by Helen Slavin
“That was him.” Anna darted to the spot. “Damn it, that was him.”
“It’s the trees, carrying your message,” Emz said.
“Not a message.” Anna turned to spit the word between them. “Let them carry the Spell.”
They made their way home to Cob Cottage.
“If we’d Cried Wolf…” Anna and Emz were not in disagreement. “It’s so obvious. If we’d just done it.”
“Tonight we should think of the Other places. Like Stride, like High Foxes. All those places that we brush past. They’re different. That’s what Grandma Hettie taught us by not stopping there.” Emz was trying to be practical. “Charlie will be back tomorrow.”
“What if tomorrow’s too late?” Anna had a wild look, too close to her real face. Emz felt afraid. She had nothing to reply, but the gap was filled by a deep, rumbling whinny. The Great Grey stood on the path between them and Cob Cottage. It shook its head, its mane releasing a powerful musk of woodsmoke, honey, and horse.
“We’ve got help,” Emz said, and turned onto the porch.
From inside, she watched as Anna approached the Great Grey, her hand settling on his neck, and then her cheek resting against him. Emz felt a pang of jealousy. There was something about the horse. She hoped he would stay with them. She hoped he had been sent, not to wait for someone, but to take up residence and help. She felt there was evidence he had already done so. There was also the glimmer of their father too. This flame of hope flickered and dodged in her heart.
Outside, Anna let herself rest against the horse. The scent was strong and reviving and then the cold bit at her, awakening her ravelled senses. She Reached to feel the heart of the horse drumming in the cave of its chest. The frost glittered like broken sunlight, and the Flickerbook of it opened.
The sky expanded, taking down the trees to a distant skyline. At one side, a range of mountains like icicles, Pike Lake widened out, a crust of diamond ice formed across it, and there, at the far edge, a black wolf, waiting.
A shock. Anna felt the breath freeze in her lungs, and she could not release her hand from the horse’s neck. The horse breathed at her, the air condensing, scintillating with light. The wolf approaching, a steady pace until what had been shadows became shoulders, strode into the shape of a man.
Far. He walked, never drawing near until the ice cracked with a sound like the water tearing itself apart and, as it split, something landed at his feet. A heart, bloody but still beating, punctured by pins.
The drum of the wolf’s heart matched the drum of the Great Grey’s own heart and Pike Lake thawed and pulled her back. Her own heartbeat, too fast and frightened.
Once more the horse breathed at her, the warmth from its nostrils reviving her. She took a step back. The Great Grey bowed its head once to release her hand and trotted away into the trees.
Emz had been talking for some moments about the deer dream.
“It’s real,” she concluded. “The deer is real. Charlie saw it. And I know it’s connected to the attacker.” She was tracking around the kitchen, fiddling with little chores, as she thought aloud. “I need to keep a notebook at the side of my bed, need to write down the routes it takes me. I think it might be giving him away. It’s some sort of marker, maybe. But I can’t work out what the scar means?” She looked towards Anna who had not moved, was staring into the window of the woodburner and had clearly not heard anything Emz had said.
“You alright?” Emz was concerned.
Anna nodded. “Yeah.” Her voice a whisper. “Cold.” She stood by the woodburner.
“Want a drink?” Emz asked, making for the teapot. Anna nodded but instead made a move for the small cupboard by the scullery door. Emz watched Anna and turned to fetch the old glasses from the top of the dresser.
Who knew where the whisky had come from? It had been in the cupboard for as long as the Way sisters had been alive. Grandma Hettie had kept it for ‘emergency use’, while never being specific about what constituted such an emergency. The liquor was perfumed, they now smelt, by woodsmoke and honey, but they swigged it down, a shot each.
Black wolf, white lake.
“So what do you think?” Emz asked.
“About what?” Anna looked suddenly present.
“About the deer in my dream. About the fact that it’s a real deer.”
Anna was not listening again. Emz waited a moment. Her sister was far away.
“Remind me, what do you dream about when you dream about Dad?” Anna asked, refilling their glasses.
“What does that have to do with the deer?”
“Just tell me.”
Emz looked at the shot glass, at Anna, who was waiting. The liquor’s scent was heavy and comforting.
