Excerpt: The Hidden Valley

1
BEGINNING
Rachel pulled her sister into a firm embrace. Their tears mingled on the shoulder of Rebecca’s grubby dress and mixed with the fresh blood stains from the little girl’s burst lip. A few feet away, the smallest of the three siblings, Noah, stood sullen and withdrawn. The silence of their meadow refuge was broken by a whistle. The children flinched, but it was safe for now. The shrill sound had come from their friend Liam who was crossing the field from the neighboring farm –the one that belonged to his elderly father.

The boy came running towards the three, his blonde hair catching the sun’s rays and glinting like polished jewels. He was a perpetually cheerful boy, poor but happy, yet his smile faltered as he got closer and saw Rebecca clutching tight to Rachel, dried blood forming a rusty stain on the younger girl’s chin.

“What’s happened?” he asked in concern, “Is she hurt badly?”
“Not too badly,” came Rachel’s bitter response, “never too badly.”
“Was it your aunt again?” Liam asked.
“She’s not our aunt,” sobbed Rebecca. “She just calls herself that.”
Rachel nodded. “Rebecca didn’t perform her chores to Vivienne’s satisfaction. When Rebecca tried to explain that she didn’t know how to make a bed properly, Vivienne slapped her. Hard.”

Rebecca pulled away from Rachel a little to look at Liam and he could see the red mark and a little swelling on the side of the little girl’s face.

“I want mommy to come back,” said Noah, “Aunt Vivienne is so mean.”
“She’s not our aunt!” repeated Rebecca, almost shouting the words.
Liam nodded sympathetically. “How long before she comes back?”
Rachel shrugged. “I don’t know. When we get to see her, all she ever says is ‘Soon’. She never says how long exactly.”
“Can’t you tell her about that evil witch?” asked Liam. “Couldn’t she do something?”
“What could she do?” said Rachel helplessly. “She’s in prison. Vivienne says if we complain about her to anyone that they’ll send us further away and we’ll never get to visit her.”
“Couldn’t you find your dad?”
“How?” Rachel seemed resigned. “Even if we could, what would be the point? He didn’t want us before.”
“Don’t say that,” mumbled Noah. “He does want us. He does.”
“No he doesn’t,” yelled Rebecca, “If he did he wouldn’t let us live like this. He’s stupid and mean. Just like Vivienne.”
“Calm down Becky,” said Rachel, stroking her little sister’s hair. Tears filled the older girl’s eyes again.

Liam sat down next to Rachel and awkwardly put an arm around her. They were the same age, both thirteen years old, and she was the closest thing he had to a best friend. All of the children were home schooled, although the extent of their schooling was dubious at best, and the area they lived in was pretty remote. He had been pleased when the three of them came to live at the next farm. There weren’t many other children around and their parents didn’t really like them to play with Liam. His father wasn’t particularly well liked and Liam had to live with the consequences of that.

Rachel sagged against him a little. She was so tired of having to be the strong one, but who else was there to look out for her brother and sister. Rebecca was ten and seemed, for no reason they could perceive, to take the brunt of their guardian’s cruelty. Noah was only eight and far too young to be “the man of the house”, even if he had the personality for it, which didn’t seem to be the case. Liam sat a little stiffly as Rachel laid her head against his shoulder. Her chestnut hair fell across her face and he had an impulse to brush it away, but he didn’t move. After a moment, she moved away and, almost unconsciously, gathered Rebecca closer to her again.

Rebecca had hair identical to her sister’s and they had the same big, brown, almond shaped eyes. Noah was very different. Green-eyed and red-haired and freckled he didn’t even look related to them. His looks came from their absent father but in personality he was all their mother’s –sweet, quiet and tender hearted.

It wasn’t just necessity that pulled the four of them together. The siblings were close in the kind of way that only a traumatic childhood creates and Liam genuinely liked all of them. They, in return, liked him. He wasn’t like any of the children they knew when they had lived in the city with their mother.

Liam was a robust, hard working boy, always tanned from days spent outdoors. He, like Rachel, had inherited too much responsibility at a young age. His mother was dead and his father, who was much older than his mother, was sick and unable to run the farm well anymore. Along with the costs of his doctors and medicine, that made Liam poor. It showed in his clothes, but not in his manner. Although his life was hard, he acted as carefree as a bird, soaring through life. He had inherited the skills of a rural upbringing –fishing, hunting and a true sense of exploration. His wanderings through the surrounding hills and forests had given him a more thorough knowledge of the area than anyone else the children had met. Even the adults who had lived here for years didn’t know some of the hiding places that Liam knew. Despite much of his childhood being pulled away too soon, Liam was determined to hold onto as much of it as he could and so everything was an game to him, an adventure waiting to be discovered.

