by Sue Wallman
Although I can’t see it, I can definitely feel it. There’s a sombre quality to the night.
“I can see it,” says Tatum. Maybe she can.
“Can you hurry up and film, if you’re going to?” I say.
Tatum frowns. “I’m not sure it’s quite the right…”
“Close the window, then,” says Ivy. “It’s arctic and too…”
She trails off, and I add, “Creepy.”
Tatum pulls the window shut with a bang that makes the frame rattle. It’s not a reassuring noise.
We charge back to the beds, the other two Amgios huddling close either side of me. Tatum picks her duvet off the floor and drapes it round herself. With her bright pink hair tips and turquoise coat peeking out under the white duvet, she’s like an exotic bird in a snowdrift.
“Has this house ever felt weird?” asks Tatum. “Like something bad happened here?”
“No.” I don’t even pause before replying. “It’s always felt ordinary. Better than ordinary. Special.” The ceilings in this room are high, and there’s a pattern round the top, a sort of engraving. I love the sink in the corner with the old mirror above it, specked and worn and elegant.
“I’m certain it’s haunted,” says Tatum. “By Rose or Alice. Maybe both. There’s unfinished business.”
“You reckon?” says Jakob. “I don’t think so.”
“The predictions!” says Ivy. “You think they’re connected?”
I elbow them both slightly. To Tatum, I say, “We correctly predicted the year my period would start. And that Ivy would be picked for the county hockey team before she was in Year Ten.”
“Remember when you predicted you’d be given a micro pig for your birthday, Leah?” gabbles Jakob. “You’ve been waiting a long time for that, haven’t you?”
“There have been so many predictions over the years,” I say. “Most of them way off beam.”
“Yes, but some of them have been funny,” says Jakob.
“And the others were stupid,” says Ivy.
There’s silence as I rearrange the duvet over our legs.
“What aren’t you telling me?” says Tatum. She gets out from under her duvet and comes to perch on my bed. She doesn’t seem to care there’s not really enough room, or about keeping warm or finding a comfortable position. She’s kneeling, leaning towards the three of us. “Just tell me.”
I look at the others and Jakob says, “Last year, on New Year’s Eve, we sat on the rug upstairs within a circle of tea-lights in the attic, holding hands, our eyes closed. We tried to channel the spirits of the people who’d lived here long before Clive bought it.”
We’d never heard of Alice then. Everything seems scarier now that we know.
Ivy says, “We thought it was because we’d been taking it in turns to read a book out loud that we’d found under the sofa in the lounge, like someone wanted to get rid of it but was too scared to destroy it. It was about a group of friends being lost in a wood. We thought the predictions were because of that horrible book.”
“We chucked it on the fire after we finished it,” says Jakob. “The cover took ages to burn – you should have seen the green flames. I thought we’d die from toxic fumes.”
Tatum nods. “What were the predictions?”
We remember them, obviously, but I say vaguely, “They were pretty random.”
“I’ve just had a thought,” says Ivy as she clings to my arm. “Which bedroom d’you think Rose slept in?” She mimes a silent scream.
“The bedrooms are bigger at the other end of the house so it’s bound to have been one of the ones the adults are in,” says Jakob. I like how confident he sounds.
But he’s quick to join in when Tatum tells us we should stand in each of the three bedrooms on our side of the house, close our eyes for about a minute and see if we can feel Rose’s presence. She says that spirits stay where they have unfinished business – such as where they were killed, or where something particularly significant happened. We go together, shivering, standing close enough to hold hands, but not quite daring to because that might make it into something more.
In each room, we all feel it: a faint sense of dread.
It could have been any of them.
SIX
I expect not to sleep well, but I don’t expect Tatum to snore from practically the moment I turn the light out. I lie awake and wonder if emotion soaks into the fabric of a building. I think about how emotion is energy and energy has to go somewhere, or is that false science? All I know is that I’ve never felt uneasy in this bedroom before. I’m almost grateful I have a roommate, even if it’s Tatum.
Outside an animal is making a howling noise. Is it a fox?
