Seas of Snow Read online

  KERENSA JENNINGS is a storyteller, strategist, writer, producer and professor.

  Kerensa’s TV work took her all over the world, covering everything from geo-politics to palaeontology, and her time as ­Programme Editor of Breakfast with Frost coincided with the life-changing events of 9/11.

  The knowledge and experience she gained in psychology by qualifying and practising as an Executive Coach has only deepened her fascination with exploring the interplay between nature and nurture and with investigating whether evil is born or made – the question at the heart of Seas of Snow.

  As a scholar at Oxford, her lifelong passion for poetry took flight. Kerensa lives in West London and has developed a career in digital enterprise to help inspire young people across the UK and unlock their potential.

  Seas of Snow is her first novel.

  Dear Reader,

  The book you are holding came about in a rather different way to most others. It was funded directly by readers through a new website: Unbound. Unbound is the creation of three writers. We started the company because we believed there had to be a better deal for both writers and readers. On the Unbound website, authors share the ideas for the books they want to write directly with readers. If enough of you support the book by pledging for it in advance, we produce a beautifully bound special subscribers’ edition and distribute a regular edition and e-book wherever books are sold, in shops and online.

  This new way of publishing is actually a very old idea (Samuel Johnson funded his dictionary this way). We’re just using the internet to build each writer a network of patrons. Here, at the back of this book, you’ll find the names of all the people who made it happen.

  Publishing in this way means readers are no longer just passive consumers of the books they buy, and authors are free to write the books they really want. They get a much fairer return too – half the profits their books generate, rather than a tiny percentage of the cover price.

  If you’re not yet a subscriber, we hope that you’ll want to join our publishing revolution and have your name listed in one of our books in the future. To get you started, here is a £5 discount on your first pledge. Just visit unbound.com, make your pledge and type thesea in the promo code box when you check out.

  Thank you for your support,

  Dan, Justin and John

  Founders, Unbound

  For Ella, Anya, Rahul and Scarlett

  ‘Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.’

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  With special thanks to Ajaz Ahmed, Gi Fernando,

  Pat Jarvis, Matthew Jukes and Seven Hills

  Contents

  Prologue

  Claws

  Tears

  Shadows

  Leaves

  Books

  Pencils

  Lemons

  Ripples

  Flowers

  Myths

  Ladybirds

  Moonbeams

  Masks

  Creatures

  Stitches

  Shoes

  Puddles

  Bells

  Blessings

  Secrets

  Rosebuds

  Daffodils

  Words

  Milestones

  Dragons

  Bruises

  Poplars

  Metaphors

  Droplets

  Sandwiches

  Dots

  Routines

  Letters

  Accomplices

  Petals

  Politics

  Surprises

  Scribblings

  Plans

  Possibilities

  Revelations

  Belongings

  Snowflakes

  Fears

  Ramblings

  Shards

  Echoes

  Crystals

  Branches

  Roses

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Supporters

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Its low, guttural kraaa pierced the air and echoed into nothingness.

  Powdered whiteness bleached the horizon.

  A silver sun hung low in the sky.

  Something glinted on the ground, discarded in the snow.

  The chill of a wing’s breath swooped past.

  A trace of something lingered on the breeze.

  Claws

  She could still feel the lingering stench of his presence. Soap suds were melting away around her, softly. The cold water shivered into her. His darkness had breathed into the room and the ash-bitter foulness of him enveloped her small, white form. He had reached down and seared her skin with his touch.

  She looked down and tucked her chin onto her knees.

  Of course, the picture she presented to the world was a mask. What choice did she have?

  The rain trickled into dropleted patterns down the glass. Rivulets darting about – fat luscious large ones and tiny, sparkly, little ones. Almost swimming. A kind of kinetic energy which belied the mistiness of the rainfall.

  Outside, the view was hazy through the spray. Splashes of green and grey. The odd moment of purple or yellow.

  Spring then.

  Her heart was beginning to beat with that familiar anxiety. Inside, she knew she just had to get through it. Again. Deep breaths.

  There was a straggly set of daffodils squatting in a white china vase downstairs. The Formica gleamed. A scent of polish lingering in the air. Harpic and Jeyes fluid. Bitter. Piercing. It was a house that looked like one of those dream homes you saw in pictures. But this wasn’t a place anyone could call a home. Wasn’t home meant to mean something warm and inviting? Safe and cosy. Hearth and heart. Home, sweet home.

  This house was a dream that never was. A game of make- believe. Of nightmares.

  The daffodils caught the sunlight with a cheery yellowness. She bowed down and smelled them. Strangely chemical rather than floral.

  I wandered lonely as a cloud …

  A whisper of a thought crossed her mind but disappeared in a vapour.

  ‘You ready, then?’ he asked.

  She looked up, nodded.

  The sense of not quite being able to breathe constricted her. She wasn’t sure if she could speak.

  The man wore a long, black coat and a long, stern face. He had slightly raised eyebrows, as if questioning.

