“Hmm.”
“Was there anything else in your dream?”
“Er, cold hands?”
“Hands! Hands…” he murmurs, turning the pages. “Ah. ‘Hands are rarely dreamt of, and their presence in a dream has a strong significance. They are a sign of taking control of our own fate, and of making an impact through our actions on another, or the world at large.’ Interesting. What was this dream?”
“I dreamt of a dog that changed into a girl.”
“My goodness. Not a prophetic dream, then.”
“Why not?”
“I would imagine even modern technology would find such a feat unachievable. Maybe putting a dog’s heart in a young woman, although I believe it’s thought pig hearts are more practical for the purpose.”
“Mm, yeah. It was a ghostly girl,” I add. “And the dogs are from real life.”
“Are they?”
“They came forth from the spirit world and barked at us when we were using the Ouija board. In the woods on Friday.”
“Oh dear. Well, perhaps those dogs were warning you off playing with Ouija. It might not be the best idea in the hands of one so imaginative.” Granddad reaches past me and picks up a box on the shelf near my head. “Still, you might enjoy looking at these, if you have taken an interest in the spirit world.”
“What are they?”
“These are a set of tarot painted by Lady Frieda Harris and designed by Aleister Crowley himself.”
“The dark-magic guy?”
“The occultist, yes.”
“They mentioned him on Eerie, Indiana.”
“I take it that’s a children’s television show?”
“Yeah. What do they do?”
“They can be read, to predict your future. Would you like me to read yours?”
I reach out and touch the pack, and suddenly I feel cold.
I shiver. “No. Not now. I better get back to my tea.”
“And I had best return to my work. Come back later if you need anything. And stop poking around in the netherworld. You never know what spirits you might disturb.”
“Got it.” I shiver again, and run out.
We spent all day playing with Nanny, and went into town to spend our pocket money. Sam and I bought Tooty Frooties and ate them after tea, then tramped up the stairs to bed at 9:00 p.m. There are thirty-six steps in all, and Nanny says they keep her and Granddad healthy. They are basically like doing a Jane Fonda video. Bums of Steel. Mum has that one.
Our bedroom is on the third floor and looks out over the main road. There are two single beds in here; Sam’s is by the door and mine is closest to the window. Outside the glass is the main road. I like the sound of the cars going by all night, but the cries of the foxes scare Sam. I press my hands to the glass and look out. The sun has gone down, and the last birds are settling on the chimney pots on the houses opposite. I realize Dad hasn’t called, which means they still haven’t found Billie. Which is a long time for her to be away from home, even for someone as resourceful and fearless as she is.
“Don’t fall out,” Sam says softly from his bed. He has climbed on it and is standing, looking at the books. We always pick out a book to read here, last thing at night. I know what I want to read tonight. I go into the next room. There are three bedrooms up on this floor, which Dad and his brothers and sisters used to sleep in when they were little. Uncle Tony’s bedroom has Star Wars toys from the seventies on the shelf above the radiator, as well as little ornament dogs and porcelain people and a smiley golliwog. The bookshelves in here are mostly filled with books about astronomy, because it’s something Granddad writes about a lot. He has written ten books, and they sell pretty well, but he’s not ginormously rich. It’s very hard to be ginormously rich if you don’t sell out, Granddad says. He was a teacher at the local college, but he retired when I was born because Mum and Dad had to go back to work very quickly, and Nan and Granddad babysat me every day for three years (except weekends) until Sam was born. That’s why I love going to Nan and Granddad’s so much: I practically grew up here. I love helping Nan flour fish, which I used to do as a kid. I love the plastic mats we eat on, and the woolly green tablecloth, and luncheon meat, and Spam and beans and chips. I love the book-paper mustiness that the whole house smells of. I love the scratchiness of old blue and green book spines from the twenties and thirties and forties on my fingertips. Sometimes I want to make a den out of books and disappear in it. Sam and I think it’s funny that behind the books on the bookshelves in our room there is another row of books, like maybe if you kept pulling books out the rows would go on forever and ever.
Sometimes I wish I still lived here with Nanny and Granddad, and I didn’t have to be eleven, which is almost a whole decade older than three, and much more grown-up. When you’re eleven you have responsibilities. I have a responsibility to Sam, and Billie. It was my idea to use the Ouija board. Maybe Billie hasn’t run away for fun. Maybe I conjured the black dogs and they came back for Billie and chased her away. Maybe she’s lost.
