The Glass Children Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  About the Author

  Also by Kristina Ohlsson

  Copyright

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Billie has a bad feeling about her new house from the moment she steps through the door. It’s old and dilapidated, the paint peeling away from the walls, and it’s full of dusty furniture, left behind by the previous owners – including two small glass figurines.

  There are strange noises at night, and the light mysteriously swings to and fro, even when there’s no breeze. Then Billie discovers that a tiny handprint has appeared on a dusty table, when no one else was in the house. The handprint of a small child.

  Billie feels sure the rest of the town is hiding a terrible secret about the house and its past. But could it really be haunted? And who are the mysterious glass children?

  Chapter One

  Nobody knew where the family who used to live in the house had gone. One day the previous summer they had simply packed up their things and moved. Since then the house had been standing empty.

  ‘They called me in June,’ said the man who was showing Billie and her mum around. ‘They said the father had got a new job, and they had to move straight away. Then they asked if I could help them to sell the house.’ He shook his head as he led the way up the steps to the front door.

  Billie was feeling more and more doubtful about the whole thing. Were they really going to live here? Her mum turned and smiled at her. It was a new smile that she had adopted when Dad got ill last year. A sad smile that made Billie think of circus clowns.

  The man unlocked the front door and went inside. Billie and her mum followed him into the house.

  ‘Of course I couldn’t say no when they asked for my help,’ the man said. ‘I’m no estate agent, but I mean, anyone can sell a house, can’t they? However, I didn’t have time to deal with the sale when they moved out, and then it was getting towards autumn and winter, so I called them and said it would be best to wait until summer.’

  ‘Have many people been to view the house?’ Mum asked.

  The man hesitated before he replied. ‘Well, not that many, but some. And a number of them were interested.’

  Billie thought the man was lying. She was good at spotting that kind of thing; you could hear it so clearly in people’s voices when they weren’t telling the truth. Like the time when she asked Mum if Dad was going to die, and Mum said of course he wasn’t. Billie had known right away that she was lying.

  The man showed them around the house. Upstairs there were two quite small bedrooms with sloping ceilings, while downstairs there was a kitchen, living room, a spare room and a bathroom.

  ‘The kitchen’s not very big,’ Billie said.

  ‘It’s big enough for us,’ her mum replied.

  Billie looked around. It was an old house. According to the details the man had given them, it had been built almost a hundred years ago. A wooden house, painted blue. The paint was cracked and peeling; she had noticed that while they were standing in the garden.

  ‘They repainted the place just a few years ago,’ the man said. ‘It used to be yellow.’

  They were upstairs in one of the bedrooms, and Billie thought the air was difficult to breathe. There was a funny smell in the house, as if no one had lived there for the last twenty years. She didn’t care whether it used to be green or yellow or black; she just wanted to get out of there and go home.

  Home. To the house in Kristianstad where she had lived for the whole of her twelve-year-old life, the house she never wanted to leave. Mum had got it into her head that they had to move now that there was only her and Billie. To Åhus, a small place about twenty kilometres away where her mum had lived as a child. Billie thought things were just fine. And moving house wasn’t going to bring Dad back.

  ‘I like the blue,’ her mum said. ‘Yellow looks good too, but I can understand why the previous owners chose blue instead. How long did they live here?’ she asked as they left the bedroom.

  The man was rather evasive. ‘I don’t really remember. Three or four years, maybe? As I said, they had to move in a bit of a rush when the mother got a new job.’

  ‘I thought you said it was the father?’ Billie said.

  The man stared at her and said firmly: ‘No, it was the mother.’

  The room fell silent, and Billie heard a noise from up above. It sounded as if someone was scampering across the roof tiles.

  ‘Birds,’ the man said. ‘You get used to it.’

  Billie shuddered. This house was unpleasant. Cold and dirty.

  And then there was the furniture; the previous owners had left everything behind. Her mum saw her looking, and asked the man when the owners were intending to collect it all.

  The man cleared his throat. ‘The thing is, if I’ve understood correctly, the house is being sold together with the furniture,’ he said. ‘Or not at all.’

  Billie’s mum was surprised. ‘You mean if I don’t buy the furniture as well, I can’t buy the house?’

  ‘You won’t have to pay for the furniture,’ the man explained, ‘but nobody’s going to come along and take it away.’

  ‘I understand,’ Mum said, but Billie could see that she didn’t understand at all.

  Who moved without taking their stuff?

  ‘I’ll go and wait in the garden so that you two can have a look round on your own,’ the man said, heading off down the stairs.

  They heard the front door close, and a moment later they saw him through the window.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Mum asked. ‘Forget about the furniture; we can get rid of that. And remember we can do the place up however we like.’

