sort of stuff doesn't exist. Not in any useful way.

Indigo said, quite simply and calmly that she was sure Lily was not a follower, but some sort of powerful ghost. She looked at me. 'Really powerful', she repeated, her fingertips skipping over her collarbone. That he had locked her up there under the stairs. (She didn't say who 'he' was, but it could only be Indigo's landlord – a man who'd always struck me as particularly likeable). That he had given away her baby. (Could she have had it here, in the house? Its birth as secret and hidden as her death?). And, as a ghost, she had somehow taken her child back. Her living child.

I was trying not to think about it too much, but Indigo was relentless.

'She didn't steal him. She brought him back. She just couldn't remember how to look after him,' she said, staring at the floor, as if seeing it all.

I looked at Ani, who simply nodded. We sat for a long time in silence. But it was not the strangeness that held us there. We were stuck. How do you respectfully return the remains of a child who's been killed by his dead mother? Is it even a crime? The most obvious answer was to put them a place where they were sure to be found. Fine in theory, but when it comes to actually planning, it feels terribly wrong. Bones really belong in the earth. Finding them above ground is bad enough, knowingly leaving them above ground in a public place was much harder.

The worst thing was we had to go downstairs again, to bring them up. Because we'd all left in a rush as soon as Ani put down the little skull. We burst out into the morning air – Indigo white and pretty near expressionless. And then we'd come straight upstairs, instead of going back. I told them they didn't have to come down again, but they wanted to. This time we had a powerful torch. Which only served to show us too much of what we didn't really want to see – all the complicated sinews and strings of a real body – not the bleached television version. Not supernatural. Just real and too detailed. Indigo and Ani stood wordlessly behind me, arms and hands entwined, suddenly like sisters.

Having the bones didn't help us to think much more clearly. We sat around the kitchen table again. Only now with the box between us. We talked about it for hours, until we were going round and round in circles and it was entirely dark outside. But that doesn't really express how it was.

I didn't ask Indigo exactly what had happened under the stairs. It didn't seem like the time, or maybe I didn't want to know. She kept holding her hand to her throat and I could see scratches there, becoming raised welts and an angry redness all around her neck. There were little red marks in the whites of her eyes too, but still she didn't say anything. She and I are the same like that. We have an instinct to cover over our injuries – go away and hide like a wounded animal until they heal over and we don't have to answer any questions. Suffice it to say – the ghost was material now. And strong. But there was a slim chance we had freed it the moment we found the child.

'I knew something good would happen today,' Ani said.

Indigo and I could only look at her.

'So what are we going to do?' said Indigo, at last. She'd asked many times, but we still had no answer. She put her hands flat on the table. 'If we handed in those bones, they would think it was me. I don't know what to do.'

'We could bury him in a cemetery,' I said, for about the fourth time. 'It's consecrated there.'

'But then his mother will never know. His living mother, I mean. She still won't know what happened to him.' Her hand was up at her throat again, toying with the St. Christopher. 'It must be so horrible for her.'

'It's not your fault, Indi,' I said.

'Let's bury him,' she said, without seeming to hear me. 'I can write Grace a letter.'

'What will you say?' asked Ani.

'That his real mother took him back, but she couldn't look after him properly. That she's so terribly sorry. That she buried him herself. We'll find a beautiful, distinctive tree. So he can be found.'

'You'll have to be very careful,' I said (feeling pretty sure neither of his mothers would give a damn what sort of tree it was). 'They can do amazing things with forensics these days. And once they've found the note – they'll start looking for Lily straight away. They might even trace her to the house and come to you that way.'

'Oh no,' said Ani, instantly. 'No one ever knew she was here. She ran away from her family to protect herself. She was already pregnant. Lily wasn't even her real name.'

'What was her real name?' I asked, putting aside the several other questions I had in mind (for example – _how long have you known all this, and why didn't you tell us?_ ).

'Sarah. I think. But she preferred Lily.' She smiled at me, infuriatingly. 'Don't be mad about it, Dylan – I'm just saying it as it comes to me.'

'Okay.'

She turned to Indigo. 'But definitely don't send a note. They'll find you.'

'It's nice of you to worry about me.' Indigo was talking kind of slowly. There was something a little creepy about it, like she was tranquilised. Her eyes were not really focused. 'But you can't really be sure what's right, Ani. Maybe if they catch me, I deserve it. Maybe I should just let the world decide.'

'You're kind of shocked right now,' said Ani, blowing serenely on her tea.

'I'm not going to let you get caught,' I added. I didn't like Indigo's fatalistic tone. It wasn't like her.

'No,' said Ani. 'There's still too much to be done.'

The strange outcome was the three of us walking down a near-black road, dressed in clothes we'd found downstairs, looking like some sort of feral family, carrying the remains of a little boy in a wooden box.

I was wearing a beanie – kind of ridiculous on a summer night – and Ani and Indigo layered in hippy dresses. I suppose they were her clothes. We'd taken them from the front room. I wasn't sure what we should do with them afterwards. Burn them maybe. Ani and Indigo had tight plaits and hats on – desperate that they wouldn't let any of their own hair fall close to the little box. Or, rather, I was desperate and they did what I suggested. Neither of them seemed very engaged with that sort of thing. Neither of them wanted to take the box. I carried it close to my chest feeling the scrape and shift of the hard, light objects inside. I wasn't horrified anymore. Just overwhelmed by the preciousness of what I was carrying. Wondering, was it possible that a woman could have such a hunger for her child that she could find a way to take shape again, just to carry him back to her? (If that was so, how had my living mother deposited me so lightly in another's arms?).

But there were more pressing questions that I kept asking over and over: were we covering up the murder of two people? And which is more important – that a guilty man is going free? Or that Indigo is released from the haunting and the ghost is perhaps unbound? I've always believed in judgment and retribution. I don't believe in the concept of karma. But I didn't think Indigo could be kept safe if the police traced the child to the house. If all the threads started to come together (not that all of them would be accepted, but Indigo provided the perfect link). I was not going to let her be taken, even if she didn't seem to care anymore.

The cemetery was a small one, twenty minutes from the city. I'd managed to resurrect my old Citroen, at least for the night and we had parked well away from the cemetery and were walking, ready at any moment to turn into a driveway at the sign of a car's lights in the distance. I suppose we were in a lot of danger. We couldn't really have explained ourselves if we were caught. Of course, the good thing about going to a cemetery at two a.m. on a Wednesday is that there's no one around to see you. The bad thing is, that if someone does see you, they're really going to take notice.

When we got there it was inky black and we had to move by starlight. Luckily, it was so clear and sharp-aired out there – despite the smoke – it really was possible to see by the stars. We found a big grevillea. I pulled its leaves through my hands a few times, trying to know if it was the right place. I looked at Ani and Indigo, mostly just blacker shapes in the darkness. I'd forgotten how noisy it was out of the city – the chirpings of insects and sudden crashings of small animals in the undergrowth. I pushed up my sleeves. Indigo handed me the shovel. I began to dig. I'm sorry but I don't want to talk about the rest.

Ani

I'm still not sure it's that helpful for me to write everything down. I have this way of going off-topic. But if you consider that everything's _one_ then maybe nothing's irrelevant? I know that Dylan and Indigo do it – keep journals. And after we buried the little one, Dylan asked me if I could too. For his history, or whatever it is. So maybe he didn't even mean this sort of thing? Personal reflections. Maybe he meant dates and times and paranormal descriptions. Well, I'm often not even sure what day it is, let alone what time. And as for 'paranormal' stuff – well I've got more to say about the everyday things, I think, plus the line's a bit blurry for me with what's normal and what's 'para'. But everything's connected, isn't it? So I'll just stop worrying about it.

I'm going to forget everything that happened the day before – all the bugs and bones and Indigo coughing and choking under the stairs. I'm sure Indigo and Dylan have that down just fine. So here we go. The next morning we all slept in and I totally missed my shift at the café. Well, maybe I could have thrown some clothes on and got lucky with a quick tram to Brunswick Street (or just running like hell), but there'd only be twenty minutes left anyway. I knew Justin wouldn't fire me because he was completely in love with me. He left me five messages, sure. But they were all pretty nice. I texted back – _sorry sick xx_. And I thought about the kisses for a moment. But I can't always be good. And if he was dumb enough to give his staff extra leeway because he fancied them, well, he was shooting himself in the foot.

Once we'd all crawled out of bed, Dylan took us out for lunch – at a swish place in the city – with drinks and everything. Which was really nice. Of course, I didn't have anything because I was fasting, but I still appreciated it. Indigo had a big scarf around her neck because of the marks and there were still those dark spots in her eyes. She had a weakness in her throat which was why she was always getting attacked there. She probably got tonsillitis a lot too. So no wonder Lily chose her. Both of their throats had been hurt. I'd seen Indigo's old scar there, pretty faint so it must have happened years ago, but I didn't ask her whether it was a spirit or a man that had done it. I knew it wasn't a girl, I got that much. It's a bit confusing, trying to read people when they're freaked out, or in love. And she was freaked out – poor thing – not to mention that the air between her and Dylan was constantly churned up like some sort of washing machine going full tilt.

