The Ghost Garden

Leo Walker stayed in hospital for two whole weeks. The only person who visited him was Mrs Walker. The twins weren’t allowed to go with her, but they tried to sneak into the back of the motorcar when their grandmother wasn’t looking.

“They’re a pair of pests,” Millie exclaimed. She was watching the twins’ antics from the kitchen window one morning as Fran sat at the table, downing a glass of milk. “Who’d hit their brother so hard as to break his leg, eh? It’s wickedness.”

“That Archduke someone or other?” Millie asked. “Oh, it was shocking. He and his wife were killed in cold blood, and in public too. It was in the paper last week.”

Fran’s family didn’t read the newspaper, but she agreed it sounded a grim story. “Seems a funny thing to fight about, even so,” Fran replied.

“Oh, Leo’s forever talking about Germany getting too powerful and Russia not liking it,” Millie told her. “He thinks there’s going to be a war soon, and that’s scared Jessie.”

Millie’s face grew softer. “Ah, the wee thing loves her father. He’ll have to go off and fight if there’s a war. Evan’s worried about it too.”

“True.” Millie sighed. “But I don’t suppose Leo meant to upset his sister. It’s just that he often struggles to say the right things.”

Fran knew what that felt like. She was also still troubled by what had happened to Leo’s leg. That perhaps – somehow – it was her, not Jessie, who was to blame.

Over the next few days, whenever she saw Jessie and Evan, Fran was tempted to ask after Leo. But the twins were always too busy throwing sticks or chasing pigeons across the lawn, or generally making noise. Anyway, Fran knew it was a silly idea, really – too silly to try to explain to anyone, especially the twins. Fran wasn’t the person who’d whacked Leo with a cricket bat, and the bone she’d found in the potato patch probably wasn’t even a human one. Yet the two things had happened just minutes apart, and this was the point she kept coming back to.

What helped Fran was keeping busy in the gardens, and in full summer there was always plenty to do. It was during the second week of Leo’s hospital stay that Fran began to notice her father acting oddly. She kept catching sight of him leaning on his spade, drifting off into his own little world. It was as if her father had something on his mind too.

He pushed his cap up and blinked. “Onions, I think,” her father replied. “Yes, Millie said she wanted onions.”

There were two rows of onions along the back wall of the garden, their green tops withered from the sun. To the right were the potatoes. The bone was still there somewhere, lying under the soil, but Fran was determined not to think about it. She was shaking the excess mud from the last onion when something tumbled to the ground.

Fran mistook it for a white stone at first – until she caught it with her boot. The object flipped over. It wasn’t a stone at all but something shaped like a tiny baby. Fran picked it up warily, with the bone incident still vivid in her head. The baby was about the length of her little finger and made of smooth white china. It was sweet, really. Fran put it in her skirt pocket to show Millie.

“Why that’s a Frozen Charlotte!” Millie laughed when she saw it. She explained the dolls were popular little trinkets. They’d been named after a girl who’d been too vain to dress sensibly on a sleigh ride and had died of the cold. It was just the sort of creepy story Millie loved to share. “It’s like the one I stir into the cake at Christmas,” Millie added, “so it’s a treat for anyone who finds it in their slice.”

Millie peered closer at the figure in Fran’s upturned hand. “Don’t think so. It looks older – probably from the last century. Finder’s keepers, that’s what I say.”

Later that afternoon, Fran’s mother made an announcement.

Fran had sensed something was going on the moment she’d come indoors. The table had been laid with her mother’s special tablecloth, the one with butterflies sewn along the edges, which normally only came out for birthdays. There was cake too, as well as bread and butter. Fran’s mother was wearing a pretty blouse tucked into a rather tight skirt. It was odd for Fran to see her mother without her pinny.

“You see, the thing is, love,” her mother started, paused, then said in a rush, “it seems you’re going to have a little brother or sister soon.”

Fran frowned at her plate. Her mother was having a baby? Wasn’t it a bit late for that? There’d be such an age gap between the baby and Fran. A baby would be so small. So noisy. Fran would be expected to play with a brother or sister, to look after them, to actually like them. She felt a pang of pity for Leo Walker and thought how hard it must be for him, with the twins.

Fran’s mother and father were waiting for her to say something. Her father was smiling proudly. Fran couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked so relieved, so happy. This was probably why he’d seemed distant before in the garden.

“You’ll be a wonderful big sister, I know you will,” her mother said. She took Fran’s hand and squeezed it fondly. Her father stood up and kissed the top of her head.

But it wasn’t just about the baby – at least, not the one growing in her mother’s belly. What troubled Fran was the china figure in her skirt pocket. Twice recently Fran had discovered something in the garden. And those somethings had predicted future events. First Leo’s broken leg and now her mother having a baby. Even if they were just coincidences, it was spooky. Fran dreaded to think what she might find next.