Groll’s Island by Katerina B
Prologue
Do you hear it?
It scampers across the autumn leaves behind you, scratching at the trees, and then vanishing without a trace. A flash, of dark, crimson sparks, abstinent in the air despite no longer there. Do you hear it?
The burgundy of the trees melt into the sky; a dark screen of inky black, blotted, smudged, for an instant. Then the lanterns light, clawed to the oaks, showing you a path that wasn’t there before, cobbled with smooth stones, flattened into the soft soil.
Towards a campfire in the distance, hungrily licking at the birch twigs beneath it.
As you move closer, your eyes focus more on the oaks around you, dimly lit by the lanterns.
Covered in deer and fawn skin, decorated with antlers.
Hoofs and toadstools surrounding their base.
You reach a fork in the cobbled path, curling around and reuniting once more behind the campfire. Oak stumps, chopped like stools, surround it in a ring.
A rustle.
Do you hear it?
A crunch in the leaves behind you.
Or what sounded like one.
The dewy grass smells of roasted meat, and as the fire crackles it releases a smell of burnt cabbage. Then you see it.
In the corner of the ring.
A spade.
Dry soil covering its scraping rust, its handle smeared with paint-like red.
But it’s not paint.
Shovels of dirt and soil sprawl out from its other end, as your hand clasps across the handle, scoop after scoop of roots and grime and dirt and soil and…
Bone.
Flesh still attached around its face.
Hair, still attached to its scalp.
Your fingers press nimbly on the phone in your pocket, as quick as you can, as fast as your grimy fingers can type.
“Police? Yes, this is Monique Rudson, there’s a body in the main area of the woods, on Groll’s Island, around an hour’s ferry ride away, maybe, yes, it’s definitely dead, it was buried underground, seems old, perhaps a few years, no, it doesn’t seem like natural causes, signs of struggle, there’s a wound on the back of her head, oh thank you, thank you, please, it’s quite late, and I don’t want to be alone in a place like this, could you stay on the line?”
Chapter 1
We were in a grey room. I’d been doing journalism for a while now, but I’d never been sent to some place like this. There was a weird, stiffness in the room as she constantly looked over her shoulder, as if someone was watching her. She looked tense, avoiding eye-contact and fidgeting. Her face was pale, but her lips were painted a vibrant red, her eyes crimson.
“Hi, this is Louise Whitehall, isn’t it?” I said, with a slight smile. “I’m Monique Rudson, and I’ll be interviewing you today.”
She didn’t reply, and there was a thick silence between us for a while.
“Hi,” she responded, mumbling under her breath.
“You…reached out-over the phone- about the body we found in Groll’s Island, am I correct?” She sniffled and then wiped her nose with her jumper.
“Yeah,” she said plainly, her brown eyes looking at the table.
“Do you know who the girl we found is?” I said, hands tightening into fists under the table, but still maintaining a smile.
“You could say so,” she responded sullenly.
The room was humid and hot, and I could barely obtain my temper.
She had her hair in a messy bun, her eyes droopy and perhaps sad, her mouth was drawn in a bow, like she’d sucked on a lemon, and her nose just kept sniffling.
“I wouldn’t say know,” she added, perhaps hesitantly. “More like…” She didn’t finish her sentence. Her mouth gaped open for a couple of seconds, before shutting once more into a tight knot of lipstick. “I regret calling,” she said suddenly, sighing as she spoke. “It’s not my place to talk.”
She looked a bit flustered, maybe annoyed, but there was a feeling that twisted and turned in her eyes. Fear.
“Can you tell me her name, at least,” I said, squinting at her face, “If you know it, I mean.” I slid a photograph of her body across the table, distorted and mangled.
A small gasp evaded her mouth, her hand clasping over it. Her eyes widened, and her face tightened, like she was about to throw up.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to worry you like that, really,” She stood up, tucking her chair back in under the table. Her footsteps walked towards the door, her hand still clasped over her mouth. But before she left. “Audrey Buskombe,” she said weakly, her face quivering slightly. “We went to high school together.” Her hand tightened against the doorknob.
“Thank you, Louise. I really do appreciate it.”
The door slammed behind her, so loud it was like a gun shot. My notebook had only two words etched into it: Audrey Buskcombe.