 
The Crone's Stone (Sacred Trinity Trilogy – Excerpt at the end of Shutter)

The Hidden Key (Sacred Trinity Trilogy)

Dominion

Brink (Maverick Duology – Excerpt at the end of Chattel)

Chattel (Excerpt at the end of Shutter)

Trouble With Angels

Short Stories and Novellas:

A Darker Shade of Grey

Sleek Comes the Night

Shutter

Coming soon:

The Keeper's Secret (Sacred Trinity Trilogy)

Rift (Maverick Duology)

For more content please visit:

www.seholmesauthor.com

Copyright © 2018 SueEllen Holmes  
Smashwords Edition

## Table of Contents

Other Novels by S E Holmes

Frontispiece

1 – Sunday Afternoon

2 – Monday morning

3 – Monday, early afternoon

4 – Monday, late afternoon

5 – Monday, early evening

6 – Monday evening

7 – Tuesday, before dawn

8 – Tuesday morning

9 – Tuesday midday

10 – Tuesday afternoon

Excerpt from latest novel: CHATTEL

Excerpt free novel: THE CRONE'S STONE

## 1 – Sunday Afternoon.

"Take a torch," the Solicitor, a crusty old duffer named Denning, had advised.

He'd gazed imperiously over crescent-shaped spectacles at Miriam, across a desk so expansive it discouraged any illusion of comfort during the dry as dust will-reading. At the time, Mim was too stunned by her inheritance good fortune to ask why an extra source of light may be necessary, especially as it would likely be day when she first took a look. Besides, any creeping doubt was quickly smothered by her desperate need to escape a future on the chicken-packing assembly-line, in a go-nowhere town, where a rusted combine-harvester was the epitome of art.

But now, as she stood like an idiot on the footpath with her jaw slack and her mobile planted to her ear, those questions roared into focus. Yet another of Marge's country-spun sayings pushed to the fore: never accept a gift from a stranger. What had she gotten herself in to?

She checked the street number on the sheaf of documents balled in her sweaty palm, confirming again this was number seven, Bligh Lane. Rosellas squabbled in bottlebrushes lining the row either side, a late-afternoon scene of urban tranquillity that mocked her part inheritance with its crumbling coat of grey concrete and boarded-over windows. The derelict terrace hunkered between perfectly manicured homes like a hooligan's middle finger thrust at the neighbours. And at her.

"Well?" Aaron demanded over her phone.

"Err," was all she managed in reply.

"No need to draw out the suspense on this historic occasion. Show me."

Hope shrivelled like the parched brown weeds dotting an arid square of dirt not even pretending to be lawn. It was all she could do to begin filming, panning to reveal the moneypit she was now tasked with making liveable. It was a wonder the terrace hadn't been condemned and totally beyond her purse, especially if eating again made the agenda. She didn't begin her new job for three weeks.

"Bit of a fixer-upper," she said, aiming for nonchalance and missing.

Silence stretched across the ten hour void. If Aaron couldn't fabricate a positive response from his cushy bedroom back home on the farm, Mim knew she was screwed. He tried, producing a throttled huff. He cleared his throat and launched another aborted attempt, before finally succeeding.

"I'll come down. You can't deal with this alone."

Her adopted family were only beginning to recover from the worst drought on records. Aaron was needed for the harvest right up until enrolment day, somewhere she should have been, were it not for the supposedly joyous news from a tenacious lawyer who'd exhausted years hunting her along a mysterious ancestral tree.

"I'm sure it'll scrub up okay with a bit of spit and polish." Possibly a wrecking ball.

Mim reached around and shoved the wad of paper into her backpack, digging in the front pocket of her shorts and pulling out a single key on its ratty piece of string that should have given her a hint. Surely a friendly heads-up would have been decent? Instead, Denning had fed her some half-arsed history involving a vagrant with a broken neck and a record of misfortune to explain its vacancy. She wished she'd listened, not sat there dreaming of the millions she'd make listing a Surry Hills property when no one else had bothered, which of course, should have been her first question. Naturally, such a gift wouldn't come without a catch or ten.

"I'm thinking napalm and a match." He echoed her thoughts.

"Let's not judge the chocolate by the wrapper. I'm sure it's better inside."

She continued to film: along the cracked front path, edging through a rusted chain-link gate that canted on a single corroded pivot and looked like it may lose to gravity any second. Two masonry columns of cancer-splotched render buttressed either side like arthritic guards, the front fence in both directions long since gone. Her father, Barry, would faint at the unkempt state of the garden graveyard. She took a couple of stairs to the porch, swiping away a jungle of webs. Who knew how long since the front door had budged, its dark green paint peeling to reveal anaemic patches of timber beneath. Inserting the key in a tarnished dead-bolt and turning met stubborn resistance.

"Should have brought WD-40," said Aaron.

Jiggling the key in the lock failed, so too an experimental karate kick. Mim pressed her shoulder against the door and shoved, stumbling into the gloomy, narrow space when it finally gave way in a hail of splinters and a screech of wood dragged on wood. The building groaned and creaked as if stretching awake after a long hibernation.

"Should have brought a flamethrower instead of a torch."

She rubbed her bruised shoulder and checked the damage. The lock was now useless, not that she worried anyone would enter of their own accord. Besides, she owned nothing worth stealing.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"So much for grandly crossing the threshold."

Churning shadow forced her to grope for the torch in a side pocket in her rucksack and switch it on. Swivelling to capture more video, it would have been better not to. She wasted a moment glaring resentfully at the torch. _This_ , this was what Denning chose to divulge? Mim shook her head in disbelief. Maybe he withheld the true state of her inheritance so she wouldn't throw the key back at him. She battled the urge to flee, but this crumbling shack offered her only chance at accepting an Art scholarship in the city. When the tour was over, she'd interrupt Denning's Sunday family roast or golf game and give him a good piece of her mind.

"Craptastic," Aaron mumbled, as the beam highlighted decades of neglect. "It's as hideous inside, as out."

A cool gust of fetid air laden with mildew and something far worse, made her gag. She sneezed, and cursed forgetting her Zyrtec.

"Ugh, there's a dead animal in here. Maybe more than one."

The stench was so thick, it coated her tongue and made her eyes water. Trying to breathe only through her mouth made Mim sound like she had a heavy dose of sinus.

"As long as it's dead," Aaron said, "not nesting in the roof. I wouldn't let the dogs live there. It's so rickety, you need a hard hat. No wonder squatters have given it a miss." He'd reached that conclusion due to a layer of undisturbed dust, so thick she had no idea of the floor underneath. "Even graffiti vandals haven't touched the place."

"Are you trying to make me feel better?"

Denning gave other reasons for reluctant trespassers. What had he droned on about in his posh accent? Unfortunate incidents, bad reputation. She failed to recall and cursed herself for the lapse. With hindsight, she should have pushed harder, asked for clarification, along with hassling for details on an anonymous partner to complicate matters. Odds on they'd turn up to claim their share, once she'd developed callouses and given the impoverished student cliché a new low. There wasn't enough flesh on her skinny frame for starvation.

"It's in Surry Hills," Aaron tried belatedly. "City investors would pay a fortune for the privilege of spending a fortune renovating it. You could put it on the market as is, and we'd still be millionaires."

"Denning made it very clear, I'm not allowed to sell."

"That doesn't sound right. Can the owner dictate what you do with your inheritance after they die?"

The truth would encourage more endless questions she wasn't ready to deal with. "The title's in trust. Unless certain conditions are met, that city investor dream is as useless as this pile of turd. Basically, we're stuck with it."

Aaron knew her tone well enough to drop it for the time being. Some charcoal, grimy stain that likely demanded acid for removal, bubbled the walls. She zeroed-in on the lone piece of furniture: a ratty old chair at a jaunty diagonal next to an ornately mantled hearth of jade marble. Springs popped through cracked leather, stuffing scattered about its wooden legs like a grubby skirt.

"Nice fireplace, Mim. Do you think it'll take a fire?"

"Not if that's where the vermin are living. Can you hear it? All that muffled knocking and creaking?"

"Possums," he verbally shuddered. "Nasty. Get rid of them first."

Her beam travelled from the hearth to the right, revealing a tall square of plywood that covered a window behind her, next to the front door. Weeds had forced their way in via cracks, and long-neglected discards of former occupants – dirt-filled glass bottles, scraps of rotting packaging, utensils so corroded it was difficult to determine their original form – littered the floor. Surely the room wouldn't be so dismal once she'd torn down the boards and let in the sunshine? It was hard to picture in the falling shade of afternoon. The more she saw of her surprise inheritance, the more deflated she became.

"If this wasn't so close to college, I'd shut it back up and offer to babysit Em's children in exchange for free rent. Regardless of how many buses or trains or sleepless nights I'd have to cop."

"Where would I live?"

"Maybe you could commute."

"Ten hours there and back every day. Very practical."

"As if. We need to make the best of it. It'll be shabby chic once I clean it up."

Mim owed the Sampsons. They'd claimed her after she was found in the hospital foyer in a cardboard box. Otherwise, she'd be a State ward. She'd do anything for her adopted family, who'd given her everything.

"You're right. We can fix it up," he said.

"I guess we'd better look at the rest."

"I'll see if I can work double shifts and come down earlier to help."

"You forget, I've seen your bedroom. We both know cleaning's not your specialty. Stick with the plan. I'll manage." Somehow.

"You'd better get a Tetanus booster."

At least the house was tiny: a long, slim rectangular space halved by a set of rickety stairs hugging the left, beyond which was a dining-cum-kitchenette. Straight ahead in the courtyard out back, there was a laundry undoubtedly requiring a machete to reach. She knew from a moth-eaten set of plans Denning had shown her, the stairs headed up to two bedrooms mirroring this front and back arrangement with a bathroom in between.

Stepping over chunks of fallen plaster, she eyed drifts of debris along the skirting boards. Her Docs stirred clouds and the floor squealed in her wake. There'd be no drunken sneaking in with a one-nighter. Mim sneezed again, blinking to clear her eyes.

Away from a sliver of daylight and fresh air through the front door, the smell increased, which was definitely enough to repel the curious or needy. Fly-blown carcasses out in the fields back home didn't reek as bad. Still, there was no evidence anyone had ever even tried to break-in. How would the homeless hear rumours, anyway? She tucked her face in the nook of her elbow, experimentally planting her weight on the bottom rung.

"Um, so the lawyer didn't mention who bequeathed it to you?"

It was the fourth time he'd brought it up, probing for details about her birth parents. Her inheritance proved relatives could contact her if they'd wished. The whole episode confirmed she wasn't wanted, a far bigger hurt than the fact she'd never met those responsible for such desertion. Outwardly, she buried her pain, acting pleased to stay ignorant. Aaron wasn't so easily fooled. The subject would be revisited when she was least ready, if ever ready at all.

"Just said I'd been left this by an anonymous donor, and left it at that."

"Pardon? You're mumbling."

"Not a thing was said."

Unless some benevolent stranger had picked her name at random from the phone book. Although, surveying the wreck, they were more likely a prankster in search of a gullible idiot. There was no handrail up the stairs. Each step without a plunge through calf-goring splinters inspired relief. She made the landing feeling like an explorer conquering the summit, and revolved on the spot to film.

"What is this stuff do you reckon, Aaron?"

"Lord, don't touch it. It's probably lung-eating mould."

"At some point, I'm going to have to scrub it off." Mim bent closer to inspect the sooty walls under torchlight. She rubbed it with a fingertip. "Like chalky cremation ash or bone-dust from pauper's graves." The creepy words escaped her lips without awareness.

"What did you say?"

This worn place with its slaughterhouse smell heightened awareness of dying and neglected things. Apprehension tingled up her spine. Mim struggled to shake it off, not usually afraid of the dark.

"Nothing. Speaking of which, here it goes."

All three rooms on the top landing were hidden behind doors. The middle one concealed the bathroom and toilet. She crossed in three strides and turned the knob, pushing the door on squeaking hinges. An army of cockroaches skittered away. A large clubfoot tub sat on the right, the infestation teeming beneath. How much did an exterminator cost?

A curtain had long since disintegrated, leaving a forlorn row of cream plastic hooks on a sagging rail, the showerhead so lime-caked she'd need to replace it. A victim clotting in acid wouldn't seem unexpected. Opposite, a toilet tucked behind the door, and a stingy basin sat in the corner. The single filthy window in between the bath and basin struggled to let in more than a jaundiced oblong.

"Are they vines above the window?" Aaron asked. Thick, ropey tendrils climbed the wall and roof like bloated veins.

"I'm going to need shares in a bleach factory. I think the tiles are a delightful shade of urine."

"At least yellow's a happy colour. Goes well with fungus green. You could fit three in that bath, though."

"Don't get any ideas."

He just had to flash his dimples at hapless city ladies, who'd stand no chance against his unhurried country charm. He could probably persuade a few into volunteering for a cleaning bee. If Aaron was here, they'd be laughing over this ruin, pooling their pathetic finances and scraping by together. Missing him or not, that was a selfish fantasy. For the next few weeks, she was on her own. Depression smothered the initial thrill of owning something apart from a bed, a few other sticks of mismatched furniture, and a box of second-hand kitchenware, due to arrive tomorrow with the rest of her clothes.

"This is seriously going to eat into my funds."

"Since when have you had funds?"

"Oh, ha ha."

"Don't worry, Mim. I'll hit mum and dad up for a loan."

"Thanks, but I'd rather you didn't. I'll cope, Aaron. Let's finish the tour so I can get back to Em's for a Dettol scrub and splattered baby vomit, which at this point smells like Chanel by comparison."

"Such choices. Sure you wouldn't rather stay there?" he said sarcastically.

"I think tonight will exhaust her patience. I'll have to stay here tomorrow night."

And all the nights after. Alone, in this creepy, stinky hole. The realisation she'd actually have to move in triggered a skittish desperation not to. It wasn't just that the conditions were physically awful, that was undeniable. It was a slippery undercurrent, difficult to place, like she was intruding in an occupied home and the owner wasn't glad to see her. Of course the notion was dumb. Evidence anyone had lived here for a long time was absent.

"Emma owes you for those screen prints, and still the woman whinges."

"She got pregnant. They ran out of money."

"It's not your fault she has no grasp of family planning or paying her debts."

"I need to buy a crowbar." She tried to shake off the paranoia and rally a shred of common sense. A jammed front door; cobwebs thick enough to be curtains. The terrace was abandoned, layers of undisturbed dust on the bottom floor a confirmation. Pointing the torch downward, the dirt was just as entrenched up here. The signs repeated like a dirge in her mind, not reassuring in the least. "The place might look better with light." Worse, more likely.

"Or a bulldozer."

"Not. Helping."

Mim gave the empty back bedroom a cursory glance; nothing she hadn't already seen. Just as she turned towards the front bedroom, a thump glued her to the spot. She tilted her head and strained to listen should it come again. Her mobile drooped to her side.

"What—"

"Shh!"

Rats? The sound eclipsed the scurrying of bugs. But now she though of it, there was no indication of anything alive aside from roaches. Not so much as an animal dropping, let alone the destruction possums wrought if given free reign. Mim raised the torch, her hand shaking. Dust motes swirled, the beam washing the last door in ghostly white. She held her breath and crept onwards, until disembodied fingers reaching for the handle became the singular focus.

Silence descended, even the insect life taking a break, and she couldn't be sure it was an improvement. Possums didn't usually play dead if threatened by an intruder and rodents were brazen in company.

"Miriam, what is it?" Aaron whispered.

She dared turn the video to her face. Dense shadow teased and whirled on the edge of vision like a living force. _It's just closed doors and boards blocking the sun_.

"I'm a little weirded out, that's all."

Low battery flashed a warning. Her stomach lurched. Imagine getting caught in here without Aaron's support, albeit from a thousand kilometres away. Just one other room and she could return to the normal, everyday street below. She wouldn't come back tomorrow unless loaded with industrial-grade cleaning products. First thing, those shutters came down. And her phone would be fully charged.

Her torch flickered. She banged it against her hip, the light strobing but refusing permanence.

"Not now," she murmured, hitting the torch harder until it came back on.

Mim directed the beam at the last door. She screamed, letting go of her digital lifeline which clattered to the floor. Her torch extinguished. The firmly shut door of a moment ago had yawned wide on stealthy joints, revealing an abyss that devoid of light pulsed with malice. Heart thrashing her ribs, she dropped to her knees and scrambled blindly across the floor.

"Aaron!"

Clutching her useless torch, she stirred plumes of silt that irritated her eyes and triggered a hacking cough. Smothering pitch closed in around her, whispering bleak messages and plucking at her nerves until illogical fear choked all else.

Gulping tears of panic, Mim continued to search. Barely aware, she gouged her knee on a loose nail, a blood smear tracking the frantic chaos of her grovel on all-fours. Where could her phone have gone? She prayed it wasn't broken. One of her legs dropped over the void, almost pulling her down, and she froze for unending seconds before gradually saving her balance.

Finally, a fingertip brushed cool metal and she lunged for her link to the ordinary, sane world, which had vanished in this cloying pit. Miriam leaped up and brandished the torch like a knight's sword on the battlefield, her chest convulsing. She fumbled with her phone as the torch finally came on.

"Aaron?" Merciful light invaded yet another squalid, empty room. "Are you there?"

"What happened?"

She croaked, "A spider dropped on me."

"Did you brush it—Hey, check that out."

Mim grunted a refusal. If Aaron was right about mildew making her sick, the amount she'd sucked in was terminal. Pain jabbed her knee, a drip of warmth running down her shin and leaching into her shoe. When _was_ her last tetanus shot? She struggled to gain control of her rubbery limbs, spent adrenalin leaving her jittery. Although she felt foolish, hatred for this place that seemed disproportionate, if not utterly moronic, took root.

"Far wall," Aaron persisted.

Her collar was clammy and the last thing she wanted to do was see one more thing in this joyless, bug-infested pit. Well-oiled hinges belonged in someone else's suburban palace. That door was definitely closed.

And the Solicitor's papers didn't specify she had to stay here, just that it couldn't be sold within a period of searching for the other stakeholder. Given a better understanding of what she'd inherited, such a condition appeared fraught with complications she didn't need. It was like peeking inside a treasure chest at untouchable wealth that cursed you the moment you looked. Could she refuse her share outright?

"Mim. Are you looking?"

Their original plan to rent on campus remained an option, albeit exorbitant. If it meant taking a third job to support them, so be it.

"Mim!"

"What?"

"Look. Salvation."

From where she dithered just beyond the door, Mim fixed her spotlight at a huge vintage three-door armoire squatting along the front wall opposite. It was a spectacular piece, likely worth a bucket at auction.

Of lustrous chocolate wood – probably walnut – it towered almost to the ceiling, hand carvings of flowers and ivy trailing the pilasters in full relief. Heraldic crests centred the otherwise clear doors, three parallel drawers below almost gaudy with leaves. Foliate motifs trimmed the crown and base, the keyholes, handles and drawer knobs of etched brass fronds.

"Suss out what's in it. Might be a bag of money or heirloom jewellery."

A chance at financial reward failed to overcome the dread stirring her belly. In the glow of her torch, the wardrobe was free of dust and cobwebs as if a loving hand had polished it only that morning. Such a contradiction tipped the spooky factor into territory she didn't want to venture.

The run-down terrace exuded misery. But the wardrobe was another level, sinister in a way she could not articulate, even to herself. A spectral gliding door gifting access too readily after a trial of obstacles, appeared deliberate, as if all else was pre-show and that was the ta-da. Whatever its hidden recesses held, Mim felt certain was better left alone.

And she hadn't forgotten that thud. Or that her phone prepared to die. Ill-ease amplified on every spent minute inside.

"Get a grip," she muttered.

Maybe Denning's reference to a negative history had wormed into her mind and she'd heard without listening. He wouldn't deliberately put her at risk, would he?

"Mim? Take a look."

"No, I'll do it tomorrow," she said louder. "It's getting dark and Em's cooking dinner. She'll worry if I'm not on time."

Em's more likely reaction if Mim never returned was to forget to call the cops. Their arrangement didn't include food.

"I'll be harvesting until late, unreachable. Curiosity is already killing me. Just a little peek."

If the house hadn't already deterred her, the notion of killing curiosity did. Since her arrival, she hadn't quite felt alone.

"I'm keeping my cat alive, thanks."

And if there was a spy with a choosy cleanliness fetish, where were they? Why hadn't they shown themselves? It was like one of those thrillers where a stranger secretly resides in the walls, waiting for a chance to jump out with a meat cleaver.

"Come on. Why do you think they've got nine lives?"

"Human. Not feline. It's locked and there are no keys."

"How do you know?"

"You'll have to wait," she snapped more testily than intended.

In emphasis, Mim turned on her heel. A series of thumps came again more urgently, accompanied by a rattle. The hair on her arms prickled to attention.

"What was that?" Aaron asked.

At least he'd heard it, and she wasn't delusional with fear. In a tremendous act of will to stay put, Mim directed both devices at the sound in the ceiling, praying the charge would hold for one minute more. On entering, she'd joined the ranks of the faithful.

"Are you getting this, Aaron?"

"An attic? You never mentioned an attic."

"That's because there wasn't an attic on the plans."

"Why the hell would anyone need to padlock their attic? Unless... valuables."

Two heavy-duty locks, linked through thick loops of metal, held an iron bar across a square hatch. As if prompted by his question, both locks shuddered confirming the source of the noise. Mim recoiled, bolting for the steps and vaulting down as fast as her jellied legs would carry her.

"Mim. _Miriam_."

She ignored his pleas, barging past the stubborn front door to take the porch steps in one bound, staggering to a halt on the weed-riddled verge. Bending to grip her knees, she sucked lungfuls of fresh air. Her phone bleeped and died, cutting Aaron off mid-sentence.

In the golden ambiance of twilight, fright dwindled to embarrassment at her over-reaction. An elderly neighbour glared across the fence from the sanctuary of her well-tended garden, pausing the tempo of secateurs snipping bruised camellias. Mim straightened and patted grime from her t-shirt.

Out here in the warm summer evening, surrounded by a riot of red and pink flowers, their perfume wafting the breeze, it was hard to make sense of her alarm. She smiled and waved at the woman, who showed Mim the back of her straw sunhat and continued pruning. Great. Hostile neighbours to go with the nightmare wreck.

Mim headed along the street for the bus stop, not bothering to shut the front door. She didn't look back. If a vagrant had the stones to trespass, they could have at it with her blessing. Hopefully, they'd do a bit of cleaning in repayment.

And scare away whatever lurked in the attic.

## 2 – Monday morning.

Six am, yet Em's SUV disappeared down the street to the diminishing screams of hungry infant boys. Miriam dawdled on the gutter, surrounded by a meagre pile of her worldly possessions and a more substantial heap of shopping that had gutted her savings. She tried to enjoy the dawn sunshine announcing all the possibilities of a new day, but couldn't ignore what awaited. There was no choice now: if the place wasn't liveable by tonight, Mim could call the train station home.

Last night in her trundle bed, squeezed between cots at Em's, she'd reviewed her scaredy-cat act yesterday. Mim was a child of the country. She'd helped with the harvest from a young age, fixed tractors, and faced down feral pigs with only her learner point two-two rifle. Flinching at shadows was plain silly.

And once her phone was charged, she'd called Aaron back. They'd revisited the same conversation of previous months, during which it became clear: the terrace was their best and only way to afford the city without imposing on their parents, who'd barely recovered from a soul-eating drought.

Of course, entering the terrace appealed as much as pending famine. The stink was certainly nauseating, but no matter how she argued otherwise with herself, she couldn't budge the perception of a deeper wrong that unfurled and set predatory eyes upon any who breached the threshold.

She really needed to get a grip. It was just a damn house. Or was it a damned house?

So much for getting a grip.

It was the work of ten minutes to haul most of her gear to the front stoop. On her last trip – just as she took a final breath of crisp morning air – a querulous voice drew near.

"You. Young lady!"

Sure enough, she turned in time to greet the delightful neighbour from number five next door. Unshielded by the low brim of a straw hat, her expression was even more sour than yesterday. Mim stretched out her hand.

"Good Mor—"

"Are you responsible for that monstrosity?"

What was she pledging if she admitted it out loud? The woman jabbed a speckled finger at number seven in unnecessary clarification, crepey flesh jiggling. She halted several metres away on her manicured border, as if crossing might somehow taint what appeared to be her uniform of shapeless cotton dresses and clunky, sensible shoes. Mim lowered her neglected arm.

"Er—" Unfortunately, number five didn't require much prodding.

"I've put up with that reeking eyesore for decades and I want something done. I can't go out in my backyard without accostment by hordes of biting black bugs. It's the stench. You've a burst sewer pipe or something out there and I demand you get it fixed. I've lost countless cats to that cesspit. I've made a report to council and I'll keep on reporting until it's sorted. You hear?"

"Difficult not to," Mim mumbled.

Lord, she hoped the old biddy was wrong. Plumbers' fees were even more exorbitant than an exterminator.

"First, it was that dreadful wraith, always minding others' affairs. Pale and skinny, strutting about like the Lord's gift in his fancy clothes, sticking his camera lens where it didn't belong."

Wraith seemed a strange description. "You knew the own—"

"And then those awful deaths. Mark my words, young lady, cleanliness and godliness!" She finally looked at Mim, doing the double take people did on sighting the mismatched shade of her eyes – one pea green, one honey, like jungle camouflage. Her frown deepened, which seemed more extreme than usual, but dedicated to her cause, she forged on. "That's the way you'll purify this frightful place of its rancid soul."

Evidently not by politeness and minding her own business, which was obviously a crime in others but not herself. Deaths, plural? On the scale of unfortunate incidents, a single death was rather extreme. Mim suppressed a remark on whether she'd recommend holy water and Rosary beads, to go with good personal hygiene.

"Well... thanks. I'd really better start."

"Name's Mrs Cecilia Raymond, so you know it was me when the Council Officer comes calling. I expect action and I won't stop this time until I get it."

