Eglantine (2 page)

‘Look,’ he said.

His room had been transformed. It was all white, and seemed much bigger, despite the cardboard boxes piled everywhere. Of course, Bethan had already begun to strew his Lego and dinosaurs about. Soon the floor would be impassable.

He’s always been a messy boy.

‘Look,’ he said again, and pointed.

Down near the foot of his bed, along the top of the skirting board, I could see a line of script.
Once
there lived in a bleak clime a white-bearded king
, it said. You could hardly make it out, but Bethan was most offended.

‘The painters missed a bit,’ I remarked patiently. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘The problem is that I don’t want it there!’

‘So tell Mum. She’ll paint over it. She’s got leftover paint, remember?’

He stumped off to summon help, and Ray came up and dabbed a bit of white paint over the troublesome graffiti. We all thought that the problem had been solved. But the next morning, Bethan came down to breakfast grumbling about another missed bit, near the ceiling, above the window. He was quite worked up about it. When I stuck my head into his bedroom, however, I could barely see the writing from the door; it was the faintest grey smudge, impossible to read. I asked him why it bothered him so much.

‘Because it does,’ he said.

‘You can’t even read it.’

‘I still don’t want it there.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because this is
my bedroom
.’

My brother is very stubborn. He has red hair and freckles, like my mum, but he’s stubborn like my grandmother. When he decides that he doesn’t like something, there’s no way you’ll change his mind – not ever. So there’s no use trying to convince him that books can be more fun than football magazines, or that a little bit of writing won’t spoil a whole bedroom.

He’d decided that he didn’t want the ravings of some loony squatter soiling his beautiful white walls. (And you can understand his point of view, I suppose.) So poor old Ray had to climb up a ladder, that evening, and paint over the words
His realm was wide enough, indeed
. Bethan went to bed much happier, as a result.

But the next morning he discovered, not one, but two more missed spots.
Many rugged mountains
crossed the kingdom
had been written under the windowsill.
A barren soil and chilly sky made it seem poor
was tucked behind the wardrobe. With a sigh, Ray had to haul out the white paint again.

It was Thursday before Mum finally began to get suspicious.

‘Wait a minute,’ she said, peering at the line that was written directly over Bethan’s bed. (
Among these
were great mines of salt and iron ore
.) ‘Wait just a minute. Are you trying to tell me that the painters missed this? I don’t think so, Bethan.’

Bethan’s freckles stood out sharply against his white face, the way they always do when he’s frightened or angry.

‘Well,
I
didn’t do it,’ he mumbled.

‘Look at me, Bethan.’

‘I didn’t!’

‘Well, it wasn’t me,’ I interjected, and Ray sidled out of the room. He doesn’t like family arguments.

‘I’ll just get the paint,’ he called, clumping down the stairs.

‘This is very silly and childish behaviour,’ Mum informed Bethan. ‘And if you do it again, there’ll be no TV for a month.’

‘But I
didn’t
do it!’

‘Don’t talk to me like that, thank you.’

‘You
never
believe me! I
didn’t
do it! Why should I?’

‘Don’t ask me, Bethan. Probably for the same reason that you wrapped the cat in toilet paper, and put all those silly things in the microwave oven.’

‘That isn’t fair!’

‘Bethan,’ said Mum, ‘I’m not going to argue with you. One more time, and you won’t be watching TV for a month.’

Well, I thought – that should do the trick. Bethan’s a real TV addict, you see. And Mum hates television, so she’s always happy to deprive us of it. I don’t think she’d have it in the house, if it wasn’t for Ray. Ray watches the news every night, religiously – he can’t do without his news and current affairs.

Anyway, I wasn’t surprised when Bethan stopped complaining about missed spots. Two days passed, and he didn’t utter another word on the subject. I noticed that he was looking subdued, and distracted, and that he wasn’t making his usual blunt remarks and dumb jokes. (Maybe Mum would have noticed too, if she hadn’t been so busy unpacking boxes.) In the end, I decided that some footballer must have been disqualified, or that Bethan had done something stupid at school. I mean, he was still eating like a vacuum cleaner and kicking his ball around the backyard. I didn’t think that anything could be
really
wrong.

Not until he came to me one morning, with tears in his eyes, and begged me to look at his room.

CHAPTER
# two

‘Why? What’s happened?’ I asked.

‘I have to show you,’ he replied.

‘Show me what?’

‘Please,’ he said.

