Chapter 1
One
Gemma
Aunt Dorette is dead. It has been six months since her death and now I’m with my family in our pickup on a dreary Sunday heading to Clover House, a place I swore I’d never, ever return to. I shiver and not because it’s a chilly late January afternoon.
‘Has someone just walked over your grave?’ Ethan glances over at me, then his gaze returns to the road. ‘We can turn the heating up even more if you’re cold?’ His wispy brown hair waves about as the warm air blowing from the vents catches it.
It’s so hot in here, I think I’m going to bake.
Our trusty vehicle is lovely and toastie, despite it being freezing outside.
‘I can’t stop thinking about the accident and the fact we’re going to be living in the same house she died in.
’ From how the police described the scene, I picture my aunt lying dead on the path after falling through her rickety balcony – then there’s the woods.
My palms start to sweat as panic builds inside of me.
Ethan flashes me a sympathetic smile.
I think of that rusty railing. It was a death hazard all those years ago, back when I used to stay with her as a child and then as a teen. She obviously never got it fixed.
The police concluded that it was an accident, so here we are, driving up to Whitby, and we’re going to live in the very house I never wanted to go back to.
I try really hard not to resent Ethan. Our eighteen-month-old baby girl, Cora, makes a cute little sound.
I worry that she’ll wake or need a nappy change, but I live in hope that she won’t, not yet at least. We take the A64 road to York.
There’s still miles and miles to go. Our fourteen-year-old daughter, Morgan, bops her head in time to a beat.
It’s no use saying anything to her while she has her earphones on.
Sadness washes through me as I think about poor Aunt Dorette again.
She would have loved to meet Cora and Morgan.
My aunt wrote to me on many occasions, inviting us all up to Whitby to see her, but I’d reply with lies, telling her that we were too busy, because going back was always out of the question for me.
I admired how she still wrote letters. In the age of email and messaging apps, my aunt shunned it all for this traditional method of keeping in touch.
I loved my aunt and I hope she knew that.
She lived alone and was a recluse from what I know.
Mum used to take me to stay with her through the summers and she’d tell me that Aunt Dorette wasn’t always well, that she was very sad.
I now understand that my aunt was depressed.
It hurts to think that she could’ve been so lonely she might have taken her own life.
I think back to some nicer memories. She used to wear long woolie cardies that dusted the floor.
She had a door plaque that she made herself on a ceramics course and it had a four-leaf clover on it, for luck, she said, and now I see the irony.
That house killed her, which makes it a bad luck house, and now I’m returning to that death trap with all its ghosts, taking my darling children with me.
I glance at my daughters again and I know they can never be allowed to go into the woods.
‘There’s a sign for Whitby,’ Ethan says as he gives my knee a little squeeze.
‘Yuck, gross, get a room,’ Morgan says as she turns to look out of the window.
I smile and glance back at Cora who has dribbled a little, so I reach over and use my finger to wipe her chin. She thrusts a hand out but her eyes are still closed. She makes me melt with happiness. Even when she’s tugging at my dark curly hair and it hurts, I still smile.
‘Are you sure that the apartment is well secured from the rest of the house?’ He’s told me it is several times, but I know that the house is a death trap.
‘The apartment is totally safe. There’s no way I’d bring you all here if it wasn’t, would I?’
My husband has hidden things from me before, big things, so I’m not sure if I fully trust him.
He starts singing and taps out a beat on the steering wheel, while I think back to August, when our problems started.
We were at the solicitor’s office and Aunt Dorette’s will was being read out.
I knew that Ethan wanted to immediately pop the cork on a bottle of champagne.
We were about to come into some serious money, but it was all tied up in Clover House.
As for me, I didn’t want our life to change one bit.
I loved our terraced Georgian house in the heart of Bristol.
I loved my friends and Morgan loved her school.
As soon as the solicitor stepped out of the room, Ethan started badgering me.
‘Honey, just think about it ? —’
‘No. Please, Ethan, we spoke about this and I don’t want to move. The kids are happy. It’s not about us. It’s about them.’
I go from calm to shaking in less than a few seconds, but Ethan still happily taps away on the steering wheel.
‘It’s all going to be okay,’ he says as we pass yet another sign to Whitby.
It’s not , I want to say. We have no choice but to do this.
I wonder if we can come out of this in a strong position like he seems to think we can.
I still love the free spirit in Ethan, but do I have confidence in him?
I’m not so sure. The risk taker against the risk averse – that’s me.
My husband will drop everything in a second to pursue the next big idea and, in all fairness, his ideas had once netted us a good life.
I remember how hard he tried to convince me to return to Clover House despite seeing how apprehensive I must have looked.
