The Monsters of Rookhaven, стр. 34
She saw Bertram eating triangular sandwiches in the dining room, holding them delicately between thumb and forefinger, his pinkie finger extended, while Aunt Eliza sat at the other end of the table reading from a book, pausing occasionally to sigh and roll her eyes.
Odd appearing from a portal wearing oilskins. Water sloshing around the edges of the portal while he swiped with a steel pike at the tentacles of some great sea beast that sought to squeeze through the opening before it closed.
Shadows arriving up the path leading to the house. Men from the village. Enoch waiting for them at the entrance to the estate, Odd and Eliza with him. And somehow Mirabelle knew this was all a long time ago.
Enoch flying through the night sky, looking for one of the flowers, which had uprooted itself and was now wandering the estate.
Dr Ellenby making his way down the Path of Flowers back towards the village, while rain poured down and lightning crashed around him. He was hunching forward, his hands deep in his coat pockets, while the flowers watched him, forbidden from touching such a senior member of the council.
Odd appearing from a portal in the garden in brilliant sunshine, wearing a policeman’s helmet and carrying a bunch of exotic flowers.
Then at night in the rain, his hair plastered to his head, watching a car make its way up the driveway.
Odd sitting on the roof of the house and looking at the stars as the last remains of the rainclouds drifted away. His hair still damp. His eyes glittering with tears.
And the woman.
Sometimes she was walking through the garden, usually alone. Once she was with Uncle Enoch, talking outside the house. Enoch was smiling and he looked younger somehow.
Whenever she saw these images of the woman (her mother, how could she be her mother?) Mirabelle felt a wrenching in her heart, as if she were hollowed out somehow, empty. It was something she had never experienced before. It burned. And yes. She felt that feeling everywhere.
She’d tried several times to talk to Enoch and get him to answer questions about what she’d seen, but he’d barricaded himself in his study. He seemed more concerned with the possible problem this might cause with the village. This only angered Mirabelle even more.
Today she watched from a second-floor window as Mr Fletcher’s van arrived on the driveway, even though it wasn’t delivery day. Two more cars followed behind it. One of them was Dr Ellenby’s battered old Ford. Enoch and Aunt Eliza were the official receiving party at the front door.
Freddie’s father stepped out of his van as the others pulled up alongside him. Mirabelle stared at the members of the council below and for some reason she felt nothing but hatred for them. It wasn’t their fault, she supposed. She reserved most of her anger for the Family for lying to her, but there was still a slight suspicion that these men had somehow also been involved.
Mr Fletcher was wearing a grey pinstriped suit. It was slightly too tight on him and he looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other while he waited for his companions to join him. It wouldn’t do for him to greet Enoch alone, Mirabelle supposed, what with the council being so obsessed with formality and their stupid old customs. She sneered inwardly at him and felt guilty at the same time, a burning feeling she couldn’t understand.
Mr Teasdale, the local postmaster, stepped out of one car. He was a short, nervous-looking man dressed in tweed with a high pink colour to his face and round spectacles. He looked around him, his hands in his pockets in an obvious effort to appear relaxed. In Mirabelle’s opinion, it only made him look more awkward.
Reverend Dankworth, a long tall wisp of man, climbed out of the passenger seat with the slow, long-legged grace of a spider emerging from a crack in a skirting board. Dr Ellenby was the last to join the group.
They made their way stiffly towards Enoch and Eliza, shaking hands and nodding sombrely. There was a pause while they all stood and looked at each other, then Enoch waved them into the house. Dr Ellenby looked up as he went in, caught sight of Mirabelle and waved at her.
Mirabelle didn’t respond and simply stood back from the window.
‘Is something happening?’
Mirabelle hadn’t heard Jem approaching. She was standing a few steps away, picking at the cuff of her cardigan.
‘It’s a council meeting,’ said Mirabelle, ‘the first of its kind in many generations,’ she added, mimicking the self-important tone that Enoch had used as he’d announced it to the senior members of the Family this morning when he’d thought Mirabelle wasn’t listening.
But Mirabelle had been listening, she’d been listening to everything: to the whispers she heard before she rounded a corner and caught Bertram conversing guiltily with Odd, to the murmuring of Eliza and Enoch behind his closed study door.
And then there was Piglet.
Piglet had been completely silent since that night. He hadn’t made a sound. Mirabelle wondered why. She’d even gone to visit him, but tapping his door had yielded no response. She’d never known Piglet to be so quiet. She found it unsettling.
‘What will they be talking about?’ asked Jem.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ said Mirabelle, a little too sharply. ‘Sorry,’ she said, seeing the look of surprise on Jem’s face.
‘It’s all right,’ said Jem. ‘Things have been . . .’
‘Strange,’ said Mirabelle, allowing herself a wry smile.
‘That’s putting it mildly,’ said Jem.
‘How’s Tom?’
‘Still resting. He seems different somehow.’ Jem looked slightly uncomfortable for a moment. ‘I never thanked you.’
Mirabelle frowned. ‘For what?’
‘For saving me from . . . from . . . from whatever . . .’
Jem gestured uselessly, as if words weren’t enough.
‘Piglet meant no harm,’ said Mirabelle, suddenly feeling very protective of him.
Jem nodded.
‘He’s just curious, I think,’ said Mirabelle.
‘Tom says he knows things.