Uncle Tony’s teddies sit together on the bed. I know when I go out again they will start playing. I don’t tell Hattie or Poppy that I believe these things, but Billie believes them too. She’s not dead inside like Hattie.
I walk to the little staircase in the corner and go up to the attic room, crouching so I don’t hit my head on the eaves. This is the darkest room in the house, with the darkest books in it: the occult shelves. There is Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, Magic in Herbs by Leonie de Sounin, Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe by H. R. Ellis Davidson. I move my finger slowly across the spines, and even though I haven’t looked that far ahead yet, it stops on the book I was looking for, Ouija: The Most Dangerous Game by Stoker Hunt. I remember getting it out last October, when we first got the Ouija board. I never read it, but now I will. I move forward to get it and bonk my head on a beam.
“Ouch!” I say, and then stop myself, and breathe quietly, listening. The room is icy cold. I hear a creaking behind me, like a footstep. It’s just the wind, I tell myself, but then there is another creak. I try and concentrate on what I’m doing. I notice the title of the book is in red lettering, like on the paper predictor Billie and I were using yesterday. My finger is shaking. There is another creak.
“Thera! Bedtime!” Nan calls.
I jump, turn to the door and bellow, “Coming!” I grab the book and run downstairs. I don’t dare glance back to see if there is anyone behind me, in the dark corner by the dirty round window, but I feel the presence of that cold, ghostly girl.
By Monday morning, Billie has been missing for thirty-six hours. Mum calls and tells me that she and Dad have decided we should stay at Nanny and Granddad’s and not go to school while Billie is missing. We get in a fight. I tell her I would have found Billie by now.
We spend the day in Cleethorpes, at the seaside with Nan.
At teatime, Sam and I have just sat down to eat when the doorbell rings. Mum doesn’t have a key, only Dad does.
“Good evening, Frances, love,” Nan says throatily. She has never smoked, so I don’t know why her voice is like that. It’s Granddad that smokes. He has a cigar in the evening in front of Match of the Day. His intellectual curiosity also extends to football and horse racing, so he’s in front of the races when Mum comes in.
“Hello, Betty. Oh, you’ve fed them.”
“Yes, well, it’s quite late, and Arthur and I still have to eat afterward.”
Nan and Granddad are going to have a pie out the freezer, but Sam and I got to have our favorite: luncheon meat, chips, and beans!
“I helped cut the chips,” Sam says.
“How was your day?” Nanny says, but she says it in a funny way, with her eyes really wide, and nodding.
Mum puts her big black handbag on the arm of the sofa and hugs both me and Sam really tightly. “Um, no, Betty, nothing,�
�� she says finally. “Do you want to talk in the…?”
Nanny follows Mum into the kitchen. Mum is in her business clothes: a cream blouse, a black skirt, and black shoes with small, chunky heels. My mummy is so beautiful, with a wide smile, big lips, medium-length brown hair, and the same blue eyes as me. When she’s upset you can tell because her whole face looks like it’s being pulled downward by tiny fairy hands. Mostly it’s Dad that upsets her, because he yells. Then her bottom lip bulges out like a fish’s lip. Tonight, her eye makeup is falling into the bags under her eyes in tiny pieces, like she’s smudged it, or has been crying. With that thought, I leap up from the table.
“Thera!” Sam yelps, because I knock his knife on the floor.
“Mum?” I say, down the step into the kitchen. Mum and Nan look at me like I’ve interrupted them. “There isn’t something you know that you’re not telling us, is there?”
“No.” She hesitates. “If you haven’t finished eating, you shouldn’t get down from the table without asking, should you?”
“Don’t change the subject! Are you lying to me? Is it about Billie?”
“Thera, sweetie, not now,” Mum says. “Please.”
“Are you lying?” I say firmly.
Granddad says I have a very developed sense of right and wrong. My theory is that you should be like the Knights of the Round Table. This means you should be honest, loyal, trustworthy, kind, chivalrous, courageous, brave, tough, strong, righteous, and true. You should never lie, especially to your family.
“Mum.” I narrow my eyes.
