“Nic! Nic, come out! You’re going to be in big trouble if you don’t!”
“That is well and good. Call louder now. I will wait outside.” Celine moved past her.
“Nicholas Charles Bennett, you come out right now!” Madeline mimicked Celine’s insistence.
The tiny lights winked off and on a few times, then Nic stepped out from behind a potted palm. His face was dirty, his hair pushed about as if he had sleepwalked straight out of bed, and his shorts were dark with fingerprints. He looked down at his knees and Madeline noticed they were scraped. He was embarrassed, she thought. He likes to be so tough.
“What are you doing here?” His voice was a high whisper.
“Looking for you, silly. I woke up and you were gone. If Mum and Dad find us gone, we’ll both be locked in that room until Saturday!” Madeline’s little fists pushed the air beside her.
“Don’t you dare tell or you’ll be sorry!” Nic walked towards her, his words menacing but his voice and posture that of someone caught out.
“I’m smart enough to know I’ll get into trouble if I tell, too, twit. Go back to the cottage.”
“What? You can’t tell me what to do.” He started to walk back into the shadows of the trees.
“Fine, get in trouble. See if I care.” Madeline turned and went back outside. She expected to see Celine, but instead was met by darkness. “Celine?” she whispered.
Nicholas stormed out past her, then stopped a few yards away. “I’m going back because I want to. We’re done playing around anyway.” He turned back to Madeline for moment, his eyes fierce. “You better come back, too, or I’m telling Mum and Dad it was me out looking for you.” With that, he ran out down the path and was gone.
“He is so like Paul.” Celine was behind her. Madeline jumped.
“You scared me!” The gravel under her feet hurt and she began to shift from foot to foot. “Who’s Paul?”
“My awful brother. He is twelve, too. My parents allow him to do whatever he chooses. He never gets scolded and always gets a sweet after supper no matter what he has done. If I look at him the wrong way, he locks me out. I cannot call to my parents or the servants. They will simply believe I was naughty and went outside on my own and I will be punished. It is just not fair.”
“That’s terrible. Same with me.”
Celine stepped over the edge of the path onto the lawn. “Come. You will help me get in by the window on the back veranda. It is the only way.”
Madeline nodded, then followed Celine over the lawn towards the manse. They met a path as it ran to the servant’s entrance. They went up the steps to a landing that turned at the top to the back veranda. A bank of low windows book-ended a large set of double glass doors. Celine went to one window furthest from the door, nearest the servant’s entrance.
The girls cupped their hands around the sides of their eyes and peered in. It was too dark to see detail, but Madeline could see a white lace runner on a sideboard and the contrast of two framed paintings against a lighter wall. It wasn’t a modern house at all. More like a museum room she’d seen in London.
“This is a back dining room. The servants use it because it is off the kitchen. They leave the window unlatched sometimes. They are not very good. The servants we have in the country house are very good, indeed.” Celine shook her head at Madeline’s blank look. “The window is too big and heavy for me to push up on my own.” Celine stepped back. “Will you try it with me?”
Madeline felt suddenly brave, and curious. “Can I come inside with you?”
“No!” Celine’s voice was a harsh whisper, almost a shriek. “It is not acceptable!”
“Then I won’t help you.” Madeline turned to go.
Celine grabbed onto Madeline’s T-shirt and pulled. She nearly landed on her backside, but Celine held her up. She was very strong, Madeline thought, swerving out of her grasp.
“Please.” Celine stretched out her arms and made a sad face. “Help me get back inside. You may come back tomorrow.”
That was good enough, Madeline decided. “Okay.” It was what she was angling for all along.
They put their hands flat against the glass and both pushed up with all their might. The sound of wood moaning against wood told them the window was unlatched and up it came. Celine stepped over the window sill into the house.
“Will you find your way back to your cottage?”
Madeline nodded. “See you tomorrow.”
Celine seemed to fade out of sight as she waved goodbye.
