Mirabelle grinned at him. ‘Yes, Dr Ellenby.’
The doctor seemed to hesitate for a moment, then he came towards Jem and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. ‘He’ll be safe here,’ he said quietly.
Jem felt her heart sink as she watched Dr Ellenby leave, though Mirabelle was by her side in seconds, as if sensing her panic.
‘You can stay with your brother tonight. Uncle Bertram will fetch some bedclothes for you and will set you up on the couch. Won’t you, Uncle?’
Bertram nodded, while Enoch rolled his eyes as he almost glided from the room. Bertram followed him.
‘Don’t pay any heed to Uncle Enoch. He’s just not used to visitors,’ said Mirabelle. ‘I’ll get you some food from the pantry. What would you like?’
Jem didn’t know what to say, but her belly started to rumble. Mirabelle left the room with a promise to be back soon.
She returned a while later carrying a large tray of food. Bertram came with her, carrying a blanket and two pillows, which he deposited on the couch. Mirabelle laid the tray on a table, pulled up a chair and motioned for Jem to sit.
Jem sat in front of the tray, which was piled with a bewildering mixture of food. There was sliced beef, apples and oranges, grapes, cheese and crackers, two loaves of bread, several boiled eggs, tea and milk, a bowl of strange brown fruit that Jem had never seen before, a fruit cake, a chocolate cake and a thing that she recognized as a pineapple, but only because she’d once seen one in a book. She wondered what her mum would have made of all this food. She remembered her bemoaning her meagre ration of tea, and wondering if they’d all ever see a banana again.
Uncle Bertram hovered nearby, wringing his hands together with delight, nodding enthusiastically at the food:
‘The eggs were only boiled this morning. The beef I am assured is of the finest quality. These are called kiwi fruit. I am told they are of an excellent vintage.’ He waved a hand airily. ‘Whatever the term is.’
Jem had never seen kiwi fruit before. She’d only heard of them from their old neighbour Mrs Tate whose son had been stationed in New Zealand during the war. Mrs Tate would read the description from his letters. ‘Tangy and sweet’ he’d called them. The description alone was enough to make Jem salivate. It made her hunger for something more than the gritty coarse bread everyone had to make do with.
But as appealing as kiwi fruit sounded, she decided to go with the familiar. She picked up a boiled egg, keenly aware that Bertram was examining her every move. Her stomach growled as she took the shell off and as she bit into the egg she thought she heard a tiny whimper from Bertram.
‘What’s it like?’ he asked, licking his lips.
Jem looked at him, feeling awkward, with a mouth full of egg. The oddness of the question took her by surprise. She started to munch quickly.
‘How would you describe the taste?’ he said, wrestling a notebook and pencil from his waistcoat pocket.
Jem was at a loss for words. ‘Eggy?’ she said.
‘Eggy! Wonderful!’ said Bertram, almost bursting with excitement as he scribbled in his notebook.
‘Uncle! Please!’ Mirabelle protested.
Bertram’s mouth and face twitched, and he looked away guiltily.
‘Of course, of course. My apologies,’ he muttered. He moved towards the door. ‘I would just like to point out that every element of this delicious repast has been sourced by my nephew, Odd. He assures me everything is of the highest quality.’
Bertram left the room.
‘You can stay in this room. There’s a bathroom through that door,’ said Mirabelle, pointing to a door set into the wall on the right.
Jem nodded, unable to speak because her mouth was now crammed with bread.
Mirabelle lowered her voice and looked at her grimly. ‘You can’t leave this room at night under any circumstances, especially after midnight. You must stay in here from the moment it gets dark until morning.’
The tone Mirabelle used stopped Jem in her tracks. She was aware that her mouth was open, but for some reason she couldn’t seem to close it. She only half chewed the wodge of bread and swallowed it. She felt it almost stick in her throat.
‘Why?’ she said.
Mirabelle shook her head. ‘Just please don’t leave this room. Promise me, no matter what you hear.’
Jem felt a tremor of unease at Mirabelle’s tone, but she managed to nod.
Mirabelle looked relieved. ‘Thank you.’ She headed for the door. ‘I’ll speak with my uncle and ask him to let you both stay a little longer.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jem. ‘Thank you so much.’
Mirabelle left the room and closed the door behind her. Jem was grateful because she was feeling overwhelmed again, and she covered her face with her hands in an effort to fight back the tears.
She barely heard the whisper behind her.
‘Jem?’
Tom was trying his best to sit up in bed. He looked even more deathly pale than before. Jem ran to him and pushed him gently back by the shoulder. Tom swallowed and looked at the bed canopy above him in confusion.
‘Where . . . ?’
‘We’re in the house. They’re letting us stay. You need to rest.’
She gave him some water from a glass, which he drank thirstily, then she gave him a beef sandwich, but he only nibbled at it. She saved it for later on a plate by the bed. She gave him some medicine as per the instructions on the bottle. It seemed to make him drowsy and he drifted off to sleep, looking almost serene now, and less like a boy who’d been burning up from within for days.
Jem organized her own bedding. The couch was huge and looked comfortable. The blanket smelled as if it had been stored in mothballs for decades. Jem fussed over Tom a little, then settled herself on the couch for the night. She left the drapes open just a crack so that a sliver of moonlight could light her way should Tom need her during the night. She looked up into the dark, her mind fizzing with the sights she’d seen. Whenever she tried to close her eyes, she could see the mass of ravenous flowers, the red eyes of the enormous bear. It took a while, but the exhaustion she’d been battling, coupled with the events she’d experienced that day, finally drove her into a deep, deep sleep.
Jem dreamt.
In her dream, she was too terrified to move beneath the heavy blanket. A shadow had passed over the sliver of moonlight, and somewhere far away she heard a sound like the flapping of leathery wings.
Mirabelle
‘No one is eating anybody,’ growled Mirabelle.
She glared across the dining-room table at Daisy, who smirked in response.
‘It was a reasonable question,’ said Daisy, pouting at Mirabelle.
‘Was it a reasonable question?’ asked Bertram a little too hopefully as he looked at Enoch sitting at the head of the table with Eliza.
‘They can leave as soon as the boy wakes,’ said Enoch.
‘Dr Ellenby said he needs a week to rest,’ said Mirabelle.
‘Can we eat them then?’ asked Dotty sweetly.
Mirabelle slammed her palms down on the table. ‘I told you already!’
Dotty’s eyes brimmed with tears and her lower lip started to quiver. Gideon, who had been gnawing on a bone in a corner of the room behind Mirabelle, looked up and frowned.