by Anna Wilson
The animal scampered along the landing with Summer close behind, then instead of going down, as Summer had supposed it would, it veered up the stairs Tristan had said led to the attic.
Summer stopped short.
No way am I going up into any scary attic!
The thought of cobwebs and shadowy corners was enough to make her freeze at the foot of the stairs. She felt she had to make sure that no one was watching her: the thought of that laughter from behind the bookcase made her shudder. But as she listened for any sign of more unexplained noises, she found the place was now so quiet that all she could hear was the house itself, clicking and crackling around her.
She was cross with herself for being so pathetic: ghosts in the attic? How clichéd and childish. In any case, Kenan had not told her any stories about ghosts in the attic: he had said they were in the servants’ quarters.
The cat had stopped outside a door at the top of the stairs and was mewing again.
‘You’d better not be about to play a trick on me.’ Summer spoke out loud, feeling foolish, but needing to hear her own voice.
She pushed open the door and emerged into a light, airy, open-plan space – not dark and dank and full of boxes, her idea of what an attic should be. On the contrary, this was one long big room in the eaves with two small fire grates, one at either end. Had this been divided into bedrooms too at one time? Curiosity was already overcoming fear as Summer began to look around.
Discarded belongings lay strewn about the floor. There was as much stuff up here as in those rooms in the kitchen passage. For a small family, the Trewarthas had accumulated a lot of junk.
She picked her way through piles of old clothing, heaps of papers, tottering towers of books. The cat was sitting on a small pile of them – old-fashioned, cloth-bound, like the ones in the bookcase outside Summer’s room. She bent to scoop it up, half expecting it to struggle out of her grasp as it had done before. Its skinny body went limp when she put her hands around its middle, however, and as she lifted it to her chest, it settled against her and began a deep, contented, rhythmical purr that resonated through her, comforting her.
On the far wall there was some shelving, all of it crammed with more books and folders and more paperwork. Just as in Tristan’s study, it looked as though someone had broken in and gone through the lot in a tearing hurry to find what they were looking for.
Not that there could have been anything of any worth or interest here. She picked up a yellowing piece of lacy material. Dust rose out of it in billows and the fabric disintegrated under her fingers.
The cat hissed suddenly and slithered out of her arms, lightly bounding over the jumble on the floor and skittering excitedly after something.
Summer climbed over the junk, calling softly for the cat, which had vanished into the chaos. She bashed her shin against a toy pram with one wheel missing. It was heaped with the contorted bodies of abandoned dolls and teddies, as if caught in a bomb blast and hurled from their homes. One doll in particular had a haunting face; an eye missing, its hair tangled, a hand thrown up to shield itself from an unseen enemy.
A large cushion lay half submerged beneath scattered papers. Summer heaved at it and freed it from the clutches of a box of old files and a child’s broken tricycle. It was dusty, of course, and bursting at the seams where some yellow and green foamy stuffing poked out, but it would make a good seat. Summer cleared a space around it, then gingerly sat down, shuffling into the cushion as it responded to her shape.
‘Miaoooowweeeeeeeee!’
The cat appeared from somewhere to her left and soared through the air as though it had been singed, its fur electrified, its eyes and mouth stretched wide.
Summer scrambled to her feet and looked around to see what had frightened the cat.
Nothing. Not even the faintest rustle.
She was about to settle herself back on to the cushion, silently cursing the cat, when she saw that a tin box next to her was shedding its contents, its lid on askew.
Photos.
The images were faded and most of them were fuzzy, badly focused. The colours were overexposed, but one element leaped from the frame: the people’s faces. Summer stared at the pictures, blinking, disbelieving.
No, I’m – I’m not seeing straight. It’s my mind playing tricks . . . Why do I keep seeing her?
The photographs had been taken on the beach where Summer had been with Zach. She recognized the shape of the arch of craggy rocks in the distance across the bay. She recognized something else too.
Her mum in a bathing costume, sitting where Summer had sat as she gazed out to sea. Except that her mum was gazing at something else – or rather someone else. She was staring directly at the person taking the photo. She was so young. And so happy. Summer felt it was like looking at pictures of herself as she had felt when she had first found the rocks. A happy, free, beautiful version of herself.
Summer took a handful of photos from the top of the box and shuffled through them: photo after photo of her mum. They were all taken right there, at Bosleven. There was the lawn, the old driveway behind her mother, the house, and then the beach. Her mum looked so fresh, so pretty, her dark hair mussed up in the sea breeze, her skirts shorter than she would ever have allowed Summer to wear, her long legs tanned. And so healthy. Not like the fragile shadow of a mother she had been the last time Summer had seen her.
What does this mean?
When she had tried to work out her relationship to the Trewarthas, she had asked if her mother was related to them. Tristan had not given a satisfactory response, saying only that he was ‘a distant uncle’. Judging from the photos, Catherine had been to Bosleven many times in the past. And if Bosleven had belonged to Becca’s family before she and Tristan had moved in, Catherine must have known Becca quite well. They must have been close once . . . Were they cousins or something?
So maybe Becca is not angry with me at all. Is she angry with Mum?
