The Whispers of Wilderwood Hall (11 page)

“RJ didn't tell her?” I say, shocked. He'd dropped her into conversation quite a lot, and sounded like a loving, mad-for-his-girl dad to me. I feel a tiny shiver of panic. How well does Mum really know RJ? How can we have deleted our whole old life for him and Wilderwood Hall, if he's like some kind of heartless wolf in disguise?

“RJ tried, but it turns out Weezy had changed her number and her email address without telling him,” says Mum, blinking up at me with blue eyes framed with wings of black eyeliner. “She quit Facebook too, so he couldn't contact her that way. And of course he tried to contact her via Beth, Weezy's mum, but those messages didn't get through.”

“
She didn't pass them on?” I ask.

“Didn't pass the messages on, or his letters,
or
the wedding invitation. Well, she
said
she did, and that Weezy didn't want to go.”

“That's seriously bad,” I mumble.

Either Weezy's mum is one bitter ex-wife, or – and I can't say this to Mum – RJ is one bad ex-husband and dad, which is why Beth acted that way…

“So, understandably, Weezy is furious with her mum for hiding the invitation and various letters and furious with her father for not trying harder to get in touch with her directly. Though I'm not exactly sure what else he was meant to do.”

“Go visit her at her school and see her face-to-face?” I suggest.

“That's another disaster; Weezy dropped out of her school a few weeks ago,” says Mum, ruffling her blonde hair with her hands. “And her A levels are coming up soon. Oh, I wish RJ was here! It's too hard trying to sort this out when he's constantly on the move and we can't get a reliable connection either end…”

“Was this why you were on the phone this morning?” I ask, remembering Mum's unexpected irritation with me.

“
Yes – RJ was trying to fill me in on everything before he got on a plane.”

“But why didn't you just tell me what was happening?” I frown at her.

“Ellis, you weren't well yesterday, on top of having to contend with this big move and the huge change. I didn't want to overload you with stuff to worry about,” says Mum, gently rubbing my arm.

“What – and I wouldn't find about it when Weezy showed up here?” I say.

“Babes, we didn't know that's what was going to happen,” Mum says apologetically. “This morning her mum called RJ to say Weezy and her clothes and rucksack and stuff had gone sometime overnight. They didn't know if she'd just taken off to stay with a friend, or maybe even seen sense and gone back to her boarding school. To be honest, I was hoping to hear that Weezy had called her mum and was fine, so that you wouldn't have had to know or stress about anything.”

“But here she is,” I say, feeling a ripple of worry in my chest.

“Yes, here she is,” Mum says with a shrug. “Turns out she came across all the letters her Mum had
hidden,
including the one where her dad told her about buying this place. So …
ta-da
!”

Mum holds out her hands, a wry, what-can-we-do? limp smile on her face. But I can't smile back.

I don't want to be in the middle of some other family's feud right now, as well as everything else.

(The waves start rolling…)

“Hey, are you OK, Ellis?” Mum asks, frowning at me. “You're looking a bit pale all of a sudden. Is all of this too much?”

“I'm fine,” I lie, though I feel a flicker of pleasure at having her full attention for the first time in hours today. “Haven't eaten much today, so maybe it's that.”

“Oh, Ellis … what am I thinking? We need to get some food into you,” says Mum, snapping into action. “Let's leave setting up this room till later. I'll get some pasta on for you now and maybe some—”

Mum's phone trills from the pocket of her jeans and she grabs it out super fast.

“RJ!” Mum says, her face breaking into a smile of relief. “RJ – can you hear me? You're cutting out… Sorry, Ellis – I have to take this.”

And so, after Mum gives me her undivided attention for all of two minutes, she leaves me again,
hurrying
off down the corridor and shutting the door of her own bedroom firmly behind her. What is going on with her today? Since when does she have to leave me to have a conversation with RJ? Specially when she's just told me everything.

Unless … unless she
hasn't
quite told me everything.

'Cause I suddenly have a niggling feeling that Mum's keeping something back, keeping something secret from me right now.

But hey,
I've
got a pretty strange and special secret of my
own
. And if Mum isn't willing to let me in on hers, then I think I'll keep mine to myself too…

“Now wait till you see this!” says Mum, with all the over-the-top enthusiasm of a kids' TV presenter.

You can't blame her. She finally prised Weezy out of the spare room and said that we'd give her a guided tour of Wilderwood. Weezy grudgingly came, but looked about as pleased as if we'd offered to give her a Chinese burn. So far the three of us have trudged around the whole scuzzy house: Mum smiling, Weezy scowling and me trailing behind silent and stressed.

We've now come out of the back door by the kitchens and crossed the moss-covered yard where Mr Fraser's van is parked. We're standing in front of the boarded-tight stable block, and my tiny mum is
tugging
at one of the large pair of wooden doors that don't seem too keen on opening.

“This is the part of the Shiny New Plan that your dad is most looking forward to!” Mum says breathlessly, as she yanks hard at the non-budging, iron door handle.

“‘Shiny New Plan'?” Weezy repeats, wrinkling her nose as if a bad smell had just wafted by.

“Well, our joint
project
, then,” Mum says, pinking up around the cheeks with both effort and irritation, I think. Looks like Weezy is determined not to make any of this easy.

“Do you want me to give it a try?” I ask Mum, pointing to the door.

“Go on, then.” Mum gives in and steps aside. “Mr Fraser had it open earlier, but he did say the wood is swollen and damp.”

