Kite walked along the corridor to the third door, slid it open and peered inside. She was relieved to find that the bedroom had a sturdy sandstone floor covered by a thick woollen rug. The tiny room contained nothing but a low wooden bed with plain white linen, a coarse cream homespun blanket, a bedside table and an enormous floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. She scanned the colourful spines. There would be no shortage of reading material, if she decided to hole herself up here for the summer. If Dawn was here she would work her way through book after book. Kite reached up and touched one of the heavy old tomes, and another remote fell off the shelf. She pressed a button, and the whole wall of books opened on to a wardrobe with shelves, drawers, hangers and places to store shoes, even a desk and a lamp. Kite smiled, despite herself.
But the thing she liked best about the room was the two sturdy walls painted in stone and heather purple. She could see now that the little colour that was scattered around the house was inspired by the surrounding landscape. The fourth wall, at the far end of the room, was misted glass, with a large clear circular window inset. Kite walked over to the spyhole and peered out. Then she stepped three paces back and lay on the bed, her head propped up on the downy pillows. From here she had a perfect view of the valley. She felt like a bird nesting high up in the trees and surveying the mountainside for possible dangers. If she had to stay here, at least she’d found somewhere in this strange, unbalanced house where she could hide away.
Seth sang to himself contentedly as he unpacked the car, trailing in and out with bags and food. She knew it was mean-spirited of her, but Kite wished he would attempt to curb his enthusiasm for the trip for just one moment. It was like he was trying, by the sheer force of his happy nature, to push her uphill to a better place. But as she listened to him singing she resolved to try to be less snappy. She could see how hard he’d tried, despite everything, to rescue her birthday – even though it had been the longest, most arduous day of her life.
‘Are you coming down?’ Seth called from the bottom of the staircase. ‘I’ve made hot chocolate.’
‘Coming!’ Kite called back, standing up and noticing a painted door in the stone-coloured wall. She pushed it and found herself in a luxurious ultra-modern bathroom, all mirrors and clean white surfaces, with a double sink, a shower in the corner and a huge bath sunken into the middle of the floor. She walked over to the sink and washed the smell of vomit from her hands and face. Now she had seen her room, she wanted to unpack her things, hang her clothes up and find a safe place in the secret wardrobe for Dawn’s precious things.
Kite looked over at the deep sunken bath and longed to fill it with hot water and wash herself in Dawn’s soap. A tube of unopened toothpaste sat on a shelf. She smeared some on her finger and over her teeth and rinsed. As she dried her hands and face she walked through a door on the opposite side of the bathroom that led to another bedroom. Here there was no amazing bookshelf and no view either, just a simple sliding wardrobe and a peephole on to the corridor . . .
‘Did you get the best room then?’ Seth asked as she walked down the stairs.
‘Of course!’
On a little table to the side of the sofa, Seth had placed a couple of mugs of hot chocolate and two slices of Ruby’s birthday cake. He handed Kite a plate and she began to eat, just to please him. The milky chocolate soothed her empty stomach, warming her from the inside.
‘Let’s call Ruby.’ Seth picked up his mobile, pressed her number then looked a bit puzzled as he walked around the room.
‘There was no mention of this in their booklet! No television OK, but the no-computer, no-signal thing just doesn’t make sense in a house like this! There’s not even a DVD player. I wish I’d brought my laptop now; at least we could have watched a few films! I’ve been wondering why Sid said he’d got it surprisingly cheaply from the agency! Rubes will go mad,’ he groaned, discarding his phone on the sofa. ‘Well, it looks like it’s just you and me, kid!’ he joked, putting on his awful American accent.
‘Funny!’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll find somewhere to call her from tomorrow. Anyway, she’ll be here before you know it.’ Seth yawned. ‘You be all right if I go and have a lie-down? I’ll get up and make us supper later. That drive didn’t half do me in.’
Kite nodded.
