Down to Earth

When he’d gone I tried to remember every detail of the previous day. I recalled thinking how grey and drawn Kevin had looked – not that I could imagine him ever having a ruddy complexion with his pale freckly skin and reddish hair, but I’d put that down to nerves about the forthcoming jump and his hopeless infatuation with Ingrid. Had the pair of them invented some weird alternative reality for me?

Keeping a wary eye on the door, I slid open the top drawer of Matt’s bedside cabinet. At first glance there didn’t seem to be any clues hidden amongst the few personal bits and pieces, but then I noticed an envelope-sized piece of shiny white card in the corner looking tantalisingly up at me. Hearing nothing outside, I reached quickly in and drew the object out, turning it over in my hand.

A black and white photo of me smiled back at me. My chest tightened immediately and my breath caught in my throat. It was a copy of the snap Calum had taken the week before; the one that I imagined had been used on the posters I’d seen in the pub. With shaking hands I hastily put the offending article back into the drawer, sliding it tightly closed as if sealing the photo back into its place might lessen the impact of what it suggested.

I realised I couldn’t sit there forever, I needed Matt and Kevin to think I was going along with their plan – whatever that was.

Eyeing the blue jumpsuit with distaste I pulled on yesterday’s jeans and T-shirt, realising I had little option but to put them back on. It was either that or go downstairs looking like a temptress in a dolphin T-shirt. I shuddered at the thought of how easily the scenario they’d invented had had me jumping into the parachute instructor’s bed.

‘Idiot,’ I mumbled to myself under my breath. As an afterthought I stepped back into the jumpsuit, wriggled it over my jeans and zipped it up to my neck.

Once dressed, I crept downstairs to find Matt standing with his back to me poring over a sheaf of papers at the kitchen counter, while a stocky man of about my own age sat at the breakfast bar, hunched over a fried breakfast. My gaze passed over him and rested on the back of Matt’s head. I noticed the way his hair curled against his neck, just touching his shoulders, then tore my eyes reluctantly away, reminding myself that he was part of all this … whatever this was. And Calum was at home probably anxiously awaiting my return.

Switching my attention to the man, who definitely wasn’t the Kevin I remembered, I watched as he scooped egg yolk onto the fried bread and forked it into his mouth with un -disguised relish. He had the same reddish, curly hair as Kevin had had and the same pale face, sharp nose and freckles, but there the similarity ended.

Inching further into the room I stood awkwardly, not really knowing what to say. Shifting from one foot to the other, I managed what I hoped was a reasonably bright sounding, ‘Hi.’

I couldn’t have elicited a more dramatic reaction if I’d pulled the pin on a hand grenade and rolled it into the middle of the room. The man passing as Kevin looked up and stared at me. For a couple of seconds his eyes fixed on mine and then, as if in slow motion he dropped his fork onto the plate with a clatter, splattering drops of egg yolk onto the work top. He shot to his feet, eyes and mouth gaping and backed away from me as if expecting me to explode into a thousand tiny pieces.

Chapter Eight (#ulink_00073d46-aa43-5cbd-a457-2e6243e2a1c3)

Kevin stood there, ready for flight, his eyes squinting shortsightedly as though he ought to be wearing spectacles. He seemed to be taking in every minute detail of my appearance; my face, hair, the jumpsuit, right down to my bare feet. Eventually he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and swallowed hard. ‘Michaela? Is it really you?’

He was a good actor – I had to give him that. His reaction had shocked me almost as much as I had seemed to surprise him. Having recoiled several steps when he’d leapt up, I held my ground near the foot of the stairs and returned his scrutiny, taking in his features and comparing them with the Kevin I knew. There was a little fleshy padding on his face and chin, which seemed to round off a narrow angular jaw. The extra weight on his face and body made him look altogether chunkier and more solid. This was a pretty good impression of what a scrawny teenager might look like as a mid-twenty-something who hadn’t taken very good care of himself.

Clever.

Kevin approached slowly, his eyes taking on a gleam of excitement. ‘It is you, isn’t it? But where have you been? What did they do to you? Have you been kept in some sort of stasis? How did you get away?’

I glanced towards Matt and it was then that I saw what was written on the top of the pile of papers he’d had spread out in front of him. They looked like printouts from computer websites and the words that caught my eye, making my stomach churn afresh, were, ‘Unexplained Abductions’ and ‘People who have disappeared’.

I sincerely hoped that Matt and Kevin were not going to try and convince me that I’d been abducted by aliens.

Kevin was still staring at me with a look of wonder on his face.

‘I told you.’ He turned to Matt with a grin of triumph. ‘Everyone had me down as some sort of weirdo, but I was right all along.’

‘Not everyone thought you were a weirdo,’ Matt qualified. ‘There’s still quite a following out there for the abduction theory and the newspapers certainly latched onto the idea for a while.’

