by J. M. Wilson
For now all she could do was wait.
Whilst she waited, there was nothing to do but think about her life, what had happened and what may have led to her ending up in this place?
CHAPTER 2
BIG CHANGES
‘Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon or star.’
(Confucious 551BC-479BC)
From her Granddad`s car, Ruby had taken one last look at the house she had lived in with her mum and dad. The place they had all called home.
It didn’t look the same anymore. It certainly didn’t feel the same. Now it was kind of cold and quiet. Not cold in temperature, but cold as in sad.
Gran and Granddad lived out in the country, just on the outskirts of a small Lincolnshire village. It wasn’t more than a half-hours drive from where she had lived, but she’d thought it was probably going to be a million miles away from the life she’d had with her parents. They’d had all the mod cons, computers, ipads, mp3 players and a coffee machine that made the house smell like it was full of food.
Gran made her cup of coffee with granules from a jar. Her parents had joked that it was cheating.
‘Making coffee from granules’ dad had said, ‘was like heating up a microwave meal and saying you’d cooked dinner.’
Well she’d thought to herself, they might not have a coffee machine, but they do have a dog. Ruby thought about Granddad’s dog Nutmeg, the colour of a ginger biscuit, soft long ears, and a tail that always wagged. Ruby and her Gran called her Nutty. Granddad called her Meg. She must be a clever dog though, because she answered to all three names.
Yes, she’d thought, it would be good having a dog. Her mum had always said ‘no’ when she had whinged and begged that they get one. Mum wasn’t really good with them, even with Nutmeg. They all barked at her and jumped around like they were overly excited, poor mum, she just didn’t seem to know what to do with a dog, what to say or anything, but she’d supposed, if a dog just barks at you, maybe you wouldn’t be that bothered about playing with one? Was that why they hadn’t visited Gran and Granddads house very often? They would call and pick her grandparents up, and take them out. Indeed, they had often gone places together, but mum was never keen on staying at theirs, not even for a quick cup of tea.
Warm bright sun had streamed through the car windows.
It was officially Summer.
Driving through Wonderby village had always made Ruby think of Christmas.
She didn’t really know why, only that the houses and shops reminded her of scenes from old fashioned Christmas cards.
This was to be her home now.
What on earth was she going to do with herself?
It was so quiet. She looked from the back seat over to the front seats where her Gran and Granddad sat. Gran was telling Granddad to slow down as he was driving too fast.
“I’m doing twenty five miles an hour! Five miles below the speeding limit, my love. That’s not too fast!”
Although he’d said ‘my love’, Ruby knew her Granddad was irritated. As Granddad pulled the car into their driveway, she had a little feeling flutter inside of her, a bit like that nice feeling you get when you’ve been on a long journey and you arrive home, or like the excited feeling you get because you’re going on holiday. She didn’t know which one this was? Just that it was.
Then there was the exciting bit, the getting ready of her new bedroom. Ruby had been told that within reason she could have her room any way she wished, and as she considered she was not a little girl anymore, she had decided to move away from the childish colour of pink, to the more ‘grown up’ colour of lilac. She had lilac netting at her window, a thick and bouncy lilac carpet, cream walls and lilac sequined bedding. Her most favourite thing was her dressing table. It was all mirrored. It shone and caught the light from her bedroom window making it look like a large sparkling diamond.
She’d enjoyed the process of unpacking her belongings and getting set up in her new room.
‘ A fresh start’ they’d both said, and by the time it was finish, it was time for tea.
Granddad had suggested they have a barbeque.
“How about it?” He asked Ruby.
“Some sausages, burgers, a bit of salad and a nice cold beer!”
Gran raised her eyebrows at Granddad.
“How about a cold coke Ruby Red?” She said, throwing granddad a playfully scolding look.
“Sounds great Gran, a voddy and coke it is then!”
Ruby and Granddad laughed as Gran gave them a cheeky ‘telling off’ look.
