by Helen Slavin
“Now. Now.” Charlie made lassoing gestures. Emz, looping the rope over her arm, approached the horse and hurled the rope across its back. As she did, the rest of it tugged itself out of her hands, burning her skin.
“Keep hold of the end of it.” Charlie was losing patience. She reached down for the lost rope as it slithered out of her grasp. She looked at Emz.
“Keep hold of the end of it,” Emz mocked, feeling vindicated. Anna tried a different tack, offering her hand.
“Don’t let him confuse your fingers for carrots.” Emz, who had always been a little afraid of horses, warned. Anna shook her head.
“He won’t. Wusht. Wusht.” Anna made the soothing noise and reached up to clasp the mane, her feet moving up onto Grandma Hettie’s rock so that in one, two, three strides she would be up and on the horse’s back. And straight over the other side. The horse began to nuzzle up to her as she lay on the floor, as if there were no hard feelings.
“Ow.” Anna brushed herself off. The horse nickered, as if amused.
“What about trying to lure it inside Cob Cottage,” Charlie wondered aloud. “If it needs to stay there, then the doors will shut.”
As Charlie and Emz failed to lure and cajole the Horse any nearer to the cottage, Anna stepped out into the darkness behind and was gone for several minutes.
“Anna?” Charlie, distracted from the horse and its snooty demeanour, looked around for her sister. “This is no time for a pee. Anna?”
“She’s coming back,” Emz assured her as the Horse trotted between them, his head nodding as if in laughter.
Anna was carrying a stash of hazel wands from the back of the garden.
“Worth a try,” Anna said and handed three staves each to her sisters. They approached the Horse, which was regarding them from the lakeshore.
There was a rhythm to their placing of the staves. Without conferring, they each jabbed a stave into the ground at the same moment, maintaining, unconsciously, their triangle of Strength. A bright lightness flooded through them, a sound of rushing air, like wings and something beneath it that was faintly musical.
The horse gave one serious nod and resumed the slaking of its thirst. The Witch Ways looked at each other.
“That felt…” Anna began the thought.
“Good,” Charlie and Emz finished it. As if in agreement, the horse lifted its head and stamped a mighty hoof before beginning to crop at the small scrubby bit of grass within the circle of hazel staves.
“Now, let’s hunt the Rider.” Anna looked out over Havoc. “Where do we start d’you think? Frog Pond? Or what about up at Mrs Massey’s old place? Remember the owl hooting when we did the Reach?”
“Town,” Charlie said.
“Town?” Emz asked.
“That’s where the women are.” Charlie’s logic was faultless as she started off along the shoreline towards Woodcastle. “That’s where he’ll be looking.”
They emerged on the far side of Dark Gate Street at the northern end of the castle. Here, the streets were quiet enough, TV images twitched behind curtains and blinds. Security lighting flared as the Ways passed gates and driveways. No one spoke, all three alert to their surroundings.
At the Moot Hall in High Market Place, a group of women were leaving the yoga class. Most were heading for the car park at the foot of Barbican Steeps, and the Way sisters watched as they drove off. Anna recognised Kirstie and Hannah from the Craft Club walking away.
“Heads up, two o’clock.” Charlie gave a nod; Emz looked puzzled.
“What?”
“I think they’ll be fine. There are two of them.” Anna looked to Charlie who was hawk-like in her observation.
“There are two of them now, but they don’t live in the same house. Sooner or later, they’ve got to separate.”
Anna paused as another of the town council staffers, Cressida, passed by alone and on foot. Emz had her eye on still another, Aurora Foundling from the florist shop, Mimosa.
“What about Aurora?” Emz asked. Charlie looked at Anna.
“Split up.”
Charlie kept with Kirstie and Hannah until Kirstie said her farewells on Market Drab. Hannah hurried onto the small lodge at the top end of Lower Long Gate Street. Charlie watched from the corner as the lights went on and the cat came out.
