Headlights approached, but Emily remained motionless in the road. Under her bare feet, the dark asphalt was still warm from the heat of the day. If she didn’t move, if she kept completely still, the car might miss her. Mary had told her cars were a danger. The sharp edge of a piece of gravel cut into her foot. She half closed her eyes, forcing her heel down onto the gravel, focussing on the pain.
The car slowed; its headlights were dazzling. Emily lifted one hand to shield herself from the glare and the car steered around her.
She continued walking. Seventy-five, seventy-six. Every step took her further away from the house, away from the only life she knew. Her dress, stiff with blood, brushed rough against her thighs. Each touch of the material reminded Emily of her teacher and her crumpled, damaged body in the house.
“Are you all right miss?”
She knew the question was meant for her, but she didn’t know how to answer. She could hear a car engine idling, close behind her. She half turned. The movement ground gravel harder into her bare feet.
The car had no roof. A man was raised out of his seat, one hand on the steering wheel, one on the top of the windscreen. She knew that he must see the blood on her dress.
Determination had given her the strength to venture this far from her home, but it deserted her in the face of a single question. She crumpled to the ground, closed her eyes and withdrew from the outside world. The man touched her shoulder.
“Do you need help?”
She mustn’t flinch, mustn’t show weakness. She had been warned so many times that to venture outside the house could be dangerous. She kept her eyes closed and let the darkness take care of her.
Other people arrived. They lifted her onto something like a bed. It juddered on the tarmac as they wheeled her away. She heard doors close. The noises of the night, the cooling breath of the wind, all were gone.
Muffled voices seeped into her consciousness.
“She appears okay. Steady pulse, no visible injuries. Looks like the blood is not hers. No sign of any wound.”
She understood the words which described her, but although she was in danger, it was not her who was injured.
‘Hello, I’m Alice, a paramedic. I will be taking care of you. Can you tell me your name?’
The voice came from close by. She was Emily, but there was another name buried in her past. It hadn’t belonged to her for some years, so it didn’t form easily on her lips.
“Emily. Emily Bonson.”
“How old are you Emily, do you have parents or relatives we could contact?”
“Mary needs help.”
Her duty fulfilled, Emily let her eyes close and tried to cut off the outside world.
When she next opened her eyes, Emily had to turn her head to one side, away from the glare of an overhead light. The room was formed by curtains, creating a soft room inside another, much larger, one. There was noise, footsteps, movement, a sharp scrape of metal on metal. She winced. She was used to silence.
“Can you tell me where you live Emily?”
A woman’s voice. Where did she live? How do you describe where you live?
“With Mary. In a house. Is she okay?”
Emily turned to look at her interrogator. There was also a man standing behind her, in green scrubs. She’d seen people dressed like that on television. She was in a hospital.
The woman was leaning forward. She had short black hair and was wearing a white shirt with a black waistcoat over it. She had to be a policewoman.
“My name’s DS Sharon Kirk. Can you tell me who Mary is? Is she your mother?”
Emily didn’t answer, she frowned, wondering why the woman would think that.
“She’s my teacher. She was my mother’s teacher too.”
“Okay, but can you tell us where Mary lives?”
“One-hundred and four steps back.”
The policewoman frowned. Emily was worried that she had said the wrong thing.
“Do you mean one-hundred and four steps from where you were found?”
Emily nodded. She wanted the woman to like her, and she wanted them to find Mary, to help her if it wasn’t too late.
The radio on the woman’s vest bleeped and a fuzzy voice said they had some important information. The policewoman left the curtained room but said she would come straight back.
Emily heard her talking to someone. She wanted them to do something about Mary, not knowing how long you could bleed and still be alive. The policewoman came back to sit beside her.
“We’re getting some people to see if they can find Mary. But could you tell me what you remember about your mother?”
“She’s coming back to collect me. Until then I’m not supposed to leave the house. Sorry, but Mary is hurt. Am I in trouble for leaving her?”
“How long have you lived with this Mary?”
“Always. Or almost always. I lived with my mother when I was little, but I don’t really remember. I was five I think, there was a birthday party the day before, but it wasn’t my birthday. I have a twin sister. It was her birthday. Mine is the next day.”
The woman’s fingers touched her arm and Emily pulled it away. There was a pause before the questions resumed.
“So, if you have lived with Mary, in her house, since you were six? Where did you go to school?”
Emily didn’t answer immediately.
“Mary taught me. She said home schooling would be safer.”
The woman’s radio squawked. She smiled at Emily and told her she needed to talk to the team again, but that she wouldn’t be long.
Emily returned her smile. It was some time before the woman came back through the curtains.
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Have they found her?”
