by Helen Slavin
The air on deck had a tang of diesel from the small cruiser just puttering past, but Charlie breathed in deep anyway. The tears she’d felt struggling to get out now drained back downwards, unshed, and she tried to get her heartbeat into an easier rhythm. It felt like some kind of folk dance was going on in her chest. The dress was stiff and uncomfortable, and Charlie was tempted to slip it off and slide down into the water, swim away, underneath the swing bridge to where the rock banked up beneath the Pineapple Inn.
“Are you alright?”
Charlie jumped. Call Me Ivan sounded genuinely concerned. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He took a sip from his whisky glass.
“No. No worries. I was miles away.” Her brain was sending mixed messages to her face. Call Me Ivan watched a smile wrestle on her lips for a moment.
“I could have someone get you some water?” He stood a little way off, in the golden light of the wheelhouse doorway. The doormen had stepped back a discreet distance, one checking his phone.
“I’m fine. Thank you.” The urge to jump overboard surged forward, and Charlie’s foot kicked onto the bottom railing and rested there, just in case.
“I like to take care of my guests.” Call Me Ivan smiled. “Is there anything I can get for you?” He took a step nearer, stepping out of the golden light into the harsher, white light of the nearby marina streetlamp. “Anything at all?”
“No. Thank you. I’m fine.” Charlie lied as her heart abandoned its earlier folk dance and took up kickboxing. Call Me Ivan reached that gold-ringed hand towards her once more.
“Here, let me escort you back inside.”
He took one more step towards her. Charlie pushed upwards, one hand shifting the skirt of that terrible dress a little higher to free her legs and step up, up onto The Ark’s railings. There was a flapping sound from the sail of a dinghy moored opposite, the chinkling of lanyards and rings.
“Woman overboard!” The words hit the water just as Charlie did.
Murk. A muscular form that might have been an eel curved away from her with ease. Keels. Anchor lines. Debris of decades. The water cooled her, her heart stopped racing. With a kick, she bobbed to the surface and struck out in a bold stroke. She had no idea where she was going, but each splash that took her further from The Ark and Call Me Ivan felt better, lighter, stronger. She glanced around and saw where a small ladder climbed out of the water on the quiet side of the swing bridge. Several more strokes and she was there, suddenly heavy as she pulled herself clear of the water. The dress, dragged at by algae and shimmered with diesel glaze, hindered her every movement. She’d lost her shoes. She hoped not on the deck. Had she dived in with them on? She couldn’t recall, it seemed so long ago.
She turned to pick a draggled reed from her neckline and fling it into the water. Glancing back, she saw where Call Me Ivan raised his glass in a toast before turning back to the wheelhouse.
3
Bump in the Night
The dream was vivid, almost more vivid than real life. The colours were turned up too high, the leaves were extra green. Emz’s dreaming self understood there was meaning to this but, if she tried to translate it, the thought ran away from her into the wood beyond. She folded the idea into the pocket of her grandmother’s raincoat for later inspection.
She twitched in her sleep, the raincoat creaking as she did so. The sound was in her dream, joining a chorus with the snapping of branches as she ran pell-mell through the wood. She was four-footed. What was that? Hoof. Flank. What was that? The extra green of the leaves fluttered with the extra gold of the sunlight. See, that was off, for a start. It was nighttime. She was asleep. Wasn’t she? Her dream self moved back to the bed, to the folded crinkles of black that made up her Grandma Hettie’s old raincoat. She just needed to push her arm through this sleeve.
She woke up before her hand broke free of the fold-back cuff. It was dark. There was a noise coming from the kitchen. A thud. Emz held her breath. There, again. She jumped up and headed through the door. Was it a Guest? A Visitor?
“What are you doing up?” Charlie was shutting the fridge door. The bowl of risotto left over from suppertime had a fork stabbed into it, and Charlie was buttering some of Anna’s spelt bread. It was the kind with pumpkin seeds in it. Anna had made it late that evening.
