It Was That Night

by Rikke Barfod

  As we reach the door, I turn to look at the girl. If I screamed before, it is nothing compared to what I do now. The girl has no eyes. Just empty eye sockets.

  Everybody watching titters. I catch a glimpse of Ellen’s shocked face, but by now we are out of the class and Lissy gallops us all down the stairs to nurse Hansen.

  “I haven’t got time to wait around. I want to talk about my grandfather,” she says, irritably. She knocks at the door and leaving me – us – there, races back up to class.

  I turn to look at the girl. Her face is as pale as a new moon. She wears a funny old-fashioned green dress and smells of apples.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “Ursula,” she whispers.

  Nurse Hansen takes one look at me.

  “You’re shaking Claire. And your face is very white.” She feels my forehead. “Umm. No high temperature. Quite the opposite. You’d better go home. I’ll call your mum.”

  “It’s all right. I can make it home by myself.”

  Nurse Hansen frowns, “Well, okay. But I’ll still call your mum,” she says.

  I nod. I feel the girl letting go of my hand. When I turn, she has disappeared.

  I bolt home from school. Running stops the nausea. I am still shattered when I get home. My heart beats like a locomotive gathering speed. Who is the girl? And why did she grab me? It is the first time ever a ghost has touched me, apart from Aunt Clara – but that was different. Her I knew and loved. And what had happened to the girl’s eyes?

  I stare at my face in the mirror. Where! Where does it show how I differ from other people? How do ghosts know I can see them? The mirror shows a face still white from shock; frizzy long dark hair, big nose, and greenish-brownish eyes, tall, a bit skinny. Nothing to show I am a freak.

  I grab hold of my head to try and keep my thoughts still. What is happening to me?

  I have seen fairies and ghosts since I was little. I thought it was normal to see the ‘small people’ and the ones I called the ‘popping ones’. Sometimes ‘pop’ there they are – then ‘pop’ they disappear. I asked Dad once,

  “How do you pop?”

  “What do you mean, ‘pop’?” he answered.

  “Like the people in orange by the big stone. Those that just popped up.”

  “There are no people over there.” Dad laughed. “Claire, you really have a vivid imagination.”

  That was then. Until I was almost seven, we lived on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea far away from the rest of Denmark. In Bornholm they believe in the ‘small people’, and it’s normal for people to see and talk to them. The miller’s daughter, Karin, who lived next door, also played with the fairies.

  I’m scared. Not of the girl. I’m afraid I’m going crazy. Dad’s always saying I’m not normal. What if I am imagining things? Like when a couple of months ago, I was sitting on the beach talking for a long time with a girl who came and sat beside me. She was very sad. It wasn’t until I stood up that I realized she didn’t have a shadow.

  What if there really is something wrong with me? Maybe they’ll lock me up or something. I think that’s what Dad fears.

  Dad! He’s a psychiatrist. I go into his study. I am not supposed to. He doesn’t want anybody in there. But maybe he has some books about freaks like me. There are so many papers and books all over the place. But I find a book called: Mysticism, Miracles and Science. It appears to be the most promising. I glance through it. It does seem that other people also ‘see things’. But not in the same way as I do. Why has Dad never told me about these books? I browse through a few similar ones and take them all upstairs to my room.

  The door slams. Clattering steps on the stairs. Ellen yells: “Claire, where are you?”

  “Up here,” I shout.

  My door is flung open. “What happened? Why did you scream?” Are you okay?”

  “Ellen, one thing at a time. Did you ditch classes?”

  “Just geography. No big deal.”

  She stamps her foot impatiently before throwing herself on my bed. “Honestly, you should have seen your face, whiter than our neighbour’s washing,” she giggles. “So tell.”

  My voice breaks. “You won’t believe it. There was a dead girl in class.”

  You can almost hear the bump when Ellen’s jaw falls down.

  “That’s why I screamed.”

  “So what? You seem to see dead people all the time.”

