The whispers of wilderwo.., p.1
The Whispers of Wilderwood Hall, page 1
Other great titles by
Karen McCombie
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The Ally’s World series
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Catching Falling Stars
For Vic S.-C., who likes to weave words too...
When your world isn’t turning,
And your path leads nowhere,
Don’t be scared, keep on walking,
Turn the corner, I’ll be there…
From “Turn the Corner”, by White Star Line
Contents
Cover
Dedication
Wilderwood Hall
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Copyright
The world is whirling, tilting, shifting. And I have nothing to hold on to – except for a posy of eye-meltingly pink gerberas.
So I close my eyes and try to wish the bad feeling away.
“Congratulations!” I hear the registrar say brightly. “You may now kiss the bride!”
OK, so maybe I’d better not keep my eyes closed. It wouldn’t look too good, my mother being legally married for all of three seconds and me blanking it out. So I bite my lip, and force my eyes wide open.
(Whirl, tilt, shift…)
All around me, cheers break out, as Mum and RJ throw their arms around each other and smooch madly.
All I can do is try not to be sick.
“Woo-hoo!” hollers someone behind me, at a pitch that nearly punctures my eardrums.
I don’t turn around, but guess it’s probably the drummer in RJ’s band. He also does backing vocals, and his voice is so loud he practically doesn’t need a microphone, Mum says. She’s seen the band play live, so she should know.
Oh, I think I really might be sick. As the early spring breeze buffets my loose long hair, I take a few deep breaths and hope that’ll help. It doesn’t much.
“Sadie looks beautiful, doesn’t she?” says Dolores, suddenly nudging me with her elbow. Dolores’s fabulous halo of an Afro frames her face, and her eyes are masked by giant, expensive sunglasses – but I can still see the sentimental tears streaking her soft brown cheeks.
“Yes,” I manage to mumble.
Well, duh, Mum always looks beautiful. No one’s going to argue with that. But I guess today she’s looking extra beautiful in her bride-white, especially since Mum’s version of bride-white is a vintage 1960s short lace dress, with waxy camellias pinned into her messy, pink-tipped blonde hair.
She’s also wearing flat strappy sandals, and has to stand on her tiptoes to lip-sync with RJ, even though he’s bending down and tenderly pulling Mum up towards his towering, ultra-skinny self.
“Can you believe this?” says Dolores, snuffling into a tissue she’s pulled from her red leather handbag. “Three months ago, Sadie and RJ didn’t even know each other existed!”
“Well, technically, Mum did already know RJ,” I correct her, as I try to keep myself together by squeezing my neon-pink nails into my palms. Of course Mum knew RJ. Or at least knew of RJ Johnstone and his band, White Star Line. Plenty of people do. I mean, personally, I’ve never been into White Star Line’s music, but they’re the sort of old, 1990s indie rock band that gets called “legendary” a lot. The sort that still tour constantly and play sets at festivals where devoted fans bellow along to every last lyric and forgive them for their hair going grey around the edges. And even old Mr Evans in the flat opposite ours knows one of White Star Line’s tracks; it’s the very bass-y sounding one that got used over the opening credits of that detective series on BBC One recently.
“Ah, yes, of course! Silly me.” Dolores laughs at herself as she dabs the tears away. “You know, I’ve cried so much today I think my brain’s gone soggy.”
Dolores is Mum’s agent. And her friend, when she’s not busy booking Mum work as a hair and make-up artist. So I guess she’s partly crying ’cause that’s what people do at their friends’ weddings, and partly crying ’cause she’s about to lose one of her most reliable and popular stylists.
The other hair and make-up artists at Dolores’s agency can be a bit snobby and insist they’ll only work with gorgeous models for glamorous magazine shoots or snooty catwalk shows. Mum’s not like that. I mean, until half a minute ago, she was a single mother, bringing me up on her own. Which meant she was always more than happy to do any job, even if it was just powdering the sweaty forehead of a random actor in an ad for a verruca treatment, or an online bingo site, or for a toilet cleaner or something.
