Borrowed Moonlight

by Helen Slavin

  They were at the edge, the clipped bowl of land always known as the Bear Pit where, in older times, there had been fighting; bears baited, men bare-knuckled and bloodied, dogs scrapping to the death. Now, Emz felt it, felt that much worse had happened here. This was the blood bowl, the sinkhole for revenge and retribution and nothing, but nothing, escaped. Charlie leapt, a wired black bird, clawing at the Ember man so that his breath fell out of him with a dry sound like death. The two tumbled, the branches snapping and cracking. Anna and Emz, open mouthed. Anna turned, her arm reaching out.

  “No.” The word a skinny breath, snatched by the wind through the trees. She could not move to stop her. They would fall all the way down into the pit. The sisters, shocked, eyes wide and watchful, as they saw Charlie’s hands at his neck, her face wild, her teeth bared as if she might kill him. As she lunged forward for the blow there was a cracking sound, and a figure in black stepped out of the shadows, leaned hard against a holly bough. The branch snatched Charlie backwards, the dress snarled in the glossy leaves, the spines pinning her, so that the Ember man dropped alone, landing like a cat, before fleeing in a flurry of smoke and dead leaves.

  Charlie cried out. The holly bough bent downwards, and she was dropped to the ground at Bear Pit. She reared upwards, her voice rising into the howl once more, but the sound tore, the wolves, the shadows, the ghosts of all the wolves that had ever been hunted through Havoc Wood halted, and the note rang through them all, a slow, mourning lament.

  Anna and Emz slid themselves down the smoothed-out edges of Bear Pit to reach Charlie, unable to approach through the wall of sound that called out of her. The high, pierced whine of it strained against them until, out of breath at last, Charlie gasped an inward breath and broke down.

  Emz and Anna folded around her, the tears like a tide salting the earth beneath them. Sobs and shrieks shuddered through her, all the more frightening because Charlie never cried.

  Her eyes were glittering, her chest heaving and exhausted, her lungs barely able to draw the air in so that she fell at last, ribs lurching, a broken bird in Anna’s arms. Emz, holding her hand, never letting go, the fingers closed so tight around her own that she thought they might break.

  It was a long time before the tears dried and the sobs subsided enough to let Charlie breathe properly. She released Emz’s hand only long enough to wipe at her face, giving a long, tired sigh and taking in her first, calmed breath.

  “We need to get back,” Anna said, and began helping Charlie up. With Emz on the other side, the two half-carried their sister back home, to Cob Cottage.

  45

  A Borrower, A Thief

  To Borrower, it was delight and desolation in equal measure when the Gamekeepers gave chase.

  Delight. In the darkness of it, in the Old Magic breathing once more through the wood, held in the jaws of the wolves; the lost and the hunted, the ghosts of Havoc pursuing him, the three witches part of their pack, the driving force crackling through the trees. Havoc, his home, his hearth. He understood the mistake he had made, the grave he had dug for himself.

  He had been one footfall from the clawing, dirt-blackened fingers of their magic as it felt for the scruff of his neck, dragging him down from elm, oak, ash.

  Stronger than Hettie Way, and not simply by the power of three, the hard stone of the matter was that Havoc was layered through them. He felt it in the way it reached for him like the fungus and roots of the place.

  He had been panting hard, stepping from bough to bough, leaping, slipping, this branch saving him and that one whipping him on. On. On. Their wildness tracked him. He had never been prey. It exhilarated. His blood, slow and still as Frog Pond itself, was in spate, rushing to the dam of his heart. The magic, the rich savour of it, edge to edge with his own, clashed with a spark like sunlight, and he finally he saw it. Where he had lost the prey, that it should have such a consequence.

  The Elf Shot. Fashioned by his own hand, glinting with the Forge’s light. Hot. Searing. Where had it gone? He had pulled up higher into the oak to chance a look.

  They had almost been on him, the wolves howling their betrayal. There. He had seen the flicker and furnace of it around the young one’s neck. That was what bound him to them.

  On he had sped. Finally, he understood. This was how she had borrowed his moonlight. She had taken his Elf Shot, the thief. His chest rumbled with laughter and choked with despair. He was not making an escape. He would go to earth.

