‘You missed some great dancing last night,’ I say, half asleep still. ‘Around the fire.’
‘Dancing? What dancing?’ my twin asks.
My head struggles to remember. ‘Not at the beach bonfire,’ I explain. ‘Later … in the woods. Remember?’
‘What are you talking about, Skye?’ Summer says. ‘We sat by the bonfire for a while after the fireworks, then went to bed … there was no dancing.’
I sit up, shivering, put a hand up to my hair where the mallow flowers should be. Nothing. Another dream … like the last one, about a boy called Finch, a boy with dark hair and laughing eyes. Gypsy caravans in the woods, music, dancing, and blush-pink mallow flowers even though it is November.
It felt so real.
Fear uncurls inside me and my eyes prickle with tears. I fell asleep wearing Clara’s bracelets and dreamt myself into her story again … at least, that’s what it felt like. A gypsy caravan, a boy called Finch, music, dancing, laughter. I love history, but this is a little too close to home. Clara’s story has lodged itself inside my head and it’s playing tricks with my mind.
‘Skye?’ Summer says. ‘Are you OK?’
I frown. ‘Sure … I remember now,’ I say. ‘Must have been a dream …’
Summer’s eyes widen. ‘Skye, you’re crying!’ She slides an arm round my shoulder and wipes away the tears.
Why am I crying? Because of a girl called Clara Travers, whose love story ended in the cold, wide ocean? Or because of a boy called Finch who makes my heart beat faster, a boy from a whole different century?
It’s all too weird.
‘Was it a nightmare?’ my sister asks.
‘No … yes … I don’t know!’ I whisper. ‘I … I think I dreamt about Clara and the gypsies.’
Summer’s face is anxious. ‘Clara?’ she echoes. ‘No wonder you’re spooked, Skye! You have to let go of it. It’s just a stupid old ghost story, right? A load of rubbish.’
‘Right,’ I say, although I don’t believe it. And I am not sure that letting go is an option.
‘Now do you see why I think you should ditch the old clothes?’ Summer asks. ‘It’s just creepy, the way you’re always wearing her stuff! It’s not worth it if it gives you nightmares!’
She slides the silver bracelets from my wrist and dumps them into the trunk, shutting the lid firmly. ‘OK?’ she says. ‘Ditch the clothes. Promise? No more nightmares!’
‘I guess …’ I say. ‘I promise …’
‘Summer!’ Mum calls up the stairs. ‘Are you ready? We’re going to be late!’
Summer grabs her dance kit.
‘Sorry, Skye. I have to go. It’s the auditions for the Christmas show today.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Good luck then.’
She flashes me a smile and is gone.
I rake a hand through my hair. It’s almost eleven, too late to help with the guest breakfasts, but in a little while, when Mum gets back, I’ll help her with the room changes. Right now, my mind is reeling.
I’ve promised Summer, but already I know it’s a promise I can’t keep.
I don’t want to let go of Clara’s story. It scares me, but more than that, it fascinates me too. I just wish I knew what it all meant. It’s as though the dreams are pulling me back to the 1920s, to a time when gypsy travellers camped out in the woods, to another world – yet it feels so real, so right. It feels like my world.
I look out of the window, my eyes following the stone wall that separates our garden from the woods. I can just make out the little gate from my dream, but the paint is peeling with age and the mallow plants are dying back now in the first autumn frosts. There are no flowers left, but I know the name of the plant because Mum picks the soft pink flowers in late summer to sprinkle over salads.
‘Marshmallow used to be a medicinal herb,’ she told me once. ‘It’s what the sweets used to be made from, once upon a time. The flowers are edible – not all flowers are, but these are so pretty in a salad or on top of a cupcake …’
I liked the idea that my favourite sweet came originally from a pretty garden herb, even then.
In the dream, Finch put mallow flowers in my hair … does that mean that Clara liked them too?
I don’t believe in ghosts, I really don’t, but what if it’s not about clanking chains and unearthly howls and white-faced spectres that glide through walls? What if a haunting can be gentler, less scary?
