Storm Child (7 page)

Charlotte yanked the pencils from
Georgina’s hand, whose face suddenly went from smiles to shock, and then her
bottom lip began to quiver, and then she began to wail. Charlotte was too angry
now to feel sorry for her. She grabbed Georgina roughly under the arms and
dragged her away from the mess.

‘I hate you. I don’t want to look
at you.  Stay there!’ 

Georgina’s crying became louder
but Charlotte ignored it. There were also pencil marks over the wood of the
table and all over the floor and, angry as Charlotte was, she knew that it
would have to be cleaned before her mother returned. She was supposed to be
watching her, after all, and her mother would not accept any excuses. Muttering
under her breath, she ran to the outhouse and fetched a hard brush and a bucket
of freezing cold soapy water and began scrubbing on her return.  All the
while, she could hear Georgina crying, but the sound became a whine that
Charlotte ignored, as she would ignore an annoying fly.

So when the sound stopped, she
thought nothing of it.  And when she had finished her cleaning and went to
tip the water away, she did not think to check where Georgina was. As she
collected her drawing equipment and put the paints away, deciding to give up
for the day as dusk was moving in, no thought of Georgina crossed her
mind.  Finally, when the house had been silent for perhaps twenty minutes
as Charlotte had busied herself, putting things straight, she finally wondered
why it was so quiet. 

The porch door was open. 
She realised that it must have been open the whole time she had been tidying.
After a quick check around the house, hoping against hope that her worst fears
would not be realised, Charlotte dashed into the tiny garden. No sign of
Georgina. Then all round the outside of the house, then out onto the heath,
calling her name desperately.  But there was no reply, no tiny figure
anywhere.

Georgina had gone.

Then, that sound again, a hollow
moan that gradually lengthened into a chilling howl, coming from the direction
of the dark woods that bordered the heath, a sound that made Charlotte shudder
and her skin prick into tiny bumps all over.  She had let Georgina out on
the heath alone and she dared not think what might be waiting out there for
her.

Ten

Polly threw another carrot into the bowl, her gaze on the
darkening sky outside the window.  ‘He
shoulda
been back by now.’

‘He’s been caught,’ Annie said,
digging into a sack of potatoes and producing a handful.  She took them
over to the sink where Polly was washing vegetables for Ernesto’s dinner.

‘I’ll bet he has. I don’t fancy
bein
’ the one to tell Ernie, though.’  She looked at
Annie. 

‘Me neither.’

‘Someone’s got to.’

‘What
d’you
think he’ll do?’ 

‘The best Isaac can hope for is
that Ernesto leaves him there to rot.’

Annie’s eyes widened. ‘They’ll
deport him!’

‘Probably,’ Polly returned, her
face unreadable as she resumed her task.

Annie stared at her in silence.
‘We could go and get him,’ she said finally.

Polly fished out the last clean
potato and tipped the sludgy contents of the bucket down the sink. ‘An’ then we
get arrested an’ all.’

‘You’re clever, Polly, you can
think of something.’

‘An’ you have magic but I don’t
hear you
offerin
’ to use it.’

‘I don’t.’ Annie turned away from
Polly’s fierce gaze.

‘You don’t trust me but I’m the
only family you got.  Sooner you understand that the better.’

Annie’s mouth worked silently for
a moment. ‘You’re going to leave Isaac there?’ Polly nodded. ‘What about
Ernesto?’

‘Pretend you don’t know
anythin
’ about it.’

‘
D’you
think he’ll go and get Isaac?’

Polly threw back her head in a
mirthless laugh.  ‘Not ruddy likely!  Ernesto
ain’t
as pure as the first snow. His face
ain’t
one he’ll
be
wantin
’ to show in any jailhouse any time soon.’

Annie regarded Polly
thoughtfully. ‘He’s mixed up in criminal
goin’s
on?  I never seen ‘
im
leave the house.’

Polly tapped the side of her
nose. ‘That’s
‘cause
you
ain’t
lookin
’ at the right times, sweet.  Ernesto’s
got plenty of dealing
goin
’ on.’

‘What kind of deals?’

