‘No thank you,’ Mum said.

Taggie sighed to herself. She never stopped hoping that her parents would get back together, even though she knew in her heart they never would. At least they were still friends.

The village of Melham was made up of dainty stone cottages and large imperious houses concealed behind high, trim hedges of yew and beech. Then there was Orchard Cottage. Its stone walls sagged and bent in odd places. And the roof was a strange combination of slate and quietly rotting thatch, mottled with bits of frayed tarpaulin Dad had tied on whenever the rain dribbled in through a new hole. Its apex bowed and curved more than a camel’s back, almost as badly as the precarious chimneys.

But Taggie loved its warren of rooms and poky back stairs, its beams that jutted out of walls and ceilings in unexpected places. There was no central heating, and it got water from its own spring, which tasted so much better than mains water – that is, when it eventually spluttered out of the creaky brass taps. Only four rooms had electricity, and they were all on the ground floor, the iron kitchen range burned coal, and there certainly wasn’t any TV or broadband. All of which made staying there such an adventure, like camping indoors. Taggie was fully geared up for the fortnight. She’d brought her wind-up torch and lantern; her smartphone was fully charged, as was her iPad, and she’d got a dongle for broadband.

Once her bags were piled up on the floor of her bedroom, Taggie went downstairs to say goodbye to Mum. She got a kiss and a big hug, as did Jemima.

‘Remember to phone,’ Mum said as she got back in the car.

‘We will,’ the sisters promised.

The Range Rover wove round the overgrown rose bushes that had toppled across the gravel, and drove out past the broken gate. Taggie waved until it vanished from sight, then noticed the strange look Dad was giving her.

‘You’ve changed your hair,’ he said.

Taggie was surprised. Hairstyles weren’t the kind of thing he normally noticed. Mum had treated her and Jem with a visit to an expensive hairdresser yesterday. Jem had got her hair fluffed up and frizzed, while Taggie’s natural curls were finally straightened out, with two slim braids woven in to hold it off her face. She hadn’t realized how long her hair had grown, though the hairdresser had warned her it would curl up again as soon as it got damp.

‘Yes,’ she said, delighted. ‘Do you like it?’

He was looking puzzled now. ‘You look just like . . . Sorry, that’s silly of me.’

‘Like who?’ Taggie persisted.

‘Someone I met a long time ago.’

‘Mum? Everyone says I look just like her.’

‘Well, yes,’ Dad said with an enigmatic smile. ‘But the girl I’m thinking of wasn’t your mother. Now come on – I’ve saved some strawberries from this morning’s picking. Who wants some?’

‘Me!’ both sisters yelled excitedly.

CHAPTER TWO

Strange Things in the Orchard

After two helpings of strawberries, Taggie and Jemima went out into the garden to find Lightning, Dad’s tortoise. Supposedly it had lived at Orchard Cottage for a hundred and eighty years, ever since a sailor ancestor brought it back from some adventurous voyage across the ocean, so Dad claimed. They wandered around the shaggy bushes and peony trees, skirting the pond, which was now mostly marsh and reeds.

‘He’s not here,’ Jemima proclaimed as they crisscrossed the lawn for the third time. ‘Let’s try the orchard – he might prefer the shade.’

So they went through the kissing gate in the fuchsia hedge and into the orchard beyond. Dad always called it the fruit and nut orchard because of the amazing variety of trees planted there. The apple and pear trees were old and huge, but once upon a time they had been pruned and shaped properly, so their branches formed broad umbrellas just above the girls’ heads. This year’s crop was now almost ripe. Red and green apples hung like clusters of oversized grapes from the branches. Big bees buzzed about.

‘Do you think we’ll get to pick some?’ Jemima asked as they walked through the dappled shade. The wild flowers that carpeted the ground had passed their best, with just a few blooms remaining amid the dry stalks and long grass.

‘Probably,’ Taggie said.

