The Last Days of Summer

“Everyone keeps their ghosts in the attic, Agnes. It’s the only place no one ever wants to look.”

Ghosts in the Attic, by Nathaniel Drury (1973)

I’d left a lot of stuff behind when I escaped to Scotland. I’d been living at Rosewood full time for almost two years when I left, working on a local paper nearby, and I’d accumulated a significant amount of junk that hadn’t fitted in my suitcase. If Caroline was sleeping in my attic room, then someone would have had to move my stuff to make room for her.

It was only just eight, but the day already felt warm. Sorting through the clothes I’d brought with me, I realised that the office wear I’d filled my Perth wardrobe with just didn’t fit in at Rosewood. Maybe, if I could find my belongings, there’d be some more suitable clothes there.

Eventually I settled on a pair of jeans that usually got worn with stilettos, so hung over the ends of my bare feet, and a lace and silk camisole that only normally saw the light of day through a slightly-too-sheer work cardigan I’d somehow neglected to pack. It would do until I found something else, anyway. Fixing my hair back from my face, I set out to investigate the attic.

The obvious place to start was my old room, tucked under the eaves of the house, up in the attic, so I climbed the rickety wooden staircase at the end of the corridor and knocked lightly on Caro’s door. There was no response, so I slowly turned the handle and pushed the door open, wincing at the awful creaking it made.

Luckily it didn’t matter, since Caroline was already up and out. “Probably ghost hunting,” I muttered, glancing around the room. The walls and the furniture were the same, as was the bright pink radiator I’d insisted on, installed against the only full-height wall. The other walls sloped downwards to the low window and window seat, familiar pink pillows still stacked along the wooden bench.

But there was no sign of anything that belonged to me. The brush set on the dressing table, the clothes hung over the back of the chair, the books on the bookcases, even the pictures on the wall – none of them were mine. I shut the door behind me.

There was a large storage area just along the hallway, which I remembered as dusty, stuffy and full of rotting cardboard boxes. Of course that was where they’d have stashed my stuff.

The door was unlocked, and as I pulled it towards me a rush of hot, stale air hit my lungs. With one last deep breath, I headed in, leaving the door open behind me in the hope of ventilation.

The attic was much as I remembered, and I tripped over piles of messily rolled rugs and faded cushions on my way through the box maze. On the far side of the space there was a window, and I made my way towards it, hoping it hadn’t been painted shut.

It hadn’t, and the morning air breezing in over the gardens was cool and fresh. Beating dust out of a large floor cushion, I settled down at the base of the window, and started pulling likely looking boxes towards me. As I pulled out books and pictures, the musty smell of damp paper rose up from the prematurely yellowed and crinkled pages.

Every box I looked in awakened waves of memory I hadn’t even been aware I was suppressing. A storybook Nathaniel wrote me for my eighth birthday; a pair of absurdly expensive pink heels I’d bought with my first student loan and never really worn, because they didn’t fit with the agreed student uniform of jeans and slobby jumpers; postcards of Devon from Ellie and Greg’s first holiday away together; a wire-bound copy of a series of fantastical short stories I’d written for a creative writing course as part of my degree, taking their starting points from my childhood at Rosewood. A hundred wonderful things I’d forgotten all about.

And, shoved down the side of a box of musty paperbacks, a stack of unopened letters, addressed to Ellie, in my handwriting. Still bruised from my awkward welcome home, I couldn’t quite bring myself to open them just yet. I had a horrible feeling the letters somehow wouldn’t say what I knew I’d been trying to articulate. Instead, I turned to my stories.

In the warmth of the attic, with dusty cushions at my back, I settled in and lost myself in my own tales – wincing at jarring turns of phrase, but smiling when I found something I’d forgotten, something true and real from my childhood.

I hadn’t fully remembered, for example, that each tale took a turn for the imaginary, somewhere around the second page. Forgotten that my own life hadn’t been exciting enough for me, even then. That I’d needed to pretend there was something more.

I was so engrossed in the pieces of my past, I failed to notice that my hiding place had been discovered until Nathaniel’s voice interrupted me from the doorway. “What are you reading?”

Smiling up at him, I waved the poorly printed manuscript. “Stories from a lifetime ago,” I explained, as he came closer, settling himself on a cushion opposite me. “Just some stuff I wrote for a writing class, once.”

