Chapter Seven

Sherlock wakes me up, scratching at the door to get out. I’m amazed I managed to sleep at all. All night, everything that has happened kept trickling through my thoughts like icy water.

Because I am in the main living area Sherlock wakes me up first, which is a total downside. On the upside, he sleeps next to me, curled up against my stomach or in the crook of my legs. Dad must have come back while I was sleeping. It scares me that I didn’t wake up. I checked the door was locked about fifty times before I lay down and would have put something across it as a barricade if he hadn’t been out. Though I’m not sure any barrier would stop a ghost. I glance up at Snow’s sleeping area. Her curtains are still drawn.

Very quietly, I open the cupboard where I stowed the doll last night and am relieved to find it’s still there. I know dolls don’t really come to life and kill people but if any doll was going to this would be the one.

I shut the door on it again.

Open it to check it hasn’t moved. Shut it again.

Open it and hide the doll even more thoroughly. Shut it again.

Shrugging on my coat, I let Sherlock out into a startlingly bright morning. The rain has stopped and every puddle is a mirror of the bluebird-blue sky. I step down from the caravan and close the door behind me softly, not to wake anyone.

Sherlock sniffs the ground like the detective he is and picks up a scent that takes him down to the stream. I follow him, feeling the lemony sun waking up with me, watching the way the stream glitters and eddies, running yellow and clear in parts, black and secretive in others.

‘Sherlock. This way. There’s a good boy.’

Listening to the chorus of every bird trilling, I chase the water down to the sea. Today, in the light, I can be sensible about my fears.

Fact – I was tricked by my senses in the fog into thinking there were unearthly things there. The figure coming towards me must have
been the person who rescued me. The way he looked must have been distorted by the freaky conditions.

Fact – We found an old ruined house in the woods. There must be old, ruined houses all over the place. If someone else told me they were scared by an abandoned house, I would totally taunt them for ages.

Fact – Snow found a doll that is way creepy but is still just a doll and is now hidden inside a suitcase until I have a chance to get rid of it completely.

Fact – That woman had serious health issues. That’s why she was being so mean to Snow. She probably needs to see a doctor. We’ll probably never see her again. And if we do I’ll be ready.

Facts always make me feel better. Fact.

My certainty quivers as I get to the beach. Mam and Dad are still asleep. Face your fears head on. I remind myself that Snow drew a mermaid, so that’s how realistic her pictures are. Taking a huge gulp of sea air on our side of the Forbidden Beach, I feel stronger again with each fresh breath.

‘You see, Sherlock. There’s the place where I fell over. There, on The Others’ side.’ There are a few people with dogs on both sides of the beach today, but even though I just have my coat over my nightie and my knees are bare above my wellies, I feel like the sun will have made them friendly, so I carry on walking about.

‘This is our side, Sherlock, but if you want to go across No Man’s Land you can.’ He is already bounding off to make friends with a caramel-coloured labradoodle. They look comical, circling each other and trying to sniff each other’s bits to say hello. My grin is broad as I watch them bound across the freshly tumbled sands, letting the clean, rinsed world warm me with all its beauty and peace.

‘We are going to be alright. The sea air will work its magic…’

A commotion behind me makes me turn, like everyone else, to see the rest of our friends arrive in a trail of cars. They are beeping their horns to tell us they are here, which is completely embarrassing. My tummy tumbles as I think of Gwenni and how spiteful we’ve been to each other, but it also means that Mam-gu has arrived and if anyone can sort me out she can.

I pick out her car immediately.

‘Sherlock. Come on. Good boy.’ It doesn’t take much coaxing to get him back. He loves being with people. His tail spins in circles as he races back to the caravan park. I run too. It’ll be good to be surrounded by noise and jostle and hum, and I also want to put some proper clothes on, so I don’t look a complete dork.

I try to sneak into our caravan, so I won’t be seen in my nightie, but the sight of Mam-gu makes me forget.

‘Mam-gu!’ I run to her and launch myself into her arms, breathing in the hotchpotch floral craziness of one of her homemade perfumes, loving her loosely tied bun and the scent of cinnamon and knowledge that always wafts around her.

‘It’s good to see you too.’ She laughs her throaty laugh and hugs me hard. ‘By the sea at last, eh, Lark? And what do you think of it so far?’

‘I love it.’ And at that moment I do.

‘And your mother?’

‘She loves it too, Mam-gu. We all do.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I need to get dressed.’

She laughs like it’s the best joke anyone ever told, then realises I’m serious and lets me go.

Dad comes out of our caravan looking rumpled and with a big sleep crease up his face. We laugh at him and he laughs at himself. The others arriving is a tonic. I wave to a few people as I go in to change. They all wave back cheerily except Lorelei. She nods sarcastically and smirks. She makes me feel three years old, which is her favourite thing to do to people, but I have more important things to worry about than her.

Charlie, Gwenni’s brother, waves and I wave back and mouth, ‘I’ve been reading loads.’ He lent me loads of books back home. He is a serious bookworm. The first thing he’ll do here is find the bookshop and spend a small fortune. He does it everywhere he goes.

He gives me an enthusiastic thumbs-up which makes me really happy.

