Wilde

by Eloise Williams

  ‘Fairy lights. I’ll get some.’

  ‘Yes. And ribbons. I know they won’t help us to see but they’d look so pretty. Imagine them fluttering in the breeze.’

  If there ever is a breeze.

  ‘See you at school tomorrow then.’

  ‘Yes. See you then.’

  I go out on to the platform and watch her till she’s out of sight. Mae and Jules are sitting with their feet up in the kitchen and the donkey is taking a stroll around the garden.

  I climb down the ladder and wander around, imagining how vibrant it must have been here when they staged a performance. Filled with people and laughter. I can see where the actors would enter and say their lines. The archway through the bushes as an entrance and the area around the treehouse as a stage. Then maybe the actors would have mingled with the audience, in character. I picture the bright costumes and the actors’ words being caught like ornaments in the trees and bushes. I wonder what my mum’s voice was like. If I sound like her.

  Dorcas thought the story about my mum was interesting. Perhaps it is.

  It’s alright here. In this new life, there is hope.

  4

  ‘Argh!’

  I wake up on the roof. Scrabble my heels against slate. Try not to fall. I grip as tight as I can to the tiles and feel the pull in my muscles, the crack as my bones pull.

  What on earth am I doing up here? How did I get here? This is insane. It can’t really be happening? It’s impossible. I must be dreaming.

  But I’m not. I’m on the roof, fighting for my life.

  I try not to look down. I try not to panic. I panic. My heart races and I want to scream, but I’m afraid who might hear me.

  ‘Help.’ I whisper it into the tiles. Hope the house will somehow carry the sound down to Mae. It doesn’t.

  Concentrate. I manage to get a better grip on the slope. No one is coming to help. I need to do this on my own.

  I’m lying flat on my front, so I inch my way breathlessly across the still hot slates and make it to the chimney. I am sweating and I feel sick rise in my throat. But I make it. Hugging on to the chimney, I try to get my breath back. To work out what’s happening.

  The moon is a light lime green. I concentrate on it to quell the dizziness. Sweat blurs my vision. I steady myself and reach a pyjama’d arm to wipe it from my eyes. Below me is death if I fall from this height. I need a plan.

  Wait here till morning?

  And be seen by the entire town and all the kids on their way to school?

  I get up the guts to look down and feel vertigo twist inside me. It’s a really long way.

  If I got up here, then there must be a way down. I just need to think clearly.

  I focus on the garden below me. Dark unknown things stretch and shudder the grass.

  This must be a nightmare. I bite the inside of my mouth. ‘Ow!’ It’s real.

  Up here it is seriously scary. But…

  I surprise myself with the ‘but’.

  But … once you get past that, it’s magical. Thrilling. It’s just me. The flittering bats, the warm-porridge moon, and the air clear and full of possibility. No one knows I’m here. There’s only the night and me. Up here, I can see like a bird. I am alone and free. I imagine sprouting wings. From beneath my shoulder blades, majestic and blooming. An eagle. A magnificent, powerful golden eagle.

  What was that?

  A shriek? A screech owl. Or perhaps a fox?

  Breathe. Gulp my heart back down from my ears in a hard swallow. Ouch.

  Again the shriek. Another electric surge of panic radiates through me.

  I grip tight as a ghost owl lands next to me on the peak of the roof. It hooks the house with its talons. If I dared to let go, I could touch the owl’s feathers. Stroke its head.

  ‘I agree. It is beautiful,’ I whisper to it, even though I’m as shaken as a baby’s rattle. The weathervane moans its answer. The owl abandons me.

  I shouldn’t be up here. I should be in bed. My skylight is on the opposite side of the roof. I need to get to that or my bedroom window. If I go for the window, I will have to shimmy down and dangle over, holding the guttering while I try to swing my way in. Doesn’t sound a brilliant option. The skylight will be easier.

  Using the chimney, I heave myself up and peer over. I left the skylight open earlier, because Mae lets bats use it to come in and out. Getting to it is not going to be easy, but it’s my best horrendous option.

