Hawthorn

I hate it on sight. It’s dull and large and clunky, a creepy old house with a creepy old house smell. Mum says it’s at least a hundred years old, maybe more. She says it in a way that’s supposed to make me like it more and then babbles on about nineteenth century features and stuff that I really don’t give a toss about. All I see is grey. Grey walls with green stuff growing on them, and dirty dark windows that seem to glare at me accusingly as if they knows I hate the place. I want to go home, back to the cosy town house in London, back to the noise and pollution, and I let mum know it with my simmering silence. At least I think its simmering, not so sure to be honest, because mum’s acting as if everything’s okay, as if we’re cool when we clearly are not.

Danny and Heather run in circles in the drive, the gravel crunching under their feet.

Mum yells at them but it is a good natured yell. They rush over and mum pulls out her camera. God I hate that bloody thing; click, click, click everywhere we go. She doesn’t give a crap whether I want my picture taken or not, and then next thing I know it’s plastered all over Facebook.

Fucking hate it.

Jules waves me over and I roll my eyes. She presses her lips together in disapproval and I find my feet carrying me over. I hated her at first, Jules, when dad left. I hated her. After all, it was her fault, right? I mean, I’ve got nothing against lesbians and all that, but it was my mum, you know? It’s different when it’s your mum that’s the lesbo. Some kids at school had something to say about it, but I soon put a stop to that. Ended up at the Head’s office, but I switched on the waterworks and got off with a reprimand while the bitches that were spouting off got a formal warning. Turns out it’s not cool to slate same-sex couples. Anyway, so Jules is cool. I actually like her. She’s ten times better than the fake red-head dad’s dating with the perfect manicure and pedicure. Her idea of an afternoon of fun is getting facials.

I allow Jules to sling an arm around my shoulders, I even allow her to press a kiss to my forehead. Okay, yeah, I love Jules. She’s more than cool.

“Say cheese!” Mum says.

“Dairylea!” We shout.

The inside of the monstrosity is just as gross as the outside. It’s all dark wood and dusty rugs, a space crammed full of stuff. The floor is pretty cool, though, real thick hardwood and polished to a shine. You can tell someone loved that floor. Mum rushes about opening windows, letting in the late summer breeze, which is lovely and cool this high up. The musty smell starts to dissipate almost straight away as if eager to escape the confines of the house, as if it was a reluctant visitor unwittingly trapped.

The stuff, which I assume is furniture, is covered with sheets. I can’t help wondering if it’s just furniture. It would be so easy for a person to hide underneath one of those sheets. Once the thought enters my head I can’t shift it and I am off, pulling down every cover, exposing every piece of carved, curved and moulded furniture. Next I start on the paintings, not because I expect to find people hidden there, but because I’m not one to leave a job unfinished. I can hear mum and Jules in the kitchen and the sound of Heather and Danny’s footsteps upstairs as they run from room to room, exploring their new fancy home.

I yank the first sheet of the first painting and jump at the face peering back at me.

I blink and so does the face.

Bloody mirrors.

Resource of the vain, that’s what they are and I find them in abundance here. Looks like the previous owners had a Narcissus problem.

“Gemma?” Mum calls from the kitchen.

“Yeah?”

“Check on the twins, would you?”

I sigh and drape the sheet I am holding over the banister before slowly trudging upstairs. Too many stairs, another thing to hate about this place.

I get to the top and stop. I stand there listening to…silence, absolute silence. I glance left, I glance right. I grin.

The little devils. Hiding, huh? We’ll see. I slip off my sandals and move into stealth mode. I go right first, the direction I heard their footsteps last. The doors are open, and the corridor is a series of rectangles of sunshine. I hop from patch to patch, swinging into the rooms, low and quick, scanning and discarding. There is minimal furniture; nothing to hide inside, nothing to hide under. The right cleared, I retrace my steps and head left.

This side of the corridor is darker, the doors closed and my stealth turns to something else; wariness. The floor feels chilly against my bare feet. I reach the first door and hesitate. I am not a hesitator. I shake my head and grasp the doorknob, twisting it quickly and flinging the door open. The room is shrouded in darkness. Curtain’s firmly closed over the large windows. It is stifling hot in here and sweat breaks out on my brow.

There is a bed, stripped bare and lonely in the centre of the room, but what catches my eye is the huge armoire against the wall. I stare at it for a long moment. I should check inside, it’s the perfect hiding spot, but then I remember that Danny is afraid of the dark. There is no way Heather would be able to coax him inside. I tell myself that my sigh is not one of relief, but of irritation, and then I turn to leave.

A soft giggle swells in the air behind me.

I freeze.

It bubbles up again.

It is coming from the armoire. I should stride across the room and fling open the door, shout boo, really scare the little shits, but I find myself reluctant to move further into the room. “Okay, you can come out now. I know you’re in there.”

That giggle again, louder this time.

I shake my head. That was such a come-and-get-us giggle. Pushing my unease aside, I stride across the room. My finger’s curl around the handle.

“Gemma?”

I freeze and slowly twist to glance over my shoulder.

Heather is standing in the doorway with Danny a step behind her.

“Mum said come eat lunch.”

“Sandwich,” Danny says.

Heather nods. They turn and leg it down the corridor. I hear their feet thudding down the stairs.

My heart is pounding, my mouth is dry. Slowly, carefully, so as not to accidently jog it, I remove my hand from the armoire handle and wipe it on my jeans. Then I turn and walk out the room, closing the door firmly behind me.