‘This isn’t just about you, or us, it’s about our future. Think of Cora and Morgan. This could set them up for life and it’s a house in the country. We could live there for a few weeks while we strip the place out and do it up.’
The closer we get to Whitby, the more my stomach churns.
‘Hungry?’ Ethan picks up one of the sausage rolls from the centre console.
I shake my head. Morgan thrusts a hand between us and takes it. ‘Yes, please. I’m starving,’ she says as she begins to open the wrapper.
If they knew what happened all those years ago, they wouldn’t be hungry either but there’s no going back now.
I wanted to sell Clover House but we couldn’t afford to bring it up to date and keep our own house too.
Ethan did the calculations and I double-checked them.
If we can pull this renovation off, we are set to gain three quarters of a million pounds and then we’ll have our life back.
He places a hand on my knee again. Anxiety bubbles inside me now that we’re getting nearer to the past I’ve spent years pretending no longer existed.
Thinking of the way he’d persuaded me to come here makes me want to squirm in my seat now.
‘I’ve seen the plans. You know I can make a portion of it safe before we move in.
If we do it up, it’ll be worth a fortune.
That’s a lot of profit to turn our noses up at.
We’ve spent years turning around cheap terraced houses to make an average wedge of money, but this is in another league.
It’s a gift horse. Trust me, Gemma. I love you and I wouldn’t be suggesting we move if there wasn’t so much to be gained. Think about our future.’
I have always loved my husband. He was my second love, if I count Ben, my sixteen-year-old weeklong holiday romance in Devon. I can’t imagine life without Ethan, but that still doesn’t make me want his hand on my knee right now, but at least the tapping on the steering wheel has stopped.
Another sign to Whitby. Ever closer and closer. I’m tapping my foot in the footwell because I don’t have any fingernails left to bite.
Morgan slams her phone down and growls. ‘I’ve run out of data, Mum.’
I don’t know what she expects me to do. If I let her loose with my phone, she’ll run mine down too; there’s no Wi-Fi at Clover House.
Morgan folds her arms and sulks and she suddenly looks about ten. A part of me wants to laugh and I like that I want to laugh, because for the first time on this journey I’ve stopped annoyingly tapping my feet.
Cora blinks open a sleep-filled eye. Morgan unravels her folded arms and wipes her little sister’s wispy light-brown hair from her forehead.
Cora looks a lot like Ethan but she has my brown eyes.
‘Hello, little one,’ Morgan says. Cora starts to arch her back while letting out sporadic cries.
To all of our relief, she starts to breathe heavily again and nods back off.
Ethan removes his hand from my knee again to change gear.
‘Everything’s going to be okay.’
It’s not going to be okay. Ethan lied to me and I know I forgave him, but the reality of our situation is setting in good and proper now.
My heart starts to thrum as I think about the day after we left the solicitor’s office.
I was so happy, knowing we’d be able to sell Clover House and have some money in the kitty to propel our business to the next level. That was until Ethan came clean.
Tears prick at my eyes. I want to be back in our mid-terraced house, surrounded by the best neighbours a person could ever ask for, with flower troughs on every ledge.
I loved its tall ceilings, its original sash windows, the floorboards we restored, the original fireplaces we breathed life into after they’d been blocked off for years, the wallpaper I lovingly chose, our office and Cora’s playroom – all gone in an instant when I handed the keys to the estate agent at nine this morning.
Ethan’s words keep ringing through my mind.
The words that changed our lives forever.
‘I’ve lost it all, Gemma. When you told me about Clover House…
I don’t know how to say this…I’ve made some bad decisions.
The last two developments have lost. The properties were a bad investment and I had no choice but to put everything right before selling them, then the selling process came up short. I’ve borrowed on our house ? —’
My heart goes from thrumming to racing.
‘I’ve royally messed up, and I’m going to make it up to you, but we have no choice but to move into Clover House and do it up.’
That was his big lie. He told me everything was okay with the business.
As he pulls up to a red traffic light, he leans over and kisses my cheek.
He’s like a kid at Christmas at the thought of moving here.
A few snowflakes begin to fall, but I’m perspiring so badly, I’m itching under my coat.
Another damn sign to Whitby – and we’re not even going as far as Whitby – we’re several miles out, so we’ll be there even sooner than I’m prepared for.
Scrap that. I’m not prepared at all. I can barely swallow as I think of the entrance to those woods, right opposite Clover House.
I can never tell Ethan the real reason I don’t want to go back because I can barely think about it myself.
I scratch my wrists. Is it getting hotter in here or is it me getting hotter the closer we get?
I want to grab the wheel, force us to turn the car around – we can stay in a rental, a caravan, hell, even a tent.
Anywhere, except Clover Lane and those woods – the root of all my nightmares.
That’s why when I left all those years ago, I swore I’d never go back.