  I let go of the chimney, break out in flashes of sweat all over my body, and grab it again.

  Come on, Wilde. You can do this.

  I straddle the ridge, keeping the chimney at my back. Inch my legs over so that I am sitting as if ready to slide down.

  Don’t even think of it.

  Pressing my feet hard into the roof tiles, I shuffle down the slope a tiny bit. I can do this. I edge a tiny bit further. Stop for breath. Edge a bit more. I have to do this slowly. I’ll be killed if I fall. Stone dead. The fear gives me sharp focus.

  Another inch. Down. It’s so high. The skylight isn’t so far away now. Another inch.

  ‘Argh!’ An owl swoops low and I skid, send some grit rattling down into the gutter. I claw wildly, my heart in my mouth. Drag myself to a stop on a patch where a slate is missing. Can’t breathe. Deep gulps.

  The skylight is close. One last effort. With my eyes so wide I am hardly blinking, I edge down a bit more. Prepared for the swoop of owls this time. Eventually, I make it to the skylight. Dangle my legs through its open mouth and rest for a second. The drop from here is going to hurt, but it’s nothing compared to the fall I might have had.

  My arms are tired, but I try to support myself so that I can dangle as low as possible before letting go. I still land with a thud and hurt my elbow and knee. But I’m alive.

  Shaking all over, I get to my bed somehow. I climb straight in and pull the covers up over my head.

  How did I get up there? I wrack my brain but there is no logical explanation. I don’t believe in curses, but I do believe in weird. The weirdness has followed me here. This time I don’t know if I can control it. It’s worse than it has ever been before. Now it is getting dangerous.

  5

  ‘Why don’t you have a normal clock?’ Mae has bought a new clock with a photo of Tom Jones, a singer she adores, in the centre of it. Instead of chiming the hour it says ‘Yeah’ in a deep Welsh voice. ‘I can hear that from my room, and it makes it pretty hard to sleep.’

  ‘Oh, dear. Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.’

  I don’t tell her someone actually woke up on the roof, but I keep up my grump. I’m not good when I’m tired. Dad isn’t good when he’s tired either. He ranges from irritable to ‘time to ignore him until he’s had a nap’. I am at that point, where it’s best to ignore me.

  A goat trots into the kitchen. Mae gives the goat a carrot. ‘This is Helen. Helen, this is Wilde.’

  Helen bleats her version of a ‘hello’, then takes her carrot outside.

  ‘It’s not normal to have a goat in your house.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says me.’

  ‘Then you must be right.’ Mae raises an irritating eyebrow then chops up some coriander for a soup. ‘How’s the play going?’

  ‘It’s OK, thanks. It’s not my sort of thing.’ I spritz my hair with one of Mae’s flower sprays and am horrified when it makes me smell like someone’s nana.

  ‘Patchouli, geranium and orange blossom. It’s a calming mix which will keep its scent all day.’

  Gutted to the nth degree.

  ‘Well, let’s just hope the play doesn’t dredge up things which are better left forgotten.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think it will even dredge up an audience.’

  ‘It’s not a good topic to cover. There’s too much emotion attached. And that Frocks Rutherford woman, or whatever her name is supposed to be, shouldn’t be meddling with things that are none of her beeswax.’

  ‘It happened a million y
ears ago, Mae.’

  ‘Places store memories. The things they did to those people, they seep into the roots of a town and poison it.’

  ‘It’s just made up. It’s not like we are exhuming any bodies.’ I don’t know why I’m not agreeing with Mae. I don’t want to do a play about witches. I’m just in a grouchy mood so ready for an argument.

  ‘Your mum wouldn’t have let you take part.’

  The world freezes. Mae never talks about my mum anymore. I don’t say anything. Wait for her to carry on. She doesn’t.

  ‘My mum loved drama, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. She loved theatre, but she wouldn’t have liked the subject matter. She was different. Talented. Like you. She could see things.’

