I thought open questions would be the way forward, but all I got was a wall of silence.
“I dunno,” the boy said, his scowl deepening. “I don’t think we should talk to you.”
“Well, you don’t have to,” I told him. “But I’m not going to hurt anybody. I’m a friend of Grace’s mum. A journalist.”
The boy examined me thoroughly before nodding. I thanked God that whoever had told him about stranger danger hadn’t extended the lesson to petite, scruffy journalists with glasses.
“I’m Alex,” he said. “I’m Grace’s friend too. Sarah didn’t come to school today. She’s off sick.”
“My mum said it was because her mum is afraid she’ll go missing too,” cut in the smallest girl in the group, a blonde who was so fine-boned she looked like a pixie.
“Oh that’s rubbish.” This came from a girl who until now had hung back behind her friends. She had dark brown hair, bright hazel eyes, and sun-kissed skin despite the drab March weather. She looked right at me, her stance and expression surprisingly adult for an eleven-year-old. She was the one who had been talking to the teacher just a minute ago. I wondered if this was the history teacher who Mrs Upton had mentioned, the one helping Grace to come out of her shell.
“What’s rubbish?” I asked. They said nothing at first, so I groped in my pocket for an old business card and pulled it out as though it was proof I could be trusted. I passed it to the pixie girl, who looked at it with disdain before passing it along.
“It’s rubbish that Grace was abducted,” the hazel-eyed girl said then, very matter-of-factly. “People keep saying she was probably abducted but Grace isn’t stupid.”
“Shut up, Bella.” Pixie-girl rolled her eyes.
“She’d have told one of us if she was meeting somebody,” Bella persisted.
“Even if it was a secret?”
Bella opened her mouth to speak, but then stopped. She shrugged. Then she leaned in conspiratorially, her brown hair moving like a curtain to keep her words hidden as though they were just for me.
“That’s the thing,” she said slowly. “Grace doesn’t keep secrets from me.”
7
SECRETS. THAT WAS THE thing, wasn’t it? At eleven I didn’t have many secrets, but by thirteen I was brimming with them. I loved them. Hated them, too. The summer we lost Olive I had a lot of things to keep to myself; I gorged on my secrets, on the stories I was writing and on my expanding emotions as if they were sweets and chocolate that I’d never had before. For once I had something I didn’t have to share.
I had Marion; I had feelings that nobody else had.
The thrill of the secrets was greater still because Marion and I knew our parents wouldn’t approve. Girls didn’t like other girls. Not like that. Mum had told me as much herself. It was a different world, then, and I was trapped by its customs and rules.
Holding hands in the back seat of Gran’s car on the way to the Bishop’s Green fête had given us such a rush that the evening before the eclipse we could hardly keep our hands off each other. The jasmine scent of the air mixed with the trembling excitement in the hot summer night. The fear of getting caught was almost as fun as knowing that only we felt this way.
I realised later that Olive had secrets, too, but she didn’t flaunt them like I did. She kept them close to her chest, guarding her hand relentlessly. And I was so wrapped up in myself that I didn’t see it. I almost wanted to be found out so I didn’t have to tell my parents how I felt. About myself and about Marion.
Olive was different. When she was small she’d shared everything with me, but the prospect of moving to Big School at the end of the summer had closed her off. It was almost as though she felt she had to hide things in order to grow up.
The week we arrived in Bishop’s Green, I’d found Olive writing in a diary. She’d never kept one before that I knew of and I wondered what had prompted the change. She’d left it under her pillow, and I found it while looking for a hair clip of mine she’d borrowed. The diary was blue, covered with stickers of Pokémon and dinosaurs and planets, a mixture that I thought summed up my nerdy sister perfectly.
I wanted to read it.
I was burning to rip it open and devour the contents – but something stopped me. Not guilt as much as a fear of retribution. I hovered at the edge of the bed, holding her pillow in a tight grip, indecision rendering me completely immobile.
If Olive found me reading it she’d never forgive me and I still had the summer to endure with her. I hated being punished by her because Olive was so insufferable: she never rubbed it in my face, never gloated that I was in trouble, and that quiet calmness was always so damn infuriating.
So I put the pillow back and left it alone.
When I went back for it after Olive was taken, it was gone. I always assumed she’d hidden it somewhere but I never found it. In the months and years that followed I often wondered what might have happened if I’d read it. Would it have taught me anything about her that I should have known? I was her sister. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, all locked-up feelings. Sisters were supposed to share things. Maybe it would have told me other things about Olive’s life that would have saved her.
She might have written about Dad, too, about his secrets. She knew more about him than I did – because she paid attention. She was the quiet kid who people forgot about when they had adult conversations. Maybe reading her diary would have told me about Dad’s affair and where he might have been when she was taken. Maybe I wouldn’t have hated him so much if I’d known about Carol from the start, instead of finding out weeks later when everything had already been ruined by our mutual doubt and suspicion anyway. Maybe the police would have found Olive – if they hadn’t been so preoccupied with our father and his damn lies. If they’d had more leads they might have known where to look.
She might have even written about him in her diary. The man who took her. Even now I was tormented by the thought that she might have known who he was.
