her desk that it would be easy to jump up
and disappear again.
The voices startled her. There were two of them,*seeming to come from directly outside her door.
She slid beside her bed and lay there listening, expecting Mort to enter her room at any second. He would
not see her straightaway, but he would see the open hatch. And then they'd have her.
"We could be waiting here forever," one voice said. Mort.
"We won't. She'll be home soon." This other voice was female.
The only time a woman had ever accompanied the Uncles was the day after their house had been
broken into years before. Jazz had been young, but she could still re-member some details about that day.
The woman had tried to soothe and comfort her mother, while all around them the Uncles had been busy
packing their belongings. By early evening they were in a brand-new house: this one. And the woman
—whose voice was cold and uncaring, even then— had called herself Josephine Blackwood.
"What if she isn't? What do we do then?"
"We stay calm and proceed," the woman said. The same voice; the same coldness. "She's just one
girl."
"She's more than that," Mort said.
"Shush! Never in public! Never outside!"
The Uncle sighed. "So, is she definitely... ?" He trailed off, as though there was something he did not
want to say.
"Of course," the woman said. "I saw to it myself."
The two fell silent again, their presence suddenly filling the house. Jazz lay there, turning over what
they had said. I saw to it myself, the woman had said. Saw to what?
"I'm going downstairs," the man said at last. "No need to guard this door anymore, at least."
"All right. Let's go down."
Jazz listened to the man and woman slowly descending the stairs.
No need to guard this door anymore...
There were more voices from down there, subdued and indistinguishable.
Is she definitely... ?
"Mum," Jazz whispered, and the world seemed to sway.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply several times, then stood and crept from her room. She
moved fluidly, drifting rather than walking, feeling the air part around her and guide her along. She knew
where every creaking floor-board was, and she didn't make a sound.
Her mother's bedroom door was closed, and there was a smear of blood on the handle.
It was small —half the size of the nail on her little fin-ger—but she saw it instantly. Her heart
thumped harder as she turned and glanced downstairs. There was no one at the bottom of the staircase
looking up, but she could still hear their voices elsewhere in the house.
What have you done to my mother? she thought, touching the handle, opening the door, stepping
inside, and seeing what they had done. And also smelling and tasting it, be-cause so much blood could not
be avoided.
Her legs began to give way. She grasped the handle and locked her elbow so she did not fall. Then
she closed her eyes.
But some things can never be unseen.
Her mother lay half on the bed, her upper body hanging down so that her head rested on the floor. A
line had been slit across her throat, a dark grin gaping.
I saw to it myself, the woman had said.
Jazz felt strangely numb. Her heart hammered in her chest, but her mind was quiet, logical, already
plotting out the next few minutes. Back to her room, the phone, the po-lice, up into the attic to await their
arrival, listen to the Uncles and that Blackwood woman panicking as the sirens approached...
And then she saw the writing on the floor. At first she thought it was a spray of blood, but now she
could see the words there, and she imagined the determination her mother must have had to write them
while blood spewed from her throat.
Jazz hide forever.
She bit back a cry, steeled herself against the tears.
Her mother stared at her with glazed eyes.
Jazz looked at the words again, then glanced at the stair-case to her left and started backing away.
As she reached her own door, she realized that she'd left her mother's bedroom door open. They'd
notice, know she'd been here.
She darted back across the landing and closed the door. Her last sight of her mother was bloodied
and smudged with tears.
The words on the floor shouted at her even when the door was closed.
Jazz hide forever.
She had always listened to her mother.
Lifting herself back through the ceiling hatch in her bedroom, Jazz wondered what kind of life those
words had doomed her to.
****
They were sitting together in the park, watching as ducks drifted back and forth on the pond,
squabbling over thrown bread and scolding the moorhens.
"Pity there aren't any swans," her
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