Slow Poison

by Helen Slavin

  Charlie nodded.

  “I just need to get home.” She couldn’t stop the tears. Aron pulled a little at her shoulder; she turned to face him. With his thumb he wiped at her tears, but he did not try to hold her.

  “I just need you to know… I get it.” He was reassuring and his eyes, she noticed for the first time in a long time, were glacial blue, light. They were eyes that she had looked into for a long time, forever almost, the eyes that saw who she was. She nodded so that more tears tipped out. Aron tugged on a sweatshirt and reached for his keys.

  32

  Behind You

  Anna turned off the hotplate and considered the fact that there was no cleaning down to do. The bacon and eggs were untouched in their packaging in the fridge, the toaster was cold. No one had come down for breakfast. No one had wandered in off the street. She had never witnessed a morning like it.

  Casey was away for a couple of days visiting her aunt in Kingham so there wasn’t even anyone to share this with. Anna felt befuddled by it, considered texting Casey to ask what she thought, when Lella wandered into the kitchen.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock but, far from being dressed in her usual hotel manager outfit, Lella was wearing her Hello Kitty pyjamas and a baggy old jumper. She was barefoot, her toenail polish chipped.

  “Good morning,” Anna said, watching Lella very carefully.

  “Is it?” Lella asked, opening the fridge. “This place is buzzing as usual.” She made a dismissive gesture in the general direction of the empty restaurant. Lella helped herself to some cheese by simply biting off a chunk from the wedge that was on the shelf.

  “You alright?” Anna asked. Lella gnawed at some more cheese and picked out some cold ham as she nodded.

  “Yeah. You?” Lella gave Anna an odd look. “Oh no… course not.” She gave a pitying laugh. Anna did not ask any more questions. She stood in silence and watched Lella forage her way around the kitchen.

  “I’m going to watch Jeremy Kyle, want to come?” Lella was part way through the door to the lounge, wedging it open with her body so that she could balance her snacks. Anna could hear the twangy music of daytime TV advertising. “You could go on that show, you know. With all that happened to you.”

  Anna tamped down the flinch inside her, managed a smile.

  “I’ll take a rain check,” Anna said. Lella glared at her.

  “Does it not get tiring? You lost everything. How can you try to be alright about it?” Lella asked, licking her fingers free of some chilli sauce. Anna did not reply. Lella waited a moment before giving a shrug and heading out into the lounge.

  As she left, Anna turned the sign to ‘Closed’ and locked the front door to the inn. It seemed the best thing to do in the circumstances.

  What were the circumstances? Lella was having a breakdown perhaps? Hence the PJs? Anna walked away from the inn.

  At first glance Woodcastle seemed to be fine; that is, if you gave it the kind of cursory glance you might give through a car window when you were only half concentrating and had a map open in your lap. If you were a resident, then Woodcastle looked bad. Bits of homemade flag were snatched on the breeze and blown about.

  The most obvious fault was the lack of traffic, due, probably, to the fact that the makeshift barricades were still in place. Although, this morning they looked less like a barricade and more like a load that had fallen off a skip lorry. As Anna thought it, a skip lorry began to reverse down Dark Gate Street, its warning alarm sounding mournful.

  Things did not improve on High Market Place. Doors were open, but the shops looked abandoned or looted; there was an emptiness about the place.

  “Why aren’t you coming in here? Why aren’t you supporting your local shops? Hmm?” The butcher, Owen Greene, was standing in a bloodied apron haranguing a young woman with a pushchair. The sight of the pushchair alone was prickling at Anna but she pushed her own emotions to the side for a moment. Owen looked pale and desperate.

  “I’ll tell you why… you can get it all cheap at the supermarket. Yeah. Really cheap. This is my skill. My livelihood. You are a robber and a thief…” He was waving a knife at the woman who was reaching into her bag and crying, pulling out her purse and scrabbling around for coins.

  “Look… look, I’m a vegetarian,” she was repeating the phrase. The baby was mewling and miserable and was, Anna noticed, sticky looking. She took a step nearer. The child’s face looked as if it had not been washed and there was a strong poo smell that was sickly and sweet.

  “Get away from there,” the woman swiped at Anna. “Get away from my baby,” and she rattled the pushchair away.

