Still she followed. She wasn’t sure how to get home, and even if she could figure out the way she didn’t fancy the walk in the dark by herself. She felt spooked. She’d have nightmares tonight, she just knew it, up in that attic room by herself. She trailed behind the other girls as they led her through the maze of trees, tried not to trip over the roots sticking out of the ground, like bones. The cold was biting at her ankles, like an angry monster. She could feel the wind through her thin witch’s costume. Eventually they came to a clearing with a dip where there was a rope swing and a few logs. Viola and her friends stopped and gathered in a little circle around Katy. Their faces seemed sinister with the paint and the moonlight, and she had a feeling she knew what was about to happen.
‘Fancy a game of hide and seek?’ asked Viola. Katy could see something mean glinting in her eyes. It was dark, despite the full moon, with shadows elongating the trees so they looked threatening against the inky sky. She definitely didn’t want to play hide and seek in the woods.
‘I thought we were going trick or treating,’ she said feebly. The other girls looked at each other and laughed.
‘No. Trick or treating is for babies, like we’ve already said. Hide and seek is for big brave girls,’ said Viola, standing in front of Katy. ‘And you’re going to be the one to count. Okay?’
No. It definitely wasn’t okay. Katy didn’t want to be left alone in the clearing to count while the others hid. She didn’t want to be left alone at all. But she could hardly say that for fear of looking like a baby. She wanted – she needed – Viola to like her. To respect her. If Viola hated her Elspeth might send her away. She couldn’t bear to go back to that children’s home. Or the one before. That place had been even worse, with bars at the windows and a teenage boy who tried to get her into trouble and hid a penknife under his pillow, threatening to cut her if she told. She’d never had a proper family. She hadn’t known her dad, and her mum had preferred going out and partying to staying at home and looking after her. Until that dark day three years ago when she had fallen asleep on the sofa and never woken up. She had sat with her mother for a full night and a day before she realized that something was very wrong and had gone to get Gladys, the sweet older lady from next door. That day she’d lost the little family she’d had and she couldn’t lose this one. So, she found herself agreeing meekly and stood by the tree, her eyes shut while she counted loudly into the night. There was the smell of damp and bonfires in the air. She heard the scurry of footsteps, the bark of laughter, then nothing. Just the haunting shriek of a fox and the rustling of branches.
After she’d finished counting, Katy called their names, then wandered around the clearing, desperate to catch sight of Viola’s white dress or Cassie’s green cloak, hoping they were hiding behind the thick tree trunks. But eventually, when it was obvious they’d dumped her in the woods and weren’t coming back, she screamed for them, her throat hoarse from crying.
She tried to find her way out, but all the paths looked the same and she was sure there was something up ahead, its yellow eyes watching her, slinking through the undergrowth. An owl hooted from one of the trees and there was another sound, something animalistic and frightening. In desperation she ran back to the clearing, tearing her costume on brambles and branches in her panic, slumping at the foot of the large oak tree where they’d left her, rocking and crying, her arms folded around herself as though to ward off the horrors. She was going to die. She knew that with a certainty she’d never felt before. She was going to be killed in these woods. And if she did die, would anyone care?
She wasn’t sure how long she was out in the cold and the dark, for sheer terror numbed all her senses, but eventually she heard voices. Adult voices and then, like a miracle, Huw and Elspeth were standing before her, Viola hovering behind them, crying. Huw scooped her up in his big bear arms and carried her through the woods, through the night.
21
Una
Elspeth is sitting in her favourite chair in the lounge, pretending to read a book. I’ve come to realize it’s her way of sending me to Coventry, as my mum used to say. When she’s in this mood I have no choice but to sit there with her. I have nothing to read as I left my book upstairs, and the one time I brought it down with me Elspeth had stared at me disapprovingly, as though I was slacking. As if I couldn’t do my job properly unless I sat, watchful and quiet, like a guard at Buckingham Palace. She even made a disparaging comment about how I should be ‘expanding’ my reading material to ‘open’ my mind. So I stare into space and try not to feel uncomfortable while, every now and again, puncturing the torturous silence with ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ which she always refuses, probably because she doesn’t want to give me the luxury of going down to the kitchen to talk to Aggie. I’ve come to understand that this is what Elspeth likes to do best: play mind games.