Page 50 of The Sisters at the Last House Before the Sea

‘You did what?’ Caitlin glared at her stepdaughter but only for a second. She grabbed hold of Maisie’s arm, obviously finding it hard to maintain eye contact and her dignity when her feet were sliding on the icy street.

Maisie, faintly irritated by her stepmother’s lack of balance, repeated what she’d just told her, only this time at half speed and carefully enunciating each word. ‘As I said, I helped Freya and Ryan to distribute food to the elderly.’

‘Yes, I heard that but I don’t understand why?’

‘Because you’re always saying I should think of others, rather than myself. Anyway, I wasn’t murdered or abducted or anything.’

Maisie stepped sideways so her feet landed in a patch of thick, virgin snow.

‘Well, obviously, but that’s not the point. You didn’t take your phone, and I didn’t know where you were.’

‘So?’ Maisie huffed, thoroughly fed up with this stranger-danger lecture already.

‘So, I was worried about you.’

‘Why?’

‘Why?’ Caitlin sounded exasperated now. ‘Because you’re my stepdaughter, Maisie, and I’m responsible for you. Plus,’ she added more quietly, ‘I care about you.’

Did she? Maisie glanced sideways at her stepmother, a strange feeling fizzing in her chest. Did Caitlin really give a damn about her? Or did she feel obliged to care about her – to go through the motions, at least – because Maisie came with her dad, as a package?

‘You don’t need to get stressy because Ryan and Freya are members of the Heaven’s Cove Residents’ Association, which sounds dead boring. There was another girl about my age with them, too. Someone called Beth.’

‘Was she nice?’

Maisie remembered Beth being kind, if rather talkative and inquisitive. ‘She was all right, I s’pose.’

Caitlin raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s high praise from you seeing as you usually find most new people tedious. So what did you all do exactly?’

‘We dished out food to various people living in isolated places outside the village.’

‘Which people?’

‘I dunno. I wasn’t keeping a list. We went to six places. The last call was to a really strange old woman called Connie.’

‘Not Connie…oh, what was her name?’ Caitlin walked a few more paces. ‘Connie Carmichael? That was it. She lives a way outside the village, on the edge of the moorland.’

‘Yeah, in a spooky old house. Why?’

Caitlin frowned. ‘She had a reputation when I was living in the village.’

‘A reputation for what?’

‘I can’t remember, really. She was a bit of a recluse? Came from a dodgy family? Something like that.’

‘Well, I liked her.’

Caitlin stopped dead in the street. ‘You liked her?’

‘Yep.’

‘Wow. OK.’

That shut her up. And Maisie wasn’t lying. There was something about Connie that had resonated with her. Some awkwardness with life. Some grumpiness about how…messed up it all seemed to be.

Maisie shook her head, faintly disgusted with herself for being introspective. What was the point? Any more of that and she’d end up like her aunt Isla, with a bossy boyfriend and a life going nowhere.

Almost as if Caitlin could hear her thoughts, which was a horrible prospect, her stepmother said: ‘I must text Isla and tell her that you’ve been found.’

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