“And here was me thinking you might be hiding,” he said, his smile a little too knowing. “Anything else worth reading in there?”

I shoved my letters to Ellie further down inside the box, and pulled out one of the birthday storybooks. The golden inked lettering on the front read The Garden Ghost. “You wrote this for me for my eighteenth, I think.” I glanced through the pages before handing it over. “The story’s a little different from the one you told Caroline last night.”

In my book, the daughter had fallen pregnant, shaming the family, but refusing to speak the name of her lover. She died in childbirth, and it was only once the child made dead flowers bloom, several years later, that John Harrow discovered the truth about his daughter and the apprentice. Which was the real story, I wondered? Or were they both just figments of Nathaniel’s imagination? I knew better than to ask. To my grandfather, truth and fiction were almost the same thing, there to be intertwined to make the best story.

I worried, sometimes, that I’d inherited that trait, only without using it to write the kind of books that won awards.

Nathaniel flicked through the book with a chuckle. “Caro’s still a little young for some stories.”

Watching him reread his own words, I remembered something that had been bothering me. “Why didn’t you tell me that you had a new assistant?”

Nathaniel looked up. “Edward? Didn’t I?” He shrugged. “No idea. I suppose that I was always more interested in what you were up to, whenever you called.”

Which was very unlike my grandfather. Nathaniel always wanted to talk about the trials and tribulations of life at Rosewood; a new assistant would normally be prime fodder.

Suddenly, I wondered what other secrets he’d been keeping, what else I’d missed. Staying in touch with Rosewood only by phone or the odd email with Dad, I’d been left out of all the day-to-day events, the little things that tied the family together – and excluded me. I’d called home, once a week on a Sunday, and spoken with Mum and Dad, with Caro, and Therese, sometimes, if she was there. Occasionally I’d shared a few words with Isabelle, too, but not often. That, at least, made more sense now. Whatever Ellie had told her about what happened, it had been enough to dig a rift between me and my grandmother that couldn’t be crossed by phone.

Nathaniel had tended to call me, erratically, as he thought of it. Sometimes we’d talk for hours, others just for a few moments. But I’d never felt that gulf between us that I’d felt with Isabelle, or even the slight distance that had grown between me and my parents, by virtue of the miles separating us, if nothing else. I’d thought my relationship with Nathaniel was unchanging and unchangeable.

But he hadn’t told me about Edward. Why? What else had he kept from me? What else had I been left out of, by being away?

Nathaniel reached out and selected another of the storybooks he’d written for me – the one he’d presented to me on my tenth birthday, whispering in my ear that the Forest Maiden of the title was really me. I’d held that secret close to my heart all year, I remembered, waiting for my next story. They were all about me, really, I came to realise, much later.

“How many of these did I write for you?” he asked, flicking through the pages.

“One a year until my twenty-first birthday.” Just five years ago. At the bottom of the pile was the board book he’d created for my first birthday, full of brightly coloured pictures of things you might find around Rosewood, each with a little rhyme after them.

“I always hoped you’d start writing your own,” he said, still staring at the words on the page. “You had such an imagination… I always thought you’d be a writer.”

“I am,” I said, amazed. Even when I’d signed up for my creative writing course, he’d never said that it was a good idea, never asked to see my coursework.

“I suppose,” he said, putting down the book and picking up the next one in the pile. “But it’s not really using your imagination, is it.”

“You never said anything.” My throat was suddenly tight at the idea that I hadn’t lived up to my grandfather’s dreams for me, even if I hadn’t known what they were. “I never thought…”

He looked up at me then, and smiled, his pale blue eyes soft. “Well, you had to choose your own path, after all.” He dropped the book back onto the pile. “I always told myself that there was time. Plenty of time for you to find your own way.”

Creaking to his feet, he bent down and kissed the top of my head. “You’ll get there,” he whispered, before turning and leaving, pulling the door shut behind him as I sat and blinked away my tears.

I emerged from the attic at mid-morning, by which time the rest of the house was busy running errands for Isabelle. I, however, had more important things to attend to.

If I wanted to belong at Rosewood again, to be a part of family life once more, there was only one place for me to start: with my sister. I needed to know who knew our secrets, and who might forgive me, even if Ellie couldn’t. I needed to know if I really could come home again. Even if that answer hurt.