It's not unusual. Humans are always messy to read. Not like spirits. Spirits are pure and direct. Until they become material anyway. Things are always more complicated when you can touch them. It's the opposite of what most people think. Dylan was just as hard to read as Indigo. But there was a kind of dark image looping in his mind – I got that. And it was getting fed from something dark in his past. I don't like to pry. He doesn't pry either. He didn't make a fuss about me not eating. Which most people would if they were treating you to a meal. It was good, because if he'd asked I would have just come out and said – because I need to be _pure_ for tonight. They already thought I was a bit nuts. I wasn't kidding myself. That would just clinch it.

So I went downstairs alone that night. I wasn't afraid, if you're wondering. Are those guys you call up when there's a snake in your garden afraid? Just cautious really. I went through all the rooms and cleaned them. I called on the four directions. East was a complete no-show. Which was not good. But it would have to be good enough. I spent a lot of time under the stairs. There were very bad things there. I cleared as much as I could. I wasn't sure if Dylan would approve – I had no idea whether he was _that_ sort of Christian. I just knew he wore a little cross hidden under his shirt sometimes, and that Indigo wore a St Christopher medal that he'd given her. Well, it wasn't like I was calling on Hekate or anything, (because who really knows what she actually is, anyway??). It was safer to keep things vague – to call on white light and stuff. I learnt that the hard way, a long time ago.

It took almost four hours. I'm really very careful with these things. Whenever I clear a house for anyone they always comment on how thorough I am. Didn't usually take four hours though. And I wasn't totally happy with the result. I reckon I would need a whole coven for that – and every member would have to be pure of heart (or as close as is humanly possible these days). It was especially hard to do it alone because I hadn't had much sleep the last few nights.

It wasn't just the spiritual stuff. I was checking my email every hour. Forcing myself to actually wait an hour, partly for my mental wellbeing and partly because Indigo's computer lived in the kitchen and Dylan gave me a look every time he noticed me at it. Just to let me know he realised that something was up. It was none of his business, the fact that _she_ was slowly grinding my heart under her boot. Just by doing absolutely nothing. I already knew she wasn't planning to send me an email, or text, or turn up on the doorstep ever again. After about the third check that morning he said, 'Ani?'

So I said 'yes' and sent him a psychic, pre-emptive _shut-the-fuck-up_.

'Do you think she's really gone?'

It took me a few seconds to work out he wasn't talking about Penny.

'Yep, I reckon.'

'What about him?'

'The follower thing? Oh yes, _that's_ still around. You won't clear _that_ in a hurry.'

He wasn't at all surprised. 'What should we do?'

'We can't do a thing. Just leave it to Indigo. Why can't you stop thinking about it for five seconds? Take a break.'

It seemed he couldn't figure out if I was joking or not. He gave me a really long look, like he could see right into my brain if he only looked hard enough. He had very grey eyes.

I have this system I call the 1-2-3 system. It might sound dumb at first, but it works. Something you say is 1. The person hearing it and what it makes them think is 2. And 3 is what happens as a consequence of all that. It might sound dumb, but let me tell you, before the 1-2-3 system I was always causing crazy things to happen. Like I probably would have said straight out to Dylan – Look, if Indigo just isn't that into you (and let's face it, it doesn't look good), I'd be really happy to sleep with you at least a couple of times – no strings at all. Let's start right now. Let's just enjoy being alive for twenty minutes or so. That's an example of number 1 in the system. And it would seem pretty okay, because he was miserable about Indigo and I was dumped. And he was deserving something nice in his life and so was I. And I just plain liked the look of him. Plus he had this kind of thousand-yard-stare thing going now and again, which made me feel like he was looking right through me and into the heart of something super important – like disconnected from the real world but seeing something serious in the even realer world – which is just how I feel a lot of the time. And it gives me a little frisson every time he does it (which is French for shiver, by the way). But then, just as I'm about to open my mouth and cheer him up (with me as consolation prize – which has never failed to cheer anyone up in the past, let me tell you), in comes the 2-3 part. Well, being so unhappy, he might say yes straight away (that's the 2). And I just couldn't let that opportunity pass (who would?). Which leads to 3. He grabs me right that instant and we have possibly the best sex of all time right there in the kitchen. Sounds promising, right? But two problems. It might turn out Indigo actually does like him and is just too freaked out to do much about it at the current moment. In which case I've just been like the one that turns something beautiful into messy ickiness. The karma is terrible. And the other problem – he's so hung up on Indigo, he couldn't forget it, even for an instant. And every time you sleep with someone you like, who's pining for someone else, it takes a little part of your spirit away. Literally. So before you know it, you can find quite a big chunk missing. And that stuff's gonna take years of spiritual rebuilding, let me tell you. Anyway, that's my system, and it's why I don't talk half so much as I used to.

It took me only a moment to 1-2-3 that scenario and work out a lecture would be a safer bet for the time being.

'You can't spend your whole life worrying about her,' I told him. 'She's getting exactly what she asked for, you know.'

'Well, you're right. I guess girls like getting followed by strange men.'

It didn't take a genius to work out he was being sarcastic, even though he used a thoughtful kind of voice – like I'd given him some kind of gem of an insight. It amazed me he could spend so much time researching this stuff and still not have the absolute basics. Kind of like an aeronautical engineer who can't fix a fridge. I just decided to come right out and explain it.

'You know, you can definitely be the victim of another person – not your fault at all – but you can't be the victim of a spirit. They only come in when you let them. So if they come in, you've only got yourself to blame. And only you can get rid of them. It's your responsibility in the long run. That's my philosophy anyway.'

'It's a fairly austere one.'

'If you mean it's harsh, then I don't think so. It's just true. So give yourself a break and get some air.' I snapped shut the lap-top, thinking maybe I should take my own advice. Because the more he glared at me, the more I wondered how quickly step 1 and 2 might improve his outlook and the more I had to focus on step 3 in order to get myself to just shut up and toe the line. But then he pretty much took care of everything with his attitude.

'Who's not emailing you?' he asked, and not in a very nice way.

Well, I don't have to take that. I just got up and left. I wasn't really that angry with him. People get grumpy in these kinds of situations. But I really hope he didn't think I was being mean about Indigo. Cause I knew what it was like to just let stuff in. Sometimes it happens when you think you've done something hugely wrong and don't deserve to say 'no' to any punishment that might ever come your way. And other times it happens cause you feel like you've done something just a tiny bit wrong every single day of your life. For example, when your parents think that the one thing you're good at is something so bad it shouldn't even exist, let alone be mentioned. That's what happened to me, by the way. Because my mum had an old lady standing behind her shoulder since I could remember and sometimes I forgot to pretend I couldn't see her.

Anyway, I was on Indigo's side because I'd had a lot of problems protecting myself from all sorts of things, but particularly guys, and spirits from the lower levels. You know, from the _other_ plane, in the places where all the dark ones hang out. In my dreams it kind of looked like an underground, concrete bunker. I call them dreams, but they were visions rather than dreams. I wasn't always asleep when I had them. Down there it was pretty dim and damp with long corridors and bad flickering lights. Even my guardian spirit didn't like it when I went down there – and he was a little on the dark side himself. Another example of me letting the wrong thing into my life. (I hadn't realized that just because some jerk's fond of you, you don't have to hang out with him. Hence my early problems in the dating world, which I won't even mention here.) It's okay though, because I learnt to surround myself with mosquito netting and they can't get through that easily. It's a visualisation, of course. I'm not crazy. And after that my first 'guardian' seemed to lose interest and my new guardian turned up in the shape of a border. She was always showing up in the middle of nightmares and doing useful things like squishing spiders with her sweet, long nose, and asking to play ball in the middle of really bad vibe dreams – so I would end up just about laughing and forgetting to be scared at all. I called her Gyp. Because it was a good dog name. And I didn't think she'd be offended, since she chose a dog shape in the first place.

This all seems off-topic but it's absolutely not. Because Indigo urgently needed to work on her visualisations. And maybe get a Gyp of her own. Just for starters. It wouldn't get rid of her follower, but it could give her some breathing space. And she would probably go a bit loopy if she didn't get some breathing space soon. For all I knew, she already had – she kept her door shut most of the time. I didn't know how to tell her that. About the ways to protect herself. We weren't close. And if I explained about the mosquito net she'd probably stop talking to me forever. People have to work out this stuff for themselves. She'd listen to Dylan if _he_ told her. But the chances of convincing him were even lower. I would have to think of exactly the right thing to say and he would have to be in a very open minded place. I wasn't sure he even had an open minded place. To be fair, I didn't know much about him. He and Indigo were both really hard to get to know. Like they were in some cool club, full of doomph-doomph music, and forgot to put my name on the door. Which didn't bother me. Because there were plenty of clubs I could sail right into. Still, it's nicer to be liked.

I'm not being a big, sniffly girl, Dylan. If you're reading this (and I bet you are). It's just a plain fact. It would be easier if we were all good friends and could talk freely about everything. And though I might 1-2-3 everything in the moment – when I finally give this to you (when it's all over) I don't think any of it should need the 1-2-3 treatment by then. It will all be in the past, right? And you'll either have found a way to be with Indigo or you'll be consoling yourself with me. So why spare you stuff that might turn out to be totally relevant? A journal's a journal. Plus spirits and things usually show themselves in our feelings. So our emotions are totally valid bits of evidence. And I suspect even you're recording your feelings too, because you know that it's at the heart of it all. Not science. Not in the way you mean science anyway. So, there you go. If you don't like what I'm writing (which you definitely won't if something bad happens to Indigo) then you're just going to have to live with it. This is my version and I'm going to tell the absolute truth.

