‘Yet I’m not going to lie,’ she said. ‘There have been challenges. We went over budget, blah blah blahbiddy blah … but we got there, in the end. And here is the result: a living slice of the early twenty-first century, ping fleck solid, authentic, completely non-virtual, off-screen. Sea View brings us right up close to family life from another time.’
Somebody said, ‘Bravo.’
Everyone clapped. This lot loved to clap.
‘And now there’s only one thing left to do,’ said the woman called Olivine. ‘Follow me!’
The crowd surged forward, wound itself around the cottage, and ended up in front of the front door. That was when I saw the red ribbon which had been tied around its middle. Like the house was a present.
‘I am thrilled to declare Sea View Cottage officially open,’ said the silver-haired woman, cutting the ribbon with a pair of oversized golden scissors, and everyone clapped yet again, because they were obviously quite easily pleased.
I did not like those words. Especially ‘officially’ and ‘open’.
This was what the last year and a half had been all about. Why they’d painstakingly restored our home. They’d never had any intention of leaving. They’d claimed ownership of it the day they walked in.
‘Now if you’ll all come inside, I’d like to introduce you to some very special people,’ Olivine said.
And everybody walked in through what used to be my front door.
IT WAS A tight squeeze. The strangers crammed themselves into the porch and hallway. As they grew silent, I heard something just out of earshot, something that pulled at my heart before I’d even registered what it was.
Then I heard it again, properly this time, and a grin began to tug my mouth upwards. It felt as if my skin might crack from the novelty of it. Because I’d heard someone whistling a tune: a made-up, dreamy melody that only … It sounded like …
‘Birdie?’ I gasped.
‘Frankie?’ said Birdie.
She was upstairs. I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time.
I pushed through the crowd, retching repeatedly and not even caring – none of that mattered now – and I raced up the staircase. I’d just reached the middle step when—
‘Mum? Dad?’
They were there. All three of them. Standing at the top of the stairs, beaming down at me. They’d come back. They’d come back for me.
‘You’re here,’ I sobbed, leaping up the final steps.
I reached for Birdie and pulled her in for a hug, yearning for that sweet warm feel of her and …
… I felt nothing.
I opened my eyes.
My arms had wrapped themselves around me, not Birdie.
I looked at my sister anxiously. She must have stepped away. And now she was acting as if I didn’t even exist. Oh, I got it. She was sulking.
‘Birdie?’ I said. ‘Birdie, I’m sorry—’
I tried for another hug, but my arms went straight through her.
Bewildered, I looked at my parents, who, like Birdie, were also staring straight ahead.
‘Please – please forgive me,’ I begged. ‘I’ve missed you so much—’
Birdie giggled again, but now it was clear she was giggling at the crowd. And they were lapping it up, staring at her with delight like they’d seen a baby lamb in a party dress.
Downstairs, Olivine cleared her throat, and began to speak. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, meet Bridget Ripley.’
‘Hello, everyone,’ said Birdie in a curiously artificial voice.
She sounded weird, as if someone had—
‘Welcome to our home.’
… Stapled her words together.
I turned perplexed eyes to Mum and Dad. They too were looking at the assorted crowd, smiling and nodding. But we were dead, weren’t we? So why … why was all this smiling going on? Could the crowd see them, somehow, and not me?
‘Please, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on!’
Dad, acting as if I hadn’t spoken, not even blinking in my direction, merely grinned at Mum and then looked at Birdie. ‘Where’s Frankie?’
Dad’s words also had that weird staccato rhythm, as if the words were being punched out by a machine.
‘Has anyone seen her? Frances Frida Ripley?’
I stared at him. ‘Dad,’ I said. ‘I’m literally right in front of you?
Then I heard the most baffling thing of all.
My voice. My actual voice. But someone else was using it.
‘Just coming.’
The person coming out of my bedroom wore my denim cut-offs, my favourite T-shirt and my friendship bracelet that Ivy had made me.
And this impostor walked up to Mum and Dad, put her arm around both of them, grinned at Birdie, and then faced the crowd as well, smiling.
‘And here’s the entire family. Everyone, meet Rachel, Douglas, Frances and Bridget Ripley,’ said Olivine. ‘Our new holograms.’
And everybody clapped again. Of course.
The replica Ripleys walked down the stairs, smiling beatifically at the crowd below.
As they wandered around the hallway, saying ‘hello’ in a friendly, blank way, like well-trained pop stars on a meet-and-greet, Olivine explained.
‘Thanks to our digital archive restorers, we were able to download the Ripley family home videos from their computers, mobiles and tablets. And we’ve copied and cloned their voices with the help of found footage. So this twenty-first-century family can welcome twenty-second-century guests to their home.’
But basically, what she might as well have said was:
‘WELCOME TO HELL.’
I stared in numb horror as our holograms roamed the crowd.
‘They’ll change clothes depending on the season, play games with the kids and interact with the adults. They can give painting classes, play hide-and-seek, demonstrate how they used the house and answer almost any question posed to them about their life here.’
‘Oooooh,’ said the crowd.
‘Go ahead. Ask them something.’
‘I’d be delighted,’ said a man. ‘Mrs Ripley, what do you think about the restoration of your house?’
Mum instantly turned and faced the man head on, like a servant who’d been called to attention. After dropping to her knees in a sweeping curtsy, she said, ‘I think it’s amazing. We’re so excited to welcome you to our