“I heard a noise,” Emz confessed. “Cut me a slice.” She nodded at the bread. Charlie took a bite of her own and sawed off another for Emz, pushing the butter dish towards her. “What are you doing?” Emz asked.
“I live here.” Charlie was offended.
“We know that.” Anna’s voice came from the darkness, her physical self following after with a yawn as she too reached for the bread knife.
“I meant, what are you doing in the kitchen in the middle of the night?” Emz rephrased her question. Charlie gestured at the risotto.
“Er? Duh?” She pricked up a forkful. Anna moved the chair out from under the table.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Her eyebrows rose a little. Charlie’s gaze locked with hers. Anna was unrelenting.
“This isn’t a stand-off.” Her voice was low. “Sit down.”
Charlie sniffed hard, the fork in her hand like a half-hearted weapon, and she did not sit. Anna took a spoon from the draining board and scooped up some of the risotto. Emz did the same, and they ate in silence.
“You look soaked. Is it raining?” Emz asked after several minutes, noting the draggled state of Charlie’s hair and dress, the whiff of water.
“I went swimming.” Charlie threw out the small fact.
“In Pike Lake?” Anna’s eyebrows were once again rising upwards.
“In the marina, in Castlebury.”
“In that dress?” Anna was staring at the gold brocaded dress.
Emz reached to feel the luxurious fabric. “Is that your dress? When did you get that?”
Charlie shrugged. “Aron bought it.” She looked down at her food as Anna and Emz exchanged a look.
“Whereabouts in the marina were you? Near the big pontoons or…” Anna waved her hands a little as if conjuring up the marina.
“Does it matter? Is this TripAdvisor?” Charlie was gruff.
More risotto was consumed, the forks chinking against the side of the bowl and making a strange music.
“I swam to the Pineapple from the pontoon.” Charlie’s voice faltered.
“What were you doing? Has Aron bought in a boat?” Emz asked with a puzzled look. Anna looked at her with a wry smile.
“Aron buy a boat? He doesn’t like the outdoors on dry land, never mind the water.”
“Yeah, but one of those big boats is like his car, isn’t it?” Emz reasoned. “You’re in the technology, like a spaceship. I was thinking of a cruiser or something. Like a Mercedes on water. I didn’t think he was bobbing about in a rowing boat or a three-masted schooner.”
“I jumped off The Ark.” Charlie slid the information in under Emz’s chatter.
“For a dare?” Emz asked. Anna was quiet. Charlie’s eyes brimmed over, and she wiped at them angrily. More fell into the silence between them. Charlie lobbed her fork into the sink and turned down the corridor.
“I’m going to bed.” She turned towards the hallway, but Anna was quick to block her, her hand raised.
“No.” Her voice was a stone, cold and hard enough to make Charlie pause and Emz hold her breath.
“I’m tired. I’m…” Charlie did not look up at her sisters.
“We needed you tonight.” Anna was calm.
“I doubt that.” Charlie took a step.
“We got lost.”
“No, you didn’t,” Charlie sneered. “You’re here. Snoring.” She gestured up the corridor to Emz’s room. Emz threw her own fork into the sink with a clang, her anger rising.
“You ever been to Day’s Ride?” Emz glared.
“What?” Charlie was cornered, her face tight.
“Day’s Ride. That’s where we had to go tonight.”
; “Where we got lost,” Anna chipped in.
“Did you get there?” Charlie challenged her.
“Eventually,” Anna replied.
“Therefore, you didn’t get lost.” Charlie was on the defensive. “Bloody guilt-tripping me.”
She made to go to her room, but Anna stepped forward again. “Guilt-tripping? What the…? What is going on with you?” Anna asked.
“Personal stuff.” Charlie was giving nothing. Anna’s temper lost its last thread.
“Are we not personal stuff? Is Havoc Wood not personal stuff? Do you not think you’ve got a responsibility to the wood?”
