Finding Sky

 

The car drew away, leaving the little girl on the verge. Shaking with cold in her thin cotton T-shirt and shorts, she sat down, arms locked around her knees, her light blonde hair blowing messily in the wind, pale as a dandelion seed head.

Be quiet, freak, or we’ll come back and get you
, they’d said.

She didn’t want them to come back for her. She knew that for a fact, even if she couldn’t remember her name or where she lived.

A family walked by on their way to their vehicle, the mum in a headscarf, carrying a baby, the dad holding the hand of a toddler. The girl stared at the worn grass, counting the daisies.
What’s that like,
she wondered
, being carried?
It was so long since anyone had cuddled her, she found it hard to watch. She could see the glimmer of gold that shone round the family—the colour of love. She didn’t trust that colour; it led to hurt.

Then the woman spotted her. The girl hugged her knees tightly, trying to make herself so small no one would notice. But it was no use. The woman said something to her husband, handed over the baby, and came closer until she could crouch beside the girl. ‘Are you lost, sweetie?’

Be quiet or we’ll come back and get you
.

The girl shook her head.

‘Mummy and Daddy gone inside?’ The woman frowned, her colours tinged an angry red.

The girl didn’t know if she should nod. Mummy and Daddy had gone away but that was a long time ago. They’d never come for her in the hospital but stayed in the fire with each other. She decided to say nothing. The woman’s colours flared a deeper crimson. The girl cringed: she’d upset her. So the ones who had just driven away had told her the truth. She was bad. Always making everyone unhappy. The girl put her head on her knees. Perhaps if she pretended she wasn’t there, the woman would feel happy again and go away. That sometimes worked.

‘Poor little thing,’ the woman sighed, standing up. ‘Jamal, will you go back inside and tell the manager there’s a lost child out here? I’ll stay with her.’

The girl heard the man murmur reassurances to the toddler and then footsteps as they went back towards the restaurant.

‘You mustn’t worry: I’m sure your family will be looking for you.’ The woman sat beside her, crushing daisies five and six.

The girl started trembling violently and shaking her head. She didn’t want them looking—not now, not ever.

‘It’s OK. Really. I know you must be frightened but you’ll be back with them in a minute.’

She whimpered, then clapped a hand over her mouth.
I
mustn’t make a sound, I mustn’t make a fuss. I’m bad. Bad
.

But it wasn’t her making all the noise. Not her fault. Now there were lots of people around her. Police wearing yellow jackets like the ones that had surrounded her house that day. Voices talking at her. Asking her name.

But it was a secret—and she’d forgotten the answer long ago.

 

I woke up from the old nightmare as the car drew to a halt and the engine fell silent. My head pressed against a cushion, sleep dragging on me like an anchor, it took me a while to remember where I was. Not in that motorway service station, but in Colorado with my parents. Moving on. Moving in.

‘What do you think?’ Simon, as my dad preferred to be called, got out of the dodgy old Ford he’d bought in Denver and threw his arm dramatically towards the house. His long grey-streaked brown hair was getting loose from its tie in his enthusiasm to show off our new home. Pointy roof, clapboard walls, and grimy windows—it did not look promising. I half expected the Addams family to lurch out of the front door. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, trying to drive off the gritty fear that remained after one of my dreams.

‘Oh, darling, it’s wonderful.’ Sally, my mum, refused to be daunted—the terrier of happiness, as Simon jokingly called her, seizing it in her teeth and refusing to shake free. She got out of the car. I followed, not sure if it was jetlag I was feeling or dreamlag. The words I had in my head were ‘gloomy’, ‘wreck’, and ‘rotten’; Sally came up with some others.

‘I think it’s going to be brilliant. Look at those shutters—they must be original. And the porch! I’ve always fancied myself a porch kind of person, sitting in my rocker and watching the sun go down.’ Her brown eyes sparkled with anticipation, her curly hair bouncing as she jumped up the steps.

Having lived with them since I was ten, I’d long ago accepted that both my parents were probably
off
their rockers. They lived in a little fantasy world of their own, where derelict houses were ‘quaint’ and mould ‘atmospheric’. Unlike Sally, I always fancied myself as the ultra-modern kind of person, sitting in a chair that wasn’t a haven for woodworm and a bedroom that didn’t have icicles on the
inside
of the windows in winter.

But forget the house: the mountains behind were stunning, soaring impossibly high into the clear autumn sky, a dusting of white on their peaks. They rolled along the horizon like a tidal wave frozen in time, caught just as it was about to curl down upon us. Their rocky slopes were tinged with pink in the late afternoon light, but, where shadows fell across the snowfields, they turned a cold slate blue. The woods climbing their sides were already shot through with gold; stands of aspens burned against the dark Douglas firs. I could see a cable car and the clearings that marked the ski runs, all of which looked almost vertical.

