The Whispers of Wilderwood Hall (10 page)

Pulling my phone out of my back pocket, I press Shaniya's number on the screen, and hope she'll pick up.

“Come on, come on, come on…” I mutter as the dialling tone burrs.

“Hey, Ellis!” she says, sounding brighter than she did earlier. Good.

“Hi. Listen, is now OK to talk?” I check with her.

“Ha! You sound like a spy, about to tell me some secret of national importance!”

There she goes, slipping into the joking straight away. But I'm not sure I'm in a joking mood. Everything about today so far is too overwhelming, too deeply strange to joke about.

“
Look, I just wanted to tell you what's been going on,” I begin, hoping Shaniya can hear the urgency in my voice and know I'm not fooling around. “Things have got pretty crazy around here.”

“What – been hearing more ghostly voices? MWAH HA HA!”

I go instantly cold. Not because of Shaniya's fake evil laugh but because of the other voices I can hear laughing now.

“Who's there?” I ask her.

“I'm just with the girls. We're going to hang out at Camden Market this afternoon. Oh, here comes the bus. Talk to you later, yeah?”

With a dull, soft click my connection to London is gone.

Putting the phone down on to the windowsill, I begin to idly twirl it around on the dusty surface, all the while wishing, wishing, wishing…

With Shaniya too busy with our other friends to miss me, I wish there was someone, anyone else I could call right now and tell them about my insane Day Two at Wilderwood Hall. Like a grandparent. I mean, I wish I had the sort of granny who wouldn't mind me calling her at strange times of the day, not if I really needed a chat. The sort who likes to hear
you
yak about dumb stuff like how cute your new trainers are and doesn't just grill you about your latest marks in school tests.

And sometimes I wish I had a dad I could phone once in a while, who cared about me even if he lived thousands of miles away. Well, part of that is true; my dad
does
live thousands of miles away, in Florida, with his pretty wife and three adorable little kids, who he loves madly, it looks like from his Facebook profile. I sneak a peek at it from time to time.

I'm still wishing and twirling when I suddenly remember something. The photo I took in the café this morning, of the print on the wall.

Quickly, I find it and click – there it is. Flick, flick,
flick
and it's as enlarged as I can make it on my small screen.

Flitting from one face to the other, I study the faces I don't know: Mr and Mrs Richards,
lots
of male servants, three maids I haven't glimpsed in my fleeting visits to the other, long-ago Wilderwood yet. Are these … I try to remember the names Flora mentioned … Jean, Ann and Catriona?

Then there are the faces I've
definitely
seen: Mrs Strachan the housekeeper, Mrs Wallace the cook,
Miss
Matilda the governess, Minnie the kitchen maid, and Flora, of course.

Everyone in the image – from top-hatted Mr Richards to the lowliest servant – holds themselves stern and steady and somewhat proudly. Everyone except for the fidgety little boy, of course. And Flora. She is staring directly into the camera lens, chin dropped defensively towards her chest, her expression weary and worn, like a badly treated dog waiting for its next beating.

Poor Flora … if I could see her, comfort her, somehow reach out (reach
back
?) and help her.

Then a thought pops sharply into my head: down in the old kitchens, Flora was being told off for not having the water ready for the little boy's bath. And Mrs Strachan said Archibald must be ready for the photographer coming. For
this
actual photograph… ? It had to be! A professional photographer coming to your house in those days would have been a very big deal, so—

“Ellis? Ellis?”

I move so fast when I hear Mum shouting for me that I nearly drop my phone as I try and stuff it back in my pocket.

“Hi!” I say, stumbling out into the corridor.

Mum
quickly slaps on a smile when she sees me, though she looks exhausted. She seems tinier than ever, as if all her energy has been sucked out of her. Eloise is close behind, mouth tight and eyes fixed to the ground. But straight away I can tell that she's been crying; her eyes are red-rimmed behind her cool geek glasses. It's not as if I know her well enough to go give her a hug, but it's actually not the fact that my brand-new stepsister is a stranger that stops me. Eloise just doesn't seem to be the sort of person who'd appreciate an arm around her shoulder. She prickles with some kind of leave-me-alone emotional electrical fence.

