by Anna Wilson
Is he going to kiss me?
Summer stiffened slightly, not knowing what to do next, whether to close her eyes or move towards him. She stayed perfectly still, and waited.
Something in her face must have made Zach change his mind, however, for he backed off and stared ahead at the stones instead.
He cleared his throat. ‘Sorry, bit of a rubbish story, I guess.’
Summer felt disappointment wash through her. She blushed at the realization that she had wanted him to make the first move.
Summer sat up. ‘No, no, it’s not.’ She forced a lightness into her voice which she did not feel. ‘It’s kind of sad, actually. If it’s true, that is.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Think about it: one minute the girls were having a laugh with the pipers, dancing, wheeling around in a circle – a bit like us . . .’ She paused. ‘The next they were gone, turned to cold, lifeless stone.’
Great, I’ve gone and made it all heavy now.
Zach nodded. ‘You’re right. I have thought that too. I find myself thinking sometimes . . . this is going to sound . . . Oh, I don’t know!’
‘Go on. Tell me.’
Zach hesitated. ‘Promise you won’t laugh? It’s just I wonder if that is what it’s like to die? One minute you’re warm, living, breathing; the next, cold, lifeless as stone. You know? I mean, what’s it like, to go from one state to the next, just as though someone has flicked a switch – or waved a witch’s wand?’
As he spoke, Summer felt she had gone as cold as stone herself.
Was that what it had been like for her mum? But no – her mum had not gone straight away; she had hung on, suspended, comatose. It had not been a quick flick of a wand – a blink-of-an-eye change from one state to another. She had slipped away slowly.
‘Sorry, I’ve freaked you out,’ said Zach. He touched her arm. ‘I shouldn’t have said that, not after you told me about your mum.’ He spoke in a rush.
Summer shook her head. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘It’s good to talk to someone who understands. I mean, you lost your dad too.’
Zach shuffled closer and put his arm around her shoulders.
Summer leaned into him.
Maybe I should tell him. Right now. About the phone call, about seeing Mum at the house . . .
A swallow swooped low and fast, its sickle-shaped wings scything through the air, making a swooshing noise which started Summer out of her reverie. She followed the dance of the swallow until it reached the gate.
There was a figure by the bikes. It was a woman. She was staring at the bike Summer had borrowed. She had put her hand out to it.
She’s going to nick it!
Summer was on her feet, knocking Zach off balance in her haste. She waved her arms, yelling, ‘Hey! Leave that—!’ She took a couple of hurried steps forward, stumbling, then broke off, fixed to the spot.
No. Not again.
Her mother. Just the same as Summer had seen her at Bosleven, in the porch and at the piano.
‘Mum!’ She was screaming now, tripping over her feet to get to the gate.
In the second that she had faltered, in the second that shock had prevented her from reacting quickly enough, her mother had gone, dipping behind the hedges that lined the road, disappearing from view.
Summer careered down the slope.
You are so stupid. Why are you running? You went to her funeral. She is dead.
She reached the stile, clambered over, scraping her knees, jumped and looked wildly up and down the road.
No one.
She’s dead, you stupid, stupid idiot. Dead.
Zach had caught up with her. He had been shouting, but she had not heard. ‘Summer? What is it?’ He put a hand on her shoulder.
She fell against him, grabbing him to her, letting him put both arms around her. Her sobs were muffled as she clutched at him, wetting his T-shirt with her tears.
She didn’t know how long they stood like that, but Zach was the first one to gently prise her away and push her hair from her face.
You’ve blown it. He’s not going to want to know you now.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said shakily.
‘It’s all right. I know,’ he said. ‘When someone dies, I mean. It takes a while to understand they are never coming back.’
Summer took a shuddering breath. Then: ‘I – I thought I saw her.’
‘Maybe you did.’
She looked up at him sharply.
He wasn’t laughing at her, though. He shrugged.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Gran loves going on about these ancient circles. I’ve always thought it was a load of rubbish, but . . . well, maybe it isn’t all nonsense.’
Summer told herself that he was only trying to comfort her. ‘Yeah? So what does she say about them?’
