Page 43 of The Key to the Last House Before the Sea

NESSA

Nessa stood in the middle of the cold room, a pile of timber, paint pots and cleaning materials at her feet.

She’d loaded up Rosie’s borrowed car three times with supplies from the hardware store and had driven to the Ghost Village, with paint pots clattering as she rounded corners.

But she was properly here at last, with her supplies, and Operation New Home could begin.

‘Go, Nessa!’ she said into the empty room, punching the air with her fist.

But her confidence faded almost immediately. She folded her arms, feeling foolish, and already missing Lily, although she’d dropped her at school only two hours earlier.

Valerie would pick her up later and take her home because that’s where she’d be living for the next month. Lily thought it was a great adventure and Valerie seemed delighted. It was only Nessa whose heart hurt at the thought of thirty nights of separation.

‘It’s for the best of reasons,’ Nessa told herself, picking up the old broom she’d found in a corner at Shelley’s.

She’d used it often enough to sweep the hardware store and now it would help her to spruce up this old cottage, so Lily could come home for good.

She started sweeping dust and dirt into piles, jumping as a gust of wind slammed the front door shut.

‘Stop being such a wuss,’ she muttered, glancing at her bedding roll and sleeping bag in the corner. What would it be like here on her own in the middle of the night?

She had access to water from a well behind the house. Rosie reckoned it would poison her though it looked clear enough – she’d boil it on her portable gas stove for safety’s sake, until it could be checked. But there was no electricity supply as yet. So it would be flickering candlelight when the sun slid below the horizon.

A frisson of fear slid down Nessa’s back. Sorrel Cove wasn’t called the Ghost Village for nothing. Locals reckoned that the spirits of those lost in the great storm haunted the ruins and wailed a warning when a storm was brewing.

Nessa didn’t want to wake up to wailing at three in the morning.

‘Stop it!’ she said, more loudly this time. ‘Or you’re not going to last one night, let alone thirty.’

Thirty long nights out here on her own. What on earth had she got herself into? The only comforting thought was that, even if ghosts did haunt the village, one of them would be her great-grandmother, who surely wouldn’t let any harm come to her.

Nessa ran her hand across the mosaic above the fireplace. The sea glass and bright shards of stone set into the wall felt smooth beneath her fingers and she began to feel calmer. She should be here, continuing her family’s story after it had been so cruelly halted.

Picking up the broom, she began to sweep the flagstones again but stopped when she heard the hum of a vehicle approaching. She glanced out of the window, sure it was Rosie bringing provisions in Liam’s truck.

As well as worrying she’d be poisoned, Rosie was convinced that she’d starve, and reminding her that the nearest shop was only a thirty-minute walk away had done nothing to ease her fears.

But Nessa’s visitor wasn’t Rosie. A shiny blue car had parked next to Rosie’s battered Mini. And Gabriel was getting out of it and stretching his long legs.

Nessa frowned when he tried the door handle to make sure that the car was locked. Who did he think was going to steal it when no one was in sight? He started walking down the narrow path that had been worn into the hillside.

He was still in a suit, Nessa noticed, and he looked faintly ridiculous, with his tie flapping in the breeze. Honestly, who wore a tie on a baking hot day to harangue someone in an abandoned village?

She started sweeping again, razing the floor with brisk, hard strokes. The sooner Mr Gantwich said what he had to say and left her in peace, the better.

A minute later, Gabriel’s tall frame filled the doorway of the cottage, and he cleared his throat to attract her attention.

‘Hello,’ said Nessa, trying to sound unconcerned by his arrival. She brushed hair from her eyes as the dust she’d disturbed danced in the air.

‘I see you’re ready to get started,’ said Gabriel, nodding at the paint pots.

‘No time like the present,’ answered Nessa, deliberately brightly. She wouldn’t give this man any inkling of the apprehension she felt.

‘Is it all right if I come in?’

Nessa shrugged. ‘If you like.’

‘How did you get in, in the first place?’ he asked, stooping to avoid banging his head on the door lintel.

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