by Agatha Frost
“Call an ambulance!” Julia cried as Aiden’s eyes landed on the knife jutting out of Jessie’s motionless body. “Please, Aiden. Just like Mark is your child, Jessie is mine.”
“Who did this?” he asked, his face disappearing into his blond hair.
“She did!” Alessandra cried, pointing at her daughter. “She’s gone mad! She’s always been mad! She kidnapped this girl and stabbed her!”
Grace continued rocking and mumbling to herself, not acknowledging her mother.
“Alessandra stabbed her,” Julia cried. “Ambulance, Aiden!”
Aiden and Alessandra stared at each other for a moment before she attempted to run for the opening in the floor. Aiden jumped in the way and rugby tackled the nimble woman to the ground. Julia tugged her hands, but the bandages were knotted impossibly tight. A mass of black hair popped up through the trap door, a phone to his ear.
“Ambulance, please,” Mark said. “And police. That missing girl, Jessie, is here, and she’s been stabbed. Hurry.”
Julia smiled her gratefulness at the boy, who the more she looked at, the more she saw Evelyn. She looked over at Alessandra and Aiden as they struggled against each other on the ground. Julia considered asking Grace to untie her, but she did not want to risk disturbing her. Closing her eyes, Julia rocked back and smashed the chair against the floorboards. To her relief, the chair shattered, enabling her to wriggle free from her restraints.
“I’m here,” Julia whispered, clutching Jessie’s hand. “You’re going to be okay. Just try and stay awake.”
Jessie’s eyes fluttered, connecting with Julia’s momentarily. She opened her mouth to try and speak, but Julia shushed her, not wanting her to waste her energy.
“Mum,” Jessie croaked, before slipping into unconsciousness.
Chapter Sixteen
Julia had never seen such a well-attended funeral in all of her years in Peridale. Hundreds of people crowded outside St. Peter’s Church as Evelyn led the parade towards the church. Behind her, Astrid’s coffin floated on the shoulders of half a dozen men, two of them being Aiden and Mark. Barker wrapped his fingers around Julia’s and squeezed.
Instead of flowers, the shiny black coffin was topped with hundreds of multi-coloured crystals, each of them shining delicately in the bright sun, which was poking through the milky clouds. It had been raining continuously in the week since Grace, Alessandra, and Alistair’s arrests, but today was the first day Julia had seen the sun.
Evelyn caught Julia’s eyes, and the two women shared a look only they understood. Julia nodded, and Evelyn nodded right back.
The service was a lengthy one, but it did not feel dragged out. Evelyn opened the eulogies with a heart-felt speech about her daughter’s life, which followed by a speech from Aiden, which was noticeably absent of references to his wife. Julia shed her fair share of tears. Some of them were for Astrid’s stolen life, others were for the time lost between Mark and Evelyn, and the rest were from sheer relief that everything was over.
After the service, the village flooded out of the church, all milling around the edge of the village green. Evelyn made her way through the crowd, which parted like the Red Sea, her rainbow kaftan fluttering delicately in the wind.
“You have given me the best gift I could have ever asked for,” Evelyn beamed, taking Julia’s hands in hers. “Not only have you given me closure and allowed my daughter to finally rest, you’ve given me a piece of her back.”
Evelyn looked over her shoulder as Mark and Aiden talked to a group of other men. Mark looked up and smiled at his grandmother.
“I’m sorry you missed so much time,” Julia said.
“Today is not a day for the word ‘sorry’!” Evelyn exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “Today is to celebrate my daughter’s life and her new legacy in her son. I can feel her love surrounding him, and I suspect she’s been there with him his whole life. I’m sure she’ll connect with me now that she had been laid to rest. I must go to The Plough and put some of that Peridale Green Fingers’ prize money that I won last month behind the bar. It’s time to party!”
Evelyn scurried across the village green, her kaftan wafting dramatically behind her, reminding Julia of the time she had watched Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in the West End.
“Did we miss it?” Dot cried as she scurried along the street panting for breath, Jessie right by her side with her arm in a sling. “Don’t tell me we missed it!”
“It was beautiful,” Julia said, looping her fingers around Jessie’s free arm. “How are you feeling?”
