‘You look tired,’ Polly says. ‘How are you sleeping?’
What she means is, you look like the sad ghost that haunts a Victorian asylum, babe, Mischa says. And not in a good way. I’m saying this with love, you know that. But maybe brush your hair once in a while? And could you not blag some concealer from somewhere? Your eyebags literally look like Danny’s when he got hit in the face by that cricket ball that time.
‘I’m sleeping fine,’ I lie.
Polly and I have met outside today at her suggestion, maybe because she thinks fresh air will do me good or maybe she can’t stand being in her tiny, messy, damp-smelling office with those windows that only open half a millimetre.
She sits down on a bench and gestures to me to join her.
‘It’s good to be outside, eh?’
It’s cold, but just being in the sunlight, among green, growing plants rather than quietly desiccating ones is an improvement, I have to admit.
We sit quietly for a while, as if we’re just people rather than interrogator and victim.
But it can’t last. Eventually she will ask, and I must answer.
After that first day in the village, I slept. For days, maybe even weeks, I wasn’t sure. I slept most of the time. It was like I had to just not be for a while, like I’d used up my lifetime supply of being and now it was time to stop. I didn’t want to go out even into the garden. I’d watch Billie playing outside from the bedroom window, and I’d look out to the forest beyond, and then I’d close the curtains and lie down and sleep again.
I dreamt sometimes, though I could only remember glimpses of my dreams afterwards. The weird blonde family on the green singing a song I was supposed to know the words to; Danny wearing a surgical mask, trying to say something I couldn’t hear; the flat Dad and I had lived in with Mum when I was little, hiding the pieces of something precious I’d broken—When I woke, I couldn’t remember what it was but I could still feel the panic and shame of it. What had I broken? I was damp with sweat.
As I lay in Mum’s old room, Billie would appear at the bedside, to sing me a song she’d just made up or tell me about a fox she’d seen in the garden or to ask me whether I thought it would be more fun to be a ginger cat or a magpie. We folded more cranes. We wished.
Shaun would bring me tea and bowls of porridge, or stewed fruit, or rice and beans. I’d promise to get up and help more tomorrow.
‘You’ve been through a lot,’ he said. ‘You need to recover. Let yourself heal.’
Mischa said, You’re like a wrinkly old tortoise all tucked in its cardboard box for winter.
I ignored her.
Okay, fine, she said. Not a tortoise then. A seed. You’re like a seed in the ground. You’ve got a load of life inside you but no one can tell. Not even you.
Better, I said.
Just don’t forget to come out when it’s spring, babe, yeah? No one wants to live in the dark for ever.
As the days grew longer my energy began to return and I stretched my tortoise neck out of the cardboard box. I got up. I got dressed. I started, slowly, to be again.
Only inside the house though. Shaun told me he’d had a visit from Imogen Glass two weeks after my arrival to see if I was still there.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said, what a shame, you’ve just missed her, she’s gone to stay with cousins in Great Yarmouth.’
‘Why Great Yarmouth? Where even is Great Yarmouth?’
‘I dunno,’ Shaun said. ‘First place that popped into my head. She looked at me like I was lying, but then she always does. So nothing new there.’
‘Do you think she’ll be back?’
‘Knowing her, I’m sure she’ll make trouble if she can,’ Shaun said. ‘But you let me handle her. Nothing for you to worry about, love. But, like I said, you’re going to have to stay in the house.’
My new, strange life navigating Grandpa’s unexpected shifts in time and place, never venturing beyond the garden, soon became normal and took on its own rhythm. In the mornings, Grandpa usually had more energy and could remember more and I’d sit with him and chat. He often thought I was Mum. The first time he called me Seren I froze, unable to speak. The strangeness, the wrongness of it. Over time I minded less. Perhaps I almost liked it, a connection between Mum and me that I’d never had before. I grew curious about her, about her life here when she was my age. I’d never thought about it before. There were so many things I wanted to ask Grandpa. Was I like her? What was her favourite movie? Who were her friends? A million other things. All of them part of the one big question, I suppose: why had she left? Perhaps by understanding her better I could understand that. Why had I never asked him before? It was too late now.
In the evenings, I’d help Shaun to invent edible meals with the ever more limited ingredients he brought back from the supermarket, and he’d tell me colourful stories of his past, the village tearaway who’d arrived from Liverpool to live with a dad he didn’t even know and who had never fitted in, and then later his life as boxer.
‘What do you say to Grandpa when he thinks Granny’s still alive?’ I asked him. ‘Do you lie to him? Do you pretend she’s still here?’