Jemima could hear the pickers in the polytunnels on the other side of the tall hawthorn hedge, talking and laughing as they moved along the strawberry troughs. She was looking forward to helping with the harvest tomorrow – and earning some much needed money. Cornwall had been expensive.

There was no sign of Lightning underneath the apple trees. Then a quick flash of movement caught Jemima’s eye. She moved towards it, and saw white fur up amid the branches of the plum tree. Jemima liked cats. She hurried over and looked up, only to be surprised by the speed with which the creature zipped through the dense tangle of branches. Then her jaw dropped in amazement as she saw that it was actually a big squirrel. A white squirrel! It jumped effortlessly from one tree to the next. ‘Hey!’ Jemima exclaimed. One corner of the orchard had a line of hazelnuts, and right at the end was a huge old sweet chestnut. ‘You stay away from our nuts,’ she scolded the squirrel. Even as she said it, she couldn’t help admiring its tail: the snow-white fur was soft and fluffy enough to feature in a shampoo advert.

The squirrel turned and looked at her. That was when Jemima got her biggest shock. It was wearing glasses – neat little steel frames with purple lenses.

‘They’re not yours: nobody owns nuts,’ it said quite clearly.

Jemima gasped. It couldn’t possibly be the squirrel that had spoken. A squirrel that wore glasses! ‘Hey,’ she said, and started running towards it. ‘Hey, was that you?’

The squirrel skipped lightly along the branch and jumped again, flying through the air with the grace of an eagle. Jemima pounded along after it, her face screwing up the way it did when she was really determined.

Then they were at the end of the trees, and the squirrel jumped to the ground. It performed a neat forward somersault as it hit the grass, and shot off towards the hawthorn hedge.

‘No way!’ Jemima grunted. Just then she realized where the squirrel was heading. At the far end of the orchard was an old stone well. There was no prim little roof above, nor a winding mechanism for lowering pails down to the water. This well was a big black hole in the ground with the remnants of a fence around it. Jemima had always stayed away from it; something about that deep black hole spooked her.

The squirrel shot through the rotten wooden posts.

‘Stop,’ Jemima shouted. ‘Please! Be careful, that’s—’

It was too late: the squirrel had leaped onto the low rim of stone, and dived straight down the well.

Jemima squealed in horror, her hands coming up to cover her mouth. Somehow she overcame her reluctance and scrambled over the moss-covered fence. The darkness that lurked below the well’s stone rim was so intense it was frightening. She squirmed her way back a bit, and listened for any sound of a struggling squirrel.

Taggie arrived beside her, breathless and anxious. She gave the well a nervous look, and kept a couple of paces back from the empty shaft of darkness. ‘What is it? What happened?’

‘A squirrel,’ Jemima cried. ‘I saw a squirrel fall down the well.’ At this point she wasn’t prepared to mention the glasses. Nor the talking bit. Actually, Jemima thought it best not to say it was white, either.

‘I can’t see anything . . .’ Very slowly Taggie edged forward and squinted down the stone-lined hole.

‘It’s down there, I swear,’ Jemima said.

‘We should drop a stone in. See how far down the water is.’

‘Hey! You two – come away from there right now.’ It was Dad’s very cross voice. ‘Come on, I mean it!’

They both turned round guiltily to see him marching through the orchard. He looked furious.

The sheepish sisters clambered back over the fence. One of the poles cracked sharply when Taggie put her weight on it.

‘Sorry, Daddy,’ Jemima said, hanging her head. She hated it when he was cross with her. And they were only a couple of hours into the holiday.

He put an arm round each girl’s shoulder, and steered them away from the fence. ‘It’s all right. It’s partly my fault. I should never have let the fence get so dilapidated. I’ll fix it properly tomorrow.’ He glanced back over his shoulder with a worried expression. ‘Maybe close it permanently . . .’ he muttered to himself. ‘I still have the right to do that. Yes I do. That cannot be taken from me.’

‘But, Daddy, I saw a squirrel fall down it,’ Jemima insisted.

Dad stopped. ‘What sort of squirrel?’

