Kite Spirit (16 page)

She remembered because of Miss Evans’s comment in class. ‘You’ve written what subjects you like at school, not what makes you tick! The question I’m asking is what makes
you Dawn? What’s at the core of you?’ That’s all she had said, but Kite had been shocked to see Dawn’s eyes filling up with tears. Miss Evans had noticed too and swiftly
changed the subject.

‘What does she want me to write?’ muttered Dawn after class. ‘How am I supposed to know what’s at the core of me?’

These tiny moments between them were starting to stack up in Kite’s brain, and it seemed strange to her now that she had never thought to ask Dawn why she got so upset about the smallest
criticism.

Kite heard Seth running up the track behind her. She stood up from the table and turned to him.

‘Sorry!’

‘Never do that to me again. I can’t tell you what was going through my mind . . . It’s nearly dark – where in hell’s name have you been?’ His voice trembled
as he strode towards her and enfolded her in his arms, squeezing her so tightly she thought he would never let go.

Kite lay in bed and listened to the two men’s low concerned voices echoing up to her from the kitchen below. She had the oddest sensation that they were talking about
someone else. The Kite who inhabited this new aching body was unrecognizable even to herself from the person who had once been strong enough to win a half-marathon and train for hours on the
trapeze.

The voices moved outside the building.

‘I’ll call to see her again soon!’ Dr Sherpa shouted over the din of the waterfall.

Kite sensed that he was the kind of person who once he made a connection with you would not let go. But what he had said about sleep bringing more sleep seemed to be true. Kite yawned and walked
over to the bookshelf, pressed the remote and rummaged underneath her den pillows for the reed box, her feather and her birthday card. And, cradling her Dawn treasures close, her eyes grew
heavy.

Garth knocked on the glass. His mouth moved as he held a hessian sack up to the window. Something stirred inside it.

‘My gran sent this. She says you must not try to follow it.’

First one graceful cream wing appeared and then another. An owl with Dawn’s heart-shaped face fluttered out and landed in front of the window, staring in. Then it turned and flew off
in the direction of the path under Mirror Falls.

Kite ran to the stepping-stone bridge and peered down to the rock platform below.
Crack!
The glass shifted and gave way under her.

She was falling, arms and feet splayed in all directions, bones and feathers cascading through ice-cold water, spiralling down, limbs flailing, careering head first towards the gully floor.
The owl was screeching and screeching
. . .

Kite jerked awake only seconds before she smashed into the ground and clasped her hands over her ears. Seth placed his arms around her shoulders. He was crouched uncomfortably against the back
wall of the wardrobe.

‘What are you doing in here?’

‘I could ask you the same question! I came in to say goodnight and found you hiding away. You kept this quiet. What a wardrobe!’ He smiled. ‘You were sleeping so soundly I
didn’t want to move you in case I woke you up.’

‘What time is it?’ Kite asked, squinting into the light.

‘Nearly dawn,’ he said, then winced at the sound of her name. He sat up and tried to unfold his long body in the confined space. His neck clicked.

‘You shouldn’t have slept in here all night. I was fine on my own.’

‘That’s just it,’ Seth explained. ‘I wanted you to see that you’re not alone in all this.’

A high-pitched screech propelled him out of the den on his hands and knees and towards the spyhole window.

‘It’s the owls,’ Kite explained. ‘I’ve been reading about their different cries in a book.’

‘It gets under your skin a bit though, doesn’t it?’ Seth said, as he stretched from side to side and walked through to the bathroom. ‘I’m going to need a long hot
bath this morning!’

As Kite rearranged her den she quickly gathered up her precious Dawn treasures and carried them over to her bed, tucking them under the bottom fold of her pillowcase. Now that Seth had
discovered her hideaway there was no point in keeping them there.

