Ghostbird Read online

  She paid for milk and chocolate for Cadi, and made her escape. About to cross the square, all thoughts of mystery letters vanished.

  Fingers hooked into the pockets of his jeans, he leaned against the church wall.

  Owen Penry.

  A fat Jack Russell at his side, one cowboy-booted foot braced on the wall: Owen Penry, large as life, watching the lane. As Violet stepped down from the bus, Lili conjured a small glamour and wrapped herself into the doorway of an empty shop.

  Coming out of the chemist, Violet saw him watching her looking unsure if he still belonged. She risked a glance.

  ‘Hello, Violet.’ He raised his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. ‘Don’t shoot this time, I’m unarmed.’

  ‘Why are you still here?’ She made her voice deliberately confrontational.

  Owen frowned. ‘I told you, I have things I need to say. And I couldn’t stay gone forever.’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Don’t be antagonistic, Violet. Aren’t you even a bit pleased to see me?’

  From the corner of her eye she caught the slight movement as Mrs Guto-Evans nudged her curtain.

  ‘I thought I made myself clear. No, Owen, I am not pleased to see you.’

  His eyebrows lifted, as if this amused him, making Violet uncomfortable. She turned away.

  He touched her arm. ‘Please, don’t go.’

  Violet flinched, certain, in spite of the lightness of his touch, his fingers would leave marks on her. She snatched her arm away. ‘I mean it, Owen, I’m sorry, but no.’

  Violet didn’t want to think about the past. And why should she care about Owen Penry’s feelings?

  ‘Have some dignity, Owen,’ she said. ‘Whatever you say won’t make any difference. You’ve got no business here.’

  He made as if to touch her again and thought better of it. ‘It was my fault, I know. I’m sorry. Can’t we talk?’

  ‘There you go again. There’s nothing to say.’ In spite of the heat, she shivered. ‘You and I, we never began.’

  And she had been a fool to stop in the woods and talk to him in the first place. Too furious with Teilo, she’d been hypnotised by a different, less brazen kind of charm. And the next time they met, it hadn’t been accidental. Now, she couldn’t believe how much she disliked him.

  ‘What makes you think I have anything to say to you that you’d want to hear? I’m certainly not interested in what you have to say to me.’ Not giving a damn was Violet’s speciality.

  Owen took a step back. ‘I’m sorry.’ He stared hard at her. ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’

  ‘Oh yes I have. In ways you wouldn’t believe.’

  Out here in the square where anyone could see her, she felt exposed. She tried to rid her head of the sudden scent of the past, and the woods where she’d first met him.

  ‘Talking can’t hurt, surely?’

  Talking was what got her into trouble in the first place.

  ‘People make mistakes,’ he said. ‘Don’t you at least want to know why I’m back?’

  ‘No.’ Violet swallowed. The inside of her mouth tasted hot as a furnace. ‘Don’t make this more difficult than it already is. You know what they’re like here – haven’t you noticed the curtains twitching?’

  ‘I couldn’t care less,’ he said. ‘Life’s too short to bear grudges, Violet. I don’t mind what you did. I understand. I only want a chance to make things right between us.’

  ‘What I did?’ Violet stepped back into the road. ‘You’re unbelievable. I’m not going to feel bad because I was honest with you.’

  ‘You were grieving. You didn’t know what you were saying. There’s unfinished business.’

  ‘Not with me there isn’t.’

  He slumped into the low bench. His little dog moved with him, sitting neatly at his side.

  ‘You were a mistake.’ Violet breathed hard.

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Her eyes flitted over his face and she didn’t try to hide her animosity. Some doors are best left closed. Once they’re reopened all you find are broken things. ‘Leave me alone, Owen. There’s nothing for you here.’

  Clearly unnerved by her vehemence, she watched him draw a long breath and nod.

  ‘Nothing, you hear me?’ She turned her back and walked away.

  This is what happens when you stay in the same place: the past knows where to find you. Emerging from her hiding place and crossing the street, Lili stepped in front of him.

  ‘My God, Lili, you scared me half daft.’