  It’s difficult to get my words out. ‘What do you mean? See things?’

  ‘In glass. In water. The future. The past. Scrying, it’s called.’

  ‘Whatever that is, I don’t believe in it.’ I don’t want to believe in it because I’m doing my best to be normal. ‘I don’t believe in it AT ALL,’ I say, for good measure.

  ‘Then I must be making it up.’ Mae briskly attacks the sink with a scouring pad. ‘Whatever you believe, young lady, this town used to try witches and hang them, and we shouldn’t be making light of it.’

  ‘That’s horrible.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  I feel the creeps, thick and threatening. How did I get on to the roof? Nothing like that has ever happened to me before.

  Mrs Danvers comes in and sly-eyes me to show me she knows everything. She leaves with a very smug twitch of her tail.

  I don’t like this conversation. But I need to know more. It’s like picking a scab. I need to know everything.

  ‘“The Witch called Winter” is just a story, Mae.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘You really believe in it?’ I am scared now, but pretending to be incredulous. ‘All of it?’

  ‘Yes, I really do.’ Mae scrubs harder. ‘Your dad doesn’t like me talking to you about this.’

  I wait. Is she finally going to tell me what is wrong with me? Tell me properly about Mum? The smell of patchouli steams up from my clothes.

  ‘Forget I said anything…’

  ‘But…’

  ‘No. My lips are sealed.’ She hurries out into the garden.

  I go upstairs to get my school bag. Looking out of the witch window, I squint into the sun. My mum gazed out of this window once upon a time.

  She could do unusual things. I am unusual.

  I examine the skylight. There’s no way I could have got up through it. I must have gone out through the witch window.

  Mrs Danvers barges her way into my room and lies down in the most inconvenient central spot.

  ‘You could tell me all about her, couldn’t you, Mrs Danvers?’

  She considers me with her odd-coloured eyes, then licks her bits to mark her indifference. She wouldn’t have met my mum, but she’s eavesdropped on all Mae’s conversations over the years. She knows what my mum could do. What she was and why Dad is trying to hide it. Why won’t Mae tell me more? She is so annoying.

  I go and brush my teeth, hard. Tie my plaits tightly so I won’t have to do them again. Get my mind set for another day of being The Same at school. Hoisting the backpack Mae has given me over my shoulders, I stomp downstairs. It’s not fair that everyone knows more about my mum than I do. It’s not fair that they all keep secrets. If anyone should know things about her, then it should be me. I slam the door on my way out.

  I stride to the end of our road. Sun glare strains my eyes. Cars. Fumes. Engines growling. I turn the corner to the school.

  Brakes screeching. No laughter. No shouting. Children staring. Parents staring. Everyone staring. I realise that the sun is no longer shining on me. I am completely shaded.

  Looking up, I see an undulating cloud of starlings. Thousands of them, making black waves in the sky.

  Wow. It’s amazing.

  The starlings start to swoop low, around me, almost catching at the ends of my plaits. I try to walk calmly through the gate, but they follow. I have to run.

  I stop at the school entrance. Go away, please. Squeezing my eyes tight shut, I think of waterfalls, calm places. Fish circling under ripples of watery light. The moon-path on the sea.

  I open my eyes and they are gone.

  Everyone is staring at me now. Pointing fingers. I don’t know what’s happening. I’m scared. Really scared. I push through the doors, dash past the receptionist and his too-big teeth. Run past the pictures of witches and freaks. Get to our classroom, which is empty, and slump into my seat. Putting my head down on my desk, I try to process everything.

  Now everyone will think I’m afraid of birds and make fun of me. I should have stayed home. Mae shouldn’t have made me come to this school in the first place. I’ll go. I’ll get my registration mark and go. Except I don’t want Jemima to think I was too scared of the birds to stay. Why should the bully win again? I’ll see the day through.

  I think about Dad. I need him to come back now. Why can’t I go and join him in Massachusetts? I’ve always wanted to go to America.