So just as Dr Sherpa had predicted, sleep had brought sleep, however disturbed. Maybe years of listening to Seth’s interpretations had washed off on her, because now here she was
desperately trying to analyse her dream. Releasing that owl seemed to be saying that she had to set the bird free. Then there was the warning shot about not following Dawn – that probably
came from Agnes’s weird note – and the spiralling down, well, that’s what she’d been doing since the Falling Day. No matter how weird, the dream had strengthened her
conviction that Agnes, Garth and the Dawn owl were all bound up together in this. She just had to find out how.

A memory of Garth’s hurt expression at the lake returned to her, and she resolved to seek him out to say sorry. Looking back on how rude she’d been about his gran, she felt ashamed
of herself. Why had she pushed away the first person she’d actually felt a moment’s peace with? She wished she could go back to the lake again to hear Dawn’s music. It was Dawn
who had led her there and Dawn who had made her understand that there was no need to feel guilty about wanting to see Garth again, because she had brought them together in the first place. If only
she knew why.

‘You can’t just have fallen asleep. For all that time?’

Seth was pacing up and down the living room insisting that she ran through the account of yesterday once more.

‘So this boy you met, Agnes Landseer’s grandson – what was he like?’

‘How do I know? I only met him for a few minutes. He seemed all right,’ she said, trying to look as disinterested as possible.

‘And you ran all the way there, with the dog following you?’

Kite sighed deeply. ‘What happened to me is that I fell asleep. Everyone’s been going on about how they think it’ll be good for me to sleep, and then I do sleep for hours and
now you’re worried about me sleeping for too long.’

‘OK, OK. We won’t say any more about it. Just spend the day with me today, please. I’ve arranged to pick up Jack.’ Kite groaned. ‘It’s just for one day, Kite,
Ruby’s coming tomorrow so you and she can have a proper talk.’

Kite’s head whirred. Ruby’s laser vision was all she needed now.

‘He’s taking us to show me where some of the Storey family once lived. You know they had to flood the whole valley to make the reservoir provide enough water for Manchester. The old
village is usually underwater, but because of the drought we’re actually going to get to walk the dry reservoir. I tell you, I’m feeling so many songs simmering away . . .’ Seth
placed his precious guitar in its case.

‘You’d better call Rubes,’ he said as they drove down the track. ‘She was worried sick about you.’

Jack was sitting in a chair outside the Carrec Arms when they arrived. He was wearing his green tweed jacket and matching cap, despite the heat of the morning sun. On his lap
he had the little black-and-white photograph of a line of children perched on a wall.

‘Ready, Jack?’ Seth asked, swinging open the car door and helping him into the front seat as Ellie appeared at the pub entrance with a little posy of wild flowers.

‘Will this do you for, Grandad?’ she asked, handing it to him. He patted her hand in thanks. ‘He’s been sat there waiting for you for two hours past. I’ve not seen
him so keen to get out in ages.’ Ellie handed Seth a map. ‘He’s had me up half the night, marking out where he wants to take you. Look! I’d love to come along, but we
can’t afford to close up at this time of year, with all the thirsty campers and walkers passing through. He maybe won’t get out of the car, but he’ll enjoy the ride no
doubt.’

Seth handed the map to Jack and the old man tapped on a red circle with the number one written inside it. Seth studied the roads and set off through the hamlet.

‘I don’t suppose there’s any point in asking Boss–Nav!’ Seth joked, turning to Kite. She forced herself to raise a smile. The least I can do is not drag him down,
she thought.

At first there was silence as Jack kept glancing over at Seth, then tracing his fingers along the row of children in the photo, pausing over a little girl with long fair hair. Jack opened his
mouth to say something and closed it again. Twice he tapped his head as if that would help to get the information out. Seth kept glancing Jack’s way as he drove along the narrow lanes, but
when no words came he eventually put on a CD and began humming along to the harmony.

‘This is one of mine. What do you think, Jack?’

The old man raised his good hand in a ‘so-so’ gesture that made Seth laugh.

At first Kite couldn’t tell where the crackly but tuneful sound was coming from. Seth switched the CD off, and the old man’s mouth moved as his right hand tapped his knee. Seth
looked around at Kite in amazement.

