The sisters had drifted apart as they grew older, times changed and they both grew up, heading in different directions, different friends. They had very little in common. But even now Rose already missed her big sister.
This was a stressful time for all the family. A new move always was. Rose’s new home was in the southern county of Wiltshire, England. Weird Wiltshire as it was sometimes called. Crop circles, Stonehenge, and abandoned villages were a few examples of the mystic West and the isolated town of Warminster, Rose’s new home, was on the perimeter of the Salisbury Plain, a 300 mile expanse of grass land rich in history, archaeology and mystery. Warminster itself was well known for its army base, which had been established before the Second World War, and UFO stories that had been passed down through generations.
Rose had scanned the internet extensively in the few weeks before the move date, intrigued by her new home. Even now her copy of ‘Wiltshire Myths and Legends’ was in her backpack by her feet.
Somehow the stories seemed more relevant now as she observed the passing Wiltshire countryside for the first time. How the deep blue sky met the brown earth making the horizon shimmer. The conjoining fields resembled a giant mosaic with their multi tones of green, yellow and brown. The contoured edges lined with hedgerow and trees that spread out for miles in all directions. Not a house was in sight and not a building close by. This remote part of England was extraordinary and intriguing. Rose was anxious to reach the end of this journey.
It would be just Rose, this time. The family were all separating for two years. Jeff, Rose’s father, had an assignment overseas, somewhere in the Middle East, and her mother would be joining him. They had been advised that it would be far too dangerous for the whole family to relocate and Rose didn’t like the thought of an international school abroad.
Amy would spend the next year completing her A levels, living under the guardianship of the college Head. It was her final year so it would have been unfair on Amy to move. To Amy’s delight she had been given the best room at the college, with its own kitchen, and study area. The free access to the internet and phone had also not gone unnoticed. Jeff and Dahlia would be keeping an eye on Amy, whether she liked it or not.
And so Rose was moving in to her grandmother’s house. It was only vague holiday memories that Rose recalled of her grandmother, and she had never known her grandfather. When Daisy Frost had offered her granddaughter a place to stay, Rose’s parents had not been enthused by the idea, but Daisy had insisted that it was no trouble and was relishing the chance to know her granddaughter again. Rose was not entirely sure what her parents enmity was towards her grandma but there had been a falling out somewhere down the years, resulting in summer holidays spent elsewhere instead of with the only other family member that Rose knew. Rose had been only ten years old when she last said goodbye but her memories had been happy ones.
Dahlia had indicated that living with Daisy would be interesting. Daisy was a social go getter and had an uncanny knack of bringing people together. Within a week Rose was to expect dinner invitations, coffee morning requests and shopping trips. The thought of it made Rose smile. Her grandmother was not the typical frail old lady figure, and from what Rose could gather, Daisy always seemed to attend more social events than the Queen of England herself.
Dahlia and Rose had had a ‘talk’ prior to the move. Rose was sensible and very mature for her age. She knew about healthy eating, about keeping fit, and getting enough sleep. She’d studied self defence with extra kick boxing sessions whenever there had been an hour to spare, but this time Rose had insisted on one vital clause as was her right. She wanted her independence.
Living with Daisy would be fulfilling all her needs. But Rose wanted to play music loud if she wanted, and to invite friends over or go out without having to ask permission every time. Surely she could be trusted to do these small things now? She didn’t want to be nagged about homework or staying out late, and most of all she didn’t want to be dragged around by her grandmother. Daisy had understood. Rose’s mother had duly provided her with a new touch screen mobile phone complete with video camera for emergencies only, Dahlia had insisted. Rose had been ecstatic.
They had all agreed that from now on it would be about trust. Her grandmother would trust her to act mature and make grown up decisions, and Rose would trust Daisy not to be overbearing. If either of them went too far over the line or faltered, they would renegotiate.
