by Helen Slavin
Charlie’s heart lost its sense of rhythm for a second.
“Well, let’s drown our sorrows then.” She chinked his glass as it sat on the desk.
“You’re always so cheerful,” he snarled. “It’s annoying.” As their eyes locked, she saw he meant it. Charlie drank the Ferment.
“I’ll think of something.” Charlie was bluffing her bravado. “See you tomorrow.” And she left him poring over the computer screen.
Charlie was ready for a stride home through Havoc Wood, hoping to get trampled by the dratted Great Grey Horse or attacked by possessed squirrels, at the very least. It seemed a fitting ending to another tense day. Instead Fate threw Aron into the car park.
He was leaning up against an unfamiliar car.
“This is a different car from the other day, isn’t it?” Charlie wondered why this seemed to matter to her. Aron shrugged.
“Courtesy car. The Mercedes is in the workshop.”
It struck Charlie as odd that the Mercedes garage had offered a rather worn-out looking VW Golf as a courtesy car.
“What do you want?” She heard her curt tone and watched it slice at Aron in a way she had not anticipated.
“You.” His voice had a vulnerable edge to it that, with everything else that was going on in her head, she could not handle, and so she laughed it off.
“I’m popular today. Mr Herald was here this morning.” Charlie was disappointed to see Aron look caught out. “I gave him a tour of the brewery.” Aron’s reaction and the memory of the tour collided.
“Shit.” The word darted from his lips. Charlie glared at Aron. He was trying not to shrink away from her, she could see. His arms were folded, defiantly relaxed. Charlie pushed a little.
“Why d’you say that? The idea was that he’s looking for local suppliers for his alcohol,” she said. “Isn’t that a good gig if you can get it?”
“Yeh… yes… of course,” Aron said. Charlie could hear an edge in his voice and could not translate it.
“Or was he just there because Quincey’s dropped our contract? He’s in for the kill already.” Charlie felt prickly.
“That’s just your paranoia.” Aron lied.
“Is it? Is it really? Or is the truth that he wants to buy the brewery? That this is all part of his grand schemes? The Castle Inn? The Drawbridge Brewery? Ivan Herald, King of Castlebury.” As Charlie spoke, Aron tensed, his brow forming an origami of creases. “Is that it? Is that the big project?”
“No.”
“It is, isn’t it? And I’m your contact, your foot in the brewery door. That’s why the sudden interest in me. Oh my God, that is why Quincey’s has cancelled on us.”
“No.” He was firm, resolute. She saw the veneer of sorrow that glazed him, and she stopped talking. There was a long moment, Aron’s arms were folded tight, and, for a second, she thought that the only thing stopping him from falling on the ground was the car. He shook his head.
“The project he’s into… is nothing to do with the Inn or the brewery. Seriously. Nothing at all.” His voice was flecked with nerves. “Can I take you home?”
They drove in silence. Charlie felt a heavy sadness, like a body of water suffocating her. Aron did not turn the car in at the tarmac roadway. Instead he pulled into the verge.
“You know I love you.” His voice cracked. Charlie was speechless, love was not a word that Aron bandied about, he was afraid of it. She looked into his face, saw where he was leaner, harried. He reached across, not to kiss her, but to open the door. Charlie hesitated.
“I’ve always loved you,” Aron said.
She was all the way down the tarmac before she heard his car pull away, and she did not dare look back. As the tarmac cracked and broke into gravel, Charlie understood that, while Aron had said “love”, Charlie had heard goodbye.
25
Date Night
Casey had dressed up for the blind date and felt uncomfortable and not herself. Her friend Mitzi had organised the disaster, for that was what it was shaping up to be.
“I’ve got this colleague at work.” The conversation had begun and Mitzi, being forceful by nature, had already organised matters before Casey could wriggle free.
She’d had other blind and double dates with Mitzi and Jared, her hipster other half. Mitzi was a woman on a mission to find Casey a mate. None of the candidates had been suitable.
“You don’t make enough effort,” Mitzi chided. “Try and be more…” Mitzi had struggled for the word, “amenable.”
