Seas of Snow Read online

  Lost in thought, Gracie began to breathe properly again.

  She began to make out shapes. Sharp corners of shelves, the ribbed spines of the books lined up. What looked like a broom in the corner, maybe a bucket. Boxes and boxes stacked up together. A mop and some pencils sticking out of a tin. It was like a silhouetted other world, where she began to feel safe.

  Pencils

  The lavender walls were beginning to feel oppressive. When she first arrived at this place, they said lavender was calming. Would be restful for her soul. Would help her relax.

  What did they know?

  She glanced down at the poem in her hand.

  Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being

  Something helpless, that wants help from us.

  She wondered if this could possibly be true. The myths of the world are scattered with demons. Real life had even worse monsters.

  In life, it would always start with something small. The boy who would carefully peel the wings off a fly, to see what happened. Or maybe it would be to laugh and to mock at an in­­ferior existence. Next he’d slice off the tail of a worm. Drown a cat. Kill a man. Where would it end? Does a boy like this want help from us? Is he really helpless? Is there hope for redemption, or is the soul of this boy tainted with an evil that can only grow?

  What are we, in our deepest beings? What is the truth? And how can we know? What certainty can I seek?

  I’ve tried to live my life the right way. I’ve tried to do good. But the torment never fades or subsides. An invisible force, always there. The sadness rises and rises, and never falls. Larger than any I have ever seen. And it will always be so.

  She was sitting cross-legged, hands joined together in prayer. Waiting. So far, it didn’t look much like God was going to be able to help her out. She wondered whether this was because she didn’t really know who he was – and she knew she had definitely never met him.

  But then a miracle really did happen. Gracie started as the door began to rattle.

  Someone opened it and the beautiful white light shone in like something from a fairy story. She got up and made her way out, stumbling clumsily because she had pins and needles in her legs.

  ‘Gracie, what on earth are you playing at?’ demanded the teacher.

  ‘Miss, thank you, thank you!’ was all Gracie could think to say.

  ‘Explain!’

  Gracie frowned slightly, weighing up the balance of telling the truth and getting the girls in trouble, or fibbing and hopefully preventing a kicking.

  ‘Gracie Scott, will you please tell me what happened now!’ bellowed Mrs Thomas.

  Gracie felt rather frightened, and wasn’t very good at fibbing anyway, so she came out with it.

  ‘The others locked me in, Miss, it was horrible, I felt scared.’

  Gracie knew there was no honour to be had for dobbing in Tish and Jo, but she felt she had no choice. Mrs Thomas looked as if her head was about to explode, it had gone all red like a tomato. If it wasn’t so serious, it would have been funny.

  Gracie stifled a tiny giggle – she couldn’t help herself. Completely ridiculous, she knew, but for some reason it just burpled up inside her. She willed herself to concentrate, to remember how just a few moments ago she would have given anything to escape. But looking at that red tomato face was just too much.

  ‘Sorry Miss, it’s been a rotten morning and I’m feeling sick.’

  It was the only thing she could think of.

  ‘Well, straighten yourself up and we’ll take you to the nurse. I thought you were cannier than that, Gracie, letting yourself get knocked around by those two. Be careful in future.’

  Gracie breathed a sigh of relief. Her accidental giggle had mercifully gone unnoticed. She pulled down her sleeves and couldn’t help but catch sight of dark grey pockmarks all over her left arm. She remembered the stabbing sensation and ­wondered what had happened. Puzzling over this sobered her up, and she went to see the nurse.

  It was mid-morning break by the time she got back. She decided to keep herself to herself. Not that this was particularly different to normal, but today, it was deliberate.

  Tish and Jo wasted no time in trying to find her.

  Gracie had sat on the grass outside the classroom, making a daisy chain, reflecting on her morning. She was thinking about seeing Billy later, and filling him in. She knew he’d want to have a right go at the girls, but he was a good lad. If she asked him to leave off, he would.

  ‘Oi, telltale Pastie-Gracie.’

