Page 12 of 59 Minutes
MRS DABB
Any anger about Bunny keeping secrets has entirely disappeared. Relegated to the before times. Now it’s about survival. About finding her daughter in time, getting her home and battening down the cottage to wait this out. Locks. Bolts. Shutters.
A stab of guilt. She cares about Mary too, of course, but right now Mary is a destination.
A hope. Please let her know where Bunny is.
Please let her be able to call this secret phone and negotiate with Bunny to return home, or at least give up her location so she can be collected .
Maybe Bunny is already at Mary’s cottage, and that’s why Mary isn’t answering.
Maybe she called Mary to collect her from school or the doctor hours ago and they’re cooking together, preparing food to mark their family’s loss, more jam tarts and cupcakes that will end up in the freezer.
Please let them both be tucked up safely, oblivious for now, simply tending their grief .
The fog is thickening in front of her, layer upon layer of white gossamer until it’s impenetrable. Her pedal foot twitches but she can’t go any faster, she literally can’t see the road. This car is low and lightweight. Insignificant. The banks loom high either side. Endless and all the same.
She lowers the window for air as nausea bubbles up but the siren cries out, louder now, its waves breaking against her ears.
A rush of it. A bird swooping in the dark, then flying off towards the hidden horizon.
It repeats, arcing in volume as she follows the undulations and ancient turns of the road.
It’s an incongruous sound out here, a gross punchline, and carries thoughts of blue lights, crime tape, and panic. She forces herself to think, instead, of Mary’s home-made cakes and a warm fire, of Bunny sitting on the beanbag she always opts for, of them looking through old photos of—
Shit!
She swings out of the way as a car, slick and fast as a snake, slithers around the corner and nearly hits her. Her little vehicle whistles to a stop and she closes her eyes for a moment, takes a breath and then carries on.
People are acting irrationally, and she tries not to think about where that can lead. She cannot remember bolting the back door or turning both keys in the front. She cannot even remember pulling on her coat or stepping outside. Her brain was an organ of instinct and it has not kept a record.
A familiar creeping dread builds from the pit of her stomach and radiates down her legs and along her arms. Her temples are sweating.
She wipes them on her coat sleeve, taps the accelerator and pierces the fog that is still circling, slowing everybody down and hiding god knows what – or who – in its folds.
The lane twirls away to the right and she follows it until Mary’s cottage is dead ahead. There’s a glow from the bottom right window and Mary’s old 4x4 is on the drive.
She pulls behind it on the drive, curling a wave of gravel into the air, hurls open the door and jumps out.
She slams the car door and a moment of silence settles. She hears herself breathing, fast and panicked, but then the siren returns, reedy but insistent, like it will outlive everyone.