Rose had never been a wild child, and whilst the popular girls, her so-called peers, might have been drinking and smoking behind the caretaker’s office at school, she always had the attitude that there was more to life. In ten years, was that the kind of thing she wanted to remember of her school days? Or did she want to be a little proud of what she had achieved. Her precious few school friends had all been inclined the same way too, so school reports had always been good and exam results were exemplary.
This had worked in her favour as in five weeks time Rose would begin the arduous task of starting at a new school, meeting new friends, forming bonds, and basically beginning her life again.
It was her fourth senior school in five years so she felt like a veteran at it now. At least she knew this was the last time as she would be studying her A Levels.
For Rose it was a new moment in time, a new glass shard in the mosaic that was her life.
Only this time things would be different.
Her name was Rose Frost. She was just sixteen years and seven days old, and she knew on that journey that somehow life would never be the same again.
- Chapter One -
For my sixteenth birthday my father bought me a diary. I remember my quizzical expression when I opened it, and fingered through the blank pages of the dark leather bound A4 size book. I had never kept a diary before, there had always been enough photos and videos taken when I was young to remember our past.
“It’s for when you’re living at Daisy’s. Each night I want you to write in it. All your experiences, all your dreams, everything you do that day. It will be a great reminder for you when you finally come back to us,” he said and hugged me closely, kissing my hair.
I never had dreams, not real ones that I could remember anyway. I just hoped that my days would be eventful enough to at least fill a few pages.
My grandmother had bought me a first edition book of ‘Wiltshire Myths and Legends’, which was appropriate. Every night since my birthday I had been enthralled by the stories of King Sil of Silbury Hill, the headless horsewoman of Savernake forest, the Roman legions who march halfway under the ground at Edington and the story of mysterious birds that fell out of the sky in Warminster. I always loved stories as a small girl, my father would read Greek mythology or Norse tales, while my mother had preferred Winnie the Pooh, or even Harry Potter as I grew older.
Amy hadn’t bought me a present but I didn’t mind. She handed me a card and shrugged, her mood had been strange, and sometimes wildly over-friendly and other times her look would scare me. I had no idea why she was so flippant, and my parents seemed not to notice.
Knowing that Mum had already given me a new mobile phone I hadn’t expected anything else but that night, after we had all celebrated with dinner at a restaurant and a movie, I was in bed and writing my first diary pages about my birthday, when she came in and sat beside me.
My mother was a quiet person, loving to all of us but somehow quietly sad. I wondered whether it had something to do with our constant moving, or her worry about my father’s job. But this night her eyes were kind and she reached for my hand and stroked it gently.
“Rose, you are so special. We love you so much and soon we’ll all be divided, so I want to give you this to remind you of us.”
She reached down and lifted her left sleeve revealing the double bangle silver bracelet that she always wore. In fact, I don’t think I had ever seen her not wearing it. She undid the two anchored clasps from the inside of her wrist that ran parallel with her arm, and the two bar bangles opened at
the sides like two bird wings opening up to take flight, one upper and one lower.
She held it tenderly in her hand, absently rubbing the silver metal. Her eyes were sparkly in the light of my side lamp, and she smiled. She was so pretty when she smiled.
“This is yours now. You must never take it off. This one was given to me by my grandmother, and she had it from her grandmother too. It’s our family heirloom and is one of a pair.”
“But Mum, I can’t take it if it means so much to you,” I said weakly.
“No, Rose. This is something that must be passed on. I received this on my sixteenth birthday too, and Daisy has one also that she was given on the same birthday.”
“But what about Amy? Shouldn’t she have it?” Amy was after all the oldest, it stood to reason.
“No, Rose, this is yours. No one else’s, here give me your left wrist.”
I held out my arm as she placed it down closing the two wings either side. The two bars were a perfect fit. She twisted my arm so my wrist was upside.
“Now, this may sting a little but don’t cry. And whatever you do, don’t take it off. Not even when you bathe.”