Anyway, once I'd walked off on Dylan I started to feel bad about saying it was all totally up to Indigo. I started to think maybe I should get off my metaphorical arse and actually try to do something. Maybe a bit of a mistake. But it's like those snake guys. Eventually they get a bit casual about it and that's exactly when they get bitten – snap! Right on the face. And then they get like necrosis or something and part of their face kind of drops off. Okay, that's not what actually happens to me – my point is that really bad stuff can happen from a little error in judgment.

So this is what I did. I went back to the kitchen to get some salt (Dylan wasn't there anymore) and then I locked myself in my room. I opened the window because I didn't want to feel trapped. I made a big circle of the salt and sat down in the middle.

'Follower,' I said, straight out, because there's no point beating around the bush. 'Follower, I'm waiting for you to come and talk to me. It's Ani, Anna's daughter, who's asking. And don't even think about making trouble because I'm surrounded by a line of white fire that you can't possibly cross. And Gyp's here too and she'll bite you if you even look at me the wrong way.' I added that last part on the spur of the moment. I didn't really know if she was there, but I though she might at least prick up her ears when she heard her name and then maybe come running if there was trouble, just like a real dog. There was a bit of a silence after that but my hands were tingling, which was a good sign.

'I'm talking to the one who's attached to Indigo. Come and make yourself appear. Answer all my questions and do everything I say. Now, now! Quickly, quickly!'

I waited a really long time. It didn't turn up. Technically, they don't have to show when you call them. But they're usually so curious they can't help it. Not this one. I had to give up.

So you can imagine how surprised I was when I found the little note. It was about an hour later. I'd just been kicking back on the balcony, reading a magazine, because it really was a nice, warm evening. And why waste it? So I went in to get a glass of water and just as I was leaving the kitchen I noticed something. Two tins of tomatoes were sitting on the middle of the table, which was unusual but not really scary so much. But wedged very neatly between them was a little piece of paper, folded up lots of times. I unfolded it – there was a kind of weird, messy writing on it. It was in green biro and I knew there was an old green biro in the kitchen drawer. Plus the note paper was scrap from the kitchen drawer too. Just thought that might be of scientific interest. Anyway, _Dear Anianna_ , it started. Which I guess is close enough.

Dear Anianna You have another Spirits name on your Body so just wait in your Turn.

I just stood there for a pretty long time. And I'm not ashamed to say my hand was shaking a little bit. Just because I wasn't quite expecting it. There was a signature underneath. A kind of backward squiggle. Well, that's when I started to wonder if the follower might actually be a demon. Because demons love to sign stuff and write things out. I've got no idea why. Just cause they can maybe. I had a feeling it wasn't though. Whatever it was, it had given me a bit of a scare – like a snake flicking out at my face. Actually, I was so mad I grabbed the first thing I found – an old pencil stub – and wrote underneath, in capital letters: DIDN'T ASK FOR YOUR OPINION. Childish maybe, but it just burst out of me.

I guess I'm writing this journal to an imaginary person, someone kind of sympathetic but not personally involved, but I know it's likely Dylan's going to be reading it in real life. So don't get mad I didn't tell you about any of this, Dylan. It's not relevant to Indigo. It's just the follower's way of saying – back off and don't try to call me again. And the message? Well, spirits don't usually make stuff up. They might twist it around and even get confused, but they don't generally out and out lie. So there was probably some trouble on the horizon for me. Maybe twenty years away, maybe in five minutes – who knows? Spirits don't have much of a concept of time. For all I knew it was trying to be helpful. A spirit's idea of what's threatening is a bit different to ours. On the other hand maybe it really meant to scare me – keep interfering and I'll take you before your turn – sort of thing. It was hard to be sure. I didn't try to call it again. I kept the letter though and I'm sticking it in my journal (in an envelope, so I don't have to read it every other day). Because it's perfect for Dylan's history. My rambling's might not be appreciated, but that letter's absolute gold as far as 'paranormal' evidence goes. And as for the other one it threatened me with, the one with its name all over my body? Well, I don't see anyone's name on me. I'm not fond of getting nasty letters from the spirit world, but I do have nerves of steel. So I say bring it on, follower – or whatever you are. There are three of us here now. And we may not be the best of friends, but we're definitely all on the same side. So it's three against one. Oh it might not mean much to you, and I know you could take her at any moment. But I definitely like the way it sounds. Three against one.

thursday, january 7

Dylan

I often woke up to see one or other of them standing in the kitchen. Ani generally in next to nothing (she apparently had no shame – which was refreshing, to say the least). She always seemed to be up at five past three in the morning. I noticed it on the microwave light. She would open the fridge, letting out a long angle of light, and go rustling around selecting things to take back to her room. At first I thought she didn't know I was awake, but one night, without turning around, she said, a little crossly, 'Weren't there still some carrots left after that salad?' Sometimes Indigo would pad in wearing a big old t-shirt, quietly getting a glass of water, assuming I was sleeping. All in all it was reasonably often I'd wake up to find someone else in the room.

This time it was a little different because it was almost dawn but there was moonlight shining through the window and Indigo's slip was glowing white around the edges. She had turned the tap on and it was just running and running, very bright in the moonlight. Which was strange because we had water restrictions and she was pretty fanatical about them generally. I just lay there for a while because I wasn't quite sure if it was a dream. Slowly she turned off the tap and put down her empty glass, just staring at the wall.

'Indigo,' I said, when it had gone on for a long time.

She jumped. 'Oh, you're awake,' she whispered. I couldn't see her face, just little wisps of light glinting from her hair.

'Can't you sleep?' I sat up. Something was bothering me. She was facing me now, and all I could see of her dress was a film of light between her knees and thighs. It was starting to dawn on me.

'Why are you wearing that?' I asked.

Her face was completely hidden. 'I don't know. It's hot and the fabric feels cold.'

'You were wearing that when I found you.'

'I know.'

She couldn't seem to fathom what the problem was. I changed tack.

'Can't you sleep?'

'Yes, but... I'm dreaming a lot.'

'About what?'

There was a tiny pause. 'Not sure.'

I could tell she was lying. She wasn't even really trying that hard. She turned the water on again and filled her glass.

'Indigo, if I asked you something very directly would you answer me?'

She had become very still. 'Of, course,' she said, after just a few beats of silence.

'What have you been dreaming exactly?'

She seemed to stay entirely still, but there was a trembling of light around her skirt as if she were shaking just a little, all over.

'Don't ask me,' she said.

'Too late,' I said, forcing my voice to be light.

She paused as if searching for the right words. 'He's still telling me to go downstairs.'

'By 'he' I suppose you mean 'it'?' I wished I could see her face in the dark. 'Come and sit here, I can't see you.'

She remained separate, crossing her arms over her stomach. 'He's asking me a hundred questions about the little child. Over and over again – like a fever dream. '

'Perhaps it is a fever. Come here and let me see.'

'No. It's not a fever it's him. He stands over the bed and asks and asks and as soon as I finish answering one question he's already onto the next one. Or repeating the first.'

'You think he's really there?' I stood up.

'Really in my dream. In the last one he was sitting beside me, holding the little box.' Her voice changed a little, became even lower and softer. ' _Indigo – why did you put it in here? Do you want to hide it? From whom? Why did you put it in a box?_ '

I moved toward her, but she moved back to the same degree.

'I'm sure it's finished now. I can't dream it all night.'

I gave up and watched her drift toward the door. 'Before you go, tell me again – why are you wearing that?'

Her voice was a little sharper. 'I told you, I don't know.'

As soon as she left I turned on the light and sat down with my head in my hands for a moment. I was draggingly tired, but I knew I wouldn't sleep at all now.

****
Chapter 7. NOT YET

thursday, january 7

Indigo

Some people might say that knowing is better than not knowing. But for me, found and buried was worse. It took away all doubt. There was evidence now. Of what I'd allowed to happen. Everything looked a bit different that next day. Too clear. Like changing the settings on a photo. If you sharpen things a little they look more real – but if you push it too far it becomes over-focused, hard-edged and strange. Sounds were different too. It was like hearing everything a few seconds after it happened.

And I kept wondering, if the follower did want to help me, as I was starting to secretly hope – why had it sent me down there again? It had freed the ghost. But it had put all the weight on me. The weight of knowing everything. And now I felt like a haunt myself. Not real anymore. Or too real. It was all the same.

So I slept badly. The night after we buried the child. When I finally woke up I peeled off the slip and flung it away from me. I wasn't even sure where I'd found it in the confusion of my dreams. It had seemed the coolest thing to wear in the heavy heat. Well, I was hardly going to sleep naked with the windows open and my dreams of someone hanging over my bed. Though what help a thin film of fabric might offer, I'm not sure.

Ani was getting ready for work and somehow talked me into going with her. I'm not sure how. It was still all a bit of a blur. There she sat me down and plied me with copious coffees under the watchful but apparently helpless eyes of her manager. I told her about the dreams, about the questioning, about the half-formed thought in my mind that it was trying to help, to show me something, just like a ghost. That I needed to understand it.

'I don't think so,' said Ani, instantly. 'There's some stuff in life you actually don't want to know about.' She shot a number of questions at me, between serving an apparently endless flow of breakfasts. 'How are you going to protect yourself?'

It was irrelevant because I was always exposed.