Should she search through all the junk in the attic for more clues? She carefully put the photos back into the tin and pressed the lid down firmly. She wanted to take the box with her, keep it in her room and look through it thoroughly later. Perhaps she could show it to Tristan and demand some answers.
‘Miaaoooow!’ The cat jumped out from behind the pram and landed on her, sinking his claws into her thighs.
‘For goodness sake, cat!’ she yelled, jumping up and dropping the tin. Her sudden movement sent the pram flying, the dolls falling out on top of the chaos around her, burying the tin amongst so much paper and junk. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she cried, kicking at the mess in front of her.
‘Miaow!’ the cat protested. Then it hissed and ran away.
Summer surveyed the scene before her and suddenly felt overwhelmed – by the piles of stuff and her jumbled feelings.
Those photographs had made her realize that she knew nothing about herself: she had always thought she knew who she was – Summer Jones, daughter of Catherine – and what her life would be – a life in London with Jess as her best mate, doing everything together, growing up together.
Not any more.
She could not rely on anyone to be straight with her, to tell her the truth or look after her. She had only herself.
She bent to retrieve the tin, but stopped. She could not take it to Tristan: she would have to admit to going through his possessions. The way he was at the moment, who knew how he might react to that?
If I come out with it and ask him about Mum being here, he’ll have to give me some answers. But if he’s angry with me for searching through stuff . . .
She called for the cat, which had disappeared again.
‘Here, puss-puss-puss—!’
‘What do you think you are doing?’
She whirled round.
Kenan was standing in the doorway. He laughed nastily. ‘Having a good old poke around, are you?’
‘No, I—’
‘First you split my mum and dad up and now you go
snooping through our things. You’re wasting your time. You won’t find the family silver up here,’ he scoffed.
Summer fumed. ‘I am not looking for anything like that. And I have not split anyone up!’
‘Yeah, right. Must be the world record for splitting up a family – what’s it been? Less than a week. So what’s the next step? Moving into my room? Kicking us all out, maybe?’
Summer was stiff with anger. ‘Who do you think you are, Mummy’s boy?’
A vein was throbbing on his scrawny white neck, spots of red had appeared on his cheeks.
He threw himself at her, grabbed her and shoved her to the ground. He stood over her, his eyes flashing. ‘You – shut – up!’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘Mum is finding a way of getting rid of you, and when she has, you’ll have to go.’
She held her breath, waiting for him to finish what he had started, convinced he would hit her, hurt her.
Go on, now’s your chance.
Instead he glared at her for a beat longer, making sure she had got his message loud and clear, then he stood back, turned and ran down the stairs, only letting out a sob once he was out of range.
Summer heard him slam his door. She lay on the attic floor, knowing she would have to spend the rest of the day in her room if she was going to avoid Kenan’s fury.
There was nowhere else to go.
The next morning the weather was good enough to venture down to the rocks.
Summer could not wait to get out of the house. Even the thought of going back for a second look at those photos was not enough to keep her inside, not while Kenan was around. She knew she should feel some sympathy; that he was as upset and confused as she was. That argument between his mum and dad had let something loose in the family and Kenan was determined to take it out on her. Try as she might, though, she could not feel anything but hatred for the boy; not after he had threatened her.
So she turned down the chance of a trip into Penzance with her uncle when he said Kenan would be coming too.
Summer waited until they had gone down the long gravel drive, then hurriedly crammed her swimming stuff into a rolled-up towel and set off. As she went, she tried to piece together the few clues that she had about her mum’s decision to send her to Bosleven if anything ever happened to her.
Her mother had definitely been here – those photos in the attic could not lie – so why had it never come up in conversation? Then there was Summer’s own middle name, Lamorna: a local place.
Summer would never have admitted it to anyone, but in spite of her worries and fears, she felt these ties bound her to Bosleven now. However much she hated Kenan, and however frustrated she was with his father, the place had got under her skin. Especially now she knew for sure that her mother had loved it here – the look on her face in those photos demonstrated how happy she had been, at least on the beach. Summer could understand that: she had felt the same way the minute she pushed through the brambles and saw the cove beneath her.
The house still spooked her, though; whatever Tristan had said about old houses creaking and shifting, she was not reassured.
But the beach – she already thought of the beach as hers.
I belong here. Mum thought so. I just have to find out why.
She walked along the path Kenan had told her was haunted, and remembered the laugh behind the bookcase and the other strange noises she had heard in the house; remembered Kenan talking about the ghosts of old servants.
I can’t let him freak me out.
She still felt uneasy. What had caused the books to wobble on the shelves? Who had been laughing?
She looked up to where there was a gap in the shrubs and trees. There were dilapidated stone steps set into the wall, which itself was crumbling, eaten into by ivy and ferns. The steps led up to a tiny, flattened area which served as a small terrace, and a larger bit of crumbled rock served as a seat.
A look-out.
Summer picked her way over nettles and thorns to the steps, climbed up and sat on the stone bench. There was a perfect view of the sea from there. She wondered if Zach was waiting – if he had been waiting for her yesterday, in spite of the rain. She drew her legs up and hugged her knees, squashed her back flat against the wall and faced the house.
