by Abby Davies
My chance was stolen as Mother’s red car grumbled up the dirt road. Unable to believe her timing, I dashed around the bottom of the bed, out of the room. Closing and locking the door behind me, I moved to the edge of the banister at the top of the stairs. I knelt down and peered around the corner, giving myself a view of the front door. My heart raced as I realized this could be my chance – mine and Emma’s chance – to escape. The man had looked bigger than Mother, stronger too. If he was a good, kind person, surely he would help us.
The ‘if’ word hovered over me like some invisible beast; what if he was even worse than her? What if she knew him? What if they were partners? I shook my head, unable to believe I could have been so clueless as to not pick up on her having some kind of evil friend in all of this. I would have seen or noticed something.
I heard voices – hers and his. It was hard to hear their words and I wanted to know – I needed to know. I pushed myself up and ran down the stairs then darted past the front door into the living room where I hid just inside the doorway by the corner wall. I pressed my ear to the cool, hard outer wall and strained to hear their words, but they had stopped talking.
I could not remember a single time Mother had mentioned a man other than her grandfather, who she had only so recently spoken to me about. Once, some years back, I had asked her who my father was. Somewhere deep down, even at six or seven years old, I had known this was forbidden territory, but my inner cat had got the better of me. She had shouted at me for asking such a question then given me the silent treatment for the next seven days. Those seven days had seemed an eternity to me. I had begged her to talk to me, tried to hug her, brought her glasses of water, made her lunch, but nothing worked.
I frowned and wondered if she had treated me like that because she enjoyed feeling powerful. Had she enjoyed tormenting me? If I did not get Emma out of the cottage, perhaps Mother would do the same to her – maybe worse, if Emma was not as obedient as me. As weak and pathetic and gullible as me.
If she is not as weak as me, she’ll probably suffer more.
I was weak. For ten years, I had been weak. I had behaved like some kind of toy puppet. Like a stupid, mindless doll – exactly what she wanted.
Not any more.
My hands clenched at my sides and I set my jaw, determined to take advantage of this perfect chance.
The lock crunched, the front door opened and I stepped out of my hiding place into full view.
Chapter 22
‘Come in, come in. I’m sure you’ll feel much better once you’ve had something to eat and drink,’ Mother said. Her voice was high and happy-sounding. Unnaturally bright.
My first thought was why – why was she inviting the man inside? She was acting like she had nothing to hide. It didn’t make any sense, but a lot of things she did didn’t make sense. This was yet another one of her odd, unpredictable moves. Another sign of how mad she is.
She paused just inside the cottage holding the door half-open, and jumped when she saw me.
‘Get back upstairs into your room this instant,’ she hissed, her eyes shooting daggers.
I stared back at her and shook my head. ‘No. I’m not going anywhere.’ I couldn’t believe my boldness. I had never disobeyed her or answered back like this. Never. My heartbeat rocketed but I planted my feet, determined to stay.
Shock pulled at her features. She stabbed her finger at me. ‘If you don’t get upstairs now, you’ll pay for it.’
I said nothing, only watched in silence, my eyes greedy with curiosity as the man’s face poked through the gap in the door.
‘Everything all right, miss?’ he said. He had a strange lilt to his accent and he pronounced ‘th’ as ‘t’ which made me think he might be from another country. I knew a few. I wondered if he was a Frenchman.
She laughed and beckoned him inside, moving into the hallway. ‘Yes, everything’s fine. Come on in. This is my daughter. Don’t mind her.’
She stood beside the door and held it open for him then closed and locked it. She slid the keys into her pocket. The man raised his eyebrows. She smiled and shrugged.
‘You can’t be too careful living out here in the middle of nowhere,’ she said with a girly laugh.
He nodded then looked at me. I saw him take in my odd, potato-sack dress. A flicker of confusion flashed up in his dark brown eyes. He gave me a small, awkward smile. I stared back, taking all of him in, trying to work out who he was. It was strange, but seeing another person wasn’t as weird as I’d thought it would be. He was merely a human being. Another member of the human species. A body with arms and legs and a head and eyes and a nose and a mouth and ears. It felt right to see another person, even if it was a man.
