Love Notes from Vinegar House

by Karen Tayleur

  Fffffantastic.

  “Your grandmother has a few appointments in Port Eden next week, but that’s only an overnight stay,” said Dad.

  “Next week?” I repeated.

  “Freya, I don’t know how long this is going to take,” said Dad.

  That stopped me in my tracks, because my father knows everything. What did he mean he didn’t know how long this was going to take?

  “And Rumer will be there, so you two girls can keep each other company,” said my father.

  Really, really fffffantastic.

  Rumer.

  My least-favourite cousin.

  Chapter 3

  Let me tell you about Rumer. I don’t want you to think that I go around hating people, because I don’t. I have a lot of friends. Well, not a lot, not thousands or anything, but I have many friends and one really good friend – Holly. But I was telling you about Rumer. Rumer and I don’t like each other much, but our families insist we are the best of friends. Technically, this is not correct. We are best friends like cats and dogs might be. Or like oil and water. Or like a glass of milk and someone with lactose intolerance. You get the idea. Rumer is older than me, but it is only a two-year gap. If only the gap between the rest of our lives wasn’t five billion light- years apart. Still, Rumer wasn’t too bad – just as long as I did everything she wanted.

  I don’t know about you, but I hate bossy people.

  When we were younger, Rumer always made up games where the rules shifted depending on how she was feeling. This made trying to win pretty impossible. And Rumer was always the hero. My roles ranged from weakling foe to snivelling servant and even unloved pet. If Rumer was the star of the show, I was like one of those actors in the credits way down near the gaffer boy. Or maybe just stunt girl number two.

  Once, at Grandma’s house, I was given the role of wild dog suffering from rabies. Not one of my finest moments. I figured if I got too tired of the game I could bite Rumer on the leg and blame it on losing myself in the character. I never got a chance to bite Rumer, though, because she tied me to a tree then went off and forgot about me. I was stuck shivering under the tree until Isabella came to find me for lunch. I kicked Rumer when I found her. I got into trouble from my parents – she screamed as if I’d tried to kill her – but Grandma gave me a nod and handed me a peppermint. It was so hot I thought it had burned my voice clear out of its box.

  There are things I think about sometimes that I usually keep to myself. For instance, have you ever thought about a voice box? I mean, can it really be a box? And if it’s not a box, then why not call it something else? Like a voice cube? Or a voice oval? I’ve tried feeling my neck for my voice box, but found nothing even vaguely resembling a square shape.

  Luke Hart has an Adam’s apple that goes up and down on his neck when he speaks. But that’s not a box. Doesn’t really look much like an apple either. And the strange thing is, one day it just appeared. From out of nowhere. He went from having a smooth neck to one with a bobbing thing that did not resemble an apple at all.

  Anyway, how did you get me talking about Luke Hart?

  I was talking about Rumer and how incredibly annoying she is. The only person who doesn’t give in to Rumer is Grandma.

  Grandma lives in a rambling old double-storey house that has three names. The locals call it Kramer’s Folly. Kramer is my grandmother’s last name. It’s my last name too, but I already told you that. The house’s official name, the one on the brass nameplate near the front doors, is Burnside. And the cousins call it Vinegar House, after Grandma Vinegar – not her real name of course.

  Sometimes I dream about Vinegar House. It starts with the smell of lavender. None of my dreams ever make sense, and this one’s no different. First there’s the smell. Then I find myself in the suffocating stillness of the Blue Room. This is the official name for the blue bedroom upstairs. It’s pitch-black – no wait, that’s a cliché. We studied clichés in English last year. It’s Wild Child’s Incredibly Black Mascara black – the kind that doesn’t run, even if you cry. I only know I’m in the Blue Room because of the texture of the blackness. I’ll explain about that later. So I’m trapped in a hiding space. I hear heavy breathing that isn’t mine. Silent screams choke my throat, and my skin crawls like it’s trying to leave my bones and find another home. (Hey, see ya, skin. Bye. No, really, thanks for staying with me for so long.)

