Season of Secrets (14 page)

 

 

 

 

New Year comes. Dad goes back home. Last year, I
would have expected him to take us with him, but
this year I wouldn't be surprised if he left without
even saying goodbye.

Dad seems to care, though. The night before he goes,
he teaches me and Hannah poker and stays up until
after midnight playing with us for IOUs written on bits
of paper. He's better at games than he is at talking
about what's real and what isn't. In the end, he loses
everything, leaving us both with paper scraps promising
me a bear cub, a Chinese junk and a light sabre and
Hannah a mansion, a Mercedes and a million pounds.

When I go to bed, he lifts me up off the ground
and squeezes me.

“All right, Molly mine?” he says.

I wrap my legs around his hips and rest my head
against his shoulder.

“You owe me a bear cub,” I say.

“I owe you a lot more than that,” he says, and he
lowers me back to the floor and goes downstairs,
leaving me wondering.

When I wake up in the morning, he's gone.

We go back to school. We've finished the Vikings
and we're doing Bridges, which Mrs Shelley says we're
not to complain about because it Wasn't Her Idea and
at least it'll give us something to do with all those
cereal boxes.

It stays cold. Not exciting snow-and-hail cold. A
dull, grey, miserable kind of cold.

I don't see the Holly King again. Maybe he won't
ever come back. Now he's won.

I go back to the barn, once, before Dad leaves. I
look inside and all around the back. I call him by all
the names that I know. Oak King. Green Man. I don't
call for long. I feel silly; calling for someone who isn't
there.

When I'm done, I go and look at his tree. It's quite
dead. The wood is pale and chipped and worn away.
It's shiny with wet and slimy with rot. It looks about
five hundred years old.

Looking at it, I find it hard to remember that I
believe in things that come back from the dead. I can
barely believe, looking at it, that it was ever even alive.

 

And back in the real world, no one has noticed that
everything's changed. Josh and Hannah are still Josh
and Hannah. Emily is still Emily and Dad is still Dad.
He still comes and takes us out, though now he does
seem to be trying to make more of an effort.

“Look,” he says. “I've bought you a present.” And
he brings out a magazine, or a Kinder egg, or a second
advent calendar cheap in the sales.

“Thank you,” I say, and he puts his head on one
side.

“Hey,” he says. “Moll. It's not the end of the
world.”

I don't answer.

Grandpa is still Grandpa. When we come home
from school he looks up from the till.

“How was school?” he says.

“Horrible,” grumps Hannah, and stumps through
to the kitchen to see if there's any past-the-sell-by-date
cake to eat.

“Really horrible?” says Grandpa, and I rest my arms
on the counter and lay my head down on top of them.

“OK really,” I say, and he pats my shoulder.

“How about you put the new stock out for me?” he
says – or mop the floor – or take those boxes out – or
mind the till while I make a cup of tea? And I'll nod
and do whatever it is he's saved for me; so long as I get
to stay here close by him.

As I work, I'll catch him looking at me.

“Really OK?” he'll say, sometimes, like I'm hiding
some big terrible secret. I don't tell him that I don't
need a terrible secret. The things he knows about are
terrible enough.

 

And January turns into February, and I come up the
hill from school with the wind in my hair and the cold
in my fingers and I wonder if I'll feel like this for
ever.

 

 

 

 

Today, when we pile into the schoolroom, Miss
Shelley is up by the whiteboard with a look on her
face that says we aren't doing maths this morning.

“Today,” she says, “is a very special day. Can anyone
tell me why?”

The boys all stick their hands in the air.

“It's your birthday!”

“It's Mrs Angus's birthday!”

“We're having a party!”

“We're having a trip!”

“We're going home!”

I don't want to go on a trip and my home is a
long way from here. What I hope is happening is
art. Something quiet and soothing, with flowy
water or coloured beads or crayons in soft pastel
colours.

“No,” says Miss Shelley. “Today is Candlemas.”

“What's Candlemas, miss?” says Matthew.