He thought about it. ‘It’s not really pretending,’ he said. ‘In that moment, she is still here, for him. So it’s not really a lie. Is it?’
Later we’d watch old movies from Grandpa’s DVD collection. Sometimes there were power cuts in the evenings and we’d play Scrabble or card games by candlelight.
I missed Dad so much those evenings. He’d have loved them. I told Shaun that Dad was even more competitive than him.
‘I’m sorry, love,’ Shaun said. ‘You must miss him so much.’
I had to pretend then that I’d left something in the kitchen because I didn’t want Shaun to see me cry.
I didn’t ask Shaun why we were getting power cuts. I didn’t ask about what was happening in London, about what Dad had said, about the army and Knight and the opposition. I never watched or listened to the news. Words escaped sometimes from the kitchen or the sitting room – economic sanctions martial law attempted coup dissident groups another night of rioting clampdown – and they were like gunshots going off in my head. My ears rang, my chest constricted, I had to get away from them.
I didn’t even ask Shaun about what was happening in the village. I pretended the world ended at the garden gate.
Time stood still.
At last, I grew restless. Through the window I saw blossom in the trees and hedges and flowers blooming all over Grandpa’s wild garden.
‘Can we go into the forest?’ Billie asked.
It was what I wanted too.
I wanted to go to Mum’s hut.
Shaun wasn’t keen but I begged him. ‘Okay,’ he said at last. ‘Most of the forest is off limits for the villagers now. The powers that be want to keep people where they can see them. So you should be okay. Just stay right away from the path and the kids’ playground. That’s the only bit of the forest villagers are allowed into. You don’t want anyone to report you. But there’s bound to be some that don’t stick to the rules so be careful.’
Billie helped me pack a bundle of fruit and some cheese that Shaun had bartered from a farmer he knew, and together we set off into the forest. We went straight to the hut. Later we brought cushions and a blanket and jars to collect things; we picked bluebells and primroses, collected pine cones and feathers. We pressed flowers in the pages of my notebook. Billie scooped up all the spiders in the hut and gave them names. We decorated the hut with paper birds and listened to the real birds singing outside. I told stories.
‘Billie was right,’ Polly says. ‘You’re good at stories.’
I say nothing.
‘It sounds idyllic.’
‘It was,’ I say.
And it’s true, almost.
One summery evening I was sitting in the garden with Shaun. We’d cooked rice with wild garlic and foraged mushrooms (which Shaun assured us he knew for sure weren’t poisonous or hallucinogenic) and we’d all agreed it was the nicest meal we’d ever cooked. Billie was in bed and Grandpa was dozing in the sitting room. Shaun was drinking home-brewed mead which he’d made with honey a beekeeper friend of his had given him. Brewing mead was a new skill Shaun had learned because the landlord of the village pub, who apparently was good friends with Imogen Glass, had barred Shaun along with anyone else he didn’t consider true members of the community.
‘Monks used to brew it in medieval times,’ Shaun said.
He poured me some but I only had a few mouthfuls as it was incredibly strong.
‘I guess medieval monks needed something to liven things up,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘You’d be surprised.’
‘Shaun,’ I said, made brave perhaps by the mead, ‘do you know if Grandpa’s been in touch with Seren recently? My mum, I mean?’ I’d been wanting to ask him for ages but always found an excuse not to. I didn’t want him to know how much I’d been thinking about Mum since I’d been here. I’d searched the hut, hoping I’d find some sign of her, something left behind, but there was nothing. I’d shown Billie the witch marks carved into trees centuries ago, told her, just as Grandpa had told me, how they were supposed to give protection against the evil spirits, witches and demons who lived in the woods. But really I’d been hoping I’d find Mum’s initials carved into the bark, just a sign that she’d been there.
Shaun looked at me carefully.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Does he know where she’s living?’
Shaun sighed. ‘I know he had an address for her when your granny died because he wrote to her. Whether she wrote back I don’t know, but she didn’t come to the funeral and he never got in touch with her again. He was very upset that she never showed up, you know.’
‘So you know her address?’
He shook his head. ‘Huw would never talk to me about Seren. He found it too hard. Sorry, love.’ I knew he really was sorry. Shaun had told me one evening while we were cooking potato surprise (the surprise being mainly cabbage, unfortunately) that his own mum had left when he was a baby and his nan had brought him up. ‘Families are complicated. Even the ones that don’t look it from the outside,’ he’d said.
‘Sometimes Grandpa thinks I’m her,’ I said.
‘I know,’ Shaun said.
‘I don’t tell him I’m not.’ I wasn’t sure whether I was asking for sympathy or forgiveness.
