The Magpie Effect - The Magpie Chronicles Book 1 (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 22

I was glad to see the tail-end of the week. Saturday brought with it a fresh bout of rain and another welcomed visit to Aunt Vera's. I didn't even object when Vivian tore into my room at 9AM, flung the curtains open, and started to rearrange the pillows around my barely conscious head. In fact, visiting with Aunt Vera served as a much needed distraction.

"Let's get this over with, then," my mother said as we brought the car to a halt. It seemed to be her staple declaration each week.

Cradled in my lap was a basket, its contents hidden from view by a layer of protective tea towels. The smell of pumpkin drifted upwards, wrapped in sweet pastry and spritzed with Irish whiskey. My stomach growled, quite clearly unhappy with its neglect.

"No tripe this week?" I asked Vivian. We climbed out of the car in unison, and I braced my hood against the rain.

"Woman eats enough tripe," she grunted over the bonnet. "Her veins must be clogged with tripe. Besides, it's autumn now. It's time for pie." I narrowed my eyes at her. Vivian dropped her guard within seconds. "Oh, fine! It's a dodgy batch I made for the business."

"Mum!"

"She won't notice a thing!" Vivian cut in. "Her taste buds went out the window years ago, along with several other things."

We hurried up the garden path, the overgrown lawn reaching forward to grab at our knees with wet fingers as though it wanted to drag us into its knotted depths. Vivian rang the doorbell, like she always did, and then we let ourselves in. Ringing the doorbell, my mum always told me, was our way of letting Aunt Vera know that she was about to have visitors rather than just barging in and giving her a heart attack.

"That's odd." She twisted the key, frowned, and then reversed the motion. "The door was already unlocked."

The house was in darkness. I elevated myself up on tip toes, so that I could see over Vivian's shoulder and through the glass screen door to the living room. Usually, the blare of the television or the coal fire illuminated the whole thing into a blinding, emblazoned rectangle, but today it was lifeless. The air in the hallway was cold, and it spread to the pit of my stomach.

Something was wrong.

"She can't still be in bed at this time," Vivian muttered, glancing at her watch. "Vera? Aunt Vera! It's only us!"

When there was no reply, she shuffled into the living room and I behind her. It surprised me to see that it was empty, even though every cell in my body had already screamed at me that our endeavours were pointless. Some part of me must have hoped that she was through in the kitchen, but of course that was empty, too.

"Saffy, run upstairs and have a look, will you?" I could hear the desperation worming its way into her voice, an underlying wobble that set my hairs on edge.

"But mum-"

"Just go, Saffy!"

I turned and bounded up the stairs and burst into Aunt Vera's bedroom. The blankets were folded neatly backwards, as though she had simply risen from the sheets without unsettling so much as a morsel of dust. On the floor were her slippers, in precisely the spot where her feet would come down to meet them when she got out of bed.

"Mum, she's not here!" I propelled my voice as loud as I could, even before I reached the top of the stairs. Vivian met me at the bottom, her car keys swinging from her fingers.

"Get in the car," she said, ushering me through the front door. "I knew we should have bought her a bloody mobile phone."

*

Rain spattered against the window panes. It fell from the sky in unyielding sheets, each wave seeming to build on the last until I was sure that it would never stop, that the world was going to drown under the weight of an ocean shrugged off the shoulders of the clouds. I thought of Aunt Vera, a tiny old lady caught in the middle of it all, with the thunder growling at her like a predator from the undergrowth.