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  “You can't play that thing,” he sneers, still speaking through my mouth. “You're deluded.”

  “I have to try,” I whisper, making my way across the living room until finally I bump against the stool. Reaching up, I drag myself off the floor and take a seat, and then with trembling hands I open the lid that covers the piano's keys. Immediately starting to play, I hear a godawful cacophony of out-of-tune notes, but at least it's a start.

  “Listen to that mess,” Father says, forcing my lips to move. “It sounds like you're torturing the goddamn thing.”

  I keep playing, but my hands are shaking and everything sounds wrong.

  “Go on, then,” I say out loud, still channeling Father. “Prove me wrong. Make it sound good.”

  “I saved Aidan,” I whisper, as I hit a series of wrong notes. “He was dying but I -”

  “He was dying because of you in the first place!” I hiss suddenly, as Father's angry tones break back into my voice. “You killed me! Do you really think I'm going to let you get away with that!”

  Outside, there's another siren now. Not an ambulance this time. The police, maybe. Coming to take me back to the hospital.

  I hit several more wrong notes.

  “You're not really here,” I say firmly. “You're just in my mind.”

  “And what does that say about you?”

  “I can force you out.”

  “By cutting yourself over and over,” he sneers, “like some attention-seeking teenager?”

  “You're not here,” I whisper again. “You're just in my head.”

  “Oh, I'm really here,” he continues, “and I'm never, ever going to leave you alone. For the rest of your miserable life, I'm going to remind you every single day of the things you did to me!”

  I try to push him out, to focus on playing, but my fingers are hitting more and more wrong notes. I'm not strong enough to do this.

  “At least when I was alive, you could walk away,” my voice sneers. “Now I'm dead, and I'm going to stay with you forever, always taunting you. Always reminding you of your failures.”

  There's a sudden knock at the door. It's the police. They probably want to know what I did to Aidan.

  “Even when you're rotting in a cell for the rest of your life,” I gasp. “I'll be talking to you. You're so weak, you can't even stop me using your own mouth.”

  Reaching down, I take the scissors from my belt.

  “And I'll be reminding you, Alice,” I gurgle with a smile, “of all the mistakes and -”

  “No,” I say firmly, holding the scissors up. “I won't let you do that. And anyway, my name is Rachel.”

  Before I can get another word out, I reach the scissors into the back of my mouth and cut straight through my tongue. A rush of blood erupts, bursting between my lips as I let out a gasp of pain.

  Chapter Forty

  Rachel - Today

  Now my hands are steady again. Now the voice has stopped.

  I pick out each note with great care. I appreciate that my playing is by no means perfect, and I know I still have so much to learn, but practice makes perfect and everybody has to begin somewhere. So I take my time, while ignoring the distant sound of armed men breaking down the front door. All that matters is the calming music that brings peace and quiet to the world around me.

  As I continue to play, blood starts dribbling down from my face, splattering against the piano's black and white keys.

  E pilogue

  Rachel – Two years later

  I can hear footsteps in the distance, coming this way, but I pay no attention. Instead, I focus on the sensation of the piano keys beneath my fingertips. Morning sunlight is streaming through the rec room's windows, casting a warm glow across the left side of my face, and most of the other patients are either in therapy sessions or out on the lawn.

  They know to leave me alone with the piano when I want to play.

  They know I won't hurt anyone if I'm just left here to play.

  As I continue to move my hands from key to key, I hear the door squeaking open behind me. I flinch slightly, annoyed that one of the officious thugs would dare disturb me, but I tell myself to simply focus on the notes I'm playing. After all, when I'm at the piano, the rest of the world might as well not exist. This is the only activity that keeps my mind calm.

  “Rachel?” one of the orderlies says after a moment. “You have a visitor.”

  Ignoring him, I keep my attention focused on the keys. I can't see them, of course, not really, but I can feel them.

  “Did you hear me?” he continues. “You have a visitor, Rachel, it's...”

  His voice trails off. He sounds a little nervous, and also surprised. I don't blame him. I've never had a visitor, not in all my time in this place.

  Focusing on my playing, I listen to the music.

  “Rachel,” he says finally, “your mother is here to see you.”

  I almost hit a wrong key.

