by Helen Slavin
He was shaken. He had taken the horse Whisperer, and she had not done his bidding. He had given her a chance, and she had fought him. When he reached in to rummage in her skull to borrow her skills for himself, he could not take them. All that he wanted slithered from his grasp, and he felt where he was pushed at, tugged back by the scruff of his mind.
He could find no reason for it. The girl, when he rattled through her senses, shaking so hard that the charms and protections might fall out, possessed no power of her own, was allied to nothing and no one. All that tumbled and knocked about in her soul was human. There was nothing to signify the protection of another of his own kind.
He drew the conclusion that the wood itself worked against him, part, perhaps, of an unknown legacy of lingering punishment bequeathed him by Hettie Way.
He breathed like the breeze, his shoulders settling back into the support of the three topmost branches. From here, he could see clear to Ridge Hill, and, in the bowl of the land, he saw the lake glimmer, the lights winking at Cob Cottage. His mind wandered there.
They were novices, were they not? Might it be possible to borrow their skills? To take one of them for a wife and throw over Havoc Wood?
His grin stretched across his face. This plan was much better than any that involved running away.
The eldest was too old, and he did not wish to borrow the heavy veil of grief that Fate had woven for her.
The middle one, the brewster, the Map herself, was too harsh, and he didn’t require her skills. He knew his way around the wood.
The youngest. Ah, yes, a wife to be worn in, raised up above her siblings. He had much to teach her.
More important, she had much to give him; the heart of Havoc Wood, beating and bloody.
39
Deer Dreaming
In the light of recent incidents, Charlie ran Judith home and when she returned her sisters were already deep in discussion.
“Why do you think the staves don’t hold the Horse?” Anna asked.
“He’s a good guy,” Charlie said. “He doesn’t need to be penned up.”
“And it doesn’t need protecting either,” Anna said.
“He saved Judith. And seems to have saved Caitlin, too, though she’d never say it.” Emz fitted in the last flimsy pieces of their jigsaw. Charlie looked at them, expecting more, but they stayed silent.
“I know what you’re thinking.” She looked at Anna, who seemed to tighten her lips even more. “You’re thinking the staves didn’t work on the assailant, that he’s still out there.”
Anna gave in, nodded.
“We didn’t stave him,” Emz said. “We only used one at Frog Pond, one at the cottage. We’ve never had the chance to surround him.”
Anna looked relieved at this thought.
“He wants the Horse, and he can’t have him.” Anna mulled it over, her brow furrowing. “Why hasn’t the Horse helped us find him?”
“It’s not its job.” Charlie tugged her boots off and sat down at the table.
“But he protected Judith and Caitlin. He interfered,” Emz said. “Why not go all the way and bring us the villain?”
“Because that’s our job,” Anna said. “Because, whoever he is, he’s part of Havoc.”
Charlie nodded vigorously.
“Exactly. Anyway, for what it’s worth, this other stuff is incidental. The Horse isn’t here just to save those women. I still think he’s waiting for someone.”
“Someone who might come from Day’s Ride?” Emz said. Charlie shrugged.
“Possibly. Who knows? There are lots of ways into and out of Havoc. Could come from anywhere. We don’t know.”
They both looked at Anna. She was deep in thought and didn’t notice until the silence became obvious.
“What?”
“You could ask the cards,” Emz said. “The Paper Prophets. They might help. Isn’t that what they are for?”
They cleared the table, Charlie chucking her discarded boots into the hallway and Emz hanging up the jackets from the backs of the chairs, as Anna cleared away the supper dishes and wiped the table with a cloth. Then they all sat, in their usual triangle: Anna at the middle facing directly out to the window and the view, Charlie on her left, Emz on her right. Anna reached into her trouser pocket. The Paper Prophets felt warm.
“Do we have to join hands or switch the lights out?” Charlie teased. Anna stretched the elastic, sliding it over her hand like a wristlet so it would not be lost. She was about to deal a card.
“Wait.” Emz reached out. “Shouldn’t you ask the question first?”
