Kingsholt Read Free

Uncle George
really
killed Rosie, how could she believe
anything
again? He had been her kindly uncle, bringing her pocket money or sweets. ‘The daughter I never had,’ he had once said.
    Later that evening, when they were eating in the kitchen, Chloe told her mother how she had met Nimbus and what he had said. Mum dismissed the accusation with a laugh. ‘Of course Uncle George didn’t kill Rosie. It was an accident. She ran out when he was felling the tree. It’s grief speaking, my dear. No parent can get over the death of a child.’
    Aidan leaned towards Chloe. ‘Keep away from Nimbus,’ he said in his deep, even voice. ‘He’s a bitter man, especially these days. He has a new partner but it hasn’t worked out. As you’re beginning to understand, there’s more to Kingsholt than meetsthe eye. Terrible things once happened in this valley and history always has its echoes. It’s those echoes we must fight if we are ever going to bring peace to this place again. Mind you, there are good corners. The little cottage where Leela and Tyler live has always been untouched by any darkness and let’s pray Leela will keep it that way.’
    Chloe left her omelette piled on one side of her dish. She slipped through the kitchen door and ran up two floors to her room. Lying on the bed, she looked up at the torn wall paper. Small bits flapped from the ceiling like brown moths. Sunlight smeared the dusty window that overlooked the valley and hills at the front of the house. If she did up her bedroom she would feel better. Or would she? Perhaps she should write to Sam again, at least he lived in a normal world. She looked round for a biro and scraps of paper and scrawled hurriedly. But she hadn’t written to him for ages and it wasn’t good enough so she screwed up the letter and threw it on the floor. She would try again later.
    Still feeling unsettled, she ran downstairs, found some stale bread in the kitchen and went up to the hospital cage where Aidan looked after the wounded animals and birds.
    ‘At least everyone can see what’s the matter with you,’ she told them, stuffing the bread through the wire. A rook hopped over to grab the largest crust and she was so absorbed watching the scared smaller birds peck and run, that she was unaware of anyone approaching.
    ‘There’s many a bird with a broken wing,’ said a voice behind her. Chloe jumped and wheeled round to face Nimbus.
    ‘What are
you
doing here?’
    ‘Walking. I often walk in the evening.’
    ‘I haven’t seen you round here before,’ she said.
    Nimbus nodded. ‘I’ve kept myself to myself but from now on things are going to be different.’
    He stared at the cage. ‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ he said. ‘My Rosie liked animals like you. She had a barrel laid on its sidewhere she kept ferrets. She watched them for hours in their run.’
    He was holding a child’s plastic bucket full of worms and he threw them through the cage bars. The birds vied with each other to peck at them.
    ‘Survival of the fittest,’ he said, nodding at a blackbird with a trailing wing. ‘
He
won’t make it, not for long.’
    After that Chloe often met Nimbus wandering about the valley. He would show her the wild flowers, the birds, the badger holes and the secret tracks where the foxes walked. And yet there was no subject that did not lead him back to Rosie. Perhaps it was because of her own unsettled feelings that she found herself becoming more trusting.
    She was off her guard when he first offered her the pills. It was the day when the bully at school had shown up her accent by mimicking her and making the others laugh.
    ‘This’ll help,’ he said when she told him – and it was true.
    That afternoon her spirits lifted, she felt as if even school would never get her down again. From then on, whenever she was depressed, she took what he offered and liked the way he included her, as if he was her ally against her new school and this great ruin of a house and all