by Wendy Clarke
Pushing back the covers, she forces her legs to move. The room lurches and a rush of nausea hits her. The dream is still with her and she knows what Freya did, but despite her fear and resentment, she needs to know she’s all right.
The landing is in darkness, the house so still you’d think it was empty. She can’t think straight. Everything’s muddled in her head. When she reaches Freya’s door, it’s closed and when she presses her ear to it, she hears nothing. Raising her hand, she pushes on the handle and opens the door just far enough to see in. The curtains are open, the room light enough to see that Freya’s bed hasn’t been slept in.
What if she’s gone to the Gemini tree? What if she’s gone to do what she’s always threatened? Kelly knows she must find her. She loves her. She’s made a mistake and should never have said what she did – made up that lie. It had been her jealousy that had made her do it.
It’s like the scales have fallen from her eyes and she sees it as it really was. Ethan never saw her as anything more than a running partner; she’d made up the rest. Stumbling back to her own room, Kelly pulls on her jeans, losing balance as she tries to get her leg through the hole. Her T-shirt is next and the sweatshirt she’d worn while she was out running.
Holding the banister for support, she tiptoes downstairs, feeling disembodied. Like her legs don’t belong to her. In the kitchen, Ben looks up from his bed. Scared he might bark, she unscrews the lid from his jar of treats and gives him one. The clock on the kitchen wall says ten past four.
She puts on her raincoat, then picks up the flashlight from the hook by the back door. Flicking it on, she steps outside, watching the light bounce off the fence in front of her, then switches it off again, scared it might be seen. Instead, she feels her way to the gate in the darkness, not turning the torch back on until she’s safely outside.
It’s cold in the lane, the wind funnelling between the trees, flapping her raincoat against her body. It’s starting to rain too, but beneath Kelly’s clothes her skin is burning – her jeans chafing like sandpaper. As she stumbles down the lane, the light from the torch swings wildly and she stops, forcing back a wave of nausea before making herself move on again. She’s seen the silver tracks on Freya’s wrists. Knows what she’s capable of. She must stop her. Tell her that she’ll always be there for her.
Kelly weaves through the meadow grass, the clumps of wet stems soaking through her jeans. Her limbs heavy. Ahead, the black whale-like humps of the downs are almost indistinguishable from the night sky. She’s climbing the hill towards the dark band of trees, taking the path they took when they were children. It’s where Freya’s gone. She knows it.
When she reaches the wood, Kelly has no idea how she’s got there. Time has expanded and contracted, and it seems only a few moments ago she was in her bed. Her hair is plastered to her face, her jeans wet and cold against her legs. The musty smell from the earth is intoxicating. As she walks, her torch picks out the colours of the decomposing leaves, the copper and gold merging as she struggles to focus. Thunder rolls above her head and the lightning that brightens the sky above the canopy of leaves is her own personal light show.
Stopping, she rests her forehead against the rough, wet bark of a tree to cool it, wrapping her arms around the trunk. Leaning into it. But then she remembers why she’s come here. Freya is in trouble. She must find her.
As she carries on deeper into the wood, it becomes increasingly difficult to stop her feet slipping and sliding on the wet leaves and twice she stumbles over roots that are hidden beneath them. The rain is falling harder, blurring the edges of everything. The colours that were so bright in the torch’s beam when she first passed through the kissing gate, now fading. In the distance, the thunder rolls across the downs.
Kelly’s aches are worsening and she’s consumed with a paralysing fear, but it’s too late to turn back. She’s already at the place where the trees start to thin. Opening up to reveal the clearing.
The Gemini tree towers over her, dark and deeply rooted. It stretches upwards – its skeletal branches twisted. Kelly puts her hands to her heavy, pounding head. She hears Freya’s voice in her head. I’m going to count to twenty and if you’re not out of my sight before then, you will regret it forever.
She doesn’t want to be here.