They paused.
“Is the Great Grey waiting for someone?” Anna spoke carefully and, after a breath to let the question settle, she dealt three cards face down. She took another breath, exhaling to calm herself before turning the first card.
The Pike Amongst Weeds. The background richly green grey, stranded with weeds, twisting and twined and, only just visible, the bronze-speckled Pike within. She was trying to recall its meaning.
“Oh.” Emz sounded eight again, her voice softly in awe of the beautiful illustration. Anna concentrated and turned the second card.
Lightning.
Charlie was silent, looking at the Pike, then at the Lightning as if she was trying to do a crossword puzzle. She said nothing. Anna said nothing.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Charlie asked, fretful. Anna shook her head.
“Wait.” She took in another breath and resettled, turned the third card.
The Maps and Compass.
She looked at the three cards and felt her mind trip over itself. This was not how it had been with Mrs Massey, and so she took in another calming breath and thought, not of the cards and her search of her memory, but of Mrs Massey and the parlour. The nap on the velvet tablecover. Jam. Cream. Her mind unflustered itself.
“Yes,” Anna said. It seemed clear to her. Emz and Charlie were patient, waiting for clarification. “Something, someone possibly, elemental. It’s their Fate, this person. They’re going home.”
“Which way?” Charlie asked. “Is this an into-Havoc or an out-of-Havoc thing?” She thought the cards looked spooky and was not clear why Emz seemed so keen. The colours were too rich, like old paintings.
Anna considered. For her, the compass was spinning again, and it was unnerving. It meant something. She felt the weight of it, pressing, and yet it was hard to identify.
“Through Havoc.” She understood that much. “They’ve been found.”
“They.” Emz was eager. “Who is they?”
“You’ve asked the question wrong.” Charlie leaned back. Anna felt her eye drawn to the spinning compass; the pattern of filigree lace made by the shadows of trees freckled the maps beneath so that she could not see where they led. Old maps. Old writing. And the lightning was striking a whited-out lake.
“No. The cards have answered the question. Anna asked, ‘is the horse waiting for someone’, and they’ve said yes.” Emz pointed down at them but did not touch them. Charlie was looking only at Emz’s face. The Maps and Compass in particular was making her feel odd, the funny little compass and the piles of maps that led to too many places. The routes and byways made you feel lost. Anna put them back into the deck and shuffled it.
“Go again?” Charlie asked. Anna nodded. “Be more precise. What is it that we want to know?”
“Who is the Horse waiting for?” Emz said. “Then we know who or what to expect. Guest, Poacher, Trespasser. We’ll know where we are then.”
Charlie looked as if she doubted that outcome very much, but she nodded. Her arms were folded. Emz leaned forward.
“Who is the Great Grey waiting for?” Anna asked the cards and at once dealt three onto the tabletop. She held her breath this time and turned the first.
Lightning.
Charlie’s arms folded a little tighter across her chest.
The Castle.
Anna stared at the card as if she could see someone in the tower. She
held her breath for the last card.
The Black Blank.
Anna held her breath as the black altered itself again into the stylised image of a heart, something bloodied and animal. At the edges of the heart was torn fur, grey and black. The aorta twisted out of it, the open end of the artery pointed towards her. Anna hesitated. She had seen this before. She recalled the scene pictured at the end as through a telescope, dared to look again. A vista: a white lake and a black wolf. The prints in the snow were bloodied.
“The Wolf’s Heart,” Anna said aloud. The words whispered into her head. She heard them very clearly and had no idea of the meaning. Emz and Charlie said nothing. The heart folded itself into the black. Anna put the cards into the deck, slid the elastic band over them, and replaced them in her pocket.
“So.” Charlie did not unfold her arms. “We know where we are then.” She looked at the space on the table where the cards had lain.
“The Wolf’s Heart.” Emz said it over, and Anna wished she would not. “Is it something to do with Cry Wolf d’you think?”
“Nope.” Charlie was certain but offered no alternatives.