  The few people who were out were miserable looking, tearful, or arguing, even with themselves. At the bakery people were wandering inside and taking what they liked. Anna turned down onto Church Lane. The few shops were closed. Mimosa the florist had a window display of thorns; there was nothing to disguise them, no gypsophila to soften the effect, the window was crossed and tangled with leafless branches bearing barbs. It looked oddly safe to Anna as if it might be a good idea to push the door open and hide inside but the door was locked.

  Next door Mari was having what can only be described as a jumble sale.

  “What’s going on, Mari?” Anna asked as she looked around at the almost bare shelving. Two women were squabbling over a quilt.

  “Hang on…” Mari shoved a stolen pain au raisin into her mouth and reached for the big black dressmaking scissors she kept at the counter. It took three snips and then some rending of fabric to divide the quilt into two and as each woman scrabbled for her tattered portion and ran out, Mari turned back to Anna.

  “Closing down sale. I’m off to that caravan. I’m going to work at the farm shop for my uncle. He’s going all rustic chic…” Mari’s gestures were wild and a little bit drunk as she drew the picture of her future. She leaned down to the counter for another pastry. “Going to open an organic farm café and all that. Quids in. And I’ll get out of this dump.”

  Anna was quiet.

  “God Anna, how do you even get out of bed in a morning? If I’d lost what you lost I’d be… I’d be…” Mari struggled to think what she might be and then she looked to Anna for an answer. “Aren’t you just broken?” She peered closer, genuinely interested. “I mean… you must be, right?”

  Anna held herself together with small shallow breaths.

  “I’ll see you around,” Anna said and headed out.

  “At the farm… remember!” Mari shouted.

  As Anna walked through town she felt the metallic tang once again, the vibration of the air like a charge. She took one circuit of the castle walls and finding herself at the top of Long Gate Street she kept walking until she came to the gate that led to Havoc Wood.

  Once inside she kept walking and kept walking and the lost wheels of Ethan’s pushchair squeaked in her head.

  * * *

  “Ugh. That bloody Fyfe woman.” Winn shoved her phone into her pocket and grimaced. “If it’s not one thing it’s another.” Winn looked tired. They were about to set off on a recce of the badger sett at Ridge Hill after Winn had had a tip off about possible badger baiting.

  “What is it?” Emz asked, zipping up her daypack. Winn gave a big sigh.

  “There’s a dead bird wedged in the troughing.” Winn was thoughtful, tapping her foot as she thought it out. “Right. We’ll get over to Hartfield and sort that bloody Fyfe woman out and then we’re free and clear to focus on the badgers.”

  As they headed out Winn put the twelve-bore in the back of the Defender.

  * * *

  Three quarters of an hour later and Emz was holding the ladder very tightly, not least because Winn was balanced right on the very top rung, the ladder leaning against the single storey scullery. Winn’s safety was not what was bothering Emz, it was Mrs Fyfe.

  The second that she had stepped out of the kitchen to greet them Emz had struggled. There was no disguise to this woman’s real face, it leered out at Emz without h
er even trying to look for it. Angular and direct, the bones stretched against the skin of it but in a way that suggested strength rather than starvation or illness. Her eyes goggled behind the glasses but that was just the fake face, the joke eyes, the real eyes were intensely observant, unsmiling, cold as stones rimed with frost. Emz felt a compulsion to turn and run but she would not leave Winn with this woman. Her instincts screamed and growled. She needed to help Winn do this task and then they had to get out of there, quite fast.

  “Oh. You have a companion today.” Mrs Fyfe greeted them, evidently displeased at Emz’s presence. Those eyes dissected Emz Way. Emz struggled for a second and then, unwilling to appear cowed or shaken, she pulled on her own brand of fakeness. She gave a wave that was so cheery her wrist hurt.

  “Hey there… I’m Emz.” On a sudden sharp impulse, she dared to offer her hand to be shaken but Mrs Fyfe looked at the hand as if it was tainted so Emz withdrew it with a bouncy giggle. Emz was channelling Caitlin very hard, keeping her face vapid and smiley. Her mind was pulling down the visor on an imaginary steel helmet, the kind that a welder might use rather than a knight. “Don’t mind me… I’m just here to hold the ladder.” She gave another giggle which thankfully Winn did not have to witness as she was busy wrestling the stepladder out of the coal shed.

