Grandma's Halloween Rules

She unfolded it carefully on the table and turned it round so they could both read it.

At the top, in careful capital letters, it said:

RULES FOR THE NIGHT OF 31 OCTOBER

Underneath there were ten lines, numbered.

1. Lock the back door before it gets dark. Leave the key in the lock.

2. Put a candle in every window that faces the road. Light them at six.

3. Put out a plate of food on the front step. Bring the plate in before morning. Do not look at what is left on it.

4. Do not go to the churchyard after sunset.

5. If somebody knocks, count. Three knocks is a neighbour. More than three is not.

6. Cover the mirror in the hall. Do not uncover it until the first of November.

7. If a voice outside asks for water, take the water to the step and go back inside. If a voice asks to come in, say nothing at all.

8. Stay in the kitchen until the church clock has finished striking twelve.

9. Whatever you hear in the garden, do not answer it.

10. Never open the door to anyone who calls you by your name.

Underneath the tenth rule there was nothing. No signature, no date, no explanation.

Outside, a tractor went slowly along the lane and the whole kitchen shook very slightly, and neither of them noticed.

Kate read the list twice. Then she looked up.

Her mother was reading it for the fourth or fifth time, and her face had gone very still.

—Mum.

—Yes.

—Is this a joke?

—No.

—How do you know?

—Because it’s her handwriting, Helen said, and she never made jokes on paper. Not once in her life.

Kate looked back down at the list.

—Some of these are actually quite sensible, she said slowly. Locking the back door. Candles in windows so people can see the house. Putting food out for people walking home in the dark. Not going into a churchyard at night, that’s just, you know, don’t fall over a gravestone.

—Yes.

—Number five is a bit strange.

—Number five is very strange.

—Number ten, Kate said, is not strange. Number ten is completely mad.

She read it out loud, which somehow made it worse, the way instructions always sound worse when a human voice says them.

Never open the door to anyone who calls you by your name.

—Think about it, she said. Everybody who knocks on your door knows your name. The postman knows your name. Neighbours know your name. If a friend comes round and says hello Iris, are you in, then according to this you’re supposed to stand in the hall and not answer.

Helen did not reply. She had picked up the plastic wallet with the newer sheet of paper in it, and she was holding it without opening it, and after a moment she put it back in the tin.

—Aren’t you going to read that one?

—Not today.

—Why not?

—Because I have been in this house for twenty-six hours, Helen said, and I would like to do one thing at a time.

—Mum?

—I remember the candles, Helen said.

Kate stopped.

—What?

—I remember the candles. She put candles in the windows on Halloween. Every year. I thought it was decoration. I thought it was for the trick or treating, except nobody ever came trick or treating here, because we were four hundred metres out of the village and it was pitch dark, and I remember being annoyed about that when I was about nine.

—Do you remember anything else?

Helen picked up her cup of tea, discovered it was cold, and put it down again.

—I remember we always had dinner in the kitchen on the thirty-first, she said. Which was normal. We always had dinner in the kitchen. But we stayed in there afterwards. We didn’t watch television, and the television was in the front room, and I never once asked why.

She looked at the list.

—I was a child in this house for eighteen years, and I never saw this piece of paper, and now I am forty-six and I am reading it in the same kitchen and I do not understand one word of it.

They sat with the paper between them for a while. The light in the kitchen was already going orange at the edges, because it was the twenty-fifth of October and the afternoon had decided it had done enough.

Kate turned the photograph over.

It had been face down in the tin for a reason, Kate thought afterwards, although at the time she simply turned it over the way you turn over any photograph.

It was black and white, quite small, with a white border and a rounded corner where it had been damaged. It showed two girls standing in front of the cottage gate, in coats, squinting into the sun.

One of them was about fourteen and Kate recognised her instantly, because she had the same face as the woman in the photographs on the stairs, and roughly the same face as the woman sitting opposite her at the table, and roughly the same face, if she was honest, as the one Kate saw in the mirror every morning.

The other girl was younger. Maybe ten or eleven. She was smaller and rounder and she was laughing at something outside the picture, and she had a dark ribbon in her hair.

On the back, in pencil, somebody had written four words.

Iris and Nell, 1962.

Helen looked at it for a long time.

—Mum, Kate said. Who’s Nell?

—I have absolutely no idea, said Helen Mercer.

