Hello, I have been playing with this chapter for so long it's become a bit of a blur to me and I feel it's time to gain some outside perspective. I'd be very grateful for any opinions and input - the harsher, the better! I would advise reading Chapter 1 first however, because, well, then the following would perhaps make more sense. Thank you! p.s. It looks longer than it is due to being broken up with lots of dialogue, please don't be put off!
CHAPTER TWO
I found myself wrapped in a tight hug that pulled me to my feet. I knew then that we were in trouble.
“Oh thank God,” mum whispered, clinging to me tighter.
Over mum’s shoulder I spotted Ally being sat down on the grass a little way away by her mum Charlotte, whose long skirt settled on the ground around her in a puddle of paisley fabric.
I couldn’t help but catch sight of the house high up on the hill behind them, its crooked silhouette setting a dark shadow against the night sky; the perfect backdrop for a nightmare.
I shuddered and mum pulled away, holding me out at arms length.
She scrutinised me frantically. “Are you hurt?”
I shook my head, surreptitiously tugging my sleeve down over my cut hand.
“Well, where have you been?”
I frowned as I noticed she wasn’t wearing any make-up. Mum always wore make-up; she even wore make-up to put the bins out. Her human colouring seemed strangely unnatural to me, as if her hair had turned blue or she’d grown a second head. I couldn’t see what would have been so important to make her forget to put on her red lipstick that morning.
“Well?” she persisted.
I ignored her questioning and instead wriggled free from her anxious grasp and hurried towards Ally. But I was stopped in my tracks as Charlotte extended a long willowy arm across my path.
“Please can I speak to Ally?” I said, going to walk around her arm but she held me still by the arm with a gentle but firm pressure.
“Speak to your mum first George sweetheart, hm?” she replied coolly, squeezing my arm encouragingly. “I need to have a word with Ally myself anyway, it was very naughty for you both to disappear like that today.”
I looked to Ally who was idly picking at the sequins on Charlotte’s skirt. She glanced up at me and nodded serenely.
“George,” mum said from behind me, with a clear warning in her tone.
I sighed, defeated. “Okay.”
Charlotte smiled and patted my cheek, the numerous rings adorning her fingers cool against my flushed face still warm from running. “Good boy.”
I smiled back weakly and turned around to face mum.
She was watching me wearily, her arms crossed and her lips pursed. I squinted at her in the moonlight shocked to see that, for once, with her clothes carelessly thrown on and hair sticking out in different directions, I could believe she was my mother.
She moved towards me and bent down so our matching dark eyes were level. “Where have you been George?”
I chewed on the inside of mouth. She shook my shoulders as if to jolt an answer from me. I looked down at my trainers, digging the toe into the ground.
I could feel her growing exasperation behind the pressure of her fingertips. “George, I want you to tell me the truth right this minute, where have you been all day?”
I shrugged, shifting uncomfortably under her hold. “Just around.”
“At that house?” she said, more a statement than a question.
I shook my head vigorously. “No we weren’t, we were just around here, on the hill and earlier we were on the beach and-”
She gestured for me to stop and sighed heavily. “I told you specifically never to go anywhere near that place. Why did you not do as you were told and why did you think it okay to not go into school today?”
I shrugged in a sort of non-committal way, glancing at Ally and Charlotte.
She let go of my shoulders and stood up, cradling her head in her hands. “I didn’t know what could have happened to you, all sorts of things were running though my head!”
“Sorry.”
“We had the school on the phone, your father came home from work to help us look for you, we didn’t even know where to begin; I mean, do you know how that made us feel?”
She dropped her hands and I could see her eyes ablaze with fury.
“Sorry,” I mumbled again, edging back slightly.
“Terrified! We were terrified,” her voice faltered and she turned away from me so I couldn’t see her face.
She ran her hands through her thick dark hair, holding them there so her elbows met in the middle.
I watched her stood like a statue in a frozen silence, waiting for her to continue. I had nothing to say for myself that I felt she could possibly understand.
Charlotte was talking to Ally in a quiet murmur and I strained to hear what she was saying, trying to remove myself from the frost surrounding mum.
Charlotte never seemed cross with Ally. I always thought she was really cool. Ally didn’t even have to go to school; Charlotte taught her at home. I once heard her say to mum she didn’t trust the teachers just to teach Ally to read and write. I hadn’t understood what she had meant at the time. But then I always supposed she had good enough reason to not want Ally to go anyway; the things I would sometimes hear the teachers say I was certain Ally should never hear. But it didn’t just end with the teachers.