And then – exactly eleven and a half weeks ago – Dolores took a booking for Mum that would change everything. Everything. Yep, Dolores didn’t realize she was playing the accidental cupid when she sent Mum off to the video shoot for “Turn the Corner”, White Star Line’s latest single…
“Ellis? Ellis, baby?” I hear Mum call out.
Everyone around me – and that’s a crowd which includes famous faces from bands and a couple of DJs I recognize too – starts oohing and ahhing and stares from me to my beautiful mum and back again.
Even on a normal day, that would make the anxiety waves roll right in; I love my mum, but I don’t love people comparing us. We’re not exactly similar. My best friend, Shaniya, once said it was as if this tiny punk fairy had given birth to a giraffe. Thanks, Shaniya. But she’s got a point. I’m all gangly long arms and legs, and even though I’m only thirteen, I’m still a head taller than Mum. (Tall and shy is a pretty tough combination.)
And today … well, it’s not exactly a normal day. So right this second, I’m facing a tsunami of anxiety, with all these strangers around me, and Mum’s in so such a love bubble she’s not really there for me in the way she usually is.
On top of that, here I am, struggling not to barf.
“Come here, baby girl!” Mum says, holding out both her hands to me.
RJ has an arm around her tiny waist, and looks as ecstatic as someone who’s just won the lottery. Though he’ll never need that kind of money; RJ’s got so much spare cash that he can do stuff like go and buy a mansion in the wilds of Scotland on a complete whim…
“Ellis? C’mere, please!” Mum smiles at me, her lips the colour of glossy pink icing on Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
I try to smile back, I really do. Taking a shaky step towards Mum, I clutch the stems of my gerbera posy so tightly I feel the soft stems snap and—
Nope, I can’t do this. I have to get out of here NOW.
“Ellis? Ellis! Wait!” Mum calls after me as I push through the throng and get as far away from her and her new husband as possible…
Slap, slap.
Slap, slap.
Slap, slap.
I concentrate on the rhythm of the grey-brown water gently lapping the hull of the boat and feel my heart rate finally slow. It’s funny, but the hollowness of the sound almost matches the song that’s now playing in the background.
What is it again?
I can’t quite make it out ’cause of the clamour of chat and laughter from the celebrating crowd up on the bow. It’s some old ’60s soul thing, I know that much, since Mum and RJ bonded over their mutual love of Motown and wanted that to be the soundtrack of their wedding. Their identical taste in music is one of the million coincidences that made them totally – and ultra-quickly – convinced they were meant to be together.
“Hey, are you riding the waves again, baby?” Mum asks, assuming anxiety’s got me on the run. “Remember it rolls right in, Ellis, but it always rolls back out again.”
As she reassures me, her hand begins to swirl comforting circles between my shoulder blades.
Oh, that feels good, I think as I lean on the handrail, my eyes still fixed on the choppy Thames below.
“Actually, it’s not that,” I tell her. “I knew I was going to be sick, and I didn’t want to spoil your moment by vomiting on your guests.”
“Oh, Ellis! That’s my fault,” says Mum, and immediately her hand lifts from my back. Click goes the sound of a clasp, and the next thing I hear is frantic rummaging.
“I’ve been so busy organizing everything for today I didn’t even think about the fact that you should’ve taken a travel-sickness pill! Here, have one now and it should kick in soon.”
I warily straighten up and turn to her. She might be a bride, but Mum’s still a one-woman organizational wizard. From her mini patent handbag she’s pulled a small packet of pills and another of wet wipes.
“Hey, I forgot too,” I say, and let Mum place the sugary tablet on my tongue and clean me up, as if I were still her little girl.
“Well, this is a pretty amazing wedding venue,” Mum says with a smile, “it’s just a bit on the wobbly side, eh?”
