The Key to Anchor Lake ✓

36 : Blaire

B L A I R E

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Once my coffee's half drunk and I can't bear to sit here any longer, I'm out of the door, throwing back some vague apology, whatever collection of words I can bring to mind. Not much, considering how overflowing my mind is right now. Yet another aunt I never knew about; yet more family I never got to meet. And my name in a book.

Elizabeth wrote my name. Hers too, and Mum's. But she wrote mine in anger. Each letter seemed scratched into the page, almost tearing through the paper, the red ink as bold as a streak of fresh blood staining that final page.

Once I've decided to leave, I'm out of there like a shot, and I'm a quarter of the way to Anchor Lake when I realise that I'm cycling blind – it's getting dark, a hazy twilight hanging amidst the trees, and I have no light, no fluorescence. I slow my pedalling. This isn't safe. Anyone could come careening around the corner and knock me off my bike. I try to calm my breaths, quiet the screaming pulse pounding at my eardrums; I need to be able to hear. And think. But all I can think is what the fuck?

Why? Why?

Why why why why why why why?

I don't want a repeat of the last time I got on my bike on the cusp of a panic attack. The last person I want to collect me off the roadside is Jacob's mum, mostly because I can't bear for him to know anything about me, especially not the fragility of my mind. So I take it easy, and I make it to Sukie's house in one piece.

I don't know how I got here. I know I cycled, but I can't remember the route, can't remember the turns I made to get here, no idea which roads have carried me to her front door. All I know is that I'm panting on her doorstep, ten minutes after I fled a bemused Elizabeth, with a head full of questions and a phone full of blurry photos.

It's Sara who opens the door, wrapping a cardigan around herself as she ushers me into the house, her forehead creased in a concerned frown.

"Blaire? Are you okay, hun? You were knocking like a madwoman, I thought something terrible had happened."

"I ... sorry, I didn't mean to," I say. "Is Sukie here?"

"She's in the bathroom. She told me I had to answer the door because you were coming over. What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing," I say with a huff, trying to get my breath back. "I cycled too hard. And we're watching a scary film tonight. The ride freaked me out."

I don't like to lie to Sara, but I don't want to blurt out everything that has happened in the past thirty minutes. Not before I've told Sukie, anyway.

"Come in, sweetie, come in." Sara shuts the door behind me and I slip off my shoes in the front porch, following her through to the kitchen. "Want a drink? I just boiled the kettle."

"No, thanks. I'm all right." My stomach's sloshing after moving too much and too fast after downing the coffee Elizabeth made me. I'm a bit queasy, actually. I need to lie down, but I also need to keep moving. I can't rest.

A door clicks upstairs; feet pad on the steps; Sukie emerges with damp hair twisted into a knot, her face bare and beautiful. "Hey! I thought that must be you. Ready to get scared?"

I'm already scared.

Sara tuts. "I don't want you crawling into my bed at two o'clock in the morning because you're too scared to sleep."

"Mum." Sukie rolls her eyes. "I haven't crawled into your bed since I was, like, nine."

Sara coughs dramatically. "Thirteen."