Free Hidden by Marianne Curley Page A

in the yard.’
    I look at her blankly. She raises both her arms. ‘I don’t think anyone is home.’
    ‘Oh, OK, but we still have to be careful in case we’re wrong.’
    She nods and we walk up the steps of the front veranda, where I pull on an elaborate doorbell. When no one responds, Amber tries the door handle, but it seems firmly closed. She takes a step back and looks to see if there are any open windows, and I try the door handle, just to be sure. Just like the outside gates, it opens as soon as my fingers curl around it.
    ‘That’s creepy,’ Amber says, both eyebrows lifting high.
    I shrug. I have no idea what it means.
    We walk into a pristine, white-tiled foyer, then a living room where white leather sofas sit on either side of a brick fireplace. A baby grand piano, in front of a window dressed in white curtains, completes the picture.
    Beside me, Amber’s mouth hangs open. I put my knuckles under it and gently push her chin up. She smiles at me and I shrug. ‘We should hurry before someone returns.’
    She nods and we start working the living room, checking bookcases, a bureau, an antique chest of drawers, but find nothing. In the adjacent kitchen the minimalist style continues, with spotless white cupboards and a black marble worktop clear of all appliances except for one of those automatic espresso machines. We rummage through the bathroom and laundry; even the study produces nothing. There’s not even dust in this place. The man who returns here occasionally either doesn’t use the facilities or is literally the cleanest person alive.
    Amber moves down a hallway while I wander back into the living room to check behind paintings for a wall safe, but again I find nothing. I start to wonder if I’m going to find anything here when Amber calls out from a bedroom, ‘I found something you
have
to see.’
    I walk into a white room, the only furniture a wooden rocking chair, also painted white. ‘What did you find?’
    Her eyes roll up to the ceiling. Mine follow, wondering what on earth she’s on about. I see it and gasp, inadvertently bringing my hand up to cover my open mouth.
    ‘Well?’
    I try to put words together that make sense, but nowords can make sense of this. The high ceiling is painted red, with small clusters of brown mushrooms and fairies standing around them pointing sparkling wands at inquisitive little mice.
    ‘It’s exactly how I remember it,’ I whisper, ‘right down to the very same shade of red sky.’ It’s a memory that is definitely mine. And the only way I could have imprinted it in my mind is if I was lying on my back when looking at it.
    The way babies do when they lie in their cots to go to sleep.

14

Jordan
    Dazed and disoriented, I wake from a deep sleep with the sound of someone calling my name from a great distance. ‘
Jordan!
Come on, kiddo, wake up.’
    It’s a nurse. And each time she calls me she drags me further from the …
dream
? Is that what it was?
    ‘Listen, Jordan, I know you can hear me. You’ve been sleeping for thirty-six hours. It’s time, kiddo.’
    OK, I get it. I have to check out of the dream and into reality, and this nurse is my ticket. It’s lucky for me she’s so persistent it’s hard to resist, because resisting is something I’m usually good at.
    ‘Hey, Jordan, I want you to come back now, please.’
    That’s not a nurse. That’s Lillie!
    ‘Your housemates have been asking about you. They want to visit as soon as you’re well enough …’ She pauses and I know I should say something, but her voice is so easy to listen to, and there’s something else pulling my thoughts in another direction – the image of a beautiful girl with amazing violet eyes.
    ‘You have the will to survive.’ Lillie sniffs. ‘You’ve proven it more times than any young man should have to, moretimes than you’ve been given credit for,’ she tags on kindly, ‘but this time you’re going to have to dig deeper than ever before to show me you can