Wildwood (YA Paranormal Mystery)

by Taylor, Helen Scott

  "They think you're a novelty," Marigold's voice said behind him.

  He turned his head so fast his brain rattled inside his skull. "Jeez." He closed his eyes, flopped back to the ground, and pressed his fingers against his temples. The vagrant's brew had given him a stinking hangover. Please don't say his meeting with Dad had been nothing but a hallucination?

  When the hammering behind his eyeballs subsided, he slitted his eyes open to find Marigold leaning over him, grinning, a long stem of feathery grass twirling between her fingers. Now he knew who'd been tickling him.

  How long had she watched him sleep? Hopefully, he hadn't done anything embarrassing like drool. Heat crept into his cheeks as she dipped the feathery seed head, trailing it along his jaw. Lying at her feet looking up at her wasn't helping him regain his cool. He levered himself into a sitting position, then closed his eyes while his brain caught up.

  "You look as though you've had too much sun. How long've you been out here?"

  He briefly considered telling her about the vagrant, asking if she'd ever seen the old man in the woods, but something stopped him. He needed to think over what had happened before he told anyone.

  "I've forgotten." Todd squinted up at the position of the sun, ignoring the pain from the bright light in his eyes, and estimated it was three hours since he'd entered the wood. He must have been out in the sun for at least an hour. Long enough for the cows to find him and—he discovered when he looked down at his dirty jeans—dribble grassy goo on his legs. He guessed he'd be scrubbing these jeans clean himself. He couldn't expect Grandpa to wash them.

  Marigold picked up a stick and waved it, shouting to scare the cows away. "How did you get so dirty?" She stared at his filthy jeans, cute little lines appearing between her eyebrows.

  "Crawling around in the woods commando style, stalking wildlife."

  Most girls he knew would have gaped at him as though he'd lost his mind. Marigold just said, "See anything interesting?"

  Todd nodded and mentioned the birds he'd seen, hoping she wouldn't ask any questions about how he came to be unconscious in the field.

  After examining the ground and kicking away some dried cow dung, she sat beside him and stared down the hill towards the village, chewing on her grass stalk. "So you didn't see any mammals?"

  "Well there's rabbit scat along the edge of the field. I saw fox tracks and smelled one not far into the woods, and a badger's been scratching beside the path. I only saw signs, no animals," he answered.

  "Some days I see a lot of wildlife on my walks," Marigold said. "Other days everything in the forest just goes still. It's spooky." She shivered.

  Todd watched her profile as the wind flicked strands of golden hair around her face. She must be talking about the stillness he felt when his senses blanked. Did she sense nature in the same way he did? She might. Marigold wasn't like anyone he'd ever met before.

  She smiled at him, her eyes glowing amber. For a moment he couldn't breathe, his chest warm and tight. He turned away quickly.

  "You look rough, Todd." She placed her hand over his on the grass. "Come back with me and have a drink or something to eat before you walk home."

  The thought of seeing Ruby Turpin again didn't make him feel any better. But he wanted to spend a little more time with Marigold before he headed back to Grandpa's shop. She might be able to tell him who the Cochran boys were.

  He decided to wait until they were at her house before he asked questions.

  When he pushed to his feet, the world swam. Marigold took his arm, and he leaned on her, disoriented. As soon as he felt steady enough, he eased away from the support of her slender arm, embarrassed.

  They walked side by side through the long grass. Marigold swished her feet in the wildflowers. She wore old-fashioned canvas tennis shoes similar to the ones Todd had worn at junior school, except hers were yellow, decorated with small flowers.

  When they neared the cottage, Marigold led Todd into the woods and cut along a well-trodden path to the small gate in the back wall.

  Todd paused to stare over his shoulder as she held the gate open, remembering the movement in the trees the morning he'd discovered Andrew's body and his suspicion that she'd been with the two guys. There was another possibility. She might have been talking to the vagrant. Todd released a lingering breath before walking between the rows of vegetables and flowers that filled the back garden.

  As they approached the house, Todd stopped beside the shed and stared at the open back door, remembering Mrs. Turpin's strange reaction to him last time.