As the song came to an end Jack laughed gleefully at the sound of his own voice.

‘Are you sure it’s OK for me to record your old childhood songs and maybe make something new from them?’

Jack gave Seth a thumbs-up sign.

‘I’ve already got a title: “Song of Storeys”.’

Kite’s forehead knocked against the neck of Seth’s guitar. As she opened her eyes it took her a moment to orientate herself, until she registered that it was Jack
sitting in the front seat, his car door thrown open.

‘I’ll just go and see where Seth is,’ Kite muttered, but then realized that Jack was fast asleep too, his head lolling as he wheezed heavily in his sleep.

They were parked outside a tiny stone church that backed on to open fields. Seth stood at the far end of the graveyard among the headstones. Why had he brought her here? As if she needed to walk
among the dead! But as soon as she entered she felt that there was something peaceful and spacious about the place; so different from the bleak concrete church yard where Dawn had been buried.
‘I like it here.’ Dawn’s soft voice filled her mind. Then it came to Kite, like a revelation, as the delicate wild summer flowers brushed against her calf. What if she could give
Dawn a proper burial, somewhere beautiful?

Seth was resting against a large gravestone shaded by the dense canopy of an enormous arching tree. He had taken out a notebook and was scribbling something down.

‘What are we doing here?’ Kite asked.

‘I think Jack’s trying to tell me that there’s a lot you can work out by reading the names and dates on headstones.’

‘They don’t tell you
how
people died though, do they?’ Kite said, catching sight of a small stone that read:

Alice Liddle (1882–1898) Our angel.

‘She was sixteen too!’

Seth looked up from his notebook at Kite’s dejected tone.

‘I’m sorry, my love,’ he said.

Jack coughed loudly, making them both jump. He was clinging on to the wall but now left its security and limped towards them, his left side dragging slightly. He began to run his fingers over
the lettering on the headstones as if he was looking for one in particular. Then he tapped Kite’s shoulder and pointed to a tiny blue butterfly that fluttered between the stones, coming to
rest on a mossy grave. He took a couple of paces to his left, where the butterfly was still basking in the sun, and tapped on the stone. The lichen-covered names and dates were so faded that Seth
had to scrape away the moss before reading.

‘Storey!’ he exclaimed and read the inscription: ‘
Lily Storey “Dear friend” (1928–1988)
’

Jack traced his stick over the name ‘Lily’ and then pointed it back at Seth and Kite.

‘Do you think she might have been related to my mum?’ Jack nodded twice, to make sure Seth knew he was certain. ‘Are you saying she was my grandma?’ Seth was breathless
with excitement.

Jack nodded and tapped the side of his head in frustration as if he would have loved to tell them more, but after a moment he planted his walking stick firmly in the ground and shuffled down a
path to another group of headstones further away. Kite and Seth followed him. Leaning on his stick, Jack reached into his pocket and took out the wilting posy Ellie had given him and placed it in
Kite’s hand. She walked around the graves and tried to read the stones. Jack coughed loudly and she stopped. She could just make out the lettering: ‘
In Loving Memory of Joyce
Salkeld (1918–1978)’.

‘Your wife?’ Kite whispered.

Jack nodded as his eyes glazed over with emotion and Kite bent down to place the posy on the grave for him.

On the way out of the churchyard Jack leaned on Kite’s arm and she braced herself against his slight weight. Even as exhausted as she was, she could feel the strength in her own body
compared to Jack’s, but as he hummed a happy tune, Kite wondered whose spirit was stronger at this moment.

‘I thought maybe I could give you lunch at Mirror Falls, my way of saying thank you,’ Seth suggested when they were back in the car, but Jack turned red in the face and began to
cough uncontrollably. Even the water Seth offered him to sip didn’t seem to help, so they had no choice but to cut short their tour and head back to the Carrec Arms. What was it about Mirror
Falls and Agnes Landseer that troubled Jack so much?