After the ‘barbie,’ Gran and Granddad sat and watched Ruby play with Nutmeg. They had a very large garden. It looked even bigger than it actually was because where their garden ended, the Lincolnshire countryside began. It was beautiful, with lush green grass surrounded by large mature trees, and then the meadows beyond, as far as the eye could see. It had been a favoured painting place of their son Peter, before Ruby had been born.
Later on that evening, after Ruby had bathed, scrubbed her teeth and got into her pyjamas, her brand new creamy satiny silky ones. She had chosen them herself. She climbed into bed. Kate and Ernie Ridd milled about her room, arriving to say goodnight.
“Shut the window Granddad please.”
“But Ruby” her Granddad said, “ It’s a warm night. The moon’s bright. It will be nice to let in the fresh air.”
“Granddad, I don’t want to sleep with moths, mozzies, or any other creepy crawlies. I don’t have my window open!”
Ernie shut the widow and looked at his wife Kate, as she fussed with Ruby’s bedding. He lifted his shoulders at the same time as turning down the corners of his mouth, in a sort of shrugging action.
“Okay, Okay!”. He kissed Ruby and left her with her Gran to settle her in.
Ruby’s Gran was more than aware that this would be the first night Ruby had ever slept at their house. Indeed anywhere away from her home without her parents.
Ella had been very protective of Ruby. Kate had spoken to Peter and her husband about it; they all concluded it must have been because Ella was an orphaned child. Still, Ruby knew her Gran had thought it strange that she was not allowed to sleep over, even at ten years old.
Ella had always said, if they wanted to come over and spend time with Ruby they were very welcome at their house, and then Ruby could sleep in her own bed. In fact, Kate had known Ruby had not even slept out at friends’.
Ever.
Peter had popped into his parents one day, a few months before their accident.
He had said that Ruby and Ella were arguing over this fact, mentioning that Ruby had shouted at her mum,
‘I am not a baby!’
At the time, Kate had just said ‘Oh dear’, and Peter had said he had come out of the way to give them space to sort themselves out.
‘I don’t want to be in the middle of that one mum’ he had said to her.
‘I can understand Ruby, and I understand Ella, but this ‘Ruby being at home’ thing is very important to Ella. You know how she is.’
It did seem overly protective. They had all thought that, but they brushed it off as being down to Elladore’s own childhood.
Kate’s thoughts came back to tucking in her granddaughter.
“Right then Ruby Red, you ready for sleep?”
“I’m tired, but I feel all fluttery in my tummy.”
“Does your tummy hurt Ruby?”
“No” Ruby said, “ I feel like I’m excited about something, but I don’t know what.” “Maybe your excited about your first night at your Gran and Granddad’s Rubes.”
Kate rubbed her granddaughters leg and leant over to kiss her forehead. She smelt of soap and talc, just like Peter had when he was little. She smiled to herself. By the time Peter had gotten to Ruby’s age, he had also got a bit smelly and had to be bribed to bath or shower.
All that changed though when he started to get interested in girls. There were more smells coming out of the bathroom then,
than coming out of the Perfume Shop.
The memory of her only son warmed her heart as she turned to Ruby.
“Goodnight Ruby darling, I love you”.
“Tell me why dad got smelly at my age Gran.”
“What Ruby, what made you say that?”
“ I don’t know, I just know you would be thinking about him.”
The hairs on the back of Kate’s neck stood up, how strange that Ruby should have thought that?
“Well Ruby, boys are boys, made from Slugs and snails and puppy dog tales, isn’t that what they say? So they are bound to smell if left to their own devices.”
Ruby laughed, but she had seen the sadness in her Gran’s eyes. She stroked her hand wanting to make her Gran feel better. A warm tingle seeped into Kate’s skin. A cosy safe hypnotic feeling flooded through her as she held Ruby’s gaze and heard her chuckle. She watched Ruby’s face light up as the child smiled and she felt lovely, almost content, and strangely reluctant to move.
All movement slowed, as if time was grinding to a halt. Sound was muffled.
Then, as Ruby took her hand away to move down into her bed, the slow-motion of the moment stopped, and time caught up to its real speed.
