Brightwood (10 page)

TWENTY-­TWO

Daisy screamed and scurried across the floor on her hands and knees. She heard a thudding noise. It was the sound of Gritting banging on the window. Daisy crawled into the room next to the kitchen. It was full of old cooking equipment. Dozens of copper pots and pans hung from the ceiling. She pressed herself against the side of an oven and put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming again.

Gritting had stopped banging on the window. Now he was trying to get in through the kitchen door. Daisy could hear crashing as he shoved himself against it and then the slow scrape of the storage unit being pushed away.

She had made a mistake. She should have run in the opposite direction, into the tightly packed corridor that led to the Marble Hall. He wouldn't have been able to follow her in there, not without a great deal of time and effort. She could have made her way upstairs and escaped down the rope.

The room she was in had only two doors. One led back into the kitchen, the other down to the wine cellar, a dark space filled with ancient bottles stacked in dusty rows.

Daisy hesitated, wondering if she had time to double back and reach the safety of the corridor. Even as she considered it, the storage unit gave a long, last scrape against the floor, and she heard the kitchen door bang open.

Gritting had broken in.

She leaped to her feet and dashed through the door to the wine cellar. There was a key in the lock, although that was on the outside. She closed the door behind her as quietly as she could, her fingers groping for a bolt or hook. There was nothing.

She was standing at the top of a narrow flight of stairs that descended into pitch darkness, and the air was full of a musty, fruity scent. Daisy grabbed the handle of the door and held on to it as tightly as she could, trying to breathe quietly.

For a moment or two, all she could hear was the muffled thump of her own heart. Then, just as she had begun to hope that Gritting had left, she heard his footsteps in the kitchen. The steps grew louder. He had entered the side room. She heard a clattering and a grunt of pain. He had hit his head on the copper pans, she guessed. Two or three of them rolled—or were kicked—across the floor.

Daisy's hands were slippery on the door handle. She leaned back, teetering on the edge of the top step.

The clattering died away, and Gritting's footsteps approached the door. The nearer they came, the softer and slower they seemed. He was very close now. Nothing separated them except the width of the door.

She clung desperately to the handle, knowing it was hopeless. There wasn't a chance of holding the door closed against him. She stood there for what seemed like a long time, although it wasn't much more than a second or two, waiting for the terrible feel of his grasp on the other side of the handle. It never came. Instead she heard something unexpected.

It was the sound of the key turning in the lock.

Daisy caught her breath in surprise. His steps retreated. She heard him in the kitchen and then the sound of the back door closing. She waited another minute and then pushed against the door. It was as solid as a wall.

She was locked in.

Daisy almost never went into the wine cellar. There was nothing in there to interest her. Just a lot of cobwebby bottles on shelves. Yet she had been down there often enough to know that there was no other way out of the place. Her hand crept up the wall, searching for the light cord.

The bulb hadn't been replaced in a long time. The light was dim and flickering. But now she could see down the narrow staircase to the cavern below.

She turned and banged loudly on the door. Bad as it might be to confront Gritting, it was still better than being trapped down there.

“Hey!” Daisy called. “Hey! I'm locked in!”

She listened for a moment.
“I'M LOCKED IN!”

Nobody answered.

Daisy sat down on the top step. It was warm and airless in the cellar, and she was already feeling thirsty.

“Good thing you've got plenty to drink, then,” Frank said in a sarcastic voice. She was down below, leaning casually against the nearest shelf of bottles.

“I can't drink it,” Daisy said. “It'll make me sick.”

“Sir Clarence drinks whiskey,” Frank commented. “Once he drank a whole bottle and started running around on his knuckles.”

“His knuckles?”

“He thought he was an orangutan,” Frank explained. “He climbed up a baobab tree. Took me half an hour and seven bananas to get him down.”

“I don't believe a single thing you say!”

“A tomb is a funny place to keep wine,” Frank said, looking around her. “Who's buried here, anyway?”

