Season of Secrets
Authors: Sally Nicholls
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Praise for Sally Nicholls' novels
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Season of Secrets
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“Nicholls is a writer of enormous power and strength, using an ancient myth in new and surprising ways. A wonderful, evocative, lively book that will delight and move boys and girls over the age of nine â and adults, too”
Literary Review
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“Yet another extraordinary story that is certain to touch you⦠The idea behind this book is so original . . . Stirring, moving and I could not help but be mesmerised”
Waterstone's Books Quarterly
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“A poignant novel exploring the complexities of childhood grief, its many manifestations and its healing”
Irish Times
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“Sally Nicholls is simply an exceptionally talented writer. Her intelligent, warm fiction is honest and profound, complex yet accessible”
Lovereading4kids.co.uk
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“Poignant and gripping ⦠Sally Nicholls intertwines ancient myths of pagan gods with an emotive and touching love story”
Bookseller
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“WAYS TO LIVE FOREVER was a confident, compelling debut novel. Sally Nicholls's follow up is no less good⦠The balance the author strikes between metaphor and character-driven plot cannot be faulted”
Financial Times
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“This is what a children's book should be like! Absolutely wonderful”
Bookwitch
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Ways to Live Forever
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WINNER
Waterstone's Children's Book Prize
Glen Dimplex New Writer of the Year
Concorde Book Award
North East Book Award
Hillingdon Secondary School Book of the Year
Warwickshire Secondary Schools Book Award
Bolton Children's Book of the Year
Calderdale Book of the Year
Luchs Prize â Best Book of the Year (Germany)
USBBY List of Outstanding International Books (U.S.A.)
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SHORTLISTED
Branford Boase Award
Manchester Book of the Year
UKLA Children's Book Awards
Lancashire Book of the Year
Brilliant Book Award, Nottingham Libraries
Grampian Children's Book Award
Gateshead Libraries Children's Book Award
Mad About Books Stockport Schools' Book Award
Le Prix des Incorruptibles (France)
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LONGLISTED
WHSmith Children's Book of the Year
CILIP Carnegie Medal
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“I love this book”
Jacqueline Wilson
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“Powerful, inspiring and courageous ⦠the debut of the year”
Waterstone's
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“This is an elegant, intelligent, moving and sometimes even funny book. Young readers (and brave parents, and teachers) will love it”
Guardian
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“A Jodi Picoult for teens that pulls no punches”
Simply Books
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“Wonderful. Moving and funny and, yes, sad”
Eva Ibbotson
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“Heart-wrenching ⦠an exceedingly poignant read”
Bookseller
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“Stunning . . . Nicholls' greatest achievement is in creating an utterly real, flesh and blood character. On the pages, Sam truly lives⦠a powerful, moving book, not to be missed”
Irish Independent
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“A deeply affecting and life-affirming read”
Nikki Gamble, Writeaway
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“This award-winning novel is brutally honest, sad, touching and funny, often all at the same time. It's a powerful book”
The New Books Christmas Guide to Children's Books
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Sally Nicholls was born in Stockton, just after midnight, in
a thunderstorm. Her father died when she was two, and she
and her brother were brought up by her mother. She has
always loved reading, and spent most of her childhood trying
to make real life work like it did in books.
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After school, she worked in Japan for six months and travelled
around Australia and New Zealand, then came back and did
a degree in Philosophy and Literature at Warwick. In her
third year, realising with some panic that she now had to
earn a living, she enrolled in a masters in Writing for Young
People at Bath Spa. It was here that she wrote her first novel,
Ways to Live Forever
, which won the Waterstone's Children's
Book Prize in 2008, and many other awards, both in the UK
and abroad.
Season of Secrets
was published in 2009, and Sally's
third novel,
All Fall Down
, in 2012.
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To my family,
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For sticking around.
