by S. Bryce
‘It’s locked,’ he calls after me.
But by that time, I’m out the door with Tosh skipping merrily behind me. I’m not sure if Saul means the room’s locked; the chest, or both.
I don’t care.
I have to see it for myself and besides, just like hearts, locks can be broken.
* * *
Chapter 43
The Chest
The room isn’t locked. If it were not for the chest, sitting in the middle of the floor, it would be a room without welcome.
I enter the grotty, dark cell shivering. It's ice-blade cold. It feels as if a harsh winter has seeped through the floor of this room, festering like mould and exhaling a cruel, rancid breath. The ceiling bears down on me like some giant clammy hand. I stare at the graffiti-ridden walls. Someone with the initials M.M.M made sure they left their mark, in red, on every wall of every room in the bungalow. Johnny left his mark in this room too: the letter “J” scrawled in blood.
Saul was right about the chest; it is locked. The black padlock that was on it before has been replaced by a fat silver one.
‘Oh,’ Tosh, sighs disappointed.
‘Never mind. There’ll be other treasure,’ I say, giving his back a quick rub.
Not like this though. Never like this.
I move closer to the chest and spot a black sack lying behind it. Elated, I leap over the chest and swoop down on the sack, wrenching it open.
‘Open the door wider,’ I tell Tosh, plunging my hand into the sack. ‘I can’t see.’
‘What is it? Is it treasure?’ Tosh asks trembling with excitement. He slams the door open so hard it rattles.
I bury my head inside the sack.
The sack’s full of tools. Plain tools: a hammer, a chisel, screwdrivers, a saw and a monkey wrench. Tools like dad used to own, but never used.
‘Is it treasure?’ Tosh crouches beside me.
‘No,’ I say glumly, removing my head out of the sack.
‘What about a key?’
I never thought about a key. I don’t think the Wolf’s going to leave the key to his treasure chest in a sack. He’s probably wearing it on a chain around his neck or something. Still, if he’s careless enough to leave his gun lying around...
A quick rummage around the bottom of the sack confirms he isn’t that careless.
I jump to my feet and stare confounded at the door, hanging half of it hinges.
‘Sorry,’ Tosh says.
‘Come on. Let’s get out of here.’
I usher Tosh from the room, doing my best to force the cracked and crumbling door back into place. With any luck, the next time the Wolf goes to open it, it will collapse on top of him.
* * *
Chapter 44
Guilt
Saul is standing where I left him, looking ashen. Relieved we’ve returned empty-handed, he lets out a lung ful of air.
‘I told you it was locked.’ He sends a plank of wood shooting across the floor with one stupendous kick. I watch it flip upright and come to rest, with a crack and a thud, on a loose pile of bricks.
Tosh clambers back up Junk Mountain as if nothing has happened, which technically it hasn’t. He picks up a piece of dirty-green plastic tubing and aims it at the bin bags.
I thought clearing out the junk room would make me feel better - it doesn’t. None of this does. I want to go to the cabin in the woods and listen to the woodcutter tell his tales. I want to sit on the rug, surrounded by the glow of the fire and watch Tosh spill cake crumbs down his front. I feel safe in the cabin, and dare I say, at home.
I feel guilty for not wanting to be here. I stand back, sucking on my thumb knuckle and watching Tosh hurl a sheet of metal down the Mountainside.
‘Careful,’ Saul says.
He makes his way up to Tosh on exaggeratedly bent knees.
‘Wait let me get the rope,’ Tosh cries, uncoiling it from his shoulders. ‘Try not to look down, okay?’
‘Will do,’ Saul replies.
Saul’s enjoying playing the game of make-believe. Why can’t I?
I stare up at Junk Mountain and let my darker thoughts unfurl. These are the thoughts that speak true; the ones that make sense; the ones I fear most. I try to bury them in the back of my mind. They don’t stay there for long. It’s like an invisible hand is knocking on the side of my head, shaking the thoughts out of me, lest I forget.
