A Skinful of Shadows

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The third time Makepeace woke screaming from the nightmare, her mother was angry.

‘I told you not to dream that way again!’ she hissed, keeping her voice low to avoid waking the rest of the house. ‘Or if you do, you must not cry out!’

‘I could not help it!’ whispered Makepeace, frightened by her mother’s fierce tone.

Mother took Makepeace’s hands, her face tense and unsmiling in the early morning light.

‘You do not like your home. You do not want to live with your mother.’

‘I do! I do!’ Makepeace exclaimed, feeling her world lurch under her feet.

‘Then you must learn to help it. If you scream every night, terrible things will happen. We may be thrown out of this house!’

Behind the wall slept Makepeace’s aunt and uncle, who owned the pie shop downstairs. Aunt was loud and honest, whereas Uncle glowered and was impossible to please. Since the age of six, Makepeace had been given the task of looking after her four little cousins, who were always needing to be fed, cleaned, patched up, dressed down or rescued from neighbours’ trees. In between times, she ran errands and helped in the kitchen. And yet Mother and Makepeace slept on a bolster in a draughty little room away from the rest of the household. Their place in the family always felt loaned, as if it could be taken away again without warning.

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