Wish You Were Dead

3

‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep,’ Cleo said.

‘Where’ve I heard that before?’ Roy Grace asked.

‘Robert Frost, the poet.’

‘Ah.’

The woods were indeed very dark and extremely deep. Dense forest on either side of them. A creature — barely visible through the torrent of rain — shot across the road in front of the car.

‘Was that a fox?’ Cleo asked.

‘No, a werewolf!’ Bruno said.

She looked warily at the forest. ‘Kind of spooky enough — I could believe it, Bruno!’

‘You’d better!’ he said creepily.

Roy began slowing the car. ‘We’ve done over seven kilometres — you said we would see the entrance after four,’ he said. ‘Didn’t they say we couldn’t miss it?’

‘I didn’t see any sign, did you?’ Cleo asked, starting to sound tetchy.

‘Nope. We must have missed it.’

‘How?’

‘Dunno, but we must have.’ He stopped, turned the Citroën round and accelerated, heading back the way they’d come, the wipers working hard.

‘Papa, how much longer?’ Bruno asked again.

‘Done wee-wee,’ Noah announced, suddenly.

‘We’ll only be a few minutes!’ Kaitlynn said, soothing him. ‘Just a few minutes then I’ll change your nappy.’

‘I can do it when we arrive, Kaitlynn,’ Cleo said, then halted in mid-sentence and pointed ahead, to the right. ‘There! Look, entrance gates!’

Roy slowed the car right down. Two crumbling stone columns topped with round balls. Slightly rusted wrought-iron gates hung wide open, each at a wide angle. A small wooden sign that he had to drive right up close to, in order to read.

CHÂTEAU-SUR-L’ÉVÊQUE