Season of Secrets

by Sally Nicholls

  Outside, it’s stopped snowing, but there’s still this thin, pale coating of snow over the roofs of the houses. It’s a white Christmas. Normally, this would be the most exciting thing ever, but now it just looks empty. Like the whole world knows my man isn’t there any more. I’m scared that this emptiness will get into Christmas and spoil it.

  Christmas is too important to spoil.

  I pull my stocking off the bed and go into Hannah’s room. She’s still asleep, lying on her stomach, her face buried in the pillow. I shake her shoulder.

  “Hannah. Han-nah.”

  She moans.

  “It’s Christmas.”

  Hannah rolls over and rubs her eyes.

  “Are there presents?”

  “Lots.”

  Hannah doesn’t care about things not being right when there are presents. She tips her stocking out on the bed and starts tearing the wrapping paper off things. There’s a soft toy dog, a selection box, a CD . . . but then I can’t wait any longer.

  And it’s OK. I don’t know if Dad bought the things himself or if Grandma or one of my aunties helped, but it’s OK. All the things that ought to be there are there, and more – a hardback Jacqueline Wilson book (Mum only ever bought the paperbacks), a notebook with unicorns on it and unicorn stickers, a friendship bracelet kit and a DVD of The Secret Garden that either Auntie Rose bought by mistake or surely, surely means we’re going back home soon, because Grandpa doesn’t have a DVD player.

  Best of all are the little pile of things at the bottom of the pillowcase that come from the UNICEF catalogue, which is where Dad gets all his Christmas presents. They’re the least exciting things in the whole stash – a T-shirt with a dove on it, a jigsaw puzzle and a cookery book of different foods from around the world. Hannah barely looks at hers. But I keep mine close beside me, because I know for certain that they come from Dad.

  Christmas happens.

  I get presents from all sorts of random people who never normally send me things. I get some from people I never even knew existed – Great-auntie June, who’s Grandpa’s sister and breeds cats – Terry and Maggie, who used to be our next-door neighbours when I was a baby – someone called Linda, who even Dad has never heard of.

  “Who are these people?” says Hannah.

  “They’re people who care about you,” says Dad, but Hannah isn’t impressed.

  “Do I have to write them all thank-you letters?” she says, waving a bottle of bubble bath. “Even for stuff like this?”

  “Next year,” says Grandma. “I might not bother buying you a present, if that’s how you behave.”

  “I liked yours,” says Hannah, quickly. I got roller blades from Grandpa and Grandma but Hannah got money, which she likes much better.

  After we’ve opened the presents, we sit quietly together in the living room. It’s dark apart from the Christmas tree, which is glowing away in a corner, little coloured lights shining off the tinsel. I don’t think there’s anything more beautiful in the world than a Christmas tree.

  Hannah’s sitting on the floor rearranging her present stash again. Hannah can never sit still for long. Grandpa’s leaning back in his chair watching Dad. Grandma’s drinking her Christmas sherry, watching Grandpa, watching us.

  These are my family, I think. I squeeze my eyes tight shut to save the picture in my head. I remember the Holly King, still out there.

  Go away, I think, as loud as I can. Don’t get these. These are mine. Don’t get anything else that belongs to me.

  You Owe Me a Bear Cub

  New Year comes. Dad goes back home. Last year, I would have expected him to take us with him, but this year I wouldn’t be surprised if he left without even saying goodbye.

  Dad seems to care, though. The night before he goes, he teaches me and Hannah poker and stays up until after midnight playing with us for IOUs written on bits of paper. He’s better at games than he is at talking about what’s real and what isn’t. In the end, he loses everything, leaving us both with paper scraps promising me a bear cub, a Chinese junk and a light sabre and Hannah a mansion, a Mercedes and a million pounds.

  When I go to bed, he lifts me up off the ground and squeezes me.

  “All right, Molly mine?” he says.

  I wrap my legs around his hips and rest my head against his shoulder.

  “You owe me a bear cub,” I say.

