SORROW WOODS Read online

  Sorrow Woods

  By Beckie Stevenson

  Text Copyright © 2012 Beckie Stevenson.

  The right of Beckie Stevenson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted

  in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Cover used with photographer permission, courtesy of Shutterstock.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print

  without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the

  author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any

  resemblance to actual events, locales, organisations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely

  coincidental.

  www.facebook.com/BeckieStevensonAuthor

  Twitter: @BeckieStevenson

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to all of my friends for taking the time to read and offer feedback on my original drafts; Claire Brookes, Kate Cox, Jenna Heeks, Sara Turner, and Stephen Whieldon.

  You guys rock!

  To all of the girls and guys on Goodreads and Twitter.

  Your comments and enthusiasm have made this whole process so much more enjoyable. I’m

  thankful to have found you all.

  Sheri, aka S.G. Thomas, aka Nevaeh, aka Copy editor/proof reader extraordinaire.

  Thank you for all of your hard work in helping to get Sorrow Woods looking as good as it does. And of course, for your funny, laugh inducing, turquoise comments.

  Oink, oink! :o)

  To Grandad Geoff;

  I’m completely blaming you for my love of books.

  To Nana Margaret;

  I’m sure my crazy, lovely, whacky, fun-filled imagination has a lot to do with you.

  Huge thanks to my Mum and Dad;

  It’s because of you that I am who I am.

  I love you.

  Jason;

  I don’t have enough room to thank you for all the little things, and especially not for all the big things, but I’m saying it anyway; thank you.

  Love isn’t a big enough word either, but I love you with all of my heart.

  To Freya;

  You make me smile every single day.

  My world is a funnier, brighter and happier place because of you.

  I love you…..this much……..!!

  xxx

  For Jason and Freya, for being my everything.

  I love you both to the moon and back.

  Prologue

  I run my fingers over the little lines I’ve carved out of the piece of wood and sigh as I count them all.

  My Mother has been gone for eight whole days now. She’s never been gone this long before and

  she’s certainly never missed my birthday.

  I stand up and brush the dust off my shorts, stretching out my aching muscles. I look down at

  my faded rainbow-striped top that’s sticking to my ribs and realise that it’s too hot to stay indoors where there’s nothing to do but worry about her. I pick up my drink and step onto our wooden

  veranda and out of the stifling heat that constantly lingers in our house. I take a sip of my water and look out across the dusty horizon and then up at the cloudless, bright blue sky that wraps itself around the tops of the mountains in the distance.

  I’m not exactly sure where it is we live. I know there are lots of countries on Earth and some

  countries have cities and states, but here, where we live, there is nothing but the woods, the orange sand, and us. Sometimes I think we live in the middle of the desert. Then I look behind me at the tops of the trees that cast our house in delicious cool shade in the afternoon and I know it’s not the desert. In the books I’ve read, there are never any trees in the desert.

  I sit down on the top step as a trickle of sweat slips down my forehead and hangs on the end

  of my nose. It stays like that for a few seconds before it plops off onto the splintered piece of wood that digs into my thigh. I stare at the tiny circle of water, watching as it dries almost instantly on the wood. It’s been broken for a few days now and I think I remember Mamma asking me to fix it before she left me.

  Just as I’m about to grab the hammer, I hear the familiar rumble of an engine. I look into the

  distance and see my Mother’s rusty, sun-faded red truck kicking up dust behind it, as it zooms up the twisting, deserted lane to our house. I sigh in relief.

  My Mother has finally come back to me.

  When she stops the truck at the bottom of the steps, I stand up and wait for her to smile at

  me through the glass but she doesn’t. Not this time. This time she throws her door open, which

  creaks like an old lady’s hip, and walks up to me with a serious-looking face.

  She appears tired. Her wild red hair flies around her face as she marches up the steps. I

  brace myself, but realise when she pulls me into a tight hug that there is no need to be afraid of my Mother.

  “Happy tenth birthday, Serena.”

  I sniff her. She smells different. She normally smells like the wind when it’s blowing in a

  storm, but today she smells like metal.

  “Thank you, Mamma.” She pulls back and pushes my long, blonde hair away from my face

  with her sweaty palms. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I missed you too,” I respond.

  She hugs me again and sniffs before pulling back and smiling at me.

  “Would you like to see your present?”

  I grin at her. “Yes, please.”

  “You’ve got two this year.”