Ruby settled down into her new bed. Her room still had a slight smell of fresh paint. Her pride and joy, the dressing table, shone in the corner where it stood.
Moonlight glistened through the window, casting a soft light into her room.
She did feel tired.
Her eyes felt heavy.
She watched the dark for a while as it danced around her room. She said good night to her mum and dad and told them she loved them. Her Gran had said, she was sure they were watching her from heaven. The last thing she heard whilst she was still awake was Gran and Granddads TV.
Big Ben chimed as it introduced the news at ten.
Ruby’s room was warm and still. She slept like a child with no worries, peaceful and calm. The moon having moved in its orbit around the Earth, now cast a different light into Ruby’s room.
As she lay in her bed with her quilt thrown off her, Ruby heard her name being called
“Ruby, Ruby.”
The voice was familiar.
At first she lay still, happy just to hear the voice.
“Ruby, Ruby!”
The voice spoke more urgently this time. Ruby stirred in her bed, in her sleep. Then, as if a light bulb had been turned on in her head, she realised why the voice was familiar.
“Mum, mummy, where are you?”
She never called her mum, mummy now, only if she was poorly sometimes. Her mum was there, stood in her room. She could see the rainbow glow around her. The light from the amber moon softening the edges of the image, making everything look dreamy. Ruby wanted to rush to her, but she couldn’t, her legs, her arms, they wouldn’t move. Her mother spoke softly and firmly, focusing Ruby’s attention.
“Listen Ruby, I can’t stay and I can’t come back again. Listen and remember. You are to find out my secret. I can’t stop it now. Find Goldenella Perkin, she will protect you! I love you baby.”
She moved towards Ruby and kissed her daughters forehead and said,
“For now sleep.”
Ruby’s eyes closed and her head moved back on to her pillow. Elladores image disappeared from the room. Ruby didn’t wake again that night.
Ernie sat up in bed reading his latest buy, a dog-training book.
“You know Kate if I could get Meg to read this book, she’d know what she was supposed to do when I give commands.”
“Yes and if this face cream did what it says it’s supposed to do, you wouldn’t be sleeping next to an old woman.”
Kate got up from her dressing table rubbing the remainder of the face cream into her hands. She moved to the window to draw the curtains. The moon looked majestic hanging in the cloudless black sky. The window was open and she could hear the rustle of the leaves from the trees, as the soft summer breeze moved through them. Scent from the meadows and the honeysuckle vines drifted to her senses. Strange how life goes on and beautiful things still happen, even when times are sad.
Ernie turned off his bedside light and told Kate to come to bed.
“I will in a minute.”
She leant out of the window to smell the sweet air. Her eyes began to adjust to the dark, and what had appeared to be sheets of black, now took on shapes and new grey shades. In the distance towards the end of the garden Kate saw something light and shimmery move. Straining her eyes to see more, she focused in on what looked like a figure moving in the dark.
“Jesus, Jesus Ernie!”
Panic hit Kate and Ernie at about the same time.
“ What? What?”
“It’s Ruby! She’s outside at the bottom of the garden, in her pyjamas.”
Ernie and Kate simultaneously grabbed their dressing gowns and pushed on their slippers, both fumbling with their movements, as they tried to dress and move at speed towards the back door, and out into the garden.
Kate thought their feet hadn’t even touched the ground. For two old people they could have been challenging contenders for Olympic runners that night.
When they reached Ruby, at first they thought she was delirious.
“Goldenella Perkin knows mum’s secret,” was all she said.
Ernie said she was sleepwalking and they weren’t to wake her, but gently walk her back to the house.
Once they had got Ruby back in bed and the house securely locked up, Kate made a bed on the chaise longue in the hall outside of Ruby’s room, just in case she was to go walk about again. With Ruby’s bedroom door open a little, she watched her son’s little girl sleep, and saw all the likenesses in her soft looks of Peter and Elladore. Her long brown-blonde hair hung over her pillow, and her thick eyelashes caught the gentle moonlight. With a sense of security at being close by her granddaughter, Kate watched the child sleep.