‘Gran says there are places in Cornwall where time shifts.’ Zach spread his hands and gave an embarrassed chuckle. ‘Well, it’s true that it’s an ancient land, Cornwall – and a land that was full of mysticism. Wow, listen to me, going on like an old hippy!’
‘No, tell me. I want to know. No one’s told me anything about this place,’ Summer insisted.
‘OK,’ Zach said carefully. ‘Thing is, loads of people – visitors, tourists and that – come here because they believe there’s still something spiritual about the place. If you know what I mean. Gran’s got plenty of old stories; says there are “thin places”, where she can feel the old land calling to her.’
Summer felt a chill again. It crept along her neck. ‘W-what does that mean?’
‘I don’t know. She’s a mad old bat sometimes!’
Summer was not going to let him laugh it off. ‘Come on, explain,’ she insisted.
Zach shrugged. ‘You could ask her yourself. Bet you’re hungry . . .’ He shot her a cheeky grin. ‘Gran loves nothing better than to feed people. So?’
‘Yeah, that’d be good,’ she said quietly.
They walked back to the bikes. Summer rested her head into the crook of Zach’s arm, draped around her shoulders. A small glow of happiness nestled inside her.
Summer and Zach were cycling along the lanes again. The hedges eventually fell away and in their place were houses on one side and a school on the other. The tower of St Gerran church rose ahead of them, gunmetal-grey against the cloud-studded sky: the tallest building by far, surrounded by tiny cottages. Zach took them round the back of the church, down a lane and up to the door of a particularly small terraced cottage with pink walls, a climbing rose hanging over the front door and net curtains at the windows.
Picture-postcard.
He opened the front door and called through. ‘It’s only me – brought a friend back!’ He turned to Summer and gestured to show she should follow.
A faint voice called back, something indistinct, but the tone was friendly.
‘What should I do with the bike?’ Summer asked, glancing at the dirty tyres.
‘Bring it in. It’s OK,’ he said. ‘Prop it next to mine, against the radiator.’
She did as he suggested, then followed him down the narrow hall to a room at the back. Zach’s rangy figure blocked the small doorway, so that she had to wait until he had gone into the room before she could make out any details. He was already jabbering away to his gran as Summer entered behind him.
The room was compact and full of furniture and knick-knacks, but impeccably tidy nonetheless. Zach’s gran was sitting by a large window which flooded the room with sunlight. She had been knitting. The needles and wool were now resting in her lap as she smiled up at her grandson with the same twinkling blue eyes as his. She flicked a glance in Summer’s direction and her face crinkled into a wider smile.
‘So. Summer, this is Gran – Molly Pendred. Gran, this is Summer – the girl I told you about, down on the beach,’ said Zach. ‘She’s staying at the Trewarthas’.’
‘Oh yes, the girl on the beach,’ the old lady said teasingly. ‘You’re up at Bosleven, are you? Well . . .
’ She peered more closely at Summer. Then, frowning, she said, so quietly that Summer wasn’t sure she had heard properly: ‘My, you are the spit—’
‘Er, Gran, before you start with your inquisition . . .’ Zach fidgeted, embarrassed. ‘We’re kind of thirsty. Can we grab a drink? Hot work, cycling. Yeah?’ He threw the question at Summer.
‘Yeah.’
Zach’s gran set her knitting to one side and made to get out of her chair. ‘Let me get some cake. You youngsters are always hungry!’
‘No, it’s OK.’ Zach put a hand out. ‘We’ll get it. D’you want anything? Cup of tea?’
‘Yes, Zachary dear, that would be lovely.’ She was still inspecting Summer very carefully.
Zach shepherded Summer out of the room and led her into a tiny galley kitchen on the left.
‘What did she mean, just then?’ Summer asked in a low voice.
‘Nothing.’ Zach was flustered now, fiddling noisily with the tea things and opening and shutting cake tins. ‘I mean . . . I’m sorry about Gran. She’s great. Really. You’ll love her. It’s just . . . she can be a bit nosy,’ he gabbled, ‘and sometimes she just comes out with things – you know how old people can be. Don’t take any notice. She’ll probably ask you loads of questions – only cos we don’t often have visitors, you know? I mean, people come round, like neighbours and that. But we know everyone round here already. Nothing new to say to them any more: a stranger’s a bit of excitement for her, so it’s only natural she wants to find out all about you! Ah, here we go. Cake.’ He lifted it out of a blue-flowered tin and put it on a plate.