  Two? I never get two. I bound down the steps behind her and follow closely until we’re at

  the back door of the truck. She turns and hands me a small clear box. I take it slowly from her,

  having never held something that’s so smooth and see-through before, and stare at the white

  rectangle-shaped object that looks modern and digital. I don’t know what it is. I’ve never seen

  anything like this in real life before, and as I try to think back to the newspapers that I’ve read, I can’t ever recall seeing a picture of anything like this either.

  “What is it, Mamma?” I ask.

  “It’s called an iPod.”

  “An iPod?” I blink at it as I twirl it around in my hand.

  “You won’t have read about it yet, but it’s a little gadget that you use to store and play

  music. That there,” she says, pointing towards the thing in my hands, “has over one thousand songs on it.”

  Music? I can listen to music on this little machine? “Thank you,” I say, as I start to open the

  box.

  I stop when I hear a cry similar to that of a young animal. I look up at my Mother and see her

  smiling at me. “Is that noise coming from your truck?” I ask.

  She nods. “Are you ready for your second present?”

  I can feel my eyes widening. I don’t know what she has for me, but judging by the huge smile

  on her face, I’m gonna like it. She reaches into the back seat again and curls her arms around

  something before walking towards me. I can see nothing but a pink blanket. She bends her knees

  and offers her arms out to me. I gasp.

  “Where did that come from?”

  She smiles and rubs its face. “It’s mine. Ours.” She looks back down at it and makes a sort of

  cooing noise. “It’s your sister.”

  I frown. I don’t want a sister. “How?”

  “I had to go into the hospital in the city. That’s w
hy I’ve been so long.”

  I think about all the encyclopaedias that I’ve read. I can’t ever remember her belly being big

  like it is in the pictures and I don’t have a Daddy.

  “So I’ve gotta share you?”

  She smiles and brushes my cheek with the back of her hand. “Darling, she’s going to be your

  best friend. You’ll be able to help me look after her while she’s a baby and then when she’s older, she can run among the trees and play with you. I don’t want you getting lonely.”

  “I’m not lonely,” I say quickly. Why did she have to go and get someone else? Was I not

  enough for her?

  “I have all my books and I have you,” I remind her.

  “You’ll see,” she says, walking up the wooden steps and away from me while holding the

  baby that is apparently my sister.

  I look down at my new music thing and figure I don’t have much choice. Mamma says that

  once you live here, you can’t go anywhere else because no one else wants to look after the house, and God would be sad if no one looked after the house or the woods.

  “What’s her name?” I ask after following Mamma inside and sitting down beside her on the

  sofa.

  “Elodie.”

  I make a face. I don’t like that name. I lean over and look at the baby that lies in my Mother’s

  arms. She’s tiny. All of her skin is wrinkled up and her eyes are closed tightly shut. She looks like she’d break if I touched her too hard. I sigh and lean my head against my Mother’s shoulder. I’ve missed her too much to argue with her right now.

  “I got you some new books, by the way, and a few newspapers.”

  I look up at her and smile. I love getting new books.

  “Thank you, Mamma,” I say.

  “You’re welcome, Serena.”

  We sit there in silence for a few minutes. I watch my Mother’s eyes roaming over Elodie’s

  face and see her smiling. Did she smile at me like that when I was a baby?

  “What does she eat?” I ask, curious.

  “She doesn’t eat, not yet anyway. She drinks milk.”

  I blink up at her and stare into her large blue eyes. “We don’t have any milk,” I remind her.

  “I got some more supplies while I was in the city. I’ve got enough milk to last four months,

  and then I’ll have to go and get some more.”

  “But where are we gonna keep it? The storage barn is full.”

  She shakes her head. “There’s plenty of room. You’ll see.”

  I’m not so sure but I nod anyway. “So did Elodie come out of your tummy?”

  “Yes,” she responds simply.

  “How did she get out? Why wasn’t your tummy big like the other Mammas in my books?”

  She leans over and kisses the top of my head. “You can’t always believe everything you read

  in your books, Serena.”

  “Why not? You said books will teach me everything I need to know.”

  She nods. “I know I did.”

  “So where did Elodie come from?”

  “Me.”

  “Your tummy wasn’t big enough.”

  “It was,” she huffs, pulling the baby closer to her chest. “You just weren’t looking hard

  enough.”

  I stare at her. I always look at her hard enough. She’s the only person I can look at. I sigh.

  “Have you had breakfast yet?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “I was waiting for you.”

  “Well then, you take your sister and I’ll cook us some eggs.”

