That confused me.
“Is Daddy the right man for Mummy?”
She bit her lip. “He was.”
“I wish they’d get back together. I lie in bed at night, wishing just that.” And I did, night after night, praying; always praying.
“Oh, honey, I wish I could make it better.”
“If we came to live with you it would be.”
She shook her head. “You belong here.”
My heart missed a beat when she said that.
* * *
After lunch, Aunt Julia was still insisting we go into the garden. Funnily enough, we’d never really explored it fully. Aside from my own reasons, it was a bit of a jungle out there, brambles and weeds spreading everywhere. Mum was never into gardening, and we certainly couldn’t afford to pay anyone for its upkeep, so the brambles simply took over, their thorny spines as much of a barrier as anything unnatural.
Mum had been given lunch upstairs in her bedroom and was apparently sleeping again. Neither Ethan nor I wanted to go outside. Ethan said he felt ‘too ill’.
“I know your arm is sore, Ethan—”
“And my hand!”
“And your hand,” Aunt Julia conceded, “but luckily the burns were largely superficial. You’re hurting but you’re not ill, not in that sense. Now come on, outside, the pair of you. I’ll come with you if you like. God knows I’d love some fresh air too.”
There was clearly no way out of it, not unless I threw another tantrum again and frankly, I didn’t have the energy. Our chairs scraping against the lino as we stood up, we followed after her, first to the lobby to get our coats and wellies on, and then out of the front door to traipse down the side path that led into the garden.
It was cold outside but Aunt Julia was right, the air was fresh – it made me realise how stale it was indoors and we breathed in big gulps of it. We stood with our backs to the music room and our faces to the bramble patch where I’d first glimpsed that figure. Because Ethan had seen him too, it made him real. What if he suddenly appeared on the path before us? I’d be terrified but at the same time relieved. If everyone could see him and realise what he was, a ghost, they’d have to believe everything I had to tell them. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted him to appear. I found myself silently begging. Please. Please. Please. But of course Blakemort panders to no one.
“Over here,” Aunt Julia said. “There looks to be some kind of path. Come on.”
Again we followed, childish curiosity winning out. Was there a path? Even Ethan looked mildly interested. She was right, there was, brick paved – a continuation of the one from the side of the house really but it had been obscured not just by brambles, but moss and lichen too, making it slippery underfoot. Aunt Julia screamed, almost fell, clinging onto some brambles to stop herself, only her leather gloves saved her hand from being ripped to pieces.
I stopped. “We shouldn’t go any further. It’s dangerous.”
“Nonsense,” she replied, “it’s an adventure. Just be careful that’s all.”
Ethan turned to sneer at me. “Or stay here if you’re too scared to follow.”
Scared? I had every right to be! Even so, I’d show him and I’d be careful, as Aunt Julia had instructed. We all had to be careful.
The brambles formed a kind of hedge, effectively cutting off what lay beyond. Not that it was particularly impressive, it was just more thicket, some of it downright impenetrable in places, a shield almost. I was beginning to get bored of fighting our way through it, and tired, and cold. I hated it out there as much as I hated it indoors. I grew increasingly whiney, wanting to see Mum, for her to be helped downstairs to the drawing room so I could curl up beside her, my head in her lap. I was on the verge of turning, leaving them to their senseless exploring, I’d brave the return journey on my own, when Aunt Julia gasped.
“Look,” she said, shoving her hair from her eyes, “over there, in the distance. There’s some kind of enclosure.”
We both looked to where she was pointing. I wasn’t sure what an enclosure was but I saw a gate and a picket fence either side of it with quite a few slats missing. Behind it was a bank of trees, forested land that looked as dense as the thicket had earlier. We drew closer, our feet squelching in the mud. Inside the fence was a small circle of land, tall grass obscuring what lay there. Almost.