We can take all the junk out of this room and build a mountain twice as big in another. What are going to do with all this empty space once we’ve got it? The only thing we can do; fill it up with more junk. We can make-believe all we want. It’s not going to change anything. This entire bungalow’s one dark, rotting cell.
‘I’ve found a book!’ Tosh shouts.
He abandons his rope, and Saul on the Mountain slope, to proclaim his find. He’s waving something about in his hand, which looks very much like a mouldy sandwich. He thumbs through the pages of the book in earnest.
‘It’s got writing…and pictures,’ he says, grinning.
‘Throw it to us then,’ I tell him.
The book soars through the air like a cruise missile. I catch it easily with one hand.
‘Hey, what about me?’ Saul shouts. He sways right and left, pretending he’s losing his balance. He’s yet to reach the top of the Mountain.
‘Sorry,’ Tosh says and scrambles for his rope.
‘This one’s no good,’ I say, turning over the mouldy, tatty pages.
My eyes skim over the faint writing in the inside cover. What I see there makes my jaw go slack: “This book belongs to William Mannis. Aged Twelve.”
I read the name again. William Mannis.
There’s only one William Mannis I know and this book belongs to him. My fingers tremble with the sort of excited apprehension I would normally reserve for opening the birthday present that mum was able to afford on the rare occasion.
‘Saul,’ I croak, my eyes not leaving the page. ‘Come look at this.’
Saul doesn’t hear me. Why should he? I can hardly hear myself. I raise my voice. ‘Come look at this.’
Saul lets go of Tosh’s rope and skids down the Mountainside.
How long had the book been here? I wonder in awe, and more importantly, how did it get here?
‘What is it?’ Saul asks, a little exasperated. He flicks bits of plaster from his hair in irritation.
Sorry for ruining your fun, but I’ve got something to show you that’s far more fascinating than “rock climbing”. I show him the book.
He casts his eyes idly over the page and then meets my gaze, his expression blank.
‘You do know what it says? Don’t you?’ I don’t wait for an answer. ‘William Mannis. Aged twelve.’
Saul nods, the expression on his face unchanging.
His reaction, or lack of it, puzzles me. Is he not seeing what I’m seeing?
Adopting an I-don’t-care-one-way-or-the-other-approach, I place my hand on my hip. ‘How did you think it got amongst all this lot?’
‘Mannis must have left it here from before,’ he says, giving a careless shrug.
‘Before what?’
‘Before, when he used to live here.’
‘But you said you were here first!’ I shriek. I wave the book at him, determined to melt the blank look right off his face.
‘I was,’ he replies calmly. ‘The bungalow was empty when I got here. Mannis and his family lived here, years and years ago.’
Saul’s revelation stuns me like a clap of murderous thunder. Mannis grew up here. He used to live here in this very house. I fall silent for a while and in that time the Angry Heat starts burning in my gut. Like the coil of an electric oven, it grows hotter and hotter. ‘Why didn’t he tell me?’ I ask, finally.
Saul frowns. ‘Why’s it so important?’
Of course, if I’m forced to admit it, it’s not that important. What do I care if Mannis used to live here? So now I understand why he came here. What do I hope to achieve from knowing t
hat? But Saul could have still told me. I’d have told him. I chew my bottom lip, mulling it over in my mind. I’m reminded of the night Saul and I stood under the oak tree. I wasn’t just angry at myself was I? I was angry at him for The Wall. That impenetrable wall he puts up, preventing me from getting know who he really is. The Wall keeps us far apart when we’re so very close, and I can’t pretend it doesn’t bother me. Not any more.
* * *
Chapter 45
Saul’s Story
All’s quiet on Junk Mountain.
Saul takes the book from me and tips it into one of the rubbish bags.
‘Why do you always have to be so secretive?’ I ask.
Somewhere in my head, I can hear Mannis screaming at me: Shut up Kate. Shut up!
Saul hangs his head. ‘I’m not secretive.’
Shut up Kate! Mannis’s voice calls again from the recesses of my mind, and once again, I choose to ignore it.
