Ghostbird Read online

  ‘There were two owl feathers in the garden this morning; the black ones are from the rooks by the church.’

  Unless you knew what you were looking for it wouldn’t be obvious you were in a witch woman’s garden. The tiny lawn wasn’t quite a circle, the small pond lay as much to the south as the west. In the lea of the wall, pots of herbs stood on a flat slab of oak: sage and coltsfoot, peppermint and lemon balm. Impossible to identify, laced with spider web, a few old bones were scattered between the plants. A mass of clematis, jasmine and honeysuckle tumbled over the walls. In the borders, flower upon flower, marigolds and lavender, cornflowers as blue as heaven.

  ‘Can you hear the jasmine growing up the wall?’ Lili said.

  Cadi smiled.

  ‘Your grandmother planted it. You can trust a woman who plants a jasmine outdoors in Wales and makes it grow.’

  Cadi lit a candle. White as the moon, a moth fluttered near the flame, its wings beating in slow motion as it flew up and disappeared.

  ‘Where shall we put the feathers?’ Lili asked.

  ‘One in each quarter, and say a blessing,’ Cadi said with quiet determination.

  At the cherry tree, Lili closed her eyes. ‘Bless me mother for I am your daughter.’

  She could smell chaos. This evening, expectation tinged the air. She threw a silent protection around the garden.

  Cadi took a breath. ‘Bless me mother, for I am your child.’ Taking one of the feathers, she reached into the tree and fixed it between two twigs. ‘Please keep Cerys safe. She’s still got the return journey so, please, take her fear away. Blessed be.’

  She handed Lili an owl feather. Lili walked to where an ancient oil lantern hung on a twisted iron spike. Inside a light glowed, warm and friendly. Lili stuck the feather into the handle. ‘Blessed Mother, grant me wise words and infinite patience.’

  They exchanged a look.

  ‘Here,’ Cadi said, handing Lili another feather. ‘You do the west.’

  ‘It’s your turn.’

  ‘I want to do the north.’

  Lili took the feather. Now what?

  Kneeling by the pond, Lili placed the feather on the surface of the water, watching as it floated across the moon’s reflection. ‘Spirits of the west, bless us with love, and kindly natures.’ She closed her eyes. And protect this child.

  The shadow of a bird swooped across the garden. Cadi looked up. ‘Was that the barn owl?’

  ‘I think so, cariad.’

  ‘We hardly ever see them in the daytime, do we?’

  ‘People say owls are cursed and their screech can steal your soul. Or they’re ghosts, or they can predict death.’ Lili smiled. ‘They call them ghostbirds.’

  ‘Do you believe any of that, about death and curses?’

  Lili caught the sharpness in Cadi’s voice.

  ‘No, of course I don’t. I think they’re beautiful and wise and some of them are lonely.’

  ‘Why did Teilo call my sister Blodeuwedd?’

  Lili felt her heartbeat quicken. ‘To be honest, I never really understood why. It’s a lovely name, but she was a tragic character.’

  ‘And a woman who was never a little girl.’

  ‘That too.’

  ‘I remember a bit about her. We did the Mabinogion at school. It was pretty dreary.’

  ‘You know the story, about Blodeuwedd being created from flowers and that her name means flower-face?’

  ‘She got cursed and turned into an owl.’

  Lili nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘But owls are birds, she could have flown away. I don’t get it.’

  ‘I don’t think we’re meant to get legends. They’re allegories.’

  ‘Dora wasn’t symbolic. She was a proper little girl.’

  ‘Yes, she was.’

  ‘So why give her the name?’

  ‘Typical Teilo: your dad loved a bit of intrigue. And it is a pretty name.’ It seemed to Lili as if Cadi wanted to say more; she could almost feel the words wanting to spill out of her. ‘What is it?’

  They were both distracted by Mr Furry. He jumped down from the wall and wound himself around Cadi’s legs. She bent to stroke him, refusing to meet Lili’s eyes.

  Lili carried on talking. ‘Did you know an owl’s coat is made up of a thousand feathers? Imagine that.’

  Cadi sat on the grass, her arms wrapped around the cat. ‘Do you think the dead dream, Lili?’