“I’m not lying,” she says. “Now, get back to the table.”
They shut the door and talk really quietly in the kitchen. Nan makes her a cup of coffee, and we drive home at eight o’clock.
When we reach the limits of our village, it’s nine, but still bright. Our village is quite small, with only five hundred people in it, and it sits in a valley surrounded by fields. There is a police car on the side of the road, and blue-and-white tape across a mud track that leads down to the fields. I have been leaning against the window, but I sit up, and so does Sam. There are police walking briskly along the main road. We turn in to our close and watch the police through the back window. For a moment, I think I see Billie, dead and in the arms of a police officer. It’s a trick of my eyes, of course. It’s just a policewoman standing in front of a road sign. I shake my head hard, so the thought goes out of it. “Billie’s just got lost somewhere, that’s all,” I say in my head. She’s not dead.
Sam looks like he is about to cry, and I take his hand. He holds on tight, and as we walk into the house together, I take Mum’s hand too. Both of them squeeze me really tight, and I feel all the strength from deep inside me coming into the fibers of my muscles and quickening my blood to help me protect my family, if anyone should try to hurt them.
“Thera, Hattie is on the phone!” Mum calls up the stairs. She doesn’t have to yell like Nan when she calls upstairs; our house is much smaller. I am just brushing the knots out my hair after my bath, so I come out of my room in my pajamas and dressing gown and see she has left the phone on the stairs with the cord poking through the bannister. I sit down with my back to the wall and my feet pressed against the other side of the stairs, and pick up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“I just saw on TV that Billie is missing.” Hattie sounds muffled.
“Yeah…” I pick my nails worriedly. Hattie doesn’t say anything, just leaves a gap. “Er, so…what’s up?”
“So what happened on Saturday night?”
“Nothing! I left her in the field, and Sam and I went home.”
“But Billie didn’t,” she says, and I realize she sounds muffled because she’s crying.
“Well.” I slump down the wall, unsure of what to say. “No.”
Hattie sniffs. “I asked Mum about it, and she said the police called last night and asked her questions about Billie. They asked who last saw her. She said you, because when I came in I told her Poppy and I left you guys together. If you did anything to her, I’ll tell everyone.”
“What? Of course I didn’t do anything to her! She’s my best, true, forever friend!”
“You’re a weirdo. A freak. You’re jealous of her.”
“No, I’m not!”
“Yes, you are.”
“Am not!”
“I told Mum about that man. She told the police about him. Billie’s mum is really worried about him.”
“What man?”
“The man you made Billie follow.”
“I didn’t make her follow him. She wanted to.”
“You’re always making Billie do things. Maybe you made her disappear!”
“Of course I didn’t!” I hiss, my cheeks hot. “You’re so mean, Hattie!”
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Hattie says, sobbing. She sounds crazy.
“Believe what you want to believe,” I say, and I lean through the bannister and put the phone back on the hook. I sit on the stairs for a while, kneading my feet into the carpet. The living room is quiet. Mum and Dad were probably listening in. Hattie makes everything worse, always. But what if she’s right? Two tears escape my eyes. What if something has happened to Billie?
And what if it’s because of me?
At school I go around in a gang of four, with Billie, Hattie, and Poppy. Our school has eighty-seven pupils, and there are only eleven of us in the top year, Year Six. This is our last year before we move up to the big school, in the town of Eastcastle, ten miles away. It’s a long time since we started here as four year olds, but Billie and I have been best, true, forever friends the whole time. Hattie and Poppy are only our best friends, but most of the time Hattie isn’t very friendly at all. Mum says her parents are going through a d-i-v-o-r-c-e so we should cut her some slack, even though she’s such a massive bumhead sometimes I want to punch her.
Things our gang has in common:
We love the Spice Girls
We all have Nano Pets
We like to sing and dance
We like to play imaginary games
We each have phrases that describe us. Hattie’s phrase is “Fabulous” because she heard it on TV and she thinks it suits her (it doesn’t). Poppy’s phrase is “Let’s eat candy!” She’s really skinny but her teeth are rotten, and she already has a filling. I’m the best at imagining and I come up with all our games, so my phrase is “Let’s pretend…” Hattie and Poppy aren’t that great at making things up, but it’s mine and Billie’s favorite thing to do. Billie’s phrase is “Totally nutso.”