“All the better for having my dressing changed.” Jessie nodded at her shoulder. “Doctor said I’m going to have a pretty cool scar, but I think my driving test will have to wait for a while.”
“Kids these days,” Dot said, rolling her eyes. “Millimetres away from severing an artery and you think a scar is cool! I wonder if Evelyn is putting on a good buffet spread at the pub.”
Following her stomach, Dot headed in the direction of The Plough with some of the other guests. Julia pulled Jessie to the side and waited for Aiden and Mark to make their way over. When they finally did, both men shared the same sheepish smile, neither of them quite able to look at Julia or Jessie.
“I suppose I should thank you,” Aiden said as he tucked his scruffy hair behind his ears. “You’ve given me answers to questions I’ve been plagued with for most of my life.”
“I’ve torn your family apart,” Julia said.
“No, she did that,” Aiden snapped. “You’ve brought my real family closer together. Mark, Evelyn, and my other two sons are my true family. I never stopped loving Astrid. There wasn’t a day – you don’t want to hear any more of this. I just wanted to make sure you knew that I don’t blame you, and that I’m sorry for what they put you both through. I always knew Alessandra was an evil witch, but seeing her throw her daughter under the bus like that only confirmed it. I hope they throw the book at her.”
“And your uncle?”
“He was lied to as much as anyone,” Aiden said, sucking the air through his teeth. “I’m hopeful the jury will see that. He thought he was protecting me. I just hate that he’s been thinking that about me for twenty years. It doesn’t make him any different than the rest of the village, but you don’t expect that from your own family, do you? I can’t blame him now. He’s an old man, I just hope he won’t spend the years he has left rotting in a prison cell. Mark and I are lucky we’re not being prosecuted too. We helped Alessandra get you up into the attic, and for that, we’re both truly sorry, aren’t we, Mark?”
“Yeah,” he grumbled, glancing at them from under his black fringe. “It was mad.”
“She told us you killed Astrid and she wanted to keep you there so she could call the police,” Aiden continued. “I was so confused. We both were. We didn’t understand what was happening. If I had known Jessie was up there too, I would never have gone through with it, but it was dark. I didn’t see her. She said you were dangerous. She used the words ‘mentally imbalanced’. Ironic, right? The second we realised it didn’t feel right, we beat that door through with a sledgehammer. I can’t believe how stupid I was. I should have seen right through it, not just now, but two decades ago.”
“Regardless of what happened, you still had twenty years of those people in your lives,” Julia said, making sure to look both men in the eyes. “It couldn’t have been all bad.”
“I’m sure in time, I might see it that way.” Aiden shrugged and stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets. “Grace’s lawyers are going for an insanity plea, and quite frankly, I think she might get it. I knew she had problems, but she never told me how bad. I just thought it was a bit of depression, and that’s why she took the pills. She always went a little funny when she drank with them, but nothing like what I saw in that attic. I always suspected she dyed her hair black to look like Astrid, but I didn’t want to think she’d do something so sick.”
“You should get to the pub,” Jul
ia said, nudging Mark’s arm. “You have a lot to learn about your grandmother. She’s a pretty cool lady. You have her eyes.”
“They’re Astrid’s eyes too,” Aiden said, looking at his son. “I feel like a fool for not seeing it before.”
Aiden rested his hand on his son’s shoulder, and they joined the stragglers walking towards The Plough. Jessie went to follow them, but Julia pulled her back and waited until they were standing outside the church alone. They both sat on the low stone wall and stared out at the village green as it emptied. Julia’s eyes wandered over to the front of her shiny fixed car, which was poking out from its usual spot in the alley next to her café.
“I’ve been wanting to mention this since it happened, but I didn’t know how to bring it up,” Julia started, gripping Jessie’s hand in hers. “You might not remember, but when Alessandra stabbed you, you said something. You called me ‘Mum’.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Jessie mumbled, her cheeks blushing. “It just slipped out.”
“I want to adopt you, Jessie,” Julia said firmly, looking her dead in the eyes. “We’ve been through a lot this year, a lot of bad, but also a lot of good. As far as I’m concerned, you are my daughter, but I want to make it official before you turn eighteen next year.”