  The words broke her out of her reverie. She groaned inside.

  She spotted the girls were each holding a pencil.

  ‘Want some more, do you? Do you?’ they challenged, waving the pencils around.

  They grabbed hold of Gracie and pulled up her left sleeve. Jo whispered fiercely, ‘Shut up, be quiet, or else.’ She was holding on to her tightly.

  Tish started prodding the pencil lead into Gracie’s arm, adding to the other grey spots.

  It hurt horribly. Eyes watering, Gracie looked away, as if somehow this would make everything better. It didn’t. The pain bore into her and wouldn’t go away.

  Gracie glanced at Tish, who was laughing and sharing glances with Jo. Gracie had no idea in the world why they would want to hurt her like this. She got the feeling she wouldn’t find out, either.

  The rest of the day passed without incident, but Gracie was aware of the throbbing in her arm. As the bell rang for the end of the day and everyone poured out of school, she was aware of voices trailing after her, warning her to watch out.

  She hurried home.

  ‘Hello, pet, glad you’re back, love, can you give me a hand with the mangling?’

  Her mother’s cheerful voice filled the air with comfort and safety. Gracie did a lot of helping out at home. Didn’t mind at all – it’s what everyone did really. It was one of the good days today. Joe hadn’t been back for weeks, and Mam was beginning to be a bit like her old self again.

  ‘Can I have a drink first, Ma?’ asked Gracie.

  ‘Wait for your tea, love, we’re running out of powdered milk and I’ve got a nice crumble to look forward to later for afters. Let’s pitch in and get this done.’

  Gracie knew she’d probably have a spam buttie for tea – boring, boring, boring – but the promise of crumble for afters was just too enticing for words. She wandered over to the sink, rolling up her sleeves. ‘Thanks, Ma, canna wait.’

  ‘Gracie, pet – what’s all over your arm, love?’

  Gracie froze. For the second time that day, she asked God for help. ‘What should I say?’ she asked under her breath.

  ‘Gracie?’

  Gracie glanced down at her forearm. It was red raw in places and fleckered with lead. It looked as if some demented flea had been at her.

  ‘I don’t know, Ma,’ was all she could think of saying.

  ‘Are you getting into trouble, doing bad things?’

  The wireless wittered on in the background, buzzing gently from the other side of the room.

  ‘’Course not, no, no.’

  ‘Well, what the flaming hell is tha’?’

  Oh God, please help me, what am I supposed to say – people think I’m so worthless they lock me in cupboards and stab me with pencils? I can’t do that to Mam. She’s so miserable herself, I can’t make her sadder. Please God, please …

  Gracie looked up at her mother and shrugged her shoulders. Her deep-green eyes gazed up with truth and innocence and sadness.

  She heard the blow before she felt it. A devastating whack on the side of her cheek. For the third time that day, tears pricked and there was a suffocation at her throat.

  Reason collided with hope in that instant. She stared in wonder at her mother. The world was going mad.

  ‘Never muck about like that again, do you hear me?’ the voice, muffled through the vortex of Gracie’s terror, shrieked and screamed. It didn’t sound like Mam.

  Another slap across the face.

&n
bsp; Gracie felt like a wounded animal, didn’t know where to look, what to say. Had this God who she didn’t even know decided today was ‘hate Gracie’ day?

  ‘Oh God, pet, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

  Suddenly, she was bound in her mother’s arms, feeling the hot wetness of maternal tears in her hair and on her forehead.

  She was being rocked backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.

  Some time later, Gracie wondered whether she being punished for the tomato giggle. Did God somehow find out about that, and want to punish her for not being grateful for his ­miracle?

  Right now, all she could do was silently resolve to keep out of harm’s way, as best she could. She was aching all over from the pressure of her mother’s embrace. Her cheek was stinging, her arm was sore, her heart was pounding. But worse than all of that was the sense that life was never going to be the same again.

  Lemons

  The room felt close, stuffy. A tiny space for a bed and a chair. All she had were her memories and her books.

