by Polly Ho-Yen
‘Let’s check your bedroom . . . A bit of fabric could easily have slipped down or floated off the table. I bet we find it under your bed or something.’
‘Maybe,’ I said.
But I didn’t believe it for a second.
Chapter Forty
Dad looked at me blankly that evening when I asked him if he had come into my room last night.
‘What do you mean by that, Effie?’ were his exact words.
‘Erm, I just wondered if you’d taken anything . . .’
Dad frowned.
‘I wouldn’t mind if you did,’ I said quickly.
‘Like what?’ he asked.
I didn’t want to tell him about the fabric unless I had to; there was no point in bringing Mum up if he didn’t know what I was talking about.
‘It’s just that I lost something . . . You know when you lose something but you can’t remember what it is? It’s like that.’
‘Not really, Effie. But I didn’t go into your room last night, if that helps.’
‘Not once?’
‘No, not even once.’
‘OK, thanks, Dad,’ I said, walking away. I suddenly remembered what Finn had said about his dad checking on him when he was meant to be asleep. I turned round again.
‘Dad, do you ever check on me still? You know – when I’m sleeping? I don’t mean last night; I mean, just generally. Like we check on Tommi. To see if she’s OK.’
Dad scratched his beard and looked vaguely troubled – as if it was the first time he’d ever thought about it.
‘No, not now you’re a big girl, Effie,’ he said, but he looked worried.
I turned away again – quickly because tears were pricking behind my eyes. It was so silly. I really didn’t care if Dad checked on me or not.
‘Hope you find it, Effie,’ he said.
‘What?’ I said, blinking away my tears so he wouldn’t notice them.
‘Whatever it is you’re looking for.’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘Me too.’
After that I rang Finn and asked him to come round. I didn’t want to check my bedroom on my own. I was afraid of what I might find.
‘See anything?’ Finn asked.
I was flat on my stomach, shining a torch into the dark space under my bed to see what was there.
‘Nothing yet,’ I said. I guided the torch beam around the shadows, checking each item.
‘If it had just fallen down, it wouldn’t be that far under,’ Finn said. His voice sounded muffled, as if he was calling into a cave rather than just under the bed.
‘Here are all my hairbands,’ I muttered. They were clogged with dust; together, they looked like the body of a fat spider squatting on its web.
I started to shuffle sideways, throwing the beam of light this way and that as I moved.
‘Hold on,’ I said. I’d seen something in the corner. I moved a little further in and directed the torch towards the spot.
There, lying on the carpet, was a scrap of material, so tiny that I could only make out a section of one of the printed flowers; the arches of a few petals and the curve of its stem. It was as small as the tip of my little finger; I didn’t dare breathe as it lay in the palm of my hand in case it blew away. It was pure luck that I’d managed to spot it at all.
‘I’ve got something,’ I said.
‘The material?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Come out, then,’ said Finn impatiently.
‘Coming,’ I said. But I didn’t move.
I pointed the torch at the small scrap. Part of me didn’t believe it was sitting innocently on my palm, as delicate as a feather or a dandelion seed that could be carried off by a breeze at any moment. It might vanish when I brought it out from under the bed; disintegrate into nothing.
‘C’mon, Effie,’ Finn said.
‘Coming,’ I said again. ‘Coming. I just need to see if there’s any more.’
I scrambled further into the dark corner, my fist tightly clenched over the scrap of fabric, which made it hard to move as I was holding the torch in my other hand and couldn’t let go of either.
At one point I dropped it – the torch, I mean – and as I reached out to pick it up, I felt my fingers brush against something.
Something wet. Something cold.
Chapter Forty-one
I withdrew my hand instantly, as you do when you feel something unexpected.
‘Effie?’
‘There’s something under here,’ I said in a whisper.
‘What?’ Finn said.
‘Something wet.’
He paused for a few seconds. ‘You think it’s one of them?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘You’ve got the torch, though – shine it on it.’
