Season of Secrets

  I kneel up in bed and push my head out under my curtain, and I watch him. The moon is big and bright. The sky is full of stars. Frost glitters on the branches of the trees. There’s absolutely nothing making any noise at all except this boy, gasping and shaking. Everything else is still.

  The boy holds up his hands and stares at them. He turns them over and over in the moonlight like he’s never seen hands before. He looks up to my window and I duck my head back behind the curtain, so he can’t see me. I’m trembling. I know exactly who he is, the way you do know things in dreams. It’s my man, my green god, come back as a boy. I’m frightened, but I’m also full up with excitement. He ought to be dead and he isn’t. He’s come back.

  I open the curtains very slightly and peer through. He’s standing up, walking round the garden. He’s not shaking now. He’s almost exactly the same size as me. He touches the branches of the trees and they shiver under his fingers. He kneels under the tree at the bottom of the garden and he touches the grass, here and here and here.

  What’s he doing? I press my face up to the window to try and see, but it’s too dark, it’s too far away.

  He’s standing under the trees, looking at the grass that he’s touched. Is there something there now? I can’t be sure. He turns and looks up to my window again, a bare, beautiful boy in the moonlight.

  Then he’s gone.

  Snowdrops

  Next morning, when I take the crusts out for the birds, there are footprints in the frozen grass. They start in the middle of the lawn and they go all around the edge of the flower bed. Then they stop.

  In the frost under the oak tree, where the boy was crouched last night, there are little flowers. Snowdrops.

  “Well!” says Jack, smiling at me from his kitchen window. “Did you make those, little witch?”

  I blink at him. I don’t say anything.

  “Haven’t you ever seen snowdrops before?” he says.

  I don’t answer. I touch the flowers very gently, making sure that they’re real.

  Happiness

  Coming down the hill to school, I’m singing.

  “There is singing in the desert, there is laughter in the skies—”

  “Shut up,” says Hannah.

  “No,” I sing. “No, no. Hey – hey, Hannah? Have you ever had a dream that came real?”

  “Have I what?”

  “Have you ever dreamt something then had it come true?”

  “Yes,” says Hannah. “I dreamt I had a little sister who wouldn’t stop singing, so I grabbed—” She pounces. Normally I would scream, but today I just laugh and wriggle free and run off down the road. Hannah chases after me and grabs me by my coat.

  “You’ll never catch me,” I sing. “Never, never.”

  I tear free and run down the hill to school.

  I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much with Hannah.

  All day at school, I look for signs that he might have been here. New flowers, growing where they weren’t before, green spikes of grass, new leaves on the trees.

  There’s nothing.

  As soon as I get home, I go into the garden. I look for him in all the hiding places, even silly ones where he couldn’t possibly be.

  I can’t find him.

  Over in his house, Jack sticks his head out of the window.

  “Lost something?” he calls.

  “Have you seen a boy?” I call back. “My size, with no clothes on?”

  Jack laughs.

  “Oh, aye?” he says. “Who’s that – Alexander, or one of those Haltwhistles?”

  “Not them,” I say. “A special boy. He’s magic, I think.”

  “I see,” says Jack. “Well, if I see any magic boys with no clothes on, I’ll let you know.”

  I go back to the barn again, but it looks the same as it has all winter.

  Empty.

  “Hello?” I call. “Boy? It’s me – Molly.”

  I have no idea if he’ll remember me or not. He’s a whole new person now, after all.

  Not that it makes any difference. He’s not there.

  I sit on a bag of concrete and wonder where else to look. He could be anywhere. If he’s even real. Maybe I was dreaming.

  Then I look up and see it.

  His oak tree.

  I can feel the happiness bubbling up again inside me. I go over and touch it; the tree I thought was dead. I reach out and touch the green place in the bark, where new wood is beginning to show through the old.

  The Amazing Upside-Down Boy

  I’m too full up with jittery excitement to go back home.