“I dream of a black wolf, on an ice-white frozen lake.”
Anna nodded.
“Did you see something? Did you see Dad? Is he coming?” Emz’s face was contorted by the strong alcohol.
“Sorry. No idea,” Anna admitted and knocked back her second shot. It was more fiery than the first, liquid bronze plating her gullet with heat. She poured a third one. Emz was wide eyed.
“Nightcap.” Anna knocked hers back. “Help us sleep.”
Black wolf, white lake. More real than all the times she had dreamt the same. Black wolf, white lake. A heart, pierced by pins. What did it mean? Anna Way thought she might never sleep again.
43
The Ace of Hearts
Charlie had been waiting for some time outside Aron’s flat. She couldn’t even get into the communal hallway tonight. She had been waiting by the harbourside, watching the gulls on the water and letting them take away her thoughts.
“Hey.” His voice made her turn. He was standing with his hand outstretched, his charming smile on his face.
She didn’t like his charming smile, she missed the smile he had had as a teenager, the one that lit up his eyes. She looked into his eyes and he looked away, started moving towards the swing bridge.
“I was enjoying the view.” She couldn’t think of a better opening gambit for a conversation. She didn’t want to start with “you’re late”, as that sounded like picking a fight, even though it was simply a statement of fact and might lead to an interesting story as to why he was late. He smiled once again.
“Come on. Let’s go.” He leaned in to kiss her cheek and then began what seemed like a frogmarch.
They moved up towards Old Town with no further communication. It was difficult to hear above the roar of the rush hour traffic. Charlie felt the tight way he held onto her, his hand cold and thin feeling. As they waited at the foot of Parker Street for the lights to change on the crossing, he leaned in again to kiss her.
They did not go straight to Pandemonium. Instead, wordless, Aron guided her part way up the hill to St George’s and turned in at the old wrought iron gates of Brandon Chase. Charlie’s heart started on a slow, deadly beat that robbed her of her proper breath. In the back of her head, a bell was tolling, the sound ringing out over the lake of dark sadness.
They walked along the path to the grotto, and they said not a word.
The grotto, or the ‘grotty’ as they had christened it when they were teenagers, was a folly constructed of old shells and flints and concrete and it lurched from repair to repair, bits of it occasionally falling down on visitors’ heads as they negotiated the dark, damp maze of the place. Many turned back in fear of the spiders in the pocked and low-slung roof. If you were brave, and Charlie and Aron always had been, then you eventually emerged in the Palladio, a little domed room that looked out over the ornamental lake.
Beneath the dome, mouldy and mossed, the panes of glass in the roof long since cracked and broken, Aron pulled her to him, his mouth planting on hers. He pulled her closer, the kiss deepening as he pushed her back against the wall where the paint crimpled like old skin. His cold hands cupped her jaw, moved to her hips, her back, stroked at her hair. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t breathe. She saw all their moments in that kiss,
and they all ran down to the reflection of the lake in his left eye.
“I thought we were going to Pandemonium?” Charlie hid the fact that she was shaking. She had felt more at ease last night at Frog Pond.
“Thought we’d have a minute or two to ourselves, you know?” He smiled; the edges of it were fraying, becoming his old smile. He put his hands into his trouser pockets, looked out over the water.
“Why not…” Charlie heard herself playing the game, “…knock Pandemonium on the head? Go off by ourselves. Go to the Night Zoo?” Her words sounded like a playground chant, learned by rote.
“What the fuck is the Night Zoo?” Aron turned to her, his face furrowed and, she realised, thinner than of late.
“It’s late night opening… at the zoo,” she finished rather lamely. “I saw the poster the other day. Or not that, something else.”
He shook his head. “Night Zoo? What the fuck?” He gave a world-weary laugh and then glanced at his phone. “Anyway. Time is clocking on. Let’s go.” He offered his hand.
“I’m serious. Let’s not go.” Charlie knew this was pointless. She could see a very clear and distinct Map written into the knobs and nobbles of rock above Aron’s head leading straight to Pandemonium; however, it did not hurt to try to defeat Fate. “Let’s go back to yours.”