“Did Grandma say anything about wolves? Other than…”
“Is it Dad?” Anna dealt the idea like an extra, Fate-filled card. “Remember? The old dreams, a black wolf?”
“On a white lake,” Emz rallied to this cause. “You think Dad is coming? Is that who the Great Grey is waiting for?”
Charlie snorted.
“Good luck with that.” She was agitated. “A wolf. A wood. We just need a red riding hood.” She stood up from the table. “I’m going to bed.”
“But what about the Wolf’s Heart?” Emz asked. “What do you think?”
Charlie halted in the hallway.
“I think we’ll know whatever it is when it’s breathing hot, bad breath down our necks. As usual.” And she slammed her bedroom door shut. Anna was also heading towards her room.
“Anna?” She turned to Emz. “What if it is Dad? It could be Dad.” The youngest sister glittered with excitement. Anna was guarded.
“Nothing is certain, Emz. We don’t know. Let’s just sleep on it,” Anna said. “Goodnight.”
It was not a good night. The moment she fell asleep, Emz was in the deer dream. It grazed by Cooper’s Pond and, as it did so, rather than be a spectator chasing behind, Emz stepped into the body of the beast, its heart a drumbeat powering the limbs. Emz felt the wildness course through her, setting her blood on fire. Uncontrolled. Seared with adrenalin. Flight. She was pursued.
She jolted awake. Emz reached for her grandmother’s raincoat, folded herself smaller beneath it, and drifted back into sleep.
It was instant this time. She was leaping, branches whipping as she fled between them.
Fear. Deep in the bones of the deer, bright and fierce. It seized upon Emz, and she was one blink from waking but more springing steps held her in the dream. It asked, for help. The eye of the deer, glittering with an odd light. What was that? She leaned closer to see.
A glow of embers. The deer faltered. Its rear haunch quivered and Emz’s dream self felt for the scar. The fear fell away. She held the deer safe with just the touch of her hand. She knew this place. This was not Havoc. She saw where they were in Leap Woods, at Barkway.
Emz turned. The predator vanished. Her eyes scanned the wood, the strips of the trunks, the reaching arms of the trees, the leaves dappling and falling so that nothing was clear to her, and yet, there. An eyeblink and the face was gone, unlike any face she’d ever seen. She could not hold it, the shadows flattered and shattered, and she woke.
At breakfast Anna was forensic in her questions about the deer dream in a blatant effort to deflect any questions about the Paper Prophets and their divinations.
“How long have you had it?” she asked as Emz cleared her plate.
“Now that I think about it, since before Caitlin was attacked, so a week or more.”
Anna nodded. “And you’re sure you were in Leap Woods last night?” She wanted the details. They needed details.
Emz nodded. “I think I know Leap as well as Havoc.”
“And it’s recurring, but it isn’t always the same?” Charlie was grabbing her keys and was already zipped into her jacket, the collar hiding most of her face.
“Yes. It’s the same deer but a different…” She stopped. Anna and Charlie paused to watch the revelation pass across her face. “Hunt. The deer is being hunted.”
“By our friendly neighbourhood villain.” Charlie folded her arms once again. “If the embers are any clue.”
“They are.”
Charlie was edgy.
“Right. So what’s the plan?” she asked. “I’m not sure if I can get off early today.”
“I’m going to have a scoot round Leap Woods. I’m in school this morning, but I’m going over to Prickles later.”
“Be careful,” Anna warned.
“In the dream I think he was scared of me.”
They let this new thought sink in. Charlie unzipped her jacket a little.
“He knows we’re onto him,” she said. “Definitely.”
Emz wondered why she even came into school. Of course, the A-level minimum requirements of the Wildwood Society popped into her head, but it seemed the only course she was really studying in the sixth form was anger management. The second she stepped through the door, she was assailed by the tangles of the black web stretching out above her. They oscillated a jagged rhythm of the lies being told.
“… Judith Killen, the one at the stables.” As Emz came through the door to the common room she knew it was a mistake.