Polly shrugged as she reached for
the pan and placed the peeled carrots into it. ‘Not for me to know, is
it?  Not for you neither if you know what’s good for you.’  She
glanced out at the sky again, dusk now colouring the courtyard in grainy
shadows. ‘We’ll feed Ernesto,’ she said, passing the pan to Annie, ‘I’ll slip
him an extra special tot o’
somethin
’ and then we’ll
see if we can find Isaac.’ Annie shot her a questioning glance and Polly
produced a tiny vial from her apron pocket. ‘Did you really think I was
goin
’ to let that useless dolt get a free holiday to
Australia?’ she said with a grin.

Eleven

The sky was pink and lilac over the horizon, faint stars
just beginning to show higher in the sky, and Charlotte’s breath now curled
away from her in clouds as the evening became colder. She carried a storm
lantern in her shaking hand to light the way as the rough ground of the heath
was, even now, becoming difficult to see in the gathering gloom.  It took
all her strength not to sit down on the grass and cry.  Mother would be
home by now, wondering where they had both gone, worried and angry at the same
time. Perhaps, even now, her mother was out at neighbouring farms, calling for
help to find them. The thought made guilt tear at her, but she couldn’t deny
that she wanted to be found right now, carried home in strong arms, back to her
warm kitchen that smelt of freshly baked bread and sweet, sticky jam. These
were the times when she missed her father the most.  He had been a
difficult man, serious for the most part, and very strict, but she never
doubted his love for her and she loved him in return. Right now she wanted
someone to come and take care of her, someone to worry about Georgina in her
place.  But Charlotte had to do the worrying, there was nobody else
now. 

She kept going, calling out for
Georgina, but always no reply. The woods stretched out before her, closer and
closer with every step.  Charlotte didn’t want to go into the woods,
especially as night was falling, but when she had covered as much of the heath
as she could, or at least as far as she thought Georgina could travel, she knew
she would have to. It was the only place left to look.

The woods thickened quickly once
into them, the trees tightly packed, almost growing on top of one
another.  It was only the efforts of the local farmers, pruning and
chopping every year, which kept them from taking over the heathland and the
nearby houses altogether.  And it was dark properly now, the moon
appearing in silver chinks through the roof of bare branches. Charlotte’s light
was not much help either; the trees were so dense that she could only see a few
feet in any direction, a thick fog made of bark and branches.  Everywhere
she looked, Charlotte’s lantern revealed shapes, creatures flitting away in the
corners of the light so Charlotte could never quite see what they were. And
sometimes, it simply illuminated eyes, round, demon reflections everywhere
watching her from high up, as if the trees themselves were spying on her. The
forest rustled and hooted and scratched and creaked.  All these things
filled her with a kind of dread that was hard to explain. She didn’t dare call
out here, filled with an irrational fear that if the trees heard her they would
snatch her up from the ground and hold her prisoner in thorns and
branches.  But she pushed herself on; the sooner she found Georgina, the
sooner they could get back home.  Mother would be furious, but Charlotte
wanted nothing more than to face her mother’s punishment right now. 
Whatever it was, it was better than being out here.

It seemed like hours had passed,
and still there was no sign of Georgina.  Charlotte found herself thinking
back to the night she found her. It was such a short time ago, but it was only
now that she realised just how completely the baby had become a part of their
family. Could it be possible that whoever had left her had finally claimed her
back?  Perhaps not even
a
someone
but a
something
.
And now they had taken her away, never to be seen by human eyes again.  It
sounded mad, but it was so easy to believe, alone in the darkness of the woods
with no trace of the girl anywhere, not a footprint, not even a strand of black
hair snagged on a branch to ever show she had been there at all. Charlotte
thought about the tears that her mother would shed over the lost girl, just as
she had done over George. It made Charlotte more determined than ever to find
her, and shaking the fear and cold, she began to shout her name over and over,
into the darkness: ‘Georgina!  Please, Georgina stop hiding! I’m not angry
any more…’  But in the cold of the woods, Charlotte’s words only echoed
back at her.

Charlotte began to realise that
she was going to have to face going home and telling her mother what had
happened, because she was going to need help.  She turned and started the
trudge back through the woods and across the heath to her cottage.  She
had not walked more than a few metres when her light fell upon a shape on the
floor, a mess of tangled up clothes and hair curled in the crook of a tree
trunk.  Charlotte let out a cry of relief. 