  ‘Good. Let’s keep it that way.’ Her shadow fell across his face. ‘What exactly do you think you’re doing here, Owen?’

  ‘And hello to you.’ He looked up, squinting against the sun. ‘I’m not sure it’s any of your business.’

  ‘Oh, it’s my business alright.’ Lili sat on the bench, careful to keep a distance between them.

  ‘If you must know, I’m here to sell the farm.’ He hitched one foot onto his knee. ‘I didn’t exactly plan on seeing Violet.’

  Liar.

  As if he read her mind, he pulled a face. ‘Okay, I did, but don’t worry, she’s made her feelings quite plain.’

  Lili heard the bitterness in his voice.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I hope you took notice. You aren’t welcome, Owen. I don’t want you here, Violet doesn’t need you and if I have to, I’ll make you go.’ She paused. ‘You know I can.’

  ‘Whatever you say, Lili. You always were a bossy, weird woman, nothing’s changed there then.’

  ‘On the contrary, a great deal’s changed. And you are no longer part of it.’

  ‘That’s pretty much what Violet said.’ He stood up and slung his jacket over his shoulder. ‘I’ll be gone before you know it so you can save your creepy curses for someone who’s really scared.’

  A bit like you.

  His dog at his heels, Owen strode away.

  Thirty-two

  Violetseemed only mildly interested in why Cadi spent the night in Lili’s cottage.

  She had a dental appointment and was late.

  ‘We got talking,’ Cadi said. ‘She’s writing a new story.’

  ‘You two and your stories.’ Violet hurried away to catch her bus, eyes darting from side to side.

  It was one of Lili’s surgery days. Cadi could do as she pleased. She walked through the gap in the wall and into Lili’s garden. It felt suspended, as if it had breathed in and forgotten to breathe out again. An unruly tribe of thrushes had taken charge of the bird table. A crow flew past casting a shadow, swallows darted, feeding on the wing. There were so many birds around the cottages, Cadi found it impossible not to believe they had a purpose.

  She remembered wanting to be a bird, being lonely and waiting for her wings to grow. As she left the garden, she looked over her shoulder: the crow drifted by again and up into the trees.

  A woman with red hair scythed long grass in the garden of the white house.

  Cadi made her way along the lane, past waxy honeysuckle and wine-red fuchsia and Mrs Guto-Evans flinging open her window.

  ‘Bore da, Cadi. How are you today?’

  ‘Fine thanks.’

  ‘All by yourself?’

  ‘I am fourteen, Mrs Guto-Evans.’

  ‘Yes, well, you mind how you go.’

  Out of sight, Cadi picked two sprigs of honeysuckle from the hedgerow. She walked on to the churchyard. Through the lych gate, along the path, past the iron-studded wooden door, past Mr Lewis, the verger tending a bonfire of abandoned wreaths. Burning stems crackled and sparks flew into the air. He raised his head and waved. Cadi waved back.

  She liked the churchyard with its shadows and ancient epitaphs. Eroded by time and mostly in Welsh, the words largely defeated her. The headstones reminded her of doors and she imagined the ghosts of long-dead people living behind them.

  Did they dream?

  Each grave held its own small world of memories, some adorned with flowers – pl
astic as well as fresh. She tried to read the messages on faded cards, the words blurred by rain.

  Ducking under a yew tree, she came to where generations of Hopkins women lay side by side with their beloveds: elegant headstones bearing moss-etched flourishes of loving memory.

  Next to them, her father: Teilo Hopkins, 1963 – 1998. Beloved Son and Brother. No words to indicate he had been anyone’s beloved father. Cadi traced his name on the plain marble.

  A simple wooden cross with a small brass plaque marked the mound where Dora was buried. Violet had had the last word.

  Isadora, the plaque read, Cherished Daughter.

  My lost sister. Could you lose something you’d never had?

  Cadi pushed a soft stem of honeysuckle into the grass on Teilo’s grave. One for a boy. She pressed the second piece into the earth of the smaller grave. One for a girl.

  I’m here.

  Cadi started. Thin drifts of smoke from the verger’s bonfire caught in an angel’s stone wing. ‘Where?’