  "Come on." Marigold took his hand, and he let her tug him to a shady garden bench. "Wait here. I'll fetch you a drink."

  Todd half expected Mrs. Turpin to burst out of the door and tell him to leave, but Marigold returned alone with a glass of homemade lemonade and a fruit cake.

  After his recent experience, he balked at another homemade concoction, but this drink smelled of lemons and the glass was blissfully cold. He pressed it against his hot cheeks. Possibly, his woozy feeling was partly due to heat stroke. He sipped, discovering it tasted good. The cake was even better, crumbly, and full of fruit.

  With Marigold watching him chew, he felt self-conscious. After he'd finished his mouthful, to distract her he asked, "Have you heard of the Cochran boys?"

  The moment the words left his mouth, he sensed a change in her. She looked away and bit her lip.

  "They died five years ago." Her narrow shoulders heaved as she drew in a breath. Then she faced him, pasting on a smile as if consciously pulling herself back from her troubled thoughts. "Mum asked if you want to come to dinner tonight."

  Todd stopped chewing in mid-bite. Why would Mrs. Turpin ask him to dinner? Last time he saw her, he'd have sworn she didn't even want him over her threshold. "Are you sure?"

  "Course I'm sure, silly." Marigold laughed. "Did you think I made it up?"

  "No." Todd finished his cake. "I didn't think she liked me much, though."

  "She likes you well enough. She's just cautious."

  About what? Maybe Ruby Turpin knew about Andrew cornering Marigold and she didn't trust any boys around her daughter. Or maybe she was still angry with his dad about something that happened years ago. He'd enjoy having dinner with Marigold, but he wasn't sure he'd manage to eat anything if he had to make conversation with Mrs. Turpin.

  Marigold must have sensed he was about to make an excuse because she gave him a knowing look. "If you come tonight, I'll tell you all I know about the Cochran boys and their sister."

  There was a girl as well? The old man hadn't mentioned a girl. "You say they died five years ago?"

  "If you want the story, be back here at seven thirty."

  Todd finished his lemonade and rose to his feet slowly, expecting his head to spin. But he felt all right. The food and drink must have settled his stomach.

  "Okay. Thank your mum for me. I'll see you later." After what the vagrant had said, he'd brave dinner with the witch to find out more about the Cochrans, and how their deaths were connected with Andrew's.

  On the walk home, Todd started to regret accepting Marigold's dinner invitation. He replayed his first meeting with Ruby Turpin in the light of what Grandpa had said about her being his father's childhood sweetheart. She obviously still held a grudge against his dad. If she questioned Todd about him or, even worse, about his mother, dinner would be very awkward. But he had to go because he couldn't hurt Marigold's feelings. He sensed she'd been hurt a lot. Despite her cheerfulness, it only took one wrong question to crack her happy shell and release the hidden sadness inside.

  When he reached the village, he stopped on the sidewalk outside the shop to brush the worst of the dirt off his jeans. The shop was busy with vacationers carrying baskets full of groceries. The woman behind the checkout said hello to him. Then his grandpa called to him from the storeroom.

  Todd stopped in the storeroom doorway and sniffed the strangely nice smell of cardboard and concrete, which reminded him of the gy
m store at school. Grandpa ticked a form before looking up from his clipboard. "Good Lord. What happened to your clothes?"

  Todd repeated the story he'd told Marigold about tracking animals.

  Grandpa's bushy eyebrows rose towards his hairline. "As long as you don't kill anything up there, I don't mind. But you must rinse those jeans off before they go in the washing machine."

  The old man nodded towards a stack of boxes by the external door. "I could do with help moving this lot. The delivery driver used to lend a hand, but they can't wait to unload and get away these days. Don't know what the world's coming to, everyone racing around chasing their tails."

  Following directions, Todd hefted boxes into different piles: confectionary, canned drinks, canned food, packets of pasta. Grandpa watched, counting off the items delivered and making notes on his clipboard.

  After they finished, they went through to the kitchen for a snack. Todd waited for Grandpa to get comfortable before he asked, "Can you tell me about the Cochran boys?"