I stared at him. He had a symmetrical, nice-looking face, a slightly turned-up nose and a square jaw. Spiky hairs poked out of his chin and upper lip. His forehead was shiny with sweat and his skin was a golden-brown shade that reminded me of honey. He didn’t have any wrinkles around his eyes like her, which meant he was younger. How much younger, I couldn’t be sure. He looked fine – on the outside, but I knew it was impossible to tell what was going on inside somebody’s head.
The man looked from me to Mother’s retreating back. He seemed a bit uncomfortable, worried maybe, but who was I to guess the feelings of a strange man I’d only just met? Especially when I hadn’t seen one in ten years. Not a living, breathing, sweating one.
I glanced over my shoulder and followed his gaze. Mother was heading towards the kitchen, walking in a weird way, her hips swaying from side to side like the pendulum in the grandfather clock.
She was almost out of earshot, but I couldn’t be sure. How could I know he was trustworthy? He could be thinking anything right now. Behind those tired, innocent-seeming brown eyes, his thoughts could be cruel, evil, wicked. That was the horrifying truth; no one could know what was going on in someone else’s mind. Thoughts were private. There was no need to make an effort to hide them, because they remained as silent as the dead, voiced only in your own head; right now, she did not have a clue that I was debating whether to ask this man for help or not, just as I had no clue what he was thinking or what Mother was thinking. The fact terrified me. I stared at the back of his head as he turned away from me with a puzzled look on his face. He followed her into the kitchen with slow, weary steps, his bag still weighing heavily on his back.
I followed him, heart thumping, unable to make a decision. To trust or not to trust?
He paused at the kitchen doorway. ‘Why’re the windows like that?’
‘Come in, come in. Take off that heavy bag and rest yourself,’ she said, bustling about the kitchen humming ‘Take It Easy’.
‘The windows?’ he repeated with a yawn, still standing.
Mother turned to face him. I noticed her top two buttons were undone, exposing the top of her breasts. She smiled, ‘Oh that? That’s because my poor little Mirabelle here is allergic to sunlight. Such a shame, but it can’t be helped. Poor little thing. Now, what would you prefer, Patrick, ham or cheese sandwiches?’
Her words sounded so false. They were so false. She was false. Everything about her was pretend.
Anger pulsed through my veins and I opened my mouth to say that she was lying, that she had kidnapped me, that she had taken Emma too, but the words melted away as the young man made sympathetic noises, glanced pityingly at me, then dropped his bag to the floor and took a seat at the table, a huge sigh whooshing out of him.
I hovered in the doorway staring at the back of Patrick’s head, indecision rushing through me. Patrick. Such a simple, nice name. Could someone called Patrick who looked so normal on the outside be secretly evil on the inside?
Mother handed him a glass of water which he glugged back noisily. Then she turned to me and said brightly, ‘Off you go now, darling, up to bed for your afternoon rest.’
She walked over, seized my wrist in a painfully tight grip and dragged me out of the room glaring down at me, a warning clear in her small d
ark eyes. I did not fight back, though I longed to. She shut the kitchen door in my face and I stood there, small and pathetic in the shadows, battling the urge to cry.
Laughter – his and hers – erupted from behind the door, making my tummy hurt.
I heard a noise coming from above and strained to listen. It was Emma and she was crying. I tensed, fearful that Mother would hear. I glanced from the kitchen door to the ceiling, stuck again. Should I go to Emma and calm her down or should I burst into the kitchen, tell Patrick everything? There was no knowing what Mother would do, how she would react. A small part of me still felt bad for even considering the idea of telling someone what she had done – what she was still doing. It felt like some kind of betrayal, which was ridiculous, because it was she who had betrayed me. She was the one who had stolen me from my parents when I was only three years old. I knew I had to pull myself together. She was dangerous. I had to get Emma and myself out of the cottage. I had to get home, back to my real parents where I would be safe, but could I trust this man to help me? He had turned up uninvited on Mother’s doorstep with nothing but a big bag on his back. Who did that? Why would someone be wandering around in the middle of nowhere, alone? Was he running from someone? Was he a criminal running from the police? If he was, there was no way I could place my trust in him, not when there was so much at stake.