  The trees curved away from the bare ground; he had to cross the amphitheatre of Bear Pit to reach the stand of birch trees that would save him. The wolves had gathered in the shadow of the trees and then the Crow Woman in her feathers had taken flight and the Snare was done. Her hands had reached behind the black-edged blade of her Strength, shaving at his neck. He had lunged forward, straining to reach the birch trees, glancing back to witness where the holly snagged at her and she fell.

  He ran without stopping until he reached High Foxes, and he lay down in the hollow tree until his heart had ceased its thunderstorm. The girl was a thief. His thought bobbed and dallied like a leaf caught in the low pool at Wild Way. A thief who had dared to steal from him.

  His mind roved back to early autumn with the leaves turning, when the woman had come to the cottage and the Gamekeepers had first Cried Wolf. They had hunted their own prey then, a man, clumsy and stupid. Borrower recalled his own chase; the plump deer had escaped, and he had lost the shot, embedded in the beast’s flesh. It was of no matter, except that this girl had taken it for her own. It was theft, he was sure, to take the shot from his prey. She had borrowed moonlight, borrowed the deer. The audacity both impressed and infuriated him. How dare she? He would teach the girl a lesson.

  He would take back what was his and he would take her for his wife, a suitable bargain in payment for the borrowed moonlight. It was a good match, her magic conjoined with his. He pushed doubts aside. Once she was his, he would have mastery. With a Gamekeeper, no less. With a Way for a wife, he would take the Wood.

  They were both of Havoc, who was there to gainsay it? Which is when the shadows lengthened and his memory flickered over that last glimpse of his flight, where the holly bush stood. Beside it, her old coat crackled, night black, and starlit, was the shade of Hettie Way. Warning or watchful? He could not say.

  46

  A Door Closes

  At some point the Way sisters had fallen asleep. They were tangled together like roots on the wide and weather-beaten sofa. The dark floral upholstery, faded here, worn there, made an odd optical illusion. To an observer, the old blowsy roses and their thorns, twisted about the three sleeping figures, held them safe.

  Anna was folded at the corner, her legs knotted into Charlie’s. Charlie’s arm wrapped around Anna’s waist, her head bent into the crook of Anna’s neck. On the other side, Emz was curled at Charlie’s back, her arms holding her sister’s waist, protective. Snoring sounds made them appear to be purring and Anna, blinking awake, sat for a long time watching the dawn pink the sky and feeling the comfort of both the old sofas and her sisters. She could smell Charlie’s hair, a soft cloud of the shampoo she always used, the traces of cigar smoke, and of the underbrush of Havoc. Her mind filled with feathers, and she held tighter to Charlie, kissed her hair.

  “You’re awake then,” Charlie said.

  “Are you?” Anna ruffled Charlie’s hair and the two began to shift position, Emz groggy, but rousing.

  “What?” She scrabbled up. “What’s the time?”

  “Time for breakfast,” Anna said, without a glance at the clock.

  “Not hungry.” Charlie stood up, careful not to look at Emz or Anna. She saw the reflection of the three of them in the round framed window. Three swift steps took her to the hall and three more before the bathroom door shut behind her and the shower began to rain down.

  “She alright?” Emz and Anna looked towards the bathroom.

  “What do you think?” Anna gave a worried shrug as she moved to the kit
chen. “Did you see Grandma Hettie?” Emz took a chance.

  “When?” Anna was cagey, pricked at by a memory of the cracking sound of the shadow at the Bear Pit.

  “By the holly above the Bear Pit last night. I think she stopped Charlie.”

  Anna took in a breath.

  “Or saved Charlie,” she suggested.

  “Maybe it’s both,” Emz said. The sisters were quiet for a moment.

  “Either way, I think I’d like to go and pay a visit to Aron,” Anna jabbed the spoon into the porridge oats, “and rip off one of his arms to use as a baseball bat to stove in his head.” The words were small and calm and powerful.

  “What about this Ivan Herald bloke?” Emz said. “What sort of person does that?”

  “A rich and powerful one.” Anna sounded weary. “Anyway, I don’t care about them. I care about Charlie, and we need to focus on her.” Her voice dipped to silence as the bathroom door clicked open.

