Dad had flexible part-time working hours in London, so he used to come down to Summerbourne for a few days each month and stay with me. We’d eat together when I got home from work, go on day trips together at weekends when we felt like it, but he didn’t mind me heading out to the cliffs when I wanted time alone. If I’m not my parents’ daughter, do I really want to know? My dad is my dad. He always was and he always will be. I don’t want different parents. I want to be the same person I always thought I was.
I close my eyes and wait for my thoughts to settle. But there it is again, that question, despite my efforts to quash it: Who am I?
I spent so much of my childhood feeling like an outsider. Edwin and Danny made friends effortlessly, playing out on the village green in big gangs after school. I felt awkward when I tried to join in, uncomfortable with how casually the other children seemed to treat one another’s feelings. I wanted all the games to be fair, but they weren’t, and although I knew my complaints were an overreaction, it took me a long time to learn how to control my temper. I overheard two women discussing me in the village shop once, suggesting I might have been a gentler child if only my mother had been around to care for me. I knocked tins flying as I charged into their aisle to inform them they were wrong and stupid.
The girls in my class mostly ignored me, the older children in the playground taunted me, and the only place I ever felt happy was at home; at Summerbourne. I used to leave the phone off the hook in the holidays to stop village kids from inviting my brothers out, and I savored the days when it was just me, Danny, Edwin, and Joel, with the garden and the lane and the beach as our playground. Those were the days I felt accepted and safe.
I try now to remember precisely what it was the village children used to tease me about. The implication was that either Danny or I, or perhaps both of us, had come from somewhere else. That we weren’t Ruth’s children. Which Dad always assured us was ridiculous, of course. But there was also teasing about a child-stealing witch in a long black cloak, and fairy babies, and somehow the numbers never added up.
One or two babies born, one or two babies stolen, two children left to show for it—how does that make any sense? How did the truth blur into such bizarre fiction? What facts were the wild stories based on?
My cheeks and shoulders glow with the threat of sunburn, and I haul myself up. On the pale crescent of beach below, a man throws a ball for a black-and-white dog. A seagull swoops over the dog’s head, and although it’s too far away to catch the sound, I can see that the dog is barking. The carefree scene makes my lips tighten with a tug of envy, and I move around the tower to sit in its shade.
If I let all of this go, if I stop asking questions, what will life be like? I will have the predictable, soothing routine of my job. I’ll have family dinners with Edwin, Danny, and Vera. I might never have to move out of Summerbourne, whether or not Vera gives it to Danny. I will have a photograph of the day I was bornwithout knowing whether I’m the baby in it. Life will be calm and safe. Unresolved but safe.
But what if Kiara can tell me something—some seemingly trivial fact, perhaps, about her father or my family—that provides the key to everything else making sense?
I retrieve my phone from where it bakes in the dry grass, and scroll through Kiara’s message again. It seems reckless to agree to meet her without telling the police about the threats I’ve received. But as soon as I go to the police, a chain of events will be triggered, and they’ll have to question Alex. And that might frighten Kiara off, and ruin my chance of finding out the truth.
When I eventually stand up again, the man and the dog have gone. I can turn a full circle without glimpsing another living soul in any direction. I brush the dust from my dress and make my way back to the house, bolting the heavy garden gate behind me, scanning the windows as I approach. Nothing moves.
Indoors, I prowl through the rooms, one by one. The landline handset sits on the coffee table in the sitting room, flashing with a message from Joel. He recites his mobile number in the precise manner of a doctor speaking to a recalcitrant patient. “Call me if you need anything.” I listen to it several times.
I come close to calling Edwin’s number again, but I’m afraid suddenly that he’ll insist I delete Kiara’s message and heed the warnings. I’m not sure I’m ready to make that decision after all.
I stand in front of the lipstick message for a long time, the floor tiles sucking the heat of the day out of me through the soles of my feet. I don’t want to lose my family. But I do need to know what happened on the day I was born. I do need to know who I am.
The china fragments clink together in the dust pan. I mop the tiles, and scrub smudges of coffee and blood from thecarpet. Then I spray lemon-scented cleaner all over the mirror, and sigh as the angry red words dissolve with a gentle wipe. A soft sea breeze whispers through my bedroom window as evening falls, and I make my bed with fresh linen sheets before dropping into a dreamless sleep.
No further threats appear overnight, and in the morning I carry my coffee out to the patio and reply to Kiara:Yes, please, let’s meet up. Could you come to Norfolk on Saturday? Midday for lunch?
Ten minutes later she replies:Yes, ok. Let me know your address.
I ask her:Do you mind if my brothers join us?
I don’t receive a reply until late afternoon:That’s fine. I’m going to leave a note for my dad so he knows where I’ve gone. He’ll see it on Saturday evening.
It occurs to me that she’s not sure she can trust us: she wants backup in case we’re luring her into something sinister. As I’m thinking this, I hear the rumble of tires on gravel, and I dash back into the house to peer through the hall window. An unfamiliar car completes a three-point turn at the entrance to our drive, and glides off down the lane. I glance at the phone on the hall table, thinking of the message Joel left yesterday.
“Joel? It’s Seraphine.”
“Oh, hi. Hang on a sec—” There’s a muffled noise in the background and I wonder whether he’s still at Michael’s cottage.
“Sorry,” he says. “Are you okay? You got my message?”
“Yeah. Thanks. Did Edwin ask you to check up on me?”
“Well, yes.” I think I can hear a smile in his voice. “But also, I wanted to apologize for yesterday. Grandad. Those stories.”
“It’s fine, really. It was my fault.”
There’s a pause. “Did you—is there anything you need?” he says.
I’ve wandered with the handset into the kitchen, and my gaze rests on my handbag, its buckle undone as usual.
“You haven’t seen anyone suspicious in the lane recently, have you?” I ask.
“No, why? What’s happened?”
