The Key to Anchor Lake ✓

20 : Blaire

I shake my head but I don't even know if that's the right answer. "I'm not sure."

"Why do you have a bad feeling about her?"

"I woke up at one and went downstairs and she was reading a copy of The Key to Anchor Lake and writing in it"—Sukie gasps at that, abject horror filling her face—"and I asked if I could borrow it, and she got all weird."

Sukie holds up a hand and says, "Wait, the library's copy of the book? She was writing in it?"

"That's the weird thing. She said it's her own copy. She said it came with the house."

"Oh."

"And I know she bought the house in 2000."

Sukie's eyes widen. "The year the book turned up?"

"Yeah. Exactly." I pull my sleeves over my hands and wrap my fingers around my hot mug, leaning so close to the froth that the rising heat burns my eyes.

"So..." Sukie trails off and I can see her doing all her working out in her head; I can practically see the cogs turning as she thinks it over.

"I think Mary Nesbitt lived in my house before Elizabeth," I say, nodding to myself. "I think it's Mary's copy of the book."

"Oh, shit." Both hands are cupped around her mouth, her huge eyes a hundred shades of brown under the warm café lights. "Oh my god, Blaire, that's huge!"

"Potentially." I shudder, cold despite the blasting heat in here. Maybe I'm coming down with something. Or it's just the town and my aunt, giving me the creeps.

"But ... what were you saying before? Elizabeth was acting weird?"

She keeps glancing at the door like she's praying no-one will come in. I am too; I need to get this off my chest and in a matter of days, Sukie has become the person I want to share things with.

"Really weird." The first sip of latte is sweet and creamy and I can feel the heat sliding down my gullet to settle in my stomach, warming me from the inside out. "Thank you for this."

"Weird how?" she asks, edging closer to me like it'll ease the story out faster.

"I asked if I could read and it and she said no; she said it's too dark and it'll upset me, so I said I listen to your podcast anyway. She said it's not a healthy way to cope with Mum's death and that if I read the book, I'll want to leave town."

Sukie huffs and frowns. "Is there a chance she's just being overprotective?"

I snort. "I doubt it. She said she wants to protect me, but nothing else she does is remotely protective. We literally go days without seeing each other and we live in the same fucking house!"

She winces. Less at the word, I think, than the context.

"She said it's bad for me, and she doesn't want me drowning in other people's sorrow, but if she actually gave the slightest shit about my sorrow then maybe she would make the effort to be around me, or at least not accuse me of fucking drowning myself." My teeth grate together, fingernails digging deep crescents into my palms until I have to forcibly unclench my fists.

Sukie's soft hand closes over the top of mine as she says, "I don't know enough about Elizabeth to know whether or not she is actually looking out for you or not, b—"

"She's not looking out for me," I interrupt, my tone harsher than I mean it to me. Sukie pauses a moment before she continues.

"But, I do know you need to get that book." There's a fervour in her voice and her eyes, a depth to her energy. "If there's even the slightest chance it ever belonged to Mary, if there's the tiniest possibility that she lived in your house, that might be the break we need."