by Helen Slavin
“Is it? Is it doable?” Winn wondered. “Would Anna be interested in something like that do you think? No, too busy at the Castle Inn, I expect. Foolish. Old fool. Forget I mentioned it.”
And, on that note, she darted out to the pens.
32
Blind Spot
It still looked, eighteen months or more after moving in, as if Vanessa Way was camped out in the kitchen at Half-Built House.
“Are you sleeping in this lounger chair thing?” Anna noted the folded quilt, an old patchwork one from Cob Cottage.
“There are beds upstairs,” Charlie chided. “I mean, it’s like Goldilocks up there. What’s wrong? One’s too hard? One’s too soft?”
“The night looks nice through this window,” Emz chipped in, and Vanessa smiled to herself.
“Hey, at least she’s home.” Anna winked. They milled about the kitchen space, each at their own task.
“So what do you think of the pop-up idea at Hartfield?” Emz pushed a little. When she’d asked her in the car on the way over, Anna had not answered her with a straight “no”. Now she crumpled her face in thought, and Emz recognised the positive signs.
“I could probably do it.” She put the plates on the table in front of the window, Charlie stooping to prop up the dodgy leg with a wad of paper from the pile of work notes on the countertop.
“Seriously?” Emz had her fingers crossed.
“Yeah, why not? If Lella’s thinking of selling up to this Herald bloke…”
“Ivan. Call Me Ivan,” Charlie prompted, mimicking his serious tone. “If he buys the brewery too, I can join you in your new enterprise.”
Neither of them managed a laugh at their own jokes, a fact noted by Vanessa.
“What Herald bloke?” she asked.
“Ivan Herald,” Charlie said with utter seriousness slicing through the faked amusement of their conversation.
“He’s some business bigwig. Owns a lot of property in Castlebury,” Anna qualified.
“He’s into some big regeneration thing that Aron is gagging to be part of.” Charlie looked, to Vanessa’s maternal eye, like her more troubled teenage self as she sat down at the table.
“Lella’s thinking of selling up.” Anna sat down, also looking troubled. “Casey’s convinced, but it’s all up in the air.”
Emz sat down and was silent, which was even more worrying to Vanessa.
“It’ll be a good thing. I love Hartfield,” Anna brightened. As they ate, they discussed Winn’s previous failed tea room endeavours, and as the chat snaked around Hartfield, so it touched on the bad luck of her previous tenant, Mrs Fyfe, after which name there was a silence.
“So how are things at Havoc Wood after all that?” Vanessa ventured to jumpstart the chat.
“All over the place,” Charlie said.
“We can’t find the Rider. The horse keeps wandering off.”
Vanessa looked puzzled, and her daughters filled her in on recent events. She was taken with the passion they held, even in the light of their doubts and fears.
“You don’t remember anything about Day’s Ride, do you?” Anna asked. Vanessa shook her head, stiffly, her eyes remaining on her plate.
“Anna has a theory…” Charlie nodded at Anna and reached for the garlic bread.
“Theory? Oh, yes. We’ve been thinking that it’s lost its rider. I wondered if maybe it’s waiting for someone.”
“Like Uber, Havoc Wood style,” Emz joked. Vanessa looked up.
“So have you only seen it at Day’s Ride? Or does it hang out at Cob Cottage and wait for carrots?”
The sisters burst out, Anna giving a bright tinkling laugh, Emz snorting derision, and Charlie giving a decisive “Ha” to that idea.
“This is not some little pony, Mum.” Charlie shook her head. “This is a magnificent beast of a horse. A great big grey one.”
“He’s been in and out the last week. Two, maybe three times?” Anna threw the figure out there for correction. Charlie’s brow furrowed and Emz cut in.
“It saved Caitlin on one occasion. It’s been down to the shore of Pike Lake, once. And there was the first night Charlie saw it. Three.” Emz went over the incidences. Vanessa, thoughtful, made a mental note of each as the conversation drifted towards Caitlin and Logan.
“Caitlin wasn’t on the horse? It doesn’t belong to her?” Vanessa wanted facts. Emz shook her head and shared Winn’s account.