  The door opens and someone comes in. I keep my head down. The someone is crying. I have to look.

  It’s Susan Stevens. I haven’t spoken to her properly. She sits down at her desk with a note in her hands. I don’t know if she’s noticed me.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I ask.

  She jumps, thrusts the note in her drawer and hugs herself.

  ‘I’m Wilde. I’ve never really spoken to you. I’m sorry. I find it difficult to introduce myself to people.’

  I walk over and sit next to her. I may as well be nice, before I leave here forever. What have I got to lose?

  ‘You don’t have to tell me, but I’m here if you need someone. At least, I’m here today anyway.’

  She doesn’t make eye contact. I bet she’s been at the end of Jemima’s whip-like tongue more than a few times.

  ‘I’ll go now. But if you need me, I am just here.’

  I get up, but she grasps my arm. I sit back down. She gets the note out of her drawer and holds it in front of her. It trembles.

  ‘Can I read it?’

  She sniffles.

  ‘I won’t tell anyone. I promise.’

  She gives it to me. She is shaking so much I can barely catch hold of it. I unfold the note. It’s written in green ink.

  ‘Susan Stevens, your secret is out. I know your terrible history and it is about to catch up with you. You are cursed. THE WITCH.’

  Mr Ricketts comes in with a cacophony of children in his wake.

  ‘Sir, did you see that?’ Lewis hurls his satchel across the classroom, and it slides off and spews its contents onto the floor. ‘It was awesome.’

  ‘Take a seat, please, Lewis.’

  The other kids arrive in various states of hysteria. Mr Ricketts picks at chewing gum stuck to his shoe while he gives a lecture on the horrors of all things chewed and sticky and the various places he has discovered them.

  THE WITCH?I’m shaking.

  I move back to my seat. Susan is so upset. I can see her shoulders slumped and her head hanging low.

  Why is everything about witches? Who wrote that note to her?

  The room is full of whispering. My stomach’s an airborne pancake.

  It comes out of my mouth without warning. Sulphurous orange vomit, like lava. It hits Lewis’s bag. It’s over quickly, but the reaction isn’t. Shrieks. Ewws. Shouts. People acting like they are going to be sick themselves. Laughs hidden behind hands. Mr Ricketts calling for paper towels. Mopping. I run out of the classroom.

  The girls’ toilet is empty. I lock myself in a cubicle and lean my head against the door. What is happening with the birds? The crow in my lap. The owl on the roof. The starlings. So many birds. Waking up on the roof? And now, as if all that wasn’t too much to cope with, THE WITCH.

  Someone comes in. I wish I could disappear.

  ‘Wilde?�
�� It’s Dorcas. ‘Are you alright?’

  It’s pointless hiding. She won’t give up. I already know she’s like that. I slide the latch on the door then go straight to wash my hands and splash water on my face.

  ‘It’s probably the heat. It can make you really poorly. Dehydration. Lots of people died in a heatwave in America in 1936 because they jumped into waterways to cool down even though they couldn’t swim. They drowned, obviously. Worth bearing in mind.’

  I press my wet fingertips to my eyelids. ‘How do you know this stuff?’

  ‘I am interested in everything. For example, I read about how the Victorians used to take photos of their dead loved ones as if they were still alive. I’m a bit nervous about going to Witch Point High, everyone is, but I want to do a presentation next year about it, using my new Year Seven form teacher as a corpse if they’ll agree. I’ve had a chat with the caretaker, Stanley, about saving the environment and he says he has swapped his usual cleaning products for all homemade natural ones to help, which is brilliant and means he doesn’t have to wear rubber gloves, which make his hands smell like dead rats. I saw a butterfly on the way into school and when I pointed to it, it came and landed on my finger, probably because I’d had sugar puffs for breakfast and ate them without a spoon. And that murmuration of starlings, swooping so low and so close. That’s not how they usually behave. All the birds are acting peculiarly.’

  ‘Well, it’s nothing to do with me,’ I snap.