Free Brightwood by Tania Unsworth

seemed rude before,” the man said, taking a sip of his tea, his pale eyes fixed on Daisy’s face. “Part of it was the shock of seeing Brightwood Hall in this state. It used to be so different, you see.”
    Daisy stared at him blankly.
    â€œAll the stuff piled up,” the man explained. “All those boxes . . . in the Marble Hall. What are they?”
    â€œThey’re just my mum’s Day Boxes,” Daisy said.
    â€œThe grounds have become so overgrown,” the man continued, as if he hadn’t heard. “They used to be really impressive, you know. Now there are more weeds than anything else. And the woods must be full of vermin.”
    Daisy didn’t know what “vermin” was, although it sounded horrible.
    â€œOh no,” she said quickly. “It’s just rabbits and rats and hedgehogs and a fox.”
    â€œYou can’t have vermin running all over the place,” the man said as if she hadn’t spoken. “You need to do something about that.”
    Tar wriggled in Daisy’s pocket and then darted out onto the table in search of things to eat. The man flinched when he saw him.
    â€œWhat’s that? Is that your pet?”
    Tar wasn’t a pet. He was just himself. “He’s a friend,” Daisy said.
    Tar ran across the table and stopped in front of the man, wrinkling his nose. Then he ran back to Daisy. She caught him and put him back in her pocket, pinching the top of it to keep it closed.
    â€œA friend,” the man said, shaking his head. “I suppose you have a lot of ‘friends’ like this. Poor girl. It must be lonely here all by yourself.”
    Daisy had never thought she was lonely. But the way he said it made it seem true.
    The man breathed out a long sigh and leaned back in his chair. She could hear the creak of the delicate wood as he rested his full weight against it.
    â€œYour mother,” he said, shaking his head again. “She needed help.”
    â€œI
do
help!” Daisy cried. “I help mow the lawn and cook supper and collect trash and . . . a lot of things!”
    â€œI don’t mean
that
kind of help,” the man said. His gaze flickered away, roaming over the house behind Daisy.
    â€œCrazy . . . ” he said, as if to himself.
    It was the same word he’d used in the Marble Hall when he’d first arrived. Daisy didn’t understand what he meant by it. The Crazy had skipped them. Her mum had told her so. The General had The Crazy, not her mum.
    The General had been her mum’s great-­great-­uncle, and he had caused a thousand men to die somewhere in Africa. The men had been fighting all day and had run out of ammunition. When evening came, the General ordered them to fix bayonets to their empty guns and charge directly into the cannon of the enemy. He sat on his horse and watched them all die. One man had tried to run in the other direction, and the General had taken out his own gun and shot him for being a deserter and a coward.
    Everyone knew the General was insane to do this, although it would have caused a great scandal to admit it. Instead they gave him another medal. The king himself presented it to him, and it lay right there on the General’s chest in the Portrait Gallery.
    Great-­great-­great-­cousin Gracie had The Crazy too. She liked to catch small animals and hurt them and had to be kept locked up in her room. Luckily she had died of the flu when she was only eighteen years old. The Crazy ran through the Fitzjohn family like the boxwood blight. But it hadn’t appeared for a great while.
    It had been gone for so long, it might never come back, her mum said.
    â€œMum hasn’t got The Crazy,” Daisy told the man. “She’s a good person!”
    He made a face. Daisy couldn’t tell if he was smiling or frowning.
    â€œLet’s talk about something else,” he said. “How about you have a strawberry?” He pushed