‘But why didn’t you tell me she was back? How long have you known?

‘Only since last night,’ Matt glanced at me apologetically. ‘Michaela rang me from the Royal Oak and I brought her back here so she could get a good night’s sleep. She didn’t want me to take her to the police station and I thought she needed time to adjust before announcing her return.’

Kevin clutched his head. ‘Man, are you telling me no one knows she’s back yet?’

Matt shook his head. ‘Just you and me and the landlord of the pub, though I don’t think he figured out who she was.’

I looked from one of them to the other, wondering how they expected me to believe such nonsense. I cleared my throat. ‘Excuse me, but I’d quite like to go home now – if you don’t mind.’

‘Aren’t you going to tell us what happened to you?’ Kevin had seated himself back on his stool and was picking up pages of the printouts. He waved a couple at me. ‘We’ve waited six and a half years wondering how the hell you disappeared so completely.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I said huffily. ‘Yesterday I jumped out of an aeroplane and when I landed I found the airfield deserted and in apparent disrepair. But then you know that, don’t you?’

Kevin looked at Matt, who shook his head. Turning back to me, he raised his eyebrows and his voice came out almost as a squeal. ‘You mean you have no idea where you’ve been?’

I frowned, annoyed with myself for falling into the trap of forgetting to go along with their bizarre stories. ‘Look, a joke’s a joke, but I really do just want to go home.’

A look of concern crossed Matt’s face and he pulled out a stool. ‘Come and sit down, Michaela. Have some breakfast at least, you must be starving.’

I sat, partly because my legs were wobbling and partly because I realised I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten since lunch in the mess room yesterday.

‘What would you like, fruit, yoghurt?’

How did he know what I normally liked for breakfast, I asked myself? My eyes wandered longingly to the bacon and eggs however, and Matt laughed, turning to the frying pan where he laid out a row of bacon slices, which began to sizzle mouth-wateringly.

Kevin took the opportunity to push the paper entitled, ‘People who have disappeared’, under my nose. ‘You’re not the only one to have vanished without trace over the years’. He ran a stubby finger down the long list. ‘Look, people have been disappearing for centuries.’

I felt my eyes stray towards the list. It began with an account of the disappearance of Nefertiti, royal wife of the Pharaoh Akhenaten of Ancient Egypt in 1336 BC and continued with page upon page of unexplained disappearances right up to October 2008. Sifting through the pages I found an account of my own reported disappearance in 2002.

‘Well they’ll have to update their list now, won’t they?’ I shook my head and stuck out my chin. ‘Whether or not I was perceived to be missing when this list was compiled, I’m certainly not missing now.’

‘This is extraordinary!’ Kevin breathed, rising to his feet and peering at me from every angle.

Kevin fished in his pocket and produced a mobile phone. ‘Do you mind if I take a few pictures of you, maybe shoot a short film as you are now?’

I was puzzled. ‘Where’s the video camera?’

Kevin laughed. ‘This is the camera. It’s also my mobile and I can pick up emails on it too.’ He pressed a few buttons and showed me how it worked.

I frowned. How had he got hold of technology like that? And it was all so small, not like my chunky mobile phone which I had left in my bag. Before I could protest, Matt pushed a plate of food in front of me and I picked up the knife and fork trying to ignore the nagging doubts that crowded into my head. Not only had both Matt and Kevin visibly aged, but it seemed technology had moved on too. No matter how I tried to deny it, everything kept pointing to the fact that something terrifying and inexplicable had occurred.

Kevin was holding the tiny mobile towards me, but I held up my hand. ‘Please, don’t.’

‘Enough, Kevin,’ Matt’s voice was calm but authoritative. ‘There’s an awful lot for her to take on board. You can collect evidence later. Let her eat in peace.’

I finished the food in record time. Although famished, I kept thinking about Calum and Abbey and my mum and dad. Whether there was any truth in what Matt and Kevin were telling me or not, my family would be worried that I hadn’t returned home last night at least. Glancing at my watch again, I pictured Calum trying to get Abbey ready for school; he’d have to make up her lunch box himself and was probably cussing at my absence. Wondering also about why my parents hadn’t answered the phone the night before, I pictured Dad getting ready for a day at the bank where he had been manager for ten years; Mum rushing round getting their breakfast so they could eat together before he walked to the station. They would probably be talking about me, wondering why I hadn’t reported in to tell them how the charity jump had gone.

I pushed the empty plate away with a sigh. ‘I must ring Calum and my parents and let them know I’m OK.’

‘Your parents? Didn’t Matt tell …?’ Kevin began.

He broke off abruptly.

My head shot up. ‘What? What haven’t you told me?’

‘Nothing,’ Matt said hastily. ‘Look, I’ll drive you to Calum’s house and we can talk on the way.’

Deciding he’d tell me anything he wanted in due course, I finished the meal with a pile of toast and marmalade and another cup of tea.