The Guest Children

by Patrick Tarr

Genres: Ghost; General Fiction; Horror

Synopsis

“The Guest Children is a novel that is both unsettling and deeply moving. . . . It will not only carry you away but return you to a forgotten place within yourself.” —Andrew Pyper, author of Oracle and The Demonologist

Not all hauntings are confined to houses

With the mounting terror of the German Blitz on London in 1940, thousands of British “guest children” are sent abroad to escape the bombing. Among them are Michael and Frances Hawksby, who are shipped off to Canada to stay with relatives. Years later, as WW II finally comes to an end, their surviving family members realize that no one has heard from them since.

Randall Sturgess wanted to do his part in the war but was forced to stay home to look after his troubled and unstable younger brother, Edward. Impoverished, shamed as a coward, and running out of work options as veterans return home, Randall takes a job investigating the disappearance of the Hawksby children. Reluctantly leaving Edward behind, Randall follows the children’s trail to the wilds of northern Ontario, where he finds an isolated and ramshackle resort called Glass Point Lodge. Here he discovers the secretive aunt and uncle who took in the young Hawksbys, along with an odd collection of seemingly permanent guests, none of whom seems willing to tell Randall the truth about the missing children. 

Plagued with vivid nightmares about the war, and troubled by dark visions and a persistent feeling that he’s being watched, Randall searches the imposing woods and lake for any trace of Michael and Frances. Convinced that something terrible has happened to them, Randall delves ever deeper into the mysteries of the lodge, its inhabitants, and the long-buried memories of his childhood, not realizing that the darkest secrets he unearths may be his own.

Release date: August 12, 2025

Publisher: HarperCollins Canada

Print pages: 272

Sample

1

After the bomb killed their mum and dad, Frances dragged Michael from the ruin of their home and ran into the smoke-shrouded street looking for help. Air-raid sirens wailed across the city as the ack-acks fired on Luftwaffe planes and spotlights stabbed the darkness overhead. A barrage balloon, halfway free of its moorings, slumped across the guttering orange skyline.

Frances knew she mustn’t panic, although she could see fires blazing in three other buildings close by. It was possible that all of London would burn and crumble on this night, her city reduced to humps of toppled stone and charred wood. She was frightened, so Frances told herself that her mum and dad would be all right—even though she’d seen their bodies, and she knew that they wouldn’t. Frances lied to herself so she could devote all her attention to minding Michael. At nine, he was her younger brother by only two years, but Michael was a timid, scattered boy—far more childlike than his years could excuse.

Michael carried his stuffed bear, Stanley, dangling from one hand. The bear was already old and ragged, with uneven and mismatched eyes. He was coated with brick dust now too, his feet bouncing across the rubble as Michael walked. Frances thought Michael was far too old for Stanley, but Mum and Dad always refused to tell him so. She supposed it was her job now.

As they passed a raging house fire, her skin prickled in the heat. Still more sirens cried out in the distance. The noise was unlike anything she’d ever heard. Frances feared her own screams would soon add to the din. Looking to the fire before her, she couldn’t even recall which building it used to be, but in that moment she was just grateful for its warmth. Michael looked back to her, his brown eyes glittering in the firelight. Stanley’s black ones glittered too, and Frances was glad then that they had the old bear along with them.

She heard the strange, tinkling sound of footsteps coming through the brick rubble. A shadow appeared through the smoke. With the flames behind it, the figure drawing close upon them looked like some dark angel come to harvest dead souls. Frances froze in place, hoping that if she remained still enough, the apparition wouldn’t find her there.

Michael was always ill at ease with strangers. Quite unreasonably so, Frances thought. But when her brother saw someone approaching through the ruin of the street, he ran towards them, wailing, with his arms outstretched. Frances held back, still frozen, until she saw the upturned bowl shape of the National Fire Service helmet on the man’s head. When she saw that, Frances dashed to the fireman so quickly that she tripped over a brick and skinned both her knees raw.

She was up and running again before she even felt the sting.

 

2

The Hawksby children were passed off from guardian to guardian, each one brimming with a chipper energy and optimism that both confused and irritated Michael. He knew that everything wasn’t going to be all right, no matter what they cooed at him while they squeezed his shoulders through his borrowed shirt. With each new person trying to reassure him, Michael sank further into a certainty that things could only become worse.

The Hawksbys found themselves with a group of children travelling to Paddington station. None of the chaperones would tell them where they were going, only that they had a grand voyage ahead. Michael assumed the secrecy was required because enemy spies were skulking around, eager to snuff out all surviving sons and daughters of the Crown.

Michael tried to speak to some of the other children on the train once or twice, but he always said peculiar things. He knew this because they would scrunch up their faces at him and giggle before long. Whenever that happened, Frances would notice and yank him away to a corner. He didn’t like how Frances acted like she was his mum sometimes, but Michael knew that he was a dawdler. It was best if he just did what Frances said.

They had their suitcases with them for the journey and wore cards tied to their lapels, with numbers and their full names. Someone had gone to salvage some of their things from the house. Other items were provided for them, including woollen jumpers that were far too big.

Before they left for the station, Frances read out to Michael what the suitcases were meant to contain: “One gas mask, one coat, one cardigan, one hat, one pair of gloves, one dress, two pairs of stockings, one change of knickers etc., one pair of shoes, two pairs of pyjamas, one towel, one hairbrush, and a Bible or New Testament.”

“I don’t wear dresses or stockings.”

“This is the girls’ one, Michael. I’ll do the boys’ one next. But as I’m sure you can imagine, it has shirts and trousers and socks instead.”

