and the shadows kept coming

tŷ wheelbarrow

We moved permanently into my grandparent's house when I was about eleven.

It wasn't the first time we'd been there. We used to visit every holiday. But this time it was for good. I wasn't too happy about the sudden move; only that morning I'd been chatting with my friends in maths, and now we were on the other side of Britain in a creepy old farmhouse with too many rooms and not enough lights. But you know, I was eleven, there wasn't much I could do about it.

I don't remember what excuse my mum told me for her picking us up from school early and whisking us away into the encroaching dusk. Maybe she didn't give us one at all and I'm simply creating the memory of her explaining to fill uncomfortable gaps. But that's where we lived from then on.

I do remember that not long after we moved there my taid died, and then it was just my nain's house, and it wasn't the same. It wasn't quieter or anything, but the air felt different. My mum and my nain always had a tense relationship and my taid had been the pacifier, but with him gone it was like everyone was tiptoeing on thin ice. My young siblings didn't know this, considering that they were 8, 6, and 3, and they kept on with their loud playing as usual. I'm not sure they noticed anything. Even now I don't know if they remember what it was like Before.

Anyway. There was a period of maybe three months or so, from November to mid-January, when we didn't go to school, and we made good use of it. The house was creepy but it had several outbuildings and acres of field around it, and even more heather-coated mountainside beyond the dry-stone walls, and we wasted no time exploring every nook and cranny.

One of the outbuildings in particular held my attention. Tŷ Wheelbarrow. Named because it was a house filled with, you guessed it, wheelbarrows. Only it didn't have a door and only had the rusted skeleton of one wheelbarrow, so it barely met either of these specifications.

Instead, it had shelves upon shelves, built out of any timber that could be found and filled with all kinds of Things an eleven year-old child shouldn't have access to. Rat poison, hedge trimmers, rusted saws, toxic chemical fertilisers - if it's a dangerous garden-related item it was probably in there.

The building itself wasn't even far from the house; maybe twenty feet in front of Tŷ Wheelbarrow's doorway was a large window looking into our living room. We didn't have a door on that side of the house though, so it was just far enough to be a secret hideout for an eleven year-old girl.

I made good use of it. I planted a garden in an old china sink next to the path with the help of my nain, I kept my rabbit's food inside a metal bin in there, and I spent a long time rooting through the shelves I could reach to find forgotten treasures.

But there were a lot of shelves I couldn't reach, and their secrets remained shrouded in musty darkness and cobwebs. And they frustrated me. I didn't know why, but I was certain that after I'd started at my new school, I'd never, ever be able to find the Things that were hidden there now. So I kept tirelessly digging through the terracotta plant pots and garden shears.

As the date of my return to school drew near, I grew more and more restless. I had maybe a week left and I still hadn't reached the furthest corner of the bottom shelf. The shadowiest reaches were obscured by large pots too heavy to move, and I'd all but admitted defeat. Whatever was hidden there could stay hidden.

- - -

There was one main rule I remember my nain giving us after we moved - don't go in the outbuildings after dark. The only reason she gave was "Dangerous Things". This was good enough for me, because there were no lights in the outhouses anyway and you couldn't look for Things without any light.