‘If the noise of the waterfall gets too much for you, we can apparently play God and switch nature on and off at the touch of a button! Here, have a play!’ Seth handed Kite the remote, patted the back of her hair and climbed the staircase.
She heard him exclaiming with delight as he explored upstairs.
‘Yep! You’ve definitely got the best room!’ he shouted down.
Kite flicked a switch and the house grew eerily quiet. She turned the remote over in her hands. How did it do that? If only it really was this easy to control nature, to walk over to the stepping-stone bridge, flick a switch and make that sheep carcass reconstruct itself; to start growing a heart and lungs, sinews and muscles; to fuse its bones. She would fill it with blood travelling through its veins and make it grow a woolly coat to be warm again, and she wouldn’t stop until it began to bleat at the top of its voice.
Blind
Metal clanked at the front of the house and a dog barked, making Kite jump bolt upright. She wondered if Seth had heard the noise too and she thought about calling for him, but his stuttery snore was already echoing through the house. Cautiously she walked over the bridge, stepping over the glass panels and sticking to the sturdier stone. She pressed a button on the wall beside the entrance and the glass slid open. There was no one there, but a folded note lay on the sandstone walkway, peeping from underneath the Japanese tree.
Kite stepped out, picked up the envelope and walked briskly back inside, pressing the button behind her. The door closed and made a little click-locked noise that helped her feel a little more secure. As she walked over the bridge she caught flashes of the sheepdog as he ran along the path below. The woman was feeling her way down the uneven track by the side of the waterfall, steadying herself from time to time with her driftwood stick. In her other hand she was holding a torch. Bardsey looked up and barked a friendly greeting at Kite. She waved but the woman did not wave back. Instead she nodded twice, raised her stick in the air and wandered on with her empty hessian sack draped over her shoulders like shawl. What had she done with its contents?
Kite followed the path of the woman and her dog along the stream and through the darkening valley. Then, as she realized that she herself was sitting in the gloom she stood up and searched along the walls for the light switch. She couldn’t find one, so she picked up the remote control and pressed a button at random. A huge blind, lit from above, unravelled from a wall cavity. On the back someone had painted an abstract impression of the landscape. Kite flicked another button and the blind lifted again. She could still see the flickering torchlight in the distance.
Kite looked down at the letter. She supposed she should wait till Seth woke up to open it but . . .
The address at the top of the quality paper that read ‘Mirror Falls, Swindale, Cumbria’ had been scored out, as had all the letters after the name . . . Agnes Landseer. So that woman had once lived here. For all Kite knew, she even owned the house. Kite read on.
Underneath was written ‘Scar View’ and the words.
‘For everyone’s sake. All I ask is that you lower the blind every night.’
What? How weird was that? The woman must be mad. Her name suited her. Agnes was old fashioned, sharp and matter of fact, and Landseer made Kite think of something slightly spooky, someone who could see things on the land, ghosts or spirits maybe. Kite shivered as she remembered the way Agnes had seemed to look into her and then refused to get in the car.
Kite walked back over to the window. Agnes’s torch beam remained steady. Was she watching the house? Perhaps when Kite had inadvertently lowered the blind, Agnes had thought that she was doing what she was told. Kite felt the anger rise up in her again. Why should she
be dictated to by a stranger? And what was the point of having a house made of glass if you couldn’t watch the sun set and the moon rise? Kite lay down and watched the multitude of stars reflecting off the glass. Where was Dawn now in this vast glistening universe? Had she appeared to her in the stream because she was somewhere nearby?
If only she could take herself back to Fairview, run down to Dawn’s flat on the night before it happened. And instead of Facebooking, talk to her and make her see that things were not as bad as she’d thought. If she could have caught her right there at her low point, then Dawn might be sitting in her room now, practising for her next concert. Or she might even have come up here to the Lakes with them. She could imagine her listening to the waterfall, picking up her oboe and playing a piece of watery music. Kite took Dawn’s iPod out of her pocket, plugged in her earphones and let the music float over her. As she stared at the moon, a tiny wisp of a cloud floated over its surface and her mind cleared. It all made sense now: her dreams in the car, Dawn’s face in the rock pool, even the sheep’s carcass; they were all signs. Dawn was coming to talk to her, to answer her questions, to take away all the aching pain, guilt, bitterness, anger and terrible sadness. Dawn wants me to be close to her, Kite told herself.