Vocabulary exercises

1. Complete the sentences

1. The dresser had a row of four narrow ______.

2. Kate found an old biscuit ______ stuck in the last one.

3. There was writing on the inside of the ______.

4. The paper was soft along the ______ because it had been opened many times.

5. The ______ was brown now, not black.

6. They both recognised the ______ from birthday cards.

7. The picture on the tin was almost completely ______.

8. Nine of the ten rules sounded quite ______.

2. Match the words

1. to fold 2. a warning 3. an instruction 4. deliberate 5. a sheet of paper 6. a list

a. предупреждение b. складывать c. список d. лист бумаги e. намеренный f. указание

3. Choose the correct answer

1. A crease is: a) a line where paper has been folded b) a colour c) a kind of box

2. If a colour is faded: a) it is very bright b) it has become weaker with time c) it is new

3. Handwriting is: a) printed text b) the way a person writes by hand c) a signature

4. If an action is deliberate: a) it happens by accident b) somebody planned it c) it is forgotten

5. A rule tells you: a) what you should or should not do b) where you live c) how old you are

4. Answer the questions

1. What was in the first three drawers of the dresser?

2. What four things were inside the tin?

3. What was written on the inside of the lid?

4. Which rules does Kate think are sensible, and why?

5. What does Helen remember about Halloween in that house?

5. True, false or not given

1. The fourth drawer opened easily.

2. There was a hair ribbon inside a brown envelope.

3. The list of rules is signed and dated.

4. Helen remembers candles in the windows every Halloween.

5. Helen knows who Nell is.

Грамматика

Past Simple: отрицания и вопросы

В утвердительной форме Past Simple выражается самим глаголом: she opened, he went. Но как только появляется отрицание или вопрос, в дело вступает вспомогательный глагол did.

Отрицание: did not (didn’t) + инфинитив

She didn’t open the door.

They didn’t go to the churchyard.

I didn’t know her name.

Главное правило: после didn’t глагол стоит в начальной форме, без окончания -ed и без второй формы. Прошедшее время уже выражено словом did.

Правильно: He didn’t say anything.

Неправильно: He didn’t said anything.

Вопрос: Did + подлежащее + инфинитив?

Did you see the photograph?

Did she know about it?

Did they live here?

Краткие ответы: Yes, I did. / No, I didn’t.

Специальные вопросы

Вопросительное слово ставится перед did:

Where did they go? · Why did she write it? · When did he arrive?

Исключение: глагол to be

У глагола to be нет вспомогательного did. Отрицание и вопрос строятся напрямую:

She was not (wasn’t) at home. · Were they in the kitchen?

Правильно: Was he there?

Неправильно: Did he be there?

Вопрос к подлежащему

Если вопросительное слово само является подлежащим, did не нужен, и глагол остаётся в прошедшем времени:

Who wrote this list? (кто написал?)

Сравни: Who did she write to? (кому она написала?)

What happened in 1963? (что случилось?)

Grammar exercises

1. Make the sentences negative

1. Kate opened the drawer easily. → ______

2. Helen knew about the rules. → ______

3. They found a signature on the paper. → ______

4. Iris made jokes on paper. → ______

5. The photograph showed three girls. → ______

2. Write the questions

1. They arrived on Tuesday. → When ______ ?

2. Kate found the tin in the dresser. → Where ______ ?

3. Iris wrote the list. → Who ______ ?

4. Helen recognised the handwriting. → ______ ? (yes or no question)

5. She lit candles because of the rules. → Why ______ ?

3. Correct the mistakes

1. She didn’t opened the tin.

2. Did they went to the village?

3. Where did she found it?

4. Did he be in the kitchen?

5. Who did write this list?

4. Complete the dialogue

— ______ (1. you / find) anything interesting today?

— Yes, we ______ (2).

— What ______ (3. it / be)?

— An old tin. It ______ (4. be) in the bottom drawer.

— ______ (5. your mother / know) about it?

— No, she ______ (6). She ______ (7. not see) it before.

Ответы

Vocabulary 1: 1. drawers 2. tin 3. lid 4. creases 5. ink 6. handwriting 7. faded 8. ordinary

Vocabulary 2: 1-b, 2-a, 3-f, 4-e, 5-d, 6-c

Vocabulary 3: 1-a, 2-b, 3-b, 4-b, 5-a

Vocabulary 4: 1. String; batteries, keys, a torch and other small things; bills filed in date order since 1998. 2. An envelope with a hair ribbon, a photograph, an old folded sheet of paper and a newer sheet in a plastic wallet. 3. HALLOWEEN. READ BEFORE DARK. 4. Locking the back door, candles in windows, food for people walking home and staying out of the churchyard, because they are all practical. 5. That there were candles in the windows every year and that they always stayed in the kitchen after dinner on the thirty-first.

Vocabulary 5: 1. False 2. True 3. False 4. True 5. False

Grammar 1: 1. Kate didn’t open the drawer easily. 2. Helen didn’t know about the rules. 3. They didn’t find a signature on the paper. 4. Iris didn’t make jokes on paper. 5. The photograph didn’t show three girls.

Grammar 2: 1. When did they arrive? 2. Where did Kate find the tin? 3. Who wrote the list? 4. Did Helen recognise the handwriting? 5. Why did she light candles?

