But as Holly shoved her way further in, moving another bag out the way, she saw Milo was no longer alone in the back. Another boy, also apparently unconscious, but with no visible injuries, was sitting in the other seat. His head was lolled sideways, his face a pale blur against the shattered window.
‘What the fuck?’ Holly realised she had spoken aloud again, her words thrown into the sullen, spattering rain, echoing up to the silent trees. A ghost, it had to be a ghost, this child who had materialised inside her car. Either that or she was actually unconscious and dreaming the whole thing.
She reached a shaking hand across the car and touched the other boy. As her fingers met his cheek she had to force herself not to recoil. His skin was cold and clammy, and she thought she could see a head wound, but, as with her own child, she could see the steady rise and fall of his chest. Holly let out a long breath and inched back towards Milo, squeezing his limp hand, reassuring herself. A high-pitched whimpering made her jump, until she realised it was herself making animal sounds of fear. Where the fuck had he come from?
Squinting towards the road, she could just about make out the path of destruction the car had made as it left the road and hurtled into its final resting place against this cluster of giant trunks. There was no sign of the other vehicle that had rear-ended them, and no clue as to how her other passenger had arrived in her vehicle.
Realising she was wasting time staring blankly at the two children, Holly yanked herself back to reality and started yelling for help. Her cries echoed through the trees, seemingly futile in the vastness of the wood. Perhaps she should try to climb back up to the road, flag down the next car. But she seriously doubted she could make it, with the injuries that shot pain along her limbs and stabbed inside her head. Anyway, she couldn’t leave the children. Not one, but two children … She shouted again.
What if the other driver had meant to run her off the road? He could have stopped his car further along, and could be climbing down to … To what? She squinted into the shadows, icy fingers caressing her spine. Had he already been down and left another child in her car? There didn’t seem to be any other explanation, because she had sure as hell only had one passenger when she left the road.
A sound made her gasp, and it took a moment for Holly to realise it was her phone ringing. She blinked round, puzzled, finally locating the illuminated screen a few feet away half buried in the leafy forest floor. Relief flooded her body and tears coursed down her cheeks, stinging her cut face. Holly wiped them away and took a deep breath, glancing back quickly at the boys.
She staggered towards her phone, checked as an electric flash of pain reminded her she was injured, and went down on her knees to crawl instead. Every movement made her wince now, as the adrenalin wore off, and by the time her trembling hand touched the plastic casing of her phone, tears were streaking her cheeks again. The missed call was from an unknown number, and they hadn’t left a voicemail. It seemed to take ages to tap out the three digits she wanted, and all the time she stayed half sitting, half lying against a wet tree trunk, her eyes on the two children who sat so still and pale in the back seat of her car.
Finally, as she was starting to worry about the lack of phone signal, she got through to the operator, and waited again, patiently, answering the necessary questions as best she could.
In a surprisingly short time blue lights and sirens pierced the blackness. The rain was clearing, or at least she was sheltered, so deep in the woods. Holly was back at the car. With difficulty, gasping in pain at every movement, she had dragged an old picnic blanket out of the chaos, and tucked it carefully around the boys.
Checking their breathing, she wiped away the blood from Milo’s head with a folded T-shirt from his bag, careful not to move either child. The jelly sweets were strewn carelessly across the seat, and Holly bit her lip at the sight of them. Please, God, let Milo be okay …
The rear passenger seats were reasonably dry, roof still intact, but the front of the car was trashed. She couldn’t stop herself from gently touching the other boy’s cheek again, almost to reassure herself that he was actually real. This time she smoothed his hair back as she had Milo’s, and a rush of emotion hit. This poor child had been abandoned in her car. He wasn’t a ghost or a dream, but a real boy who someone had dumped in a crashed car. Perhaps whoever did it had thought she was dead, had hoped they would all die …
His hair was dark brown, and now she was closer she could see it was indeed streaked with blood from his head injury. There was something about the shape of his face that prodded her memory. Had she seen him before? He was about Milo’s age, perhaps a little older. At school, perhaps?
Shouts from the road cut into her thoughts, and soon a reassuring number of people were climbing carefully down to her car. She shouted back, in answer to their quick questions, and waited as they manoeuvred carefully through the undergrowth.
Holly stayed where she was, wincing at the clinical harshness of the floodlights, trying to ignore the pain that burned through her body. In one hand she held her son’s cold, white fingers, but her eyes still dwelt protectively on the other child as well.
Her phone, thrust deep into the pocket of her bloodied top, buzzed with a message, and automatically she drew it out with her free hand. The tone was vitriolic and the number familiar.
‘Fucking bitch.’
Holly kissed Milo’s head, resting her lips on his now warm forehead for a long moment. He was still unconscious but the doctor told her the scans were clear. They just had to wait for him to wake up. His left leg was broken in two places, and the head wound required five stitches. It would leave a scar, which she knew he would be perversely pleased with. Her darling boy. Nothing else and nobody else mattered.
But even so, after checking her son was still sleeping, she wheeled herself away to ICU. The other boy was lying still and silent too. He was in a worse condition, with more severe head injuries and some swelling to the brain. She watched him through the narrow window, her brow furrowing, pressing her fingers to the glass.
Had she seen him at rugby? Or was he the kid who had a laugh with Milo in the queue at Tesco? Had she seen him at the pool? If he opened his eyes, if she could see his expression, it might fix that nagging feeling that she did recognise him. The big white clock on the wall ticked towards nine o clock. She had been up for almost twenty-four hours and her brain simply wasn’t working anymore.
The child’s long lashes and the slightly hollow cheeks gave him an air of vulnerability. She had supposed, and the doctors confirmed, he was around eleven or twelve years old, but skinny, with his bony hands lying neatly outside the white sheet. Almost too skinny for a boy his age, she thought. His dark brown hair lay tousled and greasy on the pillow around his face. There was a bruise on his cheek, and she knew he had stitches in the back of his head.
‘Who are you?’ she whispered. ‘Where did you come from?’ The dreamlike feeling of unreality had extended when Holly had been told that no missing children fitting this boy’s description had been reported in the area. He was a still a ghost child, or a phantom. Her heart wrenched to think that somewhere surely his parents were searching for him … Or was it more painful to think that they were not, that her first guess had been correct and somebody meant them to die?
Someone had dumped him in her car like an unwanted stray. It couldn’t have been premeditated, because who could have predicted the crash? Even if either of the reckless drivers from last night had intended her to drive off the road, how could they have counted on her swerving for the deer or known she’d be knocked unconscious whilst they popped another child in her car? None of it made any sense. Perhaps she was going mad. She tried to remember if she had seen anything out of the ordinary yesterday. But she was sure it had been no different to any other Sunday, right up until they drove down Mill Road.
Troubled, Holly took herself back to her son and with some difficulty transferred herself from the wheelchair to