  She puts the baby into my arms and walks to the stove. I look down at my new sister and

  study her face. She hasn’t opened her eyes yet, so I don’t know what colour they are. I wonder if they’re green like mine. If she’s my sister, then she should look like me. My nose starts to feel like it’s being tickled and before I know it I’ve sneezed, making the baby jump in my arms. Her eyelids flash open for the briefest of seconds, but it’s enough for me to see that her eyes are bright blue and look nothing like mine.

  Serena

  2,527 days later

  My Mother throws the rest of her clothes into her old brown leather suitcase with a huff and slams it shut. She scowls at me as she snatches it off her bed.

  “Please, Mamma?”

  She strides quickly over the rickety, uneven floor and stalks out of the house with me

  following right behind her.

  “I’m not having this conversation with you now, Serena. I’ve told you before that you can’t

  come with me.”

  “Why not?” I ask. “Why can’t I come with you? Why can’t we both come with you? I don’t

  understand and I’m not a child anymore, Mother.”

  She sighs and throws her case onto the back of her truck. “It’s not about how old you are,

  Serena. You just don’t need to go to the city and you know that while I’m gone, you have to stay

  here and look after your sister.”

  “Fine,” I huff as I cross my arms. I know I’ve lost this argument because I always lose this argument. “How long are you gonna be gone this time?”

  She pulls her door open and wipes the beads of sweat from off her forehead with the back

  of her hand, pushing her bright red hair away from her face and into a ponytail that sits high up on her head. “Three weeks, just like I always am.”

  She never used to go for three weeks. She says ‘always’ as if her trips to the city have always

  taken that long, but they haven’t. I don’t forget these sorts of things. “What day is it now?”

  “Sixth of April.”

  I take a step towards her and run my hands along the edge of the truck. “Will you be back for

  my birthday?”

  “Yes,” she sighs, sounding more annoyed with me than I’ve ever heard her sound before.

  “And Elodie’s?”

  She nods and yanks the door open. “Yes. See you soon.”

  I stand back, watching as she climbs into the truck and turns the key over in the ignition. It

  rumbles to life and in an instant, she’s gone, leaving only a trail of dust behind her. I flop down onto one of the old wooden steps and sigh. Why doesn’t my Mother understand that I’m not a baby

  anymore? The books that she brings me back from the city tell me about a wonderful, interesting

  world that’s out there, but the fact that she won’t let me explore it is starting to really bug me.

  “Come on Serenaaaa.”

  I turn around and stare at my six year-old sister, who smiles up at me and twirls her long

  dark hair around her finger. She wants to play hide and seek. I hate hide and seek. “You go hide,” I say. “I’ll wait here and count to one hundred.”

  She grins and sprints off into the woods. I don’t bother counting. I wait about ten minutes

  before standing up and stretching my muscles out. I pump my arms and legs and run until I can’t

  breathe anymore.

  The sweat drips down the back of my neck and slides in between my shoulder blades. It’s

  too hot to be running around, I think, as I lift my leg and climb over a fallen tree. “Elodie!” I call. “I’m gonna find you, and when I do, I’m gonna tickle you until you’re begging me to stop.”

  I hear her giggling to the left of me so I turn and run without thinking. I hate playing hide and seek with Elodie because she always hides in the woods, and it’s too hard with all of the trees to ever find her. I also think she cheats by moving about as I’m searching for her, because sometimes, I’ll find her hiding in a place that I know I’ve already looked. Every time I take a step towards the place where I think she’s hiding, the twigs and leaves rustle and crack underneath my foot, meaning there’s no way I could ever creep up and surprise her. I always end up being the hunter that gets hunted.
/>
  “Boo!” she calls out from behind me, before giggling and running off again.

  “Hey,” I laugh, as I run through the trees after her. “That was cheating!”

  I hear her laugh trickle and bounce along the trees around us as she sprints on ahead of me.

  We’re both really fast at running, so fast that sometimes the trees start to blur at the side of my vision, just like they are now. I take a deep breath and pump my arms and legs faster. I’m not letting her win today, not when she cheats at every game we play.

  “You won’t catch me,” she calls.

  “I will.”

  We run and run and run. I’m running so fast that the twigs hanging down off the low

  branches whip against my face and the leaves get stuck in my long, blonde hair as it flails out behind me. Just as I’m about to pounce on her, I feel something warm trickle down my face. It sneaks down my cheek and into the corner of my mouth. My tongue darts out and within an instant, my mouth is