Chapter Eight

Mam-gu’s words have shaken me to the bone but I pretend I’m OK and slip outside. Dad is banging away at the engine of Wiley Riley’s gold VW beetle, which died as soon as it got here.

‘It’s working again.’ He raises a spanner triumphantly and I pull my best leave-me-alone-or-else face. Now I’m thirteen I can put a lot of my moods down to hormones. I watch him test-drive it to the edge of the field where it conks out.

When I get inside, Sherlock comes for a pat, then returns to Mam’s room, where she has gone back to bed. She is sleeping all the time at the moment. Even when she first gets up she complains that she’s exhausted. I check on her through the crack in the door. Snow is curled up next to her, transfixed by that rancid doll which she cradles close. The suitcase I hid it in has been left open on the kitchenette counter.

Snow’s light box is still on and there are pieces of sea glass scattered all over the floor. She must have been collecting them again to have so many, which is annoying as hell seeing as it was my idea in the first place. I pick them up and put them into an empty Quality Street tin we’ve emptied between us in the last two days. If she can’t look after them then I’ll have them for myself.

On a scale of one to ten − one being calm and ten being the Incredible Hulk − I’m at about an eight. I can’t wake Mam up, so I’m going to have to go out somewhere before I start throwing things about. I smuggle the tin out of the caravan and hide it behind one of the wheel arches, where Snow’ll never find it. It’s a spiteful thing to do, but spiteful is how I’m feeling.

There is a lot of stuff going on outside. We’ve taken over six caravans between us all. Mabli Jones, Jake the Idiot’s sister, is the newest baby. She is being pushed about in her pushchair by Betsey-Anne and Leila-J, who is seven and acts like she is my age. This will be to give Jake the Idiot’s mam a rest. She is going to be watching TV and putting her feet up for the week and nobody better disturb her or else.

I give Mabli a little tweak on her cheek as I go past, and she gurgles and then goes back to sucking at a felt ball, which is only held together with baby spit by the looks of it. My anger goes down to seven looking into her sweet, podgy face and I start to feel guilty about hiding the sea glass. Leila-J starts singing to Mabli a song about a blind man who got murdered. Chills run through me as her thin, sweet voice fills in the air.

Despite the morbid song, I’m glad to see so much hubbub and bustle. It distracts me from that cold, haunting presence on the beach. Accidentally, I come face to face with another cold, haunting presence.

‘Alright, Lark?’ Gwenni has the face of a bulldog chewing a wasp, a sour lemon and a stingy nettle at the same time.

‘Superlative, thanks. Though I don’t know what it’s got to do with you?’ I walk straight past her. She follows, which is completely riling.

‘What’s it like here, then?’

I know a white flag of peace when one is waved, but I’m not ready to forgive her for dumping me for Jake the Idiot. ‘You can see for yourself, can’t you?’

She knows me better than anyone else, outside of my family, and can tell I’m at a seven, because she backs up a couple of steps and gives me some space.

‘I just thought you might have insider info is all.’

‘Apparently not.’

‘OK.’ She bites the skin around her thumbnail and if I wasn’t so angry I’d feel like a right cow. ‘Charlie is looking forward to seeing you too.’

This twangs a nerve. Charlie, Gwenni’s way cool older brother, has been giving me lessons so I can improve my education. I want to be an avian vet when I’m older and that doesn’t come without lots of hard work. He’s the only one who treats me like an adult. I’m gutted I’ve not been able to meet up with him properly since me and Gwenni fell out, but it’s awkward seeing him without running into her. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing. Just that he hasn’t seen you for a while is all.’

‘Yeah. Well.’

Jake the Idiot throws a hammer up in the air and manages to catch it. He crows like a cockerel. Gwenni rolls her eyes.

‘Looks like your boyfriend is waiting for you, Gwenllian.’ She hates being called by her full name. I’m pushing up to an eight again. ‘What’s he doing? Wow. I think he is actually trying to nail his foot to the floor. Good catch you’ve made there. Well done. Seriously. Well done.’

‘I’d like to see you do better.’

