The Girls In The Woods. Helen Phifer

to, she shook her head and tried her very best to make her voice not shake.

      ‘Nothing, sorry, I just gave myself a bit of a fright.’

      He looked her up and down.

      ‘Well, that’s hardly a surprise. I mean you’ve had better days. Have you looked in the mirror lately?’

      She bit her lip. Yes, she bloody well had and the mirror had looked back at her. Who was that girl and how did she get in there? It wasn’t possible – that mirror was hung on a plasterboard wall, and on the opposite side of that wall was the garage, so there was no way someone could have been standing there watching. Her heart was racing. All she wanted to do was go outside and get some fresh air, get away from this house, from him. But thanks to him and his twitchy fists she couldn’t even do that. Willing herself to calm down before he got angry again she opened the cupboard and took a loaf of bread out. He walked across and took the bread from her.

      ‘Sit down. I told you I’ll make lunch. I have no idea what is going on with you but you need to sort yourself out.’

      She sat down, crossing her hands so he wouldn’t notice how much they were trembling. Then she began to recite a prayer in her mind over and over again. She didn’t know if she had really seen that woman or whether she was hallucinating because of the knock to her head, but she prayed to God to make it all go away. Her gran had been a very spiritual woman and when Jo had been little she would watch her through the crack in the curtains which separated Gran’s front room from the living room. Her gran would have people come around for readings, or to speak to their dearly departed. They’d sit around the small round table in the front room and dim the lights, the glow from the candle making them all seem very eerie. Jo’s mum didn’t believe in any of it and once, when her gran had told Jo she had the gift and one day she would be able to do what she did, Jo had gone home crying and her mum had gone mad. She’d stormed round to her gran’s house – which was a few doors up the street from them – and told her not to scare Jo and to keep her rubbish to herself. Jo’s mum never believed any of it and Jo definitely never believed in anything remotely paranormal; she hated horror films, much preferring to watch a nice feel-good film where the girl always got the guy and he would turn out to be the kind of man every woman fantasised about. No, her own life was a big enough horror story – so she didn’t want to add any further distress to it than she had to.

      He slid a sandwich across the table to her and she thanked him, not wanting to eat because she felt sick, but not daring to turn it down because he would go mad at her for wasting his time and food – so she picked it up and began to nibble on it. He began to chatter away; when he did occasionally talk to her there was no stopping him, but today she couldn’t be bothered. Her eye was throbbing and her head hurt, not to mention that her heart was having palpitations because she couldn’t get the image of the woman from the mirror out of her mind. Jo wanted to scream at him to shut up; she wanted to pick up one of the pans from the hanging rack and smack him across the head with it to see how he liked it, give him a taste of his own medicine. Instead she listened to him going on about what a fabulous photographer he was and how he had this idea for a great project, something which no modern day photographer had ever done. She nodded and agreed with him whenever she thought it was necessary, anything to keep the peace and stop the pain.

      When she looked up from her plate to face him, she felt her blood freeze. The rack of pans which hung down from the ceiling behind him was moving. The pans were swaying from side to side; they were heavy-based copper pans which she struggled to lift most of the time so how they were moving like that was beyond her. She glanced across at the window to see if it was open and letting in a breeze but it was shut tight, as were all the doors. Even if she did leave the windows and doors open she had never seen them all move like this all at the same time, ever. He looked at her.

      ‘What the hell is the matter with you today? What are you looking at?’

      Jo shook her head.

      ‘Nothing. I don’t feel well. I must have banged my head when I fell over in the garage.’

      She emphasised the ‘I’, careful not to accuse or throw any blame his way – even though it was completely his fault. The pans were still moving behind him. Why weren’t they making a noise? They should have been clanging together but they weren’t. She began to cough, choking on a bite of her sandwich, and the breath that came out of her mouth was surrounded by a plume of white smoke as if it was a crisp, frosty December day – not the end of August. He looked at her as if she was mad, shoved the last of his sandwich in his mouth, then stood up to go back to his studio.

      ‘I have clients in this afternoon Jo. I do not want you to come in or disturb me – do you understand?’

      She nodded her head. She was going to go upstairs and lie down.

      ‘Good, I’m glad we cleared that up – because if you disturb me again when you’ve been told not to, I’ll fucking kill you.’

      And with that he walked out of the door, turning the key in the lock from his side. She looked up at the pans which were now still, then towards the door that he’d just locked. Putting the plate on the side she stood up and forced her hand to reach up and touch one of the pans; her fingers brushed against the cold metal and she pulled back – it felt as if it had been in the freezer for an hour. She turned and stumbled her way upstairs to her bedroom… she needed to lie down. She wasn’t well at all.

       Chapter 4

      Will loaded the cases into the back of his car then took the trolley back; it was drizzling in Manchester and the airport behind them looked grey and gloomy. Annie was sitting in the front passenger seat not quite believing that they were back in England after such a perfect holiday. She pulled her phone out of her handbag and rooted around in the glove compartment for the charger. As it vibrated back to life she saw that she had twelve missed calls from her sister-in-law. She also had a message box full of texts saying ‘ring me’ but not what it was about. If it had been urgent then she would have said there was something wrong. Annie liked the woman but she was a bit too tightly wound up for her – she made a huge fuss over everything and insisted on sharing every trial and tribulation over her social media accounts, which drove Annie mad to the point where she had unfriended her. Annie didn’t want to know about every argument that Lisa had with her brother and her niece and neither should anyone else. She pressed the green button to ring her back, hoping this wasn’t going to be a thirty-minute phone call about Ben being late for dinner three times this year. Will got in the car and she mouthed the word ‘Lisa’ to him, and he smiled and turned the key. By the time they got back to Hawkshead the conversation might have finished.

      ‘Well, I’m sorry, Lisa, but I agree with both Ben and Tilly this time. You don’t know if she’ll even get the job.’

      Annie held the phone away from her ear and Will laughed a little too loud, making Annie slam it back against her ear.

      ‘What no, it was the radio. You know she’s welcome to stop with me and Will if she does get it. I don’t mind driving her to work and picking her up. That’s no problem. Look, if I was you I’d just let her go and see what happens and then I’d start to worry about it. Okay, bye.’

      She looked at Will.

      ‘Bloody hell. Tilly wants to get a job living in at some hotel in Bowness.’

      ‘And I take it Lisa doesn’t agree.’

      ‘That’s putting it mildly. I also got the distinct impression that she doesn’t want Tilly to live with us either if she does get the job. You wouldn’t mind, would you? It might stop me dying of boredom.’

      Will nudged her in the side.

      ‘Families, eh? Of course I wouldn’t, although I kind of understand why Lisa wouldn’t want her daughter to live with us.’

      Annie looked at him. ‘Why not?’ She paused then nodded.

      ‘I guess not. She probably thinks she’ll be sending her off to join the “serial