As I grab the handle – rust flaking and crackling under my fingers – I see Weezy gaze off at the gardens, nibbling at her nails. I wonder what she's thinking. That she can't bear to stay here more than one night, hopefully, especially since her dad isn't around and isn't due back for weeks…

“So anyway, Weezy, RJ is going to turn this building into a state-of-the-art recording
studio,”
Mum tries to continue, with more forced cheerfulness. “And though the space needs to be opened up, he's planning to keep some of the original … horse areas or whatever you call them.”

“Stalls,” Weezy corrects her.

I'm still struggling with the reluctant door, but I manage a quick peek in Weezy's direction and see that she might be talking to Mum but she's not so much as glanced her way.

“Stalls, of course! Silly me,” says Mum. “Have you done much riding, Weezy?”

Hearing Mum ask that almost makes me snigger. It sounds like the sort of thing a country landowner might ask, not a city girl like Mum. Mind you, I suppose she
is
a country landowner now…

“A bit,” Weezy replies, tugging the sleeves of her black hoodie down to cover her hands.

“Didn't your dad say that you have a riding stable near your school that you all have access to?”

“Yep.”

“Oh, that must be nice. Your school sounds pretty impressive from the way RJ described it,” says Mum, sounding as if she's struggling as much with the one-sided conversation as I am with the stiff door. Only I'm not struggling any more; with
a
quick thud of my shoulder against the dark-green, faded boards, the door finally gives in and yawns open.

That
got Weezy's attention. Her head flips back round to face us just as Mum yelps, “High five, Ellis!” and holds up her hand to be slapped.

For a split second I see a hint of curiosity on Weezy's face, but it's instantly replaced with a dark scowl when she spots what's on the inside of Mum's wrist.

“What's wrong, Weezy?” asks Mum, letting her hand flop down as the mood shifts from fine to bleak.

“Why do you have this?” Weezy demands, reaching out for Mum's hand and roughly turning it over so the tattoo of the dainty white star is visible.

“I – I got it to match the one your dad has on
his
wrist. I thought it was beautiful.” Mum stumbles over her words, looking up warily as Weezy looms over her. She's clearly wondering what's going on, same as I am.

“It is!” Weezy bursts out.

With that, she drops Mum's hand and storms off across the yard and towards the side of the house.

“
I'd better go after her…” Mum mutters without a backward glance my way.

As Mum catches up with my so-called stepsister by the ivy-covered fountain, two things happen, in practically the same instant.

Far beyond Mum and Weezy, down by the bushes and the perimeter wall, I see another glimmer of light, that small sparkle that is clearly there one second and then just as quickly gone.

At the same time, a sound begins to vibrate softly in the palm of the hand that's wrapped around the iron handle. Up it weaves, prickling around my arm as I try to tune in to the whispering. Only this time it's not soft words that I'm hearing. It's a whinny.

That unexpected sound pushes the glimmer to the back of my mind. I spin myself around, still holding tight to the door handle … which is now smooth and sleek with glossy black paint.

And a smell hits me: the warm, yeasty scent of fresh straw, and the spikier, harsher pong of manure.

I've gone back again, haven't I?
I think, stepping gingerly inside the stable that's now alive with sound – more whinnying, the crunch of horses' teeth munching on hay, iron shoes clattering on
cobbled
stall floors. And there's one more sound. My name being called…

“Ellis? Is that you?”

I look directly up. There's a sort of mezzanine level, piled high with dry straw or hay. Flora bends out from the darkness of it and smiles at me.

“What are you doing up there?” I say softly, not sure who – apart from the horses – might hear us, but taking no chances.

“Taking a moment for myself before I'm shouted at to do the next task,” she tells me. “Come up! The steps are just there…”

I hurry over and scramble up a rough-hewn ladder and join her. Gazing back down from here, I see four horses in their stalls, steam rising off their sleek coats. All four are staring up at us, probably hoping that we odd, two-legged creatures aren't about to eat their stores of feed.

“Want some?” says Flora, tearing apart a large, chunky slice of bread and butter and handing me a piece.

“Thanks,” I say, suddenly realizing how hungry I am. I wasn't much in the mood for the bowl of pasta Mum made me after she'd finally finished her call with RJ – with all the strangeness of the day I
had
no appetite and only managed to half-heartedly eat a couple of mouthfuls of what tasted like soggy rubber.

“Mrs Wallace the cook leaves a few pieces of this in the kitchen for Jim the stable lad at this time of day,” explains Flora. “But he is not a very nice sort. So I thought I might relieve him of one piece of his bread while no one was looking!”

Flora grins, but puts her hand over her mouth like a child caught doing something a little naughty. Is she waiting to see if I'm shocked? I look at how very skinny her arms are and can't help thinking that she must get pretty poor rations from the cook herself. So how could I begrudge her some extra food that no one will miss – except this Jim, of course.

“You seem happy,” I tell her, wondering if there is something more making her smile than just a sneaked piece of bread and the peace of this stable hideaway. And then I remember the group portrait that must have happened by now. “Did you like having your photograph taken today?”

“How do you know that? Were you watching?” she asks in surprise.

“No – earlier, in your room, you told Jean that
Mrs
Strachan had made you tidy your hair for the photographer coming.”

“Ah, yes. But no, I did not like it,” she says firmly. “Minnie accused me of pushing her on the steps where we were standing, so of course Cook gave me a clip around the ear for that.”

“No wonder you pinched the bread, then,” I say cheerfully, though my heart hurts for her.

“Oh, I am used to their mean ways,” says Flora, with a bat of her hand. “But what of Minnie and Cook, when I have such news to tell you!”

I like to see her face so softened and sweet.

“What is it?” I ask, curious.

“I am to travel to America soon! Is that not something?”