Rack my brains as I might, I could not come up with a logical explanation for this man’s sudden arrival at the cottage. It didn’t make any sense. I ran through his actions in my mind. He had sat down with obvious relief, as if exhausted, and gulped that glass of water down so quickly … Was he a homeless man searching for a home? Maybe. That was the first idea that made some sort of sense. But then – why was he homeless in the first place? Had he done something bad that had made him lose his home? It was impossible to know.
Emma’s crying escalated to screams. The kitchen went quiet. The door opened and I stepped back as Mother froze at the sight of me standing there.
I thought it was only wolves that snarled – like in Beauty and the Beast and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase – but right then, she snarled at me, baring her small, sharp teeth and yellow-pink gums, her lips curled back, her nose scrunched up. Her eyes looked black in the gloom of the hallway and her body towered over me like a skeletal giant. Her blouse hung loose, revealing the ribs between her small breasts.
I stumbled backwards, sure she was going to hit me, but something changed in her eyes. Her expression softened and she relaxed her face. I could almost see the cogs whirring in her brain as she changed her plan of attack.
‘Go upstairs and calm Clarabelle down, please, Little Doll. I’m busy entertaining our guest.’ Her voice was soft – and completely fake.
I looked down at her hands, which were balled into fists beside her skinny thighs.
I hesitated, knowing I was taking a risk. She glanced back over her shoulder, her brow creased.
‘I’ll need the key,’ I said quietly.
‘The key?’ she said.
‘The key to her room,’ I said, determined not to call Emma by her fake name. ‘I can only calm her down properly if I can see her and give her a cuddle.’
The scrape of a chair from the kitchen and Patrick’s voice, asking if everything was OK, seemed to force her into a decision.
‘Everything’s fine – back in a second!’ she called, her voice high and girly again.
She lifted the key ring at her belt and hastily removed the spare room key. I noticed her fingers were trembling. The old me would have asked if she was all right, but I wasn’t Mirabelle the Weak any more.
‘Thank you, Mother,’ I said softly.
Before she could change her mind, I turned and walked along the hallway. She went back into the kitchen and shut the door as I ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, my heart about to burst with excitement and nerves. This was it. This was the first real step.
I knocked on the door. ‘Hi,’ I said gently, ‘it’s only me.’
Emma stopped wailing. I unlocked the door and slipped into the room, clutching the key tightly in my sweaty palm, so tightly it made my hand throb.
She sat on the little white bed hugging her knees to her chest. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. Snot ran from her nose onto her lips. I looked around the room, not surprised to find it similar to mine, though more colourful as the walls had been painted with pale grey bunnies and enormous red and orange flowers. The bed was covered with a frilly pink duvet. A white bear-shaped rug lay on the wooden floorboards. From the windows hung frilly lilac curtains which had been nailed around the edges into the wall. The middle of the curtains had been sewn together to prevent even the slightest shard of light from penetrating the room. A cute miniature tea set sat on a little white desk alongside a large sandy-coloured teddy bear who wore a scarlet bow around his fluffy neck. Mother had clearly made an effort for her new doll.
‘Hi,’ I said, perching on the edge of the bed.
She stared at me with her big blue eyes and sniffed. ‘My head hurts.’
‘Does it? Oh, well, maybe if we go downstairs I can find something to make it feel better.’
‘I’m not allowed,’ she whispered, her eyes darting towards the door, ‘M-M-Mother will be cross if, if, if I go out.’
‘No she won’t. She sent me up here to see if you were OK, but there’s something important I have to tell you first. A secret.’
