Florence ran all the way home. The chill air scraping the back of her throat, and the pulsating of her heart against her sternum, and the searing pain in her thighs focused her. With every pound of her feet on the pavement she beat out the ideas the Outsider had planted. Dangerous ideas.

“Flo? What happened to you?” Her mother said when Florence opened the front door. Her hands twisting around themselves, her mother strode towards her, the veiled alarm on her face increasing. “Why’re you so wet?”

“Wet?”

She came forwards, “You’re soaking. Quick, go change your clothes before you catch a cold.”

At her words, Florence became aware of her hair slick to her skull and plastered against her forehead, and the front of her clothes, exposed by her flapping raincoat, sticking to her. She sneezed. Under her mother’s urging she hurried upstairs.

In her bedroom, Florence dumped her dance bag down and changed into a set of warm fuzzy pyjamas – it was barely three in the afternoon, but the orange and pink striped fluff helped keep her mind off bad things. She sank onto her bed, jamming in her earphones and shuffling through her iPod library. Electronic beats filled her ears. She focused on relaxing each part of her body.

Not thinking of Ada’s father’s earnest, pained face.

Not thinking about her ‘brother.’

A knock came on the door. “Flo? Can I come in?”

She pulled her earphones out and sat up as her mum pushed the door open, “What is it?”

“Can’t I come and see my darling daughter for no reason?” Her mother sat down beside her and pulled her into a sideways cuddle.

Florence leaned on her shoulder, breathing in the familiar floral perfume (no jasmine, and notes of spring).

“Everything went okay at dance practice today, right? Nothing happened outside?”

Dance class was fine, but... She wanted to tell her about the Outsider and his ridiculous claim that she had a brother, but something held her back. “Like what?”

“Nobody said anything strange to you?”

“I met the Outsider girl – Ada – on the main street.” Florence said tentatively, tracing the stripes on the duvet cover with her finger.

“She didn’t say anything, did she?” Her mother clutched her arm.

Florence shook her head, then nodded.

“What did she say?” her eyes flashed with anger – not directed at her but the Outsiders.

“Not Ada. Her father. He said...” She gulped, “He said I had a brother.”

She giggled. Nervously.

It was so stupid. How could her mother not know if she had a son?

“He told you that, too? Don’t listen to him, Flo, he’s crazy.” Her mother stared her straight in the eye, her hands on her shoulders.

Too?

“He came here?”

“Yes. We used to be well acquainted. I don’t suppose you remember – it was, oh, five years ago now – but he came to the village and we got to chatting one day at your dance class. He seemed like a nice person, as far as Outsiders go.

“But I hadn’t expected that now he’s also spreading these ludicrous claims that Dad and I have a son!” Her mum rose from the bed in agitation. “He came here ranting and raving about this supposed ‘son’ we have, demanding to know where he was and what we’d done to him. What we’d done to him! As if we were criminals!”

Florence remembered the potted laceleaf – a gift to her parents. She snorted. Getting to her feet, she wrapped her arms around her mother, hugging her.

Her mother squeezed her back. “Don’t listen to anything he says Flo – how could your father and I not know if we had a son? What rubbish!”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“I know. Don’t worry, mum.”

The house was empty when Florence awoke the next morning. The hollow silence of undisturbed air expanded in the corridor as she padded past the locked door; it followed her down the stairs and into the kitchen lit by the chill winter light that stripped everything of colour. The kitchen was tidy in an unwelcoming, you-missed-the-crowd kind of way, a single post-it note stuck on the counter by the sink.

Gone to farmers market, then going to see Imogen, back sometime about 4.

So, she was looking at a whole day alone. The ticking of the clock above the door to the utility echoed against the tiled walls (she hadn’t realised it sounded like it was going to break the next tock quite so much): it was five to ten.

Florence put the kettle on and dropped two slices of bread (white, from the freezer – Mr. Ackley had sadly won the war on convincing her parents on the superiority of whole-wheat) into the toaster, slathering them with butter and marmalade when they popped up and stewing her tea to an extend that would make her father wince.