“Have you seen Ellie?” I asked Mum, when I stumbled across her tying ribbons on menus in the kitchen. She was dressed in a long, tie-dye skirt and bright pink T-shirt that contrasted starkly with the elegant cream and gold menus.

Mum looked up sharply. She might look the woo-woo hippy part, but when it mattered her edge was knife-keen. “I’m not sure now’s the right time, sweetheart. Your sister’s very busy today.”

“I just want to talk to her about something,” I said, wondering again how much everyone at Rosewood knew about the situation.

Mum sighed, a proper world-weary parental sigh. “Why don’t you and I have some tea, eh?” And, without waiting for a reply, she stood and crossed the kitchen, flicking the kettle switch and reaching for the cups and saucers. Resigned, I took a seat at the kitchen table and examined the menus.

“Kia,” she said, as we waited for the kettle to boil. Then she sighed, a sure sign we were getting to the important stuff. “I don’t know what happened between you and your sister, and I’m not sure that I really want to. I can make certain assumptions, and one of those is that Greg’s involved somehow.”

I sat very still, and very quiet, privately hoping that if I didn’t say anything, she might forget that I was there and wander off to annoy someone else.

But she went on. “Whatever happened, it was two years ago. And while I do sincerely hope that you and Ellie will make up, of course I do…”

Mum sighed again. “Exactly.” Picking up a ginger cookie, she placed it on a saucer and put it in front of me. “And perhaps it’s not a good idea to force it. You know Ellie; she has to come to her own decisions, when she’s ready to make them. I think you have to let this happen in its own time.”

“You’re saying I just have to wait.” Which was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do. I’d let it fester for two years, after all. How much more time could I reasonably spend avoiding it?

The secret my sister and I were keeping had kept me away from my home, my family, for too long already.

“I think so, yes.” She leant forward and patted my hand, before pouring a splash of hot water into the pot to warm it. Her voice returned to its normal, bright and bubbly tone, as she said, “But that means you have time to tell me all about this Duncan, instead, doesn’t it?”

I mentally revised my list of ‘last things I want to do’ to include ‘discussing my casual lover with my mother.’

“Look, Mum, really, I get what you’re saying. But like you said, everyone’s very busy today – all hands on deck for the party, and all. And I did promise I’d help.” I shoved the ginger cookie in my mouth. “Thanks for the biscuit!” I said around it, and hurried back into the hallway and closed the door before she could object again. It was quite obvious that Mum was firmly on Ellie’s side – which wasn’t a surprise. That was the way it had always been: Mum and Ellie, me and Dad. Caro, on the other hand, was her own, complete, confident, perfect person with the loving support of all of us – the benefit of being the baby of the family.

I didn’t blame Mum for siding with Ellie. I just wished she understood that I was trying to make things better, not worse.

After some scouting around, I found Ellie in the Orangery, surrounded by sugared almonds and tiny cardboard handbags and top hats. She wore a dark pink skirt with a paler heart print all over, and a T-shirt in a matching rose shade. Her pale hands moved quickly, with efficient finesse, as she folded the table favours.

“Why don’t I help you with that?” I asked from the doorway. Ellie looked up, her heart-shaped face full of surprise that quickly turned to doubt. “It’ll be much quicker with two of us, and I’m sure you’ve got lots of other things to be getting on with.”

Before she could object, I dropped into the wicker chair opposite her and prepared to assemble.

“You take handbags,” Ellie said pushing a pile towards me. She still looked suspicious, and she wouldn’t meet my eyes, letting her hair fall in her face instead. “I’ll take top hats.”

I waited until we’d reached some sort of a rhythm, until our hands were folding bags and hats on autopilot, and the stick-on ribbons were no longer sticking to everything but the favours, before I broached the subject I wanted to discuss. Even then, I thought it best to come at it from an angle.

“Why on earth does Isabelle want table favours, anyway?” I poured exactly four sugared almonds into my current cardboard handbag, folded the top to seal it, then reached for the tiny gold bow to stick on the top. “She does realise this isn’t an actual wedding, right?”

“Maybe she feels she missed out,” Ellie said, not looking up from her cream cardboard top hat. “You know, eloping and everything. She never got a proper wedding.”

“We didn’t have to go through all this for their ruby wedding,” I grumbled, as a sugared almond escaped my grasp and fell down the side of the seat cushions. I recovered it, and rubbed it against my jeans to get rid of the fluff, before dropping it into the bag. It wasn’t as though anyone actually ate the things, anyway.