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I dropped it and the thing was right by it.’
‘Did you see it?’
‘No, I just felt it.’
‘It might not be one,’ said Finn. ‘Just pick up the torch and have a look.’
I was frozen, rigid; I couldn’t see how I was going to get my hand or any part of me to move again.
‘C’mon, Effie,’ Finn said. ‘You can do it.’
I whispered to myself: ‘Effie, you can do it.’
And then, ‘Do it, Effie. Do it. Three . . . two . . . one . . .’
‘Effie? Do you want me to come?’
‘No,’ I said sharply. I didn’t want to put Finn in danger. From the moment my hand came into contact with the cold, slippery surface, I’d felt it. Danger. I reached out for the torch, walking my fingers over its ridges, and when I felt nothing but plastic casing, I closed my fingers around it. It was solid, reassuring and familiar.
I shone the light around slowly – and that’s when I saw it.
It was a photograph frame; one of those ornate, golden swirly ones. It was choked with dust – I poked out great matted clumps of the stuff. It must have been lying there for a long time.
The picture was of Mum holding me as a baby. I was bundled up in my yellow blanket, wearing a little white hat, looking impossibly small in her arms. You couldn’t really see Mum’s face because she was gazing down at me. It looked like she was trying to take a photograph of my face, she was studying it so intently.
All in a rush, I felt something like an ache, something like happiness settle in my chest. Up until then I had never known that this picture existed.
I let my hand brush over the cool glass . . . That was what I had felt in the darkness. It wasn’t a slug after all, just the glass of the photo frame. Nothing dangerous.
‘Look what I found,’ I said, brandishing the photograph at Finn.
He blew the dust off and then pulled the sleeve of his jumper over his fist to rub away the cloudy trails of grime that remained. ‘It’s you.’
‘And this . . .’ I unfolded my hand to reveal the tiny scrap of fabric I’d found.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s part of the material that I had last night. That Mum’s dress was made of.’
‘It’s tiny! No wonder you lost it!’
‘No, this isn’t it, this is just part of it. The piece I had was bigger.’
‘Where’s the rest of it?’
‘Good question.’
‘And how did this bit get snipped off?’
‘Who knows?’ I said. ‘It’s just another thing to add to all the other stuff we can’t explain.’
‘I suppose,’ said Finn, rising to the challenge, ‘it could have been from when my mum made your mum’s dress. Maybe they cut it out in your bedroom. I mean, before it was your bedroom.’
‘It’s a good idea, but there’s one problem with that.’
‘What?’
‘Well, look at it – it’s not dusty enough. Everything else under there is caked in dust.’
‘Hmm,’ said Finn. ‘In that case . . . I . . . I have no idea how it ended up there.’
‘C’mon, Finn,’ I said. ‘You can do better than that.’ I wasn’t used
to him not working things out. I was the one who usually gave up. ‘It was on my bedside table when I fell asleep. When I wake up about five hours later, it’s gone, and all we can find is part of the material under my bed. Dad hasn’t been in here. Tommi was asleep.’
‘OK,’ said Finn. ‘Let’s work backwards. Whatever or whoever put the scrap there had to be small enough to get under your bed.’
‘Right, so they could be as big as me or as small as . . . as small as a . . .’
Finn looked me in the eye, and I knew without him saying a word that we were thinking the same thing.
As small as a slug.
Chapter Forty-two
It didn’t make any sense.
But then, nothing over the last few weeks had made much sense.
I saved that tiny last scrap of fabric, though. I tucked it carefully into my copy of The Velveteen Rabbit – at the place where the fairy comes down and makes the rabbit real. I was glad to have found the photograph of me, newly born, wrapped in Mum’s arms. I carved out a space for it on my bookshelf, where it sat snugly in between the spines of the old picture books I’d read when I was little and had saved for Tommi.
‘That’s a lovely photo of you and your mum,’ Old Bill said to me absent-mindedly one day.