Kelly tries to run but finds she can’t. Her limbs are so heavy it’s as if she too is anchored into the sodden earth. A sudden flash of lightning brightens the clearing, picking out the contours of the tree. It illuminates the two ugly trunks and also the body that swings from the rope attached to its lower branch.
A crack of thunder makes her drop her torch and she’s in darkness. As if released from a spell, Kelly screams and steps back.
Freya’s done what she threatened to do.
40
Kelly Now
My knees buckle. It’s as if the blood has drained from my body. Mitch manages to catch me before I fall.
‘Jesus, Kelly. What just happened?’
I lean against him, my body shaking. Unable to answer.
I can still see Freya’s staring eyes. Her lifeless body swinging from the rope attached to the creaking branch. The idea of going back home, to the place where it happened, must be affecting me more than I thought.
‘Are you ill?’ Mitch helps me onto the bed and stands awkwardly beside me, unsure of what to do. ‘Shall I phone the surgery?’
I shake my head. What would I tell him? That I’m scared my past is coming back to haunt me? That I’ve come to believe my mother has decided it’s payback time for Freya’s death and wants me to know it? I doubt that Mitch would understand my fear that her obsession has grown in the years since it happened and she’s waiting for the chance to take something from me in her turn. My baby.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I say, closing my eyes and breathing deeply. ‘Just give me a moment.’
Slowly, I count back from twenty. When I get to one, I will stand up and walk down the stairs. I will kiss my children goodbye and leave my house. I’ll go to the funeral and look my mother in the eye. Tell her to leave my family alone. Nothing will happen to me because I’ll have made it so. The numbers will have worked their magic.
‘Seven, six, five…’
‘Kelly, stop it!’ My shoulders are being shaken and, when I open my eyes, Mitch’s face is in front of me. ‘What are you doing?’
With a shock, I realise I’ve been counting aloud. My stress levels are still sky high. I haven’t finished. He’s made me stop and now I can’t remember where I got to. Sinking my head into my hands, a well of misery opens inside me.
‘Look at me, Kelly. Talk to me.’
‘It won’t go away.’ I stare up at Mitch with red-rimmed eyes. ‘I keep thinking it will get better, but it doesn’t.’
‘What, Kel? What won’t go away? You’ve got to tell me.’
I look at my husband. For years, I’ve kept it to myself, but I know that I can’t do it any more. If I don’t tell someone, I’m scared I’ll go mad.
‘I had a sister,’ I begin. ‘A foster-sister called Freya.’
‘There were lots of foster-children, weren’t there? Why is this one so different?’
I pause, digging deep for the strength to continue. Hoping that by telling my husband, the dreadful picture in my head will go away. ‘She died. Committed suicide.’
‘Shit.’ Mitch sits heavily on the bed and rubs his cheek. ‘I wasn’t expecting that. How old were you when this happened?’
There’s a knot in my stomach as I tell him. ‘I was fourteen and she was sixteen. It happened one night after an argument with my parents.’
‘What was it about?’
I hadn’t been meaning to tell him so much, but now I’ve started, it all comes flooding out.
‘When we were just kids, she told me something. Something terrible. She said if I ever told anyone, she’d kill herself. The night she died, she thought I’d told her secret to my mum and dad.’
‘And had you?’
> ‘No.’
I can see from his face that Mitch is trying to keep up. ‘And what was this thing she told you?’
The knot pulls tighter. ‘That she’d killed her sister.’
Mitch looks at me in disbelief. ‘What do you mean? Wouldn’t she have been in prison?’
‘She was just a young child when it happened. I think everyone thought it was an accident, but it wasn’t.’
‘And you know this because?’
The knot eases a little, the space it leaves replaced by irritation. ‘I said already, Mitch. She told me.’
‘And you believed her?’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
Mitch sighs. ‘Kids make up all sorts of things for attention. Especially kids who have had their lives mucked up big time. Christ, I should know. I did it all the time. Told the kids in the home that I was the son of a racing driver just because I thought it might give me a bit of kudos. And what about Isabella? She told her teacher that we lived in a house with a swimming pool, for Christ’s sake.’