These had to be the High Rockies I’d read about when my parents broke the news that we were moving from Richmond-on-Thames to Colorado. They’d been offered a year as artists-in-residence in a new Arts Centre in a little town called Wrickenridge. A local multi-millionaire and admirer of their work had got it into his head that the ski resort west of Denver needed an injection of culture—and my parents, Sally and Simon, were to be it.

When they presented me with the ‘good’ news, I checked the town website and found that Wrickenridge was known for its three hundred inches of snow each year and not much else. There would be skiing—but I’d never been able to afford the school trip to the Alps so that would put me about a million years behind my contemporaries. I was already picturing my humiliation at the first snowy weekend when I stumbled on the nursery slopes and the other teenagers zipped down the black runs.

But my parents loved the idea of painting among the Rockies and I didn’t have the heart to spoil their big adventure. I pretended to be OK with missing out on sixth form college in Richmond with all my friends and instead enrolling in Wrickenridge High. I’d made a place for myself in south-west London in the six years since they’d adopted me; I’d struggled out of terror and silence, overcoming shyness to have my own circle in which I felt popular. I’d shut off the stranger parts of my character—like that colour thing I’d dreamt about. I no longer looked for people’s auras as I had done as a child, ignored it when my control slipped. I’d made myself normal—well, mostly. Now I was being launched into the unknown. I’d seen plenty of films about American schools and was feeling more than a little insecure about my new place of education. Surely normal American teenagers got spots and wore crappy clothes sometimes? I’d never fit in if the movies turned out to be true.

‘OK.’ Simon rubbed his hands on the thighs of his faded jeans, a habit that left every item of clothing he owned smeared with oils. He was dressed in his usual Bohemian scruff while Sally looked quite smart in new trousers and jacket she’d bought for travelling. I fell somewhere between the two: moderately rumpled in my Levis. ‘Let’s go and see inside. Mr Rodenheim said he’d sent the decorators in for us. He promised they’d do the outside as soon as they could get to it.’

So that was why it looked a dump.

Simon opened the front door. It squeaked but didn’t fall off its hinges, which I took as a little victory for us. The decorators had clearly just left—gifting us with their dust sheets, ladders, and pots of paint, walls half done. I poked my nose in the rooms upstairs, finding a turquoise one with a queen bed and a view of the peaks. Had to be mine. Maybe this wouldn’t be so terrible.

I used my fingernail to scratch paint splashes off the old mirror over the chest of drawers. The pale, solemn girl in the reflection did the same, staring at me with her dark blue eyes. She looked ghostly in the half light, her long blonde hair curling in unruly tendrils around her oval face. She looked fragile. Alone. Prisoner in the room through the mirror; an Alice who never made it back through the looking-glass.

I shivered. The dream was still haunting me, tugging me back to the past. I had to stop thinking like this. People—teachers, friends, you name it—had told me I was prone to drifting off in melancholy daydreams. But they didn’t understand that I felt … I don’t know … somehow lacking. I was a mystery to myself—a bundle of fragmented memories and unexplored dark places. My head was full of secrets but I’d lost the map showing me where to find them.

Dropping my hand from the cool glass, I turned away from the mirror and went downstairs. My parents were standing in the kitchen, wrapped up in each other as usual. They had the kind of relationship that was so complete I often wondered how they found space for me.

Sally circled Simon’s waist and laid her head on his shoulder. ‘Not bad. Do you remember our first digs off Earls Court, darling?’

‘Yes. The walls were grey and everything rattled when the tube passed under the house.’ He kissed her froth of short brown hair. ‘This is a palace.’

Sally held her hand out to include me in the moment. I’d trained myself over the last few years not to mistrust their affectionate gestures, so took it. Sally squeezed my knuckles, silently acknowledging what it cost me not to shy away from them. ‘I’m really excited. It’s like Christmas morning.’

She was always a sucker for the stocking thing.

I smiled. ‘I never would have guessed.’

‘Anyone home?’ There was a rap on the porch door and an elderly woman marched in. She had white-flecked black hair, dark brown skin, and triangle earrings that dangled almost to the collar of her gold padded jacket. Loaded down by a casserole dish, she efficiently kicked the door closed with her heel. ‘There you are. I saw you arrive. Welcome to Wrickenridge.’

Sally and Simon exchanged an amused look as the lady made herself at home, putting the dish on the hall table.

‘I’m May Hoffman, your neighbour from across the street. And you are the Brights from England.’

It seemed Mrs Hoffman did not require anyone else to participate in her conversations. Her energy was scary; I caught myself wishing for a tortoise-like ability to creep back into my shell to take cover.