  Grandpa nearly choked on his biscuit. "Don't go digging into that as well. Those boys died five years ago. Nobody around here wants the past raked up." He shook a finger. "If I hear you've been asking questions about them, you'll be in trouble, my lad."

  Todd popped open the can of soda he'd taken from the shop and took a swig. He'd have to make sure Grandpa didn't hear then.

  "Who told you about them? I can't believe anyone from the village brought it up. It was a terrible tragedy best left in the past."

  He didn't want to mention the vagrant in case Grandpa thought he was dangerous and banned Todd from going back to Lords Wood, so he changed the subject. "Marigold invited me to dinner. Am I allowed to go?"

  Grandpa's face burst into a grin, and he patted Todd's shoulder. "Knew you'd get along with that girl. Course you can go. But don't ask Marigold about the Cochrans. You'll only upset her."

  That must mean Marigold had known the Cochrans. Had one of them been her boyfriend? The thought annoyed him until he realized she would only have been ten when they died. The same age he'd been when his dad disappeared. The same year Grandpa gave up the farm and bought his shop. Strange how so many things had happened five years ago. It was probably just coincidence, but he couldn't ignore the race of goose bumps along his arms.

  "What date did the Cochran boys die?"

  "I told you to leave that alone, Todd, and I meant it. No questions about those boys. If I hear you've dredged up that old mystery, they'll be consequences."

  So there was a mystery surrounding their deaths. He definitely needed to discuss them with Marigold.

  "Who told you about them?" Grandpa demanded again.

  Todd leaped up from his chair and headed towards the stairs. "I need to shower and change before I head up to Marigold's."

  "Make sure you remember what I said," Grandpa shouted as Todd ran up the stairs two at a time.

  Todd's senses hummed with the excitement of the hunt. Could something have happened five years ago that linked the Cochrans' death with his father's disappearance? Was it also connected to Andrew's death?

  ***

  Marigold opened the front door of Lookout Cottage and stepped aside to let Todd in. The inside of the witch's den looked exactly how he'd expected.

  In the sitting room, dried flowers and herbs hung from a beam over the inglenook fireplace, while horse brasses decorated the sooty granite pillars on either side. Seashells and china ornaments were arranged along the black wooden beams, balanced in tiny nooks in the stone wall, lined up along the windowsills and shelves. In a shadowy corner of the room, a ceiling-high bookcase was stacked with old books that could be full of spells.

  Todd stopped in the kitchen doorway, waiting for Marigold. Mrs. Turpin stood at a huge black range set into a tiled alcove, stirring a large pot that looked suspiciously like a cauldron.

  She glanced up and saw him hesitating. A wary smile passed over her face. "Come in, lad. Don't stand on ceremony." She pointed at the table, neatly laid with a red-and-white checked tablecloth like something out of a fairy tale. "Sit yourself down."

  "Thank you, Mrs. Turpin." Todd walked into the kitchen and had to admit the smell from the cauldron was delicious.

  "All right, Todd?" Marigold came up behind him and placed her hand on his back.

  "Yeah, cool."

  Marigold laughed. "He talks like a city boy, Mum."

  "I'm not a city boy. I only feel truly alive when I'm in the countryside. I'm going to get a job as a wildlife warden or a gardener when I leave school."

  "Like your father, then," Mrs. Turpin, said. She watched him curiously as he took the seat she indicated. While Marigold cut up a crusty loaf, and her mother dished out stew into large bowls, Todd glanced around.

  The countryside seemed to creep inside. Pinecones were hanging beside the door, dried rosebuds filled a bowl on the table, and bright pots of flowers sat on the windowsills. Compared to his mother's modern white kitchen, this was another world, a world that would have suited his dad far better than their modern house in the city. It made him wonder what had happened to make his dad leave Porthallow.

  As they ate, Todd summoned the courage to ask Mrs. Turpin how Mrs. Bishop was, but she didn't tell him much. He had the sense she was guarded around him, wary.

  After dinner, he helped clear the table and dried the dishes while Marigold washed. He was relieved when Mrs. Turpin let them go. He thanked her for dinner, then Marigold grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the back door.