Summer felt uneasy at the idea of Mrs Pendred wanting to ‘find out all about’ her. Still, being here was better than being stuck at Bosleven, skulking around, avoiding Kenan. She thought of how it would be if she had to introduce Zach to her relatives. She could not imagine Zach, with his easy-going manner, hitting it off with the hostile Kenan or awkward Tristan.
‘So have you got any mates in the village?’ Summer asked.
Zach looked up from loading a tray with the tea things and the cake, which was a garish golden-yellow and studded with sultanas. ‘Saffron cake,’ he said, seeing her looking at it. ‘Delicious!’ Then: ‘Yeah, I’ve got mates. But not friends.’ He paused. ‘Sounds a bit . . . rubbish. What I mean is, I’ve got people I’ve hung around with since forever, but – they don’t want to do the kind of things I’m into.’
‘Like fishing and swimming?’
‘Yeah, like that.’ Zach grinned. Her stomach flipped. ‘They only want one thing now,’ he went on. ‘To go into town. You know, go to the arcades, hang out. With girls, mostly.’ He busied himself with the plates and mugs again.
Summer smiled to herself.
They went back into the sitting room. Zach’s gran had stowed her knitting in a basket at her feet and cleared a low table for the drinks and cake. She showed them a chair each and Zach poured the tea.
‘So, Summer, where did you spring from?’
Summer started at the old lady’s direct manner.
Zach plunged in. ‘Summer’s mum died.’ He shot Summer an apologetic glance.
Wow, OK. No small talk, then!
Zach’s gran also looked taken aback at her grandson’s opening line. She frowned at him.
‘No, it’s OK, Mrs Pendred,’ Summer said. ‘Mum died, yes, and, well, I didn’t know it, but it turns out I have family down here, so I came down to Bosleven to be with them. Tristan Trewartha’s my uncle. And my guardian.’
Mrs Pendred raised her eyebrows, her mouth a small, surprised ‘O’.
‘It’s . . . a bit weird,’ Summer blurted out. ‘I’d never met him before, see, and then after Mum died, I found out in her will that Tristan was my guardian. Mum hadn’t told anyone about it. Definitely hadn’t told me. I didn’t even know I had an uncle – and I didn’t know Mum had sorted out a guardian for me in case – well . . .’ She let out a shaky sigh. ‘I – I’m finding it all really strange being here at all, to be honest,’ she said.
Mrs Pendred leaned forward and lightly touched her knee. Summer looked at the bird-like hand, its thin fingers knotted with blue veins and the mottled marks of age. Her eyes clouded as she saw her mum’s hands on the hospital sheets – thin too, but smooth and white. They would never grow gnarled like this old lady’s.
‘Summer, d’you mind if I tell Gran what happened just now?’ Zach asked, his gentle voice breaking into Summer’s thoughts. ‘She can tell you more about the things I was talking about. Maybe . . . ?’
Summer chewed her bottom lip. Didn’t dare look him in the eye. ‘I . . . I don’t know,’ she muttered. ‘I feel stupid now.’
‘What have you been up to, Zachary?’ His gran pretended to reprimand him.
Zach laughed. ‘Nothing! I took Summer to the Merry Maidens. She didn’t know about them. She wanted to know the story, and then after I told her, well . . .’ He looked at Summer. She gave a small shake of her head. ‘Listen, don’t be scared,’ he said to her. ‘Gran won’t laugh.’
He is taking me seriously, isn’t he?
Summer looked at him. ‘You say,’ she said in a whisper.
So Zach launched into a description of what had occurred earlier at the stone circle. Summer was grateful that he left out the bit about them whirling round together. He went into detail about the conversation they had had, about how he had heard Summer cry out.
‘I saw the woman too, Gran. I know Summer wasn’t faking it. She really thinks it was her mum. And, I hope you don’t mind me saying this –’ he glanced in Summer’s direction – ‘but it really upset her. It wasn’t like she had just seen someone who looked like her mum. It was like she’d seen – well, a ghost . . . I told her about the thin places. I thought maybe you would be able to explain?’ he finished.