‘What photo?’ I said, my ears spiking.
‘Oh, the one in your bedroom. I saw it when I was up there . . . dusting.’
I didn’t answer, although I doubted Old Bill had ever done any dusting in our house. Again, I felt that I couldn’t trust him any more, that he wasn’t telling us the whole truth. I wondered aloud to Finn whether he might have had something to do with Mum going.
‘Old Bill?’ he said, slightly doubtfully.
‘He’s hiding something,’ I said. ‘It might be to do with Mum.’
‘What about Rosemary Tanner? What did she say?’
I’d finally managed to ask her about the slug when I had come home to find her in the house with Mrs Daniels and Tommi.
‘Effie, dear.’ She’d stood up from the kitchen table when she saw me, and I noticed that she was still wearing muddy boots. ‘Deidre’s just changing young Tommi upstairs. She got a wee bit muddy on our walk.’
She saw me glance down at her boots and exclaimed, ‘Well, look what I’ve gone and done!’
She stomped towards the back door, trailing mud, and struggled to take her boots off.
‘There,’ she said finally. When she returned, some of her hair had come loose and hung greasily down the side of her face.
‘I’ll just mop this lot up. Won’t take a jiffy,’ she said, and went to get the mop and bucket from under the stairs. There was a crash and a bang as she rummaged around in the cupboard, but when she returned, she was empty-handed. She went and stood stiffly by the sink.
‘Don’t worry about mopping,’ I said unnecessarily, unsure what to say or where to look.
Rosemary broke the silence: ‘I hear you haven’t seen the end of the slugs yet?’
I looked up sharply. ‘Um, no.’
‘Deidre told me.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘We found a few here this morning actually. Seems like they are spreading. We had a good go at the floors this morning – before I muddied them again. And we put down another load of Da’s remedy.’
Rosemary stamped down hard on the tiles, grinding her foot into the floor. ‘Got you!’ she said.
‘Another one!’ she exclaimed, incredulous. ‘I don’t know where they’re coming from.’
‘Did any get onto Tommi?’ I asked.
‘Lord, no,’ she said in astonishment. ‘We wouldn’t let them near her, don’t you worry.’
‘OK, good.’
‘We’ll always keep her safe, Effie,’ Rosemary Tanner said meaningfully. She reached out for her black book and hugged it to her.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘It’s just that the slugs—’
‘What about them?’
‘Well, I think they can hurt you.’
‘What makes you think that?’
I raised my finger slowly to show her the mark the slug had left.
Rosemary Tanner put her hand to her mouth with a gasp. ‘A slug did that to you?’ she asked.
I nodded.
‘When did that happen?’
‘Just a few days ago.’
‘No!’
After all this time, finally someone believed me.
‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ Rosemary Tanner said gravely.
The expression of shock on her face had now changed to something different.
A look of acceptance. And of resolution.
Chapter Forty-three
We were working on the raft in the Tree Cave when it happened.
Finn and I had finally finished nailing down the planks.
‘We need to see if it floats before we do anything else,’ Finn said. I had finished sanding the paddle and there was nothing more to do.
‘Let’s go for a walk by the loch,’ he suggested.
‘What time is it?’
‘It’s twelve fifteen. We’ve just missed her.’
Having spent a lot of time in the Tree Cave, we had become familiar with Rosemary Tanner’s routine: we knew that she did three rounds of the loch each day – one at nine, the next at midday and the last at four in the afternoon. We had learned not to enter or leave the Tree Cave at those times; we knew that we might bump into Rosemary Tanner and give away our hidey-hole.
The loch looked grey and peaceful that day. The sun was shining on it; glints were caught on the surface like diamonds sparking in the light. For the first time in ages I remembered how beautiful it was.
‘Look at it, Finn!’ I couldn’t help exclaiming.
The sun’s rays skipped across the surface, lighting it up.
