Brightwood Read online

  ALSO BY TANIA UNSWORTH

  The One Safe Place

  BRIGHTWOOD

  Tania Unsworth

  ALGONQUIN YOUNG READERS 2016

  For Moony and Little Ma,

  Then and always.

  Contents

  THIRTY YEARS AGO

  DAY ONE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  DAY TWO

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  DAY THREE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  DAY FOUR

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  DAY FIVE

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-­ONE

  TWENTY-­TWO

  TWENTY-­THREE

  TWENTY-­FOUR

  TWENTY-­FIVE

  DAY SIX

  TWENTY-­SIX

  TWENTY-­SEVEN

  TWENTY-­EIGHT

  TWENTY-­NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-­ONE

  THIRTY-­TWO

  THIRTY-­THREE

  THIRTY-­FOUR

  THIRTY-­FIVE

  DAY SEVEN

  THIRTY-­SIX

  EIGHT MONTHS LATER

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT ALGONQUIN YOUNG READERS

  THIRTY YEARS AGO

  The yacht was as grand and as white as a wedding cake and it was named Everlasting. Every inch of it had been polished, from the great, gleaming hull down to the last brass button on the uniform of the three crewmen standing in line on deck. The anchor had been lifted and the vessel was ready for departure. But first there was a picture to be taken.

  When you are as rich and as good-­looking as the Fitzjohn family was, there is always someone who wants to take your picture.

  The photographer from the society pages of the newspaper had arranged the Fitzjohns on the dock with their yacht in the background. Or rather, he had suggested they pose that way, his smile ingratiating because after all, it was they who were doing him the favor.

  There they stood under the bluest of all blue skies. Mrs. Fitzjohn, her lovely face smiling under a large-­brimmed, fashionable hat, and Mr. Fitzjohn, tanned and gallant in his navy blazer, gazing fondly at his wife. In front of them, their children, Marcus and Caroline. At seventeen, Marcus was almost as tall as his father and just as handsome. Caroline was six. She was holding a doll. The doll was also called Caroline. It had been handmade in Switzerland especially for her. It had the same color hair and eyes as her and was wearing the same yellow cotton dress that Caroline herself was wearing.

  “Wonderful . . . lovely . . . ” the photographer said automatically as he fiddled with his camera. “Won’t take a minute!” But then he looked—really looked—at them and the breath suddenly caught in his throat.

  It seemed that the Fitzjohns were shining almost as brightly as the sunlight on the water of the bay. It wasn’t just their wealth, the fact that along with the fabulous yacht, they owned a fleet of cars and a beautiful mansion called Brightwood Hall. Nor was it merely their good looks and glamour. Plenty of celebrities had these qualities, as he well knew.

  No, he thought. It was happiness they shone with. The photographer had witnessed too many fake smiles and phony jollity not to recognize the real thing when he saw it. In that moment—that perfect moment—he thought the Fitzjohns looked like the happiest people in the entire world.

  He sighed. The camera clicked.

  “All done, Mr. Fitzjohn! Hope you have a great day on the water!”

  Caroline Fitzjohn trotted after the others as they went on board. Daddy and Marcus would go straight to the pilot’s deck like they always did, but Mummy had said there were cookies for her in the main cabin.

  “We shall have tea!” she had said. “You and I and Dolly Caroline. Would you like that?”

  Caroline thought she would like it very much, but now Mummy had disappeared somewhere. Perhaps she had gone to the pilot’s deck after all, or perhaps she was in the bathroom.

  Caroline stood in the main cabin waiting for her mother to come back and feeling lonely. But of course she wasn’t really alone. She had Dolly Caroline with her. She stroked the doll’s hair and straightened her dress.

  “Oh, Caroline,” she said out loud. “You lost your shoe!”