  I sit down on my chair and sigh. “No, not all the time, Ellen. And I don’t expect to see them in our classroom.”

  “Point taken. But why scream?”

  “Peter put his book through her.”

  Ellen shivers, “Must feel odd. But then, why did you scream again? You sounded like all the hounds in hell had been let loose.”

  “She turned and ... she had no eyes.”

  Ellen kicks at the air in disgust. “Yuck! Well, dead people normally don’t, do they? What did the rest of her look like?”

  “Old fashioned clothes, long plaits, funny shoes. Smelled of apples.”

  Ellen giggles. “You really do tell them, don’t you? I would have believed you if it wasn’t for that apple smell. Ghosts don’t smell! Do they? Or do they smell of rot and things?”

  I pretend to gag. “Don’t be so revolting. Of course they don’t. And it is true, she did smell of apples.”

  “Okay, wait a minute.” Ellen jumps off the bed, one hand screwing her long blonde hair into a twist. “I bet I know who she is! You know they found a skeleton when they renovated the school.”

  “Where?”

  “Honestly, don’t you hear anything in those clouds you walk around in?”

  I let that go. “So where?”

  “In a cupboard in our new classroom.”

  I leap up. “In the cupboard?” The urgency of the dream comes back to me. “Why didn’t anybody find her before?”

  “The Germans had built a wall or something that hid the cupboard.”

  I sit down again. This is too much. My head hurts. What does she want with me? The girl. Ursula. Ellen looks at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. So how come they found her now?”

  “Have you lost the last of your brain cells? The wall was demolished to give us more space. So, when they knocked it down they found her.”

  “But who is she?” I ask.

  “I haven’t the foggiest. But just think about it. She must have been there all this time. We have been going to school with a skeleton!” Ellen hops about enthusiastically. “Let’s ask around. No child has been reported missing. And I’m still alive. My mum hasn’t murdered me yet.”

  She dances around. “Maybe she is Jewish. From the war. You know they did hide in that attic.”

  “Yeah,” I mumble. “Just ask Lissy-prissy.”

  I still shudder when I think of an incident a couple of weeks ago. I was walking down the street in my own thoughts, when Mrs. Christoffersen, the grocer’s wife, who died in January, waved at me. It had been ages since I’d seen a ghost. I actually thought I’d grown out of it.

  “I’m so tired of seeing dead people,” I had muttered to myself. A sneering voice hissed in my ear, as Prissy-Lissy overtook me. “You are nutters Clairity-fairity, talking to yourself.”

  “Aw suck it up Lissy-prissy. What do you have to be so happy about? Someone been nice to you today?”

  A tiny stab of remorse hit me. We all know Lissy’s sister is very ill.

  Ellen scowls. She waves her hand in front of my face, “It’s today, Claire. Not yesterday. Forget Prissy-Lissy. She’s not worth the bother.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I mutter.

  Ellen ignores that. She is too fired up. “I’ll ask my granddad whether he knows anything. Couldn’t you ask your grandparents too?”

  “Yeah, and maybe old Thomas, the fisherman, knows something.”

  Ellen sits down again. She looks around.

  “Your room always looks so nice.” She sighs. “Not like mine. Hey, you got cur
tains round your washbasin. It’s much nicer.”

  “Yeah, Dad brought it back from some conference or something. South America I think.”

  “Lucky you.” She jumps up again and notices a book on the floor.

  “What are you reading?”

  “A new book about this Danish girl. Her family moved to London. Imagine, they have to wear school uniforms and worst of all, they don’t have the same teacher throughout the first seven years, like we do. All different teachers for different subjects. And they don’t call their teachers by their first names, either. And the real weird thing is that they start school when they’re four!”

  “Four! Not seven, like us? I think the bit about the school uniforms sounds the worst. Well, I’m absolutely heading straight to my granddad. See you later.”

  Ellen bounces down the steps, two at a time. I hear the front door slam.

