Dream House Page 15
They seem to be waiting for my reaction, so I take a chance and ask, “Are you real?”
Marvin rises to his feet, and they both stare at me in bewilderment while I turn my gaze from the face of one to the face of the other and back again. And then, suddenly certain that they are actually, really there in front of me, I throw myself at Marvin, who is nearest to me. He instantly puts his arms around me, enfolding me in a protective, reassuring hug which Amabel rushes over to join.
There are so many questions in my mind, but I know that I need to make sure I get the things I’ve been holding inside for a month out properly.
“I’m so glad you’re back—it was so nice of you to invite me in.”
Amabel smiles and then gestures at the couch, saying, “I think you should probably sit down, dear.”
Not unduly alarmed about whatever it is she wants to tell me, I do as she says and make myself comfortable, overcome with relief at finally seeing them again and happy to know that they’re both well.
Marvin speaks first.
“Do you have any ideas about why you are here?” he asks, his face totally serious.
“Well, I . . . I just wanted to thank you both for your hospitality,” I say, realizing as I say them how silly the words sound.
“Yes, dear,” interjects Amabel, taking over, “but—why are you here, now?”
“I don’t understand,” I say bluntly.
Marvin takes out a picture from his pocket and slides it across the table to me.
I pick it up—it’s the one I’ve already seen, the one where I’m standing smiling in the middle, with them on either side.
“I’ve already seen this,” I say as I slide it back, confused as to why they want to show it to me.
“Do you know why we have it?” insists Marvin.
I think for a second, but, unable to come up with a plausible reason, I shake my head.
“Do you know who you are?” he continues.
“What kind of question is that?” I exclaim, beginning to feel as though I’m being interrogated.
“You should probably turn that picture over, sweetie,” Amabel says with a concerned expression.
So I do, lifting my thumb from it to reveal the words Marvin, Amabel & Akiko—2010.
Akiko.
I look up at them, incredulous and speechless.
“Do you remember now?” Marvin asks.
“My name is Amethyst,” I remind them.
“Yes, dear, I know,” Amabel says, adding softly, “but that’s only your nickname.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“You never liked the name Akiko, dear—you thought that it connected you to your natural parents, and you didn’t want that.”
“I have no idea what you people are talking about,” I snap, my jangled nerves making my voice sound rude. Confused and upset, I get to my feet, and I’m on the verge of walking out when Marvin reaches over and takes my hand.
“Please, Akiko,” he says, “Hear us out—we just want to help you.”
“Help me with what?” I shout. “My name is Amethyst!”
“We want you to remember,” offers Amabel sweetly.
And that’s when it happens.
That’s when I understand that no matter how far I go, all the answers I need are in one place: here.
I sit back down on the sofa and start painfully putting the pieces together. Amabel and Marvin watch me in worried silence, until I’ve finished slotting all the parts into place, and it’s only then that I ask them the one question I desperately need an answer to.
“Why am I here?”
“That’s what we’ve been trying to figure out,” Marvin explains. “We’ve been watching you, but it’s hard to tell for sure.”
“Your father heard a noise . . . that day. And that’s when we saw you, standing out there by the gate in the rain, looking so scared,” Amabel continues.
Her words bring back memories, as freshly as if they were of things that had just happened.
“And then we saw the car, one side of it all smashed up . . . and your body lying there on the ground. Lifeless,” she says, as though scared to carry on.
“Wait,” I interrupt her. “Are you saying that I’m dead? Because if that’s what you think, I can prove you’re wrong!”
I jump up and grab a book off the shelf.
“Look!” I exclaim. “I can hold things, I can talk to you two. How would that be possible if I wasn’t alive?” Frantically, I look from one to the other.
“Amethyst, dear—please sit down,” Marvin says gently.
I do as he asks.
“We were both . . . surprised to see you standing there,” he starts explaining.
“Of course,” I break in. “Who wouldn’t be surprised to see a dead person? That’s what you’re trying to tell me. I get it. You think I’m dead.”
