CHAPTER 3
‘One more time?’ asks Harper, her big round eyes as bright as the moon in the dark. Gosh, she’s so sweet. If I could bottle her essence up and sell it, I’d be a billionaire overnight.
‘Time for sleep,’ I grin, shaking my head and closing her favourite book.
‘Pleeease,’ she says.
’Three times is enough,’ I laugh, then I lean forward, squeeze her tight and stand up.
‘Okay,’ she says, feigning being crestfallen before hitting me with her best smile.
‘Bed,’ I say, and wink.
As I walk backwards her eyes begin to droop and before I’ve even reached the door she’s half asleep, that little smile still on her face as I pull the handle toward me with the gentlest of clicks and-
‘Mackenz-‘
‘Fuck,’ I hiss, leaping out of my skin and almost falling backwards. The dark hooded shape beside me turns as white as a sheet as her ghost-like eyes pop.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Thea. ‘Miss Miller, I just-‘
I goggle, still startled, but this is already the most Mr Ledger’s eldest daughter has said to me since I got here, so I compose myself fast and take a breath.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask.
‘I know you have tattoos,’ she says.
I blink. I wasn’t expecting that. For a brief moment, she seemed genuinely apologetic, but now she seems… righteous?
‘Sorry?’ I say, unsure where this is going.
‘I saw them yesterday when you were swimming,’ she continues. ‘You were hiding them from my dad, under your t-shirt.’
My heart beats a little faster. Am I about to get blackmailed by a ten-year-old? Her bottom lip thrusts forward.
‘Yes. I have tats,’ I say, indignantly holding back a part of me that I’ve half-buried for this job. For a few seconds, the two of us stare at one another, and then Thea looks down at her feet.
‘Can I see them?’ she says softly, all of her bravado gone, and as I open my mouth my heart melts. For a few seconds I don’t know what to say, just watching as she plays with her fingers and a button on her black dress, and then I get it together.
‘Yes,’ I say, mischievously. ‘But not here.’
Thea looks up at me, then blinks fast as I grab her arm and pull her along the corridor and into her bedroom and shut the door. She stares at me with wide eyes, as if I’m some sort of Greek statue that she’s never seen before and I grin, turn around and unzip my dress, revealing my back, and the art that lives and breathes there.
I turn my head and look into the floor-length mirror behind us, my eyes seeing what Thea is seeing as her jaw drops.
‘Holy shit,’ she says.
‘Language,’ I say instinctively, realising how absurd I sound a little too late. She catches my eye and laughs softly.
‘What is it?’ she asks, goggling at the artwork that curls up against my spine as she blushes.
‘It’s… like a tapestry,’ I say. ‘Of my life so far.’
She takes a tentative step forward as I begin to feel self-conscious, her eyes tracing their way down from my neck and following the snake-like coil of images and symbols.
‘You were born in Hong Kong?’ she asks. ‘The Bauhinia blakeana?’
I am genuinely surprised. ‘How did you know that? I er… I took it as my birth flower,’ I say.