Kite Spirit (11 page)

‘I’ll get out here!’ she announced.

‘I knew you’d be excited,’ Seth called after her, as he drove off the dirt path and pulled into the sloping courtyard. It was made of large sandstone slabs, flattening out at
the entrance – an imposing-looking sliding glass door. To its left was a giant earthenware pot containing a Japanese tree with spindly acid-green arms. Kite pressed her face against the cold
glass and peered inside. There was a clear view from the entrance into the whole house. Through the kitchen she could see a wide corridor that opened out on to another huge room, with a spiral
staircase to one side. Beyond that the room expanded further, ending in another mammoth window that mirrored the entrance. So they had come to an open-plan, see-through house! Unsettled, Kite began
to wish that they were staying somewhere more normal, like the stone cottages with little protected windows and wild-flower gardens they’d passed on the way.

‘The key is under the loose brick next to the acer!’ Seth read the instructions out loud and wandered over to the huge pot. ‘I wouldn’t have thought this plant was
indigenous to the area!’ he commented as he lifted the brick and took out an electronic key. ‘Mind you, neither is this house! Open sesame!’ he laughed as he swiped the key-card
across a metal sensor panel.

Not for the first time, Kite felt like running away from Seth.

‘I’m just going to see the waterfall.’ She walked back out into the courtyard.

‘Don’t be long,’ Seth called after her.

She discovered a narrow path that fell away steeply below her. From somewhere under the building a great jet of water spurted out of a hole in the rock and dropped away into a chasm below. Kite
walked on a few paces and froze. On a jagged ledge, just beyond reaching distance, lay the skeleton of a sheep; its hollow head twisted upward as if pleading for help. Water cascaded through its
eye cavities. Is this what would happen to Dawn’s body? Kite shuddered at the thought of the locket she’d given Dawn hanging off her bones. She caught her breath, felt the acid rise
from her empty stomach and vomited bitter yellow mucus that seemed to tear at her guts as they contracted and she retched and retched until nothing was left inside her. Her legs were shaking as she
scrambled back up the steep path towards the entrance.

‘Are you going to help me unpack?’ Seth called.

‘I want to go home!’ Kite said, shaking her head.

Seth gnawed on his lower lip as if giving himself time to search for an appropriate response. ‘I’m exhausted, Kite. I’ve driven all this way. I think you are too,’ he
said, reaching for her face.

Kite stepped away from him so that he wouldn’t smell the sick on her breath. All she needed now was a new bout of his fretting.

‘Look how pale you are. I tell you what – let’s sleep on it and see how you feel in the morning.’

‘There’s a dead sheep in the waterfall.’ She felt icy cold again, just as she had on the Falling Day, standing outside Mr Scott’s office. ‘Frozen to the bone’
– people said that, didn’t they? That’s how that poor sheep must have felt too when it fell off the path and realized it was stranded. She wondered how long it would have taken
for it to give up bleating for help.

‘Nature can be brutal. That must have been horrible for you. I’ll move it first thing in the morning. But apart from that, what do you think?’ Seth spread his arms out to show
off the building. ‘I’ve never stayed anywhere as plush as this. Come on, Kite, give it a chance, eh?’ He took her by the shoulders and guided her through the entrance to the
kitchen.

‘Dresser . . . wood-burning stove . . . magnificent wooden table!’ Seth enthused, running his hands over the smooth light wood. ‘This will do!’

He had in his hands an instruction folder that he read from as he walked over to a dresser to the right of the stove and took out what looked like a TV remote.

‘Says that this is the key to making things work around here.’ He placed the folder on the table and took his reading glasses from his pocket.

Kite walked out of the kitchen and along a wide adjoining walkway with a plain white wall to its left and a glass wall to its right that formed the outside of the house. It was like a sort of
bridge between two rooms. Under Kite’s feet the floor was made of intermittent sandstone and glass panels, reminding her of stepping stones in a stream she’d crossed once with Dawn on a
school trip to Wales. Dawn had picked her way cautiously across and Kite had leaped from stepping stone to stone, finally landing flat on her face and getting soaked. Dawn’s Tinkerbell giggle
echoed back at her. Under the panels of glass gushed the waterfall that seemed to mirror light backwards and forward off the building. She supposed that’s why it was called Mirror Falls. The
name was fitting, Kite thought as she glanced around the glass building; the mirror that Dawn and Kite had so often been reflected in together had fallen, shattered into a million pieces.