“No. That’s not what I meant.” He breathes out loudly and then continues. “When you showed up at our door, we weren’t expecting to see you.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Because you’d gone away. Almost two years before,” says Amabel.
“On your eighteenth birthday, Akiko. You wanted to find your natural parents,” Marvin adds softly.
I wait in silence for them to explain what it is they’re telling me.
“So we decided to let you go,” Marvin goes on, “a few days before your birthday. That’s when we took this picture.”
I try to remember a single one of the events they’re describing, but my mind is completely blank.
“We couldn’t do anything to help you except for giving you your parents’ full names, because they never provided us with any other information. They never sent us a contact address or a phone number or anything after they left you with us.”
“They were so young—they just couldn’t take care of you properly, you see? And we could,” Amabel explains.
“Why couldn’t they?” I ask, picturing in my mind the sad faces of the couple in the framed picture on top of the wooden chest.
“They didn’t explain—they were in trouble, and we were in a position to offer them some help, and so we did, without asking them anything. And it always bothered you.”
“Not knowing why . . .” I whisper.
Marvin nods and takes up the story.
“So the day we found you standing outside the house, we knew straightaway something was wrong. And right after we saw you, we saw the car behind you, and we realised that you’d been on your way home to us right before the . . . accident. But you’d never made it.”
“But if I was searching for my parents, why would I be here? Shouldn’t I be halfway around the world or something?” I wonder, still not quite believing their story.
“Well, yes—that’s exactly why we were so surprised to see you,” Amabel explains.
I frown.
“And why should I trust you? I don’t even know you,” I say, still sounding a bit ruder than I actually mean to.
Marvin seems to be prepared for this question, and as soon as I finish my sentence he slides something else across the table. A newspaper.
I snatch it up and recognise the picture from the front cover of the edition which fell to the floor that day. It’s the article about the accident—I knew that it had happened around here, I just hadn’t bothered reading it to find out exactly where. Or to whom.
While I scan through the words, flashes of memories begin to emerge, dim at first but rapidly becoming more vivid. I remember playing in the backyard with Avery, and meeting Alfred, the new gardener, for the first time. And I remember running to Amabel in fear—fear of him—after hearing about the legend of the Derfla from somebody in school. I was certain that he was planning to eat me at night. So certain that at one point I started sleeping in my wardrobe.
I remember the day Avery gave me the sun necklace with the amethyst, the stone we both wear around our necks, and the promise he made to always come back to me.
I remember the day I told Amabel and Marvin that I wanted to leave to look for my natural parents—that not knowing their reasons for giving me up for adoption was killing me inside, and that the only way for me to ever be happy would be to meet them in person.
I remember everything.
Even the day I came back here.
I was so excited to be finally getting back home. The weather was cold, but the sky was clear and the autumn air was crisp. I’d climbed aboard a train someplace far away and spent the long journey scribbling away on a notepad, trying to work out exactly what I was going to say when I finally got here. But none of the things I wrote down really managed to express what it was I wanted to tell them.
After getting off the train at the station, I’d walked all the way back to the house, watching the huddle of quaint old buildings in the centre gradually give way to the countryside as the houses grew fewer and farther between.
I’d taken my time, savouring that stroll down the cracked old pavement by the fields, until, finally, there I was—standing on the opposite side of the road, looking at the house.
I’d taken a deep breath, and started to cross.
And then the car arrived.
It was way off in the distance when I noticed it—and then suddenly it was right there, not in the distance anymore.
Out of nowhere, a silver blur, travelling so fast that it didn’t seem real—so fast that I didn’t even try to move.
Out of control.
I didn’t hear the roar of its engine, only the screech of the brakes, and when it hit me the impact was so violent that it felt as though I’d been turned into white light and launched into a black hole.
And then everything was totally, absolutely black until I found myself standing in front of the Blooms’ house.
“I’m grateful,” I say in a quiet voice. “I need to thank you for everything that you’ve done for me.”
