by Helen Slavin
At the woodcarver stall she bought a chopping board made from sycamore.
“It was from a tree felled in Leap Woods…” the stall holder assured her. Vanessa knew, there was no chopping board made from wood felled in Havoc. The board, long and slightly curved to the grain of the beautiful wood was wrapped in paper and put into the basket.
The knifesmith had a small forge going at the back of her stall and looked heated in her t-shirt, jeans and leather apron.
“This one?” the knifesmith held up the large carving knife from the display rack, the handle a simple twisted design, the blade wide and sharp. She looked as though she were brandishing a miniature sword.
“Yes, please,” Vanessa nodded and began to pull the notes out of her purse. The knifesmith was delighted at the sale, hurrying to place the knife in a black gift box and making sure she put in a business card.
The knife was placed into the basket. Vanessa checked her possessions: basket, cheese, knife, board, scarf. Her list was complete. She walked once around the market again winding in and around the stalls and then walking with some purpose along the lanes and streets, roads and avenues of the centre of Woodcastle. From Laundry Lane up to Riggs Row, Vanessa walked, turning in at last at Barbican Steep and heading into the castle where Barbara Bentley nodded as she passed the gate and flashed her Friends of Woodcastle Castle pass. Vanessa climbed the steps in the East Keep and walked out onto the curtain wall. She took a moment to look out over the town, over at Leap Woods and at Havoc Wood, her gaze resting for a moment each on Yarl Hill and Ridge Hill and Horse Hill before she walked the circuit of the wall and back down via the steps at the other side of the gate.
By then, it was time to stroll towards the Castle Inn and meet her daughters.
* * *
The Ways had the dining room to themselves this afternoon. Anna had prepared the lunch and they sat at the round table with the white damask cloth laden with their finished plates and half-drunk glasses of wine. The white wine had seemed particularly sparkly and the Way sisters appeared in a cheery and giggling mood. There was much loud laughter but Vanessa Way, with her scientific eye, observed each of them. Anna with a new glow to her skin, moon pale as always but brighter than she had been for the last year. Emz looking edgy, could that be exam nerves? Charlie was laughing too hard and smiling too much which never boded well. Now she was pouring them all more wine, the liquid making a musical sound in the tall and elegant glasses.
“A toast. A toast.” Charlie was boisterous. “Let’s have a toast.” They all raised their glasses.
“What are we toasting?” Emz asked. Anna raised her glass a little higher.
“The Witch Ways.”
The glasses chinkled with a sound that, to Vanessa Way, sounded like ice.
* * *
At Havoc Wood the Way sisters’ daily patrols had proved quiet. They had established a system of individual routes through the wood.
“But we can’t get too set,” Charlie warned. “We need to mix it up, not always tread the same path,” she advised.
“Or we leave a trail.” Anna nodded. They were beginning to understand the wood and to pull forward more and more days spent with Grandma Hettie. They had all begun to sleep better in Cob Cottage and the sleep brought the memories which refreshed their knowledge. They had all remembered, for instance, Grandma Hettie’s idea of Pocket Walks and it was these shorter routes that they revisited individually in the day whenever they had time.
“We need to do three routes in the evenings when we can.” They might have been poring over a map together but instead they were looking at a splather of green lentils and each pushing their fingers through the legumes to make differing swirls and dunes.
To Charlie the lentil mess was an aerial view of Havoc Wood complete with all the checkpoints that before they had taken for granted and which now, after their adventures with Ailith and Mrs Fyfe, she valued as lodestones and markers to the territory.
“Tonight I’ll take this eastern side from the back end of the lake up towards town.” Charlie’s finger pushed her route through, the lentils rustling like leaves. She needed to be out, pounding the paths and racing ahead of her thoughts.
“I’ll take the western end then and up towards Old Castle and the edge of Ridge Hill…” Anna trailed her finger through the tumbled mass.
To Anna the green lentils made a sound like the edge of Pike Lake. She liked the feel of the wood of the old table beneath her fingertip, the gnarls and grain of it, and felt connected. If she didn’t turn her head she could see, in the very corner of her vision, Grandma Hettie at the sink washing out a white jug that she always kept flowers in; the flowers were waiting on the draining board, some hogweed from beside the flat stone at the edge of the lake. The flowers delicate, the sap dangerous. There was a reminder in that for Anna.
“I’ll take the last third then… keep an eye on the edge of Leap Woods too,” Emz pointed and poked, a couple of lentils pinging like tiddlywinks as she did so. For Emz the green lentils showed her the quick trails of a deer through Havoc, twisting and looping. The trail drew her eye, drew her heart. She thought of the small shard of metal like an arrowhead that she had once taken from an injured deer at Prickles, the silvered glint of metal in the crooked daylight of Havoc.
They readied themselves for the patrol. Charlie keenest, tugging on her jacket and knotting her scarf and almost out of the door before Anna could stop her.
“Lantern,” Anna reminded her. Charlie with a too energetic movement lifted her lantern from the hooks on the porch. Anna was next unhooking her lantern and turning to Emz who pulled on their grandmother’s black waxed raincoat. The door to Cob Cottage closed behind them with a soft oaken thump.
* * *
Later, an owl flew low over the trees, mapping its route by the three winking lanterns below, casting a web of light showing the Ways that wandered through Havoc Wood.
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