Mim managed a strained smile in farewell. After squinting at Mim's eyes for so long it made the rest of her behaviour seem the peak of etiquette, Mrs Raymond spun and clomped back inside number five. A minute later, sheer front curtains flickered and her prunish face peered out. Her neighbour didn't even have the decency to spy discreetly. Miriam turned her attention to number seven, staring up glumly.

The front door had jammed in position all night. Shock of the century, there'd been no RSVP to that invitation. From down here, the little balcony off the upstairs front room was visible, covered inside by the hulking wardrobe Mim planned to avoid for as long as possible. If she resisted Mrs Raymond's proliferation of ceramic praying cherubs, Mim could squeeze a barbeque on her own balcony. It would be nice to grill outdoors and drink wine under the stars with Aaron.

Of course, if they tried to do it now and drank too much, they'd likely topple off the sagging open ledge. Still, a future when the place was presentable, teased. She smirked: time for bug bombs.

Five arduous hours later, her shoulders throbbed and she had blisters forming on her palms. She wiped the back of a glove-clad arm across her forehead, resting on the landing. It was hard to tell if the smell had improved while wearing a mask, which did nothing to prevent nostrils steeped in chlorine bleach. The powdery residue on the walls took two goes with a fresh bucket in between that still left ghostly grey smears. The entire top floor had a Gothic aura, but worn and mouldering rather than cool.

The attic hatch and the area directly surrounding the wardrobe, remained. It was mostly window if she managed to pummel the huge piece of furniture to the adjacent wall. In the light of day, the wardrobe's pristine patina was even more creepy. Neither job appealed, but if she wanted to finish upstairs, she could shun both no longer.

The attic or the wardrobe?

Attic, she decided. Maybe, there'd be trunks full of antique knick-knacks she could sell to fund the clean-up effort. In any case, attacking that spook-fest in broad daylight, wielding a heavy set of bolt-cutters to deter a family of irate possums made the most sense. The only possible explanation for the thuds was possums. That's what she kept telling herself.

Dragging the mask to her chin, she pushed the hood of her protective suit to the nape of her neck, and mounted her step ladder at the high edge of the open stairs. She ignored the likelihood of a neck-breaking tumble down the stairwell. She also ignored the squirm of nerves in her belly.

Eager to get it over with, she hoisted the bolt-cutters to snap the locks. Reaching up, she flipped first one lock from the loop, and then the other. The clasp flapped down and the hatch swung open, missing her nose by millimetres. She flailed, momentarily off-balance.

A metal set of retractable stairs speared the stepladder from beneath her feet, forcing a tumble backwards, which all-in-all was preferable to a spine-snapping fall. She collided with the front bedroom doorjamb, flinging the heavy locks high. One gouged another divot in the wall beside the bathroom before bouncing to the floor in a trickle of plaster, the other plummeting into the gulf. The folding stairs slid to a halt at her sneakers where she slowly dragged upright, massaging her already bruised shoulder blade.

"That went well."

Miriam peeked upwards, expecting to retrieve a portable spotlight from the front porch. Instead of a dark void, buttery midday sun bathed the space. Gripping the bolt-cutters like a club, she gingerly mounted the steps and popped her head above the floor cavity for a quick survey. Shock froze her in place.

Aside from a cut-out for the stairs, the room was an isosceles triangle running cross-ways. And it was lovely. Constructed of wide beams on all sides and the floor, these boards were as untainted as the day they were laid; an ashy blond rather than dirty grey. Dormer windows on either side of the stairs captured ample sun, which accounted for the light. Like the wardrobe, the expanse was spotless.

She searched in vain for evidence of possums. Or anything alive, finding not even a tracery of cobwebs. What had made that rattle? Aaron had heard it, which stole the rational explanation of paranoid hallucination. Both windows were sealed tight against drafts. It was an eerie repeat of the wardrobe's presentation.

Oddly, a small vintage suitcase, secured on either end by two belts, rested on its bottom on the right, centred deliberately so transecting rays from the windows formed a glowing nimbus. It was of perfect tanned leather, the type she recalled from black-and-white footage in the 1930s, with a hand-stitched handle in the middle of flip-open latches. Constant sun exposure hadn't lightened or cracked its veneer, even though sauna-like heat brought perspiration to her top lip.

Indecision glued her in place. That feeling of a watchful force returned, not diminished by day. Maybe the house rested on unstable foundations, which was a far more sobering thought than the clichéd delusion of malevolent spirits haunting the attic. Weren't there train tracks nearby?

"Silly," she muttered. It was just a suitcase.

Discounting intuition that nagged to get out, to replace the broken locks with new, perhaps adding thick chains, Mim clambered up the stairs and entered the room. Her height meant she didn't need to stoop, unlike Aaron, who'd earn a painful hunchback if he strayed from the apex beam. After rolling her gloves off and setting her bolt cutters on the floor, she knelt in front of the case. Her gouged knee twinged as she undid the belts and clicked the latches, which sprung open like brand new.

With an ominous sense of ceremony, she gradually lifted the lid. And huffed disappointment.

"Bugger."

This was no ill-gotten booty of unmarked denominations. Nor did it contain gold ingots emblazoned by the Nazi imprint (which surely earned a reward on their return). There was no rolled canvas – a lost masterpiece worth millions. And she was still shit out of diamonds.

Two objects resided within on beige checked fabric: a set of keys for the wardrobe – immediately recognisable by matching fancy brass grips – and a battered camera so antique it was one step removed from daguerreotype.

In fact, all brand markings and information had been abraded with use and age, leaving an unadorned black model save its scars. It didn't have a hand strap. But when closed, as it was now, this camera was shaped like a DeLorean car, which shouted Polaroid. She'd been given a more basic boxy model for Christmas when she was about ten, and remembered that once the film was spent, it became an ornament. Back then, Mim wasn't willing to waste months' worth of pocket money on the expensive replacement cartridges. Was the right film still even available?

Feeling cheated, Mim reached in and picked the useless camera up. A seam split the sides and it snapped open, disbelief causing a mad juggle to avoid dropping it. She'd never heard of a model that could do such a thing based on touch. And the battery would have long since expired. There was no way the film was viable, especially in the heat of the attic, lasting a few years at best. The little indicator showing how many shots had been taken read _four_.

On impulse, Mim held it up and pointed the lens at herself. She estimated the viewpoint, and took a quick selfie. The flash blinded. After the briefest of moments, she almost dropped the camera again when a photo whirred from the front slot. Framed in a border of grey, half her face effervesced into clarity. Her mouth fell open.

How was it possible? She gripped the shot along its edges, blinking away floaty blotches of after-flash. The angle was wrong, finishing below the bridge of her nose and missing her eyes, but the portrait was so rapidly crystal clear she could see the pores in her skin. Had the development period ever been that instant? The picture's colours were vivid enough that they seemed fake, like an artist had painted her in acrylic. Unease fluttered in her belly. She examined the front of the camera for the swing arm that allowed film insertion.

After minute inspection, she discovered only the photo button, flash, lens and ejection slot. There was no film-door release. This model was bare normal operational features. Mim frowned, utterly confused. How did it work? Had the owner modified it somehow? She needed to check with a more challenging subject. The count down indicator was stuck on four exposures.

Carting the camera, she reversed down the attic steps. On the landing, she shirked her protective clothing and headed for the glare of the almost midday street. If she recalled, Polaroids could be finicky in brightness. Thankfully, her favourite gardener was nowhere to be seen. One fast click and then she'd nip back inside. Mrs Raymond had made it clear she didn't like photographers.

Did this Polaroid belong to Mr Wraith? Was he a renter or was the terrace his? Those questions led to a destination she refused to go.

Mim crept to the corner of the neat picket fence abutting her own scrappy, barren front yard. A dense bush of camellias a startling shade of red gave her the perfect material. The best flower bloomed on the very top, as high as her chin. She bent her knees and tilted the camera upwards to capture brilliant variegated hues in beams of light.

Just as she pressed the button, the front curtain swished apart and Mrs Raymond stared down in the background, framed in her window like Psycho's mother. Startled, Mim lifted the camera as the aperture triggered and accidentally captured the upper frill of the camellia along the bottom of the view, and the whole of her neighbourly nemesis. Ducking low, Mim commando ran back into the terrace.

The photo whirred from the slot as she slipped into the loungeroom, momentarily blinded by the gloom. Would Mrs Raymond descend to make a scene? Hopefully, her reluctance to enter no-man's land would prevail. Mim plucked out the picture, discovering her selfie wasn't a fluke.

Like that upstairs, the image was amazing in its technicolour quality. Both the partial flower and Mrs Raymond were in laser focus, despite differing distances at the second it was taken. There was not a hint of movement blur.

As her vision cleared, Mim discerned the watery blue of the old lady's eyes and her pewter curls, even making out the small floral pattern of her lilac dress. The portrait revealed things she'd never noticed when in her presence.

Every line and every colour seemed textural, like she beheld a rip in time that opened upon the instance of capture, not a moment lost to the past. Intricate veins on the petals and a dusting of pollen burst from the image. A bee buzzing out into the room might not prove a total shock. The photo displayed the essential nature of an object undetectable to the naked eye, trapping a vibrant instance of life on celluloid that she could nearly reach in and touch.

Mim stared, her skin crawling. This dazzling photo didn't belong in the dreary, fetid surrounds and yet, the realisation struck that she preferred the terrace's grungy decline because she understood it. She flicked the unsettling photo to the floor, scrubbing her hand on her thigh. But she couldn't just leave it there and a moment later, used a rag to pick it up by the corner.

Thoroughly addled, she jogged two sets of stairs and climbed back into the attic. Kneeling, she deposited the camera where she'd found it and added the photographs. The little window still showed four and must be broken. Slamming the case lid shut, Mim snapped the locks home. Then the belts to be certain, securing her selfie within.

An otherworldly photo was not a keepsake she wanted. This case and the wardrobe below were marked for the tip. Any lingering curiosity about the contents of its drawers and shelves evaporated: one object with implausible abilities was plenty.

Her behaviour was unreasonable, she knew, which in other circumstances would prompt concern. But here, in this immaculate space in her otherwise dingy house, instinct overwhelmed. The front door had been wedged tight on first crossing the threshold. Her boots had left tracks in undisturbed layers of dust. If that camera was within decades of the vintage of the trunk in which it was stored, the ten-shot film with its embedded battery should be spent long ago.

Let alone producing photographs of such outrageous corporeal quality. The more she picked at the riddle, the more unanswerable it became. Others might exploit such a miracle to wow the art world, but another of her adopted mother's favourite sayings came to mind.

"Anything of worth demands effort."

Marge was right. Whatever the cost, Mim wasn't willing to pay. And she knew with utter conviction that explaining her premonition to anyone would see her locked up and prescribed meds that made her dribble into her soup.

From the street came the loud bleat of a truck reversing. Her possessions had arrived and with them, the possibility of off-loading the wardrobe. Not the camera. That, she'd smash and bury deep in the backyard. Ridiculous or otherwise, insight she could no longer shirk warned both objects were bad omens. Mim only hoped it wasn't too late and she hadn't been somehow contaminated.

## 3 – Monday, early afternoon.

"That's as far as she'll go," Bob wheezed, ruddy-cheeked. "I don't understand it. I'm at a loss."

"Sorry, Miriam, looks like it's yours whether you want it or not." Phil lifted his cap and scratched his sweat-sheened bald head. "Easy from there to here... now, jammed fast. Peculiar."

Which seemed a perfect summary of the entire inheritance fiasco. Mim gritted her teeth, the three of them gathered in the top front room. Two burly removalists had failed to pummel the wardrobe further than the wall at a right-angle from the open veranda doors. Both fidgeted nearby, looking perplexed by their inability to complete the job. To be fair, they'd given it a valiant shake across half an exasperating hour. Bob even flattened on his big belly and attempted to drive a crowbar underneath to lever the wardrobe from some unknown catch. He wasn't the only one at a loss.

"Thanks anyway, guys," Miriam said, pissed-off and anxious in one. She wasn't in the mood for another mystery. If she had to, she'd get rid of it with a hatchet. Maybe have a bonfire.

"Shame," said Phil.

A squall through the open doors dislodged a jaundiced bit of paper from the vacated area under the wardrobe. It swirled aloft on the updraft and Bob snatched it from the air.

"This yours?" He passed it over, heading for the exit.

Wishing she was leaving with them – she wasn't fussy on where as long as it wasn't here – Mim grudgingly accepted the page. It was a yellowed photocopy of a framed line drawing from the frontispiece of an ancient book, inscribed in shaky black ink by the initials E.E.L. A group of cloaked nuns or ministers from a long-gone era clustered around a hollow-eyed sufferer on his deathbed.

The title was wrought in thick Gothic script, difficult to translate. The best she could do was the first three-letter word: Ars, and then two letters of the next word: Mo. She pulled her phone from her shorts and tapped the fragment into Google. _Ars Moriendi_ , which was apparently Latin for 'The Art of Dying.'

"Excellent."

Screwing the page into a tight ball, she tossed it over the void onto a growing rubbish pile in the loungeroom downstairs. Her clothes, mattress, and dismantled bed fitted easily in the cleanish back bedroom.

Craving air, she stepped out onto the balcony and watched Bob and Phil vanish into the cabin of their lorry. Phil waved at her through his open window. Naturally, Mrs Raymond worked by the picket fence under the pretence of re-potting plants. The Police were in luck should a crime happen on Bligh Street. She'd make the perfect witness.

Evidently, the removalists parked opposite to the direction they needed to take. Bob intended a U-turn and his vehicle disagreed. With a cough of diesel exhaust and a grind of gears, the truck hopped to a stall crossing the narrow lane. The rear roller-door now overlooked the corner of Mim's pitiful front fence nearest Mrs Raymond. The driver ground the key in the ignition, producing a strained gargle.

After several more attempts, peppered with expletives loud enough to make her neighbour flush in outrage, the truck's motor turned over and caught. Mim observed with rising humour. This had been the best part of her miserable day; one she didn't expect to improve. Mrs Raymond wasn't about to let such foul language go uncensored, yelling over the engine's rumble and signalling forcefully. From her perspective, Mim saw Phil check his side mirror and in reflection, turning to the driver. His lips parted to speak.

Gears abruptly clunked and the truck roared into motion. It lurched in reverse and barrelled backwards at speed, mounting the curb and hurdling straight for Mrs Raymond mid-tirade. Mim's hand flew to her mouth, the other reaching in freeze-frame. There was nothing she could do, nothing anyone else could have done.

She watched in wide-eyed horror as the huge, relentless truck demolished the fence and slammed the brittle old lady from her feet, the spin of its wheels pulling her under. One second she was there, the next gone in a wet crunch, a shower of crimson petals, and a howl of dismay from Bob. He wrangled the gears and drove forward to halt at a crazy jut.

Suspended in complete disbelief, Miriam finally shook off her inertia. Manoeuvring around so she could swing from the balcony, she plunged the few metres and tumbled badly, twisting her ankle. Lessons from her last first aid course circled her foggy brain.

The growl of the truck stopped. Bob's door slammed and he ran over to the felled old lady, promptly joined by Phil, who spun on his heel and vomited up his lunch. Sitting and palpating her ankle, Mim peered across at Bob through spindly ruined bushes. Both hands pressed his face, his eyes screwed shut. His shoulders jerked as he sobbed and Mim knew the answer before the question had formed. Her phone was to her mouth, no need to hurry authorities.

She averted her eyes from the white duco along the closest side of the truck, unsure if the splatter was crushed flowers or something far worse. The emergency operator's voice finally echoed over the receiver.

An hour later Mim hunched in the gutter of number seven, a medic blanket draping her shoulders. Her ankle sported a bandage, which seemed unnecessary for another bruise to add to her collection. Next to her, a young constable tried his best to offer comfort. He was so newly minted, his academy buzz cut hadn't grown out.

"Are you sure I can't call someone to be here with you?"

She'd already made a hysterical call to Aaron, who'd promptly phoned Marge and Barry. They all threatened to make the ten hour trip to stay with her for as long as needed. Mim was sorely tempted, yet eventually talked them down, regretting pulling them away from the harvest. She swore she was okay so many times, she almost convinced herself.

"That's nice of you, really. But I'm from the country, Constable Mason. We're tough." She gave him a watery smile.

He sighed, clearly not persuaded. "The name's Ryan. I'll leave my number. Shock can be funny, sometimes happens straight after a trauma."

He glanced over at the back of the Ambulance in front of Mrs Raymond's house, where Phil could be heard repeating for the umpteenth time to anyone who'd listen, "Gotta be a mechanical glitch. Bob's been drivin' that same truck for a dozen years, never had a problem. Never." Bob had been hauled off to the hospital in a catatonic state.

Constable Mason pinned her in navy-eyed concern, gently lifting her mobile from her trembling fingers. He plugged in his number, having already noted hers for the investigation that would follow.

"Sometimes, there's a delay."

"Thanks, Constable Mason. I'll be on my guard."

"Ryan." He rested the phone on her palm and cupped her hand firmly about it.

He stood and replaced his police hat. As he walked away, Mim got the impression he'd end up a great cop. Which didn't particularly help her right now. She denied an urge to call him back. At some rapidly looming point, she had to return to the creepy-arse terrace. Alone. And the longer she lingered, the darker the grey afternoon became, clouds billowing on the city horizon in promise of a downpour. As if the terrace wasn't bleak enough inside already.

At least rain washed blood down the drain. As soon as she thought it, Mim felt ashamed for trivialising Mrs Raymond's loss. She didn't much care for the woman, but she was sorry she'd died, especially in such a disturbing manner. Her neighbour was someone's sister, mother, daughter. Who would care for her flowers? Should Mim check for a cat?

The light faded fast. Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she unfolded her stiff limbs, clutching the blanket around her like an outlaw's poncho. Near the corner across the road, she glimpsed a man partially visible behind a tree in an island garden.

At first, she dismissed him as just another tasteless voyeur, snapping phone shots of trauma for social media gratification. Then, he stepped from his leafy hide to stare at her over the purple-strobed expanse. His expression was one of cold regard.

Mim took a hesitant step nearer, squinting for details. Her flesh dimpled but not from the wind. Everything about the stranger was shadowed: he wore black to match his disconcerting black gaze that inspired the same throat-gripping anxiety in Mim as when she was five. A smiling young guy in a car had offered her a lift to school. When the bus appeared over the rise, he burned rubber. The spring-loaded tension coursing her body had drained away, returning full-force that night when he appeared on the news in hand-cuffs and they understood how close she'd come to true evil.

Her stomach knotted and she scanned the few remaining officials for the kind policeman, who was nowhere to be seen. By the time she looked back, the awful man had melted into the gloom and was gone. She darted up the path and onto the stoop, almost laughing aloud at the realisation the terrace now represented safety. Of sorts.

Hugging her blanket, Mim surveyed the street again to ensure it was empty, telling herself she was justifiably hyper-vigilant and he had nothing to do with her at all. Distraction, that's what was needed. The best distraction was hard physical toil. She grabbed the second spotlight from the stoop, and a hammer in case self-defence was necessary. Time to attack downstairs with chlorine and her broom. And she hadn't dared venture into the backyard.

Yet, as the afternoon ground on, the wardrobe loomed overhead like a toadstool cap, sprinkling toxic dust on all in its shadow. If a little suitcase held an impossible camera, what occult items were veiled within its walnut recesses, waiting patiently for liberation by a curious sucker like herself? She didn't want to see. Still, the craving grew as if the terrace's barbed-wire noose squeezed until the inevitable bloody climax.

Mim scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, realising she hadn't eaten since a single piece of Vegemite toast at breakfast. Fatigue went some way to explaining her inner melodrama. Along with overseeing a grisly accident. She was just tired and distraught. This might be the shock Constable... _Ryan_ had mentioned.

Thinking of him made her wish his calming self was present. Definitely time for a protein bar and a banana, when she started daydreaming of a guy she barely knew. She could afford a break. The loungeroom was done, just the kitchenette left. Plus, the horrid jungle and laundry. They'd give her a task to look forward to tomorrow. Miriam shied from acknowledging where she'd be spending the night, denial the yoke preventing her from running home to Aaron and the farm.

Fifteen minutes later, after the snack she'd consumed sitting on the very bottom rung downstairs, Miriam knelt again in front of the suitcase. Eating beforehand was not wise, her gut flipping and flopping. She tried to adopt a sensible attitude, which was not so easy in swiftly dimming light, thunder grumbling an alert.

The keys. She just wanted the keys. Looking at the camera wasn't part of the exercise.

She unsecured the belts and popped the latches, reefing the lid apart. Instead of keys, she beheld the impossible. Her mind struggled to engage.

The case had contained two items: a bunch of keys and a camera. That was all. Wasn't it?

Yes, that was all. Except for her selfie, it had been devoid of other photos.

Now, one new photo rested on top of the shot she'd taken. How could it purge from the slot in the confines of a locked case? She wanted nothing more than to refasten the lid, wrap the whole grotesque thing in chains, and dump it in a fast-flowing river. But she had to see. Fear pounded a chaotic rhythm in her skull. Her pulse stuttered. She must comprehend or forever wonder, driven insane by what she believed the picture captured.

Wiping her hands on her thighs, she crouched as far back on her haunches as gravity permitted, reaching in and pinching the photo white-knuckled between her thumb and forefinger. Her hand trembled so much as she raised it level with sight, the image blurred.

A whimper escaped her lips. Before her, rendered in exquisite bright sharpness was an image of Mrs Raymond sprawled in the act of death. Her arms sprung out to thwart the shove of a tyre running up between her breasts, her chest arched and head snapped back in a reverse dive. Branches whipped her torso and shredded foliage exploded in a red crown about her. The axel of a five-tonne truck ate the rest of her body. Flesh squashed like toothpaste from a blocked tube took the path of least resistance. Gore spewed from her stretched jaws, one bloody eye bulging from its socket.

But the old lady's petrified face dominated.

Mim was on her feet sprinting before the photo fluttered to the ground. She didn't even feel the pain in her ankle, taking the attic stairs in a single leap. Crashing the wall below, the wind pounded from her lungs with an _oof_. She was barely cognisant of her actions. Her legs pumped and she blasted out into the front yard just as her muesli bar jettisoned in an undigested puddle on the cracked path.

That eye. One. Normal. Eye.

Fumbling out her mobile, the first raindrops of a Sydney summer-afternoon storm moistened her cheeks to merge with streaming tears. Lightning cleaved the heavens and she winced. Her fingers were clumsy on the buttons, forcing her to cancel and redial several times.

"Miriam? I didn't think—"

"Come now!"

There was no scrap of peace to be had in that one eye. Hell resided there, and frightful awareness. Mrs Raymond had died scared beyond death. What had she seen at that final gasp? What unthinkable fiend leered at her from the abyss? Whatever it had been, Mim swore never to find out.

## 4 – Monday, late afternoon.

Ryan stooped before her in off-duty motorbike leathers, worry creasing his brow. Funny, she maintained the same slump on the curb he'd last seen her in, only this time her sopping paper suit clung to her huddled form.

"We need to get you out of the rain," he said, just as sodden as her. His pale ginger hair plastered in rivulets to his scalp and his eyelashes clumped. "You're shivering. You'll catch pneumonia."

Mim furiously shook her head, spraying droplets. Her shivers weren't caused by the weather. Had she seen what she thought she saw? Was she going mad? Her mind kept groping for logical explanations and coming up utterly blank.

"Okay. Can I take you to the hospital?"

"No. Upstairs."

As soon as she spoke it, Mim knew she couldn't let him go by himself. The very last thing she wanted to do was go back inside that terrace. Whenever her fractured thoughts approached that camera, the word _wicked_ surfaced. Laughter bubbled up, her throat raw from gagging. Never in the vilest recesses of her subconscious – that dark vault of secrets all outwardly righteous humans pretended they didn't visit occasionally – could she dredge up this Bosch torment.

Was the original photo she took of Mrs Raymond connected to her awful demise? Mim instinctively linked one event with the other. At the centre of both, that Polaroid. But she'd taken a picture of herself first. As far as she could tell she remained alive, not the victim of a ghastly accident. Unless she was a spectre and this the purgatory trapping her ghostly presence.

"Upstairs, then," he said.

If Ryan considered her deranged, he hid it well, for which she was grateful. She had very little faith in her own mental fortitude. The storm subsided into faint drizzle. He thrust his hand down and helped her to her feet, shrugging off his water-logged jacket.

"After you." He hopped behind, dragging his squeaky duds off.

Mim hobbled onwards. In ordinary circumstances, she'd loiter and stealthily enjoy the striptease. But these circumstances were so far beyond ordinary, she wasn't sure what behaviour applied.

"Watch the spew. And don't touch anything, especially the camera."

They entered the loungeroom. His nose scrunched and he eyed the squalid surrounds, as if a corpse was interred under the floorboards. Maybe asking for his help wasn't her brightest idea. Who else was there?

"Something died in here. We need the Vicks."

Talking at least anchored her in the here and now. "So far, I haven't been able to discover where. All I can smell is bleach."

Scanning the pile of smashed board, a dismantled chair, and other junk in the centre of the room, he added, "Interesting décor."

Beneath his leathers, he wore gym gear. Clearly, she'd interrupted a work-out. Mim regretted pulling him away from his nice, normal life. But it was a relief to share creepsville with another person. Particularly one as attractive and competent, albeit sizing her up for some vague crime.

"This is an improvement." She delayed at the bottom of the stairs. "I'm really sorry I ruined your session."

He quirked a one-shouldered shrug. "Police are always on the job."

Perhaps a professional was just what she needed. She scraped up the courage and plodded aloft. The story leaked out: from her surprise meeting with Solicitor Denning, to a super-glued wardrobe, to accidentally taking a photo of Mrs Raymond. They made the attic and he stood listening with practised neutrality, while her tale petered to a finish, sounding for all the world like the ravings of a mad woman.