“Don’t do this.” He shook his head, not angry, rather weary.
“Do what?” Charlie was surprised, very often the hint at a free evening naked in front of his fifty-inch TV persuaded Aron from any pastime or pursuit.
“We’re going tonight. It’s important.” She could tell how serious he was. It was shocking to see.
“Okay.” Out of the periphery of her vision, she saw the Map above his head, how it inked itself onward and turned, not towards the harbourside flat but off, up towards The Lea Meadows at the edge of the suspension bridge. Why would he go that way?
“We need to go. You have to change.” He took her hand again and they wound their way back into the gardens and out through the gate at the top of the hill.
If viewed simply as a building, the Georgian townhouse that held Pandemonium was what an estate agent might call “sought after”. As Charlie and Aron approached, the beauty of the building was not lost upon her, the way that the sash windows on each level looked out with life. The soft sandstone steps that led to the double, black-painted front door were inviting. Anyone would want to know what the building was like inside. Charlie recalled each room and staircase as it had been that fateful Halloween. She’d been left to wander, Aron too busy with his private card game.
It might have been her go-to place if not for the memories attached to it. She had been peeved with Aron for bringing her there and then abandoning her, but, on entering, she had been intrigued by the place, and there had been redemption of sorts in the discovery of the Ceilidh and the live fiddle band at the very top of the house. She had enjoyed the revels, the breathless dancing, the fiddle playing the bright and intricate music. It had been a double-edged sword. She had felt guilt that she had enjoyed being abandoned, being away from Aron, and that led to the edges of her inner lake of sorrow. Worse still was the aftermath, that, having walked back with Aron, they were greeted with the news of the tragedy of Ethan and Calum. It seemed too terrible. It felt to Charlie that Pandemonium was a place to which she ought never, ever venture back.
Pandemonium was not like the other nightclubs in Castlebury. It was so utterly exclusive, exquisite, and mysterious. Rumours flew and whispered about the anything and everything that carried on there. It had an epic scale to it. Charlie had girl friends that longed to be taken there. She ought not to be so ungrateful.
No. She was ungrateful. She didn’t like the place. The left-hand side of the double door had opened to admit them, the doorman giving a serious nod to Aron as they stepped into the plush hallway with its dark grey wallpaper, its antique furnishings. The door was closed behind them, the doorman leaning to Aron to exchange a word. What the word was, Charlie didn’t take note, she was distracted by a sudden view through a door at the end of the hallway. Where the hallway was dark and elegant, the rear room was stark and pale, the bare wood of the back-sash windows bordered by stripped-back shutters. Beneath the window, a leather and metal couch slung with a sheepskin. There was a scent of coffee, bitter as dark chocolate. A shadow moved across the polished wooden floor and the door shut, the dark grey sealing the space. From here, it was as though the door vanished. Only the shadow of it could be seen lurking against the wall beneath the tall arc of the staircase.
“This way,” Aron said, his eyebrows flashing upwards as he tagged her at the elbow and headed up the stairs. He waited for her on the first landing. He took the stairs two at a time up to the second landing and was opening a door at the back of the house. “Here we are.” He let the door swing wide, ushered her inside.
The room was a thin rectangle in shape with three vast windows that ought to have looked out onto the garden and the city beyond. Here, the shutters were closed and were painted in a dark blue-black. Fabric draped across high brass curtain poles and dropped to the black-painted floor. The furniture here was all antique, a wingback leather chair, a velvet upholstered chaise. Up against the wall was an ornate cabinet, the like of which Charlie had only previously seen on a landing at Hartfield House.
Aron was moving to another door and opening that one. Charlie followed him to the threshold. He entered the sumptuous bedroom and turned to her. He looked on edge.
“What do you think?”
“Of what?” Charlie asked, not venturing into the space. The bed was a four poster, draped in a heavy grey and gold brocade. It looked like something from a fairy tale, as if, at any moment, the Beast might arrive. The mirror on the far wall added to the effect. Its frame arched upwards, the glass within foxed and tarnished.
“Of your room.” Aron was stretching his fake smile over his face. “Surprise,” he said, spreading his arms.