“But fifty years, that’s really something.” Ellie added another perfect top hat to the box, and reached for the next one. “It makes sense that they want to celebrate.”

“I bet you and Greg will be doing this in forty-eight years’ time,” I said, trying to sound excited at the prospect. “The big party, I mean, here at Rosewood, with table favours and fruit cake.”

Ellie looked up and caught my eye for the first time since I’d come home. “I hope so,” she said very quietly.

Her eyes were huge under her tidy blonde fringe, I realised. Huge and sad. As if just being near me was painful to her.

Maybe I didn’t need to search for answers. Maybe that pain was all the answer I needed.

But it was a reaction, at last, even if not one I wanted. At least I knew she felt something about me being there. She hadn’t cut me out of her life – out of her heart – completely. I wasn’t sure I should feel so relieved to cause my sister to suffer.

My thoughts and words started to run together. “I mean, you and Greg, you’ve already made it two years, that’s more than lots of couples make it, isn’t it? So, really, you should…”

“Stop it.” Ellie’s voice was quiet, but when she looked up, her eyes were blazing. “Just…stop it, Kia.”

“No. You don’t get to comment on my marriage. You don’t even get to have an opinion on my relationship with my husband.” Every word was louder than the last, ringing out around the Orangery, battering their way into my head. I froze, hands still wrapped around a stupid cardboard handbag. This wasn’t the Ellie I remembered at all. Had I done this to her? Awakened this anger? “Whatever you might have thought two years ago, there is no place for you in my marriage, or with my husband. You’re not friends, you’re not confidants, you’re nothing. Do you understand that?”

“Don’t tell me what you wouldn’t,” Ellie said, bitterness seeping through her voice. “You already did. Remember?”

Shocked silence fell between us. Of course I remembered. Even if I’d spent two years trying to forget.

“I’m sorry,” I said, for what had to be the thousandth time. More, if you counted the letters she’d never read. “I…I’m not back here to see Greg. Or to cause any trouble. I know I did an unforgivable thing; I get that. I just…”

“You forgave Greg.” I didn’t mean to whine, didn’t mean to imply that she was being unfair or that I deserved the same. But the words came out all the same. And as I said it, I realised I wanted to know why. Why did he get to stay here, to be part of my family, to live the life he’d always wanted, while I was exiled to Perth to do penance?

“Greg told me the truth,” Ellie said. “After…it happened. He came to me, practically on his knees, and told me the truth. He told me he couldn’t marry me, because he didn’t deserve me. Did you know that?” I shook my head. I’d been too preoccupied with my own fate to wonder exactly what happened between Ellie and Greg. “He was ready to walk out, leave his home and his family and his job, his life, because of what you two did.”

“Because I chose to forgive him.” Ellie leant across the table between us, hammering her point home. “I chose to go through with the wedding, even knowing that he’d slept with my sister just two days before, because I loved him. I still love him. I knew he truly regretted what he’d done, and I knew that together, we’d be able to move past it.” She leant back, her gaze fixed on mine. “It’s taken a lot of work, a lot of talking, a lot of love, but we have. We’ve moved on, and our marriage is stronger than ever.”

“I’m glad,” I said, softly. “I’m so glad that you’re happy together.”

And that, I supposed, was my answer. As far as Ellie was concerned, there was no place for me at Rosewood.

“Who else knows?” I asked, looking down at my hands. “When…two years ago, you said you didn’t want anyone to know.”

“I was ashamed.” Ellie gave a short, sharp laugh. The sort that isn’t funny at all. “Me. I was ashamed of what you two did.”

“I know I shouldn’t have been,” Ellie replied sharply. “And when I realised that…I was able to talk about it, a little.”

“Who did you tell?” I asked, desperation leaking out in my voice. I needed to know who already knew my secrets, and who didn’t. Who I needed to explain myself to, who I needed to convince I wasn’t here to cause trouble. Mum and Dad had both said they didn’t know, and I suspected that was more because Ellie had wanted to spare them rather than because of me. But what about everyone else?

Ellie gave me a long, assessing look. Then she shook her head. “No. It doesn’t matter. It was my secret to tell too.”

“I know that. I just…I need to know. Please?” I was begging now, and I didn’t even care.