After dusting the sand off her face and feet and out of her hair on the veranda, Madeline quietly padded down the hall to the bedroom. The door was ajar. She pushed it open and saw Nicholas in bed. By the sound of his breathing, he was deep asleep. The room was dark now that the moon had moved away and dawn would come too soon. Madeline hurried to bed, did a last minute check she was sand-free, and climbed in beside her brother.
The day came hot and windless. Nicholas and Madeline awoke at the same time, turning to see the other.
Nic frowned at his sister. “Where were you? I waited around. Mum and Dad could’ve have checked in on us.”
“I just helped Celine get back into her house. Her brother locked her out. Then I came back.” She saw how scared he was. She added, “Sorry.”
“I didn’t see any girl.” He wiped sleep from his eyes.
“Well, who were you playing with in the conservatory?” She sat up. The blood from her toe was dark on her shirt.
“Paul. He lives in that big house.”
“That’s Celine’s brother. He’s a bully. Celine said so.”
“He’s cool! He wears stupid stuff, but . . . what do you know. You’re just a baby.”
“I am not.” Madeline folded her arms. “What are you going to tell Dad about your knees? I saw them last night. He’ll know you were up to something.”
Nic sat up, flung the eiderdown off his legs. Both knees were badly scuffed. There was green around them as if he’d skidded across the lawn. “Oh, shit!” He popped out of bed, went to the door and waited. Satisfied there was no one there, he hurried up the stairs to the bathroom.
Madeline took off her T-shirt and went to the chest of drawers to find a pair of shorts and a clean top to put on for the day. She hoped Nic would be quick cleaning up; she had to use the toilet. As she sat down in the stuffed chair, she looked at her toe. It was red and swelling. She should have just gone back to the cottage as soon as she hurt herself. She pulled on the shorts and top and brushed her hair.
Nic dashed in and shut the door. “Have they come down yet?”
Madeline shook her head. “I can’t even hear them. Maybe they’re still asleep. I have to go.” She then rushed out and up the stairs to the toilet.
She bandaged her toe after putting on some antiseptic. Sitting on the toilet, her mind wandered to her seashells and selling them when they got home. She could use the money to buy some doll’s clothes her mother was refusing to get for her. Then she thought about how hungry she was and wondered why she didn’t smell her father’s coffee. He couldn’t start the day without his coffee. She washed and went to the door of her parents’ bedroom.
Tapping lightly, her heart was pounding. What if she woke them and they were still upset with Nic? But the sun was out brightly, it had to be late morning. She tapped harder. Then she tried the door. Locked.
“Mum? Mum. Dad?”
Suddenly Nic was there at the bottom of the stairs. “Maddie! Where are they? No one’s been in the kitchen or anything.” He sounded frantic.
“It’s locked, Nic. Look!” She tried the door loudly so he could hear.
He took the stairs two at a time and stood beside her. They shouted and Madeline began crying. Nic pounded on the door.
“Do something, Nic!” Madeline wailed.
Nicholas turned to the side and bashed at the door with his sturdy frame. It took seven tries before the lock gave and he fell into the room. It was empty.
Madeline wiped at her eyes,
but she couldn’t stop crying. The bed was messed from her parents having gone to bed and slept, and their clothes were laid out for the day. The window was open and the heat in the room made her perspire. She continued looking about as if they would suddenly walk out of the wallpaper, or peek out from under the bed frame and say “Surprise!”.
Nicholas wasn’t much more composed. He went to the window, back to the bed, his face ashen, his eyes wet. “Where are they?”
Madeline offered a tearful suggestion. “Maybe they’re on the veranda? Outside?”
Nic turned, his face colouring. “Don’t you think I looked out there? Stop crying. We have to find them!” Just then, a tear rolled down his cheek and he nearly punched himself trying to wipe it away before Maddie saw. But she did.
“I want Mum!” Madeline ran out, down the stairs, out the front door onto the veranda and forgetting her sore toe, stomped down the stairs to the wooden walkway.
