by Liz Williams
Now, she was doing neither. She stood with the skirts of her gown vanishing into the long grass, contemplating – apparently – the ripening apples. Serena broke a rule and spoke.
“Hello.”
She was not expecting a reply. The girl had never answered, never acknowledged her existence, but now, to Serena’s great surprise, she turned and smiled. She seemed to see Serena, to look directly at her, and Serena was so startled that she took a step back. Then, in a blink, the girl was gone. Serena turned and went slowly to the yard.
First Spica, manifesting at the studio, and now the smiling girl. Things were changing, Serena thought, and she did not know what they would bring.
Later, she sat at the window of her old room, looking out into the darkness. She had given her mobile phone to Bee (‘don’t let me look at it.’). Bee, resolute, had not. Best, she said, if Serena just let Ben stew. Assuming he was in a stewing mood. But she had also spoken to Serena about Dana Stare.
“Stella didn’t like her, either. None of us did. It was like school, everyone smiling from the teeth out and glaring inwardly.”
“But Caro does like her.”
Bee had hesitated at that. “I’m not sure. Dana’s – around. But then I think her brother’s made himself useful to Caro and Richard, and maybe they’re fond of her… She strikes me as someone who can worm her way into things. That’s what Laura said.”
“Yeah. Like into my boyfriend. Ex boyfriend. Oh, I don’t know.” Serena had the feeling that she was starting to crumple, but where better place to do that than in your own old home? Nell and Bee were calm presences: Stella, Luna and the latter’s new boyfriend were not there. They had gone to Dartmoor, Bee said, and at this Serena had experienced a sudden curious lightness, as though a window had opened a crack and let sunshine into a shadowy room. Perhaps it was just that someone else was taking care of business.
“Do you know if they’ve found anything?”
“Last thing we heard, they were in a pub.” Despite the seriousness of the situation, Serena smiled at that.
And now Nell, Bee and herself were going to the local before supper. Serena got the impression that Bee thought she might disapprove of the suggestion, accustomed as she was to more sophisticated nightlife, but Serena had had enough of sophistication. The Hornmoon Arms sounded ideal: going out, thus Friday night not a total loss, but safe. A known quantity.
Unless, of course, Dana Stare showed up. But what would she be doing here, when she could have been prancing around Camden with other people’s men? Then again, what had she been doing here yesterday? And at this, Serena was struck by a sudden very odd thought: time. She had seen Dana in Neal’s Yard, unmistakeable, sitting beside Ben at a café table. Yet Bee had said something about Dana being at Amberley yesterday afternoon, and not even someone as devious as Dana was likely to possess the ability of being in two places at once. She did a quick calculation. A quarter of an hour to the station. An hour and a half at least from the station to London. Forty five minutes on the Tube. Public transport was thus ruled out. Twins? Not very likely either. Really fast driving? Possibly.
There was a knock at the door. “Serena? Are you ready?”
“Yes.” She took a quick look in the mirror. Surprisingly presentable, and not red eyed, either. Encouraged, Serena followed her sister down the stairs.
“Bee!” Caro turned, smiling, from the bar of the Hornmoon Arms. She was holding two gin and tonics, and she was elegant in a knitted silk sweater and velvet jeans, in shades of gold.
“Oh, Serena! I didn’t know you were coming down. How lovely to see you!” The greeting was obviously sincere, but to Serena, who knew her well, there was something a little constrained in her manner. Serena smiled in return.
“Last minute decision.”
“The best kind.” She hesitated. “Look, I’d ask you to join us, but – I’m with someone.”
Serena felt small icy feet creep down the back of her neck. Oh no. Please tell me he hasn’t come home. She felt a weird, unreasonable sense of betrayal. This was supposed to be her haven – but it was Ben’s local too, when he was at his parents’. Who gets the pub in the break up?
“We don’t want to intrude.”
“It’s just that – well, actually, it’s Ward.”