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Contents
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10
Mum
12
Jack
15
Dad
21
Demeter
23
Empty
27
Orphaned
28
November
32
Loki
34
Fear
35
The Year Is Dying in the Night
36
Ice
37
Storm
38
Blizzard
41
Quiet
54
Grandma
56
Back
60
End
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I'm Molly. Molly Alice Brooke on school registers. If you're a
friend of mine, or someone in my family maybe, then I'm
Moll too. If you're an adult in my family, which right now is
complicated, then I'm love, or Molly-love, or Curly-Mop, or
Sweetheart. At my old school I was Molly-Mop. At Christmas
I was an Angel and a Hotelkeeper.
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Names are important. Everyone has one, except really tiny
babies maybe, or stray dogs, or people who've forgotten who they
are. And even stray dogs and people with amnesia have names.
They've just forgotten them.
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And then there's my man. He didn't have any name at all.
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It's raining when we come up the hill from school
today. A sudden, heavy flash of rainstorm; here then
gone. Hannah sticks her school bag over her head and
stamps through the puddles.
“Back
home
we never had to walk in the rain. Back
home
someone would've picked us up. In a
car
.”
“They wouldn't have just driven down a street to get
us,” I say. Hannah's always so sure she's right. Talking to
her leaves me full of half-finished arguments, dangling
fights I know I should have won. If Mum and Dad were
here they wouldn't drive down a poksey hill just to save
us getting wet. We only got picked up at home because
we went to some stupid school miles across town. “We
had to wait at after-school club till someone finished
work. And then we had to do shopping. And if it was
gymnastics or piano we had to have tea in the car. In a
box
. Andâ”
“At least
someone
came,” says Hannah. “Someone
cared
.”
Someone
is Mum.
“Grandpa cares,” I say, but I don't think she hears
me. Hannah is one and a half years older than me, yet
she takes up about one and a half million times more
space.
The trees in the gardens up the hill rustle, as if
they're talking about us. But trees don't talk. I look at
them over my shoulder, all rain-dropped and rain-drooped,
and hurry after Hannah.
She's pushing open the door to Grandpa's shop.
She stands inside and shakes herself, drops of water
smattering the bread and the biscuits, leaving dark
spatters on the newspapers in their rack.
“I
hate
this place!” she says. Loudly.
I come in small behind her. I don't hate this place.
Grandpa and Grandma's shop. It's poky and dark and
higgledy-piggledy. It sells a mess of things I've never
seen in normal shops, like Eccles cakes and Ordnance
Survey maps and home-made jam, next to ordinary
boringables like Coco Pops and Fairy Liquid. There's
a misty fridge with milk bottles with JONES and
ENTLY written across them in felt tip, in case people
go home with the wrong bottle. You can order more
exotic things â mangoes or ricotta cheese â if you
don't mind waiting for the van, though most people
don't, they just go to Tesco's. In one corner, there's a
metal grille where the post office used to be and in
another are baskets of earthy potatoes and onions. It
has a friendly, muddly smell all its own: newspaper
and bleach and earth.
Grandma's leaning against the counter, writing in a
big accounts book. She looks up when we come in
and her face tightens.
“Hannah Brooke,” she says. “Have a bit of sense
now! Stop dripping all over the floor. Go on,” she
says, when Hannah doesn't move. “Get upstairs and
into something dry.”
Hannah kicks the shelf.
“No!” she shouts, and then her face screws up like
she's going to cry. “I want to go home,” she says
instead, ridiculously.
Grandma doesn't fight her, like Mum would have
done, but you can tell she's angry. She comes out from
behind the till, presses her hand on Hannah's shoulder
and pushes her through the door into the kitchen,
where Grandpa's mashing the tea and whistling.
“Upstairs,” she tells Grandpa. “Clean clothes.
Now.” And she stalks back into the shop.
Hannah's face twists. It's pink and white with cold,
and streaked with blue dye where her bag's run in the
rain. You can see the fight boiling up inside her.
“
Go and die in a field!
” she screams at the door and
Grandma's back. Then she runs out of the room, up
the stairs.