I’ll never forget the feeling that hit me as I continued to stare, trying to make out what was being hidden and then realising, abruptly realising. It was horror. Pure horror. Worse than any I’d felt before. There were crosses rising up between the grasses. And strange crosses at that, not made of stone. Again they were slats of wood, crisscrossed, crudely so. We kids could have done better should we ever want to be engaged in such a macabre task. They seemed homemade. They were homemade. Fashioned in the home behind us? The more I looked, the more crosses I saw. There were just so many of them. It was a graveyard we’d stumbled on but not a resting place. I could sense there was no rest there.
“Oh, my God,” Aunt Julia breathed. “What the hell?”
She didn’t move; she seemed almost cast in stone but not Ethan. He pushed open the gate and darted inside, looking around in awe.
“Are there names on the crosses?” Aunt Julia called.
Ethan knelt down. “Erm… yeah, but just carved onto the wood. There are no dates or anything, not like you get in a proper cemetery.”
‘A proper cemetery.’ Those words still resonate with me. This wasn’t a proper cemetery. There was nothing sacrosanct about this ground.
Ethan started laughing and immediately my skin began to crawl. “How cool is this?” he was saying. “We’ve got a graveyard in our garden. How many kids have got a graveyard in their garden? Wait ’til I tell my friends at school.”
“Ethan, I’m not sure—” Aunt Julia began but Ethan wasn’t listening.
“Joseph Bastard, Edward Bastard, Jonathan Bastard, Emily Bastard, Sarah Bastard, Bastard, Bastard, Bastard – they’ve all got swear words for surnames!”
“No, that can’t be,” Aunt Julia replied. At last she went in, had to check for herself. She knelt down too, brushing aside wisps of grass so she could read. “You’re right,” she said, after a moment. “Every one of them has ‘Bastard’ after their first name, but why? What a strange thing to do.”
“’Cos they’re evil!” Ethan laughed. “They’re bastards!”
Aunt Julia flinched. “Stop saying that word.”
“But it’s true. Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!” God, he was enjoying himself was Ethan, not only swearing but taunting too.
Aunt Julia stood and placed her hands on her hips. She looked furious. “Stop it, Ethan! Stop it, do you hear? I’m serious, stop saying that.”
“Why? It’s not a swear word,” Ethan insisted, not cowered at all. “It’s a surname. I can say it as much as I like!”
He continued to chant, squaring up to Aunt Julia as Mum had squared up to her during her first Christmas here. I could tell she was growing more and more angry.
“Ethan!” I called, a warning in my voice but when did he ever listen to me? I’ll tell you when. Never. Nonetheless I called his name again, trying to get him to turn towards me, for the spell he was under to be broken. Because that’s what it seemed like, that he was under a spell.
Another shock lay in wait. Aunt Julia’s hand came out and slapped him hard across the face. That silenced him. It silenced us all. Aunt Julia was dumbstruck, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she’d done.
Eventually her expression changed. She reached out and grabbed hold of Ethan’s good arm. He was struggling but her hold was firm, you might even say desperate. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she kept saying. “Honestly, Ethan, I don’t know what came over me.” He stopped struggling but only because he knew it was no use. He was no match for Aunt Julia. Her hands still on him, she knelt beside him, stared into his eyes, both an appeal and a warning in them. “Your mum’s been through a lot lately, let’s not, erm�
� tell her about this. Let’s… keep it between ourselves. I’m sorry, Ethan, you know how sorry I am. I love you. Honestly I do, and it won’t happen again. I promise. That… that game you want, that new racing game you’ve been after, for your computer, if you’re a good boy from now on, I’ll buy it for you. Yes, I will, honestly, it’s yours, all yours. Just don’t tell Mum about what happened, or about this graveyard either.” She glanced only briefly at it as she said that. “It’s not as if it’s in your garden, not really. It’s on the land behind. There’s really no need to tell her. She’s got a lot on her plate, your poor mum. The last thing she needs is more worry.”
I’d crept closer and could see Ethan’s face – at the promise of a new racing game, he’d become sly instead of defiant. Aunt Julia knew she’d won.