But Ellie stayed firm. Standing, she looked down at me, and said, “I’m done talking about this now.”

“No, wait!” I grabbed for her wrist and tried to hold her back. “I need to know.”

“I said I’m done.” Ellie shook me free on the last word, and I grabbed for her again.

“Saskia.” Edward’s voice wasn’t loud, exactly, but still commanding, and it made me jump, releasing Ellie as I did so. How long had he been standing in the doorway behind me? Had Ellie known he was there?

I sprung to my feet and turned to face him. “What? Did you need me for something?” I asked, unsure of what I wanted the answer to be. Part of me wanted to stay, finish the confrontation with Ellie properly. But a larger part of me was grasping for any excuse to leave, to get away from this awful, painful conversation. Even if I still didn’t know what I’d come in there for.

Edward nodded, and motioned for me to follow him, back through the hallway into the main house. I glanced back at Ellie, but she had already turned away, and was disappearing through the patio doors into the garden. The conversation was over.

Edward didn’t speak again until we were safely ensconced in the dining room, the door firmly shut behind us. He motioned for me to take a seat, and I glanced around at the huge table plan propped up against the dining table, and the stacks of golden cloth napkins and ready-shined silverware, before picking my way through to a spare dining chair. Edward, meanwhile, paced in front of me like an angry headmaster.

Then he stopped, and looked down at me. “This isn’t my place, Saskia,” he said, his voice still soft. “I know that. I’m not family, I wasn’t here two years ago, and I don’t really know anything about you, apart from what Ellie has told me.” Which was surely damning enough. “But I want you to listen to me anyway, please.”

He took a deep breath, then let it out. Shaking his head slightly, he crouched down beside me, looking up into my eyes. “Don’t try and do this now, Saskia. She’s stressed out about the party tomorrow, and it’s hard enough for her that you’re here at all. She’s trying not to be paranoid, but it’s hard, especially when she’s run ragged organising things for Isabelle.”

All of which I knew, and I wanted to talk to her anyway. I slumped against the hard chair back, gripping on to the wooden arms. “I just want to make up with her. I want to apologise, as long and as hard as necessary, until she forgives me. I want everything to go back to how it was.” And I wanted her to tell me who she’d spilled my secrets to.

Edward gave me a sad smile. “You know that’s never going to happen; it’s never going to be how it was.”

Sighing, Edward got to his feet and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Look at it this way,” he said, squinting in the sunlight streaming through the large windows. “You know what you want, and you’re going out of your way to get it, with very little success. Maybe it’s time to think about what Ellie wants for a change.”

The words hit me in the middle of my chest. “That’s a very polite way to call me a selfish bitch.”

He didn’t apologise, which I respected. “All I’m saying is, let’s get through the party first.”

“Then I’ll be on a train back to Perth and Ellie won’t have to see me again for another two years.” Because I was under no illusion that I’d be welcomed back any sooner, and just knowing that made my heart hurt.

He sighed, and pulled up his own chair. “Listen. This party is making your sister crazy. Please, for all our sakes, don’t add to that right now. Okay?”

He was right; I knew it. Timing, that was the key. There wasn’t a chance that Ellie would forgive me when she was so stressed out. But maybe once the party was a success, after a couple of glasses of champagne…maybe that was the time to try again.

Because after being back at Rosewood for only a day, I already knew I couldn’t just leave again. Not without knowing I could come back.

“How did Ellie get roped into being organiser in chief, anyway?” I asked. Maybe if I understood everything that I’d missed in the last two years, I’d be better able to find my own place there again.

“Self-preservation, mostly.” Edward shook his head, a half smile appearing on his face. “Isabelle was losing it over all the planning. She’s adamant that everything has to be utterly perfect. It’s just as well Nathaniel convinced her to elope the first time; she’d have been unbearable otherwise.”

I clasped my hands in my lap and considered how, in just a year and a half, this man had become close enough to my family to know all their quirks and secrets. And it was pretty clear that he, at least, knew my big secret, too. I hated the thought of someone I barely knew knowing the worst thing I’d ever done. No wonder he’d judged me so harshly when we met.

“Anyway, she was shrieking at your mother one day, something about the importance of centrepieces, when Ellie marched in, dragged Isabelle into the kitchen, sat her down at the table and started making lists.” Edward looked faintly nostalgic. “We were in there for three hours. I was in charge of making tea.”