“Right, then!” Mum says, all brittle with fake brightness. “Eloise—”

“Wheezy,” Eloise says bluntly.

For a second, I'm confused. Is she telling us she feels ill? Is she asthmatic, maybe?

“Oh, yes … sorry. Ellis, Eloise likes to be known by her nickname,” Mum explains to me. “So
Weezy
, I'll get you a towel, and you can have a shower. We've got lots of nice gel and shampoo and things in the bathroom, so help yourself.”

“Weezy” barely acknowledges what Mum has just said.

“
And meanwhile, Ellis, we can fix up the futon and make that room opposite yours a bit more comfortable for Weezy. Right?”

Now it's
my
turn to barely acknowledge Mum. This Weezy girl is
staying
? How long for?! RJ isn't due back for another month. She can't stay here all that time, can she?
Can
she? Doesn't she need to be back at her school, or home with her mum or something?

“Sure,” I finally reply, and go to grab the blue IKEA bag of spare bedding that's been sitting in the corridor with all the other still-to-be-put-away boxes and bags. My head reeling, I lug it off towards the “guest” bedroom, and dump the bulging bag on the floor next to the folded-up futon. Even though it's on the first floor, this room is dark and dingy, and extra cold too, I think, gazing around.

I should put the light on, I decide, and walk over to flip the ancient-looking round switch. I'll probably get electrocuted, knowing my luck…

But oh … it's not
pain
I feel flickering in my finger. The prickles turn to tap-tap-tapping, as if a message is being telegraphed to me, travelling up the length of my arm.

“
Guh-guh-guh
…”

The taps turn to a soft sound. I press my fingers
harder
on the chipped white ceramic switch, the better to “listen”.

“
Guh-guh-GUH!
” the sound continues, growing steadily louder, as a word begins to form.

And then I leap out of my skin as a tall blonde girl rushes past me and into the room.

“GET DOWNSTAIRS RIGHT NOW!” she shrieks at someone.

I whip around and see the room as dark and dingy as ever, but with a thin curtain at the window and not just cobwebs. Two sagging beds are pressed up against each wall, an unsteady small table between them with a stub of candle in a tin holder resting on it. On one wall is a single framed picture of a posy of mauve pansies. It tries and fails to cheer the room.

Of course, this is where Flora sleeps. But where is she?

The shrieking girl, dressed in a housemaid's outfit same as Flora's, slams the door shut and exposes Flora, who is standing (hiding?) behind it.

“I came to pin my hair, Jean,” Flora mumbles, pointing at the small, chipped mirror on the wall. “Mrs Strachan told me that I was to tidy myself up, before the photographer gentleman summons us.”

Flora
has metal pins between her teeth, I see. She's trying to fix her unruly, springy curls before they get her into more trouble.

“You've had PLENTY of time to do that!” the young woman called Jean yells.

“But on the way here Catriona saw me and asked that I stoke the nursery fire while she got afternoon tea for the young master and Miss Matilda!” Flora says, her bottom lip trembling.

“Excuses! You
always
have excuses, don't you, Flora? Well, I'll be having a word with Mrs Strachan about this and see about docking your wages for—”

I can't bear it any more. All I've heard are people nipping and niggling and sniping at Flora today. How can she stand to be treated in this way? How can she put up with a life like this? I can't
bear
bullying. The idea that someone can have such power over you, that they can make a fool of you and talk to you like you're dirt…

So without thinking it through, or even thinking if it's
possible
, I do something. I reach over and tug at the bow of Jean's apron.

“What?” she shrieks as it flaps loose and falls to the floor. Flora's hands fly to her mouth to stop a laugh spurting out.

“
Just – just get yourself downstairs,” mutters Jean, bending quickly to gather up her apron and bustling out of the room.

It's then that Flora lets her hands fall from her face and looks at me.

“How is it that you could do that?” she asks. “What kind of spirit are you?”