Which Jemima thought was a strange kind of question for him to ask. ‘Just a squirrel,’ she said, trying not to sound too guilty.

‘It’ll be fine,’ Dad assured them. ‘Squirrels are the best climbers. It was probably scared of you two waiting at the top.’

‘How deep is the well?’ Jemima asked. ‘It’s very dark.’

‘Deep enough to need a fence around it,’ Dad said. ‘It’s very dangerous. So I want both of you to promise me you’ll stay away.’

‘Yes, Dad,’ they mumbled.

‘Oh, the enthusiasm, it’s overwhelming. Will you please stay away?’

‘YES, DAD.’

‘Better.’ He hugged them both. ‘Much better. Now come on, let’s see if we can find Lightning. He’s been eating my lettuces this year, the rotten thing. We’ll start in the vegetable patch.’

CHAPTER THREE

Secrets in the Night

Taggie didn’t hear the footsteps outside her room after she was supposed to be asleep, nor did she see the lantern-light shining through the gap at the bottom of her door. She didn’t hear the door handle creak open because her earphones were set at full volume – which Mum always told her not to do, claiming she’d be deaf before she was twenty.

The door swung open, and the figure framed by the light gawped in surprise at Taggie who, dressed in her loose jimjams, was bending backwards as she aimed a solid kick at the head of a target mannequin. The somewhat unrealistic figure had been made from a mop, various sticks, and some of Dad’s old clothes, found in another bedroom.

Taggie’s foot missed the bristling grey head, and she nearly lost her balance as she stared at the equally surprised Jemima standing in the door.

‘What are you doing?’ Jemima asked.

‘Practising,’ Taggie said impatiently. ‘I didn’t do any in Cornwall. My sensei, Mr Koimosi, said it’s very important to keep fresh.’

It was six months now since Taggie had swapped ballet for the much more exciting kickboxing class at the local gym. Mum had grumbled about how unladylike it was, but signed the forms anyway. Taggie hadn’t quite got around to telling Dad yet.

She pulled Jemima inside quickly and shut the door.

‘You haven’t told Dad, have you?’ Jemima said shrewdly.

‘You know what he’s like. He wouldn’t let you play rugby.’

Jemima’s lips curled up victoriously, an expression Taggie was dangerously familiar with.

‘And if you ever tell him, I’ll say who left the gate open the day Harrod escaped,’ Taggie said.

‘I didn’t!’

Taggie took her earphones out. ‘I saw you. You went out on your bike and forgot to close it after.’

‘Oh. And you never told?’

‘No.’ She paused just long enough. ‘Not yet.’

‘Thank you,’ Jemima said meekly. It had taken six hours to find the neighbour’s Labrador puppy that day.

‘What do you want, Jem?’

‘I saw something,’ Jemima said in a whisper. ‘Something in the garden. I couldn’t sleep, I’m not tired, so I was looking out of the window. The news said there’s supposed to be meteors tonight.’

‘What did you see?’

‘I don’t know. It’s quite dark out there. And whatever it was was slinking around the fuchsia hedge.’

Taggie suddenly felt cold. She glanced nervously at her bedroom window. ‘A burglar?’

‘I don’t know. It was all black. Like a shadow that wasn’t attached to anything.’

‘All right, hang on.’ Taggie switched off her lantern. Jemima flicked hers off too. Slowly, Taggie pulled the curtains back, fearful that any sharp movement would pull the rickety old curtain pole off the wall. The sisters leaned on the windowsill and peered out into the garden.

Hundreds of stars twinkled in a cloudless sky; their thin silky light illuminated a dark lawn surrounded by black bushes. Taggie watched for several minutes. ‘There’s nothing out there, Jem,’ she said. Once again she was playing the big-sister role, being all positive and reassuring.

‘Taggie, please,’ Jemima pleaded. ‘I saw something. And . . .’ She took a big breath, screwing up her courage. ‘Don’t laugh, but there was something really odd about that squirrel this afternoon.’

