I raise my face, trying to catch snowflakes on my tongue.
‘Are you OK?’ Alfie asks.
‘Mmm … it’s just so hot in there. My head feels like someone filled it with cotton wool and then hit it hard with a baseball bat.’
He frowns. ‘I don’t think you’re well,’ he says. He puts a hand out to my cheek and holds it there, and I notice how cool his fingers are against my burning skin.
‘You’re boiling,’ he says. ‘Remember the flu bug? I think we should tell your mum.’
‘It’s just the dancing, seriously,’ I argue. ‘I’m fine.’ I scoop up a handful of snow and press it against my cheeks, and a delicious shiver runs through my body as it melts.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure.’
‘So,’ Alfie says. ‘I am going to do it. I really, really am. I am going to ask Summer to dance, and then I am going to ask her out. Wish me luck!’
‘Good luck, Alfie!’
He runs a hand through his hair, straightens his tailcoat and squares his shoulders. ‘Um … so … now, do you think?’ he asks.
‘Go for it.’
I follow him inside, watching as he walks along the edge of the dancers, chin tilted, determined. And then I see his shoulders droop, his face crease with confusion in the flickering light, and I follow his gaze.
Summer is slow-dancing with Aaron Jones, her arms looped round his neck, her head on his shoulder. Aaron’s face shines as if he has just won the lottery, and as I watch he pulls her closer still and buries his face in her hair.
A jolt of pain stabs through me. I’d love to slow-dance with a boy, to feel his arms round me, his face in my hair, but only if that boy were Finch. I want something I can never have.
I should be happy for my sister. I should be, but I just feel sad and small and left behind, the shadow twin.
What must Alfie be feeling?
But when I turn round I can’t see him.
I turn away from the dance floor and ditch my paper cup, pick up a paper plate and fight my way over to the food.
‘Everything OK, Skye?’ Mum shouts above the music. ‘Having a good time?’
‘Brilliant!’ I bite into a sausage roll but it tastes like cardboard, and the crisps stick in my throat like glass. I want to be somewhere else, anywhere else but here.
Summer said I was obsessed with the past, living in a dream world. Maybe she was right. I like my dream world a whole lot better than this one. The past is a shadowy place, a dark place, sweet and sticky as marshmallow. It’s an easy place to hide. I stand there on the outskirts of the party, wishing I could escape.
‘Unreal,’ Coco yells in my ear a few minutes later. ‘I mean, kind of gross, really. And I always thought it was you he liked!’
‘What?’ I frown.
‘You know,’ she yells through the racket. ‘Alfie. And Millie. Kissing. Seriously, how can he do that?’
I look where Coco is pointing and see that my matchmaking has paid off after all. Millie has her arms clamped round Alfie, her lips suctioned on to his.
‘Are you OK, Skye? You look kind of wobbly …’
‘I’m fine,’ I say, but Coco is right. I feel unsteady, as if my legs might give way, as if I might cry. I should be pleased for Alfie and Millie, but I’m not – I feel more lost, more alone than ever.
Summer is coming towards me through the crowd, Aaron trailing behind. ‘Hey!’ she yells above the music. ‘Have you seen Millie and Alfie? Looks like you missed your chance there! They make a good couple, though. Alfie is not exactly cool, is he? And Millie tries hard, but what’s she done to her make-up? Are those false lashes? They look like spiders stuck to her eyelids!’
I shut my eyes for a second and the room seems to spin.
Loyalty to Alfie and Millie swamps me, and the hurt and confusion they have caused me over the past few months evaporates. In a couple of careless sentences, Summer has dismissed my friends completely. Alfie, who has been crushing on her forever; Millie, who hero-worships her. The two best friends I have, although they have a million faults, of course … to Summer, they are barely visible.
I want to answer Summer, to tell her that not everyone can be as cool as she is, not everyone can be a star, but she has moved on already, tugging Aaron along in her wake.
I wonder if Alfie was right, if I am actually ill instead of sick with anger and self-pity. I elbow my way through the dancers, heading for the door, and when I catch sight of Summer feeding heart-shaped pizza to Aaron Jones I feel even worse.