“Uh-huh,” I agree with her as she uses another wipe on my forehead and neck to cool me down.
If I didn’t feel ill, I could properly appreciate being on this boat, cruising past famous sights like the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye. (Apparently, it’s something else that can happen when you’re a successful and well-off musician; you ask your personal assistant to scour Last-Minute-But-Amazing-Venues-For-Your-Wedding.com, and magically, it’s done.)
The thing is, maybe it’s not only the boat that’s made me feel travel-sick. Maybe it’s the speed everything’s happened lately. Like…
Surprise! Mum has fallen in love in about two seconds flat.
Surprise! Mum’s new boyfriend has asked her to marry him on their first date.
Surprise! It wasn’t just a joke, and Mum gives in and answers “yes” on their sixth date.
Surprise! RJ says, “Why wait? Why not get married straight away?” Mum says, “Why not?”
The speed of the wedding in particular caught loads of people out. Granny and Uncle Ben and my cousins couldn’t make it from Australia in time, even though RJ offered to pay for their flights. And RJ’s eighteen-year-old daughter didn’t come either, and she lives not so far away, in Somerset, with her mum. Though most of the time she’s at boarding school, in Devon or somewhere – I forget.
But the surprises connected with Mum and RJ’s love-a-thon don’t stop with the wedding. There’s one more game-changing surprise. Home isn’t going to be a cosy flat for two in North London any more. It’s going to be a dilapidated mansion for three, six hundred miles away.
A dilapidated mansion that’s going to be Mum and RJ’s Shiny New Project.
Well, it’s great that they’ve got this exciting venture to look forward to. But excuse me if I’m not so excited. Excuse me if I feel pretty miserable, giving up my life and my friends here in London.
“Wow, this time next week we’ll be saying goodbye to all of this,” says Mum, as if she’s only just noticed the spectacular view of world-famous tourist landmarks. “Can you believe it, Ellis?”
I don’t reply. Instead I picture all those images I saw on the property website. Wilderwood Hall in all its glory – joke! It’s just this huge, brooding, grey granite building, with a warren of semi-derelict rooms inside and some tumbledown stables nearby, surrounded by a forest of tall, dense firs cutting it off from the world.
Then I picture something completely different: my busy, bustling school playground. Shaniya and the other girls, sitting on “our” bench at break time, giggling and laughing without me…
“Oh, baby, you’re shivering!” Mum says, pulling me to her for a hug.
It’s no surprise I’m shivering; getting married on the open deck of a boat in March is perhaps a bit optimistic.
“Hey, Mrs Johnstone, and the lovely Miss Harper! How’s my little family?” I hear RJ ask.
Mum unwraps one arm from me and gives him a welcoming wave.
“We’re good. Well, Ellis has a bit of motion sickness,” Mum tells him.
“Oh, poor you,” says RJ, frowning sympathetically at me. “My daughter’s like that too. She and her mum joined us on tour in the US when she was little. She barfed her way across most of the west coast of America, I think!”
I look up at his smiling, friendly face and his floppy mess of a quiff – and I feel my tummy flip again. This time I don’t think it is anything to do with the boat bobbing.
The thing is, from what I’ve seen of RJ, he’s really, really nice and easy-going, but I don’t feel ready for an all-of-a-sudden stepdad. It’s just been me and Mum, always and for ever. And Shaniya might think I’m mad for not being ecstatic about Mum dating someone like RJ, but seeing Mum share part of her life with a person who isn’t me is incredibly hard to get my head around.
Speaking of Shaniya (cue another tummy flip), she’s going to go completely crazy when she finds out about the wedding. She’s not going to understand why I wasn’t allowed to tell her, never mind invite her. She’ll be deeply offended that Mum worried Shaniya might gossip to someone, who’d tell someone, who’d tell someone who’d stick it on Facebook, and then Mum’s secret wedding to RJ would be about as secret as the name of the prime minister.