So much for a secret she'd take to the grave, which given current events was poorly phrased. Of course, she withheld her most insane theory on a killer camera.

He frowned, regarding the case and its contents. "And the camera was definitely secured inside?"

"Do you think I'd lie about something so weird? I wish it was different and then I wouldn't be standing here gibbering like an asylum escapee."

"No one's saying you lied, Miriam."

Which wasn't the same as saying he didn't believe she'd lied. "It seems the best explanation, that I'm some nutter making up stories for attention."

"Is that the photo?" He pointed at a square face-down near the left window.

"Don't touch it!"

"I'm going to have to pick it up," he said wryly. "Besides, from what you've told me, the damage is done."

Miriam gasped, her features crumpled in dismay. So, he did blame her. How could he possibly help? Whatever was she thinking?

"I'm sorry I dragged you out in the rain. I can deal with it from here on. You can go."

"No." He lifted a mollifying palm. He wasn't fair-skinned, but his burning cheeks were obvious, which had to be a disadvantage on the job. "Just let me check out a theory."

She skirted the suitcase and pursued him over to the discarded photo. He bent almost double to survey the view of Mrs Raymond's rooftop and a partial aspect of her garden out the window. Then he snatched the image from the floor, scrutinising it under his phone's torch. A grimace of disgust didn't leave his face.

"So much for that theory," he muttered. "Wrong angle. You'd have to be standing directly in front of the poor old girl. Nasty."

"You think while I was out on the veranda, someone snuck in to the attic, undid the case and took the photo, replacing it and refastening the latches?"

Did he think she was that someone? After all, it was the only reasoning that made remote sense.

He sighed, chewing the inside of his lip. "The only perspective that works to get that shot is in the garden, no further than one metre away as Mrs Raymond fell. You didn't see anyone down there?"

"You mean lurking in the bushes, waiting for her to suffer a convenient accident?"

"I'm grasping. Could it have been a set up?" He had the decency to appear unconvinced.

"Bob deliberately flattened her for a prank. And the joke's on him and me?"

"It's just too real to be a fake, taken at a very precise moment. But why? How?" He tilted his head and regarded her pointedly.

"I'm a genius with Photoshop. This is all a creative ruse to get you back to my terrace."

She couldn't help sounding snippy, given it appeared he cased a crime scene, sharing nothing with the prime suspect until irrefutable evidence snared them in their own treachery. This was not emotional support, rather he'd embarked on a quiet interrogation.

"You could just ask me out."

He must have picked up on her anger and tried to diffuse the situation. Perhaps the glare gave it away. Miriam wasn't pacified.

"I didn't do this, Ryan. Whatever this is."

Without speaking, he tucked Mrs Raymond's last photo into the pocket of his gym shorts. Returning to the open suitcase, he squatted on his heels. Mim picked at a thumbnail and refused to budge from what she considered too close a proximity. Home, at the end of a ten-hour journey, was still too close to this woeful attic.

"Tell me again. What's in the case?" Ryan asked. His expression was composed, but something in his tone rankled.

"Keys, camera, selfie of me, original picture of Mrs Raymond, and that's all I saw."

"And what was the reading of how many shots were taken?"

"Four."

"Four? You're sure?"

Was she? "I think so."

"Hmm," he said non-committally. He extracted his phone and took a few pictures of whatever was in the case. "Don't suppose you have any Ziploc bags?"

She scrambled from the attic to retrieve several from where her luggage awaited unpacking in the back bedroom, and tramped back up the aluminium stepladder. She offered him the bags, keeping far from the case and camera by the entry. Showing her his broad back, Ryan crouched over its contents, plastic crinkling.

An abrupt noise filled the attic: the dreaded click-whir of an ejecting photo. Mim dived for the stairs. He kangaroo-hopped backwards and almost over-balanced, before righting himself.

Unwilling to desert him completely, she gripped the top rail and held her ground. Slowly, he repositioned over the case. He moved something around inside that she couldn't see, giving it extended concentration. Then came more crinkled plastic.

"Weird," he muttered. "Maybe the wardrobe will give us a clue."

He gave her no chance to voice a firm objection. Grabbing the keys, he slipped something else into his back pocket. Happy to pretend she'd seen nothing, Mim had no option but to descend and lead him to her room. She didn't want to know what else that possessed camera puked into the world, where once glimpsed, she'd never erase it from her besieged memory.

Back in the room in which she'd foolishly entertained ideas of summer afternoon drinks on the veranda, she shimmied out of soggy protective gear. While she lugged the spotlight over, Ryan gave the wardrobe a good shoulder barge from one side. He tried several ways to move the stubborn piece of furniture, even wedging his runners against the adjacent wall for leverage, planting his back against the side and heaving with bent knees. He gave up and joined her in front.

"Hmm," he said again.

She turned the light on. Their shadows loomed huge side-by-side, extending over the wardrobe and folding across the ceiling.

He peered across at her. "Okay?"

Not feeling anywhere near it, she nodded. "Don't touch anything. Promise?"

"Miriam?"

She drank in his lovely blue eyes. And noted the lacking promise. "Yes?"

"I'll say this in case Satan steps forth or we're sucked into another dimension or something. You have very pretty eyes."

Was this some clever interrogation technique, buttering her up before he went for the clincher? Still, the realisation she'd been thinking the same thing about him, coaxed forth a hesitant smile.

"You're not very good at reassurance, you know that?"

"Harsh. My supervisor says it's one of my best qualities."

He turned the key in each of three doors. They glided open without prompting. Both stepped back and observed the innards silently. In internal compartments the width of the door, hung an array of clothes from the seventies. On one side: pants with flares and high waists, and big collared shirts of dubious print. On the other, gabardine suits in various out-dated shades; violet, and brown-checked, and even a crimson velvet jacket. All were as if washed and ironed yesterday. Platform shoes clustered beneath, leather polished to a sheen. A mirror occupied the top half of the middle section, three drawers rowed below. Their reflections were obscured to silhouette by the glare.

"Is that a Safari suit?" she asked. "It's icky his hairbrush is still there. And a bottle of Old Spice."

Black hair, the same colour as hers, still wound the bristles. Ryan plucked out a few and popped them in a bag. Her efforts at deciphering what crime had occurred for all the CSI crap, proved futile.

"I'm more interested in what's in those drawers, than groovy threads."

"Socks?" she asked hopefully.

"Look on the shelf in front of the mirror. Under the brush." They both bent closer, the scent of Old Spice competing with wood and mildew. A scattering of Polaroid photos. Ryan pulled out Mrs Raymond's image and set it next to the others. "It's like a shrine or something. Completely different," he said. "Those are old and faded, like what you'd normally get in a Polaroid after years."

"Subject matter isn't much better. Is that poor old guy... dead?"

The single shot on top showed an elderly man sagged crookedly in what appeared a hospital chair, his head tilted back and his toothless mouth slack. Even in washed-out colour his scum-dried lips were stained liquorice. With no teeth as scaffold, his cheeks caved in like The Scream, and his stippled flesh was as sallow as putty. He wore a blue medical gown and an empty IV snaked from his emaciated arm to a sucked-dry bag hung on a metal trolley. Milky irises stared glassily at an unfocused point on the roof.

Ryan frowned at her in disbelief. "Who is this whack-job?"

He used the corner of his phone to push the brush out of the way and fan the other images. A morbid gallery of aged and infirm people was revealed, seemingly all terminal within a short space of their image taken. Rowed like pallid husks of their former selves, the transience of human life overwhelmed. Mim gulped the heaves under control, wrong in her belief she'd purged until empty on the path outside.

"They would have died scared and confused. Where are their families?"

Looking grim, Ryan pulled open the top drawer. It was half filled with similarly themed images, some from so long ago they'd bleached. He went to where she'd abandoned her cleaning by the window and collected a dust broom, returning to use the handle to rearrange the drawer contents. Later shots were obvious by their crisper colours and far more disturbing treatment. Faces were scribbled over in black marker and some graduated to scratchings so heavy they'd ripped the paper right through. The eyes copped the brunt of violence.

"How many?" Ryan mused, "Fifty photos?"

"Who has access to so many dying people? It's hard to tell the period because they're all in med gowns, but that would have taken years."

"This haul multiplies our current problem. We've got two styles of images. Those are real world." He gestured at the pale and wrecked versions.

"Mrs Raymond is something else entirely," she finished for him.

Ryan abruptly lifted his hand for quiet, his frown becoming a grimace. Moving forward, he leaned nearer until scant centimetres from the drawer.

"Do you have extra rubber gloves?" His urgent manner gave her pause.

She backtracked to the landing and searched amongst bottles of detergent, a bucket and cloths, for another plastic bag of supplies purchased that morning. Thankfully, she found the gloves without trouble and didn't have to trek downstairs by herself. The packaging slid in her sweat-drenched palms.

On her return, Ryan snapped more photographs on his phone, the intensity of his expression adding to her unease. Without explanation, he ripped open the packet and extracted one of the gloves, jimmying his right hand inside. Miriam couldn't help standing close.

"You have dainty little hands."

"You know what that means?"

He halted and laughed a little. "Big...?"

"Brain."

"Small hands, big brain. I have big hands, I'm worried."

"Don't be. According to scientific fact, big manly hands, big in other important anatomy. Like knuckles."

"Every guy wants big knuckles that drag on the ground to go with a tiny brain."

To Miriam, it felt too much like Ryan chatted to ease her anxiety before a worse plunge. He selected several pictures from the rest. When he arranged them on top of the bureau, she immediately understood why.

"Oh, God."

Were Ryan not beside her, Mim could blame this whole ordeal on a mental break. The idea of an extended lie down and a sedative coma in a padded cell enticed. She reached left and pinched the smooth skin of his hard biceps.

"You're supposed to pinch yourself to check it's real. And unfortunately, Mim, this is very real. Now we have murders."

"Sorry. It's just..." What could she say? "Should we call more troops?"

"Could be staged. Could be he's a half-baked artist, a twisted psycho who set these up. I need more information before I call it in. I'd rather not make a dick of myself this early in my career."

If the close-up sepia images were staged, they were incredibly convincing. Twiggy fingers in the act of choking. A slashing switch blade, blood arcing high from a neck wound. The third used a garrotte. Mim found it too hard to look at any for more than a few seconds. Tattooed symbols covered the back of the slayer's hand in russet ink. He preyed on the frail, all unable to fight him off despite the fact he held a camera while in the act. Chromatically, they were as watery as the rest.

Her hatred for this terrace and its sick owner ballooned. These were graphic ends, frenzied and ugly, stealing the final quiet slip away. Had the man who lived here been a historical serial killer? Was this his trophy archive? Worse, had the man who lived here been her family? A grey blur rippled the mirror just beneath the surface, like a shark circling the depths under an oblivious swimmer.

Mim froze and squinted. "Did you see that?"

He narrowed his eyes in the direction of her trembling pointed finger. "Ahh, what?"

She willed the smudge to return, so Ryan could bear witness that she wasn't conjuring phantoms from nothing. Perhaps it was an anomaly from the glare, which she didn't believe for a second. Like the persistent rattle she'd definitely heard, shadows moved in that mirror. Miriam strove to keep her manner light.

"You're going to ask me to do something I don't want to do, aren't you?"

"It's time for you to phone the Right Honourable, Mr Denning. We need information on the owner's ID. And probably details on the 'unfortunate incidents' he mentioned."

"Crappest inheritance ever."

"I'm really sorry if it makes you uncomfortable, Mim. We need to find out who this maniac was. I'm not a religious guy, but I pray it's was... not is."

## 5 – Monday, early evening.

"Finklestien, Lautner and—" The young man's voice hitched and the receiver clattered to a hard surface, a fumbled re-collection ensuing with a series of bumps. There was an extended pause during which Mim wondered if he'd hung up. The receptionist cleared his throat. "Denning. Eamonn speaking. How may I help?"

She sat beside Ryan on the terrace front step. Bitumen steamed from the recent storm, ozone heavy in the humid air. It was almost five-thirty and she had hoped the office was shut for the day. The mosquitoes were out in full force and the two of them were losing the game of slap-before-bite. Mim diligently avoided attending the destruction next door in her peripheral vision.

"Is Mr Denning available, please?"

"We're closed. I shouldn't have even picked up."

"Please, Eamonn, it's urgent."

"Oh, okay. Make it quick."

Mim gave her name and a summary of her inheritance case, omitting details about creepsville and its contents. She had no clue what phaff to dredge up should he challenge her about why she needed the information.

"I'm so sorry to be the bearer of tragic news, Miriam. Mr Denning fatally choked on a piece of carrot this afternoon. I don't believe I'll ever be able to eat that vegetable again."

The solicitor's death was so recent, the poor receptionist hadn't a chance to practice a more palatable, "suffered a turn" or some other euphemism for died unexpectedly. What time had Mrs Raymond died? Or was it another stupid coincidence, an unrelated connection manufactured by her fraught intellect? The mobile remained suspended on loud speaker, Mim lost for words. Ryan moved her hand across and bent to the microphone.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Eamonn. I'm sure Mr Denning was a brilliant man."

At that, the receptionist burst into noisy tears, gasping between sniffles, "He was a great man. Great. We wanted him to come to lunch with us, but he stayed to work, eating late."

She hadn't known Mr Denning for more than half an hour and had formed no opinion on his greatness or otherwise. What shamed her most was self-pity over her own circumstances. Mim wished she was a better person and less inclined to selfish preoccupations, but two people she'd been in contact with were dead in the space of one day, leading to the horrifying conclusion that she was the black hand of death. And without lifting a finger, a more likely person of interest for Police.

"Take your time," Ryan soothed. "It'll be okay."

Mim looked askance at him. He winked. Eamonn's resistance wilted like water-drenched lettuce, as with deft verbal pressure Ryan coaxed the release of the files into her custody, gaining specifics on the circumstances of his boss' death. They'd find the paperwork waiting at the building's foyer reception in the morning, the actual office closed indefinitely. He didn't even ask Ryan's name. After ending the session, Ryan handed back her phone with a mildly satisfied expression.

"Is that legal, Constable Mason?" she asked, quietly relieved to hear her saviour say he'd come back tomorrow. His steadfast, if distrustful, presence would be a major consolation.

That still left her with a very long night stuck in creepsville. She didn't know how she'd cope. Not only were they none the wiser about the photo that had brought them to this point, weirdness multiplied like the bathroom fungus with which she was now too familiar. Could she persuade Emma to yield one more night on the couch?

"Exploiting the poor guy's grief is closer to morally corrupt than technically illegal, given he yielded the documents voluntarily. Otherwise, you'd have to wait until they appointed someone else to your case. Usually a fortnight. Or until you found someone to take the case yourself. Eamonn will go home, drink too much Moscato, and forget about the call. And who else will ask?"

From his back pocket, Ryan handed her a photo in Ziploc. She perceived his careful study of her reaction when she smoothed the plastic taut and forced herself to look. The image slowly infiltrated awareness, congealing into another snapshot of slaughter. Mim garbled a yell and hurled it to the barren front yard, skittering backwards on her rump. He put his hand out to stop her from launching upright and fleeing. She was fed-up and ready for the farm; prepared to abandon her second set of Docs, every possession, and travel all night by train, to avoid going back inside.

"Mr Denning," he murmured. "He died ten minutes after I left you this afternoon, right across town."

Mim buried her face in her hands, probably for the umpteenth time that day, too strung out and confused for tears. "What is happening?"

"Someone's diddling with you. A dangerous someone not afraid to leave corpses. Although how challenges reason."

Scooting near to prise her hands apart, his face interrupted her aspect of the ground. "Mim?"

"I'm leaving," she said hopelessly.

"Not a wise idea."

Under his sympathetic up-side-down gaze, all her fright about the night ahead surfaced. If she left, it would surely be much harder to return.

"I have to go back in there. But I can't. I just can't."

"Mim," he said kindly. "You can't stay here on your own. Doss at mine." He quickly qualified. "You'll have your own bed in the spare room."

"You're helping me now? I thought I was Charles Manson's child and you couldn't wait to whisk me off to jail and toss the key."

"I have a very bad feeling about whatever this is. Time of death exonerates you. You have an alibi, Mim. Unless you can apparate. Or you have a partner with an uncanny ability to kill people with garden vegetables and this is some type of obscure con?"

She gave him a look of _really?_ "Yes, there are so many benefits thus far."

"Agreed, it does seem a bit much." He stretched and stood, offering her a hand. "I've had enough of your lovely home. And the mosquitoes have surely had their fill of us. I vote we take off."

She stared at his out-thrust wrist. "You know I haven't got any money, right? Well, aside from this palace I'm not even allowed to sell. Which I guess makes it rubbish. Until I start work, I'm worth about ten bucks."

"Bugger. There goes my plan for early retirement." Her stare didn't waver. "I'm an only child. My parents were side-swiped by a drunk driver on their nightly walk when I was fifteen. Dad was killed instantly. Mum took a couple of weeks." He snorted affectionately. "She was always more stubborn than him. They were all I had. I'm just like you."

Aside from justified reservations, he really seemed decent. And now she'd been terribly rude to him. They shared the kinship of orphans and the abandoned. Back home on the farm, Mim had a menagerie of unwanted, broken animals limited in number only by Barry's refusal to buy food for another. That's what she was to Ryan, a homeless kitten. She was too weary to the core and frightened to deny his support. With luck, Ryan wouldn't spiral the descent with her. She didn't believe that either, hating herself for putting him at risk, yet helpless to stop it. Whatever happened, he was right: it wouldn't be good.

"I'm sorry, I—"

"No apologies. I know how you feel. Well, about the alone bit, everything else..." He shrugged in that one-shouldered way. "You've presented me with a mystery I have to solve."

She was torn between telling him to run a safe distance and stay far away, and the relief of not dealing with her hideous legacy by herself. Out of desperation, she nearly talked herself into believing Mrs Raymond's mishap an unlucky chance event. The second photo obliterated any hope of that. Denning's livid, bloated face, strings of orange-flecked drool roping his chin, scorched her retinas.

"Thank you." She accepted his grasp and lurched to her feet.

"Hey, I'm no saint. I wouldn't stay in that hell-hole if Emma Watson asked."

He turned to peer at the terrace. Suppressing a comment that she was no Emma Watson and he wasn't obliged to take her with him, Mim voiced what she was sure he was thinking.

"We can't leave it open. I don't want anyone touching anything in there."

"Do you have a hammer? For peace of mind's sake?"

"A crowbar is better."

If the Polaroid was in pieces, no one could use it. That's all that mattered. He'd not heard her nuts theory about a lethal camera, but he was smart. He'd probably guessed from her borderline reactions that she sided with the supernatural and thought her some unicorn-hugger, Age of Aquarius type. Miriam didn't care if Ryan was doing this to appease her. She sensed she was right, whether it was crazytown or not.

They entered the terrace together. Mim seized her crowbar propped against the fireplace and without a word they climbed again into the attic. She handed the crowbar to Ryan and he used it to part the suitcase lid and flip the camera out onto the floor.

"Do you want the honours?"

She shook her head, gesturing at his broad girth and muscular arms, then at her petite frame. "I'd rather attack the enemy with a lion than a mouse."

"If rumours are true, a mouse can rattle an elephant."

He swung the crowbar high and rained a mighty blow upon the camera. It jumped and the bar flung away, but inflicted no damage. The Polaroid protectively snapped shut on its beady little eye. Mim's hope disintegrated far more readily than the camera should have. Indestructibility explained the attic locks, which led to a startling conclusion she'd been blind not to see: someone else had come across the camera in the past. Had they tried to protect future visitors from its malignant influence?

"What the hell?" he said, scowling at the target as though a particularly dodgy suspect.

Ryan nudged the camera to the attic's peak like a hockey player centring his puck. He squared off, planting his feet and rolling his shoulders. She moved back several steps to give him room. He beat it with a series of resounding smacks, not achieving so much as a dent. Changing tactics, he used the crowbar like a spear, of more jeopardy to himself on the stabbed rebound than to the impervious object of his frenzy.

"Stop, stop. You'll lose an eye."

He stood panting with the crowbar hovering above his head. For the first time, Mim saw apprehension in his frown, which was nearly more disconcerting than all that had gone before. She sidled near and lifted the crowbar from his white-knuckled grip.

"I don't get it." His arm sagged to his side.

"I don't either. We have to think of another way for now."

"You don't have a flamethrower handy, do you?"

She responded with a humourless chuckle, positive fire would prove inadequate. Otherwise, why had the mysterious previous tenant not tried that?

"That was my first thought on entering. We could flambé my inheritance, toast some marshmallows."

"Right, a plan for the future. I'll handle this and get the photos. You pack clothes and whatever else you need."

Neither of them wanted to dally in the terrace and met downstairs in a space of minutes. Ryan carried two tightly knotted garbage bags, one of which he tossed onto the rubbish heap in the centre of the loungeroom. He shuffled trash with his foot until the bag was partially buried and appeared to belong.

"The camera and suitcase are in there. It's the only thing I could think of not to leave them lying around."

Their taxi honked from the street. Given he had a single helmet, Ryan aimed to collect his bike when they returned and travel to work from Bligh Street. Mim dreaded tomorrow, but that was a worry for then. Even though they'd reached the quota for unpleasantness, they still had plenty to get through tonight.

"Don't you think it's strange no one has trespassed in a decade?" she asked. "There's a housing shortage and the terrace is clearly unoccupied."

"On the scale of strange, that's the least of it. We'll get to the bottom of what 'unfortunate incident' means tomorrow. Must be a doozy to daunt squatters for so long on reputation. Tonight, we try to make sense of the photos." The taxi driver held his hand on the horn. "Ladies first. I'll jam the door behind us."

After a fifteen-minute drive during which Mim grew increasingly nervous, they halted and she gaped up at what could only be described as a meticulously renovated triple-storey Victorian mansion, terrace-like only much larger and detached from its neighbours. Ryan paid the driver, much to Mim's embarrassment. She owed him so much already. Large dogs rumbled a greeting at their owner from the building's rear.

"You live here?" She delayed on the footpath, feeling a country bumpkin and thoroughly out of her depth.

In hindsight, alleging he was after her money was ridiculous. Paddington, Sydney, one of the ritziest and most exclusive suburbs, familiar even from her removed country origins. Her blush burned, her boots and phone the most expensive items she owned.

Although she sensed Ryan was the honourable type – he didn't need to help her, after all – what did she really know about him? She'd snubbed Marge's repeated warning, given as recently as the day before she left for the city: be wary of strangers. And now she'd committed to spending the night in his territory where her ignorance and inexperience left her vulnerable.

"Inherited."

"Why haven't you got a girlfriend?" she blurted.

"Oh, I do."

"What?"

"Many. They're all buried out the back in shallow graves where I can visit them regularly." He burst into laughter, stopping on reading her mortification. "Relax, Mim. I just haven't met anyone worth spending more than a night with."

"You're supposed to be good at reassurance," she said, even more flustered.

"I'd give this up in a heartbeat, if I could have mum and dad back. I should sell, but it's my last true connection with them." He scooped her rucksack from the sidewalk and hoisted the garbage bag of photos over his shoulder. "Seems we're both paying too high a price for our legacy. Come on, the boys get antsy if I leave them waiting."

Inside, his house was exquisitely decorated in the Hamptons style, all cream and beige and perfect pale wood – the opposite of her squalid abode. Aside from jackets strewn over wing chairs, abandoned sneakers, and newspapers scattering the coffee table, plates and cups stacking the benchtop of the white marble galley kitchen to the right, the place belonged on the cover of Vogue Designs.

As if reading her mind, Ryan said, "Excuse the mess. I must give the cleaner something to do. Don't get any ideas I've got style. Dad and mum were well-known Architects."

Mim remained in the foyer with her arms hugging her middle. "Uh-huh."

"I hope you like dogs." He threw her a raised-eyebrow glance over his shoulder, dumping his cargo on the sofa and heading for his pets.

Across the large open-plan space from the entrance vestibule, floor-to-ceiling glass doors led out onto a private backyard enclosed by high sandstone walls that at one point had been beautifully landscaped. Previously manicured hedges lining the fences sported gaps, the grass was patchy, and stone urns long ago denuded of their plants. A glass-fenced lap pool ran the length from the patio, which was furnished by a dining setting and L-shaped outdoor divans. Two giant German Shepherds fidgeted expectantly at the window, swishing their tails with their tongues lolling via wide doggy grins.

"Dogs, cats, possums, kangaroos, lizards, snakes, parrots, the animal kingdom in general are fine. Humans, not so much," she muttered. "Excepting present company. Maybe. I guess we'll know in the morning."

"Touché. You won't freak out when I open the door?"

"Do it and watch."

Ryan dragged the concertina windows apart and his boys surged inside. Both gave him a cursory welcome before trotting to the stranger in their midst. Mim talked to them during the enthusiastic inspection, and once she'd received permission, got down on her knees to fuss over the duo with equal enjoyment, unmindful of teeth-filled snouts at face level.

"Okay," Ryan said, smiling broadly. "Rick and Roy, meet Mim. Rick's in the red collar. You can make yourself at home while I go exercise them, otherwise they'll bark all night. Have a shower, help yourself to the fridge. Anything you want."

"You're a Blade Runner fan or just not up for imaginative pet names?"

"Both. Most people don't get the reference at all. I'm impressed."

"So, do you run Rick and Roy?"

He nodded.

"How far?"

"Five, ten K."

Mim rose, the dogs nudging her palms for more affection. "It's a start. I'll get my joggers."

"Loves animals. Is brave, a hard worker, a Blade Runner fan, and a distance runner." Ryan ticked the list off on his fingers. "Cute, too. Will you marry me, Mim?"

Heat migrated from her toes and Mim beamed back at him. "Things sure move quickly in the big city."

"It's the frantic pace. We don't have time to muck around."

While Mim and Ryan exchanged quips, Rick had sauntered over to sniff at the bags on the couch. When he was still several paces from the photos, the dog growled deep and low in his chest with his hackles raised. He danced backwards around the coffee table, thrashing at the air as if attacked by invisible gnats. Roy whined next to her, tucked his tail between his legs, and dropped to his haunches with his ears flat.

