Finding them E-Book

Lorna Stevenson

• Herausgeber: Europa Edizioni
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Summer is the time for road trips, beach days and bonding with friends. That’s exactly what Will has in store, but with friends like his, the experience will be anything but ordinary.
Adam is back and he wants the life he walked away from. The others can do a lot but they’re going to need Will’s help this time.
Join Will and the others as they fight to find their way back to themselves and each other in the sequel to  “Knowing Them”.
 
Lorna Stevenson is a psychology graduate from Dundee University, raised in Edinburgh, who finds happiness in her writing. In 2020 she published ‘Knowing Them’, and has now written its sequel. The characters in these books have travelled with Lorna to every cafe she writes in, every Scottish city she lives in and are a part of her. She is thrilled to share them with you again.

Leseprobe

Lorna Stevenson

Finding Them

© 2023 Europe Books | London www.europebooks.co.uk | [email protected]

ISBN 9791220135931

First edition: April 2023

Finding Them

Preface

Ivy

I stand in the doorway watching it. Part of me wishing for it to burst back open and Will to say, “Got ya!” and everything to go back to normal. But it won’t happen.

We had to make Will forget, we did, we agreed that was the plan a long time ago and if we changed it now it would be selfish. Will came into our lives by accident, he walked in and we didn’t want him to walk back out again. We’d been drifting through time, most of us rarely leaving the house, except for Cara who got easily bored and filled her time with University, simply to have access to each generation right when they were just beginning to grow up. Cara separates people from her by treating them like toys, but she never managed to do that with Will, he returned her words with friendly banter and made her care.

We all cared about Will, Cara and I cared about him like a friend, Lily and Sam cared kind of like parents, with a familial distance, and Danny cared, despite doing everything he could not to show it. Then there was Ella, the one who made sure he didn’t disappear from our lives before we got the chance to know that would be a mistake. Somehow from one glance she knew she wanted to know him, the first person outside the six of us she’d wanted to know for a long time, and I got to watch her love him.

Love him in a beautiful and healthy way that allowed them to support each other. Ella had supported Will more than any of us during his little sister’s down spiralling health, and he supported her more than he can never know, through the last of her recovery from a very toxic relationship.

It was that relationship that caused us to cut ourselves off from people, we used to be a group of seven, bound together through time, before Adam, Ella’s partner, had betrayed that, betrayed the humanity we’d fought for, for power.

We manifested as nothing more than spirit before we found our way to bodies and lives and meaning. Adam thought we limited ourselves by living as humans and wanted us to go back and be more. I don’t think even he knew what he meant but he was determined, and he threw us all aside to try. He left Ella, and she spent years missing him and years more coming to terms with the darkness of their relationship. We’d thought it was okay, the way he treated her, because we lived on the wrong end of history, and emotional manipulation didn’t mean as much as it rightfully does now. We grieved the loss of our friend before learning how bad a friend he had been.

While Ella licked her wounds, we gathered around her, and shut out the rest of the world, until Will. We met him and introduced ourselves to him, watched him accept who we were and slowly invite us into his life, with his friends and his family. He accepted who we were, but that didn’t mean he could really live with it, time came with the cost of him aging and us not, you cannot face your own mortality while spending time with people who have none. We agreed Will could only truly know us until a certain point and then he must forget everything that makes us extraordinary, everything that draws the line between him and us in the sand.

I knew the day was coming when the Will I knew would shift into the Will that now is, the one who is my friend and my confidant, but only to a point, but I wasn’t ready for that to be today. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Will as he left our house and have it be me saying goodbye to something I was losing forever.

Closing my eyes against the door I push the boring small entrance hallway back into the way we normally have it. I feel the ceilings and walls push out, away from me, like an explosion. I exhale and sense the colours fading into the pure white of the room. I open my eyes again and it’s exactly like we like it. Exactly like Will isn’t allowed to see it anymore. I have to wipe my eyes.

There’s a knock on the door.

Oh no. In a sudden inhale I turn the room back to the way it was again, almost fumbling over the phone table I put in as I head to the door. There’s a reason we keep our entrance empty. My clumsiness is real.