‘He still knows you, you know,’ Shaun said.
I nodded. I did know it.
‘Now I think of it, your granny had a box of things that were Seren’s. I found it when I was sorting out her stuff to take to the charity shop. Nothing much, like. Just a shoebox. I don’t know what’s in it. But you should have it, if you want it. Hang on, I’ll go and find it.’
As I waited for Shaun, I tried to suppress the thrill of excitement I felt at the thought of the box and what might be in it.
He reappeared sooner than I’d expected.
‘Huw hasn’t come out here, has he?’
‘No. He’s asleep in the living room, isn’t he?’
‘Not any more he’s not.’
‘Is he upstairs?’
‘I’ll check.’
Shaun came back a couple of minutes later.
‘He’s gone.’
I looked at him, trying not to panic. ‘Wouldn’t we have heard the front door slam if he’d gone out?’
Shaun looked at me. ‘The front door’s open,’ he said.
‘What?’ I said, jumping up. ‘Shit. When did you last see him? He was there when I went in to get my jumper. What time was that?
‘An hour ago?’
‘Did you see him after that?’
Shaun shook his head.
‘So he could have been gone a whole hour! Jesus, Shaun.’
‘He can’t have gone far…’
‘You don’t know that!’ My mind was racing. ‘He could have gone anywhere. How are we going to find him? I mean, he could have gone into the forest or he might have fallen—’
‘Clem,’ Shaun said, ‘stop. We’ve got to stay calm. We’ve got to think.’
‘You should call the police.’
‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘We can’t do that.’
‘Because of me?’
‘Because we don’t need to. I’ll find him.’
‘Fine. I’ll come and help.’ I moved to go into the house but Shaun put his hand on my arm to stop me.
‘Clem, you can’t.’
‘But I—’
‘Look,’ he said sharply, ‘if you get seen and someone makes a fuss, it won’t just be you who’s in trouble, will it? It’ll be Huw as well. So you won’t be helping him. You could be putting him in more danger.’
‘Than I already am, you mean?’
Shaun didn’t meet my eye. ‘I know the places he’s likely to go. I’ll find him. Seriously, Clem, don’t worry. I’ll be back before you know it.’
He wasn’t. I sat for a while in the garden thinking of all the terrible things that could have happened to Grandpa or could be about to happen to him and how they were all my fault and now I couldn’t even do anything about it.
The wind was picking up. I took the glasses inside. Shaun had been gone more than half an hour. I couldn’t bear it. I went upstairs to get a hoodie and the torch.
‘I’m just going to find Grandpa,’ I whispered to Billie but she didn’t hear me.
I’d just go up and down the track to check. I wouldn’t be long and I’d keep my hood up so no one would see me. Anything was better than just sitting there waiting.
And then, as I sat on the bottom step to put my trainers on, there was a knock on the door.
I jumped up.
But then I stopped. What if it wasn’t Grandpa? I stood for a second, paralysed, not knowing what to do.
The doorbell rang and still I stood frozen. Then I realized there was one of those peephole things so you can see who’s outside. Shaun must have fitted it.
I peered through it.
Grandpa! Relief flooded through me. But he was with someone. They stood further away, with their hood up and back to me. They looked like they were on the phone.
What should I do? I’d just have to get rid of them quickly and hope they didn’t ask any questions. I couldn’t leave Grandpa outside in the cold. He looked frailer than ever, confused in a way that was so childlike it made my heart hurt.
I took a breath and opened the door. The relief on his face when he saw me…
‘Grandpa!’ I hugged him. ‘Come in. You’re cold.’
Then the person he was with turned round and my heart flipped. It was the guy I’d last seen on the green, Jonas, that first morning in the village. The son of Imogen Glass. I half-expected him to do some kind of citizen’s arrest on the spot, but instead he just looked concerned about Grandpa.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘hi. I found Huw down the track.’
Didn’t he recognize me? I’d assumed he would, and although I was relieved, I couldn’t help feeling a tiny bit annoyed as well. Was I really that forgettable?
‘He’d got a bit confused,’ Jonas went on, ‘and couldn’t work out where he was. Easily done – it’s so dark down there with no street lights. So we decided to walk back together, didn’t we, Huw? I was just trying to call Shaun in case he was out looking for him but I can’t get a signal.’ His voice was kind and reassuring. I didn’t understand how he could be so different.
Grandpa looked blank. ‘Where’s Nancy?’ he said. ‘Jonas? Where’s Nance? I don’t know where she could have got to.’
‘It’s okay, Huw,’ Jonas said gently. ‘Don’t worry about Nancy. She’s fine.’
