Chapter 2

Actually, I’d better go back a couple of years. My parents owned a holiday home on the coast. Originally it was a mobile caravan in a caravan park, but the site owners decided to upgrade to a self-contained village of prefabricated chalets. They gave my parents the option of moving the caravan elsewhere or trading up to a chalet, with the site owners taking the caravan in part-exchange. My parents took the upgrade, and the holiday home now has full mains services as well as access to facilities such as a post office and general store, a laundrette, a gym and an amusement arcade on site.

My parents decided to spend a couple of weeks there at Easter. My sister asked to be left behind so she could study for her GCSE exams. My parents readily agreed: they knew she was completely trustworthy. That meant I was stuck for a fortnight with a couple of older folk whose idea of fun was to visit castles, museums, art galleries and gardens. I mostly cried off and walked the mile or so across the cliffs to the nearby small coastal town. I hoped to meet girls my own age, but Easter had fallen early that year and the weather was not suitable for sunbathing holidaymakers. Most of the girls I did see were locals and they were routinely dismissive of ‘foreigners’ like myself.

Still, the town had a cinema, and I watched every film they showed for the duration of the fortnight I was there, even the ones I was theoretically too young to see unaccompanied: they were so desperate for custom that they didn’t check.

By midway through the second week, I had exhausted the week’s new films and decided to explore more of the town. I found little arcades of shops in most unlikely places. I spent perhaps half an hour in a pet shop I found, occupied by the antics of their small furry pets like hamsters and guinea pigs, then watching the racks of tropical aquariums containing multi-coloured fish darting to and fro.

The store owner showed signs of getting restless. I was the only customer in the store and it was pretty obvious I had no intention of buying anything. I reluctantly left before I could be thrown out and found myself outside in a cloudburst. I sought sanctuary from the shop next door without hesitating to find out what it sold.

From the goods on display, I guessed it was some sort of New Age store. It sold a variety of what I’d call tat: crystals, hand-crafted jewellery, African tribal masks, and various sprays and bottles bearing claims that I’m sure would have failed Trading Standards efficacy tests. And those were just the things I could identify. Needless to say there were no other customers.

“I suppose you came in here to shelter from the rain, didn’t you!” came a woman’s voice from behind me, making me nearly jump out of my skin.

I turned towards the source and found a kindly-looking woman of about fifty, who somehow managed to give off a vibe of being extremely menacing.

“Yes, Ma’am,” I ruefully admitted.

“Well, you’re welcome to look around for a while. Just be careful what you touch. Some of the pieces are very fragile.”

“Yes Ma’am,” I repeated.

“Not from around here, are you. You sound like a foreigner.”

“I’m staying at Highcliffe Park. My parents own a holiday home there.”

“I went to school with the Hamiltons. They’re good people. They like to make a profit but they don’t try to rip off you foreigners like some. I hope you’re not foolish enough to buy anything from the beachfront shops. They’re a disgrace. The only reason they get away with it is because their customers are mostly day-trippers.”

“Mr and Mrs Hamilton are always telling people exactly that,” I said. “My parents have had a caravan at Highcliffe Park from before I was born, so they know the Hamiltons quite well.”

“So, not so much a foreigner after all,” the woman laughed. “Say, you look like a big, strong lad. Would you help me move some furniture and empty some boxes for me in the back room? It shouldn’t take long, but it needs to be done today and my nephew hasn’t turned up.”

My instincts screamed ‘no’, but my rational self asked what harm could possibly befall me at the hands of a kindly-looking fifty year old woman. My rational self won. “Sure, if it means I can stay in here until the rain stops,” I replied.

The woman turned the sign on the door to ‘Closed’ and set the latch. Then she led me into the back room, where there were half a dozen folded trestle tables leaning against a wall. Together we lowered the legs of each table, locked them in place then positioned each table where the woman indicated: next to a wall, two per side. Then the woman had me carry half a dozen storage boxes from a store cupboard and place one on each table.

“Now, I want you to carefully take everything out of each box, place it on the table, then stow the empty box underneath. It doesn’t matter how the contents are arranged: I’m going to be cataloguing them later. And if anything catches your eye, make a note to ask me about it and perhaps I can make a sale today after all.” She winked as she said that.

“Got it,” I said.

“Good. I’ll be in the kitchen making us something to eat. Since you’re a teenager, I guess you won’t turn your nose up at fried food.”

“That’s not necessary,” I started.

“Nonsense,” insisted the woman. “I can’t afford to pay you so it’s the least I can do.”

The woman disappeared into the kitchen and I started emptying the boxes. More tat, much of which had no identifiable purpose. But when I was emptying the fifth box, something caught my eye. It was a sort of statuette of a girl, naked and kneeling on a plinth, holding her hands in the air in a gesture of supplication. The girl was about two inches from head to knees so she wasn’t detailed enough to warrant any accusation of pornography.

The statuette was made of some sort of greyish metal and was surprisingly heavy. There was a hook in the girl’s head, presumably to hang the statuette from, but I couldn’t imagine anyone wearing something so heavy from an earring, or even as an ornament on a necklace. Even more mysteriously, the plinth tapered out into a elongated point underneath, adding over an inch to the statuette and ensuring the statuette couldn’t even stand up on its own. There was a tiny legend on the plinth, saying ‘You are a Seeker’.

“Lunch is ready,” said the woman, disturbing my musing. “Come and get it.”

I followed the mouthwatering smells into the kitchen. On the table I found two plates loaded with bacon, scrambled egg, sausage, kidney, baked beans and chips. And there was absolutely no evidence of how she had cooked it. There were no pans on the cooker or waiting to be washed up.

“Sit there,” said the woman, pointing to the chair next to the fullest plate. “Would you like tea or coffee with that?”

“Tea please.”

The woman switched on an electric kettle. “Tuck in while it’s hot,” she said.

“I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name, Ma’am,” I said in between mouthfuls. “My name is Mee-shell Saunders but people normally call me Mitchell. My parents had a thing for French names, my sister’s called El-ee-zay.”