Talisman Chapter 2

Chapter 2 For the next few weeks though, everything stayed remarkably normal. Sapphire began to relax: I could almost see her thinking that maybe Brett had changed his mind. We carried on in our usual way: Harry and Sapphire both working their various shifts, and me going to school and doing my homework more-or-less well.
“Don’t forget to check our lottery numbers,” Harry called over his shoulder as he headed off to his shift at the diner. He’s quite a good cook, Harry is.
You’d think Sapphire would be really careless with money, just from looking at her, but actually she’s very good with it. Their once-a-week lottery ticket is her one extravagance.
“What would you like to win?” I asked her. “Millions and millions?”
“No. That would be too much. I’d like to win enough to buy and run a bed-and-breakfast. Harry could do the cooking, and I’d do all the serving and reception and so on. Somewhere in the country, with a garden.”
Her face was wistful, and I could see that this was a real dream of hers. They would both be good at it; Sapphire is great at talking to people. Then, one day, I came home and there was Brett, in the sitting room, talking to Harry, putting himself out to be agreeable to him. He was doing it very well, too.
“Jonny would be so pleased to know that’s Saff’s so happy, and being so well looked-after.” Harry was swelling with pride and pleasure. “Would you like to stay and eat with us? I’ve got to go to work in a minute, but you could catch up with Sapphire.”
“If it’s no trouble, that would be really nice.”
If I hadn’t overheard him, that one day I came home early, I would never have known. Sapphire made me get changed for tea. Brett chatted to me during tea – all the normal stuff like how was school, and what were my favourite subjects and so on? And again, if I hadn’t overheard him talking to Sapphire before, I would never have suspected anything. He seemed a normal, pleasant person. Forceful, perhaps – you got the impression that there was a definite personality in there – but nothing to be afraid of. But I caught sight of Sapphire watching us over her shoulder as she served the meal. She was nervous again: trying to hide it, but I could see that it was there. As we ate our meal, I could feel him looking at me. But the conversation was fine – he talked to me a little more about school, to Sapphire a little about her brother, coming out with some really nice memories about Jonny. And if Sapphire seemed a little upset when Harry came home, then it was easily explained away by the fact that they had been talking about Jonny. Brett came into the kitchen when I was washing up to ask if I needed a hand. And again, I could tell that he was looking at me. I don’t like this dress – Sapphire chose it, but I think it’s too revealing, and too old for me. Harry just says she knows best, and he’d be useless at choosing clothes for me. And once, when we were alone, he said that some stepmothers would hate having someone else so pretty around, but Sapphire is so generous, and she just wants me to look my best. And it’s true, I know it is. But when I said no thank you, I could manage, he just thanked me for helping Saff, and smiled and left the room. I cleaned up the kitchen really thoroughly, so that I didn’t have to go and talk to Brett again, but he poked his head round the door before I’d finished, and said that he needed to leave now, but it had been nice meeting me. And he was gone long before Harry got back from his shift at the diner. We saw Brett again a couple of weeks later – he took all three of us out for a meal. And again, he pitched it just right for Harry. It wasn’t anywhere flashy or expensive, which would have embarrassed Harry. We went to a small Italian restaurant, where the family who ran it knew him and welcomed him like an old friend. He played all the relationships just right – friendly with Harry, and asking his opinion of the meal we ate, and what did Harry think they added to the sauce? Harry is good with food – he impressed the owners by guessing the herbs they used – and Brett acted impressed too. He treated Sapphire like a younger cousin, and made sure that I wasn’t left out. He had oodles of charm, and I didn’t trust him. But what could I do? I couldn’t spoil Harry and Sapphire’s happiness either. The problem stayed with me to and from school each day, filling my mind and making me rather slow at my work. I barely registered things, like the postman telling me he had a letter for me, as I passed him at the top of the street that morning. I only remembered as I came home and saw Sapphire collecting the post. Sapphire looked through the letters, and then stuffed them out of sight with a furtive look on her face. She hadn’t noticed me, and I was just about to call out to her when Bob appeared in the street behind me. He’d followed me home. Again. He looked me up and down as if I was so much merchandise for sale. He keeps pestering me to go out on a date with him, but I know his reputation, and I know what he wants from me. “Go away. I’m not interested.”
“Oh, you are really, you know. You know you want me really.”
