Chapter Two

I was eleven years old when we returned to the family's favourite holiday cottage in the Lakes District for the third summer in a row. My brother, Marty had recently turned fifteen and was beginning the transition from cute kid to agonised teenager. He was getting less keen on me and my silly kid's games every day. I still had my little sister, Sunny to play with but it was Marty I loved and idolised and wanted to be with all of the time. When we were younger he'd treated me like the brother he wished I'd been. He taught me how to build lego space-ships and pull them apart again. We'd spend hours riding our bikes through the streets and into the forest, clambering through the undergrowth looking for slugs and insects to collect and study. We'd take a football down to the school field during the long summer evenings and kick it around, pretending we were the greats; Pele, Maradonna or whomever was flavour of the moment.

Sunny was eight and she wanted to be like me. Whenever I wasn't following Marty around, she would be following me, and often when I was as well. She was a gorgeous, soft-hearted little girl with striking green eyes, rosy-red cheeks and curly blonde hair. My mother called her "my little angel" and Sunny was a real mummy's girl. She spent a lot of time with our mother on account of the fact that Marty and I would deliberately ride too fast for her to keep up so that we could ditch her and explore alone. It wasn't that we didn't love our little sister but she was terribly clumsy and couldn't keep a secret.

One time when I was about eight, Sunny did come into the forest with us. It was a warm Autumn day in the school holidays and we trudged through the fallen leaves down to the stream. Our mother always told us to stay away from the stream. She said it was dangerous, and that there were undercurrents that could catch us unawares and sweep us out to sea. She always said that really dramatically. They'd never take us out to sea, they'd "sweep" us out and I'd imagine a giant broom coming down from the sky and pushing us and all the stream water all the way to the coast. But Marty and I often used to take off our shoes and socks and plodge around in the shallow water trying to catch the little fish we would sometimes see swimming around. We didn't think it was dangerous at all.

As we approached the stream we began picking out flat stones for skimming. Sunny, who was only five at the time, picked up any shape of stone she could get her hands on. Marty skimmed the first stone and made five skims. I tried and made two, which was quite good for me. I liked to think I was much better at skimming than I actually was. It was Sunny's turn and she threw her stone in the air; it came back down narrowly missing her head.

"Sunny!" I admonished. "You're supposed to throw it forwards, not upwards. Here, like this," and I demonstrated, this time making just one jump across the surface of the water.

Marty began taking off his shoes and socks.

"Marty, what are you doing?" I asked. "You're not going in the stream, are you? It'll be really cold."

"So what?" Marty said. "Are you scared of a bit of cold water?"

"No!"

"Yes, you are," he taunted as he tiptoed into the stream. "You're a scaredy-cat. A scaredy-cat girl, that's what you are. Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat," and he bent down and scooped up water with his hands, tossing it towards us.

"Am not!" I exclaimed indignantly, and bent down to remove my shoes and socks.

"Me neither," Sunny announced, as she did the same.

"Sunny, you wait here. You're too young and you can't swim," I said, playing the big sister but far too eager to prove to Marty that I wasn't a scaredy-cat to actually make sure she didn't follow me. "What if you fall in?" I continued as I nervously padded to the water's edge. "I'm not jumping in to save you."

"That's because you're a scaredy-cat," yelled Marty.

I gingerly placed one toe in the stream and the shock of the cold water forced me to instantly and automatically retrieve it.

"Ha ha ha," Marty laughed loudly and forcedly.

Determined now, I scowled and placed my entire foot in the water, then shut my eyes, grimmaced and plodged right in. The cold tickled my feet and as the water level reached my ankles my breath caught and I took a gasp of air. Marty continued laughing and flicking water over me. The sun, now low in the sky and casting golden lines through the trees, caught on the water droplets and they shimmered like transient diamonds. My feet went numb and I tossed water back to Marty, the crisp droplets pricking my skin like needles. As we laughed and played our splashing became more and more furious; we pushed vast volumes of water towards one another, becoming soaked.

"I can swim," Sunny stated indignantly from right behind me and we looked to find that she'd followed us into the stream.