  And then, somehow – dreams do not have to make sense – I am downstairs in the entry hall, staring up at the main staircase looking like it belongs in a giant’s castle. I walk slowly up the stairs that crumble behind me.

  I don’t want to go to the Blue Room. But I’m like one of those people you see in a scary movie – you know, the kind of movie where you yell at the actor for doing something stupid like walking into danger. (Look behind you! Don’t go in there! Can’t you hear the scary music?)

  Still, it’s like I have no choice. I’m moving like I’m following a script.

  (Actor walks up staircase.)

  Ragged curtains flap out a warning from the broken stairwell windowpanes.

  (Actor ignores flapping ragged curtains.)

  I know that Grandma’s going to be cross about the broken windows, but there’s no time to stop and clean it up.

  (Actor is obviously out of her mind.)

  And the strange thing is that the staircase just gets longer and steeper at every twist and turn, until I have to drag myself up each step like a rock climber. Then the handrail crumbles beneath my hand and I am falling, spinning in space until I jolt awake.

  If I had a choice between being stuck in wet sand and climbing the stairs at Vinegar House, I’d choose the sand every time. Of course, I’d rather not have any nightmares at all, but you don’t always get to choose what you want.

  Including your relatives.

  My great-great-grandfather, Willem Kramer, had been born into family money, and he splashed his wealth about like a kid in the shallows at the Homsea foreshore. He was famous for losing the family fortune, then making his own when there was nothing left to spend. Great-great Grandpa showed off his new wealth by building his dream home. Unfortunately, he chose the most ridiculous site for his grand house – for it was built in the middle of the end of nowhere, on the edge of a ragged bluff. It stands on a slight lean so that it always looks in danger of falling into the sea, though Uncle Stephen says that the lean is just an illusion – something to do with the tilt of the land. Uncle Stephen is a very smart man, so he is probably right. Sometimes, when I look at the house, it’s like a huge monster leaning over to devour me. And then in a blink it just looks like a normal old house. The house plays tricks like that. It’s not a friendly house. Everyone in Homsea thinks it is cursed.

  The house itself was built in the late 1800s. A row of stables and a small groundskeeper’s cottage, further up the hill, was added some time after that. A triple-car garage was built behind the stables in the 1950s by my grandpa, but you can’t see it from the house.

  I’ve seen photographs from the 1920s of “the staff” lined up with the grand house as a backdrop, looming over them. About that time, two of the maids died in a fire that started in the outhouse laundry. Around the same time, one of the stable hands died when he was thrown from a horse that Great-great Grandpa had won in a bet. I’d also heard a whisper of a drowning near Seal Rock, just off Bluff Beach. Perhaps that’s where the idea of the house being cursed came from.

  By the time I was born, Grandma Vinegar (her real name is Florence) had been a widow of twenty years, and was what my mother called “careful with her money”. Others just called her mean. Her grandchildren secretly called her Grandma Vinegar due to her sharp and bitter tongue. No one was safe from it – not even the adults. Of course we never called her Grandma Vinegar to her face, but Isabella insisted that Grandma had somehow found out our secret name and seemed happy about it. The only softness I ever saw in Grandma was when she stroked her cats, Nutmeg and Cinnamon. Lucky she fussed over them, for they
were the oldest and mangiest felines on the planet, and no one else cared. I think they shared two teeth between them.

  I hope you’re not a cat lover.

  I love cats.

  Just not those cats.

  I think Grandma loved those cats better than any human. She always referred to Grandpa Theo as dear Theo in a dry way so that I was never sure if she missed him or mocked him. A large oil painting of Grandpa Theo, set in a heavy frame, reminded us of his absence every time we visited Vinegar House. It was painted by a semi-famous artist and had won a prize when Dad was a teenager. Grandma said it was a good likeness of her husband, though the suit hid the wide set of his shoulders and the huge expanse of his chest. Isabella and I agreed that what Grandma really meant was that he was fat. It was strange to think of my grandfather being so big, as my grandmother was a dry twig, withering with age. I often wondered how they looked together.