I went to walk towards them both, longing to hear what Charlotte was saying. But mum reached out and grabbed my arm just as I turned away. By the time I realised why, it was too late to hide anything.
She pushed back the end of my sleeve partly covering my hand with quaking fingers. “What’s this?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly, trying to snatch it away but she was quicker and turned it upwards until the shining moon betrayed me.
“How did it happen?” she asked quietly; that sort of quietly you know is going to be followed by too much shouting.
She knelt in front of me, the casual moonlight drawing shadows from her cheekbones down to her jaw, chiselling her sharp features even more drastically. I watched the muscles in her neck twitch as she clenched her teeth and drew my hand nearer to the light.
Licking my dry lips, again I looked over to Ally, desperately this time, willing her to meet my eye. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do or say when the shouting began; I wasn’t sure what was a secret and what wasn’t. But Ally wasn’t looking at me to give me the answers and she wasn’t looking at Charlotte either, or her lap, or the ground; she was looking up at the house.
“What’s wrong Anna?” Charlotte asked mum, drawing my attention back from Ally.
Mum held my hand out to Charlotte, her face aglow with rage. “Look.”
Charlotte gracefully moved to kneel beside mum and took my hand. She slowly examined my palm as mum stood up and stepped away with her back to us.
“What happened George?” she asked me quietly, glancing up briefly at mum.
She was holding my hand too tightly and I tried to pull away but she didn’t seem to notice.
I cleared my throat. “Nothing.”
Mum made a disparaging noise and we both looked up at her.
“What’s the matter Anna?” Charlotte asked smoothly.
“You and that child!” mum snapped, with a burning look. “Same old story, same old damned story.”
Charlotte carefully placed my hand back by my side and stood up, towering over mum who was considerably shorter and stouter than her. “I’m sorry?”
Mum pointed an accusing finger at Ally. “Her! Just being with her puts him in danger and you don’t make things any better! Putting ridiculous ideas into their heads all the time, that sends them running off to goodness knows where, out of our sight and supervision!”
I almost jumped as I felt a cool hand slip into mine. But held on tightly when I realised it was Ally.
“They’re fairytales Anna,” Charlotte corrected indignantly, eyes flittingly between Ally and me. “Children need fairytales, they’re important and so are adventures!”
“Yes well, to me it is important that my son is safe,” mum retorted heatedly.
Ally took a step forwards so they both looked at her. “I don’t put George in danger.”
“Ally takes care of me,” I agreed fervidly, stepping forwards as well so I was beside her.
Mum laughed mirthlessly, putting her hand to her mouth.
“She does!” I protested.
She ignored me, addressing Charlotte instead. “George would be a lot better off if he mixed with other children from now on.”
A wave of icy pins and needles flooded through me from head to toe. Ally’s hand clenched mine tighter.
“It’s okay George, nothing can break the bond,” Ally whispered.
I looked at her determined expression as she turned her palm over so mum and Charlotte could see.
“The magic has already finished. You can’t break our friendship, it’s too powerful,” she told them boldly.
Mum spluttered. “Magic?”
Ally nodded.
Frowning, Charlotte reached out and cradled Ally’s hand.
“So we can be friends forever,” I piped up, my initial panic calming.
Mum gawped at me and then shook her head decidedly. “No. No, I should never have let it get this far, it ends now.”
She took me by the shoulders and pulled me apart from Ally.
I tried to fight her but she pinned me down with a firm gaze. “Listen to me George, one day you will thank me.”
“You can’t break the magic!” I shouted. “It doesn’t matter what you say!”
Mum bent down and cupped my face in her hands, eyes glistening. “She can’t do magic George! For goodness sake, have some sense! Can’t you see she’s drawn you in? They both have and it’s my fault, I let them.”
I smiled bitterly, almost laughing in the face of her ignorance. “No, you’re wrong. Ally- Ally can do anything!”
Mum stroked a thumb over my cheekbone, her eyes sad, then looked to Charlotte. “You’ve really done a good job on him haven’t you? He idolises her.”
Charlotte said nothing.
“Mum please,” I whispered, tears falling over my cheeks.
She swept them away gently with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry George.”
She tried to lift me up but I pushed her away. “No!”