‘I tell you everything,’ I say venomously.
He jerks his head up in surprise. His cheeks glowing like two ruby-red apples.
‘You didn’t tell me about the gun.’
He’s desperate I realise. I’m pushing him into the type of corner he doesn’t feel comfortable in: an emotional one.
‘Oh sod the bloody gun. I mean everything about me, about my past. We’re supposed be friends Saul, more than friends, family, but I don’t know anything about you. You’ve got your own secrets and now you’re keeping Mannis’s secrets for him as well. Mannis of all people.’
Saul flinches and shrugs his shoulders apologetically.
‘I don’t have secrets,’ he says. ‘I just find it hard…to talk about stuff sometimes.’
‘You mean all the time?’
His mouth turns down at the corners. His long eyelashes droop. I expect him to clam up and walk away, instead his sad, glistening eyes search my face. ‘Just cause we’re in the same place, doesn’t mean we’re the same people. You don’t know what I’ve been through. You can’t understand.’
‘I don’t need to have been through what you’ve been through, for you not to talk to me. You think Mannis understands you better than I do, is that it? Or maybe you prefer to talk to Dock and have him make a song out of all your woes. We’re best friends Saul. You have to let me in sometimes.’
Saul brings his stricken face within inches of mine.
‘What do you want me to tell you?’ He whispers. ‘Do you want me to tell you how my step-dad abused me, about how I used to go to bed sore all over? Do you want to know how scared I was when I ran away? Or how dirty I felt when I had to sell myself on the streets? Do you want me to tell you about the cramps I got from eating food out of a rubbish tip? Or what it was like trying to sleep ankle-deep in snow-’
Stop it! I want to say. My Angry Heat dies inside me. I put my hands over my ears. Saul pulls them away with brute force. There’s a green fire in his eyes that causes my own to widen in terror.
‘Perhaps, you want me to tell you about the day some druggie stabbed me with a needle cause I wouldn’t give him my scarf or about the night I got beat up for fifty pence.
‘You want the story of my so-called bloody life? I’m afraid I can’t give it to you Kate. If I found it so easy to talk to people then I probably wouldn’t be here. Do you want to know why I ran away? I ran away cause I wanted to find my real dad. I thought if I found him everything would be all right again. It wasn’t. And when I did find him, he didn’t even know me-’ he flounders.
‘What happened to him?’ I ask almost fearfully.
‘I brought him here to live.’
He places his hand on my shoulder and stares deep into my eyes, willing me to comprehend.
I think I do.
‘Mannis is your father?’
His smouldering gaze intensifies and just when I think I might burn to cinders right up under it, the green fire goes out and his eyes swim with tears. He parts his lips as if to speak and then closes them firmly again.
Not Mannis, I realise with alarm, Dock.
I lower my eyes and find myself stuttering over words that should come easy. ‘I, I’m-’
Saul takes his hand from my shoulder and walks out before I can finish what I was going to say. I was going to say, I’m sorry.
* * *
Chapter 46
Avent Gotisville
I feel a tremor of pain, Saul’s pain. He left it there when he gave me the short story of his life. No, not a story of his life; they were snapshots. Gruesome snapshots: Saul doubled up in agony and retching by an overturned bin; Saul crouched in some doorway, his skin almost as pale as the snow that surrounds him; Saul curled up in a ball, bruised, shaken and drooling blood. Saul yanking a filthy, rusty needle out of his leg. Saul following men to their seedy pads, to lie with them on their grubby mattresses for a few quid and a cold meal. Saul; his long eyelashes blinking back tears of sadness, pain, and the want of something better than…this.
‘Is Mannis Saul’s dad?’ Tosh shouts from the top of Junk Mountain.
‘No - no he’s not,’ I say, my voice hollow. ‘That’s not what Saul meant.’
I know, I should go after Saul, but instead, I find myself rummaging around in the rubbish bin, intent on retrieving Mannis’s shabby book. I find it under a layer of shredded newspaper, wood and chunks of plaster. I suck at a splinter in my little finger, pull the book out, dust it off and hug it to my chest as if it’s the most precious thing I’ve ever owned.