“It's not a tomb—it's a wine cellar.”

“Is that what you call it in Valcadia?” Frank pulled out a notebook and pencil. “Interesting . . . ”

“I was only trying to make Gritting go away,” Daisy said, changing the subject. “But he didn't go away. All he did was get wet.”

“And very angry,” she added, remembering the sight of his face at the window. Despite the warmth of the cellar, she shivered slightly.

“I'll give you points for effort,” Frank said, putting her notebook away. “But it was a complete and utter failure.”

Daisy didn't say anything. For once, Frank was right.

“The main thing wrong with your plan,” Frank continued, “was you aimed too low. You tried to make him leave. You've got to do more than that. You've got to
defeat
him. To do that,” she said casually, “you've probably got to hurt him.”

“I'm not going to hurt him!” Daisy cried. “Why would I do that?”

In the dim light of the cellar, Frank's figure was half lost in shadow, her eyes no more than two dark holes. “Why not?” she said. “He's already tried to kill
you
twice.”

“That's ridiculous!”

“What about the strawberries?” Frank said.

Daisy didn't answer.

“You knew your pet got sick from the strawberries,” Frank continued. “You didn't want to admit it, did you?”

“That's not true!” Daisy said, pressing her hands tight between her knees. “It's not . . . ” She paused, drawing a deep breath. “There's a tub of weed killer in the gardener's old shed,” she said slowly. “I know he went in there. He said he was looking for tools.”

“Of course he did!” Frank said. “And what about the next day, when he saw you walking around like nothing had happened? Remember what he said?”

Daisy thought of Gritting in the Winter Grove, with the black trash bag in his hand and his eyes on her face.

Didn't you enjoy the strawberries?

“He knew I hadn't eaten them!” Daisy said with a rush of horror.

“Now you get it,” Frank said. “It's taken you enough time! Don't feel bad,” she added in a kinder voice. “Not everyone can be clever, you know. I'm sure you have many other good qualities . . . ”

“What was the other time?” Daisy said. “You said he's tried it twice. To kill me, I mean.”

Frank shrugged and looked around. “He's locked you up in here, hasn't he? Thinks you can't get out.”

“Maybe it was just a mistake,” Daisy said. But she knew it was a feeble explanation. She had banged on the door of the wine cellar and shouted as loudly as she could. Gritting must surely have heard her.

“But it doesn't make any sense,” she protested. “He could have tried to hurt me when . . . when we were drinking tea, or when we were standing outside, or anytime. He didn't have to be
sneaky
about it.”

“I think he wants to make it look like an accident,” Frank said. “You'll be just one more little skeleton among all the dead down here. And once you're gone, he gets to keep Valcadia all to himself.”

“What am I going to do?” Daisy cried. “How am I going to get out?”

“It's a tomb, isn't it? There are always trapdoors and secret passageways in places like this. To foil tomb robbers, you know.”

“There aren't any trapdoors or secret passageways!”

“Have you looked?”

“I don't have to!”

Above Daisy's head, the lightbulb made a crackling noise and then went out.

TWENTY-­THREE

“Frank? Are you still there?”

The wine cellar was silent. Daisy got to her feet and felt her way down the stairs, her hands groping along the wall. At the bottom, not knowing where the stairs ended, she nearly tripped, her arms flailing in the darkness.

“Please still be there,” she whispered. There was no reply. The sharp, fruity smell of the wine was even stronger. Daisy stretched out her hands and took a few tiny steps forward. She felt the cool curve of glass and ran her fingers over a row of bottles. To the best of her memory, there were about five or six rows of shelves in the wine cellar, with more bottles stacked against the walls. She crept along to the end of a shelf and turned. There were bottles on either side of her now.

“Where are you?” she said.

Daisy wished that she hadn't gone down the stairs. She should have stayed at the top, where there was at least a crack of light underneath the door.

