Bonus chapter: In which bodies are moved
Human skulls are heavy, Josie realises, as she shifts the weight of her backpack on her shoulders. The skull is nestled inside, packed inside folded shirts to protect it from the heavy books in the bottom of the pack. It’s been one of Josie’s most treasured possessions since she bought it from a medical teaching supply company a year ago, but her mother hated it, and it had been quickly moved into a cupboard and out of sight. Now, Josie realises with satisfaction, she can put it wherever she wants in her own place. It really deserves to be displayed on a desk, not hidden away somewhere.
She picks up a large duffel bag, bulging with clothes and CD cases, and with the other hand takes the handle of a small suitcase. This is the last of her stuff, aside from the two cardboard crates full of books. She can barely lift those, let alone carry them on a bus, so moving them today is out of the question. I hate getting the bus, she thinks with a frown. She wishes, not for the first time, that she could go long enough without a seizure to get her learner’s permit.
Josie carefully makes her way down the stairs, moving slowly so as not to overbalance. Every time the boards creak beneath her she winces guiltily. Ridiculous, since nobody else is home. Her parents – the parental units, as she increasingly thinks of them – won’t be back for days. There’s plenty of time to get out.
Coming to the bottom of the stairs, she looks around and tries to feel something like fondness for the house. It doesn’t quite work: she’s only lived here for two years, and those have been as unpleasant as her years in the family’s prior house before they moved to Brisbane. To be fair, she thinks, that’s not the house’s fault. No, it’s the infuriating, miserable excuse for a family that has made all her memories of this place unhappy ones. She drops the heavy suitcase and glances around again, reflecting that the house itself is actually nice. It’s big, roomy; she imagines she might come to miss her spacious bedroom, which is the size of her entire new apartment. But the remaining occupants of the place? Well, those two deserve each other, Josie decides.
On her way out the front door, she feels like she’s forgetting something. Not the books upstairs; she’ll return for those, and her disassembled bookshelf, when she can get someone to drive her across town with them. It feels like there’s something else she needs from this house before she leaves.
Of course. She sets down the bags and walks into the big galley kitchen, sneakers slapping on the tiles. She stretches to retrieve a recipe book from the shelf over the microwave. She smiles, briefly considering just stealing the book, before taking it into the study across the entry hall. She uses the printer on her father’s desk to make copies of some of the pages, which she tucks into the front of the suitcase. She returns the book to its shelf, and on her way out of the kitchen, grabs an oversized coffee mug from a cupboard. It’s a huge red mug that doesn’t match any of the other crockery in the elegant kitchen. Josie places it with care inside her backpack, wrapping it in a shirt to protect it. The pack is very full now, and she struggles a bit to zip it closed again.
Satisfied, she puts the backpack on, checks that her wallet is still in her jeans pocket, and picks up the other cases again. She manouvres out the front door and lets it swing shut behind her, waiting to hear the lock click before she leaves.
She makes her way slowly down the street to the bus stop in the hot afternoon sun, weighed down by her possessions but feeling light on her feet. A new start, she thinks.
It’s almost two hours, and two bus changes, before she is in her new home. She has already made one long run across town with bags packed, so some of her stuff is already here; a couple of posters are up on the walls. She sets her bags and suitcase down in the tiny bedroom and collapses onto the bed, exhausted. She soon falls asleep there.
In the early morning she is still sprawled there on her back, snoring lightly, one sneakered foot hanging over the side of the bed. Her mobile phone rings, and she stirs. Gradually realising where the ringing is coming from, she reaches into her back pocket to retrieve the phone. No caller is displayed on the screen. She presses the button to answer and sleepily says, “Hello?”
Her eyes widen and she sits upright on the bed, the blood draining from her face. “What’s happened?” she asks the police officer.
