Blackfin Sky (5 page)

4

Now where am I?

With the disconcerting clarity of someone who knew she was asleep, Sky opened her eyes to darkness. She remembered going to bed, worn out after spending the last couple of days in a state of almost constant anxiety, and wondering about Bo’s strange revelation about her grave being unearthed. Then … only darkness, the quicksand pull of sleep, and nothing.

Except now, she was dreaming. Or dreaming she was awake.

There was not one speck of light to show her where she was, but she could feel she was in an enclosed space. With one hand, Sky tried to reach for the switch on the electrical cord of her bedside lamp, but her fingers knocked up against something hard and smooth. Then her elbow met the same resistance as she tried to reposition herself to feel what it was.

Weird dream.

Her breath bounced back at her, and further exploration showed that there was another barrier only inches in front of her face.

It’s like I’m in some kind of crate or something. Or…

Realisation hit her at the same moment her forehead banged against the underside of the coffin lid.

Sky struggled to get her arms free, feeling the cramped enclosure pressing in on her even more now that she knew where she was.

Not enough space. Can’t breathe!

Her quickening breaths were too loud, far too rapid for such a tight space. A space with limited air.

God, it stinks in here!

Sky’s fingers caught on something cold and clay-like, and she stopped struggling. She stopped breathing altogether.

Oh please tell me that’s not what I think it is.

A flash hit her eyes, blinding her – but not before Sky had an instant to see what she was lying next to in the darkness.

A waxy face with sunken eyeballs lay next to her. A face which looked too much like her to be anyone else.

There was another bright pulse of light, like a billion tiny lightning bolts.

With a shriek, Sky jolted upright in bed, sobbing at the comforting sensations of cotton sheets and the cool seaside air drifting in through her open window. The nightmare was over.

She was home, she was safe.

‘Is something the matter, darling?’

Sky’s mum stood silhouetted in the doorway, the hallway light behind her casting a streak of pale yellow across the carpet.

Sky swallowed, trying to calm her breathing, the memory of rot-stink still in her nostrils. ‘No, nothing. Just a bad dream. Sorry if I woke you, Mum.’

Her mother closed the door with a gentle click, and Sky settled back into her bedclothes. But she had no intention of falling back to sleep – not if those were the dreams she could expect to greet her.

Feeling bleary-eyed, Sky snuck out of the house before her parents woke the next morning. She needed some help to work out exactly what had happened to her, and who better to help solve the puzzle than the police? Still, it was with some hesitation that Sky knocked on the door of the Vega household on Sunday morning.

She wasn’t surprised to find Officer Vega already up and dressed. Her black hair was braided back, the open top button of her police uniform the only concession she would make to it being the weekend. Officer Vega seemed equally unsurprised to find Sky on her front porch at a little after seven, her quick brown eyes checking Sky from head to toe in a second.

‘Amazing,’ she said with a smile, standing back to make room for Sky to pass. ‘If I weren’t seeing you with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it to be possible.’

The house was small and functional, which suited Holly Vega’s personality just like the taser strapped to her hip. At seven o’clock. On a Sunday.

‘Uh, yeah. I’m getting that reaction quite a lot.’ In truth, on the short walk over to Officer Vega’s house, every person Sky had encountered had reacted the same way. Lorenz di Sola out walking his seven dogs, the headteacher, Mrs Hemlock, jogging up towards the Point, and Old Lady Brady who always sat on the same bench outside the park for an hour each morning, as though waiting for a bus which never came – all of them had stopped, gasped, and then hurried off as though Sky were an omen of the apocalypse. Even the dogs.

‘I hoped I could come and talk with you before my parents realise I’m gone,’ Sky admitted, following Officer Vega through to the family room and swallowing nervously, though she couldn’t have said why. She sat on the worn sofa she’d sat on a thousand times with Cam, but now the seat felt a little warmer than it ever had before.

‘Yeah, your mum didn’t sound too thrilled for me to speak to you when I called yesterday.’ Lily hadn’t even mentioned it to Sky, which confirmed her parents had been in avoidance-mode. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’

Sky cleared her throat. ‘Uh, no thanks.’

Officer Vega sat in the armchair facing her, elbows braced on her knees. ‘If you’d like to have someone to sit with you while we talk, that’s absolutely fine. Would you like me to call someone to come over?’

‘Not unless I’m under arrest.’

Officer Vega didn’t laugh, but she allowed Sky a small smile. ‘You’re not in any kind of trouble, Skylar. I’d just like to know where you’ve been.’ Sky opened her mouth, closed it again. ‘I need to close the investigation, and for that, I need a few answers.’

‘I’ll tell you what I can,’ Sky said, expecting Officer Vega to begin questioning her. But the police officer just sat back and waited for her to begin. ‘Oh … um. Okay. The way I remember it, I had a party with a few friends, it sucked, then I went to bed.’

A long silence followed, Sky looking at Officer Vega expectantly while the older woman stared back with equal interest.

‘This was on the night of your birthday, August the twentieth?’ Sky nodded. ‘And what about after that?’

‘After I went to bed? Nothing. Well, I had a freaky dream where I fell from the pier, but that never actually happened
.
I didn’t go sleepwalking, I didn’t wake up in the ocean. I woke up in my own bed and life went on just like before.’