  “Bathroom’s free,” Charlie yelled before her bedroom door banged shut.

  “What do we do?” Emz asked.

  “We get ready. We go to work,” Anna suggested, and for the first time Emz felt uncertain of everything, of where she might go and what she would do.

  Charlie dropped Emz off at Leap Woods.

  “Don’t look so worried,” Charlie said. “I’m fine.” Her voice cracked, though her face remained businesslike. Emz made to speak, but Charlie shoved the car into gear. “I will be.” Her voice was still giving her some trouble, but Emz ignored the cracks in it and nodded.

  At the traffic lights Charlie wiped away her tears, because Aron Thorne did not deserve them.

  47

  Banishing Spell

  Winn was off to the rescheduled meeting with the Wildwood bunch and would not be back before lunchtime. Emz busied herself with cleaning, mopping over the toilets and sorting through the gift shop, aware, at all times, of the wood outside snagging at her mind. It was more powerful a sense than she had ever had, and the mundane tasks served to help her rearrange her thoughts, and mentally prepare for whatever or whoever was out there. There came a moment when she felt she might burst if she didn’t brave the wood and so, she understood, it was time to head out.

  Emz was aware of the different way she was moving through Leap Wood. Before, she would let go. There was freedom in the trees. Now, she was thinking on two levels — aware of a discarded energy bar wrapper here, but also of the sudden flurry of coal tits over there on the far side of Cooper’s Pond that crackled with Havoc magic. They had spurtled upwards into the higher branches and were now fluttering away into denser trees beyond, and so Emz found her footsteps had naturally turned that way. A flock of starlings rolled and curved through the air, shifting from the reed beds near Quarry Tump into the cover of the sycamore and oak beyond.

  Something was coming and the wood knew it, made way. Without arranging her thoughts, she focused on the dark charcoal inside her and a couple of breaths made it glow. She held it, ready. The trees seemed to lurch towards her, two boughs springing downwards at her, a storm of leaves enveloping her. It was wild, raw, colour, crackle, scent. Her piece of charcoal slipped from her mental grasp for a blink. A scent of woodsmoke and honey, but also of earth and deep water. The embers of the waistcoat burnt at her, flaring and scorching, and, at once, her charcoal lit up inside and she let the power rise, free. She stood within its force, saw it barrel from her, blurring out the embers in the man’s waistcoat so that he was undisguised. Thin, wiry, afraid, he pulled back. She watched the strain in his muscles, his feet digging into the litter of the wood as he struggled to turn from her. She looked at his real face, even as he struggled to turn it from her, to hide, his arm lifting as best it could, a hand stretched out, no more than an inch from his body, as if to push her away. His fingers scratched at the air, at her own neck so that she bent them back.

  His face. She had never seen one like it. It held something of a fox in it, a pointed skull, a wide smile of jaw. It was not old in the common sense of wrinkles or grey hair, and yet it was an ancient face. In his eyes, a glow of long-kindled fires banked against a harsh winter. A heart beating an old rhythm, his own skin stretched over the drum of it, enough to make you dance. The wildest wind for breath that blew her, softened against her so that she had let him go. And the moment she did so, he fled.

  Emz stood for a moment. She was out of breath, tired as if she’d been running, and an ache moaned through her. Tears pricked at her eyes, and she had to sit for a moment on a nearby stump. Emotion washed over her, but she couldn’t recognise it. Not quite fear, almost sadness, a long remembrance. She wiped her eyes, took in deep breaths. As she put her head in her hands, the memory raged forward of a day long ago when she was small, a memory of a man sprawled on his back on the shore of Pike Lake, of her hand on his heart, of Grandma Hettie’s hand on her shoulder so that she knew she was safe.

  48

  A Day, Distant

  Borrower had seen his mistake too late. He had already been twined around her, the leaves, which should disguise him, instead being burnt against the bright charcoal of her Strength. He had imagined nothing like this. His own embers flared and scorched against her, but she took his power and threaded it into her own, turned it against him. His only hope, it had seemed, was to take back the Elf Shot and use it against her. His body had lurched and hit the force of her like a wall. He had been an arm’s reach away, but, try as he might, his hand had only lifted so far, every muscle straining. He felt where the oldest, darkest piece of himself took over to protect him, to tear himself free of her.