Rearranging my face into a smile I open the door, trying not to let Will see the jumble my head is. I fought Cara for days about this, we screamed each other down trying to prove we were right. In the end she hadn’t convinced me, but Ella had asked us to stop. It was only the look in her eyes that made me. I swear sometimes that Ella knows the power those blue jewels in her face give her.

It’s not Will standing in our doorway.

My head tilts to the side and my smile becomes more genuine as I take him in, a tall dark stranger, must be a new plaything for Cara. Maybe to help her deal with losing Will today, I almost feel bad for him.

“Hi, I’m Ivy.” I say brightly, extending my hand out to him. I’m wearing a lot of thin gold bangles and they jangle on my wrist as it reaches out. I really need to remember that despite liking the look I can never stand the jingling. As soon as this guy is out of sight, I’m saying goodbye to the bracelets.

He doesn’t reach his hand back to me, instead he tilts his head like mine before he even speaks, that move makes his mocking tone ring out loud and clear. Just as I’m thinking of all the ways to tease Cara for her taste in boys, the bangles disappear from my wrist.

My arm shoots back, I retract it into my chest like I’ve been burned and my other hand closes around my now bare wrist. None of the others are nearby, we keep a little part of ourselves open to feeling the others all the time so we can’t sneak up on each other, it’s caused far too many fights in the past.

I stare at the person in front of me, knowing my eyes are disks right now, but I can’t blink or stop looking at him.

His head straightens up from its tilted position and he shakes it while tutting softly and takes a step forward. The room behind me blinks into white, I see it in my periphery but still can’t look away, especially when he starts talking.

“Still changing faces Ivy, some things never change.”

I recognise the honey dripping through his voice like a sense memory from childhood. It feels like a punch to the gut, forcing me back through time, back through everything.

But a lot has changed since then.

I slam the door without bothering to touch it.

Half my mind starts thinking of every kind of lock I’ve ever seen and adding it to the door. The other half screams out for the others to get their asses here.

Everyone but Ella, Ella can’t come here, Ella can’t see this. Him. Adam.

We don’t have emergencies very often so luckily that means it freaks everyone out when it does. From the doorways around me I hear people banging into the room. But I still don’t turn away from the door, I can’t bring myself to.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, from the tall shadow cast over me and the lack of words whispered in my ear, I know it’s Sam. The pressure he puts on my shoulder seems to push into my eyes and a lone tear escapes. It feels warm slipping down my cheek. I finally let myself look away from the door and close my eyes, answering the question Sam is silently asking and everyone else is about to start yelling.

I only just manage to choke out the words. My mind can’t wrap itself around this, it became a truth, the fact he was gone. We made it into a fact, the way we thought about him, it became all past tense. But now…

“It’s Adam, he’s back.”

Then, like a cue, the door bursts open, locks splintering into pieces like plywood, and everything becomes darkness and Sam’s hand and the sense of everyone around me disappears like smoke.

Ella Black.

Where am I? I can barely move.       Where is everyone?

Black.

This feels like a cage. Is there a door? How long have I been here?

Black.

Who put me here?

Why am I here?

Black.

I want out.

I want to go home.

Black.

I want Will.       

Will.

Is Will okay?

Black.

What is happening?

Please.

I don’t like this.

Black.       

Black.       

Black.

Chapter 1

Will

Ian is an idiot. I’ve been aware of this for a long time and yet he still never ceases to amaze me. Currently his idiocy is on display as he tries to build a pyramid, deck-of-cards-style, out of sugar packets, he is yet to make one small triangle stay upright but it’s still amusing. It’s also quite distracting, I’ve been able to completely tune out Jackie’s monologue about the evils of coffee.

Since it’s the Summer holidays, our lunch table in the university cafeteria has recently been traded in for a mixture of café and bar tables. For the first week of this, Jackie was thrilled, she had just gotten into coffee, but that quickly spiralled and now she is fully informed on all the reasons we should all stop drinking it. Ian suspects she is just sensitive to caffeine but doesn’t want us tempting her to the dark side. I’m enjoying the café trips though, as much as they might be depleting my Summer funds every day or so, I have finally mastered my order and am waiting for the day I get to just say ‘the usual’ to the barista and they know what I mean. So far, no luck but I have gotten three funny looks for ordering my coffees with syrup, I think because they assume it’s a girly order, but personally I think it simply more characteristic of a sugar addict and I’m okay with that.