Grammar 3: 1. She didn’t open the tin. 2. Did they go to the village? 3. Where did she find it? 4. Was he in the kitchen? 5. Who wrote this list?

Grammar 4: 1. Did you find 2. did 3. was it 4. was 5. Did your mother know 6. didn’t 7. hadn’t seen / didn’t see

Chapter 3. Nobody Talks About It

Key vocabulary

a shop counter — прилавок

a customer — покупатель

a notice board — доска объявлений

a churchyard — кладбище при церкви

a gravestone — надгробие

the vicar — приходской священник

a parish — приход

a record — запись, документ

to mention — упоминать

to avoid — избегать

polite — вежливый

awkward — неловкий

to change the subject — сменить тему

a stranger — незнакомец, приезжий

local — местный

Nobody Talks About It

The village shop opened at eight and closed at four and had a sign in the window that said WE HAVE BREAD, which suggested that this was not always true.

It also had a bell on the door that had clearly been there since before either of them was born, and which announced every customer to the entire village.

Kate walked in at half past ten on Sunday morning while her mother was on the phone to a solicitor.

Inside it was one room with four narrow aisles. There were tins, there was a fridge, there was a rack of newspapers with three copies of a Saturday paper still on it, and there was a counter with a till, a jar of sweets and a man of about seventy reading a magazine about tractors.

—Morning, he said, without looking up.

—Morning.

—You’re the Mercer girl.

Kate stopped in the middle of the second aisle.

—How does everybody know that?

Now he looked up. He had a round red face and white eyebrows that went in several directions.

—There are four hundred and ten people in this village, he said, and I have sold most of them a pint of milk this week. You are not one of them. Therefore you are new. There are two houses with new people in them and one of them is Iris Mercer’s. Amos Pratt.

—Sorry?

—That’s my name. Amos Pratt. You looked like you were waiting for it.

—Is there anywhere in this village to get a signal? she asked.

—Top of the church tower, Mr. Pratt said. Or Barford.

—Is the church tower open?

—No.

—Right.

—People do go up it, he said, turning a page. I am not going to tell you how, because you are fifteen and I would like to keep my licence.

Kate bought bread, milk, teabags and a chocolate bar, and while Mr. Pratt was putting them in a bag she looked at the notice board by the door.

There was a card about a lost cat. There was a poster for a quiz night in the Drowned Man on the eighth of November. There was a printed sheet about a mobile library that came on alternate Thursdays. And in the middle, on a piece of yellow paper, there was a notice in large letters:

THE QUIET NIGHT

31 October

Candles from six. Please keep to the usual arrangements.

—What’s the Quiet Night? Kate asked.

Mr. Pratt continued putting things in the bag.

—It’s what we call it, he said.

—Call what?

—Halloween.

—Why?

—Because that’s what it’s called here.

Kate waited. He put the last item in the bag, folded the top over, and pushed it across the counter.

—Four pounds twenty.

—Mr. Pratt, why is it called the Quiet Night?

—Because it’s quiet, he said. Four pounds twenty, please, my love.

She paid. He gave her the change and went back to his magazine, and Kate stood there for three more seconds and then gave up and left, and it was only outside on the green that she realised he had not looked at her once during the entire second half of the conversation.

She stood on the green for a minute with the bag in her hand.

It was a perfectly ordinary Sunday. A man was washing a car. Two women were talking outside the pub with their coats open because the sun had come out. A dog was asleep on the step of the telephone box. Nothing about any of it was strange, and that was what made the yellow notice strange, because a village that put up a poster about a quiz night in the same week also put up a poster telling everybody to light candles and stay in.

A dog crossed the green in front of her, considered her carefully, and went away again.

She went to the church.

St. Botolph’s stood at the top of the only slope in the village, which was about four metres high. It was flint and grey stone with a square tower, and the churchyard around it was full of leaning stones with names worn off them.

Kate walked round it slowly, twice, because there was nobody there to think it was odd.

It was a bright cold morning, and the wind was moving in the yew trees, and it was, she thought, one of the least frightening places she had ever been. Somebody was doing something at the far end with a wheelbarrow and a rake.

She read the stones as she went, because she always read stones, and because there is something about a churchyard that makes you walk more slowly whether you intend to or not. Mercer, Mercer, Ward, Pratt, Pratt, Pratt, Vance, Mercer.

She found her grandmother almost immediately, because the earth was still new and the stone was not there yet, only a small wooden marker with a printed card in a plastic cover.

IRIS MARGARET MERCER · 1949 to 2025

Kate stood in front of it for a while and did not know what she was supposed to feel, which was, she suspected, quite normal, and she stayed until she got cold.

Then she went looking for Nell.

