Little Secrets: A gripping new psychological thriller you won’t be able to put down!

He stopped, turning around completely this time, and fixed her with a blunt stare. She found herself taking a step backward.

“If you don’t work here,” he said, not smiling anymore, “I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”

He stared at her, waiting for her to leave. And she did. As she was turning to walk out of the room, she wondered why she was doing it. She never, ever let people talk to her that way. If they did she was quick to tell them to bugger off. But something about the way he’d looked at her, about the severity in his voice, had made her falter.

She was almost home, replaying the encounter over and over in her head, when she remembered the reason she’d gone out in the first place. She took the notebook out and flicked to the page where she’d written down the phone numbers and prices for the rentals. Wishing she’d paid more attention in math, she divided the monthly amounts by 4.3 and then put together a rough estimate of her weekly wage. Snapping the notebook shut, she felt the all-too-familiar lump rise in her throat again. There was no way it would work. She’d have to get a second job, like most people in town.

Walking in through the front door, she imagined it. The only jobs around were at the poultry factory. She desperately didn’t want to work there. Her mother’s job there was debeaking. Rose remembered the way she’d looked after her first day. She’d come home so pale she looked sick.

Rose had poured her a glass of water and asked her what had happened. She hadn’t really wanted to know, not at all, but she wanted her mother to feel better. Her mother told her about how she’d had to use a dirty pair of scissors to cut the end of chickens’ beaks off so they didn’t peck each other in the battery cages.

“The noise they make,” she’d said. “They’re in agony.”

She had to do one hundred a day; if she didn’t reach the target she’d get her pay docked. Rose had told her not to go back, that she was sure there’d be another job she could get. But her mother had gone back. That was five years ago.

Rose sat down on the end of her bed and looked at her suitcase. If she worked at the factory, she’d give up on ever getting out of town. There wouldn’t be time. Slowly, she shut the lid of her suitcase with her foot and pushed it under her bed, her good clothes still folded inside. She was going to ask her mum for a month, just one month, and in that time she was going to make her dream happen. She was going to get out of here.

7

“So Frank wasn’t worried?” Mia asked, as they laid towels down on the carpet of her bedroom.

“He said he wasn’t, although Baz said he was. It is just a toy though, right? It can’t be anything too bad,” Rose told her.

“How did Laura handle having to let it go?”

Rose smiled. “I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive me.”

“I’m sure they’ll give it back to her when it turns out to be nothing.”

“Hope not—I don’t think I’d sleep with that creepy thing in the house.”

They sat down on the coarse gray towels, the bristles rough on their bare legs.

“If I tell you something, you won’t laugh?” asked Mia, who was stirring the wax that they had heated up in the microwave. The two of them were sitting on the towels in their undies, a half-empty bottle of Bundy between them.

“Maybe, but tell me anyway.”

“My aunt Bell said she’s going to give me her old tarot cards.”

Rose snorted. “You’re going to be a fortune-teller?”

“No!” Mia hit her playfully. “I don’t know—it’s stupid, I guess. I just find it interesting.”

“It’s not stupid! You should do it. You’re good at that stuff. Your beer-foam readings double our tips.”

Mia smiled into the wax tub.

“Maybe we could get in touch with the ghosts of the Eamons?” Rose said, poking Mia in the side.

“They’re tarot cards, not a Ouija board!”

“Same thing though, right?”

Mia opened her mouth to retort, then saw Rose’s smile.

“But seriously,” Rose said, “I think you could do the tarot thing and charge suckers a mint. People in the city love that shit, and I won’t be able to pay the rent on my own.”

“The city?” Mia asked. “I thought, you know, without the cadetship...” She trailed off.

Rose leaned back against her bed. “I’m going to work it out,” she told her. “I’ve already sent in a bunch of job applications. Just for crappy temp jobs and call centers, but something has to come up, right? And once I’m settled, you can follow. We can still do it.”

“Cool. Okay, are you ready?”

“Ready.”