Kite peered down through the glass stepping stones, and on the third panel she took a step backwards on to the firm stone. Under this transparent panel, one step away from her, the sheep carcass
was clearly visible. She stared at the water rushing through the skeleton. With or without the grim carcass there would never be anything peaceful about this place because it would always be moving
beneath her feet.

‘Don’t dwell on that now!’ Seth pleaded, taking her hand and dragging her through towards the living room. At the end of the indoor stepping-stone bridge, to her left there was
a glass spiral staircase winding upward to a level above the glass ceiling of the living room. She was relieved to find that there was a loft-type upper floor to the house after all. Maybe the
bedrooms would feel less exposed.

‘Close your eyes!’ Seth ordered, pulling her into a vast glass box of a living room with views on all sides, down through the floor and up to the sky.

They walked slowly towards the enormous window that seemed to frame the countryside. Kite followed the path of the waterfall through the steep-sided valley as it merged with the stream and
meandered away into the distance. Surrounding the widening stream were green fields dotted with sheep and fell ponies. On one side was hard grey rock and on the other a long stretch of woodland.
Kite winced as the sky produced a perfect palette of pale pink and orange to replace the bright blues of the day. It was as if a master painter was at work. She felt as if she had been picked up
from Dawn’s graveside and dropped into this picture-perfect world, except that everything about it felt fake to her, like a cover-up. Apart from the grim sheep’s carcass;
that
felt real enough.

As Kite stared down at the gaping drop beneath she wondered if it was possible for her to have drifted into a worse place. If she’d been asked to draw a building that looked how she felt
at this moment, she would have drawn Mirror Falls. How was it possible for so much of the building to be hanging off the mountain without it careering into the chasm below? One thing was for
certain. Whoever had dreamed up this house wanted to turn things on their head, to challenge nature.

‘And – if that doesn’t impress you – you’d better prepare yourself for this!’ Seth indicated the dark purple sofa behind her. ‘Sitting
comfortably?’ He pressed down on the large cushions to test them.

Kite nodded.

‘Then I’ll begin!’

A smooth whirring noise came from somewhere above her head, and she noticed that Seth was pointing the remote upward. As she watched, the huge glass sheet panel retracted, leaving nothing above
but the open sky.

Kite picked up a cream woollen throw that was folded on the back of the sofa and wrapped it around her shoulders. ‘Impressive!’ Her voice was as expressionless as that of the strange
woman they’d met on the road. ‘But could you close it for now? I feel cold.’

Seth pressed the button and the roof slid back over them again. ‘Why don’t you go up and choose your bedroom, and I’ll fix us something to eat?’ he suggested.
‘I’ll bring your case up when I’ve unpacked the car.’

Kite walked around the sofa towards the stepping-stone bridge and began to climb the glass staircase. The banister was carved from driftwood like the old woman’s walking stick. She ran her
fingers along its winding surface. The unevenness of the wood with its random knots was comforting after the unforgiving harsh lines of the house. At the top was a narrow glass corridor with three
misted-glass doorways leading off it. The wall at the end overlooked the living area and valley below. She looked down through the landing to the stepping-stone bridge and beyond that, through one
of the glass panels, to the waterfall. There it was again: the macabre reminder of death. From here she could just see its skull.

Kite walked along the corridor to the third door, slid it open and peered inside. She was relieved to find that the bedroom had a sturdy sandstone floor covered by a thick woollen rug. The tiny
room contained nothing but a low wooden bed with plain white linen, a coarse cream homespun blanket, a bedside table and an enormous floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. She scanned the colourful spines.
There would be no shortage of reading material, if she decided to hole herself up here for the summer. If Dawn was here she would work her way through book after book. Kite reached up and touched
one of the heavy old tomes, and another remote fell off the shelf. She pressed a button, and the whole wall of books opened on to a wardrobe with shelves, drawers, hangers and places to store
shoes, even a desk and a lamp. Kite smiled, despite herself.