  “I owe you a lot more than that,” he says, and he lowers me back to the floor and goes downstairs, leaving me wondering.

  When I wake up in the morning, he’s gone.

  We go back to school. We’ve finished the Vikings and we’re doing Bridges, which Mrs Shelley says we’re not to complain about because it Wasn’t Her Idea and at least it’ll give us something to do with all those cereal boxes.

  It stays cold. Not exciting snow-and-hail cold. A dull, grey, miserable kind of cold.

  I don’t see the Holly King again. Maybe he won’t ever come back. Now he’s won.

  I go back to the barn, once, before Dad leaves. I look inside and all around the back. I call him by all the names that I know. Oak King. Green Man. I don’t call for long. I feel silly; calling for someone who isn’t there.

  When I’m done, I go and look at his tree. It’s quite dead. The wood is pale and chipped and worn away. It’s shiny with wet and slimy with rot. It looks about five hundred years old.

  Looking at it, I find it hard to remember that I believe in things that come back from the dead. I can barely believe, looking at it, that it was ever even alive.

  And back in the real world, no one has noticed that everything’s changed. Josh and Hannah are still Josh and Hannah. Emily is still Emily and Dad is still Dad. He still comes and takes us out, though now he does seem to be trying to make more of an effort.

  “Look,” he says. “I’ve bought you a present.” And he brings out a magazine, or a Kinder egg, or a second advent calendar cheap in the sales.

  “Thank you,” I say, and he puts his head on one side.

  “Hey,” he says. “Moll. It’s not the end of the world.”

  I don’t answer.

  Grandpa is still Grandpa. When we come home from school he looks up from the till.

  “How was school?” he says.

  “Horrible,” grumps Hannah, and stumps through to the kitchen to see if there’s any past-the-sell-by-date cake to eat.

  “Really horrible?” says Grandpa, and I rest my arms on the counter and lay my head down on top of them.

  “OK really,” I say, and he pats my shoulder.

  “How about you put the new stock out for me?” he says – or mop the floor – or take those boxes out – or mind the till while I make a cup of tea? And I’ll nod and do whatever it is he’s saved for me; so long as I get to stay here close by him.

  As I work, I’ll catch him looking at me.

  “Really OK?” he’ll say, sometimes, like I’m hiding some big terrible secret. I don’t tell him that I don’t need a terrible secret. The things he knows about are terrible enough.

  And January turns into February, and I come up the hill from school with the wind in my hair and the cold in my fingers and I wonder if I’ll feel like this for ever.

  Candlemas

  Today, when we pile into the schoolroom, Miss Shelley is up by the whiteboard with a look on her face that says we aren’t doing maths this morning.

  “Today,” she says, “is a very special day. Can anyone tell me why?”

  The boys all stick their hands in the air.

  “It’s your birthday!”

  “It’s Mrs Angus’s birthday!”

  “We’re having a party!”

  “We’re having a trip!”

  “We’re going home!”

  I don’t want to go on a trip and my home is a long way from here. What I hope is happening is art. Something quiet and soothing, with flowy water or coloured beads or crayons in soft pastel colours.

  “No,” says Miss Shelley. “Today is Candlemas.”

 
; “What’s Candlemas, miss?” says Matthew.

  “Candlemas is the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox,” says Miss Shelley. She looks at our blank expressions (not mine! I remember this!) and laughs. “In one sense,” she tells us. “It’s the first day of spring. In Roman times, people used to have processions through the streets with torches and candles. They would take the candles to churches to be blessed.”

  “Torches?” says Matthew, like the Romans had electric torches, with batteries.

  “Flaming torches, stupid,” says Hannah.

  Miss Shelley puts us into groups and we make candles all morning. Usually we’re three groups; boys, girls and littlies, and it ends up with me and Emily getting bossed about by Hannah. But today Miss Shelley puts Hannah with Josh and Matthew, and Alexander with me and Emily.

  It’s a nice change not being in a group with Hannah. I can hear her on the other table, arguing over scissors.

  “But you aren’t even using them!”

  “They’re mine!”