I run my fingers over the white cotton lace of Clara’s petticoat. For almost a hundred years it lay folded, forgotten, in a wooden trunk in the corner of the attic, until Paddy found it. Was it coincidence? Was it just luck the trunk found its way to me, a girl hooked on vintage clothes and stories of the past?
It has to be, I know, but the dreams make me wonder.
I open up the wooden trunk, push aside velvet dresses, cloche hats, a beaded clutch bag, looking for clues. There is nothing ghostly or sinister, nothing to suggest that the trunk holds secrets or mysteries. There is no dark force pulling me back towards the past, no blast of icy air, nothing but a collection of old dresses and petticoats, the clutch bag with its intricate beadwork, as perfect as if it was made last week and not last century.
I glimpse the bundle of letters tied with ribbon. Why didn’t I think of these before? There might be clues in them. I set them down on my desk among the clutter of schoolbooks and magazines and pens and paintboxes, to read later.
Then I go back to the trunk and take out the clutch bag, snapping open the clasp. I catch my breath. Inside is a scarlet lipstick, a silver powder compact with butterflies on the lid, and a tiny bottle of square-cut glass holding just a trickle of perfume. I unscrew the lid and breathe in the fragrance, marshmallow sweet and yet cleaner, lighter, fresher than my favourite treat. Marshmallow. Was it Clara’s favourite too? And then the smell is gone, replaced by something heavy, cloying, stale.
I guess perfume doesn’t last across the decades after all. I prise open the compact. The mirror inside is clouded with age, but inside the lid is a message, engraved for all to see.
For Clara, my beautiful girl, your loving Harry.
Harry. The name of Clara’s fiancé.
How many times did Clara hold this powder compact in her hands, gaze into its mirror to dust her face pale or colour her lips red? Every single time, she would have seen that message. Did it make her heart leap, to begin with? Or did she feel heavy with the secret knowledge that she didn’t love him back?
I click the compact shut.
There is one more thing inside the clutch bag, half hidden in a fold of satin lining. It slides into my palm like a talisman: a small silver locket shaped like a heart, tarnished grey with age but still beautiful with its intricate tracery of pattern curling and curving beneath my touch.
The catch springs open at the first attempt, and I bite my lip. Inside the locket is a photograph, a small sepia picture of a man in old-fashioned evening dress, with serious eyes and a neat moustache.
Harry looks like someone’s stern uncle, not the boyfriend of a seventeen-year-old girl. And not one single bit like the dark-haired gypsy boy from my dream.
11
Summer comes home full of smiles because not only has she has been given a good role in the dance school’s Christmas production but also a job as student helper to one of the younger classes.
‘It’s usually the older girls who get to do that,’ she says, eyes shining. ‘It’s quite a big thing to be asked, and of course, it means extra dances and routines to learn. It’s only six weeks until the show. Hardly any time at all!’
‘What did I say?’ I grin. ‘My sister, the superstar!’
‘Hardly,’ she says. ‘Not yet, anyhow!’
Summer doesn’t mention Clara again and I don’t remind her, and that is a very good thing because my twin can still see right into my heart, my soul, if she really wants to. She would definitely suss out a promise just waiting to be broken.
Right now, I’d rather she didn’t.
The dreams wrap themselves around my heart, my mind, a secret I’m not willing to let go of.
Lately, school has become a game of hide-and-seek with me hiding and Alfie seeking. Even though I know he has the hots for some mystery girl, everyone else seems to think he is crushing on me. I am teased endlessly, which is no fun at all.
‘He likes you,’ Millie sighs. ‘Definitely. You could go out with him, Skye, because he is not actually ugly or anything, and you might not have a better offer for ages …’
When your best friend says something like that, you know you are in trouble.
We are in the school canteen. Alfie is at a nearby table, juggling satsumas and flicking chips at his mates, and we are sitting in a corner, half hidden behind a pillar and hoping he won’t spot us. I’m hoping, anyhow.
‘I just don’t fancy him, Millie,’ I say patiently.
‘It doesn’t have to be true love,’ she shrugs. ‘But you will be thirteen in February, and face it, you have never had a boyfriend –’
‘Neither have you!’ I protest.
‘I know,’ Millie says. ‘It’s depressing. I would go out with Alfie Anderson in a heartbeat, if he asked me.’