Now, ‘please’ isn’t a word that my brother uses very often, so I got a bit concerned. I looked at him closely, saw that he was seriously rattled, and stood up. I had been doing my homework, which was due on Monday, but some things are more important than homework.

I followed him into his room.

‘There,’ he said, pointing. ‘And there, and there. See?’

I saw. There were more scribbled black lines scattered around his white walls – about six of them. Some were too high up to read. One was on the back of his door: it said,
and his coasts were populous with
fishermen
. Another was scrawled near the night-light.

I shook my head, slowly. ‘Mum’s going to kill you,’ I said.

‘But I didn’t do it!’ Bethan wailed. His voice cracked and began to wobble all over the place. ‘I didn’t, honestly, why doesn’t anyone believe me? Al, I
don’t know how they got here
!’

Frowning, I peered at him. He didn’t sound like himself at all. Usually, when he starts protesting, his tone is very defensive. This time he just gave the impression of being upset. Upset and scared.

‘Are you sure?’ I pressed him.

‘Yes! I didn’t! It was someone else!’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know.’

It didn’t seem likely. But when I looked at the writing again, it occurred to me that Bethan wouldn’t have had the ability – let alone the patience – to write in such a precise, elegant way. Bethan’s writing is big and round, with some letters squashed up and others stretched out. Not only that, but he needs lines under his letters if he wants them to stay straight and even.

The writing on the wall was straight and even without the help of lines.

‘Do you think . . . I mean . . . it couldn’t be Ray, could it?’ I murmured, and we looked at each other.

‘Ray?’ said Bethan, in bewilderment.

‘It can’t be Mum. You saw how cross she was.’

‘It can’t be Ray. Why would Ray do it?’

‘I don’t know.’

Suddenly Bethan’s face went red.

‘It better not be you!’ he cried. ‘If it’s you, I’m going to
kill
you!’

‘It’s not me.’

‘Then who is it?’

I stepped back, and gazed around the room.

‘Let’s ask Mum,’ I said.

So we went downstairs. It was Mum’s turn to cook dinner, and she was making her risotto (which isn’t one of my favourites), humming as she moved around her shiny, brand-new kitchen.

It seemed a pity to spoil her mood, but we didn’t have any choice.

‘Mum,’ I said.

She looked up from the chopping board, and smiled. ‘Yes, my darling?’

‘Mum, there’s something I’ve got to tell you. And you mustn’t blame Bethan, because it’s not his fault. Honestly. He didn’t do it.’

Mum’s smile faded. ‘Didn’t do what?’ she asked.

I took a deep breath. Bethan and I exchanged a quick glance.

‘There’s more writing on his walls,’ I explained, reluctantly, ‘but it’s not his writing.’

‘I didn’t want to tell you, because of the TV!’ he blurted out. ‘I don’t like it, Mum, really I don’t. Someone’s coming into my bedroom!’ His voice cracked again. ‘It’s
my
bedroom! No one else should be going in there.’

Mum laid down her knife. She fixed me with a very grave and serious look.

‘Alethea,’ she said, ‘I want the truth, please. Do you know anything about this?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘Cross my heart.’

‘Bethan? If you’re lying, Bethan, I’m not going to forgive you for a very long time. Do you understand?’

‘I didn’t do it!’ he squealed.

‘He couldn’t have done it, Mum,’ I said, as something else occurred to me. ‘Some of this stuff is written on the ceiling. How could he have written it on the ceiling? The ceilings in this house are so high.’

‘Well . . .’ She was starting to sound uncertain. ‘We do have a ladder . . .’

‘But how would Bethan get the ladder up those stairs? All by himself?’

We stared at him, Mum and I. He growled, ‘Well, don’t ask
me
.’

‘Perhaps I’d better have a look,’ said Mum. ‘Bethan, why don’t you go and get Ray? He’s out the back.’ She wiped her hands on a tea towel, followed me down the hall and began to climb the stairs. ‘You don’t suppose this writing might be the old stuff?’ she suggested. ‘Soaking through the paint, for some reason? Maybe it was written in something that’s reacting with the paint, as it dries.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. It was a reasonable explanation. But when we reached Bethan’s room, and studied the writing, we began to have doubts. Surely, if the words had soaked through the paint, they wouldn’t have been so clear and dark? Surely they would have been blurry?

‘You don’t think Bethan’s lying, do you?’ Mum asked me, in a low, worried voice. ‘You don’t think he’s doing it himself?’

