The Girl Who Came Out of the Woods Read online

  Then we began moving. A siren started and I realized I was in an ambulance.

  I hoped we were going to hospital, but I didn’t know. We could have been going anywhere.

  I was crying. Everything hurt. Even the nice air going down my throat hurt. I cried because I had been locked in the basement for four weeks. I cried because I knew why she had done it. I cried for everything. I cried because it was over.

  ‘Where’s my bear?’ I said, but she didn’t hear me. She took hold of my left hand, the one that didn’t hurt.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘It’s OK. It’s OK. You’re safe. You’re alive. You’re going to be all right.’

  19

  In the morning Arty put on the warmest of all the clothes, forcing her legs into jeans, which she was getting used to wearing. She tiptoed downstairs, anxious not to wake anyone. She made a cup of tea and went to the tree. It was the very early part of the day, the bit she liked the best. She put the tea on top of the back wall and looked up.

  She touched the tree’s trunk. She closed her eyes and felt the energy of the other hands that had touched this tree. This tree was the closest place to the clearing that she would find in this world.

  She could see the way up to the top, and she climbed quickly, judging where to put each hand and each foot, pleased that she could still do this, even here. She stopped just before the branches got too thin and sat in a place where the trunk forked, and drew in a deep breath.

  She thought of the two children who had been right here all those years ago.

  She could see the sea from here, like they had.

  Everything was better.

  Arty concentrated on breathing, taking it in, holding it, and letting it slowly out. She said the words in her head. We are all gods and goddesses. What happens to one happens to all. She let the feeling of warm honey wash through her being. She was breathing the same air her mother had breathed, with the same sun coldly on her cheek, and that filled her with light. It was not joy, but it was light.

  She focused on Zeus, and sent him all her peace and love, and she knew that in some way he would feel it. She couldn’t imagine his life in France, any more than she would have been able to imagine this before she got here, but she could picture his face, and remember his heartbeat, and that was all she needed right now. She knew that she wasn’t the only one out in the world.

  I can see the sea.

  I can hear birds, and leaves whispering around me.

  I can smell bark and resin and old rain.

  I can feel the tree beneath me and beside me and above me.

  I can taste my tea.

  ‘Artemis!’

  If Arty turned round a little then she could see Grandma standing in the doorway, looking out into the garden.

  ‘Up here!’ she called, and she waved. She watched Grandma looking around, frowning, wearing a long nightdress and a pair of fluffy slippers. She saw her eyes moving up and up. Then she saw Arty and put her hand to her chest.

  ‘Artemis!’ she said. ‘Artemis Jones, get down from there at once! At once! Oh gosh, you’re going to fall. Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall.’ She ran and stood under the tree, putting her arms out as if she might catch Arty, rather than Arty smashing her to the ground and breaking all her bones, were she to fall on top of her.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ she said when Arty was down. ‘Up there like a monkey.’

  ‘I was thinking,’ she said, ‘about how my mum and Matthew used to sit in this tree.’

  ‘Oh, Artemis,’ said Grandma. ‘Yes, you’re right. They were always up a tree. It wasn’t this one, though. We used to have the old oak but we had to have it cut down. It got diseased. This one’s been here fifteen years or so. It’s a cherry tree.’

  ‘Oh.’ Arty looked at the tree. She tried to recalibrate her thoughts. ‘Is it in the same place?’

  ‘No. Look – that’s where the other one was.’

  She pointed to a stump that Arty hadn’t noticed a little way away. She went and sat on that instead, but it was raining now and she didn’t feel any connection at all. She decided to consider the cherry tree to be the real origin tree. She liked the fact that it had the same name as her friend.

  Arty waited around the kitchen for ages, but Tania Roswell still didn’t call her. Later in the morning, though, the doorbell rang. Arty wanted it to be Matthew (surely, she thought, he would come as soon as he knew she was here), or even somehow Tania, but it wasn’t. It was a woman with long yellow hair and a smile that was so wide that it changed the whole shape of her face.