  Almost.

  “Rachel?” a woman's voice says tentatively. She sounds as if she's close to tears, but – more than that – she sounds so old, as if she's in her seventies or eighties. Nothing like the mother I'd imagined. “Oh my God, is that really you?”

  “She never responds to anything anyone says,” the orderly explains, although his voice sounds further away now, pushed back by the music that fills my ears. “She just floats along in her own world. When she's awake, she's either sitting in a therapy session with one of the doctors, or she's here like this. I swear she'd play all night if we let her.”

  “Rachel, it's me,” the woman continues, stepping closer. “They found me, Rachel. They told me what happened. I'm so sorry I was never there for you, but your father... I owe you an explanation, but I thought I was doing the right thing by staying out of your life.”

  Again, I very nearly hit a wrong key.

  “Rachel, look at me. He told me that... Well, there'll be time for that later, but... Don't you recognize me? I'm your mother!”

  I feel a faint tightening sensation in my chest, but I quickly push it away and focus instead on the music. The woman is still talking, and the orderly is saying a few things too, but all I hear now is the music. This woman, whoever she is, can't be my mother, not really. My mother is dead, or at least that's what Father always told me. So perhaps she's an impostor, or she's been sent by one of the doctors to trick me, or she's another fantasy brought forth from my fevered imagination. She certainly can't be my mother, though, so I feel it's best to just ignore her.

  “Rachel, look at me!” she says firmly, sounding close to tears. “It's me! Look at me!”

  I hit two more notes, and then -

  Suddenly I feel a hand on my shoulder.

  I flinch, and for a moment I stop playing. A slow sense of fury is rising through my chest, filling my soul with anger.

  “Take your hand off her, please,” the orderly says, and he sounds worried.

  “But she's my -”

  “Now!”

  I feel the hand behind pulled away, as if the orderly grabbed her wrist and forced her back.

  “It's very important that no-one touches her,” he continues. “She really doesn't like it, and when Rachel doesn't like something...”

  He pauses.

  “Well, we try to avoid those situations,” he adds finally. “That's all.”

  I sit in silence for a moment, and then I start playing again. Immediately, all the peace and calm returns to my mind, and I can barely even hear the orderly as he continues to explain things to the woman.

  “Maybe I should take you to see Doctor Greene again,” he says finally. “He can explain the whole thing better. Rachel's very difficult to get through to. Impossible, even. She can't see, obviously, and she has no tongue anymore, and she really makes no effort to... Well, like I said, Doctor Greene is the best person to talk to.”

  “I'll be back, Rachel,” the old woman continues. “I promise. I won't leave you alone again. I'll help you and make you better.”
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  I hear them walking away, and I can't help hoping that they won't be back. After all, there's no way that the voice could possibly belong to my real mother, so I figure it was just another fantasy. I need to focus on what's real, and right now the only real thing at all is the piano. So long as I'm playing, I can ignore the voices in my head. Sure, I have to endure them at night sometimes, and I even hear Father from time to time, but music mostly holds them all at bay. So long as I can simply sit here and play, I don't think I'll ever get upset again.

  Also by Amy Cross

  THE BODY AT AUERCLIFF

  “We'll bury her so deep, even her ghost will have a mouth full of dirt!”

  When Rebecca Wallace arrives at Auercliff to check on her aged aunt, she's in for a shock. Her aunt's mind is crumbling, and the old woman refuses to let Rebecca stay overnight. And just as she thinks she's starting to understand the truth, Rebecca makes a horrifying discovery in one of the house's many spare rooms.

  A dead body. A woman. Old and rotten. And her aunt insists she has no idea where it came from.

  The truth lies buried in the past. For generations, the occupants of Auercliff have been tormented by the repercussions of a horrific secret. And somehow everything seems to be centered upon the mausoleum in the house's ground, where every member of the family is entombed once they die.

  Whose body was left to rot in one of the house's rooms? Why have successive generations of the family been plagued by a persistent scratching sound? And what really happened to Rebecca many years ago, when she found herself locked inside the Auercliff mausoleum?

  The Body at Auercliff is a horror story about a family and a house, and about the refusal of the past to stay buried.