“There are three of us. We can do shifts. Tonight was your shift.”
“We made a mistake once before. We don’t need to do that again.” Anna’s voice was low and hard. “We need to patrol, we need to…”
“…escort Travellers to Day’s Ride.” Emz was peevish. Charlie rounded on her.
“We need to escort Travellers to Day’s Ride,” she mimicked Emz’s tone, adding a layer of whine to it. Emz and Anna were open-mouthed.
“What is wrong with you?” Emz’s face was crimped into a frown.
“You can’t be like this, Charlie. We need you here. We need the backup. You can’t just…” Anna halted, her breath caught in her throat, her voice breaking.
“I can ‘just’ be however I want. I was out with Aron.” Charlie’s voice had cracks in it. She looked, with tired eyes, to each of her sisters, her gaze roaming back and forth as if waiting for a blow. Anna looked thin, too thin, and at the sight, something in Charlie broke.
“I’m scared.” A dam of tears broke in her and, as her face crumpled up, so too did her sisters’, Emz clapping her hand to her mouth too late to stop the words coming out.
“Me too.”
“I’m scared too.”
They spoke in unison, the words fading into a silence broken only by the sound of Charlie’s sniffing and Emz’s hiccupping sobs. Anna wiped soft tears from her face, ran her hands through her hair.
“The only way I can handle it…” Anna took in a relieved breath, “is to patrol. To go over the wood. Over and over the wood.”
“I’ve been walking home by different routes, trying to cover all the ground. I can’t cover it all,” Emz confessed with a shake of her head. “It’s too much.”
“I’ve been running away.” Charlie said. “It’s like I’m scared of the dark. Of the trees.”
Anna nodded. “I’m scared of my own shadow… in case it isn’t my shadow.” There was a tremor to her voice.
“I’m scared of who might come to the wood. Of what might come to the wood.” Emz confessed. “The whole thing with Mrs Fyfe makes me feel that I don’t know Havoc anymore.”
There was silence for a few moments as the sisters pondered these confessions. It seemed an admission of defeat, but the mood in the cottage lifted.
“Do you think it was like this for Grandma Hettie?” Charlie asked. The sisters considered, Anna nodding.
“Yes. I think this is the job,” she said. “Keeping watch in the wood, making sure what comes here doesn’t get out. That’s the job.”
“A job we’re not qualified for.” Charlie’s voice distorted with emotion. “Since Mrs Fyfe, since Apple Day. Since Halloween. I don’t think I can do it. I’m too scared.”
“It’s okay.” Anna wiped at her eyes with the end of her sleeve. Her face eased out of relieved panic into calm.
“No. Don’t do that.” Charlie was shaking her head and waving her hand for extra emphasis. “It’s not okay, because we don’t know what might come out of the wood.”
“But… you know… we did deal with her. It was frightening and mad, but we did it.” Emz added, her arms folded tight so she could feel a little bit safer.
Charlie let out a scornful laugh, a harsh sound that seemed to shave at the exposed beam above them.
“She’s got a point,” Anna insisted, her arms folding in solidarity.
“I get that. Yes, alright, we did it. But it was terrifying and… I’m struggling with that.”
Anna caught at Charlie’s waving, negative hand and reached out for Emz who came to nest under her sister’s arm.
“And that is okay.” Anna put her finger on Charlie’s mouth before it could open in protest. “No, Charlie. Listen to me. Listen.” Charlie quieted at last, Emz hiccupped with her last sob. “It is okay, because now it’s out in the open… we can be scared together.”
4
Out of the Wood
Borrower awoke with a start from the dream. It was vivid and as iridescent as a starling in sunlight, the sound sharper. It had intensified in the last few weeks or so since Halloween. It had been a long time since Halloween had crackled with such strong, dark magic; it was reasonable, he supposed, that it still lingered in the air like smoke. He stretched in his roost in the elm tree and considered. What was odd about the dream? He often found himself in the minds of the animals when he and they were asleep. It was part of his bargain with the wood; more than that, a legacy from the line of his fathers.