I roll over and force myself to visualize different dance routines as a distraction, but it doesn’t work. The noise is disturbing. A slow, cold terror pincers up my spine as I realize it’s coming from inside the house.
“Tatum?” I whisper. “Can you hear that?”
No response.
I move towards the door. Slowly, I open it. A pale face stares at me from the other side of the landing. Every function in my body freezes. I’m unable to scream.
“Leah?” It’s Jakob.
I breathe out heavily and wait for my heart to beat a more normal rhythm. “What are you doing?” I say. “You scared me so badly.”
“I wondered what that noise was.”
We’re quiet for a moment. The noise has diminished to something that sounds more like sobbing and it’s coming from downstairs.
“You think it could be Poppy?” asks Jakob. He shivers in his trackie bottoms and festival T-shirt.
I nod. “She has a walkie-talkie to call Auntie Gabs and Ivy. Maybe it’s not working.” We look at each other. The little lounge isn’t that far away. “I guess we should see if she’s OK,” I say reluctantly.
“Yes, but wait. I need warmer clothes,” Jakob says.
I grab a hoodie too, and my Christmas slippers, and we go downstairs, staying close together. The house smells of a different decade at night, of old wooden furniture, scented drawer-liners and musty rugs. The crying sound is louder the closer we get to the little lounge. The door is a few centimetres ajar and as I push it further open, I say, “Poppy? It’s Leah. What’s wrong?”
Easing myself round the door, I see she’s in the middle of a nightmare. Her hair is stuck to her forehead with sweat and her arms are twitching.
“Poppy, it’s Leah and Jakob. It’s OK. You’re having a nightmare.”
She stops abruptly, then whimpers, “Go away!” Her eyes flutter open. “What are you doing here?” she asks, confused and scared.
“You were making such a racket we couldn’t sleep,” I say.
Poppy breathes heavily in and out. “I saw a ghost,” she says. “By the grave. I saw her when I went to the toilet. But then she disappeared. I tried calling Mum on my walkie-talkie but she didn’t answer and I didn’t want to wake Ivy. So I hid under my duvet. I’m waiting for morning. Is it morning?”
I attempt a reassuring nod. “No, it’s not morning yet. You’ve had a bad dream.”
“But she was real when I saw her. When I went to the toilet.” Poppy rolls on to her side towards me. “I’m not making it up. She was old with long greyish hair and a long white dress. She had bare feet. It was Alice.’”
I turn to see Jakob quietly freaking by the door. “Shhh,” I say to Poppy. “Go back to sleep. We can talk about this in the morning.”
“Will you stay with me until I go to sleep?” she asks. “Please.”
“Sure.” I smooth her hair back from her damp forehead and plump up her duvet round her shoulders. She moves on to her side and keeps checking to see if I’m still there.
By the door, Jakob mimes that he’s hungry. I mime back that he should go to the kitchen and find some food and I’ll meet him there once Poppy’s asleep.
It takes literal hand-holding for Poppy to be sure I’m still there, but gradually her hand slackens in mine
and I hear the slow breaths of sleep. Moving quietly, I edge out of the room, then sprint to the kitchen where Jakob is sitting up on the counter eating crisps, Baz sitting on the floor watching him intently, his head on one side.
“What did she mean, a ghost?” he says, offering me a crisp.
I shake my head and crouch down to snuggle Baz. “It’s not surprising after today that she thinks she saw one,” I say.
“I suppose,” says Jakob. He finishes the last few crisps, jumps down from the counter and chucks the packet in the bin. “She seems in a bad way this year, doesn’t she? She’s changed so much.”
“You think it’s something to do with … you know?” I ask. He knows I mean my uncle’s heart attack. “Like a delayed response?” Poppy was the one who found him dead at his desk at home.
“Maybe,” says Jakob.
“D’you think we should include her more this year,” I say.
“Sure,” says Jakob. “She loved doing the predictions last year.”
“Not that sort of thing,” I say. “She made that last prediction too creepy. We don’t want her involved with the documentary stuff. I meant generally spending more time with her.”