They repositioned themselves so their bare legs were laced together. It was always easier to do it to someone else. One time, when Rose was about fourteen, she had been too afraid to pull the wax strip off and had left it on for a full twenty minutes. When she had finally worked up the courage to do it, it had hurt like hell. The thing had pulled off a layer of skin. For the next week, Rose had a raised pink rectangle on her calf that was so tender she could barely even touch it.

They’d been doing this together for ages, thinking it was easier if someone else was the one to pull the strip off. Sometimes, Rose worried that their friendship was a little stunted. She loved Mia, but it was like they both reverted back to being teenagers again when they were together. Like neither could really grow up with the other around.

Swirling the wax with a Paddle Pop stick, Mia scooped up a globule. It felt warm and nice on Rose’s thigh and smelled like honey. She rubbed a bandage down on top of it. They both took a swig of Bundy, enjoying the burn of it in their throats.

They nodded at each other and Mia pulled Rose’s strip off at the exact moment that Rose pulled off Mia’s.

“I always forget how much it hurts,” Rose said.

They both took another swig.

By the time they’d finished they each had shiny, hairless legs. They were also a bit drunk. They lay on the floor giggling, staring at the cracks in Rose’s ceiling. Slowly, the giggles subsided and their breathing became even.

“My mum will be home soon,” Rose said, the impending argument playing out in her head. “I’m going to ask her if I can stay a few more weeks. She won’t be happy.”

Mia propped herself up on an elbow.

“One of the Friday the 13th films is on telly tonight. Do you want to come to mine?”

* * *

They decided to stop off at the gas station for snacks. Rose was in the mood to really gorge. She was sick of planning and worrying. Watching a shitty movie and eating junk sounded like absolute bliss.

Rose rolled down her window, and they turned up the radio, letting the girlie pop song blare. Turning the corner, Mia braked hard for some kids crossing the road.

“Paper-plate kids never even look,” she said, shaking her head.

One of the kids poked his tongue out through his mask at them. Mia, like most people, thought they were cute. Rose found them disturbing. There were around ten of them, both boys and girls from the local primary school. They wandered around together, sometimes even at night, wearing those dumb masks they’d made in class. Paper plates with eye and mouth holes cut out of them and silly noses and eyebrows painted on. They wore them constantly, the strings tied tight around the backs of their heads.

“So creepy,” Rose said.

“You just think that cos they got you!”

“Shut up!”

It was true. The kids played a game where they’d hide around corners and jump out at people, yelling boo. They scared Rose so much one day she’d actually screamed. Mia didn’t understand how Rose could hate the poor kids. Really she should hate their parents for kicking their children out for the night while they got loaded.

Mia pulled in to the pumps slightly too fast; the brakes squeaked when she stopped.

“Whoops!” she said. “Usually I’m a good drunk driver.”

Rose laughed and they got out of the car, snapping shut the doors. Mia left the keys in the ignition so the pop song would continue playing. She hummed along as she unscrewed the lid to the tank, pulled a ten-dollar note out of her pocket and flicked it to Rose. It seemed to hesitate in the air for a moment before floating down into Rose’s hand.

“Thanks.”

Dusk hung heavily around her. The air retained the heat of the day and felt sticky against her bare skin. Walking toward the service station, she breathed in: freshness, mixed with the tang of petrol and hot cement. The automatic doors opened for her and goose bumps rose on her arms as she walked into the air-conditioning.

There was a line, as usual, at the counter. Since the grocery store had burned down, the service station had been doing great business. Of course, the place was a chain, so the profit it made was being filtered straight out of the town. To another country, probably. Rose plucked two large packets of corn chips, a jar of spicy salsa and a family-sized block of Dairy Milk chocolate from the shelf. Holding the bundle, she grabbed a large plastic cup and put it on the grille of the frozen Coke machine. She watched as the shiny brown icicles filled the cup. Really, she should have picked savory or sweet. They’d probably both feel ill later, but oh well.

“Pump four,” she said to the clerk when she reached the front of the line, “and these.” She dropped the packets and a frozen Coke she’d been awkwardly cradling onto the counter.

“Having a big night?” a voice behind her said. Bazza. He was smiling at her and eyeing the assortment of snacks.

“Yeah,” she said, putting down Mia’s note and matching it with one of her own, feeling a twinge of guilt like she always did when she spent money unnecessarily.