Placing them on the crumb-free dining table, she sat for a moment. It was too quiet. She turned the radio on. It dropped in and out – fragments of hymns mixed with staticky news reports and segments of The Archers. Apparently, it was now changing frequencies in addition to having poor reception. The BT engineers had excelled themselves. She turned it off.

To distract herself, Florence planned out her time. Today was the day Elliot went to the Abandoned Houses which would take care of the afternoon, but there were four hours until then. She dumped her empty plate and mug into the sink and headed upstairs.

Given the state of the radio, the TV was out; dance practice… was fun, but she wasn’t in the mood. She wandered out of the bathroom after brushing her teeth and stood like a ghost in the middle of her room.

The thing that she didn’t want to think about pressed itself into her mind. Why it was such a big deal, she couldn’t say. They’d agreed, hadn’t they, that the Outsider was mad? Nobody else in the village had ever mentioned a brother – the fact that she was an only child was brought up several times per conversation with the old women (the birth rate was going down). Her parents didn’t remember; she had no recollection whatsoever. In a situation where one person remembered something that no one else did, he was the crazy one. Not them.

She sat down at her desk, looking out of the sash window they could never quite get the mould out of to the towering pine trees above the roofline. It was bothering her.

So, she would simply have to get it to un-bother her. She drummed the desk with her fingers: how could you prove that somebody didn’t exist?

Her eyes skimmed over her the messy piles of clothes on the floor. Her mind was a mess. She turned and sat directly at her desk – it was clear apart from a pencil put and a framed picture. It was from a garden party they’d had last summer at Elliot’s house; his mum grabbing his ear and threatening him with a rolling pin as he grimaced at the camera, her own parents wearing silly hats and grinning, and herself, laughing at Elliot’s plight. No brother in sight.

Evidence number one! None of their family photos featured an unidentified fourth person. She didn’t even need to go and check: she walked past them every day. Secondly… she forced herself to stop tapping the desk as she cast her mind around.

Right! Their house had only two bedrooms: hers, and her parents. This had been her room since forever – there was even a dip in the wall from when she’d attempted a cartwheel in her room when she was nine and chipped the plaster. It was impossible for her parents to force their (supposed) son to sleep in the living room – they’d rather move house. And yet, here they were, living in a two-bedroom terrace.

Florence wanted to borrow Elliot’s stupid QED face: she had evidence to show she had no brother. Jumping up from her desk chair she did a congratulatory dance around the room, then went out to look at her parents’ room, basking in the glory of scientific evidence.

All was right with the world. The Outsider had Lied.

She turned, as light as air, thinking she might try her luck with the internet and watch some dance videos when her eyes fell on the door beside hers.

She paused mid-step.

The grin on her face slipped a few degrees.

Very slowly, as if it were some ferocious beast waiting to pounce, Florence edged down the corridor, her back flat against the wall, until she was directly in front of the locked door. It was perfectly ordinary, if a little dusty. The same cherry frame and door with four inset panels.

Her heart began to bang to an executioner’s beat. She tried to remember: there must have been one time someone went in – even the dreaded attic was opened up once a year to get the Christmas decorations out – but drew a blank slate. She couldn’t remember her parents ever opening the door. It was strange, now she thought of it, that they should prefer the attic to keep things in, when they had this storage room here. Her stomach dropped slightly at the thought.

She took a deep breath. Her fingers trembling, she stretched out a hand to the doorknob. The brass handle was cold to the touch, and slightly gritty.

It was ridiculous. The door was locked. She wouldn’t be able to get in.

Her breath hitched in her chest. She twisted the handle to the left, waiting for the lock to catch, to feel some resistance. But it turned smoothly under her hand, letting out a sibilant click. She let go and the door swung inwards.

The locked door… wasn’t locked.

Musty air spilled out, reminding Florence of the time when she went through her grandmother’s wardrobe after her death – the piles of clothes had moulded in the damp weather and the smell had stuck to her for a week like it was chemically bonded to her skin. She wrinkled her nose.

Heavy black curtains were pulled tightly shut over the window and the light trickling in from the corridor was enough to make out the looming shapes of a wardrobe and a bed, but nothing more.

The ceiling lamp flicked on without delay when Florence tried it.

Under the homely warmth of the yellow light, Florence stared around at the room. It was unmistakeably a teenage boy’s bedroom.