  For oft, when on my couch I lie

  In vacant or in pensive mood,

  They flash upon that inward eye

  Which is the bliss of solitude;

  And then my heart with pleasure fills,

  And dances with the daffodils.

  That precious moment when the sadness of loneliness is transported away and replaced with the thoughtfulness – and deliberateness – of solitude.

  And her own inward eye paused and reflected on thoughts of happier times. That sense of optimism, when everything seemed possible. When life had meaning and light.

  She wanted to capture that bubble of hope and wallow in its dreamy pensiveness. Wanted that moment of reflection and sunshine to last and last …

  Her thoughts turned to another line that resonated with optimism, and she clung to it, tightly, willing it into being …

  Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses …

  Imagine if deep at its heart there was something clean and true in everyone. Under the scales of hate and venomous teeth, a golden seam of goodness. Beneath the roar of anger or in­­dignation, the gentle call of forgiveness and compassion.

  Was evil born, or made?

  Was innocence something we all hold in our souls, only to be blackened and turned rotten by experience?

  Why were the dragons of real life so much more terrifying than the monsters of storybooks?

  Rain shards sliced onto the grey stone paving slabs. She started …

  It was humid, wet and muddled. Just like inside her head. Turbulent colours of early summer whirling outside and in, slashing marks into life and imagination. The whirring noise of thought blurred with the complexity of vision. Dizzying. She inhaled. Eyes closed. Just let me breathe …

  Gracie could feel the wetness of her own eyes mingling with the moistness of the clouds’ tears. All she could think about was the dreadful, horrible thing that just happened. The scent of bitter lemons hung in the air.

  She had noticed Uncle Joe stare at her for some time now. There was a peculiar intensity to his gaze. His eyes were so dark you couldn’t even tell what colour they were.

  His eyebrows furrowed together with deep tracks across his forehead. There was a sternness about him, a steeliness that stirred a dark anxiety deep within her.

  A memory of another shadow oppressing her sank deeply inside, slowly tightening her throat and beating hard at her heart.

  Gracie was becoming accustomed to this fierce attention. And she hated it.

  A few years after Joe started living with them, he was having one of his periods away. There was a lightness in the air as both Gracie and her mother felt the softness of the light, and the lightness of their togetherness. The absence of darkness.

  Tea had been an old favourite – beef mince with gravy. Served with extra potatoes today. Mam had spent the day washing and cooking so was a bit tired, but tired in a happy red-cheeked kind of way.

  Gracie asked if she could have a bath. She loved the lemony foamy scent of the liquid soap – it smelt like sunshine. Bathing in its sweet citric fragrance was like being in a dream world. The foam looked like great mounds of snow, curved in waves, gently undulating with the movement of the water.

  She lay there blissfully, imagining a world where the snow was hot, and ice smothered you with warm fuzzy lusciousness. Her whole body was submerged in a sea of snow – a white, crystalline landscape of magic and crackles.

  She listened as the bubbles began to pop in little fits and starts. Like fairies chuckling together – a poppling and crickling as the snow began to melt.

  Lemon ice – in some strange alchemy, warm and comforting, enveloped her very being. She felt herself drifting into her thoughts, finding peace and silence in the bubbling snow.

  A creak disturbed her reverie. The door was pushing ajar. She looked up.

  Uncle Joe.

  She expected him to gruffly grunt and move away, close the door. She hadn’t heard him arrive home, and she hadn’t heard the familiar whimper Mam made when he would push past her, dismissing her as he would a runty dog.

  He walked in.

  Her bones felt grey and cold – frozen. She couldn’t move, not the merest hint of a whisper.

  He looked at her, unblinking.

  Where is Mam? Why is he in here? What should I do?

  He turned halfway behind him, and reached for the key. Locked the door, noiselessly. As he put the key into his pocket, the jangle as it tinkled with coins was deafening.

  Oh God, what’s he doing? Why has he locked the door?

