Witch(43)

“If your sky is falling...just take my hand and hold it...” Vincent continued to sing softly in time with the music, as we swayed against each other, cheek to cheek. “You don’t have to be alone...I won’t let you go...”

With tears spilling silently onto my face, I felt something I hadn’t felt before. I felt I was in the presence of someone who really, genuinely liked me, and it is so hard for me to describe how that felt. Vincent hadn’t come back to rip my clothes off me. He hadn’t come to me in the middle of the night to throw me over the edge of the sofa and screw me. Vincent had come to hold me close, to make me feel warm, to make me feel special. For the first time ever with a man, I didn’t feel like I had to be some kind of sex object...some sex-performing seal ....for him to like me – to want to be with me. For the first time ever with a man, there was a part of me which didn’t feel alone.

The music stopped, and Vincent eased us apart. He saw the tears on my cheeks. Gently cupping my face in his hands, he brushed the tears away with his thumbs. Very slowly he leant forward and kissed me on the lips. The kiss lasted just moments. I opened my eyes as Vincent led me by the hand to my bedroom. Slowly, we climbed onto the bed and lay down next to one another, our faces just inches apart.

“I know what it feels like to be scared and alone,” he whispered, folding his arms around me and holding me close. “You can sleep without fear of nightmares tonight, Sydney. You don’t have to be alone. I won’t let you go.”

Slowly, I closed my eyes, and wrapped in Vincent’s arms, I let sleep take me.





Chapter Twenty-Five



I woke to find myself alone. There was no sign of Vincent. A thin strip of sunlight seeped through a gap in the curtains. I rolled over on the bed and glanced at the clock. It read 12:17. Had I really slept half of the day away? I felt better for it, my head clearer somehow. My sleep had been unbroken and Molly Smith and her father had stayed away. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I stood up.

“Vincent?” I called out.

Silence.

Standing alone in my bedroom, I wondered if Vincent returning hadn’t been a dream. Had he really come back last night to tell me he thought I was beautiful? Had we really danced together in each other’s arms? Had Vincent kissed me then held me in his arms all night long and had wanted nothing more from me? It couldn’t have been real. Stuff like that didn’t happen – not in Sydney’s world.

I padded out of my bedroom and into the living room. There was no sign of Vincent and the room looked just like it had before I’d gone to bed last night. Then, I saw it and my heart fluttered. I crossed the room to the coffee table and picked up the empty Coke bottle Vincent had left behind. He had come back last night. He had told me how he had offered to bring me my iPod just because he thought I’d looked beautiful in the newspaper. We had danced together. He had kissed me, then held me close all night. Vincent had kept the nightmares away like he’d promised he would.

I went to place the bottle back down on the table, when I saw the folded piece of paper tucked inside. At once, my skin prickled all over with gooseflesh as I remembered the bottle in the bottom of the well from my nightmare. Slowly, I unscrewed the lid and tipped the bottle up in the palm of my hand. I hooked my little finger in and eased out the folded piece of paper. Once out, I unfolded it. A message had been written across it.



Hey Sydney,

Gone into work to find more of those missing pieces from our mystery.

I’ll catch you later

Vincent X



I refolded the note and placed it back inside the bottle. Why had Vincent left me a note in the bottle and not on the table? Perhaps he didn’t want anyone else to come across it and take a look. But who? I lived alone. Then again, perhaps Vincent suspected that my father might come over – perhaps he even had a key and could let himself in. We were meant to be keeping our friendship secret from my father.

Why had I started to think so deeply about everything – stuff that probably didn’t even matter? I headed for the bathroom. I was sure the bottle did matter. Not the one Vincent had left on the coffee table – who knows why Vincent did that – I bet he didn’t even know himself. That was just Vincent, I had come to learn. The bottle at the bottom of the well was different, though, I reasoned as I filled the bath with hot water. I had seen it in my dream, just like I had seen Molly and her father. Therefore wasn’t the bottle somehow important, too?

I turned off the taps, let my bathrobe fall to the floor, then stepped into the bath. Sinking beneath the water, I closed my eyes. If the note did have some bearing on what had happened to Molly, what would it say and who could possibly have written it – and why? The only way to find out would be to retrieve the bottle. But how?