  I go to the wood behind the houses, where the youth hostel is. It isn’t a proper forest, like the Forbidden Forest or the wood with the lamp-post in Narnia. It’s not the sort of wood you’d think a god would hide in. It’s full of dead wood and ivy and squelchy patches and nettles and you only have to walk for about ten minutes before you hit an edge.

  But I can’t think of anywhere else he might be.

  “Boy?” (Very quietly.) “Boy?”

  And there he is.

  He’s hanging upside down from a tree. He’s got some trousers from somewhere – brown, leafy, Peter-Pan-type trousers. Maybe he’s magicked them for himself. He’s wearing a wreath of ivy leaves, but it doesn’t look girly. It’s all mashed up in his hair, which is wilder than I remember; big, messy curls sticking out in all directions.

  “This place is great!” he says.

  He’s exactly the same size as me. I think his eyes are the same colour as before, but they’re different. My man’s eyes were gentle – this boy’s look more like Josh’s when he’s excited about something.

  “Do you remember me?” I say.

  The boy screws up his eyes.

  “Of course I do,” he says. “You were there last night, weren’t you? You were hiding, but I saw you – that’s where I know you from.”

  I bite my lip. I’m not at all sure this counts as remembering me.

  “Where did you come from?”

  “Somewhere,” he says. “Somewhere you’ve never been.”

  “You were—” I hesitate, not sure how to put it politely. “Do you remember what happened? At Christmas?”

  “Of course,” he says. But he looks uncertain. “Why are you asking all these questions?” he says. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “I’m Molly. Molly Brooke.”

  He still looks puzzled.

  “You look like one of the house-people, but you aren’t a house-person, are you?”

  “I am,” I say. “But I’m your friend too.”

  “Everyone’s my friend.” He laughs at me, upside down. “Look—” He holds out his hand and a green shoot curls out from between his fingers and twists around his hand and up his arm. “Can you do that, Molly Brooke person?” he says.

  “No,” I say. “No, I can’t.” I chew on my lip. “You do know not everyone’s your friend, don’t you?” I say. “You do remember about the Holly King?”

  “Of course,” he says airily. He flings himself forward off the branch and lands on his hands. “Look!” he says, upside down, balanced on his hands. “Can you do this?”

  “Yes,” I say, “I can, actually. But you have to remember about the Holly King. He tried to kill you! And he’s still after you! You have to be careful—”

  “Be careful, be careful,” says the boy. “Who’s afraid of the Holly King? I’ve got work to do!”

  He walks towards me on his hands, then drops his feet back down to the earth. He crouches in the grass, touching it with his fingertips. Little green sprouts push their way up through the earth. Flowers appear; snowdrops, frail and white.

  “Can you do that?” he says.

  I don’t answer. I’m looking at his trousers. They’re made of brown planty shoot, all woven together. You can see his legs through them. They’re smooth and brown and strong, but slashed across them are the marks of old scars, deep and white.

  The sort of scars you’d get from the bi
te of a dog.

  Or a wolf.

  I run down the last bit of lane home. There are green shoots under the hedges where daffodils are going to come soon, and a cold blue sky above me. When I burst into the kitchen, Dad’s there. He’s started coming round unexpectedly since Christmas. He’s drinking tea and playing thumb wars with Hannah.

  “One, two, three, four, I declare thumb war. Thumb war!”

  Thumb wars are a Dad thing – me and Mum are rubbish at them. Hannah’s very good. She kneels up on her chair, twisting Dad’s arm all the way up and round. I’m not sure if she’s really that strong, or if Dad’s letting her win.

  “Hey, hey, love, be careful,” he says. He looks up and sees me. “Hey, Moll! Where’ve you been?”

  “Up in the woods,” I say. “I saw—” I stop.

  “Who’d you see?” says Hannah. Her face is red, strands of hair sticking to her forehead. “Josh?”

  I hesitate. Dad’s smiling. He’s come all the way from Newcastle to see us.