“She says it came to Prickles, up by the pens, and then she followed it back to Caitlin in the woods.” Emz was now looking only at her plate, her fork poking half-heartedly at the remainder of the meal.
“Protecting her,” Anna said. “What do you think? We thought it might be a possibility.”
“When did you think this?” Charlie sounded miffed.
“When you were off tracking it,” Emz said. There were back and forths about this possibility, amongst all the other possibilities, and the sense of positivity drained.
“You know, if it all gets too tiring, if you need some space, you can always come here.”
Vanessa’s suggestion caused a brief lull.
“Your grandmother chose this site specifically.” The lull came to a distinct halt as it became apparent that their mother was about to share some information. Vanessa looked at each of them in turn.
“If you need to go somewhere, sometime. If the need arose,” she chose her words, “to escape.”
The silence began to feel as if time had stopped.
“Grandma Hettie chose where Half-Built House should be?” Anna asked. Vanessa nodded.
“I just thought you got the land cheap,” Charlie shrugged. Emz was deep in thought and had turned to look out of the window.
“This is your space, too,” Vanessa continued. “I don’t want you to feel you have to wait to be invited. Cob Cottage notwithstanding, this is always your home.”
Emz turned back to the table, her face bright with knowledge.
“It’s a Blindspot,” she declared with a grin.
33
Corners and Sky
It was an awkward journey back to Cob Cottage, Charlie’s car proving too small for the quantity of emotions being felt.
“Blindspot.” Charlie had repeated the word several times on their way down Castle Hill Road.
“I thought Grandma Hettie told you.” Emz felt out of kilter; Anna was very, very quiet in the back seat.
“Nope.” Charlie ground the gears. “Never heard of a Blindspot. Not in Havoc Wood, at least. Anything else she told you that you forgot to tell us?” Charlie was rattled, crunching another gear as the traffic lights halted them.
“I don’t know why you’re taking it so personally.” Emz, seated beside Charlie, was taking the brunt of her shortened temper.
“Because I’m terrified.” Charlie was unemotional. “Because we need all the little tips and hints we can remember to stay ahead of Havoc Wood.” She paused and then rattled at the steering wheel. “And because I can’t remember anything she only told me about. No little secrets.”
Emz, seeing her sister’s hurt, dived in.
“It wasn’t a secret. I just forgot about it. It never came up until tonight.” She felt easier. “That’s not keeping a secret.”
Anna was very, very, very quiet.
“You seem to have your mouth zipped.” Charlie glared into the rear-view mirror. Anna became even quieter.
“So what’s your secret?” Charlie was forthright. Emz looked puzzled.
“She hasn’t got one.” Emz turned to her sister. “Have you?”
Anna was very, very, very, very, very quiet. Emz gasped as Charlie banged the steering wheel.
“I knew it.”
“Seriously?” Emz was twisting in her seat, the belt slicing at her neck as she did so.
“Spill,” Charlie commanded, pipping the horn for effect, the effect being that Emz jumped and Anna took a deep breath.
“The Paper Prophets,” she confessed. Charlie and Emz looked confused.
“The who?” Emz asked.
“The cards. In Mrs Massey’s deck. The Paper Prophets.”
Charlie was nonplussed.
“Does that even matter? I mean, she’s long gone,” Emz reassured Anna. “What do her cards matter?”
“They’re in my pocket,” Anna said. Charlie gave a wry laugh and pipped the horn again.
“I haven’t had them long, just since the other day. They were in a chest of drawers at Mum’s house.”
Charlie and Emz took in the same startled breath.
“I couldn’t open the drawer,” Charlie admitted with a glance to Emz, who shook her head.
“It punched me with its top drawer,” Emz confessed.
There was a moment or two of less tense silence.
“Well, if Ivan Herald does buy the Castle Inn, you can make some dollar telling fortunes,” Charlie joked. No one laughed.
“I don’t remember the Paper Prophets. At all,” Emz mused. Charlie shook her head. “Didn’t she teach you to play Three?” Anna half-expected the bewildered silence this question received. Charlie was shaking her head even more.