  I am taller than Grandma, by at least a head, but she has this way of making you feel small. Everyone says that I am going to be tall like my dad, but I guess he got his height from his dad. I am shorter than Luke Hart, but not too short that I couldn’t stand on my tiptoes and kiss him straight on the mouth …

  I was talking about my grandfather.

  The painting of Grandpa Theo sits above the marble fireplace in the drawing room. No one else I know has a drawing room, and when I was younger I used to think Grandma called it that because of the many paintings on the walls. Which should have made it the painting room, I suppose. Grandma always dressed as though visitors might drop in at any moment, but I never met any of her friends. Usually, it was just the family; Mrs Skelton, the cook-come-cleaner; and Mr Chilvers, the gardener- come-handyman at the house. Grandma did sometimes talk about the girls in Port Eden whose average age would have been eighty not out.

  Don’t get me wrong. I like old people. But eighty is not the age of a girl. I’m very fussy about using the right words for things. Except for the word “death”.

  The drawing room is where we hand out the Christmas presents every year. Just once I would like a Christmas day at our house, but all the important events on our family calendar happen at Vinegar House. We gather there on special occasions such as Christmas or birthdays, or even just ordinary occasions, when Grandma decides she needs the family about her. The gatherings are a great time to catch up with the cousins.

  We used to play games like Spotlight or Spies (our very own special game) or Murder in the Dark when we were younger. And there were always board games. There wasn’t much else to do at Vinegar House. Grandma believes that unless children are doing chores (this is where you do work for no money) then they should use their imaginations (this means all TV watching, laptops and electronic games are banned). Mobile phone coverage at Vinegar House is touch and go, but that isn’t usually an issue as all mobiles are checked at the hallstand in the entry.

  Like the United Nations, I’m guessing.

  Or a really strict trivia night at the Homsea Town Hall.

  This used to cause fury in my older sister Isabella, who said it was like living in a police state. She stopped trying to sneak her phone into Vinegar House after Grandma threw my cousin Lee’s mobile through the open dining room double doors when it rang during one of her dinner parties. (Lee and I found it later in the azalea bushes after everyone had moved into the drawing room for cake.) Even the adults turn their mobiles off. The only one who doesn’t is Uncle Stephen because he is a doctor and is very important.

  Murder in the Dark was a favourite game of the cousins, but it was only fun when there were more than three players. Rumer was always in charge of the rules. She ordered us about and acted like she was years older than everyone else, when in fact she was younger than Isabella, Julia and the twins – Lee and Angus. The first time I played, I had just turned eight. Up until then I had been part of the younger cousins gang that played downstairs under the watchful eye of our parents.

  I was very excited to be part of the Blue Room gang that day. I remember it well. It was the day I found out what sort of person my cousin Rumer really was.

  Chapter 4

  “Lee, guard the door. Are we ready?” demanded Rumer.

  It was Grandma Vinegar’s birthday, and the whole family had gathered to sing “Happy Birthday”, watch her blow out the candles on her cake, and give her presents that she would stick in the bottom of her wardrobe drawer and never use. All the cousins were there, and the younger ones had been seated at the children’s table, which was really just a low coffee table covered with a white tablecloth. I was at the adults’ table and feeling very pleased with my promotion.

  Dinner had gone on forever, and I was sick of trying to remember my table manners, trying to use the right cutlery, and keeping my elbows from popping onto the table as if they had a mind of their own. There was a lot of laughter coming from the kids’ table, and they were already up to dessert before we’d even started on our main meal. My cousin Lee and his friend Bryn sat opposite Isabella and me, and spent the whole dinner trying to make Isabella laugh out loud. I got bored with their game and found a tiny hole in the white tablecloth that hung down past my knees and picked away at it making a larger hole until Isabella asked if we could leave the table. Grandma nodded her head once, giving us her permission.