The old lady’s smile had faded while her grandson was talking. When he finished speaking, there was a long silence which stretched out into the corners of the tiny room.
Will she say there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation? Will she laugh at me?
When Mrs Pendred finally spoke, she was anything but dismissive. ‘So,’ she said. ‘You want to know about thin places?’
Summer nodded.
‘Do you know what I mean about there being places where you sense the past is there, alongside the present, maybe even watching you?’
‘I . . . I’m not sure.’
‘Not everyone is paying enough attention to notice, of course,’ Zach’s grandmother went on. ‘Especially these days. Too many distractions in the modern world. But some people feel it more deeply than others. Some people are more alive to the energy.’ Her cool blue eyes locked with Summer’s, then she said, ‘I think you do know what I am talking about.’
Tristan had talked about energy too.
Zach said jokily, ‘Don’t go freaking her out, Gran!’
Summer’s throat had gone very dry. She shakily picked up her mug of tea and sipped at it. She thought of the unsettling things that had happened to her back at the house – the noises she had heard, the moving books, that laughter behind the bookcase – and of how she had definitely seen her mother more than once now. Then there was that phone call the night her mother had died . . .
‘Are you all right?’ Zach had his hand on her arm. ‘You look a bit . . . pale.’ He was evidently regretting putting her in this situation. ‘Gran, I think maybe we should leave it.’
Summer set her mug down gently on the low table. ‘I . . . there’s been other things,’ she began, ignoring Zach. Her voice was unsteady. ‘It’s not just what happened today. Not only since I’ve been here either.’ She stopped and looked up at Mrs Pendred. ‘I don’t know if I can talk about it. You’ll think I’m being weird. You don’t know me.’
Zach’s grandmother gave a small smile and shook her head. ‘If Zachary likes you, that’s all I need to know.’ She said it with such certainty, such kindness. Summer knew then that she was safe. It would be OK. She looked at Zach. He smiled too, e
ncouraging her.
So she told them everything, starting with the phone call. The only thing she didn’t tell them about was finding those photos. Guilt prevented her.
Zach and his gran listened intently, occasionally sipping at their tea and nibbling their slices of cake, but otherwise making no interruption. Finally, Summer stopped talking and sat back in her chair, relief flooding through her: at last she had been able to unburden herself.
The old lady’s milky-blue eyes were tender. ‘You’re not being silly, you know. Just grieving,’ she said.
Summer saw that Zach’s face was full of sadness.
What was it he said? ‘When someone dies . . . It takes a while to understand they are never coming back.’
A swell of heartache rose up in Summer.
They don’t believe I saw or heard anything at all.
She blinked hard and stared at her hands, digging her fingernails into her palms.
‘Just grieving.’ My mind playing tricks on me.
Zach prised her hands apart, took one in his and gave it a light squeeze. Summer didn’t dare look up, but she allowed herself a squeeze back while Mrs Pendred continued. ‘Grief can open doors that would normally be firmly held closed. We know something of this energy – don’t we, Zachary dear?’
Zach merely gave a ‘Hmm’ in reply.
His gran sighed. ‘There are all sorts of emotions we have that are . . . day-to-day, you could say. They can be strong too, of course: anger, jealousy, that kind of thing. But you should not underestimate the power of grief: we only grieve because we love, and love is the most powerful emotion of all.’
Summer glanced up. Those light blue eyes, so twinkly a minute ago, were dull. As though a veil had been drawn across them.
‘In a perfect world,’ Mrs Pendred went on, more softly, ‘at your age, you should not have had to discover the painful side of loving someone. I am so sorry for you. Losing your mum – that’s a terrible thing.’
Summer swallowed. ‘Thanks,’ she whispered. ‘It’s . . . it’s good to talk to someone who understands.’
‘Oh, I understand, all right. A loss like that shakes a person, makes them feel and notice things they’d never notice otherwise,’ the old lady said. ‘You need to know that ghosts are not necessarily bad, though. They don’t have to be frightening things.’