  Grandma did a grand introduction. ‘Artemis Jones,’ she said, ‘this is Lucy Allison. Lucy is a tutor who might be able to help get you up to speed for college. Lucy, this is my granddaughter, Artemis.’

  ‘Call me Arty,’ Arty said, shaking Lucy’s hand, remembering the way she had shaken Cherry’s.

  ‘I certainly will!’ said Lucy. ‘Great to meet you, Arty. I’m really happy your grandma got in touch with me.’

  Arty liked Lucy. Lucy was full of energy, and she was young. She wondered whether Lucy could become her friend.

  ‘Me too,’ she said.

  ‘And wow. I mean, your story is incredible. I saw you online and I was rooting for you. So, if you’re OK with this, we can just see where you’re at and what we can do, with the idea of getting you ready for sixth form in September, like your gran says.’

  Grandma had led them into the kitchen, and she flicked the kettle on to make tea. There was as much tea here as there had been in the clearing. She motioned to them to sit at the table.

  Arty smiled. ‘Going to school is quite a scary thing,’ she said. ‘I’ve read stories about school and I never expected to go to one.’

  ‘It won’t be school school,’ said Lucy. ‘It’s sixth form. Different. It’s not Hogwarts or Malory Towers or anything. You’ll have much more freedom. It’ll be fine.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Your gran says you’re interested in English, plus history and economics. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’ Arty was trying to work out how old Lucy was. Younger than Venus. Probably not much older than Arty. Still, it was worth a try. ‘Are you from Clevedon?’ she said.

  Lucy looked surprised. ‘Yes. Yes, I am. I’ve always lived here actually. Went to uni in Bristol. I’m not as adventurous as you. I struggle with new things. Get a bit anxious.’

  ‘Did you ever meet my mother?’

  There was a pause, and then Lucy said, ‘No. I’m afraid I never did.’

  ‘Of course she never met her.’ Grandma’s voice was gentle. ‘No one had seen Victoria for decades, Arty. Lucy’s far too young.’

  ‘Sorry. I just …’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Grandma, handing each of them a cup of tea. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Arty – try to focus.’

  ‘I never met your mother,’ Lucy said when Grandma had gone, ‘but my boyfriend’s mum remembers them as a family. And her brother. Mostly everyone round here had a story about her brother.’

  ‘Because he was a drug addict?’

  ‘Exactly. Your poor grandparents. He put them through hell. And her too. I think it was because of him that she went off to India.’

  Lucy asked Arty all kinds of questions. Arty knew a bit of history, because they had covered that quite a lot at home. Lucy thought that some of it would be the wrong sort of history, but she said that didn’t really matter. Arty thought she could do the English all right, at least if it just involved talking about books, which it seemed it did. She thought she was perhaps more interested in economics than she was in anything else.

  ‘Money’s a strange thing,’ Arty said. ‘Isn’t it? It doesn’t exist. It’s a token rather than a thing itself. I don’t think capitalism is right.’

  Lucy smiled. ‘Now you sound like a sixth-former. The bit about capitalism, I mean. To be honest, this isn’t really my area at all. I’m much better with the English and the history. The good thing about economics A level, though, wil
l be that pretty much no one will have done it before so you’ll be starting from the same point as everyone else. And actually looking at economic theory from the point of view of someone who never handled money until the age of sixteen. I mean, you could write a blog about that.’

  ‘Write a …?’

  ‘Like a book. Or some articles? But online.’

  ‘Online, like in people’s phones? I could write something that goes into people’s phones?’

  ‘Of course you could.’

  ‘I hate things on people’s phones.’

  ‘Well, write something good for them to read instead then. It would be fascinating.’

  ‘In the clearing they said that money is the root of all evil. I’d like to decide whether it is or not. I thought it was when I’d never seen it. Now I don’t like it, but I don’t think it’s all the evil in the universe.’