  Billie had a lump in her throat. It was only just over a year since she had been allowed to redecorate her room at home. Dad had helped her, and they had wondered why he got tired so quickly, and why his back hurt so much.

  ‘I don’t want to live in Åhus,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got any friends here; everyone I know lives in town. And I don’t like this house.’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’ her mum said.

  Billie didn’t know where to start. Everything was covered in dust, and the windows were filthy. The birds were still running back and forth across the roof, and the walls and floors made funny noises.

  ‘It’s just so . . . old,’ Billie said eventually.

  ‘But sweetheart, our house in town is old too.’

  Billie’s eyes were itchy; she rubbed her face with her sleeve.

  She didn’t like this house, that was all there was to it.

  ‘I’m going downstairs,’ her mum said. ‘Come down when you’ve finished looking around.’

  The staircase creaked with every step her mum took, and soon Billie cou
ld hear her opening and closing the cupboard doors in the kitchen.

  Billie went into the other bedroom, which would be hers if they moved here. It was full of stuff – bookcases and various other pieces of furniture. A bed with a green cover stood against the wall, and in one corner there was a wooden desk that someone had painted pink. On the desk was a pad and some coloured pencils, right next to a pile of drawings. It looked as if someone had been sitting sketching, then simply got up and walked away.

  And never came back.

  Chapter Two

  They moved in four weeks later. Billie couldn’t quite get her head round it.

  ‘This is where I want us to live,’ her mum said.

  And that’s what happened.

  Because Mum had grown up in Åhus, and insisted that she had always wanted to go back there. Because she wanted them to have a fresh start somewhere different that wasn’t too far from Kristianstad.

  Billie didn’t have the energy to fight, and at least Mum had agreed that she could stay at her school in town, so that she would be with her friends.

  ‘We need to do some cleaning,’ Mum said as they were carrying boxes into the house.

  Billie couldn’t argue with that.

  It was July, the middle of the summer holidays, and Billie couldn’t remember what she had done with her time since she broke up from school. Her friends seemed to think it was great that she was moving to Åhus. They could come and visit her during the holidays. Cycle to the beach and go swimming. Eat ice cream down by the harbour. Billie had tried to sound just as excited as her friends, but it hadn’t really worked. She just kept thinking about all the dust and dirt, and all the things the previous owners had left behind.

  It was almost as if they still lived there.

  Billie and her mum had been to visit her grandparents in Lund the week before they moved. Grandpa had fired up the barbecue while Grandma boiled new potatoes. They also seemed to think the move to Åhus was a sensible idea.

  ‘Something new will be good for both of you,’ Grandma said, stroking Billie’s cheek. Then she started to cry, and Grandpa coughed awkwardly and blinked and said the smoke from the barbecue was getting in his eyes. But Billie could see that he was upset too.

  Billie had cried so much when Dad died that she didn’t think she had any tears left. But she had. They usually came at night, but sometimes it happened in the middle of the day too. No winter or spring had ever been as terrible as this year had been.

  They still owned the house in town, but it would soon be up for sale. Billie was hoping that no one would come to see it, and that they would have to move back home. The agent thought it would sell more easily if it was furnished, so Mum had decided they might as well wait before moving their things to the new house.

  ‘I mean, there’s so much furniture there already, and it’s going to take a while to get rid of everything,’ she said.

  But Billie put her foot down. ‘I am not sleeping in their disgusting old beds!’ she yelled.

  Mum agreed. They would replace the beds, but they would keep everything else.

  It was a hot day as they carried everything in. Mum had brought some big cardboard boxes, and Billie put all the stuff that was lying around in her room in one of them. She cleared the pink desk, carefully picking up the drawings that had been left out. She wasn’t sure, but she thought they had been done by a girl. Most of them were black and white; only a few had been coloured in.

  The pictures were of different things.

  A big cat, sitting on a rock.

  A lot of trees; Billie thought they were meant to represent a forest. A boy was peering out from behind one of the trunks.

  Another picture showed a girl who looked really cross.

  Billie put them right at the bottom of the box and covered them up with other bits and pieces. She didn’t like the fact that the other family had left such obvious signs of their existence. Mum kept saying they needed a fresh start, but how could anything feel new or fresh in such an old house?

  Mum appeared in the doorway. ‘I’m going shopping; do you want to come?’

  Billie thought for a moment. No, she didn’t want to go shopping.

  ‘OK,’ Mum said. ‘I won’t be long.’

  So Billie was alone in the new house for the first time.

  Chapter Three

  When Mum had gone, the house was completely silent. Billie put the last of the things she wanted to get rid of in a box, and went downstairs to fetch the vacuum cleaner. Mum had left the front door open, and Billie hurried over and pushed it shut. She locked it too.