I do not want to be here. I want a world where the sun shines, where the air smells of woodsmoke and a boy with laughing eyes puts wildflowers in my hair and whirls me round and round beneath the trees until the two of us are breathless.
And then I see him, through the crowd, a face in the doorway, a boy I have never seen before except in my dreams, a boy with suntanned skin and dark, wavy hair and a grin that takes all the broken pieces of my heart and puts them back together again as good as new.
Finch.
32
I move through the crowd, not thinking about what I will say, not wondering why or how he is here, just glad that he is. I glimpse his face again as he turns away, the door closing behind him.
When I get outside he has gone, and I think I might cry. Then I see a lone figure in the darkness, picking his way through the snow, and I run inside and grab my coat because I understand now. Loud music and hot, sweaty crowds of kids are not the place for Finch and me to meet. That’s not the way I dreamt it.
I pull the emerald-green coat close around me, my feet slipping and sliding in the snow as I hurry along. I follow the shadowy figure along the road to the edge of the village, up the lane that leads towards the woods. I frown, because I cannot see his footprints, which must mean the snow is falling faster than I think.
When I see him climb the stile and move into the woods I follow, although my fingers shake as I hang on to the slippery wood and I lose my footing on the other side and fall down in the snow.
I don’t even care. The icy shock of it cools my burning skin.
I scramble to my feet, struggling up the hill, picking my way through the little, twisty trees, their branches bent low with the weight of white. I cannot see him now, but I keep going, my shoes full of snow, feet frozen, breathless, hands pushing back the branches that reach out to scratch me as I pass.
And then, too late, I realize I am alone in the woods, in the dark, and that the boy I was following has gone, was probably never there at all. I try to call out, but no sound comes and a stab of pain lodges in my throat when I try to swallow back the disappointment.
I am shivering, huge, rippling shudders that slide through my whole body, yet my face is burning still.
‘Finch?’ I whisper, and the tears come then, sliding down my pink cheeks like ice. I am ill, my head thumping, my limbs numb and heavy as if I have been swimming for hours through icy water and still cannot see the shore. I can’t go on, and even though I know I mustn’t, know it is the worst thing possible to do, I crouch down in the snow, pull Clara’s coat around me, rest my head on my knees.
Somewhere in the distance I can hear my twin’s voice calling me. For a moment I feel like I am in Summer’s nightmare, a girl drowning, struggling for breath, fighting to stay afloat … and then the water closes over my head and I let the world drift away.
The scent of marshmallow and woodsmoke drifts across my senses and the sound of birdsong lifts me from sleep. I don’t know whether a minute or an hour has gone by, but when I open my eyes the woods are green again, and although that’s really not possible I don’t question it at all. It’s daylight and the pain and fever have gone, and inside my clasped hands I feel a warm, soft fluttering of feathers.
I open my palms wide, and huddled there I see a tiny bird, head grey, wings brown, breast flushed with pink. There’s the softest of scratching as it scrabbles around on my palms, softer than silk, warm and fragile and perfectly tame.
I dredge up a memory. A tame linnet in a powder-blue cage …
‘You’re free,’ I whisper. ‘We’re both free, now.’
The little bird blinks and shivers and I lift my cupped palms and as I do I notice the gold band on the third finger of my left hand, feel the weight of the ring, see the glint of the diamond. Then the bird spreads its wings and flies, a swift flash of brown wings and forked tail, fluttering up through the canopy of leaves and soaring beyond.
I watch until it is no more than a speck against the marshmallow clouds above.
Then I take off the engagement ring and push it deep into the pocket of the emerald-green coat, and my heart feels light and free, the way the linnet must have felt stretching its wings to fly free at last.
