Night Fires
Authors: D H Sidebottom
Night Fires
Copyright © 2016 D H Sidebottom
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to actual places, incidents and persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 D H Sidebottom. Please do not copy, alter or redistribute this book.
Please secure author’s permission before sharing any extracts of this book.
Editor: Kyra Lennon
Cover Designer: DH Sidebottom
Formatting: Champagne Formats
Table of Contents
T
HE VICAR DIDN’T
make any sense. His mouth moved but foreign words filled my ears, my brain unable to decode the poetic way he spoke. All I heard was the creak of the wood when my brother’s coffin landed on top of my parents’ with a soft thud. A faint puff of air left me and I pulled my black wool coat tighter around me as I shivered against the cold wind that blew through the cemetery. Wet mud replaced the grass, disguising the only thing of colour around me; nothing but grey and more grey enveloped me. Faint sobs from the other mourners filtered in but I couldn’t join them; the walls that had built around me refused to allow my own despair to be vocalised. Loneliness was all that surrounded me. Loneliness and numbness. And the eternal scent of smoke – and death.
The vicar’s eyes were fixed on me as if awaiting some sort of acknowledgment. Not understanding or caring, I nodded vaguely to him, hoping that was enough. It seemed to be, and he nodded to the men standing beside the six foot square of hollow earth and they slowly lowered the small coffin. The final coffin. My eyes watched but my heart refused to. All I could think about was how they all managed to fit into such a small hole.
I turned to look to the side when a man came to stand beside me. I lifted a questioning brow to him but he shook his head slowly, sadly, and returned his gaze to my family descending below the ground. Taking my hand, he leaned towards me. “I promise, Alice, before I go I will give you a smile once again.”
I didn’t answer him. For one, I couldn’t take my eyes away from the hole that contained my dead family, and for two, I didn’t hold the same confidence.
Without waiting for the service to finish, I dropped Frank’s hand and walked towards the final resting place of the only people I loved, and blew them a kiss.
“Look after them, Billy. I love you all. Forever.”
Ten months later
I
SMILED AND
waved at Mr Frey as I pulled up on the gravel driveway. The first thing I noticed and couldn’t take my eyes off was his huge eyebrows; the white ferrets appeared to have a life of their own as they danced across his forehead with each of his facial expressions. I politely lowered my gaze and made myself look into his eyes as I climbed from my car. He waved enthusiastically. I wasn’t surprised by his eagerness. After all, I was handing him a cheque for £180,000 – hopefully.
“What a beautiful morning to greet you to Mousehole, Miss Bird.”
As if his fervour was contagious, I grinned at him. The breeze blew and lifted my hair, my copper curls flicking around my face and, for a moment, blinding me.
“You’ll find it’s rather windy up here, Miss Bird.” He laughed.
“Please, call me Alice. And yes, I’ve already gathered.” I chuckled as I pulled my hair from the inside of my mouth.
“Let’s get inside.” He opened the black iron gate, the creak it gave making me wince as he waved me ahead.
The brambles along the edge of the path to the house were overgrown, the nettles causing havoc to my sensitive skin as they bit and blistered me on my fight through.
“I think it might be wise to hire a gardener, Alice.”
“Ya think?” I mumbled under my breath as hedge after hedge hampered my way up the steep stone steps, each of them jutting branches and thorns on my journey up to a house I had yet to view. Just as I was debating turning around and telling him to forget it, the house came into view and I stopped in my tracks.
She took my breath away. Her steep white walls were covered in ivy, small pink buds laced through the deep green. Each lattice window was enclosed by wooden shutters and underlined with small window boxes, dead plants escaping over the edge of each one. The front door was flanked by two stone columns and latticework walls, more foliage decorating the intricately-patterned fencing.
“Quite something, isn’t she?” Mr Frey said behind me, pulling me from my astonishment.
“She’s beautiful.”
Skipping ahead of me as I remained immobile on the top step, Mr Frey urged me to enter the house when he unlocked the door and walked in ahead. On stepping through, a huge room opened up, high ceilings and original wooden floors delighting my heart. My hands shook as I traced my fingers along the walls, my soul needing to touch and feel.
“All the furniture is included,” Mr Frey said as he pulled a dustsheet from one of the couches and the air filled with whatever had settled on it in the last eight months the house had been empty.
Nodding absentmindedly, I walked to the curtains and pulled them apart, more dust sprinkling across the room. Sunlight streamed in, and for a moment, my heart stilled in my chest.
“Oh my,” I breathed as I opened the French doors and stepped on to the veranda.
The ocean spread out beneath me, the small span of sand it rolled up to enclosed by rocks and dunes. “The beach is included in the sale,” Mr Frey added when he came to stand beside me and looked out over the English Channel. “There are some steps in the rear garden that lead you down.”
“Really?”
He nodded, smiling wider. “I’ll let you look around the rest of the place on your own. I’ll be waiting out front when you’re ready.”
“Thank you but I’ll take it.”
“You don’t want to look around?”
Shaking my head I sighed contentedly. “No, she’s perfect.”
He blinked at me and sucked his lips behind his teeth as if something was bothering him.
“Is there something I should know about her?”
“Oh no,” he answered quickly. “There’s nothing wrong with the house, well, apart from a few minor things that are in need of repair. It’s just that this place is pretty secluded, and forgive me if I’m being presumptuous, but I take it you’re moving in alone. No boyfriend or family?” He wasn’t being rude and I appreciated his concern.
“Secluded is what I’m looking for, Mr Frey.”
Holding out his hands he smiled again. “Then she’s perfect for you.”
Nodding slowly as I walked back inside to complete the necessary paperwork, I grinned to myself, my eyes roaming every inch of the yellowing walls and mysteries hidden by huge sheets. “Yes. I think we’re perfect for each other.”
Blindly reaching into my bag when I couldn’t take my eyes off the house, I felt for the cheque and handed it to Mr Frey. In exchange, he smiled and handed me the keys. “I hope she answers all your dreams, Miss Bird.”
Sighing sadly, my soul screaming with the need to grieve and my heart pining for what I had lost, I curled my fingers around the key. “I hope so too, Mr Frey. Only time will tell.”
“Time heals all manner of things, Alice,” he whispered kindly, as if sensing my sorrow. “And your new home may just be the start of that process.” Nodding politely as he turned to leave, he paused at the door and turned back. “I would wish you good luck but I have a feeling you won’t need it.”
“We all need luck, Mr Frey.”
Chuckling, he nodded again. “We do, but we find in time that some need it more than others.”
I smiled, weighing up his words but not quite feeling his conviction as I watched him leave and softly pull the door closed behind him.
I dropped onto the couch Mr Frey had uncovered and plucked out my journal.
Well, Billy, I bought it. I am now the proud new owner of Kingfisher House. She’s quite something. You would adore her. She’s full of character and she even has the original window shutters. The house is perched right on top of a cliff and overlooks my own little cove. Get that, huh!
There’s lots of work to be done and I have a feeling I’ll be spending the rest of Mum and Dad’s fortune on paint and filler, but for the first time in the eight months since you left me, I have smiled. I wasn’t sure I would ever smile again, but she drew it from me effortlessly.