The icy feet stopped dead, but only because Serena was too relieved that it was not Ben – or Dana – with whom Caro was sharing a table. “Ward? I thought he was in New York.”
“He was. But it’s his uncle’s funeral in a couple of days’ time – did Bee tell you poor old Harold had died?”
“Yes. I told her about the books,” Bee said.
“It was his heart, by the way. I don’t know why they bothered with an autopsy but I suppose rules are rules. Anyway, his play ended its run and that’s meant that the poor man could actually get back in time for the funeral.”
“Look, you don’t need to worry,” Serena said, taking the plunge. “He’s on my Christmas card list. We email each other from time to time. I actually saw him a couple of years ago. We had coffee. We spoke. In a non-recriminatory manner that was not fuelled by adrenaline, bitterness, regret or any of those things.”
Caro smiled, evidently relieved. “Well – in that case, will you join us?”
“We’d love to,” Serena said, before Bee could open her mouth.
Ward had not changed greatly since their split, some considerable time before. He still had the long, blondish hair, the brown spaniel eyes and the handsome, lugubrious countenance: ‘saturnine’ was an adjective which had been made for Ward Garner, and he played up to it. Typecasting had, Serena gathered, long been an issue. Villains, Shakespeare, or Jane Austen. Maybe even Jane Austen villains: she had not kept up with all of his screen performances. A great many people assumed he was gay; Serena knew that he was not. At least, not most of the time.
“Hello,” she said. They exchanged air kisses. “So how was New York?”
“Much as usual.” Ward turned the stem of his wineglass in fastidious fingers and looked pained. “Like Ernest Thesiger’s description of the Somme. My dear, the noise. And the people.”
She was not up to theatrical camp right now. “Play go all right?” In fact, Serena knew perfectly well how the play had gone: well received, but no awards. She’d even looked up clips on You Tube. Ward had played a literary critic with an alcohol problem: it was the kind of sarcastic part which suited him.
“They seemed to like it. They laughed.”
“I hope you mean the audience and not the critics.”
“Oh, critics.” He made it sound like Nazis. “But yes, it went reasonably well. The rest of the cast were all very keen.” The rest of the cast had been much younger, Serena recalled.
“Will it transfer to London?”
“I don’t know. There was talk. But you know what it’s like.” Ward looked even more gloomy.
Serena nodded: fashion was similarly fickle, and she knew enough about the theatre to be able to relate. First world problems, though. It was odd, sitting down with Ward like this, after so many years. It was as though nothing had changed, and at that thought, Serena nearly choked on her wine. He was, after all, Richard’s cousin and therefore Ben’s as well– she seemed fated to date Amberley relations – and it should have been more awkward than it had, when she had started seeing Ben. But she and Ward had broken up by mutual agreement, some time before she and Ben became an item; it had been more situational than otherwise. Hollywood had beckoned to Ward; Paris to Serena. Indeed, she echoed her earlier thought, it had been a very first world reason for splitting up with someone… and Hollywood had apparently only intermittently worked out, as it happened. As had Paris. Ward had grown tired of playing flamboyant British baddies, and sought the sanctuary of the stage, but by that time Serena and Ben were an item. She understood from the tabloids that Ward had recently parted company from Miranda Dean, whom Serena always thought of as a siren. She had never met the woman and probably Miranda was nothing like
that at all, but it entertained Serena to cast her in that sort of light (“Ward? He is going out with a Siren of the Screen”). Very childish, probably.
“And you, Serena.” Ward didn’t do that ‘I am staring deeply into your eyes’ thespian thing, which would have made her giggle, but he did sound sincere. “What’s been happening with you?”
“Oh.” She could hardly say in front of Ben’s mother that she thought they might have split up. Instead, she said, “I’ve just done another collection.”
“Very nice.”
“Well, I hope so. I hope people will like it.”
“We hope Vogue will like it.”
“Yes, of course. But also normal people.”
“Do you really design clothes for normal people, Serena?”
