The Ring of Morgana (The Children of Camelot)

by Donna Hosie

  “I don’t want it in the house, Arthur.”

  I shift my position slightly. I’m flush against the wall, but now my lower back is sweating too, even though I’m so cold I can feel the bristling hairs on my arms and legs - and I waxed them just last week.

  What are they talking about? What don’t they want in the house?

  “While you’re in such a good mood,” says my father, “now seems like a good time to let you know that my sister is coming to visit.”

  “Absolutely not,” snaps my mother. “Not with that thing in the house. We can’t risk it, Arthur. Not with Lilly, and especially Mila.”

  Especially Mila. What does she mean by that? Her tone, as if I’m some kind of idiot, raises my hackles. Why does my mum always think the worst of me?

  “I’ve asked Mila to stay home tonight,” replies dad. “I don’t want her out there, not at the moment. Perhaps we should send the girls to my mother’s. Just until we have this sorted.”

  “We’ll never have this sorted, Arthur.” Mum is getting really pissed off now. I take a peek around the door frame and see Lilly sitting on the stairs, eavesdropping too. I put my finger to my lips and she copies the gesture. Mum and dad are still outside, but seeing as we don’t have neighbours within a mile radius, I guess they aren’t too worried about being overheard by villagers.

  “You know what I am, Sam. Who I am. You’ve known for seventeen years.”

  “It doesn’t mean I have to like it, or accept it. And I never will, Arthur. Never.”

  There’s finality to the way she says that last word that makes Lilly and I scarper for safer havens. My sister heads upstairs, on feet so light she could be flying. I duck back into the kitchen, slide back the bolt of the kitchen door and run outside. Only when I’m safely hidden behind one of the enormous oak trees in the back garden do I stop and replay the conversation in my head.

  You know what I am, Sam.

  It doesn’t mean I have to like it, or accept it.

  Why doesn’t mum like the fact that dad is a math teacher? Isn’t that normal? Sometimes I think the weird ones in this house are my parents.

  Inhaling sharply, I wait for the cold buzz inside my nostrils to fade. I close my eyes and count to ten. When I open them, will I see ghosts?

  No. They’re still hiding.

  Behind the sound of wind chimes.

  Chapter Two

  Secret in the Attic

  Dinner is never a silent affair in our house. Mum will usually cook an awesome spaghetti bolognaise and Lilly will usually make the garlic bread, and she doesn’t shut up from the second she cuts the loaf to the moment the dishwasher is loaded. Her chattering dominates everything when dad is around. It’s like she’s trying to cram in a month’s worth of talking into a two week timeslot. It drives me nuts, but tonight I’m grateful for the background noise, because if Lilly wasn’t jabbering at one hundred miles an hour, we would all be too aware of the silence from everyone else.

  Mum has tied her long dark hair back into a severe ponytail. It’s so tight I can see the skin pulling on her temples. She keeps closing her eyes and rubbing the bridge of her nose. Dad’s running his fingers through his hair, which is a sure sign he’s stressing. I think this must be a guy thing because Rustin does it too. The last time dad did it this much was when Lilly went missing in the woods, three years ago. She was only gone for a couple of hours, but mum and dad went mental. Mum was talking about moving away, but dad refused. He lets mum get away with most things, so when he puts his foot down about something, we know he’s serious. It’s like with the raised voice. It’s a command.

  Dad won’t ever move from this place. Apparently he moved around a lot when he was younger and so he wants us to have somewhere we can call home. And this is home – to me, for now.

  “Why is no one listening to me?” demands Lilly, during a three second pause for breath. She flicks her long blonde hair back from her plate of bolognaise.

  “Sorry, darling,” replies our father. “Your mother and I are tired, that’s all. What were you saying?”

  “I said I came in second place in the writing competition at school,” says Lilly. “And they’re giving the prizes out in assembly after the school holidays. Can you come?”

  “I’ll come,” replies our mother.

  “What about you, daddy?”