“How’s your sister?” he asked.

“Cranky, but fine.”

“Frank had my bollocks for telling you we were worried at the station.” He laughed, but she noticed a sour note in his voice.

She smiled at him, then took her change and the bag from the cashier.

“I appreciated you telling me,” she said, waiting while he took out a credit card to pay for his milk, bread and chocolate biscuits. Now that Frank wasn’t here, maybe she could get a bit more information out of him.

“So,” she said casually, “how many other families got dolls?”

He thought about it as he put the card back in his wallet. “The Rileys, the Hanes and the Cunninghams... So, just three.”

Rose half expected him to count on his fingers, the idiot. He’d just told her the names of the families without her even having to ask. They walked out of the service station together, Bazza holding his plastic bag in one hand and swinging the large bottle of milk in the other.

“Are you with Mia?” he asked, looking over at her car. Rose was just about to snigger, there was a definite eagerness to his voice, when she saw Mia’s face drop as she spotted them. It took all of three seconds for Rose to grasp how stupid she was being. Mia was more than tipsy, and they both probably stank of rum. Bazza was off work, but he was still a cop. Rose had been so focused on trying to get a lead she hadn’t even thought of it.

“I’ll come say hi,” he continued.

“Sorry, I forgot we were in a hurry. See you later!” she said and ran back to the car, pulling on her seat belt and waving at Bazza. They drove very carefully out of the gas station and then veered quickly around the corner. Mia’s house was only two streets away.

* * *

Rose had met Mia on the first day of kindergarten. She’d been wandering around at lunchtime, looking for a good place to eat her lunch alone. Even as a five-year-old, she hadn’t been great at niceties, so meeting new people hadn’t come naturally to her. Holding her lunch box, her backpack a strange new weight on her back, she’d staked out a small flowering bush. If she sat behind there, she’d been sure no one would bother her. But as she turned the corner, she saw that there was already a little girl sitting behind the bush. She was crouched on the ground, holding her arm up at a strange angle, staring at it.

What are you doing? Rose had asked.

Mia had smiled. Look, she’d said.

Rose had got down onto her knees and looked at Mia’s arm. There was a tiny red ladybug on her wrist.

Fairies, Mia had whispered.

No, they’re ladybugs, Rose had said.

Mia shook her head solemnly, looking at Rose as though she was the silliest person in the world. Ladybugs are fairies. Didn’t you know?

Rose had looked from the ladybug back to Mia. Really?

Yeah, and if you sit here long enough, they’ll climb all over you, Mia said. I already did it this morning. This is their fairy house.

So Rose had sat. They’d sat in silence to begin with, watching as the beautiful little red bugs timidly made their way onto Rose. It tickled a little bit. Eventually they’d started talking, and upon finding out that Mia had no mum, and Rose had no dad, they decided they should be best friends.

* * *

“You’ll have to feed me,” Mia called from the couch. She was lying on her back, arms above her head, eyes closed.

Mia’s house was even smaller and shittier than Rose’s, although it was always impeccably tidy. The place sort of resembled a caravan, without the wheels. Her kitchen cupboards and small table were covered in laminate, printed with a fake wood grain. The couch, which doubled as Mia’s bed, was squeezed tight in the small lounge room, the main room of the house. On the left were two doors. One to the bathroom, the other to Mia’s father’s room. Both were closed.

Rose took out two bowls from the cupboard. She opened the chip packets, the plastic making loud squeaky sounds, and threw a chip toward Mia. She opened her mouth wide, but it missed, landing on her forehead. Rose emptied the rest into the bowls.

The squeaking sound of bedsprings moving sounded from the other room.

“He must be awake. Back in a sec.” Mia slid off the couch, munching on the chip, and went into his room. Rose could hear her talking quietly from inside, her voice soft and gentle.

Rose put the bowls on the coffee table and sat down on the couch, still feeling the heat from Mia’s body on the backs of her thighs. She switched on the TV and opened the chocolate. Tossing a square into her mouth, she wanted to close her eyes, the rich sweetness tasted so good. She’d forgotten to have lunch today and she was starving.