  For a moment, she thought of calling out to her mother. Then she remembered that she was six years old. Six was old enough to look after her own things. Besides, she’d already realized where the shoe must have fallen off. She had been playing on a little bench by the dock, making Dolly Caroline walk up and down the wooden seat while the others got ready for the trip. The bench wasn’t far away. She could see it through the cabin window.

  It took only a minute to slip off the boat and run down the gangplank. And then she was on her hands and knees looking under the bench for the shoe. She couldn’t see it anywhere and then there it was, a scrap of yellow leather wedged between the wall and the back of the bench. Caroline climbed onto the seat and reached down as far as her arm would go. She could feel the shoe! She scissored her fingers and tried to snag it, fearful that she would wedge it down even more. But she had a grip on it now, one finger hooked in the tiny laces. She was pulling it to safety.

  Something made her look up. A premonition.

  For a second, she saw only the empty space where the Everlasting had been. Then her gaze lifted and she saw the yacht out in the bay. It was moving fast; there was white water behind it, and the flag on its topmost mast was flattened to a sheet. Caroline ran to the edge of the dock.

  The yacht was flying away. Two hundred yards, now three. She held Dolly Caroline tight to her chest and watched it go.

  They had left without her. They hadn’t known.

  The driver, Mr. Hadley, came to pick her up. Her grandmother, who had stayed behind at home, would look after her for the day. Her family would be back that afternoon. It was only a day trip, so she wouldn’t have missed much. Someone would radio the yacht to tell them she was safe. Mr. Hadley explained all this in a kind voice as he drove the twenty or so miles back to Brightwood Hall.

  Caroline sat in the back of the big car, gazing out the window. She had always loved the sea but now it suddenly seemed a featureless, unfriendly place. And there, far away, in the middle of the emptiness, looking no larger than a glittering brooch pinned to the very edge of the horizon, she saw the Everlasting. She pressed her hand to the window, staring desperately. There was a bend in the road and then the yacht was gone.

  “You’ll take plenty of other trips,” Mr. Hadley said. His voice was kinder than ever. “It’s still only the start of summer.”

  But there were no more trips.

  Mummy and Daddy and Marcus didn’t come back in the afternoon, and although Caroline sat at the top of the great staircase, waiting for them, they kept not coming back. The shadows on the marble floor of the hallway below stretched farther and farther away. The phone rang. She heard her grandmother’s voice. “Hello?” and a long silence. Then there was a knock at the door, and suddenly the hallway was filled with people in dark blue uniforms. Caroline couldn’t hear what they were talking about. Her grandmother was clutching the front of her white ruffled shirt, pulling it tighter and tighter. Across the hallway, she saw Maggie, the housekeeper. Maggie was a stout, dignified woman who didn’t look as if she had ever run in her life. Now she was running.

  Somebody made a wailing sound and Caroline heard crying from the kitchen.

  Her cousin, James, who was staying with them for the
summer, like he always did, came down the corridor behind her. He had been in his room all day, feeling ill.

  “I don’t know what’s happening,” Caroline said, her voice trembling. “What’s happening?”

  But James walked straight past her.

  Later, Caroline’s grandmother sat with her on the sofa in the blue drawing room and told her that Mummy and Daddy and Marcus were never coming back. And the three crew members who had been working on the Everlasting weren’t coming back either. There had been an accident, a terrible accident.

  Caroline found it hard to make out exactly what her grandmother was saying. Her voice was so whispery and she kept breaking off to cry, and kiss Caroline, and press Caroline’s face against her ruffled shirt.

  It wasn’t until the next day that she fully understood what had happened. Someone had left a copy of the newspaper lying on the table by the front door. The photographer’s picture had been made large and filled almost the whole of the front page. There were words above it, written in thick black letters almost as big as Caroline’s hand:

  TRAGEDY AT SEA—

  FITZJOHN FAMILY LOST!

  The massive explosion yesterday on board the Fitzjohn family yacht is believed to have been caused by engine failure. There are no survivors.