Her fingers pushed the two anchors down. At that moment a surge of pain shot up my arm. On each anchor was a metal pin, small and only about a centimetre in length but they pierced my skin and dug down in between the two bones that jutted through the surface of my forearm. The blue veins of my inner wrist, thin and web-like, thickened and pulsed their way through the thin epidermis, and I bit my lip as the pain seared for another few seconds before it died down. The veins returned to their normal state.
I cleared my throat before I dared to speak. “I don’t understand. Why did you wear it if it hurt so much? What kind of bracelet is it?” I choked back.
“Rose, it is our inheritance, and we must endure what our mothers and grandmothers endured. Soon you will understand. This bracelet will help you see better, you’ll find out soon enough. I think Daisy will help you understand more than I. When you live with her you’ll be able to ask her yourself.”
“What do you mean by helping me ‘see’ better?” I whispered. I twisted my wrist around, the strange bracelet felt comfortable and I barely noticed the metal pins now, just a faint tingling sensation. “You know that my eyesight is better than anyone’s.”
“Ask Daisy, it’s better for her to explain,” my mum answered, closing the subject. “Now, sleep well, sweetheart.”
She leaned forward and kissed me lightly on my cheek, and then left my room.
That night was the first night I dreamt, in full colour, and in the morning I remembered everything.
We had argued during the car journey, when we weren’t desperately trying to escape from the two cars that had followed us for much of the trip. Mum was a great driver, and the silver Honda saloon car we had borrowed seemed to enjoy the speed as we eluded the two black Mercedes cars again and again, then permanently.
Since my birthday I had dreamed every night, and they were always similar. One recurring dream was of running. Ironically I loved running but in this dream I was being chased by an unknown entity. In others I had flashes, images of faces though the events I never understood. The dreams weren’t always pleasant either. A ring of fire was frequent; I was at its centre, alone and scared with no way out. Such strange dreams. At night time I was often scared to sleep.
Twice my mum had asked me, in the time before we left our old house, how the bracelet was feeling. I just smiled and said fine. Dad knew of it, but didn’t mention it, and Amy just shrugged as if she’d just been left out of the world’s biggest secret, not caring either way. I expected her to kick up a fuss about the present but she didn’t.
But that wasn’t what Mum and I argued about on the journey.
We argued, stupidly, because I couldn’t remember where Daisy lived. I was convinced she was nearer the town but Mum reminded me that Daisy lived in the country. I knew I was being stupid, like Amy with one of her moods, but this was a big change for me and I hated not remembering.
“It’s behind Cradle Hill, near the golf course,” Mum overstressed the words. “Do you remember where Cradle Hill is? We used to walk up there to watch the sunsets and wait for shooting stars in the night sky.”
“Yes, I remember, it’s in the middle of nowhere! Behind the town on the left. There’s probably not even a bus to get into town, is there?” I huffed.
“Don’t be like that. It’s not that far out. You can walk it in ten minutes. She’s renovated the old house since we were last there, and opened up most of the rooms. And the gardens are extensive, with a few acres of land. You know how much you enjoy gardens. You’ll love it when you see it,” she said as if in confirmation.
Still unconvinced, we arrived into Warminster town and I quietly moaned as we passed along the high street, and the clothes shops. Mum steered the car expertly through the town and turned left onto a quiet lane behind. Buildings, houses and warehouses began to get fewer as the country ebbed closer.
My dismay was deepening. “Warminster is smaller than I remembered,” I muttered. Mum’s face frowned in annoyance; I could tell as soon as I spoke I had nearly reached the height of her tolerance threshold.
“Rose-Marie, stop being childish. After the journey we’ve had, you’re lucky I’m an expert driver. Warminster is safe for you. It’s the one place you can hide, they won’t follow you here.”
“But why would they follow me? I don’t understand. I thought it was Dad they wanted.”