  ‘I think,’ Lucy said, ‘that the quote is actually the love of money is the root of all evil. It’s from the Bible. You could make a strong case for that. But anyway we’ll have a look at what’s going to be on the economics syllabus. English and history, we’ll really grab them with both hands. So … are you at all familiar with Shakespeare? I mean, I know you’ve read some books, but do you know what a play is? I guess you’ve never been to the theatre?’

  Arty laughed. ‘Not a real theatre. I have been to a film. It was called 1921 and I saw it at the Regal Cinema in Mumbai, which is one of the finest cinemas in the world. I do know what a play is. I haven’t read all of Shakespeare, but I’ve read Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and some of the history plays. Also, we used to put on plays sometimes in the clearing. We did a bit of A Midsummer Night’s Dream not so long ago. Since we were in the forest already. Also, my friend AMK is a movie actor in Bollywood. He’s the greatest actor of all time and he said he wants to make a movie about me.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Arty. OK. You’re better read than me. You’ll have to tell me about your Bollywood friend. Have you ever written an essay?’

  Arty thought about that. ‘Essay means trying, doesn’t it? I’ve tried to write down what I think about things before. It was something we did when we had lessons. I had my own lessons. I don’t really know what …’

  ‘You know, Arty? I think you’re going to sail through this. How about we try to work out how what you’ve done compares with what the others will have done at school? Why don’t you have a read of these pages of Macbeth.’ She opened a book and handed it over. ‘Because lots of your peers will be doing that for GCSE this summer. Then write down an analysis of it. Anything you want. The ideas, the language – anything. Try to organize your thoughts into paragraphs, so you talk about one aspect at a time. But really just write what you feel like writing, so I can get an idea.’

  Arty smiled at her. ‘OK. Shall I do it sitting here?’

  ‘If you’re happy like that?’

  ‘Could I …’ She looked at the kitchen door. Grandma had closed it. She was probably safe. ‘Would it be all right if I sat on the floor? I work better on the floor than I do at tables. We never had a table. We always sat on the ground.’

  Lucy grinned. ‘Course you can. Write wherever you feel comfortable. Your grandmother would do anything for you, I can see that, but she’s probably quite conventional. She’s been through the mill, hasn’t she? Poor thing.’

  Arty rolled her eyes, and had a flash of the way she used to do that to Venus. She wanted to go back and unroll them, to unsay everything cross or mean she had ever said to her, to re-inhale every huff and suck back every sigh. It froze her for a moment, the regret.

  ‘Are you OK?’ said Lucy, and Arty nodded because she couldn’t really say anything.

  ‘Yes,’ she said after a while, being careful to be fair. ‘Grandma has been through it. She probably just wants to be normal, but she didn’t have normal children, did she?’

  ‘No she didn’t,’ Lucy agreed.

  ‘And she hasn’t got a normal grandchild.’ Arty forced herself to focus. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I suppose I need some paper.’ She noticed that she had said that in a bright and cheerful voice, and realized she knew this voice; at home the grown-ups had spoken to each other like this sometimes. She wondered now what they had hidden from her.

  Lucy handed Arty some paper and a pen and she was surprised again at how easy it was to have new things here. At home they would use every single space on a piece of paper, and use pens until they ran out, then get new ink bits for the middles of them, and use them again. They hardly threw away anything. Here she knew the bin was filled with plastic. Arty had no idea where it all went. She hoped it ended up with people who needed it.

  Now she had a new pad of lined paper and a choice of black or blue pens. It was an incredible luxury.

  She read the passage from the play. It was Act One Scene Three, where Macbeth and Banquo meet the witches, who tell him he is going to be king, and Arty remembered it. She wrote quickly, not bothering to organize her thoughts into paragraphs, but just writing down everything that came into her head, about the rhythms and the words and the fact that those words to Macbeth set up the whole of the rest of the story. She enjoyed thinking about something that was in a time and a place apart from Clevedon and her grandparents and the utter weirdness of this world she had walked into. It was nice to be reading something she had last read in the clearing. She could pretend to herself that she was still there.

  After a while she stopped writing, and when she looked up at Lucy, who had been doing something with her phone, she nodded and put it down.

