Chapter 4

Chapter 4 – Tuesday afternoon

When Rainie stepped into her grandfather’s house she was, much to her relief, met by a triumphant looking George and a great many boxes in the lounge, with piles of books placed randomly between them. “What are you doing?” Rainie laughed, her grandfather’s joy was contagious and the encounter in the forest quickly put in the back of her mind. “What’s in all the boxes?” Rainie asked.

“Well two things really.” George kissed Rainie’s cheek. “Firstly, there’s cake in the kitchen. Debs brought it over and we had a nice chat. Help yourself” Rainie was given a small push towards the door. She had to carefully step around the books on the floor. 

“You agreed to disagree?” she asked from the kitchen.

George nodded, “More or less.”

“I’m pleased to hear that.” George could hear Rainie getting plates and opening and closing the fridge door.  Rainie offered to make George a cup of tea, which George declined. He’d already made himself one. George was pleased and thought to himself that teenage girls could also be nice at times. 

“I was thinking about your girl this morning after Deb left and I thought I’d have a look in the boxes of notebooks and drafts your parents store in my attic. Which led to having a good old sort out. Your mum certainly lacks organisational skills.” George surveyed the boxes and the few stacks left to be put away and waited for Rainie to return with two slices of cake on a plate and a fresh cup of tea in hand. George continued his task while talking “I’ve sorted all notebooks and drafts by novel and put them in their own boxes. You know for prosperity’s sake.” Rainie nodded, her mouth too full to speak. She now noticed that the boxes had the names of mum’s novels written on them, with the numbers mum had written on each box crossed out except for the box labelled ‘abandoned ideas’. She wasn’t sure mum would be as pleased as George was when she found out. Mum, after all, had her own way of filing and organising her things.

“Did you find mum’s notes on Dheera?” Rainie asked, quickly deducing why George had taken down the boxes in the first place. George stretched her arm out towards a shelf in the bookcase and waved a red, spiral bound book in the air.

“No way!” Rainie exclaimed. “Let me see it!”

“First you help me take all these back up to the attic.” George waved his hand over the boxes and sat down to put the last few piles in their respective new homes. Rainie didn’t know which box the notebook had been dug out of, but she knew which one it was going to be returned to eventually.

Rainie sipped her tea and contemplated telling George about meeting Dheera on her way home. She decided against it for now. George said Dheera was dangerous, but now that Rainie at least knew the girl’s name and that she had definitely met her at least once before, she was a little less scared of her. She wondered what was in the notebook and which book her mum had wanted to use it for. It wouldn’t make any sense asking George which box it had been in. Not that it would give Rainie anymore clues as to her mother have or not having used it for a novel. “Finished your tea?” George asked, standing up. Rainie got up from the sofa, put her cup down and picked up the nearest box. “Let’s take these babies to the attic”. Rainie heard the front door open after she finished speaking. George shouted: “Toby, you’re right on time”.

When they finished half an hour later Toby left to hang out with a few friends, George and Rainie sat down at the dining table with Rainie’s sketchbook and her mum’s notebook in front of them. Rainie opened it and flicked through the pages. Some entries were handwritten, others typed. There were drawings of characters, photographs of buildings and places, character profiles, written snippets of conversation, probably overheard when her was had been out and about. Some pages’ corners were folded, some entries had a cross drawn through them with a ruler, others were highlighted. Rainie wondered if the highlights had made it into a book in some form or another. ‘Eliza’s friend (transcript)’ was written and underlined at the top of one of the pages. The entry wasn’t highlighted, nor crossed out. Rainie wondered out loud: “When did everyone start calling me Rainie Grandpa?”

“I believe you changed your name after all the trouble with Dheera calmed down. You said you wanted a new name because the other one hurt. So your father started using your middle name and after a while everyone followed suit.” So that’s why Dheera had called her Eliza, thought Rainie. It made sense. Rainie looked at her mother’s writing and read out loud:

Appearance: She’s blue hair up to here (pointing to her armpits) and big round green eyes. She sees everything mama, even the real colours of trees. Dheera says she can see what they feel and how old they are easy peasy. She’s tall like Toby but she can’t play football. She has no feet.

“No feet?” Rainie repeated. “I didn’t notice that when I saw her.” George shrugged her shoulders. “Could it be she was just wearing very long dresses?” Rainie made a mental note to check next time. She continued reading:

Maybe her feet are still in the egg she hatched from (showed me a picture. Plain Faberge. Must copy it).

Manner: She’s kind and makes me do challenges. She whispers, sometimes I can’t hear her very well but she has good ears. She can hear me when I call her when I’m in bed and then she comes.

Where’s she from: The woods silly. I told you that before remember? [parents] (nods) They live near the stones where we were on holiday.  I think she’s lost them. [how] (shrugs shoulders, wants to say something but stops) It’s a secret mama. I mustn’t tell.

“Where did we go on holiday when I was three or four?”

“I’ve no idea dear. I have trouble remembering when I went where on my travels. If you really want to know I guess you’d have to go home and find the photograph albums.”

“That’s so last century Grandad. DVDs. Mum and dad never print the pictures, they’re stored on DVDs.” 

“Yes, that’s a shame.” Rainie gave George a hug.

“Thanks Grandpa. Can I keep these?” George nodded, stood up and moved to the kitchen.

“You wouldn’t know anything about Dheera’s parents would you, or where she lived?”. Rainie could swear George pretended not the have heard her. She took both notebooks and went to her room. Laying on her bed she opened up the book containing her own marks and pictures. She studied them closely. They looked like symbols. They didn’t resemble the letters she had formed as a four-year-old. She wondered if the symbols were anything to do with Dheera. She put the old notebook down and retrieved her new one from the shelve. She scanned the questions she wrote down yesterday.

Who is the girl from the egg?

How does she know my name?

Where / when did we meet before?

Rainie wrote down the answers next to them. Dheera, When I was four, In the woods. Then she wrote down two more questions.

What does she want from me?

Why is she trouble?

What does the dead parent dream from last night mean?

She figured she wouldn’t get any more information out George and it was unlikely Toby would remember anything. Besides, she felt a little ashamed to ask him about it. He would undoubtedly start making fun of her and if word got to Josie her life would be hell. She’s have to go home and look for the DVDs. Hopefully they’d be easy to find. She worked on her sketch of Dheera, taking special care to keep the feet hidden for now.

“Thank you Keira”. Dheera said gratefully to her old friend.

“No problem” Keira replied “George only needed a nudge in the right direction and as I’m not bound by your rules and laws it was easy to do so”.

Although it was fine for Keira to bend the rules Dheera hoped that this time around she hadn’t broken any. She was desperate for things to be done correctly this time so she could be reunited with her parents forever.