The Guesthouse. Abbie Frost

but rain was still beating down onto the empty hillside that sloped away before her into the night.

      She went to the heavy garden bench beside the door, gripped the cold metal of an armrest and dragged it forward. Her muscles burned, the iron legs of the bench screeched against paving stones. Hands shaking, she turned to the electronic security pad beside the door and tried to key in the code to lock it. Hurry up. Hurry up.

      Then she heard something else, a noise that cut through the howling wind. Footsteps inside the house. Hard shoes beating against marble floor, coming towards the door.

      She turned and started to run.

      Down the long path, through the wide iron gates, groaning in the wind, and out into the green emptiness beyond. The grassy slope rose above, miles and miles of wilderness in all directions. She could still make it to safety if she moved quickly. Every step took her further from the house, its door still shut, and with every step she felt her mind becoming clearer than it had been in months. Thoughts of her mother, Ruby, came back to her then. Those shadows around her worried eyes. That look of disappointment that she couldn’t hide whenever Hannah failed, broke down or threw away a chance to make something of her life. Not even Ruby could save her now.

      A gnarled root jutting from the ground caught her foot. She stumbled, regained her balance, just stopped herself from falling. She began to cry and the wind whipped her sobs away into the empty bog. ‘Help! Someone help.’

      But there was no one left to help her.

      She scrambled onwards, her drenched trousers clinging to her legs, her shoes still soaked through with water. Flashes of memory from the last few hours began to flicker through her mind: dripping cold walls in the pitch-black guesthouse; her helpless body sinking through murky water, struggling for air, drowning. Water filling her nose and mouth. Limbs moving in the dark. Water churning. Screams.

      She glanced back over her shoulder, then ran faster, along a rutted track that cut through the bog and led down the hill towards safety. In front of her, a stretch of water blocked the path and she picked up speed. Leapt over the dark puddle but landed awkwardly. One foot slipped out from under her and she flew backwards. Slammed into the ground, her momentum carrying her onwards, slithering down through thick weeds and mud into a ditch full of icy water. She gasped, scrabbled at the earth around her. Let out another cry for help that nobody heard. Even she could barely hear it above the howling wind.

      Her leg was trapped. With each jerk she could feel her trainer being sucked from her foot, the foul-smelling mud clutching at her skin.

      Chin pressed into the ground, she dug in her hands and tried to yank herself free, but the icy water wouldn’t let go.

      She wiped mud from her face and stared back towards The Guesthouse.

      It was a sharp silhouette against the grey sky. Flames bloomed from its roof and illuminated patches of marsh across the hillside. For a moment she remembered how the building had first appeared to her. Pale, stately and beautiful, surrounded by green, and framed by trees and the distant blue hills. As her breathing began to slow, she recalled her excitement when she first clicked on the web page and saw pictures of The Guesthouse online. Its sweeping rooms full of dark-wood bookcases and roaring fires. Artistic shots taken on summer days of ivy-covered stone walls, windows glowing a welcome to visitors.

      The windows were lit up now too, but with sparks of red and orange. With fire.

      Was it her imagination or could she really feel the heat of the flames on her face? Hear them crackling as white smoke and black embers billowed into the sky? She watched, hypnotized: too exhausted to keep struggling.

      Then the fire illuminated another, smaller silhouette. A dark figure. Moving away from the open front door and down the slope towards her. A shadow walking calmly through the rain. As if it knew she wouldn’t get far, knew she would be waiting here in the mud.

      Waiting to die.

       Chapter One

       Six days earlier

      A shriek of sound cut through the silence. Buzzing and whirring. Hannah forced her eyes open, fumbled for her phone on the bedside table, then on the floor. Finally she had it, dropped it, groped for it again. Shut up. For God’s sake shut up.

      A croak. ‘Hello.’

      ‘Han, at last. I’ve been ringing and ringing.’ It was Lori.

      Hannah pressed the phone to her ear and lay back with her eyes closed.

      ‘Where are you?’ Lori’s voice was harsh.

      Where was she? Her eyes blurred as she tried to focus. Sunlight cut through the drawn curtains and fell across the bed. She looked at the clothes strewn around the room. Her own room.

      ‘I’m at home. Why? What’s wrong?’

      There was a pause. ‘So you made it back all right.’ Lori sighed. ‘I feel like shit today – probably those cheap cocktails. How are you coping?’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Look, I was really worried about you last night, and then you just disappeared. Who was that guy you went off with?’

      A sudden flash of memory, of nausea and hot shame. Sweaty plastic seats in a taxi somewhere in London, hands groping. The stranger’s lips on her mouth, on her neck, his hands down her top and up her skirt. The taste of cheap booze and cigarettes, the taxi spinning with something like desire. Not thinking for once, not feeling bad for once.

      Then the world had tilted further, her hand had gone to her mouth and she’d had to push him away. ‘Stop … I’m going to be sick.’ Swearing from the driver as he braked to a halt. The door opening and her stumbling out onto the street. Vomiting cocktail after cocktail, shot after shot. Down her skirt and her bare legs, onto her shoes.

      Then the shameful walk back to the taxi that seemed to last a lifetime. Strangers in the street pointing and laughing. The desperate urge to get warm, to swallow some water, to be back home.

      She’d pulled at the door handle of the taxi, but nothing happened. She tugged at it again. The driver wouldn’t even look her in the eye as he started the engine and began to pull away. Her bag flew out the window and onto the street, its contents spilling into the gutter. The guy, whose hands had groped her just moments ago, had sat dead still in the back seat, staring ahead as they drove into the distance.

      Hannah swallowed and stared at the ceiling of her bedroom. Her mouth dry as she sat up and looked around for a glass of water. ‘Yeah, just some wanker. I told him to drop me off and get lost.’ She coughed into the phone. ‘Sorry I left you like that.’

      Silence on the end of the line. Then Lori began to talk, starting off gently, but quickly getting into her stride. The nagging tone, one thing after another about all that Hannah had done wrong. She tuned it out after a while and pulled the covers over her cold shoulders. When she stretched her leg over the side of the bed she saw the red, angry scrape on her knee, and remembered weaving and stumbling her way home. She’d fallen through the garden gate, her knee smacking onto the path. Terrified her mum would hear. Twenty-five years old and back living with her mother. Back getting shit from her school friends.

      Lori was still speaking, the words blending into one. ‘I know you’ve had a hard time, but I’m sick of it. Just sort yourself out. You can’t keep fucking up your life.’

      Then, finally, a long silence that Hannah couldn’t face trying to fill. The phone felt sticky with sweat in her palm.

      Lori spoke again, her voice softer now. ‘Look … you’re my best friend. We’ve known each other for years.’ Another pause. ‘But … I’m tired, Han, really really tired. I didn’t want to say this, but I’m starting to get why Ben and you broke up … why he was so angry with you.’

      Hannah tried to speak but Lori drowned her out, loud again, firm. ‘Listen, until you sort yourself out, I’m done with you.