Then Charlotte was beside mum and she was pulling at her arm. “You can’t do this to her! She’s just a child; he’s all she’s got.”
Mum shrugged her off roughly. “Like you were all he had?!”
Charlotte fell still, her grey eyes wide. “Don’t.”
“Today, you thought the same as me. You thought we’d lost them both for good. You thought he was back, through-“
“Stop!” she screamed.
I started to cry harder. I felt stupid and childish but I couldn’t help it. Charlotte never shouted, she never shouted!
“Who’s he?” Ally asked.
Charlotte’s eyes fixed on Ally’s as if a bolt of lightning had struck her. A wave of blond hair had worked itself lose from the thick plait running down her back and was now hanging in front of her face. She reached out a hand and Ally walked towards her, taking it.
“It’s okay Ally, Anna is just angry and she doesn’t understand. It’s not her fault though so we mustn’t be angry with her,” she said soothingly, stroking circles across Ally’s knuckles with her thumb; something she always did to stop either of us feeling upset but Ally pulled away.
“Like everyone in the town doesn’t understand?” she questioned.
Charlotte nodded, pushing her fallen hair behind her ear.
I frowned at mum, echoing Ally, “Like everyone else?”
Mum shook her head. “No, don’t make out I’m like them Charlotte, don’t you dare!”
“But you are,” Charlotte countered, with a hiss. “With their rumours and their lies.”
“My dad, you were talking about my dad,” Ally directed breathily at mum.
Charlotte opened her mouth before mum had the chance to respond. “Yes sweetheart, Anna is confused, but it’s okay because we know the truth and George knows the truth.”
I looked at mum beseechingly, desperately willing her to argue. “But mum does know the truth, don’t you mum?”
But she didn’t say anything, or nod or even shake her head; she just bowed it.
A silence followed, one that made goose bumps run all over my arms, despite the sweat clinging to my brow under my heavy fringe indicating the summer evening’s sticky heat.
“Mum?”
Growing up in Piggotsea, I had quickly learnt that adults could be stupider and crueller with their tongues than should ever be allowed. Often when their poisonous gossip wasn’t aimed at each other it was aimed at Charlotte. I always remember feeling irritated that, as a child, I was expected to do as these adults said, with no hope of them opening their eyes and ears wider than their own ideas.
I was always certain Charlotte wasn’t one of those adults who had lost sight with height and had sought comfort in the belief that mum wasn’t either. But stood there watching her bowed head, I was no longer sure.
Hot tears dribbled from the corners of my eyes. I watched as she slowly raised her head and pinched the bridge of her nose.
“You don’t understand George,” she murmured.
“I do. I do understand,” I cried in anguish. “Todd Gerrish was Ally’s dad and he died in an accident and that other man, that other man everyone says is Ally’s dad, the one who killed those people is just a lie and they’re stupid and now you’re just like them!”
She winced but didn’t deny it. “You don’t understand George, but one day you will thank me.”
“Stop saying that!” I yelled, feeling myself practically coming out of my skin with the ferocity of my frustration. “We don’t have to keep away from them! Charlotte didn’t help him and he isn’t going to come back for Ally!”
I was so angry with her. It felt like the greatest betrayal to Charlotte, to Ally and to me, she could ever have committed.
“Why don’t you understand?” I choked.
She sniffed hard, and I noticed tears threatening to spill over the rims of her eyes. “Come on, we’re going home.”
I stepped back away from her. “No!”
A shout had chimed in with mine from behind me, from someone I didn’t recognise. I turned around and was shocked to see Ally with clenched fists and glassy eyes.
“No!” she sobbed.
Time stood still for a moment.
I felt shell-shocked, like somehow the world had flipped on its head. Ally didn’t shout, she didn’t even raise her voice and she never, ever cried because she was Ally and it just wasn’t within her to get so furious and upset. Charlotte losing composure was one thing, but, Ally?
Charlotte swept forwards, almost knocking me over, and scooped Ally up into her arms.
“Ally?” I said shakily.
Ally looked as taken aback by her own emotions as me.
“Look what you’ve done!” Charlotte screamed at mum. “Look what you’ve done!”
Mum didn’t say anything but I saw her lip tremble.
Then before I had time to do anything, Charlotte was hurrying to the footpath and out of sight and I could hear Ally wailing like someone had ripped out her heart.
It had been broken, I could feel it, the magic was gone and all I was left with was emptiness.
It felt like grief, like someone had died.