“I do try,” she said, a little nettled. “The diffusion ranges, certainly. Why shouldn’t Mrs Bloggs at the Post Office get a chance to wear nice clothes, as well as some beanstalk model? Or an actress,” mischief compelled her to add. “And the diffusion ranges are affordable.”
Ward raised a sceptical eyebrow, as if he doubted this. Serena, glancing around for support, realised that they were temporarily alone: Caro had gone to the loo and Bee had taken her turn at the bar.
“What about you?” Serena asked. “I’m sorry to hear about your uncle, by the way.” Ward grunted; Harold’s loss did not appear to cut deep so she changed the subject. “I keep seeing pics of you in the Daily Mail.” Then, digging a little, “With the lovely Miranda.”
“Oh. That.”
She hoped he was referring to the overall situation, and not to the girl herself. Then he said, “That didn’t last, actually.”
“You surprise me.”
“Unbeknownst to me, she’s been having a thing with her latest director. For some time. As in, for some time before we officially parted company. Expect even more photos in the Daily Fail.”
“Oh dear.”
“He’s married. To another actress who tends to compete with Miranda for similar roles. Tabitha Foss. You’ll have heard of her. They have two small children.”
“Oh dear.” Mischief also made her add, “I thought she was really good in that film about the American Civil War.”
“She was up for an Oscar. Alongside Miranda, for Roanoke. Neither of them won. You know, Serena, I may have been a bit of a tit.”
“In what way?” Maybe that wasn’t the most tactful thing she could have said.
“Going off to LA like that. Leaving you behind.”
“You make it sound as though you abandoned me on a railway platform. Waving my red-spotted hanky. I was in Paris, in a lovely Left Bank flat, hanging out with people like Amanda Harlech.”
“And then along came Ben.”
“I’m not sure Ben’s still coming along, actually. It’s why I’m down here.”
“Oh really?” He looked much more interested than she had expected. And then Caro came back from the loo.
Luna
It took longer than they had thought to reach the wood. There seemed to be acres of barren moorland, with no sign of anyone but sheep, and no sign of any wood, either. Luna was used to walking, and so was Sam, but Stella eventually insisted on stopping for a cigarette.
“Otherwise my lungs might pack up with the shock.”
Looking back, Luna could just see the maroon roof of the Landrover, tiny as a toy against the huge expanse of the moor. They had long since passed the farmhouse and there had been no one visible in its yard. “I suppose we ought to press on,” Stella said. In silence they trudged along the track, and at length the end of the wood appeared further along the moor, in a shallow valley. They skirted a dry stone wall and found themselves at the edge of Wistman’s Wood.
To Luna, it looked like something out of a fairy story. The trees were like thorns on the coast, blasted into streaming shapes by the wind, but these trees were oaks. Their branches curled and curved, a dragon’s sinuosity, and the last of the leaves were yellow rags in the cold air of the moor. They were, for oak trees, tiny: not bonsai, but hawthorn-sized. Stella, Luna and Sam looked at one another.
“Shall we go in?” Stella said.
Among the trees, it was as though all sound had suddenly been cut off. The wind died; it was almost warm. Sam went ahead, with Stella wandering behind. Luna, suddenly, wondered what they expected to find; somehow, this had not been a question which had occurred to her in the car and she berated herself for being stupid. In the back of her mind had been thoughts of her mother’s scarf, a fragment of thread, a silverfair hair on a branch. But not a body. At that thought, she turned her foot on a round globe of bone and stifled a yell. The others did not hear. She sat back on a fragment of wall and shoved the bone with her foot. A sheep’s one eyed skull came loose from the moss and grinned at her. Luna swallowed fright and fury. She called to Stella, “Have you found anything?”
But the words might as well have been spoken underwater. Stella did not turn her head, and shortly vanished from sight among the trees. Luna imagined the words floating upwards, bubbles of air. And although she had been a vegetarian for some years, Luna plucked the sheep’s skull from its bed of moss, and holding it to her face like a Venetian carnevale mask, looked out through the single hole of its eye.