‘What sort of odd?’

‘It was white.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I swear. And . . . it was wearing glasses, and—’ Jemima stopped. ‘Really. Glasses.’

Taggie gave her a very sceptical stare. ‘Glasses?’

‘I knew you’d laugh.’

‘I’m not laughing.’

‘You saw how Dad behaved at the well this afternoon. He was more scared than angry. There’s something odd going on, Taggie.’

Taggie pulled the curtains closed again, and switched her lantern back on. She remembered very clearly Dad asking: What sort of squirrel? ‘All right, let’s go and tell him something’s out there.’

‘No!’ Jemima implored. She pulled at Taggie’s arm.

‘He’s our dad, Jem; he won’t want us upset over something that might or might not be lurking outside.’

‘Well . . . you say you saw it, then.’

Taggie sighed. Being a big sister could be such an effort. ‘All right. Come on.’

They heard people talking as they reached the bottom of the stairs, where there were some electric lights. At first Taggie thought Dad must have the TV on loud. Then she remembered he didn’t have a TV. Dad liked books: two rooms downstairs had floor-to-ceiling shelving completely filled with books, and there were piles and piles on every piece of furniture too.

The radio, then, Taggie told herself as they approached the lounge door. But one of the voices was Dad’s.

‘I will not return,’ he was saying insistently.

‘But, sire, the situation is most grave.’

Taggie frowned. The person Dad was talking to had a strange gurgly sort of voice, as if there was liquid bubbling through his throat as he spoke.

‘I have other responsibilities now,’ Dad said.

‘What could possibly be more important?’

‘I do not wish to discuss this—’

Taggie stepped on a loose floorboard, which creaked loudly. She recovered fast; holding Jemima’s hand, she walked forward as if nothing was wrong.

The lounge door was flung open. ‘What are you two doing down here?’ Dad demanded. He wasn’t angry; more like anxious.

‘I thought I saw something,’ Taggie said. ‘I couldn’t get to sleep, so I was looking out of the window for shooting stars. Then something moved in the garden.’

‘I saw it too,’ Jemima piped up. She was squeezing Taggie’s hand, hard.

‘What?’ Dad asked. ‘What was outside?’

‘Don’t know – it was big and dark,’ Jemima blurted. ‘Is it a burglar, Daddy?’

He put his arms round her. ‘Oh my darling . . . No, of course not. We don’t get burglars out here. Besides, there’s nothing worth stealing in this old place.’

Taggie was staring into the lounge. A couple of dim wall lights acted more like candles than electric bulbs, casting deep shadows across the room. Even in the gloom there was a strange shadow that she was drawn to: it was almost like a mist flowing around Dad’s antique wingback chair. Her eyes couldn’t quite focus properly, and it wasn’t black like an ordinary shadow, but the darkest red instead. She blinked and squinted hard, concentrating on the weird mirage. All at once the shadow came into focus as an elderly man in long flowing robes. Taggie thought her eyes were still acting oddly: his skin looked as red as an earthenware pot. ‘Sorry for interrupting,’ she said to him. ‘We didn’t know Dad had a visitor.’

The man’s whole body jumped as if she’d poked him with a stick rather than just said a polite greeting. He gave her a shocked stare.

‘What?’ her dad blurted. He looked from Taggie to the man. ‘You can see . . . ?’

‘Who are you talking to?’ Jemima asked.

As if a whole new set of lights had been switched on, the man in the chair abruptly came into sharp focus.

‘Oh!’ a startled Jemima blurted. ‘Sorry, I didn’t see you there.’

‘Ah . . . Right . . .’ Dad stammered. ‘Girls, this is Mr Anatole. He’s the . . . er, new village vicar. He’s here to discuss the church fete.’

‘Delighted to meet you.’ Mr Anatole rose from the seat. He was at least a head taller than Dad, and his robes were like nothing Taggie had ever seen before; the cloth was a rich, heavy mix of scarlet, indigo and emerald, with elaborate patterns in gold thread. It was something a bishop might wear, not a rural vicar. And he would have to be a very important bishop, Taggie decided.