The group varies a lot between days, Jack is away on holiday with family for a few weeks so he’s out, but Ian has been a constant with me, neither of us have enough going on to miss any social opportunities. Ian and I have invited Ivy, via text, but haven’t heard anything from her, I assume she must be on holiday as well but don’t remember her mentioning it before. I’ve invited Ella along as well as suggesting things for just the two of us to do but again no response. I’d be worried but I’m pretty sure if a negative expression crosses my face then Ian is going to throw his sugar packets at me, anyway he’s convinced Cara has taken their group, the girls at least, on some kind of no-tech trip. It makes a certain sense since Cara has an admittedly blasé attitude towards organisation and other people’s feelings.

A sudden jolt to the table causes Ian’s pyramid, which had been close to three triangles wide, to collapse and brings my attention back to Jackie, who is glaring pointedly between us. “Am I just talking to myself?!” She asks, eyebrows so raised they are almost blending into her hairline. Jackie can be kind of scary.

“I think the cute barista was listening.” Ian smirks as he nudges his head behind the counter, where a student-y looking guy has just ducked behind the traybake counter.

I think he is actually just rearranging the brownies, which are almost all gone and looking a bit sad in their display, but Jackie believes him enough to start whispering about him to the other girls with us. Ian gives me a sly wink and returns to his sugar, while I glance down into my almost empty mug. As much as I do like syrup in my coffee, if you don’t drink it fast enough then the dregs of the drink become overly sweet.

No one looks close to leaving so I quickly empty my cup and lean over to Jackie, feeling a bit bad for ignoring her earlier. “If I go get a new drink, do you want me to do some recon?” I ask, grinning at her.

Jackie gives me a torn look, she’s against me drowning my system in more poison but is also intrigued by my suggestion. “How obvious will you be?” I can’t even pretend to be hurt by her feeling the need to ask.

“Probably quite, but he’ll either think I’m asking for me, or not know which one of you I’m asking for. So, you’ve got a safety net.” The fact I’m leaning halfway across the table to talk to her, is probably lowering my subtlety, but the guy is still busy with brownies.

“Go for it then.” Jackie relents, with a small smile.

“Get me a cake.” Chimes in Ian, not even looking up from his task.

The barista stands upright when I reach his station, the brownies now all placed up front of their decorative plate, so they’re tantalisingly close to the customers, I spot one of them has lost a gooey corner in it’s reshuffle, a small price to pay, but I feel bad for the recipient of the slightly smaller treat.

“Hi.” Says the barista, who I can now see is called ‘Toby’, he has his name written in white on a black name tag next to a small drawing of a pumpkin.

“Why the pumpkin?” I ask, probably not the kind of details Jackie was hoping for when I suggested recon, but I’m curious.

Toby glances down and smiles, “I started working her in October and it seemed like a good idea.”

I chuckle, “Fair enough.” I give him my order but attempt to keep the small talk going while he makes it, there’s no queue behind me, and he responded well to the pumpkin question. “Do you work here with Uni? Or am I being rude assuming everyone our age goes to Uni?” I ask, quickly backtracking from the start of my question.

Luckily, Toby smiles again, “It’s probably a little presumptuous, but I am at Uni. Just finished my second year of Physics.”

I’m about to make a comment about how I could never do a science subject, but I’m distracted when Toby brings my finished coffee over and we make eye contact. He has shining green eyes which, I swear, are a double of Ivy’s eyes. A stab of worry washes over me, as the colour blinks at me and makes me miss Ivy incredibly. With that, I’ve completely forgotten what Toby just said and can’t even manage to get a word out. Smiling sheepishly, I just take out my card and tap to pay before retreating to the table. My mind made blank by a strange fog of strong déjà vu settling in.

“So?” Jackie asks, as I regain my seat.

Ian interrupts her with a quiet, “Cake?”

I had completely forgotten to get something for Ian, and only manage to open my mouth like a goldfish in apology for it. His eyebrows crease together in a show of worry and he quickly gets to his own feet to grab himself something, patting my hand as he does so.

