Page 9 of One Last Touch

“No, we barely spoke, actually.”

“You didn’t try to warn her away too?” I sniffed lightly as I finished my first burger and moved on to my second. “Pity, she clearly could have used it more than me,” I remarked off-handedly and half-bitterly and Sage was quiet as he watched me.

“Much like her daughter, she wouldn’t have listened to me.”

“Oh, I listen to you. I hear you loud and clear—you and Ms Weathers, whispering away together. I’m just not going to leave.”

“I don’t know what you’re hoping to find here—”

“Answers,” I said without hesitation, brushing my hands free of crumbs as I leaned forward to analyse him. “I want to know why she came back here and why she left in the first place. I want to know what she was running from.” I bit my lip as I looked out of the large window above the sink, the sun had started to drop low in the sky and I knew Sage would soon be attempting to shuffle me off to my room. I turned back to him and said quietly, “I want to know who murdered her.”

A door banged somewhere upstairs and I jumped. Sage didn’t react to either the noise or my words, just stood slowly and slung a hand casually into one of his overall pockets.

Something tickled at the back of my neck as I stood and I glanced behind me, half expecting to find a spider dangling down from the ceiling, but instead I saw only my reflection in the window. I blinked, staring at it for a moment longer than necessary when it looked like my features belonged to someone else entirely. Mine but not mine. Hair dark but faded, eyes slightly too wide… and they were both blue.

A hand touched my arm, just a brush of fingertips before he let go, and I closed my eyes, breathing shallowly. When I opened them, all that reflected in the near-dark of the fading sun was my own face and the flashing rims of Sage’s glasses as he glanced outside and then away.

“Come on, you’ve had a busy day. Let’s call it a night.” When I stayed where I was he sighed deeply until his fingers wrapped around mine and tugged. As soon as I took a step forward he let go, but I could still feel him there, like the imprint of his hand still held mine. “I think there might be a storm tonight. We get a fair few of them up this way, we’re a little high up out here so the weather tends to be worse than what they get in town.”

I said nothing, just followed him up the long wooden staircase, my hand tracing the grain as we walked to my room.

“So please, for once, just promise me you’ll take me seriously? The house… Well, at night it’s like it has a mind of its own.”

That piqued my interest and I could tell he realised his mistake because his mouth drew into a hard line as we stopped outside of my bedroom door.

“I mean it, Georgina.”

“I’m sure you do,” I yawned. Connected as I felt to it, Alswell was nothing more than wood and brick. Tangible, but harmless.

“I’m trying to keep you safe. Promise me you’ll stay in your room tonight.”

“And tomorrow night?”

“Maybe you’ll leave before we get to that point,” he teased, the words softened by the slight smile he gave me before he stiffened. “I have to go. Promise me.”

I nodded and his eyes narrowed like he could tell I had my toes crossed. Tonight, nothing was going to keep me in my room. There was something strange lurking here in the dark and I was going to find out what it was.

Chapter Five

I waited until true night had fallen, not wanting to risk running into Sage in the halls in case he had stayed in the house after his shift. It wasn’t that I particularly cared what he thought, it was more that I couldn’t be arsed with the drama. This was my house. This was my life. Alswell was just a house, my house, and if I wanted to leave my room after sundown, then that’s what I would do.

The darkness of the room had turned soft, welcoming, and the chill in the air had been warmed through by my breaths as I’d laid in bed, thinking about my mum and, annoyingly, Sage. I was almost sorry to leave the warmth of the covers, but I had something to prove and sitting in bed all night wasn’t going to get me the answers I needed.

The floorboards creaked as I padded towards the door and reached for the handle, my breath catching in my chest when a draft tickled my cheek and the handle turned of its own accord, rattling in my palm.

I let go and backed away quickly, staring at the outline of the door with eyes that felt like they bulged in an effort to pierce the darkness. The handle fell still and I took a cautious step forward. Was this Sage’s idea of a joke? A desperate attempt to get me to leave? He would definitely try and scare me if he thought it would keep me in my room but Ms Weathers… was she a part of this? Whatever this was?

I pressed my ear to the wood and couldn’t hear anything on the other side. Resolute, I reached for the handle and then shrieked when a voice came from the corner of my room.

“Get back in bed, Georgina,” Sage barked.

“What are you doing in here?” I was panting, one hand clutched to my chest as my heart tried to beat out of it.

In the darkness, I could just about see his eyes, the gold of his glasses glinting in a small slither of light that ran through a gap in the wall. The rest of him sat cloaked in the shadow of night.

“Making sure you stay put.”

This was just… “You’re deranged. Get out of my room.” It was funny how quickly this space had started to feel like mine and that he’d managed to get in there without me noticing was more than alarming, it was frustrating. Alswell may be mine, but he knew it better than I did.

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