Love Notes from Vinegar House (17 page)

“No one’s answering, Livinia,” I hear Grandma Vinegar say.

“Hello? Grandma?”

“Freya? Is that you, Freya?”

“Yes, Grandma. Did you ring just before?” I asked.

“Now listen, Freya. Something’s happened and I’m afraid Mr Chilvers won’t be–”

I didn’t get to hear what Mr Chilvers wouldn’t be doing because the line went dead. I jiggled the phone and tried to dial out, but there was just the faintest ghost of a whistle on the line, so I gave up. I checked my mobile and still had no signal, then jumped a little as a gust of wind rattled the front door.

Thinking Grandma’s weather forecast might be spot on, I fed more wood into the wood stove and into the fireplace in the library, just in case the power failed and we ended up with no heating. Armed with a candle and a box of matches, I went to the TV room and watched a couple of hours of very boring afternoon TV. It was so boring, I fell asleep on the couch and only woke up when the television made a loud noise and the screen image disappeared. The power was down.

It was late in the afternoon judging by the grey light outside. The wind was slamming against the house and an upstairs door shut with a loud bang. Rumer had obviously returned from her walk when I was asleep. From the kitchen I peered down the back garden for a sign of Mr Chilvers, but I couldn’t see the garage and couldn’t be bothered going outside to check. Maybe Mr Chilvers had been delayed? Maybe that was Grandma’s message. There was no sign of smoke from the cottage, and I wondered where Luke was working. I silently thanked Mrs Skelton for her wood stove, as I cooked up a jar of spaghetti sauce and a slab of minced meat. Then I checked the fridge and added grated carrot to help make it more interesting. A couple of times I heard the creak of footsteps from upstairs and once I heard a noise that sounded like furniture being moved about. I wondered what my cousin was up to.

Okay, you’re going to think I’m crazy at this point, but I’m going to tell you what happened next and you’re not going to believe it. Which will make two of us.

One moment I was in the kitchen, and the next I was standing on the front door steps looking out to Seal Rock. It’s like something made me do it. And from where I stood I could see what could have been a very large seabird or a small boat bobbing up and down on the waves. I stood there for a full minute but the thing just stayed where it was, bobbing up and down. I went back inside to the kitchen, stirred the spaghetti sauce then put the saucepan lid on tightly. Back on the front steps I could see the boat/bird was still bobbing about in the water. Every pore in my body was telling me there was something wrong. I had an argument with myself – it was getting too late to go for a walk down to Bluff Beach – but it was a short argument, and I wasn’t winning.

I grabbed a torch from the library and a coat from my bedroom. For a moment I was tempted to get Rumer to come with me, but when she didn’t answer the knock on her door I left without her. I took the short cut down to Bluff Beach and the tea-tree rattled in the wind that gusted every now and then. A low distant rumble announced a coming storm and I was already wishing myself back in the warm kitchen of Vinegar House. When I got down to the beach there were no surprises. The old dinghy had gone, which is what I’d feared. Only the rope remained, coiled up like a giant snake, one end still tethered in the sand. Out near Seal Rock, the upturned dinghy bobbed up and down on the waves. The gulls were squabbling nearby, then I realised that I could hear another noise.

“Freya! Freya!”

The boat had swung around a little and now I could see someone hanging onto its side. Someone in a red windcheater.

“Freya!”

Rumer is my least favourite cousin. Have I told you that? Even so, I couldn’t leave her to drown at Seal Rock. But I didn’t know what to do. I was too scared to go to the house for Luke, just in case Rumer was gone by the time I returned.

I stamped my foot. “Rumer!”

I looked around for help. There was no way I could throw the dinghy rope out to her. She was too far out in the water and I wasn’t such a great aim either. And I’d heard far too many stories of someone jumping in the sea as a rescuer only to drown themselves, so I wasn’t about to dive into the water after her. And then I saw it – the half-chewed foam surfboard that I’d thrown up onto the rocks during one of my beachcombing sessions.