I clutch at his arm. ‘It doesn’t matter if it was true or not. What mattered to her was that she thought I’d told. She trusted me and when she thought I’d let her down, she hung herself from a tree.’
‘Jesus.’
I feel my throat constrict. ‘And I’ll always feel guilty for that.’
‘And you say you never told your parents this secret of hers?’
‘No. I never did.’ What I don’t say is that the thing I told my parents was something worse. Something that could have wrecked someone else’s life if I’d been believed.
‘There’s something else.’ I get up and go to the jewellery box on my dressing table. Sliding out the drawer at the front, I lift out the locket I found in Noah’s pram and hold it out for Mitch to see. The delicate chain shivers and I realise my hand’s shaking.
‘It’s your locket. Why are you showing it to me?’
‘It’s not my locket.’ Reaching inside my blouse, I take out my own.
‘Well, it looks pretty much identical.’
I can hardly bear to say it. ‘It’s Freya’s, Mitch. My mum bought her one when she was first with us and then, when we were older, Freya bought me one the same. I found it in Noah’s pram on the twins’ first day at school. Someone must have put it there.’
Mitch scratches his head. ‘How can you know it’s hers? It could be anyone’s.’
I want to cry with frustration. ‘It’s Freya’s, I know it. Look… she wrote sister on the back.’
Taking it from me, Mitch turns the locket over in his large hand. ‘Where? Where does it say sister?’
‘There. Look.’ I point to the back of the locket.
‘It doesn’t say sister. It’s just a scratch.’
I take the locket from him. I haven’t looked at it since that day at the school – feeling that, somehow, it might bring bad luck. Now, I study the marks on the silver and realise he’s right. It’s exactly what he’s said… just a scratch. Yet I’d been so sure.
Mitch folds his arms. ‘Are you sure you haven’t had that locket all the time? Maybe you just forgot where you put it.’
‘You’re not listening, Mitch. Freya was wearing it the day she died, and I haven’t seen it since that day. I didn’t just “forget where I’d put it” as you say – it was in Noah’s pram. Someone put it there – don’t you understand!’ I know my voice is rising, that I’m sounding hysterical, but I can’t help it.
Mitch looks worried. He glances at the bedside clock, then takes my hand. ‘You were concerned about the girls, tired after not sleeping. There’s a simple explanation I’m sure, Kel. But you need to hurry or you’re going to be late. We can talk more about this when you get home if you want. Come downstairs with me now and have a coffee before you go. It will steady your nerves.’
Feeling numb, I follow Mitch downstairs. When I reach the hall, I see the children’s book bags. They’ve been placed by the front door with their lunch boxes, ready to be collected on the way out.
Mitch sees me looking and grins. ‘See. I can be pretty organised when I want to be.’
Sophie’s reading book is on the hall table. I pick it up and manage a smile. ‘Oh, yes?’
With an exaggerated sigh, he peels open the Velcro flap of Sophie’s book bag to put it in. ‘Even superman had to have a day off sometimes. What’s this?’
He pulls out a piece of folded paper and holds it out to me. It’s a picture Sophie’s drawn. Through the kitchen door, I see my daughter chasing Coco Pops around a bowl of chocolatey milk.
‘What did you draw for me then, sweetie?’
She looks at me and shrugs. I can tell from her face that she’s unhappy I’m not taking her to school today.
The picture is folded in half and I open it up. I’m expecting to see a drawing of Rapunzel, with her long hair, or maybe a face that she’ll say is me or her sister. It’s neither of these things, though.
On the white page, Sophie has drawn a tree. It’s fat and brown with blobs of green for leaves. And it looks just like the one from my nightmares.