‘No. I don’t.’

‘Not even to attract attention? I just – oh, dear. I hope this isn’t a symptom of some kind of – I don’t know – emotional problem.’ Then she muttered something about therapy, and I was afraid that she might start mentioning alternative treatments like acupuncture again. (She’s always suggesting that we have acupuncture, which I don’t fancy at all. Injections are bad enough.)

‘No, Mum,’ I said firmly. ‘That’s not Bethan’s writing. If only Bethan
could
write like that. It’s grown-up writing.’

‘That’s true,’ she admitted.

‘In fact, it’s more than grown-up – it’s old-fashioned. Like Granny’s used to be. Oh!’ And that’s when I realised. ‘You know what it looks like?’ I gasped. ‘It looks like the writing in that book from under the stairs!’

Mum shot me a quick, startled glance. I could see a hint of alarm in her expression.

‘But it’s probably a coincidence,’ I added quickly. I didn’t like what I’d just said any more than Mum did.

Then Ray appeared, with Bethan. They were slightly out of breath.

‘Ray, where did I put that book?’ Mum asked. ‘Do you remember? The old one, from under the stairs?’

Blinking, Ray thought for a moment. Without Ray, Mum would be losing things all the time. He’s very tidy and logical for an artist. In fact he doesn’t look like an artist at all. He has short hair and glasses, and he irons his shirts (even his T-shirts), and he’s always cleaning the paint from under his fingernails.

‘I know I packed it,’ Mum continued, ‘but I can’t remember – did I put it in the bedroom bookcase or in the bookcase downstairs?’

‘Neither,’ Ray replied, with decision. ‘It’s in that cupboard in the studio, with the old magazines.’

So I was sent to fetch the book. Naturally, I studied the writing on its flyleaf all the way back to the bedroom, growing more and more uneasy as I did so. When I finally reached Mum, I couldn’t get rid of the thing fast enough. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be touching that mouldy old book.

‘God,’ said Mum, staring at it. ‘God, Ray, would you check this out?’

‘Lordy,’ said Ray, adjusting his glasses. Bethan squeezed between them, and all three peered at the inscription on the flyleaf. Then they gazed at the wall. Then they fixed their eyes on the book again.

‘Jeez,’ said Bethan. He sounded both anxious and awestruck.

‘It can’t be the same,’ Mum said plaintively. ‘Not
exactly
the same.’

‘I can’t see much difference,’ Ray replied. ‘Compare the capital E in Eglantine with the one on the wall. There are a lot of ways you can write a capital E. These have the same loops. The same thickness of line.’

There was a long, long silence. No one wanted to come right out and say anything stupid. Not at first.

It was Bethan, of course, who finally couldn’t resist.

‘Do you think it’s a ghost?’ he squeaked.

‘Oh, Bethan,’ said Ray, and Mum remarked, in hollow tones, that there were no such things as ghosts – just concentrations of negative
chi
sometimes associated with past misfortune.

‘If there’s a ghost in this room,’ Bethan went on, sulkily ignoring her, ‘I don’t want to sleep here.’

‘It’s highly unlikely, Bethan,’ said Ray, in his gentlest voice. ‘I’m sure there’s another explanation.’

‘Like what?’ said my brother, sharply. He was really nervous, or he wouldn’t have talked like that. Not to Ray. With Ray, he usually mumbles.

But Ray didn’t take offence. He rarely does.

‘Like maybe the squatters found that book,’ he suggested. ‘And maybe one of them was a bit – you know – odd, and copied the writing, and now the writing is soaking through the paint for some reason -’

‘I’m still not sleeping in here,’ Bethan said, at which point alarm bells began to ring for me.

‘Well, he’s not sleeping in
my
room!’ I protested.

‘A bit of writing isn’t going to hurt you,’ Ray sensibly pointed out, laying a hand on Bethan’s shoulder.

Mum, however, was beginning to freak. ‘Negative energy, Ray,’ she said. ‘The balance in here can’t be good, surely?’

‘Why not?’

‘Well . . . I don’t know, but -’

‘I won’t sleep in here,’ Bethan declared, looking sick. ‘It’s giving me nightmares.’

That
really
made everyone sit up and take notice. Mum hissed through her teeth, and Ray asked, ‘What kind of nightmares?’

I quickly pointed out that everyone had nightmares, I had them myself, and it didn’t mean I had to move out of
my
room – but Mum shushed me.