  Chapter 2

  Claire

  6th April

  When Ellen leaves, my head is in even more of a whirl. I begin to browse through Dad’s books. They mostly seem to describe people who wake up and see someone they know standing by their bed. Later they find out that the person they saw died exactly at that moment they had seen them. That only happened to me once when Aunt Clara died. She woke me up and said: “I’m going away now, Claire.” When I tried to talk to her, she disappeared.

  Many of the descriptions are about scary things – people were threatened by the ghosts, hands reaching for them and they felt an indescribable fear. I’ve never felt that; only annoyed that I didn’t always know who in a crowd was real – and that I never knew why the ghosts were there in the first place.

  Much of it is about God. Mum and Dad never talk about God. Granny and Granddad do. They also go to church on Sundays. I don’t know what I believe. It seems strange that God would want ghosts to exist – if God exists. I mean what’s the point of ghosts?

  Lots of the books are about an out-of-body experience and being in some light or another. I’ve never done that.

  I read and read. There’s a lot I don’t understand, but I gather that there are other people like me and that in some countries they make experiments, training people to use their sixth sense. But what can I use that for? My head is buzzing. One thing about the information in the books – the people who experience these things are not considered crazy.

  That’s something at least.

  My head is spinning like a runaway carousel. I go downstairs, make myself a mug of tea, cut a big slice of Granny’s cake. It smells so wonderfully of cinnamon. Balancing both, I head for the attic. It’s a good place to think and to read. Maybe because nothing else happens there. It’s very dusty and cluttered with things that ought to be thrown away and it smells a bit stuffy. My old toys are here. Behind some cardboard boxes, I have a secret place where I have scattered some old cushions, and even plugged in a lamp.

  Sitting down, my foot accidently kicks at the tea mug. The tea spills and I have to shift one of the boxes to dry the floor. The flaps of the box slide open. A lot of papers spill out. They look like Mum’s old papers. Wow, a diary!

  My inner voice kicks in: “You are not supposed to read it.”

  “I’ll just flip through it,” I answer the voice.

  “You could wait and ask,” the inner voice persists.

  “It won’t do any harm just looking at the year.”

  Oh bother, some tea has spilt on to the diary. I wipe it off with my sleeve. The first pages are sort of crumbled in the top right corner. Oh well, it’s not too bad.

  Friday, 5. April 1956

  I received this diary for my 12th birthday, but nothing much happens here. I do not tell my dreams anymore. They make Mother sad. And Father gets angry. “There is nobody here, Inga,” he yells, when I ask where the lady is.

  Last night I dreamed of her again. The lady with the loving foreign voice saying, “Find Ursula.”

  My breath stops. Ursula. How come that name is in Mum’s diary? And the lady with the foreign voice? I totally ignore the voice telling me not to read anymore. This is too interesting.

  Sunday, 7th April 1957

  Dear Diary, I really need someone to talk to. I just returned from Merete’s birthday. I was telling Mother all about the nice stuff we had eaten. Mother interrupted and told me that I ought not to eat pork. But when I asked her why, she just mumbled something and went into the kitchen. What is this thing about pork? It is the second time this year she’s told me not to eat pig’s meat.

  This sounds boring. I skim a couple of pages looking for something more interesting.

  Monday, 6th May 1957

  Dear friend diary, do you understand this? I can’t. Why will Mother not let me have my birth certificate? Our German teacher, Mrs. Nielsen, is taking us on a two-day journey by bus to Harzen in Germany. We are going to stay in private houses with German families so we can improve our German. Sounds embarrassing. I am sure all I will be able to do is stammer ‘ja’ and ‘nein’. We need to have a passport. She told us to bring a photograph and our birth certificate and she would get them all done in one go, but Mother keeps coming up with excuses. I do not understand it.

  This afternoon Mother and Father are going to visit friends and I have decided to open the drawer, where Father keeps all his papers. I have seen where he puts the key.