“What about you?” Emz focused on Charlie who kept shaking her head. “Are you sure there isn’t something?”
Charlie pinched her lips tighter.
“There’ll be something, something you haven’t remembered yet, something—”
“Nothing.” Charlie was certain. There was an uncomfortable silence as they rode along Dark Gate Street. The silence deepened as they pulled onto Old Castle Road and was a wall between them as they pulled onto the tarmac track to Cob Cottage.
“It doesn’t matter,” Charlie insisted as they headed inside. The way she threw her car keys into the bowl suggested otherwise. “Emz forgot. You randomly got given the Paper Cards. No matter.”
Emz and Anna looked on with some distress as Charlie faffed too much with her laces when taking her boots off and then started cleaning things in the kitchen that did not require it.
“Shall we take a look at them?” Anna suggested, pulling the small deck from her pocket. Emz was eager, but Charlie was peering through the window.
“Who’s that?” The other sisters moved to the window as Charlie slid her feet back into her boots and took her lantern from beside the back door. Ahead of her, a car had stopped on the edge of the dirt track and the driver was now unloading a basket from the passenger seat. The pale lantern light illuminated the woman’s face.
Etta Boyle put her basket on the table.
“Mrs Boyle,” Anna greeted her. “How can we help?”
Emz looked uneasy, Charlie suspicious, as Mrs Boyle unloaded three jars from the basket.
“Honey from the bees. Apple sauce and apple chutney I made last Apple Day.”
Charlie looked at the jars with their bee- and apple-themed labels.
“You’re here to sell us…”
“I’m here over Logan,” Mrs Boyle stated and then looked at them. Charlie looked at Emz, and Anna turned towards the kettle.
“I’ll make the tea.”
“No.” Etta was a little flustered. “You have to do something.” Her voice was steady, but her nerves were catching her breath.
“Isn’t that up to the police?” Charlie said. “They’re investigating what happened.”
“No, they’re not.” Mrs Boyle was determined, glaring at Charlie. “They haven’t got, pardon me saying, a bloody clue. And John Williamson should have one since his family is old enough to know.” She halted as if she’d gone too far.
“Old enough to know?” Charlie asked.
“To know.” Mrs Boyle seemed to think this explained everything. A penny was rolling down a small mental hill in Anna’s head.
“This is Havoc business,” she filled in the gap. Mrs Boyle looked relieved.
“You’ve got to do something.”
“The police are do—”
Mrs Boyle’s sharp exclamation shushed Charlie instantly.
“It wasn’t Logan,” Mrs Boyle reiterated.
“We’ve talked about the Horse and Rider situation with PC Williamson. We haven’t found a Rider, but we think the Horse protected Caitlin,” Anna began. Mrs Boyle pushed hard.
“It’s your job to find out. This is someone out of Havoc.”
Charlie lost patience.
“No. It could be any perv between here and Castlebury.”
Etta Boyle was shaking her head.
“No. Not this. It happened like this before, when my sister was seventeen and she was taken — your grandmother was the one who sorted it, and, I’m telling you, it wasn’t no perv from Castlebury then.”
“I still don’t see how you—” Charlie began.
“Caitlin wasn’t the only one. There’s another girl — didn’t report it but word got round town anyway.”
Anna was white-faced. Etta Boyle realised she had made her point and continued.
“Bridget Whatsit from the council. Reckons some hippy weirdo tried to drag her off from the Highwayman car park, a good few days before this Caitlin thing.” Mrs Boyle was becoming more fragile as she let go of the information. “Our Ade was in the Highwayman the other night, and they were all talking about it. She was laughing it off, said she kicked him in the bollocks with her boots.” Mrs Boyle did not look edified by this tale of feminine strength. “Her red boots.”
It was as if a red flag was suddenly hoisted. The Witch Ways had been drilled in the significance of the colour since babyhood, from rowan berries to riding hoods.
“Let the police fanny around town asking questions. This is your job. This is Havoc business.” Mrs Boyle was visibly shaking.
“Would you like some tea?” Anna asked.
“No. I’d like you to stop the bastard.”