She kept going toward town, scanning the beach and the cottages, determined behind her fear. Twice she saw women with the similar short hair and long legs, but they were older or younger, neither her Mum. When she came to the steps onto the high street, she turned back. She could see Nicholas walking on the sand to the water and back to the boardwalk, head whipping side to side like a light on top of a police car.
He rushed to her. “Did you see them?”
“No, did you?”
He shook his head. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. I’m just a baby.” Madeline began weeping again.
Nic stared at her for a moment, then grabbed her hand and led her back to the cottage.
Nicholas poured cornflakes and milk into bowls for them, but they both sat and looked at it as if it was creamed spinach. Their bellies growled. Madeline stopped crying, but her face remained red.
By the afternoon, Madeline wanted Nic to call the police. He tried to reassure her. “They’ll be back. They’re just giving me a taste of my own medicine.” But he well understood now how his mum must have felt when he’d gone off with Paul; the panic, the grief setting in even without proof anyone had died. Enough, he thought, you can come out now. He folded his arms over his chest and went quiet.
At suppertime, famished, they threw away the congealed cereal and ate half a chocolate cake that Mum had made for the evening before they were to go home two days hence. They finished the milk and put the leftover cake back in the refrigerator. Three quarters of an hour later, Madeline vomited hers up. Nic washed her face and hugged her, but said nothing.
As the sun set, they sat on chairs pulled up to the windows, watching the wooden path crossing in front of them. Finally, Nicholas spoke.
“It’s no joke, Maddie. Something’s happened to Mum and Dad. I’ve got to take care of us now.” He stared out at the water.
“I’m scared.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“I feel cold inside my chest. I might be ill.” Madeline pressed her hands on her ribs.
“You’re not ill. I feel the same way. I think it’s because this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to us.”
“How can we not be scared any more?”
Nicholas looked at her. “We have to get help. Paul. I can ask him to help.”
Madeline smiled grimly. “Celine’s brother? I forgot about them.”
“You helped her, maybe they’ll help us. Let’s go to their house.”
Madeline looked at her toe. Nic had rewashed it and bandaged it with too much gauze and tape, but if she put on sandals, she thought she could make it over the wooden walkway. Nic slipped into a pair of trainers and put Madeline’s sandals on the floor for her to step into.
They left a light on in case their parents came back and set out to the end of the strand. Nic held Maddie’s hand and made sure she could walk. There were still people awake in the cottages along the way, oblivious to the two children and their troubles. Nicholas told Madeline he was so sorry for running off, as if she was her Mum.
“We can go in the side gate, its broken,” Madeline offered as they stood in front of the mansion, its tall, foreboding gate shut tight.
“Right.” Nicholas lead her around the side. They noticed some lights on in the house, dim, flickering strangely. The moon was behind clouds this evening and it made finding the gate difficult. Vines wound around the fence all along the side path. Nic felt for it more than looked. “Here.” He stopped.
“What?” Madeline clung to him.
“The lock’s been fixed. It’s firm.” He shook the gate but it made no sound. “Never mind, I know where there is a bent fence railing near the conservatory, we’ll get in there.”
It wasn’t much further along the fence that the gaping space allowed them entry. The gravel path from Madeline’s memory was nowhere to be found. The ground was brambles, thistle and nettles, stinging them as they went, but they hardly noticed. This was not a part of the garden she’d been through.
“I think we’re lost. Last night there was a path and lawns and flowers.”
“Look, we’re not far from the house. Do you want me to carry you?”
Madeline looked up at Nic, maybe six inches taller than she, and doubted his strength. She nodded hesitantly. He swooped her up and kept going.
Madeline pointed to stairs going up to the veranda, grander stairs than the ones she and Celine had used by the servant’s entry. Nicholas carried her up, the wood creaking and snoring as their weight went over them. Once on the veranda, they saw a large hole in front of the double door where something heavy had fallen through the floor. The long low windows around the double doors were broken and dirty.
“It didn’t look like this last night.” She shivered.
“I know. Paul let me look in on the back parlour and I could see the edge of a big staircase. It was cool. Fancy and sparkly. Now it looks like nobody has been here for years.” He set Madeline down.