  There was a scramble of chairs as we made a beeline to the Blue Room upstairs, away from the adults. For years the Blue Room had been used only as a guest room and the dried lavender on the dressing table couldn’t mask its damp mouldy smell – think a wet towel left in the bottom of a swim bag. The room was easily as big as our living room at home, and the ceiling rose so high up that it ended in shadow. Blue floral wallpaper lined the walls. It was a fuzzy kind of wallpaper and it sent a shudder through me whenever I touched it. There were heavy blue velvet drapes on either side of the window. The bed was high off the ground and looked very lumpy, and a hatstand stood in one corner of the room holding an old wool coat and a large straw sunhat. Other dark furniture was pushed up against the walls, including a floor-length, gold-framed mirror and a large armchair.

  “Are we allowed here?” I asked.

  “Dad’s sleeping here,” said Rumer, “so I’m sure I’m allowed here. And if I’ve invited you in, then that’s okay. You write the notes, Julia,” she said in her bossy way.

  “Did you say this room was haunted?” asked Bryn.

  Angus looked at me quickly then punched Bryn in the arm and told him to be quiet.

  Lee kept guard on the door while Julia wrote on a piece of lined paper. She then tore the paper into long thin strips and folded them over so the writing on the paper was covered. Bryn and Angus, Lee’s twin brother, pushed each other to see who would fall over first, while Isabella watched them with a little smile.

  “Now, do we all know the rules?” asked Rumer.

  As usual, Rumer was bossing people around, and it annoyed me so much that I kicked the dressing table. A crystal trinket box fell to the floor with a muffled thud, spilling hairpins, tiny loose pearls and a small key onto the floral carpet.

  “Freya! Do you want to play or not?” Rumer stood over me, hands on hips, as I picked the box and its contents up off the floor. Isabella helped me.

  “Shut up, Rumer,” said Isabella, calmly.

  “She always ruins things,” said Rumer. “We should have left her with the babies.” Rumer sighed theatrically. “She’s probably going to cry and tell the adults everything we’re doing.”

  “That’s enough, Rumer,” said Isabella. “Don’t be a pain.” Then Isabella looked at me sternly. “Do you promise to cross your throat and hope to choke if you tell any adult about this game?”

  I nodded solemnly. Then I decided to kick Rumer instead of the dressing table, but Angus grabbed my shoulders and held me fast as if he could read my mind.

  “She’s no baby, Ru,” he said. “Anyway, it’s better with more people. Hurry up.”

  “I don’t get what she’s doing,” said Bryn.

&n
bsp; I’d met Bryn several times at Vinegar House, although I didn’t know why he came along with Lee, and I never thought to ask. He seemed nice enough. He was Isabella’s age, and I could tell she liked him, because she kept punching him in the arm whenever he teased her.

  “Murder in the Dark,” said Rumer. “There are seven of us playing, so there are seven strips of paper.”

  “Yep,” said Bryn, seriously.

  “A word is written on each piece of paper. Six strips will have the word ‘player’, and one strip will have the word ‘murderer’ written on it.”

  “Finished,” said Julia, and she looked about before grabbing the straw hat from the hat stand and shoving the folded strips of paper inside.

  “So we all take a strip and read the word,” said Rumer, pulling a scrap of paper from the hat. “But you can’t tell anybody what note you have–”

  “Murderer,” read Bryn, laughing loudly as he read his note.

  Lee groaned. “You don’t tell anyone, idiot.”

  I thought Rumer would get cross, but instead she laughed a little and said, “Let’s try that again.”

  All the pieces of paper were returned to the hat, and Julia shook the hat to shuffle the paper about.

  “Then we turn the lights off,” continued Rumer. “The players have to stay out of the way of the murderer who needs to find a victim. The murderer needs to tap another player three times so that the player knows they’ve been murdered.” She walked over to the heavy drapes and pulled them across the window so that they met in the middle. It was already quite dark outside.

  “Can we go downstairs?” asked Bryn.

  “No,” said Rumer in her best bossy voice. “We need to keep it up here. In this room. And we can’t make too much noise. We don’t want the oldies to know what we’re up to. The victim has to say ‘dead’ when they’re killed, then the lights go on and we have to guess who the murderer is. Okay, this time no telling,” she said to Bryn.