By now the dinghy had moved closer to shore, which should have made things easier, but the light was fading and all I could think of was the chunk of missing surfboard.

“Freya! I’m slipping.”

“Oh, shut up,” I hissed. I took off my shoes and peeled off my layers until I was just in my underwear. It was already cold and I wasn’t even in the water yet.

I grabbed the surfboard under one arm and waded into the water.

“Hate. You. Hate. You. Hate. Hate. Hate,” I droned. I could see my skin was turning blue.

The waves were choppy but small and the adrenalin was helping my legs to power through the water.

“Freya!”

Even in her panicked state, Rumer managed to sound annoyed with me. I didn’t bother to answer her but concentrated on kicking.

By the time I reached the dinghy my feet could no longer touch the sand. The boat swung slowly in the water and suddenly I saw Rumer’s face, which was a mix of terror and anger.

“What took you so long!” she demanded.

“Why didn’t you get back in the boat?” I asked.

“I couldn’t,” she said. “And I’ve lost the oars.”

“Come on,” I said. “Grab hold of this and we’ll paddle back to shore.”

“Okay,” she said.

I waited a whole minute before I nudged her. “You can let go now, Rumer. Grab hold of the board.”

“I know,” she said.

And still she clung to the side of the boat. By now twilight had slipped into night. A rumble of thunder sounded closer than before.

“I wonder how many sharks they get around here?” I asked.

Rumer let go of the dinghy and grabbed the surfboard. I moved over to give her more space.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Now we kick,” I said.

I won’t bore you with how long it took us to get back. How scared I was that we might not make it to shore at all. Luckily the power was back on at Vinegar House and it shone bright like a beacon. Back on the beach I shoved my clothes on then prodded and poked Rumer to get her moving.

“I’m numb!” she whined, but began walking anyway.

She complained all the way back home. As we drew closer to the house I realised that the light was coming from the attic window, but I was too tired to wonder why someone had left a light on up there.

When we reached the house and I flicked the light switch in the kitchen, I realised that the power was still off.

I got Rumer into the kitchen then fumbled about in the dark until I found some matches and a candle. I placed the candle in a glass, lit another candle and held it up to Rumer’s face.

“I want a bath,” she said.

“There’s a shower down here,” I said. “Have a shower. It’s closer–”

“I want a bath!” she repeated.

I didn’t want to go to the upstairs bathroom, but I didn’t want to stand there all night arguing with Rumer, either.

“Stand next to the wood stove and get warm. I’ll go upstairs and run the bath.”

She nodded.

I left her with one candle and took the other with me. As I left the kitchen she said, “Freya?”

“Yes?”

“I just want to say … thanks. Thanks for saving me. And sorry about Luke. Sorry about everything. I hope you’ll forgive me …”

Of course, this didn’t happen.

What she really said was, “Freya?”

“Yes?”

“Can you get me one of those pink towels? The white ones are too scratchy. I’ll need two, one for my hair. And make sure you don’t make the water too hot. I can always top it up once I get in.”

“Rumer?” I said.

“Yes?”

“Shut up,” I said.

Then I left.

If you ever want to mess with someone’s head, it’s easy. I do it to myself all the time. If I know I’ve left my drink bottle at home when I go out, suddenly I need a drink of water. I need it really badly. There is nothing that I can think of except that sweet water sliding down my throat.

The same goes for spooky houses.

I had managed to live at Vinegar House for around ten days without once thinking the word spooky. Now that it was just Rumer and me in the house with no electricity, the only thing I could think of was spooky. This house was spooky. It was old and spooky. When the hall clock chimed once, I jumped and sent out a little, “Eeek.”

Then I felt embarrassed.

As I walked up the staircase, the candle threw monster shadows onto the wall and wind rattled the stairway windows as it gusted about the house. A loose shutter slapped the wall –
bang-bang
.