Imprint
A high-pitched screech cut through the rare peace of Kite’s sleep. She sprang bolt upright on the sofa, her heart thudding so loud it almost drowned out the sound of the waterfall. And then she saw it, with its wings stretched to their widest expanse, every cream feather dappled with brown, lit from behind by the moon, like an X-ray image. As it glided towards her beyond the glass, the owl lifted its heart-shaped face upward to reveal Dawn’s delicate features and her iridescent moon pallor . . . then it SMASHED itself into the glass, with the speed and violence of gunshot. For a second it seemed that it hung there, stunned; then it dropped away. Kite stared down through the gloom as the feathered form spiralled out of control towards the gully.
Perhaps the screech had been hers after all, because Seth came hurtling down the stairs, shouting at the top of his voice.
‘What on earth’s wrong?’
Kite folded her legs under herself and hugged her knees tight in a fetal position, rocking backwards and forward. Seth placed an arm around her shoulders and held her close as she whimpered in fear.
‘What is it?’ persisted Seth, looking around to see what could possibly have traumatized her.
Kite lifted her right arm and pointed towards the great expanse of window.
‘There’s nothing there!’ Seth picked up the remote control and switched on the dimmer lights. Now he stepped closer. Etched on the glass was the perfect imprint of an owl.
‘Poor thing!’ Seth traced his fingers over the outline. ‘Hopefully just stunned.’ He looked down towards the ground below and then turned back to Kite.
‘You know, that scream of yours was enough to wake the dead!’
Kite stared at him, her heart still thudding violently in her chest.
‘Sorry! I didn’t mean . . .’ Seth trailed off.
‘It’s OK, I’m OK,’ Kite reassured him. ‘It was just the shock of it!’
What she couldn’t tell him was that for the first time since the Falling Day she felt something like hope stirring inside her, even if it was mixed up with fear of the unknown. She had wished for Dawn to come and find her, and as soon as the owl had flown towards her she’d felt in her gut that Dawn was back.
Owl Feather
It didn’t matter that she hadn’t slept or that her mind had raced all night as she listened to Dawn’s music. When she unwrapped the lemon soap the next morning she felt as if she could breathe again. It was the most luxurious bath that she had ever had. The tub had jacuzzi bubbles and a pillow for her head, but the best thing about it was that when she got out she smelt Dawn all around her.
‘Breakfast!’ Seth shouted up from the kitchen, his voice competing with the cascading echo of the waterfall.
‘Coming!’ Kite called back as she dried herself, rummaging in her bag and throwing on some leggings and a T-shirt.
Downstairs she was relieved to find the Dawn owl still stretched across the living-room window. There was the proof. Kite cast her eyes down through the valley to see where Agnes could have been heading the night before. Right at the end of the valley was a raised egg-like mound of rocks.
‘What is another word for “Basket of egg scenery?”’ The question from her Geography exam came back to her.
‘Try revising! Roche Moutonnée, idiot!’ Kite laughed out loud at the sound of Dawn’s voice so clear and close to her.
‘Now that’s something I haven’t heard for a while!’ Seth drew her into a hug. ‘That giggle of yours.’
‘Nor me!’ Kite smiled, as Dawn’s voice still echoed through her head. She looked down through the glass panels to the empty ledge.
‘Did you move the sheep?’
‘No – probably got washed away.’ Seth shrugged and wandered away to finish making breakfast. ‘How was your bath? Can’t wait to have a wallow in there myself!’
‘Good.’
Kite sat at the beechwood table. In front of her, propped up between jam pots, was the weird note about the blinds. She picked it up and read it again.