Georgina had fallen asleep
huddled in the hollow of a huge tree trunk, her thumb in her mouth and her
grubby cheeks streaked with tear tracks.  Charlotte felt a stab of guilt
as she realised that Georgina must have got lost and cried herself to sleep.
Quickly scooping up the little girl, she hugged her close. Georgina’s eyes
opened and she blinked up at Charlotte with a smile. At that moment,
Charlotte’s candle spluttered out and they were plunged into darkness.

Charlotte didn’t panic, even when
Georgina began to whimper.

‘
Shhh
.
Don’t be afraid. I’m here,’ she soothed as she held Georgina and wrapped her
shawl around both of them. Georgina clung onto Charlotte’s neck as Charlotte
slowly and carefully picked her way through the woods, using the pale slivers
of moonlight that struggled through the trees to show the way. It wasn’t much
to go on, but it was all they had. She kept upright, ignoring the pain of
banging her ankles and stumbling on tree roots and fallen branches, all the
while holding her precious Georgina safely in her arms.

They walked and walked, but
somehow, the woods seemed to be as thick as ever.  Charlotte was beginning
to tire.  She was also starting to wonder if they were desperately lost.
She stopped, searching the darkness to see if she could get some clue to the
way out, but everything looked the same, long shadows closing in on them all
around.  Charlotte slid down a tree trunk to sit against it, still holding
Georgina close.  Georgina seemed to understand that they were in trouble,
she held onto Charlotte, shivering and whimpering quietly.

‘There must be people searching
by now. Someone will find us soon,’ Charlotte said, more to herself than
Georgina.  But she wasn’t sure if anyone would.

Then a sound reached her ears, a
low growl close by, followed by a terrifying, howl that cracked the night air.
Charlotte’s breath was stopped in her throat. Leaping to her feet, she held
Georgina close, whose quiet weeping was immediately silenced. Charlotte could
feel the fluttering of her tiny heart even through all their clothes and she
knew how scared the child was; her own beat just as fast. 

There was no way to tell where
the sound was coming from, but it was close. Charlotte was rooted, unable to
move.  She heard rustling and snuffling, another growl, getting louder and
closer all the time, but she still couldn’t tell the direction from which it
came.  They were trapped.  To move might be to run into whatever was
out there. Charlotte had a good idea just what was out there and the thought
drained the blood from her face.  If only she had listened to Mary
Matthews, if only she hadn’t taken her eyes from Georgina, if only she hadn’t
lost her temper with the girl… but it was all too late to undo now.  She
wondered about climbing a tree and waiting until it had gone. Could wolves
climb? She had no idea.  She decided to try anyway, but Georgina’s weight
was too much and she couldn’t get them both up there.  So they waited and waited,
the sounds growing closer, until at last, from out of the darkness, bright
green eyes started slowly towards them.  The shadow of a huge, shaggy head
followed and, moments later, the lean shape of the wolf could be seen in all
its terrifying glory.

Panic squeezed Charlotte’s
throat, but she still managed to scream into the night. ‘Help, someone help
us!’ She grabbed a branch from the forest floor, ready to hit back when the
attack came.

The wolf stopped and settled back
on its haunches, muscles tensed, almost upon them. Charlotte closed her eyes
and clung to Georgina. The hand that held the branch shook madly and she
dropped it, tears running down her face as she scrambled to find it again.

With a ripping snarl, the wolf
leapt.

At the same time, there was
another sound, a deafening crack which echoed through the trees.  The wolf
fell to the ground and was still.  Charlotte stared at it.  Was it
dead?  She half expected it to leap up again.  Then she heard men’s
voices and saw tiny points of lamplight coming towards them through the
trees. 

‘Miss Harding?’ Are you alright?’
A face appeared.  It was Mr Matthews with a gun slung over his shoulder.
Other men followed behind him.  His gaze fell upon the dead wolf. ‘Didn’t
Mary warn you about this?’ he asked.

Charlotte nodded weakly but she
couldn’t speak. She was shaking all over and just managed to hold Georgina out
for him to take from her arms before she fainted.