  Her mother’s brother.

  She couldn’t bring herself to call him uncle – that would have been as much a lie as calling this house a home.

  She collected her things and walked through the door he held open for her. The cold rain lingered on her cheeks and clung to her eyelashes. Her soft hair began to feel damp.

  Joe had been in her life for the last eight years. He turned up when she was five. She remembered how it happened.

  *

  It was bath time. School was still a novelty in those days and it had been a day of painting and sunshine. Mam was sloshing the water around and it felt warm and delicious.

  The doorbell rang. Mam hurriedly gathered her up out of the bath and wrapped a rough, peach towel around her. She gave her a little kiss and said she would be back in a minute. ‘Won’t be long, pet.’

  Then, a gasp which became a kind of squeal. Like an animal, but Mam.

  She peeked her head around the banisters and looked down. A man was standing in the doorway. Mam was clasping her hands to he
r mouth, though it was hard to tell if it was shock or joy or something else.

  The man came inside and grasped Mam tightly, his hands clasping around her. There was murmuring – she couldn’t hear what was being said … then another exclamation.

  ‘Gracie, come and meet your uncle!’ her mother called.

  Still wrapped in the rough, peach towel, Gracie toddled down the stairs. She eyed the man.

  He looked at her. She was about as sweet and precious and lovely as an angel. Her blond curls were damp about the neck.

  ‘Give your Uncle Joe a kiss, pet.’

  He swooped her up, a tiny towelled-up bundle, and his raspy, scratchy stubble itched her skin.

  She smelt like lemons.

  Gracie had never heard of an uncle before. But then again, you don’t know everything when you’re five.

  She looked at her mother and saw something different in her eyes. They were shining like glass. They looked a bit like the eyes of her baby doll, Victoria – you couldn’t tell if she was happy or scared, but you could make believe any story you wanted and it would fit.

  Joe said something about not having set eyes on the little one before. One … two … three … four … five … Gracie counted up how old she was.

  She didn’t remember much about her first few years. There was the agonising morning when she knelt down onto the ground and the grass bit her. The pain was more horrible than anything you could imagine. The grown-ups said something about a wasp, but Gracie didn’t know the word, and frankly didn’t really care. She just wanted her knee to stop being red and angry and sore.

  The other memory she had from those days were those precious times she and her Ma spent reading, squished together on the doorstep if it was a nice day and snuggled up on the sofa if it was chilly or wet outside. Well, it was Gracie’s Ma who did the reading, but the pair of them would sit for hours with storybooks and nursery rhymes. Fairy tales with magic, beaut­iful princesses, evil monsters – and happy-ever-afters.

  She felt safe and warm and happy. The sound of her mother’s laughter was a tinkling comfort, and cuddling up with each other felt just perfect.

  The years went by and there were more memories. Mostly everything seemed a bit beige or grey, but there were flashes of colour. She thought of roses. White roses.

  Blood-orange-purple-black inside her eyelids as she ran away blindly from a boy who had tried to thrust a dead blackbird down the back of her blouse. His cackling like something from a storybook.

  Her heart had never been tested like this. It felt as if it had gone on fire. She ran and ran and ran. She thinks she screamed, but she can’t be sure. A private, empty scream that nobody heard.

  The scratchy feathers had got tangled up in her hair and pointy sharp things were digging into her neck. The bird’s lifeless body still felt warm. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it, a lump of oily deadness with coarse blades penetrating her skin. Its sticky, almost-living roughness felt tepid beneath the cotton collar of her blouse and forced her into violent shudders.

  She tried to dislodge it, panic setting in as the nightmare cleaved ever tighter. Why couldn’t she get rid of it? Why was nobody helping?

  Even as she ran, the limp body slipped slightly further down her back, revolting her with its warmth and making her retch uncontrollably. Sheer terror seized her. Acid gagged into her mouth. Her whole body froze.

  And then, the monster freed itself and fell with a thud to the ground.

  Gracie uncoiled, her throat burning from the vomit. She saw the shiny black heap of feathers, a yellow beak daring to point itself at her. A twisted neck distorted its shape into a comma of coal. Staring eyes looked out pointlessly, and its claws seemed to be hooked onto an imaginary prey.

  Tears prickled into Gracie’s eyes and her cheeks burned. She realised she was out of breath, and gulped down some air to try to make herself feel better. But the waves of sick didn’t go away.

  For the rest of her life, the flutter of a bird’s wings would cause a swelling of nausea in her stomach. She didn’t mind birds at a distance. Could almost sense their beauty. At a ­distance. But even a dead bird lying in the lane would grip her with its cold claws and threaten to stifle her. And that day, after bath time, she strangely felt the same. Uncle Joe had come into their life and it was as if something was clawing at her heart.

  Tears

  Everything took on a routine. Uncle Joe more or less moved in. But there were times when he would disappear for ages and ages. Whenever he left for one of his long trips, her mother would look out of the window after him and sigh, deeply. Gracie always sighed, too, with relief. When he came back it was as if a little bit of life drained away from them both.