Jake hears her and crows again. I don’t even answer. I turn and walk the other way. Gwenni tells Jake to shut up.

Ten, you are not allowed to go ballistic.

Nine, where can I go for a walk on my own without getting into trouble?

Eight, no way am I going to the beach after what Mam-gu said about helping that girl.

Seven, remember to breathe.

Six − AAARRGGGGHHH!

There’s a tug at my sleeve and I practically karate chop Snow in the jugular. ‘Do you have to creep up on me like that? Stop being so totally weird!’

Her face crumples and I feel bad immediately.

‘Oh, Snow. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Hormones, I suppose.’

She takes my hand and I think again how much more grown-up she is than I am.

‘What have you got there?’

She opens her satchel to show me some pictures she’s drawn and a dreamcatcher. I can guess where she wants to put them. ‘Come on then. Let’s go.’

We leave the caravan site behind. I feel a sense of power in being the only people who know about the ruin. The woods are stunning today in the after-rain light. It’s a good thing to put distance between me and other people when I’m feeling like this. A jay screeches above, the watchman of the woods.

‘Here we are.’ The ruin would be hard to find if Snow wasn’t walking straight to it. She’s cut back more of the brambles when she’s been playing here by herself and she holds back what’s left of the tangles so I can slip through.

Inside she has tidied, which seems like a ridiculous thing to do in a ruin, but with the sun wavering through the canopy overhead and the leaves flittering down from the trees, it looks quite magical. Snow starts putting her drawings about the place. She’s covered them in clingfilm, I guess so they won’t get damp.

There’s nothing scary here today. I don’t know what got into me last time. It’s just a fairly standard old building. I let Snow carry on prettying it up and go out to kick about the perimeter, checking out our surroundings. It’s so tranquil.

I think I can hear the sea, so I close my eyes to listen better. Yes, there it is, faint but definitely there. I can hear a pipe being played too, the sweet strains of an old Welsh song I’ve heard the adults sing many times when they have parties. Wiley Riley plays the tin whistle really well. However much I’ve scoffed when the others are around, here on my own I can really appreciate it.

It’s a song about Wales in the olden days. About the hills and the mountains, the rivers and lakes. It’s about people working with the land, being proud of who they are. It makes sense to me here in the woods instead of in someone’s kitchen back home. My heart swells to the size of a boulder. ‘I understand,’ I say. To all of the people who inspired the lyrics. ‘I understand.’

I open my eyes. There’s someone watching me. I see her, flitting through the trees ahead. Two large round glittering eyes. Inhuman eyes. Staring. Gone.

My brain tilts like a ship at sea, then rights itself. It was a mask. She was wearing a mask. I scan the trees, sweat pouring down my back. I didn’t imagine it. I know that I saw someone. A gas mask. That’s it. One of those war things.

A branch cracks and I spin round too fast. I can’t see her, but I can feel her creeping slowly towards me.

‘What do you want?’ The air has stopped moving. Even the trees are listening. ‘I know you are out there.’

I concentrate on not passing out. I feel like a butterfly caught on a barbed wire fence. I turn to see if she’s behind me, in front of me, to the sides, then take deep breaths to try to get hold of myself. I sense someone right behind me and turn to stare straight into a mask. I scream.

And then I realise the mask is laughing and has pink-tinged hair.

‘O.M.G.’ Lorelei likes to say things in capitals. ‘That is SO funny. Your expression!’

She pulls the mask up onto the top of her head and I watch any street cred I ever had disappearing faster than the marks it leaves on her skin. She is in hysterics, but not the kind that make you want to laugh with her. The kind that make you want to slap her.

Jake the Idiot comes out from behind a tree and barks with laughter. Lorelei pretends she is having difficulty pulling herself together, so she can prolong the humiliation for me. She bends over with her hands on her knees as if she can’t support herself.

‘What are you doing here?’ My words are bullets. I wish they were real ones.

Her breath comes in fits and starts as she gloats. ‘Talking to yourself, were you?’

She stops laughing long enough to do an impression of me. ‘I understand. I understand.’ Then falls about in fits again.

This is all too much. I am too weary to move.