  The whole village could turn out with balloons and banners, but Lilly only has eyes for dad.

  “Your father has some lessons to teach,” interrupts mum. “Last minute. It’ll help pay for the holiday, Lilly.”

  Dad’s blonde eyebrows rise just enough for me to notice. Lessons? There are no lessons. Mum’s lying. This has something to do with the thing they were talking about earlier. The thing that mum didn’t want in the house.

  Lilly pouts, but is placated by the thought of their holiday. They leave in two days. But I know that when it comes to dad leaving for Somerset again, there’ll be tears and slamming of doors and stomping of feet.

  One day she’ll grow out of it. I did.

  “You aren’t going out tonight, are you?” asks mum.

  Is the question directed at me or dad? I don’t know because she has her eyes closed, and she’s rubbing her forehead like she’s trying to erase something.

  “Are you talking to me?” I ask.

  “Yes.” She sighs dramatically.

  “Can I have a new bikini for the holiday?” asks Lilly, completely unaware that a new conversation has started that doesn’t revolve around her.

  Dad and I swap the briefest of glances. He smirks, and I can’t help but laugh, spraying spaghetti sauce down my black t-shirt. Gotta love Lilly. She’s so random at times. Completely absorbed in her own pink, glittery world.

  “Marnie Wheeler has a new bikini for her holiday,” says Lilly crossly; she thinks we’re laughing at her.

  “You’ve got three bikinis already, Lilly,” I say, still laughing.

  “And make sure you wear all of them at once,” says dad. He winks at me. And, for a second, we’re friends again.

  Why did you lie to me, is what I want to say.

  “No, I’m not going out tonight,” is what I do say. Answering the question from my mother with a lie. We’re getting good at that in this family.

  It’s my turn to clear up the plates. Mum is in the living room, on her cell phone to Grandma Scholes; Dad is in the study listening to music; and Lilly is watching television in her bedroom.

  And I’m listening to the wind chimes.

  They started up again the second that my mother started speaking to Grandma Scholes. At first I thought it was a ringtone or something.

  Because the chimes are echoing from upstairs.

  We don’t have anything like wind chimes in the house because mum doesn’t hold with any of that new age crap. Anything mystical or spiritual or religious, and mum files it in the not normal drawer.

  But I always thought wind chimes were meant to sound pretty. Delicate and melodic. These ones aren’t. They’re faint, but the sound is brittle, as if the metal flutes are banging against each other and the sound is immediately being dulled.

  It’s silly to even think it, but it sounds like the wind is seriously pissed off and wants us to know about it.

  I switch the dishwasher on. The low hum momentarily draws my attention away from the wind chimes. Not for long. With everyone else in the house distracted, I head upstairs to the source.

  Avalon Cottage has three bedrooms and a bathroom. There’s also a loft conversion, which was put in a couple of years ago for guests like Auntie Titch, although she doesn’t stay for long because her and mum really don’t get on.

  And it’s from the loft conversion, hidden in the eaves of the roof above the kitchen extension, that the sound of the wind chimes is coming from.

  Access is via a narrow, and very steep, set of wooden stairs. Because they were made out of reclaimed wood, they creak like Nana Roth’s knees. Carefully, I tread a step at a time, waiting in between
movements to listen out for anyone else.

  The chimes don’t get any louder as I get nearer. If anything, they sound as though they are getting further away. Then a door slams and my heart stops. A cold sensation flutters through me. I think it’s guilt, but it doesn’t stay for very long. I want to find out where that noise is coming from. Mum calls me stubborn. Dad says I’m like her.

  They’re both probably right.

  We’ve lived in Avalon Cottage for twelve years, moving here when I was four years old. Before that, we lived with Grandad Morgan and Grandma Scholes. So I know every nook and cranny in this house. Every knot in the wood. I can even tell the time from the way the shadows fall on the walls.

  But in twelve years, I’ve never seen the pale blue light that is pulsing through the keyhole of the large oak wardrobe that dominates the spare room.