  With a clank and a clang Winn swung the ladder out, narrowly missing putting it through the kitchen window.

  “Oh bugger.” Winn cursed.

  “I could go up there, Winn…” Emz offered, but Winn was already half way up, showing remarkable agility for a woman of her age and tweed attire.

  “No problem. Just hold it steady.” She motored up to the guttering to confront the clag of moss and dead leaves and rainwater.

  “I need a bucket.” Winn looked down, pointed to the bucket by the coal shed door, and Emz abandoned her post for just a second to fetch it.

  As Winn slopped out debris Mrs Fyfe watched Emz. Her direct stare was making the hair on Emz’s neck prickle to the point of pain.

  “So… ‘Emz’ is it?” Mrs Fyfe took a step closer. Emz looked up towards Winn but kept her voice breezy.

  “Yeah. Emz, with a ‘zed’. You alright, Winn?” she called up. Winn barked something and some hideous black gloop splotted into the bucket.

  “Emz. Is that short for something?” Mrs Fyfe enquired. Emz was feeling off, she had the sensation that someone was pulling at her hair and she wanted for all the world to pull back against it.

  “You are some kind of assistant at Prickles then I presume? Miss Winn’s servant.” Mrs Fyfe left the name issue alone for a moment.

  “Ooh yes. I love it there. Animals are so cute.” Emz notched up the cheerleader cheeriness and glanced at Mrs Fyfe. The angular face gave a flashing grin of grim delight.

  “So what is ‘Emz’ short for then?” Mrs Fyfe was, it seemed, obsessed with finding out her name. “Is it Emma?” Mrs Fyfe persisted. “Is it Eleanor? Elouise perhaps?” It was only going to be a few seconds before she reached for ‘Rumpelstiltskin’. Emz kept her silence and watched the face for a moment, challenged the direct look, and as she did so there was a single blink from Mrs Fyfe. It seemed like a sign, a tell perhaps; at once the cheerleader insincerity vanished from Emz and with a mental flourish the visor flipped up sharply on the heavy welder’s helmet.

  “My name is Emily Way.” Emz heard the confidence in her voice, felt the Strength behind it and, it was very obvious, so did Mrs Fyfe. The angular face backed away behind its white skin and googly glasses in an instant. Emz was taken aback at the reaction.

  “Got the bugger.” Winn waved a dead jackdaw from the top of the ladder. As she descended the smell came with her. The small corpse was draggled with rainwater and riddled with maggots. “This poor chap can go in the bin.”

  At the slightly cracked Belfast sink in the sunny corner of the kitchen Winn had got the worst of the grime from her hands and sleeves.

  “Right. A lick and a promise will do me.” She wiped at her hands with a rather grubby looking teacloth. Emz did not want to mention the freckles of mud that peppered her cheeks and forehead and neither, it seemed, did Mrs Fyfe.

  “Oh, you must stay and have some tea,” Mrs Fyfe offered. On the range a kettle was coming up to the boil, a hard, rattly sound that pittered at Emz.

  “Oh no, we mustn’t.” Winn was flustered, the teacloth flapping in her hands. “We’ve got badgers to…” Winn struggled for the words “… to attend to and those hedgehogs are… rioting.”

  Emz had never seen Winn like this. Mrs Fyfe seemed to enjoy Winn’s discomfiture. Emz did not.

  “You must have tea… and also apple cake.” She waved a hand at a dismal looking wedge of cake on a chipped plate on the table. The dry looking sponge was pitted with brown bits of apple and, as Emz looked at it, she could only see the jackdaw in her head, the maggots writhing in its breast.

  Winn did not disguise her reaction, her tongue licking out in disgust.

  “Oh no thank you… no offence but that last lot gave me appalling wind.” Winn was grabbing at Emz’s sleeve; Emz needed no prompting to move towards the door.

  “Oh, but the kettle is boiling…” As Mrs Fyfe spoke the kettle began to whistle, low and insistent; the hair at the back of Emz’s neck began to prickle like pins. Winn was holding onto Emz now.

  “Please, take tea and cake… as a lovely thank you.” Mrs Fyfe’s smile, sickly and red with lipstick.