As she turned up Moot Hall Lane, her eye was caught by a flicker of light. It was bright hot, brief burning. She looked towards it, reminded of something in Havoc. As it singed and faded again, further up the lane Charlie recalled the ember path she’d lost in the wood and her heart bumped. She watched. There. And again. She followed, unhurried and careful.
At Barbican Steeps, there was a path scorched into the stones, which turned to ash and blew away. She felt a shimmer of frustration. This person, whoever he was, was adept at concealing his tracks. A thought struck her, and she stooped to pick up a last handful of the ash before it vanished. Blackening her fingers, she inhaled the scent.
Anna followed Cressida who walked with her earbuds in, the music loud enough for Anna to hear the bassline. It was an uneventful journey, except for Cressida stepping into the path of a taxi, which pipped to an indignant halt. Anna hung back at the corner of The Crescent, watching as Cressida’s dad put the bins out and welcomed his offspring home.
Emz watched Aurora Foundling stride home to the florist shop on Church Lane. She watched her unlock the door and head inside past a thick and tangled display of thorny twigs and branches that crowded the window.
As Emz moved away, she thought she heard the rustle and creak of boughs shifting and, on glancing back, was the doorway really decorated like that? Thorns and branches bursting at the glass? It was, Emz thought, very beautiful. Aurora had a gift for dramatic displays.
As she headed back to their rendezvous at Cob Cottage, a dim memory flickered in Emz’s head. There was something about Aurora, something from long ago when they were at primary school. She was in the same class as Charlie. Was that it? Something to do with Charlie, too? The details would not surface, and, as she crossed Dark Gate Street, her mind was pulled into sharp focus by the sight of the deer.
It paused in the middle of the road as Emz did. For just a moment, they looked like gunfighters in a stand-off, before the deer, springing high and fast, ran ahead of her into Havoc.
Emz ran hard, as hard as she had in the dream, and, once again, the fleetness of foot flowed through her. Her muscles stretched and powered her forward, so that she was almost toe-to-toe with the fleeing deer. The breeze rushed by, ruffling her hair. She saw Havoc in a different light, the angles altered and disorientating. Just at the break to High Foxes, as the deer darted into the trees, Emz, scared of her own speed, of the altered view of the wood, could not hold onto the wild running skill, and it fell away from her. She stood for some time at the side of the lake, trying to catch her breath. Was it a Strength? It felt odd, unlike herself. It felt, in fact, like the deer. She had an affinity with animals, that’s what Grandma Hettie said, perhaps this was a new way it was manifesting itself.
With the thoughts buzzing, she walked onwards, greeted by a snuff or two from the Great Grey, still standing in his stave pen, before climbing up to join her sisters on the porch.
“Ash.” Anna put out a finger to touch Charlie’s smirched hand. “This was at the castle?”
“On the cobblestones at the Steeps,” Charlie informed them. “It burnt the way it did in Havoc, but it didn’t get lost in the leaves. It blew off the stones. This is the same person that we were following before.”
Anna put her now ashen finger to her nose and sniffed, Emz leaning into Charlie’s hand to inhale.
“Can you smell it?” Charlie asked. Anna and Emz sniffed hard and looked bewildered. “It’s a strong scent to me. Frog Pond. There’s the moss and the stones, that cold greenness.” Charlie inhaled deeply. “It’s Havoc all the way. And then, underneath, there’s not just the woodsmoke…”
“… there’s honey… like the scent we got from the w
arrior’s head.”
“Old Magic.” Anna felt a chill at the thought, and Charlie read them instantly.
“Before you panic, remember that was a signifier for the Old Magic, whereas Mrs Fyfe’s power had that sour apple scent to it.”
Emz grinned.
“We’re learning.” She looked expectant. Charlie was watching Anna, who was sniffing at the ash like a hunting dog.
“What? Is it the raspberry jam or the vanilla?” Charlie asked. Anna gasped.
“Oh! Mrs Massey.”
It was half an hour before the sisters found themselves at the tumbledown wall that bounded Mrs Massey’s long-abandoned cottage.