Honestly, I don’t know what to make of this place. It’s certainly spacious and once we’ve done it up I imagine it’ll be beautiful. I already have a few ideas about colour and theme. The furniture will have to go, though. It’s much too…dark. Not just the colour, but also the aura. That’s it, the furniture has an aura to it that I think is tainting the house, at least I hope that’s what it is and not the other way around, because furniture we can get rid of, the house is not so easily exchanged. I keep these thoughts to myself, Mary is not the superstitious feelings type of gal, and I guess that’s what I love about her. She’s anchored in the here and now and she grounds me, saving me from my flights of fancy which I instead channel into my stories. Danny and Heather are the perfect subjects to test my stories on.

I love being a part of this family.

I stare up at the pipes under the sink. If I stay here long enough maybe Mary will think I am doing something clever.

There is a tap on my knee and I arrange my face in a frown and slide out from the cupboard.

Mary is looking down on me, her dark hair swinging in her face, her left brow arched sceptically.

I try and maintain a straight face but her lips twitch and then we are both laughing.

I hold out my hand and she helps me up, mindful of my dodgy knee; an old hockey injury.

“Let’s eat and then I’ll google for a plumber,” she says.

The door swings open and Danny and Heather barrel in. Danny is clutching Buster, his stuffed toy dog. He climbs up onto his chair and places Buster on the table next to his plate. He is five in a few weeks and way too old to be so attached to a toy, at least that’s what Mary thinks, but I think it’s sweet.

I watch him take a bite of his sandwich, his golden head bent close to Buster as he whispers something to him. Heather chomps on her sandwich, swinging her legs back and forth. They will be separated this year for the first time. The school feels it will do them good to be in different classes, encourage them to make friends outside of the twin bond they share. I’m not so sure. Heather will be fine, she is the outspoken one, the voice of the pair, but Danny… I’m afraid he’ll simply retreat into himself and fade into the background. Mary shares the school’s view. She feels that it will toughen him up; he’s a boy after all. I told her I was surprised at her stereotypical attitude. That was our first argument. I lost, of course, because as much as I may have grown to love them, they are not my children. It still stings, but I cover it with a smile.

Gemma enters a moment later and practically throws herself into a chair. She’s tall for her age, big-boned, yet surprisingly graceful. Mary says she could be a gymnast if she had any motivation for it. Gemma thinks parading around wearing a leotard is lame. She’d rather kick a ball around or hit one with a stick. The first time I met her I knew I’d found a kindred spirit. For, despite her tomboy attitude and acerbic tongue, there is an innocent sensitivity to Gemma that I’m not sure many people see, but I see it every time she sacrifices her own teenage pastimes to play hide and seek with the twins, or tuck them into bed and read them a story. I see it when she rocks Danny to sleep when he is having nightmares and then there’s her amazingly creative mind. I finger the bracelet on my wrist; a Gemma original. The girl has great potential.

Mary is having a hard time seeing these things, though. All she sees is a teenager who hates her.

I watch Mary now, leaning against the sink, studying her children. Her eyes keep straying to Gemma and I watch Gemmas’ jaw flex.

Finally, Gemma puts down her sandwich and throws up her hands. “What?”

Mary jumps. “Nothing, I just… I want you to be happy.”

For a moment I think Gemma will explode, that she will tell her mum just how much she hates having to leave all her friends, her home, the boy she’s had a crush on forever. Instead, she exhales, slow and even, and shrugs.

“S’okay. Don’t worry about it. I’ll get used to it.” She picks up her sandwich and continues to eat it.

Mary sighs as if the response has somehow disappointed her, and I feel a spike of annoyance toward her. The girl is trying to be accommodating. What more does Mary want?

“I’m going to bring in more boxes from the car,” I say before escaping into the fresh summer air. If I stay I might say something that oversteps my boundaries.

Buster doesn’t like this house. He thinks it smells funny. Buster thinks we should pack up and go back to the city. Buster thinks villages are boring.

I agree.

Heather likes it, though. She thinks that the house is like a palace and we are the little prince and princess. I asked her who Gemma would be and she said Gemma could be the dragon that guards the palace.

I laughed at that because Gemma can be scary when she wants, especially when she’s mad at mummy.

Mummy says we can choose our own rooms. There are five bedrooms here and mummy says that Heather and I don’t have to share anymore. This makes my stomach hurt. I don’t want to sleep by myself. I like sharing with Heather. Sometimes at night I wake up and can’t get back to sleep and then I listen to Heather breathing and it makes me feel safe. It helps me go back to sleep.

I don’t want my own room, but I don’t want mummy to think I’m a baby. I heard her talking to Jules in our old house. She said I needed to toughen up. It made me cry when she said that.

I want mummy to be proud of me. I want to be a big boy for mummy so I won’t tell her how much this house scares me.

I follow Heather upstairs and we bounce from room to room, pretending to be kangaroos. Heather says she wants the room with the pink lampshade. It is all the way down the long corridor and it has a big window and a big windowsill that we can climb and sit on. We stare at the trees and the field and the road that leads to the village. We can’t see the sea from here but mummy says that we are above the sea, that there’s a beach. That’s one thing I find exciting. I never saw the sea up close before and Jules promised to take me as soon as she gets time. I think about this to push the scary feeling away.

“It’s pretty isn’t it?” Heather asks.

I nod, holding Buster tight.

Heather is staring at me. I try to ignore her but can’t.

“Why are you scared?”

I shrug. My chest feels full and empty at the same time. I want to cry, but I don’t know why.

“I promise I’ll protect you,” she says. She hugs me and I feel better but why did she say that? What is she gonna protect me from?