The Child Garden Read Online Free PDF Page A

clambered up again. He put his hand out and hauled me, gripping me hard just below the elbow like for an eightsome reel. Then we turned. For a wonder, there were no fallen trees in our way; most of the woods at the home were so neglected the trees leaned into each other like drunks, and everywhere you turned trunks lay across your path, roots sticking up in the air. Some of them have been there so long, they’ve rerooted where they fell and become misshapen sideways trees, grotesque somehow but pitiful too.
    All Stig and I had to deal with were the mossy lumps, knee high, that were sometimes soft tussocks and sometimes had rocks under them. So although they rose up like stepping stones, we ignored them and splashed through the boggy dips in between.
    â€œJesus, it’s freezing,” he said. “No wonder April’s car’s nowhere to be seen. Who’d come this way?”
    â€œThe proper path’s just as bad,” I told him. “And longer.”
    We were there. A low stone wall with railings above it circled the crypt and we followed it round to the gate on the far side. Stig trained the torch on the gate lock and drew in a breath. The padlock and chain were as rusted as the railings, but quite clearly in the torchlight we could see a little shiny lozenge shape—the raw place where wire cutters had snipped the chain. And recently too.
    â€œApril?” Stig shouted. “Are you in there?”
    The path, no more than ten feet from the gate to the door, was paved in mossy slabs. I remembered it from summer walks here. Remembered thinking that they looked like gravestones, and Miss Drumm saying they probably were. Old ones turned face-down and put to use.
    â€œApril?” Stig shouted again and banged on the door. He handed me the torch and grabbed the tarnished doorknob. “You wait here,” he said.
    â€œI’m a witness,” I told him. Then I raised my voice. “April?” I called. “My name’s Gloria. I came along to keep Stig company. I hope that’s okay.”
    Then we both listened. The rain hissed in the high branches and dripped miserably off the low branches, but otherwise there was silence.
    â€œMight as well check,” I said.
    He tried the door. It opened about a foot with a grating squeal before it grounded out on the stone floor inside. Stig grabbed the handle harder and tried to lift it clear but it wouldn’t budge, so he turned sideways and squeezed into the gap, breathing in and wriggling his shoulders until he was through. I followed. It was touch and go if I would fit, but the thought of how embarrassing it would be helped me ignore the pain of the door latch scraping across my front and the way the frame bruised my vertebrae as I forced myself past it.
    â€œOof,” I couldn’t help saying when I got inside.
    â€œI told you!” said Stig, playing the torch around. It was about twelve feet across maybe, just that one window we had seen, and nowhere for someone to hide. Nothing in there at all except for a stone shelf that ran round the wall and an alcove at the far side. The place was absolutely empty, just dust and cobwebs.
    â€œJeez. Memories,” Stig said. “We put beanbags in here, and those Indian cotton things.” He moved forward. “Better than wooden benches any day, but it looks terrible now they’re out too.”
    â€œWait,” I said, putting an arm out to stop him going in. “Shine the torch on the floor, see if there’s footprints. Someone cut that wire. Someone’s at least been here.”
    He trained the torchlight downwards and I saw that it was shimmering a little as if his hand was unsteady.
    â€œLook,” he said.
    There were footprints. The dust around the edges of the room was so thick that the mortar lines between the stone flags appeared soft, the way the garden softened under the first thin fall of snow. In the middle though, footprints criss-crossed,