  Arty was stricken by the fact that Lucy could have taken a photo of her and put it on social media without her knowing.

  ‘What were you doing on your phone?’ she said, the words coming out fast.

  Lucy looked surprised. ‘I was playing a move on the Scrabble game I play with my cousin. Look.’

  She held it out, and Arty saw a board of squares with some words criss-crossing it.

  ‘I know Scrabble!’ she said. ‘We had that at home. Can you play it in a phone?’

  ‘It’s a bit addictive, actually,’ said Lucy. ‘Do you have a phone yet, Arty?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, when you get one, install this app and we can have a game.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Arty. ‘OK. Sorry. I was just scared you were taking my picture and telling people about me. Joe did that. He did it all the time.’

  ‘Oh, you poor thing,’ said Lucy. ‘I never trusted that joeonthego account. I promise I’d never do that. What a twat he was. Let’s have a look at your essay.’

  Arty handed the pages over, then felt the air around her go green and purple with embarrassment as Lucy read what she had written. She had never felt like that when Diana was reading her writing. She would never have imagined any reason to feel worried or ashamed of something she had written down at all. And now she found that she was scared.

  In this world people were judged on things like this and they were given a letter that said how well or badly they had done. There was a way to do things right and a way to do them wrong. In the clearing everyone just shared their thoughts and no one judged anyone on anything.

  She sat and watched the clock, still trying to puzzle out exactly how it worked. The colour drained out of the room, and the red hand smoothed its way round the face again and again and again.

  ‘Well,’ said Lucy at last, and she looked up at Arty with a grin on her face, ‘I don’t think you’re going to have much to worry about. Your handwriting is shocking, though. Maybe you could learn to touch type?’

  ‘Grandma told me about that! She said it was so you could do patriarchal dictation.’

  ‘It used to be. Now you just do it so you can write your own things. Matriarchally.’

  ‘I did some emailing on Grandma’s computer, but I only wrote short ones. I’m really bad at writing on the computer. I should definitely learn to touch type.’

  ‘I bet
you can learn online. I’ll have a look. But the main thing is that everything you’re saying here is sharp and interesting, and way beyond the GCSE standard your peers will be at. You’re lucky to miss out the GCSEs; I think you’d have struggled with the prescriptive stuff you have to do. It was bad when I took them years ago but it’s much worse now.’

  Arty was glad she wasn’t taking GCSEs too, even though she was only vaguely aware of what Lucy was on about. Whatever they were, they sounded like a good thing to miss.

  ‘And we can talk about organizing your writing, with a plan and a rough copy before you write it up. But basically this is great, and you’re going to be fine.’

  As Lucy’s words sank in, the colour seeped back into the world around Arty. It was great and she was going to be fine. That was the first time anyone had said anything along those lines to her for ages. She had felt bad and wrong and clumsy and stupid, and now she had done something good. She put Lucy on her list of friends, with AMK, Zeus, Cherry and Salman.

  ‘Thank you, Lucy. I love you,’ she said.

  Lucy stopped talking and laughed again. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Thank you. That’s very kind of you.’

  ‘No one has said anything I’ve done has been good. Not here in England.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, OK. I think everyone realizes you’re remarkable. They certainly should.’ She looked like she wanted to say something else, but she stopped herself.

  ‘Do you think,’ Arty said, her words coming out fast, ‘that you could help me? I need to find someone called Tania Roswell. I know Grandma doesn’t want me to, but I have to. She was a friend of my parents and she used to live in the clearing. I think I met her when I was a baby.’

  ‘How intriguing!’ said Lucy.

  ‘I called her but she hasn’t phoned back. I think I need to go and find her.’

  Lucy sighed. ‘And you have to find her? You sound like it’s urgent?’

  ‘Yes. It was the last thing that …’ It was hard to say this part. ‘That my mum told me to do. To find Tania. I’ve got it written down. I told the person who answered the phone exactly who I was, but she hasn’t called me.’