Midnight (4 page)

I'd always been a little scared of Miss Lang. She was very old, and she walked with a bad limp, so she had to use a black shiny stick. I didn't like the sound of its
tap tap
tap
. I used to run away when I heard her coming, but one day she called after me and asked if I'd like to come to tea. I didn't fancy the idea at all but didn't know how to say no politely. It was a bit of an ordeal. I had to sit up straight and sip my tea very carefully from a golden cup
and nibble daintily at pink wafer biscuits but I managed not to spill anything and Miss Lang seemed to take a shine to me. She asked Will to tea too, but he fidgeted and yawned and showered sponge cake crumbs everywhere and didn't get invited back.

I went to tea with Miss Lang on a weekly basis. In the summer we had tea in the garden. She made lemonade and iced fairy cakes and we ate them sitting in green canvas chairs under her apple tree. We'd chat for a little while and then Miss Lang would read me strange fairy stories from old-fashioned books with brightly coloured covers, yellow and red and blue and pink – and violet! She gave me
The Violet Fairy Book
for my tenth birthday, wrapping it up in rainbow paper and tying it with a purple satin ribbon.

Poor Miss Lang had a stroke soon afterwards and was taken away in an ambulance. She never came back. She didn't die straight away. Mum thought she'd gone into some kind of nursing home. Then a van came and someone cleared all the contents of her house, even the coloured fairy books. The house started crumbling and the garden became a thicket of brambles and ivy, as if the fairies in the books had put a spell on it.

Mum and Dad were forever complaining about the state of the house and the garden, saying it was dragging the price of
our
house down. Squatters moved in and held loud parties and Dad was outraged. He got them evicted eventually and after that the house was boarded up and the windows bricked in. It made it look ugly and frightening. The garden turned into a total
wilderness, rank with weeds. Dad hacked savagely at any plant daring to creep over our fence.

Now I was standing in the garden, hunched up tight, not daring to take a step further. Will gripped my wrist tightly, tense himself. I wondered what he could see.

‘Let's go back, Will,' I begged.

‘No, Violet. Let's go forward,' said Will, pulling me.

The grass reached right up my legs so I had to wade through it like water. Brambles tore at me, branches flipped into my face. Will steered me slowly, telling me to duck and dodge, but I was clumsy with fear and kept blundering into things. I couldn't help thinking there might be someone in the garden watching us.

‘Is there anyone there, Will?' I whispered.

‘Oh yeah, Miss Lang's ghost. Watch out, she's coming to spook you,' said Will. ‘Help, help, she's coming!'

I knew he was fooling around but I could suddenly see her, luminous white in a long nightgown, her face twisted sideways with her stroke. I could hear the rasp of her breath, the shuffle of her slippered feet, the
tap,
tap tap
of her stick. I knew I couldn't see anything under my blindfold, and I was simply hearing my own breath, my own footsteps – but I still clutched Will desperately.

‘Leave go of me!'

‘But I'm so scared, Will. I hate it out here.'

‘OK, OK. We'll go indoors,' said Will.

He didn't lead me back towards the gap in the hedge. He led me onwards, to the back of Miss Lang's house. He had to be playing another trick on me. We couldn't
possibly get inside. All the doors were boarded up, the windows bricked in.

The windows at the front. They hadn't bothered to brick the back windows. I heard Will bashing at some catch and then felt him pushing hard. Something splintered and Will hurtled forwards.

‘Now comes the tricky bit,' said Will, breathing heavily. ‘You've got to do exactly as I say, Violet. Just follow me.'

I didn't
have
to follow him. I could tear the blindfold from my face and run away from him. I could barricade myself back in my own room till Mum and Dad came back. What was the time? What if they came home early and we were missing?

I couldn't concentrate on Mum and Dad now. This was just Will and me. I had to stand up to him. I wasn't a stupid baby any more. I didn't have to do what he said. He didn't have any real power over me. He still had a hold on me but he was scrabbling upwards, obviously trying to get in the window. I could tug my arm free now, when he was trying to balance on the sill. Now!

‘Now, Violet!' Will hissed.

I did as I was told. I scrambled after him, blindly obedient. He hauled me up and swivelled me round and pushed me out over the sink. I got painfully caught on the taps for a moment but then I fell with a thump onto the cold kitchen floor.

I lay there, winded.

‘Violet? Vi, are you all right?' Will touched my shoulder, giving me a little shake. He sounded scared
but he still didn't take the blindfold off. I lay holding my breath as long as I could, wanting to make him really worried.

‘I know you're pretending,' said Will, but he bent right down and put his face against mine to see if I was breathing. His cheek was as smooth and soft as a girl's. His hair tickled my forehead. I twitched.

‘You bad girl,' said Will. He tickled me under the chin. I shrieked and squirmed away from him.

‘There! Making out you're dead!'

‘I
feel
dead,' I said. ‘You're killing me, Will, dragging me into hedges and through windows, acting like we're on some crazy quest.'

‘We're not finished, yet,' said Will.

‘
Please
take the blindfold off. It's really hurting, cutting right into my head. My eyes feel like they're being poked back into my brain.'