“It’s starting!” she called. A girl was walking around her apartment, creepy music playing in the background. Rose knew she was probably going to die within the next five minutes, but she still couldn’t help feeling jealous that the girl had her own place. This girl had a cool Japanese-style dressing gown and could wander around in it and make tea whenever she wanted.

Mia ran back in and sat on the couch. “What did I miss?”

On the screen, a cat pounced through the window and they both jumped. Laughing at each other, they settled back on the couch, passing the frozen Coke back and forth between them. Soon, the murderer appeared. A sack over his head. They tried not to scream out loud and bother Mia’s dad.

“Isn’t he meant to be wearing a hockey mask?”

“I think that comes later.”

Rose thought a sack was probably creepier anyway.

“The hockey mask would make him look like a paper-plate kid.”

“Awww,” Mia cooed.

“Why is he doing it again?” Rose asked when it cut to commercials. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen the first one.

“Killing everyone?”

“Yeah.”

Mia leaned back, stretching out her feet on the coffee table. Her toenails were painted a dark purple. “Something to do with teenagers having sex instead of taking care of him when he was a kid.”

“So stupid,” Rose groaned. Somehow, giving someone a good reason for mass murder made it so much more fascinating. She wondered what reason the person would have to leave dolls on kids’ doorsteps. It really was such a bizarre thing to do. Mia squealed from next to her; Rose hadn’t even been watching. She got comfy, nestling her bare feet underneath herself.

By midway through, the violence had lost its shock. They were both sleepy and covered in crumbs and their stomachs swirled. They were lying down now, Rose’s head on Mia’s hip.

“I should go,” she said.

“Yeah, I’ll drive you.”

“Okay.”

Neither of them moved.

* * *

By the time Rose got home she knew she had left it too late. She shouldn’t have gone to Mia’s house. She should have been here when her mother got home, not left her mother’s anger to stew even more.

“Hi,” she said.

Her mother just looked at her, exhausted, from her place in front of the television.

“Listen,” she continued, “I know it sounds like I was overreacting this morning—”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Rose. I’ve had a long day.”

“Sorry,” she found herself saying. She took a breath; this was going to be a hard conversation.

“So I know Rob’s coming back next week—” she began.

“You’re not going to ask me for more time, are you?”

The way her mum looked at her told her the answer, and not only that, it told her that her unhappiness, her pain, was just another burden. Something to be endured like the sound of screaming chickens.

“No,” she said and left the room.

PART 2

The day you give up on your dreams is the day you give up on yourself.

—Unknown

8

Pulling her hair into a knot on top of her head, blowing a few loose strands out of the way, Rose turned on her computer. It was an old PC, its fan was loud and hot, and it took a full five minutes to load. She was afraid that one day, it wouldn’t turn on at all and then she didn’t know what she would do. You could hardly mail newspapers handwritten articles. That definitely wouldn’t be considered professional.

She’d slept better last night, maybe because there was too much to think about, too much to worry about to even bother. Her exhaustion was stronger than her anger and frustration, and so when she went to bed she’d fallen unconscious almost instantly, waking up with a claggy mouth. She hadn’t even brushed her teeth. But the rest had given her a new sense of determination, something that even the two rejection emails she’d received from the jobs she’d applied to yesterday couldn’t shake.

She took a swig of Coke, the cold bolt of flavor pushing back against the sleepy heat.

When her computer was finally on, she linked it with the Bluetooth on her phone. She tried to use as little of Rob’s resources as possible. She bought her own food, used her own internet plan and never used the home phone. It wasn’t just that she didn’t want to be indebted to him. She also hated the idea of touching anything he used; she despised everything about him. Not that it mattered much anymore.

All morning she had replayed last night’s conversation with her mother. Rose wished she had made it clear, at the very least, that she hadn’t been stupid in calling the cops. Say the word pedophile and she was sure she could get that breathless panicky quality back into her mother’s voice. The idea did something strange to people, especially parents. Everyone agreed that pedophiles were the lowest scum on the planet, yet people also seemed weirdly fascinated by them. Their stories were always in the news the longest, front page after front page of disturbing stories in sickening detail. Maybe people enjoyed feeling horrified.