“My room?” Charlie thought of all the stories she had heard about the private rooms available at Pandemonium. She looked at Aron and, as she had suspected, he looked away.
“What’s going on?” she asked, taking a step into the room. As she did so, Aron moved to the bed. There was another dramatic dress draped over the covers.
“This is, I hope.” He lifted the gown on its hanger. It was, this time, black silk, and, here and there, small constellations of beads winked in the light from the lamp. The skirt, she noted, was made with black feathers glimmering with a forest-green iridescence. She was jolted, thinking back to the Halloween outfit she had worn the last time she was at Pandemonium, which included a set of black angel wings that she’d impulse bought from a nearby vintage shop.
All her instincts were at her shoulder, whispering of possible escape routes because, Charlie darling, something is off, something is odd, something is not quite right. She looked at Aron and saw all that was odd, off, and definitely not right. Her heart creaked like old wood.
“What’s going on? What is this?” she asked again, this time with much the same authoritative tone she had used recently to their Havoc visitor Ailith. Aron faked his smile and moved behind her to shut the door. Charlie stepped to open it. His hand stayed hers. They wrestled the door handle for a few stupid moments.
“Stop.” Aron was stronger. Except, Charlie knew he wasn’t. Inside, her Strength creaked like seasoned oak. She was a fingertip away from wrenching the handle from the door. “Chaz. Chaz.” He wedged himself between her and the door, his free hand moving up to her neck, leaning in to kiss her, his mouth moving over her face. Charlie pushed him away, hard enough that his back met the wall with a heavy thump. He looked rattled.
“You bolt and that is it. End of.” Aron shifted the fake smile from his face and replaced it with a glare. Now he was the cocky teenager, except Charlie saw through him. He was afraid, there was a wildness in his eyes that she had not seen since their schooldays.
“You need to put the dress on.”<
br />
“You need me to put the dress on,” Charlie challenged. Inside she could feel resistance. Anger was filling her mind like smoke. She saw the wild terror flare in his eyes, and he looked away from her with a wry laugh, shook his head, could not, she saw, look back at her.
“Jumping off The Ark was quirky. Interesting. You bail here, you will make me look like a wanker. Just do it.” Now he looked at her, she saw where his face was thin and tired, his hands shaking.
“What is going on?”
Aron gave a sharp laugh.
“Put the dress on and find out.” He wrenched the door open, shut it behind him. Charlie’s heart felt like a balloon bobbing in her chest. There were no tears, only a white-hot rage.
She looked around for a moment or so, checked out the reflection of the room in the giant mirror, tried the shutters and found them shut fast. She tried the door. The hallway outside was softly lit and, at the opposite end at the top of the stairs, Aron was talking to a doorman.
Charlie sank onto the bed feeling tetchy. It was a princess and the pea kind of bed, rather thick and overly high. She leaned back to think and, as she did so, the glamorous dress slid to the floor rather drunkenly. She jumped to pick it up. If she didn’t damage it, it could be returned. Aron could not afford this dress, Charlie was certain. She’d cost him with the gold dress doubling as a scuba suit. Tonight she had better be careful.
Touching the dress was a mistake. Charlie had intended not to change, not to wear the dress, not to play whatever this game was, but the dress was persuasive. The black silk was slightly rough to the touch, raw and holding darkness. The feathers were sleek, like a bird’s wing, forming an elegant, curved silhouette. It would not hurt to try it on.
The neckline of the dress was high on her collarbones, the sleeves slim and long. She felt graceful and lithe as she moved in it. A glance in the mirror at her hair led to a brief flurry of damage limitation. There was a brush on the dressing table, and she loosed her hair from its habitual messy bun. It was a matter of moments before she was not Charlie anymore. She looked at this new self and was not sure she liked her. She glared at herself. There were no dressier shoes apparent, so she put her boots back on. Grounded. Rooted. Feet on the ground. Charlie felt a charge go through her as she tied her laces. She looked up. What was that? Not electricity. She had not been staticked by her bootlaces or the dress. More. She recognised it at once as a Havoc Wood feeling, and she sat for a moment, still hunched a little forward as if tying her boots, as if she didn’t want whatever had warned her to see she had been warned.