  And there they all were: Mummy and Daddy and Marcus and herself. And there was the Everlasting with her crew on deck. And there too was Dolly Caroline—she could see clearly because the picture was so big—wearing only one little yellow shoe.

  That afternoon, Caroline felt strangely restless. She left her grandmother’s side and wandered around the house by herself, collecting things. She didn’t know why she did it, only that she felt she must. On the floor in the blue drawing room, she found her grandmother’s handkerchief. It was pale pink and covered with dark smudges that Caroline thought might be makeup. She picked it up and put it in her pocket. In the kitchen, she tore off the top from the box of cereal she’d had for breakfast and put that in her pocket as well. She added a pretty plastic bracelet that she happened to be wearing. Then she went to her bedroom, fetched an empty shoe box from her closet, and placed all the items inside.

  Last, she took Dolly Caroline off her bed and put her in the box, arranging her carefully so that her hair wouldn’t get mussed. She put the lid on the box and slid it underneath her bed, where it was dark and safe.

  Caroline Fitzjohn had decided that she was never going to lose anything ever again.

  DAY ONE

  ONE

  It wasn’t the screaming—it was the sound of the car in the driveway that woke her up.

  Daisy was used to the screaming. It came from the peacocks that had gone wild years ago. They always made a lot of noise just before dawn.

  She sat up, confused. Her mum hadn’t told her she was going out. She always went to the bulk-­buy store on Wednesday but today was Monday. Her mum had described the place to Daisy, the size of it and how it was crammed from floor to ceiling with provisions. Daisy thought it sounded a lot like their basement here at Brightwood Hall.

  Daisy listened as the sound of the car grew fainter and fainter and then disappeared. She curled back under the covers and closed her eyes. Wherever she was going, her mum would be back by eleven o’clock. She was never late.

  When Daisy woke up again, the sun was high in the sky. Daisy’s bedroom was on the second floor, at the front west corner of the main house. One window gave her a view of the lake and the grounds on the western side. From the other, she could see a good part of the front of the house, including the stone balcony above the main entrance and the two urns—one that had fallen over, one still on its pedestal—to her left and right. Beyond the entrance was the long stretch of driveway. It was gravel, although the gravel was mottled with patches of weed and grass. From this distance, Daisy thought the driveway looked as if it were covered with fur. Like the speckled coat of a great snow leopard, wrapped around the house.

  The driveway curved away across the lawn towards the entrance gates a quarter of a mile away. But lawn was the wrong word for it. Daisy and her mum could manage to keep the grass short only close to the house. The rest of it was more like a meadow, waist high in places and dense with wildflowers. It spread almost all the way to the perimeter wall, interrupted by huge trees—oak and cedar—their trunks hidden in green shadow. The trees grew thicker down near the front gates, so thick you couldn’t see the road beyond, only the distant hills and the tiny spike of a church tower. Behind the hills, hidden from view, lay the ocean.

  Daisy put on a T-­shirt and shorts and went to get some breakfast. Directly outside her room was the Portrait Gallery, with pictures hanging on the wall on one side and a wooden banister on the other, with a view of the Marble Hall below. You could see only the tops of some pictures, while others—such as the painting of the General and the one of the Lady on Horseback—were clearly visible. Most, however, were hidden behind tall piles of books stacked on the floor.

  Daisy stood on her tiptoes and looked at Little Charles through a gap between two piles of books. He was a recent discovery. Up until now, the only person in the Portrait Gallery that Daisy had spoken with was the Lady on Horseback. But the Lady was far too fierce and full of herself to spend time in idle chat, and it was a relief when Daisy found Little Charles instead. Not that there was much of him to see, just the top half of his body. His dark hair was cut in the shape of a pudding bowl, and there was a frilly white collar around his neck.

  “Hey,” she said softly.

  “Good morning,” Little Charles said.

  “You okay?”

  “Certainly not!” Little Charles said. “It’s fearfully cramped in here.”

