Saints & Sinners

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven:

Sander shook me a little, if I was telling the truth. I knew telling the truth mattered to him, he didn't care about bullshitting people to give them a false sense of security, but I think I was secretly hoping he was wrong, that Yolanda was telling the truth. Because, if she wasn't, I didn't know what I was going to do.

These were serious psychophants, not just the average bullies everyone has experienced at some point or another. They were deadly serious, if I believed Sander, which I think I did. But why would he lie, anyway, and why would it be about something like that?

Dark grey eyes, that's what I woke up to seeing. Glaring at me, squinting angrily. They were dull and terrifying.

I shot up like a bullet from my bed after seeing them, attempted to stand, and collapsed onto the floor after remembering my sprained ankle. I knew I'd get no help from her, my loving Aunt Agatha, so I dragged my limp bandaged leg back to the side of my bed and heaved myself back onto it.

"You're late," she announced, lighting the ancient wax candle by my bedside. There was no electricity in the attic.

The flame burst and cast shadows across her gracefully-aged face. Her black hair had been greased into a tight ponytail that had twisted down her back, dangling to her waist, and gave her a strong widow's peak. I realised then that maybe, if she tried, she could be pretty. She had a face like my mother Freya's: eyes that almost seemed innocent, thin small lips, and prominent cheek bones. But her skin was pale and her face unmoving, her eyes constantly in a grimace, and her mouth almost always frowning.

"Late for what?" I asked groggily, wiping at my eyes to get rid of the sand.

She'd lit the wall candles now, and the entire room spurted into life, but that didn't make it any better. It looked better in the darkness, more full, because in actuality, there was only a bed and a rotten wooden chest at the bottom of it in the entire loft.

Her hands, long and knobbly, went to her hips, smoothing out the green silk of her dress-suit. "I thought I'd told you, do forgive me. Saturday's shopping day, so we're going into the village. I know you teenagers like to slack about on Saturdays, but not in this cottage. Get up, get dressed, I need someone to carry the bags and tell me I look good in my new clothes. You look like you need to build your strength anyway, you have such a feminine figure. Hurry. I'll be waiting in the kitchen." She tossed an apple at me. "Eat it fast, that's all the breakfast you'll be having today." And then she'd gone, scuttled off to the edge of the room and slithered down the staircase like the slippery snake that she was.

Once her horrid footsteps turned into echoes, I got up, this time remembering the crutches. I wouldn't need them much longer, the pain had gone away over the last few days of the week. It would probably be healed by Monday.

All of my clothes from my life before Norway before were folded neatly in the chest-of-drawers at the bottom of my bed, although most of them were either too revealing for somewhere as cold as Norway, or considered "unnacceptable" to my aunt. So I decided to dress as plainly as I could, a tattered grey t-shirt, black skinny jeans, and simple black and white Vans. I found an old hooded jumper at the back, it was thick and warm, so I grabbed that as well.

I didn't bother with my hair, I never really made attempts to style it. It did what it wanted, and usually made me look fine while doing it. Besides, there wasn't much to do with short blond hair other than a quiff or a fringe, and my quiffs were miserable failures, yet my fringe would never flatten across my face. My hair just stuck up at all ends, spiked or clutted, so I never bothered changing or styling it.

Agatha nodded approvingly as I got to the kitchen, taking my first bite out of the apple. Before I could finish it, she swooped past me, grabbed it and threw it perfectly into the bin in the corner of the room, before nudging me to follow her into her classic vintage motor.