'Why don't you let me help?'

I wasn't even sure I was stopping her from helping. Wasn't sure what she could do anyway.

'You're kind of becoming a ghost, right?' This with a macchiato in one hand and a latte in the other, and the impatient eyes of the next table on her.

By this time I was so full of coffee I'd almost reached an altered state of consciousness and seemed to be finished with the processing of each thought before it had fully formed in my mind. Her strange and sudden questions were starting to wash over me, while my own thoughts were running on and on. I was a detective of some sort, not a hunter. I let others take over, but there was no one to take over now. I had to find out more, to get rid of it. Had to get closer before I could move away. My response to all mysteries eventually was to leap in, confront, flee. But fleeing wouldn't work this time. The ideas kept flying around, crystal clear but meaningless, because they were all whirling together. But through the confusion of Ani's conversation, dissected by her ambivalent coffee serving, a clearer idea was trying to surface. Avoidance made everything take longer. And so I would have to stop avoiding. Would have to keep seeking and asking until I was certain.

Ani was right. It was good for me to be out. Once I'd made a decision about what to do, I found myself having the strange realisation that not everyone around me was being shadowed by ghosts or supernatural beings. That some really were quite concerned that their coffee milk had been overheated – and that this was a serious blip on their otherwise pleasant day. People were shopping for clothes and walking dogs and unexpectedly running into each other with huge displays of hugging and kissing and laughing. And many were interpreting the sun as the sign of a beautiful evening to come, rather than an unrelenting and oppressive force that was hurting their eyes and their brain. Evening beckoned, with sausages and beer and assorted dips in shady gardens with the bass of a live band nearby and an incredibly pink sun sinking into the smoke haze. And later would be the spectacle of the fruit bats flying overhead in the twilight and the magical power of beer to create camaraderie with the most unlikeable of people. And I might eventually be one of them (impossible as it currently seemed). Well, I was not one of them yet, but I had the growing sense that I wanted to be.

'I'd just like it all to be over,' I said to Ani, but she was finally in café mode, whisking past so quickly she couldn't have heard me.

I walked home slowly under my unreliable umbrella – the glue of the handle melting in the heat, which gave me the feeling it must be around forty Celsius and possibly inching higher. Eventually the whole handle just slid off and I put it in my bag and kept walking.

Dylan was in the relative cool of the house, typing at the kitchen table. He used to edit government reports from time to time and I had the feeling he might be doing something like that, due to his deep frown and the plunger of mostly drunk coffee beside him.

'Hot out?' he asked, without looking around. I slumped onto the couch.

'When's the change coming?'

He kept typing. 'They're saying it's just going to get overcast, maybe some storms around. No rain really. Wind. Bushfire weather.'

'So when is it going to rain?' I asked, plaintively, as if it were up to him. I had an idea I would think more clearly if it would just cool down ten degrees or so.

'The Bureau is silent on that point.'

He meant the Bureau of Meteorology, which we generally had bookmarked on our computers as a matter of high priority throughout the summer. And which I would usually be checking regularly on a forty degree day, (it's thirty-nine point three now... forty point five... the change is over Geelong... etc), but now I just didn't have the enterprising spirit for it.

I stayed there for a while, listening to the soothing tapping of the keys but I had the feeling that Dylan was unhappy with me so I went down to the landing of the stairs. I stretched out, convincing myself it was noticeably cooler there – at the lowest point of the house. At least, the lowest point that was not infused with evil. I laughed at that thought and then wondered if I might be getting heatstroke. Ani found me there a couple of hours later. I must have fallen asleep. But at least I didn't dream of _him_. I woke up to see her standing over me, looking even taller than usual from that angle.

'You should come to St Kilda with us. Everyone from work's coming. Fish and chips and beer on the beach.'

'Too life-be-in-it,' I said, flinging my arm over my eyes. 'I'm going to bed anyway.'

She stepped over me. 'Well, I'm taking you out again tomorrow. You need to get out.'

She was gone only briefly and came back with a towel over one arm. She put a glass of cold water beside me, like an offering.

'Isn't the house nice now?' she called, like an afterthought, and shut the front door behind her.

I wasn't completely sure what she meant.

'Have you been on the stairs this whole time?' asked Dylan, who always seemed offended by my misuse of furniture and architecture. (For example, I always like to sit on the back of the couch, which he thought ridiculous). He looked down the stairs at me, clearly disapproving.

'It's cooler here.'

'Don't you find it...' he looked towards the covered stairs, so close my hand kept brushing accidentally against the wood.

'There's nothing bad down there now. There's just...' I thought about it, allowing the back of my hand to brush against the nail heads. '... Answers.'

He didn't answer and it was a sign of how tired I was that even with him looking down on me disapprovingly my eyes just seemed to shut and I was asleep straight away.

friday, january 8

Indigo

I don't like to put things off. That doesn't mean I'm not scared. It just means that sometimes short-term terror is better than gradually being worn out from looking over your shoulder. In fact it's probably fear that launches me into danger. The fear of being taken unawares. But although I intended to take action straight away, I seemed to have some sort of sleeping sickness. I got up from the landing and went to my room. I slept all the way through to the next morning. I couldn't really say what I dreamed about. Just that I woke up aching all over. It was as if I'd been running all night. And I felt like everything was a bit out of focus. Maybe I was getting the flu. I didn't even get up that early. By the time I went to the kitchen, Dylan was already up and had finished his breakfast. He poured me a coffee, without speaking. I drank it, but it might as well have been water. I couldn't taste anything. I saw Dylan's mouth moving – but his words only came to me very slowly.

'I said – more coffee?' he repeated.

'Where's Ani?' My voice seemed all stopped up with cotton wool.

'At work already. It's late. Are you okay?'

I thought about it for a while. Whether to tell him about what I was planning. I knew he would not be a fan. But he was rarely a fan of anything I did. 'I've got to go down there again.'

I'm not sure if he said anything. He probably did. But I was numb as I walked out. The terror thing, I suppose. Maybe Lily was gone. But I couldn't forget the hands around my throat. Didn't want to go down there. But absolutely had to. Waiting was unbearable.

He caught up with me pretty fast, but there was nothing he could really say to stop me. I wasn't even sure if he was speaking. I was drifting through some sort of dreamy underwater world. It was only when I was standing in the front room that I came back to myself. I realised I had bare feet and the carpet felt kind of unpleasant, dirty and dry from years of dust. I looked through the door. I saw the shadowy inner passageway, the diagonal line of the stairs and the bars of the balustrade, marching up to the blank ending where the landing should be. And, right ahead of me, the little doorway. The little, black space under the stairs.

'Dylan?' I asked, disconnected from my own voice. Not sure yet what I was going to say.

'What?' He was standing right behind me but I didn't turn around, couldn't turn my back on the stairs.

'Why did you kiss me?'

There was a bit of a silence.

'It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.'

His tone made it quite clear that it had not been the right thing at all. And I would have to agree in terms of the general levels of awkwardness. I wasn't even sure why I'd asked him about it at such a stupid moment. Things just seemed to be happening without my really planning them. I chose not to look him in the eye. I took a bit of a breath to focus myself. I went forward and for some reason turned right, deeper into the house, into the living room (holding my breath as I passed the door under the stairs, not liking that it was ajar because I knew we'd shut it when we left). I'd never been in the lounge room. At least, not in any waking state. The blinds fitted so close to the windows, only the tiniest of seams of light were left, which really just made the room seem darker in comparison.

'Let's get this over with,' Dylan said, moving past me. He flicked the light switch a few times but nothing happened. 'It's no good you being down here.'

My heart sank a little lower. Because I knew why he had kissed me. I could hear it in his voice even now. He wanted to help. And he meant it kindly, I was sure. He had seen I was stuck, unable to even see the outside world anymore. He had tried to shock me out of it, stop me in my downward plunge. In a way it was a classic Dylan manoeuvre. He was always focused on the problem at hand and, though I thought of myself as reasonably tough, he was forever steamrolling over me, eyes on the greater good.

'Yes,' I murmured. 'I suppose that's my problem. I can't think of anything else. I'm stuck in a loop.'

He was moving forward to open one of the blinds and didn't seem to be listening to my nonsensical murmuring. I'd pretty much forgotten where I was for the moment.

'Are you coming?' He gave up on the blinds, they were jammed shut. It was difficult to make anything out, but I could see there were no boxes in here, just some chairs and a couch, with cushions flung across them as if they were still in use. Or as if someone had stopped using them very suddenly and never come back to them.

'Stay close to me,' Dylan said, but I couldn't quite make out his expression in the gloom.

We moved right through the lounge room and into the kitchen. It was much lighter. There was a high, dusty window, showing a curve of the outer stairs, so I knew we were right under one end of my bedroom. I went to the cupboard, looked at the jars of old flour and webby grains. They didn't seem at all marked. If Lily had fed me from them, she'd left no trace. But why would a spirit leave physical signs, anyway? I touched my throat as I thought about it, aware of the bruises that Dylan and Ani were too polite to mention – that is, after their (ignored) suggestions that I should see a doctor. And the little burst blood vessels still in my eyes. It was clear that Lily was perfectly able to leave marks. Or had been.

'There's nothing here anymore,' I said, drawing a line through the dust with my fingertip. 'Nothing downstairs. Doesn't it feel like that? Now that the little bones are gone.'

He didn't answer.