  “No thank you.” Winn’s voice was suddenly strong and had the same impact on Mrs Fyfe that being hit with a shovel might. She looked aghast, took a slightly stumbling step back and Winn and Emz made their getaway.

  They were pretty much running for the doors of the Defender, Winn driving off before Emz had got the door properly shut.

  “Saints preserve us from Mrs Fyfe’s cake.” Winn spat the word. “Absolutely appalling stuff.” Winn’s face gurned through several degrees of repulsion.

  “When did you have cake with her?” Emz braced herself against the swerve of the tight angle Winn was taking round the curve of the driveway.

  “Oh God. The other day. Bloody Apple Day when I’d fixed the swan neck.”

  “The swan neck?” Emz had an image of Winn performing the Heimlich manoeuvre on a flapping water bird.

  “Yes. That ruddy drainpipe thing over the kitchen. She INSISTED. Forced me.” Winn grimaced. “I only ate it to take away the taste of the dreadful tea.”

  As they handbrake-turned out of the gates a familiar voice in Emz’s head whispered “Poison”.

  33

  Slow Poison

  That night the patrol of Havoc Wood that the Way sisters undertook was not a pleasurable experience. An unspoken decision to stick together had been taken and almost the instant they left Cob Cottage things felt wrong. There was a terrible quiet as if the leaves themselves were holding still.

  “Can you taste it? Smell it?” Emz halted as they stepped into the clearing on Ridge Hill.

  “It’s making me feel sick.” Anna confessed. “Like carsick, that rattled and bumped feeling…”

  Emz halted, her face losing colour, Charlie turning back a step or two to face them, her face bright with revelation.

  “Poison.” Emz and Charlie spoke in sync. Anna looked at them both.

  “What do you mean?”

  Charlie stepped up onto a fallen trunk, gesticulating.

  “I mean, I said before we made a mistake. Well, that mistake was much bigger than we thought.”

  “Mistake? This isn’t about the warrior’s head then?” Anna looked to each of her sisters. Charlie was shaking her head.

  “This is about Apple Day.” Charlie was digging her hands into her sweatshirt again, her fists showing through the fabric straining at the seam. “Remember how Ailith said the meat had turned? That it was off?”

  Anna nodded.

  “This is about poison.” Emz said. Charlie was nodding. Anna was looking at her sisters and trying to remain calm.

  “Pois
on.”

  “Remember the Hillman wedding? How that all kicked off?”

  “I thought we’d decided it was all due to the warrior’s head?” Anna played devil’s advocate.

  “We were looking at something shiny. That was the day the castle called out and it was this stuff starting up. This poison.” Charlie said, decisive. “The castle was sounding the alarm because we let a Trespasser into Woodcastle.”

  Emz’s voice was very quiet.

  “Mrs Fyfe.”

  Her sisters looked round.

  “Who?”

  “Winn’s new tenant.”

  Charlie took in a gasp of recognition.

  “Black hair. Goggly glasses?”

  Emz nodded.

  “You think she’s the woman who followed Ailith? The one from the split oak?” Anna picked up the thread of logic. Emz nodded. Without another word Charlie hared off through the trees.

  “Charlie?... Charlie?” Anna called out as she and Emz chased after.

  * * *

  As Anna and Emz emerged from the trees, Charlie, fizzing with energy, was already in Grandma Hettie’s shed throwing out every carton, container, and watering can she could find. As her sisters approached, she took up the secateurs from the hook on the shed door and began barking instructions.

  “We need all the blackberries we can pick and every water bottle we can lay our hands on.”

  “Isn’t it a bit late to pick them? Didn’t Grandma Hettie always say that after September they were touched or tainted or something?”

  “Exactly the point. Get picking.” Charlie chucked the wooden trugs at Emz and lobbed a selection of water containers into a nearby wheelbarrow.

  “Anna, take all these inside and fill them, tap’s easier than the stream, it’s all Havoc water.” She turned away to make her sweep of the garden, stooping suddenly into a patch near the shelter of the shed to snip at this herb, because this herb was tarragon, except that Grandma had always called it Dragon. She sliced at this plant too, taking a sprig or three, yes, that was right, oh how the wormwood had been nagging at her. She put them carefully into a small trug, the handle of which had been darkened over the years by Grandma Hettie’s hands.