Michael peered at Stanley in his lap. “They’ll let me bring him, won’t they?”

“I’ll tell them they must, Michael. Please, let’s not speak of Stanley anymore.”

The night after the train arrived, their chaperones took them to a school where they slept on straw mattresses on the floor. After dinner, they heard air-raid sirens and some distant bombs falling. The chaperones led them in cheery songs, but Michael could tell that their minders were frightened. He could hear it in the strained pitch of their singing voices.

He heard someone say they were in Liverpool, bound for Canada. Liverpool was already the farthest he had ever been from home. Tomorrow they would board a ship and he’d be a whole world away. Michael thought about the last thing he heard his father say.

Stay here, my darlings, back in a jiff.

Michael was certain his father had never lied to him before. His sister and everyone else might believe that his mum and dad were dead, but that didn’t make it so. He hadn’t seen them himself. He only took Frances’s word for it. And Frances wasn’t right about everything.

One night on the voyage, Michael sought out one of the chaperones to ask her a question. The chaperone he chose was the youngest of them, with bottle-thick eyeglasses and a limp. He thought she’d be the least likely to make fun of him.

“How will they find us?”

She frowned. “How will who find you, love?”

“Our parents. If we’re all the way in Canada, I mean. Will they be given our address?”

“Oh . . .” The chaperone’s mouth twitched a little, then she stroked his cheek with her thumb and said, “Don’t mind that. You’ve got a sister to keep safe, and that’s the thing.”

But Michael did mind. Given his father’s promise to return, he wasn’t going to leave even the slimmest chance ignored. He carried a small leather journal to collect his memories of their travels. Between his entries, he’d sometimes tear out pages to write tiny, folded notes.

Michael and Frances Hawksby were here. Hansel’s crumbs, except birds wouldn’t eat the paper the way they’d eaten the crumbs in the fairy tale. Frances could act as lordly as she liked on the journey, but Michael would be the one to make sure Mum and Dad found their way back to them.

3

Frances wasn’t supposed to know that another ship carrying Guest Children to Canada had been sunk just a few days earlier, but she’d heard people whispering about it on deck. She didn’t tell Michael because he was too anxious already, even without this news. The knowledge was her burden to carry, Frances thought, just as Stanley was his.

The chaperones were jolly, and the ship’s crewmen made the endless lifeboat drills as entertaining as they could. There were games and songs, as well as studies, and Frances noted that even Michael was getting into the good spirit of the voyage. The meal on their first night aboard, after their spell of rationing in London, felt fit for a princess and prince, with roast beef and potatoes, carrots and peas, and even some tinned pears in syrup.

Everyone was so kind, and much of the time it all felt like a grand adventure. Sometimes, though, when they didn’t realize she was looking, Frances saw disquiet in the sailors’ eyes. She heard whispers all over the ship of the great danger of crossing the Atlantic—of the shadowy U-boats stalking their convoy from below. But there were Royal Navy ships along as their escorts, and Frances knew that the men on board would be brave and clever. If the enemy tried to sneak up on them, they’d get an awful surprise.

One night, Frances heard shouting on deck and felt muffled explosions quivering through the ship’s steel hull. Donning her life jacket, she snuck out of their berth and made her way along the narrow corridors, slipping up two sets of metal stairs until she was on deck.

Creeping around to a vantage point by the lifeboats, Frances watched a burning ship sinking into the black night sea, the hull yawning open like a jagged length of pipe. She could see lifeboats in the water, and some men in there as well, floating and waving their arms. There was so much noise, she couldn’t even hear their shouts. Frances could barely see the other ships manoeuvring around the survivors, just searchlights twirling ghostly circles in the smoky dark.

Frances was startled when she felt someone take her hand. She turned to see her brother standing next to her, his gas mask over his shoulder and the old bear by his side. She was cross that he’d followed, because Michael would not be able to see such things without later inflicting his screaming nightmares upon her in their berth, but Frances badly wanted to remain and see what would happen to the floating men. Against her better judgment, she let him stay.

There was a great hollow boom, and flame blossomed out from the sinking ship, briefly blinding her. She heard Michael shout in distress and realized with horror that he was clambering over the ship’s rail. Frantic, Frances grabbed at his legs and pulled him back.

“Stop it, Michael! What are you doing!”

Michael wept and wriggled. “It’s Stanley, they got Stanley!”

Frances pulled Michael back down to the deck and scolded him to stay put, but she kept a hand on him to be sure. She could just make out Stanley floating on his back in the water below. Startled by the blast, Michael had dropped him overboard. She felt bad for the poor old bear, but still had an unkind urge to tell Michael she’d warned him not to drag the thing around everywhere. It served her brother right, but she didn’t need to tell him so.

Michael howled and stuck his head through the rail to look down at Stanley in the water. A crewman heard the commotion and came over in a rush, asking what on earth they were doing on deck, as it was no place for children. He tried to pull them away, but Frances still felt an urgent need to see what would happen to the other ships, and to their own.

The crewman took up Michael’s grief-rigid body in one strong arm and held out a hand for Frances, but she made him wait before she finally took it. Michael screamed and wept, reverting to the name he used to call his bear when he was still having trouble with his words. “Stambly . . .”

Frances could hear the men in the water shouting

now too, calling for help. In that moment, she became convinced that Michael’s hysterics would drown them out and make it harder for the rescuers to find them. Thinking herself clever, Frances grabbed the gas mask hanging from Michael’s shoulder and roughly pulled it down over his head to muffle his wailing.

Still, her brother screamed and screamed. The lenses of the mask turned milky white with the fog of his sorrow, as his body dissolved into trembles over the crewman’s shoulder. ...