  Footsteps sounded on the path. The verger stood over her: a middle-aged man with a kind smile.

  ‘Is everything alright here?’

  She nodded, smiled back. ‘Fine, thank you, Mr Lewis, I’m tidying up.’ She bent her head, straining to hear the voice again.

  ‘It’s Cadi, isn’t it?’ He peered over rimless spectacles.

  ‘Yes.’ You’ve broken the spell, go away. ‘This is my father’s grave.’ She laid her hand on the mound. ‘This one is my sister’s.’

  ‘Of course, yes.’ She could see he wished he hadn’t bothered.

  ‘Right you are.’ He nodded several times, ran a hand through his hair. ‘I’ll get on then.’ He glanced up at the sky. ‘Looks like rain.’ Still nodding, he wandered back to his bonfire.

  The church bell rang the quarter hour. Time never stood still.

  Cadi thought about the tiny wet footprints, about hidden photographs.

  You’re the oldest now. It’s what big sisters do. Lili’s words came back to her. But it’s back to front. I’m the oldest even though I’m not.

  Her fingers brushed against something hard. A scattering of flower seeds lay in the grass. She picked up a few, rolling them across the palm of her hand. Seeds were the end and the beginning. One day, on the back of the sun and the rain they germinated and what you got was often beyond your wildest dreams. Cadi thought about the past and how she’d made it up all her life.

  Growing up takes you by surprise. Cadi smiled to herself. You understand a whole lot of stuff that the day before was only words. The truth is what’s left over when everything else has been used up.

  She slipped three of the wrinkled seeds into her pocket. Getting to her feet she brushed bits of grass off her skirt and as the first drops of rain began falling, walked out of the churchyard looking straight ahead.

  Her mother’s bedroom, chapel-still and stained with sadness. The door stood ajar. Cadi hovered on the landing, listening to the silence.

  The idea that Violet might have pictures of her sister played on her mind, like the sound of the crying bird in her dreams.

  It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

  She knew there was a box under the bed. A few times, when she’d been a little girl, Cadi had caught her mother crouched over it – a dark wooden box – and she’d known it for a secret.

  No one wants to be left out, to feel invisible and of no consequence. It’s now or never.

  Cadi wanted to know so badly, her stomach churned. Her hand trembled on the satiny wood of the door. She could feel the grain under her fingers as she pushed it.

  Shivering, she snatched her hand away as if the wood burned. I can’t.

  Bedrooms are sacred – it’s an unwritten rule. A person’s bedroom is the one place they can know their secrets are safe. A dim light decorated with dust motes drifted between the half closed curtains. Cadi watched as they swirled around her mother’s half-glimpsed possessions.

  I can’t. Pulling the door closed, she felt a lump in her throat as big as a rock. Violet may have had a lot of questions to answer; invading her privacy was a step too far. Cadi felt sick with shame. She would have to make Lili see sense.If Violet had photographs of Teilo and Dora, then somehow Cadi had to see them. It was her right.

  ‘And it’s my life!’ She yelled the words into the empty house.

  She would go to the lake, and to hell with both of them.

  It was quiet enough to hear the minnows nosing the water. Cadi kicked off her shoes and lay against the Sleeping Stone.

  If Dora was real, where had she come from? And more to the point, why was she here? What if her ghost had got lost? The way between the worlds was thin. Or maybe there was no ghost at all. Only dreams conjured from her own loss and need.

  And maybe pigs could fly.

  She got to her feet and walked across the grass, feeling the sharp blades between her toes. Crouching down, she dipped her hand in the water and brought it to her mouth. It tasted delicious.

  The spot where she had found the bangle stared her in the face. A shiver ran down her back. Just because I can’t see herdoesn’t mean she isn’t here.

  Thirty-three

  Lili was getting ready to close the surgery.

  It was a quiet, twice a week practice with a visiting doctor happy to trust Lili with the detail. The telephone rang and she searched the diary for a slot to suit Mr Lloyd.

  ‘Doctor can see you at ten-thirty on Thursday… You’re welcome.’