As the bird rises up, I seem to rise too, until I am up above the treetops, looking down at the girl below, a girl with red-gold hair cut into a swinging 1920s bob, blush-pink mallow flowers tucked behind her ear. She shrugs off the green coat, unwanted, a reminder of a life she no longer wants or needs. There is a crunching of twigs, a rustle of leaves, and I see a boy walk towards the girl, dark-skinned, smiling. He pulls her close and kisses her, and somewhere in my mind I understand that he is not the boy from my dreams but an older boy – a young man. But that doesn’t matter at all because the girl is not me but Clara, and everything is finally right.
‘I love you,’ a voice whispers, and I can’t tell whether it’s inside my head or down below me. ‘Always.’
When I wake again all of that has gone, and I am curled in the snow, so cold the hem of my dress is frosted with white and there are snowflakes on my eyelashes, my lips, my fingers.
I struggle to hang on to the memory of the linnet and the gypsy boy and the ring, but it slides away as if it never happened at all. I know I have to remember, though. I know it is important. I slip my shaking fingers into the pocket of the coat. It is empty, as always.
But just then my fingers snag against a tear in the lining. The pocket gives way and finally, right down inside the lining, I find them.
A ring, a letter.
I pull them out, my teeth chattering, hands trembling. I try to focus, to read, but everything blurs and all I can do is hold the ring and the letter close, the breath rattling in my chest, eyes closing even as the voices drift up through the trees towards me, voices calling my name.
33
The room is dark, and sometimes when I wake the doctor is here, his stethoscope cold and shivery, and sometimes it is Mum, offering me sips of water to help me swallow down my tablets, wiping my face with a cool flannel. Often, though, it is Summer who stays with me, stroking my damp hair, holding my hand.
The doctor is talking to Mum and Paddy in a hushed voice about breaking the fever, about what would happen if the antibiotics don’t work and they have to take me to hospital.
‘I’m scared,’ Mum says, and Paddy tells her to be strong, for me.
The clock ticks on endlessly, painful, louder than my heartbeat.
Summer is here again, telling me to come back because she needs me, she can’t be without me, I am the other half of her.
‘Stay,’ she whispers, in the middle of the night when my dreams pull me backwards to another time and place. ‘Stay with me, Skye, please?’
But the dreams are too strong. When I close my eyes a kaleidoscope of images crowd in unbidden, a jumble of snapshot memories from a life I never lived, jigsaw pieces that make no sense and can never be fitted together.
A gypsy caravan, a smiling girl with wildflowers in her hair, a young man in the firelight, a toddler with fluffy curls, a piebald horse, a skinny dog chasing rabbits, a blue sky with a linnet swooping and soaring, birdsong, laughter. The dream girl puts an arm round me, offers me a hot, sweet tea that tastes of marshmallow and honey. ‘It’s healing,’ she whispers, and I swallow down the thick brew obediently although my throat feels like it is full of knives.
Another voice drifts across my sleep.
‘Come back,’ my twin whispers. ‘I need you …’
But I am lost in dreams.
‘You found her ring,’ Summer tells me, hours, maybe days, later. ‘Was it in the coat? And her letter. You solved the mystery, Skye, do you remember?’
My eyes flicker open. ‘I did?’
And Summer reads to me, but the words are Clara’s and as I listen the pain in my chest softens and lifts away.
‘I am sorry, Harry, so sorry,’ she reads. ‘I thought I loved you, but I was too young, in love with the idea of love. By the time I realized, it was too late. I was trapped, like the linnet in its cage, afraid to disappoint you … and then I met Sam. He is not rich, like you, or from a well-connected family. He is as different from you, Harry, as night is from day. But I love him, and I am so, so, sorry for that because there is no way out of the mess I have made without hurting you, and that was never what I wanted, I promise …’
Summer strokes my hair. ‘Shall I go on?’ she asks, and I open my eyes and nod my head and the rest of the story spills out, into the open where it should have been all these years.
‘Father found out about Sam three months ago and sent him and his family away, telling me that I must forget him and go ahead with our wedding as planned. It was my duty, Father said. But as the weeks and months went by I knew that I could not marry you, Harry. I could not deceive you. Sam sent a message to me and we agreed to run away together, to marry and give the baby I am expecting a home and a family bound by love. I could not trick you, you see. I could not marry you and ask you to raise another man’s child, even to save myself and my family from shame.
