All My Secrets (21 page)

Which makes no sense.

‘We’re OK,’ I say.

Kit beams, then kisses me swiftly again. ‘I’d better get back to the kitchen,’ he says. ‘And don’t worry. Lunch is in, like, ten minutes and after that I’m
not letting you out of my sight.’

He disappears. I turn back to the window and absently reach for the catch to check that it’s locked. Rain lashes against the glass. Somehow the storm outside reflects the turbulence inside
my head. I gaze through the window across the scrubby grass to the patch of woodland beyond. The rain is thick, driving into the ground, the wind tearing through the trees. All of a sudden, a flash
of red appears between the branches. I freeze. As I strain my eyes, desperate, a figure in a long black coat and a red hat darts onto the moorland. She spins around, head bowed, so I can’t
see her face.

It’s the ghost. Something dangles on ribbons from her outstretched hands. My chest constricts as I realise what she is holding, what she must have somehow taken from under my pillow:

Irina’s ballet shoes.

For a few seconds, I watch, frozen to the spot, as Irina’s ghost dances from side to side in front of the distant trees. Her back is turned to the window and, thanks to
the length of the black coat, I can’t make out her shape, but she moves elegantly, toes pointed, just like in the
Giselle
DVD.

Rain pounds against the window and onto the grass outside. In front of the trees, the ghost rises up on tiptoes, arms outstretched, the ballet shoes swinging in the wind. She darts into the
copse, running from one tree to the next. For a moment, she disappears and I lean forward, pressing my forehead against the cold glass, desperate for another glimpse.
There.
I can just see
the red hat – and the twirling of a ballet shoe. She’s still there, between the trees.

She is waiting for me, I’m sure of it.

I turn and race across the room. Out into the corridor, along the hall. I grab my jacket – there isn’t time to put it on. Still wearing my thin pumps, I throw open the front door and
pelt outside. The rain drives into my face, huge, fierce drops on my back and legs, the stone paving rough through my thin soles. I tear across the grass towards the trees where I saw the ghost.
There’s no sign of her. My heart is in my mouth, all thoughts of Samuel’s disappearance and Mr Lomax’s plot against me buried deep inside, all my confused feelings about Josh and
Kit forgotten.

All I can think about is finding Irina’s ghost . . . finding my real mother at last.

‘Where are you?’ I dart into the trees. A flash of red to my left. I hurry after it, tugging on my jacket as I run. On through the woodland. I’m sheltered from the worst of the
rain in here, but my feet are battered and bruised from the stones on the ground. I don’t dare stop.

If I stop, she might think I don’t care enough to go after her.

I follow the ghost blindly, through trees, across patches of scrub, round bushes. I lose all sense of where I am on the island. My feet are frozen lumps of ice on the ends of my legs. Every time
I think I’ve lost her, she appears again, winding her way further and further away from the house.

‘Irina!’ I call. ‘
Mum!
’

But she never turns around.

On I run. I have no idea for how long. The ghost is always ahead of me. Uncatchable. I race through a thick clump of trees then all of a sudden burst out on to a wide expanse of rock.

It’s wet from the rain and the spray that shoots up from the sea below. The ghost is here. Right in front of me. As I dart towards her, she slips. Falls. Two more steps and my feet in
their slippery pumps give way too. I lose my balance and crash with a painful thud onto the hard stone. The ghost rises. I hurl myself at her. Push her down.

My heart hammers, my throat is tight with fear.

I can feel her arm through the black coat.

This is no spirit.

Panting, I force her to turn round. I stare and stare at her face.

Not Irina. Not my long-lost, beautiful birth mother. Not a ghost at all.

It’s Anna.

I get up. She stands shivering, buffeted by the wind and the spray, the red hat soaked through, the dark coat flapping about her legs.

I can’t believe it.

Not Irina. Just a pale-faced, anxious-looking Anna. I’m still staring at her, my mind reeling, as she pulls off the hat, letting her soft curls tumble onto her shoulders. The rain hammers
down. Neither of us speak. My hair is plastered to my face, my feet numb with cold, my clothes damp against my skin. The edge of the rock is a few metres away. The water below rages and crashes
against vicious crags that poke up from the waves. Anyone who fell from here would either be dashed to death or swept out to sea in an instant. I have never been here before, but I recognise the
place immediately from Lomax’s and Bradley’s descriptions.