The look on his face makes me feel guilty. It’s new to Ian’s repertoire of expressions but has become common place quite quickly. He makes that face whenever he thinks I’m thinking about Katie. A lump of coal settles in my chest, as it always does when I think about her, fizzing out into black dust coursing through my entire system, but I try and swallow it down. Normally he’s correct in his assumptions but I feel awful whenever he’s not, like I’m using my grief against him.

The feeling worsens when Ian comes back to the table and drops a slice of red velvet cake in front of his seat and a brownie in front of me. One thing I love about Ian is his predisposition to solve any issue with food. I feel a little better when I see that my brownie is the slightly broken one from the display, and pick up my fork for a bite while Ian leans forward and updates Jackie on everything he learned from Toby, which was a lot more than me.

I’m quiet the rest of time we’re at the café, though I do start to feel a sugar buzz when I’m most of the way through my second sugary coffee, and my brownie has been reduced to mere crumbs. When we’re finally on our way out, Jackie is resolved to attempt flirting with Toby and a few of our group are informing her where they’re going to wait for her outside while she does so. Ian and I bid farewell, and start walking to my flat. I could’ve moved home for the holidays, but something feels too wrong when I’m home now, I can’t even bring myself to go upstairs and see Katie’s room. I try and meet my parents out and about as much as possible these days. Ian’s home, but he spends more time at mine than his, which I think annoys Isaac, him and Ian have never quite made it to being friends.

“Is it the kind of thing you want to talk about?” Ian asks, when we stand at our third set of silent road crossings, waiting for a green man.

I don’t look at him but focus on the red man across from us. “Didn’t that barista remind you of Ivy?” I ask, the odd feeling of déjà vu still heavy in my mind.

“His eyes were like hers.” Ian says. I’m surprised for a moment that Ian noticed but then I remember how much he’d liked Ivy when they first met, like really liked her, and my surprise fades. “Are you still worried about them?” He continues after another moment of me not talking.

I don’t know how to tell him that that’s not it. I had thought for a moment that he was Ivy, a thought so ridiculous my brain has now turned against me and shut down. An eye colour resemblance means nothing, and for a lot of people is quite common, maybe it’s because my eyes are green, but I can rarely see a difference in brown eyes beyond light and dark brown. Green is a little more varied to me, but I still made a funny leap. I can’t even explain why one little thought has completely taken over me, why I can’t just shrug it off as nothing. It’s such a stupid feeling but I can’t escape it. “I’m just,” I start, trying to put it into words for Ian, but I give up. “Maybe I am worried.”

“Okay, we could check out their house or something.” Ian suggests, looking around as though for other ideas to help. “Isn’t that a little weird?” I ask nervously.

Ian chuckles, “If you were showing up at only Ella’s house, without warning, in the dead of night, with a knife, that would be weird. Checking on a whole group of friends you haven’t heard from in a while, during the day, completely fine.” He reasons.

That, I find difficult to argue with. I guess it is fair enough, if possibly a little awkward. I did used to go round to their house all the time though. “Okay sure,” I say finally,

“We can go look for them.”

And off we go, to that little Victorian house.

Chapter 2

Ian

I’m not worried about Will, I’m more worried for him. It’s only been a month since we lost Katie and he seems surprisingly okay. Ella basically never left his side at the start and I think she really helped him. She’s a sweet girl, always quite quiet but I think Will’s needed quiet lately.

Whenever something is wrong my instincts are to talk over a problem until it stops existing, or to feed someone until they feel better. Will’s flatmate Isaac seemed like a big help as well, but he’s not the quiet type either, he talks through everything, which makes sense for a psychology student. Ivy is one of Will’s best friends too, but she’s a rambler, she’s always talking and moving around, if she’s ever still and silent then something has got to be wrong, I assume, I’m yet to see it.

I’m surprised by Ivy not being in touch, she’s not the fastest texter, but is always up for meeting up, she thrives in a crowd. When I first met Ivy, I really liked her, she’s so alive in everything she does, it’s intoxicating. I was this close to acting on my feelings when Will told me not to, he’d found out Ivy’s asexual. It was never awkward between us, this was right at the time Katie’s health really started to spiral and I had no time to think about us, we had to focus on getting Will and his family through everything. Once the holidays started, I started preparing myself for fully adjusting my feelings about Ivy to just friendly, but I haven’t seen her. Which may or may not be helping the situation.