  Lili caught her breath. ‘No, bach, I wouldn’t think so.’

  ‘You don’t know though.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So, say they do. What do you think they dream about? Do you think they dream about us?’

  Lili knelt beside Cadi. ‘If they do dream, then maybe it is about us. I don’t know.’

  Cadi didn’t say anything and for a moment Lili thought she might let it go.

  ‘Do you think they want to be remembered?’

  ‘Possibly, although it’s not as if they have a choice, is it?’ Lili frowned. ‘What’s this about, Cadi?’

  ‘Why not? If we dream about them, why wouldn’t they dream about us, or want to be remembered by us?’

  Lili hesitated, knowing her answer could be crucial. ‘Sometimes we don’t let them go. When people die, we wrap ourselves in memories of them, and look for comfort in the possibility they might speak to us. A ghost though, well, I wouldn’t imagine a ghost thinks like that.’

  ‘You don’t know. Not for sure.’

  ‘No, not for sure.’

  ‘Do you think Violet’s holding on to my sister?’

  Lili thought about the loneliness of owls. ‘To her memory, yes, she must be.’

  Cadi leaned into Lili. ‘Are there really only two photos of my dad?’

  So this is where we’ve been heading. Oh, I hate it when I’m right. Playing for time, she said she wasn’t sure.

  Cadi frowned.

  ‘Yes, alright, there probably are, someplace.’

  ‘Has Mam got any pictures of Dora?’ Cadi lifted her head. ‘I don’t even know what to call her. Dora or Blodeuwedd?’

  Partly because of the chill, mostly because Lili felt a need to protect her, she wrapped her arms tighter around Cadi. Goddess, help me and Violet forgive me.

  She remembered Teilo asking for the album. He’d wanted to show Violet the family snapshots, promised to take care of them. And then he died and she didn’t have the heart to ask Violet for the album back.

  ‘There were some,’ she said. ‘Your Mam will have put them away. There’s an album: family pictures going back years. I should have asked her for it. You’d like them.’ She pulled Cadi closer. ‘Try and imagine how hard it was for her.’

  ‘How can I, when I don’t know anything to imagine? I don’t even know my sister’s name. Why does Mam get so angry if you call her Blodeuwedd?’ Cadi twisted out of Lili’s embrace and stared hard at her. ‘If nobody talks to me, how am I supposed to know how it was? It’s my life too, Lili, and my family.’ She pulled further away. ‘I’m not an idiot, and you’ve as good as admitted she’s got some photos. It’s not fair; I’ve got a right to see them.’

  One last feather remained. Cadi got to her feet and Lili watched her run to where the cobweb-covered bones lay, to where she knew she would be facing north and where Lili told her Goddess would always listen for her. She thrust the feather into a pot of night stocks.

  ‘This one’s for truth,’ she said, her voice carrying across the dark garden. ‘Dear Goddess, I’m asking for the truth.’ Turning to Lili she said, ‘He wasn’t a coward. My dad wasn’t a coward.’

  Moonlight grazed the top of her head and as she disappeared through the gap in the wall, Lili caught a whiff of meadowsweet, and it smelled like trouble.

  Twenty-nine

  Turning the silver bangle over in her fingers, Cadi chanted the words in her head. Don’t tell.

  It was the middle of the night. Everything looked strange: her room, the moonlight through the window. Cadi half wished she’d asked to stay with
Lili. Opening the window, she breathed in. The air smelled of the lake the day she found the bangle. The damp earth threw up its own scent. Even under a full moon, in the darkness things looked different.

  Listen…

  Cadi blinked and looked down.

  On the edge of her mother’s garden, in the shadows, stood a child wearing a pale frock that might once have been yellow. Ribbons of weed and a scatter of wilting daisies threaded through her hair. The child stood perfectly still and Cadi’s breath slowed until she realised she was holding it. She glimpsed blue eyes and an expression of bleak longing. Feathers fell through the shadows, catching on the child’s shoulders like wings.

  Are you there?

  Cadi leaned out of the window so far she almost fell. ‘Yes, I’m here.’ She dared not shout. As she watched, the child’s eyes grew large, changing from blue to glittering amber, fixing Cadi with a gaze that made her shiver.

