The Cuckoo Child Read Online Free

had been padlocked shut for years and the wall was difficult to climb unless one knew where to find a foothold. She knew it as well as she knew her aunt’s back yard and now, having first checked that she was unobserved, went over it like a cat.
    Most of the graves were very old and overgrown, the weeds and grass knee high in summer though now they did not come halfway up Dot’s calf. Little Rhiannon had died a hundred and fifty years ago so it was about as secluded a spot as was possible to find in the area. Without thinking twice, Dot made her way towards the quiet corner, half hidden by ancient yew trees, and squatted down beside the small grave. Fortunately, it had rained the previous day and though chilly, the ground was not frosty. It was the work of a moment for Dot to carefully remove a clump of grass and to make a decent-sized hole beneath it, directly in line with the capital R of the child’s name. She glanced around her but the churchyard was deserted. Nothing moved. Dot thrust her hand into the bosom of her dress and produced the necklace. She was too far from the street lights to get any illumination from them and the faint starlight drained the stones of colour, yet even so the sheer beauty of the thing made her catch her breath. She held it over the hole she had just made, swinging it slowly and watching with awe as the faceted stones threw back what little light there was. She would have dropped it into the hole – had intended to do so – but it seemed wrong, almost wicked, to treat something so beautiful with so little respect. Instead, she gathered handfuls of the weedy grass, made a sort of nest, placed the necklace reverently in it, covered it with a little more grass and then, with a sigh, filled in the hole, patted it down and replanted the original clump. Only then did she dust her filthy hands on her dress, stand up and view her handiwork, and find it good. The little granite headstone looked as it always had, innocent and untouched. Quickly, Dot bent and traced the child’s name with her forefinger. ‘Take care of my necklace, Rhiannon,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you lately. I – I’ve been kind of busy. But I won’t forget you again. I’ll come back often, because now you and I have a secret. I can’t stop any longer because I’m going to go round to Fizz’s house and see if his mam will give me a bite of supper.’ She stood for a moment longer, looking down at the small grave, and then slipped out of the graveyard as silently as she had come; a shadow among the shadows.

Chapter Two
    When Dot awoke next morning, it was to find Aunt Myrtle already up and filling the big iron kettle from one of the buckets which always stood under the sink. The houses in Lavender Court were all back to backs and had no running water, but there was a tap up by the privies and every evening a queue of boys and girls – and the odd adult – waited patiently for their turn to fill a couple of buckets. For a moment, Dot could not imagine why she had slept so late, nor why she was so extremely tired, but then the events of the previous day came back to her in a rush and she sat up, pushed back her blanket and reached for her clothes, remembering that today was a school day, which meant she would wear what Aunt Myrtle called her ‘decent dress’, a navy cardigan which her aunt had darned quite neatly and the black plimsolls which Dot donned at eight o’clock on school days and removed at four in the afternoon. Aunt Myrtle was not mean, exactly, but she had four growing sons and a rather feckless husband so, as she frequently informed her family, she could not afford to let the children go shod except when they went to school, and then only because none of the schools would take pupils who arrived barefoot.
    So Dot pulled open the bottom drawer of the sideboard, yanked out her good school clothes and her plimsolls, and dressed hurriedly. Then she grabbed an old broken comb