The Ghost Locket by Allison Rushby

Author:Allison Rushby [Werlin, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781760654153
Publisher: Walker Books Australia
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

I’m hungry. So hungry. As if I haven’t eaten for days. Weeks.

“Get upstairs. Go! Ungrateful, insolent child.”

Someone pushes my back and I lurch forward, stumbling onto a set of stairs. I have to grasp at the handrail beside me to save myself. It takes me a moment to realise where I am. I’m on the stairs in the house. Except everything looks slightly different. A little more worn. Grimier. Another push forces me to start up the stairs, even though I barely have the energy to move. It takes everything I have to drag my feet up one step, then another. I see I’m wearing little leather boots with hard soles. They peek out from beneath my full, striped skirt.

Finally, I understand.

I am Clara. I am seeing the past through Clara’s eyes.

Another shove as I round the corner.

“Keep going. All the way. Go!”

I have to drag myself upwards using the handrail, hand over hand. It’s as if my stomach is eating itself.

“You think you can leave? After all I’ve done for you? I gave you a home – a good home – and this is how you repay me?”

This isn’t a home, I want to argue. It’s a place of lies and fear. Of cruelty and starvation. But there is not enough energy for arguing. I’m not even sure I can make it up the final flight of stairs.

“Get up there! To think you would disappoint the Queen herself. The Queen who only wants to converse with her dear, departed husband. Who do you think you are to deny the Queen?”

I don’t know how I do it, but I make it into the attic room. My room. Clara’s room. Bare except for a small, hard iron-and-brass bed and a trunk that holds my few items of clothes. I want to fall onto the bed, weak and tired, but I don’t dare. There will be no rest until she leaves. Instead, I shuffle over to lean on the wall. I want to run. I want to push past Madame LeNoir like a whirlwind. Bolt downstairs to freedom. But I have used up the little energy I had left running to my family home. The moment my mother opened the door I knew I’d been wrong to do so. The look on her face. And all the things I’d forgotten – the smell. The wracking coughs. The fear in my mother’s eyes when she thought Madame LeNoir might believe she had persuaded me to come home. No, there will be no more running. Now I can only lean on the wall. Captured. I am a caged animal in her circus.

“Look at me. Look!”

My eyes lift. She is the same as always. Tall. Bowed. Hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her round pince-nez glasses make her eyes appear even smaller and meaner. Her black dress – for she is still in deep mourning for her husband – does not suit her. It brings out the grey threads in her dark hair and makes her look even older and more worn.

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