“Interesting.” Anna stopped short of going through what remained of the garden gate.
“What is?” Charlie was going to have no such scruples and was already tugging at the ivy that padlocked the entrance.
“When we did the Reach, we were drawn up to Frog Pond, and once we’d put the Marker down…”
“We were sent up here. I said about the owl hooting that night.” Emz finished the thought. “Whoever it is knew we were onto them and moved house.”
“Alright, Dr Doolittle. We’ll know better next time. Anyway…” Charlie wrenched open the gate. “We’re here now.” The scent of vanilla and raspberry jam was joined by a strong waft of sunlight on a wooden garden table.
Anna was already moving to the apple trees and tangle of raspberry canes. Broken limbs and branches lay waiting, and she selected, carefully, three staves of apple, which Charlie twined through with the ivy she had uprooted. Emz, for her part, watched the trees. Anna was businesslike. Charlie took in a deep breath or two and shut her eyes.
“Can you see the path?” Emz asked as Charlie opened her eyes with renewed Havoc focus.
“No, but I can smell it. We’re definitely on the right track.”
Their voices were low and, while not brimful of confidence in their actions, their fears and doubts had altered shape, fuelling a questioning pragmatism.
“We put the stave in at Frog Pond. Now here.” Charlie scanned the woods. “We still haven’t caught up with him.”
“But we’re closing in,” Anna said.
Back at Cob Cottage, they were frustrated to find that the Great Grey Havoc Horse was not safe in its wood-staved pen after all. While Anna bottled her anxiety, Charlie exploded.
“For fuck’s sake,” she hissed, wheeling about for any sign of the beast.
“Calm down.” Emz caught at her sleeve. Charlie rounded on her.
“Someone’s got to panic. We’re in the same mess again. Floundering about.” Charlie waved her arms like a windmill.
“I meant calm down and look for the horse’s trail.”
Charlie’s arms windmilled even more.
“Oh, yes. Calm down and let’s do that.” She was wound up, her voice echoing across the lake.
“You did it before.” Emz was resolute. “You’ve been in charge all this evening.”
Charlie stopped mid-windmill and looked at her little sister.
“Think about it,” Emz said. “You picked up the ember trail, the ash scent, everything.” Emz shrugged at all this. “Nothing in Havoc is a quick fix. Ever. Remember?”
There was a dangerous moment before Anna laughed, a light, ringing sound.
“She’s got a point.”
Charlie took a deep breath, shut her eyes, and then opened them.
The path the Horse had taken was starlight and velvet night, a sparkling frostburn that pointed in one direction.
“Day’s Ride,” she said. They all let the cogs of thought wind and grind.
“Out of Havoc?” Anna suggested. They all considered but looked at Charlie.
“We should go to bed. Get some rest. Pick up the threads again tomorrow.”
It was a fitful night for all three, but most of all for Emz who rode the night in the footsteps of the dream deer, racing and racing, as if its life depended upon it.
34
A Tweedy Waistcoat
Judith Killen had had a long day at Caracole Stables. She loved the horses, but she did not love Marlow Whitburn, her boss. It seemed to Judith, in general, but today especially, that Marlow felt being bossy was a skill, that it had some practical application other than to make people do the exact opposite of what should be done. It did not matter that this was a waste of time or the wrong tactic. No, Marlow wanted you to do it. Do it. Waste both your time and the horses’.
Sometimes Judith wondered. Marlow seemed to have been riding and keeping horses for about thirty years and knew bugger all about them. Like today when she’d been ratty with Damsel, and it was not Damsel’s fault. The horse was not flighty with anyone else. Marlow spooked her. It was chiefly her personality, but it was also the way she flicked her hair about. Judith could see it plain. Marlow couldn’t see it when it was pointed out.
Her reward for sharing her wisdom was a session of shit shovelling. Though, Judith would rather be at home farm with the manure and the other horses than running round the countryside with Marlow. It was very seldom that Marlow took treks out. She thought most people were beneath her attention, but today had been those arsey bigwigs from Castlebury, that bloke and his two women in bloody designer jodhpurs. Harlow. Herald. Whatever the hell name he had. Thought he was all that getting out of his Mercedes. Looked like a sack of King Edwards in the saddle.