Jessie opened her mouth to speak, but she appeared to not know what to say. Julia wondered if she had made a terrible mistake, but she had not been able to stop thinking about it since waking up in the hospital the morning after their ordeal.
Just when Julia thought Jessie was about to reject her offer, Jessie wrapped her single arm around Julia’s neck and squeezed harder than she had before.
“What do I call you?” Jessie asked.
“Mum, Julia, ‘Cake Lady’,” Julia said. “It doesn’t make a difference to me. It doesn’t change how I feel. I can’t imagine what you went through in those days in that attic, but I went through hell on Earth without you. As a wise woman once said to me, I felt like I’d had my arm chopped off and I hadn’t gone to the hospital to have it fixed.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?” Jessie mumbled, nodding at her shoulder.
Julia winked and nudged Jessie. Hand in hand, they walked towards The Plough and joined the rest of the village. Barker was waiting for them at a table in the corner. He waved when he saw them. Jessie’s boyfriend, Billy, was standing by the bar with his father, Jeffrey, no doubt trying to convince him to buy him a beer. Jessie slipped away from Julia, grabbed Billy, and kissed him.
“Looks like you asked her,” Barker said as Julia sat next to him. “And she said yes, I presume?”
“She did,” Julia said, looping her fingers around Barker’s. “You never know. She might say yes to what you suggested to me if you asked her.”
“It’s too soon,” Barker whispered with a half-smile. “Adoption is a long process. I don’t want to freak her out, but in those days when she was gone, I felt like I’d –”
“Had your arm chopped off?”
“How did you know?” Barker said, squinting at her. “You’re a witch, Julia South. We argue like cat and dog, but I love the kid like I raised her. It’s impossible not to.”
“I love that you love her,” Julia replied, kissing Barker on the cheek. “And I love you. If you are serious about adopting her too, you’ll ask her when the time is right.”
Jessie walked over hand-in-hand with Billy, with Jeffrey, Dot, and Sue trailing behind all carrying two drinks each.
“Did you ask him yet?” Jessie asked, letting go of Billy’s hand and squishing between Julia and Barker.
“I was waiting for you to get back,” Julia said, budging over to make room.
“Ask me what?” Barker replied with an unsure smile as he looked around the group. Dot and Sue both shrugged, but Jessie gave them a knowing smile. “Spit it out!”
“We’d like to invite you to live with us,” Jessie said, wrapping her one arm around Barker’s shoulder. “On a permanent basis, but there’s one condition!”
“I become your servant?” Barker said, ruffling Jessie’s hair. “Fat chance!”
“That’s a good idea, but no,” she said, dodging out of the way, and tucking her bushy hair behind her ears. “You stop leaving your underwear next to the washing basket, and you start –”
“Putting it in the basket?” Sue jumped in. “My Neil does the same thing!”
Barker narrowed his eyes as he looked down at Jessie, and she did the same to him in only the way she could. Barker held out a hand and cracked a smile.
“Deal,” Barker said, slapping his hand into Jessie’s. “Sounds reasonable.”
“There will be a rent increase, and maybe we can talk some more about the servant stuff, since you brought it up,” Jessie said, winking at Julia.
“Don’t push your luck!” Barker said as he reached out for his pint. “But maybe while your arm heals.”
“Look at you!” Dot exclaimed, clapping her hands together as a grin spread from ear to ear. “You’re like a happy family! A strangely cobbled together dysfunctional happy family!”
“I’ll take that,” Julia said, reaching over Jessie’s shoulders to grab Barker’s outstretched hand. “I wouldn’t change us for the world.”
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Julia hated lying. There had not been a day in the last two weeks where she had not lied to Barker. Some of them had been white lies that had easily rolled off her tongue, and others had been big and complicated lies that had stuck in her throat and made her feel sick. What she hated more than the constant lying was how good she was at it.