“Why did Vivienne agree to look after us if she hates us so much?” asked Noah.
“Because she gets money for it,” said Rachel, “and grownups love money.”
“She’s supposed to buy us clothes and things with the money,” said Rebecca. “But I’m still wearing the clothes I had when we came here. They don’t even fit properly anymore.”
“Shhh,” Rachel said, painfully aware of the fact that Liam’s clothes never fit well and he seldom got anything new either.
“It’s okay.” Liam smiled. “I’m used to not having anything. It must be different for you. When your mom was still around, you had stuff. I never had much, so I don’t miss not having it. It’s hard having your mother taken away suddenly.”
“Do you miss your mom, Liam?” asked Noah. Of the three siblings he was the most empathetic.
Liam shrugged. “I don’t remember her. I was very young when she died. I’ll miss my dad though. The doctor’s say he’s getting sicker and he’ll have to go into care very soon. I guess then I’ll be like you. Maybe Vivienne will take me in.” He added this last part with a look of solemnity that was belied by the mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

Despite herself, Rachel let out a chuckle. “If I was you, I’d run away first. I thought of that once, but they’d just find us and send us back to Vivienne. Then things would be even worse.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” said Liam. He sounded so serious that the other three all turned to him in unison. He seemed to be thinking hard. “Listen, if I knew a place, a hidden place, where could all go and nobody would find us, would you come with me?”

A mixture of hope and fear fluttered in Rachel’s chest. She looked at her brother and sister and silently communicated with them. “Yes, we would,” she said, “Of course we would. But where?”

“I’ll take you there tomorrow. Can you meet me here around noon? I have to go and take care of dad now. His nurse will be going soon, but he’s going into hospital for some tests tomorrow, so I’ll be free all day.”

“I think so,” said Rachel.
“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow then.” With a cheerful wave, Liam disappeared off through the field.

“We’d better get home too,” said Rachel, wiping the dried blood from Rebecca’s lip with the motherly use of saliva on her thumb. “Vivienne will get angry if we’re late for dinner.”

Vivienne was angry anyway, but the children were used to that. Noah got sent to their room for not finishing his overcooked greens. Vivienne yelled at Rebecca for no reason the children could understand. Rachel was afraid she would get hit again, so she made sure to always be in front of her. The tactic worked, at least that evening. Rachel decided that, if Liam’s hiding place seemed feasible, they would run away at the first opportunity.

At bedtime, Rachel ventured a question. “Aunt Vivienne,” she began, though she hated to use the term that their guardian insisted upon, “can we take a hike with Liam tomorrow afternoon? He invited us all.”

“No you can’t,” snapped Vivienne. She was a formidable woman, large in every direction with a deep and raspy voice. “I’m having company next week, and I want you three to clean the house tomorrow, top to bottom, while I head into town for some shopping. When you’re finished I want you all to come up to your room so you won’t mess anything up.”

The children shared a small room on the second floor of the old farm house that they lived in.
“What are we going to do?” Rebecca sniffled into her sheets.
Rachel thought for a minute. “We’re going anyway,” she announced. “We’ll clean as much as we can, as quickly as we can and then we’ll go. Vivienne won’t be happy no matter how well we do it anyway.”
“But she’ll be really mad at us,” said Noah. He sounded frightened.
“Not if we’re back before she is,” said Rachel. “She’ll never know we were gone. I’ll take the blame for any problems she has with the cleaning. If everything goes well, we won’t be here for much longer.”

The next morning, they cleaned diligently under Vivienne’s watchful gaze. When she left at ten o’clock, they hurried to finish. The end result would have satisfied most housekeepers, but Rachel knew that Vivienne would find an endless list of faults when she returned. At noon, the children were in the meadow waiting for Liam to arrive.

“The witch let you out today?” asked Liam cheerfully as he ran up to them.
“She’s gone shopping,” said Rachel, “in town.”
“Where are you taking us, Liam?” asked Rebecca.
“Ah. It’s my favorite place in the whole world,” said Liam. “Nobody but me knows about it. Somebody must have lived there once, because there’s a little cabin, but I think I’m the only person who’s been there in years! It’s quite far into the woods. In a little valley, hidden away.” Jack pointed to the edge of the meadow. Beyond the fence was the tree line, beyond which lay a vast forest. “What do you say? Do you want to see?”
Noah and Rebecca bounced up and down in excitement. “Yes please!” squealed Rebecca. “Can we Rachel?”
“That’s why we came isn’t it?” said Rachel. “Lead the way, Liam.”

They walked for a long time. Liam weaved through the trees following a path that only he could see. Rachel was quickly lost, but she knew that Liam was more familiar with these woods than anyone. Occasionally, they would pass through a clearing or over a stream or gulley. The two younger children forgot their troubles for a while, enjoying the great adventure. Rachel’s mind was buzzing the whole time. Could they actually do this? After a couple of hours, just as they were beginning to weary of walking, the trees thinned, and they came to the edge of a steep drop. A little further along the ridge they were standing on, a disused path wound down the steep hillside into a shallow valley, surrounded on the other three sides by sheer cliffs. At the far end of the basin, maybe a mile and a half away, a waterfall plummeted from a small river and formed a little lake.

“The cabin is hidden in the trees about half way to the lake,” Jack explained. “It’s a little run down, but we could soon clean it up. There are also some caves there.” He pointed to the western valley wall. “So what do you think? Should we run away and live in my hidden valley?”

“Yes,” said Rachel in a hushed voice. “Yes, we will.”