In my mind I was seeing Dylan. Just the shadow of him against the sky. He'd dug a really deep hole, breathing hard, unspeaking. We were going to take turns, but once he started it, it was like he couldn't stop.

'Maybe she's with him now,' I said. But I didn't mean in an afterlife. I saw her standing over his bones at that cemetery, watching over him still. Too engulfed in guilt to ever leave. I'm not sure exactly what happened then. It was as if the front and back doors had opened all at once and a huge wind rushed through. When I turned around I realised that Dylan wasn't standing there. In fact, I didn't feel like he was anywhere near. I ran into the lounge room and then I stopped. Because I knew _someone_ was there. Between me and the doorway. And I suppose I realised that I'd called it to me. The painful little twist in my heart. That thought of the child and the spot of overturned earth. Maybe it was like a flash of light in its grey world.

The room seemed even darker than it should be. So I couldn't say how I knew _it_ was there. I felt it blocking me in. I listened and listened. Nothing. Then a flash, so bright it ached. I scrunched my eyes shut then opened them again. Another couple of quick flashes, a tinny popping sound, and then the light was burning above, the bulb blinding for a moment. But I wasn't shutting my eyes, because _it_ was there. It was there and much too close to me. I threw myself back, blinking hard.

'Indigo,' it whispered, long and drawn out. I scrambled back and almost fell onto an old green couch. I couldn't see it straight on. Like when you're looking at something in the dark and you see it more clearly when you look to one side. Only there was no way I was going to look away for a second. I couldn't get a grip on how close it was but I could see that Dylan was definitely gone.

'Why are you following me?' I had no control over my voice.

'In-di ...' it said. I was starting to hate the sound of my own name.

'I don't need you,' I answered.

It was drifting closer. Though not walking, not drifting really, just becoming blurrily closer.

'In-di-go,' it said, with the same drawn-out thrill as before.

Stuck in a loop, I thought. And the horrible possibility was still there. That it was a ghost. Not a helping or a sad ghost, but a hungry, grasping ghost – feeding off my fear and everything bad that was in me. Making more as it fed.

I was edging away around the room until I'd backed into the hard rim of the mantelpiece and there wasn't any further for me to go. It was still right before me, no matter where I went.

'Why did you send me down here?' I whispered.

It was right up in front of me, breathing blank air into my face. It reached out very slowly.

'You wanted to ...'

'No!' I said, panicking. 'Not yet!'

There was a loud sound. Like a thud and a crack all at once. It fell to one side. But it was gone before it reached the ground. I saw her for an instant. Ani, holding a plank across her shoulder, on the backward swing. Then the bulb popped and flickered off. We were alone in the room. I felt a lightness in my entire body. I couldn't tell if it was shock or joy. It seemed that she was a bit shocked herself, because she took a moment to say anything.

'I thought I'd try hitting it,' she sounded surprised at her own daring. 'Dylan's been fantasizing about it for ages.'

I laughed. I couldn't help it.

'I know you're trying to do the right thing,' she said, moving closer, eyes dark smudges. 'But you have to believe what you're saying a hundred percent.'

'What can I do? It keeps coming to me.' I'm not ashamed to admit it, there was a kind of hysterical edge to my voice. 'Will you hit it with a plank every time it comes?' I was laughing a little bit, but it was mostly at the thought of Ani lining it up like a golfer. It was only when Dylan appeared in the doorway that I remembered he was missing.

'Is everything okay?' he asked, out of breath.

It still seemed humorous. 'Ani hit it with the plank.'

'Why are you laughing?'

'I think her brain's broken,' said Ani, but it sounded like she was smiling.

'And that's funny how?' Dylan's disapproving voice seemed strangely comical. I had to put both hands over my mouth.

'It's getting too close,' he said. 'We can't protect you forever.'

I sobered up quite quickly at this. Despair was threatening again and I was starting to wonder why I had panicked. The whole reason for going down there had been to try to talk to it. Or something like that. I couldn't actually remember my exact reasoning. In fact, it was possible it didn't have much to do with reason at all. I was having the faintest feeling of clarity.

'I think I need to stay away from here.' I said.

'Really?' asked Dylan. He had two settings when he was angry: silence or sarcasm. Silence was the worst, so I suppose he was taking it all quite well. I was glad I couldn't see his face though.

'Or perhaps you could move in down here, and meditate on that dead child day and night?' he suggested.

'Shush!' Ani said, quickly. 'Don't talk about it.'

'Why not?'

She shook her head. 'Don't know. Just feels bad suddenly.'

There was a pause and I could tell he was considering what she had said. I looked around the room, half expecting something else to happen but everything was absolutely still.

'Let's take a vote,' he said, after a while. 'I move that we get out of here now and don't ever come down here again. Ani?'

'Definitely. Not until Sunday anyway.' She took a moment to realize we were waiting for more. 'Things will be different on Sunday.'

'Because?' prompted Dylan.

She flung the plank away. 'Don't know yet. Let's get out of here.'

The moment we got out I took in a big gulp of air. A few gulps of air actually. They were both walking ahead of me, but stopped to wait. The lightness was definitely gone and a sense of dread was falling. I walked past the blinded windows and tried not to look into them. I couldn't trust myself not to see something in those reflections. The follower standing right behind my shoulder, for example. Dylan brushed me gently with his hand as I passed him and I jumped, jolted through with fear.

'Come on,' said Ani, coming back for me. 'Come up and have a huge glass of wine.' She reached out to take my hand and we walked up the stairs that way, even though it took us possibly twice as long. She drew me into the passageway and it struck me how much better I felt in the second story of the house. As if downstairs was a different world altogether.

'You just need a break from it all,' she said. 'It's that simple.'

'You'd better make it a bottle then,' I replied. 'And some alprazolam while you're at it.'

Dylan made a half amused, half derisive noise behind me but Ani just frowned.

'How will you protect yourself if you're not even in this world?' she demanded.

She always managed to say the most unsettling thing possible.

saturday january 10

Indigo

Dylan had some wine in the fridge. It was a habit of his, to always have something chilled, as if an impromptu dinner party might break out at any moment. I watched him pour it, a little hungrily. I wasn't about to let it sit, so it was too cold – a golden dew broke out on the glass straight away. I put my hands around it, cold as it was. It had a summer smell of fruit. Reminding me of summers I had actually enjoyed.

'So where do you think you'll go?' asked Ani. 'I mean if it takes you?'

She said it as if she was asking about my holiday plans. Dylan looked as if he thought it in bad taste, but I suppose it was a fair enough question.

'Lost time.' I still felt a little strange talking about it. 'I started to remember things about being down there. About Lily. But I never remembered anything about _it_. So I suppose in the beginning it was a kind of nothing. Like being dead.'

'Being dead's not nothing,' said Ani, straight away. She took a deep draught of wine as if preparing to launch into an explanation, but Dylan spoke first.

'Perhaps it's just your memory that's wiped.'

This was not a pleasant idea at all.

'Oh, yes,' said Ani, enthused. 'You might have been gone for years... but in another world. You know, on another plane of existence.'

'Well that's just nuts,' said Dylan.

She give him an annoyed look, but I thought there was some affection in it too. Which made me wonder. He certainly gave no sign of being fond of her in any way. Not that it was anything to me. It would just be absolutely the last straw, that's all.

Ani knocked back her second glass in a few gulps. 'I have to go and wash myself,' she said, picking up the bottle. 'Your follower's given me the heebie-jeebies. I'm spidery all over.'

'It's not _my_ follower.'

She poured me a fresh glass without answering, then she left. I sipped at the wine. I'm not sure it was making me feel any better. It was perhaps making my muscles relax a little, but I'd been so tensed up for so long it was only causing them to ache. We sat silently for a while. Dylan hadn't touched his drink. I was trying to come up with a way of saying what I was really thinking. But in the end there was no positive spin I could put on it, so I just came right out with it.

'In a way it was easier when I didn't exist.'

Silence.

I tried to explain. 'I know there wasn't anything good, but there wasn't anything bad either.' I could tell he was watching me, but didn't want to look at him or I'd lose my nerve. 'I suppose that's why I can't quite get rid of it.' I would never have said it to Ani. But, she apparently already knew. That I couldn't send it away.

I met Dylan's eye and he was giving me a pretty dark look. Big surprise. But I was simply telling the truth.

'I'm going for a walk,' I said. 'I just need to get out of the house. It's like there's no air in here.' I got up and left him.

The sun was high and still reddened by the smoke of distant fires. There definitely were bushfires now. I was not so cut off from the media that I could miss that. But it all seemed like a million miles away. I was lost in my own haze. It had been drifting down then lifting for days. Well, ever since they found me, to be completely truthful. An altered state where everything seemed clearer but the actual world was strange. I felt I could see all the answers suddenly just ahead of me, could almost grasp the meaning of the follower's presence. If I could just follow it a little further, like a will-o'-the-wisp, I just might be able to understand it all. It was a seductive dream logic that a tiny part of me recognised as fatally misleading but still couldn't resist.

I walked up the centre of the laneway, arms stretched out to either side for balance. The road seemed to sway and dip anyway. The whole world appeared to be at sea. I'm not sure how I eventually crossed the streets. I don't remember doing it. I was trying not to think of Dylan's face. I suppose I'd said the wrong thing to him. But it was the truth. Nothingness had been easier.

