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‘No, it’s not bottomless,’ I said. ‘It was just a story.’
‘It’s based on truth, Ella,’ said Fallon. ‘Don’t you remember Jess telling us about it?’
‘I do,’ said Corey. ‘Well, some of it. I remember it was Halloween and we were sorting out all our sweets in the shed at Max’s.’
‘Ahem, you mean my compact private members club pirate den?’ Max corrected.
‘Yeah, and Jessica came to the window and yelled boo!’ said Fallon. ‘She couldn’t get inside with us because she was too tall. Oh and something about some guy in a black hat?’
‘I remember it,’ said Max.
‘So do I,’ I said. ‘Every word.’
*
BOO!
Jessica! Don’t do that!
Come on then, share out your spoils. Whatcha get? Ooh, Scream Eggs, my favourite.
Where have you been? Mum said you were staying in tonight.
Dad made me work late at the garden centre. Did you have fun trick or treating? I love the outfits. What are you supposed to be?
I’m a Pirate Zombie, Ella’s my Pirate Zombie Wife, Fallon’s the witch from Wizard of Oz, Zane’s Thor and Corey’s Hedwig.
Oh you are a very cute Hedwig, Corey. Look at those little cheeks!
Can you tell us a story, Jess? A spooky one.
Another spooky one? You still haven’t got over the last one, Zane. You just can’t handle the scandal, baby.
Aww, please! Please, I promise I won’t wet myself this time.
Yeah go on, Jess. Just a quick one. Tell us one about a witch!
A witch? Hmm, let me think. You live out near the Witch’s Pool don’t you, Fallon?
Yeah, but there aren’t real witches there.
Oh but there were. A long time ago. See in the old days, like the mid-1600s, there used to be a Witchfinder who stalked through these parts looking for witches to put to trial and death.
Why?
Well people just didn’t like witches. They thought they were evil. Any woman caught doing sorcery or something that couldn’t be explained, it meant they were probably a witch. And so people like the Witchfinder General who was this big tall man in a wide black hat and cloak, used to round up these supposed witches, put them into cages on the back of his wagon, and take them out to places like the Witch’s Pool at Cloud and test them in front of a crowd of witnesses, usually villagers and members of the church.
How did he test if they were witches?
He’d test their honesty. He’d tie a woman up inside a sack and attach a rope to it, then he’d throw her off the bridge into the water. If she bobbed back up to the surface, it meant she was a witch and so she was hauled out and burned alive or hanged. If she was struggling, he would realise she was telling the truth – she wasn’t a witch so she could go free.
Didn’t it just mean they were good swimmers if they came to the top?
Probably. Witchfinders didn’t really bother with little things like common sense.
Did any of them just drown accidentally?
Oh yes. Lots of them did. The Witch’s Pool is said to be bottomless, and many of the drowned ones were never found. That lake is said to be full of female skeletons. Their ghosts haunt it at night.
Zane’s scared.
I’m not, Fallon. You’re lying.
So if somebody’s lying, does that mean they float on water?
So the Witchfinder said, yeah. Why, Ella? You’re not lying about anything, are you?
No.
Are you sure?
Yeah. I always tell the truth.
Better not jump in the pool then or else we’ll find out, won’t we? Liars always float to the top.
*
It was a throwaway comment that hadn’t meant anything, I realise that now. But I remember my face went bright red. And, after that, I never went swimming again, just in case.
It was magic hour by the time we’d walked the length and breadth of the old railway line, searching for Mort but there was no sign of him. We decided to head back to the farm and see if Rosie was home – our last hope was finding him in the day’s truck haul of stray animals. My legs were tired as we crossed the last paddock and arrived back at the field with the trolleys at the entrance. The scorch had gone out of the day, and there was a warm, peachy sweep across the sky. The four of us walked in a line. And though Max hadn’t reached for my hand all afternoon, I kind of didn’t need him to with Corey and Fallon there. It felt like it used to.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. ‘What time was the second bus?’
‘There isn’t one,’ said Corey.
Dread filled my chest. ‘What? You said there were two buses a day. One at lunch and one at tea-time.’
‘Yeah, but not on a Sunday. Reduced timetable.’
‘How are we supposed to get back?’ said Max. ‘And we still haven’t found his cat.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Fallon. ‘You can all stay at mine tonight.’
‘No, it’s OK,’ I said. ‘We’ll get a taxi back.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Fallon, flapping her hand. ‘There’s tons of sleeping bags and duvets. You don’t have anything to get back for, do you?’ She seemed slightly desperate.
We actually didn’t. Corey’s grandparents were still on holiday and my dad wouldn’t be back for another couple of days.
‘My parents will go spasmodic if they know I’m out here,’ said Max, all twisty-face. ‘I should get back.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘we don’t have any of our stuff. Toothbrushes. We need to go.’
‘Oh please stay,’ Fallon begged. ‘We’ve got spare toothbrushes somewhere. And blankets and sleeping bags. And more alcohol.’
‘I could text them and say I’m staying at your house, Ells,’ Max suggested.
‘Yeah!’ said Fallon. ‘And we could get a takeaway too. I think the pizza place delivers out here, though I’ve never tried it. We get the leaflet though. We could have a picnic in the lounge and play Monopoly like we used to, what do you say?’ Then she turned to me, all serious-faced for a moment. ‘I’m always the boot though.’
‘Very Famous Five,’ I said. ‘Apart from the booze.’
‘Yeah! Do you remember Jessica reading the stories to us? She gave me all her books the last… time I saw her.’
Max smiled. ‘She knew how much you loved them.’
‘I always thought we were just like them,’ she said with more than a note of sadness in her voice, ‘the five of us. Max was like Julian, the eldest and wisest.’
I snorted. ‘I didn’t know Julian was a pot head.’
‘Ella was George, the tomboy. Zane was Timmy the dog, strong and reliable. I was probably Anne.’
Max laughed. ‘Yeah, and Corey must be Dick.’
If Corey was offended by Max’s remark, he didn’t say. ‘Jessica called us the Fearless Five. That was our name.’
‘Hey, he’s right!’ said Max. ‘I’d forgotten that. Christ, that’s a blast from the past.’
‘Yeah well,’ I said, ‘we’ve all grown up a lot since then.’ I almost felt insulted by it. We weren’t little kids any more – we couldn’t play those kinds of games now. She was dangling memories before my eyes like gold stars I couldn’t reach.
‘We could be the Fearless Five again, now,’ said Fallon. ‘Only we’re four. We don’t have Zane.’ We looked at each other and smiled secretly, not knowing if she was joking.
‘I know!’ she cried. ‘The baby can be Timmy! Then there’s five of us again! Yay!’
‘What baby?’ said Corey.
‘My baby,’ she said. And that was the moment Fallon lifted up her vest to reveal a small, but definite, bump.
‘So that’s when you found out about Fallon being pregnant?’
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