Hawthorn (6 page)

I knock on Heather’s door and enter. She’s sitting on her bed, playing with her Barbie dolls.

“Time to get ready for bed, punkin,” I say.

“Already?”

“Yup.”

Heather sighs in an exaggerated fashion and scoots off the bed and over to her dresser.

I take a seat on her bed and watch as she rummages around for some pyjamas. She’s always been the more independent of the two. Mum says girls usually are. I watch as she pulls out her Frozen pyjamas and changes into them.

“Will you read me a story tonight?” she asks.

“If you brush your teeth real quick.”

She’s off out the door.

I pick up the dolls and put them in her toy basket. There are a few blocks on the floor so I pick those up too.

Her wardrobe is slightly ajar so I move to close it.

“What you doing?”

I jump, hand on heart. “Shit, Heather! Did you tiptoe or something?”

“You said a bad word.”

“I’m sorry.” I push the wardrobe door and it closes with a click. “So, what do you want me to read to you?”

Heather hops onto her bed and retrieves a book from under her pillow.

I park my butt next to her and take the book. “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? You sure? I thought you said it was boring.”

Heather shakes her head. “That was before.”

“Before?”

“Before I met Elsa.”

I don’t know what to make of that. Mum says to simply ignore it and Jules agrees, so I open the book and begin to read.

I’m on chapter two when movement catches my eye. I glance up and my heart stutters. The wardrobe is ajar again.

I glance down at Heather and she is staring at the wardrobe with a strange smile on her face. It gives me the creeps.

“Heather?”

She looks up with that smile still on her face.

“What you looking at?”

“Elsa wants to hear the story too.” She blinks up at me. I don’t know why, but I am overcome by irritation, and the conviction that she is playing at this, that she is doing the whole imaginary friend thing for attention. I slide off the bed and march toward the wardrobe intent on flinging it open, proving to her that there is no such thing as Elsa. I reach out to grab the door and something skitters inside. My heart is in my mouth. I slam the door shut and turn the key.

I stand there staring at it for a long time. A mouse, it had to be a mouse.

“Gemma? Did you see?”

I keep my back to her, compose myself and then turn to her with a smile. “I think we may have mice, punkin. Keep that locked for now. I’ll get Jules to check it out in the morning, okay?”

She yawns and slides under the duvet. “Okay, tuck me in.”

I tuck her in and drop a kiss on her forehead. “I love you,” I whisper.

I check on Danny and he’s fast asleep. Then I go downstairs looking for Mum and Jules. I find them in the living room, a bottle of red wine is open on the coffee table and a plate of crisps is half gone.

“Hi, honey,” Mum says.

“I think Heather’s imaginary friend maybe a mouse, or mice, not sure,” I say.

“Really?” Jules puts down her wine glass. “Where?”

I wave her back. “Not now, Heather’s sleeping. But we can check in the morning. In her wardrobe; I locked it.”

Mum shook her head. “Won’t help. If the bugger’s in the wardrobe it’ll have another way out besides the door.” She sighs. “We’ll sort it in the morning, but, I tell you, it explains a lot.”

Jules looks at her quizzically.

Mum shrugs. “All the skittering and scratching and the movement on the edge of my vision. Now, I’m not a flighty person, but I was seriously beginning to wonder if we had a ghost.” She chuckles. “See, there’s a rational explanation for everything.

Jules smiles, but it doesn’t light up her eyes. “Don’t worry, honey. We’ll get it sorted.”

I kiss them both goodnight and head up to bed. The sea air and the walk earlier have exhausted me. I barely have the energy to send Liam a goodnight text before I am out.

It’s night time and I am awake. I was dreaming about the beach, about Gemma’s friend Sam. It was a bad dream and Sam had a scary face in it. I’m glad I’m awake so I don’ have to dream it anymore. I reach for Buster and pull him close, squeezing him and closing my eyes again. The little girl on the beach pops into my mind and I try and push her away because I don’t want to think about her. I don’t want to see her grey face and her big black eyes. I don’t want to see her big smile with all the sharp teeth. I remember her voice, like Heather’s friend’s voice. She told me that I was special, that I could come and play with her. I told her to go away. I called out to Gemma, but she said no one would believe me, no one would see. She said it’s all in my head.

I don’t want to see that little girl again. I don’t want to play with her. Maybe if I tell Heather about her then she’ll ask Elsa to make her leave me alone. This thought makes me feel better and I snuggle down and try to get back to sleep.

The sound of Heather breathing makes me feel safe.

My eyes pop open.

Heather doesn’t share with me anymore…

I’m real still and listen to the breathing. Its close, at the bottom of my bed… I want to jump out of bed and run out the room, but I’m too scared.

The breathing moves. It moves from the bottom of the bed, up the side, until its right behind me.

I am shaking and I need a wee.

“Come and play, Danny.”

The voice is horrible like monsters and hairy spiders. I scream and throw back the covers and run to the door. I grab the handle and pull and I can feel it behind me, but I’m too quick. I’m out in the corridor and I’m still screaming.

But then it has me. It picks me up and hugs me and I try to fight it but it’s too strong.

“Danny! Danny! It’s okay! Danny!”

Gemma, its Gemma. I throw my arms around her neck and burst into tears.

Gemma tucks me into her bed and then goes to get Buster.

“Here you go.” She hands Buster to me and then cuddles me. “You want to talk about it?”

I do, I really do, but I know she won’t believe me. She’ll tell me that it was dream. Well, the first bit was about that Sam boy, but the rest was real. The girl on the beach and the breathing. It was real. I know it was.

“You can tell me anything, Danny. You know that, right?”