Emma sat up at this. I noticed she wore one of my old nightgowns. A long white one embroidered with daisies. A strange twinge pulled at my chest. She was my replacement. It was as clear as glass.
I leaned forward and stroked hair out of her eyes.
‘What secret?’ she said.
‘If I tell you, you have to promise me not to say anything. Promise?’
She hesitated, looked at the door again. After a few seconds she whispered, ‘I promise.’
‘OK,’ I paused, trying to think of the best way to explain, ‘the woman who is looking after us isn’t well. There’s something wrong with her. She took me from my real parents when I was about your age and told me I was her daughter. She told me my name was Mirabelle, but my real name is Polly. And now she’s doing the same thing to you.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Emma said, wiping her nose with the back of her wrist.
‘What’s your name? Your real name?’
The girl frowned, as if concentrating really hard. She hadn’t been here for very long. There was no way she could have forgotten her real name already, but Mother was clever. She skewed the truth, made you think the way she thought.
‘My old name is Emma,’ she whispered.
‘Yes! That’s right. Emma is your real name. Polly is mine. She stole us from our real parents. She took us because she wanted us, but we have to get away. We have to get out of here and go back to our real parents.’
Emma stared at me. I could see that she was trying to wrap her brain around my meaning. But then she shook her head, ‘No. She’s nice to me. She loves me. She’s my mummy now. She said, she said, that, that …’
‘She lied. She’s not your mummy. She took you away, Emma, don’t you see? We have to get away from here.’
‘But, but, but, I can’t. I can’t go outside. The light will, will, will … hurt me.’
I reached out and took her hands in mine. They were so small, so innocent.
‘The light won’t hurt you. She lies. It’s all lies.’
‘Grown-ups don’t tell lies,’ Emma said firmly.
I sighed. How was I going to get her to believe me? She had to trust me or everything could go wrong.
‘Your real mummy and daddy don’t tell lies. Most grown-ups don’t, but she does. She’s different.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why does she lie?’
I shrugged and tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘I don’t know. I wish I did, but I don’t. All I know is that we need to get out of here, away from her. We need to
go and find our real parents.’
‘I’m scared,’ she said.
‘You don’t need to be scared. You just need to do everything I tell you to. OK?’
She nodded, but her eyes wandered to the door.
‘Promise me you’ll do what I say, when I say it? Emma, promise me.’
She looked at me, her eyes wide and wet. ‘I promise,’ she paused, ‘Polly.’
‘Good. Good girl. OK. This is what we’re going to do …’
Chapter 23
‘Mother! Mother! Come quick! It’s Clarabelle!’ I screamed the words at the top of my lungs, standing just outside the spare room. I screamed the words over and over and over, only stopping when Mother’s footsteps pounded up the stairs. She turned sharply on the landing, using the banister to propel herself round.
‘What happened? What have you done to her?’ she screamed, eyes crazed, full of panic.
‘I don’t know! She’s in bed and she won’t move!’ I panted back. I pointed through the open doorway to the bed. An Emma-sized mound lay beneath the bedcovers.
‘Move!’ she barked at me, rushing into the room. ‘Clarabelle! Clarabelle, talk to me!’
The second she was fully inside the room, I slammed the door shut and frantically jammed the key into the lock. She was back at the door immediately, the ruse blown, twisting and turning the doorknob, screaming and cursing – but the job was already done. I had locked the door. She was trapped. Her fists continued to pound against the door. I stumbled backwards and turned around, unable to believe what I’d just done yet able to keep moving.
‘Come on!’ I yelled at Emma, who poked her terrified face out of my bedroom door, shaking her head.
‘I don’t want to!’ she cried.
I grabbed her hand. ‘You have to. Remember your promise?’
She hesitated then nodded and I tugged her out of my bedroom, across the landing to the stairs. Mother’s screams were crazed, her rage terrifying. Her fists pounded and bashed the door with so much force I feared she was going to break it down.
‘Run!’ I shouted, pulling Emma down the stairs.