The Whispers of Wilderwood Hall (8 page)

Sucking at sudoku. A deep love of Motown songs. A bizarre craving for Marmite with peanut butter on toast. Surprisingly similar childhoods in sleepy seaside towns. Virtually matching bluebird tattoos (on Mum's ankle, on RJ's shoulder).

In between takes for the video shoot of “Turn the Corner”, Mum and RJ sat in the make-up room, hugging mugs of Earl Grey tea and chatting like instant old friends. The more they talked, the more coincidences popped up in the conversation, amazing and delighting them both. One particular coincidence that blew them away was the fact that they had daughters with such similar-sounding names: Ellis and Eloise.

I
don't know the order the coincidences came in, but when Mum told me about them, I did wonder if this – the pretty pairing of Ellis & Eloise – might have tipped Mum and RJ over the edge into love… But hey, the reality isn't very pretty.

We're both crammed together in the wide front seat of Mr Fraser's big white van, Eloise's parka bunched up against my denim jacket. Eloise bites at her ultra-short purple-varnished nails, and neither of us says a word while Mr Fraser drives us from the café to Wilderwood. Cam's two sheepdogs, whose seats we've stolen, I think, are howling in the back.

My
excuse for not talking is that my stomach, as usual, is churning from travel-sickness and anxiety, as the van jiggles and rocks first along the single-track road and now through the broken-down gates of the Wilderwood estate and on up the gravel driveway.

I don't know what Eloise's excuse for silence is; maybe travel-sickness too (didn't RJ once say something about that?) or maybe she's just sick at the sight of me, some stupid girl who's trying to steal her father away. All I do know is that she's said nothing to me apart from our initial, curt conversation back in the café, which ran along the lines of…

“
Can you take me to see my dad?”

“You mean RJ?”

“Yes.”

“Er, he's not at Wilderwood at the moment.”

“Oh.”

“Do you maybe want to speak to my mum?”

“…”

I'd taken that as a yes, since Eloise hadn't said no.

Guessing that my mobile wouldn't get reception, Moira the waitress then motioned for me to help myself to the café's landline. And so I'd been standing with the receiver pressed to my ear – desperately hoping Mum was located in some part of Wilderwood that had reception – when Mr Fraser popped into the café.

As I stood
willing
Mum to pick up (she didn't), Moira served Mr Fraser a takeaway coffee, found out he was heading back to Wilderwood with supplies he'd picked up, and arranged for him to take both me and Eloise home in his van.

“Well,” says Mr Fraser finally, his voice sounding forced and uncomfortable. “Here we are, girls…”

The van crunches to a stop outside the back entrance to the house, and Mum – who must've seen or heard it approaching – comes stepping out of the
doorway.
She gives Mr Fraser a wave hello but comes straight over to the passenger side when she spots me.

“Hey! Where've you been, Ellis?” Mum asks as I hurriedly clamber out. “I mean, I saw your note, but I thought you were just somewhere in the grounds. And when I came out and couldn't see you I started to… Oh!”

Mum has just caught sight of Mr Fraser's other passenger. Perhaps, with the shine of the windscreen, she'd thought at first that it was Cam keeping me company. But as RJ's daughter swings herself and her rucksack out of the van, hair fluttering and flopping around her shoulders, it's pretty obvious that it's someone very different.

“Eloise?” Mum says hesitantly.

Whoa. Does she recognize RJ's daughter from photos he's shown her? Or is it just the fact that Eloise looks – now I have a second to secretly study the girl properly – really, really like him?

“Hello,” Eloise says to Mum, with sub-zero warmth in her voice. “I thought my dad was going to be here. When will he be back?”

Eloise's red hair is flapping in the wind like a banner. She is as rangy and tall as her father and she towers over my tiny mum. But while RJ only
ever
looks at Mum with total, obvious, sometimes slightly
embarrassing
adoration, Eloise is gazing at my mother with something that's hovering between indifference and dislike.