Anyway, her not responding to Will is weird, but I assume there’s an easy explanation. Cara, another girl in Ella and

Ivy’s group, can be a little (a lot) selfish, though she pulls it off with a flirty smile, and I’m sure she’s behind the radio silence. She’s probably forgotten there are people out here, like Will, who might worry, and is focussing on having fun, before returning everyone to society. Thinking about it, it would be really easy to dislike Cara, but I can’t bring myself to, she’s always herself, which I respect, except for times like now, when Will’s forehead is furrowed.

I only know roughly where their house is, I’ve never been inside, just walked in the vague direction with Will. All six of their group live together; Ella, Ivy and Cara, with another girl Lily, who is dating Sam, who also lives there (I’m not sure if they share a room) and one other guy, Danny, who is a little scary. Only Cara goes to University with Will and I, that’s how we ended up meeting the whole group, I’m not sure how they know each other but they seem so close I assume they grew up together and moved here together. Honestly, as a group they’re quite weird and individually they are also weird, but they’re fun and they’ve really helped Will out, so I’m not complaining.

It’s only really in the past week when we’ve not heard from any of them that I’ve had the time to notice how strange they all are. When Will mentioned he hadn’t heard anything from them and I tried to think of reasons they might not be in touch, I realised that I know very little about them all. To be fair, I don’t know that much about all my friends, I know Will backwards, but I couldn’t give detailed backgrounds about most of the others. With friends, especially the people you become friends with at University, it’s easy to know about their present, you hear about their classes and flatmates and nights out, but you don’t just jump into talking about family and hopes and dreams. Even so, I think of Ivy and I as friends, but I don’t know anything about her, I don’t even know if she has a job, though I assume she must unless her parents are loaded. I can’t really imagine what Ivy would do for a job though, she’s great with people but she’s also so energetic, I could imagine that counting against her in interviews. The same thing happens with Will’s flatmate Isaac, he’s so jumpy.

Somehow, I’ve fallen into a Will-esque hole of spiralling thought while we’ve been walking silently to their house. Will goes quiet, especially lately, but we don’t spend that much time just the two of us without some activity being involved. Normally I have someone or something to distract me from the quiet. Not that I mind Will not talking, it’s understandable that he’s hasn’t been talking much recently, but I need some noise around me. Otherwise I get very bored and over analysis the group of friends we’re about to stalk down. I’m two more minutes of silence away from spinning conspiracy theories about where they get their money from. Maybe they’re drug dealers and Cara is their in to the University crowd. Okay, that only took ten seconds.

“Is Ivy a drug dealer?” I ask, just to make some noise.

It takes Will a moment to blink out of his thoughts, but then he actually stops walking to stare at me. “What?”

“You have to admit it makes sense.” I say, though it probably doesn’t.

Will keeps staring at me, I try smiling to make him stop. “You think I’m taking you to a drug den?” Will asks, eyebrows raised.

That makes me laugh. “Probably not. So, you’ve never seen any deals go down at the house?”

Shaking his head, Will starts walking again but I catch sight of a brief smile on his face. “Not once.”

“Fair enough then.” I say, letting us slip back into amicable silence, we’re almost there anyway. With that idea out of the way, I’m leaning back into thinking they’re rich.

That is, until we reach the front door. Which is open.

It’s not just ajar, it’s off its hinges at a funny angle, propped against the frame. The paint job on the door, which I’d always noticed as pristine when walking past, looks chipped and shabby. Both Will and I come to a stop, staring at the all wrong door. “This doesn’t look good.” I say unhelpfully.

“No, it does not.” Mutters Will, taking a step forward, which spurs me on to do the same. Slowly, we approach the door, and I notice the dead grass of the small front garden dividing the house from the street. “It must be some kind of trick.” Will murmurs, so quietly, I don’t think the words are directed at me. I make a face behind Will’s back; how can this be a trick? A recently pristine house is now looking long abandoned. I don’t understand what’s happening but it’s making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Finally, we reach the front door and are able to peer through the gaping hole of the doorway into the house itself. No one lives here. There’s no question. “Is this definitely the right house?” I ask Will, when my eyes catch sight of the dusty bare broken bulb hanging limply from the hallway ceiling.