  Dora. Her sister reached through the opaque gloom, and into her. Is this how ghosts see us, by getting inside us? As she narrowed her eyes to see better, she heard the discordant bird cry from her dreams. It came from where the ghost child stood. Her eyes were locked onto Cadi’s then she turned her back, disappearing into a skein of mist.

  Without stopping to think, Cadi slipped downstairs and into the night.

  Although it was warm and the rain now little more than drizzle, her pyjamas were soon soaked and clinging to her legs, the fabric clammy with cold. Instead of the scent of roses and lavender, the air was filled with meadowsweet. She looked down. The path leading into Violet’s garden was patterned with damp footprints.

  There was no sign of the ghost child.

  In the darkness, the garden appeared even wilder than usual. Plants towered to twice their size. Roses loomed, black and menacing, their thorns caught the light of the moon and the skin on Cadi’s arm rose in goosebumps.

  Are you here?

  The voice in her head was high-pitched and plaintive. Once again Cadi heard a jumble of Welsh she only half understood.

  Something brushed against her legs. It caught in her hair. A tangle of black roses twined around her arms, pulling at her. She stumbled and tried not to scream. Standing her ground, she tugged her hands away and covered her head. All at once the last thing she wanted was to see her sister.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Her voice shook with dismay. ‘You don’t have to hurt me.’

  It began to rain in earnest and the air was filled with wild flapping, birds or bats or wind, Cadi couldn’t tell. The briars retreated and the ghost’s voice, fainter yet still audible, filtered through the darkness.

  Don’t tell.

  The rain began to fall like hailstones. Cadi staggered back along the path. Under her feet the ground shuddered and sharp stones flew up stabbing her ankles. Rain beat against her face and behind her she heard the frantic beating of wings.

  Turning in her bed, Lili pushed away the remnants of an uncomfortable dream. She heard a cry, close and real, the sound of it making her blood run cold. Swinging out of bed she crossed to the window.

  Cadi, careened out of Violet’s garden, her hair hanging in flattened curls down her back. She’s wearing pyjamas. What the hell?

  As Lili opened the kitchen door, Cadi fell against her, rain at her back.

  ‘Oh my god, Cadi!’

  ‘Close the door!’

  Her eyes were glassy with fear.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing! I don’t know!’

  Lili slammed the door closed, pulled Cadi into the kitchen and sat her in the armchair, tucking a blanket around her. She poured a splash of brandy into a glass of water. ‘Drink this.’

  Cadi swallowed, making a face. ‘There were footprints on the path. I thought it was okay.’

  ‘What do you mean? Who? What footprints?’

  ‘Dora. It was Dora.’ Cadi’s teeth chattered against the glass. ‘She’s out there. I don’t think she means to, but she’s really starting to scare me.’

  Alarmed, Lili said, ‘How long has it been going on?’

  Cadi began to cry. ‘I don’t know. Ever since I went to the lake and cut my face. It was her – Dora – she cut my face. Or she made the branches do it. I don’t know.’ She was sobbing now and shuddering.

  Now I know why she asked me about ghosts. Lili ought to have guessed. It was her job to notice. She’d allowed Violet to call all the tunes and the trade-off was turning to dust in her hands.

  ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart; I’m so sorry,’ she said gathering Cadi to her.

  It took less than five minutes. Cadi told Lili everything and when she was done, Lili made hot chocolate and took Cadi upstairs, tucked her into bed and got in beside her. ‘Don’t worry, cariad, everything’s going to be alright.’

  ‘How will it be alright?’ Cadi curled up against her aunt. ‘What do you think she wants, Lili? If it is Dora, why is she being so horrible?’ The agitation in her voice was as much anger as fear.

  ‘I haven’t a clue,’ Lili said. ‘But maybe it’s time for you to take charge.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s what you’d do if she was still alive.’

  ‘Would I?’

  ‘Cadi, if your ghost really is your sister, then she’s still only four years old.’

  ‘And she won’t have got any older?’

  ‘No. You’re the oldest now; you have to look out for her. It’s what big sisters do.’

  ‘I never thought about it like that.’

  As Cadi fell asleep, Lili thought of Teilo. It broke her heart to think how she had failed him.