  "Let's watch the stars come out. Can you see the stars where you live?"

  "Not really. There's too much light pollution." Todd checked over his shoulder for Mrs. Turpin's reaction as Marigold pulled him out the door. She watched them go, a conflicted look on her face. This situation was too weird. Grandpa wanted him to make friends with Marigold and her mother didn't seem to like him much, yet she had invited him to dinner. Now she was letting him go out in the dark alone with her daughter.

  He followed Marigold through the garden onto the cliff path. "We'll go to the lookout," she said. "That's the place our cottage is named after."

  She held Todd's hand while they walked past the place Andrew had gone over the cliff and on for a few hundred feet.

  The lookout was a tumbledown wooden building hunched on a small promontory like the brown skeleton of a creature that had died and was slowly sinking back into the ground. They sat on the wiry grass in front of the building and stared at the purple and pink streaks marking the horizon as the sky faded to velvety blue.

  Marigold flopped on her back, her hair splayed around her head, a splash of gold on the grass. "Look." She pointed up at the sky. "The stars are coming out."

  After a few minutes sitting staring at the darkening horizon, Todd lay on the grass beside her. He flattened his hand on his chest aware of his heart racing beneath his palm. He willed it to slow down. Lying next to a girl on a summer night, watching the stars. No sweat...yeah right.

  Chapter Ten

  The tiny points of starlight glowed brighter as the pale band along the horizon faded into darkness. A sickle moon hung in the sky above them like a shiny hook.

  When the constellations became clear, Todd pointed some out. "That's the Great Bear and—follow the direction of my finger—that's Polaris, the North Star. That's part of the Little Bear. If you went to the North Pole and looked straight up, you'd be right underneath Polaris."

  Marigold raised her arm. "The W shape there is Cassiopeia, the beautiful queen."

  "You know the constellations?" he said with a hint of surprise. He'd never met a girl who was interested in stuff like that.

  "Course I do." She laughed at his incredulous expression. "You're not the only one who knows, smart-ass."

  "No one else at school is interested. Dad used to say people have forgotten the old wisdom."

  "You and I are alike, Todd."

  "Yeah." They looked at each other for so long, heat crawled up his neck into his face. He tur
ned away and cushioned his head on his arms, his gaze sweeping the sky, feeling cast adrift in that wide dark bowl speckled with stars.

  "Did your mum teach you about the stars?"

  "No. I have some lessons with Professor Cardell. He taught me."

  The slight hesitation in Marigold's voice had Todd frowning. "Who's Professor Cardell?"

  Marigold glanced around as if to check no one was listening. "He lives in Trewartha House, the big place on the hill overlooking the village. He owns our cottage and most of Porthallow."

  "Your mum doesn't own Lookout Cottage?"

  She shook her head. "Not many people in Porthallow own their own places. I think your grandpa owns his shop, though. He's friends with Professor Cardell."

  "Grandpa hasn't mentioned him. What does he look like?"

  "Posh. You can't mistake him for anyone else. He always wears a hat and one of those old-fashioned scarf things around his neck instead of a tie." Marigold mimicked tying something at her throat.

  "I saw him talking to Mrs. Bishop on the coast path. She stopped at the place Andrew fell and this tall old guy with a walking stick came along. She didn't seem happy to see him."

  Marigold glanced around again and lowered her voice. "Did you hear what they talked about?"

  "No. I was too far away."

  "He's her dad."

  "That means he was Andrew's grandfather."

  Marigold wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, I suppose. But Andrew wouldn't go and see him. Professor Cardell was annoyed about it. He said I was more of a grandchild to him than Andrew was."

  Todd's brain worked furiously. The professor was another piece of the puzzle, although he had no idea where he fitted in.

  Marigold rolled onto her stomach and plucked at the grass. In the near darkness she appeared to glow as if her hair reflected the moonlight. She gripped his forearm, pulling his hand from beneath his head. She examined his palm, her fingers tracing the lines on his skin, tickling. His breath caught. Her touch fired something inside him, teased the primitive animal part of his nature that fought to take over when he was frightened or angry.