“Yes,” Will says resolutely. “I’ve been here so many times. It must be a trick.” He repeats, voice trailing off again.

“How can this be a trick?” I ask, my eyes now scanning the hallway floor, which is made of cracked and broken floorboards, weakened with moisture and the strain of time.

“I don’t know.” Says Will, sounding frustrated as he takes the dirty, worn steps up to the doorway and bravely steps through it, angling his body so it doesn’t graze the door.

I follow him, incapable of being left behind. Though I almost step right back out when the smell of the house hits my nostrils. It smells of damp, it’s a tangible dampness that feels like it soaks my clothes and my skin as soon as I enter, though the air in the room is actually bone dry. I have the horrible sensation of both wanting to cough away the dryness and gulp down the wet, which culminates in me smothering a gag.

It’s a tight hallway we’re in. Definitely smaller than my total arm span, I could maybe fully extend one arm out to my side, not that I’d want to, I might risk touching the walls which look frayed and delicate like tissue paper. I’m hoping that’s just the wallpaper, not the foundations of this place. There’s a staircase leading up to the first floor just ahead of Will, which he better not try to climb, I’ll have to tackle him to the ground. It doesn’t look like it’s take the weight of a cat, never mind his tall thin frame.

After analysing the space, I just watch Will, who looks so lost it makes my eyes hurt to follow his movements. He keeps stepping from the bottom of the stairs towards the door, then stepping back and then forward again, before heading back to the bottom of the stairs. The routine reminds me of seeing animals at the zoo making tracks because they don’t like their habitat, when they know something is fundamentally wrong. “Will?” I say his name just to get him to look at me.

He does, and it makes something inside me lurch and dislodge, I hate seeing him like this. “I was here a week ago.” He says. I open my mouth to say, something, but he stops me. “I was here, and I said goodbye to Ella, and I bumped into Ivy by the door and then I left. I walked down those stairs and I almost fell over in this hallway and then I walked out that door. And it was a nice house, it was a home, a tightly packed home but still. It wasn’t this, but it was here and now this is here.” He says everything with such confidence, pointing at different places in the room, his eyes following the trail like he’s seeing everything replayed.

“Maybe this is the wrong house?” I ask him, I would be amazed if Will had led us to the wrong house, but this being the right house is also impossible. Places don’t just transform in the blink of an eye.

“It’s the right house.” Says Will, not looking anywhere near me now. He’s looking towards the landing of the stairs, and before I can tackle him, he’s jumping up the steps three at a time.

I don’t follow this time, I can’t risk putting my weight on those steps, but I’m grateful they held up for Will. I refuse to call his parents to the hospital, I refuse for Will to have any reason to go to hospital, the universe owes him better than that. “What are you doing?” I hiss up at Will once I wrestle my heart back down from my throat.

For a moment Will stays where he ended up at the top of the stairs, crouched there, facing away from me, in the dim light coming in through the windows of the house he looks almost eerie. Then he stands up, and turns towards me, a smile on his face though I don’t know why he’s smiling. He holds up a canvas he must have spotted from down here and my jaw falls dramatically open. “It’s definitely the right house.” Will says.

It’s a brightly coloured painting, and its subject is unmistakeable. It’s Will’s sister, Katie.

Danny

I don’t know where I am. But when I get out, I am going to punch whoever put me in here. It’s been days, days of just a black box I can’t get out of, I can’t even touch the edges of it. Normally, with human things, if I can see it, I can touch it. I can’t see a damned thing in here though. It would be so cathartic to throw my shoulder against the door, but I don’t even know where the door is. There has to be one. If I’m trapped in something, I’m trapped in something man made. Big downside of living in a material world when you can’t touch material things, illusion can only get you so far.

If I stood in front of a crowd of people, I could get them to see whatever I wanted. That’s what I used to do, I stood before civilisations and I made myself a God to them. Now I’m stuck in a box.

We were always afraid this would happen. Humans got too clever and too curious. If they knew we existed, we knew they’d want to understand how we exist. It’s not like we have any answers. We blinked into existence a long time ago, then we were Gods and now we’re just going about our days. I have no interest in spending my days in a box. I don’t know where I am or who put me here, but I am determined not to stay.