The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

Her period, she tells herself over and over. That is where the blood comes from. It is like rehearsing a dance – putting a story into the steps. Can she make herself believe it? She constructs, carefully in her mind, a day where the yellow-haired boy stood her up for ice cream, where Lulu never followed her into the woods.

Once the decision is made, everything becomes simple. A tired-looking woman washes her hands at the neighbouring basin, while her three children jump up and grab her sleeves. At the woman’s feet is a wicker basket, from which spill tissues, granola bars, buckets, spades, toys and sunscreen. Dee takes the white flip-flop out of her pocket and slips it into the woman’s bag where it blends with the chaos. It will go home with the woman and she will assume she picked it up by accident with her kids’ stuff. It will never be connected with Lulu. Dee knows that if the shoe is found by the canoe-shaped rock, they will do police stuff, like forensics and they will know that Dee was there.

As she heads back towards her parents, she tosses the smooth green stone into the thick brush that hems the beach.

Dee wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and gets up. She seems to be in a different part of the forest, now. It is darker, denser. Groundsel and ivy are knee-deep. She must remember to keep blazing the trees. A giant fern brushes her face. She thrusts it away, impatient. Why does everything in this part of the world have to be so wild and scary?

She can hear feet ahead, frightened, uneven. A child running.

‘Lulu,’ she calls. ‘Stop!’

Lulu laughs. Dee smiles. It’s good that she’s having fun. Dee doesn’t mind playing tag for a while longer.

Later, when Dee had time to think, the horror of what she had not told settled into her like disease. It’s too late to tell now, the little voice said. They’ll send you to jail. After her mother left and her father died there was no point in Dee telling, because there was no one left to forgive her.

Dee realised what she had to do. She had to find the person who took Lulu. If she could do that, there was a chance she could be a good person again. It was something to cling to. But tired Karen kept clearing people of Lulu’s disappearance. And as the years went by the possibilities, the list of suspects, was whittled down and down. Dee grew desperate.

She had almost given up, until Ted.

Karen said that Ted had an alibi. Dee didn’t believe it. She suspected that Karen was trying to throw her off the scent, stop her repeating the Oregon incident. Dee knew she had to be careful. She would watch him. She would get proof before she acted, this time. Dee got a little ahead of herself, however. She may as well admit that.

It was the anniversary that pushed her over the edge. 10 July, every year, the day Lulu went missing; that day is always a black hole for Dee. It’s all she can do not to get sucked down into the dark. Sometimes she isn’t strong enough to resist. That was what happened in Oregon. Loss had Dee in its black grip and someone had to be punished.

She had been watching Ted for some days before she moved in. She saw his eyes in the hole in the plywood, every morning at first light, watching as the birds descended. She saw the care he took with the feeders, the water. There’s a lot Dee doesn’t know but she knows what love looks like. So she knew what to do.

She needed Ted to feel something of her savage grief. That was why she killed the birds. She didn’t like doing it. She retched as she put out the traps. But she couldn’t stop. She kept thinking, Eleven years today. Eleven years that Lulu never had.

Afterwards she watched as Ted cried over the birds. His bent back, his hands covering his face. She felt the sorrow deeply in herself. It was awful, what she had been forced to do.

Now, Dee stumbles on after Lulu. She grabs at the slender sappy branches, pulling herself along.

‘Stop,’ she calls. ‘Come on, Lulu. No need to be afraid. It’s Dee Dee.’

The sky turns red and the sun becomes a burning ball, sinking into the horizon. Dee’s breath comes short and her fingers are swollen where they grip the branch. She blinks to clear her vision of the black edges.

Come on, Dee Dee.

She vomits but there is no time to stop. Instead Dee starts to run again, even faster this time, careening gracefully through the trees, speeding so smoothly over the uneven ground, the fallen branches that her feet leave the earth. She flies silent and fast, piercing the air like an arrow. All she can hear is wind and the tapestry of forest sound: cicadas, doves, leaves. Why didn’t I know I could fly? she thinks. I’ll teach Lulu how and we can fly all over, never landing. We can be together and they won’t catch me. I’ll have time to explain to her why I did what I did.

Dee sees Lulu at the top of the next rise, silhouetted against the low sun. The little figure, the sun hat. Dee can just make out the white flip-flops on her feet. Dee hurtles through the air towards her. She comes to rest lightly on the grassy rise.

Lulu turns and Dee sees that she has no face. Red birds explode from her head in a cloud. Dee shrieks and covers her eyes with her hand.

When at last she dares to look, she is alone in the forest. Night has come again. Dee looks about her in terror. Where is she? How long has she been walking? She sinks to her knees. What has it all been for? Where