The Skeleton Tree by Diane Janes (reading women TXT) 📕

to arrive, hushing Katie and holding her to him as he sat beside her on the bed. Wendy hovered in the doorway, anxious lest the noise had woken Jamie, but there was no sound of him getting out of bed.

‘Was it a bad dream, poppet?’ Bruce was asking.

‘It was a horrible dream. I was up in the attic and there was a horrid old woman and she said, “What have you got there?” and I said, “Nothing.” And then I tried to run away and at first I couldn’t get out and she was going to hurt me,’ Katie’s words tumbled out. ‘Then I was running down the stairs and out into the yard and the old woman had turned into Mam, but she was frightening and she was going to hurt me too …’

‘Now then, now then …’ Bruce was coaxing, soothing. ‘You know that Mummy would never hurt you.’

‘I know that, but in my dream …’

‘Why not let Mummy go and get you a nice glass of water and you just calm down and stop thinking about this nasty dream? Where’s Huey? Here, look …’ Bruce reached down and located the bear in question. ‘You take Huey …’

Wendy heard no more, having taken her cue to fetch a glass of water, but by the time she returned, Bruce was emerging from Katie’s room, waving her away as he carefully closed the door behind him.

‘What did you do to that child this afternoon?’ he asked when they were safely back inside their own room.

‘What on earth do you mean? You’re surely not blaming me for this?’

‘Whatever you did, she’s absolutely traumatized.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Bruce!’

‘You heard her … “Don’t Mammy, don’t!”’

‘This is ridiculous. She was dreaming. All kinds of weird things happen in dreams that bear no resemblance to real life. Katie got herself into a strop this afternoon because she’d been told off for not tidying up her bedroom. She was made to spend her afternoon doing something she’d been told to do days ago and she didn’t like it, so she lost her temper and got herself worked up and overheated and this is the result.’

‘Well, I think you need to be more careful. Katie’s oversensitive.’

‘Overindulged, more like,’ Wendy muttered as she dragged the duvet back into place, but either Bruce did not hear her or he chose not to reply.

As she settled back into bed, she considered asking Bruce if he did not feel that Katie’s latest little exhibition might have been fortuitously timed for their own bedtime, but she decided that suggesting Katie had been faking would only inflame the situation. And what had Katie been up to, pretending that she’d been locked inside her bedroom? It would be difficult to manage the children if Bruce was about to start undermining her. First the business with Tara, and now Katie … She comforted herself with the thought that if Katie continued with such blatant fictions as suggesting that it was possible to confine her in a room without a working lock, Bruce would soon see through her games.

The sound above the ceiling was so faint that at first she wasn’t sure whether she had heard anything at all. She lifted her head clear of the pillow and concentrated. She was aware of Bruce’s breathing and the muted passage of a distant car. Nothing else. She was just deciding that she had been mistaken when it came again. A faint series of creaks, commensurate with footsteps crossing the attic floor.

‘Bruce?’ she whispered. She didn’t want to wake him over nothing, but if he was awake already …

No reply.

‘Bruce …’ She tried a little louder.

Still no reply.

Was there someone up there? Impossible, surely? If Tara had come up the stairs from her wing, she would have had to pass their bedroom door and they would surely have heard her. Katie was hardly likely to venture up there when she’d just had a bad dream. Bruce was sleeping beside her. Jamie then? She remembered Jamie and the wretched secret den in the cellar. Perhaps he had made some similar arrangements in the attic. He’d once drawn attention to hearing some footsteps in the attic himself. Could that have been some kind of elaborate ruse to cover his own after-bedtime activities up there? Surely not! He was barely out of infant school.

She ought to go and check. If it was Jamie, then he ought to be sent back to bed.

Trying not to wake Bruce, she slid out of bed into the velvety darkness without recourse to the bedside light. It was easy to navigate her way out of the bedroom, because the night light which was always left burning on the landing glowed under the door. The landing was deserted. The silence within the house had begun to feel oppressive. She put an exploratory hand on the handle of the attic door, as cautiously as if she expected it to burn her, turned it slowly and allowed the door to swing open. The night light only reached as far as the first two treads leading upwards; the rest of the staircase was in darkness. She felt around on the wall until her fingers encountered the switch. She flicked it on, but no sound came from above.

‘Jamie,’ she called softly. He might be playing a game of some kind, pretending not to be up there, just as he had done in the cellar. He would know perfectly well that he was not supposed to be up there at this time of night, so he probably wouldn’t answer. The only way to check would be to ascend the stairs and see for herself, but even with the benefit of the electric light, she baulked at the thought of going up to the attic at this hour.

‘Jamie …’ It occurred to her that from where she was standing, if he was awake, he could just as easily hear her from his bedroom as he could from the attic. Then she remembered that she