Frozen Charlotte (8 page)

“What do you think of this one?” Cameron asked in a casual voice, pointing at one of the paintings.

It was Piper in a beach scene, only Uncle James hadn’t painted her as a girl but as a mermaid instead. With hundreds of tiny brushstrokes, he’d captured her perfect features and green eyes, waves of glossy, strawberry-blonde hair falling loose down her back as she sat on one of the shiny black rocks rising up out of the water at the base of the lighthouse, gazing out to sea with her mermaid’s fin curled beneath her. I could see the shine on each scale, see the breeze softly moving her hair and the salt spray sparkling on her skin. I was reminded of when
I’d first seen Piper when I arrived at the house and had thought there was something almost mermaid-like about her beauty.

“It’s amazing,” I said.

“Mmm. Dad first painted Piper as a mermaid about a year ago. It was his most popular painting and it sold in a day for twice what the others had. Since then there’s been a steady demand for more. You could say the mermaid paintings are our bread and butter now.”

“It suits her,” I said.

“Yes, I think so,” Cameron replied. “Piper was delighted, of course, when Dad first painted her like that. It appealed to her sense of vanity. But I’ve always thought it was a curious choice – to paint your own daughter as a monster.”

“Monster?”

“Of course. Mermaids are sea predators. Scavengers. Killers. They sing to lure ships to their doom on the rocks. They’re said to drag sailors down under the water, drowning them and feeding off their souls.”

As usual, the mention of drowning made me shiver.
Please
, I wanted to say.
Please, please don’t say that word
to
me
. I didn’t want to hear about it, or think about it, not ever again.

“I’m sure your dad didn’t mean the painting that way,” I managed.

Cameron looked at me. “I saw another painting of his once. One that he didn’t sell to the gallery. I don’t think he meant for me to see it – we’ve never spoken of it – and I know that Piper’s certainly never seen it. He drew her as a mermaid again but, instead of sitting on the rocks, this time she was dragging a man down into the sea. She was drowning him and the expression on her face was … hungry, happy – she looked like a monster.”

I didn’t say anything, not at all sure I believed that there even was such a painting.

“He won’t hear it from me,” Cameron went on, almost to himself, “but when I saw that painting I thought that he must … he must at least suspect. At least on some level…” He glanced at me then and said, “I can’t believe I was so stupid this morning. I played right into her hands by blaming her for what happened to Lilias. It’s what she’s wanted since you arrived – to show me in a bad light, to make me seem like the dangerous one.”

“Why should she want to do that?” I asked.

Cameron looked back at the painting. “Piper has two faces. She’s only shown you one so far but she’ll show you the other soon enough. She likes people to see it eventually because it shocks them and she enjoys shocking people. You must be careful.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, starting to feel impatient. “Piper has been nothing but nice to me since the moment I arrived. She’s tried so hard to make me feel at home here.”

“Piper is … not what you think,” Cameron said in a careful tone. “You shouldn’t take her at face value.” He paused, then said slowly, “I know it looked bad this morning, the way I reacted at breakfast. But you have to understand that the relationship between Piper and me is … it’s complicated.”

“That’s no excuse for attacking her,” I said. “There’s never any excuse for physically attacking someone like that.”

Cameron looked at me sharply. “Oh, but there is,” he said. “Sometimes you have to do it. Sometimes it’s necessary.”

I just shook my head. I couldn’t help thinking of Jay. In all the years I’d known him, I’d never once
seen him lash out at another person, never seen him behave violently towards anybody, never felt at all afraid or unsure around him. He was better than that, better than Cameron.

“Can we head back now?” I said. “I really don’t want to talk about Piper any more.”

I thought he might argue but instead he just sighed and said, “Yes, Sophie, we can go back now. Whatever you want.”

We went back out to the foyer, collected Lilias and returned to the house.

When we got back, Cameron and Lilias headed upstairs and I was about to follow them when Cameron turned around halfway up and said, “If you still don’t believe me about the mermaid painting, why don’t you go and say hello to my father? See for yourself what he’s been working on the last couple of days.”

Before I could reply, he turned and carried on up the stairs. I stood there for a moment before deciding to take him up on his suggestion. I’d hardly seen Uncle James since I arrived and the only time we’d really spoken had been when he picked me up from the ferry. I went straight to his studio and knocked on the door.

When he called for me to come in, I stepped
into a bright, airy room that smelled of paint and turpentine. Uncle James sat behind an easel in the corner with his sleeves rolled up, and looked surprised to see me, almost as if he’d forgotten I was staying with them.

“Oh, Sophie,” he said. “Hello. Are you back already?”

“We just arrived. Cameron showed me some of your paintings in the art gallery. I thought they were wonderful.”

“Thank you.”

“Is that the painting of Piper? Can I see it?”

I started to walk forward, but he instantly sprang up from his seat and moved to put himself between me and the easel. Then, almost as an afterthought, he laughed, but it sounded strained.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s an artist thing. I don’t like anyone to see my unfinished paintings. I’m sure you understand. So how was town? Cameron’s been making himself pleasant, I hope?”