‘I am leaving you this letter and my engagement ring, and I have let the linnet fly free as all wild birds should. Perhaps in time you will come to forgive me, although I fear that Father and Mother never will. Do not be afraid for me. I am with Sam and I am happy, and I hope one day you will find it in your heart to understand.
Yours with true regard always,
Clara Jane Travers
May 31st 1926.’
Summer squeezes my hand. ‘Do you see, Skye?’ she whispers. ‘It’s not a suicide note. Clara didn’t drown. She really did run away.’
My forehead creases. ‘I don’t understand … the stories … why?’
Summer shrugs. ‘To save the family name?’ she says. ‘To spare Harry the truth, make sure the villagers never knew about the scandal of a rich man’s daughter who got pregnant out of wedlock and ran away with the gypsies? They covered it all up, hid away her things, invented a story so sad and so shocking that nobody ever dared challenge it. Things were different then, Skye.’
My eyes well with tears, and Summer wipes them gently away.
‘You’ve been miles away, these last few months,’ she whispers. ‘In some sort of dream world. I never thought I could be so jealous of a box of velvet dresses! And now all this … it’s spooky. Like it was all meant to happen, so you’d find the letter, so the truth would come out …’
‘It was meant,’ I say softly. ‘I know it was.’
‘Maybe,’ Summer says. ‘But you’ve had us all so scared. These last few days … and before that too. I don’t know why … I just knew something bad was going to happen.’
‘But nothing bad has happened,’ I point out. ‘I’m OK. And now we have the letter, and we know the truth … there’s nothing to be scared of any more. I can’t believe I had the answers all the time – hidden in the coat you hated so much.’
I manage a faint smile. And I wonder how much of the conflict between Summer and me has been because of this, because she was trying, all along, to protect me? The more she tried, the more I pulled away from her, and the secrets piled up between us, pushing us further and further apart.
‘You’re stronger than I am, Skye, you always have been,’ my twin sighs. ‘I need you. You know that, right?’
I think of the photographs on our birthday collage, of light and dark, sunshine and shadow, of me ready to run, Summer hanging on to me. I thought it
was to hold me back, but perhaps she is right, and it was just because she needs me?
‘We need each other,’ I whisper. ‘But sometimes, Summer … well, you have to let go. We’ll always need each other, but we need our freedom too.’
‘I’ve been stupid,’ Summer says. ‘Stressed out. Selfish. Jealous too … of how close you are with Cherry, with Alfie. The way you can stand up to Honey and actually get through to her while I’m still treading on eggshells, scared to upset her. Things are changing, aren’t they? We’re changing. We used to do everything together, think the same, feel the same …’
‘Did we?’ I ask. ‘Maybe once … a very long time ago. Not for a while now.’
Summer rakes a hand through her long hair. ‘Oh, God … I’m sorry, Skye. I’ve really messed up.’
‘We both have,’ I say. ‘But so what? We can fix it. Change isn’t always bad.’
We have a lot of sorting out to do, my twin and I. We need to talk, more honestly than we ever have, and there will be no more room for secrets or lies. I think of my marshmallow dream world, of Summer’s dislike for all things sweet and sticky.
‘You don’t think I’m plain and boring and nothingy then?’ I ask, and Summer’s eyes widen as if I am crazy.
‘Plain?’ she echoes. ‘Boring? Are you kidding me, Skye? Trust me, you’re the least “nothingy” person I know! You’re cool and creative and soft and sweet and kind …’
I let the fears drift away. I think we can do it. Somehow, over the coming weeks and months we will find a way to stay close without anyone having to stay in the shadows or anyone feeling second best. We will both have to work out how to let go a little, unpick the little jealousies, spread our wings, learn to trust. I’m pretty sure we can do it.
Summer isn’t perfect, but I don’t need her to be. I just need her to love me.
She curls up beside me, her cool hand wrapped tightly round mine, the way it always used to be. ‘We never do this any more,’ I whisper. ‘Hold hands.’
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