CHAPTER 16

WHAT’S THE BUZZ?

Scurrying across the field, Brian felt a tap on his head. A drop on his shoulder, a plop on his hand: gentle at first, like a tickle of silver fingers, then harder and faster as the rain got into its stride. And now the whole sky was dissolving, dropping glittering needles down the back of his neck and through his jersey, softening the earth beneath him. Mud spat up his trouser legs as he raced towards the woods, his fear briefly quenched by the drenching.

But under the trees it came roaring back. He leaned against a trunk, itchy and shivering. His jersey steamed sourly. He peered into the gloom. Branches dripped and leaves trembled under the few fat drops that made it through. Splinters of light cracked the shadows. Memories flashed like broken glass. Mum hopping on one leg along the path. Mum hide-and-seeking round tree trunks, picking those tiny blue flowers and sticking them into her brown hurly burly of curls.

‘You did it,’ peeped Dulcie. ‘That wasn’t so hard, was it?’

‘I’m not going on down there.’ Brian nodded towards a track through the trees. Footprints dented the soft earth.

‘Why not?’ She snorted. ‘You’ve not gone down there for the last two years – and it’s hardly helped you, has it?’

The words stung him, sharp and true. The more he’d tried to bury the memory the more it had embedded, breaking the surface only in dreams but twisting and sprouting under every waking hour. There was only one way to root it out.

Have you ever looked at a scab on your knee and just had to pick it, even though you knew it would hurt like a headache in hell? Or turned on the telly to a scary film and just had to keep watching because turning it off would be scarier?

No? Well in that case you won’t understand what Brian did next. But because you’re smart and kind and a teeny bit nosey, you’ll go with him down the path of his nightmares, pushing back branches and brushing wet leaves, until you get–

‘There.’ He stopped.

Set back from the path, sucking up space and light, was a massive oak. Smaller trees stood at a respectful distance, like courtiers making way for a king.

Brian pressed a hand to his stomach. He couldn’t look at it. He couldn’t look away. His eyes took him up into branches that wriggled and explored the sky. His feet took him over to the mighty rutted trunk. He reached for a branch above his head.

‘I didn’t mean climb it!’ squeaked Dulcie. ‘The footprints go that way, along the path. We’ll lose Mr …’ She trailed off, as if suddenly realising that this was more important than following the gardener.

Brian pulled himself up into the tree. He remembered every foothold. That knot on the trunk like an old man’s knee; that crooked branch above it. Twigs scratched and leaves licked as he climbed into a secret, glass-green world.

‘Careful!’ said Dulcie as his trainer slipped on wet bark. The higher he climbed the wetter it grew, raindrops sneaking between branches and bouncing on leaves. Another branch, another heave – and there it was. He squashed into a bottom-shaped hollow and looked up.

The branch above him was grooved and wrinkled like rhino skin. Thank goodness for the rain, pressing the tears back inside his eyes. ‘That’s where she got to.’ He pointed at the branch. ‘She reached down and tried to help me up. I stretched out my arm and …’

And what? Did he actually grab her hand? That’s what his memory said: that instead of Mum pulling him up, he’d pulled her down. And that Dad, watching from the ground, had never been able to talk about what he’d seen.

But now, looking at the branch, Brian couldn’t recall the moment they’d touched. All that came back was the smile, the scream, the snap of a thousand branches. ‘I – I can’t remember exactly what happened.’

‘I can.’ Dulcie’s voice was strangely gentle.

‘What?’ He must have misheard. ‘You weren’t even there. Didn’t she take you off to climb the tree? Otherwise you’d have known that she died before I told you.’

‘No. I must’ve blocked out the terrible memory. But now it’s coming back.’ She spoke more firmly. ‘It had been raining and the bark was wet. Your mum wiped her hands on her trousers. That charged me up on her finger. I called out but she didn’t hear. I saw your hand reach up as hers went down. But before she touched you she slipped and fell.’

Rain popped on the leaves, little buttons of sound. Brian closed his eyes and tried to remember. But between Mum’s scream and that unspeakable crumple on the ground lay a shimmer of silver doubt. Could Dulcie be right?

He pulled off a leaf and crushed it in his hand. ‘But Dad. He saw everything.’

‘How do you know? Did he tell you? Did you ask?’

‘I didn’t have to. He’s been so sad and polite ever since. But underneath it’s like he’s angry, like he blames me for her death.’

‘Tell me, what could you see from the ground just now, looking up into this tree?’

‘Leaves. Branches.’

‘Lots of leaves?

‘Mmm.’

‘Lots of branches?’