“You’re joking me?” No one was even whispering the gossip. It was hissing and biting around the place.
“Seriously.”
“Seriously what?” Emz broke in on Kelly and Luna’s chat. They were gleeful at a fresh place to spread their news.
“Logan Boyle attacked another girl.” Kelly relished the words. “That Killen girl from the stables. Raped her and left her for dead in the woods. Same as Caitlin.”
Emz felt the charcoal of her Strength inside her burn up to daylight heat. Whereas previously she had been unable to control it, letting the energy burst from her into the nearest inanimate object, this time was different. The charcoal glowed whiter and whiter and she held the energy, let the heat and light forge her.
“No, he didn’t,” she began. Luna snorted.
“That’s what you know.” She was sneery, a knowing look exchanged between her and Kelly. “Just ’cause you wish he’d fucked you in the woods.”
The charcoal was vivid, diamond edged.
“He did not attack Judith Killen,” she said. “In fact. It was nothing to do with him. She told the police it was not Logan. Fact. Evidence.”
Luna backed down, cowed by fact, but Kelly’s eyes flared for a fight.
“ Get you, Logan Boyle’s defence lawyer, someone is—”
“Lying. Slandering. Deriding.” It was unlikely that either girl would understand these words, but Emz kept on. “Accusing. Defaming. Shaming. Sneering. Slating.” The words were spilling and spicy. Luna and Kelly’s smiles were sealed and tight, unamused as everyone began to look round.
“Smearing. Smirching. Mudslinging. Insinuating.” Emz concentrated her gaze on the two girls and reached for their real faces. Kelly, whiny and downtrodden, her cheeks stretched thin over sharp bones. Luna, vain and preening. And written into their eyes, Emz saw their darkest dreads, their sorriest deeds, and pushed at them.
“Badmouthing. Slutshaming. Backbiting. Bitching. Shit stirring.” Silence. The room crackled. Not everyone stared, some, Mark Catton amongst them, looked down in shame.
In half an hour, Emily Way was cutting down along High Foxes on her way to Leap Woods.
40
Twig Crown
It was a rough breakfast shift at the Castle Inn with a welter of picky ramblers arriving, freshly frosted, from Rook Ridge.
Casey was rattle
d and quiet, a fact that did not register with Anna who had her own whirlwind of thoughts. It was the smash of crockery that broke both from their distractions.
“Bugger.” Casey, Anna noted, was teary-eyed at the mishap, her hand rushing to shove back her short hair in a flustered gesture.
“I’ll get the dustpan and brush.” Anna scooted past Casey, her hand touching her shoulder for just a second as she did so. The Flickerbook of memory rifled through Anna’s head. She reached for the brush without flinching, and a glance at Casey clarified that she had not noticed the mental exchange. Anna handed her the dustpan, and, in silence, they cleared away the shards.
“Sorry.” Casey’s voice was hardly more than a whisper.
“What is it?” Anna asked.
“What’s what?” Casey flipped the bin lid closed in order to not have to look at Anna.
“What is it that’s bothering you?” Anna stood, shielding Casey from the rest of the kitchen. The space they occupied was framed by ancient beams of oak. At the edge of her mind, Anna felt dappled shade, frosted leaves the colour of amber and rust. The wind whispered.
“Casey…?”
Casey was trembling.
“I’ve done something wrong.” Her skin paled. Anna shook her head.
“I doubt it.”
“No. Seriously, Anna.” A tears fell from her left eye, her quivering hand reaching up to swipe it away.
“You’ve done nothing wrong.” Anna picked over the terrible pieces she’d been given from Casey’s head. Forest. Embers. “Come on, Casey. This is me. It’s my turn to help you.”
Casey looked at her.
“Few nights ago… Mitzi set me up on a blind date.”
They did not move from their space, Casey’s voice low and then breaking as she told the story. “… and I didn’t report it.” She was struggling. “That lad from the farm, the one everyone’s blaming. He didn’t do anything. And I didn’t come forward.”