“Everyone’s been really nice.”

“I’m sure Piper has loved having you around.” Uncle James replied. I noticed he still had a paintbrush in his hand. The bristles were dipped in sea-green
paint and, as I watched, a big droplet fell from the end to stain the already paint-splattered floor, but Uncle James didn’t seem to notice. “It’s nice for her to have someone her own age around. We’re so isolated up here.”

“It must have been hard for her losing Rebecca like that,” I said.

“Hard … yes. Yes, it was hard,” Uncle James said. All of a sudden he seemed to look through me rather than at me, just like when he’d picked me up at the ferry. “Hard for all of us.” He focused on me again and smiled. “I suppose all families have their ups and downs. We’re no different.”

That seemed a bit of an understatement, but although I didn’t say anything, Uncle James added, “We’ve been through a lot, but we’re all right now. I know you’re an only child so we probably seem quite strange to you. Perhaps you’ve noticed that Piper and Cameron can be a bit … well, just a bit hostile to each other sometimes. But they’re good friends underneath it all. It’s just normal sibling rivalry. Your mother and I were the same when we were kids.”

I wanted to ask him whether he’d ever lunged at my mum across the breakfast table and slammed her
up against a wall the way I’d seen Cameron do to Piper this morning, but it was pretty obvious that he had no idea what was really going on between them. Suddenly, I felt like he didn’t have much idea about a lot of things.

Before I could say anything further, the door opened and Piper stuck her head in. “Oh, there you are!” she said brightly. “I’ve made us some little lemon cakes. I thought we could play the tea-party game out in the garden. I made some lemonade too – it’s such a hot day!”

“Splendid idea!” Uncle James said, just a little bit too eagerly. It was obvious that he was dying to get rid of me. “It’s too nice a day to be stuck indoors. You girls go and have fun.”

I didn’t have much choice but to follow Piper outside to where she’d set out a little table, complete with a crisp white tablecloth. On it sat a jug of fresh lemonade filled with ice cubes, condensation still running down the glass, and a plate of some of the prettiest iced lemon cakes I’d ever seen.

“I only sat briefly for Dad in the end, before the light changed or something, so I had time to make these. I hope you like lemon!”

Actually, I hated it, but I couldn’t exactly say so when Piper had gone to all that trouble.

“I love it,” I said, trying to sound convincing. As I went to sit down I felt the rustle of the paper bag holding the sugar mice in my pocket and couldn’t help wishing that Piper had been as good at guessing my favourite as Cameron had. I took the bag out of my pocket to stop the sweets getting squashed and placed it on the grass beside my chair.

I also wished Piper had picked a different spot. The burnt tree loomed above us, casting stark shadows across our white table. From where I sat I could smell the charcoal coating on the crumbling bark and, even as I watched, I saw a fine puff of ash moved by the warm breeze blow directly into the jug of lemonade.

Piper didn’t seem to notice and poured out a glass for me, the ice cubes chinking and clinking together in the jug. Only once she poured it I realized they weren’t ice cubes at all – they were tiny Frozen Charlottes, floating on their backs like white corpses.

“I borrowed some from Rebecca’s collection,” Piper said. “They’ve been in the freezer all morning so they’re nice and cold. Aren’t they quaint?”

It wasn’t the word I would have used for the tiny dolls floating in our lemonade, with their little dead hands stretched out before them.

“I squeezed the lemons fresh this afternoon!” Piper said, smiling that dazzling smile.

And maybe it was only because of those things Cameron had said, but I found myself thinking,
Who does that
? Who makes their own lemonade from scratch? Aside from the burnt tree and the flecks of ash sitting on top of the drink, the whole scene suddenly seemed too idyllic, and somehow artificial, as if I had wandered on to the set of a play. It was the same strange feeling I’d had the first night we had dinner at the house. Even Piper’s smile looked not right somehow – too perfect and pretty to be real.

Even as I had the thought, the smile faltered on her face. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

“No, of course not,” I said, quickly reaching for a cake to give my hands something to do. “I’m just … touched that you’ve gone to so much trouble.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all,” Piper said. “I just want us to be friends.”

“We are,” I said, but it occurred to me that Piper and I didn’t know each other, not really.

“Well, aren’t you going to try the cake?” Piper asked.

I quickly bit into it and had to force myself not to grimace. It was way too tart and practically made my eyes water.

“It’s delicious,” I said, forcing myself to swallow it.

“So how was town?” Piper asked, as she poured herself some lemonade. And then, before I could answer, “What did you and Cameron talk about?”

Her tone remained casual but I suddenly felt sure she knew
exactly
what Cameron and I had talked about. Whatever weird sibling rivalry was going on here, I didn’t know how I’d managed to plant myself right in the middle of it.

“Nothing much,” I shrugged. “I don’t know why he asked me along, really.”

“Well, that’s a relief anyway,” Piper said. “I was worried he might have taken the opportunity to pour poison into your ear.”

“What do you mean?”