He felt disgruntled. He enjoyed his rest, and this had put a ruffle in his usual mood. There had been something different about the dream. It mocked him from the boundaries of his mind, and then he saw it. The path the deer had followed — it had taken him out of Havoc Wood. In the dream, he had overstepped the bounds of Havoc. Interesting. He dropped down from the tree, took a few steps to Frog Pond, and splashed his face with the water.
But, for the briefest instant, the reflection had not been his own. He shot to his feet, stepping back, stumbling against his favourite rock. His mind struggled to dredge the image from the dripping water. Brown hair, the same colour as his, but not his, longer. Different eyes looking back, green eyes.
He gathered his courage and leaned back over the still surface of Frog Pond. The face that looked back at him was the usual: slightly weatherworn but in a handsome, dashing fashion. He admired himself as his thoughts sifted over the green eyes of that other reflection. Did he know those eyes? He could spend time searching for them through his vast landscape of memory, but why bother? Next time he slept, he would be in the dream and he would find them.
5
Plans and Other Nuisances
“Your boyfriend is here,” Michael said without looking at her. These last few weeks, since the Apple Day events caused by Mrs Fyfe’s ancient and magical slow poison, he had not looked at Charlie at all. He had, Charlie could see, been careful to bring a piece of paperwork to the brewhouse door, a practice that had become like a terrible white flag of surrender between them. She thought she might be upset by this turn in events but, in truth, Charlie was grateful.
She glanced beyond Michael’s retreating figure and saw Aron, one man moving away from her, one moving towards her, and her heart squelched.
“You made a splash the other night,” Aron grinned. She had not expected this. She had expected to be upbraided and have a fight, one she was looking forward to as a means of venting her fears and frustrations. She could yell and scream at Aron and pretend it was about stupid dinner dates. She took a breath.
“If you’ve come here to be pissed off at me…” she began, intent upon pursuing the fight. Instead of flaring up, Aron grinned his easiest, sexiest grin. Charlie was taken aback, shrank down inside herself, even more afraid, because she really did not seem able to interpret anything anymore. She was lost, wherever she was.
“Pissed off? Yes, that I missed you tipping off The Ark,” he laughed, rich and throaty, his eyes flashing. “Seriously, Chaz, it was the prank of the decade.”
“Prank?” There was a scent beginning to drift into the brewhouse. It was unusual and it snagged at her. “It wasn’t a prank. I needed to get out of there.” The scent drifted deeper, and she traced it to Aron, something in his aftershave probably. He loved his extravagant aromas. He gave a sympathetic shrug, the smile stretched and deepened, and the eyes now had their old sparkle, winking at her from the memory of th
eir secret kissing corner at school. A bike shed had been involved, of course. Later, after the bike shed was redeveloped, they shifted their lunchtime trysts to the curved sidewall of the new drama block. Charlie yanked her mind back into the present.
“Yeh. It was a bit intense. Not our usual stomping ground I grant you.” He took a step or two towards her, his fingers reaching for a twist of hair that had worked loose from her ponytail. His fingers, light as they pushed it behind her ear, her skin shivering at his touch as it had always done. She couldn’t help herself. She rushed him, folded herself into him, her face crushing into his neck, the curves of which seemed to fit her face exactly. His arms locked around her.
“Hey.” His voice was soft, his lips moving against her ear. Aron, who knew her better than anyone in the world. “It’s okay. Mr Herald wanted to meet you. He wants me in on a new business venture, and he needs to know I’m a safe pair of hands, that I’ve got a strong woman at my side. This business thing, it’s about the future, and you’re part of that future, Charlie.” He clasped her tight; Charlie closed her eyes, not listening to the words, just feeling the sound of his voice vibrate through her. “Like I said, you made a splash. Extraordinary was the word he used.”
Charlie was vaguely aware that there was a notion here that required attention.