"Sunny! I told you not to come in the stream," I started but she smiled up at me cheekily, bent down and splashed water all over me.

"You little monkey!" I growled.

Sunny giggled. I laughed and splashed her back. The wilder we became with our splashing, the greater lengths we'd go to to avoid getting wet until we were running around all over the slippery algae-covered stones. Then, as Marty was chasing Sunny she slipped. I saw it happen almost before it did and yelled, "Careful", as I ran toward her. Before I could get anywhere near her she was gone, completely under the water, head and all.

"Ooops," said Marty, then "Crap!" as panic set in and he leapt towards her.

I felt a tightness across my chest as I watched everything happen in slow motion. What if she drowned? What if she got swept out to see like Mam had warned? How were we going to tell our mother that we'd lost our sister in the stream?

"Pull her out!" I yelled just as Marty did exactly that.

She had been under the water only a second or two, although it seemed like much longer, and she emerged conscious, unhurt and with a comical look of surprise and bewilderment on her face. As the realisation dawned upon her that she had been entirely immersed in water, in an alien environment, in potential danger, as she remembered Mam's warning about being swept out to sea, and my request that she stay out of the stream, she felt scared, helpless and just like the baby of the family that she was but didn't want to be. The look on her face changed to one of horror, then distress. Her mouth turned down, her bottom lip quivered and her brow furrowed. And then she let out an almighty howl that could surely be heard for miles.

"Ssshh Sunny, it's okay," said Marty as he hugged her. "Come on, let's get you out of the water."

Sunny continued to sob as Marty and I took each of her hands and led her to dry land.

"Stop crying Sunny, you're okay," I said, but she wouldn't stop. "What are we going to do, Mart? We can't take her home like this. She's soakin'. Our Mam'll kill us."

The sun was rapidly dropping in the sky and as the light lowered in the woodland so did the temperature. We stood for a moment or two wondering what to do. I was beginning to get cold and if we stayed here much longer Mam would come looking, which would not be a good thing.

Sunny began to quieten down. "I'm cold," she sniffled.

"Me too," I said.

"We should get on our bikes," said Marty. "If we leave the forest now we can ride around before the sun sets and dry off a bit before we go home. Come on."

"I don't want to ride," whimpered Sunny. "I'm cold," and she began to work herself into another frenzy. At times my patience with my sister was limited. This was one of those times. I took her by both arms, looked her in the eyes and spoke sternly, like my teacher, Mrs Waddle, did when she was annoyed.

"Sunny, listen to me. It was really naughty of you to follow us into the stream and we're all going to get into a lot of trouble if you don't do what we say. But we can make it okay. You have to act like a big girl, like me. We have to get on our bikes and leave the forest. I know you're cold but it'll be warmer outside..."

"We are outside," she interrupted, confused.

"I meant outside the woods," I explained. "So, come on, let's go. Okay?"

"Okay," she said, reluctantly.

We clambered back to where our bikes were resting on gnarly old trees and peddled over the bumpy woodland mud track until we exited the forest on the edge of the school field. As hoped, it was much warmer here and the sun, still an hour or two from setting, retained it's warmth from the day and bathed us in a soft golden light.

"Right, all we have to do now," said Marty, "is ride round and round the athletics track until we're dry."

"Are you kidding?" I cried at the same time that Sunny said, "I don't want to, I'm tired."

"Look at the state of her," Marty pointed at Sunny, whose clothes were heavy with dampness and creased against her skin. Sunny looked down at herself with an expression that said, "What's the problem? I always look like this," which wasn't far from the truth.

"If we take her home like this it'll be indoor educational games with no friends or television for the next four days until we go back to school."

I was still at the age where being confined to my room and playing with dolls or jigsaws, or reading my books wasn't much of a threat. Marty knew this so he added, "and no sweets or pocket money either."