  Her gaze had taken away his disguise. She looked at him in a manner that no one had looked at him in a long trail of years. As the daylight heat of her Strength had seared, it revealed the way they were linked, and he saw that the Elf Shot was nothing, a token only.

  The day lay distant where he had been spat out by Pike Lake, and the child had revived him, and Hettie Way had let him go. He saw how she had woven him into the wood, that the gift that Hettie Way had allowed was also part of his punishment.

  As that memory had stretched, the young one had let go, and Borrower fled.

  He needed the deer. It was no longer simply his lost prey; he saw that it was his lifeline. He would hunt it down. He would eat the deer’s heart and, in so doing, steal the magic contained within, the healing she had gifted it.

  He laughed uncertainly to himself. Was it not the perfect revenge? To steal her own kind of Elf Shot? He would use the Gamekeeper’s own power to protect himself: it would enrich him and help him, after all this time, to flee Havoc Wood.

  49

  The Red Thread

  The Ways had been discussing Emz’s too-close encounter and were all on edge. They had been knitting together the facts, and the deer, now, seemed key.

  “How? It’s just a deer.” Charlie was defensive. “I don’t get it.”

  “Emz dreamt it. You saw it. I dreamt it.” Anna’s face crinkled as she recalled the dream. “Last night. Cry Wolf night… I was barefoot, following the deer. It was leading me.” She looked at Emz. “It had a white light to it, and I thought it was you.”

  “The white light or the deer?” Emz wanted to be clear.

  “Both. I saw the deer, I saw the light and associated it with you, connected to you,” Anna said. “Then there was the ember trail but that was when Charlie woke me.”

  Charlie stiffened a little. Anna and Emz were leaning in, palms flat on the tabletop. Charlie was arms folded, legs crossed. Suddenly she unfolded. “That settles this. The deer is definitely important.”

  Emz reached to the neckline of her t-shirt, pulled at the length of leather thong looped through a small triangle of metal.

  “What’s that?” Charlie asked.

  “It’s a bit of metal that Carrie—” Emz began. Charlie reached forward to tug at her t-shirt.

  “Not that. That.” There was a red welt at the base of her neck. Anna leaned forward with a worried look.


  “What?” Emz reached up. It did feel sore.

  “It looks like a burn.” Anna touched the red marking, and Charlie stepped up to retrieve the small hand mirror from the dresser drawer. Emz took a look.

  “What the…?” The mark sat where the thin leather rested on her skin.

  “You allergic?” Charlie picked up the thong. The shard of metal glinted and cast a shadow across the table. It was, she saw at once, no ordinary shadow. It was a complex, tree branch image, an ancient map of Havoc. Charlie took in a breath.

  “What is it?” Anna was distracted from Emz’s injury.

  “The shadow.” Charlie watched the shadow move as if shivered through by the wind. She felt her Strength take in the pathways it revealed, the routes and byways. Anna looked at the shadow, saw a small arrowhead shape, daylight searing through like a spotlight.

  Emz saw the glint, the white heat of its forging speaking to the charcoal sparking inside her.

  “What did you say this is? This is Carrie’s?” Anna’s fingers reached to touch the shard, but, at the last moment, she thought better. Charlie reached for the leather thong, dandled the Elf Shot in front of her own face, peering.

  “What did you see?” Charlie asked her. Anna shook her head.

  “Daylight. An arrow.” They looked at each other, Charlie’s glance daring her. At once, Anna reached for the piece of metal. The moment her fingertip touched it, the Flickerbook rattled and unfolded in front of her. She gasped, let the beauty and the danger ride over her, leaving a scent of woodsmoke and honey.

  “It’s a piece of shot, shrapnel or something, that Carrie took out of a deer in September. Round about the time Seren arrived,” Emz said. Charlie and Anna were rapt, watching the now quiet scrap but feeling the after-effects of Map and Flickerbook like the aftertaste of wine. “Carrie thought it might be a martial arts thing. Hunters shot the deer with it.”