I look up at them.
“And I’ll never forget it. Ever again.”
Tears start to stream down Amabel’s peachy cheeks.
I remember everything, now. I take a deep breath and continue. “After searching for them for so long, it finally struck me—I realised that it was you two who were my real parents, nobody else. And that’s why I was coming back to you. To let you know that I love you.”
Even Marvin’s eyes start to glisten with tears, and suddenly we are all hugging one another tightly once again. We stay that way for a long time.
It’s a moment of total peace, but when it ends I still have one question left.
“How can I be talking to you, though? Are you both—” I ask, my heart racing at the idea.
“No, no, dear—we’re fine,” Amabel assures me immediately.
“We tried to make contact with you before, but it just never worked, so we had to wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“Well, we hoped you would pick up on the hints we kept leaving you. But instead it appears that we kept scaring you away. So we just trusted that if we had you here until today, the thirty-first of October, we might be able to get through the barrier between our worlds and talk to you—and it worked, luckily,” Marvin explains, sounding surprised by his own words.
I let it all sink in, and finally I understand—finally really understand—what all the bizarre things that have been happening to me actually were.
I open my arms again for another, longer family hug, and then, wishing that I didn’t have to let go, I silently say my goodbyes to my parents.
My necklace in my hand, I walk outside. There’s one more thing that needs to be done. I stand there for a moment on the porch, listening to the trees rustling and rattling in the wind.
Evening is drawing in over the fields. As I gaze off into the distance, I hear screeches of laughter approaching, and a gang of children runs into view. The one in front is clutching a pumpkin to his chest and desperately trying to keep ahead of his friends—a miniature Frankenstein’s monster and a small zombie who are chasing after him, their arms held straight out in front of them, their fingers clawed in monstrous menace. A tiny ghost wearing white All Stars brings up the rear.
As they pass the house, the little phantom stops and bends over, her hands on her knees. Even through her sheet, it’s obvious she’s panting with exhaustion.
She stays like that for a second, then lifts her ghostly head, seemingly looking over at me. I wave. Her hand moves as though maybe she’s about to wave back, but a particularly piercing squeal of amusement from the others sends her racing off in pursuit.
I watch them run along the pavement until they’re out of sight, and sigh.
Time to go.
But instead of heading towards the main gate and letting myself out, I turn the corner of the house.
Avery is standing there waiting for me on his side of the gateway. Exactly as I’d imagined.
He pushes the wooden gate open for me.
When I reach for him, I feel calm and serene. Nothing worries me anymore.
He holds out his hand, and I take it.
A wry smile on his face, he says, “I told you I wouldn’t leave you.”
“Through the wind and through the clouds, we will rise up from the ground,
Over hills, above the trees, we will ride the breeze like bumblebees.
Hand in hand, exploring the seven seas, you and I will forever be at our ease.”
MARZIA BISOGNIN is a fashion, beauty, and lifestyle vlogger known for her YouTube channel CutiePieMarzia, which has over six million subscribers. Originally from Vicenza, Italy, Marzia currently resides in Brighton, England, with her boyfriend, Felix Kjellberg, aka PewDiePie, and their dogs, Edgar and Maya. Dream House is her debut novel.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Newton Compton Editori, s.r.l.
Italian language translation originally translated from English and published as La casa dei sogni in Italy in 2015 by Newton Compton Editori
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First Keywords Press hardcover edition April 2016
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Jacket Design & Illustration by Ella Laytham
Author Photo © Marzia Bisognin
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bisognin, Marzia.
Title: Dream house : a CutiePieMarzia novel / Marzia Bisognin.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015047499 (print) | LCCN 2016004034 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501135262 (hardback) | ISBN 9781501135286 (E-Book)
Subjects: | CYAC: Supernatural—Fiction. | Haunted houses—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / General.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.B556 Dr 2016 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.B556 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015047499
ISBN 978-1-5011-3526-2
ISBN 978-1-5011-3528-6 (ebook)