Watery Graves Read Free Page B

stairs to their loft bedroom. “Back then, there was nothing here. Nothing but tents. I went from being holed up in my bed at home to a bed in a tent beside this river. But I had Maya and Kristian. I was with them. I had someone. Don’t judge me until you’ve been there.”
    “I get it Mum, I really do,” Emmy pleaded.
    Ingrid stopped on the top landing. “Don’t tell me you understand. Today, you couldn’t even think past yourself.”
    “It wasn’t like that Mum.” Emmy stepped forward, but Ingrid waved her back. “I do understand. I couldn’t live down in Mercy Falls on my own now and I don’t even have a baby to look after.”
    Ingrid stared down at her. Her lips pressed tight again. She nodded. But she said nothing leaving the room.
    “Mum?” Emmy called.
    She heard the bed springs squeak. “We just lit these candles and now you’re going to bed? Don’t you want to hang out for a bit? Read maybe?”
    Emmy perched herself on the edge of her favourite arm chair. It was a relief to no longer be arguing. But the silence was harder to handle. She raised her voice. “Sebastian always says friendship is thicker than blood. I get why you came here. And who would want to leave these mountains?”
    Ingrid stayed quiet.
    Emmy watched the flames of the candles dance a little in the slight night breeze. One of them had blown out. When she couldn’t handle it any more she snuffed the rest of them and crept up the stairs. In the dark, she could make out the shape of her mother, wrapped tight in the sheet and clutching a pillow.
    Emmy curled up behind her.
    “You are the only blood relative I have left in this world. Don’t ever scare me like that again. I lost my brother to a stupid dare. I lost my father to a drunken fishing trip, and when she couldn’t cope I lost my mother to suicide. That left me pretty much on my own. But I had your dad until I had to watch him drown in that same stupid river. I don’t want to add your story to it.”
    “You won’t have to.”
    “The people in town used to whisper about our family being cursed. They all thought I was out of my mind coming up here. And you do too by the sound of it.”
    “I don’t think you’re crazy.”
    “I survived all that. But I wouldn’t survive if you drowned too.”
    “I won’t go near the water alone, Mum. You need to know that. I never want to make you mad at me. Please don’t be mad.”
    “I’m not mad. I’m petrified of losing you.”
     

Chapter Four
     
    Kristian hated it when they swung on the gate but it helped Emmy and Sebastian pass the time, while they waited for him to come back from Mercy Falls.
    “Ingrid went crazy mother on me last night,” Emmy said.
    “I can believe it. I’m surprised she made it through the day.”
    “Thanks for the support. It was all because of you.”
    “There was nothing I could say to stop Ingrid going off. You just needed to let her get it off her chest.”
    “I let her down. From now on, I don’t care what you get up to. Don’t bring me in on it.”
    “Maya and Kristian gave me a good talking to, don’t worry.”
    “A good talki ng to versus crazy mother. Hmmm. What would you choose? I’d rather sleep in your bed than mine.”
    “Really?”
    “Shut up. I meant swapping beds.”
    “Come on, you may as well. Think of all those town people down there gossiping about us living in some sex-crazed cult up here. May as well do it.”
    “It’s all about sex for you, isn’t it?”
    He grinned. “Some days it is, Emmy. Some days it is.”
    It satisfied Emmy to see Sebastian’s knuckles turn white as he clung onto the metal gate bracing himself. She loved the power. She ran with it, slamming it shut. It jarred him, but wasn’t hard enough to send him sprawling to the ground as he’d managed to do to her only seconds ago.
    “Again,” he yelled, still holding tight.
    Emmy unlatched the gate and drew it back to the fence. With as much strength as she could muster, she hurled it