“Candlemas is the midpoint between the winter
solstice and the spring equinox,” says Miss Shelley.
She looks at our blank expressions (not mine! I
remember this!) and laughs. “In one sense,” she tells
us. “It's the first day of spring. In Roman times,
people used to have processions through the streets
with torches and candles. They would take the candles
to churches to be blessed.”

“Torches?” says Matthew, like the Romans had
electric torches, with batteries.

“Flaming torches, stupid,” says Hannah.

 

Miss Shelley puts us into groups and we make candles
all morning. Usually we're three groups; boys, girls
and littlies, and it ends up with me and Emily getting
bossed about by Hannah. But today Miss Shelley puts
Hannah with Josh and Matthew, and Alexander with
me and Emily.

It's a nice change not being in a group with
Hannah. I can hear her on the other table, arguing
over scissors.

“But you aren't even
using
them!”

“They're
mine
!”

Emily and Alexander and I look at each other,
shyly.

Miss Shelley gives out cardboard to make candle
moulds and crumbly wax and soft white string for wicks.

Emily makes cone-shaped candles. Lots of cone-shaped
candles.

Alexander's candle is like a rocket. It's the inside of
a toilet roll with a cardboard cone Sellotaped to one
end of it. He makes the mould, then he stares at it for
ages.

I've never talked properly to Alexander before. He
always tags around with Josh and Matthew, but I
think that's just because there aren't any other big boys
in the school.

I like Alexander's rocket mould. And I think I like
Alexander. So I say, “What's wrong?”

Alexander scratches the back of his head. Then he
says, “It's fins. It needs fins. To go on the side.”

We look at the candle.

“You could make them out of cardboard,” says
Emily, in her soft voice.

“They have to be wax,” says Alexander. “A red wax
candle and blue wax fins.”

“You should make more moulds,” I say. I lean
forward to show him. “Out of plasticine. Then, when
the wax has set, you peel away the plasticine and stick
the fins to the candle. See?”

Alexander's plasticine rocket-fin moulds seem to
work. Everyone else has cardboard moulds except for
us. Emily makes a fish-shaped plasticine mould and a
dog-shaped mould. I make moulds that are supposed to
look like flowers, only they don't quite come out right.

It's nice. Almost like having friends.

“Look at Alexandra!” says Matthew, barging past
our end of the table. “Making flowers with the girls!”

Alexander goes bright red.

“I am not!”

And he spends the rest of the lessons bent over his
candle, so it doesn't look like he's talking to us.

 

We melt the wax and pour it into the moulds and
leave it to set while we do maths, then transporter
bridges, then the water cycle (again). Just before home
time, Miss Shelley turns off the big light and we light
them all. Rocket candles and rainbow candles and
candles scratched all over with graffiti.

There's a whole tableful of pointed yellow lights.

I close my eyes. Even with them shut, I can still see
the fuzzy orange candle flames.

Tiny little points of light in the darkness.

 

 

 

 

When we get home, Jack's having a bonfire.

I go out to watch him. The smoke has a wonderful
woodsy smell about it. The air is sharp and there's this
pale blue sky, so big and empty it almost hurts, with
just a few stringy clouds hovering round the edges.

“Like it?” says Jack, and I nod.

I like Jack. I like fire. I like how different things
behave when you put them on it. Crisp packets burn
with this big flame and then shrivel away to nothing.
Planks sit there for ages making up their minds, but
once they start burning they go and go. Logs
crackle. Wet wood hisses and smokes. And the leaves
from the hedge make friendly
pop – pop – pop
ping
sounds.

“Double, double, toil and trouble,” says Jack. “Fire
burn and cauldron bubble. Little witch, you are.”

“That's right,” I say. “I'm making a spell. Double,
double, double,” and I walk round the fire three times
widdershins, which is the opposite way to clockwise
and also magic.

“Don't you cast any spells on me!” says Jack.

“I'm making a weather spell,” I say. “A spell to
make it spring again.”