"Your boys are excellent judges of character."

"Rick, here." The dog continued to snarl. Ryan frowned, shaking his head. "I've never seen them do that. This is some weird-arse shit. We'll go for a run, come back and get on with those Polaroids. I don't want them in my house for longer than necessary."

"I don't want to be near them full-stop."

"I'll put them in the washing machine for safe-keeping."

"You know that's not what it's for, right?"

"It's not storage? Damn, I've been using it wrong all these years."

## 6 – Monday evening.

They'd showered and changed after an hour-long run – he into another set of shorts and a tank, her a 'Northlane' t-shirt and cut-offs – and sat on the plush wool rug with their arms touching, spines resting against the lounge. Mim sipped water to quell a coughing fit brought on by exhaust fumes.

"Running in traffic. That's a novelty I'm not thrilled to repeat."

"Next time, we'll run the beach. We could have this time, if I didn't need to make a stop at the station."

"Next time?" She smiled at him. "I've still got to pass the morning test."

"I have high hopes. Besides, you whipped my butt. Let's see how you go running on sand."

Her smile widened. "You've obviously never sprinted bush hills while dodging snakes."

Rick and Roy had wolfed their biscuits and claimed ownership of the patio furniture outside. Indian take-away cluttered the coffee table, the warm aroma of cumin and cardamom filling the room to compete with the clean ocean scent of Ryan's soap. 'Ben Howard' played softly on the stereo. Ryan used the remote to flick the music off.

"Don't want to ruin good vibes ever after."

Dumping out the rubbish bag next to him, he spread the pictures so all were face-up in gory detail. They spent fifteen minutes grouping them based on fidelity from oldest to most recent.

Eventually, Ryan said, "I've not been completely honest with you, Mim."

Her chest tightened. "Oh?"

He was her single ally in this. Without Ryan's support, how could she continue? Mim didn't think she was strong enough.

"You asked me before why I was helping you."

Had he lied about his orphan status to evoke sympathy and get her here? That was too cruel. A stab of alarm pushed her to her feet.

"Wait, please." Before she was entirely upright, he pinned her gently by the wrist. "I had the most recent Polaroids scanned for prints during our jog tonight. Trust isn't given lightly. It comes with the job description. On both, there's a second set of prints."

Mim sank to the floor. "How? We were both present when Mr Denning's picture erupted." That's what she thought the despicable camera did: split apart and disgorged its spawn upon the world like an Alien egg. Mim raked her nails through her hair. Did she really want to know? "What number was on the exposure window?"

"Six."

"Six. It's not a countdown. It's a tally. Did you match the prints?"

"Working on it." Ryan bit a chunk of naan bread, chewing meditatively. He swallowed his mouthful and said, "There are six of those bright pics, four with their matching kill shot. Including the partial one of you, minus your demise. We don't have Denning's original. The rest all seem—"

"Less artificial? Can Polaroid's be synchronised so if you take a picture with one, another ejects it?"

"Nice try, but I don't believe so. We have ten murder scenes on top of those."

"So, this is not some morbid art hoax?"

He peered across at her, his head slanted in speculation. "I don't know how to explain the technicolour shots. Even if you were somehow involved in Mrs Raymond's set, although motive is clearly lacking, I was there for Denning's and he was across town. You can see his office in the background."

Miriam met his gaze. "Why not me too? Why hasn't the camera..." She couldn't give voice to her belief and announce her fruitcake status.

"Claimed you like Mrs Raymond and Denning? You'll think I'm nuts."

"More nuts than things are already?"

"Fair point. I'm going to throw it out there." He pulled a breath, seeming to rally courage. "This is so, so out there."

"The suspense is—" she balked at using the word 'killing' which seemed to dare fate—"agony."

Finally, he said, "I can't believe I'm saying this. It's the eyes. For the curse or whatever you want to call it to work, the photo must include the eyes. Yours doesn't. Of course, we'd need to confirm with Denning's original."

It was all so confusing. Mim leaned across Ryan for a better view as he tapped each, landing on the scene of a man hanging by a rope noose, his eyes bulbous beneath slitted lids. His tongue was bloodied by tooth marks between engorged lips.

If the image wasn't disconcerting, its shading did the trick. Split in two along the diagonal, half was faded with age like all the rest of the real shots, the other half a contrast in startling colour. While she tried not to give the photo too much attention, it was still obvious that the hanged man's eyes seemed mismatched like hers. Or was it simply an artefact of the image's differing hues?

"The stained-glass windows to the soul," she murmured.

"Pardon?"

"Aaron calls my eyes stained-glass windows because of their conflicting shades. Heterochromia isn't very common."

"It's just the photo," he said, pushing his still loaded plate away. Neither of them felt much like eating, especially carrots. "Half-half. The odd one out. Let's stick with something we can investigate. That's a selfie of our murderer."

"How can we be sure it's him?"

"Same symbols on his upper arm as in the slasher pics. My gut tells me this is the first of whatever this is."

"It's impossible to hold a camera out during hanging. The limbs lose oxygen first and become useless. If it's a selfie, he'd have to rig something up to take the shot for him at the exact instance."

"You're right," he said. "Or someone helped him take the shot. That leaves three of those hyper-coloured pictures of victims whose identity we don't know."

"He must have gotten away with killing for a long time before he suicided."

"It was a different era. Less sophisticated forensics, less monitoring and digital tracking. It's like we've got real world photography and then... film from the grave."

"We could hire a boat. Ferry that Polaroid out to the deepest sea trench and toss it overboard weighed down by dumbbells, never to surface. That would be that. It's not dangerous unless you use it to take a photo. I'll shut up the terrace for good, so no one ever enters again. Perhaps we can torch the whole lot."

Even as the words passed her lips, Mim had no faith in them. And she couldn't deal with a potential accomplice, one who might exist still and manipulated from the shadows like some diabolical puppet master. Let alone deathly portraits from beyond. She wanted nothing more to do with her hellish inheritance.

"Arson aside, that's a deceptive option. Ever seen Jumanji? The game keeps showing up to trap the unwary. You're willing to take a chance? That's not the type of girl I think you are."

Mim groaned. "I couldn't rest peacefully ever again. You don't believe whoever padlocked the attic is trying to shield others from the camera, do you?"

"Nope. That scene was staged. If someone wanted to help, they'd do a far better job of securing the bloody thing or hiding it. Like we did. Besides, what happened to those other poor old people? The ones taken by tattooed hand? If they were murdered, we owe it to them and to their families to find out."

The idea of exposing a serial killer – dead or otherwise – was more than intimidating. But there had to be a way to neutralise that camera for good, so this horror show never repeated. They needed to understand all of it.

"Mrs Raymond knew the man who lived in the terrace and took those pictures." Miriam had unlocked that attic and released the scourge. She was responsible for Mrs Raymond's death. "And we can be fairly certain Mr Denning met him at least once to draw up the Will. Seems convenient both are now dead. And we haven't even begun to poke around." Phoning Ryan was a coward's act, one she wished she'd never indulged. "I don't want you tangled in this, Ryan. It's too risky. I can't have another death on my conscience."

"You're not the boss of me." He smirked a challenge.

"This is not a joke!"

"I'm in it, Mim. And while I get why you feel responsible, you're not. The blame lies squarely with the owner of that terrace and whoever is actively helping him. Some obsessed devotee or whatever is still alive out there. How will you protect yourself from a living threat, let alone from what else is going on?" His tone softened. "You can't do this alone. I've got your back, Mim. And I'm a licenced gun owner, just saying."

He reached for his water and swigged several gulps. The motion was smooth and steady, unlike her own muscles pinging with tension. From the set of his jaw, arguing with Ryan seemed a waste of energy. Mim contemplated the remaining option and made the only decent decision: reveal the truth no matter the cost.

"For the record, I'm against your involvement. And I can handle a gun."

"Noted."

"I'll pursue this wherever it leads under one condition." His expression queried over his tumbler. "The second we find evidence that doesn't make you seem psychotic, we turn the whole lot over to your colleagues."

He set his cup down on the table. Ryan faced her and held out his right hand. "Agreed."

She clasped his cool damp fingers in her own. On the precipice of what she felt was a stupid, hazardous path, the firmness of his grip only vaguely comforted.

"If it all goes to crap and one of us wants out, the other lets it drop, no quibbles. And we give it to authorities."

"Gotcha," he said.

"And if there's any hint of a sign that devotee is anywhere near either of us, we're out."

"Yes, and every other way you can formulate it, Mim."

She sighed. "And I thought my biggest challenge this year would be staying awake in Theory of Art lectures."

They shook, bonded by an oblivious disregard for the consequences. The moment stretched, neither letting go. Mim lost herself in those resolute blue eyes, as the gap between them shrunk and his lovely face blocked out all else. Her annoying mobile bleated an intrusion. She jerked her hand free and fumbled the stupid thing from the tabletop, her pulse racing. Ryan stood, cleared his throat, and carted the remains of their meal to the kitchen.

"Mim?"

"Aaron." That afternoon when she'd sobbed down the line seemed forever ago.

"Are you feeling better? You sound puffed. I couldn't go to sleep without checking in."

Mim eyed Ryan across the marble benchtop, inhaling slowly to level her heartbeat. He watched her from the kitchen, scraping Mussamen curry and rice into a plastic container. When he gave her a comical thumbs-up, his blush obvious, she fought laughter. His personality pleased as much as his appearance, which was very rare. Despite the emotional turmoil of agreeing to embark on a nuts quest to uncover a murderer, and any other nasty thing that oozed from beneath the rock they flipped, she couldn't help optimism.

"On the mend, thanks."

"Happy to hear it," Aaron said. "How's the fixer-upper? Beyond redemption?"

Her buoyant mood flattened. Tomorrow, she'd have a go at the backyard, along with opening a file she'd hoped to dodge forever.

"There's never a good sink hole when you need one."

"And what about that wardrobe, any secret treasure?"

"Not unless a spiffy velvet jacket from the seventies is considered a hidden gem. There are also some stylish platform shoes to rival Kiss." After her mistake involving Ryan, Mim was determined to keep Aaron out of any unearthly weirdness.

"I'll never need to shop for fancy dress again. To ease the disappointment of absent riches, I've got a surprise for you."

Mim would burn those clothes the first chance she got. No one would wear them again in any version of the future.

"What?"

"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise now would it."

She hoped he hadn't asked their parents for a loan, which she'd give Ryan anyway for all she owed him. They spent several minutes more discussing the successful harvest, and how Marge had fallen asleep in her chair, too exhausted to finish the contents of her teacup. Everyone knew she drank sherry before bedtime, instead of Darjeeling, but they maintained the ruse so as not to hassle her over a little tipple. Marge was the kindest, most giving woman Miriam had ever met. Homesickness for Marge and Barry and her animals, flared. She bit her lip and blinked back tears.

"Mim? Are you there?"

"Yep. Just a bit tired." Much more of this psychiatric instability and she'd commit herself.

"Go nighty-night and we'll speak soon."

After signing off, she collected the rest of the dishes and joined Ryan at the dishwasher. Despite the less-than-optimal circumstances for romance, neither suppressed a grin. Magnetism bounced between them like a staticky current.

"I cannot thank you enough for everything you've done for me, Ryan."

"I'll think of a way for you to thank me properly when it's done."

"I can't wait." Then Mim had to ruin it. "One question keeps coming up."

He dropped a soap pellet into the dispenser. "Which is?"

"What's the purpose? If I got away with murder for years I'd want to make sure all evidence was destroyed, not put on display for any old Joe Blow to find."

"Unless for some reason you wanted that stuff found."

"We won't enjoy that reason, I bet."

"Someone knows why. We just have to find him or her."

"And hope him or her has not already found us." Her words triggered the memory and a spike of dread. She conjured the scene from earlier that day. "Wait... I think he has. There was a guy this afternoon, hanging around the corner. He stared straight at me."

"Could you describe him?" he asked with avid intensity.

"He kept to the shadows under a tree. I think he had long dark hair," she trailed off, unable to add more.

Ryan sighed. "Looks like I'm taking a sickie tomorrow."

## 7 – Tuesday, before dawn.

_Ars Moriendi_. Mim tossed and turned between the sheets. _The Art of Dying_.

A hand with gnarled fingers and nicotine-stained nails unclipped for so long they resembled talons, probed along the mattress at her feet like the legs of a stinging centipede. Gradually, the claw slid over the cusp and crept up the bare-skinned cleft between her shins, an icy crawl in her belly leaching towards the pliant sinew of her neck. Unknown symbols patterned the mummified flesh of its forearm in rust ink. Paralysis fixed Mim in a straightjacket of sweat-damp cotton in an unfamiliar room.

A scream choked in her throat when a haggard shoulder trailed the disembodied limb. Emerging gradually from the bottom of the bed, an ancient moss-covered cranium. Twigs scratching glass gnawed at her mind, the billowing stink of the terrace smothering. Its walls were a seething miasma of glistening black beetles writhing in slimed human tissue, his nest a living crypt fed by those he'd sacrificed to insatiable need. The shrunken visages of his life's work, his magnum opus, lumbered by for her perusal in all their desiccated horror, their toothless maws agape in soundless shriek.

Abruptly, her view sped from the attic, down the steps and out to the backyard. The laundry door creaked open. Ossified nuggets of washing powder spilled to the cement floor from an ancient rat-chewed box, next to a corroded meat cleaver on a waist-high shelf to the right. The master of the ragged black-boned corpses hunched over the old concrete sink on the left with an outlook towards Mrs Raymond's. He turned his mottled skull to pierce her with a glare, Mim powerless to hide. A frayed noose dangled from its vertebral neck in mockery of a tie.

In carved out sockets, were eyes the same colour as hers. It tried to speak. An incoherent gurgle escaped its carrion mandible. The skeleton straightened to its full height, twisting first its head, then pivoting the rest of its cadaveric frame towards the door.

"Chikhai bardooooo," came the phlegmy wheeze again, as it strode for her _click clack_ with one knobby fingertip pointing.

_Click clack. Click clack_.

"Chikhai Bardo."

Mim hurtled upright, flinging the sheets from her body and scrubbing at imagined bugs burrowing beneath her skin. Her shoulders heaved on every blissful gulp of air. Cold sweat trickled between her breasts, her singlet suctioned to her torso.

"Get off me, get off, get off. Get it off me!"

And she knew where they were. They'd never discussed what he'd done with the slain. A dimmed light flicked on. There stood Ryan in the low glow, framed by the door in white boxers, bleary-eyed concern crinkling his features.

"Backyard," she gasped, battling the shakes. "All of them. We can hand it over and let the Police deal."

"Err, may I?" He gestured for entry.

Mim scrooched over in the queen-sized bed, patting the spot beside her impatiently. Her breathing was still erratic and she swiped the back of her hand across her moist brow.

"What time is it?"

"About five-ish."

"I think his tattoos are henna."

The bed creaked and mattress rolled as Ryan took his place next to her, seated at a right-angle against the bedhead with his legs outstretched and hands bunched in his lap. She studied his reactions in profile, anxious that he agree they should yield to the authorities.

"That makes sense. Henna isn't permanent and would draw less attention. Tattoos in the seventies were more for sailors and bikie gangs. But I'm not sure where he'd get henna all those years ago. It's still kind of exotic now."

"He buried them all in the backyard. Mrs Raymond complained she'd had problems for years."

"When did he die? When did he stop doing what he's doing? Humans decompose to mostly teeth and jaw, and lose their odour after years. The stink should fade, not get stronger."

"Did you not hear me?"

"We need those lawyer documents to establish a timeline."

"You're missing the point. And are you avoiding looking at me because you don't want to turn it over to your colleagues on the basis of a kooky nightmare? Or is it something else?"

"Both. You're hardly wearing clothes. I'd rather you didn't get the impression I'm some pervy wanker."

Mim had paid little mind to her outfit. She liked hearing Ryan say he had to resist looking at her, but now was not the occasion for flirting or anything else. There were more pressing concerns that necessitated ignoring his tempting well-muscled form, so near she could feel heat radiating from him. He wore even less than her.

"Oh, sorry." She unscrunched the sheet and tucked it up over her chest.

He relaxed slightly. "An apology is not exactly the reaction I was after."

"This is serious, Ryan. I'm scared."

"I promise I'll be with you every step of the way. You said it yourself, if we don't use the camera we'll be okay."

"If I never sleep again, maybe. Uncovering bodies would get your copper mates involved, surely?" she persisted.

"Mim," he turned to face her. "It's not as easy as it is on telly. We require a good reason to get the cadaver dogs on site or bring in ground-penetrating radar. It's a costly exercise."

"I'm attacking the backyard today. Do you have a shovel? If I unearth a human bone, that's got to be enough."

"That'd to it. Try not to mess up the potential crime scene too much. A thousand holes all over your backyard might raise suspicions."

"There's another bit."

"A nice return to sanity? Let's not mention the pink ghost in the room of you receiving messages when you're asleep."

"Why? I'm having so much fun making all this crap up. Chikhai Bardo."

Ryan sighed and knuckled his eyes, his voice resigned. "Hand me your mobile."

She retrieved her phone from where it had been charging on the nightstand. They spent seconds plugging various iterations in to Google until the correct spelling popped up, taking them to a Chinese and Buddhist encyclopedia.

"Bardo Thodol," she read out. "Tibetan Book of the Dead. Our homicidal weirdo seems to have a theme. He's obsessed with death itself."

"But only one aspect of it. Chikhai Bardo is when the 'Clear Light of Reality' is reached, which is Samadhi or spiritual enlightenment beyond death."

"So not death itself, but this state of consciousness. Or a 'truth body' achieved by a good death, whatever that is. Look at those symbols."

"Yep, I see them. He covers himself in Tibetan script."

"The Ars Moriendi refers to a good death from a Christian point of view."

He opened a new tab and typed the title in. "The Art of Dying. It's more about avoiding afterlife possession by demons through virtue. I'm fairly certain the Tibetans don't condone running around murdering people to earn a truth body. I can't be certain about Christians, their record's a tad patchy. Still, I'm also sure murder isn't a virtue."

Her phone chimed a text message. Ryan showed her the screen and passed it over.

Aaron had typed, 'Where are you?'

"I'd wring someone's neck if they texted me this early."

"We rise with dawn to work before school. It's a habit hard to break." She texted back. 'What do you mean, where am I?'

'Surprise! I'm at your terrace and you seem to be missing. Drove all night. Get lucky already?'

Mim's eyes widened and her heart jumped into her throat. She tamped the green call button with her thumb, holding her breath until Aaron picked up.

"Don't touch anything," she demanded. "I mean it, Aaron. Not a damn thing!"

"Wow, that's a lovely howdy-do. Where are you?"

"Not important. Have you been inside?"

"Of course I've been inside. The lock's broken, remember? How else would I know you're not here?"

"Jesus. Please, please tell me you've touched nothing."

"You're freaking me out. What's wrong?"

"Tell me!"

"I've only been here thirty minutes. How much damage could I possibly do in that time?"

She exhaled gratitude. "It's six now. We've got a job to do. I don't want you staying in the terrace. It's... toxic. Go around the corner at the end of the road, there's a café. Have brekky, read the paper, play a game on your phone, whatever. Wait for us there 'til around nine-thirty."

"Okay, sure," Aaron said uncertainly. "Us? What's this about, Mim?"

"I'll explain when I get there. Please, Aaron, do what I say, okay?"

"Fine. It had better be a great story."

"Aaron?"

"Yes, Mim?"

"I know it doesn't sound like it, but I'm really glad you're here."

They disconnected and Mim let her head sag against the padded headboard, not at all pleased by her brother's arrival. The last thing she wanted was him snared in this madness. It was bad enough Ryan was involved, thanks to her.

"You got all that? Thank god he didn't touch anything."

In profile, Ryan chewed his lip. It was his tell. "You trust him?"

She whipped around to stare at him. "He's my brother. I trust him with my life."

"It's just that... people lie, Mim. Little fabrications and omissions, normally harmless. Especially under pressure and not wanting to disappoint those they love."

And hadn't she done exactly that? "No."

"He asked how much damage he could do in half an hour. Think about it. Why didn't he call you as soon as he arrived? What was he doing in that time?"

She clung to the flimsy hope Aaron had told the truth. Surely, he wouldn't root through the garbage, would he?

## 8 – Tuesday morning.

The taxi-driver cruised to the curb at the café, oblivious to Mim's pleas to hurry across town. The traffic from Denning's glass-prism skyscraper was unlike anything she'd encountered. A pall of cloying smog settled over snarling engines and horns blaring to drown out the Cessna Ag. The city was too big, too loud, too showy, teeming with workers in ceaseless motion. It seemed to her, fate colluded to put obstacle after obstacle in the path to her brother.

Or maybe she was just hyper-sensitive, perched on the edge of the seat, clutching the armrest until her fingers cramped the whole trip. She launched from the vehicle before it parked, too anxious to worry about Ryan paying another of her tabs or help him with their packages. They'd barely eaten, given her insistence on speed, but she didn't let the mouth-watering aroma of bacon and coffee distract her in her desperation to reach her brother.

Aaron waved from his outdoor table on the end of breakfast diners rowed along the footpath, the remains of a chocolate milkshake in front of him. As she approached, he held his arms wide for a hug and grinned. She ignored a desire to huddle inside his embrace and pretend there was nothing wrong, to pretend she was just a sister celebrating the sight of her sibling after an absence.

"Tell me," Mim halted beyond his reach, her worry making her seem cranky. "Did you touch a single thing in that godawful terrace? Did you do anything inside? And no bullshit."

His bulky arms slumped to the table and he frowned, perplexed and mildly hurt. Aaron was a mountainous individual, even sitting, so he barely had to look up to be eye-level with her. Still, he was far too casual for Mim at this juncture, his brown hair in its usual tousled state and Blundstones propped on the empty chair opposite. Women couldn't help but gawk at his laid-back manliness.

Several nearby diners, however, threw her wary glances. A business woman with slick cherry-red hair and a charcoal power suit one table along scowled at the disruption to her teleconference.

"Woah, Sparrow. Nothing dangerous like exposed electrical wires or drinking from the poisoned well, if that's what you mean."

Balling her dread, Mim enunciated very precisely through clenched teeth, "No. That's not what I mean. Quit being cagey, Aaron. Did you touch the camera?"

"Those knickers are really in a knot," he muttered.

Ryan joined them, rolling his duffle bag to the table. Mim considered his company the only positive in relentless angst. The large bag was stuffed with photos, a second bike helmet, gardening tools, and a shovel and mattock, the handles projecting from the zipper. The bag also held a fat file she was loath to crack, and a Forensic mate of Ryan's infrared-modified Nikon D70 with tripod and filter. Strapped to his shoulders, he wore a backpack stuffed with food, water, salt, lighter fluid and his mother's crucifix.

Packing that morning, the two had laughed uproariously at the ridiculousness of including such items, until Roy slunk by the photo bag with his hackles raised in reminder this was not an episode of Supernatural. This was real.

Aaron's frown deepened, looking from Mim to Ryan. "Who's—"

"Constable Mason. Ryan." Ryan shoved out his hand, received uncertainly by Aaron, and they shook. "You're Aaron."

"Aaron!" Mim snapped, hysteria roiling like acid in her gut. "The camera?"

"Why'd you throw it away?" He sat forward, planting his feet on pavement. "It wasn't even broken. I snapped one on impulse and another for posterity. And that suitcase is well-preserved vintage, probably worth a bit of money. The camera is truly unique. I can't for the life of me decipher how it works."

She sunk to the vacated seat with her arms wrapping her waist, her breath coming in shallow drafts. Ryan squeezed her shoulder, an action not lost on Aaron, who regarded him with a squint-eyed mixture of curiosity and brotherly protectiveness. Mim didn't have the energy to tell him to butt out. She didn't have the energy to weep or shout at the unfairness of it all, desolation the overriding feeling. She'd tried so hard to quarantine Aaron, and failed so utterly.

"Put the pictures on the table," Ryan said.

Complying with poor grace, Aaron flipped them face-down to the table from the back pocket of his jeans. Ryan waited in thin-lipped silence, until he grudgingly turned the photos over.

"You'll get more done if you ask nicely, mate," he mumbled.

"A female jogger, about mid-twenties, through the door on Bligh. And a perfect full-mug selfie. Shit, shit, shit," Ryan muttered, scrubbing his buzzcut.

Grief gouged a hole so black and impenetrable inside her, it threatened to turn Mim inside out. She'd known this morning. As soon as she'd asked herself if he'd rummage the garbage, she'd known. He was here on an Engineering scholarship, his talent for all things mechanical. Aaron couldn't resist fiddling and tinkering and nosing around in rubbish tips for anything with moving parts he could fix.

"What?" he said, his upbeat attitude extinguished on seeing her face. "Where's the bloody funeral?"

Mim choked out, "What should we do, Ryan?"

"Get back to the terrace. Attack those files. Find a way to stop this faster than yesterday."

"Stop what? Fuck you guys are cryptic."

The woman with red hair leaned across the void between tables. "Excuse me, do you mind keeping it down?"

In no mood, Ryan flipped his badge from his chinos, intimidating just by standing. "Police business. In future, I suggest you work from the office if you need quiet."

She retreated, but not before offering each of them a venomous pout. It occurred the camera was ideal punishment for enemies or people who even vaguely pissed Mim off. Sickened to the bone, she locked the grotesque idea into her mind's vault. It was important to stay clear-headed, not to let fear stifle her ability to plan and act. She cared about that unlucky jogger, but no matter how selfish, her brother took priority.

Rising, she tugged Aaron from his seat and he scrambled to collect his phone and wallet.

"Come on. If we're not quick, you'll find out first hand what this is all about. Trust me, it's better not to know."

Five minutes later, the trio clustered in front of the loathed terrace. Aaron had stopped peppering them with questions that earned no answers.

