Chapter 2
Ten years ago
I first met the Thorogoods when I was eight years old.
Bouncing out of the car, my blue glitter jelly sandals filled with tiny pebbles as I crash landed onto Granny and Grandad’s front garden.
I didn’t even bother to shut the door as I rushed to Granny and buried my face into her skirts as she welcomed me with open arms. I just knew from her flour-covered apron that she’d been baking my favourite jam tarts.
She always put little love hearts cut from the spare pastry on top.
Nothing ever went to waste in her house, and she never made anything that didn’t look like it was fresh out of a book of fairytales.
‘Hello, little one.’ She kissed my head.
‘I’ve missed you.’ My voice was muffled through the fabric of her skirt.
Granny laughed softly and pat me on the back. ‘We’ve missed you more.’ She pried my hands from around her legs and bent down so she could look me in the eye. ‘Why don’t you come on in? We’ve got your favourite tea on the table.’
I did as I was told. All of Granny’s teas were my favourite teas, and there was always lots of pudding afterwards, smothered in custard, of course.
Well, I loved everything at Granny and Grandad’s house, especially the fields that seemingly stretched for miles and miles.
Grandad always let me feed the sheep, and we were allowed to get as mucky as we’d like.
In London, we only had one tiny park, where the foxes weren’t too keen on being stroked and the tarmac wasn’t as soft to fall on as the grass.
Mum always moaned when I wore holes into the knees of my tights from crawling around, I’d scuff the toe of my shoes within moments of wearing them too.
I understand her frustration now, but eight-year-old Ava was more concerned with turning over every stone and piece of litter to look for bugs and beasties.
When the unpacking was done, we all sat down at the kitchen table for Grandad to dish up the roast. Mum always stayed for the first night to let us settle in before she had to go back to London.
It always made me giggle because it was like she was a kid here too: Granny warmed her pyjamas on the fire at the same time as mine and Callum’s, Grandad always plated up dinner for her, and made her eat all of her carrots before she was allowed pudding.
I always thought it would be nice if Mum could stay all summer, but she said work needed her and that Dad would be all by himself.
She didn’t want him to be lonely without her for too long.
‘Anything new on the farm then, Dad?’ Mum was asking, reluctantly plopping another carrot in her mouth. I didn’t know why she was always so fussy. The carrots were grown in Granny’s garden and I always thought they tasted more orange and carrot-y than the ones we’d get at Tescos.
‘Aye, lass,’ Grandad replied with a mouth full of mashed potatoes.
‘Care to share?’ Mum laughed at him.
Granny rolled her eyes and answered for Grandad. ‘We’ve got new neighbours, over the way at Hope Farm. Old Mr Dixon decided to sell up over the winter, and there’s a new family in there now. What were they called again Harry?’
‘Thorns? Thorolds? I dunno, but they have got a lovely John Deer and the fella said he’ll let me have a go on it, but he ’ant been round yet that bloo—’
‘—Thorogood, that’s it!’ Granny interrupted before he could continue. ‘Mum, Dad, and their three boys. I’m pretty sure the middle one is the same age as you twins.’
‘They’ve been out playing in that bit of land at the back, taken over that old treehouse. You know, that Dixon swore was his, but I could bet on my life that it was on our deeds, wasn’t it, Dot?’ Grandad grumbled, but he softened when Granny laid her wrinkly hand on top of his.
‘They seem like good lads,’ Granny said. ‘I still need to have the family round for tea, give them all the gossip about the village; you know how it is, Pip.’
Mum nodded, but I was still hung up on the prospect of new friends over the summer. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the days where Granny was my best friend, but it would be nice to play with people who didn’t just let me win every game we played, and who could last longer than five seconds at tig.
After dinner, once we’d finished the washing up, I tugged Callum by his shirt sleeves. ‘Come on!’ The thought of new faces was still hot in my mind.
The July evening was still light and warm, so I left my coat and shoes behind.
I sped across the garden, the grass tickling in between my toes with every step.
Dodging around farm machinery, the outbuildings, and the chickens that had squeezed through their fence to pick at the worms, it felt like the rest of the world could be out here at the end of Granny’s garden.
‘Where are we going?’ Callum finally asked as I slowed down to look out across the open fields. He was out of breath, but he would never say no to following me on an adventure.
Scanning the horizon, I pointed to the old willow tree in the distance. ‘There.’
We jogged through the ploughed field and by the time we reached the tree, the mud reached my knees.
I’d played in the treehouse before, but on that day it seemed different.
The branches were pruned. The tree looked neat and tidy, and the wooden house sitting in the middle of it looked alive.
A skull and cross bones had been drawn onto an old pillowcase and flew like a flag from one branch.
Chalk sketches decorated the walls like cave paintings depicting stories of castles, beasts and bravery.