Snow is watching TV and Mam is singing and drying her hair with a hairdryer.

‘They’re here, Mam.’

She turns her hairdryer off and I have to repeat myself.

‘Do you think I didn’t notice?’ She’s laughing. Snow laughs at something on TV. I laugh as I try to get my wellies off where they’ve stuck to my feet. We’re all slightly hysterical at the excitement of everyone else arriving. I want to spend time with Mam-gu before I see anyone else.

I dress quickly and keep my head down as I go into Mam-gu’s caravan. She’s not there, so I take a minute to look at all the things I adore so much. Her bobbled green cardigan, the scarf with the pictures of cats, the keyring with the ducklings painted on it I made for her when I was six. She’s brought her photo album, of course, it goes everywhere with her. I keep trying to tell her she should scan them all into a computer but she says she prefers them this way. Beyond her blinds, people are hugging and shaking hands and slapping each other on the back.

‘Lark.’ Mam-gu comes in carrying Marple, her fat ginger cat. Marple studies me, her eyes slits of lime. Seriously, why couldn’t she have gone to a cattery for the week? I go to stroke her then think better of it. Sherlock is her arch-enemy and just a whiff of him brings her claws out.

‘There’s something bothering you.’

‘Not really.’ I’m kind of worried I might be being stalked by a phantom.

She gives me her infamous withering glance. Then she goes searching for her glasses.

I sit politely, every now and again offering half-hearted suggestions like:

‘Perhaps they are in your bag, Mam-gu?’

‘Did you use them for reading?’

‘Have you left them folded in your book?’

She goes into the toilet, to see if she left them in there. I shout in to her, ‘Can you remember when you last used them?’

She crashes out, holding a Sylvia Plath. ‘Used what now?’

‘Your specs, Mam-gu.’

‘Ah yes.’

She’s forgotten what she was looking for. She’s getting more forgetful. I guess her mind is too full of things to fit them all in any more.

Wiley Riley starts banging away on his bongo drums outside and a few of the others strangle a pop song with him. The erratic bangs make my head thud. Why did he bring them?

‘Found them.’

She lights a joss stick and sits opposite me at the small table. She’s brought a special chair for her back so she towers regally over me and I feel like an infant perched on a bench. I wish I hadn’t come.

‘So, what’s wrong?’ Her glasses accentuate her stare. I love Mam-gu to bits, but I’m a goldfish bowl when she looks at me that way and I know she can see all my thoughts swimming about in my head like guppies. I consider telling her the truth. That I’m terrified. That I’m not sure what happened to me out in the fog. Will Snow ever speak again? Who was it on the beach and will they come back? What am I supposed to do about life, the universe and everything?

‘Oh, you know…’ I squeak.

‘I know.’ She thinks I want to talk about my mam. Of course, she does. But I already know. You can’t hide the smell of illness, however hard you try. It permeates everything: the air, the taste of your food, the smell of your clothes, the sugared-almond mornings and the screech-owl shattered nights.

‘I’ll warm the pot. The tea will tell.’ She pours steaming water from the kettle into a chipped yellow teapot and moves it in circles, humming as she does. I wish she’d get a move on. Of course, I don’t believe in her tea-leaf reading claptrap but I play along because it gets her to say what she thinks and I am close to the edge today so anything is worth a go. Most days now I can feel my temper bubbling just beneath my skin. Pretty soon I’ll have to count down from a hundred to get back to calm.

‘Here you go. Drink it while it’s hot.’

The tea is bitter and scalding. I hardly ever drink tea because it tastes so disgusting.

Mam-gu bursts out laughing in chesty boom, boom, booms at my face. ‘Not used to tea without teabags are you, my angel?’

I don’t bother to argue. Mam-gu won’t accept that anyone doesn’t like tea. I just smile past the tea leaves jammed between my teeth.

‘Don’t worry. Swallowing half the tea leaves won’t change the reading. What will be will be.’

She clucks and takes my cup from me, patting my trembling hand. From her face, I can tell that she is going to feed me some nonsense about how my mam is happy with her lot, or how fate will take care of the future soon enough. I’m wasting my time here. I’ve made myself feel foul and vulnerable for nothing. Her jet-black hair has a silver stripe at the parting. I don’t know why she doesn’t just let it be grey, it would suit her. I study her while I get the chance, the shadow created by her high cheekbones, the dent in the very centre of her forehead, the way her skin is so white you can see every vein running through it in different shades of blue.

I wipe sweat from my brow. Everything tastes of salt. I think if I coughed, salt would spurt up from my lungs and sprinkle the table with white. Marple lies down on my foot, which she absolutely never does. She’s so heavy my foot goes dead. That cat hates me.

Just as I wonder if Mam-gu has fallen asleep with her eyes open, she bends, peering even more closely at the remnants of the leaves.

I’m starting to feel like I’m going to upchuck. The smell of mixed perfumes and cat is too strong, and the joss stick smoke stings my eyes. I’m about to make my excuses, when her head snaps up like a kingfisher with a catch. She stares at me and the cup clatters as she places it down.

‘You have to go back there, Lark. You have to help that girl.’