All was quiet and still as the house and its occupants slept. Nutmeg snored at the foot of Ernie’s bed in unison with her master. Kate had finally succumbed to the exhaustion of the past few months and that night’s excitement. Somehow she had managed to get comfortable on the old antique chaise longue and lay still and peaceful, as did the house.
CHAPTER 3
STRANGE HAPPENINGS
‘The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.’
(Dorothy Parker 1893-1967)
Gran and granddad were in the Kitchen having breakfast when Ruby got downstairs. Ruby made some toast and sat with them at the kitchen table.
“Do you remember anything about last night Ruby?” Granddad asked.
As Rubys mind was on the events of the night before too, she was concentrating on what her mother had said, so without answering her Granddad’s question, Ruby asked one of her own.
“I need to know something Granddad. Who is Golden Ella Perkin?”
“Well now Ruby, that’s just what we were about to ask you.”
“Why?” asked Ruby.
Ernie and Kate explained what had happened in the night.
Kate saw that Ruby looked troubled.
She didn’t remember.
“Put it down to the move Ruby, it’s been a lot for you to take on.”
Ruby thought different.
Before anyone had finished their breakfast, Ruby grabbed her last piece of toast and chased down the garden to where her grandparents had said she had been.
Why had she been there?
What was there?
Who was, and how was she going to find this Golden Ella person?
Why hadn’t her mum told her about her before?
None of this was making sense.
What was going on?
The morning was warm.
It was probably going to be a scorcher that afternoon.
Ruby could smell the grasses as they warmed up in the morning sun and the sweet smell of the strawberries as they sat in the straw granddad had laid down for them. She walked to the end
of the garden. A small picket fence separated the garden from the meadows beyond. She stood on the fence looking out over the grasses and the wild flowers. Nutty had faithfully followed her to the fence, and then detoured to the pond for a drink. Although Ruby wasn’t overly familiar with the garden she thought she knew it, after all, her father had painted it many times and she had loved to look at his paintings.
She climbed over the fence, Nutty scrambled under it. Absently she picked up a stick and began to swing it about, hitting the green and purple grasses as she walked through them. Seeds that were ready flew from the grasses and escaped on the wind. She stopped and took stock of where she was and how far she had come. After all, it would not be too clever to get lost on her first proper day in her new hometown. Seeing a puddle in the middle of a dirt track, she wandered over. It took up most of the dirt track she was on. She stuck the stick into the puddle to see how deep it was. Not very. Ruby swirled the water around and around. It looked like water in the sink going down the plughole. She decided to jump into to it, to splash.
She did splash!
Taking a look at her trainers covered in mud, and her white jeans speckled with brown spots, she decided she had not made a wise move on that one.
As she wiped at her speckled jeans, she heard voices and laughter. She looked up. She heard sounds of children playing. She had not heard them at first. She strained her ears to see if she could hear where the noises were coming from. She saw what looked like fire-flies, like the ones she’d seen on the TV. Little flashes of light, hovering and darting here and there. Nutty barked and jumped at them, then barked and jumped at her tail, then back at the fire-flies again, until they disappeared. Intrigued, Ruby began to follow in the direction of where she thought the sounds of the children had come from.
She walked in the heat of the sun. It shone on her from the sky and bounced up from the warm earth. It created a very hot atmosphere for her to walk in.
Perhaps, she thought, she should have worn a hat?
The grasses, long in some places and short in others, bobbed and danced in the gentle breeze, displaying a range of shades of greens, yellows and some reds. They prickled, and at times tickled the soft skin on her arms, not covered by her t-shirt. Tiny sky-blue butterflies, disturbed by Ruby’s walking, flittered and fluttered, prettily dancing on the warm breeze. The warm air filled her nostrils and she began to feel sticky and hot in the heat. Ruby thought she could still hear the children, but couldn’t see them. The sounds were no louder, and no closer, than when she had first started following the laughter on the air. That was strange, because she thought she had been walking for a good while now.