Winter Has Come | ✔ #1 Winter Series

Chapter 33

Our house looks different all of a sudden. It looks smaller but I know it's the same house. This house has witnessed things. It's witnessed a girl called Amelia Harris betray her own family and friends to the police. Now it looks like it wants to shrink at the sight of me.

Mum opens the door and calls to the others that we're home. There's no response—we weren't really expecting one. The weather-changing people have resigned to the attic now. They don't think it's safe to show themselves yet because maybe someone will look through the window and spot them. Then they'll be in more trouble than they already are in now.

My mother goes upstairs carrying plates of food to them. I feel glad that she's doing it and I'm not. I can't stand facing them again. I can't stand seeing my father's face and lying to him, telling him that everything went fine at the police station.

I don't even know why I did it. I could have just given false names to throw the investigators off scent. But I didn't. Now the worst bit—the scary bit—is the fact that I don't know why. Maybe it was because the police woman told me nothing bad would happen. I shouldn't have listened to her.

Oh well. I'm in for it now.

I try to block it from my mind but it keeps coming back to me, haunting me for the next few hours. Maisie insists on me playing with her and her Teddy so I do, secretly relieved at having something to take my mind off the guilt even though that won't happen.

Mum makes dinner for the three of us and while I sit there, poking at Maisie's Teddy's stitching feebly, my mother has a genius idea to talk.

"Zach says he wants to leave," she starts.

I perk up, interest already caught. "What?"

"He says he wants to go home. Get his stuff. Leave."

"And go where?"

She shrugs. "Anywhere but here. He says it's too dangerous with the police lurking around."

The lump in my throat grows bigger.

She seems to notice this. "Meelie? Everything okay?"

I nod my head a little too fast. "Yes, yes. Um, so when's Zach leaving?"

"I don't know. But I don't want him to go. And now Angie's saying she wants to go with him and your father too. I mean, why run away from here? They have a perfectly nice home." She pauses before adding, "And Zach and Angie's Mum will be worried sick."

I think about my best friend's mother. She must be so worried now that her two kids haven't come home.

"I'll go round and tell her they'll be staying over the night." Mum decides. "After you've had dinner."

She continues her cooking but I start up another conversation.

"Um, Mum. Do you know everything about... Dad and Zach?"

She nods, lips pursed. "'Course, sweetie. Your father couldn't keep the news long."

"And you kept this all a secret from me."

She turns round, eyes serious. "Amelia, your father only found out about this power a few months ago. Before that he was a normal man. A normal husband. A normal father."

"And what do you think of him now?"

"It's who he is, Amelia. I still love him for who he is and I'm going to help him no matter what."

She continues the rest of dinner in silence. I prepare the table for eating and when we're sat down, I start poking at my food, feeling the snakes in my stomach tightening. I can't get my betrayal from my head. It's stuck in there with permanent glue.

Then, all of a sudden to make things worse, there's a knock at the door and I have a vague idea who it is.