Mrs Brown's Cottage

'Let's put it here.'

Charlotte took the wooden train station from my grasp, the paintwork barely dry. She plonked it between the wooden post office and butchers shop. I nodded in approval.

Charlotte sat back and surveyed the miniature village. We had created everything ourselves. I had built them using the big old pile of wood left to rot in the corner of the barn. Charlotte spent hours painting them to bring them to life. I was never very good at the art side of things. As a twelve-year-old boy, I always thought I should be the one to use the rusty tools. If I'm honest, I also wanted to impress Charlotte.

'Now we just need a train,' Charlotte decided. 'And a porter,' she added, after a few moments of thought.

'We can do that next week,' I agreed, as my rumbling stomach reminded me it was teatime.

The sound of raised voices from somewhere outside of the barn disturbed our peace.

'Perhaps I'll give Mrs Brown a repaint,' Charlotte said. She picked up the small figure of an old lady and held it tight in her hand. 'The paint is chipped.' Her voice grew louder to drown out the raised voices.

'That's a great idea,' I said. I also raised my voice.

'And I'll repaint her cottage too.'

I could see Charlotte blink back tears. I looked away and tried to focus on the cottage. Charlotte was my best friend, not that I'd ever admit that to Adrian, but he didn't live next door to me like Charlotte did. We had spent months building the tiny village. It had been Charlotte's idea. I think it was her way of trying to escape her drunken father. I didn't mind. I found I had enjoyed making it, and I had learned lots and had even discovered a passion for woodwork. I had never admitted that to Adrian. I hadn't told him about Charlotte, but they'd never met as she wasn't in our boy's school.

Charlotte's father was now shouting very loud at someone who I assumed was Charlotte's mother. He scared me. I didn't dare go to the house when I visited. The one time I had, her father had answered the door and had slurred his words at me. I had not dared to try again for weeks after that until the day I was in the garden, and I heard Charlotte whisper to me over the fence. After then, I would sneak through a gap in the fence and meet Charlotte in the small, old barn at the end of their large garden. We were never disturbed in there, and it felt good to have a space where we were free to do what we wanted.

I needed to go but now felt I couldn't leave Charlotte until her father had calmed down.

'You should go,' Charlotte said, as though she had read my mind.

I was about to shake my head when we heard the most horrendous scream that sent a huge wave of cold air down my back. Charlotte and I locked eyes. We froze as neither of us knew what to do. Or we were too scared to do something. Another scream had us both scrabbling for the barn window. Charlotte reached it before me. It was covered in dust. Charlotte wiped a small area with the sleeve of her top. Her hands were shaking. I pressed closer to her without thinking. I was scared, but I wanted to protect her.

The sight we saw out of the window was a sight that would be forever etched in my mind. Charlotte's mother was slumped on the ground in a puddle of red blood. Her father stood motionless over her.

I felt Charlotte tremble in front of me. I put a hand on her shoulder. I didn't know what to do. I don't remember what I did. I think I ran home in a panic to tell my parents, leaving a shocked Charlotte alone in the barn.

The following weeks passed by in an unreal blur. I managed to see Charlotte once after that day, but she had become distant. I had tried to talk to her about the murder, but she had clammed up. I learned she went to stay with a relative. That was the last I saw of Charlotte. We moved away the following year.

Now I stood in the doorway of the old barn, some forty years on. The miniature village that Charlotte and I had created was there, hidden under years of dust and fallen roof timbers. I couldn't believe it had survived all this time.

When I had been named the sole heir to Charlotte's estate after her passing, I had learned that she had never married or had kids. She had died young, Huntington's disease, apparently. Inherited from her father. I was surprised to learn she had eventually come back to live in the house. It gave me shivers standing here now.

I rummaged through the debris on the ground and found the train station I had spent hours building and Charlotte had spent hours painting. I pulled it free and shook off the dust. I used an old rag to wipe off the rest. Through the bright light from the doorway, I could see it clearly. The ticket office that I had so carefully put together looked like nothing more than a crude box. The paintwork was still visible, but it looked nothing like the amazing picture that I remembered of a man sat with his ticket dispenser.

I put the ticket office down and pulled more items from the pile on the floor. Mrs Brown's cottage. We had modelled it on the quaint thatched roof cottage at the end of our road. When I cleared the dust off it, I found myself looking at something that might as well have been an ordinary house.

I pulled Mrs Brown off the floor. As I stood holding her, I thought back to that fateful day. I don't know what Charlotte's parents had been arguing about, but I had assumed it was because her father was drunk. He was always drunk. He slurred his speech all the time. He must have been drunk. But then a dreadful thought occurred to me. I had learned that people with Huntington's disease could suffer from slurred speech. Had that been the case with her father? Had his difficulties with speaking led to him also raising his voice?

Forty years on, and I felt a familiar cold sweep down my back. Now I looked out of the door and over to where Charlotte's mother was murdered. Lying in a pool of blood. But there had been a fallen ladder beside her. Had she fallen from the ladder?

My face fell as comprehension dawned on me. Had this been why Charlotte had left the house to me? So I would come to this realisation after all these years?

I looked down at the figure of Mrs Brown in my hand. The carefully constructed figure of a jolly old lady looked nothing more than a crude stick figure. And that was when I realised that things were not always what they seem.