All That She Can See(6)

‘What do your parents think about what you can see?’ Peter asked her during lunchtime one day.

‘My dads say I’m special,’ Cherry said, smiling.

Samuel Redgrave knew his daughter could see things others couldn’t and whether it was in her mind or whether it was real, he loved and accepted her for the child she was – nothing more, nothing less. Her other father, Lucas, loved her too, of course, but he was also scared of their adopted daughter, especially since she’d described his own Meddlum to him: a foaming, gnashing wolf-like creature, with a large tongue that lolled from its mouth and roaming eyes that rolled in their sockets. Lucas worried what the future may hold for his child who had either an all-consuming imagination or a mental defect that caused constant hallucinations. Samuel pulled Cherry closer when she started to talk about what she could see, but Lucas couldn’t help taking a subtle step away.

‘What do your parents think?’ Cherry asked Peter now.

‘Mum left. Dad hates me,’ he said matter-of-factly, between bites of his ham sandwich.

Cherry was speechless. Knowing this about Peter’s parents now, she found it odd that he didn’t have more Meddlums tormenting him. Frustration had melted away, little by little, since Cherry and Peter’s friendship had begun. At first it’d left muddy slush over Peter’s homework but after a couple of weeks, Frustration had become a mere puddle in the bottom of his schoolbag. At that moment, Cherry swore a playground oath to always be there for Peter and to do her best to fend off Frustration should it ever appear behind Peter’s shoulders again.

Cherry thought her friendship with Peter was lifelong, that they’d always have one another to lean on, but there was one other day Cherry would remember that put paid to that.

That day, Peter came to school looking like a Meddlum himself. His skin was deathly pale, making the hand-shaped bruises on his arms look even angrier than they would have otherwise. The purple semi-circles under his eyes were darker than ever before.

‘Did… did a Meddlum do that to you?’ Cherry asked, nodding towards his arm. She so wanted to hug him – she knew they’d be the talk of the playground if she did, but holding back caused her eyes to sting and water. She couldn’t bear to see her friend in such a state. She peered over Peter’s shoulder and there, clutching the back of his collar, was a lump of coal, burning red under its black surface. It turned its face towards Cherry and grinned, flames in its mouth where there should have been teeth. Cherry gasped. She’d never seen Hatred before.

‘No. Not a Meddlum. Just a monster,’ Peter said quietly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand before he cried in front of everyone.

That was the last time Cherry spoke to Peter. When the bell rang, they went their separate ways to their separate classes. Weeks passed and she tried to get Peter’s attention but he looked through her like he didn’t know her, like they hadn’t been the closest of friends all this time. She left notes in his backpack when he wasn’t looking. She even went as far as sneaking out of her own classroom and banging on the window of his to try to get his attention but his teacher noticed first and it only landed her in trouble.

The final time she saw Peter was from a distance. He was being dragged from school, kicking and screaming, by a man whom Cherry assumed was his father. Teachers and pupils followed them to the school gates, only to watch helplessly as a couple of other men Cherry didn’t recognise wrangled Peter into an odd cream jacket that was covered in buckles and with sleeves too long for his scrawny arms. They bundled him into the back of a blue van that Cherry didn’t think belonged to Peter’s father, who was now standing motionless on the pavement, the expression on his face unreadable. He didn’t wave or cry as the van drove off with his son in the back. Cherry couldn’t read the black writing on the side of the windowless van but she knew for certain that she wouldn’t ever see Peter again.





3





Loneliness and Flour





After Peter, her only friend, was taken away, Cherry had never felt more alone and that was the first time Cherry developed a Meddlum of her own: Loneliness. Often people try to avoid Loneliness by seeing friends and family and avoiding long periods of isolation but it was persistent. It wanted in, to insert itself into people’s lives and do its worst. It would knock on doors with its long, spindly fingers, waiting to enter their homes and wrap those fingers around their lives and squeeze until the poor person was gasping for breath. And Cherry Redgrave soon became Loneliness’s fondest victim.

One day, shortly after Peter had been taken away, the most popular girl in Cherry’s class handed each pupil an invitation to her birthday party. Everyone, that was, except for Cherry. Before Peter, Cherry had been used to being left out of games. She was used to being in her own company and had even found that she enjoyed the solitude. After Peter, however, after getting used to his friendship, after knowing what it was like to have someone to share things with and the feeling of not being so alone, she felt the sting of being left out so much more than she ever had before. She swore she wouldn’t cry and she was doing so well until she felt two strong bony hands on her shoulders. When Cherry looked up, she saw Loneliness for the first time and as it grinned maliciously down at her, two long spools of drool landed on her face and ran down her cheeks.

Most children invent imaginary friends to cope with feeling sad or lonely, except Cherry didn’t invent hers and he may have been invisible to everyone else but he certainly wasn’t imaginary. Peter had been taken away from her so suddenly and Loneliness had stepped in just when she needed someone the most and so she clung to that constant presence by her side. Loneliness was all she had needed when the other kids never invited her to play games in the playground. It was all she needed when a teacher left her behind ‘by accident’ on a school trip. Loneliness was all she needed when her father, Lucas, left without so much as an explanation or a goodbye. One day he was there and the next day he was just… gone. Cherry was only eight years old. Most children are spared from being privy to their parents’ innermost fears and feelings but not Cherry. She watched Sadness grow around Samuel like mould and there was nothing she could do to stop it.