The woman hesitated, and bit her lip. Emily felt something catch in her throat.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“No. They have found her, but she’s not very well.” The woman cleared her throat. “You said you’ve lived with Mary since you were six?”
Emily nodded. The woman sounded more serious than before. She leaned forward when she took her seat again.
“What was your relationship with her?”
“She took care of me, protected me, just like my mother asked her to.”
“Did you go out at all? Shopping?”
“No. Mary did all that. She chose my clothes for me, cooked for me and taught me too. She said going out would be dangerous. The bad man might get me.”
The woman had taken out a notebook and was writing in it. She didn’t look up when she asked her next question.
“Can you tell me what happened before we found you? How Mary got injured?”
Emily looked down. Her hands were holding the sheet tight, and her knuckles had turned white. When she spoke, it was so quietly that the woman leaned closer.
“She fell down the stairs.”
“That was today?”
“No. It was two days ago. I should have got help sooner, but I was scared.”
Emily explained how Mary stumbled and fell on the stairs.
“She broke her leg, I think. I had to get painkillers for her.”
“She said we couldn’t call a doctor as they wouldn’t understand. She told me how to make a splint and I made her leg straight.”
“And that was two days ago?”
The woman kept writing things in her little book. When Emily looked at her closely, the policewoman was biting her lip so hard that there were small white patches where her teeth made dents.
“But you didn’t go outside? You didn’t try to escape?”
“Escape?”
The woman looked up and the two of them studied each other.
“I meant that you didn’t try to get away from Mary?”
“No. Why would I want to get away?”
The woman’s radio beeped again. She glanced down at it and made a small grunt of exasperation.
“It’s my boss. I’m sorry, I have to take this.”
When the woman left it was quiet. The noises from earlier had faded away, other than an occasional distant cough. When the woman returned, she paused at the foot of the bed. Emily had pulled the bedsheets up under her chin, so her voice was slightly muffled.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No, no way, but it’s complicated.”
Sharon was concentrating on her notes and didn’t look at Emily. Another, older woman, in dark purple scrubs sat on the opposite side of Emily’s bed and took her hand. This time Emily didn’t flinch or pull her arm away.
The policewoman stopped writing and nodded to the woman in scrubs.
“Emily, I’m Doctor Cousins. You can call me Claire if you like. I wanted to ask you what you remember before you went to stay with Mary?”
There was still a hazy memory of another life. She whispered her reply hesitantly.
“I remember Sophie,” she said.
The policewoman pushed a button on her radio and spoke quietly to whoever was listening. The doctor continued.
“Do you remember the day you arrived at Mary’s?”
Emily repeated what Mary had told her of that day. Her mother was taking Sophie to the hospital, that she had broken her arm, and had asked Mary to take care of her until she returned. Mary wasn’t supposed to let her leave the house in case her father found her and took her away.
“And did Mary ever tell you what happened after that?”
“No. She said my mother would come back for me and, until then, she would keep me safe.”
“And you never saw your father again?”
Emily began to shake. It always happened when she thought about her father.
“It’s okay, you’re quite safe here.”
The doctor held her hand firmly and told her that her father was not going to be coming to the hospital, but that her sister would arrive tomorrow, if she wanted to see her. Emily, unable to speak, nodded her assent.
The doctor spent a lot of time with Emily over the next twenty-four hours. She told her that Mary was recovering, that she had aligned the bone in Mary’s leg quite perfectly, and there wasn’t even any need for surgery.
Emily came to understand that her father was in prison for a crime he had committed, but Doctor Claire didn’t say what the crime was. She gently broke the news to her that her mother was no longer alive.
It was sad, but Emily didn’t cry, she couldn’t really remember her mother.
“How did she die?”
Doctor Claire hesitated, as though she was choosing her words carefully.
“It was a traffic incident. She was hit by a car outside a hospital. This one as it happens.”
“Was Sophie hurt too?”
“No, luckily she escaped without any injury.”
The policewoman, still there, looked up at that point.
“Everyone looked for you, the police, friends, neighbours, but we didn’t know about Mary.”
Emily was in a private room, but she was used to being isolated, it was normal. Whenever more than two people joined her, Emily felt a tightness in her throat, her fingers would form fists, and she would want to pull the sheets up over her head. So, when someone knocked on the door while Doctor Claire and the policewoman were still with her, Emily’s eyes widened in panic, and she drew her knees up to her chest to distance herself from whoever had arrived. Doctor Claire held her hand, a gesture that had become comforting.
“Are you ready to meet someone special, someone close to you?”
Emily nodded; she had guessed who Doctor Claire was referring to.
The door opened and it was like looking into a mirror, but one that distorted your reflection a little.
“Emily?” Her doppelgänger said.
“Sophie?”