and warm under her palm as it always did. Her bare feet made squeaking sounds as she walked across the polished floorboards of the bottom level. The sound of giggling came from the kitchen; the boys must be home. She checked her parents’ room; their precisely made double bed alone in the middle of the spotlessly empty space. The spare room next door was filled with plastic tubs of winter clothes. Her mother’s writing desk propped in the corner, still unused. She looked into the laundry. Behind the washing baskets was a door that continued on to their garage. It was slightly open. The garage was the creepiest part of Bec’s house and none of them went in there if they could avoid it. Dark and dank smelling, crammed with piled-up cardboard boxes and a dirty concrete floor. They didn’t even park their car in there anymore. She was sure the place was infested with spiders. The blackness of the room seemed to spill out from the crack in the doorway, the dark of nighttime trying to recapture her and pull her back into the nightmare. She pulled the door shut.
Nothing had changed in the lounge room either. Couches remained an awkward distance apart and the wooden doors closed over the television so her parents could pretend they didn’t have one. Satisfied, she went into the kitchen. Whatever it had been, it was definitely gone now.
Paul and Andrew sat next to each other on the round kitchen table, a box of Coco Pops between them and their bowls filled with brown milk. They were laughing like mad, still in their shorty pyjamas with their dark red hair sticking up at weird angles. Bec felt a sudden stab of love for them. She longed to ruff le up their hair, but she knew they would find it patronizing.
“Ready?” Paul asked.
“Yep,” said Andrew.
They picked up the bowls of chocolate milk.
“One…two…three!”
They both began chugging down the milk from their bowls; throats working, brown drops falling onto the table.
“Done!” screamed Andrew, dropping his bowl down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Oh, shit!” Paul yelled, the word sounding forced from his mouth. They looked at Bec for a moment to see if she’d get him in trouble for using it, then couldn’t hold in their laughter.
“You guys are disgusting!” she said, but she was smiling, too. The horror of last night was starting to wear off.
“You look like Hitler!” she said to Paul, who still had a brown milk moustache on his top lip.
“Goot a morgan!” he said, making Andrew burst into giggles again. She shook her head and poured out her own sugar-free Muesli.
“What are you doing today, Becky?” asked Andrew.
“I’m going to go meet Lizzie in the city.”
“Can we come?” asked Paul straightaway. Two sets of identical pale blue eyes fixed on her. She knew they must be really bored. They’d been on summer holidays for two months now and they weren’t allowed to go any farther than the local shops by themselves. Her mom was so overprotective, she thought, as though their suburb was the only safe place in the world. It was Canberra, for God’s sake. She didn’t know why they just didn’t go out anyway. She wouldn’t tell on them, that was for sure, but she didn’t want to suggest it. Somehow that felt wrong.
“Please?” Paul said.
She felt bad, but she really needed to talk to Lizzie about what had happened last night, and she couldn’t do that with her little brothers running around everywhere. Plus, there was another thing she had to do with Lizzie that would be impossible with them around.
“Sorry, guys,” she said. “Next time.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Well, I’m at work tomorrow but how about Sunday?”
“Okay,” said Andrew. But she could tell they were both upset; the smiles were gone. Bec hated upsetting her brothers. It did something to her heart that nothing else could.
“We can go to the pool if you want?”
“And you won’t tell us off if we bomb?”
“Nope. Cross my heart,” she said, miming a cross over her chest. They looked at each other and then turned to her, beaming.
“Awesome,” said Paul. She patted them both on the head, which made them groan but she couldn’t help it, and went upstairs to get dressed.
Lizzie was waiting for her on a bench in Garema Place, a few feet away from the Silver Cushion. Canberra was filled with weird sculptures, but this one was Bec’s favourite for some reason. It looked like a giant half-full wine bag propped on some black steps. In summer the sun ref lected off its metallic silver surface so it hurt to look at it and definitely hurt to touch it. Bec plopped down on the bench next to Liz.
“Why are you all the way over here?” she asked.
“Emos,” she said, and Bec looked over. Four teenagers with striped black-and-red socks, bad eyeliner and floppy hair sat around the Silver Cushion.
“I worry it’s contagious,” Lizzie said, shuddering. Bec could tell she meant it, too; there was nothing Lizzie hated more than bad clothes. That’s why they worked so well as best friends; they were like each other’s perfect accessory. Today they both had on summer dresses and brown sandals; they didn’t need to call each other. They were just effortlessly coordinated. Not just in clothes, but everything. It was as if they were made of the same stuff, as if they had the same heart.
If she hadn’t already sent the message, she wouldn’t have told Lizzie about last night. The image of them sitting there was perfect: two carefree, pretty teenagers ready for anything the endless summer threw at them. The shadow in her room didn’t fit with that.
“So what happened?” asked Lizzie, and the perfect image flickered and died.
“Talk and walk?”
“Could it have been your brothers just trying to freak you out?” asked Lizzie, after Bec had briefly explained what had happened.
“No, no way. They would have been wetting themselves laughing if they managed to scare me that much. Plus, it didn’t feel, you know, human.”
“So you think it’s, what, like a poltergeist?”
“I think, like a specter. Not a ghost or spirit, but something evil and solid that’s not meant to be there.”
“Wow,” said Lizzie, not quite looking at her, “how horrible.”
She was worried Lizzie might laugh and call her crazy, but she seemed just as genuinely shocked as Bec.
“It was horrible.”
“Do you think it will happen again? Maybe you should stay at mine tonight, dude?”
“Maybe. Ugh, I don’t even want to think about it anymore.”
“I know something that would take your mind off it.” Bec recognized the glint in Lizzie’s eye.
“I thought you’d never ask!”
They