Me and Grandpa are left in the kitchen. Grandpa
rubs at his face, just the way my dad does. He breathes
in this big breath â I can see his stomach rising, under
the faded check cloth of his shirt. It's gone a nasty
yellow around his neck and against the cuffs. My dad's
shirts are always stiff and clean and white: you button
him up all the way to his throat and there he is, locked
up safe and going nowhere. But Grandpa Lived
Through A War, so he wears things till they fall apart.
“All right, love?” he says now, and I nod.
“
You
don't want me to die in a field, do you?” he
says, and I shake my head.
“You shouldn't listen to Hannah,” I tell him. “She's
always like that. Dad should have put her in an
orphanage or something, instead of sending her here.
She would have liked that, I expect,” I add, virtuous,
“since she doesn't want to live here.”
Grandpa comes over and pats my shoulder. “Now,
now,” he says, in an absent sort of way. “No one's
going to any orphanage.”
But why not? If Dad could send us here, he could
send us anywhere.
I go through the back door of the shop, into the
hall and up the narrow stairs. The shop is part of
Grandma and Grandpa's house, so all of their rooms
are muddled: the kitchen is downstairs, next to the
storeroom, but the living room is upstairs. At night,
when I lie in bed, the light from the television flickers
against the landing wall, and studio laughter plays
across my dreams. Everything is darker here, and
older. Nothing matches, so you'll have our old settee
from Newcastle next to a high-backed red chair with
feet like a lion. There's a dark wood bookcase, with
glass doors, where Delia Smith and Dick Francis sit
beside ancient cloth-bound books with gold and silver
printed up the spine.
The room I have here was Auntie Meg's when she was
my age. It's got horrible yellow wallpaper and a grown-up
picture of a tree, and a yellowy sink in the corner that
doesn't work. Some of my things are here â my old bear
Humphrey, my best books, my art things. But nearly all
of my stuff is still at home, because we're not staying
here for ever, just until Dad gets things Sorted Out.
Whenever that is.
I take dry clothes out of the wardrobe â blue jeans
and my soft yellow jumper â but I don't put them on.
I wrap my arms around them and stand by the
window looking out over the garden. The rain is rat-a-tat-tat-ing on the roof and streaming down the
windows. The trees are roaring with the wind in them,
more like they're fighting now than talking.
“Listen!” Mum would say, if she was here. “There's
a night with a devil in it.”
It wouldn't be a bad thing â the devil in the night â
but something exciting. Mum loved thunder-and-rain-storms.
If she were here now, like if we were staying
with Grandpa and Grandma because it was a holiday
maybe, we'd all go out and jump in the puddles. Even
Hannah would, probably.
It's not dark yet, but you can tell that tonight isn't
going to be fun. The sky is full of anger and the trees
are raging like they want to kill someone. Standing
here alone by the window, I almost believe in a devil in
the rain.
Inside, the house is full of fighting too. I can hear
Hannah next door, crying. I can hear Grandma
downstairs, her voice high and angry, and Grandpa,
murmuring at her.
I put on my dry clothes and climb into bed, pulling
the funny old-fashioned quilt-and-blanket over my
head. I get my book out and read, trying not to listen
to the loneliness of being alone in a house full of
noise. I'm reading
Three Cheers, Secret Seven
, which is
Secret Seven book eight, so when I'm done I'll only
need to read six more and I'll have read all the Famous
Five and Secret Seven books there are.
Outside, the rain falls quieter now.
It's getting dark.
“Molly? Are you there?”
Hannah is standing in the doorway, still in her wet
clothes. There are two wet patches on her shoulders
where the water's run off her hair and on to her
jumper.
“Come on,” she says. “Quick â before they find us.”
“What are we doing?”
“
Shhh
.” She clutches my arm and pulls me towards
to the edge of the bed. “We're going home. We're
running away.”
This is so surprising that for a moment I can only
blink at her. This is way more my sort of thing than
Hannah's. I've read loads of books about people
running away. Hannah only reads
Girl Talk
and
Top of
the Pops Magazine
. She'll have no idea what to do.