Standing on the edge of the platform, Julia checked her watch for the third time that minute. She looked up and down Peridale’s tiny train station, the murky early November sky swirling above. She was glad the station was completely deserted. The last thing she wanted was for one of Peridale’s gossips to spot her. Even the least juicy titbits of information had a way of spreading around the village like a forest fire in the height of summer. It would start with ‘guess who I saw waiting for a train? Julia South! I thought she drove?’ which would somehow find its way to Barker within the hour. She would not usually mind being the subject of idle village gossip, except Barker thought she was clothes shopping with Jessie in Oxford. It was a simple lie that had been necessary, and one she knew Barker would not question. There had been no way he would have wanted to spend his Sunday afternoon shopping with two women, and he would not notice that they were lacking shopping bags when they returned later in the evening. Even if he did notice, a simple ‘we didn’t find anything we liked’ would put an end to it, and they would eat dinner none the wiser. Another day, another set of lies.
“The train is running two minutes late,” Jessie called from the small ticket office, her voice echoing off the cream and emerald green tiles, which had not been changed since the station’s opening in 1891. “When are they ever on time?”
Julia’s seventeen-year-old foster daughter joined her on the platform edge, kicking a drink can onto the tracks with the tip of her Doc Martens. She peered from under her low hood, her eyes tired and red. Jessie would not admit it, but she had been crying again.
“It will get easier,” Julia assured her, squeezing Jessie’s shoulder firmly. “The first heartbreak is always the hardest.”
“I’m not heartbroken,” Jessie mumbled, shrugging off Julia’s hand. “I dumped him.”
Julia nodded her understanding as Jessie sat down on the green wrought-iron bench under the hand-painted ‘Platform Two - This Way’ sign. Even though Jessie had been the one to formally end things with Billy Matthews, the boy she had been seeing for the last couple of months, it had been Billy’s decision to suddenly enlist in the army. Julia sympathised with Jessie, but she could not blame Billy for wanti
ng to leave the village. There were not many opportunities for boys like him in Peridale, especially ones who had been raised on the Fern Moore Estate.
It had been a couple of weeks since Jessie had agreed to let Julia officially adopt her, and nine months since Julia had taken Jessie in off the streets after catching her stealing cakes from her café. In that time, Julia and Jessie’s bond was as close to mother and daughter as it could be, but it did not mean Julia had all of the answers when it came to dealing with teenage heartbreak. She was trying to be there for Jessie as much as she could, but Jessie was not the type of girl who willingly showed her emotions.
The shrill scream of metal on metal pierced through the cold air, signalling the approaching train. Julia looked into the tunnel, the yellowy headlights illuminating the darkness.
“They’re here,” she said, almost to herself. “It’s really happening.”
Nerves bubbled over in her stomach, a culmination of the last two weeks of meticulous planning. She almost could not believe she had somehow pulled it together.
Jessie stuffed her mobile phone into her pocket to join Julia by the edge of the platform as the train screeched to a halt in front of them. A robotic female voice announced the arrival of the train, as well as the rest of the stations it would stop at before it reached its final destination of Bath. Julia looked at Jessie, an anxious smile shaking her lips. Jessie did not even attempt to return it.
The electronic doors shuddered open, snapping into place against the metal shell of the train. Burnt oil mixed with Julia’s nerves, further turning her stomach. She stepped back, suddenly realising she did not even know what they looked like.
An attractive woman with straight, strawberry blonde hair stepped onto the platform, a designer weekend bag over her shoulder. She was wearing a pale cream trench coat, figure-hugging black jeans, and heels to match. Julia would have put her in her early forties. A similarly aged bald man with dazzling blue eyes followed the woman, his thin nose bent to the left of his slender face. He was wearing a leather jacket over a blue polo shirt buttoned up to the neck, paired with stylish, fitted pale blue jeans, and he too was carrying a designer weekend bag. A younger man in a shirt and tie, who appeared to be in his early-twenties jumped off next, with his own weekend bag. He seemed to be a direct genetic result of the man and the woman. He was tall and slender with a thin nose, and he had coiffed strawberry blond hair, which was receding at the temples. The man and woman looked around the station with mild curiosity, but the young man did not bother looking up from his phone. The three of them had naturally tanned skin, hinting at several tropical holidays a year. Julia waited for someone else to get off the train, almost certain the attractive family was not who she had been anxiously waiting for. A whistle pierced the air, causing the doors to shudder back into place. The train eased out of the station, leaving the trio behind.