"You guys are as fun as a Christmas tree in March," he said grumpily. "I should have stayed home."

"Yes," said Mim, "you should have done as I asked."

"Standing out here quibbling does no one any favours."

"Who died and made you president?" Aaron glared at Ryan.

"Don't talk about dying," Mim said, pushing through the dodgy gate and leading the way. "And we need to listen to Ryan and do exactly what he says."

This horrible house would not get the better of her. Once inside, the syrupy stench hit like a living wall. So much for bleach. Entry shrouded them in darkness, the day's sunshine failing to breach the oily atmosphere.

"Is it just me, or does this place get darker by the second?" Aaron asked.

To Mim, it seemed an oppressive fist closed more tightly about the terrace. She shivered, wishing with all her being that she'd never come here. They took a moment for night vision to adjust. Aaron's belongings formed a heap by the mantle, the garbage bag ripped apart nearby so the suitcase sat in a grey-plastic collar on the floor with its lid flopped horizontal. The camera had split apart, its lens glittering in the murk like an all-seeing eye.

"What's that?" Ryan gestured at a mouldy old journal resting atop Aaron's cricket bag.

String wrapping its middle anchored pages stuffed with additional notes and more photos, its red-leather binding worn from handling. Mim wheeled to confront Aaron, who fidgeted by the doorway as if in readiness to escape.

"Where'd you get it?"

"I found a secret drawer in the wardrobe." He threw up his hands. "I haven't opened the diary, I promise. Are you going to tell me what this is all about?"

"Let's get set-up first," Ryan said, handing her a pair of surgical gloves and donning his own. "The wardrobe can wait."

Mim's jitters multiplied, the prospect of another nasty accident looming. She worked hastily, brooming the debris pile from the middle of the room to the corner, and plugging in a spotlight to illuminate the camera. A second light lit the expanse of plaster by the stairs which would act as a noticeboard, a box of thumbtacks on the bottom tread.

Aaron pulled a face, glancing from one photo to the next. "Is this a joke?"

On tiptoe, Mim grasped him by the shoulders, compelling him to sit with his back beneath the front window where he could observe but not be in the way. It seemed as safe a spot as any, devoid of pointy or heavy objects. She wriggled her gloves on.

"You need to get comfortable and stay there. Trust me, Aaron. Please?"

"Mim?" he stared up with pleading hazel eyes. "What's going on? You're scaring me."

"That's two of us scared—"

"Three," Ryan added. "We think Mim's relative was a serial killer."

"Right," Aaron said. He regarded the pair warily, but sank cross-legged on his spot.

Ryan collected the journal and began to unwind the string, toting it to their makeshift noticeboard and depositing it next to the tacks. He returned to unpack the tripod and special IR camera, carefully framing the Polaroid, fiddling with exposure and other settings, before screwing in the filter. None of the things they'd decided to do eased their anxiety. By Ryan's demeanour, he felt as antsy as she did.

"You've got to see it, Aaron. Once that happens you'll wish you hadn't. Just understand we're doing our best to stop something very bad."

"No laughing." Ryan drew a fat ring of salt around the scene he'd created, looking sheepish. "Ready when you are, Mim."

"And if I say never?"

Instead, she grudgingly joined Ryan by the steps and they knelt to examine Denning's documents. There were matters far greater to worry about now than wanting to avoid this. Within the spread folder on the floor: a Will, trust instructions, affidavit attesting mental capacity, Power of Attorney and Guardianship naming Denning.

"Declaration. I..." She sucked a deep breath. "Edgar Erasmus Lynch, a legal adult of blah, blah, address, being of competent and sound mind." Mim barked a laugh. "If only the witnessing doctor knew. Denning was Executor as well."

"E E Lynch." Aaron read from his phone. Mim and Ryan turned to listen. "Born 1940. Initially employed as a mortuary technician. Well known for artistic portraits of the elderly and destitute, his popularity surged in the seventies before illness forced his withdrawal from public life. Afflicted from his early twenties by a rare form of chronic myeloid leukaemia, Lynch suffered bouts of debilitating poor health for years before succumbing to the disease aged fifty-three. He was raised by his elderly uncle and two aunts, after his mother died when he was four, also of leukaemia. Prior to his withdrawal from society, Lynch increasingly exhibited signs of psychological deterioration and a growing obsession with esoteric spiritual beliefs involving resurrection. He wore his mother's memento mori portrait in a frame around his neck. Says in brackets that memento mori is a Victorian era tradition of photographing the recently deceased. He is survived by a son born in the photographer's mid-thirties, Ezra Elias, who vanished shortly after his father's death." Aaron peered at her. "That's it. All the entries are the same. There's nothing more on the mother of his child."

"Whole lot of them were weird," Ryan said, without needing to. "Who practices memento mori in the modern era? His uncle or one of his aunts must have taken that photo of their deceased sister."

"What does the letter of instruction say?" Mim asked woodenly.

"Aside from maintaining anonymity, Denning's to keep the bills paid on Bligh Street from a fund he established for that purpose. Says a granddaughter was hidden by his son's estranged partner and the child is to be found and is to inherit half the terrace and all its contents. He insists the property is to remain in the family and will pass wholly to Ezra in the event the granddaughter cannot be located after a reasonable effort." Ryan peered over at her. "A good incentive for Ezra to dispense with the competition. Denning must not have been able to locate him."

Both boys couldn't hide their pity, which was almost worse than confirmation her grandfather was a demented killer. It was all she could do not to run screaming into the street. She was a Lynch and the news provoked horror more profound than witnessing her neighbour's death.

Was her first name Eleanor or Enid?

"I feel a bit sorry for the old boy," Aaron said. "I guess that makes Ezra your father, Mim."

Mim scratched a mosquito bite on her knee until her nail came away bloody, desperately ignoring talk of Ezra. What type of man could he possibly be, raised by a homicidal maniac?

After a long, loaded silence, she said, "You've no idea what that 'old boy's' done."

"I would if you'd tell me."

"None of this improves our situation," she said. "We need a solution."

"Except, might we assume Ezra is alive?" Ryan gently prompted. "Who else would know to take Denning's photo? If we could find him, maybe we could persuade him to help us end this."

"If we find him. If he knows how to end this." She launched up and paced back and forth by the stairs. "If, if, if! We've no time. And if he cared, why isn't he here helping already? Don't forget, according to your theory, he killed Denning. And probably set me up in the first place. Not to mention he's duplicitous in concealing dear old granddad's house of terror."

The lights flickered. She glanced around. "Oh, not again."

As before, the lights extinguished and they were shrouded in deeper gloom. Mim squinted hard at Aaron, her dread a suffocating hand. Ryan activated the Nikon's slow-speed shutter via remote to catch potential Polaroid action.

"Please, please, please," she chanted under her breath.

A photo purged from its mysterious mechanics with a whir. Directly above, came a thump and rattle, before silence fell.

"What was that?" Aaron stared at the ceiling.

The relief of his survival proved momentary: her brother was next. The three switched phone torches on; pallid blue rays that did nothing to pierce seething reservoirs of black in the kitchen. They were far too close to the laundry where she was certain unspeakable acts had occurred. Had she ever checked that door to the back garden was locked?

Ryan gazed again at her over the tripod. "You don't have to look, Mim."

"We're in this together."

She hurried to where he waited outside the circle of salt. Ryan clasped her free hand and nodded encouragement. Their focus dropped to the photo under his beam against the inner wall of the case. An electrical wire whipped from a tilted telegraph pole, felled by a van in a perfect symphony of lousy timing. Another foul panorama that captured the unfortunate young runner, the wire connecting her cheek in a flash so bright, half her facial bones showed through transparent pink flesh.

"That explains the power outage," he said. "Jesus."

Releasing her hand, Ryan reached down without disturbing the salt and placed the picture below the first shot of the jogger. Aaron shifted in his seat to gain a better aspect, grimacing in confusion.

"I don't get it," he said.

But Mim's attention was riveted by something far more disturbing. It took long seconds to rally the courage to speak.

"Ry, the first shot. The one of Edgar hanging. Tell me I'm seeing things."

He leaned in. "Oh, that is another world of crap altogether."

The coloured section seeped further along the diagonal until just a dilute corner remained. Exquisite depth-of-field made it seem he tore at the bonds of two dimensions and projected into the room. Even through his slitted eyelids, it was obvious: she'd inherited heterochromia from him.

"What happens when that photo is completely re-coloured?" she whispered.

Ryan glanced across at Aaron. "We can't afford to find out. Let's see if the Nikon caught anything."

They bent to inspect the digital viewer on the infrared camera. A man's face wrought in glowing white bulged heavenward from the Polaroid, becoming solid. Ice coursed her veins, but Mim didn't trust perception anymore and wasn't brave enough to give the eerie spectre substance through voice. Or comment on its likeness to Edgar, a hunch tugging at awareness.

"Okay," said Ryan, mirroring her reluctance to flout rationality by discussing it further. "The journal."

Mim was ever aware of time: a throbbing metronome of doom. She snatched up the evil camera, and faster than Ryan could intervene, tried to snap a proper selfie. The button jammed. He batted the camera across the room. It bounced and came to a rest next to Aaron's bag by the mantle.

"What are you doing?" he yelled.

"Wait." Mim veered from his reach to retrieve the Polaroid. Pressed against the hearth, she spun, gesturing for him to stay. "Watch. Something's wrong."

She held the camera high, giving it a vicious shake. Nothing happened. No photo appeared. She glared at the lens and mashed the trigger hard enough to break it normally. It didn't budge. There was no flash, no whirr. Nothing.

"How many photos does one of those things usually take?"

"Eight," Aaron answered Ryan. "Says ten, but for some reason, it's not."

"My selfie came first. I thought if I gave it another subject..." she trailed off.

"Happy to report your self-sacrifice isn't scheduled for today," Ryan said.

Aaron finally lost his patience and shouted, "Will someone please tell me what's going on?"

"The Polaroid is cursed," she said. "Everyone who's had a photo taken by it, dies."

"You can't be serious," he scoffed.

Who could blame him for doubting? The whole thing sounded absurd.

"Why lie, Aaron? I don't know about you, but I'm not having any fun."

"This is looney tunes."

"You'll get no argument from me. But to what end?"

Ryan peered warily at her. "You have a theory?"

"Let's check the journal, before speculation makes things a whole lot worse."

## 9 – Tuesday midday.

"That was disturbing." Ryan shuddered in distaste, summing up what they'd all been thinking.

They'd discovered the grotesque cameo of Edgar's mother in a cut-out section in the back of the journal. Ryan tacked it to the wall by its black-satin ribbon, turning her face inwards so her creepiness wasn't visible. It made a cumbersome and bizarre necklace.

The candles they'd been forced to light fluttered, making it appear the terrace walls were in motion, a living canvas. But a gust or draft to lift the stultifying air was absent.

More than concerns over a family history of cancer, Mim fretted insanity festered in her mind like an abscess. Edgar had clearly crossed the border into la-la land, riding the psycho express. Yet, his great experiment breaking the limits of reality seemed an impossible triumph.

"Mim, can I have a word?" Aaron asked.

He looked at her pointedly across the divide where she and Ryan pinned autopsy records, bloody crime scene photos, vintage memento mori, miniaturised prints of the works of death-obsessed artists, and more grim journal contents to the wall. There had even been a small plastic packet of what appeared to be ground bone stapled to a page. Neither she nor Ryan were inclined to touch it. She refused to heed Aaron's meaning, attaching a copy of Klimt's _Life and Death_ to the morbid exhibition.

"Alone," he insisted.

"We don't have time for this."

"Make time. Or I'm out of here with you in tow, willing or not."

"It's okay," Ryan said. He turned away to rummage in his backpack for a bottle of water, giving her a smile and heading for the front door. "I'll get some air."

Once he'd left, Aaron patted a spot next to him under the window, his features rigidly determined. Locating her own water, she joined her stubborn brother, handing him the bottle while rallying her defences.

"That wasn't rude at all," she said. "Have at it. But make it quick. In case you'd not noticed, your life is in the balance."

He took a swig and gave the bottle back. "Are you two tripping?"

"If this is getting high, no one in their right mind would ever do it. Did you look at those vivid photos? Really look? That jogger is dead. Electrocuted."

"So something hokey's going on. Seems convenient Mr Smarmy is hovering around."

She snorted. "That's what you're taking from all this? And what? Ryan's some man whore and this is an elaborate ruse to pick up chicks? You sound like Marge with her 'city-folk are dodgy' mantra. He's trying to help. Ryan's been nothing but a perfect gentleman."

"Whatever I'm implying is bloody more likely than your ridiculous theory. And we could do with some country common sense right now."

"Back woods paranoia more like," she muttered. "Only applied to the wrong thing."

"I'll repeat it out loud again, just in case you didn't get how stupid it sounded the first time. A decades-long serial killer, tired of his frailty in life, performs ritual murder so he can use his camera to collect souls to power his reincarnation. I'm next on the hit list, which completes the set. Oh wait, he can't finish because you've blocked the reaping with a faulty shot that doesn't include your eyes."

In what form this being finally manifested, who could guess? She had no time to squander convincing Aaron. She'd only barely convinced herself. It was just so ludicrous.

"Explain those murder pics?" Even to her own ears, she sounded defensive.

"Edgar was a photographer, an extreme artist with a fascination for the dead. They're clever, gruesome fabrications. Joel-Peter Witkin. _The Dead Christ_. He's a follower, a mimic. I'll get to the bottom of how that camera works. It's on a timer or a remote or something." He shook his head and barrelled on. "I'm worried about you, Mim. Maybe the tension of finding your father is giving you a melt-down. You're not thinking right. And if Ryan's a gentleman, I'll eat my Akubra."

"Let me guess. Ryan's so desperate to get into my duds, he's going along with it? Wow. You know what, Aaron?"

His hope shone, as if his little sermon had the desired result. He cared and this was his way of showing it, albeit unhelpful, irritating and perilously wrong. But what he'd said was also insulting, like she was a hysterical woman brought undone by a little stress and a hot guy who could so easily hustle her. Mim leaned in close so he received the message loud and clear.

"This is not the era of smelling salts. I would gladly have slept with Ryan, no regrets, no promises, no apologies. Oh wait, were I not surrounded by corpses, which is the opposite of an aphrodisiac."

It wasn't completely true: Mim wasn't bold in the seduction department. She jumped up and felt her sibling's glare track her to the morbid exhibition under the adjacent window in its very own ring of salt, just in case.

"I didn't mean..." he blew out an exasperated breath. "I'm going back to the farm. You should come home with me, Mim."

_Where it's safe_. How she wanted to laugh, long and hard and on the bitter edge. If they could just walk away. She didn't care anymore about the deaths of innocents in the past or ensuring no more victims suffered in future. A blade dangled above her brother's head. Shattering it was her singular motivation. Now they were arguing and she had no idea how to encourage his cooperation. This terrible place bred hostility. It would prove disastrous if he left.

She bent to pluck up Mrs Raymond's photo, holding it aloft so he could see. "I watched this lady die in the most horrible way." She let the photo drift to the ground. "This is not a charade like séances of old, it's real. Mr Denning's death is real. The fatal accidents of those two other vagrants happened. My solicitor's _unfortunate incidents_. How can a feeble old homeless guy impale himself on the front gate with sufficient force to push his spine through his ribcage?" Swiping her arm at the stairs, she said, "The other, breaking his neck down those? We've seen people survive worse accidents with the wood chipper."

They'd found the newspaper clippings crammed towards the end of the journal, along with the final kill shots. Someone had been updating Edgar's work. She was relieved when neither boy mentioned Ezra's name.

"Unlucky." He rose to his feet, a flush marring his cheeks and his fists balled.

"Sit down," she cried, fearing movement from him could prove the catalyst.

"Those steps are rickety. There's no rail on your bedroom porch. The poor old boy got pissed on metho and took a dive. Brittle bones, who knows? Yes, this place is dangerous for the usual boring reasons. It's decrepit and falling apart. And haven't you ever heard of the Heimlich manoeuvre? It was invented because people choke all the time."

Doubt crept into her mind. Could this all be explained with nice rational causes? Could she cave to the temptation of believing? A thud and a bump issued from the second-story front room, as if in rebuttal. Aaron craned up at the ceiling. Fury drained from his face.

"That's the second time I've heard that," he said. "Is someone else here?"

"The wardrobe," she mumbled unhappily.

Were they missing a vital piece of the puzzle? Ryan tapped on the window pane and she beckoned him urgently inside.

"I think our stranger is casing the place," he announced, resituating next to her. Then he leaned close, his breath tickling her neck. "Likewise, except for no promises. I promised to stick by you and I don't break my promises."

"The wardrobe," she blurted, the heat of attraction prickling her cheeks.

"We'd better go up together. You first, Mim. I'll go last and bring the gear."

"What stranger?" Aaron said.

Fat lines of salt crossed doorframes, window ledges, and any other breach they could find: no guarantee of containing evil and even less chance of stopping the living. The trio shuffled up the stairs, single file with their phones held high. Mim flinched at every creak of tread, crumble of ancient plaster, and insect skitter. Her capacity for anything other than twitchy angst had gone. The sweet acrid odour of dead things intensified and she pressed her palm over her nose and mouth, wishing they'd packed Vicks.

"Wiry dark-haired fellow with a preference for funeral attire. Pretended to walk by when he noticed me sitting on the front step."

"How do you know he wasn't out taking a stroll?" Aaron challenged, his patience obviously at an end.

They reached the landing, turning towards the front room. Even combined, their lights were weak against claustrophobic, writhing black, as if they were trapped in the belly of a waking beast.

"I'm a cop."

"Hmph," Aaron snorted. "Hardly."

Ryan refused to be baited, which made Mim admire him even more. He forged on, "You develop a sense for those who pay too much attention pretending otherwise. They try too hard to be casual. Besides, I vaulted the fence and hid in the garden of that modern house next door. Old mate believed me gone, sauntering past a few more times."

"Was he still out there?"

"I lost sight of him around the corner. Took my cue and came back inside."

Silence fell, leaden with the suspicion it was Ezra. Mim had always believed abandonment was the lowest of all the crappy things parents visited upon a child, bestowing an empty album and an untold story, no true birthday, no family name, no genetic history. She'd been wrong. Sometimes, not knowing was the greatest reward. Did she have her mother to thank?

The day's radiance through tall windows made no ground within. The door yawned like a portal to her disastrous past. She reached back and gripped Aaron's big, warm hand, encouraged by a brotherly squeeze. He might be angry, but he also knew without words how frightened she was. They breached the threshold, negotiated the dark to the wardrobe, and plied their phones to unveil its bulk in an insipid gleam.

The three doors gaped, the middle bottom drawer with its doorknob handle, open wide. Ryan nudged it shut with the tip of his Van. She and Aaron crowded behind, their reflections haloed by neon blue in the central mirror.

"Is that where you found the journal?"

"Yeah..." Aaron answered Ryan hesitantly. "But I swear I shut it all back up."

"Don't let go, Aaron," Mim said. She clasped his hand so her fingers hurt.

"Well," said Ryan. "Here goes nothing. I hope."

Mim's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

She didn't need the question, diving to grab the sleeve of his t-shirt with her spare hand. Desperate to prevent him from invading the cupboard's dark folds, she jolted her brother from balance. It occurred in moments. Off guard, Aaron stumbled sidelong into the shirts, dragging her backwards with him. His hand yanked from hers and she heard muffled yells, blinded and flailing in a tangle of musty sleeves. Abruptly, Miriam's feet lifted from the floor and she was spun by a ropy vice on her shoulders from the terrace to another place altogether.

She sprawled to all-fours on swampy ground, raising a horde of biting midges in a maelstrom about her. Mim writhed in the muck and flapped her arms to repel the vicious bugs. They eventually swarmed away, but not before her flesh was beset by a thousand pinpricks and her bare legs and boots were coated in fetid mud. The stench overwhelmed, acid frothing up her throat.

Before she could retch, twiggy fingers bunched the collar of her shirt to reef her upright, an icy breath at her neck raising goosebumps along her spine. Daring a glimpse brought her face-to-face with a ragged silvery woman, whose feet hovered above the ground and form strobed so keeping her solid demanded concentration. Which Mim – terrified and mostly incapable – took as a blessing.

Still, some details were stubborn. Although her right temple was bashed in – splintered bone embedding the pulpy tissue of her cheek and crumpled orb – the phantom's features resembled her own. A fact Mim shied from examining too closely, along with her corpse, which fragmented and reclotted at regular intervals.

Grandmother? Or _mother_?

Whatever her identity, her strength was iron. She shoved Mim away, jabbing a sharp forefinger at a flickering structure across a strangely warped distance. One she balked at in recognition.

A waxen rendering of the terrace backyard, this was the world squirming beneath the skin of the human world, inhabited by the wronged and discarded and lost, fuelled by malice too powerful to die. Devouring need fed this sanctum of misery; a staticky hiss their dirge that rose to a crescendo and faded in endless cycle. Mim's body pulsed with the knowledge, its consuming sickness probing her mind for a way in. And lurking below things seen, another whose hunger beat all; a rapacious spirit who could never be sated.

Thoughts scattering like a panicked herd made planning tough. Had Aaron been dragged here? They didn't belong. Where was he? They must flee back to the other side before this hollow realm's king sought an audience. Then, they'd be trapped forever, at the mercy of residents devoid of the quality. And once seen, he would pursue them. All this she gained in tormented greeting.

" _Be brave_ , _be brave_ ," she recited under breath, as if that might help.

Another prod, more urgent. Miriam tripped on what she first thought was a branch that made a _crunch_ and snapped with her momentum. Looking down proved her mistake. By her boot's heel in sucking, bubbling ooze, a leering cat's skull, its wrecked spine her wire. The area around her boot was littered with the remains of Mrs Raymond's missing pets.

A scan for Aaron revealed the expanse was a quagmire of mouldering bones. Animal. And human, identifiable by hands and feet and skulls. Clumps of weeds and thorny bushes grew huge and threatening, vines coiling to snatch at her hair and clothes. Despite lungs aching from holding her breath, worry for him pushed her past dread and she barged onward for her executioner's laundry, faking courage in meagre quantity.

"Aaron?" she called as loud as she dared, the word snatched by the tumult. Could he be hiding, unaware she'd followed?

Find him first and then escape. That was the best strategy she could generate, if skimpy on detail. Miriam kept her head upright and straight, ever aware of an impatient shepherd with her spindle fingers, who unlike her made no _squelch_ when she walked.

At first, Mim labelled diaphanous fronds that curled and evaporated, only to reappear further away, wispy fog. But some had faces, others feline bodies. And if she listened hard, she could perceive their weeping and mewling above the doleful hiss. Mim's next, and much better act, was to let numbness rule. Inspecting any part of this too closely would bring her undone. She must stay tightly laced to get them both back to sanity.

Ignoring whipped barbs nicking her flesh, warm blood trickling reassuringly down her bare arms, she trudged across a wasteland where distance became unreliable.

"Aaron," she whisper-shouted again.

The laundry hunkered in an arid moat of a few metres, too poisoned even for the things that thrived here. Emerging at the border of feral shrubbery, the spectral woman threw out a sinewy forearm to bar Mim. Alarmingly, the ghost checked this way and that, as if ensuring their progress went undetected, her translucent hair wrapping about her face like jellyfish stingers. Mim stared up at her.

Unexpectedly, she returned the scrutiny and Mim flinched. It was evident, even with the damage that killed her, broken teeth, and floating colourless hair, she'd been beautiful in life. She bent near with a cadaverous waft and an off-kilter smile. Her bony fingers snaked the air, caressing Mim's cheek without touching, while Mim clenched her jaw, her nails digging her palms at her sides until the ghost receded. After another swift check of the clearing, Mim was thrust out unaccompanied, where even the dead refused to go.

Time was slippery and she had no idea how long since they'd fallen. If they stayed much longer, she and Aaron would surely earn notice. She sprinted to the laundry, pummelling the door ajar and almost toppled head first into a spiralling abyss. Scrambling for balance, she planted her hands against the doorframe either side and steadied herself, peering into its pitch depths. But as her vision sharpened, debris adhering to the tunnel wall stood out.

Most obvious beyond the span of her arm were she on her stomach, glinted the jutting corner of a dirt-caked box where patches of exposed silver revealed filigree. So, her guide had sent her on a treasure hunt. Retrieving the box would not be easy or fast, but she knew instinctively the act was her token for the exit. Not impossible at all.

Fretting for Aaron chewed at her. Mim took several calming breaths that did nothing of the sort. Where could he _be_?

She searched nearby for a sturdy stick coming up blank. Bones, however, were plentiful. Shuddering in revulsion, she opted for a cold, greasy shin with the foot still attached by stringy cartilage. Almost losing her shit entirely when it stuck in the bog, only freed after concerted tugging with a smacking _slurp_ that reminded of thickshake through straw, a drink she'd never enjoy again. If she got out of this alive.

She dropped to her belly, her legs straddling the danger zone for enemies to spot, and lowered into the tunnel. Using her tool – no way could she call it what it was – the box was within reach. Yet it was so firmly glued, chipping at the wall was necessary to dislodge it. Mim blinked, infuriated by tears that dripped like rain into the void, and kept digging. This charnel house was the final resting place of so many.

When enough of the box was revealed, she turned to capturing it before the shelf disintegrated and it spun away forever. She placed her implement aside as respectfully as using human bones for a spade permitted, negotiating the doorframe to descend over the lip. The door had been ripped from the hinges long ago and made one less obstacle. A rustle of tall grass caught her eye on the perimeter of vacant ground to the left.

"Aaron!"

Hope reared its treacherous snout. Mim began to haul back up to meet him, faltering when the lady ghost flapped her arms so drastically, flakes of her sloughed into the air and eddied like putrid snow. Her expression was one of utter terror, which on the departed magnified to a rictus mask that almost made Mim let go of her bladder.

But she was helpless to obey, hypnotised by the gradual emergence of her grandfather: Edgar Lynch.