‘Do you ever sleepwalk, Skylar?’

‘Well, no … but I dreamed I ran down to the pier.’

A faint line formed between Officer Vega’s brows.

‘Why did you run down to the pier?’ She saw that Sky was about to protest and held up her hand. ‘In your dream, I mean.’

Sky squirmed in her seat, her eyes darting of their own accord to the closed door across the hallway, behind which Sean no doubt lay sleeping. Possibly shirtless.

‘Uh, I had a silly argument with a friend.’
Where I kissed said friend and freaked him out and ruined everything like a total idiot.
‘I was upset and went to the pier to calm down. I go there when I need to think.’

‘Sounds like a pretty intense dream.’ Sky hitched one shoulder, said nothing. ‘And what happened after you woke up?’

Sky took a deep breath, wishing she’d taken Officer Vega up on her offer of tea. Her mouth was suddenly very dry. ‘Like I said, nothing. I had breakfast; picked up some groceries for my mum.’

‘So you saw your mum after your party?’

Sky blinked. ‘Of course. I’ve seen her and my dad every day since then, too. I’ve also seen
you
a bunch of times in the last three months.’

Officer Vega had been making an odd movement with her thumb, like she was clicking a pen on and off, but stopped mid-click. ‘When have you seen me, Skylar?’

‘I saw you that day when Cam forgot her gym shorts and you came into registration to give them to her.’ Cam had not actually
forgotten
the gym shorts, but had intentionally left them at home, hoping to use their absence to avoid the embarrassment of having to play ‘pink ball’ with the boys in gym class. Instead, she had been punished with the added humiliation of having her police officer aunt stride into registration, brandishing the shorts like she was holding a lunch bag. ‘And at the diner, last time I worked a shift with Mum – last Wednesday, I think. And, uh, when Bo’s parents weren’t too sure where she was last Saturday…’

Even Sky didn’t know where her friend had been that night when she was supposedly at Sky’s house for a sleepover. But knowing Bo and her sneakery, there was probably some mystery boy involved. Unfortunately, Bo’s parents also knew Bo, and had called Officer Vega to go to find her and scare the bejeezus out of their daughter. Sky’s house had been Officer Vega’s first port of call, but not her last.

‘Skylar, to the best of my recollection, none of those things happened.’

Sky snapped her gaze up from studying her fingernails and found the police officer staring at her.

‘You’re surprised.’

Now Sky understood the pen-clicking motion Officer Vega had made earlier. The police officer was making notes – albeit mental ones, since she had no notepad in front of her.

‘So, am I right in thinking that, as far as you remember, you have been living at home with your parents, going to school as usual, and nothing … out of the ordinary has happened at all since your birthday?’

Sky nodded. ‘That’s right. Oh – except Bo said that someone’s dug up my grave. But that happened yesterday, after everyone started acting all weird.’

One raised eyebrow was the only indication that Officer Vega was surprised by the revelation that Sky’s grave had been unearthed. ‘And why didn’t Margaret – I mean
Bo –
report this immediately?’ One glance at Sky’s expression, and Officer Vega sighed. ‘Never mind. I still forget where I am sometimes. I’ll drive down there shortly to check it out.’ She pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘You realise that nobody else remembers you being here for the last three months.’ It wasn’t a question, but Sky nodded anyway. ‘How do you explain that you remember the last three months happening one way, and everyone else remembers them another?’

Sky was quiet for a long moment, having no reasonable answer. All she could think about was the cold, clammy feeling of the dead body she’d dreamed about the previous night. She shivered.

‘But then I suppose the real question is: why does everyone in Blackfin remember you dying when you clearly did not?’ Officer Vega sat back, drumming her fingers on the arm of the chair.

Sky shrugged. ‘Weird things happen in Blackfin.’

Officer Vega nodded slowly. ‘They certainly do, Skylar. They certainly do.’

Sky hesitated before asking her next question, unsure what the police officer’s reaction would be. ‘What happens next? I mean, is there going to be an official investigation into where I’ve been?’

Officer Vega pressed her mouth into a straight line. Finally, she shook her head. ‘Officially, the case will be reclassified as a runaway, and closed. Of course we’ll still need to figure out who was buried in Blackfin Cemetery, and how they came to drown just off our beach when there have been no missing person reports in the area in over a year, and what the hell has happened to that body
if
it’s disappeared … but that won’t involve you, Skylar.’

This was good news, though it didn’t leave Sky feeling any less uneasy.

‘What about figuring out what happened on the night of my party?’

An odd expression passed over the police officer’s face, as though she was reluctant to say what came next. ‘Unless you’d like to report that a crime was committed that night, it isn’t a police matter.’ Sky shifted uncomfortably. There had been no crime committed – at least, none that she remembered – but there had been certain events that she would rather not think about.

‘Then I guess you can’t help me.’

‘It seems not. But,’ Officer Vega added, new light in her eyes, ‘maybe your mother can help you figure it out?’

‘My
mother
?’

Officer Vega’s only response was an enigmatic smile.

Sky kept out of her parents’ way for the rest of the day, and stayed up late into the night. What
had
happened on the night of her birthday? Her recollection of events was far adrift from what others remembered, as though they had lived the version that she had dreamed – or the one she had somehow
convinced
herself she’d dreamed – instead of the real version.