Daisy Darker(43)

Nana always tried to cheer me up with some secret sweets just for me hidden around Seaglass. While Rose and Lily were out having fun, I’d spend the evening with her sitting by the fire, listening to her stories. She did not approve of trick-or-treating, and would remind me why every year. What we see as innocent fun on Halloween originated as part of a pagan ritual, where people dressed up in scary costumes on 31 October to frighten away the dead. They offered food or drink to try to appease them, which is where all the free candy and sweets originated from. In the Middle Ages, the ritual was known as mumming. By the time Christianity arrived in Europe, a new practice called souling was on the Halloween scene. Poor people would visit the houses of the rich and receive pastries called soul cakes, in exchange for promises to pray for the homeowners’ dead relatives. Scotland took the tradition and bent it a little more out of shape, encouraging young people to visit their neighbours’ houses and sing a song, recite a poem, or perform another sort of ‘trick’ before receiving a treat of nuts, fruit or coins. The term trick-or-treating wasn’t used until the 1920s in America, and Nana said it made a mockery of what started out as an important ritual. It bothered her a great deal that people were encouraged to fear the dead instead of honour them, and she’d always end her story with the same line:

‘There’s no need to be afraid of the dead; it’s the living you have to watch out for.’

We leave Nana’s studio together, none the wiser, and no closer to finding Trixie.

The music room is the last place left to look. I think it turned out that way because none of us want to see my dead father again. Lightning strikes just before we open the door, and I automatically start counting.

One Mississippi . . .

The lightning lights up the room, and the shadow of the piano casts a dancing pattern over the walls.

Two Mississippi . . .

There is no sign of Trixie in here either. Nothing out of place at all, apart from the missing piano key I spotted earlier. I remember middle C and see that it’s a B key that has gone.

Three Mississippi . . .

Then I realize that’s not the only thing missing. My father’s dead body has disappeared, just like Nana’s did before.

Conor steps forward. ‘What. The. F—’

Thunder rumbles in the distance, and we all stare at one another in the darkness. Our faces are mostly in shadow but look equally scared. Lily steps closer to Rose and holds her hand, the way she did when they were children. The rain that has been lashing the windows seems to pause for thought, and there are a few brief seconds of total silence.

Until we all hear the sound of scratching – like nails on a chalkboard – out in the hall.





Twenty-one



31 October 2:25 a.m.

less than four hours until low tide

Conor snatches the torch from Rose’s hand and rushes out into the hallway. None of us are far behind, and when we catch up, we see the source of the sound.

Poppins is scratching at the cupboard under the stairs, and she starts to whimper.

Lily steps forward and tries to open the door, but it’s locked.

‘Trixie?’ she calls, banging her fist against it. ‘Are you in there?’

There is no answer. Lily bangs on the door again, louder this time, and the wooden door rattles on its elderly hinges. She shakes the handle in frustration.

‘Let me try,’ says Conor, giving the torch back to Rose. But he can’t open the door either.

‘Where is the key for this bloody cupboard?’ Lily asks, but I suspect none of us know.

The dog barks and scratches at the door again.

‘Be quiet, Poppins!’ Lily shouts.

‘She has the key,’ Rose whispers.

‘What?’

‘Poppins has the key.’

‘Have you lost your mind?’

‘It’s attached to her collar. Look!’ Rose says, shining the torch down at the dog.

We seem to stare at Poppins for a long time before anyone says anything else. She blinks back in our direction, peering out from behind the two little plaits that keep her hair away from her eyes. Looking a smidgen guilty, if I’m honest. But it doesn’t seem rational – even to my irrational family – that an Old English Sheepdog could be behind everything that has happened here tonight. Rose bends down to remove the key from the collar. It’s hard to see anything in the dim light, and it takes her a while to untie it.

‘Hurry up!’ says Lily.

‘I’m trying my best,’ Rose replies calmly. When she finally removes the key, she slots it into the locked door and we hold our breath. We were all afraid of this cupboard as children. We knew that there were mice and cobwebs in there. I used to imagine a family of giant spiders living in the shadows, waiting to feed on anyone foolish enough to enter.

Rose turns the key, and the door creaks as she slowly pulls it open.

It’s too dark to see inside. There was never a light.

The rest of us peer over her shoulder from the imagined safety of the hallway as Rose steps forward, shining the torch.

The first thing I register is the smell; bad things happen when people die. The first thing I see is Nana. She’s sitting on the floor of the cupboard, leaning against the exposed brick wall in the gloom. She would look like someone taking a nap – in a cupboard – if it weren’t for the grey colouring of her skin, the giant bloody gash on her head, and the blood that has spilled all down her cheek and onto the shoulder of her white cotton nightdress. The piece of chalk she was holding when we first found her has been replaced with a pen and paintbrush, tied to her hand with a red ribbon. My father’s body has been moved in here too, with his broken conductor’s baton still tied to his right hand in the same way. It hovers in mid-air, presumably thanks to rigor mortis, as if he is conducting an invisible orchestra in the cupboard under the stairs. The surreal image creates a flashback in my mind, one I would rather not picture. I think it must have been early 1983. The third time I died was the first time I lied about it.