So maybe the stress of that is getting to me too. Still, whatever the reasons, I mustn’t, mustn’t be sick in front of Mum and RJ. They’d probably see it as a bad omen for their marriage, their future togeth—
“Oi! NO! NO WAY!!” a shout shatters the moment, followed by more shouts and a whole lot of swearing.
“What’s happening?” I ask nervously, staring at the cluster of wedding guests gathering at the railing around the right side of the boat.
“God … it’s the paparazzi,” sighs RJ, slapping his forehead with his hand. “How did they find out about the wedding?”
At least I know it wasn’t Shaniya, I think as my heart thunders at the sight of the speedboat growling alongside us. A comically huge lens is being aimed up at us, and the man behind it – his face hidden by both baseball cap and camera – click, click, clicks frantically.
Suddenly, it’s all too much. Everything about today is too much. I’m dizzy and deafened and I grab hold of the railing.
“It’ll pass, it’ll pass, it’ll pass,” I frantically mutter to myself, leaning over to fix my eyes on the sludge-brown waves of the Thames, hoping they’ll calm me again.
But straight away, I see something.
It’s a face…
A face in the water, a girl’s face, dark eyes staring back up at me through the murk.
(Whirl, tilt, shift.)
No, no, no! I’m not letting anxiety trick me and mess with my mind. There’s no one in the water. It’s just my own reflection, distorted by the churning river.
Feeling panicked and slightly mad, I squeeze my eyes tight closed, let go of the railing and press my palms hard over my ears. It’s probably next to useless, but it’s the best I can do to block out everything: the angry yelling, the head-drilling roar of the speedboat, the weird hall-of-mirrors version of me in the water and this whole crazy, alien version of life I seem to have suddenly found myself in.
If I could I’d turn and run.
But I have nowhere, absolutely nowhere, to run to…
Thunk.
That’s the sound of my heart sinking, which is quite something, since I didn’t think it could sink any further than it already has lately.
It’s four o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and if life had carried on the way it was supposed to, today I’d be finished with school for the Easter holidays. I’d be playing around on my iPad on my bed, planning lazy trips to the local Odeon or maybe cool Camden Market with Shaniya.
But today is Day One of our new-look life. And after driving for hours and endless hours, me and Mum still haven’t arrived at Wilderwood Hall. Instead, we seem to have accidentally found ourselves in a tartan museum.
“Can’t we go somewhere else?” I whisper urgently as we both hesitate in the doorway of the Cairn Café.
“Ellis, there is nowhere else to go,” Mum whispers back. “This is the only café in the only village for miles around. Anyway, maybe it’ll have wifi.”
I seriously doubt that.
Mum wants wifi to help us find our way to Wilderwood Hall, which can’t be far, so that we’ll be there in plenty of time to welcome the removal lorry. I want it because I’m desperate to find out what Shaniya’s posted. She sent me a text saying LOL LOL LOL – Instagram NOW! before my signal died twenty miles ago. Hearing from her at all made my heart lurch; she hasn’t spoken to me, not even to say goodbye, since she found out about the wedding.
Still, I reckon there’s more chance of coming across the Loch Ness Monster in the Cairn Café’s bathroom sink than an actual internet connection. I mean, look at the polyester tartan curtains, the plastic tartan tablecloths and the dusty dried thistle arrangements on every spare shelf and windowsill.
And what about that ancient TV balanced on the equally ancient video recorder? On the screen – in strangely lurid colours – a grinning, hairy man in a kilt is playing an accordion really, really badly.
This place is SO not going to have wifi.
What it does have is a white-haired waitress who looks like she should have retired decades ago.
There is just one customer – a bored-looking teenage boy with messy, fair hair practically down to his shoulders. Or maybe I should say there are three customers … two black-and-white sheepdogs are by the boy’s side. While he drinks from a can of Coke, they noisily slurp from a bowl of water on the cracked lino floor.