She stood up, briefly hugged Ethan, and then turned to me. “Did you hear that, sweetie, we’re not going to mention anything to your Mum about any of this. After all, we don’t want any more bad stuff to happen do we?”
Of course we didn’t, or at least I didn’t.
“Corinna…” she prompted, “you have to promise you won’t say a word.”
“I promise.” My voice trembled as I said it.
“Oh, good, that’s good. And promises shouldn’t be broken.” Her smile seemed unnaturally wide. “I’ve got an idea, let’s see how Mum is, whether she’s awake yet. Perhaps she’s up for a game of cards. That’ll be fun, won’t it, a game of cards, or Scrabble. I know how much you love Scrabble. Especially you, Corinna.”
The pair of them left the circle with the crosses in it and Aunt Julia reached for my hand, pulling me towards the house, all of us complicit in keeping a secret this time.
Blakemort Chapter Thirteen
So that was our third Christmas. Finding the graveyard, the names on the crosses, Aunt Julia slapping Ethan – actually slapping him – which was just as shocking as Mum breaking her leg and Ethan burning himself. I never thought my aunt capable of such an action and inside I was reeling from it. Ethan, however, continued to look smug. I had a feeling Aunt Julia would be spoiling him a lot in the future. As promised, neither of us said anything to Mum about what we found, but perhaps we should have – perhaps that was a mistake. In a house like Blakemort, honesty is protection. I realise that now. If you keep secrets, you’re playing into its hands.
Once in the house Ethan started looking at the Argos catalogue, no doubt earmarking all the goodies he could make Aunt Julia buy him. I wanted to go to Mum, but not upstairs, not in her bedroom, so I asked my aunt to bring her down.
“Of course,” Aunt Julia replied, “I’ll go and fetch her right now.” It seems I had the power to make her do whatever I wanted as well. But she needn’t have worried so much about me. If Mum found out what she’d done, the feud would start up again and God knows how long it would continue this time. I didn’t want that either.
Mum came downstairs, the fire was lit, dinner was prepared, and we all sat on the sofas eating it – Mum’s leg resting on a cushioned chair. It was soon bedtime and we were told to go and get our pyjamas on. “You’re a big girl now,” Mum said, looking at me, “you can wash and dress yourself. And don’t skimp either. Two minutes you brush your teeth for, no less. And brush your hair too, you look like a wild child.”
I got to the sink in the bathroom first but Ethan jostled me out of the way, reaching for his toothbrush. I stood slightly behind him, cross about that, about everything. When he finished I took my turn but he didn’t leave the bathroom, instead he stood there and stared at me. I frowned and continued brushing, two minutes as Mum had said, wishing we had our old egg timer so I could get it exact. Still Ethan was staring.
I cut the brushing short.
“What is it, what’s wrong?” I asked, confused by his sudden interest.
“I was just wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“About your name.”
“My name?”
“Yeah. What it would sound like.”
“Sound like?” I questioned. “Ethan, I don’t know what you mean.”
His lip curled as he sneered at me.
“Corinna Bastard,” he said before turning and stalking off.
* * *
Crying again, I rushed downstairs. Mum hushed and soothed me, asked what was wrong, but I couldn’t tell her, especially with Aunt Julia in the room, so I just said my brother was being mean again.
Mum’s face fell. She looked as upset as I was. “I’ll speak to him tomorrow and tell him not to be such a tease.”
Tease? How easily one word can belittle such actions! He was turning out to be as cruel as the ghost boy. Talking of whom, I wondered what Bastard he was? He must be one of them. Joseph, Jonathan, Edward, one of the names that Ethan hadn’t read out perhaps? I cried harder, only stopping to sip at the hot chocolate that Aunt Julia had rushed off to make me especially, trying to take comfort in its silky warm taste. It was sour though, the milk having turned again probably.
Pushing the hot chocolate aside, I refused to go back upstairs, and said I wanted to sleep on Mum’s lap whilst they talked. Mum relented, not wanting to upset me further. But I didn’t really sleep, I dozed, and whilst dozing I listened.