This is Easter Rock, the most dangerous place on Lightsea Island.

This is where Irina died. This is where she was pushed into the sea.

‘You,’ I gasp.

Anna hangs her head. She takes Irina’s ballet shoes from her pocket and holds them out to me. She doesn’t meet my eyes. ‘I took them from under your pillow,’ she says.
‘I’m sorry.’

Dazed, I take the shoes. The wind drives the drizzle into my face, stabbing at my skin.

‘What do you think you’re doing, dressing up as my mum’s ghost? Oh . . .’ I suck in my breath as the full realization strikes me. ‘Oh . . . it’s been you
all along
?’ Anna looks up. She says nothing, but the guilty look in her eye tells me it’s true.

‘
Why?
’ The word sounds strangled.

‘It’s just an experiment . . .’ Anna begins.

‘
What?
’

‘Girls.’ Miss Bunnock’s voice echoes towards us. She emerges through the trees. ‘What on earth . . .? Get over here now.’

Anna turns and walks towards her, shrunk down inside the black coat. I follow, still barely able to process what has happened. Irina’s ballet shoes dangle from my hands. Misery roils
inside me, great waves of it.

There is no ghost. My mother’s spirit hasn’t come to me.

I have lost her before I even found her.

The pain of it fills me.

‘I don’t understand,’ I gasp, ignoring Miss Bunnock.

‘Get back to the house, Anna,’ Miss Bunnock orders.

I barely register how tense Bunnock looks or how odd it is that she’s only sending Anna away. I’m still trying to deal with what has just happened.

‘I don’t understand,’ I stammer again, tears pricking at my eyes.

Miss Bunnock opens her mouth, then shuts it again.

‘I’m sorry,’ Anna says, her voice barely audible over the crashing waves. I assume she’s talking to me, but when I glance across she is looking up at Bunnock.

Why is she apologizing to her?

‘Go,’ Bunnock orders.

Without looking at me again, Anna races off, into the trees, the black coat streaming out behind her.

Bunnock grabs my arm. Before I know what’s happening, she has dragged me out onto the rock. The rain is fiercer out here, away from the shelter of the trees.

I stumble, resisting. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Shut up,’ Bunnock snaps. ‘Get over to the edge.’

What?
I stare at her, shocked out of my piercing misery. Rain streams down around us; the roar of the wind and the waves fills the air. ‘You
knew
Anna was pretending to
be my mum’s ghost,’ I breathe. ‘You
knew
she’s been tricking me since we arrived here?’

‘Yes.’ Miss Bunnock meets my gaze. Her eyes are like steel pellets. ‘Of course.’

My mouth gapes.

‘I got Anna onto the Lightsea course. She was instructed to fool you, just as she was told to appear open to the idea of ghosts when the subject came up and to make sure that you saw the
photocopy of the newspaper article that I mocked up and left in the back of the library book.’

‘That was
made up
?’ My stomach feels like it’s falling away. ‘You went to all those lengths to make me think my mum was here as a ghost, that she died on the
island? For some stupid experiment?
What
experiment?’ A sob rises inside me. ‘
Why?
’

‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to explain why and there weren’t really so many lengths,’ Miss Bunnock says with a sigh. ‘Apart from the article and
Anna’s appearances as the ghost, all I did was hide a photo of your mother in Mr Lomax’s office when I knew, thanks to Anna overhearing you and reporting back, that you were going to
break into it and look for clues.’ She pauses. ‘Your imagination and desire to make contact with your dead mother did the rest.’

‘What about the knife?’ I demand. ‘Did you put that under my pillow?’

Bunnock nods.

‘Why?’

She tightens her grip on my arm, ignoring my question. ‘Move,’ she orders.

I try to pull away, but she yanks me back, closer to the edge of the rock.

‘What are you doing?’ Panic fills me. ‘Let me go.’

Bunnock grits her teeth. She hurls me round, pushing me right to the edge. I teeter on the stone, my pumps slipping. And in that moment it suddenly makes sense: the knife left to make it look
like I might want to hurt myself, the encouragement to believe in Irina’s ghost, the story about her dying right here, at Easter Rock.

For reasons which I don’t understand, Miss Bunnock wants to kill me, and make it look like I have committed suicide by falling from the place where I believe my own mother died.

My mouth opens to accuse her and she gives me a final shove. My arms windmill. My hands grasp air.