Casey was not a difficult person by any measure. She was just unable to make herself be smaller or tidier or obedient to another’s will, really. The dates that Mitzi arranged had all wanted something she could not give: less of herself.
Tonight, she’d decided to follow every letter of Mitzi’s advice so that she could, perhaps, shoot her down properly next time. Casey did not doubt there would be a next time. As part of her Mitzi strategy, she had worn all the clothes that Mitzi had picked out for her online. She was wearing uncomfortable shoes and make up from a YouTube tutorial bookmarked by Mitzi.
As Casey sat in The Fiddle, Woodcastle’s most posh pub at the end of Rook Row, awaiting her suitor, she realised that she didn’t like Mitzi very much. They had been school friends, and, if she thought back, she hadn’t liked her overmuch even then. It was just that Mitzi was hard to shake off when she latched onto you.
“You’re my project,” Mitzi had said last week, and Casey felt uncomfortable.
He was late, this date, Casey checking the text message Mitzi had sent including his phone number. What was his name again? As she was scrolling through the message to locate it, her phone began to ring.
“Hey, Carey?” It was not a good start. She’d forgotten his name, he’d misremembered hers. “It’s Jason Burnett.” Jason. Jason, of course. She pictured him wearing a golden fleece, arriving aboard the Argo.
“Oh, hey.” “Carey” had considered and did not correct him, keeping her tone light and possibly fluffy.
“Listen, been a bit of a meltdown this end.” Oh, trouble with the Argonauts? Casey thought and then paid closer attention “I’m really sorry to do this to you but…” clearly the Golden Fleece needed dipping, “…wondered if you fancied meeting me here, in town?” He sounded very pleased with his suggestion.
“Town?” Casey was confused. “I’m in town. I’m at The Fid…” Fake laughter and a lot of noise from Jason.
“Ha. No. No. I get that. I meant proper town. I’m in Castlebury. Up at New Town.” He was having to raise his voice to be heard. “Mate of mine managed to get us VIP’ed at Pandemonium.” It was a social coup, clearly one that passed Casey by. Although the place sounded like its name. “I thought we could hook up, you could get a cab or something and meet me here.”
Casey visualised the forty-minute cab ride to New Town on the far side of Castlebury to go to a club with a complete stranger chosen for her by Mitzi.
“Seriously, Carey, it will be a lot of fun. I promise.”
Casey walked home. It was a starlit evening, and she needed some air. The Fiddle was not her favourite of Woodcastle’s pubs on the best evening. She found the Georgian rooms sombre and disapproving, and it was also quite a long walk home.
That said, tonight she wanted the long walk and chose the most circuitous route, because it would take her past the Castle, which was looking particularly majestic as she made her way up Barbican Steeps. She liked the cobbled walkway with its ancient setts. She and her brother, Seth, had always used them like stepping-stones and played at not stepping on the cracks. But the cracks tonight were in her ankles, twisting over in the horrible shoes. She took them off, and it felt good to feel the frost beneath her stocking feet. Felt free. She laughed to herself and began a light-hearted hopscotching step across the brown paving stones. Her brother had said they were brown because of all the bloodshed.
Step. Hop. Dance. Hop. This drapey dress that Mitzi had picked was not stupid at all, it was beautiful, the stre
etlight catching in the embroidered fancy bit on the swirly hem. Casey heard herself laugh out loud as the fabric twirled and rippled. Spin. Spin. Turn. The strong hand reached for hers, and she laughed until she was spun around, into the strong arms. Spin, spin. Turn. Turn.
She awoke at the foot of Banner Hill feeling bruised and hungover, her head spinning. She lay still so she would not be sick. She sat up and let her mind rove over her body, assessing damage. Grazes. Her dress spoilt, muddied, spattered with blood. From where? Her heart raced. A long cut on her leg, shallow and crusted over now. Bruises coloured her arms, and, as she looked at her hands, she had a wild memory of dancing at the castle, of strong arms spinning her. No. She couldn’t go further. Not yet.