“You really don’t mind staying a few more days, Ju?”
“Of course not, I’m not going to leave you in the state you’re in.”
“But your job—”
“Can take a back seat. Look, you need to rest, especially in the first week or so, to give that leg a chance to mend.”
“Yeah, I suppose so, but it’s six weeks of this I’ve got to look forward to.”
“I can’t stay that long.”
Mum laughed. “Oh, I know, Ju, I wasn’t suggesting. I’ll get used to it, improvise; come down the stairs on my bum, that sort of thing. People have had to put up with far worse. Besides, Paul will help with the kids, I’m sure. If his girlfriend lets him.”
“What a pain though. What a bloody pain.”
“Literally.”
They both laughed at that.
“How’s the work going, Ju? You enjoying your new job?”
That was news to me. I didn’t know my aunt had a new job.
“It’s okay. Finance is finance isn’t it, wherever you are, but at least it pays well.”
Mum sighed, her hand on my hair, intermittently stroking it. “I could do with a job that pays well at the moment.”
“Funny times aren’t they? Hard times for some.”
“Right now it’s hard times all the time.”
“Do you… regret, you know…?”
“Not giving Paul a second chance?”
There was silence in which Aunt Julia must have nodded.
“No.” Mum’s voice was firm. “I couldn’t, you know… What he did, that level of betrayal, I never thought, never imagined… It just killed what was between us stone dead, for me anyway.” There was another pause. “I feel bad for the kids though.”
“Don’t. You’re doing great with them.”
“I’m not so sure about that, they’re not getting on great, not at all. They’re always fighting, and Ethan, he’s just so… miserable sometimes, depressed even.”
“Ever since the break-up?”
“Yeah, and moving to Blakemort, the whole package I think. Corinna hates it here too, she never says so but I know it.”
“She’s said it to me.”
I imagined Mum raising an eyebrow. “Oh, really, when?”
Aunt Julia told her.
“Do you like it here?” Aunt Julia asked Mum the exact same question I’d asked her and like Aunt Julia, she hesitated before replying
“I like that the rent’s cheap,” she replied at last. “That helps a great deal. I wish I could afford to rent somewhere closer to the kids’ school, well… to everything really. To civilisation. We’re a bit cut off here but I can’t, it’s as simple as that. We hardly made anything on our house, especially when it’s divided between two people.”
“Paul’s bought though.”
“Paul’s bought with his girlfriend. Besides, he earns more than me.” Mum shifted a bit. “Maybe this year will be better and work will pick up, so I can add to my savings.”
“I hope so.”
Mum must have frowned because Aunt Julia asked her what was wrong.
“Oh, nothing, nothing.”
“Hel, come on, I’m your sister. You can’t fool me.”
“It’s just… the little one hating this house, refusing to come into my bedroom, being so unsettled. You know she cries all the time, it’s upsetting.”
I was indignant at that – I did not cry all the time, not anymore! Did I?
“It’s a big house,” Aunt Julia offered, “especially when you’re little – and to kids that can be scary.”
“Scary? Yeah, and that man at the window, the one that shocked Ethan, that’s scary too.”
“Hel,” – There was a wary note in Aunt Julia’s voice – “have you remembered what happened when you fell? Were you panicking because you heard Ethan scream?”
“Every mum panics when they hear their kid scream.”
“Yeah, I understand that but did you trip or something?”
Mum stopped stroking my hair and her whole body tensed.
“Trip? I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
I tensed too, just as much as Mum.
“Because I don’t think I did trip.”
“Oh?”
“It felt like I was pushed.”
Part Three
The Fourth Christmas
Blakemort Chapter Fourteen
“I don’t understand it, I just don’t understand it!”
I looked up from where I was sitting on the sofa, a book balanced in one hand. “What’s the matter, Mum?”
“It’s this mould. It’s everywhere, absolutely everywhere. As soon as I clean it, it comes racing back. It’s going to take over the whole house at this rate!”
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