  Daisy moved the books carefully, widening the gap. The rest of Little Charles’s body came into view.

  “Oh!” Daisy cried. “You’re wearing a dress!”

  “I am not! My mother wears dresses. This is a tunic.” He sounded extremely cross. “I could have you whipped for saying that.”

  “Well, you might have been able to in the olden days, but you can’t now,” Daisy said, pushing the books some more. Little Charles’s hand appeared, clutching a wooden hoop.

  “So that’s what I’ve been holding on to!” he exclaimed. “I thought it was the back of a chair. My hoop! Isn’t it the most marvelous thing?”

  “It’s lovely,” she said, not wanting to hurt his feelings.

  “I may let you borrow it,” Little Charles said, a cunning note entering his voice. “If you made more space, I would. For sure.”

  “I’ll try later,” Daisy said. “I have to get breakfast now.”

  She walked past the General. She had always been frightened of his long, curled mustache and pale eyes, and over time, her fear had grown until she couldn’t even look at him. Partly it was because the General had The Crazy. Her mum had told her that The Crazy wasn’t something you could catch, but even so, it was best to be on the safe side. Daisy hurried along, averting her eyes.

  At the top of the stairs, she paused. The grand staircase at Brightwood Hall was made of white marble, and it fanned out as it descended, like the train of an evening gown. A strip of blue-­velvet carpet ran down the middle of the stairs, which were kept free of all obstruction. Below, in the Marble Hall, it was different. The vast space was crowded from wall to wall with shelving units, all placed close together, forming a kind of maze. The units were more than twenty feet tall and filled with thousands and thousands of boxes, and the paths between them were extremely narrow. Even Daisy’s mum, who was slim, had to turn sideways to make her way through.

  Daisy didn’t need to do that because she could climb so well. Although she was frightened of a great many things—storms, the dark, the picture of the General, the groaning noise the water pipes made when the weather grew cold—she had never been afraid to climb. She climbed like a monkey. Not quite as well as a monkey, perhaps, because she didn’t have a tail, but almost as well because she didn’t have to think about it. She sw
ung herself up the nearest shelving unit and scuttled on hands and knees across the top shelf. At eleven years old, she was getting bigger and heavier, but there wasn’t any danger of the shelves collapsing. They were made of steel and bolted to the floor.

  When she got to the edge of the shelf, she leaped across to the next one, her braid bouncing against her back. Daisy’s hair was long and thick and black. Her mum had the same hair; only hers was a beautiful silver color. Apart from that, they didn’t look alike at all. Daisy’s mum was tall and long limbed and graceful. She moved slowly, as if she were afraid she might break. But Daisy was quick, her body strong and compact.

  In the evenings, she undid her braid and her hair hung shining down to her waist. “You must never cut it,” her mum often said as she brushed it. “It would break my heart.”

  Daisy’s mum didn’t like things to change. When one of the old cedar trees fell down in a storm the previous winter, she had cried for a whole afternoon.

  Daisy jumped to the next shelf. Below her, in the center of the hall, there was a clearing amidst the ranks of shelves, right beneath the chandelier. She half ran, half crawled until she was close enough to the chandelier to touch it. It was the size of her mum’s four-­poster bed, and it had been installed when Brightwood Hall had been built, over two hundred and fifty years ago. It hung from a thick chain that looped around the wheel of a pulley attached to the ceiling and then curved away in a long line to another pulley bolted to the wall on the far side. Somewhere behind one of the shelving units, there was a handle you could turn to lower the chandelier to the ground to make repairs or to clean it. But it hadn’t been cleaned in a long while, and its light, once dazzlingly brilliant, had softened behind a veil of dust.

  Daisy never passed the chandelier without marveling at its beauty. If the corridors were the arteries of the house and the walls were its bones and the ivy on the outside was its skin, then the chandelier was the heart of Brightwood Hall. It was both terribly heavy and terribly fragile, and it was made of ten thousand crystal tears.