The park was saturated green and I sank down into the grass, feeling the prickle of it against my legs. The sun was really punishing, but I couldn't get up and move into the shade. I was trying to remember what had happened there. The woman, Grace, and the pusher. And then Lily with the haggard face. Haggard because maybe she'd been half starved when she died. The little boy. But I couldn't remember what he looked like anymore. It had been completely wiped out by the knowledge of how he looked now. A big, sick guilt was sitting on my stomach. I would be hated by everyone – if they only knew. If my family found out what I'd done – they would be horrified. Sure, they'd still love me, but they'd be thinking of it whenever they saw me. Dylan had known it was wrong from the beginning. Had warned me not to get involved at all. But had somehow tried to stay a friend. The follower knew. Had latched onto me because I was guilty. I was starting to realize I could never get rid of it. That's what Dylan didn't fully understand yet. That it would always be with me no matter how far I moved. I could close my eyes to sleep in ten years and there it would stand in all its comforting hunger, waiting for me, promising to take me away whenever I reached the point where it was too much. It had always only been a question of how long.

I passed my hands over the grass. The park was full of bright sun and deep shade. There were lots of people there, lying down in the shade or just walking. The follower was already there in the blue shadows beneath the trees. I didn't even need to lift my eyes. Maybe I wasn't brave enough.

I spoke very quietly, because I don't think it needed to hear the words like an ordinary person.

'What would it be like,' I asked. 'If I went with you right now?'

And although it was quite a distance away, I heard it perfectly clearly.

'Nothing,' it said.

I let the word sink in. I pulled up a piece of grass and looked at it, saw the light shining through its veins. I looked at the still water nearby. 'Yes, I think I want to go.'

saturday january 10

Dylan

I knew that Indigo probably shouldn't go out on her own. But I just sat there at the kitchen table. I was so angry I couldn't move. Ever since I saw it take her in the kitchen I'd been having this vision. The follower, like a big, heartless child tugging the white slip over her head. Indigo, a loose-limbed doll. I was sure he had his own reasons for taking her downstairs, under our feet. ( _It, it_. I corrected myself. Not _he_ ). But would I ever be able to work it out? And was there any point? I tried to. I tried to visualise what I'd seen as if that would help me to understand. I'd been right there with her. Was it my loss of time, my loss of concentration that had allowed him to pass me, carrying her? Or perhaps they'd really just disappeared in the kitchen and reappeared downstairs, a sinister little space fold. Either way, I had the feeling that being moved that way could break your sense of self. Or erode it anyway. And Indigo was eroding. All looked well on the surface, but the foundations were crumbling away. I recognized it. But it seemed like there was nothing I could do to help. Even in an emergency I was no use. One moment I'd been with her in the dark kitchen and she was talking about the boy – saying she couldn't feel anything down there, now that his bones were gone. And then I woke up on the kitchen floor, face pressed against the linoleum. Some sort of supernatural joke.

Mostly I was angry. That's what happens when you're powerless. I learned this from my teasing half-brothers. The ones that made my life pretty much a misery for fourteen years. When I finally fought back against them I was too angry and I really hurt them. Though no more than they'd hurt me, if you consider all the accumulated hidden bruises and the (worse) sharp barbs about my mother that are lodged under my skin forever now. Of course, they ran and told straight away – one with blood streaming from a (no doubt) broken nose and the other with a reddened (soon to be black) eye. Any guilt I might have had was drained away when they laughed at the first blow. My father's fist sharpened by the fact it was early in the morning and he was relatively sober. His stupid, lumbering anger was all for me. They were jubilant, like prisoners seeing all the punishment go to one inmate (safe for today, safe for a few weeks maybe!). And my stepmother's face (she drifted in behind him) pure hatred under her outward, limp gentleness and soft protestations. I had always been evidence of that despised other woman. She couldn't forget _her_ for one moment now I was living in their house.

Well not for long, because I was sixteen and I'd had enough and I left that same night. I had a bruised rib and a shiny lump on my cheek, but I also had a feeling that was welling up stronger and stronger. A kind of furious joy that couldn't be taken from me. A power. But I was controlled after that. Knowing that child fear could become rage. The feeling of adrenalin spiking with a kind of horrible pleasure and that sense of looking at yourself from the outside, not knowing what you might do.

Well, at last I had a place for it to go now. Because I had this other image stuck in my mind. So struck I had thought it must be some sort of premonition. Had known it was when I saw Ani's delicate hands gripping that heavy plank. There were various scenarios to begin with. Me running to find _it_ in the kitchen, or downstairs. The hated thing would have its back to me. And I would have a hammer in my hand. The exact one I'd used to pull up the nails on the stairs – dull green handle with the rubber peeling off. Like I said, it started differently but it would always end the same. I'd line up the back of its head. And with a wide, strong swing, I'd crack its skull. And then it was just swinging and swinging until it was down on the ground and there was no hardness to hit.

I put my head on my hands, down on the kitchen table. I was reaching the end of my dark fantasy loop when Ani broke in.

'I thought I heard Indigo go out,' she said, sounding amazed. She was wrapped in a towel and looked as if she'd just been fished up from the bottom of the ocean. There were droplets sliding off her and her hair was dripping water across the floor. 'Are you just going to sit here brooding?'

'I'm fine.'

'I know _you're_ fine – what about _Indigo_?'

I felt like I was waking up out of some sort of nightmare. 'I can't lock her up.'

She came a little closer and pressed her hair against her towel to stop it dripping. 'Has it occurred to you that she's only choosing _it_ because she thinks she doesn't have you?'

I just sat and looked at her. Because I still didn't want to believe Indigo was actually seeking it out. 'She's not choosing it,' I said, after a while.

'Are you still in total denial?'

'No,' I said.

'Why do you think she keeps going down there? Where it locked her up? Where all those horrible things happened?'

'I don't know. To find out about the girl.'

'Lily's dead and gone. I'll bet a hundred bucks that follower thing is _telling_ her to go down there. It wants her there. Wants her thinking about that little kid every second of the day – trying to remember if she heard it crying from under the stairs. Reminding her of what happened in the park. It wants her stuck in her guilt so she can't ever get out. You already know that's what it's doing.'

'Don't tell me what I know,' I said, feeling the blood rushing through my body. I was picturing Indigo standing in the dark, in the white glow of the clinging slip, telling me about her feverish dreams. And I'd done nothing.

Ani sat down at the table, fixing me in her full glare. 'There's no point trying to scare me. I just took out some sort of astral spirit with a piece of wood.'

'I'm not trying to scare you,' I began, but she broke in.

'Why don't you get out of make-believe land for five minutes? Why would she say no to it? What's keeping her here, anyway?'

'Certainly not me,' I said, darkly.

She banged her hands impatiently on the table. 'Well, it's worth a try, don't you think? I reckon she's been wanting to disappear ever since we found that kid under the stairs. She's been drifting in and out, if you know what I mean. That thing's been working on her every night, wearing her down. So if it's not you she wants, you'd better think of something else just as good or maybe even better. She needs alternatives right now. Hope.'

I just sat there and looked at her. All the anger had drained out of me and her pop-psychology lecture had left me more shaken than cynical. My mind was starting to work again.

'Ani...' I leaned forward across the table. 'Surely she hasn't gone to the park?'

She simply crossed her arms and gave me a stony look.

I was totally unfit. But you don't need to be fit when you're operating on adrenalin. I ran hard. I barely noticed the heat. The gardens seemed much too big, too full of people. And I wasn't sure which was the right place, so I just made for the nearest water. It was a pond really, with tall rushes in it. I saw Indigo was sitting in the grass, looking at the water. I stopped when I saw her, like I'd hit a wall, gasping in the smoky air. Just grateful she still existed. But then I saw _it_. It was in the cool shadows, just standing there and looking at her with its horrible, hungry look. But maybe I'm exaggerating, because it was hard to make out its face clearly. There were people everywhere. They had no idea Indigo was about to disappear. I could see it in the slow, thoughtful way she was drawing her hand over the grass. She was right back in the middle of it all. Remembering. She stood up, dusted off her clothes and started to move towards it quite naturally but I ran and grabbed her before she was half-way.

'Dylan?' she said, as if amazed. 'What are you doing here?'

I was still a bit out of breath. 'What do you think?' I looked around but I couldn't see it anywhere.

'You don't understand.' She was actually looking around for it, as if I was in her way. 'I've realised it's actually a part of me.'

I was full of selfish jealousy, as if it were a man. 'It doesn't care about you at all!'

'But it's here for a reason. To take me ...'

I couldn't listen to her. 'It was following that other woman for years, then it dropped her like a ton of bricks the moment you appeared. Indigo, you're not special to it. It just wants to annihilate you.'

Something about the word made it seem real suddenly, sucked all my stupid envy out and it seemed to hit her too. She stared at me for a while then sat down abruptly on the grass and hid her face. I looked at her for a moment. She seemed so insubstantial, like she might vanish even without its help. People were watching us kind of surreptitiously, probably thinking what a jerk I was to just be standing there looking down on her. I sat down with her. I wrapped my arms right around her so that she was hidden for a moment. It seemed like the right thing to do.

'Now you've sent it away,' she said, in a tiny voice. She wasn't actually crying at all, just sounding defeated and very tired. 'What will I do now?'