  Thirty

  Three o’clock in the morning, the loneliest hour: too late for lovers, too early for the birds.

  Lying in her bed, straight as a corpse, in the vastness of her grief, Violet felt as insignificant as a breath of wind. Earlier, watching from her window she’d seen Lili and Cadi with their feathers and candles and confidences. In her mirror, she thought she glimpsed her dead husband’s shade. She rubbed the scar on her hand, curled her body into a ball as the night took her further and further from her memories.

  From the branches of the oak, the barn owl hooted. Seconds later, an answer echoed up to the bone cold moon.

  Lili dreamed in Welsh: Peidiwch â dweud…

  Waking, she felt the weight of Cadi asleep on her arm. Don’t tell what?

  She closed her eyes and in her new dream, a woman with red hair ran down the lane towards her, laughing and throwing lilac flowers on the ground.

  Pomona stood in the middle of her kitchen surveying a collection of overflowing boxes.

  Since her arrival, she woke up as the sky began to lighten. No matter how late she went to bed, as the first light of morning slipped over the hill and filtered through the curtains, her eyes fluttered open.

  While the kettle boiled, she watched the sky. All her life, Pomona had stayed up late and slept as long as her dreams would allow. Her mother used to shake her awake, pulling off the bedcovers to get her out of her nest and ready for school. Once she reached her teens she couldn’t wake up at all, because she crawled out of her bedroom window in the middle of the night and didn’t come home until dawn. When her mother found out, she assumed Pomona sneaked off to meet boys.

  She sighed at the day and remembered falling in love with Vanessa Talland when they were both sixteen; staying that way for over twenty years.

  Vanessa had been killed by a drunk driver on Christmas Eve. For almost four years Pomona woke each morning unable to make a plan, or decide what to eat or wear. After too many years of being reminded at every turn, she had come to live in a place where no one knew her; where she wouldn’t be reminded of how things used to be.

  She gazed at the boxes.

  A new muddle can be satisfying. I can be happy here, in this house surrounded by trees and loose-limbed lilac.

  She remembered her first sight of Lilwen Hopkins, how wild and right she looked. As if she belonged. Through the open window
the air smelled fresh and Pomona supposed it must mean more rain.

  Fancy, she said to herself, living in a place where it rains every day in August.

  Ignoring the boxes, she looked out across the garden. She ought to move the pile of lilac cuttings and start a compost heap. A bird she didn’t recognise landed on a shrub she didn’t know the name of.

  Pomona smiled. Lili Hopkins would know.

  Thirty-one

  Approaching the white house Lili quickened her pace.

  At a cottage window a curtain twitched.

  Witch women, even sensible ones, are usually watched by somebody.

  Smiling, she crossed the road to the shop. A wooden table sagged against the wall, laden with pot-bound perennials, jars of honey and a basket of duck eggs. Lili scanned the notice board: Women’s Institute, meditation group, this and that for sale. Bicycle proficiency instruction, and babysitting.

  Apart from Gareth, the shop was deserted.

  ‘Prynhawn da, Lili.’

  ‘Afternoon, Gareth.’

  She placed the envelope on the counter. Gareth speculated as to what time it might rain; complained about caravans cluttering the roads; enquired about Lili’s holiday arrangements. He wasn’t nosy – he simply liked people. ‘Any plans? Your nice friend coming, is she?’

  ‘Sylvia? As a matter of fact, she is.’

  He weighed the envelope. ‘I see the white house got sold.’

  Lili said yes, she’d noticed.

  ‘Have you seen anyone? I heard it’s some rich woman from Cardiff.’

  ‘It’s hard to tell if someone’s rich when they’re gardening, Gareth.’

  ‘There we are.’ He smiled and stuck a stamp on the envelope. ‘You’ve seen her then?’

  ‘Doing battle with those old lilacs.’

  ‘By the way, this came.’ Gareth reached under the counter and pushed a letter across the counter. ‘Postman left it with me. The surname’s wrong, even so, I guessed it was for Mrs Hopkins.’

  The address read, ‘Violet Lane, c/o The Post Office’ and the name of the village.

  ‘How odd.’ Lili put the letter in her bag. ‘Thanks, Gareth, I’ll see she gets it.’