  Also by Amy Cross

  LAST WRONG TURN

  If you're out late at night and you see her face, it's already too late.

  Lost on a rural English road, Penny and her husband are involved in a sudden, violent car crash. Waking up tied to a metal table in a remote farmhouse, Penny quickly discovers that she's the latest victim of a strange, deadly family. But Penny is different to all the family's other victims, because she just happens to be eight-and-a-half months pregnant...

  Fighting not only for her own life, but also for the life of her unborn child, Penny desperately tries to escape. When she comes face to face with the mysterious Enda, however, she quickly learns that getting away from the farmhouse might not be enough. Soon, Penny finds herself locked in a desperate struggle to keep her baby from becoming not just a victim of the farm, but one of its new occupants.

  Last Wrong Turn is the story of a woman who desperately tries to save her child from a horrific fate. Contains adult language and scenes of violence.

  Also by Amy Cross

  PERFECT LITTLE MONSTERS

  AND OTHER STORIES

  A husband waits until his wife and children are in bed, before inviting a dangerous man into their home...

  A girl keeps hold of her mother's necklace, as bloodied hands try to tear it from her grasp...

  A gun jams, even as its intended victim begs the universe to let her die...

  Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Amy Cross. Some of the stories take place in seemingly ordinary towns, whose inhabitants soon discover something truly shocking lurking beneath the veneer of peace and calm. Others show glimpses of vast, barbaric worlds where deadly forces gather to toy with humanity. All the stories in this collection peel back the face of a nightmare, revealing the horror that awaits. And in every one of the stories, some kind of monster lurks...

  Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories contains the new stories Perfect Little Monsters, I Hate You, Meat, Fifty Fifty and Stay Up Late, as well as a revised version of the previously-released story The Scream. This book contains scenes of violence, as well as strong language.

  Also by Amy Cross

  ANNIE'S ROOM

  1945 and 2015. Seventy years apart, two girls named Annie move into the same room of the same remote house. Their stories are very different, but tragedy is about to bring them crashing together.

  Annie Riley has just broken both her legs. Unable to leave bed, she's holed up in her new room and completely reliant upon her family for company. She's also the first to notice a series of strange noises in the house, but her parents and brother think she's just letting her imagination run overtime. And then, one night, dark forces start to make their presence more keenly felt, leading to a horrific discovery...

  Seventy years ago, Annie Garrett lived in the same house with her parents. This Annie, however, was very different. Bitter and vindictive and hopelessly devoted to her father, she developed a passionate hatred for her mother. History records that Annie eventually disappeared while her parents were executed for her murder, but what really happened to Annie Garrett, and is her ghost still haunting the house to this day?

  Annie's Room is the story of two girls whose lives just happened to be thrown together by an unlikely set of circumstances, and of a potent evil that blossomed in one soul and then threatened to consume another.

  OTHER BOOKS

  BY AMY CROSS INCLUDE

  Horror

  The Body at Auercliff

  Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories

  The Printer From Hell

  The Farm

  American Coven

  Annie's Room

  Eli's Town

  Asylum

  Meds (Asylum 2)

  The Night Girl

  Devil's Briar

  The Cabin

  After the Cabin

  Last Wrong Turn

  At the Edge of the Forest

  The Devil's Hand

  The Ghost of Shapley Hall

  The Death of Addie Gray

  A House in London

  Table 9: A Ghost Story

  The Blood House

  The Priest Hole (Nykolas Freeman book 1)

  Battlefield (Nykolas Freeman book 2)

  The Border

  The Lighthouse

  3AM

  Tenderling

  The Girl Clay

  The Prison

  Ward Z

  The Devil's Photographer

  Fantasy / Horror

  Dark Season series 1, 2 & 3

  The Girl With Crooked Fangs (Vampire Country book 1)

  Ascension (Demon's Grail book 1)

  Evolution (Demon's Grail book 2)

  The 13th Demon (Demon's Grail book 3)

  Grave Girl

  Graver Girl (Grave Girl 2)

  Ghosts

  The Library

  Thriller

  The Girl Who Never Came Back

  Other People's Bodies

  Dystopia / Science Fiction

  The Dog

  The Island (The Island book 1)

  Persona (The Island book 2)

  Mass Extinction Event