Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 2 - Permanent Resident

Chapter 2 

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Stephanie is nine years old

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The death of her mother had rocked Stephanie greatly. At the start she could only think about how she was gone, about her hugs and kisses and what she was going to miss the most. Losing her dad hadn't been this bad but she had been naive then, too young to know better. She couldn't even remember his face. Now she was older, she understood. She'd never see her Mummy again.

How was she ever meant to go back to normal?

She hadn't been scared though, and she knew her Mum would be proud. First, Uncle Fergus had shown up and taken her to his house. She didn't like it there. She was given a hot chocolate and the twins weren't in sight. Beryl was very quiet, which was almost stranger than anything else. Almost strange enough to distract her. Then she got picked up by her Grandma and was told she'd stay with her for a while, which was nice. It was Grandma that explained that her Mum was gone forever and was sent to Heaven. She just cried. She didn't even know if Heaven was real! What if it wasn't and her Mum had disappeared? What if she was somewhere else? It just didn't make sense and all the questions made her feel like she was slowly going crazy.

That Friday, six days after Melissa died in a car accident, only a few hundred yards from the building where her husband had fallen to his death, Gordon came to Grandma's house while she was asleep.

She crept to the top of the stairs, immediately happy to hear his voice from her bed.

"-with me," Gordon was saying. "Melissa already arranged it that way."

"Then where were you, Gordon?" Grandma said with more anger than Stephanie had heard from her before. "Honestly, you are a bad influence on that girl! What makes you think you deserve her? She needs stability, not you. You have to be the last person she should be visited by when she's so upset, and I intend to not let you see her again."

That's when Stephanie got scared.

She ran to her room and got her backpack and quickly filled it with all the things she had been given when family had visited, all brought from her house. Her Mum's house. She didn't have much. Quickly, she grabbed her favourite toy panda and bolted down the stairs.

"-we'll see about that!" Grandma shouted. She was in Gordon's face. He was red with anger and his fists were balled.

"It should be her choice, Veronica! At any rate, it's in the Will! I'm her godfather, I'm her guardian and I have full custody! If she wants to stay she can. But I won't just leave her and never come back," he growled at her.

"How dare you–"

"I want to go with Gordon."

The adults jumped out of their skin and looked at Stephanie. She was still in her little shorts and top, her hair probably all over the place. She walked to Grandma and gave her a hug.

"I love you," she said softly. "But I want to go with Gordon."

Grandma started to sob but after a lot of hugging, she was finally pried away by her uncle and walked to the car. They drove in silence.

She wasn't scared anymore. In fact, she was a tiny bit excited that she might see her friends again. That would be fun, even if she were still upset and missing her mother. She smiled, drifting off to sleep.