“Hey,” I say. “Ha
nnaah
. Stop
pulling
. We need to
pack. Sleeping bags â and food â and a knife â and
toothpasteâ”
“Where d'you think we're going?” says Hannah.
“The Arctic? We don't need any of that stuff. We'll
just walk to Hexham and get the train.”
There's a big map of Northumberland up on the
landing. Hannah and I count off the miles to
Hexham on the old Roman road.
“Seven â eight â nine â ten. Ten miles! We can
walk that. Come on!”
She drags me downstairs. I want to argue, but I
don't want Grandma to hear. Tonight isn't a night to
be running away. It's dark and furious outside.
“We can't walk ten miles,” I say. “Ha
nnaah
. That'll
take ages. It's
miles
. Can't we go in the morning?”
“We're going
now
,” says Hannah. She tugs on my
arm and I nearly fall.
“What about Grandpa? What'll he do when he
finds we've gone?”
“Who cares?” says Hannah. She lets go of my
sleeve and starts rummaging through the coats on the
rack. I can hear the radio playing next door in the
kitchen, and the hiss of fat from Grandpa frying
sausages.
“Hannah?”
“
What?
”
“What about Dad?”
Hannah stops, one arm half-into her jacket.
“What
about
Dad?”
“Won't he just send us back here?”
There's a silence. I look up. Hannah's standing
perfectly still, her jacket still dangling from one
arm.
“I don't care,” she says, “what Dad does. And I
don't care what he says. I'm not staying here any
longer.” And she pulls open the door, wet wind
blowing into the porch, and runs into the night.
I hesitate for a moment. Then I run out after
her.
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Once outside, the air is wet and cold, and full of the
smell and icy spat of rain. The wind blows the hood
of my jumper up against the back of my head. My
coat's still hanging on the peg, and behind me the
door slams shut. We're locked outside.
“Hannah!” I shout. “Hannah! Wait for me!”
Someone answers, but I can't tell from where. To
my left, the lane curls out across the fields and up on
to the moor. To my right, it slopes down the hill into
the village, curving round across the village green and
over the humpback bridge, past the church and the
school and the little pub with the swinging Full Moon
sign with the picture of the man in the moon. Is it up
the lane or through the village to get to Hexham?
Hannah would know, but I don't. I go up, out of the
village.
It's dark. Much darker than it ever gets at home.
No street lights. No torch. I have to feel for every step,
arms outstretched in case I fall; I can hardly see where
I'm going. I splash straight into a puddle.
“Ha
nnaah
!”
I duck my head, screw up my eyes against the rain
and stump up the lane. The wind rushes through the
trees, sending the rain back to blow in my face. I
stumble and almost fall. It's the devil in the night â
the devil in the storm. It's in the trees. I stop walking.
I don't want to go to Hexham on my own. I don't even
know how to get there. In fact, the further I go, the
more certain I am that Hannah's gone the other way.
Or maybe she's gone back to Grandpa's and left me
here alone.
It's so pitchy-black and rainy, it's hard to tell how
far I've gone. The moon's risen; a silver thumbnail
shining through dark, rushing clouds. The lane has
narrowed and the trees on the steep banks are closer.
They send long, dark branch-fingers looming and
roaring over my head.
“I'm not afraid,” I say, out loud.
Because now I can hear something coming.
Someone. Feet. Feet, running towards me. My heart
jumps. Who would be out on a wild night like this?
Alone, without a torch? It's the devil â I know it is. I
turn and stumble-run up the bank, slipping and
almost falling in the mud. I'm not going to make it.
I'm going to be in the lane when he comes. My breath
comes out in raggedy gasps and I think I'm almost
crying. There is something so sinister about the
running footsteps â dark noises alone in a black
night â that stops my heart. But then there I am,
almost in the hedgerow. I grab on to the branch of a
hawthorn tree, thorns catching at my jumper and my
fingers, and hold my breath.