Casey scrabbled to her feet, stockingless and bare, grubby and with no sign of her shoes anywhere. She recalled taking them off at the castle. She took several deep breaths, but she could not stop shaking.
It was the longest walk home she’d ever had.
26
Barefoot Borrowed
The scent of heartache drifted to Borrower through the trees of Havoc Wood. It was like burnt earth, blood on his lips.
Whoever she was, this wife was different. He made swift progress, following, once more, the track of the deer, and there she was, outside the castle, like an offering from the town. It mattered little that the old bones of the place pushed against him, he shoved back, took the few steps needed across the stones to take her hand.
He felt the skills in her hands, knifework, the stirring of ladles, the wooden spoon of savour. He would not have to borrow any of this when she was his. He would take her back to the cottage and she would warm the hearth. He would make her Queen of the Wood. He twirled her around, put the steps of his dance into her feet, and she laughed as his arms folded tight about her. A snare of strong arms.
He was ravenous for her, lifting her over his shoulder and stepping up onto the banking to skirt the castle, the speediest route back. While he must follow the deer out, he could find his own way back into Havoc.
It seemed fated when, the moment he stepped into the trees, there was a rough nickering sound. Borrower turned to find the Great Grey Night Horse towering over him and, feeling that, this time, the Fates were with him, grabbed for the reins. The beast could help him carry off his Woodcastle wife.
It was not to be. The reins lashed him once again, twisting their leather around his hand so that he had to wrench himself free as the vast hooves stepped forward, intent on trampling him. Borrower hefted his wife higher onto his shoulder and ran. The horse pursued, forcing him this way, blocking that.
The trees did not greet Borrower, the branches creaked and switched. Leaves slapped at him like punishment, and the wind blew up and took his breath. A dozen times more he dropped his prey. Desperate to escape the horse, his hand sealed about her wrist, bumping her unconscious body over the ground.
No. This was not how it should be. Bark grazed him. Thorns reached from bramble and blackthorn and clawed him to the ground. The hooves grazed at his calves as he fled.
At the foot of Banner Hill, he was halted, the wood floor sinking and bubbling into a bog, the ground chewing him up, further and further the mire rose until he let go of the wife. At that, the horse whinnied, triumphant, rearing up to clatter its hooves on the ground with a sound like rocks falling, and Borrower stumbled.
On his feet at last he ran, the roots and hollows tripping him on his long path and nowhere was safe, there was no haven. Havoc Wood was spitting him out.
27
Making the Owls Turn Their Heads
There Is No Time
Dr Fell had retired shortly after Charlie was born, and Vanessa herself had been asked to take over the inception of a new department.
“You are our greatest asset and our biggest liability,” Hennessey had told her at a private meeting at his house. It was a big house, as befitted the CEO of a company such as De Quincey Langport.
“All I ask is that you find us something. Anything. A power, a force, some kind of supernatural commodity. I do not care what you find for us, only that you let De Quincey Langport be the keepers of the secret.”
He had not offered Vanessa so much as a glass of water since her arrival. Her mother would be pleased at this, warning always of the perils of supping with the enemy.
“I work hard,” Vanessa had repeated. Hennessey had smiled, wily as a fox. He understood there was no arguing with her, and so he let her go.
The lights in the laboratory fused for the third time that day, and Vanessa told the team to go home.
Alone, she looked back over the paper readout for the encephalograph, most especially the vividly spiked section that had continued to etch itself across the paper even as the power supply failed. Probably, Vanessa mused, this was the reason for the power outage.
She sat for an hour, more, her work illumined by the small pool of light from the anglepoise. She liked this lamp, the way it leaned over with a studious air. Her breath, she saw, was steaming in the cold of the room, making a fog in the lamp’s bright light.
Bright as snowlight.
Vanessa switched off the lamp and reached for her bag. The compass in her pocket twitched. Her thoughts twitched with memories.