‘Fancy yourself as some kind of fairytale princess out here lost in the woods?’ Lorelei is still eking out the laughter, though it fizzled out a while back. JTI is barking, but with effort. I feel simultaneously like kicking off massively and going to sleep.

I start to move past them. ‘I can’t be bothered. See you around.’

‘Not if I can help it.’ She throws the mask at me and I catch it as a reflex.

I’ve seen gas masks before, but I’ve never actually held one. One of the eyes is cracked and it feels more rubbery than I’d expected. It’s creepy in the way all old war things are. ‘Where did you get this from?’

‘It was on the floor over there, Princess.’

‘I’m no princess.’

‘That’s right cos if anyone is it’s Lorelei, innit?’

JTI is such an idiot.

‘That’s totally right, babe. Like totally right.’ As well as using capitals, she also thinks she lives in Beverly Hills. She does my head in, but it’s hard to hate someone you’ve known your entire life and she has had it tougher than most, so I let these fake things slide. That’s just the way she hides herself away from all her problems.

She becomes absorbed in tapping her phone, as she does pretty much non-stop every single day, even when she can’t make it link to the outside world.

‘Who was that girl talking to Snow?’

My knees give slightly. ‘What girl?’

Lorelei ignores me, so I look to JTI. He shrugs and starts to clean his nails with a penknife.

‘I said what girl?’

‘We saw them just now. Playing over there.’

‘What do you mean “talking to Snow” anyway? Snow doesn’t talk, remember?’

‘Are you calling me a liar?’ Lorelei puts her phone down, a sure sign she is annoyed.

‘I’m just stating the facts.’

‘Well. Whatever. Enjoy yourself out here in the woods. Try not to get freaked out, won’t you.’

‘Woooooooo!’ JTI rushes at me with his arms up in the air. I pretend I’m not bothered. They go off into shrieks of laughter again.

‘Come on, Jake. Let’s get out of here and go somewhere interesting.’

They disappear off to find their next victim and I rush up to the ruin, praying, praying, praying that nothing has happened to Snow. Perhaps she is talking again. But who was she talking to? My heart skitters around as I listen hard at the doorway. Hearing nothing, I go inside. Snow’s pictures flutter on the breeze and her dreamcatcher lies on the ground, forgotten. The doll is propped up in the fireplace. I pull a face at it and pretend I’m not scared it will react. There’s no sign of Snow anywhere.

‘Snow?’ There’s nowhere to hide, it’s way too small. I walk around to the back. The woods are denser here but there’s a vague path or animal track, so on instinct I take it. Sure enough, a short way down there is a clearing. Snow is standing there, motionless.

‘Snow. Are you OK? Lorelei said she saw you playing with someone?’

She is standing over something. A bird. A brown lady blackbird. It’s dead. From the way it’s lying, I can see that its neck is broken.

‘It’s OK, Snow. Sometimes birds die. Perhaps it flew into a tree by accident or just got tired and fell.’ I remember picking up an exhausted swallow once and carrying it gently in my hands to safety. ‘We’ll bury it nicely, alright?’

Snow shakes her head vehemently. Snot drips from her upper lip. I find a tissue in my pocket and clean her up.

‘OK. We’ll just put some twigs and leaves over it and wish it a safe journey onwards.’

She seems happier with this, so we start gathering. ‘Snow, Lorelei said she saw you talking to someone.’

I wait. Snow arranges ochre leaves in the shape of a flower on top of the tomb of twigs and bark.

‘She says she heard your voice.’

Snow hesitates and then carries on adding brightly coloured leaves to her funeral decorations.

‘And she saw you with a girl.’

Please say something. Please just speak, so that Mam can be happy. We can sort anything out if you will just talk.

Snow doesn’t reply, so I don’t push it any further. Maybe she is almost ready to talk and if I carry on she will stop forever.

We finish placing all the leaves and twigs and berries like a teepee over the bird and hold hands to make a wish for its safe passage.

‘Come on. Mam will be wondering where we are.’

As we make our way back down the wending path, Snow turns to wave.

‘Are you saying goodbye to the bird?’

She firmly shakes her head.