Billie is never mean, but Hattie and Poppy are. It’s mostly Hattie, and Poppy just copies her because they are supposed to be best, true, forever friends, but Hattie really wants to be BTF friends with Billie. Honestly, I think Hattie wishes I was dead, so she could be friends with Billie without me. She does her best to make me feel like crap, and she basically succeeds every day. I’m not good at being mean with words like Hattie is. Mostly I just want to smack her, but Dad says violence is never the answer.
We are doing math right now. It’s Tuesday, and Billie is still missing. Even though Mrs. Adamson likes Billie best, she hasn’t said anything about her not being in school. She has already told everyone what exercises to do, so we are supposed to be doing them, but Hattie is playing with her Nano Pet and whispering to Poppy about me, and Mrs. A isn’t stopping her because Hattie was crying earlier. I wish I could play with my Nano instead of doing math. I think it was hungry when I left it this morning.
It only takes a week to get a Nano to three years old (this is when they are successfully grown up and you get a new one on the screen), but since Mum has banned me from taking my Nano Pet to school, mine usually die early. You have to feed them regularly and clean their world because otherwise it becomes overrun with poo and they croak. My fourth Nano baby is two
years old right now but here is my list of dead Nanos:
BOY—Jess—0 yrs—squashed (sat on in car)
GIRL—Alex Mack—0 yrs—died of hunger
GIRL—Lucy—3 yrs—grown up! Didn’t die!
BOY—B—2 yrs—died of being overrun with poo
Right now, I have:
GIRL—Elle—2 yrs—hasn’t died yet
I am sat on a table on my own, working through the math textbook. Even though my table is next to Hattie and Poppy, and the boys in our year, they aren’t talking to me because I’m in a higher math set than them. There’s only me in my math set, so I have to work alone every lesson. I quite like finding ingenious ways to solve math questions and being able to race through the book, but I feel left out when they’re all talking and laughing without me.
I am very smart. People are always saying this like it’s praise.
“Thera memorized four books of nursery rhymes, each with a hundred rhymes in, and one whole book about a field mouse, by the time she was two years old.”
“Thera did the SATs exam for thirteen-year-olds, as well as the one for eleven-year-olds. She also got ninety-seven percent and ninety-nine percent in the eleven-plus practice exams, and they told us her IQ was a hundred and sixty-seven, and she was scoring the same marks as the average seventeen-year-old.”
“Thera is so good at math, she is in the top math group all on her own.”
In reality, more people hate me because I am smart than like me. Especially people my age. They don’t like it when I have finished all the work and I sit there and try to look busy, but Mrs. Adamson notices and says, “Thera’s done everything. Haven’t you all finished yet? Tut-tut, better get on with it, no talking,” or when I finish so early she makes me stand up and walk around the classroom, correcting other people’s spelling and full stops and commas. Hattie can barely write a sentence without making a mistake. She doesn’t like me to point this out, but Mrs. Adamson sends me over to help her, so I have to correct Hattie or Mrs. Adamson will tell me off for not doing it, and then Hattie is incredibly mean to me at lunchtime. Sometimes I think even Mrs. Adamson doesn’t like me being smart. There are days when I put my hand up in class over and over again, and she never picks me. Eventually I keep my hand down, and then she will say, “Thera, don’t you know the answer?” Billie likes that I’m smart. She likes all the games I make up. She likes when we make intricate maps and designs for our clubhouses, which we have several of throughout the village. We are sidekicks. She’s Pinky, I’m the Brain. We’re a team and we complement each other, to the point where one of us doesn’t seem right without the other. I don’t feel very good today, because usually Billie is sat right there, in the purple chair, making faces at me across the classroom. I can see her now, her cheeks puffed out. She pretends to float away like a helium balloon. I giggle. And then my mouth drops open because, instead of Billie, sat in her seat is another, totally different, girl. She’s our age too, with blonde-brown hair and paler skin than I’ve ever seen. I blink, and when I open my eyes again she is gone. I look around. Hattie and Poppy are talking like nothing has happened. The boys are snorting with laughter over something. Did that happen? I rub my eyes. “Billie?” I murmur.
Dead Girls Page 3