  A familiar dizziness was blurring in her head. The big, black shadow hovered over her, waiting.

  He looked at her face. The soft wetness of her skin was peachy pink. Her dark eyelashes were dotted with water droplets. The deep, forest-green of her eyes looking up at him with such uncertainty, such fear.

  Her cheeks were rounded and dimpled.

  Damp hair gathered in ringlets around the base of her neck, bubbling over gently. Eight years old and quiveringly sweet.

  He took in her small hands, her tiny shoulders. Her almond milkiness. The perfect little nose and the rosebud mouth. Her scent … her freshly bathed lemon scent.

  Condensation was dripping down the blue-painted walls. A ceramic bowl sat squatly by the sink, crammed with a hair brush, a small hand mirror and some bright red ribbons. An enamel pot – painted with golden splashes – held a fistful of withering stalks and week-old crocuses.

  The fragrance of lemons overwhelmed him for a moment, as he caught himself and looked back down at the ashen loveliness lying in the clouds of whiteness.

  Droplets of water gathered in blue streams down the blue paint. Puddles sploshed together at the rim of the bath as the dampness collected.

  The snow was beginning to melt. Paralysed with not knowing, a stabbing in her chest incomprehendingly penetrating the core of her soul. Blue-black-purple stars prickling the backs of her eyelids.

  The small mirror above the sink was hazy with mistiness. The floor was linoleum cold.

  A chilly breeze seemed to hang in the air, at once motionless and stirringly real.

  There was silence, save for the intermittent crackling of the slowly dissipating bubbles.

  The snow was melting, revealing a pale form, a body.

  Gracie’s heart was beating hard from embarrassment and fright. Only once in her life had anyone other than Mam seen her ­private, secret self.

  It was a night a couple of years ago. For some unknown reason, she was rushed next door to number 28 – her mother gripping her tightly. A grimness set in her face, she looked in pain. Inaudibly, she seemed to be agreeing something with Mrs Harper, Billy Harper’s Ma.

  There were nods and an exchange of worried looks. Mam winced, her face contorting with some unknown wretchedness.

  Then Mam left.

  Mrs Harper bustled around, fussing noisily about the place.

  ‘You’
ll have to sleep in the back room, but you won’t mind that, will you, pet?’

  Gracie wasn’t entirely sure what was going on – why was she having to sleep anywhere other than in her own bed – and where had Mam gone?

  Billy and his brothers tumbled through the front door shortly after that – a jumble of chatter and laughter and rough-and-tumble.

  ‘Oi, leave off!’ said Simon, tugging away from Billy.

  ‘Gerrof!’ said Billy, jabbing back.

  The boys each took a stance – professional boxers would be proud – and launched in for another round.

  ‘Grow up, you two,’ John, the eldest chipped in. ‘I’m tired, I want some tea.’

  It was at this point that Gracie wombled into the front room. She’d been out at the back with Mrs Harper, helping her prepare some strawberry jam sandwiches.

  ‘Gracie!’ yelled Billy, and ran up to her. ‘What are you doing here? Are you staying for tea?’

  ‘Seems like it. Mam’s had to go away so I’m staying here tonight. We can play princes and princesses!’

  The evening passed with the energy and excitement you’d imagine when an unexpected playmate turns up. Jam sandwiches were the feasts of kings and underneath the dining room table was – of course – the secret witches’ lair. The witches were trying to trap the prince and the princess – though the tricky thing was that they were completely and utterly invisible. The worst kinds of witches.

  But the prince and princess were strong and true, and with pure hearts they found a way to defeat the evil witches. They made their escape, fortified with magic red jam made with magic red berries.

  Then it wasn’t long before the yawns began to take over and Billy and Gracie agreed that even princes and princesses needed their sleep.

  Billy’s house had three bedrooms. His brothers slept in one room, and he slept in the tiny, cupboard-like backroom next to his Ma and Da’s. He thought of it as his very own fortress – and at the top of the turret, he loved the window looking out to the stars.