At once, everything changed. The trees blurred and twisted, snake-writhing against the ridges of moss-covered stone. Above her, the glimpses of sky were quite black, while the trees themselves were silvery pale, and the moss green as emerald. Luna watched the spirit of a mouse run up the dry stone wall and into a hole; a minute later, it did it again, caught in a hangman’s loop of time. She turned and with a shudder of shock saw her mother.
But it wasn’t Alys, not quite. The woman who stood, calmly staring at Luna in return, was younger. She wore the dappled skin of a deer over one shoulder and a whiter skin about her waist. One breast was bare. Her hair, as red as Luna’s own, spilled down her back in a complex dreadlocked mesh, marked with fir cones, clay beads, and a single bright blue glass sphere, very small. There was ochre between her brows. But it was Alys’ face and a moment later, Luna was not so sure that this was not her mother.
Alys said something, in a language that sounded like water.
“Mum?” Luna breathed. Because it was Alys – not quite. The woman put a finger to her lips. She was looking at something beyond Luna and instinctively Luna turned, still holding the sheep’s skull to her face.
Something was standing among the silver flickering oaks. She couldn’t make it out, but it was big and dark, a bulky shape that was the colour of peat. It looked furred, beneath the tatters of its leather cloak. Stubby horns protruded from its head: not really antlers, for they were too thick, too short. The face was a blank oval, with no eyes visible, although for a moment she thought she saw a tiny brightness, like looking down into very dark water. She froze, icy with wanting it to go away. Behind her, there was a rustle: Alys had stepped forwards. Her hand came into Luna’s vision, the wrists banded with old blue tattoos, and holding up a piece of what looked like bronze. Luna did not recognise the shape, but it was not a cross, for it had too many arms. Alys spoke again, that long rippling sound, and the horned thing turned abruptly and sprang up onto one of the dry stone walls. Luna saw it there for a second, outlined against the negative-bright trees, and then it was gone.
Alys bent down to Luna. She smelled of her familiar French perfume, tuberose and musk, but also of the earth itself. Close to, she no longer looked so young. She said, in perfectly intelligible English, “Luna, I’m glad you’ve come to find me but it’s dangerous. Not just for me, but for you, too. All of you. Do you understand?”
“Yes. But –”
“You need to guard the house. I’ll come back with the comet, I promise. Speak to Bee. Tell her to look after the house. Tell your lad’s gran, too.”
“You know about Ver March?”
“And the hare. Yes, I know. But it’s Caro who really needs to –” She broke off. Her head went up like a sta
rtled deer’s and Luna saw that beneath the red dreads, there was a faint line of silver-grey around Alys’ old-young face.
“Throw the skull in the water,” she said, urgently.
“What –”
“Just do.”
So Luna took the skull from her face. Immediately, her mother vanished, and the trees returned to their shadowy twilight selves. The sky above the wood was rainy-black. Luna hefted the skull in her hand and threw it into the trickle of a stream that ran between the oak roots, down the slope. She did not think there was much water running through, but the skull disappeared as if she’d dropped a pebble into the ocean. Luna gave a sudden shiver of cold. Stella’s voice, coming from behind, made her jump.
“Luna? Are you okay?”
Luna turned to her, trembling, and for the first time since she had been a very little girl, sought her sister’s embrace.
Bee
On returning from the pub, Bee thought that she needed to speak to her namesakes, even though it was well past sunset. They were not yet dormant; the waning warmth of the autumn sun still drew them out into the lavender and sometimes they became drunk on the rotting juice of the windfalls, fighting the wasps for the sweetness. Telling the bees. Grandpa had always done it, and so had Alys, when she’d remembered. The hives were situated at the end of the orchard, just before the edge of the nettles and the tangles of bramble which separated the orchard from the field. Bee, wellington-clad, trudged through the long grass to the hives. She gave them an edited version of events, as they hummed inside their tall wooden home. When she had finished, the voice of the elder said, The man who is cold is here.
“What do you mean?” Bee asked.