I remembered my old baby doll and the terrible day her blue eyes disappeared into the back of her head and rattled inside. I felt as blind and helpless now.

Will pulled me along and I stumbled after him, through the kitchen, along the hall, in and out of the front room and then the living room. Our footsteps echoed horribly as we walked over the bare floorboards. I struggled to keep a plan of the house in my head but it was getting harder and harder. It stopped being Miss Lang's ordinary suburban semi, the mirror image of ours. It was distorted into a dark maze and I felt as if I was never going to find my way out.

Will led me up the stairs. I tripped on every step. We
seemed to be going up and up and up – but when we reached the top at last it still wasn't over. We didn't go right or left along the landing. We were going up again.

‘Here,' said Will, putting my hands on the rungs of a ladder.

‘I can't! I
can't
, Will. Not blindfolded.'

‘Yes you can. I'm just behind. Go on. Up.
Up!
'

I went up, Will pushing me every time I stopped. I started sobbing, my nose running. I hated Will for doing this to me. I hated myself for letting him.

He was reaching over my head, struggling to push the trapdoor open. We were going up into the attic. I felt my way up the last few rungs of the ladder, knowing that I could easily fall and break my neck.

‘I've got you,' said Will, beside me now, hand under my elbow, helping me. I hauled myself up, right into the attic.

There was a strange smell, not just dust and mould. I straightened up cautiously. I heard Will switch on the light. And then there was a flapping and a rushing as little creatures flew at me, their wings beating in my face.

Dear C.D.,

I wonder if you've got a brother? Did he ever scare you when you were young? Did you ever stand up to him?

I wish I knew how to stand up to Will.

I wish you were my brother. I wish you were my friend. I wish you could write to me.

With love from

Violet

XXX

THEY WERE BATS,
flying all round me, flapping their weird black wings. I screamed and screamed, waving my hands wildly, trying to beat them away. Will helped me tear the blindfold off and let me escape down the ladder first. My shoes slid on the rungs and I scraped my shins. I ran along the landing, raking my long hair with my fingers, terrified one of the bats might be tangled up in it.

I hurtled down the stairs, along the hallway, blundering in the gloom even without the blindfold. I heaved myself up onto the draining board in the kitchen, edged out of the broken window, and then raced down the garden. I wove my way through the long grass, scared there were more little darting creatures hiding there. I found the gap in the hedge and burrowed my way through.

I straightened up in our own garden. It looked so neat and ordinary, the grass clipped, all the plants carefully pruned. I ran to the back door and got into the kitchen just as the old grandfather clock in the hall was chiming midnight.

It was a shock seeing how muddy I was. I'd made dirty footprints across Mum's newly polished floor-tiles. I took my trainers off and rushed upstairs to the bathroom. I locked the door and then started running a bath, struggling out of my filthy clothes.

Will banged on the door. ‘Vi?'

‘Go away, you
pig
.'

‘Oh, for God's sake, Violet.'

‘I'm having a
bath
. Clear off.'

‘Look, I didn't know about the bats, I swear I didn't.'

Will was so good at lying you never knew when he was telling the truth.

‘Vi, talk to me.'

I pressed my lips together, rubbing soap all over myself. I dunked my head in the water too, massaging shampoo in so fiercely I scratched my scalp. I needed to wash away the feel of the bats. I kept twitching and shuddering as if they were still flying into my face.

‘You're being very childish,' said Will, rattling the doorknob.

I said nothing, rinsing my hair.

‘If you don't answer I'm coming in,' said Will.

My heart started thumping. I'd locked the door, but the lock was old and faulty. We both knew Will only
had to shove the door hard and the lock would give.

I waited.

He waited.

Eventually I heard him walking away, along the landing to his own room.

I breathed out. The blood was beating in my head. I could even feel it in my eyelids. It felt as if tiny wings were trying to fly through my lashes. I rubbed my eyes hard with the towel, and then stood up. The bath had been too hot. I felt dizzy and had to lean against the wet tiled wall. When the room stopped whirling round I wrapped myself in the largest towel, grabbed my muddy clothes and listened at the door. I waited, steeling myself, and then made a dash for it along the landing to my own room.

I was in bed when Will came knocking again.

‘Violet?'

I didn't have a lock, faulty or otherwise, on my bedroom door.

Will knocked again – and then opened the door.

‘Get out!'

‘I'm not
in
. Vi, please, I want you to listen to me. I didn't mean to frighten you. I just wanted to play the old game and I got a bit carried away. I was just trying to spook things up a bit by going next door. But then it got way too spooky, even for me. Those bats gave me a fright too. Did you see their little vampire faces and those pointy teeth? I didn't know they were lurking there, I swear I didn't. You do believe me, don't you?'

I picked up one of my early Casper Dream fairy books
and started slowly turning the pages, taking no notice of Will.

‘Vi? Listen to me.'

He walked into the room and snatched my book away. I made a grab for it. Will held it high above his head.

‘Give it back! Are you mad? It's a first edition, worth a fortune.'

‘I'm not harming it.'

‘Yes you are. You're getting your muddy hands all over the cover, look!'

Will looked, and saw the little smears from his fingerprints. He wiped the laminated cover with his sleeve.