The Last House on the Cliff by Anne Wyn Clark

Author:Anne Wyn Clark [Wyn Clark, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2022-07-04T12:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Girl’s Story

The little girl rubbed her eyes and sat up. Despite her best efforts to stay awake, she had eventually dropped off. The room was dim, but the residue of light from the extinguished bars of an electric fire left a soft glow and, as she became accustomed to the gloom, she could discern the old woman’s fidgeting outline, observing her from the opposite bench. A scratchy, musty-smelling blanket had been draped over her and she shrugged it off.

Realising she had stirred, the woman jumped to her feet and flicked the light switch, making the child squint with the initial glare. She stepped forward, eagerly thrusting a slightly squashed bar of chocolate into the girl’s hands, and sat down beside her.

‘Wyt ti eisiau bwyd?’ she asked brightly.

The girl shook her head in alarm. ‘I didn’t understand. What did you say?’

‘Are you hungry?’

‘A bit. Thank you.’ She peeled off the wrapper and took a cautious nibble. The woman had clearly been holding the chocolate and it was stickily unappetising. ‘When can I go home? My mum will be worried.’

The woman’s eyes began to dart. ‘Oh, I’ll let her know all about it. It’s all right. Best if we stay out of the way for now.’

‘But why? Who is this bad man you were telling me about?’

The old woman seemed twitchy. She looked down at her rough, mottled hands and began picking at a hangnail on her thumb, her fingers in constant motion. The girl stared in ill-disguised horror, noticing for the first time that the middle and third finger of her left hand were no more than misshapen stumps, the first three digits on her right hand truncated and without nails.

‘Someone told me – he takes little girls. You need to stay hidden – you’ll be safe here.’

‘But no one else mentioned him. Are you sure?’

The woman’s head seemed to wobble. ‘They don’t know about him. Not like my friend. I’ve heard what he can do. He’s wicked.’

She got up and began to pace, wringing her hands. She exuded a strange manic energy, making the child shrink back into the bench nervously. The apparently hollow floor vibrated unnervingly with the woman’s footsteps.

‘Why did we move from where we were?’ the girl ventured. ‘It was much nicer in the other place.’ She was beginning to feel frightened. Having spent the past few hours in the company of this strange elderly woman, she bitterly regretted having listened to her apparently anguished pleas to help her find her dog. The woman had seemed terribly upset and pleaded with the girl so hard that she’d felt unable to refuse. It was obvious now that it had all been a ruse to lure her away. The child remembered how she had always been warned, both at home and school, not to speak to people she didn’t know. She wished she had paid heed.

‘Too close, too close,’ the woman muttered.

‘Too close to what?’

‘Not what; who,’ she snapped. The girl recoiled slightly and the woman’s tone softened.

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