It is an affectionate hand. The hand of a man. Anna is becoming awake. Her partner, Mark, is looking at her.
“What are you doing here?” she says in surprise. In the harsh morning light, coming through the window, Anna looks like she has aged by 20 years overnight. There are grey shadows under her eyes.
“I thought you’d be happy to see me," Mark says.
“Of course I am,” she replies, with relief on her face. Mark is tall and is wearing dark causal clothes. A posh denim jacket and trousers. Dark blue. He has a pale complexion and a full head of neat mousy straight brown hair, perfectly cut. He’s not a looker, but he has presence.
“I thought this was just an ordinary house,” he says. “There is so much I still do not know about you,” he says, casually, as if looking for an explanation.
* * *
“How did you end up here?” Mark says to her, with a wry grin, as he connects the toe-rope to her car. Mark uses his big 4-wheel drive to pull her saloon out of the ditch. In the distance the little girl looks on.
* * *
Mark and Anna have a candle-lit dinner that evening, in the house. They discuss things. Things about the House and Anna’s past. Anna seems to struggle with her memory recall. Mark asks her if she is ok. There follows a night of passion.
Anna wakes up. Mark is sitting on the bed and looking concerned. He is grasping her arm. She smiles warmly. “Good Morning,” she says to Mark. He now has a stubble.
Mark’s face relaxes into a gentle smile.
Mark has a tray of breakfast food and a large pot of coffee. He gives her a big warm smile. “That’ll do nicely,” she rewards him back with a wide grin.
“I’ll start downstairs,” he says.
“Thank you my handyman.”
Anna leaps out of bed and runs down the stairs. “What are you doing?” she exclaims. Mark is trying to open the cellar door. “No! It won’t work. There is no key."
“Did you put this in front?” Mark looks at her suspiciously, and at a chair blocking the door.
“I thought I heard something in there,” she replies.
“Ghosts? What’s happening to this wall? We can take it down.” Mark takes some pictures off the wall and points out that all is rotting behind them.
Outside, Mark chops some wood, in the shed. Anna spots the wee girl, nearby, making a snowman. She walks over to her.
“There you are. You mustn’t stand in the middle of the road. Are your parents around?”
The little girl turns around. She has huge bruises on her face. Anna looks appalled.
“What happened to you?” The wee girl says nothing. She just stares. Mark comes over.
“What are you doing?” he asks Anna.
“There’s a little girl here,” Anna says. “I’m worried about her. I don’t think she comes from a happy home.” Mark looks indifferent. “You could at least pretend to care.”
“Of course I care,” Mark says, without actually showing care in his face. Mark looks around, slightly confused. He does not see the girl.
Later on, Anna is cleaning windows. She sees the girl again, outside. She goes out to meet her.
Anna looks through a window and sees the girl again, outside in the snow. She goes out to meet Lucy.
“Are you ok?” Anna says to the girl, with concern in her voice. “Has anything happened?” The wee girl shakes her head very slightly from side to side in an unconvincing gesture of “no” but her forlorn eyes tell a different story. Her delicate face has an unsightly deep-red bruise on her right cheek. “Do you want to come in? You are not wearing enough clothes.” The child remains silent, but an almost imperceptibly slight smile briefly flashes at the corners of her mouth while her eyes remain steady and deeply sad. “You can tell me anything, no matter what.”
“I thought you knew,” the girl says. Anna looks perplexed.