I looked at him, surprised, then away again. ‘Let’s get you inside, Grandpa,’ I said quickly, anxious to get him indoors where he’d feel safe and also keen to get rid of Jonas as quickly as possible.
‘Is he okay?’ Jonas said. ‘Can I do anything? I could wait with you till Shaun gets back?’
‘Thanks for bringing him back,’ I said. ‘We’ll be fine.’ I took Grandpa’s other arm and helped him in.
‘Okay,’ Jonas said in the end. ‘If you’re sure.’ He turned to go, then remembered something, reached into his pocket and took out Grandpa’s reading glasses. ‘He dropped these. I didn’t want them to get lost or broken.’
I took them without saying thank you. Why was he acting like this, like he was just a nice, normal guy? I started to close the door.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘That day I met you on the green—’
I slammed the door and then stood still for a second, trying to process it.
He did remember. The nice-guy act was just a trick.
And now he’d be heading straight back home to tell his mum.
‘Come on, Grandpa,’ I said. ‘Lean on me. Let’s get you sat down.’
I needed to get my head straight, to work out what to do. But first I needed to make sure Grandpa was okay. As we made our slow progress to the sitting room, I heard something being put through the letter box. I tensed. What was it? A warning of some kind? A threat?
Once Grandpa was settled next to the fire, reassured, with Merlin by his side, I went back to see what had come through the door. Lying on the mat was a piece of lined paper that looked like it had been torn from the notebook I’d refused to write in on the green.
It had just one word written on it.
Sorry.
By the time Shaun got back I’d warmed Grandpa up with blankets and tea and as far as I could tell he’d forgotten about getting lost.
‘Oh, thank God!’ Shaun said, and I realized he’d been a lot more worried than he’d let on. He hurried over to Grandpa, crouched down in front of him, and held Grandpa’s hand in both his. ‘You had us worried there for a minute, Huw.’
‘Did I?’ Grandpa looked pleased. ‘Well, you know, I like to keep you on your toes.’
‘I had noticed,’ Shaun said. ‘Still, all’s well that ends well, I suppose.’
‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘He didn’t come back on his own. Someone found him and brought him back.’
Shaun looked at me sharply. ‘Who?’
‘Imogen Glass’s son,’ I said heavily, knowing it was the worst possible answer.
But Shaun looked almost relieved. ‘Oh, okay. Jonas.’
‘Why aren’t you freaking out?’
‘It’s okay,’ Shaun said. ‘He won’t tell anyone.’
‘Are you crazy? He’s probably telling his mum right now.’
‘He won’t be.’
‘He’s already apologized for it!’ I waved the piece of paper at him.
‘That’s not what he means.’
‘Seriously? I think it’s pretty obvious that’s what he means.’
‘Clem, I trust him, okay?’
I stared at him.
‘What are you talking about? Have you forgotten about that first day I was here? How he threatened me? And Grandpa? Why are you acting like it’s no big deal?’
Shaun wouldn’t meet my eye and busied himself tidying up the dinner plates. ‘I’ve got my reasons.’
‘But you don’t want to share them?’
Shaun sighed. ‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow. For now, all that matters is that Huw’s safe.’
I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I was listening, waiting for a knock on the door, a shout. That day when they’d come for Claudia played out in my head. I hadn’t been ready that time. None of us had. What could I do this time if they came for us?
Nothing, that was the truth of it.
I was furious. With Jonas. And with Shaun for being so complacent. Why wasn’t he worried? If he’d had a proper reason to trust Jonas, he’d have told me. It didn’t make sense.
The more I didn’t sleep, the more feverish my thoughts became. Could I trust Shaun? I remembered the warning Jade in the shop had given me on that first day.
I thought of how Shaun got here before it even got light in the morning so he’d be here when Grandpa woke. How he’d change Grandpa’s sheets and bathe him and deal with all the gross personal stuff that I never could. How he never lost patience with him, even when Grandpa was having a bad day. How he was stretching the food to make sure we all had enough, how he never pushed me to talk about what had happened back home, or about Mum or Grandpa, but he understood anyway. I hated myself for doubting him.
‘Clem?’ Billie said sleepily in the dark.
‘Hey.’
‘The cat said the ball was his.’
I smiled. ‘You’re dreaming, B. Go back to sleep.’
She rolled over and I lay staring into the dark, listening to her breathing.
Even if he was right and Jonas wasn’t going to report us, for whatever mysterious reason, it didn’t change the fact that the danger wouldn’t go away.
The danger was real.
No. It was worse than that.
The danger was me.