With a scream, I lose my balance and fall backwards.

For a single, terrifying second, I think I’m going to fall off the rock and into the dark sea beneath. Then my fingers latch onto the cloth of Bunnock’s jacket. I
grip it with a strength I didn’t know I had. Roaring, I haul myself up, push Bunnock away from me and run. Across the rock, my feet threatening to slide out from under me with every step.
Then into the trees.

I’m gasping, wet through, as I race through the wood. I can hear Bunnock calling out behind me.

‘Come here!’ she yells.

I run on. Anna darts out from behind a tree. What is she still doing here? Furious, I try to duck past her to get to the path.

‘No, Evie,” she whispers. ‘This way. Bunnock will see you on the path.’ She turns and heads into the dense bushes opposite.

She’s right, though I hate to admit it. I hesitate a second, then hurry after her. We’re instantly hidden from view. I can hear Bunnock stomping over the fallen twigs and leaves that
are strewn across the ground.

Anna puts her hand to her lips.

‘Evie!’ Bunnock calls out.

I hold my breath. Rain drums down.

Bunnock’s footsteps crash about, then fade away. She’s gone, for now.

‘I swear I didn’t know she wanted to kill you,’ Anna whispers, her face pale and her eyes wide and scared. ‘I honestly thought it was some kind of experiment, to see how
you’d respond if you thought your birth mum was haunting you.’

‘That’s some sick experiment,’ I hiss at her, fury rising inside me. ‘Josh and I nearly died when we followed you along the beach. And anyway . . .’

I can’t put into words just how cruel a trick it has been.

‘I know.’ Tears fill Anna’s eyes. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

‘I bet your mum isn’t even dead, is she?’

Anna shakes her head.

‘Bitch.’ The word shoots out of me. ‘Why did you do it?’

‘Miss Bunnock said it was part of my “Lightsea experience” and that I’d be in trouble if I didn’t,’ Anna says.

I stare at her. Is that true? Anna certainly looks genuinely upset. It doesn’t matter.
Nothing
justifies making me think Irina’s spirit was here, trying to contact me.
Nothing
makes up for the desolation of knowing that there never was a ghost. Which means there is no history of my mother on the island.

I frown. In which case, there is no cover up and I must have been wrong about Lomax wanting me dead.

‘Are you sure Bunnock never said why she wants to hurt me?’ I ask.

‘I told you, I didn’t know she
did
want to hurt you.’

I stand up. There’s no sign of Miss Bunnock, though the rain is falling as heavily as ever and the wind is picking up too. ‘I don’t believe you,’ I say.

I crawl away, out of the bushes. Anna follows.

‘Go away,’ I tell her.

‘Where are you going?’ Anna asks. ‘Let me help—’

‘Go away,’ I repeat.

‘But—’

I turn and run into the trees. I run hard, quickly leaving Anna behind. I don’t know where I am on the island. Or where I should go next. I run blindly on, thoughts careering around my
head: about the ghost, how I was fooled, why on earth Bunnock wants me dead, that Samuel tried to warn me.

I stop dead.

Samuel. He must have found out what Bunnock was planning – some of it at least; that’s how he knew I was in danger. Rain trickles down my face. In a daze, I wipe it out of my
eyes.

Without warning, a hand grabs my arm.

Yelping, I tug away. It’s Bunnock. Her grip on my forearm is fierce, like a vice.

‘No!’ I shout.

‘Quiet!’ she orders. She twists my arm. A sharp pain shoots through me. ‘Now move!’ She gives me a hard push.

A cold shiver trickles down my spine as I stumble on. Could Bunnock have hurt Samuel? Her grip on my arm never loosens as she hurries me through the trees. Another few seconds and I recognise
where I am: just a few metres from the boathouse where Josh, Pepper and I were clearing up earlier. We reach the edge of the wood. Rain lashes down, soaking me through. My damp clothes cling to my
skin, my hair sticks to my face.

Pain from my arm sears through me. I stagger onto the boathouse path. Footsteps sound behind us, crunching over the twigs and stones. Without warning, I’m yanked sideways, hurled to the
ground. I fall heavily, damp earth on my face . . . in my mouth.

Spluttering, I scramble to my feet. Pepper is here. Josh too.

‘Stay back,’ Josh urges. He and Pepper rush at Miss Bunnock. Which is when I see the gun in her hand.