‘Wow,’ Callum breathed as he looked at it with an open mouth. He said exactly what I was thinking as my legs trembled with excitement.
‘Stay here and be my look out,’ I ordered my brother. He saluted me with such conviction, I knew no one was getting past him.
Scaling the lowest branch, I hauled myself into the house. A sharp pain stung my foot as I snagged my sole on the raw wood with a hiss.
‘I bet you’ve got a splinter now.’ A quiet voice that I’d never heard before came from the corner. A boy about my age was lurking there, surrounded by piles of books and a collection of rocks and feathers.
I sat down cross-legged to inspect my toe. The stranger was right. A thick splinter was jutting out from the filth of my big toe and I winced at the sight of it.
‘Who are you?’ I asked, pretending that my toe wasn’t throbbing and the tears weren’t threatening to fall.
‘Who are you?’ he parroted. His hair was scruffy and sticking up in so many different directions that I’d swear he was a scarecrow if he weren’t talking to me. His feet looked like mine, though – shoes of mud enveloped them.
‘I asked you first.’ I folded my arms over my chest.
‘You’re in my treehouse.’
‘Well, my grandad said that this is his field. So, this is his treehouse.’
‘So, you’re Farmer Harry’s granddaughter then?’ He smiled as if he’d caught me out. ‘I’m Jacob.’ He got up from his shadowy corner and stretched out an equally dirty hand to shake as he came to sit beside me.
‘I’m Ava.’ I squeezed my foot, hoping that stopping any blood flow to it would also stop the tingling pain of my splinter. I didn’t want this boy to think I was a baby.
Jacob grabbed something from one of the chests and opened it on his lap. ‘Bug collecting kit,’ he said, as though he could see me watching him closely.
‘Cool.’
‘Here, give me your foot.’ He took a pair of tweezers from the kit and I couldn’t hide the way my eyebrows climbed my face.
Going to the doctor was always scary, and this felt all too similar.
‘Don’t worry.’ Jacob pressed the ends of the tweezers together and they clicked softly.
‘They’re only plastic. It will hurt more if you leave it in.
My brother left one in his thumb and it got all big and yellow and then it started leaking all of this smelly stuff. It was gross.’
Cautiously, I extended my foot out towards him. He gripped my ankle gently, though just firmly enough that I couldn’t squirm away. Like a surgeon, Jacob took his plastic tweezers, positioned them over my splinter and plucked it out in one swift motion.
‘Ow!’ I squealed.
‘Ava?’ Callum’s panicked voice called from outside. ‘What is it? Did the baddies get you?’
I peered out the ‘door’ – more of a hatch in one corner of the treehouse – and found my twin halfway up the same branch I had just used, gripping onto it for dear life.
‘I’m okay, just a splinter,’ I shouted back. ‘Here, take my hand.’ I reached out and dragged him up into the treehouse. ‘This is Jacob—’ But when I turned back to introduce Callum to my new friend, he was gone.
Rushing to the window, I found a rope ladder swinging from its frame.
Jacob was nowhere to be seen. Looking back now, I know he ran because he was shy, but back then it felt like I was going crazy.
I spent far too long questioning whether he was even real at all.
When we were kids, Jacob hated being in a room of more than a few people, he didn’t like having to make conversation, or pretending to listen.
I’m sure he’d have run away from me too if I had been any slower climbing that tree, but perhaps it was fate that he stayed.
‘Oh,’ I said, though Callum didn’t seem to notice.
‘Woah, cool!’ He was too busy rooting through lunchboxes filled with chalk and chests filled with all kinds of treasure – trinkets, action figures, seashells and whatever else.
Grabbing a pencil and a notebook from one of the chests, I scrawled a note and hoped that if Jacob was real, he would read it on his next visit.
Thank you
Callum came up behind me, sporting a knight’s helmet, a stick in place of a sword, and a hobby horse thrust between his legs. ‘You’re writing them a note?’ he asked.
I nodded.
‘Ask if we can join their club. I can be a knight and you could be a pirate!’
So, I did just that. My handwriting had never been the neatest and it looked particularly scratchy as I pressed the page against the woodgrain as a makeshift table.
I signed it off with a questionable drawing of two crossed swords before looking about for somewhere to leave it that wouldn’t get wet, or blown away.
Finally, I found a nail by the window that wasn’t hammered fully into the plank and pierced the page with the blunt end.
Our note flapped against the treehouse like an old WANTED poster.
Clambering down again, and helping Callum, I took one last look in the direction of Hope Farm, trying to catch a glimpse of the mysterious, muddy boy in the distance.
The only thing that moved seemed to be the clouds as they floated on with the wind.
It was then that I started to wonder if I’d dreamt the whole thing.
Could ‘Jacob’ have been the ghost of a knight haunting his old castle?