‘Your daughter doesn’t look much like either of you, does she?’ Mrs Hoffman moved a pot of paint aside. ‘I saw you pull up. Did you know your car’s leaking oil? You’ll want to get that fixed. Kingsley at the garage will see to it for you if you say I recommended him. He’ll give you a fair price, but mind he doesn’t charge you for a valet service—that should be complimentary.’

Sally grimaced apologetically at me. ‘That’s very kind of you, Mrs Hoffman.’

She waved it away. ‘We make a point of being good neighbours here. Have to be—wait until you experience one of our winters and you’ll understand.’ She directed her attention in my direction, her eyes shrewd. ‘Enrolled as an eleventh grader at the high school?’

‘Yes … er … Mrs Hoffman,’ I mumbled.

‘Semester started two days ago, but I expect you know that. My grandson’s in junior year too. I’ll tell him to look after you.’

I had a nightmare vision of a male version of Mrs Hoffman shepherding me around the school. ‘I’m sure that won’t be—’

She cut across me, gesturing to the dish. ‘Thought you might appreciate some home cooking to start you off right in your new kitchen.’ She sniffed. ‘I see Mr Rodenheim finally got round to doing the place up. About time. I told him this house was a disgrace to the neighbourhood. Now, you get some rest, you hear, and I’ll see you when you’ve settled in.’

She was gone before we had a chance to thank her.

‘Well,’ said Simon. ‘That was interesting.’

‘
Please
fix the oil leak tomorrow,’ Sally mock-begged, holding up her clasped hands to her chest. ‘I couldn’t bear to be here if she finds out you’ve not taken her advice—and she’ll be back.’

‘Like the common cold,’ he agreed.

‘She’s not … um … very British, is she?’ I ventured.

We all laughed—the best christening the house could have had.

That night I unpacked my suitcase into the old chest of drawers Sally had helped me line with wallpaper; it still smelt musty and the drawers stuck, but I liked the faded white paint-job. Distressed, Sally called it. I know how it felt, having spent many years at that end of the emotional spectrum.

I found myself wondering about Mrs Hoffman and this strange town we had come to. It felt so different—alien. Even the air at this altitude wasn’t quite enough and I had the faint buzz of a headache lurking. Beyond my window, framed by the branches of an apple tree growing close to the house, the mountains were dark shapes against the charcoal grey sky of a cloudy night. The peaks sat in judgement over the town, reminding us humans just how insignificant and temporary we were.

I spent a long time choosing what I’d wear on my first day at school, settling on a pair of jeans and a Gap T-shirt, anonymous enough so that I wouldn’t stand out with the other students. Thinking again, I pulled out a snug-fit jumper with a Union Jack worked in gold on the front. Might as well accept what I was.

That was something Simon and Sally had taught me. They knew about the difficulty I had recalling my past and never pushed, saying I would remember if and when I was ready. It was enough for them that I was who I was now; I did not have to apologize for being incomplete. Still, it did not stop me being plain scared of the unknown that was tomorrow.

Feeling a bit of a coward, I accepted Sally’s offer to accompany me to the school office to enrol. Wrickenridge High was about a mile down the hill from our neighbourhood, near the I-70, the main road that connected the town to the other ski resorts in the area. It was a building that had pride in its purpose: the name carved in stone over the double height doors, the grounds well maintained. The hallway was crammed with noticeboards advertising the wide range of activities open to—or maybe expected of—the students. I thought of the sixth form college I could have been attending in England. Tucked away behind the shopping centre in a mixture of Sixties buildings and portakabins, it had been anonymous, not a place you belonged to but passed through. I got the sense that
belonging
was a big part of the Wrickenridge experience. I wasn’t sure what I felt about that. I supposed it would be OK if I did manage to fit, but bad if I flunked the test of blending in to a new school.

Sally knew I was anxious but chose to act as if I was going to be the most successful student ever known.

‘Look, they’ve got an art club,’ she said brightly. ‘You could try pottery.’

‘I’m useless at that stuff.’

She sucked her teeth, knowing that was the truth. ‘Music then. I see there’s an orchestra. Oh look, and cheerleading! That might be fun.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘You’d look sweet in one of those outfits.’

‘I’m about a foot too short,’ I said, eyeing the giraffe-legged girls that made up the cheerleading team on the team poster.

‘A pocket-sized Venus, that’s what you are. I wish I had your figure.’

‘Sally, will you stop being so embarrassing?’ Why was I even bothering to argue with her? I had no intention of becoming a cheerleader even if height wasn’t an issue.

‘Basketball,’ continued Sally.

I rolled my eyes.

‘Dance.’

It was a joke now.

‘Maths club.’

‘You’d need to club me over the head to get me in that,’ I muttered, making her laugh.

She squeezed my hand briefly. ‘You’ll find your place. Remember, you are special.’