‘I read that just now!’ Seth said, placing a mug of tea in front of her.
‘Last night when you were asleep, that woman with the dog came by. She didn’t knock or anything, just left the note outside!’ Kite took a sip of sweet tea.
‘When we go to the village later, I intend to find out about her. Something’s not quite right there.’ Seth tapped his nose and narrowed his eyes in a mock Sherlock Holmes gesture.
‘You don’t need to be cheerful around me all the time. I know you’re not. I saw you crying in the car yesterday.’ Kite was surprised by the sharpness of her own words, and as soon as they escaped her mouth she felt sorry. This was exactly how she had decided not to be.
Seth paused with his back to her as he buttered the toast, then turned to Kite and handed her the plate.
‘There’s no shame in crying. You know, it’s lovely to hear you laughing again, but it might help if you could cry too.’
‘It’s hard to cry when everyone’s telling you to,’ Kite answered.
‘I know.’ Seth sighed and sat down at the table opposite her. ‘Spoke to Rubes this morning. I only had to walk to the end of the track. You should have heard the mouthful she gave me for not calling last night! She sends her love though. She asked how you are. I said I thought you were a bit better. You slept well last night, didn’t you?’
‘Yep!’ Kite lied as she stood up to avoid his searching gaze and padded barefoot out into the sunshine of the courtyard, chewing on the corner of her toast.
The very last thing she expected to find was another note under the Japanese tree, exactly where the first had been. As she bent down to pick it up one of the branches bowed and a delicate leaf brushed her cheek. She felt as if Dawn was a mere breath away from her. She walked further into the courtyard. Her hands shook as she opened the note. There were the same crossings out and the name Agnes Landseer and the new address of ‘Scar View.’
Perhaps you’ll take notice NOW! PLEASE close the blinds at night, for the sake of the owls.
Kite looked back through the building at the ghostly shape of the Dawn owl pinned against the glass. As she read the note over again she wondered what that strange woman, who had once lived in this house, knew about the owls? She felt her cheek where the soft branch of the Japanese tree had reached out to her like a human hand of friendship. She would do what Agnes Landseer ordered, for Dawn’s sake.
‘So this is what they call a cantilever house!’ Seth mused as they stood under the building. ‘I was reading that they have to put enough weight on one end so that the rest will have the confidence to jut out into space without falling flat on its face!
‘I wonder how long the owl print will stay?’ he continued, as they scrambled down under Mirro
r Falls in search of the fallen owl. With the sun glinting off the glass, the imprint was less visible from this angle. ‘The windows are supposed to be self-cleaning, impossible to get a ladder to them –’ Seth surveyed the steep angle up to the living-room window – ‘but I think it’ll take some rain to wash that away.’
Maybe, thought Kite it will only fade when Dawn has given me the answers to all my questions. She looked up at the cloudless sky. That didn’t look like it would be any time soon. Anyway, she didn’t want it to fade, not until she could make sense of why the Dawn owl was seeking her out.
‘I suppose the poor thing could have been washed away, like the sheep.’ Seth sighed.
‘Wait!’ Kite called after him, reaching out her hands as a falling creamy-white feather came wafting towards her. She caught it and clasped it in her hands as if she was holding on to her best friend. ‘Dawn,’ she whispered. Now she knew for sure that she was not imagining it. Here was another sign. As she let her fingers brush over the soft feathers she felt comforted by the presence of Dawn’s spirit all around her.
‘I think she was just stunned,’ Kite said as she caught up with Seth. ‘She must have flown away.’
Seth smiled at Kite and linked arms with her. ‘How do you know it was a she-owl?’ he asked as they began to climb the steep path home. Kite shrugged but there was no doubt in her mind.
‘I just know!’
Carrec Arms
Driving through Swindale Common they passed a small group of boys around Kite’s age jogging along the road. A tall boy wolf-whistled as he caught sight of Kite through the open window, and the others laughed.
Kite Spirit Page 9