  Emily and Alexander and I look at each other, shyly.

  Miss Shelley gives out cardboard to make candle moulds and crumbly wax and soft white string for wicks.

  Emily makes cone-shaped candles. Lots of cone-shaped candles.

  Alexander’s candle is like a rocket. It’s the inside of a toilet roll with a cardboard cone Sellotaped to one end of it. He makes the mould, then he stares at it for ages.

  I’ve never talked properly to Alexander before. He always tags around with Josh and Matthew, but I think that’s just because there aren’t any other big boys in the school.

  I like Alexander’s rocket mould. And I think I like Alexander. So I say, “What’s wrong?”

  Alexander scratches the back of his head. Then he says, “It’s fins. It needs fins. To go on the side.”

  We look at the candle.

  “You could make them out of cardboard,” says Emily, in her soft voice.

  “They have to be wax,” says Alexander. “A red wax candle and blue wax fins.”

  “You should make more moulds,” I say. I lean forward to show him. “Out of plasticine. Then, when the wax has set, you peel away the plasticine and stick the fins to the candle. See?”

  Alexander’s plasticine rocket-fin moulds seem to work. Everyone else has cardboard moulds except for us. Emily makes a fish-shaped plasticine mould and a dog-shaped mould. I make moulds that are supposed to look like flowers, only they don’t quite come out right.

  It’s nice. Almost like having friends.

  “Look at Alexandra!” says Matthew, barging past our end of the table. “Making flowers with the girls!”

  Alexander goes bright red.

  “I am not!”

  And he spends the rest of the lessons bent over his candle, so it doesn’t look like he’s talking to us.

  We melt the wax and pour it into the moulds and leave it to set while we do maths, then transporter bridges, then the water cycle (again). Just before home time, Miss Shelley turns off the big light and we light them all. Rocket candles and rainbow candles and candles scratched all over with graffiti.

  There’s a whole tableful of pointed yellow lights.

  I close my eyes. Even with them shut, I can still see the fuzzy orange candle flames.

  Tiny little points of light in the darkness.

  Bonfires and Magic

  When we get home, Jack’s having a bonfire.

  I go out to watch him. The smoke has a wonderful woodsy smell about it. The air is sharp and there’s this pale blue sky, so big and empty it almost hurts, with just a few stringy clouds hovering round the edges.

  “Like it?” says Jack, and I nod.

  I like Jack. I like fire. I like how different things behave when you put them on it. Crisp packets burn with this big flame and then shrivel away to nothing. Planks sit there for ages making up their minds, but once they start burning they go and go. Logs crackle. Wet wood hisses and smokes. And the leaves from the hedge make friendly pop – pop – popping sounds.

  “Double, double, toil and trouble,” says Jack. “Fire burn and cauldron bubble. Little witch, you are.”

  “That’s right,” I say. “I’m making a spell. Double, double, double,” and I walk round the fire three times widdershins, which is the opposite way to clockwise and also magic.

  “Don’t you cast any spells on me!” says Jack.

  “I’m making a weather spell,” I say. “A spell to make it spring again.”

  “Ah,” says Jack. He pokes the fire with a bit of stick. “Spring’ll come round without anyone wishing for it,” he says.

  “Soon?” I say.

  “Soon enough,” says Jack, and throws the stick on the fire.

  Alliances Forged in Clay

  At school, the candle project still isn’t finished. Now we have to make clay candle-holders. In the same groups as before.

  Matthew groans, deeply and dramatically.

  “Why can’t we swop groups, miss? Why do we have to be with her?”

  “Because,” says Mrs Angus, “it’s about time you learnt how to treat a lady.”

  Josh and Matthew think this is hilarious.

  “Watch out,” Josh coos, to Hannah. “You can’t have the clay. You’re a lady. You might get dirty.”

  “Shut it, gimp,” says Hannah.

  Alexander and Emily and I make a big candle-holder together.

  “A candelabra,” says Alexander.

  He rolls the word around in his mouth like it’s something magical. I like the idea of a word as magic. I give Alexander my best words back. Nocturnal. Luminescence. Malevolence. Sprat.