“Cameron doesn’t like me to have friends,” Piper said slowly. “It’s part of his possessive nature, I think. I used to be quite popular but he’s chased away most of my schoolfriends now.”

“You mean, he lies about you?”

“Yes. At least … well, he normally just sticks to lying.”

“Normally? You mean he sometimes does more than that?”

I hadn’t meant the disbelieving tone to creep into my voice but I think it did nonetheless and Piper noticed. She looked at me and said, “You could say that. A couple of months ago, Cameron flogged my boyfriend and said that if he ever came near me again he’d get much worse. I haven’t seen him since.”

I stared at Piper in silence for a moment. “
Flogged?
” I finally managed. “You mean with a … with a—”

“With a riding crop,” Piper said. “Ask him about it, if you don’t believe me. I knew Cameron didn’t like me seeing Brett but I never dreamed he’d turn violent like that. He arrived in the middle of this party we’d gone to and said he was taking me home. I didn’t want to go but he grabbed my arm and dragged me out and when Brett tried to follow us Cameron hit him with the crop. It was Lilias’s – she has riding lessons once a week. Cameron brought it with him. That was the thing that disturbed me the
most afterwards, I think. He’d brought it with him from home, so he must have planned to attack Brett all along.” She rubbed her temples with her fingers and said, “It was so terrible. Poor Brett. He could hardly walk afterwards and the back of his shirt was all ripped and covered in blood.”

“But why?” I said, suddenly feeling very cold despite the sun shining down on us. “Why did he do it?”

“I told you, he’s possessive,” Piper said. “He’s always been like that. Even when I was a kid. And it got a lot worse after Rebecca died. He thinks he can control everyone and everything. He wants to keep me here in this house for the rest of my days. He won’t go away to music college, you know, even though any college in the country would be delighted to have him, in spite of his injury. He was furious with me for dating Brett and I suppose he wanted to punish me for it.”

I remembered what Cameron had said earlier about violence sometimes being necessary and felt the cold prickle of revulsion creep over my skin.

“But if he did that to your boyfriend, then how can you stand to be around him?” I said. “How can you even look at him?”

“Perhaps Rebecca dying unhinged him a little.” Piper sighed. “Perhaps it unhinged all of us. But you mustn’t think badly of Cameron because of what I’ve told you. That’s the last thing I want. You won’t act any differently around him, will you?”

“I’ll try not to,” I said, and took a gulp of my lemonade.

And then something bit the inside of my mouth. Hard. I felt sharp little teeth that were not my own tearing at the inside of my cheek. The soft flesh ripped and blood poured into my mouth.

I shrieked, spitting out fat globs of blood that spotted the white tablecloth. Frantically, I reached my fingers into my mouth, grabbed hold of the thing and flung it down on the table.

It was one of the Frozen Charlotte dolls, her white porcelain skin stained and smeared with blood. It was still dribbling from between my lips and down my chin – it felt like a great chunk of my mouth had been torn away. I even thought I felt a lump of flesh disappearing down my throat as I instinctively swallowed.

“Oh God, Sophie, are you OK?” Piper said, jumping to her feet.

“It… It bit me!” I exclaimed. My voice came out thick and each word caused the loose flap of skin inside my mouth to sting horribly. Blood sprayed out of my mouth when I spoke so I clapped my hand over it.

“What did?” Piper asked, staring.

“It… It felt like something bit me,” I said, wiping the blood from my face with trembling fingers. How could I possibly say that I thought a doll had bitten me? It sounded mental, even to me.

“You must have bitten your cheek,” Piper said.

Of course that was the most rational explanation – I’d bitten myself – and already I found myself starting to wonder… It seemed so crazy to think that that tiny white doll on the table between us had actually bitten me. She didn’t even have teeth, just a painted red dot where her mouth ought to be.

“I guess so,” I said.

Tentatively, I prodded the spot with my tongue. It stung like anything. I glanced down and saw that I’d managed to get a few spots of blood on my white T-shirt too. “I’d better go and change,” I said. I got up and started to walk back to the house.

“Sophie,” Piper said behind me. When I turned
back she was holding a striped paper bag, a strange expression on her face. “You forgot your sugar mice.”

“Oh. Thanks.” I went back for them and then walked across the garden to the house, aware of Piper’s eyes on me the whole time. It was only a bag of sugar mice. I hadn’t asked Cameron to get them for me. So why did I feel a weird twist of guilt in my stomach, as if I’d somehow done something wrong?

I went upstairs to my room, took off the white T-shirt and grabbed a clean one. I was just pulling it over my head when I heard someone giggle. It was muffled and high-pitched, girlish and strange, and my first thought was that it was Dark Tom, giggling in his cage downstairs. But then someone said my name, in fact they whispered it, and it wasn’t one person, it was several, all whispering my name over and over again:

“
Sophie, Sophie, Sophie…
”

“
Sophie, Sophie…
”

“
Sophie, Sophie, Sophie, Sophie…
”

Tiny, tiny, inhuman little voices that made creeping fear travel all the way through me, right to the very end of my cold, clammy fingertips.

They were coming from Rebecca’s room.