My heart starts pounding. I don't know how it is that I'm suddenly able to do a physical action in this other Wilderwood. I thought I was just an observer, as visible in this world as air, to everyone but Flora.

“I'm not a spirit,” I say quickly. “I'm just a normal person. And I live … in another time, and another way, in this house.”

I hope that's enough of an explanation for her… I recognize that Flora is a frightened, bullied girl, and I don't want to frighten her any more by claiming to be from some freaky future plane.

But Flora needs more.

“
What
other time?” she demands.

“Tell me this year first,” I ask, stalling as I try and get my thoughts straight.

“Why, it's 1912. April, 1912,” Flora answers, her brown eyes locked on mine, waiting for my reply.

“
OK … well, I live here more than a century later. It's April too, but April 2016.”

“April 2016,” Flora repeats, her eyes dark and her skin pale with shock. “When I am long, long dead.”

“And I'm not even born in your world,” I add, not wanting her to dwell on that last fact. “I'm not alive for another ninety-one years.”

We both stare at each other, eyebrows raised, absorbing these head-twisting truths.

“I don't understand,” Flora says at last, her face a picture of bewilderment.

“Neither do I,” I say with a shrug.

“Can you come and go from here to … to
there
whenever you want?” asks Flora, stepping a little closer to me, her eyes frantically scanning, taking in every detail of me.

“I don't know how this works. This morning, when you saw me on the landing by the nursery, it was the first time it's ever happened.”

“Oh, how my grandmother would have loved this!” Flora says in an excited whisper, now gently touching me on the cheek to confirm to herself that I'm a living, breathing girl. A ripple of pity hits me as I feel the roughness of her calloused hands. “If only I could tell her I have her gift…”

“
Your gran; she's not alive any more?” I ask.

“No. She passed just after my parents sent me here to work,” says Flora.

It suddenly occurs to me that Flora doesn't look much older than me.

“How old are you?” I ask her.

“Fourteen last birthday. Same as Minnie…”

Flora looks over at one of the beds in the room with a bitter expression.

“Minnie is the kitchen maid; is that right?” I say, remembering the girl's accusation that Flora had deliberately spilt boiling water on her.

“And Cook's pet,” Flora replies. “Same as Jean the head housemaid is Mrs Strachan's pet, and Catriona the nursery maid is Miss Matilda's pet, and Ann the ladies' maid is the mistress's pet. Everyone here is someone's pet – everyone except for
me
…”

Flora looks suddenly so forlorn, so lonely, that I reach out to touch her arm, but then everything changes back. Or is that forward? Because Mum has just charged in between us with a table lamp in her hand and a colourful throw over her shoulder.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sweetheart!” she says,
dumping
the lamp and rug down and gathering me up in a sudden hug. “I know that it's a bit of a shock having Eloise – I mean
Weezy –
turn up out of the blue like this.”

I glance over Mum's shoulder and see that Flora is gone, that there is nothing on the wall but a faint oval patch on the faded paintwork where a mirror might have once hung.

“What's going on?” I ask Mum, hoping I seem normal, and not part-lost in the other Wilderwood. “Why's Elo— Weezy here?”

“She ran away. OK, maybe she didn't quite
run away
exactly – she has just turned eighteen, after all,” Mum qualifies, “but let's say she left home on the spur of the moment to come find RJ, and confront him.”

“Confront him about what?”

“Look, it's all a bit of a disaster,” Mum says, lowering her voice, although I can now clearly hear the rush and the gurgle of water from the shower room down the corridor.

“A disaster how?” I ask, watching Mum bite the inside of her lip.

“It turns out that Weezy didn't know anything about the wedding…”

“
Your
wedding?” I ask Mum dumbly, as I try and get my focus back to the here and now.

“Yes,” she says, dropping her arms from around me and peering warily in the direction of the corridor, as if she's worried that Weezy will appear in the doorway in nothing but a towel and an accusing stare. “She found out about it on Twitter.”

Wow. My first impressions of Weezy might not be good, but even
I
can see how harsh it would be to find out your dad had remarried via social media.