Chapter 6
Six
Morgan
Relieved to be out of that house, I take a deep breath.
On looking up, I can’t see that any of the windows or doors are open.
Maybe it was an animal, a rogue badger or a fox.
My line of sight falls on the balcony and I try not to think too hard about what might be in the house.
My mind is back on the ghost theory. I know I’m being silly but I don’t have any evidence that ghosts don’t exist. I shake those thoughts away before I scare myself silly.
My mind is seriously running away with me.
The cause of the noises in the house will be wildlife or a breeze carried from the broken window, or both at the same time.
The air is cold but fresh. My heartrate steadies and I hope I don’t look flustered.
As I tread the snowy path, I leave my footprints behind.
The houses here are different to those on our old road back home in Bristol.
These are all unique, architect designed, as my mum and dad would say.
The house I’m heading to is the one at the entrance to Clover Lane with the same standard cutesy white fence that edges each drive – except ours.
Ours is rotten. I wonder if the boy is still there.
The woman next door with the short black hair reverses off her drive in a small red car. I smile as she changes gear, but she ignores me. She pulls over by her post box and starts checking her phone.
I turn on my useless phone. I hate not having Wi-Fi. I tentatively see if there’s an open network close by that I can use, and there is one with a super long mix of letters and numbers.
The woman gets out and checks her post box. I run over.
‘Hi, I’ve just moved in with my parents next door. Is this your Wi-Fi?’ I show her my phone.
She frowns as she heads back to her car. ‘Yes.’
‘Can I please log in, just to make a call? We haven’t got Wi-Fi yet.’ It feels desperate asking a random for their Wi-Fi code, but I’m so cut off here.
She scrunches up her nose. ‘Sorry, it’s not something I’m comfortable doing.’ She gets in her car and speeds off. How rude. It was worth a try.
After walking up the path a little, I hear a scraping noise then a car engine bursts into life.
I watch as a huge black four-wheel drive pulls out from where I saw the boy working.
It leaves the lane and the scraping has stopped.
Maybe the boy has finished and gone back inside.
I hurry, trying not to slip on the compacted snow.
The boy trudges around the corner, leaving the house behind. He glances up and smiles. ‘Hi.’ He waves.
‘Hi.’ Now, I didn’t say anything to my parents but I think he was hanging around our house when I went out to phone Mai. He was walking away, up the path, and then he started shovelling snow off that drive. I wonder if he left the hamper for us. Maybe it was a gift from his parents. I cross over.
‘You’ve just moved in, haven’t you?’
I nod. ‘ My mum’s aunt died.’
‘Dorette?’
Again, I nod.
‘Yeah, that was totally tragic. My mum found her.’
I scrunch up my nose. I didn’t even know Dorette so it’s hard to be too sad for her loss or mine. ‘That sucks for her. So, you live around here too?’ I hope he does. If he doesn’t and he’s just visiting family, I might actually die of boredom.
‘Yep. All my life I’ve lived here.’
Phew. ‘What do you do for entertainment? There isn’t anything here. It must be boring.’
‘I guess. There’s a bus stop not too far away and you can get to Whitby.
It’s cool there, there’s the beach, an arcade, a castle, but here on Clover Lane, you’re right.
There’s not much to do. There’s an estate and a shop but you have to walk past a lake, and it takes about half an hour on foot.
I have to walk my dog. Do you want to come? ’ He blinks hard about three times.
I’d love to meet his dog. I’ve always wanted a dog but never been allowed to have one. ‘Yes.’
‘Wait here.’ He jogs towards the house almost opposite ours and, a minute later, he comes out with a golden retriever. ‘This is Diggerty. He likes to dig. Mum goes ballistic at all the holes in the garden, but we love him.’
I realise I don’t even know what to call the boy. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Harry, and you?’
‘Morgan.’
‘Nice to meet you, Morgan,’ he says in a funny accent, American, I think. ‘That was Morgan Freeman by the way.’
I laugh. ‘You’re really bad at accents.’
I follow him to the woods. I’m not allowed here.
I glance back but my mum isn’t looking out of the window.
Mum’s being paranoid anyway. I look up and there’s no way I’m going to get pelted by falling branches.
Harry leads the way as Diggerty roams free.
I don’t even care a bit that Mum doesn’t want me to come here.
Harry seems to know how not to get us lost. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To the den.’
‘I’m fourteen, not five. You hang out in a den?’