“That sounds like Ellie.” But even as I said it, I realised that it didn’t sound at all like the Ellie I’d seen since I came back. It was the Ellie I remembered from five years ago. Was it only my return that had made her quiet and withdrawn? At least, until she blew up at me that morning.

“You seem to have grown very close to my sister,” I observed, trying hard not to sound too jealous. “To all my family, really.”

“I think they’ve all become a little claustrophobic, shut up in that house. Perhaps they just like having someone new to talk to.”

And it wasn’t like any of them were going to talk to me. But Ellie had clearly been talking to him. Maybe he could answer the questions I still had.

“Ellie told you…well, everything. Didn’t she? About me and…well. You know. Don’t you.”

Edward nodded, slowly. “I think it helped, having someone who wasn’t family to talk to about it.”

“But she told family too, some of them, at least.” I looked up at him. “Do you know who?”

I glanced away. “Yeah. I just…wondered.” With an all-encompassing need to know.

Edward sighed. “I don’t know who she told what. And I’m not sure it really matters. I mean, the way things are between you… I’m pretty sure they’ve all guessed.”

I covered my face with my hands, wishing I could just disappear. “Of course they have.” And that was even worse. If they were just guessing, they were making up their own stories. They didn’t know how it was, how I’d felt about Greg, or how he’d felt about me. They didn’t know how sorry I was.

I couldn’t think about it for too long, or my heart might crack from the pain of it. I needed a distraction. Fortunately, Isabelle’s party was the perfect one. Everybody would be so caught up in the party, they’d barely have time to even think about me until it was over. And by then, I’d be on a train away from Rosewood again.

Jumping to my feet I paced across the dining room, staring at the giant table plan leaning against the table. “How many people are coming to this thing?”

Edward shrugged. “A hundred or so, I think. Maybe more.” A hundred people, the biggest party at Rosewood in years, and I’d not been invited. Why on earth had I thought I needed Ellie to tell me if there was a place for me at Rosewood? The answer was painfully clear already, just staring at the table plan.

“I won’t be on here,” I said, a little sadly, running a finger across the plan.

Suddenly, Edward was at my shoulder, a pen in his hand. “You can sit with me,” he said. And, before I could stop him, he’d inked my name in on Table 1, next to his, in firm, slanted handwriting. “There. You have a place after all.”

I smiled, for the first time in what felt like hours. Isabelle was going to hate that.

Still rattled by my conversation with Edward, I made my way down to Therese’s cottage in time for tea, and found my great-aunt warming the pot. “Oh good,” she said. “I was worried I’d have to come up to the house and find you, and I really would like to stay out of Isabelle’s way today.”

“Mostly.” She flashed me a quick smile. “Isabelle and I don’t have the best track record when it comes to parties.”

I perched myself on the edge of her kitchen table, frowning. “Really? How do you mean?”

Therese waved my question away. “Oh, you know. Anyway, I’ve got your outfit for tomorrow ready.”

“Excellent.” At least I’d have something beautiful to wear while I suffered through the party. “Thank you.”

“Make the tea and I’ll fetch it,” she offered, disappearing past the trunks of clothes in the hallway, towards her bedroom.

By the time the tea had brewed and I’d tracked down some plain chocolate digestives in the bread bin, Therese had returned, suit hanger in one hand, and a pair of bottle green stiletto-heeled sandals dangling from the fingers of the other. “You’re going to sink into the grass,” she said, depositing the clothes on the table and the shoes on the chair, “but it’ll be worth it. Necklace and earrings are in the clutch bag in the holder.”

“You’re a marvel,” I said, pouring her tea. “Thank you. Speaking of, can I hold on to the blue dress from last night a little longer? I thought I’d wear it again for dinner tonight.” Dressing for dinner might have a range of meanings at Rosewood – as evidenced by Nathaniel’s tendency to come down either in a dinner jacket or a bright orange jumper – but none of the officey clothes or jeans and tops I’d brought with me felt quite right.

“Absolutely not,” Therese said, clanking her cup down on its saucer. “Wear the same dress twice in the same company? Not a chance. I’ll go find you something else.” And, digestive biscuit clenched between her teeth, she bustled back off towards the bedroom again.