But the thing she liked best about the room was the two sturdy walls painted in stone and heather purple. She could see now that the little colour that was scattered around the house was
inspired by the surrounding landscape. The fourth wall, at the far end of the room, was misted glass, with a large clear circular window inset. Kite walked over to the spyhole and peered out. Then
she stepped three paces back and lay on the bed, her head propped up on the downy pillows. From here she had a perfect view of the valley. She felt like a bird nesting high up in the trees and
surveying the mountainside for possible dangers. If she
had
to stay here, at least she’d found somewhere in this strange, unbalanced house where she could hide away.

Seth sang to himself contentedly as he unpacked the car, trailing in and out with bags and food. She knew it was mean-spirited of her, but Kite wished he would attempt to curb his enthusiasm for
the trip for just one moment. It was like he was trying, by the sheer force of his happy nature, to push her uphill to a better place. But as she listened to him singing she resolved to try to be
less snappy. She could see how hard he’d tried, despite everything, to rescue her birthday – even though it had been the longest, most arduous day of her life.

‘Are you coming down?’ Seth called from the bottom of the staircase. ‘I’ve made hot chocolate.’

‘Coming!’ Kite called back, standing up and noticing a painted door in the stone-coloured wall. She pushed it and found herself in a luxurious ultra-modern bathroom, all mirrors and
clean white surfaces, with a double sink, a shower in the corner and a huge bath sunken into the middle of the floor. She walked over to the sink and washed the smell of vomit from her hands and
face. Now she had seen her room, she wanted to unpack her things, hang her clothes up and find a safe place in the secret wardrobe for Dawn’s precious things.

Kite looked over at the deep sunken bath and longed to fill it with hot water and wash herself in Dawn’s soap. A tube of unopened toothpaste sat on a shelf. She smeared some on her finger
and over her teeth and rinsed. As she dried her hands and face she walked through a door on the opposite side of the bathroom that led to another bedroom. Here there was no amazing bookshelf and no
view either, just a simple sliding wardrobe and a peephole on to the corridor . . .

‘Did you get the best room then?’ Seth asked as she walked down the stairs.

‘Of course!’

On a little table to the side of the sofa, Seth had placed a couple of mugs of hot chocolate and two slices of Ruby’s birthday cake. He handed Kite a plate and she began to eat, just to
please him. The milky chocolate soothed her empty stomach, warming her from the inside.

‘Let’s call Ruby.’ Seth picked up his mobile, pressed her number then looked a bit puzzled as he walked around the room.

‘There was no mention of this in their booklet! No television OK, but the no-computer, no-signal thing just doesn’t make sense in a house like this! There’s not even a DVD
player. I wish I’d brought my laptop now; at least we could have watched a few films! I’ve been wondering why Sid said he’d got it surprisingly cheaply from the agency! Rubes will
go mad,’ he groaned, discarding his phone on the sofa. ‘Well, it looks like it’s just you and me, kid!’ he joked, putting on his awful American accent.

‘Funny!’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll find somewhere to call her from tomorrow. Anyway, she’ll be here before you know it.’ Seth yawned. ‘You be all right if I go and have a
lie-down? I’ll get up and make us supper later. That drive didn’t half do me in.’

Kite nodded.

‘If the noise of the waterfall gets too much for you, we can apparently play God and switch nature on and off at the touch of a button! Here, have a play!’ Seth handed Kite the
remote, patted the back of her hair and climbed the staircase.

She heard him exclaiming with delight as he explored upstairs.

‘Yep! You’ve definitely got the best room!’ he shouted down.

Kite flicked a switch and the house grew eerily quiet. She turned the remote over in her hands. How did it do that? If only it really was this easy to control nature, to walk over to the
stepping-stone bridge, flick a switch and make that sheep carcass reconstruct itself; to start growing a heart and lungs, sinews and muscles; to fuse its bones. She would fill it with blood
travelling through its veins and make it grow a woolly coat to be warm again, and she wouldn’t stop until it began to bleat at the top of its voice.