He rolls his eyes and his dark hair has become dotted with snowflakes. ‘It’s not my den. It’s been here forever. Diggerty likes having a run around there. He mostly pees up the sides.’
‘So, what’s at this den apart from the stench of dog pee?’
‘See for yourself.’
I almost laugh as I see an old shed that has been extended by attempts to build two more wooden structures against it. A couple of small torn awnings jut out of the roof but have long flopped into a mess. Someone has badly built a bench, and weeds wind through every gap in the wood.
‘It’s better in the summer. Do you want to look inside?’
‘No.’ I shiver. I’m here in the middle of the woods with someone I’ve just met and I realise I didn’t clock how we got here. There was a maze of twists and turns. I’m now officially lost without Harry. The wilderness isn’t a habitat I’m comfortable with, being a city person. It’s alien to me.
‘Do you want a sweet?’
I take what looks like a square of fudge from the scrunched-up packet. ‘Did you leave the little welcome hamper outside our door this morning?’
‘No, that definitely wasn’t me. Someone left you a hamper?’
‘Yes. A small box full of veg and biscuits. I thought I saw you leaving when I came out the house.’
He looks at me for a second too long. ‘No, I never went anywhere near your house.’
I could have sworn he did but maybe he was just passing.
He shrugs. ‘I don’t know who would leave a hamper.
’ He frowns. ‘The man whose drive I cleared, he also had something but I think it was a note. He looked really pissed off by it and he asked me if I posted it. Who knows? Maybe it’s the ghost.’ He makes joke ghost noises which are as unconvincing as his Morgan Freeman impression, but given the noises I heard in the house, it unnerves me.
‘I’m sure whoever left it will soon tell us who they are.’ I chomp on the fudge and enjoy its sweet buttery flavour.
‘You know these woods are haunted.’
I stop chomping and swallow what I have in my mouth with a gulp. I think Harry is trying to scare me now but not in a serious way. ‘Is there anybody there?’ I shout before I burst into laughter. I won’t let anyone see I’m scared.
He leads me to a tree and I see several tatty pink ribbons tied around it. Some look like they’ve been here more years than I’ve been alive, others look newer. ‘Why are these here?’
‘A girl went missing and was last seen by the den but it was like a million years ago now.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know but they say her soul haunts these woods.’
‘But she might still be alive. Could she be alive?’
‘Dunno, she might be. Maybe she ran away or something. All I know is she went missing and no one ever talks about it. It’s like some big taboo around here. Mum doesn’t like me coming into the woods, but that’s her problem. I like it here.’
Diggerty barks and makes me jump. I feel lost right now and would rather get back to Clover Lane.
‘Anyway, I don’t believe in ghosts. I best go home. Can you show me the way back?’ I go to walk in the direction we came in. Hearing that a girl went missing here has made me edgy. Maybe that’s why Mum didn’t want me to go into the woods. They’re creepy and horrible. I miss Bristol so much.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.’
‘I’m not scared.’ I am. I’m scared I won’t fit in.
I’m scared I’m lost in this tree-filled hell and I’m scared that Mum and Dad might start fighting again and I don’t want them to get divorced.
Mai’s parents are divorced and she has to spend every weekend at her dad’s with his new girlfriend and her five kids.
The thought makes me shudder. Cora is hard work; I can’t imagine having to be around more kids or, even freakier, sharing a room with them. I’m suddenly grateful for my cupboard.
‘Do you want to hang out again later? You can come to mine. We have a games room. You play pool, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’ I’ve only played once but it was fun.
He’s caught up with me. It’s a good job because I don’t know where we’re going next. He leads me back to our road, safe and sound.
‘I live here. Come over about six or seven.’
A woman in a long white coat comes out of his house and waves Harry over. She stops and stares at me before looking at Harry. ‘Get inside, Harry.’
‘But, Mum.’ He blinks again, several times, and only then do I realise he has a tic.
‘In the house, please.’ She ushers him and Diggerty inside and slams the front door shut – mega rude.
I stand on the path and notice some of the neighbours staring at me.
One of them is holding a piece of paper and they all huddle together and begin talking and glancing my way.
Something’s happened and it’s big. From the look on their faces, I can tell they all hate us.
So much for the one called Tessa giving us flowers and one of the others giving us a hamper.
The man with the bulbous nose stares me out then turns back to the others.
I can tell that whatever this is, it’s personal.