‘You would?’ I ask, incredulous. ‘Last week on the bus you were making pukey faces behind his back!’
Millie shrugs. ‘Things change. We have to be realistic. I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided he would make a very good starter boyfriend.’
‘Starter boyfriend?’ I echo. ‘You’re kidding me, right? Alfie Anderson has the haircut of a deranged lunatic and the personality of an over-excited puppy. He means well, but he’s not house-trained, and that’s kind of exhausting.’
Millie frowns. ‘You don’t get this, do you?’ she says. ‘I don’t fancy him either. That’s not the point. I’m just saying, he is a boy, and not totally disgusting, and we need to think about boyfriends soon, Skye, or we will be left on the shelf. Old and shrivelled and past our sell-by date.’
‘You make us sound like a couple of mouldy old prunes,’ I say.
‘That’s what we’ll be, if we don’t do something,’ Millie insists. ‘We need to get out there, get dating. Otherwise, how will we know what to do when the boy of our dreams comes along?’
I bite my lip. The boy of my dreams is taking up a little too much of my thoughts lately, but the chances of me bumping into Finch on Kitnor High Street are pretty slim. The only explanation I have for him so far is that he’s a kind of dream version of the gyspy boy Clara Travers fell for, which means the chances of me bumping into him anywhere are slim, unless we are talking séances and time travel. Somehow, freakily, I seem to be dreaming Clara’s memories, her story. I meant to start reading through Clara’s letters to try to work it out, but I got distracted the other day and when I looked for them again they weren’t where I’d left them.
I remind myself to look for them properly; I have to unravel the mystery.
‘I don’t want a boyfriend,’ I say firmly now. ‘And especially not Alfie Anderson.’
‘You love him really,’ Summer says, gliding up behind me and swiping the grapes from my fruit salad. ‘Don’t try to fight it.’
Tia flops down into a seat beside Millie, winks at me and blows a kiss at Alfie. Luckily, he is too busy clowning around to notice.
‘You’re not funny,’ I say.
‘You are,’ Summer grins. ‘You’re just so easy to wind up! Relax, we know you’re not interested in Alfie. Who would be?’
‘I think he’s got potential,’ Millie says thoughtfully.
‘I think he’s got jam all over his face,’ Tia adds.
I glance across at Alfie, who is trying to stuff an entire sponge pudding into his mouth at once, and sigh. If there is potential there, I can’t quite see it.
Alfie spots us watching him and turns a dark shade of red before wiping his face, gulping down the sponge pudding and sitting down quietly. I know he doesn’t fancy me, but it’s just possible that Tia or Millie might be his secret crush girl. Well, maybe not Millie, because Alfie wasn’t exactly friendly to her on the school bus the other day, but that could have been an attempt to hide his true feelings, couldn’t it?
I think he probably does need some advice. On using less hair gel and less Lynx bodyspray and not stuffing so much cake into his mouth that he looks like a demented hamster streaked with strawberry jam. I could help him.
It would be a kind thing to do, like picking up litter from the side of the road, or knitting blankets for earthquake victims, or having a cake sale to raise money for endangered species.
‘He definitely likes you,’ Summer whispers.
Spots of pink flare in my cheeks, but I pretend not to care. ‘Trust me, he doesn’t,’ I say firmly. ‘Maybe it’s one of you lot?’
‘Oh!’ Millie gasps. ‘Do you think so?’
‘Ugh,’ Tia huffs.
‘As long as it’s not me,’ Summer says. ‘I just don’t see what all the fuss is about boys. I mean, there might be one or two reasonable boys in our year, but Alfie is not one of them. Romance is over-rated. I am going to focus on my dance career, unless I happen to meet Rudolf Nureyev, of course …’
‘Not sure that’s going to happen,’ Millie says. ‘Rudolf Nureyev is dead. And gay. And frankly, men in tights are a definite turn-off.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ my twin says darkly, and flounces off to the salad bar.
‘I thought you were the history nut, not Summer?’ Tia says. ‘Falling for a guy who’s been dead for decades sounds more like your kind of trick!’