  Alexander of the Roman-fort-loving-lecturer parents is more than up for those.

  “Mulligrubs,” he says.

  Emily and I stare.

  “That’s not a word.”

  “It is!” says Alexander. “It means to be sad.”

  We’re both suspicious. But Alexander hasn’t stopped yet.

  “Oscitate,” he says. “That means yawning. Or defenestrate – that means to throw someone out of a window.”

  I start to laugh. “There isn’t a word for throwing someone out of a window!”

  “There is,” says Alexander. “Defenestrate. And porknell – that means fat as a pig. And—”

  “You’re making these up!”

  “I’m not,” says Alexander. He looks hurt. “I’ve got a book of them at home.”

  We both look at Emily. She ducks her head, staring at her clay.

  “Your turn,” says Alexander.

  Emily doesn’t say anything. She turns her head away.

  “It doesn’t have to be a long word,” I say, to help her.

  “Splat!” says Alexander, to show her.

  “Squish.”

  “Boom.”

  “Kablam.”

  Emily smiles, a small, shy smile like a pink hamster nose poking out of its house.

  “Sparkle,” she says.

  “Shine,” says Alexander.

  “Fine.”

  “Wine, opine, dine—”

  “Give it me!”

  Over on the other end of the table, Hannah and Josh are fighting again. Josh is holding the clay knife behind his back. Hannah lunges for it and he stumbles back, laughing.

  “Give it!”

  “Ladies don’t need knives,” says Josh. “Knives are for boys. A girl might cut herself.”

  Matthew gives a hiccuppy little laugh.

  “I’ll do your cutting,” says Josh. “You show me what you want cutting, I’ll do it. Just—”

  Way over on the littlies’ bit of the table, Sascha squeals. Mrs Angus turns round, but she’s too late to stop Hannah picking up Josh’s entire dragon candelabra (with detachable flames) and throwing it at him, splat bang in the middle of his face.

  Hannah’s in the biggest trouble ever.

  “I started it, miss,” says Josh, but Miss Shelley doesn’t care.

  “Hannah knew exactly wha
t she was doing,” she says. She makes Hannah write lines, like a Victorian schoolgirl.

  “Sorry,” Josh whispers as he bumps past her. He’s got clay all over his jumper, and bits of clay slicked into his hair and ears where the soaping didn’t reach. He looks like a goblin. Hannah doesn’t say anything, but she gives him this big, triumphant smile.

  At break, Alexander goes off after Matthew and Josh, but he looks over his shoulder at me and Emily. Josh ignores him. He’s making an iceball out of the dirty bits of crushed ice at the edge of the playground. When Hannah comes out, he yells, “Oi! Mudwoman!” and lobs it at her.

  It hits the side of Hannah’s coat. She stands utterly still, then she charges at Josh, stuffing bits of crushed iceball down the back of his coat. Josh squirms.

  “Oi! Get off me! Madwoman!”

  But he’s laughing, and so is Hannah. I watch, trying to figure out if they’re friends now, or enemies. But I can’t work it out.

  By Moonlight

  Tonight, I take my conkers down from the window sill. They’ve got smaller and kind of shrivelled; dark and hard. They remind me of the bits of wood and stone that Mum used to collect, and it makes me happy to think that I’ve brought a little piece of my mother into my bedroom. I sit on my window sill with a conker in each hand and try to feel the spark of life that Miss Shelley told us about. I imagine it like a seed, buried deep under the layers of conkerness. I poke at it, trying to hurry it up.

  Hurry up, I tell them, in my head. Wake up. Grow.

  When I fall asleep, I dream.

  I dream that there’s someone in our garden. It’s a boy, wearing nothing at all. I can see his bare back in the moonlight. He’s kneeling in the snow, shivering. More than shivering. His whole body is shaking. He’s kneeling there, bent over with his arms wrapped around his chest, shaking and shaking and staring and staring all around him like he’s never seen frost or trees or gardens or the moon before.