‘Uh-huh.’ Brian frowned. Where was this going?

There was a sniff. ‘So. You’re telling me that you’d sooner believe the imagined report of someone who was standing on the ground and quite possibly looking elsewhere at that moment … someone who you think, but can’t be sure because you’ve never actually asked, might have seen you pull – or push, what difference does it make? – your mum to her death through a muddle of green … than the eyewitness evidence of an exceptionally smart, outstandingly attractive bee, who just happened to be sitting on the ring finger of her hand, and who now recalls perfectly the fall that left the aforesaid insect with a sore head and a bruised basitarsus.’ She paused for breath. ‘And before you ask, that’s the proper word for a bee’s thigh.’ Whether she’d run out of energy or patience, she went quiet.

Brian tried to swallow the hugeness of her words. Could it be true? Could she really have seen it all?

He tilted his head back. Rain soaked his face, sank through his skin and softened his bones. It wasn’t my fault. The words should be comforting. But they whizzed round his head, crazy and confusing. Over the last two years guilt had become a grim but reliable friend, shaping and guiding his every move. Now it was loosening like the lid on a Coke bottle, leaving him fizzy and dizzy and ready to pop. He looked up. For a second it felt as if the sky was below him: blue-white cracks in a green floor. He closed his eyes and steadied his hands on the rough bark. When the giddiness had calmed he opened his eyes and surveyed the woods from above.

Through the trees, about thirty metres ahead, stood an old cottage. The grey roof tiles, patchy with moss, gleamed darkly as the sun broke through the clouds and the rain began to ease. It was surrounded by a circular stone wall.

Brian had forgotten it was there. But now he remembered walking past it with Mum and Dad. They couldn’t see over the wall but had looked through a gap where a gate must once have been into a garden overgrown with weeds and brambles. He’d asked who lived there.

‘No one,’ Dad had said. ‘It’s been empty as long as I can remember.’

‘Who used to live there then?’

Mum had smiled and said, ‘Maybe a poor woodcutter like in Hansel and Gretel. Or maybe a prince who was cheated out of his kingdom by a wicked uncle. Perhaps he fled to the woods to live off nuts and berries because …’

‘The uncle was a wizard,’ said Brian, ‘who’d put a curse on the prince so that every night he turned into a …’

‘Woodworm,’ said Mum. ‘So at least he had plenty to nibble on.’

‘Or perhaps,’ said Dad, ‘it was someone working for the Forest Service who looked after the woods, planting trees and cutting logs and clearing paths.’

‘Party pooper,’ Mum had laughed, pelting him with leaves. But he was probably right. And now, gazing down from the tree, Brian wondered if maybe Mr Pottigrew had moved in there. Perhaps he had another job after school, tending the woods. The garden certainly looked tidier than he remembered. The weeds had been cleared. There was even a bit of a lawn. And on the far side of the cottage, furthest from the path, was a flower bed.

Brian frowned. With very strange flowers.

They were big, even from this height. To say they bloomed would give completely the wrong idea: their thin oval petals were as grey as dread and their centres were black. At one end of the flower bed stood a white box with a lid. Through the steam rising from the wet leaves it looked as if the box was trembling.

Brian eased himself out of the hollow and climbed carefully down the tree. Jumping the last bit, he stumbled forward. The earth smelled of damp decay. A twig snapped underfoot. The black rags of rooks scattered from a tree. He followed the footprints along the path towards the cottage.

‘Shhh,’ he hissed. There was a humming in his ear.

‘It’s not me.’

‘What is it then?’

‘No idea.’ Low and flat, it sounded like a distant chainsaw. Was someone cutting logs? There’d been no sign of that from the tree. His skin prickled. It felt as if the air itself was humming.

The rain had stopped completely by the time he reached the wall. The humming grew louder. It seemed to be coming from the other side. A new smell was rising on the air, thick and sweet. Brian looked further round the wall. The gap that he remembered had been filled by a solid wooden gate. It rose to the top of the wall, about a metre above his head. The gate was closed but the bolt was drawn back. In it dangled an open padlock. Maybe I can push it open. He was itching to get a closer look at those flowers.

He walked towards the gate. And stopped. What if there was something, or someone, inside that he really didn’t want to see?

As if in answer, there was a squeak. For once it wasn’t Dulcie. A bolt was sliding on the other side of the gate. Brian dived off the path. He shrank into the undergrowth, falling backwards into a bramble bush. Thorns bit his arms and snagged his hair. He clamped his lips over the squeal that mustn’t escape as the gate opened and Mr Pottigrew came out.