I could feel the anger coming back. Because she was acting like she was still looking to learn something from it, when I knew quite well she just wanted to vanish off the face of the earth and it was no more caring of her than a gun or a knife. Even so, her fingers were curling around my arm as if she meant to keep me close.

'Did you consider asking me for help?' I asked. 'You know I love you, and it doesn't care about you at all.'

She pushed me away so she could look at me.

'What did you say?' she asked.

'You know it doesn't care about you.'

She narrowed her eyes and bit her lip. 'No, the other thing.'

I stood up quickly and gave her my hand to lift her up. She wasn't looking around at all now, just staring at me with unsettling intensity. I've never been particularly good at reading Indigo. I was still trying to think of something to say.

She looked towards the pond and stood very quietly for a moment. The alertness had drained out of her face.

'I need to go home,' she said, tiredly, and my heart kind of sank.

We walked back. She didn't look at me very much, just frowned against the sunlight as if thinking hard. I was only half watching her. I was expecting every moment to see it, to have it loom out of some shadowed porch. But we got back, all the way up the stairs and shut the door against the sun and there was no sign of it. I looked down at her. She started to speak and I steeled myself a bit. It was just automatic now – because she mostly said things I didn't want to hear.

'When you said you loved me...' she said, slowly. 'I don't suppose you meant you were _in_ love with me?' She gave me a very steady look, but it was wonderfully clear to me she'd actually stopped breathing.

I took a moment to look at her and the tension was draining out of me so fast it was almost painful. She had a little strand of hair over one eye, stuck to the edge of her lip. I brushed it aside, noticing that she didn't draw back. She took in a sudden breath though and just waited. Everything seemed too still, almost like the whole house was watching. I leaned forward, leaving her time to step away. But when I kissed her she stood on tip-toes and kissed me back, as if we'd never been apart. She wrapped both her arms around my neck and I half-lifted her into her room. Under her clothes, she was even lighter than when we'd found her. All her fears and cares had worn her away into unfamiliar, angular shapes. Only the soft feeling of her mouth was exactly the same. The sound of her beautiful, sighing breaths. And her half-closed eyes looking at me with a calm knowingness that was cat-like. You might think I'm exaggerating. You might not look twice at Indigo if she passed on the street, but there was something supernatural about her when we made love. It was the way she looked at me as if she'd known me for a thousand years and she loved me right down to my soul.

I think that when the fear drained out of her at last, all the exhaustion flooded in. We ended up wrapped together like we'd been shipwrecked, her whole body trembling even in her sleep. Tired as I was, I wasn't planning to shut my eyes at all. I was afraid she would wake up and wander back into her strange, disconnected world. Or maybe _it_ could even appear by the bed, just reach out to touch her and leave an empty space between my arms. I stayed awake a long time, half lost in the remembered rhythm of our kisses – sleepily daydreaming about her, feeling there was at least a small portion of goodness in the world now. A few times she woke up and drew closer, watching me quite solemnly. But she would fall asleep again almost immediately.

'I think it's safe to sleep now,' she whispered, once. I think it was soon after that I finally fell asleep too, as the twilight came down. But it was pretty clear to me that it was not safe.

****
Chapter 8. END

Dylan

I woke up with bright sun on my face and the sick feeling she'd gone. I threw on my clothes and went straight up to the kitchen. I found her alone, apparently with no intention of running away.

'Morning.' She wasn't quite looking me in the eye, and there was something edgy in the way she was fidgeting, tapping the table with her toe.

'Coffee?' I asked. She shook her head.

Ani was out, doing an early shift at the café so there was no porridge, just toast and the dregs of some marmalade I found at the back of the fridge. It all tasted so much better than usual. Even the thought of how much easier it would have been, had I just come out and told her everything straight off, was not going to ruin my mood. But I had a brief thought of all the nights we could have been wrapped up together instead of miserably separate.

Indigo finished her toast in a few bites and jumped up to do the dishes.

'I've got an idea,' she said, briskly. 'I dreamt about it. Ani and I were sitting here. And she was eating bowl after bowl of porridge. And she said, _you know, all that guilt and shame, it's like his food_.'

'I suppose we already knew that. So you just need to move on.'

She gave me a look, and I sensed the old Indigo was returning.

'That's right Dylan, I'll just find love and be instantly healed. Because that's exactly how life works.'

'It does happen you know,' I said, but I was secretly pleased to see her so energetic. 'So what's your plan?'

She turned her back to me. She paused awhile, then said, 'I called my landlord this morning.'

I stood up without really knowing what I was doing. All the fear and tension was returning in something like a tsunami. She kept washing, scrubbing hard at the plate although it had only had toast crumbs on it. I could see the side of her face, expressionless.

'Why?' I asked.

'I've been hearing this sound downstairs. Like there's a cat in there or something.' She actually laughed. 'Well, if it's stuck down there, it's going to make a big mess.'

'That's funny because I haven't heard anything.'

She was holding the plate in one hand and I noticed it was shaking. The detergent foam was drifting down to the floor.

'What's going to happen?' I asked. I was moving toward her.

She turned her back on me firmly, emptied the sink and quickly ran clean water over the saucers. 'Well, he was pretty keen to take a look. He said he'd be over at eleven.' She dried her hands.

'He's coming to the house?'

'We've got an hour.' She was finally looking at me, almost challengingly. Ready to fight me, I suppose. I still wasn't certain what she was going to do, but I made a guess.

'I don't want you to call _it_ here.' I said, aware that I sounded like a jealous boyfriend. 'You don't know what it will do.'

'It's okay. It's not for me this time. It's for him.'

'But you can't be sure it won't take you.'

'It was you who said I wasn't special to it. It's just hungry for what I have.'

I considered for a while. 'But do you think it will follow him? It's so fixed on you.'

'I'm sure it will. It's like that woman at the start of all this. Maybe she had a secret of her own, but like you said, it just dropped her straight away when it saw me.' She was leaning back against the sink – exactly where I had seen her disappear. It seemed like years ago. I don't believe in omens, but it was still unsettling.

'My landlord, he must feel even worse than me. I'm sure if I can just bring them close... If it doesn't seem to be working – just having him here with the follower – I'll tell him I know about Lily. He's got to feel bad. He killed her with his hands.'

She put her hand up to her throat as she said this, and I was starting to get a clearer idea of what had happened to her that day under the stairs. But I was more concerned with what was happening right now and the uncomfortable feeling that I might be responsible somehow for her stupidest plan ever.

'Indigo, if it's not working it may be because he's some kind of psycho who doesn't actually have a conscience. In which case bringing it up and cornering him would be the worst thing you could do.' She seemed to be considering this. I pressed the point. 'And then you're stuck between a supernatural stalker and a cornered murderer.'

She frowned. 'I hadn't really thought about that.'

'Well, you've got a whole hour to think about it.'

She narrowed her eyes. She was clearly feeling better. 'It's the only thing that might possibly work. Go or stay. It's up to you.'

The funny thing was, she made it sound like I had a choice.

Indigo

My landlord is called Mr. Theophanes. I say 'is' because he's still my landlord. If you're picturing some sort of supernatural event – ground opening up, follower dragging him down to hell, or wherever, that's not how it happens. It was a bit messier than that actually. Anyway, I was talking about Mr. Theophanes. He's a pretty unnoticeable kind of guy. He's in his fifties and maybe he used to be athletic, but now he looks kind of soft around the edges. He's always been nice to talk to. Good at small talk. And even though a dark suspicion had been blooming about him for a while, I still felt guilty about what I was going to do.

But there was not enough time to be sentimental. He said he'd come at eleven, but he had a habit of showing up well before you expected him. (A classic landlord trick to catch you with that forbidden pet dog or the mess of last night's party). But if you happened to mention there was a problem with the plumbing or anything, he'd be upstairs in a flash, half-wedged under the sink before you even had a chance to catch up. And if you asked him about his car, his face would light up. He had the junkiest old Maserati – covered in dust in summer, blooming lichen round the edges in the spring. He neglected it but he loved it. I don't know why I'm saying all this. It's like I want to say – well, he was alright really. He seemed alright.

The main problem was that he wasn't supernatural, wasn't going to vanish when I said his name. Wasn't a spirit of pure malevolence. He was a person. It was messy and my stomach was in knots. But it was the first part of my plan that had me literally vibrating with fear. I was more scared about it than confronting Mr. Theophanes. But I wasn't sure if it was the follower that scared me, or what I was capable of feeling. And what I might ask it when it came for me. What was that word Dylan had used? Annihilation. It seemed so much more real now. Now that I had something good in my life. But I still didn't quite trust myself. We stood outside, Dylan and I. Out in the narrow garden.

'Indigo...' he said, and I instantly wished I'd told him not to say my name. We needed rules and boundaries here. This was my whole heart and soul.

He went on. 'I've been feeling kind of sorry for you and I wanted to make you feel better. But we both know it was your fault. The little boy.'

I hadn't really prepared for this. I guess there was no way to prepare. It seemed like the breath was getting forced out of me and I felt my eyes shamefully filling with tears. Dylan didn't say anything and I wondered if he was wavering. I know he hated my idea anyway. But we couldn't stop now. I spoke all in a rush.

'Lily was so tied to the house. If they'd stayed away, Grace and the boy, I'm sure he would have been safe. But I had to take them back so close. To the park. Where Lily could reach him.'

'Yes,' he said, and I knew he really meant it. His eyes were unwavering. 'You're right. She couldn't have gone far from the house, couldn't have followed far.'

