Chapter 4: New Neighbours
A large blue truck reversed into the driveway of the house two doors down. The word “BATHE” was written in simple stylized writing on the side and soon two workmen began unloading bathroom furniture and boxes on trolleys, as well as a huge porcelain spa bath.
Trucks had been coming and going from the house for a week or more, but Maggie had not yet caught a glimpse of her new neighbours.
As she watched from her window, a large blond man stalked out of the house and barked orders at the workmen, gesturing aggressively.
On the driveway wall sat a boy, also blond, about Maggie’s age, his head down intent upon a portable gaming device he was holding in his lap. As there was little room between the vehicles and the wall, the workmen were having to shuffle carefully past the boy to avoid knocking him off his perch. He didn’t seem to notice that he was in the way, or if he did, he didn’t care.
Maggie wondered why the workmen didn’t just tell him to move. She narrowed her eyes and looked closer at the boy, and something else began to prick at the corner of her vision. There was an indistinct cloud around the boy, a strange darkness not of this world.
While watching, her hand wandered to the stone she’d put on the window sill. It was the stone given to her at the hospital by her friend Bidge’s dad, and today was the day she’d decided to find Bidge and tell her about it.
She grasped it and felt its power tingle through her arm. Though she’d held it several times already, still the suddenness of its effect made her gasp.
The double spiral of the cool stone seemed to writhe in her palm and when she looked up the scene was changed. She now saw the boy on the wall was not alone. Perched on his back was what looked like a large dark bird, its wings folded and its talons sunk deep into his shoulders. As the blond man appeared from the house, the bird turned its head towards him and seemed to quiver.
The man stopped and looked up to Maggie’s house, his eyes searching from window to window. Maggie felt a sudden chill, dropped the stone, and took a step back behind the curtain. When she peeked out, the man and the bird had gone and the scene looked normal once again.
Wary of the stone’s power, Maggie was reluctant to pick it up off the floor. Handling it was a dramatic, even violent experience, as it seemed to rip her consciousness into another world, but she had to admit the aftermath of holding it was strangely comforting. It had been barely a week, but the uncertainty and anxiety that had been building since she stopped her medicine was all but gone now. She felt more solid, yet still lucid.
Despite that, she wished there was some way she could insulate herself against the intensity of its touch.
She looked in her drawers for something to wrap it in. In her dress-up drawer was a silk scarf her mum had given her years ago and she’d never worn. The slinky coolness of the fabric felt right, so she carefully wrapped the stone and put it into her pocket, then made her way downstairs.
Later at the park, she looked for Bidge by the playground. The trees were shimmering in the midday heat, and the relentless hum of the insects played as background to the voices of children dressed mostly in T-shirts and shorts.
An ice cream vendor wheeled his cart past and on an impulse Maggie went up to him. While she was buying an ice lolly she described Bidge and asked him whether he’d seen her that morning.
“Sorry, love, haven’t seen any girls like that in here today.”
Maggie walked on through the park, the ice lolly unopened, wondering if she should go to Bidge’s house to find her. But she’d promised her mum she wouldn’t go there alone anymore.