* * *
When it came to dinnertime, all we had was a tin of beans and some bread because I hadn’t been shopping. Being a functioning adult never had been my speciality. Beans on toast would have to do. As I served it up, Gran came to the table and I made small talk that was unlikely to upset her. She paid me no heed.
“You know, it’s my granddaughter’s birthday next month.” This came out of the blue. There was a spot of bean juice on Gran’s shirt.
I felt my body get heavy. She didn’t mean me. Today she was in her favourite reality, the one where Olive and I were still children, still safe and secure and living in Derby with both parents.
“Yes,” I said. “The thirteenth.”
“That’s right. I’m not sure what she would like. I don’t know what she’s into any more.” Gran shovelled a forkful of beans into her mouth. “I was thinking I could get her something from that shopping centre they just built. My daughter and her husband – they work a lot. She’s a high-flyer, works in sales. You know, he’s a lecturer in English? He writes all these papers and things. So when the children stay with me I make it fun. I thought I could get the girls something to share, but of course I want to get Olive something special too.”
I could guess what year Gran thought it was. They’d built a shopping centre years ago just outside town, one of those monstrous things that sucks local businesses dry. I hadn’t visited it since I was here for Marion’s dad’s funeral two years ago but I doubted it had changed much. If anything I figured there would be more empty shops, space forfeited because of the astronomical ground rent.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. How could I answer? Olive had been gone sixteen years and here was Gran trying to work out what to buy her for her birthday. I felt a hotness welling up behind my eyelids as I always did when Gran spoke about Olive as though she was still here.
I knew I had to make the effort, though, as Gran watched me expectantly.
“Books,” I said. “She liked books. Book tokens.”
<
br /> Gran didn’t catch the past tense. She nodded, scraping her plate noisily. “Not some jewellery? That might be nice, too. My Cassie loves jewellery.”
I shivered. Hearing myself being spoken about like that, as if I wasn’t right here – it made me feel like a ghost. But I couldn’t bring myself to correct her. Sometimes it was best to just become somebody else and let her live in the reality of the moment.
I thought back to my childhood summers in Bishop’s Green instead, trying to imagine the world Gran thought she was still living in. There were little gift shops all the way around Chestnut Circle that sold beautiful hand-crafted silver jewellery and incense sticks and precious gems. Every summer I would bring my savings with me and waste countless pounds on bracelets made of rose quartz to aid me in finding love, tiger’s eye pendants to bring me luck. I would beg to go to the Triplet Stones, to rub them or kiss them, or whatever it was that people did. Mum always laughed when I told her. It was all just old superstitious nonsense.
But the eclipse’s power was meant to be nonsense too. It was just science, Gran said. Something that happened almost by accident. I hadn’t believed in its power to take, to steal. To make new. And then Olive was gone, and our lives were different. New. Just not in a good way.
“I think she’d prefer a book,” I said quietly.
Olive had always scoffed at me when we were children; she thought precious stones and mood jewellery were daft. Or at least that’s what she’d led me to believe. With a funny twist in my gut, I suddenly remembered the mood ring Olive had come home wearing after a day out in town with Gran the summer she disappeared.
Now I knew why Grace Butler’s mood ring had seemed so familiar when I’d seen it in her photo.
“Do you remember Olive’s ring?” I asked suddenly, the question jumping out before I could stop to consider it. “She got it that summer?”
My heart raced and I swallowed hard. I felt stupid for not having noticed before. What were the chances of that? Both girls going missing right near a solar eclipse, both the same age, both wearing a mood ring with a mermaid on it? The mood ring seemed final, somehow, a tangible connection between them both.
“I don’t…” Gran frowned, her lip puckering. “I’m not sure. I…”
Stop it, I told myself furiously. Now you are being stupid. Yes, Bishop’s Green might be in decline – yes, a lot of the shops closed and people moved away – but this was still a town that drew its income from tourism. Was it really a surprise that two little girls had been drawn in by the promise of mildly magical jewellery?
Magic was what this town sold, after all, with its Triplet Stones and New Age shops. The eclipse in 1999 was supposed to be a new beginning for all of us. That’s why everybody had been so obsessed with it, counted down to it, waited for the sensation of newness and freshness to cleanse them. The shops had been buzzing, and so had we, despite the warnings that it was all nonsense.
The summer after Olive disappeared, I found a book in the library in Derby where I lived with my mum. It was after Dad started renting his first house with Carol, after Mum and I moved into the dingy flat we’d lived in for six months, where everything was smaller and made for two instead of four.
The library book was about superstition and myths. In many cultures, solar eclipses were seen as evil, as bad omens. Pregnant women and children were warned to stay indoors. The ancient Greeks believed that a solar eclipse was a sign of angry gods, that it was the beginning of disasters and destruction. That seemed more accurate to me than all of the fresh start crap. It was an ending of the world as I had known it.
This eclipse, the one I could now feel brewing like a storm, this was how it should have been before. People were wary, now. Even the viewing at Earl’s was tempered by the memory of what had happened last time. Olive’s name was on their lips and they were nervous, especially with Grace missing as well. This time people knew to be careful.
