The Key to Anchor Lake ✓

27 : Blaire

B L A I R E

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My heart is pounding the whole way from the lake to Elizabeth's house, sitting in the back of Sukie's mum's car. I shouldn't feel so sick about going home, about facing my aunt, but I know I've messed it up with her and I know she's not being honest with me, and I don't know how to get myself out of this stalemate.

Isn't that the whole point of a stalemate? There's nowhere left to go. The game ends in a draw. Nobody wins.

"Keep me in the loop," Sukie says as Sara pulls up on the empty road outside Elizabeth's house, big and dark and set off the road behind a smattering of evergreens.

"Will do. Unless she confiscates my phone and locks me in my room."

"Oh, honey," Sara says with a sigh. "I'm sure it'll be okay. It'll be good for you two to talk. I hardly know you, and I can see you have a heart of gold."

I don't believe that. I'm rash and irrational and overemotional and clingy and I don't know why Sara or Sukie have bothered to give me the time of day, regardless of their Watanabe Way. They have been nothing but wonderful to me, and I am nothing but a drain.

"Thank you," I manage to say, reluctantly unbuckling myself and getting out of the car. Sukie rolls down her window and throws out her arm as I pass, catching my elbow.

"Seriously, Blaire, if you are genuinely worried or concerned or scared, you tell me, okay? If you talk to her and in five minutes you need to get out, just call me and we'll come right back."

Her eyes are so sincere, her dark gaze warm and real, and it gives me the energy I need to get this over and done with. Only once Sukie and Sara have left do I try the front door. It swings open, and I step into the dimly lit house.

It feels like nobody lives here. Half of the rooms are unused, the rest barely clinging onto signs of life. In the sitting room, the flowers I bought for Mum are starting to wilt, heavy peony heads wilting on slender stems; the mantelpiece is littered with fallen petals in a colourful display of death.

I can't linger. Can't get distracted. I have to face my fears and find Elizabeth and crack her open, sift through her words for the answers I need.

When I get upstairs, I can hear the radio playing a deceptively upbeat song; I hear the creak of her footsteps. My heart is in my throat at the thought of her ire, the way she will pierce me with that icicle stare when she knows that I went through her stuff.

A whole minute passes, me standing in front of the door she disappears behind each day. Then another minute, and another, until I lift my hand and knock and I can't take it back now. It's too late. My knuckles have rapped on the wood and I hear the radio go off, and then the whine of the floorboards as she crosses to the steps. I hear the pad of her soft-soled shoes on the stairs, and then the door eases open.

I haven't seen Elizabeth in days. It's strange to be standing right in front of her, closer than ever, when she slips into the hallway and shuts the door behind herself, less than a foot of space between us. I instinctively step backwards, taking in the thin paintbrush in her hand and the apron so covered in smears of acrylic that I can't tell what its original colour was.

"Blaire," she says. "I didn't realise you were home."

"I just got back."

Don't let this conversation stall, just spit it out, spit it out, find your fucking words, Blaire.

"We need to talk," I blurt out. Elizabeth tucks the paintbrush into the deep front pocket of her apron. "Can we talk?"

For a moment she looks as though she's going to shake her head and return to the attic, shutting me out once more, but she nods once and leads the way downstairs. I wonder if I'll ever seen inside the attic. She has never explicitly said I can't go there, but I feel the implication like a brick on each shoulder. That is her space, and hers alone.