  Tuesday, 7th May

  I found it. My birth certificate. I stared at it. It said my mother’s name was Leah. I didn’t know Mother’s other name was Leah. I only knew her first name was Marie. I kept reading. It said my father’s name was Jacov. Jacov, not Gustav? What was all this? The date was right. The name was Inga. Something had been added later with a different kind of ink, I saw. Second name: Sarah and a funny surname: Steinovitych. Was I not Inga Carlsen?

  If I am not me, then who am I?

  Mother and Father came home early. One look at the paper in my hand and the open drawer and they knew.

  “Phew”, I think, “That must have been horrible.”

  Father began telling me off for opening the drawer. I hate it when his eyes go cold. I screamed that I had to. I knew they were concealing something from me. Now that I had found the paper, I wanted to know who I was.

  Father looked at Mother who shook her head. His voice was not quite steady when he said, “I’m sorry you had to find out like this. We were going to tell you.”

  My throat constricted when I shouted: “What? When?”

  Father sank into a chair. “When you were older. You know you were born during the war?” He stopped then said:

  “You see, we just had a little son…”

  Everything came tumbling down inside of me and I shouted that I damn well wasn’t a boy. The corner of Father’s mouth twisted and he said that, of course, I wasn’t.

  I stop reading. Was that weird! Not knowing you were adopted? And what is all that about two names? Why has Mum never told me any of this? And who is this Ursula. Is it the same Ursula?

  My head begins to hurt again. I want to talk to someone. But who?

  I hear Mum coming in. Darn, just when it’s getting interesting. I quickly put the diary back in the box and hurry downstairs.

  Chapter 3

  Claire

  Bornholm

  June 1977

  6 years earlier

  “I hate you. I won’t move!” I’m almost seven years old and very angry.

  I scream the house down. It doesn’t help. We are moving away from Bornholm.

  “Why do we have to move?” I sob.

  Mum tries to hold me. I wrench myself free.

  “I won’t go. I’ll go and live with the small people. So there. You can move but I’m staying.” I stamp my foot.

  “Dad’s got a new job in Copenhagen. Claire, we’re not moving to Siberia, only to Granny and Granddad’s old house in Fiskersund, near Elsinore. They’ve bought another one right on the beach. Won’t that be exciting?”

  It sounds as exciting as the rain beating on the windows. At least rai
n has a nice melody.

  “What about Aunt Clara? She’ll be all alone?”

  “Claire, you know she’s not really there down in that grave. She’ll find you wherever you are.” Mum’s voice has that patient, now-listen-properly, tone.

  I sniff, and continue sorting my toys.

  Away from Bornholm? Away from all my friends? From Karin and the others – and the fairies? Who shall watch the elves dancing in the moonlight when I’m not here? And how can I visit them and play with them? Not long ago I was invited to have tea with the elves. Mum was in Copenhagen and I was in the garden when a small rose fairy waved at me to come.

  I asked Dad if I could go to the woods and play with the small people.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Where on earth have you been?” Dad asked when I came back. “And look at your clothes. And your face.”

  “I played with the rose girl. And the elves gave me masses of raspberries. It was lovely. They tasted like when you suck honey from the lilacs – but much sweeter. I spilt some. And their house was so nice all made of branches with flowers growing on them.”

  “It’s April, Claire. There are no raspberries around,” Dad said and began taking my coat off.

  “There are too. They gave me lots. I can still taste them.” I sighed with contentment.

  Dad shook his head. “Claire, your imagination.”

  “Do you want to come with me to see aunt Clara,” he asked after having put clean clothes on me.

  Clara is Dad’s sister. This time she was lying in bed looking thin and tired. The room smelled beautifully of garden from all the vases full of flowers. Dad told her about the raspberries, “...and would you know she insists she got them from the fairies!”

  Aunt Clara winked at me. I knew that meant I shouldn’t say anything.

  I miss Aunt Clara a lot. She died soon after. Before she died, she wanted me to come and sit beside her and tell her everything I saw.

  “What do you see, Claire?”

  I tell her about the angels standing around her bed. She smiles and closes her eyes.