Fittingly, the length of him oozed from the bushes in increments. Adorned in flickering raiment, he was still a snappy dresser, even in this nether hell where parties were surely scarce. Although, the flares were tattered and jacket so threadbare, she could see the henna sigils slithering the bones of his scrawny wrists and bare sunken chest. A scraggy jaw-length bob was fluid about his gaunt shoulders, its colour indeterminate. The effect was of a stilt-walker with glittering coal eyes and a razor-long nose, the skeleton master she'd met in her nightmare.

It wasn't until he'd exposed himself entirely that she beheld what he lugged one-handed. Her heart skipped a beat.

"No."

A thin shriek snatched Mim back to the lady, who gestured once more she hurry in her quest for the box. The scream also captured Edgar's interest. He spied them both, glancing greedily from one to the other.

Events collided in that moment, the way tragedy unfolds as if on time-lapse. He pinioned his emaciated frame, dragging unconscious Aaron limply by the forearm. His forehead was bloodied and one eye swollen shut. Poised with half her upper body jutting into the yard, Mim saw his chest tremble and knew her brother lived. She fought the instinct to go to him, aware she'd be useless pitted against such an enemy in his own territory. And probably useless come what may. Still, the now or never had arrived to roll out the welcome.

Mim dangled for the box, one arm gripping the doorframe rather than sky, the other reaching for her toes like an exercise session in a nice, normal park. Her boots scrambled for purchase. Tattoo man strode towards her even as the door obscured the view. Hopefully, he brought Aaron with him. She'd put her trust in the lady, screwed if it had been a trick.

Metal brushed her forefinger. She let slip her anchoring hand around one plane of the square post, thankful a cold sweat made her palm sticky. Mim hung her boots and inched deeper into the hole, keeping her eyes on the box's dull gleam. It was best not to look at the other things cemented by the tunnel's packed dirt walls or she'd lose her scant nerve and fail.

"Just a little more..." She skimmed cool flatness. "Come on."

Clinging by the last joints of her fingers, her hands were now unhelpfully slick with sweat. She bit the inside of her mouth bloody, beginning to slip. Where was Edgar?

"Come _on_."

Eventually, after several more misses accompanied by curses that would turn Marge's hair white, she clutched its girth. The box was as thick as a hefty paperback and wedged in earth calcified over decades, forcing her to wriggle it from its slot. She pulled, soil trickling, but it didn't budge.

Moments telescoped. What happened if he caught her? Without warning, the chunk of wall crumbled away and with it, the box. Mim whipped her arm out and batted the lot up onto the clearing above.

Fleetingly, her hand pulled free and she was untethered in mid air. But she used the momentum of the toss to hurl herself bodily at the shaft's vertical surface, capturing solid wood at the last second before plummeting. She wormed up seal-style and flopped face-down on the ground. Almost overwhelmed by relief, she checked for the box on her path back to the lady, where its bounce had shattered caked dirt. Any delay to impose calm was a luxury.

She burst up, dashing to collect her prize because life depended upon it, prising the lid apart while she ran. Her heart thundered to the pound of her feet. To the left, Edgar was almost upon her. The lady remained at the edge of the wild tangle of garden, coaxing Mim to greater speed.

Mim raced by into the nightmare garden, and then onwards, her lungs screaming, until only metres from the shadowy terrace back porch. She glanced over her shoulder, inquiring with a look if the lady aimed to follow. She mimed the action of twisting a key in a lock, and shooed Mim onwards with a lopsided smile. Edgar appeared behind at the path's opening and she pivoted slowly to block him.

The lid popped apart on hinges just as Mim skidded to the door. Inside on red velvet: a folded letter, a silver cameo, and a corroded key that fit a deadlock. Plucking out the key, Mim shut the box and tucked it down the front of her shorts. She aimed the key at the lock, panic making her miss several times. Finally, she jammed the key home and wrenched it right, diving through.

To find herself in a disorienting jumble of clothes, expelled to the upstairs bedroom from the cupboard onto her rump in an avalanche of coat hangers and gaudy shirts. Ryan towered over her, face aghast and fists balled.

"What the fuck! Where did you go?"

He stooped and hoisted her under the arms to her feet, smelling vaguely of lighter fluid. She peered up at him with frightened eyes, her shirt a bloody wreck, the skin on her arms and legs peppered by cuts.

"He's coming, but he's got Aaron. We must torch it. We have to torch everything!"

## 10 – Tuesday afternoon.

Ryan had been busy in her absence. In the puce glow of three LED lamps stationed at the room's border, lighter fluid stained the armoire's base. He'd upended the stale Old Spice into the drawers for good measure, its scent pervasive but hardly an improvement. His mother's crucifix dangled on top of his shirt. The balcony doorway had been salted in a vain effort to keep Edgar contained in the terrace, where he nested like some venomous insect lurking in ambush.

"We have to let him come through or Aaron's lost."

Ryan nodded without questions or protests. He retrieved the backpack, hiking it onto his shoulders. Mighty _thumps_ rattled the wardrobe, shadows thrashing and twirling beneath the mirror's surface. Ryan's gaze met hers in belated comprehension of what she'd noted before. Brutal thumps shook the wardrobe, reaching a deafening climax.

Then, startling silence enveloped the terrace. Ryan withdrew from the corner by the wardrobe nearest the door, heading to where she stood in front. As he moved, he lifted the cross from his neck, clearly intending to transfer it to her. It was a generous offer she had no intention of accepting. Whatever came through was her fate to suffer, not his. Or Aaron's.

A new sound distracted him and he paused. Fracture lines crackled the glass. Then an explosion.

A wave of glittering shards nicked Mim's bare limbs in white-hot zigzags. She staggered under the barrage, throwing up an arm too late. The doors flung wide, smashing Ryan rearwards and blocking him in one corner of the room. Edgar's attire blew from the hangars, the room like a bargain sale in a tornado. Shoes pelted her, forcing her from her vigil for Aaron. Mim ducked into a ball by the veranda doors, shielding herself with her elbows until the tempest stilled, oblivious that she'd breached the line of salt with her boot.

The room settled. She rose cautiously, scouring a dishevelled patchwork of sleeves, waistbands and pants for her brother.

"Aaron?"

A lone piece rocked on its hangar in the wardrobe. _Scritch, scritch, scritch_. The crimson velvet jacket.

The heap in the middle of the space quaked. Mim hurdled two metres in one, flinging clothes to lay bare an area of nothing. Hope dissolved, in its place fear's strangling noose. Had she jailed Aaron in that limbo?

"Ryan." She knew what came next would not be good. "Ryan!"

He groaned, his slumped body visible in a narrow gap between the walnut barricade and the wall. Garments quivered from the room's limits, then began an eerie side-wind to a central point. The cluster spewed upwards to build an imprecise shape. Mim backed away.

"Ryan, _wake up_. Please," she hissed.

"I'm up."

Muffled thuds resounded from the other side of the door. It bulged under his shoulder, as much as the restricted triangle and backpack permitted, but did not yield. She heard him swear softly.

Meanwhile, the fabric construction became a man which split to reveal not a butterfly, but her brother. Rust-hued symbols coiled over his exposed arms, up his neck and scalp, vanishing at Aaron's curled hairline only to reappear where they started. Aaron cracked his neck and stretched, giving the room a dismissive glance. Mim stood rooted to the spot behind him. Her brother tilted his head at the hanging jacket, but when he moved to gather it with awed reverence, it was not with his usual casual saunter. Instead, he adopted the gait of one who hunched into himself and stalked on stiff legs, shunning those around him.

"Aaron?"

He ignored her, his singular focus donning the jacket. It was far too small for Aaron's broad frame, and bunched on his t-shirt. He ripped the cotton down the front, shrugging the tee off like a moulting viper to force the jacket on. The velvet was old and fragile, the seams of both sleeves disintegrating at the shoulder blades and along the inner arms, so that it better resembled a ridiculous ill-fitting cape. He didn't seem to care, rotating from side to side in admiration in front of a mirror whose backing no longer reflected anything. What he saw there, Mim could not guess.

The picture before her shrieked this being was not Aaron. But he had to be in there somewhere, the alternative he'd departed for good, inconceivable.

Gulping her distress, Mim tiptoed closer. Blood from her stinging cuts splattered the ground. Rejects from the wardrobe littered the floor.

"Aaron. It's Mim."

Fascinated by his hair now, he angled his head to and fro. Mim approached gingerly, close enough to tap him lightly on the scapula. He wheeled and seized her wrist, jerking her arm away from her body so that she was forced to bend almost double to ease the pain.

She cried, "It's Miriam! Stop, Aaron." But this fiend didn't answer to that name. He twisted harder. Soon her arm would break. "Edgar, stop!"

He let go in surprise and stepped back, his brow furrowed. Ryan's attempts to escape became frantic, before ceasing. She stared at the parasitic creature who held her brother hostage, trying to mask her loathing. He stared back with her bi-coloured eyes.

Edgar scrutinised her so intently, it seemed he meant to unravel her innermost secrets. Recognition gradually brought glee to his features. But this was not Aaron's smile. Edgar's warped version was a scalpel's gash, a lipless facsimile that hid his teeth and celebrated his own superiority.

"Evelyn," he rasped, his right hand cupping her face.

Mim suppressed a shiver of revulsion, unable to speak. His exhaled the morgue and his touch was ice.

She'd wondered in the past about her birth name, whether she'd even been given one, more an idle daydream than a need to know. But now she craved blessed ignorance. Miriam was a fine name; her single wish to wake from this hideous dream, swearing to any higher power she'd never again be so ungrateful to question the gift of her upbringing, if in exchange for just a little help. As usual, no gods were available. It was up to her.

On the border of vision, Ryan's tactic to unscrew the hinges paid off. He soundlessly lifted the door aside, leaning it against the wall. Both realised too late how stupid it was to eradicate his only hiding place. Should Edgar turn slightly to the left in the confined room, Ryan was stuck with nowhere to go. She flicked her fingers to convey he should replace the door until she'd led Edgar downstairs. He shook his head and she cursed his stubborn chivalry.

"Photos," she squeaked. Edgar's attention pricked. She cleared her throat. "Photos, and your camera, downstairs. Your journal."

His clasped her shoulder painfully to propel her towards the exit. Forcing Ryan's hand was a mistake. She didn't give him enough time to react. In his haste, he fumbled the door. It toppled lazily to _slap_ the floor.

Ryan was fast. He could have evaded them by darting ahead were it not for slipping on a silk orange-paisley vest. With barely a swerve, Edgar's fist connected with Ryan's sternum, and like a punctured airbag he hurtled back into the corner where he slumped to a sitting position. His head lolled on his chest, blood oozing from his mouth.

"Ryan!" Mim struggled to break free. So many mistakes and all her fault.

Seething with a hatred like she'd never experienced, Mim clenched her jaw so forcefully she worried about cracking her teeth. Edgar pinched the web of her neck, steering her onto the landing and down the stairs.

Her boys were still alive – they had to be.

Where had she left the camera? She laboured to remember, plagued by worry and fright, her nerves worn thin. Was it even possible to fight such a being? She wished Edgar possessed her instead because she was easier to overpower. But Barry's favourite saying – a prettier rendition of Marge's 'work for it' ethic – came to mind. "If wishes were horses, we'd all be cowgirls in the rodeo."

If she could not win this battle with strength, she'd opt for sly. They made the bottom of the stairs. _Where_ was that accursed camera? She searched the loungeroom, and the area near the empty suitcase. The candles sputtered to their wicks in molten ponds. His fingers dug at her flesh, a stiletto of pain blossoming in her head and along one limb, as useful now as a lump of clay. A yellow wax stalactite draped the mantel. Next to its guttering flame, she eventually located the camera. Wielding her good arm, she pointed.

"Your mother."

As intended, Edgar's grip loosened. Mim dropped into a squat, traumatised muscle gaining a reprieve. Blood-smeared and aching in every cell, she twisted away and dodged by Aaron's abandoned luggage to scoop up the camera and bound inside the circle of salt where the Nikon first recorded the coming ordeal. The candle snuffed out, plunging them into living shadow.

She needn't have bothered with acrobatics. Misty-eyed and adoring, which was an expression she'd never seen Aaron wear, Edgar swatted the tack from the wall, catching the ribbon before the glass-fronted frame of his mother smashed to the ground. He slung the necklace over his head.

"Hey!" she called.

Oblivious, he stroked the image with a forefinger. Then he collected the splayed journal from the floor at the bottom of the stairs, unpinning photos from the wall with deliberate care and reassembling the pages of his story. A faint creak occurred upstairs. Mim strained hard to trust her ears. Yes, a stealthy someone moved around in the front bedroom. Her heart convulsed: Ryan was alive. Then came a dull _whump_ of ignition.

Still, Edgar paid no heed. The minutes stretched until smoke swirled into the loungeroom, prickling her eyes. In the semi-darkness above, a burnished glow struck gaps between boards like expanding runnels of lava. She knelt, seeking her brother's unpaired photo. No matter how much she wanted to, she figured destroying the camera was another wrong choice. It fuelled the curse, no peril without it. Mim checked the salt line was unbroken and displayed the object that had triggered this domino of devastation prominently within.

Smoke billowed, hampering respiration. Mim covered her mouth and nose with a shirtsleeve, and stayed low. Edgar coughed, wrested from his trance.

"This is Aaron's photo." She waved it high for him to see. A cinder wafted from the stairwell, green and amber eyes that didn't belong in her brother's face tracking its descent. His focus settled on the suspended picture. "The last portrait without its soul. You're inhabiting a temporary home. Shortly, you'll be undone by your own curse." She tisk-tisked, waiting for this news to infiltrate.

The blaze took hold quicker than she could have believed. Sparks spiralled in gathering torrent, smog thicker than porridge. To avoid hacking, she sipped only shallow draughts of kiln-like air. Her body was mousetrap taut. She squinted through stinging tears at Edgar. He sneered, which resembled a grimace of pain on Aaron.

Options for her brother's demise multiplied in the burning terrace. Miriam didn't know if that final murder was warranted now Edgar had voyaged into the world by a different portal. Or if he understood his grand tableau, his ultimate accomplishment, would never make the finished eight, stuck on seven because of her amateur selfie. She briefly considered telling him and goading him further, but he was too unpredictable to anticipate. So she waited, her suspense amplifying and the only protection between her and his growing wrath a scrawny line of salt.

He bared his teeth and lunged at her, his journal scattered to the heavens. Several loose pages caught fire instantly, the rest drifting like ticker-tape. But Edgar was no returned hero, his a parade of luckless victims. He shied from the ring of salt. And redoubled his efforts to get at her, prevented as if hitting a Perspex tube. Or perhaps he was after the camera, she could not be sure. Did he need it to cement his reincarnation?

Miriam grinned and wheezed, "Salt symbolises purity. It repels filthy, unnatural things." It wasn't necessary to add, _like you_.

A guttural howl escaped his lips, spittle flying. Aaron's fists balled and unballed. Prowling like a caged cat, he picked up bits of rubbish and hurled them at her, forcing her to duck and weave in place. The salt remained invulnerable. Still, he took too long, her brother's chance at salvation shrinking.

The terrace groaned and shuddered, its physical skin assaulted by captive spirits desperate for the final release. A glowing ember spun onto Edgar's velvet cape. He brushed it away too late. The fabric smouldered. He attempted to pat it out, serving to fan it into flames. Aaron screeched in drawn-out pain. The horrible thin sound cut short abruptly, his tick's exodus a swirling black miasma from his eyes, nose and mouth. Finally, her brother's vacated body crumpled to the floor.

The ensuing seconds were the longest of Mim's life. Edgar's vile fume became invisible against the other smoke, and she had not a clue where he went, forced to her knees by heat. Until the frame ripped from Aaron's neck gifting the surreal vision of a hovering necklace marking Edgar's frenzied quest for an outlet, penned in by salt. The velvet jacket flashed fully alight, but she could do nothing to help until Edgar left the room.

"Hurry," she choked.

Light-headedness and fatigue made her want to lie down and sleep forever. Her head sagged and eyelids dipped, her elbows losing the battle to keep her upright. Mim summoned dwindling reserves for one more look. The necklace had vanished. Or was it poor visibility and Edgar still skulked nearby, ready to possess her.

There was no time to equivocate. She vaulted up and ran to Aaron, tearing the burning cape from his raw, weeping flesh and pelting it as far from them as possible. Yanking off her cotton shirt, she used it to tamp out his hair, blistering her hands. They were doomed if Edgar showed, but it was now or not at all.

"Come on, Aaron, get up." She slapped his cheeks, shaking his broad girth. "Get up!"

But he was so big and she was oxygen deprived and exhausted, her lungs on fire, and flesh a lattice of cuts, bruises and burns. Miriam retched on a sob, spitting a mouthful of ash.

"Aaron, please."

Would they die here, in this miserable, hateful house? A presence loomed at her rear. She had no will left to fight.

"Not today." Ryan grasped Aaron by the ankle, his other hand gripping her under the arm. "Stay low, Mim."

The trio stumbled in a crouch to the front door. Ryan dragged it wide open, a blast of clean air total heaven. A backdraft exploded inside. Still, he insisted they hunker within the line of salt, a furnace at their backs which would quickly drive them onto the street regardless of threat.

"Edgar's out there," he yelled over the roar and crack of charred timbers. His t-shirt wrapped his nose and mouth, muffling his words. A purpling lump partially shut one eye, blood caking his forehead from a scalp wound. "I had to jump from the balcony when he rushed through a break in the salt. Weirdest thing ever. Look, Mim!"

"Can't... breathe," she croaked. "Out, gotta get out."

Ryan glanced from her to whatever he saw across the road. Clearly her pathetic condition won the toss. He heaved Aaron into a fireman's hold and the trio staggered to the front yard, between the off-kilter gates and onto the nature strip. A mid-afternoon dreary day was the brightest and best she'd ever cherished.

He arranged Aaron on cool grass, confirming a carotid pulse as the whine of sirens grew louder.

"He'll live."

Her throat felt like she'd swallowed acid-soaked gravel and lungs screamed. Mim repeated her routine slump to the gutter, grateful beyond words. Ryan joined her, passing over his shirt. Happy to cover her bra and naked torso despite its bonfire reek, she pulled it on and propped against his shoulder, following his gesture to where Ezra stared from the opposite side.

The ribboned picture of his dead grandmother was prominent over his plain black shirt. He had the same skeletal physique, angular cheek bones and pouting full lips. His ebony hair, however, cascaded to his waist. Gym boots clashed with formal black suit pants, as austere as Edgar was flashy. He might have been extremely attractive were it not for a scowl that when it fell upon an intended target bestowed vicious contempt.

And then he smiled Edgar's flick-knife smile. She'd never seen her father's version, but she knew. And if there was any doubt, a golden symbol shimmered briefly above his collar. He turned heel and strode in his stiff-gaited hunch to the end of the street, melting around the corner and gone without a backwards glance.

After several minutes of mute shock, Ryan said, "Congratulations. It's a baby rectangle."

Astonished it had stayed put, she pulled the silver filigreed box from her shorts. Together with a hand-written letter, she found her original birth certificate. Unfolding the paper with shaky, blistered fingers proved tricky – Ryan sensitive enough not to interrupt the ritual of this momentous occasion whereupon she'd been forcibly acquainted with her absent parents in the space of half a day. In both instances, her depiction of how such a meeting would unfurl proved woefully uninspired.

She read aloud in a painful rasp, "Evelyn Emmanuelle... Jones. Birth mother, Laura."

"Pleased to meet you, Evelyn," he murmured, reaching to wipe a tear from her cheek with his thumb.

She shook her head and refolded the certificate, tucking it back inside the box. The letter could wait until she was ready. Right now, she wanted nothing more to do with her inheritance.

"My name's Miriam Sampson. My brother is Aaron and parents are Barry and Marge."

With a rumbling moan, the terrace collapsed in on itself, dust and rubble a fitting end to Edgar's mausoleum. Mim was thrilled to destroy the suitcase, the wardrobe, that awful camera and its hideous gallery: now just unenchanted implements her grandfather no longer required in his obsession to achieve Chikhai Bardo. He'd won at ultimate cost to those whose lives were stolen.

She prayed his success brought an end to the killing and he lived a satisfied life in the guise of his son. Somehow, she had a very bad feeling that was too easy. She'd not heard the last of Edgar.

Echoing her own thoughts, Ryan said, "We're the only ones who know the truth. Even with a police investigation, they'll never believe the killer's alive."

His victims' stories had to be told. But not yet.

"Any chance you can take me out to dinner first?"

He grinned down at her. The simmering attraction since their first meeting blossomed and he leaned in for a kiss.

"Get a room," Aaron grumbled, hauling feebly onto an elbow. "On second thoughts, don't."

The three broke into manic laughter, drowned out by screeching sirens and the strobed-lit arrival of the authorities. Ryan stood to greet them.

"Damn." The exclamation razored Mim's throat and triggered a coughing fit. When she'd finally wrested control, the boys frowning in alarm, she said, "My favourite Docs were in there."

From on high beyond the laundry, an ephemeral presence turned away from a far more profound light. Liberated by the same door into the corporeal world her nemesis exploited, she vowed to fix the blunder of his escape. Laura had killed her father-in-law with that noose, persuading him it was the single path to realise his dream. Imagine her horror when his crazy theory worked, due mostly to her ill-fated assistance. But she would discover a way to despatch him again. And this time she'd be ready if Ezra sought revenge. Her psychopathic ex-lover, a fanatic for his father's warped teachings, couldn't murder her a second time.

His plan for Edgar to possess his granddaughter had failed. But like all zealots, nothing swayed him from the course. She resolved as always, to be a _good_ mother, and remain her daughter's steadfast guardian.

Letter to Mim, hastily scrawled:

_Your name is Evelyn. You were born: 21_ st _of January, 1999 at St Vincent's hospital, 6 pm on a stormy, grey Sunday. Your delivery was very fast and easy, perhaps in concession to the difficulty surrounding all other aspects of your tiny life. You weighed a respectable 7lbs, 8oz. I lingered long enough for the nurse's pronouncement you were healthy and then we were gone._

I have travelled as far as I dare, to a town where bake-off's, church collection plates, and neighbourly helping hands still exist. You deserve so much more than the legacy of my poor decisions. It breaks my heart to leave you in so pitiful a state.

Evelyn, although it does not seem it, you are loved with every atom of my unworthy being. Believe me when I swear to you, it is for the best. No one can know you live or have an inkling of who you really are. I am confident he will find me, no matter how hard I try to disappear. I would rather he hunts me, than you. And so, I lead him on a chase to the opposite ends of the country, far from you. Stay safe, little one. If the truth ever sees the light of day, try to view me kindly and remember a mother's sacrifice. I pledge you my life, for that is all I have left.

## Excerpt from latest novel: CHATTEL

S E Holmes

As a rare male in a future over-populated by girls, the worst 18-year-old Cassius Quist thinks can happen on his auction day to fulfil fertility conscription is a lousy bid. But when prickly Joebi Jemisin from the wealthy elite saves Cas from murderous gangers and jail by bidding on him, the two embark on a perilous quest that eventually unravels a conspiracy threatening what's left of humanity, and it may be the best horrible day of his life.

## 1

I am gold in a tarnished age and today, I go to auction. Like the few other boys alive to their eighteenth year, my family's future depends on how well I scrub up. A future not shrouded by the fug of burning garbage and unwashed bodies crammed so tightly, we drink each other's sweat.

A future free of hunger and sickness and bad hygiene that hurtles away with every welt and laceration. It's the annoying issue of Vera's boot crushing my ribcage, the force of her kick bouncing my skull on the tarmac. I guarantee, a head bash doesn't bestow anything as pretty as stars, more a comet screaming through one's cranium.

Besides, I might enjoy those distant sparkles, so hard to glimpse in this towering ghetto on the edge of living. Instead, more familiar black threatens. If I let guttering awareness snuff out, I'm another corpse on surrounding trash heaps waiting incineration.

My filter has flown from my face, belonging now to the mob clamouring for my hide. Gone, too, are my goggles. Sooty residue coats everything here in a toxic dust to be avoided in favour of living beyond the teens. The choking reek of smouldering rubbish is the stench of despair.

"In the head."

"Scramble that pretty face."

The news I'm up for auction has spread. I should have known they'd try to brand me and extort a percentage. A rooky mistake on a morning with even less allowance for them. The seconds contract, filled with all the things I could have done better.

The fateful hour of midday when the gavel drops is too close with so many chores still to do. Yet here I lie, pinned on my back like a groggy sacrifice upon the pyre, kidding myself I'm plotting a brilliant retaliation.

Vera's southside Craters circle us, jeering and offering advice their pack leader – whose muscled bulk out-bids mine by about ten tonne – really doesn't need. Unfortunately, the news I'm on the cusp of a fatal beating is sluggish to reach gnat-like drones swarming the highways overhead. Still, it won't be long before one of the useless spies hovers above chanting _move it along_ enough times to bore us into submission, but peacekeepers with their Tasers will come too late for me.

"This is no day for ladders, you skanky ranker," I wheeze, fighting the fog in my skull. "Now get off!"

The suffocating pressure on my chest grows and she bends low to display a row of teeth etched floral in perma-squid black. It looks like they're rotting, probably are. Her dreadlocks prickle my bare arm like spider legs, her snarl moist and hot in my ear.

"No one says 'no' to me." She raises her head for dramatic flair and yells, "It's the perfect day. _Cassius Quist_."

Her girls applaud and whoop, voices tinny through an assortment of re-breather masks. So now she knows my private name, not the number assigned to me at school. Apparently, psychopaths are decent at hacking records.

As long as she doesn't know where we live. Our address is supposed to be top-level restricted. We go to great lengths to keep it that way. A forest of scruffy canvas joggers blocks my path to freedom.

"Wouldn't it be wiser," I choke out, "to keep my face pretty, make more money that way?" I have no intention of giving these leeches a cent.