‘What’s happened to your skin?’ Jemima asked.

‘Jem!’ Taggie hissed, furious with her sister for being so rude.

‘Jemima!’ Dad snapped crossly.

Jemima hung her head, hair curtaining down across her eyes. ‘Sorry.’

‘That’s quite all right,’ Mr Anatole said. ‘Dear girl, I’ve had this skin since I was born.’

‘Oh, I see,’ an abashed Jemima muttered.

‘Now look,’ Dad said in a kindly voice. ‘It’s very late. You two are supposed to be asleep. I understand you’re worried, so . . . This is the deal: you go back to bed, and I’ll take a look around the garden when Mr Anatole leaves – which is going to be very soon. OK? Now go on upstairs.’ He kissed both of them. ‘Go on.’

‘Night, Dad,’ they chorused.

‘Goodnight, Mr Anatole,’ Taggie added.

The lounge door shut. Taggie was halfway back up the stairs when she heard Mr Anatole saying: ‘Sire, you have daughters!’

‘Be silent,’ Dad snapped coldly.

Taggie couldn’t remember him being so sharp with anyone before, let alone a vicar. She and Jemima ran all the way back to their bedrooms. With the door closed and the lantern off, Taggie burrowed under her duvet, as if that would shield her from all the strange events of the day. Sleep came surprisingly quickly, but though she was really hoping the Queen would be there to comfort her, it was not to be.

CHAPTER FOUR

Strawberries and Kidnapping

After they got up, Taggie and Jemima were sent out to collect the eggs from the hen coop that took up a quarter of the kitchen garden. Then Dad cooked them breakfast on the big iron range, spending a good deal of time poking at the glowing coals through the grate. ‘It gets the air flowing,’ he explained sheepishly as a small avalanche of ash slipped out onto the red tile floor.

They had poached eggs with thick rashers of bacon, and big tomatoes that Dad had grown at the end of a polytunnel. This was accompanied by slices of freshly baked bread and honey. Taggie didn’t think she’d be able to move afterwards, she’d eaten so much.

‘Time to start picking,’ Dad announced.

Groaning, Taggie and Jemima followed him to the fields where the polytunnels were set up. For someone who seemed to enjoy living life from about two centuries ago, Dad had certainly adapted to modern fruit growing. Each polytunnel contained five long troughs of strawberry plants. Stems with huge bunches of ripe scarlet strawberries hung over the edges, at a perfect height for picking.

Several pickers lived in caravans that were parked at the bottom of the field; they were traditional Romanies who visited each year. Some of the families claimed their ancestors had been coming since Orchard Cottage was first built. As they walked to work they were joined by more pickers from the village and nearby town, who rode up on bicycles and scooters.

Dad’s old tractor puttered about, delivering pallets of empty boxes to the end of each row, and the pickers started to collect the fruit. The strawberries had all been contracted to a specialist supplier who dealt in organic fruit. Dad might have adopted polytunnels and irrigation pipes, but he hated the idea of using chemicals of any kind. ‘Nature knows best,’ he always told the girls.

Taggie believed him. She started off eating plenty of strawberries as she picked them. They tasted utterly delicious – so much better than anything from the supermarkets.

‘What did you think of that man last night?’ Jem asked when they were by themselves, halfway along the polytunnel.

‘I’ve never seen clothes like that,’ Taggie admitted.

‘He’s not from here,’ Jemima said.

‘Dad said he’s the vicar.’

‘He’s not.’

‘Are you calling Dad a liar?’

Jemima pursed her lips. ‘He’s from a long way away, and that’s that.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Taggie snapped. ‘You don’t know anything about him.’

‘I do! I know he’s not from here.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I always know things like that.’

‘Now you’re just being stupid.’

‘You’re just jealous, ’cause I’m smarter than you.’

‘You are not,’ Taggie growled angrily.

