Season of Secrets (13 page)

 

 

 

 

It's the very middle of the night. The policemen have
gone. They found nothing, not even footprints in the
fast-falling snow. I told Grandma they wouldn't, but
she called them anyway. It's very late. Everyone's asleep
except me.

Humphrey and I are in Hannah's bed. Hannah's in
my bed, where Dad's supposed to be, and Dad's on my
mattress on the floor. That was Grandma's idea.

“The child needs her dad,” she said. “Clearly.” And
she dumped Dad's suitcase at his feet. Dad didn't
argue. He sat with his arms around me, chin resting
against my head, holding me so tightly I could feel the
rim of his watch digging into my side.

Everything's back-to-front and topsy-turvy.

Dad's asleep on the floor by my bed. He's got
his back to me but I can hear him breathing.

It's dark. The only light is from the lamp on the
bedside table. There's this pool of soft, orange light;
long orange-and-grey shadows on the wall and
blackness out of the window.

The wind is still blowing and the snow's still falling.
I think it's raining too, if you can have snow and rain at
the same time.

It's like being in the middle of a blizzard.

It's like the end of the world.

 

I can't sleep. I can't stop thinking.

What if he wasn't Miss Shelley's god after all?

What if he was just a man?

Hannah said I should have done something.
Something to save him. If I was older – if I was better –
if I was Mum or Dad or Hannah or Grandpa—

If I was any one of those people, I would have done
something.

If I was anyone but me, I would have saved him.

 

He didn't have anyone else.

He had me, and I did nothing.

 

 

 

 

I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling.

I can hear noises against the window. Snow hitting
the glass, wet and heavy.

“Mum,” I whisper, but she isn't here. I know she
isn't, but if I close my eyes I can almost imagine that
she's close – in the next room, maybe, or on the floor
beside Dad. Tonight, everything is so strange. Perhaps
if I say exactly the right words or do exactly the right
thing at the right time, she'll come back.

I climb out of bed, taking the horrible old-fashioned
quilt and wrapping it round my shoulders.
The stairs make noises as I creak down them –
creak,
creak, creeeak
. I feel for the walls with my hands, so I
don't fall.

The kitchen tiles are cold, even through my socks.
I go to the back door and look out of the window. All
I can see is black and whirling snow, for ever.

“Moll?”

It's Hannah. Her face is red and white in the
darkness.

“What are you doing?”

She comes over to where I'm standing.

“Watching.”

It's very dark in the garden. The trees are moving in
the wind; you can hear them creaking.

Tonight is the longest night of the year. The
absolute middle of winter.

“Moll,” says Hannah. “It's cold. Come back
upstairs.”

But there
is
something different about tonight. The
Green Man is gone and that changes everything.

“Let's go,” says Hannah. “Come on.”

I don't move.

“What was that?” Her voice is high and frightened.
“
Molly!
”

I can hear it too.

There's something there.

There's a new sound; not the snow, not the wind,
something else, sort of whispery. And light too – not
torchlight, fainter. What is it? Is it—

“
Moll
,” says Hannah. “There's something coming!”
She tugs on my arm, but I pull away.

And see her.

She's standing in the snow, clear as anything. She
doesn't look like a ghost. She looks absolutely real.
She looks so real that I wonder if we should open the
door and let her in.

She stands there smiling at us, normal as anything,
just smiling at us through the glass.

Then she's gone.

 

 

 

 

Outside, the world is quiet. Inside, we're curled up
together in my bed, cold toes pressed against cold
legs, arms around each other, buried in a pile of every
quilt and blanket we can find.

“Did you see her?” says Hannah, again.

“Yes,” I say.

“Was it real?” says Hannah. “Was it Mum?”

“Yes,” I say. “I think so.”

We're quiet, thinking. Hannah moves beside me,
under the quilt.

“Molly?” she says.

“Mmm?”

I'm watching the shadows of the curtains on the
wall. Is a shadow something real? Is a ghost?

“Don't you mind?” says Hannah.

Does it matter?

“Mind what?” I say.

What about cold? I'm thinking. Is cold something
real? Or night? You can't touch them. But they're there.

“Living here. With Grandma.”

“Of course.”

“You never say,” says Hannah. I think about it.

“We can't go back and live with Dad,” I say at last.
“Even if he wanted us, we couldn't.”

Hannah pulls the quilt up over herself.

“Other dads do,” she says. “And mums. Mum
would've, wouldn't she? He could've. If he'd really
tried, he could. He just didn't want to.”

I'm tired, suddenly. I'm tired of Mum being gone,
and Dad living away and everything being so
complicated. I'm tired of trying to understand it all. I
rest my head against her shoulder.

“Is that really true?” I say.

Hannah doesn't answer for the longest, longest time.

“Hannah?”

She twists around and rubs her head against my
cheek.

“No,” she says. “Not really.”

We're quiet.

It's the longest night of the year.