I can’t help smiling because Tia has a point. After all, I feel like I am falling for someone who could’ve been dead for decades too … or someone who doesn’t exist at all, and whichever way you look at it, that’s pretty weird.
I don’t care, though. Finch may not be real, but he is whole lot cooler than the boys at Exmoor Park Middle School, and way better-looking too.
When Alfie finally corners me after history, I have no energy left to argue. I think of him with jam on his face, his tie askew, and find myself agreeing to meet him at the weekend so that we can talk ‘in private’.
‘I’ll buy the milkshakes,’ he says brightly.
‘Make it hot chocolate with marshmallows and you might have a deal,’ I sigh.
‘Done,’ Alfie grins.
12
So that’s how I end up in the Mad Hatter on Saturday, sitting opposite Alfie Anderson, spooning up hot chocolate and soft, chewy marshmallows topped with cream. He has chosen the window seat, which feels a bit public really, but I pull my cloche hat a little lower and try not to mind.
‘OK, Skye, I need your help,’ he says. ‘You are a girl, so you might be able to tell me where I’ve been going wrong. I have a plan, and you can help me make it happen. The thing is … I want to be irresistible to women.’
I choke on my hot chocolate, snorting in a very unladylike way.
Alfie’s cheeks glow pink. ‘What?’ he asks, sounding a little hurt. ‘Is that funny or something?’
‘No, no,’ I assure him. ‘I wasn’t laughing. It’s just that some of my hot chocolate went down the wrong way …’
‘Yeah, right,’ Alfie sulks. ‘That is exactly the problem. I am crushing on a girl who thinks I am a complete idiot, and it hurts, so I figured I should do some homework on what girls are actually looking for in a boy. I don’t actually spend much time with girls, apart from my little sisters. They are a bit of a mystery to me. And obviously, we have been friends forever, so who better to ask than you?’
Friends forever? I’m not sure that’s how I’d describe it … although I vaguely recall he was at the last big birthday party Summer and I had, when we were nine, the year Dad left. He ate all the sausage rolls, most of the trifle, and at least half a dozen chocolate cupcakes, and ended up being sick in the bathroom. He did give us a packet of Rolos each as presents, but he must have got hungry on the way because half of mine were missing.
Alfie takes out
a notepad and pen and looks at me expectantly.
‘You’re taking notes?’ I ask. ‘Seriously?’
‘It’s a very serious problem,’ he says. ‘Like I said, there is this girl I like. I have liked her for quite a while, but she thinks I am an idiot.’
Got to be Tia, I think. I am not sure there is any hope for Alfie’s crush.
‘Is there anywhere you can see where I might be going wrong?’ he asks. ‘Any tips?’
I sigh. ‘OK then – hair,’ I begin. ‘Ditch the straighteners and the gel. You look like a maniac.’
‘But … I got this look out of a fashion mag!’ he protests. ‘It takes me half an hour every morning to get right!’
‘That’s just it – I’m not sure you are getting it right,’ I say patiently. ‘You look like you’ve ironed your fringe in about seven different directions, then had a fight with a tub of gel and a can of hairspray. Trust me, it’s not a good look. Ditch it – stay in bed for an extra half-hour. Go for the natural look.’
‘OK,’ he says, scribbling in the notebook. ‘Anything else?’
‘You need to dredge up a few manners. Like this week, with the sponge pudding at school … that was kind of distressing. Slow down a little. Eat your food, don’t wear it!’
Alfie grins. ‘I can do that,’ he says. ‘Definitely.’
‘And no more clowning around in class,’ I add. ‘That’s important. It’s … well, kind of childish. You are thirteen now, right? Practical jokes just aren’t that funny any more.’
Alfie’s eyes widen. ‘But … everyone laughs!’ he argues. ‘They expect it of me! I am the class joker!’
‘I thought you wanted to be the class Romeo?’
He frowns.
‘What would happen if you stopped the messing about?’ I ask. ‘You would have less detentions, get more work done, spend less time sitting outside Mr King’s office writing lines. Teachers would like you. People would take you more seriously. And that is exactly what they’re not doing at the moment, right?’
2: Chocolate Box Girls: Marshmallow Skye Page 5
