5 Books For Eveline

18

18

Purdy woke up to the sound of her new phone ringing. She could hear it from downstairs, where she had left it, and it reminded her why she didn't like the idea of mobile phones. The only time people called a landline, at this time in the morning, was only ever in cases of emergency. Mobile phones seemed to give people a carte blanche to call any time that something crossed their minds.

She didn't rush to answer it, she couldn't make it downstairs fast enough, anyway. Instead, she took her time. Washing, dressing, all at her own pace. The phone rang several times before she felt ready to head downstairs. She knew, of course, who it was. She had only given Briar that number, so far. Whatever petty little thing Briar wanted to talk about, Purdy doubted it was important enough to call before nine.

Upon heading downstairs, she found five missed calls and eight text messages. The texts questioned whether Purdy was awake, then complained about her not answering the phone, then queried whether Purdy had died. It felt as though Briar believed she had a divine right to call any time she wished and felt insulted that Purdy hadn't answered.

When the phone lit up once again, Briar's name popping up on the screen, Purdy considered ignoring it even now. She hated the idea that people thought she owed them an answer when called. She owed nobody anything, least of all Briar. Placing the phone face down on the table, Purdy headed to the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast.

"Yes!" One coffee, two slices of well-done toast and several more missed calls and texts later, Purdy answered the phone. "I am not at your beck and call, Briar!"

"Good morning. The phrase is 'Good morning'." It sounded as though Briar had called from the train station. Purdy could hear the announcer in the background. "It never hurts to be polite, you know."

"I refuse to be polite to someone who calls me before I've had coffee!" She lifted up her coffee mug, tipping it to look inside. She had already finished it and wanted more. "What do you want?"

"Nothing. I'm just letting you know that I'm out of town today. Stuff, you know?" The announcer, in the background, called passengers to the next train and it sounded as though Briar had started running. "I'll send you a link to a map with some more locations you might not remember. Only a few, easy to get to ones. I don't want you bothering that hip again. Anyway, I'll be back tomorrow. Text me if you find a copy, yeah. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye."

The line became silent and it took Purdy a number of seconds before she realised Briar had closed down the connection. She stared at the phone, shaking her head. Why Briar couldn't have said all that in a text, Purdy would never know. Yet another reason Purdy hated mobile phones. Calling instead of texting. She hated that.

When the text with the map link arrived, Purdy tapped it. As far as she could see, Briar had put only four place-markers on the map. The accompanying text identified the places as 'Blackberry Lane', 'Cooper's Field', 'The Drum' and 'The Pipe'. Pinch-zooming into the map, she saw no sign of those names anywhere. It seemed clear that these were local names.

After a second coffee, Purdy set off, out into town. The four locations were on the east side of the town, where Purdy would encounter 'The Pipe' first. She had an idea what that one was. In her initial wanderings, after the accident, she had seen the pipe. Even she may have managed to work that one out, without Briar's help.

'The Pipe' sat at the side of the road, dropped into the ditch that ran parallel with the road and the fields that surrounded it. Concrete, part of a sewerage system that she guessed had fallen from a truck on the way somewhere else, The Pipe looked as though it had sat in that ditch for a very long time.

Discoloured, covered by vines and trailing branches from nearby bushes, it almost looked like a natural tunnel. Only the light grey of the concrete, poking through the gaps, gave its true origin away. In the second volume, Eveline and Raya had sought shelter in The Pipe when a sudden downpour had caught them both some distance from their homes.