She was thorough about it. She started at the wall by the gate and walked every row, reading every stone, including the ones so old that the writing had gone. There were eleven Mercers. There was Iris’s mother, Margaret Mercer, 1921 to 1989. There was a Thomas Mercer, 1918 to 1974, who was presumably Iris’s father. There were Mercers from the 1880s and one from 1809.

She went round a second time in case she had missed a row, and then a third time along the wall where the oldest stones were, where the names had gone soft and green and she had to touch them with her fingers to read anything at all.

There was no Nell.

She stood in the middle of the churchyard with cold hands and read the list again in her head to be sure.

There was no Eleanor, no Ellen, no Helena, no Petronella, and nobody at all who had died as a child in the nineteen sixties.

—Can I help you?

Kate turned round. The person with the wheelbarrow had come up the path behind her and turned out to be a woman of about forty in a waterproof coat, muddy boots and a clerical collar.

—Are you the vicar?

—I am. Alice Sandoe. And you are standing on my grandfather.

Kate looked down and moved.

—Sorry.

—He won’t mind. He was a very forgiving man and also he is extremely dead. You’re Iris’s granddaughter.

—Does everyone in this village just know things?

—Yes, Reverend Sandoe said. It’s the main hobby. What are you looking for?

Kate hesitated for about half a second and then decided that there was no point in being clever.

—I’m looking for a grave for somebody called Nell Mercer. She’d have been born around 1951 or 1952.

The vicar put down the handles of the wheelbarrow.

—There isn’t one, she said.

—I know. I’ve looked at everything.

—No, I mean I know there isn’t one. I’ve been here six years and I’ve read the whole burial register twice, because it’s interesting and because in this job you have very long evenings. There is no Nell Mercer in this churchyard.

—Could she be somewhere else?

—She could be anywhere. But if she was a Mercer of Wraycombe and she died here, she would be here. This family has been putting people in this ground since before the church had a roof.

Kate took out her phone and showed the photograph, which she had taken a picture of that morning.

Reverend Sandoe looked at it for a long moment.

—Nineteen sixty-two, she said, reading the back.

—Yes.

—And you have never heard of this child.

—My mother has never heard of her. And my mother lived with Iris for eighteen years.

The vicar handed the phone back.

—Come to the vestry, she said. I’ll put the kettle on and get the registers out. And I want to say something first, and I want you to hear it properly rather than think I’m being dramatic.

—All right.

—I have been the vicar of this parish for six years, and in that time three people have mentioned something that happened in 1963, and all three of them stopped in the middle of the sentence. Not because I asked them to. They simply stopped. One of them was your grandmother.

Kate felt the cold arrive properly, all at once, in the middle of a bright morning.

—What did she say?

—She said, and I remember it exactly because of how strange it was, she said: you don’t need to know about that, it’s a village thing, we manage it.

—Manage it?

—Manage it, Reverend Sandoe said. And then she asked me about the guttering on the south porch, and we talked about guttering for twenty minutes, and I have thought about that conversation approximately once a month ever since.

They walked up the path together. The vicar left the wheelbarrow by the porch and pushed open a small door in the side of the tower with her shoulder, in the way that people open doors they have opened a thousand times.

The vestry was cold and smelled of paper and candle wax, and there was a kettle on the floor next to a box of hymn books, which told Kate almost everything she needed to know about how the parish was doing. There was a table, a cupboard, a filing box and a electric heater with one bar working.

The burial register for the 1960s was a large book with a hard green cover. Reverend Sandoe found 1963 in under a minute.

There were nine burials that year in Wraycombe. Kate read all nine names twice.

None of them was a child. None of them was a Mercer.

—Well, the vicar said. There we are.

—So she didn’t die.

—Or she died somewhere else. Or she moved away. Or she was never born and somebody wrote the wrong name on a photograph, which happens more often than you would think.

Kate looked at the green book, at the nine ordinary names in careful handwriting, and thought about a list of rules in a tin.

—Reverend Sandoe.

—Alice.

—Alice. Do you know what the Quiet Night is?

The vicar closed the register.

—I know what people do, she said. They put a candle in every window facing the road, at six o’clock, and they stay in. Nobody goes out. Nobody has a party. The pub is open but it’s empty. There is no trick or treating in Wraycombe and there never has been. Children in this village go to Barford, four miles away, and everybody thinks this is completely normal.

—And why?

—That, said Reverend Sandoe, is the interesting part. I have asked eleven people over six years. Do you know what every single one of them said?

—No.

—They said: it’s just what we do.

Kate walked home along the lane with the shopping bag banging against her leg.

Halfway back she stopped and turned round and looked at the village from a distance: sixty houses, one tower, a green, a shop with bread in it. It looked like every small place she had ever driven through without stopping.

Then she thought about a woman standing in a church porch, being asked a direct question by her own vicar, and choosing instead to talk about guttering for twenty minutes.

She started walking again, rather faster than before.

Vocabulary exercises

1. Complete the sentences