The Red Cardigan by J.C. Burke Page A

That’d be great.’ She contemplates saying ‘everyone calls me Evie’, but decides not to. She likes Evangaline, at least today she does.
    Evie follows Victoria into the kitchen. Jars of preserved lemons line the shelves.
    â€˜Are you hungry? I’ve got some fruit bun.’
    â€˜I didn’t have breakfast,’ Evie remembers. ‘It’s been, let’s say, a very weird morning.’
    â€˜Well, let’s sit down and have a cuppa and some bun. Then, we can have a long chat. Should you be at school?’
    Evie goes to speak.
    â€˜Not important. I feel much better now you’re here, Evangaline. We’ve been worried.’
    They go back to the little sitting room. Victoria pushes the heater closer to the table. Evie feels the warm air blowing on her legs. She eats her bun, then washes it down with perhaps the most fantastic cup of tea she’s ever tasted. She laps up the comfort of this moment. She could just lie down on the floor and sleep.
    â€˜There’s plenty more bun.’
    â€˜No thanks,’ Evie replies, yawning and stretching her legs. ‘That was perfect.’
    â€˜Do you feel tired?’ Victoria asks. ‘When things arehappening,’ she makes a wide circle around her head. ‘It can be very exhausting.’
    Evie nods in agreement and the realisation dawns that in this room, at this very moment, she is free. The feeling is as powerful as it is peaceful.
    â€˜You were right about yesterday,’ Evie says. ‘About someone – what was the phrase you used?’
    â€˜Validating your gift, is what I think I said.’
    â€˜Yeah, that’s it,’ says Evie. ‘And it was Seb. He’s the tall boy on the bus.’
    â€˜And how did you feel?’
    â€˜Weird. Confused. Kind of happy.’
    â€˜So what happened? What did he say?’
    â€˜It’s unbelievable. I don’t know what to think.’ Evie tells her about the little girl at the pin. Victoria leans across the table, nodding her head, as Evie describes the first time she saw her.
    â€˜That’s my first memory of anything, you know, strange,’ explains Evie. ‘It took me till I was nearly eight to realise no one else saw her. I know how ridiculous it must sound but I really didn’t understand.’ She stops and thinks. ‘I don’t understand why Grandma or someone didn’t tell me.’
    â€˜She couldn’t,’ Victoria answers.
    â€˜But why couldn’t she? It would have made things so much easier.’ The hot tears sting again. ‘I didn’t know what I was seeing or hearing half the time. I still don’t, I just live with it.’ Evie blows her nose. ‘It sucks that it takes Seb to tell me the truth. That a girl really died there. Even he knew I saw her, god knows how.’
    â€˜Evangaline, it was very complicated. I first met Anna, yourgrandma, just around that time. Your grandpa had just died. She was in despair over losing him and she was in despair about what to do with you.’
    Evie is sobbing now. She cannot stop the tears. Years of them fly everywhere, spilling down onto her red cardigan.
    â€˜I’ll tell you a little about what I know.’ Victoria’s hands hold Evie’s. ‘But some of the other things –’ Evie senses a hesitation in her voice. ‘You’ll have to speak to your father about.’
    Evie understands the deal. It’s the only deal she’s had so far.
    Victoria begins to tell her a story. The sound of her voice is soothing as it gently guides Evie back to her childhood.
    â€˜Anna rang me the first time you saw the girl at the pin. She was upset and confused about what to do. Your dad had told her how your mother became difficult – impossible – about it. She forbade Anna or your father to say anything to you about it.
    â€˜You see, the year before a seven-year-old girl had been killed there by a hit and run. She