I was not a superstitious person – not any more – but even I could see that it was dangerous. The darkness, the excitement. The buzz. It led to bad decisions.
After Olive was taken, there was a spike in tourists visiting the town. But they were the morbid kind. The ones who wanted to stand where she was last seen and imagine what might have happened. The ones who couldn’t hide their curiosity, who didn’t care that she was a real person. My sister: just another unsolved mystery.
Gran stared at me blankly, no memory of Olive’s ring and no clue why I’d be asking about it. My stomach dipped.
“You really ought to finish your dinner,” I said. Gran’s silence should have made me feel sorry – for confusing her, for asking a question she couldn’t answer, but I only felt frustrated. “You’ll be hungry.”
* * *
When the doorbell rang I let out an exasperated sigh but I was glad to leave Gran to her imaginary birthday planning. I yanked it open and found a familiar face.
“Marion,” I said.
She was dressed in tailored trousers and a pale blue shirt that matched the cornflower hue of her eyes. She smiled at me awkwardly and shifted from one foot to the other. Her eyes had lost their sparkle, tiredness making them dimmer, but the smile was genuine.
“Hi Cass. Can I come in?”
“Only if you save me from dinner duty,” I joked.
I wondered how word had reached her so fast that I’d been to see the Uptons. I would put money on it being the stepfather, he seemed like the vengeful type. I backed away and let Marion into the hall.
“Who’s that?” Gran called.
“Hi, Peggy.” Marion wandered into the lounge and poked her head into the small dining room where Gran was still sitting with her cold beans. “It’s me, Marion.”
“Marion.” Gran thought about this for a second, and then burst into a beaming smile. “Marion Adams,” she said. “My goodness I haven’t seen you in years and years! You’re all grown up now.”
“Oh sure, she remembers you.” I rolled my eyes, but was secretly pleased that Gran was smiling.
“Do you mind if I borrow your granddaughter for a little while? I need to talk to her.”
“Granddaughter?” Gran’s eyes misted over. I saw it even from across the room and felt my stomach lurch as Gran shook her head. “Well, you can talk to her, but I’m not sure she’s around to listen.”
Marion turned back to me, met my gaze, and I just shrugged.
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
I ushered Marion through to the kitchen and shut the door behind me, flicking the kettle on so Gran wouldn’t overhear our conversation.
“So—”
“She’s so much worse than when I last saw her,” Marion spoke over me. Then she looked sheepish. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“It’s okay.” I grabbed three mugs from the cupboard and put a teabag into each. “Look, I’m sorry—”
“No, I’m sorry.” Marion stepped towards me, her arms slightly outstretched as though she was reaching for me. But she stopped, the years still a wall between us.
“The great Marion Adams, apologising,” I said with a wry smile. “But why are you sorry?”
“About before,” Marion said. “I don’t know. I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable or anything. This whole Grace Butler thing is just really pissing me off. A girl disappears on her way home from school and somehow nobody knows anything. I was just a bit afraid you’d… I don’t know. It was stupid to think you couldn’t be objective.”
I swallowed, feeling hot embarrassment in my cheeks. I thought about my panic when I’d remembered Olive’s ring – about the way I’d felt when I looked through my Olive Diary. That I’d even looked through it at all was probably evidence enough about my lack of objectivity. And how did I explain that my awkwardness wasn’t something she had to apologise for?
“It’s lucky I’m the forgiving type.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to come round and apologise. And, I know you’r
e just trying to help find her, so I don’t want to chase you off. I know you’re a good journalist, and if you can help us in any way…” Marion paused and seemed to let her brain catch up with her mouth. She was breathless.
In that moment I wanted to kiss her. No matter how long it had been since I’d seen her, she was still the person I’d texted and called and emailed – the person I’d turned to when I didn’t have anybody else. And she’d never pushed me, never demanded an intimacy I couldn’t give her. She knew my secrets because they were hers too.
I wanted to tell her about speaking to Grace’s friends, about my bad vibes from Roger Upton. I wanted to talk about Olive, and what happened with Mum, and Gran; the whole lot. But I was afraid. So instead I turned around and busied myself with the tea.
“Tell me again what an amazing journalist I am?” I said.
Marion smiled. “I know you’re in a rough place right now. It’s got to be shit, moving to Bishop’s Green after what happened here. It must have been a hard decision…”
I half-turned but couldn’t trust myself to say anything.
“So anyway,” Marion continued. “I just wanted to say that I chatted with the Uptons. I told them I’m friends with a ‘sensitive’ journalist and they’re going to think about whether they want to do any interview together—”
Marion saw the look on my face, which was a mixture of embarrassment and guilt, and she stopped.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “I appreciate the offer but right now I’m just looking after Gran and that’s kind of a full-time thing and—”
“Oh my god, Cassie. You already bloody went to talk to them, didn’t you? I told you to wait.”
“I couldn’t wait,” I said. “Not after the stepdad did that full-length interview. And he acted very strangely when I was there – and now I keep thinking about this mood ring I saw in a picture of Grace. She was wearing it, and I swore I’d seen it somewhere before – and I realised it’s just like one that Olive had—”
After the Eclipse Page 6