“It is, but they’ll look for all of us. Why do you think we’ve made sure that Amy is under constant watch every hour of the day? Huh? The same goes for you. Warminster is rural, out of the way. They won’t expect to find you here, and you’ll be safe-guarded.”
“How is that possible when they could come from anywhere?”
“Daisy has assured me that it’s fine, and for once, I have to believe her, okay? Listen, Daisy has a car, and she’ll take you to wherever you want to go,” Mum said.
“But she’s seventy if she’s a day. Is she supposed to be driving still?” I said. “And what if I want to be out late? How will I get home? Walk?”
“Rose. Daisy is aware of your… requests. She wants nothing more than for you to be happy here. Just ask her nicely and give her advance warning,” Mum continued. “She’s willing to be flexible if you are. She’s making a great sacrifice for us and she hasn’t seen you in years and wants to get to know you properly.”
“Okay, I’ll give it a shot, but I’m going to phone you if it’s not working out,” I grumbled. I began twisting a lock of stray hair around my finger, I always fidgeted when I got irritated, and this journey was nerve-racking enough.
“That’s all I ask. Don’t forget your old friends that are here either. You remember Mira? She’s still around apparently. And the other girl, what was her name?” Mum tried to recollect, whilst changing down a gear and slowing the cars speed.
“Hannah,” I remembered. “I haven’t seen them since I was ten. They won’t know me.”
“No, they won’t. But you won’t know them either though I bet they’ll want to see you. You always saw them during school holidays and had fun.”
I reminisced on past visits.
I had been particularly friendly with Mira (short for Miranda), but in my mind she still had freckles, two bunches of brown hair and buck teeth like a rabbit. Hannah on the other hand had not been so much a friend as a loner who tagged along with us. A slightly heavier girl, once Mira and I had locked her in a room at the old derelict orphanage on the other side of town and we’d whispered using scary voices through the key hole. When we finally grew bored and unbarred the door, the psychological trauma was enough to send Hannah running back to her parents in tears. Mira and I had laughed for a while in our spite but suffered from a severe reprimand by our parents later. The memory wasn’t a happy one and I still felt ashamed of my childhood antics. From that day onwards I tried never to utter a nasty word to anyone, and eve
n if I had wanted to, my shame would always have been greater.
As we slowly drove over the brow of the hill I could see the house for the first time, naked and solitary. The small area in the vicinity of the house appeared to be walled, like my own little Alcatraz. Perfect. The surrounding fields were all grassy green and filled with wild flowers, poppies, daisies and buttercups, with thick hedgerow marking the borders of one field to another.
Across from one of these fields, Mum slowed the car and we halted at a set of high solid black wrought iron gates. The entrance was as I expected, foreboding, prison like, with no view of the house and I chuckled as I spied a security camera, and barbed wire fencing on top of the high wall.
“Is there a high crime rate around here?” I asked. “Daisy has more high tech equipment than I saw in the whole of Manchester.” I was over exaggerating of course but the point had to be made.
My mum glanced at me but didn’t answer. I guessed she thought my comment was rhetorical.
The gates opened slowly and we drove through. We carried on down a gravelled driveway slicing a large green lawn in two, but no one had prepared me as we stopped in front of the largest old house I had ever seen. When I say old, I mean ark like old. I’d been to Bramhall Hall in Cheshire so I knew what an old place looked like. This was much older; two floors high at least, possibly a third if the small windows in the roof were additional rooms. My eyes lingered on the gothic grey stones of the large protruding porch, decorated with gargoyles, sheltering the white wooden front door; the porch roof balanced equally each side with a stone column. Flower boxes edged the columns, and yellow honeysuckle grew up twin trellis fixed against the porch exterior wall. The smell was enchanting.
The windows of the house, either side of the porch seemed to cascade each way for fifty metres at least, they were large, decorated with tiny panes of glass and crisscrossing metal stripes from top to bottom. To the right of the house was a garage with two closed large metal doors.
Elemental: The First Page 2