The screen lit up and, already, she felt a little wired. She’d dismissed the idea of writing about the dolls almost immediately. Dolls on kids’ doorsteps was hardly a story.

But maybe it didn’t even matter.

She opened a blank Word document and typed the title in, just to see how it would look: Porcelain Terror in Colmstock.

Everyone loved a good mystery. Her fingers started flying across the keyboard, trying to shape the strange truth of what had happened into something more menacing. Trying to make it into a story.

It wasn’t the sort of thing that would ever stand a chance in the Sage Review, but maybe it would be possible in the Star. She and Mia only read the thing for laughs, and because it had the most ridiculous star-sign predictions. The tabloid was always filled with tacky sensationalist articles, like how a suburban man had made his wife swallow an entire live snake as part of a voodoo ritual or how a mother was addicted to eating her children’s glue sticks, in between full-page advertisements for diet pills.

It was fun writing something dramatic and salacious. By the time she had to leave for work, she’d emailed the article to the Star. Usually, she would spend at least a few weeks on a piece, but this one she kept short and to the point. If they didn’t like it, they could go fuck themselves.

PORCELAIN TERROR IN COLMSTOCK

By Rose Blakey

Mystery dolls threaten children of small town.

A mystery is an unusual thing in the town of Colmstock, which all but disappeared from the map after the closure of the Auster Automotive Factory. Now, to add insult to injury for the residents of this forgotten place, a bizarre case has emerged that has the local police baffled.

Multiple families have made the terrifying discovery of old-fashioned porcelain dolls on their doorsteps. Most horrifying of all, the dolls are the spitting images of their young daughters. Hair and eye color of these unwanted gifts exactly matching the scared little girls.

Local police have attempted to calm the victims. However, these families may be right to be frightened for the safety of their youngest daughters. Inside sources have revealed that possible links to child molesters and pedophiles are being investigated and that the dolls are marks of this anonymous sicko’s intended prey.

With the limited resources available to the impoverished Colmstock, the community fears the offender may not be apprehended until it is too late.

* * *

Rose leaned into the wide freezer in the storage room of the tavern. She stroked the back of her head, combing her hair with her fingers so that it came off her sweaty neck. She let it dangle around her face like a veil.

Today had been an especially hot day, the humidity making the air a sweltering, oppressive weight as she’d walked to work, her shoes banging against her bandaged heels. The road had felt like it had been sizzling. Her head was full of dolls, although as soon as she’d started walking she’d realized what she’d written was crazy. It didn’t even really make sense.

The freezer reeked. It was as if something had died in there, froze, then thawed, rotted a bit and then froze again. Still, the cool air on her skin was worth it. It felt like little icy pinpricks on her face and neck. She could happily stay there all day, but Jean would notice her absence soon enough and come to find out why she was slacking off. Reaching into the freezer, she pulled out a hunk of frozen meat wrapped in plastic. It was wedged in there, and the sound of the icicles squealing against each other as it scraped against the side of the freezer made her wince. It was heavy; she held it tightly with one trembling arm as she slammed the lid of the freezer closed with the other.

The meat started to stick to her forearms as she walked up the corridor. She passed Will’s room. The light inside was on, but the Do Not Disturb sign was still plastered to his door. Rose dropped the hunk of meat down on the kitchen bench.

“Thanks,” Jean said from the stove; her white shirt was damp with sweat. Rose couldn’t imagine trying to cook on a day this hot.

“Look at her go.” Jean pointed her chin toward the bar, a smile playing on her lips.

Mia was flirting with Bazza outrageously. She was leaning against the taps, literally twirling her hair. It was almost laughable, but Bazza was eating it up.

“I’ll give them a few minutes,” she said to Jean and went over to the bin. It wasn’t completely full yet, but Rose didn’t really want to go back to the bar. It was only a matter of time before Frank asked her about the cadetship, and she’d have to tell him that she hadn’t got it. She didn’t want pity, not from him or anyone else. Plus, the longer you left the bin, the more likely it was that you’d leak foul-smelling bin juice down the corridor. She tied the black plastic rubbish bag into a knot at the top, then slid it out of the bin; it was already heavy.