Chapter 60: Cora - The Foster Child

‘Lori!’ I search for my phone to turn on the torch and realise that I’ve left it downstairs.

My heart is pounding. Has Lori fallen down the stairs?

‘Hang on, let me switch on my phone torch.’ Elliot reaches for his phone in his pocket and soon the torch beam shines out. My heart is in my mouth as I follow him along the hallway. Lori’s bedroom door is wide open and she is lying on the floor, holding her foot.

‘Lori! Are you okay?’ I run over to her, bending down and helping her up. She’s trembling like a jelly and clinging to me.

‘I tripped when the light went off,’ she gasps. ‘I’ve hurt my foot.’

Elliot is beside us now and between us we help Lori over to her bed, she sits down on it and rubs her foot.

‘Where does it hurt? Can you move it?’ I ask.

‘It’s my big toe. I think it’s just bruised but it’s painful. What’s happened? Why have the lights gone out?’

‘It could be the same shortage that took out my electric,’ Violet says. She’s standing in the doorway, looking hesitant. I feel guilty for wondering if she was telling the truth about that.

‘Maybe, but it could merely be that a fuse has gone. I’d better check. Have any of you got your phone on you?’ Elliot asks.

‘I left mine downstairs,’ I tell him.

‘Me too,’ Violet says.

‘Mine is up here but it isn’t charged up,’ Lori replies.

‘In that case it’s best if you all stay up here, while I check the fuse box. I don’t want you going down those stairs in the dark. You might fall and cripple yourselves – or worse,’ he says.

‘I’m not staying here for a moment longer now I know what you all think of me. I’m going home,’ Violet says.

I don’t want to stay up here either, I prefer to be downstairs. ‘I’ve got some candles in the bathroom, let’s go and get them.’ I often like to have a long soak in the bath with the scented candles lit around edge. Thankfully I also keep a gas lighter in the bathroom cupboard too.

‘Okay, wait here you two, we’ll only be a minute.’

Elliot uses the beam of his torch to illuminate the way to the bathroom. I open the cupboard, take out three candles, luckily they’re all in jars so will be safe to carry down the stairs, and the gas lighter. I light the candles, Elliot takes one off me and I carry the other two back into Lori’s bedroom where Lori and Violet are both sitting in silence. I hand a candle to Lori and Elliot gives one to Violet then we head for the stairs.

‘Go slowly and hold onto the banister,’ I warn them both.

Elliot goes ahead, shining his torch beam to light the way and we follow with the candles, walking carefully down the carpeted stairs.

It’s dark, deadly quiet and eerie. I keep thinking about that message written on the mirror. If it really wasn’t Lori or Violet that means someone else is in the house. Which is impossible. How could they get in without us knowing? Especially now that Elliot has the new security system. It has to be Violet.

‘I’ll just go and check the fuse box, I won’t be long.’ Elliot disappears into the kitchen.

‘I’ll get my bag then I’m going,’ Violet says, going into the living room and we follow her. She puts her candle on the coffee table then goes over to the side of the sofa where she was sitting to get her handbag. Lori puts her candle on the coffee table too. I put mine on the sideboard. The flickering flames light up the room enough for us to see.

‘It’s pouring with rain. And I’m not having you walk home in the dark, Violet. I’ll call you a taxi – I’ll pay,’ I tell her.

‘I don’t want you to do anything for me,’ Violet retorts, her voice breaking. ‘You all must think I’m a really horrible person to write that on the mirror and do all the things you’re accusing me of.’ She wipes tears from her eyes. ‘Well, it’s not me. I swear it isn’t. I think Lori is setting me up, like she did before. She’s jealous because I’ve got close to you again.’

‘I’m not!’ Lori yells. ‘And before I was only a kid. I was jealous yes, and insecure, I wasn’t used to sharing my mum and dad. I didn’t know how to cope. And you have to admit that you weren’t always nice to me. You pushed me about and told me that if my mum and dad got fed up with me they’d send me to a home and keep you instead. I was six years old for Christ’s sake! How do you think I felt?’

Violet obviously has held a grudge all these years. Payback, the word on the mirror said –written in Violet’s blood-red lipstick.