I paused at the top of the stairs. There was a noise coming from further down the hallway. It was coming from the bathroom – the sound of water splashing into the bath. The water pipes clanged as the heated water ran through them.

“Come on, stupid,” I whispered loudly to myself.

I pushed open the door, which was slightly ajar.

I waved my candle about the room, but there was no one there. The curtain was drawn about the bath and although I wanted to leave then and there, I knew the taps needed turning off. Just a problem with the plumbing, I thought. Just like Mrs Skelton said. And the stupid plug that kept falling into the plughole.

I don’t know how long I stood there but finally I reached out and pulled the curtain back, and just for a moment, in the dim light of the candle, I saw Rumer lying beneath the water looking up at me. But then no, not Rumer, it was her mother – the girl in the striped top. A scream caught in my throat, but as I pushed the candle closer I saw there was no body – just the sloshing of water in the cracked porcelain bath. I turned off the taps.

The bathroom door creaked, and I quickly turned, but there was no one behind me. A low growl from behind the clothes hamper turned me to stone. It was a long drawn-out sound and it definitely wasn’t human.

It was like being in a nightmare where you want to run but you just can’t move. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, the hamper shook and a large furry thing shot out from behind it.

It was one of Grandma’s mangy cats.

I sat on the floor with a laugh. “Stupid cat,” I said.

And that’s when I heard a loud noise above me. It was the same noise I’d heard earlier. It sounded like Rumer was in the attic, though I hadn’t heard her walk past the bathroom.

“Rumer!” I called out.

The noise stopped and all I could hear was the sound of a tap drip, drip, dripping into the bath.

“Rumer?”

And then something occurred to me that didn’t make sense. I’d heard the same loud noise before. I’d heard it earlier when I thought Rumer was upstairs. But Rumer had been hanging onto a dinghy near Seal Rock when I’d first heard the noise, so it couldn’t have been her.

“Rumer?” I whispered.

Then I heard the sound again.

I don’t know how long I stood in the bathroom, but it was long enough for Rumer to come looking for me.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “Is that bath ready or what?”

I think I’ve already mentioned I don’t have a poker face. Well, there must have been something in my face that stopped Rumer talking and then she heard it too – the loud noise of moving furniture from the upstairs attic.

Rumer’s face filled with alarm. She pushed me out into the hallway, and I followed her into the Blue Room, our candles casting long shadows that jumped about like goblins on the wall behind us. Then Rumer leaned in and whispered into my ear.

“Something’s here.”

I noticed she didn’t say some
one
.

Lightning turned night into day for a beat. Thunder cracked loudly rattling the window and a loose shutter downstairs set up its crazy beat against the outside wall.

We listened to the sound of the floorboards as they creaked overhead. I tracked their progress from one end of the hall to the other, then heard the scrape of the attic door as it opened. I wished there was a lock on the bedroom door.

“It’s coming!” I whispered.

“Murder in the Dark!” said Rumer, cryptically. Then she blew out her candle.

I felt her drop to the floor beside me and scuttle away as I blew out my own candle. I groped my way across to the window and pulled the curtains together, then I too dropped to the floor and slid into my secret spot under the low chair up against the tallboy.

And waited.

I heard the rattle of a doorknob up the hallway, then the clinking of something that may have been keys … or chains. I imagined a chained ghost looking for revenge. I thought of the slip of paper I’d found in the tree house –
murderer
– and I began to shiver. I wondered if one of dead maids from the laundry room fire had come back to haunt us. Or the dead groomsman back for revenge.

There was a thud in the room next door then a low moan. I felt the darkness of the Blue Room push down on me. I opened my eyes to its oily blackness then closed them again at the sound of another thud. I felt the old panic of being in a confined space. A door slammed. Thunder rumbled. Then I heard the rattle of the doorknob to the Blue Room and pressed myself further into my hiding space.