Tosh watches me, his face stern, his eyes cold and still.
‘What did he mean then? If Mannis isn’t his dad? Where is his dad?’
‘I don’t know.’ My arms tighten around the book, crushing it. ‘His dad’s probably in the same place as ours. Come on, get down from there. We’ve done enough clearing for today.’
‘In the same place as ours? Where’s that?’
‘Haven’t-gotta-clues-ville.’
‘Avent Gotisville? Where’s that?’
‘Nowhere that matters.’ I exhale sharply. ‘Come on. Saul’s right, Mannis and Rick could be back any minute.’
Twirling the rope in his hand, Tosh makes a slow trek down the mountainside. His sluggishness wears on me. I want to yell at him to hurry up. I watch him without blinking, without moving, without speaking until he reaches the bottom of Junk Mountain.
‘Don’t go talking to the others about what you heard just now,’ I warn him.
By others, I mean Mannis of course. Though I don’t think I need to spell it out.
Tosh puckers his face. Angry and confused, he lets the rope slip to the ground with a smack.
‘I’ll try to remember,’ he says, sulkily.
‘You have to do more than try Tosh. I draw myself in a stern-school-mistress fashion. ‘You don’t want to go upsetting Saul do you?’
‘You were the one who upset him,’ he says, glaring back at me.
I let my body relax. ‘I know. I didn’t mean to.’
‘Are you going to say sorry?’
‘Yeah, but you have go back to our room and stay there. Okay?’
I hold the book out for Tosh to take. I have no intention of asking Mannis about the book or about the time he spent here as a boy. He may choose to tell me about it one day and I may choose to listen, but for now I don’t want him to know, that I know.
‘Have it. Don’t let Mannis or Dock see it.’
‘Right. I’ll try to remember,’ he says. He gingerly plucks the book from my fingers, folds it in half and pushes it into his trouser pocket.
‘Can we go and see Alden tomorrow?’ he asks, picking up the rope and flinging it over his shoulder.
I gave Tosh my temporary comfort blanket: the book. I gave it to him because I thought it would be make him happy for a little while. Long enough, at least, for me to make things right with Saul.
I rub the back of my neck aggressively. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’
‘I want to see to Alden.’
The coldness in his
gaze shocks me like an ice pick through the heart.
He purses his lips, his face resolute. ‘I remember stuff better when I’m at Alden’s,’ he says.
I take a deep breath and pinch the back of my neck. ‘Like I said, I’ll think about it.’
* * *
Chapter 47
Knowing
Tosh refuses to let me kiss him goodnight when the time comes for me to tuck him into bed. He covers himself in Ellie’s blanket and put his hands over his face. He threw Mannis’s book in the crate with the other mouldy books. When my mind’s clearer, I’ll think up a new game for Tosh and I to play. A make-believe game that will take his mind off Alden and keep him away from the woods and the Wolf.
I seek Saul out.
I’m going to apologise to him, and then I’m going to tell him…I don’t know, something. I’ll think of something. I don’t feel as if I’ve knocked Saul’s Wall down. All I’ve managed to do is make a dent in it and a dent might not be a good thing. I hope I haven’t made things worse, or he’ll erect another wall twice as high and three times as thick.
I enter the kitchen with that thought in mind.
I smell urine and am unsurprised to see Dock’s legs sticking out from his resting place, under the kitchen table. He’s snoring quietly.
Hot piss. He must have wet himself in his sleep. I can’t bring myself to look at the rest of him.
Saul sits with his knees drawn up to his chest. He stares straight ahead, his back resting against the side of the stove. I slowly make my way towards him.
‘Saul?’
Though I know he hears me, he doesn’t look up.
I stand at his feet, as rigid as rock, looking down at him.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-’
I bite my lip, unsure how to proceed. I made him do something he didn’t want to, and I hate myself for it. The hard part isn’t saying sorry. It’s the knowing. Knowing changes everything. What am I to do now?