‘Am too.’ Jemima picked up her tray and stomped off down the polytunnel.

Taggie nearly shouted after her, but reminded herself that she was the older sister, and such things didn’t bother her at all. So there. She went back to picking.

A lot of the strawberries were still pale green, so Taggie had to check to make sure she only picked the ripe ones. It was monotonous work, and the air trapped in the polytunnel was stifling. She was certainly earning her money.

Halfway through the morning she realized that people in the next polytunnel were singing. When she looked up she saw her polytunnel was nearly deserted now. Taggie wandered out, intrigued by the laughter coming from the other polytunnel where Jem had gone.

When she looked round the edge, she saw that nearly every picker was now moving along the raised troughs. And no wonder they were all happy and smiling. The strawberries were all a rich scarlet. Every one of them had ripened. She saw Jemima halfway down the lines of troughs, her face smeared red from berry juice, grinning from ear to ear as she threw berries into her tray.

‘It’s because I sent the clouds away,’ Taggie told herself. ‘The sun must have ripened them all at once.’

In only one polytunnel? a small voice in her head asked. Taggie sighed and went back to her picking. This was turning into a very odd holiday. She decided she’d start making entries about weird things in a diary tonight. If she saw them all together, they might make some kind of sense.

Taggie and Jemima both ducked out of picking that afternoon. Dad was in the old barn, sawing up lengths of plank to use as fencing around the well. They helped him carry the heavy wood across the lawn and through the kissing gate in the fuchsia hedge. Taggie looked around the orchard in amazement. The wild flowers under the trees, which yesterday had been faded and dying back, had returned in full bloom. The whole orchard was ablaze with colour. Bees were flitting excitedly between the flowers, emitting a low droning sound.

‘That’s better,’ Jemima said contentedly.

Taggie nodded. Definitely another entry in the Weird Things diary.

Dad started pulling down what was left of the old fence. Taggie took the rotten wood back into the garden and dumped it all in the bonfire pit.

‘No good for the log stoves in the cottage,’ Dad said. ‘It’s too damp – but it’ll do fine for a bonfire in the autumn.’

After that it got a bit boring. Dad was using a fencing spade to dig new holes for the corner posts, which was hard work. The sisters tried using it, but the ground was tough and full of small stones, which had to be prised out individually.

Taggie made some tea, which they drank on the patio while she got out her iPad and opened up a brand-new diary page. At the top she wrote: Weird Things.

It took quite a while to list them all. After she’d finished, she and Jemima set off to feed Lightning some more lettuce. Just as they were crossing the lawn, they heard a commotion coming from the orchard: some loud thuds, then the sound of metal striking metal.

‘What on earth is Dad doing now?’ Taggie wondered. They headed towards the kissing gate. Just before they reached it they heard Dad cry out – a wordless shout of rage followed by another almighty clang. Taggie and Jemima looked at each other, then dashed for the gate.

They sprinted into the orchard, scattering lazy bees as they plunged on through the trees and flowers. Dad was at the top of the well holding his spade like a cricket bat, swinging at some creatures around him. There were three of them; they reached no higher than his waist, and were dressed in shiny armour the lurid colour of blood. At first Taggie thought they were dwarfs, but then she saw they had four legs apiece. All that could be seen through the helmet visors was a vague impression of hairy faces and noses like pigs’ snouts. The strange knights lunged and stabbed at Dad with short swords. He fended them off with equally skilful jabs and swipes of his sturdy fencing spade. As the girls ran closer he unleashed a flurry of blows, dinting the knights’ already battered shields. One of them fell to the ground as he caught it with a good blow on the side of the head.

Then two more popped up out of the well. They flung a silvery net, which twisted round Dad’s arm before wrapping itself about his legs.

‘No!’ Taggie screamed, and dashed forward.

Dad turned in shock. ‘Stay away!’ he bellowed.

Taggie stopped, even though she was desperate to run over to him; to help somehow.

‘Go to your mother,’ Dad yelled. ‘Tell her what’s happened.’