  Mum stores her extra clothes up here. It’s a guest room/walk-in closet. But even though I borrow her clothes all the time, my favourite thing about the attic room is this wardrobe. A couple of friends of dad’s made it for us, and it’s so big it had to be made in the actual room. If we ever moved, they would have to dismantle the roof to get it out.

  Lilly and I play Narnia in this room. I don’t tell anyone. I’m sixteen, not six. But there’s something so magical about the darkness and the dust and the shadows. It even smells old and musty, even though the roof space was only converted a few years ago.

  The thought crosses my mind to go and get Lilly now, but I don’t want to scare her. If she has another night terror about pale blue ghosts in a wardrobe it’ll be my fault, and she keeps me awake as it is. I’m falling asleep in classes, not because I’m out partying every night, but because my little sister screams in her sleep as if she’s being murdered in her bed.

  The pale blue light continues its monotonous pulse through the wardrobe keyhole.

  Then I feel a vibration around my backside. The suddenness of it actually makes my feet lift off the floor as I jump out of my skin. For a split second, I think a ghost has become brave and touched my ass. I actually swing around to push or punch the spirit away, but then I realise, with a spike of embarrassment, that it’s just my cell phone. I have it on silent vibrate. It’ll be Katie.

  Seeing the message from one of my best friends is all that matters. I need to get away from this room, this house, and the people in it today. It’s all too weird.

  I steal one last look at the wardrobe. The pulsing light has gone. I know I didn’t imagine it, and I didn’t imagine the wind chimes either. I wonder, for a moment, if the ghosts outside are watching me, but there’s one skylight in the low-lying ceiling, and that just looks up onto darkness.

  As quietly as I crept up, I slip back down the stairs again. I grab my wallet and my house keys from my bedroom, and tread as silently as the creaking stairs will allow into the kitchen. Mum is still talking to Grandma Scholes. I hear her mention Tenerife, and a small dose of jealousy gets me in the pit of my stomach.

  Would two weeks away really do that much damage to my exam results? Everyone I know, or at least the ones that matter, are going away somewhere during the school holidays.

  The jealousy fuels my recklessness. Ghosts, here I come, I think to myself, but as I slide back the bolt of the back door, a shiver slides across my shoulders. I’m not cold - I’m wearing four layers now - but my pale skin is pimpled up. It’s nerves.

  Breaking curfew isn’t easy in this house – or family.

  The back garden is a black impenetrable mass of darkness. Dad – or rather dad with Grandad Morgan’s help – put in some solar lights along the path a few years ago, but they’re hopeless. We don’t get enough sun for them to work properly.

  But with ten years of practice, it isn’t just the inside of Avalon Cottage that I know every inch of. The garden is a mass of weeds and rose bushes and trailing plants, and the ground is paved with crumbling slabs and earthy-smelling mulch, and I could navigate this place in my sleep. It’s a secret garden, a magical garden. A place where I imagined fairies would play when I was little, and a place where I can hide now I’m older.

  My sneakers inch across the gravel that borders the house. The curtains are pulled inside and so my family won’t see me as I tip-toe towards the front path and freedom. There’ll be no revision tonight. I have two full weeks of it coming up. Yeah, go me, I think sarcastically.

  I don’t walk away from the house on the gravelled drive. You can hear a feather fall onto that stuff, and it’s the best security deterrent we have, living out in the middle of nowhere. But I know the dip and rise of the grass verge, and it’s on this I tread as I jog towards Katie, who I know will be waiting by the bus stop.

  She won’t come up the lane at night time. It freaks her out. I think she can hear the ghosts as well, but to her, it’s just wind in the trees. She says it’s spooky.

  My breath is steaming in front of my face. North Wales doesn’t heat up until...well, never really. And once the sun drops below the horizon, so does the temperature. I prefer the cold to the heat. I like the shapes the frost makes on the windows, and when it snows, the school shuts down and we all go tobogganing on the hills on plastic sheets.