‘On a day like this you wouldn’t think there was any such thing as monsters,’ I continued, feeling peaceful when I looked at the water, rather than full of fear of what it might contain.
‘I suppose so,’ said Finn. ‘But think of the bladderwort – looks can be deceiving.’ I remembered that the bladderwort was carnivorous; it captured its prey by snapping shut while the victim was distracted by its pretty yellow flower.
‘I don’t think there are really monsters in there,’ I said, looking out over the sparkling water, and took a step closer to the edge. ‘Not really. What was it Old Bill said? That it was a story to keep children safe. That’s all the legend is.’
‘What are you doing, Effie?’ Finn said suddenly.
I had kicked off my boots and started to unpeel my socks.
‘I’m going to show you,’ I said, ‘how unafraid I am of it all.’ I sounded stronger than I felt, but with every move I became more in control; I began to feel something like freedom. Freedom from the legend, freedom from myself.
‘Effie, don’t do it,’ Finn said, his voice rising with worry.
‘Honestly, Finn,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’
Rolling my jeans up to my knees, I took a step into the water. It was freezing, but I kept stepping forward. Something told me to keep moving.
‘See? There’s nothing to worry about,’ I said again, although my teeth chattered violently as I spoke.
I continued to paddle, with Finn looking on anxiously.
‘Don’t go too far, Effie,’ he kept saying, and I could feel his eyes on me.
‘I won’t,’ I promised.
Suddenly I heard a scream from the other side of the loch. It was high-pitched and ragged.
‘What was that?’
Now that it had died away, I wondered if it was human or if it could have been an eagle flying overhead.
‘Come out now,’ Finn said. ‘Come out. Come on, you’ve proved your point.’
‘All right, all right,’ I said, and I waded back towards him.
My jeans had got wet and were beginning to feel heavy. When I reached the bank, I climbed out carefully. My feet had been numb, but they started to hurt w
hen I got out of the water.
‘Very funny,’ I said, looking around. ‘You can give them back now.’
‘Give what back?’
‘My boots,’ I said. ‘They were just here.’ I pointed to the patch of grass by a large rock; I clearly remembered leaving them there.
‘I haven’t touched them, I swear.’
‘Come on, Finn. Hand ’em over now. My feet are freezing.’
‘Honestly, Effie, I haven’t got them. I promise.’
We went round and round like this in circles – until finally Finn, red in the face, swore on Kathleen and Rob’s lives that he didn’t have them. He wasn’t one for practical joking, but I still hoped he’d whip my boots out from under a bush, a wicked smile on his face.
Because the alternative was . . . well, that someone had taken them.
Or something . . .
Something that was hiding from us.
Chapter Forty-four
‘I’m sorry to do this, Effie,’ Dad said, ‘but I’ve got to make that meeting.’
‘I don’t mind, Dad,’ I said. ‘I really don’t.’
‘Well, it’s not ideal, but Bill and Deidre are at the hospital seeing to her.’
That morning Dad had woken me.
‘It’s Rosemary,’ he said. ‘She had a fall by the loch last night and has gone into hospital. I’ve a meeting I can’t get out of. There’s no one to mind Tommi.’
‘I’ll do it,’ I volunteered immediately.
‘You’ve got school.’
‘I’ll catch up,’ I said. ‘Finn’ll help me. Honestly – it’s fine, Dad.’
He kept apologizing all the way out of the door. He used to let me stay off school quite often – until Miss Bell had spoken to him about the amount I was missing. Now he rarely let me miss a day and begged the other oldies to take Tommi if one of them couldn’t make it. But today they were all occupied with Rosemary Tanner.
‘I’ll be home by six,’ Dad said. ‘I’ll ring Miss Bell and ask her to send some work home with Finn.’
I groaned inwardly at the thought, but waved him out.
‘Right, Tommi, it’s just you and me,’ I said, but Tommi was busy playing with the smooth oval pebbles she’d laid out on the floor and didn’t look up.