“No. I don’t. Don’t know it, and don’t want you.” And I turned and ran in. Sapphire didn’t mention that there had been a letter for me. And when Harry came in and asked if there was any post, she said only a bill and some junk mail. But I checked the bin later on and there was nothing in there, so it had to be in Sapphire’s secret hiding place.
It was Friday night before I had the house to myself, and a chance to look. I felt guilty, prying among Sapphire’s things – but if it was a letter for me, I had to know what was in it. Suppose it was from Brett?
It wasn’t. It was a letter from a firm of solicitors. Talisman Mallerby, last legal descendant of the Mallerby family, had inherited Ship House – and then there was a lot of legal words I didn’t understand like desmesne and appurtenances and so on, and then there was the address.
So here I was, a hundred miles from home, after a long walk from the unmanned station, where I had been the only passenger to get off the train, nearly at Ship House. I’d decided to at least go and look at the place. And my carefully saved birthday and Christmas money was enough for the rail fare. Harry and Sapphire were both working all day that day – I would have time to get there and back, and not be missed. But when I saw the place, my heart sank. It looked totally derelict. I pushed open the gate and went in. For once I was really glad of my boots – there were brambles everywhere. The overgrown remains of a path led up to the front door, and I went up to it, going where it looked no-one had boldly gone for ages. The place was obviously deserted, but even so I pulled the handle marked Pull. A bell jangled somewhere, but otherwise the silence remained unbroken. This was my house, I reminded myself, and I tried the door, sure that it would be locked.
It wasn’t. It opened under my hand.
I stood there, frozen, for what felt like forever, listening. Nothing moved. The silence in the house was absolute. Then I took several deep breaths, made sure that I had my phone in my hand, switched on, and that there was a signal, and, clutching my phone like a talisman (ha ha), went in. Nobody had been in here for ages. The dust lay thick and untrodden on the floor, gathered in heaps in the folds of the old, faded curtains and lay like carpet on the stairs. I was definitely alone, and I felt less nervous. I tucked my phone away again. I pushed open the door into the room on my left. The windows had long shutters at them, with cracked and peeling paint. There was a once-elegant fireplace, now grubby with age. On the wall, dusty shades and a rusted light fitting looked sad. The floorboards were bare grey wood, and everywhere thick dust again. Through the window, I could see the neglected and overgrown garden. The room on the other side of the hall was just as sorry for itself. A single chair remained in there, as dusty and battered as everything else. I decided to explore further. At the back of the hall, I found a kitchen – but what a kitchen! You could have fitted the whole of our downstairs in it and had space left over. It was enormous!!! There was a door in one corner of the kitchen. I went through it and found a spiral staircase set into the thickness of what was obviously a very old stone wall. I touched it, expecting it to be damp and chilly, but to my surprise it was quite dry and almost warm to the touch, as though the sun had been on it all day. And although the house had been shut up for ages, it didn’t smell damp or mouldy – just dry and dusty. The stairs brought me out onto a narrow landing, with two more flights of stairs and a door leading off it. Up, or through the door? I chose the door first. It took me into a large, empty bedroom, through the bathroom off it, into another bedroom (a bit smaller, but still way bigger than Harry and Sapphire’s, never mind mine), out onto a big landing where I could see down the wide stairs into the entrance hall, into another large bedroom and then into a huge bedroom with yet another bathroom off it. The house was massive! But everywhere was empty and derelict. One of the other flights of stairs took me up into the attics. Some of the rooms were tiny, and stuffed with bits of old junk, but two of the rooms were much larger. I looked at the barred windows and thought sinister thoughts about mad wives locked away up here (we’d been reading Jane Eyre at school) but then realised that it was probably the nursery rooms. And when I went back down and then up the other flight of stairs, I saw why the windows had been barred. The stairs brought me out on to a flat roof at the back of the building You could see everything from it – the overgrown gardens, the pond, an old walled garden where the odd flower was still trying to grow. I could see what looked like stables, and an orchard as well. And this was mine? I found my way back downstairs. I stood in the hall, looking round for one last time before I left to go back home. I couldn’t stop myself grinning foolishly.
“Talisman Mallerby, this is your house,” I said out loud to the dust and the silence. The echoes of my voice died away, and then the silence was broken. It was as though the house itself was groaning. The noise grew louder, a grating, grinding sound, like stone moving on stone. I turned to run through the front door, and it vanished before my eyes, along with the windows next to it. The curtains remained, but now they only framed blank wall. And still the noise grew ever louder.