The money didn't bother me but no sweets was a small concern and the educational games we played on Dad's BBC Micro computer became somewhat tedious after a while. Four days of that would be infuriating. I knew what Marty was trying to say. Our mam wasn't just going to be angry, she was also going to be really upset and I was young enough to care what she thought of me and not want to disappoint her in any way. So, reluctantly I agreed, and to make it more fun and get Sunny to agree too we turned it into a game of tag. Of course, Marty and I had to ride slowly to give Sunny a chance to catch us, especially Marty. We had to keep her moving as she was the one who was particularly wet. Soon, once she begain to think this was a game she was actually good at she started to enjoy herself and was laughing and screaming. When she was "it" a look of intense determination came over her face and she peddled furiously to catch one of us. When Marty or I was "it" she screamed and giggled whenever we came anywhere near her, her screams becoming more frantic the nearer we got.

After a while we became tired and as Sunny and I became slower and less enthusiastic, Marty grew bored.

"I'm dry," I announced.

"Me too," said Sunny.

"Let me see," said Marty and we both checked Sunny's clothes.

"She's dry," I said.

"She'll do," said Marty, and we set off on our bikes for home.

When we arrived home with the onset of twilight, after having returned our bikes to the garden shed, Mam didn't seem to be in agreement that Sunny was dry. She demanded to know where we'd been and why Sunny was so filthy.

Marty and I didn't say anything as both of our brains frantically raced through all the possible excuses that would get us into less trouble than the truth. Mam's terrifying hollering continued as her downturned mouth twitched at the corners, like it always did when she was really angry.

"Look at the state of her! You've been gone for hours!"

I considered the possibilities:

'We'd been caught in a rainshower and Sunny didn't run for cover fast enough.' No. That wouldn't do. We would have had to ride quite far to find rain and that would get us into more trouble than playing in the stream.

'We rode around so much that Sunny got all sweaty.' Plausible, as she was prone to very damp, sweaty feet but I wasn't sure if even I would believe that.

'We had a water fight with some other kids and Sunny wasn't very good at it.' Brilliant! The only catch was that generally we only had water fights in summer but this was a minor flaw. Kids have silly phases all the time.

But before I could say anything Mam directed the question of where we'd been to Sunny and she excitedly replied, apparently oblivious to the trouble we were in.

"We rode our bikes and went really really fast down a big hill and then we saw Danny Clarkson and he had a wooden gun and pretended to shoot us and we laughed at him because he's a silly boy and it wasn't even a real gun. And then we rode into the forest and it was really dark in the forest and we played splashies in the stream and I fell over and I went under the water and Marty rescued me just like in the films and I was cold so we played tag on our bikes in the sun and then I got tired and we came home. Can I watch the Wizard of Oz?"

Marty and I ran upstairs before our mother could deliver any punishment and took it upon ourselves to confine ourselves to our rooms with no television or friends, in the hope that if we executed our own punishment immediately and uncomplainingly Mam would be more lenient later in the week. She wasn't and that was the last time we willingly allowed Sunny to have an adventure with us.

Chapter One

I lay in the comforting darkness of the cottage and counted the gaps between the lightening and thunder like we used to do when we were kids.

One thousand and one. One thousand and two. One thousand and three. Bang!

The storm was getting closer and for the first time in two days I wished I wasn't alone.

But I wasn't alone. Not really. I had my thoughts to keep me company. Comforting, accepting, blaming and malevolent thoughts. I wallowed in my own self-absorption and wondered whether coming to the cottage on my own had been the right thing to do.

Another flash of lightening splashed the room with white. One thousand and one. One thousand and two. One thousand and three... this time I counted to seven. The storm was moving away. As the lightening faded and the thunder became muffled, the rain slowed to a gentle patter against the thick foliage of the garden outside the window. Soon I drifted off to sleep, comforted by the familiar sound of the rain. I remembered back to when we came here as children on family holidays, and every night we would fall asleep to the sound of rain. That thought made me feel protected, far from danger and safe from harm somehow, as though I was in an alternate world.

I woke a few hours later. The rain had stopped and the air was damp and heavy with the musty smell of wet vegetation. I got out of bed and walked to the front door where I stood on the porch and listened to the calm silence, noticing by its very absence the rare lack of a breeze. I breathed in the cool air and looked to the sky. A shooting star caught my eye and took my mind back to the beginning, to that fated family holiday fifteen years ago when it all started; when the train that would lead me here was set in motion.