  At first, her mother would smile at him when he came through the door. A tentative approach, a stroke, what looked like a clumsy attempt at a kiss. He would barely look at her, pushing past and muttering about supper.

  She began to act as if she didn’t know what to do or say.

  He would smell of ash and dirt and a dark, treacly bitterness Gracie couldn’t identify. Come up to her and bury his head into her neck. Kiss her with his prickly face and stare at her with his hooded eyes.

  It was like being watched by that dead bird. Made her shudder.

  Her mother would gaze on and the sparkle of her eyes gradually disappeared. The tortoiseshell green that glowed and shone when Uncle Joe first arrived became a watery shadow. The light faded into nothingness.

  Sometimes Gracie heard her mother sob with wretched, ­fuggy-throated gulps. She would emerge later with a face riven with lines. Blotched, red, mottled and old.

  She seemed to be getting thinner, too.

  Sometimes she’d spend ages layering clothing to cover up the latest blue-purple bruises. Blouses and cardigans and high-necked dresses. Scarves came in useful. On days when her face wore black shiny memories of the previous night, she would stay at home and cry some more.

  All the while, she would look at Gracie with the wisp of an apology around her lips and in her lifeless eyes. But she said nothing. May Close. North Shields. Tyneside. With Uncle Joe. This was now their life.

  Gracie pondered on what was happening. Friends at school with brothers and sisters sometimes fought with them, sometimes hated them, but always seemed to love them, really.

  Gracie had often wished she could have a little brother or sister of her own, but it never happened. She had never had a Da. Not like some of the children at school who had once had a Da but lost him when he died in the War or anything. She had just never had one.

  So the chance of having a little brother or sister was about as likely as getting good at spelling. Or ever trying one of those bananas her teachers talked about. Or a real egg.

  She didn’t know much about it, but when she visited her friends, it seemed as if brothers and sisters teamed up together. Played together, laughed together. Had jolly good fun together. Mucked about together and teased each other about silly things like having to wear too-big hand-me-downs. It was noisy and boisterous and involved lots of play-fighting. But it always looked fun.

  Her mother didn’t seem to have much fun with Uncle Joe. They never played or laughed. He just hurt her and he made her cry. Then he’d pretend he hadn’t and he’d come up to Gracie and grasp her and breathe her in with a fierce intensity she hated.

  He usually disappeared again then for a while.

  The memories flooded back. One day, her mother took her out onto the back doorstep, as they’d gone a hundred times before. She had brought a bowl of soap and water. And began blowing bubbles.

  Gracie was almost seven on this occasion. ­Bubbles felt a bit like a little girl’s game, but she humoured her mother. It was the first time they had sat down together for as long as Gracie could remember.

  It was a sunny day, so the colours were as bright and beaut­iful as they could be, and the reflections of their pebble-dash house rose high into the sky and merged with the blues of the sky. The oily spheres had a
life of their own, spiralling upwards, gleaming with a thousand rainbows. Nothing in the world could be more magical. Even now, as a big girl, she loved watching them float into the air, then disappear in a puff of invisibleness.

  ‘Gracie, pet, what do you think about us having a little baby?’

  Gracie looked at her mother. There was a wise curiosity in her eyes.

  ‘So we could have our very own baby Victoria, only real?’ she asked.

  ‘Mam’s got a baby growing inside her tummy, pet. In a while, we’ll get to meet it. How about that, pet? Would you like a little brother or sister?’

  Gracie wasn’t sure what to make of this. It reminded her of a terrible time a few years ago – before Uncle Joe appeared. She had been woken up in the night by the sounds of her mother crying with desperate, animal yelps.

  She had tiptoed downstairs. Her mother was weeping un­­controllable, jagged tears.

  She pulled Gracie to her tighter than you can imagine, stroking her hair and clasping her as if she couldn’t bear to let her go.

  Gracie looked up at her, and with a tiny finger, traced a tear running down her mother’s cheek.

  ‘Oh my darling, my darling, my pet,’ she said, rocking the little girl backwards and forwards.

  ‘Violet’s lost her little one,’ she said, crying and crying.

  It was some time before Gracie properly worked out what was wrong. Violet – Mrs Sherwood from number 16, was expecting a little brother or sister for Catherine and Michael and Mark. But something bad happened and now the baby was in heaven. Gracie didn’t even think it had been born or anything.

  She looked at her mother now. She was blowing bubbles, and there was the faintest trace of a smile in her eyes.

  ‘Are you going to be happy now, Mam?’ Gracie asked.

  ‘I don’t know about that, pet, but let’s wait and see.’

  Shadows

  Billy next door was Gracie’s special friend. A couple of years older than her, he’d never minded the fact she was just a girl. Ever since they were little, he’d wanted to look after her. He thought about the time when she was three and he was five. He’d invented an adventure game for them. He knocked on her door, and waited.