She fumbled her way towards where she thought the stairs had been and found she was blocked. She turned. She couldn't be lost. Not in a space that was barely bigger than her bedroom. The darkness had robbed her of all sense of direction. She turned again, stumbled, and grabbed at a shelf to keep from falling. Bottles tumbled around her. She heard the sound of breaking glass and felt liquid splash on her legs.

Her feet were bare. Daisy leaped back automatically to avoid cutting herself and slammed into another shelf, sending more bottles toppling. She fell hard, curling into a ball and covering her head with her hands. For a moment or two, she was aware of nothing except the crash and thunder of objects falling all around her.

If Gritting were anywhere nearby, he must surely have heard the noise. Daisy waited for the sound of the wine-­cellar door opening. But it never came. She staggered to her feet, half gagging on the thick, rich smell of wine that rose all around her. The floor was covered with bits of broken glass. She turned to her right and immediately bumped into a cold wall of the cellar. She groped her way along it, hoping to find the stairs again. Instead she found something else.

It was the handle of a door.

There was a way out after all. Frank had been right.

Daisy didn't give herself a chance to worry whether the door was locked or not. She pulled the handle.

The door opened and Daisy instantly felt along the wall for a light switch. She was standing on a tiny landing with a flight of stairs leading out of sight. The stairs were extremely narrow and covered with a thick layer of dust. Although she had never seen them before, Daisy wasn't completely surprised to find them. There were many such flights of staircases in Brightwood Hall. Her mum had told her that the servants used them in the old days.

The stairs turned a corner and continued up. Daisy thought she must be on the second floor of the house by now. She reached another landing, with a door to the left and one to the right. She tried each but they were both locked.

Up and up she went, her bare feet leaving tracks in the dust. At the top, there was a corridor and a single door. Below the handle, there was the outline of a handprint in faded blue paint. It was tiny, far smaller than Daisy's own hand would have made.

She drew in her breath and opened the door. The room was dark. Her fingers searched for the light, found it, and switched it on.

Daisy knew at once where she was because there was a garden painted on the walls. Dandelion spores drifted above the meadow and rose like stars up to the blue-­sky ceiling. Around the little window, the trees were in blossom and trailing roses curled above the bed.

The room had been her mum's bedroom when she was a little girl.

Daisy entered slowly, as if her step might break something.

Her mum had awoken every morning in this little bed. She had played with the toys in the cupboard. And at night, she had gone to sleep with the moonlight casting shadows over the painted foxgloves and forget-­me-­nots.

The room hadn't been touched since then. It had simply been left behind.

Daisy walked over to the bed. It was still made up, although the sheets were yellow with age and a corner of one trailed in the dust. She bent to tuck it back in. There was a box underneath the bed. Daisy got down on her stomach and pulled it out.

It was just an old shoe box, not nearly as sturdy as the boxes her mum used now. But Daisy knew it was a Day Box because it had a date written on one end. Inside was a twisted handkerchief, a label from a cereal box, a plastic bracelet, and a beautiful doll. The doll was wearing a yellow dress with yellow matching shoes.

Daisy lifted her out carefully. She touched the doll's hair and ran a finger over the outlines of her face.

It was Dolly Caroline. She had been made to look exactly like Daisy's mum, with the same shape to her nose and mouth, the same beautiful gray eyes. She was so lifelike, it was almost like meeting her own mother when she had been a child. Years and years ago, long before the accident. When the topiary creatures had still been green, and there were parties in the ballroom and Brightwood Hall was filled with laughter instead of dusty boxes.

“Oh,
Mum,
” Daisy said, hugging the doll tight to her heart. “Poor little Mum . . . ”

All Daisy's life, her mum had taught her that if you didn't hold on to things, they would be lost. But if Dolly Caroline hadn't lost a shoe all those years before, her mum would have stayed on the
Everlasting
. She would have died with the rest of her family. And then Daisy herself would never have been born.

Maybe losing things wasn't so terrible.

Maybe some things were meant to be lost.