41
Kelly Now
I sit at the back of the church, my eyes fixed on the large photograph of my father that’s been placed on the stone windowsill below the stained-glass window. It’s an old photo. He’s in profile, laughing at something away from the camera and he’s just as I remember him. The sandy hair, the aquiline nose, the thin face. I try and remember that once I loved that face.
The place is half-full and I recognise some of the people. A couple of his business friends and their wives, looking the same but a little greyer, a little older. Carly Freeman’s parents are there too and someone who looks like she could be Tabby’s mum or Ava’s. Dad was an only child, and his parents died when I was young, so the only person he has here who still cares for him is the woman who used to be his wife.
My mother doesn’t know I’m here. I deliberately left it late to come in so that I wouldn’t have to speak to anyone and could lose myself in the row of people at the back. It’s only twenty minutes, I tell myself. Only twenty minutes, then I can confront my mother and be gone.
While the service is going on, I stare at the back of my mother’s head. Her hair, which is mostly grey now, is still long and wild, and when she lifts her hymn book, I see how the rings cut into her fleshy fingers. She’s weeping openly, blowing her nose into a cotton handkerchief. From the way she is, you wouldn’t know that my father left her years ago.
As the service ends, I realise I’ve hardly heard anything the vicar’s said. Just the odd word or two: family man. Attentive father. Sadly missed. That’s because my mind has been elsewhere. Slipping back to a time and place I’ve tried to lock away – a field of waving grass, the graffiti-covered walls of the firing range, the Gemini tree that I’ve never been back to but that my daughter’s painting has put uppermost in my thoughts.
Phantom places of my childhood.
That’s not all, though. On the drive to the village a thought had come to me that I still can’t shift. All those years ago, I’d promised Freya I wouldn’t tell anyone her secret. Until this morning I hadn’t, but now Mitch knows, and I can’t get rid of the nagging worry that now I’ve told him, something bad will happen.
Music is playing, a classical piece I remember my father listening to in his study. It’s a cue for people to get up and put on their coats. I’d wanted to challenge my mother about the things that have been happening but now the opportunity is here, I find I can no longer face it. I don’t want to be in this place where someone might recognise me. Question me. Dredge up the past.
My mother’s letter said there was to be no wake and I’m glad. I’ve done my bit and can’t wait to get back in the car and drive home. I’m not going to speak to her after all. Mitch thought by coming to my father’s funeral it might help me come to terms with my past, but he’s wrong. If anything, it’s just confirmed what I’ve always known – that I was right to leave it all behind.
Taking out my phone, I send a quick text to Mitch.
Service over. Leaving soon.
His reply comes back almost immediately.
Hope you survived. Me and the little man are watching Loose Women.
I want to laugh, but I don’t, not wanting to bring attention to myself. Instead, I put my bag over my shoulder and stand.
As soon as I start to move out of the pew, I know I’ve timed it badly. My mother is walking down the central aisle, her arm linked with that of a woman I recognise as one of the social workers who once came to the house. I stop where I am, my fingers gripping the back of the pew in front. There’s no way I’m going to be able to avoid her seeing me.
As she reaches me, she stops, her face giving nothing away and I feel paralysed. ‘You came then.’ She turns to the woman beside her. ‘Leave us a minute, will you, Mary?’
She waits until the woman has walked away, then buttons her black coat. It’s one I remember seeing her wear when I used to live here. It came out every time a foster-child left and went back to their family. It’s only now I understand the significance. She was grieving for them – just like she is now for my father.
‘I want you to come back to the house with me. It’s important.’ It’s said bluntly, without warmth, and I realise that the years have done nothing to soften her.
While she’s been speaking, I’ve been counting the number of tiles between the pews. ‘No. I can’t do that. I have to get back.’
‘There’s something I want to tell you. I should have done it earlier, but the time was never right.’
The church is empty now, the sun shining through the stained-glass window above my mother’s head. It’s a modern design showing a hill, circled by a crown of trees. It spills green geometric patterns onto the floor and I look away.