Anna and Emz struggled to keep up. Charlie set a brutal pace all the way to Frog Pond.
“Charlie…” Emz was out of breath. Anna was struggling behind. “Charlie, wait.”
Charlie ploughed on, her boots chipping off bark from fallen logs, not answering.
“Where are we even going?” Emz said. Charlie paused for a moment at the top of a banking.
“To our only lead.” And she marched onwards.
At Frog Pond, their stave was still standing, undisturbed. The sisters walked around the space.
“We don’t know what we’re looking for,” Emz said, frustrated.
“No. But I think we’ll know it when we do see it,” Anna fudged the issue. Charlie gave a snort.
“Will we? Like we saw Mrs Fyfe?” She was leaning over the mossed stones, looking down into the water. “We Reached the other night, and this is where it led us, and this is tied into the horse. Maybe he’s using the Horse as transport already. Who knows? But we have to try harder.”
“The Horse isn’t…” Emz began. Charlie held up her hand.
“Isn’t? We have no idea. Either way, it’s linked, protecting or whatever, the horse is the only link we’ve got to the perpetrator. If nothing else the Horse has seen the bad guy.”
She disturbed the surface of the pond with a flick or two of her hands. “Come out, come out wherever you are,” she said to the air.
“Nothing’s moved or altered since before.” Anna touched the stave, testing its surety. As she did so, a flicker lashed across her mind and she gasped.
“What?” Charlie looked up.
“Don’t know. I saw embers.” Anna pulled the slivered image back and forth across her mind’s eye.
“Embers? Like a fire?” Emz asked as Anna shut her eyes, fastening her fingers around the stave, for the full blast of the Flickerbook.
“Peat. Earth. Embers. Heat.” Just a suspicion of a face before her mind had to let the image drop. “Almost had him.” She stepped back, flexing her fingers as though surprised they were not scorched.
“He’s been here, but he’s not been back,” Emz said.
“Or, if he came back, he was warned off. So the stave has done its work.” Anna’s voice was hopeful. Charlie raked over
some leaves. At once, a path lit up in front of her.
“Okay.” She stared at the path, willing it to hold even as it was fizzling in her mind. “Embers. I see them.” She looked swiftly forward, trying to see where the path was headed as it blistered and burnt away, and she had to shut her eyes.
“I think whoever it is knows we’re onto him.” She opened her eyes again. “He’s hiding.”
“We pushed him at the Reach,” Emz suggested. “Frightened him off.” The three sisters prowled the clearing.
“Might explain the Horse, too. He didn’t have time to catch his ride,” Charlie said and then started off in another direction.
“Charlie…”
Emz and Anna played catch up.
The Great Grey Havoc Horse was waiting for them at Day’s Ride, standing, magisterially, in the middle of the wide lane. When they emerged from their side of Havoc, it lifted its head and, with a scornful whinny, strode off.
“He’s not even trotting, and we can barely keep up,” Emz panted as the sisters tripped and sprinted in the animal’s wake. Charlie was foremost, the path illuminating before her with a darkling sparkle. The path pulled her onwards. She could see a depth to Havoc as if she was in Havoc looking out through a doorway to Havoc. It was intoxicating; her heart raced ahead.
“Watch out,” Anna warned as Charlie ran close to the wide-strutting hooves. She was heedless, the horse heading downhill towards Pike Lake.
“Emz,” Charlie was breathless, not taking her eyes off the horse, off the path it trod. “Short cut.” She gestured down an old fox path. “Run back home. Get a rope.” She dodged direction as the horse lurched through the trees. “Anna and I will herd it towards you.”
Emz picked up the pace, running through the undergrowth, and, as she did so, feeling, once again, that fleet strength that had carried her through the castle, through town, to answer the call of Seren Lake in trouble in Havoc. She was balanced, wild, the thought struck her, like a deer.
She fetched the rope from the shed and was at the shoreline just as the Great Grey trotted majestically out of the woods. He looked refreshed and comfortable as Charlie and Anna, red-faced and panting, shooed and huphupped behind it. From Emz’s standpoint it was clear this creature paid them no heed. He halted at the water’s edge and began to drink.