  It’s cold now, but not cold enough for snow. Which means rain. Lots and lots of freezing rain. As I jog along the grass verge, I can feel and hear my sneakers squelching into the mud. This isn’t good, because it means I’ll have to clean them before I go back home tonight, or mum and dad will realise I’ve been out.

  When did I get this devious, disposing of evidence like I’m some criminal?

  I know exactly when.

  Two years ago, I needed a passport. I was travelling abroad for the first time - to France - on a school trip. It was a ski vacation, and I was so excited. My dad, who can be quite officious when he wants to be, decided that I should be responsible for filling in the forms and organising everything, because being fourteen years old was little different from sixteen or eighteen, and then he went into this big speech about knowing people who were fourteen and had fought in battles and stuff.

  Mum told him to shut up. I just zoned out and thought about pizza.

  Anyway, I needed my birth certificate. No big deal.

  Only it was, because I didn’t have one.

  I wasn’t registered. At all. Ever.

  Everyone went into a big panic, including Nana Roth and Grandma Scholes. People were freaking out and mum thought social services would come and take me away. I didn’t understand what they were so upset about. It’s not as if I hadn’t been born.

  But then the words got bigger and more serious. Perpetrating a fraud was mentioned more than once. Nana Roth almost had a stroke with the stress of it all. My grandfather had been a diplomat – he was killed in a plane crash a few years after I was born – and she couldn’t cope with the thought the newspapers would find out stuff about the family again.

  Again? When were we ever in the newspapers the first time?

  And I just got stressed out because I thought I was going to miss out on the ski trip.

  My dad and Grandma Scholes got it all sorted in the end, but only after I went snooping through emails.

  They were in my dad’s deleted folder, but he never actually cleared it. It was Nana Roth who provided the most information, not that much of it made sense. For someone who almost went into a coma at the thought of perpetrating a fraud, she certainly used the phrase a lot. What I managed to glean was that I wasn’t born here. Not in Wales anyway. Mum and dad were seriously young when they had me: dad was only eighteen and mum was a year younger. They had run away sans baby and mum had come back avec moi. But they didn’t even know my real date of birth and so they just picked one out of the air.

  September 15th.

  And just like that, a random date became my date of birth.

  The rush of excuses that came tumbling out afterwards were many: mum and dad were young and didn’t know about the forms; the grandparents were in shock and more concerned with helping two teenag
ers cope with a baby than filling out forms; and my absolute favourite, by not being registered it meant no one claimed child benefit for me, thereby saving the tax payer.

  That one, unsurprisingly, came from Nana Roth.

  And then the emails disappeared. Evidence deleted.

  But birthdays have never been the same for me since, and when I turn seventeen in six months time, it will be a formality and the legal age I can start learning to drive. Not the celebration of my birth.

  Because no one can look me in the eye and tell me when and where it actually was.

  So, in the grand scheme of things, I think cleaning some mud from my sneakers is small fish compared to keeping the matter of someone’s existence from them. I don’t want to know the gory details, that would be totally gross, but I would like to know where I was born and the real date. Because a hastily written Winchester, in the County of Hampshire, and the 15th September, just isn’t enough because I know they’re lies.

  “MILA!”

  Katie’s voice can rupture eardrums. I see the flare of her cigarette, and the illuminated screen of her cell phone, before I see her outline in the darkness.

  “Sssh, someone will hear you,” I call.

  “I was starting to freak out here by myself. You’re always late.”

  “Then compensate and arrive late yourself.”

  “Smartass.”

  “I do my best.”

  “Have your parents given in over Tenerife yet?” asks Katie, hugging me.

  “No.” Even I can hear the petulance in my voice. God, I sound like Lilly.

  “Good.”

  “What?”

  “Because my dad has bailed on me and James and we’re not going to Disneyland now. The bastard.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  We’ve walked about four hundred yards from the bus stop and already Katie is on her second smoke.

  “He wants us to go and live with him. He says he’ll take us away to Disneyland once we’ve moved into his house.”