She’d have her own stables one day. This thought brushed aside the dungheap of all the other trials of the day and kept her warm as she sat at the bus stop at the top of Castle Hill Road. Her stables would be nothing like bloody Caracole Stables. The horses she owned would be free to mix. There would be no separation into stables and being locked behind gates. It would be the way her grandfather Henry had always taught her it ought to be. Horses needed other horses.
“They’re a herd animal,” he had said. He had smelled of tobacco and saddle leather, and she missed him. She still lived with her mother in his old house on Old Forge Lane; not that that would be for much longer, as her mother had recently put the place on the market.
If she had the cash, Judith would buy the place out from under her. Her mother wanted to move to one of the new builds on the edge of Castlebury. Piss on that, bloody awful place. Not enough trees. No horses except police horses. That particular train of thought began to pull into a tunnel of darkness, and so Judith turned her mind back towards horses.
What was that?
“Hello?” She had seen a movement, just out of the corner of her eye. Was someone in the trees? No. It was probably just a reflection caught in the glazing of the bus shelter. Except that the only reflection was hers, and she looked frightened. Like the beginning of a horror movie really, which didn’t help. Why did she think that?
Oh. No. There it was again, hanging about in the trees. A man. No coat, just a tweedy waistcoat and worn trousers. His hair salt and pepper, so that he might have been forty. Who was he? She didn’t know him from town. Wait. Where was he? She twisted around. He had vanished.
“Hello?” She tried to sound like Marlow Whitburn, forceful and not to be messed with, but the hairs on the back of her neck were prickling like hedgehog spines. She checked her watch, which appeared to have stopped and, glancing up the road, saw there was no traffic, let alone the comforting lumber of a bus.
From the edge of her vision she saw, at the edge of the trees, a glimmer of red-orange exactly like the sparks from a woodfire, and at once her feet were running along the road in the opposite direction. Fast. Faster. Her hand reaching for her phone, her phone falling, the screen cracking. She halted to snatch it up, not looking up, but looking sideways at his approach, because she could see him better that way. He was not even running. The phone blinked uselessly, and Judith turned and ran.
Into a muscular wall of tweedy chest, a scent of woodsmoke and honey, of forest floor and moss and water. A hand reached around her neck with ease; breath, cool at her ear.
“There is no running from me,”
the voice whispered.
35
The Heart, Attacked
Vanessa Way had returned to the lab very late in the day, so late in fact as to be evening.
“Right you are, Professor Way.” Greg was on the desk, keen to exchange a greeting. “Burning the midnight oil again?” He grinned as he swiped her security pass. He was a good-looking man, stocky in a comforting way. Vanessa wondered how old he was. He was just the sort of bloke that Anna should be with.
“You’re not married, are you, Greg?”
“You proposing, Prof?” His smile was warm and winning.
“How old are you?” It was clear from his facial expression that no question was out of bounds.
“Age is not the issue, Prof. It’s compatibility.” He winked.
“My eldest daughter is nearly thirty,” Vanessa said, struggling to keep the smirk from her face. Greg did not skip a beat, his eyes meeting Vanessa’s with honesty and genuine interest.
“Oh, right,” he laughed, honoured. “You’re serious.”
“Always, where my daughters are concerned.” Vanessa was pleased to see Greg look moved. There must be some way she could engineer an encounter for these two. As she pushed through the big black doors of the Dark Lab, this task slid into place on one of her many mental to-do lists.
Eleanor and Vanessa were going over the handover data from the afternoon shift.
“It’s been a recurring issue all day, even though you haven’t been in the building,” Eleanor said.
“Campus wide or…”
“Just us.” Eleanor looked harassed. “I’m not happy. Outside of the Dark sessions we’ve always had a steady calm that gives us a good baseline for your interference.”