(Out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly see another fleeting glimmer of light coming from the garden, same as I did this morning. When I have time, and the world isn't so weird, I might have to go and see what shiny something is lurking out there.)

“Your dad isn't going to be here for quite a while, Eloise. Listen, come on inside and we can talk,” Mum says to her, before turning, as an afterthought, to our builder.

“Sorry – are you OK to get on with what you need to do, Mr Fraser?” she checks with him, while he clatters and clanks tools out of the back of his van.

“Call me Gordon. And yes, Mrs Johnstone, I'll be fine.”

Eloise has her back to me, but I see her positively shudder at the way Mr Fraser's just addressed Mum. I suppose
her
mother was Mrs Johnstone, once upon a time. Beth Johnstone. I know that because I read it in
Heat
in the café yesterday when Mum was looking aghast at the photos…

“And call me Sadie, please,” Mum replies, almost
to
Eloise as much as Mr Fraser. With that, she ushers Eloise inside.

I go to follow – but it seems like I'm not allowed to. Mum's put her hand lightly on my arm, as a stop signal.

“Ellis, once we're upstairs, can you just give me and Eloise a bit of time on our own?”

Mum is looking at me pleadingly.

I don't want Mum to keep secrets from me. Secrets that she seems happily able to share with this complete stranger with the backpack.

“Sure, fine, whatever,” I say sulkily. Barging past Mum, I head inside. Eloise is already on the stairs, and turns to look down on me. But she needn't worry – I'm not going to inflict my company on her. Instead, I turn and push open the heavy door that will lead me through to the passage by the old kitchen. I'm not sure where I'm going, but I'd rather be here in the cool, silent, empty warren of rooms than upstairs, hearing the vague murmur of conversation I'm not allowed to be part of.

Ding-a-ling!

I stop and look up at the wall here in the passage, and see something I hadn't noticed before: a whole board of polished bells on coils of brass.

Ding-
a-ling!

The bells are so beautiful, and – like the old blackened range in the kitchen – one of the few original features of the house not to have been sold off, scavenged or stolen over the decades, I guess. Moving closer, I gaze up at the board, so I can read the lettering under each bell.

I haven't spotted any remaining bell pulls or buzzers in the rooms so far, so I'm guessing what's ringing is the front-door bell. Mr Fraser is probably armed with his electric screwdriver and fixing something out there, ahead of the other tradesmen Mum has coming in the next few days.

Ding-a-ling!
the bell goes more frantically.

As I peer at the perfectly painted copperplate lettering, my fingertips press against the cold wall – and begin to tingle.

Words … words are tickling and crackling and wending their way from the dry touch of the plaster, through my hands, my arms, and up into my mind.

“
Where is she? Where is she?
” the voice hisses.

A metallic clattering rattles into my hearing too. Alarmed, I whip my fingers off the walls, just as the bell
ding-a-ling
s again even more frantically.

Nursery
says the sign below it.

I
jump as a girl barges through the door I used just a second ago. In both hands she's clutching large empty tin jugs, which make it impossible for her to brush back the damp curls from round her face. It's the servant girl, the one who'd had the horrid, spoilt little boy upstairs try and get her into trouble.

So I
wasn't
imagining what happened earlier.

Or maybe I'm just going even more insane that ever…

“Flora! FLORA! Is that you, girl?” a woman's voice bellows from the kitchen. “Get yourself in here this moment.”

I hold my breath, and hold myself steady, still, willing Flora not to see me.

But from her pinched white face and with stress pinking her cheeks, I can tell that all she's focusing on is the woman yelling for her. Right now, I'm as visible as the steam I feel wisping from the kitchen doorway right next to me.

“Yes, Mrs Strachan!” I hear Flora say as she scurries into the busy, noisy room.

“Where on earth have you
been
?!” the scary voice roars. “Jean's looking for you. Miss Matilda requested bathwater for Master Archibald half an hour ago, so
he
can be ready for the photographer that's coming. She and Catriona have been waiting in the nursery all this time for you to bring it.”