  As she locked the door, Violet appeared.

  She’s getting as good as me.

  She looked tired and insubstantial.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  Lili swallowed her irritation and tried again. ‘How was the dentist?’

  ‘No fillings, thank goodness.’

  ‘Work okay?’

  ‘Checkout trauma, you know. Toddler with a tantrum. Someone dropped a bottle of wine. How about you?’

  ‘Bunions and summer flu. No wine, sadly.’

  Lili wanted to ask about the letter. Violet’s agitation as Lili handed over the letter had been striking. She’d pocketed it without a word.

  ‘I hope Cadi’s been alright,’ Violet said. It was rare for them to work at the same time.

  ‘A break from both of us must feel like a day off.’

  Violet smiled her vague smile. ‘Two of us nagging – who needs it?’

  Lili agreed. ‘You need to listen to her, Violet.’

  ‘I do listen to her.’

  ‘But do you hear what’s she’s saying?’

  Colour rose on Violet’s pale face, making her look like a doll.

  Lili sighed inside. How does she manage to make me feel so guilty?

  She looked up at the sky. ‘It’s going to be a good one tonight.’

  ‘A storm? Do you think so?’ Violet feared storms.

  ‘It won’t last. They never do.’

  ‘You always say that and I still don’t believe you.’ Violet turned in at the gate. ‘I do listen, Lili. I don’t always like what I hear, that’s all.’

  She found Cadi lounging on the sofa with Mr Furry, one eye on the television, the other on her phone.

  ‘Good day?’ Violet asked, sitting down beside her.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Cadi checked her phone. ‘I got stung.’

  ‘Did you find the lavender?’

  ‘Yes. It was a wasp, it’s fine now.’

  ‘Good.’ The quiz show ended and Violet switched off the television. ‘I’m not in the mood for the news. Have you eaten?’

  ‘I made cheese on toast.’

  ‘I’m sorry no one was here.’

  ‘It’s okay, Mam, I’m not a kid.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ Violet stood up. ‘I’m making coffee. Do you want something?’

  ‘No thanks. Do you mind if I go and see Lili?’

  Violet said of course not.

  As Cadi left the room, Violet watched from the
window, glanced up at the sky and waited for the rain.

  When the telephone rang, her immediate response was alarm. How? Cadi must have plugged it back in again.

  After several rings she snatched at the receiver. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t ring off, please, Violet.’

  ‘Don’t do this.’

  ‘Do what? I told you. I just want us to talk. Try and work out what went wrong.’

  ‘We went wrong. For God’s sake, Owen, we collided with one another and crashed.’

  ‘Jeez, that’s a bit dramatic.’

  Was it? Under her hand the telephone receiver felt hot, as if the plastic might melt. ‘I’m begging you, Owen. Please, leave me be.’

  One after another the empty sentences fell between them leaving her overwhelmed by old emotions and new fears. She had to make him stop.

  ‘If you call me again, Owen I’ll call the police. It’s harassment.’

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘Owen?’

  ‘I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.’

  Was he laughing at her? ‘Well, I did. Are we clear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  This time he replaced the receiver first. The click echoed in her ear and had Violet been in the habit of crying, she would have sobbed her heart out.

  A fierce wind blew across the dark window. It seemed to Violet as if it had rained for years. The letter lay on her bed: a scribbled note from one of her mother’s old friends. Madeleine was back in the country and wanted to see her.

  There was no escape after all. Even here isn’t safe. Everyone is finding me.

  For years she had believed if she ran far enough she would never be found, like a stone flung into the sea. And here was her mother, finding a way. The rain pelted against the window and Violet crushed the note into her fist wishing she knew how to cry

  The rain poured down and Violet lay against her pillow in the darkness, hating it. She drifted in and out of dreams.

  Guard the children well. Simple words: mind the children; don’t allow them out of your sight.

  I let him take her. The thought caught in her mind like a dead butterfly on a pin.

  Violet slept at the front of the house. She disliked the old garden with its shadows and owls. At the front, when she drew the curtains aside, they exposed a safer light.