'But I brought him back close. And that's when she took him.'

He was frowning at me now, and it kind of pained me that he was feeling sorry for me. Made me feel more guilty. Which was good in one way. But it also hurt in my chest. I looked behind him, into the shadows. Nothing. Then he started speaking again and, with his instinct for these things, said the worst thing he could possibly say.

'That little boy was inside the house. Under your feet and you never heard him.'

I swallowed but my throat was all dried up. 'How long do you think it took before...' I had to clear my throat but it still came out in a whisper. 'Before he actually died?'

Dylan didn't speak. There was nothing more for him to say. But I wasn't looking at Dylan now. I was looking at the shadows up at the end of the garden. The narrow lane. The black square of the window. Because even in the glare of the sunlight I could see a darker shadow there.

'It must have taken a little while.' I said, eyes fixed on my follower. 'And maybe I even heard him crying. I would have thought it was next door or someone passing on the street and forgotten about it... I don't blame her – Lily. She forgot he needed to drink, to move, to see the sun. She was just a ghost. Not a person anymore. But _I_ could have helped him. I was right here the whole time.'

'It wouldn't have taken long...' said Dylan, quietly, but I wasn't really listening, because there was the follower right behind him, half in the sun now and real. Real as Dylan. Eyes fully open to the hot glare. Looking at me. Waiting for me to speak. For a moment I even wondered again if nothingness was better than this tearing feeling. The knowing what I should have done and what I shouldn't have done and how it could all have been prevented.

'What is it?' asked Dylan, following my gaze and turning. I don't know if he saw anything because right at that moment there was the unmistakable roar and sputter of the Maserati and the metal gate noisily scraped open.

Ani was braced against the heavy gate, as if to hurl it shut. 'It's him,' she said. 'What's he doing here?'

The engine clicked off. The car door slammed.

'Come over here,' said Dylan. 'It's okay. Indigo called him,'

Ani hurried to stand behind Dylan. 'I don't want him to come in,' she whispered.

Dylan kept his eyes on the gate. 'It's too late now.'

My landlord strode through the door. 'Hey there! Vermin problems?' he was pretty much rubbing his hands together. Ani and I didn't say anything.

'Hi,' said Dylan.

'I'd better take a look. It's happened before you know. Found a cat down there. Stank the whole place out.' He had stopped in front of us, but it slowly seemed to be dawning on him that something was wrong. 'So how are you? Don't think we've met.'

I turned around, saw that Ani looked horrified. There was nothing I could really say to cover it up. She was staring at him in open-mouthed terror.

'Oh, that's Ani,' said Dylan. 'Don't worry about her.'

Mr. Theophanes was already starting up the stairs.

'I know about Lily,' I said. I'd meant to be subtle, to work around to it like some kind of literary detective in the big reveal scene. But it just came out.

'What was that?'

I'd spoken so quietly he really hadn't heard me. I said, 'I know about Lily. What you did to her.'

He came back down to the ground kind of heavily and there were weird red and white blotches showing on his face. But he sounded calm. 'What are you talking about?'

'Lily. Under the stairs.'

He walked right up to me. He didn't seem angry. I was suddenly afraid he might be having a heart attack or something. His face was dark red.

'Why don't you just...' Dylan began, but as he put his hand on Mr. Theophanes' shoulder he whirled around fast and hit him. Dylan crashed back against the flower box and the bricks. He tried to get up, but just slumped back. I didn't have time to help him. Mr. Theophanes was already advancing on me. I looked around. I couldn't see the follower anywhere.

'You've got no idea what you're talking about,' he grabbed me by the shoulder. 'Who told you her name?'

'George!' Ani said, suddenly.

He whirled around, kind of unsteady. Ani was standing there, opening and closing her hand, her shoulders kind of slumped over so she looked smaller than usual and her face all twisted up as if she was about to cry.

'Just leave her alone, George. She hasn't done anything wrong.'

'Who the hell are you?'

'I've been trying to forgive you,' Ani said. 'But I just can't.'

'What is going on?' he shouted at her.

She flinched back and put both hands up around her neck. Even from behind I could see all the colour draining out of his face and suddenly his whole body was starting to shake like a big force was about to burst out of him.

'Ani! Stop it!' I said. But how could she? She wasn't really there. I was sure he was going to hit her too. But he didn't. He whirled around and gave me a weird, disbelieving look and then he ran.

Of course, I ran straight after him. It was stupid, but I had to see. Had to know for sure if we'd failed. He jumped straight into the car. Started it with a sputter and a roar. Reversed hard, looking into his rear-vision mirror with no expression on his face. So he didn't see it, because it was right behind him, leaning forward close to his window, as if it might be going to speak right into his ear. At the end of the lane the car backed into the traffic and roared off. It took me awhile to realize Ani was beside me.

'Did you see it?' I asked. I looked at her, trying to tell if she was really with me. She nodded but didn't speak.

'Are you okay?'

She nodded again, but there were tears streaming down her face.

Dylan

There was an incredible light, dazzling even with my eyes shut. A red light through my lids. And it was very hot on my face. I was wrapped in someone's arms. Warm limbs entangled with mine, arms around me and close to my face the stir of breathing. Even then I didn't open my eyes. I was still half in an empty darkness. It was the pain in my face that woke me. And the choking smell of earth nearby. And then I remembered. I sat up fast. Indigo's arms were tight around me and her dark head pressed into my chest. She didn't release me or look up. Ani was sitting on my other side, washed out in the sunlight, blinking and shivering. I couldn't really remember how we came to be there. Beside me was the long flower box, half-demolished and spilling out onto the bricks, the white roots of the plants showing like veins. My brain was still sluggish, but I was piecing it all together.

'Has he gone?' A terrible pain shot through my jaw as I spoke and I grabbed it with both hands. I felt Indigo nod.

'Was I out long?' I was trying to move my mouth as little as possible.

'A minute maybe,' Indigo's voice was muffled against me, she was holding on too tight to look up.

I was suffering from light saturation. The colours were too much. Ani's eyes too blue, the spilling greenery behind her so green it kind of ached. Even the sky (because I was lying down now, head-spinning). Much too blue. And the sun a white blaze at the edge of it, about to tip behind the wall. Even lying down, everything was starting to tilt. I shut my eyes tight. When I opened them Indigo was looking down at me.

'Dylan,' she said, kind of half whispering with excitement. 'It's gone. I saw it go with him!'

I crushed her against me again, so tight she made a sound of semi-protest.

'What happened?' I asked.

'Ani scared the hell out of him and he ran away.'

It was hard to believe. Ani looked like she was in some sort of shock, eyes round and vacant as a kewpie doll. Indigo followed my gaze then crawled over to her.

'They're both gone,' she said. 'Don't worry.'

Ani blinked. 'And Lily?' she asked.

'You tell me,' said Indigo, in classic Indigo fashion. Then she seemed to soften a bit and put her hand on Ani's arm. 'I'm sure there's no more reason for her to come back.'

As much as I was aching I was pretty blissed out now. But Indigo always knows how to spoil these moments.

'Well, now we know how to get rid of them,' she said. I turned and shaded my face to see her better. She and Ani were lost in a kind of bright haze, but she was definitely smiling. I guess she was a little high from the relief. 'It will be easier next time.'

Words kind of failed me for a bit. 'You plan on picking up another one?'

'No! When we help other people. I mean, it's bound to come up again at some stage. Now we know what to do.'

'Oh!' Ani was brightening too. 'Dylan, that reminds me, I have something to go in your book. You're going to love it.'

I pressed my eyes into the darkness of the crook of my elbow and took a deep, cleansing breath. The smell of sun-warmed bricks really was good. 'Let's just enjoy the moment, shall we? I'll be happy if I never see anything like that again.'

'Although,' began Indigo. There was a silence and I looked over to see Indigo's face shadowed for a moment. 'I feel kind of bad for anyone who's followed.'

'Forget about him,' I said. 'He should be rotting away in jail.'

Ani was looking alertly at me. 'You've broken your jaw,' she said.

'Yes,' I wanted to add 'well spotted', but it just wasn't worth the pain.

'Oh,' said Indigo, suddenly hushed. She scrambled up and offered me her hand. 'Well, we'd better go to emergency again.'

We walked slowly, almost leisurely, because although my face was swelling at an alarming rate and I could no longer really talk, it still felt like the actual emergency was over. The park was a bright blur to my aching head, but I noticed when we passed the pool. It looked peaceful.

'I feel like it's finished,' said Indigo, stopping for a moment.

'Nothing's ever finished,' said Ani, instantly.

'No. This is finished,' I said, with conviction. My eyes watered with the pain of speaking, but it was worth it.

END

****

The next installment of Indigo's story will be available soon at Smashwords.com:

[author page]

About the author:

I'm based in Victoria, Australia and I write paranormal / gothic fiction. Indigo is my first novel available online. It was written as a serial fiction, week by week. You can read about the experience of writing this way on my blog. I don't think it's for the faint hearted! Indigo is set in Carlton, an old suburb of Melbourne where I used to live. The creepy house she lives in is a real house that I lived in for a while. The rest is entirely made up. Thank you for sharing my imaginary worlds...

Connect with me online:

Twitter: <http://twitter.com/@opheliakeys>

Blog: <http://opheliasfiction.wordpress.com/>