"Your face is my billboard."

She roars laughter and her sycophants follow suit. They wear their colours with pride in the Crates, inked by each other and metalled to the eyeballs with scrapyard junk to advertise membership in the meanest gang by a tolerance for pain. They'll do anything for the pissweak perks of a raised profile.

"Need to send a message. And just in case you get any ideas of rebellion, when you're gone we'll be paying that sweet little sister of yours a visit." She leers at me. "Maybe, Sunni can go. She's my best talker."

They _do_ know where I live. Sunni talks with the point of her knife.

Threatening my sister is Vera's second mistake. While she's busy gloating, I lunge and hook her behind a knee the thickness of a girder – the giant variety fixing pre-fabbed crates in teetering stacks so high, night here's almost the same as day – I heave her to join me splayed on the cracked and steaming bitumen. Reeking tar enfolds us. She makes a satisfying _oof_ , but then ruins it all by curling to strike me double-booted in the nose when I try to roll over and pin her.

My head snaps on my neck. A white-hot needle of pain tears another hole through my senses. Crunched bone accents cheers echoing this sliver of free zone, an asphalt rink the size of a trailer set aside for 'recreation.' Blood arcs a decorative splatter across the legs of the Southside girls' church-issued denim jumpsuits. She's uglied up my nose for certain.

I run my tongue over my gums to check I've not swallowed a tooth and find a ragged hole on the inside of my cheek that's the source of the metallic ooze filling my mouth. And I'm on my back again.

I'm not sure this is what the authorities had in mind for leisure. It used to be a much bigger park or a city tennis club, fossils from a world with plenty of land to waste on well-mannered pastimes. A mean square of sky wavers so far above, it seems no bigger than a washed-out pixel. Hacking a gob of salty warmth rips fresh pain through my frontal lobe, but darkness will not win. Passing out is a luxury today, of all days.

Everyone here knows fists are just as good for sport as racquets. Although I don't have a racquet or a bat handy right now, this is the occasion to stop scrapping and teach Vera the reason I'm feared, although slight for a boy.

Or so they say. I've never met another male. We're rare in a world crowded with girls. The gender I was born is my single gift, one I won't allow her to destroy.

Next to me, she's still winded and scrambling to hoist that mass upright. Vera's probably responsible for most of the robberies at the local food-drop charities recently. I've had to raid the supply trucks of vitamin powder more often. It's getting riskier now their security's armed. I bet she hoards the oranges and doesn't give a shit about how many extra starve to death because of her greed or get the blotch and lose their teeth. I have no proof, but the belief helps ease the guilt over what I'm about to do to her.

I reveal gore-smeared teeth in approximation of a grin, flipping to nail her long hair beneath my shoulder. Suckers generally don't expect a punch from the floor, which is exactly what I do, exploding to pound her sufficiently hard to break her cheekbone. My knuckles blaze, jarring to my elbow. Her head bounces like one of those tennis balls of old. She howls in shock. Seems she's not enjoying stars, either.

Before Vera figures what sort of fight she's in – no-holds-barred dirty – I grab the bullring she's wearing, tearing it from the cartilage between her nostrils. She shrieks again and clamps her fingers to her ruined nose.

"You should have taken me out up front."

Tossing the flesh-chunked hoop into the crowd, I don't squander my single chance watching them scatter after it, and jump to my feet. Poverty is the ultimate motivation to recycle. I take off in a sprint, my bruised body complaining, aware of how fast they'll come after me in a big murderous wave.

The main crew are assembled, twenty of the cut-throat fems soon on the hunt for my scalp. Vera will probably wear it for a hat, clotted hair and all. Regardless of the pretence of protection from the authorities, it's not hard around here, even for those retrogrades, to locate a man on the run.

She screams nasally in my wake. "You're gonna die, sperm! I don't care if you're registered special, I've got friends. I'll skin you, the last thing I do."

A vision flashes of her slicing the chip from my forearm, crisping up the excess skin over a kero burner in their crumbling, cavernous lair, and shoving it down my throat. It's a reflex to clamp my jaw and run faster, tearing north into the gloomy canyon of crates, north towards home, each footfall a stiletto to my damaged face.

After ten minutes, the shouts of my pursuers fade behind until all I hear is the whistled intake of my breathing. I slip between struts of the scaffold to hide and give the hammering of my shattered-egg skull a chance to ease. In the distance, the _move-it-along_ mantra of the tardy drone resonates over sky towers.

It's gloomy and stifling beneath the Crates. An odour of cats' piss pervades, but the coppery smell of my blood offers competition. Gingerly patting my nose, the update is not good. At least all my teeth stay rooted to my gums.

Above, bottom floor inhabitants stomp about and conversation filters through the thin veneer. The structure is raised several metres from the ground to avoid rising damp, which can dissolve reinforced cardboard to grey mush in a matter of months. Summer monsoons provoke a mix of dread and the reprieve of plentiful water.

Several buildings have come down lately. At least the flattened residents died well hydrated. Pre-fab companies have never found a solution to beat relentless nature, even with chemical treatments likely to melt the tissue from a Crater's bones. Fatal housing kind of defeats the point, though.

That's the roller-coaster existence of the Crates for you. Fate extends one hand to help you up, while slapping you down with the other.

A mangy tom slinks into view and growls a warning at me, jaundiced eyes glinting from the shadows a metre away. But they keep the rat population at bay so we mostly leave them be. No one wants a resurgence of the plague. Unless their numbers need culling.

"Shoo! Or I'll put feline on tonight's menu." I sound like Vera minus the insanity, dull D's where crisp T's belong.

Anyway, it's an idle threat. Craters must be fussy when it comes to an extra source of protein. You can never tell a seething reservoir of virus, likely to result in blood-flecked frothing at the mouth or liquefied lungs. Luck is on my side the cat's not a rabies-riddled canine.

Admittedly, it's hard to be grateful. An extensive schedule of vaccinations proves the authorities are as useless at combating viruses, as housing the populace in something other than cardboard coffins.

"Go on! Get."

With a half-hearted hiss of defiance, the cat disappears. Hopefully, he won't return with friends to turn the tables. A single fight to the death's plenty for one day. And even the most emaciated, uninfected wild dog can take a limb as easily as bare their fangs.

I dredge up the courage to check if risking this lousy shortcut has been worth it. What other choice was there? Skirting Vera's territory by taking the southern boundary would have stolen hours dedicated to finding enough water for a wash, and my little sister needs her medicine.

Medicine that would get me arrested should one of those meddlesome drones dive down for a closer look. I pray to some unspecified god the vial of capsules for Salem is whole in my shirt pocket. I don't know why. I proved years ago praying here is impractical.

Beneath my probing, blood-sticky fingers, Salem's enzymes are crushed, five capsules broken apart, the contents mixed with pellet gel. They cost me a week's trade in pilfered vitamins. The loss will cost Salem a whole lot more.

My head droops, overcome by the weight of this grind-you-to-dust place where survival is a fleeting triumph won by the best thief, a fresh misery served up each day. The rising throb of my nose suggests it's broken. I must look a sight. Brawling with Vera has ruined my chance at a successful auction, which is exactly the revenge she intended.

And shattered my mother's last hope.

## 2

The heroine in all such stories flees for the border. From where she loiters out in the hall, Joebi imagines the frame on the other side of the door is frontier land gifting freedom from this day's tyranny. The posse will search her laboratory downstairs, never expecting she'd hide in her abandoned bedroom. She's grudgingly left Powder in the lab to make the ruse look authentic. Her rabbit is never far from her side.

Within the bedroom, her sister, Shara, and Elka, her sister's dim-bulb bestie, ogle at a digital life-sized parade of semi-naked boys oiled and tanned in gold lamé cod-pieces, or leather groin cups like gladiators of ancient Rome. Muscles bunch and flex in lingering freeze-frame. Rippling torsos, clenched buttocks, and broad hairless backs compete with over-bleached teeth and shining locks in the act of slow-motion flicks.

The scrolling montage is so crystal clear, it is as though the boys are present. Joebi has seen it all before. The voyeurs are loud and tipsy, even though mid-morning sunshine scarcely paints the polished marble at her bare feet. Elka's voice drips lust.

"Oh, yeah. Look at those pecs."

"Why do they bother to dress them?" Shara giggles. "How are we supposed to make an informed decision when all the goods aren't on display?"

"Maybe the auction house will let us touch before we buy. Pause that one. Spin him and show me the behind view."

Today's is a special closed auction for the children of the wealthy elite. Nothing but the best for the heirs to the Chromoceuticals fortune. All across the city similar events are held for lesser mortals.

Steeling her nerve, Joebi tiptoes past Shara's room, not daring to look lest she jinxes herself. If she doesn't see them, maybe they won't see her. Musk perfume loaded with pheromones is so heavy on the air, a chemical tang coats her tongue.

Judging by an increase in babble, Elka favours blondes. "Magnify. Eww. That makes his nostrils huge. I'm not over fond of a man with large nostrils."

"You're so fussy. Pan out and they won't be as large. Looks like you can crawl in there."

"Hmm, I want to crawl in somewhere, that's for defs."

The girls collapse in laughter. Those poor boys could hardly be called dressed. Joebi rolls her eyes, relieved to have made it unnoticed to safety. Until pheromones have their way and she sneezes.

"Get your scrawny butt back here, Jemisin!"

Her sister wields their last name like an insult, as if Joebi's ownership taints their heritage. She's now lassoed, probably nothing as dramatic as a noose around her neck, but trapped just the same. She's slouches in to the opulent room with its enormous bed in the middle, shades of red silk glistening so it reminds her of an arterial gash.

The space is a cathedral of columns and vaulted ceilings, a grandiose display of luxury in warm-hued marble and flashy gilt highlights. Projected over an entire wall at the bottom of her bed, is the giant altar of close-ups where flawless tawny skin shines, and seductive winks hint at possibilities.

Shara is more subtle in her blue-eyed inspection, but it's obvious when her focus is drawn to a particularly large specimen, in both his defined form and arousal. Desperation taints their search, the knot of tension in Joebi's gut twisting. She doesn't understand why the auctions affect her so, when no one else gives them a second's pause.

"See anything you like, fidget?" Elka smirks. "Wait, you prefer fiddling about down there with your favourite person, don't you?"

Even as she takes the bait, Joebi chastises herself. She knows better than to argue with practised idiots, but Elka worms under her skin and she just can't help it.

"At least I've mastered hand-eye coordination. I'd lend you the instruction manual but I know you can't read."

"Ooh, she bites every time. Where's that dreadful fluffy rodent you cart around? It's not running loose, is it?"

"Careful, you'll get those little wrinkles that make your mouth look like a cat's butt."

Elka plants her hands across her mouth, her eyes wide in genuine horror. "Do I need more fill, Shar?" She brandishes a hand mirror and inspects her pursed lips from a distance of millimetres.

"Reducing a human to body parts is banal," Joebi mutters, aware her comment is wasted on the whole of society.

Any more fill, she thinks, and Elka's lips will explode. Shara is engrossed in the profound task of eyelash application. In a year, when Joebi's eighteen, it'll be her turn to endure this freak show. She'll never be ready.

"You are not coming with me wearing that sack." Shara drags her focus from her own doll-like reflection.

"Black, ugh. It's so unflattering."

Belatedly, Joebi ignores Elka. "Good. Then I'm not coming."

Shara inhales slowly, a clear sign of failing patience. She's decked out in lace-hugging finery, frills enhancing her augmented talents. Compared to Elka's thigh-grazing skirt and filmy shirt stretched over her inflated assets, Shara is almost demure.

Her left hand rests in a nail laser-spray chamber on a wheeled trolley packed with cosmetics and lotions between them. Each totes a Champagne flute filled with costly bubbles. The rise and fall of her breasts is overt, even from across the room. Clearly Shara is also rehearsing, although she's wasting the hair-tossing drama on Joebi.

"Mama gave specific instructions. I'm to get you out of the house before you meld with your study chair and become part of the furniture. You need some sun."

"You've talked with mama?"

Joebi envies her mother spared this, but she's not important enough to be excused. Bertha Jemisin single-handedly founded Chromoceuticals and wields more power than the city councillors combined. Did she not see the hypocrisy? Working from dawn to well past dusk exposes Bertie to nothing but fluorescence.

"She wired her congratulations this morning." Shara at least has the decency to seem disappointed.

"What I don't need is hours wasted on a porn-slave quest."

"Oh please don't make this hard, Joebi."

"I thought you liked hard."

Shara frees her hand and glares. If she's not careful, she'll crinkle her forehead. Nothing a product from the family business can't erase. One set of fingers sports metallic bronze nails, the other fire-engine high gloss. She takes a slug of Champagne, emptying the glass. Elka refills for her and wine flows over the lip to splash the floor.

Sensors blink awake in the ceiling, but nothing happens. Shara's scowl deepens, and she stamps her foot trying to provoke a response.

"That's the third time today," she says.

All three stare up at the ceiling. Joebi pivots for the en suite.

"I'm not finished with you, Jemisin."

"I was just going to get a towel from the bathroom to clean that up."

"Ha," Elka snorts. "Now she's the hired help. Dipping down to your real level, fidget?"

Finally, a tiny robot zips out from a concealed cupboard in the skirting board. Joebi frowns, watching it fail utterly at tracking. After several detours – one which forces Elka to scramble onto the bed to avoid a collision – the robot suctions the spill and lasers the area spotless again.

"Stupid thing," Elka says, throwing the robot poisoned looks as it meanders a retreat.

Despite the robot's superb aim, their home has been glitching a lot recently. If only Joebi wasn't obliged to attend the despicable auctions, she'd spend the day interfacing with the AI. She serviced it a few weeks ago, stumped as to what she's missed. Vague alarm nags at her. To this point, the AI has functioned reliably. Order restored, Shara returns to the critical topic.

"It's my coming of age. A special day." She pleads, "Don't blow it for me."

Joebi bites her lip, supressing more smut about blow-jobs and coming. "If the auction's so special, why isn't mamma taking you?"

"There's been another hacking incident. Mamma's coordinating the investigation of industrial espionage, maybe bio-terrorism."

Could that explain the glitch? "If we're going alone, can't you let me off the hook? Just this once, Shar?"

"Don't be ridiculous. They'd never let us go alone. Especially on my first bidding day. Mona's escorting us."

"Oh, for the love of peace. She's worse than Elka, who's like a Bonobo in heat."

"A Bonobo?" Elka yelps, even though Joebi's pretty sure she doesn't have the faintest idea that a Bonobo is a species of chimpanzee known for excessive copulation. The last few died out in private zoos and were probably just as starved for intimacy as these two, only Joebi feels deep regret over their plight. "Don't you dare compare me to that over-sexed old boiler. It's undignified on someone of her age."

A cleared throat at her rear announces the presence of said "old boiler." Joebi wishes she had Mona's gift for sneakiness, which would have spared her this shrinking trap.

"Despite the glare of Elka's shade of hair dye, we really don't need to wear sunglasses indoors, Joebi. Yeast Infection Number One, isn't it, Elka?" Elka's smile at Mona is sickly saccharine and loaded with dislike. "Now run along, Joebi, and get dressed in something other than that funeral shroud. The car will be downstairs in fifteen minutes."

Joebi spins to object that her round spectacles are blue-tint to ease the constant strain of computer and microscope projections. Mona stares her down with a haughty demeanour that signals no tolerance for an argument.

Her mother's Chief Executive Officer is known for her steel-plated spine, silver bouffant, and antique sex implements on display in glass cases lining her expansive corner office in the city's best building. It's rumoured her collection is still in regular use. She buys at every auction, onselling after the glow of youth dims and the novelty of a new toy to play with wears off.

Joebi speculates the middle-aged woman is over-compensating for something. She's just not certain of what.

"And Joebi?" Gritting her teeth, Joebi gazes into Mona's shark-grey irises. "Leave your hair out. No plaits, buns or ponytails. Heaven forbid, no scarves. Nothing that drags on the floor or covers your neck. Nothing baggy. In fact, fabric cannot pass beyond these points." She rests one palm down where her baby-pink negligee peeks above her white suit jacket, the other sitting slightly above her knee. "You are a Chromoceuticals ambassador first and foremost. Your aesthetic is our promotion."

"Is our aesthetic dock-jock?"

There are cubicles tucked around the harbour where all manner of 'specialty' is catered to, one just has to jack-in or dock. If that doesn't knock a girl's sandals off there's always exotic deli-goods on offer: fems who've gone under the knife and manned up to varying degrees of success. Or mutilation, so Joebi's heard. She wonders if Elka has taken a walk on the wild side down on the docks, if only for the boasting privileges.

Elka snickers and Joebi gets the message she is poor Chromoceuticals material. After that last impertinent comment, Mona's raised eyebrows seem to agree.

Who is Joebi supposed to impress? It's a question she asks herself often. The auction will teem with girls like Shara and her sister's nasty court jester. Spoilt. Rich. Entitled narcissists. It is an eternal truth that beauty trumps brains. She wonders again if things were just as bad centuries ago before the imbalance, when the ratio of males to females was nearly even. Were girls as cruel to each other back then?

The decline remains inexplicable. There are plenty of theories, but no one can work out how to fix it. Joebi has made it her mission.

"Aren't clients interested in my grades? How pretty I am will be irrelevant when I cure the imbalance. Then none of this—" She gestures at Elka simpering over a magnificent set of twins on the screen.

"Look, Shar! It's the 'Double Love' twins. I am _so_ buying them both."

Her mother owns Compartiblock Construction responsible for cheap, rapid-erect mobile condominiums and she can afford premium. It seems she takes the company motto 'Get it up quick and keep it up' a little too literally.

"Ooh, I love that show!"

It's so greedy. And everyone knows the auctions have nothing to do with love. It's in the fine-print: love costs extra. Joebi raises her voice to drown them out.

"None of _this_ will be necessary."

"For someone so smart, you sure are dumb." Elka wheels around from the screen. "It'd be more necessary than now."

"Run. Along. No... animals," Mona says with distaste. "And I won't abide a badge, Jojo." She jabs at the 'boys are not chattel' badge prominent on Joebi's chest. "Today is not the day for your campaign."

"If not today, then when?" Joebi says.

She grumbles about hormonally sozzled, shallow people the entire time it takes to throw on a dress and arrive downstairs where a limousine hovers by the curb. Mona purses titian lips in disapproval, to which Joebi cocks an unplucked eyebrow.

"The way I look is not the most important thing about me."

She scoots in front, as far as the booth will allow from a back row of critical eyes. But they are too impatient to delay while she slogs back up ten levels of the fire escape to change. She spurns the elevator and synthetic myostim in favour of real exercise. Mona sighs acquiescence and Joebi knows she's won this trivial battle. There will be many more she'll lose on this stupid day, of all days.

"Eek, white." Elka rifles the fridge next to Joebi for more booze, her bum waving in Mona's face. "It's even more unflattering than black."

Mona presses into her seat – any further and she'd be in the trunk. Her features pucker like they do when she fires some poor deficient who delivers her coffee a degree either side of the ideal temperature.

"So's exposed nipple," Joebi says. "At least I leave something to the imagination."

Elka snorts. "Imagination's irrelevant. Why do you think we go to the auction, Joebi, you witless wonder?"

She snuggles next to Shara and pops the cork, a spume of Champagne puddling the floor. They don't bother with glasses and swig from the bottle.

Mona scrooches close to the window, straightening her perfectly ironed skirt. Smoothing her clothes is another sign she's irate. Then she decides the same side will not do and hops over next to Joebi. Dragging a comb from her handbag, she begins the process of detangling Joebi's locks. She's none too gentle.

"Who needs virtuals or orgy-borgs when you can have the real thing?" Shara hiccups and giggles simultaneously, seeming confused.

It's not a reaction hard to provoke. The limo glides slowly vertical, until merging in the silent stream of other vehicles heading for Urbana's city centre. They pick up speed and shoot for the horizon of stumpy white-tiled buildings and flashes of green. Sun haloes uptown in white-hazed brilliance.

With zero hope of getting out of this, Joebi resolves to embrace the only course of action left. She'll gather evidence in her crusade against the auctions. And then when the moment presents, she'll take her message to the council: boys are not chattel.

## Excerpt free novel: THE CRONE'S STONE

The Sacred Trinity Trilogy: Book One

S E Holmes

As the last Keeper of the vile Crone's Stone, 17 year-old Winsome Light has inherited a terrible legacy – for Satan's mistress does not take kindly to thieves. She wants her powerful stone back and Winnie is the only one left to hide it. The problem is; no one told her. The Crone is coming to take back what's hers and Winnie had better be ready. This is no fairytale.

" _Danger and excitement abound in this enticing first book in an exciting new paranormal series_."

**Publisher's Weekly Reviewer**.
Copyright © 2018 SueEllen Holmes

The Hidden Key (The Sacred Trinity Trilogy: Book Two)

Brink

Dominion

Chattel

Free novels, short stories and novellas available from www.seholmesauthor.com:

Trouble with Angels

Sleek Comes the Night

Shutter

A Darker Shade of Grey

The Crone's Stone (The Sacred Trinity Trilogy: Book One)

## One

Junior Deputy-Sheriff Joliet swore as the cruiser stalled and lurched to a stop in a plume of dust far from the murdered woman's house. Davey ground the key in the ignition. The engine refused to turn over. It was midmorning and he was so late, the prospect of further delay pushed him to the border of freaking out.

"Come on. Come on!" He pummelled the steering wheel. "Piece of junk." The air-conditioning gave an anaemic wheeze and stopped working. "Excellent," he grumbled, cracking a window. Cloying humidity seeped into the cabin.

Heat rippled the view over the bonnet where at least ten vehicles zigzagged gravel outside huge, ornately grilled entrance gates. Why had they all stopped here, even the coroner? How would they get the body out? And some of his colleagues were as likely to walk as don a tutu and perform a pirouette, resembling that Disney dance of the hippos. He'd driven as far as he could. Davey undid the seatbelt and reached for the doorhandle, confused by a bizarre mechanical glitch that seemed unanimous.

The car door stuck, obliging a shoulder barge. The vehicle had been in working order when he'd collected it from the auto-pool this morning. With a final disgruntled shove, he spilled out onto the tarmac and staggered upright.

A cloud of bloodsuckers swarmed for the smorgasbord. He'd forgotten repellent and slapped irritably, hitting himself more often than any of the stinging gnats. The allegedly 'cool and breezy' uniform (never believe the packaging blurb) clung like his stalker ex-girlfriend. At least she'd been cool and breezy in the beginning. Ecru had never been his colour. Was it anyone's?

Davey groaned. A long, sweaty hike to a place he didn't want to go beckoned. The monstrous ante-bellum pile crouched on the hill, as though waiting in ambush. Whenever the gossips at the BI-LO mentioned the area they reeled out a load of tripe about the house being haunted. Maybe he should have listened for once and stayed away. But Uncle Horace also waited inside for his manly black, no sugar. Contrary to nattered rumours of vengeful spirits, the threat of a long lecture on Davey's tardiness was very real.

Not for the first time, he wished some other pathetic chump occupied his spot as the newest recruit on the bottom of the St Martin sheriff's office urinal. Was it his fault the coffee order slipped under his windscreen wiper early that morning like an infringement ticket had stretched longer than the cafe queue? Some comedian had ordered a mint julep. Davey had asked anyway, knowing it was stupid. His server with a nose ring and pretty red hair sniped she'd check out back for her "lace parasol, a gentleman caller, oh, and an _1850's recipe_." Everyone in the shop had laughed. Although not so much when Davey loudly requested a "ginger tart" and little-miss-nose-ring promptly called the manager.

And this part of Louisiana was so off-the-known-track, without the police tape draping the bushes by the property's entrance, Davey would still head for the Gulf of Mexico. Even GPS failed out here. To this point, everyone believed the land was unoccupied. Apparently, they'd had to search way back in the records to discover the landholder's title. The victim's name was Baptiste, Raphaela.

Hitching an equipment-packed belt he reached in, gathered the coffees on precariously stacked trays, and kicked the door shut. He wondered for the gazillionth time how Uncle Horace had managed to bully him into a career as a police officer. Davey had just wanted to go to college and teach history, not stare down years before the rest of them trusted him with something other than food and beverage orders.

Now he found himself shimmying through a creepy gridlock of dead cars towards a place with a cruel reputation that spanned centuries. Accidents happened in the vicinity too often: disappearances, drownings, gator attacks, moccasin bites. Voodoo and superstition riddled this part of Louisiana. Maybe, those rumours of black magic and devil-worship had simply got the better of him today.

"Another schmuck fronting the Reaper with surgical gloves and crime tape," he muttered.

His spine crawled, as though unfriendly eyes peered from the cypress and cottonwood shadows. According to a fuzzy satellite image from the coffee-stained incident report back in the car, the dead woman's land was originally a wilderness of greenery and swamp. He'd frowned at the word 'originally', reading it over and over. What had replaced the vegetation?

Davey scanned the scrubby clearing, ancient gnarled trees riddled by Spanish moss guarding what had once been a turning circle. The incessant shriek of insects was like razor wire in his ears. An industrial grinder lay by the gate, required to shear chains heavy enough to tether a tanker. Whatever had happened here, this was no ordinary crime scene. The concrete wall ringing the perimeter seemed better suited to a medieval fortress. He craned to glimpse its wide, barbed top. What on earth was the victim trying to keep out?

The place gave him a serious case of the jitters. It was not too late to hightail it back to the office. Hell! It was not too late to hightail it to college. He was barely eighteen. The whole team had made the trek here anyway. Stimulants aside, they didn't need him. Uncle Horace would just have to deal with the fact that three generations in law enforcement ended the family record.

Davey gingerly navigated the partly open gate via colossal pillars, his lungs deflating. Silence fell. Beyond the columns, a clinging vapour swallowed his legs up to his thighs, the odour of petrol triggering his asthma. Juggling the trays, he fumbled his inhaler from an overstuffed pocket, sucking deeply. In an act worthy of a Las Vegas magician, he gritted a handkerchief in his teeth and tied it about his face with only one hand.