Can anyone see me from the kitchen?
She didn’t think she was visible in this dark corner. She felt safe. Just as she had at the beach that first time – before Zach had turned up.
She shuffled round so that she was facing the sea again, the house behind her, closed her eyes and made herself listen to the soothing background music of the sea.
If she concentrated, the sounds that filled her head reminded her of the kind of thing Mum had listened to on the radio. There was the wind, softly sounding like the strings in an orchestra; there were the birds, fluting the melody. She smiled to herself. A gull cried out, its infant bawling breaking through the gentleness of the other noises around her.
What instrument would that be? A trumpet? One of those wooden squeaky things, maybe . . . What were they called? Oboe, that’s it.
That is when she heard another instrument, faint and rippling. It gradually became more insistent, drawing Summer out of her thoughts, demanding her attention.
No, you’re hearing things.
The music crescendoed. A piano. The notes coming faster, stronger, urgently carrying across the lawn through an open window.
Not possible. Tristan had told her that he didn’t have ‘a musical bone’ in him. Anyway, he had gone with Kenan – surely they weren’t back already? She hadn’t been out in the garden that long. She looked at her wrist and saw with irritation that she wasn’t wearing her watch.
Whoever was playing knew what they were doing. This was not someone mucking around out of curiosity: they were playing with obvious skill. Vast cascading scales of notes were growing, swelling; chords chimed out sonorous bass notes while a higher, lighter trickle of melody ran down over the top, like the stream in the rockery pouring over the granite beneath. The music carried clear and bright through the hot, still air.
Tristan’s wife? He said she played. Surely not? She’s not here . . .
If her aunt was there, Summer had no desire to meet her on her own. The woman clearly despised her. What would she say?
Yet she was drawn irresistibly by the sound. Hearing that music and thinking of the sea, the two things seemed combined, as if the sea were creating the music, or the music were painting the scene before her. She had to get closer, to see who could be playing like that. Even if it was her aunt.
She checked herself. Was she ready to meet this person who ‘did not want her here’?
The music made up her mind for her. Summer left the bench and turned on to the path, taking a decisive step towards the house. She used the cover of the trees to shield her from the house in case Kenan had come back early, making her way along the path until she was at the closest point to the room with the piano in it. The ‘drawing room’, Tristan had called it.
She reached the house and edged her way along to the French windows, keeping close to the rough, grey walls. Then she turned her head and glanced quickly through the glass into the shady room.
The music immediately seemed to bloom, to become crystal clear and vivid. It had lost the floating quality it had had from a distance and was now more insistent, the rippling arpeggios compelling Summer to lean in and peer through the window.
Who is it?
She couldn’t see clearly. She pressed her face closer to the glass.
A woman, definitely a woman. But not a stranger. The curve of those shoulders, the shape of the neck, the colour of the hair were all too familiar. Even from the back she knew who it was.
‘No!’ she shouted aloud and stumbled back.
The noise she made startled the woman at the piano. She stopped playing and turned to look out of the window.
Summer felt the blood drain from her face.
It is! It’s Mum!
The
figure quickly got up from the piano stool to make her way to the window. She was mouthing something.
It was too much. With a sob, Summer turned and ran. She ran and ran without stopping or thinking until she had reached the rockery. She pushed through the hydrangeas. She only stopped when her lungs began to burn, her legs heavy and useless. She listened, straining for the sounds of anyone following her.
But I wouldn’t hear a ghost’s footsteps, would I?
Fear pushed her on. She did not stop this time until she had reached the cliff edge.
Summer, now in her swimming things, had been sitting for a while, her feet dangling in the cold water of the pool cut from the rock.
Where do I fit into all this?
‘Go on. Take a dip!’
She whirled round in fright.
She hasn’t come down?
It was only Zach, standing behind her, silhouetted against the afternoon sun. He too was in his swimming trunks, and he was laughing at her.
‘You numpty! You scared me.’
‘Sorry.’ He looked sheepish. ‘So. Where were you yesterday?’
‘You weren’t here? In that rain?’ she said. She watched herself slip into this easy banter.
Look at me, chatting away. Like I haven’t just seen my mother’s ghost . . .
‘Course. Rain never lasts too long – not in the summer. ’S always worth waiting for it to pass. I sheltered in the cave. It didn’t rain all day, you know. Not hard anyway.’
His smile wrapped itself around her. ‘So are we going for a swim or what, then? Go on!’ he urged when she started to protest. ‘I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.’
‘It’s not that – it’s just so cold,’ Summer said. She burned with shame, wanting to be tougher than this. She should be tougher than this.
‘It’ll be good for you!’ Zach insisted. ‘You’ll get used to the cold. It’s best to jump right in. Like this.’ He held his nose and took a running leap out into the bay.
She held her breath until she saw Zach coming up for air. Then his head burst through the glassy skin of water, his eyes closed, his cheeks puffed out, his hair slick against his scalp. He shook his head like a playful dog, sending spray in all directions, and blew out noisily through his nose and mouth.