I nod and I can feel my eyes getting hot because I’m gonna cry again. I hate it! I wish that I was bigger and stronger and I could punch that breathing thing in the face!

“Danny?”

I decide to tell her anyway because she’ll tell me it was a dream and because then I can believe it was and it’ll make the scary feeling go away. So I tell her about the girl and the breathing thing. She listens and squeezes me tight and when I finish she doesn’t tell me that it was all my magination, she tells me she loves me and that everything will be better in the morning. She tells me that I can sleep in her room until the scary feeling goes away, no matter how many nights it takes. Then she tells me to go to sleep.

I close my eyes and try and sleep. I wish she told me that it was all my magination. I can’t forget that little girl’s scary face.

Next morning is the day before mine and Heather’s birthday. I go into her room and Jules is in there with her bottom sticking out the wardrobe. I know it’s Jules’s bottom because it is wearing tracksuit bottoms and mummy never wears those.

I hear her say a bad word and leave her to it.

I find Heather in the kitchen eating cereal.

“Morning.” I jump up onto a seat and grab a bowl.

Heather ignores me.

I am starting to get really angry with her. She keeps being nice then mean then nice to me and I’m sick of it!

“What’s the matter with you?” I ask.

“Nothing,” she says.

“Then why do you keep being mean to me?”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re such a baby. I don’t have time for babies.”

“I am not a baby!”

“Whatever.”

I sit there with my hands in fists and I want to hit her. I don’t. “Tell Elsa to tell her friends to leave me alone!”

Heather’s spoon stops halfway to her mouth. “What?”

“You heard me. Yesterday at the beach there was a little girl who wanted me to play, and then last night in my room I heard someone breathing.”

“You’re lying. They won’t want to play with you. You can’t be a princess.”

“I’m not lying!”

“Whatever.”

“Just tell them. I don’t want to play.”

She ignores me.

“Why do you want to play with them anyway? They’re horrible and scary with creepy monster voices.”

Heather frowns at me. “Now I know you’re lying because Elsa isn’t ugly, she’s beautiful!”

“Morning, punkins!”

Mum walks in, her arms full of clothes. She has a big smile on her face and it makes me feel better. She goes over to the washing machine and squishes the clothes inside.

Heather pushes her bowl away and slips off her chair.

I want to go after her to ask her more, but Mum comes over and taps my bowl.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” she says in a sing song voice.

I sigh and fill my bowl with cereal.

“Jules? You got a minute?”

Jules smoothes the duvet across her bed and smiles at me. “No mice that I could find if that’s what you’re asking. Not even a dropping. But I did find a bleedin’ mirror.”

“In the wardrobe?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what it is with this place, but mirrors seem to be the theme.”

The armoire pops into my head. “What are we going to do with the musty room?”

Jules shrugs. “That’s up to your mum. I think it’ll probably be turned into a guest room.”

“I wouldn’t want to be a guest staying in a room with that piece of furniture.” As soon as I say it, I realise how stupid I sound, but Jules simply nods.

“I know what you mean.”

We lock eyes and some kind of understanding passes between us.

Jules sits on the bed and pats the spot next to her. “Come sit. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

I take a pew. “It’s Danny. Did you hear him scream last night?”

Jules shakes her head. “But then you know me. I sleep like a log once I do manage to get to sleep.”

I nod. “He said there was someone in his room, breathing by his bed. Earlier that day, we were at the beach and he said he saw a girl, but there was no one there. When I asked him about it, he said that I wouldn’t be able to see her. He seemed…scared, Jules. I’m worried about him, Heather too. I can’t put my finger on it, but something is off.”

Jules nods. “I know what you mean, but it’s a really, really old house. I know your mum doesn’t go in for all that stuff, but I believe that houses absorb things that happen inside them, like sponges. Sometimes, with very old houses like this one, we may get echoes of the past.”

“So you think I should stop worrying.”

“I think that Heather has an imaginary friend and I think that Danny may be trying to compensate for the loss of his best friend.”

I sigh. It makes so much sense when she puts it like that in the light of day. Gosh, I remember how I used to scare myself when I was younger.

“Besides,” Jules continues, “Mary says you had one too.”

“Had what?”

“An imaginary friend, when you were around three years old.”

“Really?” Now this is news to me. I don’t recall an imaginary friend. The only things I recall are the voices, whispers really. They started when I was eleven. The only person I told was Liam, and then mum, just the once, after which we never spoke about it again and they went away.

“I bet you anything that once the twins start school and you start college, everything will go back to normal.”

I hope she’s right. I want to tell her about Liam, but don’t want to put her in a position to have to lie to mum. I gnaw on my lip.

“Gemma? What is it?”

“Liam’s coming to visit tomorrow,” I blurt out. Great! I’m so good at keeping secrets.

“That’s great.” She grins. “So what’s the problem?”

“Mum.”

“Ah, yeah, she has a thing about your close friendship, doesn’t she?”

“Yep, but… Liam and I are more than friends now.”

Her brows shoot up. “When did this happen? Oh, honey, is that why you were so upset when we moved?”

I shake my head. “No, I mean, the move prompted me to take a chance and tell him how I felt. Turns out he feels the same way.”

She clasps her hands together and makes a ace. “Ooo! I love it. So romantic! Don’t worry. I’ll talk to your mum while we’re out.”

“You will?”

“Course I will.”

“You know, I’m glad mum met you, Jules. You’re kinda cool.”

Jules pretends to flick her hair back and it’s funny ‘cos her hair is real short. “Well, what can I say?”

I laugh and she gives me a hug. Last night’s fear seems miles away.