He nods. “Good plan.” He strokes his jawline with both hands. “I think I’ve got the bone structure for presenting a documentary, don’t you?”
“Definitely,” I say. “But at the risk of sounding bitchy, I reckon there’s only room for one star in that documentary.”
“Oooh,” says Jakob. “I’m going to tell her you said that.”
“I dare you!” I say.
He laughs. “Imagine playing twenty-one dares with Tatum. We so have to.”
I’m woken the next morning by the sound of the house waking up, clanking pipes, and a ticking noise from the radiator. Tatum is still asleep, her fluffy coat on the floor, next to discarded bed socks.
Out of habit I check my phone. At least it can still tell the time even if it can’t get any signal. 9:25.
I ease out of bed, tunnel into my thickest jumper, pull on Christmas slippers and flick back one side of the curtains. It’s misty and grey, but I can see part of the burial site now it’s light.
It has the appearance of a newly dug flowerbed that hasn’t been planted yet. All the years we’ve been coming here, the garden has been holding a secret. We Amigos played tag on the front lawn, practised handstands and cartwheels when the ground wasn’t too cold for our hands. We literally danced on someone’s grave.
Tatum shifts in bed. I become a statue. I’m not ready to interact with her yet, or hear her go on again about the dead girl. When she’s been still for a few seconds, I let the curtain fall back, and go to the bathroom. The shower door is wet, which means Ivy or Jakob must be up, and I know which one it’s more likely to be.
Breakfast is my favourite meal at Roeshot House. There’s a wide choice of cereals, breads and jams or ingredients for a full English. Sometimes there are pastries if anyone’s been to the bakery in Riddingham, the nearest town, the day before.
When I’m downstairs I hear clattering from the kitchen, and Baz pads out into the hall to greet me.
“Who’s that?” calls Ivy.
“Only me,” I say as I carry Baz back in like a baby. He tries to lick my face. “Ew. You’re disgusting,” I laugh as I put him down.
“Good morning to you too,” says Ivy, who’s cutting an orange in two on the big chopping board by the sink.
“Baz, not you.” I see Poppy sitting at the table, the hood of her white dressing-gown up. It’s a panda design, with ears on the hood, black sleeves, and white everywhere else. It makes her look younger than eight. “Oh, hi, Poppy!”
She’s still half asleep.
“D’you remember having a nightmare?”
Poppy nods but says nothing.
“What happened?” asks Ivy.
“She was crying in her sleep,” I say. “Jakob and I both heard her and went downstairs, and I stayed with her until she went back to sleep.”
Poppy says, “I had a nightmare because of the ghost.”
“A ghost?” says Ivy. We lock eyes.
“Tell Ivy about the ghost,” I say.
Using pretty much the same words as she told me in the night, Poppy describes the long greyish hair, white dress and bare feet.
Ivy says, “You should have used the walkie-talkie or come and got me.”
“Your mum didn’t hear it and she didn’t want to wake you,” I say.
“Oh, Poppy!” says Ivy, breathing out heavily. “Why not?”
Poppy pulls the sleeves of her dressing-gown over her hands.
“Did you think I wouldn’t believe you?” says Ivy. “If you think you saw a ghost, you saw a ghost. But, you know, it might have been in your imagination or a dream. It just felt real.”
“I was awake. I was in the downstairs toilet. It was real,” insists Poppy, to the table.
“Then I believe you,” says Ivy, too quickly for it to sound convincing. “Your juice is coming right up.” She brings a glass over to the table. “Want one, Leah?”
I nod. “Thanks.”
“Can you fetch Poppy’s cereal?” says Ivy. “It’s in the larder. A Tupperware container on the second shelf up with her name on.”
The walk-in larder is a magical place. It’s piled high with food, chocolate, speciality biscuits, and things that we only ever have at New Year. There are different-coloured glass bottles of drink with lovely labels, and party poppers, bunting and napkins for New Year’s Eve. This year it seems there’s a whole shelf devoted to Poppy: seeds and protein powders, supplements, cereal bars, and tubs of dairy-free milkshake powder. I spy a Lock ‘n’ Lock of granola with Poppy written in marker pen on the top.