“Ah,” says Jack. He pokes the fire with a bit of
stick. “Spring'll come round without anyone wishing
for it,” he says.

“Soon?” I say.

“Soon enough,” says Jack, and throws the stick on
the fire.

 

 

 

 

At school, the candle project still isn't finished. Now
we have to make clay candle-holders. In the same
groups as before.

Matthew groans, deeply and dramatically.

“Why can't we swop groups, miss? Why do we have
to be with
her
?”

“Because,” says Mrs Angus, “it's about time you
learnt how to treat a lady.”

Josh and Matthew think this is hilarious.

“Watch out,” Josh coos, to Hannah. “
You
can't have
the clay. You're a
lady
.
You
might get dirty.”

“Shut it, gimp,” says Hannah.

 

Alexander and Emily and I make a big candle-holder
together.

“A
candelabra
,” says Alexander.

He rolls the word around in his mouth like it's
something magical. I like the idea of a word as magic.
I give Alexander my best words back. Nocturnal.
Luminescence. Malevolence. Sprat.

Alexander of the Roman-fort-loving-lecturer
parents is more than up for those.

“Mulligrubs,” he says.

Emily and I stare.

“That's not a word.”

“It is!” says Alexander. “It means to be sad.”

We're both suspicious. But Alexander hasn't
stopped yet.

“Oscitate,” he says. “That means yawning. Or
defenestrate – that means to throw someone out of a
window.”

I start to laugh. “There isn't a word for throwing
someone out of a window!”

“There is,” says Alexander. “Defenestrate. And
porknell – that means fat as a pig. And—”

“You're making these up!”

“I'm not,” says Alexander. He looks hurt. “I've got
a book of them at home.”

We both look at Emily. She ducks her head, staring
at her clay.

“Your turn,” says Alexander.

Emily doesn't say anything. She turns her head
away.

“It doesn't have to be a long word,” I say, to help
her.

“Splat!” says Alexander, to show her.

“Squish.”

“Boom.”

“Kablam.”

Emily smiles, a small, shy smile like a pink hamster
nose poking out of its house.

“Sparkle,” she says.

“Shine,” says Alexander.

“Fine.”

“Wine, opine, dine—”

“Give it me!”

Over on the other end of the table, Hannah and
Josh are fighting again. Josh is holding the clay knife
behind his back. Hannah lunges for it and he stumbles
back, laughing.

“Give it!”

“
Ladies
don't need knives,” says Josh. “Knives are
for
boys
. A
girl
might cut herself.”

Matthew gives a hiccuppy little laugh.

“I'll do your cutting,” says Josh. “You show me
what you want cutting, I'll do it. Just—”

Way over on the littlies' bit of the table, Sascha
squeals. Mrs Angus turns round, but she's too late to
stop Hannah picking up Josh's entire dragon
candelabra (with detachable flames) and throwing it at
him, splat bang in the middle of his face.

 

Hannah's in the biggest trouble ever.

“I started it, miss,” says Josh, but Miss Shelley
doesn't care.

“Hannah knew exactly what she was doing,” she
says. She makes Hannah write lines, like a Victorian
schoolgirl.

 

 

“Sorry,” Josh whispers as he bumps past her. He's
got clay all over his jumper, and bits of clay slicked
into his hair and ears where the soaping didn't reach.
He looks like a goblin. Hannah doesn't say anything,
but she gives him this big, triumphant smile.

 

At break, Alexander goes off after Matthew and Josh,
but he looks over his shoulder at me and Emily. Josh
ignores him. He's making an iceball out of the dirty
bits of crushed ice at the edge of the playground.
When Hannah comes out, he yells, “Oi!
Mudwoman!” and lobs it at her.

It hits the side of Hannah's coat. She stands utterly
still, then she charges at Josh, stuffing bits of crushed
iceball down the back of his coat. Josh squirms.

“Oi! Get off me! Madwoman!”

But he's laughing, and so is Hannah. I watch, trying
to figure out if they're friends now, or enemies. But I
can't work it out.