Madeline saw a glow deep inside the house emanating from a hallway. She gasped when she saw someone pass through.
“There’s somebody inside!”
“What. Where? I didn’t see anything.” They edged closer to the windows. “Let’s go inside.”
“No. No, Nic. I don’t want to. Celine told me I couldn’t.”
“She’s not here now, so let’s go in.” He grabbed her hand and she pulled away.
“No! Let’s go back to the cottage. My legs hurt from the nettles. I want to go back.”
“Don’t be a wimp, Maddie. We came here for help. Don’t you want Mum and Dad?”
“I won’t go inside. Let’s go around to the front and ring the doorbell. Sneaking in is bad.” She pouted and began walking back on her own to the stairs. She kept going hoping he would follow and he did. This time, there was a path to follow, right around to the front garden.
The smells of the sea were masked by the scent of honeysuckle and roses. As they went up the steps to the front door, Nic took Madeline’s hand. The long front veranda stretched completely across the length of the mansion. He gently pulled Madeline along to the largest window. The heavy draperies were tied back and they could see into the dimly lit sitting room.
There, sitting on the floor with an embroidery hoop stitching away was Celine. A boy sat putting a paper house together at a table with a man whose back was to them. Madeline saw that Nic was going to tap on the window and she slapped his hand.
“Don’t,” she whispered harshly. “Just look. Something’s wrong.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. It’s not real.”
“Stop it. Look. It’s Paul. He’ll help us. Look, he has parents. They can call the police if we can’t find Mum and Dad.” Nicholas’s eyes were pleading with her.
“But look how they’re dressed. Look at the lights.” Gaslights glowed against the walls. “They’re all wrong.”
Out of the corner of Madeline’s eye she caught a woman coming into the room. Her dress was dark and long and tight at the middle, her hair tightly wo
und into a chignon. They both then saw the woman’s face. Nic’s jaw dropped, but Madeline shrieked. The four people inside turned to the sound. Then Nic screamed.
Sitting at the table with Paul was their Dad, and their Mum stood by Celine, a basket of sewing in her hands. They seemed cosy together. A real family. Celine set down her embroidery and got up.
Madeline wanted to run away but her feet wouldn’t move. Nicholas seemed equally paralysed. Celine went to the window beside them and waited. Nic threw his arms around his sister and they buried their heads in their arms. Madeline felt her brother shaking, or maybe it was her. She lifted her head a little and saw Celine standing on the veranda a few feet away. The sound that came out of Madeline was like a wounded animal. It made Nicholas look behind him.
“Wha . . .” His words wouldn’t come. He started to back away with Madeline clinging to him.
“It’s a bad dream, Nic. Please. Say this is a bad dream!” Madeline was crying now.
Nic stopped shaking. “It’s a bad dream, Maddie.” He sounded sure, but took a hold of her hand and pulled her with him as he rushed past Celine down the steps to the path leading to the front gate. They ran with arms out, pushed at the gates which fought them, creaking and yawing. Madeline glanced behind them. Celine was coming down the steps. They threw their weight into the wrought iron and it opened with a metal grumble, just enough for them to squeeze through. Once they were out, past the boardwalk onto the sand, they stopped, huffing, shaking, and crying.
They stood holding each other, staring at the mansion, seeing the faintly lit scene inside, the happy family. Their mum and dad with two other children.
The young couple in the cottage were kind to Madeline and Nicholas. The light in the front window was left on, just as when they’d left to find Paul and Celine. The man and woman hadn’t minded being woken up, no, and they wanted to help. At first Madeline and Nicholas refused to speak to these strangers in the cottage where they had been staying for nearly two weeks. What had happened to their mum and dad? Why were these people there? But there was no one else, not now. The man and woman listened as the woman tended to their scrapes and nettle stings while the man made them tea as if they had lived in the cottage all along. The couple exchanged glances. They thought the children had wild imaginations. Surely there would be an explanation to satisfy everyone.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 17 Page 32