I felt a bit guilty, raiding Therese’s vintage collection in this manner, but the truth was, I really didn’t want to go to this dinner as myself. I wanted that feeling I’d had the night before, with my hair curled and my lips a bright red they’d never been before. The feeling that I was someone else, watching this family I had no ties to, no obligations. No guilt, I suppose, was the main thing. I just wanted to be someone else, until I was welcome back at Rosewood as myself again.

Luckily, Therese wasn’t inclined to ask questions about my motivation; she was much more interested in helping me dress the part.

My outfit for the evening was of a later vintage than the previous one – a white, 1950s’ print dress with big red roses across a wide skirt. Therese pulled my dark hair back into a high ponytail and slicked red lipstick across my mouth. The off-the-shoulder style of the dress meant that she also confiscated my bra, leaving me self-conscious, until I put on the high red sandals and looked in the mirror; I looked like an all-American cheerleader. I looked entirely unlike myself.

Therese had chosen her outfit sympathetically, in a more sedate navy blue, but with her usual style of nipped-in waist and flared skirt. Together, we headed out to the terrace where the others were drinking gin and tonics in the early evening sunlight.

“You don’t look old enough to drink in that,” Nathaniel said, pouring me a gin and tonic anyway. He dropped a slice of lime into the glass with a flourish. He looked like he’d stepped out of a black and white movie, straight onto the Rosewood terrace. Tonight was a dinner jacket night, and I was glad I’d made the effort.

Nathaniel turned to me. “You know, even when we were children, she loved dressing up her dolls. She once cut up my school tie to make a belt for one of them. Mother was not pleased.”

“But the outfit was fabulous!” After giving her brother a kiss on the cheek, Therese breezed off to talk to Edward, who was leaning against the trelliswork at the terrace’s edge, well out of the way. He caught my eye and raised an eyebrow, staring at my bare shoulders. I looked away, staring into my glass, as I remembered he’d seen much more than my shoulders when I lost my towel on the balcony the night before. Was he remembering the same thing, I wondered? I glanced back up, but Edward had been swept up in conversation with Therese, and I no longer had his attention.

I contemplated going to try and make nice with Mum and Ellie, but then I spotted the corner of Caroline’s bright yellow sundress dress disappearing into the Rose Garden, so I headed over for some less awkward conversation instead.

“Ghost watching,” Caroline said, in a surprisingly matter-of-fact voice. “I was thinking that, since it’s summer, it doesn’t get dark until much later. But she died in winter, so maybe she doesn’t realise that. And in winter it gets dark by the time I’m finishing school, so maybe she’ll show up earlier.”

I thought about it. There was a logic, of a sort, in there somewhere. “Could work.”

“It was early morning when I saw her last time. If it was winter, it would have still been dark.” Caro had obviously put a lot of thought into this. I blinked as her words registered fully.

“Caro, have you seen things here before?” I tried to picture the figure I thought I’d seen when I arrived. Had I seen her before? Somewhere in the back of my mind was a half forgotten memory that I couldn’t quite grasp. Was I remembering something I’d seen as a child, or just the storybook that Nathaniel gave me?

Caro shrugged. “Just the ghost, yesterday morning. I never thought to look here before, until Granddad told us that story.”

“Of course. There’s the fairy ring in the woods, that you can only see when the dew’s still wet, and the tree with the man’s face – that’s only there at dusk, I think, although I’ve never checked at dawn.” She twisted on the bench to look at me. “Haven’t you?”

And suddenly it occurred to me; I had. All through my childhood. I nodded. “There was a tree with golden acorns, somewhere west of the fairy ring. And the gravestone of a giant on the path towards the village.” And a man who loved me, even though he was marrying my sister.

Caro wasn’t crazy; she was a child. And in fact, she was just the same sort of child I was – over imaginative and creative. We’d both inherited it from the same place: Nathaniel, who, for all that his books were full of human weakness, betrayals and lies – at least, according to the media – had also created wonderful tales of forest maidens and elf kings for me as a child.

Maybe Ellie had shown glimpses of it, too, when she was very young, playing with me in the woods. Maybe it was just one of those things you weren’t allowed as an adult – like playing in ball pits, or choosing from the children’s menu, or believing in Father Christmas.

Beside me, Caro sighed, as if hearing my thoughts. “It doesn’t look like she’s coming,” she said, as Dad’s voice called down to us, gathering us in for dinner.