Treading cautiously up the incline, a pothole turned Davey's ankle and several cups tumbled from the trays. It was even more suffocatingly humid inside. He gasped for air, pain lancing his leg. An asthma attack this severe was a rarity since enrolling for swimming years ago. Even with its owner gone, this eerie place managed to repel trespassers. _What_ had happened here?

The fog eddied, his chest spasming in the sulphurous reek. He coughed and retched, rearranging stacks to take an urgent slug from the puffer. Picking up the pace, he tried another diversion by inspecting his surrounds. It was a mistake. Charred trees twisted from the fumes. Now Davey knew what became of the plant life, but wasn't any less baffled. Their blackened carcasses reminded him of that painting of a screaming guy, as if they'd tried to escape skyward.

Ready to flee back to the sanctuary of his car, Raphaela Baptiste's residence emerged from its poisonous shroud and Davey's panic settled to knuckled tension in his gut. Through burning eyes he noticed it was stylish, made sinister by a layer of soot and a moat of pitted craters. Dead opossums, frogs and lizards scattered the burned remnants of front lawn in some sham garden, their state of decay more advanced than possible.

His brow furrowed. Had this devastation been caused by a toxic spill? Yet, the teeming bayou insects were absent, not one pelt boiling with parasites. In fact, he'd not been pestered by a bug at all since breaching the gate. Davey scanned the sky, the only sign of life a falcon circling high overhead.

The house's double doors were thrown wide onto a generous veranda. Davey climbed the stairs and entered, panting as if he'd chain-smoked for decades. Boot prints grimed a floor of black-and-white marble and he tugged the gag to his neck, sidling through officers clotting the art-and-sculpture packed foyer. No one paid him any attention. They massaged the brims of their hats, eyes darting. Whispers followed him: "She's too young. Must be the great-granddaughter..." "Packing stuff everywhere, bubble wrap and so forth..." "There's no trace. Forensics haven't a clue..."

Davey had never witnessed so many nervous cops crammed into one room. Dumping his reduced cargo on a fancy chair, he hoped his colleagues were the glass-half-full types. The brimming cap on Uncle Horace's cup inspired relief. Joliet Senior crawled beneath an antique side table, torch in mouth, the taut seat of his gabardine slacks shined by chair use.

"Sheriff Joliet?" his nephew called.

Uncle Horace lurched upright and walloped the back of his stringy-haired head. The torch clattered to the tile.

"Geez, Davey." He rubbed his scalp and unfolded a rangy frame, hauling to his feet. "A little warning? The ticker's already in overdrive." He halted and stared. "You look awful. You're the shade of a honeydew melon. You didn't fall for the ginger tart trap, did you?" His expression was far too sympathetic. "That serving girl's as pleasant as a rabid cat."

"It's nothing. Just a little asthma." Davey thrust the coffee at him, unwilling to admit the humiliation. His uncle took the cup and leaned tiredly on the tabletop.

"Thanks. You don't have to stay, you don't want. I couldn't abide the lecture from your mother if you keeled over under my supervision." He winked.

Davey's curiosity burst forth. "What happened here?"

"Who knows? Make something up and we'll be closer to the truth. This place is a museum. Nothin's gonna wash out this stink. It's plain unnatural."

"Can I check it out before I leave? Maybe I'll learn something."

Horace smiled at this improvement in attitude and nodded. "You can't miss her. The chief's got his dander up. Just follow the wounded-bull roar. And Davey?" Davey paused and turned back to his uncle. "Don't touch anything, no matter the temptation."

A little credit: he was an academy rookie, not a fool. Davey made his way towards the rear of the house, down a long corridor that ended in a T-intersection. A bustle of activity led the way to an office in the right-hand cul-de-sac. Classy paintings, statues and fixtures jammed every available space. In his admittedly limited knowledge, it all looked worth a bucket.

A sweet, spicy odour eased his lungs the closer he got. He'd expected essence of cadaver. Arriving, Davey froze just inside the doorframe. The furniture cluttered the side furthest from him; an Oriental rug rolled up and pushed carelessly against the rest. A mutilated dead woman sat Buddha-like in the centre of the room, three tall black candles molten around her. Under the blaze of four police spotlights arranged in a square, a glassy prison welded her petite frame in place. She reminded Davey horribly of Spielberg's Jurassic mosquito encased in amber.

Busy investigators failed to eclipse his attention, as if time slowed in a halo about her. She was very beautiful. Gross as it was, Davey couldn't help thinking it. Her big eyes stared a thousand miles, strands tumbling from a messy bun, varnished lips sealed forever, and cream pants carved in resin.

He jerked his focus from her chest, where a bloody cavity peeled her sternum, bone and sinew visible. This tiny woman appeared to have stabbed herself, hands fixed in wilted prayer. But the blade was missing. Davey felt even more confused, amongst a turmoil of other less precise emotions. Such fuss over a suicide? He'd thought this was a murder. If not, a robbery? The burglars weren't so thorough, easily transportable gem-studded ornaments dotting the room. Besides, with all the security they'd have to be Ocean's Eleven.

And every time he glanced away, two triangles, one inside the other, wrought in red crayon, flickered from the ground. They made a frame surrounding her, which was filled with unknown symbols. No matter how hard he tried to hold the image, it vanished the moment he looked directly at the poor dead lady. His intuition squirmed.

"That knife's crucial evidence! And it's an heirloom worth more than my lifelong salary. It was there a moment ago," the chief bawled from his position by a spotlight, his head lit up like a fire siren. "How in the mothering disaster could somebody pilfer it? We can't budge her."

Four officers even more florid than the chief grappled Ms Baptiste's limbs, pulling and heaving with much swearing and no movement. A nearby technician smirked at Davey, as if he'd never seen a corpse.

"You okay, kid?" she asked. "If you're going to up-chuck, take it outside. You don't want to contaminate the scene."

He'd been hunting with his uncle for years and was not the squeamish type. Davey fingered his baton, but didn't have the nuts to utter a comment about the techy's enormous butt matching her mouth. Besides, nausea was not the main problem. Could no one else see that triangle? Or feel the faint throb it emitted? If he tilted his head and didn't stare straight, it luminesced from the edge of his vision.

He rallied to speak. "Hey, excuse me, guys... can anyone see—?" But the words were drowned by an outburst from the chief.

"Use a jackhammer for all I care. Get the whole lot to the lab. And find that damned knife!" The chief barrelled for the door. "Make sure there are plenty of photos," he barked over a shoulder.

Davey scuttled out of the way and tried again, much louder. "Anyone see a drawing on the ground? A red triangle."

"Ah, sir?"

"What, Mumford? What!" The chief lunged back inside, jowls quivering.

"We," the video archivist croaked, "can't seem to photograph the scene."

"I am not an artistic man, Mumford. But even I could capture a few unhappy snaps with that whizzbang equipment the State generously purchases on your behalf. If you're not up for the task, pass it to someone who is, and sign yourself up to shoot pictures of toddlers at the mall. Stop wasting my time."

The mouthy one next to Davey stepped forward. "It's not just Mumford, sir. We've tried on four different cameras and video. The digital frames are black every time. I've taken film, but no promises."

"Guess not." Davey gave up, positive the red triangle existed.

Never again would he disregard the bad vibe yelling, "stay in the car." This tomb should have been left sealed. The chief devoted an opera to his disappointment and all present cowered. Davey didn't catch a word. He slumped against the wall, transfixed by her, a terrible premonition knotting his bowels.

"Track down that unknown caller. Pronto! Goddamn it all to hell."

"You mean the hell aside from this one?" Davey muttered to himself, gnawing his nails to the quick.

He wondered if that Egyptologist fellow, Carter, felt the same on cracking Tutankhamen's crypt, ever after cursing his team to bad luck and death. Someone had cared about the victim, though, and phoned in details. Old Edith, who worked the switch, claimed she'd not heard a man more wrecked by sorrow in all her years. Otherwise, the Baptiste lady would have rested undiscovered for eternity. Davey felt sure she was meant to remain that way, her house a monument keeping its dire secrets. But someone wanted a proper burial for her. Or, thought Davey, to secretly gloat.

## Two

The doddering Languages master, Werner, ripped the tape from Mallory's mouth. She winced and I prayed it was as painful as it looked.

"Better quick than slow," he squeaked bracingly.

I watched over a seething patchwork of heads, balanced on one of the stacked benches at the very back of the huge dining-hall-cum-auditorium. The students of the Albert Einstein Boarding Academy (a gross insult to the great man) had surged in like battery hens, but the excitement of this breakfast surprise kept them on their feet, whooping and hollering. Plates of bacon and eggs, their yokes crusting deserted forks, toast and bowls of porridge, were scattered on long tables lining the space, forgotten and going cold. They were too focused on the teachers' platform in front.

Eating was certainly furthest from my mind. The guilt at ruining my promise to Aunt Bea to behave, undoing months of good work despite the liars and cheats and bullies swarming this place like flies on crap, gnawed at my conscience. I was expected to rise above it all. Right now, the hope I could worm out of trouble took priority.

"It was Winsome. The freak! Daddy will press charges. We're suing the school. There she is!" Mallory jerked her head in my direction, her lips swollen and red. "I was sleeping in my dorm when she barged in and kidnapped me. I woke up here, taped so tight I can barely breathe. It's a federal offence. Call the FBI!"

Her apparent suffocation didn't impede the chest-heaving drama. She was gaffer-taped from shoulders to knees on a desk chair on the teachers' dais. Her partner in crime, Chad, was positioned next to her in identical bondage. The two of them looked like pupae squirming in silver cocoons. Their eyebrows were absent. A sign on his chest announced in large red letters: _Chad blows goat_. Mallory's said: _Danger – Herpes_. Their mottos inspired peals of laughter as the hall filled.

Principal 'the crow' Bird and the clueless student counsellor, Mr Jenkins, stalked the perimeter in outrage. A smart person would have hidden in her room, but curiosity always ruled my world. Mallory burst into theatrical sobs, not quite as convincing without a swoon. That could wait until the court case. Time to squash my nerves and row my meagre defences.

"Winsome Light, here. Now!" The crow returned to the stage and offered Mallory a comforting pat on the shoulder. Jenkins followed like a dutiful lackey.

The crow's scowl pinned me from across the hall, commanding me to move. The awful woman was a Coco Chanel wannabe, suit buttoned to her throat, unburdened by the trademark cigarette and genuine style. Everyone present swivelled and attention fell upon me like an inquisitor's glare. Old boy Werner waved his Stanley knife with hands as steady as a windsock in a high gale. Chad wriggled away from the blade. He was such a moron! No punishment stole the beauty of the scene. What could they do to me? The threat of expulsion seemed an incentive, if not for my long-suffering Aunt Bea.

I sighed and jumped from the bench. Faces tracked me eagerly as I trudged to the gallows, jostled by kids toned, pudgy and bony. My popularity was on par with vaccinations. I told myself again it didn't matter, that the opinion of my fellow inmates was my least concern.

As I neared, Mallory regarded me with a hateful expression. Her mouth resembled a couple of inflated leeches. I stifled a laugh, breaking from the herd for the stage. The crow willed me closer with a hooked finger, trapping me within the overpowering radius of her Red Door perfume.

"Account for your whereabouts last night, Miss Light. Preferably, the truth."

When would she prefer a lie? Adults – experts at stating the totally obvious, yet missing the point entirely. "I was sleeping. I have a witness." Mallory wasn't the only one who could act.

"A witness?"

"Yes, proof of my innocence."

"Please explain."

"You know, _evidence_. Confirmation that Mallory is puking the standard pile." Yet again, my mouth operated outside the control of my brain. Claps and whistles echoed the hall.

"You are on perilous ground, young lady," she threatened, thin-lipped. "Your great-aunt Beatrice is but a phone call away."

Actually, Aunt Bea was several oceans and a few continents away with me exiled in arctic Austria. Only a thirty-hour journey to Sydney, Australia in her jet. Except for the last six blessed years, we'd been global nomads. I'd been to so many schools in so many countries that I no longer nurtured relationships with my fellow students. What was the point if I was never able to return social invites, which made for a very one-sided exchange.

But surely a little moral support right now wasn't too much to ask? I used to believe teens stuck together. A bugger, that foolish optimism! Sometimes, no matter what I told myself, it really did matter.

"Chablis," I mumbled.

Drilling my hands deep inside my jacket pockets, I wished my alibi hinged on someone other than my roomy. And on something other than blackmail. The only reason Chablis was poised to jump to my defence were the photos I had of her and handsome Professor Ramsteed, both bombed and taking his name far too literally. But as her favourite pastime was posting selfies on any digital medium, she may still change her mind and consider their release on Instagram as flattering.

"Chablis Getty. Come up here, please."

The crowd divided as if Moses himself issued the command. Chablis' family were prime contributors of money to the school. Werner finally triumphed and Chad stretched in his boxer shorts, gazing around with the keenness of a sloth. Tape abrasions and bleeding nicks patterned his naked torso. Werner wielded the scalpel in Mallory's direction. She whimpered convincingly.

"Yes, Principal Bird?"

Chablis – or 'Shabby' to me – flicked champagne hair extensions. She fluttered in knees socks and a blazer, sponging every drop of attention from admirers in the front row. With the crow distracted shushing students, Shabby turned to grin at me. Then I knew for certain the dirt I had on her wasn't enough.

"Can you corroborate Miss Light's whereabouts, Chablis?" The principal's doubt was louder than any answer.

I searched the audience for the tiny blond boy who trembled alone to one side of the assembly hall, his face pale and troubled. His name was Jaime. I'd met him early this morning on my parkour run, which finished with a stolen snack from the kitchens. No amount of hassle for my current jam matched what he'd suffered. I caught his eye and winked, hoping to convey confidence. His chin raised a notch.

"Her story is..." Chablis began, while I didn't dare breathe. "True. Winsome was asleep in her bed. All night. We were woken before the alarm this morning by the noise of trampling feet and kids shouting to come and see this."

Chablis gestured at Mallory and Chad a few metres away, struggling to hold back her obvious amusement. Both the captives were now liberated from their bindings, upright on rubbery legs. To my astonishment, Chablis gave a five-star performance.

"How do you know Winsome did not slip out during the night?" The crow didn't bother to hide her disappointment.

"Lately, she's been screaming and gibbering in her sleep. I can hear her through my earplugs. Some rubbish about someone called Raphaela and devils and strings and stench. Couple of other names..." She wore her thinking face, the same open-mouthed one she used to catch lobbed M&M's. "Billie, I think?" She couldn't help herself and turned to me. "Is he hot?"

Everyone laughed again and shabby lost a few stars. On her mention of stench, a petroleum reek wafted into the hall. It had the undercurrent of rot. I scrunched my nose. Had someone neglected the garbage?

"That's quite enough! Thank you, Chablis. Mr Werner, kindly fetch the school nurse for these two. Mr Jenkins, may I have a word?"

The principal and the counsellor moved off to the back of the stage and put their heads together, finally managing a whole useful brain. Their murmured voices rang too clear above the student babble, which was gaining volume. I'd never really appreciated how acute my hearing was until coming here, where it became increasingly obvious I was privy to things said that others weren't.

Suddenly, another voice competed with Bird and Jenkins. A familiar one from my nightmares, causing a tingle of fear up my spine and a lurch in my belly.

" _Who but the devil pulls our waking-strings! Abominations lure us to their side..."_

The night-time dread leached into daylight, out in the open for all to see. I blinked back panic. Was this only in my head? Waves of stink accosted my nostrils. I glanced around at the students below and confirmed my worst fears. They looked the same as every other occasion, jaws slack and faces sullen – all clearly oblivious to the poetic taunts.

" _Each day we take another step to hell, Descending through the stench, unhorrified..."_

A translation from the poet Baudelaire. _The Flowers of Evil_. I'd seen poetry drive students mad before, but not this literally. And I'd developed two psychiatric symptoms too many: voices in my head and smelling the cesspit. I imagined IV lockdown with concerned elderly faces looming to smother me in care. Did they still use padded cells on mental patients nowadays?

"Mallory and Chad were drugged when you found them?" Bird asked Jenkins, dragging me back to reality.

"Yes. The perpetrator used ether to knock them out. It's fast acting, fades quickly and leaves no symptoms. Easily obtained and used. We've only had a brief chance to inventory the labs, but it seems a small quantity may be missing."

The side effects were vomiting and dizziness. Mrs Paget had taught me this in home-school medicinal chemistry when I was seven. And I'd had to scale four storeys of the Science wing and prise a window open from outside to steal it. Technically, it was quite the challenge to obtain. Especially on short notice. It had been a very busy night. I waited, hyper-vigilant, but a couple of fantasy sentences seemed to be the limit of my addled brain right now.

"I do not believe her story, Mr Jenkins," Bird said.

"Mallory's accusations are wild, indeed. She'd have no idea of her attacker if she was unconscious."

"Not Mallory," Birdbrain squawked. "I'm certain Winsome has coerced Chablis into providing an alibi. Is there some way we can swab her fingers or match the handwriting on those signs. Confirm her guilt? You say the theft occurred last night? There'd be ether residue all over her."

"Really, Ms Bird. Don't you mean confirm Winsome's innocence? How could a lone assailant possibly achieve a theft after hours? And then take not one, but two students hostage, in the dark, without alerting a patrolling supervisor? Surely given Winsome's diminutive size, she lacks the physical ability to lug someone of Chad's stature from his bed, onto a chair, down several flights of stairs and so on. I feel this is the act of a group."

How indeed. I was amazed myself that it had been so easy. But I'd discovered the teachers' private elevator early in my second term here. After lifting Jenkins' pass code during one of our completely pointless counselling sessions, it was a small matter to ferry the worms downstairs and wheel them into the dining hall. The only part that proved challenging was negotiating the couple of stairs to the platform.

"Yes, yes! So it seems. Nonetheless, I do not trust her. Her reputation speaks for itself, and not in kind words."

"But what is Winsome's motive for an attack on these two? She is barely seventeen, certainly not the criminal mastermind you imply. She has been perfectly behaved since that initial incident in the laundry room two years ago. We're making rapid progress in therapy."

"The incident whereby Winsome blackened Mallory's eye? As Student Counsellor, you see no connection between then and now?"

"Do you doubt my professional opinion...?"

Bird and Jenkins yammered on. His question about motive was the smartest ever to make the long journey from his solitary neuron to his flapping gums. Even though discounting my criminal genius was kind of insulting, I was grateful he had so little faith in me.

The toxic cadaver smell faded once the creepy voice in my head had vanished. I mentally clung to the peace of 3 am this morning, the best part of my stretch here, while the student collective hung around, watching me with unfriendly eyes. Parkour practice at that hour felt special, like tumbling in nothingness. The dark had an indigo tint, moonlight shafts flashing through arched windows as I sprinted by. I often wished running away was so easy. Even though I'd only lived in Sydney for six short years, forgetting periods in this prison, it was my home and I missed it.

The Academy didn't come close, nested in an Alp-bound castle. But steep stairwells, tangled passages, abandoned cellars, and nooks made it a snap to evade the dorm matron and her cronies, who patrolled the night like walkie-talkie clad Pac-Men. I'd been running for an hour, tearing ever downwards to approach the hotel-sized kitchen on the ground floor. Not usually one for caution, some instinct made me halt just outside the swinging entrance doors, through which an argument eventually became clear.

"Lift him higher, dick!"

"You keep calling me that and you can do it yourself, Mallory," said a sulky male voice.

Mallory and her sidekick – the incredibly hot, incredibly dopey, Chad – up to no good, as usual. I peeked through a round window embedded in the door.

"Stop. Please. It's so cold," a young male voice pleaded. A sliver of light fell across the kitchen floor at the room's furthest reaches. The trio were in the outback rubbish area, a bricked-in dead end housing several dumpsters, unless cross-country skiing appealed.

"Maybe this will teach you to mind your own business."

"It was an accident," their victim said. "I only needed to use the bathroom. I didn't mean to see you. Please, please," he sobbed.

"Maybe we should let him be, Mal? It was only a headjob." The slaps of Chad's arms keeping himself warm echoed around the interior. I pushed through the split door, seeking a hiding spot. The space was large, lined with industrial cookers along one side, cooking benches opposite. Several floor-to-ceiling storage towers filled with dry goods cut the area in half like bookshelves. There was a walk-in refrigerator in one corner containing the white-chocolate cheesecake I raided often. "It is pretty cold out here."

"No one sees me on my knees. Do you hear? No one!"

"I won't tell anyone, I promise! Please, Mallory," the boy begged.

"You'd better forget you know my name, you little prat. Let this be your motivation."

It was impossible they'd be so homicidal as to dump a kid in a waste-filled skip in the sub-zero snow. They preferred public thuggery, a ring of onlookers cheering them on. Digital displays from the stoves added a green tinge to the yellowed light pouring from the bin receptacle, making hiding in the shadows difficult. My every step further inside seemed to disrupt the quiet like a mortar blast.

"I can't get his singlet off," Chad whined.

"Let me go!"

"Just hurry, we'll get sprung."

"He's struggling."

"You cretin, Chad! Do you expect him to undress and jump in himself?"

Chad swore: in this his vocabulary excelled. I snuck as close as I dared, squatting behind tuber-filled bins across from the back door.

"This is dumb, Mal. The kid'll freeze."

"Oh for Christ's sake. We'll let him stew for a few minutes and then dump him inside somewhere."

"Ahh, his motivation," Chad said sagely.

From this position, I achieved a relatively unobstructed view. Stripped of his clothing, the poor little boy's flesh was blue-tinged. He huddled barefoot on chilled concrete, not a scrap of fat on his body and I didn't think he had the luxury of minutes before the cold damaged his fingers and toes. He shivered uncontrollably.

It was at this point I bumped a pyramid of potatoes. Spuds frolicked about like vegetables on a spree. I silently stole one of Chad's tamer words.

"Did you hear that?" he asked.

My breath plumed the air. One of them, I could take. Two of them? A trial beyond my abilities.

"You need to stop watching Twilight. It's giving you bad dreams," she snorted. "Is the scary, sparkly fairy coming to make you his boyfriend?"

"Shut up, Mal!"

"Shove him in and we're outta here."

"What d'ya mean? Leave him here?"

The poor kid yelped, cries muffled as the lid moaned shut. They truly were spineless wretches. "Is there someone in the kitchen or not?"

"I'm tellin' you, Mal. I heard something."

"I don't believe you, but you better go and check anyway."

Uh-oh. A huge silhouette blocked the doorframe, torchlight piercing the gloom. He took a step and a potato bounced across the linoleum.

"See?" he called, turning back to Mallory. "Where'd that come from?"

From my crouch, I dived into the large open bin of onions. Chad swung back into the kitchen, while I flattened myself beneath the lip. Moving at all would trigger an avalanche. A Neanderthal shuffle hinted at Chad's closeness.

"Shit. If we get caught, Chad, you kidnapped me and forced me to do it." The dumpster lid ground open. "What am I going to do with a nosey little turd like you?"

_Please don't see me_ , I begged silently. _Please don't see me!_ I squeezed my eyes partially shut and cowered, as Chad's lumpy head appeared and his flashlight framed me in brilliance. Through my lashes, he gawked at me, mere centimetres from my face. But the shade tugged closed and he moved away. Was he blind as well as witless?

"It was nothing," he said.

"Wait ten minutes and then get out. And if you breathe a word of any of this, you're mincemeat. Got it?" Mallory eventually joined him. "Told you no one's here."

Their voices faded along the corridor and I exhaled relief. There was no explanation for my stay of execution. Chad had been stoned the day they gave out mercy and missed his quota. If he'd seen me, I was bloody sludge beneath his Vans. So... He must not have seen me? Strange. His mother – or the thing that laid his egg – might need to get his eyes checked.

I rescued Jaime from his fate as a popsicle for rodents, waited while he showered, and got him back to bed. I'd teach him to fight, buy him some mace for the time being. I could have left it at that. Should have. But anger at the injustice of Chad and Mallory winning got the better of me.

"Winsome! I am talking to you." The crow gripped the arm of my jacket and shook. I glanced down at her fingers and she hastily let go. Smoothing her own jacket, her face was a pinched-lip blend of disgust and lost opportunity like when you open the carton, rather than checking the date, and take a huge whiff of two-month-old milk turned to cottage cheese. "The issue is by no means resolved, Miss Light."

The rest of the school was dismissed for classes. Except for the real culprits, who'd earned the fabulous welts all over their arms.

"My skin's sensitive. I'm having a reaction to the tape," Mallory complained.

If honesty ruled, my biggest regret was not stripping them naked and parking them on the Academy driveway. I so wanted to say, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." The crow's sermon droned and I tried to look engaged. I rationalised the awful odour of death and decay had been a symptom of ether contamination, not my own psychosis. Inhaling chemicals was a poor excuse for the morbid voice in my head, though.

"I shall leave no locker, bathroom cabinet, sports bag or dresser drawer unchecked in my quest to punish the offender. Rest assured, Miss Light, I will discover the facts."

Screeched hysteria from Mallory announced that Chad had thrown up down the front of her nightie. Chunks of last night's lasagne splattered the floor. From her bilious expression, Mallory looked set to return the favour. It made everything worthwhile, if only for a second.

"Winsome Light!"

My name was sure copping a work-out today. An intimidating man in black commando pants and a tight t-shirt strode across the dining hall, unmoved by snowflakes steaming his form. Werner trotted after him, objecting loudly to unauthorised personnel on school premises. He reminded me of a toothless yapping terrier.

"It's alright, Mr Werner. I am familiar with Mr Hugo," said Bird.

Since when? If the guy was a mountain, he'd answer to Everest. His voice rumbled like a Harley Davidson, his attitude take-no-nonsense. He frowned down at me, bringing an entirely new sort of trouble. He'd materialised to take me home, proving there was plenty of merit in the old phrase 'Be careful what you wish for'.