“Thanks,” says Ivy when I emerge with it. She swaps the glass of juice in her hand for the plastic container, opening it up and tipping the granola into a bowl. She pours over soya milk and places it in front of Poppy with a spoon.
“I’m not hungry,” murmurs Poppy, prodding at the cereal, and leaving the spoon in the bowl.
“Let’s have some juice,” I say, holding up my glass. “Cheers!” I wait for her to clink my glass, and we both take a sip.
Poppy wrinkles up her face. “I don’t like it.”
I can’t remember how fussy I was at eight. Surely not this bad?
“Morning, crew!” says Jakob. He’s in his trackies and a purple sweatshirt. “Mum’s only gone and woken me up. She wants me to do some maths revision before we go to Chandler’s Hill. God, she’s exhausting. Any bacon?” He looks round hopefully as if ready-fried bacon might appear. “Who’s been down, apart from you lot?”
“In the fridge,” says Ivy. “All the adults apart from Mum. Haven’t seen Tatum.”
“She’s still asleep,” I say.
“Anyone for a bacon sandwich?” asks Jakob. He takes the clean frying pan from the draining board.
“I’m having a croissant,” I say. “What about you, Ivy?”
Ivy shrugs, and settles on a croissant too. She doesn’t look as if she particularly cares what she eats. I feel sorry for her. After her dad died, Auntie Gabs kind of lost it for a bit, and now Poppy’s ill. She has a lot going on.
I think about the time Mum and I were arguing and I told her I wished I’d been born into their family, not ours. It wasn’t just that they never seemed to worry about money. They visited quirky places on holiday and went to exhibitions of people they knew, and had stories to tell about dog shows, festivals and funny road trips. That’s definitely not the case now.
Now Ivy has to look after Poppy, and make sure Gabs doesn’t get too tired and stressed.
“At least it’s not raining for Chandler’s Hill,” says Jakob, as he pokes at his bacon.
The tradition of going up Chandler’s Hill on the first full day of the holiday for fresh air and exercise isn’t too bad if we Amigos keep apart from the adults and stuff enough snacks into our pockets. And if the rain holds off. The walk takes place in any weather.
Jakob’s family own waterproof trousers and his parents are never embarrassed to be seen in them.
“I’m not going,” says Poppy. “Mum’s going to stay here with me.”
“I don’t mind staying with you,” says Ivy.
Nobody’s ever stayed behind before. When Poppy was a baby she was lugged on her dad’s back in a baby carrier, and when she was a toddler she was bribed with biscuits and went on people’s shoulders. Then there were years where she ran ahead to hide Sylvanian Families for us to find.
“I’ll stay too if you want,” I say. I mean it, but it feels wrong.
Poppy doesn’t say anything. I watch how she pushes the granola round her bowl.
“How’s school?” I ask.
“All right,” she says. “But I don’t go every day. When I wake up I see if I feel OK or not, then Mum and I decide. Sometimes I do half days.”
“Why aren’t you eating your cereal?” asks Jakob. “You want a bacon sandwich?”
“She’s supposed to eat that cereal,” says Ivy.
Poppy half-fills her spoon. “The doctors haven’t figured out what’s wrong with me yet, but they will,” she says. “It’s not in my head, though.” Her spoon is halfway to her mouth, and she holds it there, steady. “One doctor said it was, but he’s wrong.”
I nod.
“My stomach hurts,” says Poppy. “I can’t eat it.”
“I wouldn’t be able to eat it either,” says Jakob. “It looks like…” He trails off when he sees Ivy’s exasperated face. “How about one of your milkshakes? Are you allowed that?”
“She is, but she should really eat that,” says Ivy.
“Oh, go on, it’s the holidays, and no one’s allowed to have a bad time at Roeshot House, apart from me when I’m being made to do maths revision or violin practice,” says Jakob. “I’ll make it for her.”
“It’s all right,” says Ivy. “I’ll make you one, Pops. Banana?”