  “No one,” I say. I sit down on the other side of Dad. “Just trees and stuff. Can I have a go?”

  “Let’s pick something we can all play,” says Dad. “Cards, maybe?”

  Emily on Ice

  Emily’s birthday is in February. She doesn’t invite everyone to her party like Matthew did his. She just asks me and Alexander.

  “What about us?” says Matthew.

  Emily shakes her head. Her eyes get big and round.

  “Don’t be so rude,” says Mrs Angus. “Emily can invite who she likes. I’m not surprised she doesn’t want you there, after what you do to her.”

  Matthew and Josh were showing Hannah kung fu yesterday. Only Josh got fed up with the whole unarmed-conflict thing and whacked Matthew over the head with Emily’s chair. While Emily was trying to sit on it.

  I don’t say anything to Emily when I get my invitation, but I can’t stop smiling, all through spellings-and-tables.

  The party is a skating party.

  “Have you ever been skating before?” Emily’s mum asks us, in the car.

  “Once,” I say.

  Emily can skate already. She slides straight off on to the ice and spins around. She looks like a ballerina.

  “Come on, you two!” Emily’s mum says, to Alexander and me.

  Alexander looks terrified. He holds on to the side and edges his way round. Even I can do better than that. I don’t hold on to the edge. I inch forward, arms held out. Emily skates round me.

  “Push sideways with your feet,” she says. “Like this.”

  I try and I go forward. Emily holds on to my hand.

  “Let’s go fast,” she says. I’m sure I’m going to fall. I’m sure. But I push with my feet and I seem to do OK.

  Emily on ice is completely different to everyday Emily. She talks, like a proper person. We skate all the way around and then we pick up Alexander, who’s still clinging to the side. We hold one hand each and pull him.

  “Oh,” he says. “I don’t like it. I don’t like it.”

  “Not even fast?”

  “Especially not!” he says, and falls over.

  He goes off with Emily’s little brother to buy crisps. Emily and I go round again. Emily shows me how to go backwards and I almost do it. And I only fall over twice, the whole time.

  “That’s a lovely skating skirt, Molly,” says Emily’s mum. She can skate too. My skirt is the red one Mum made me. “It goes lovely with those dark curls.”

  “I hate my hair,” I say. “I wish I had blonde hair.”

  “I wish I had curls,” says Emily.

  Afterwards we have chips in the café, and I teach Emily Mum’s spy game, where you have to work out which of the people around you are secret agents in disguise. The hunched-up old lady with the wrinkles and the pink lipstick definitely is – why would someone so small and shrivelled-looking want to go ice-skating?

  “Unless she’s an alien,” says Emily, and we both go off into giggles.

  “Emily, behave,” says Emily’s mum, but she smiles at me and Alexander. “I’m so pleased Emily’s met you two. She had a hard time when she started at that school.”

  “School’s horrible,” says Alexander. I look at him, surprised. I thought Alexander liked school. I thought everyone did except me (and maybe Hannah). And actually there are lots of things at school that I like. Miss Shelley, and art, and nature, and playing games all together and the play and Emily and Alexander and. . .

  “. . .if she’d say yes?”

  Emily’s mum is looking at me.

  “What?” I say.

  “I said, you seemed to enjoy skating,” she says.

  “Oh yes.”

  “Well,” says Emily’s mum. “Emily comes here every Wednesday. It’s a bit lonely, being the only one from here. We’d be happy to take bring you along, if your grandma doesn’t mind.”

  Emily sits straight up. “Yes!” she says. “Come, come, come!”

  “And you too, of course, Alexander,” Emily’s mum says, but Alexander looks horrified.

  “Will you?” says Emily. “Will you, will you?”

  I don’t say anything. I’m thinking – about having friends. About learning to spin and go properly fast. If I could be a skater when I grow up, it wouldn’t matter that I don’t have blonde hair. Or maybe I’ll be an artist, or run a shop like Grandma, or write books, about all the magic in the world. Or maybe I’ll do them all. I could do anything, I think, and I feel the corners of my cheeks turning up, turning into a smile so big it’s like my whole face is beaming.