Back then, Anna and Charlie had been staying with her mother at Cob Cottage. When Vanessa pulled in, she glimpsed them in the kitchen taking out the candles they had made earlier in the week; beyond, the porch door open as Charlie rushed out to place hers first on the edge of the deckboards. Anna followed, with more ceremony.
“Solstice,” Hettie Way said as she came through the kitchen.
“Mum, Mum, Mum.” Vanessa’s daughters raced to greet her, a tumult of information and candles as they readied for marking the night.
“We have to light the candles to carry the day,” Anna said, lighting a taper from the woodburner and sheltering it with her hand.
“Can I? Can I?” Charlie buzzed and hurtled back and forth between hearth and door. “I want to make the light last.” And Hettie handed her her own taper.
The candles, set in saucers along the length of the porch, looked beautiful. Inside there were candles on the dinner table and a feast of a rich stew.
“It’s happening, isn’t it?” The last few days had carried a mineral scent through the air of Havoc that set Hettie’s senses alight. She broached the subject as the girls drifted off to sleep, curled under woollen blankets on the big sofa. Vanessa pushed the hair back behind Anna’s ear and kissed her forehead.
“Yes.” Vanessa tugged the blanket over Charlie’s foot, kissing the sole of it as she did.
“Do you have an idea when?”
Vanessa laughed at the question. “When have I ever?” she said. “I’m not adept enough to read the signs.”
Hettie regarded her daughter for some moments.
“Stop staring,” Vanessa half chided, shifting in her chair, uncomfortable.
“Sorry. But I’m not sure when I might see you again.” Hettie’s eyes were sparkling with tears. She controlled them, the two women sharing a warm hug.
“Let’s get the kids into bed then.” Hettie bustled a little. “No sense in taking them back to Way Towers with you now that it is time. Stay here. You know your room is always ready.”
They bundled the girls into their blankets and carried them to their rooms. The small, cosy spaces softened the edges of Vanessa’s mood.
“I ask a lot of you,” she said as Hettie closed Charlie’s door.
“I’m their grandmother,” Hettie smiled. “I do what grandmas do.”
Vanessa felt wired. Her mother put her hand on her shoulder.
“Rest.”
Vanessa yawned.
She woke, hours later. The digital clock by her bedside flashing in real alarm that, at some point in the night, the power had gone out.
In her pocket, Vanessa could feel the compass. She did not need to check how fast it was spinning, nor in which direction.
Her mother w
as already up, the two colliding in the hallway. Outside there was a disturbance.
“Horses,” Hettie said as Cob Cottage rattled.
Vanessa moved through the kitchen, beneath the arch. Her mother was watchful at the kitchen window.
“They’re coming down from Day’s Ride.” Hettie turned as the drumming of hooves beat rhythm into the building. The cup on the table jolted as the Riders thundered around the cottage. War cries.
Vanessa reached for the door.
“No.” Hettie was warning, knowing it was futile from the look on her daughter’s face. As Vanessa turned the handle on the porch door, the kitchen door wrenched itself open and a vast, bellowing grey horse entered, bowing its heavily maned head through the frame. It stood inside, panting, the scent of it thickening the air inside Cob Cottage. It glanced at Hettie then nickered at Vanessa.
Hettie moved out of the path of the horse as Vanessa hop-skipped onto the sofa, her hands twining into the strong mane as the horse stooped for her. As Vanessa hefted herself onto its back, Hettie darted forward to open the porch door, the great grey beast pushing past as she did so, so that she was flattened against the wall.
As the horse stepped out onto the porch, the door to Cob Cottage yanked itself free of Hettie Way’s grasp and slammed shut.
“No. No. No.” She rattled at the door, but it would not let her out. She looked up, Vanessa looking back for just a nod before the Great Grey Horse jumped from the porch. Hettie, her hand on the window, felt the glass freeze, the icicles like knives ranked at the porch edge.
The black horses, their Riders in black and furs, streamed from each side of the cottage, in pursuit. The Great Grey Horse took steady strides, the limbs powering towards Pike Lake. Hettie thought they would skirt around, but instead she watched the surface of the lake freeze before them with a sound like an animal, deep and mournful.