We lie together there in the bed, waiting for the day
to come.

 

 

 

 

“Moll,” says my dad, kneeling on the floor beside me.
“Are you listening? Moll?”

I'm sitting under a blanket in Grandpa's big chair.
I'm watching
A Muppet Christmas Carol
and eating cheese
on toast and tomato soup. It's like being ill, the same
heavy feeling.

“Was—” he stops, then starts again. “Was there
really someone in the snow?”

I nod. “My man.”

“Moll
. . .
” Dad stops again. You can see him
fighting to get whatever it is he wants to say out. “I
don't think your man was that sort of real,” he says
eventually. “Was he? Hey? Not real like—” He looks
at me like he wants me to say it for him, but I'm
saying nothing. “Real like Father Christmas is real,” he
says eventually. “Or the Easter Bunny. Hey?”

“Real's real,” I say.

“Yes,” says Dad. “I know. But
. . .
the policemen
looked last night, Moll. There wasn't anyone there. I
think—” He stops. “It's
. . .
like a story,” he says. “It
feels
real – but it doesn't
really
happen.”

“But it
did
,” I say, hopelessly. “It did.”

I expect him to argue. Mum would have argued.
Grandma would have dismissed me. Grandpa would
kiss me and tell me he loved me anyway. But Dad just
opens his mouth and shuts it again, like he can't think
of anything to say.

 

 

 

 

It's very, very early. It's still dark.

It's Christmas morning and the stocking on the
end of my bed is full; I can see it. I want to know
what's in it, but I'm scared to look. I'm scared that
Dad doesn't know how Christmas stockings work, like
Mum did. Does he know there's supposed to be an
orange? And nuts in shells? And chocolate money and
a selection box? Does he know there's always a book
and a soft toy?

Outside, it's stopped snowing, but there's still this
thin, pale coating of snow over the roofs of the
houses. It's a white Christmas. Normally, this would
be the most exciting thing ever, but now it just looks
empty. Like the whole world knows my man isn't there
any more. I'm scared that this emptiness will get into
Christmas and spoil it.

Christmas is too important to spoil.

I pull my stocking off the bed and go into
Hannah's room. She's still asleep, lying on her
stomach, her face buried in the pillow. I shake her
shoulder.

“Hannah. Han-nah.”

She moans.

“It's Christmas.”

Hannah rolls over and rubs her eyes.

“Are there presents?”

“Lots.”

Hannah doesn't care about things not being right
when there are presents. She tips her stocking out on
the bed and starts tearing the wrapping paper off
things. There's a soft toy dog, a selection box, a
CD
. . .
but then I can't wait any longer.

And it's OK. I don't know if Dad bought the
things himself or if Grandma or one of my aunties
helped, but it's OK. All the things that ought to be
there
are
there, and more – a hardback Jacqueline
Wilson book (Mum only ever bought the
paperbacks), a notebook with unicorns on it and
unicorn stickers, a friendship bracelet kit and a DVD
of
The Secret Garden
that either Auntie Rose bought by
mistake or surely, surely means we're going back home
soon, because Grandpa doesn't have a DVD player.

Best of all are the little pile of things at the bottom
of the pillowcase that come from the UNICEF
catalogue, which is where Dad gets all his Christmas
presents. They're the least exciting things in the whole
stash – a T-shirt with a dove on it, a jigsaw puzzle and
a cookery book of different foods from around the
world. Hannah barely looks at hers. But I keep mine
close beside me, because I know for certain that they
come from Dad.

 

Christmas happens.

I get presents from all sorts of random people who
never normally send me things. I get some from
people I never even knew existed – Great-auntie June,
who's Grandpa's sister and breeds cats – Terry and
Maggie, who used to be our next-door neighbours
when I was a baby – someone called Linda, who even
Dad has never heard of.

“Who
are
these people?” says Hannah.

“They're people who care about you,” says Dad,
but Hannah isn't impressed.

“Do I have to write them all thank-you letters?” she
says, waving a bottle of bubble bath. “Even for stuff
like
this
?”

“Next year,” says Grandma. “I might not bother
buying you a present, if that's how you behave.”

“I liked yours,” says Hannah, quickly. I got roller
blades from Grandpa and Grandma but Hannah got
money, which she likes much better.

 

After we've opened the presents, we sit quietly
together in the living room. It's dark apart from the
Christmas tree, which is glowing away in a corner,
little coloured lights shining off the tinsel. I don't
think there's anything more beautiful in the world
than a Christmas tree.

Hannah's sitting on the floor rearranging her
present stash again. Hannah can never sit still for long.
Grandpa's leaning back in his chair watching Dad.
Grandma's drinking her Christmas sherry, watching
Grandpa, watching us.

These are my family, I think. I squeeze my eyes
tight shut to save the picture in my head. I remember
the Holly King, still out there.

Go away,
I think, as loud as I can.
Don't get these. These
are mine. Don't get anything else that belongs to me.