  As the door closed she heard a window banging in one of the rooms. She tiptoed into the living room, but none of the windows were open. Billie stood completely still, listening carefully. The noise continued, but it was coming from somewhere else.

  Then she saw something that made her forget the banging for a moment.

  The ceiling light in the living room.

  It was moving. It was slowly swinging to and fro, like the pendulum of an old clock.

  It must be the draught from the window, Billie thought. But all the windows in the living room were closed. So how could the light be swinging to and fro?

  She went into the spare room. The floor was virtually covered with boxes and assorted junk. Billie was relieved to see that the window was wide open; she quickly closed it. She felt the same as she did about the front door; she didn’t dare leave it open. Nor could she bring herself to go back and look at the light in the living room. What if it was still moving?

  Billie found the vacuum cleaner in a corner by the door. She wondered whether she had ever experienced a more peculiar summer holiday. A summer holiday filled with moving house and cleaning. A summer holiday without Dad. She forced herself to take a deep breath.

  As Billie picked up the vacuum cleaner, she caught sight of a little table. It was low, like a coffee table, but much smaller. She wondered what it was for; perhaps it was the kind of thing Grandma put a plant on?

  The table was covered in dust, but Billie could see that it was brightly coloured. It had metal legs, and the top was made up of small, shiny tiles in blue, red and gold. Cautiously she drew a line in the dust with her finger, and saw how the tiles glowed. This was the first beautiful thing she had seen in the house. She would ask her mum if she could have it in her room.

  As she carried the vacuum cleaner upstairs, she thought about the light, swinging from its hook on the ceiling. It must have been the draught from the spare room that had made it move. What else could it have been?

  The sun slowly disappeared behind the tall pine trees on the other side of the road opposite their house. Billie and her mum were sitting on the patio eating spaghetti Bolognese.

  ‘Do you fancy cycling down to the sea for an evening dip?’ Mum said, her eyes sparkling. ‘I think we’ve earned it after all our hard work.’

  A bike ride and an evening swim. It sounded wonderful. Billie finished her glass of milk and they set off.

  ‘What do you think happened to the family who used to live here?’ Billie said when they had been cycling along in companionable silence for a while.

  ‘What do you mean, happened?’ Mum said.

  ‘I don’t really know, but don’t you think it’s odd that they just cleared off and left so much behind?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Mum said. ‘It is a bit strange that they just left. But that’s what happens sometimes; things can change very quickly.’

  They didn’t say anything else until they reached the shore.

  The water was blue and cold. There wasn’t a breath of wind to create ripples on the shining surface. Billie stopped when the water swirled around her knees, but her mum kept on going and ran until it reached her waist. Then she threw herself forward and disappeared into the blue. A few seconds later she bobbed up again.

  ‘It’s fantastic!’ she shouted. ‘Come on, Billie!’

  Billie ran towards her mum. She had forgotten that the water in Åhu
s was always too cold – and that it was so shallow. Grandpa used to say that it was so shallow you could walk all the way to Poland.

  The beach was narrow but long. In the distance to the right it was just possible to make out the pier at the inlet to the harbour. Billie was planning to cycle down to the harbour as soon as she had time. It was a lovely place to sit and read.

  She spotted him when she had finished her swim and was rolling up her towel. A boy with dark hair and brown eyes. He was sitting on the sand not far away, wearing red shorts and nothing else. Why was he staring at them?

  Billie’s mum came out of the water, shaking her hair. She must have followed Billie’s gaze, because she said: ‘He looks nice.’

  Billie could feel herself blushing. Why did parents always think it was OK to say that kind of stuff? Nice. Was that really the right thing to say about a kid?

  ‘No, he doesn’t,’ Billie said. ‘He looks stupid, sitting there staring at us.’

  She glared angrily at the boy, who slowly turned away. But when Billie and her mum walked past him a little while later, he was gazing at them again. Billie straightened her back and made a point of looking in the other direction. She had a feeling that the boy kept on watching them until they reached their bikes and rode off.

  It was dusk by the time they got back to the house. Mum took the towels and went to hang them on the clothes line next to the woodshed in the back garden.

  ‘You go inside; I’ll be there in a minute,’ she said.

  Billie quickly walked around the house and onto the patio. The pine trees on the other side of the road loomed tall and dark. There were lights on in several of the other houses, but they all had big gardens, and it didn’t feel as if any of them were particularly close. A squirrel that must have been hiding on the patio scampered down the steps, giving Billie a fright.

  She thought about the boy on the beach, and her hand was shaking slightly as she took the key out of her pocket and unlocked the front door. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She still had sand on her feet, and she brushed it off with her hands. Tiny grains of yellow sand rained down on the rug.

  The ceiling light in the hallway flickered when she switched it on. She remembered the little table; perhaps she could clean it up and take it to her room right away?