  “Yes, please,” I say.

  A Flower for March

  There are rabbits in Grandpa’s garden. I can see them in the twilight as I wheel my bike back to the shed. Bright eyes, long ears and the flash of a white tail. They’re after Jack’s vegetable patch.

  March has come. Rain and wet grass and the first, few leaves on the oak trees. The day after Emily’s party, I find the first daffodils under the tree in the garden. Emily-daffodils.

  Dad brings us three purple crocuses in a bowl.

  “One for you. One for Hannah, and one for your grandma, for looking after you.”

  “What about Grandpa?” said Hannah. “Grandpa does all the work!”

  Perhaps my boy in the wood made these crocuses. Is he the god of garden centres too? And if he isn’t, who is? Does he really make all the flowers in the world? Or are there different summer gods in Australia and Africa and America? How far does he stretch – all of Britain? Or just Northumberland?

  There are more than just rabbits in the garden. There’s something tall and shadowy moving in the trees.

  It’s him. He’s tall – almost as tall as my cousin Tom, who plays football for the comprehensive. His face is different too, older and longer. He’s got muscles now and strong brown arms. But his eyes are the same.

  “Molly,” he says. “It’s Molly, isn’t it?”

  He kisses his hand and blows the kiss to me. I can feel it land on my cheek and something falls on to my collar. It’s a flower. A little red flower.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  He’s got something strung over his shoulder – a horn, perhaps, or a bow or a quiver of arrows, I can’t see which. Did he make it himself? There’s no wind, but the trees move around him and the rabbits lift their brown heads and stare.

  “The Holly King,” I say. “He’s still here.” I’m sure he is – I’m sure he hasn’t gone. Sometimes, when I’m out in the lane, I see the trees rustling in the wind, and I know it isn’t me or my green god who’s moving them. He hangs in the air like an unanswered question.

  “Let him be,” says the boy, who’s almost a man. He holds out his hand to me, and then he’s gone, leaving me holding the red flower and wondering if he was ever really there at all.

  Grandma

  Every Wednesday now, Emily and I go ice skating. We’re in a class with lots of other kids – mostly girls. We hang around with the others, but we’re Best Friends, us two. r />
  Emily wants to be a farmer like her dad. Or an actress, or a dancer, or maybe an ice skater, she can’t decide.

  “We could run a skating shop!” says Emily. “You could sell skating boots and food from my farm and your dad’s newspaper.”

  “We could write our own newspaper!”

  “We could write a play and I could act in it,” says Emily.

  I’ve never met anyone who likes stories and make-believe as much as me, except for Mum, and she’s a mum, so doesn’t count. We have so much to say, we’re still talking when we get home. Emily’s mum talks to Grandma, and we plan everything out.

  “It wouldn’t matter even if our shop never sold anything,” says Emily. “That’s the nice thing about farms, no one ever starves.”

  After Emily’s gone, Grandma comes and stands in the kitchen doorway with her coffee.

  “Got time enough for all that?” she says, looking at our plans.

  “Course,” I say.

  Grandma snorts.

  “We aren’t doing it all this year,” I explain. “Maybe some of it. But, like, it takes ages to become a good enough skater to go to the Olympics.”

  “Hmm.” Grandma gives me a funny look. “How long have you two been here now?” she says. “Four months?”

  I count. “September, October, November, December, January, February, March. Seven months!”

  “Seven!” Grandma starts. “What’s that dad of yours thinking?”

  I squirm. “How should I know?”

  “Hmm,” says Grandma. “I think,” she says. “It’s time I talked to your father again. This has gone on long enough.”

  All the muscles in my shoulders tighten. I’ve got used to us being here now. Surely she isn’t going to throw us out too? Doesn’t anyone want us?