All these names … names of people who look real, or sound real, but
can't
be real. Still, in this moment, they seem as alive and in the here and now as I am. Though I'm not alive to them, am I?

I'm more like … like a
ghost
from the future, who's turned a corner in time and become an unseen eavesdropper to the past.

But even in my strange, invisible state, I don't dare stroll right on into the kitchen and nosy at whatever drama is unfolding. Instead, I opt for inching along the wall, and peeking in the crack between the open door and its frame.

From my limited viewpoint, I can see a large, imposing middle-aged woman glowering at Flora. This Mrs Strachan has an impressive bunch of keys hanging from a chain around her waist, which makes me think she's the housekeeper here at Wilderwood.

A girl paler and scrawnier than Flora is lifting a heavy copper pan from the huge range, using cloths and surprising strength. Another woman, small, chubby and with rosy cheeks, is thunking dough on
a
long table, puffs of flour exploding as high as her elbows with every blow.

“I'm sorry, I – I—” Flora begins to stammer apologetically as she takes the copper pan from the other girl and hurriedly begins to pour it into her waiting jugs.

“Never mind your sorries, madam. Minnie practically boiled this water away waiting for you,” the housekeeper roars on. “Don't you know Mrs Wallace has need for the stove, without these bath kettles cluttering the place up?”

“I didn't mean to—”

“Yes, you never mean to do anything, do you, Flora Dean? And yet—”

“Oww!” comes a screech. “Mrs Strachan – Flora just scalded me!”

I didn't quite see what happened there; only that the girl Minnie (the kitchen maid?) is clutching her damp foot, trying to pull the wool of her black stocking off her skin to cool it.

“It was an accident, Minnie!” Flora insists desperately. “I'm sorry. I—”

“Out – out of here NOW, Flora…”

At the latest roar from the fearsome housekeeper, I leap back, out of sight, just as Flora comes running
empty-
handed out of the kitchen, her white apron held over her face as she sobs.

She hurries back the way she came, the heavy door slamming shut behind her.

Something makes me want to follow.

Passing the kitchen doorway, I risk a quick glance in. I see that the room is bare of noise, rush, clutter, and of life. The strangeness of this other world is gone, and I feel – I feel empty. Still, I yank open the heavy door and look up the stone stairs, wistfully wishing I could see a flurry of black skirts and boots.

But Flora isn't here. Or is it that I'm not
there
?

Clunk!

I jerk at the sound of the back door clicking shut. Flora? Or is it Mr Fraser? The trouble is, I have no idea … not
where
but
when
I am exactly. Maybe I'll find out, if I follow whoever went outdoors just now. My heart thunders as I put my hand on the big brass knob and twist it open.

A cool wind hits me.

Stepping into the fresh air, I wonder for a moment which way to go, but it's as if the breeze is blowing me down the short side of the East Wing, towards the front of the house.

Or
maybe the breeze isn't to blame. Perhaps it's the sound of sobbing that draws me on. Or the burbling of water in the beautiful, ivy-free fountain. Flora is perched on the granite lip of it, her face still covered by her apron.

As I draw closer to her, shock hits me. I'm shocked to realize that I don't feel frightened. I have no idea why that is. All I know is that it doesn't matter whether whiplash or hunger or even anaemia is causing my mind to play these wonderful, startling tricks on me. What does matter is that right at this second, there are no waves rolling in; I don't feel a single ripple of anxiety.

With only curiosity and calmness inside me, I walk towards the girl, my feet making no noise on the newly laid paving stones.

Then I watch, fascinated, as Flora slowly, warily drops her hands from her face. She raises her head and gazes off towards the grand, ornate, and probably locked gates at the bottom of the driveway. I wonder if she's focusing on the road beyond them that leads to the village … perhaps wishing she could just walk through those gates and down that road and escape this place.

Now I can see the freckles across her nose and the
deep
brown of her big, blinking eyes. More unruly curls than ever are escaping from her white cap.

I'm so busy staring and studying her, that it takes me completely by surprise when Flora turns her head sharply.

“Hello,” she says, her brown eyes locked on mine.