by Helen Slavin
Moonlight glinted on a small cork-stoppered phial. Hettie could not hear the whispered exchange, but she did hear a brief and muffled velvet-drum beat. Hettie understood what had been traded. The woman headed off, and Nuala slipped back into her hollow to await the next. As the hours ticked by, they all arrived one by one, with no knowledge of what Nuala gave them and, worse still in Hettie’s eyes, no knowledge of the price they were paying.
It was late morning. Nuala Whitemain watched through the leaded lights of her kitchen window as Hettie Way walked up the path. She would not open the door, let her stand on the doorstep. Busybody, she’d soon tire and go away. Nuala tipped out her teacup, glimpsed a warning too late in the leaves.
“Welcome back.” Hettie Way stood in the kitchen doorway. Nuala almost dropped the teacup, but she recovered herself. Of course, the oak that held up the cottage, the cross beams and cruck frames, were most likely cut from Havoc or Leap, the terrible wood’s eager little sister. That was a good thought; she ought to use that power held in the beams.
“Am I stealing your customers?” Nuala’s smile was a snarl. “Wrecking your wet-toad trade?” This was going to be fun, a ticking off from a Gamekeeper.
“I don’t know what you’re giving them, but you will stop taking heartbeats.”
Nuala snatched at the flinch she felt, grinned wider to disguise the tremble in her face.
“Aw, Hettie Way, you wouldn’t deny a witch her living? It’s just a few. They don’t miss them.”
She lifted the empty teacup to her lips to hide her face.
“Does Thinne know you’re here?” Hettie Way threw down the threat. It was obvious she knew the answer to that, but Nuala brazened it out. She was about to speak, but Hettie jumped in.
“Last night was the last night.” Hettie’s instruction barred and banned her. How irritating this woman was.
“Easy to threaten me in daylight.” Nuala glared, itching for a fight.
The cottage creaked and daylight flared through the window creating a sudden frenetic, dappled light.
“Crooked daylight.” Hettie’s voice was the wind through Havoc. “Borrowed moonlight.” Its timbre altered again, rattled in Nuala’s bones. “Ragged starlight.” Nuala felt the strength of it take her. She felt stretched out, thin as spring ice, cracking from her fingertips, until she was sure she would shatter, be swallowed into the shivering wild light and shadow. She shut her eyes, unable to fight it.
When she opened them, Hettie Way was gone.
Kitty Warren. Nuala could not understand what Niven Boyle found so appealing about her. She was just like a kitten, soft and crushable. Nuala’s mind crunched bones.
She had been spending a lot of time in the library of late, not reading books but sitting at the table with the pages open, spying on Kitty Warren. Kitty in her neat little cardigan, hand-knitted by herself, and her crisp shirt waist dress, hand-sewn by her. Why did Niven Boyle like her so much and Nuala so little? It did not fathom.
Nuala had spotted the handsome, beefy young farmer some weeks ago. He ought to have been grateful for her attention, but he was not. Instead he was polite in his rejection and then firm when she pushed too far. Nuala wanted his heavy beating heart, not, most likely, in the way that Kitty Warren did, but still.
Nuala had been at the library attempting to scavenge something personal from Kitty. She had scissors at the ready for a snip of hair, but Kitty’s hair was a sleek chignon tidied into the nape of her neck and the rest lacquered into place so not a stray strand offered itself. In the end, it was the cardigan, left on the back of a chair, hand-knitted.
Nuala just needed Niven Boyle’s farmer’s heart, meaty and drumming with the energy of the land. Once she had that in her hand, matters in Woodcastle would take a different turning.
Nuala had not made a poppet in a while. First, she must root about in the drawer in the kitchen table for that darning needle and the bobbin of black thread.
Hettie Way had escorted Travellers across from Yarl Hill, and, as she was dropping past Crow Houses, she decided to call in on Mrs Massey. The day had been a prickly one. Hettie had woken from bad dreams she could not quite grasp but which she was certain had featured a white-haired woman.
The Travellers, two women, had come far and were weary but had no time to take refreshment at Cob Cottage. The energy of the day was crackling and sour, and Hettie, bidding farewell to them at Crow Houses, felt wired and uneasy.
Mrs Massey had already brewed tea, and teacakes were toasting. The scent of heated butter, of cinnamon and allspice, soothed Hettie and reminded her she had not eaten since supper the night before.
“That girl isn’t right,” Mrs Massey concluded when they had chatted a while. “No one apprenticed to Thinne comes back right. Remember Athene Rutherford?” She raised eyebrows. Hettie scowled.
“Don’t,” she said, memories flashing of Athene, of how Granner Way had had to put her out of her misery. “She’s been told, at any rate. If she’s here to outrun him, and she’s any sense, she’ll…”
Mrs Massey shook her head.
“You know what it will come to,” she said. Hettie shook her head.
“No, I don’t. I thought that was your job.” She finished the dregs of her tea. Mrs Massey nodded at the cup.
“Alright then. Hand it over.”
Hettie handed the cup to Mrs Massey, who swirled it and tipped it upside down. She straightened her glasses and looked inside. The words, for her, were written quite clearly on the white porcelain surface.
“The lass at the library, she’s Kitty Warren?” she asked.
Kitty Warren’s bare feet were scuffed and bloody, but she didn’t notice. She was aware that she was still in her pyjamas and that that wasn’t quite right, but somehow she was wearing her lost cardigan and so she was warm. Was it lost? Wasn’t it on the back of the chair in the library? Or was she wearing it? Why was she so confused? Where was she?
On her way to fetch Niven, of course. He must come along with her to the cottage. Old Biddy’s cottage, because they were going to live there forever once they were married. Probably. With roses round the door or something like. Kitty felt that she had been to the cottage often and also that she had no idea where the cottage was. The gate creaked in her head, if it even was her head; it didn’t seem certain. Her feet were very sure of themselves and knew where they were going.
At the cottage on Red Hat Lane, Nuala drew the black thread through the poppet, tugged it this way, pulled it that, her mind focused on Niven. Old magic, scented with yew and earth, breathed through her. It was both draining and enriching. She felt full-blooded, powerful. Here and there, she charged her energy with the small rattle bag of heartbeats she had so carefully collected.
They drummed violently, like a military tattoo, all dispersing at once, leaving her gasping. She looked up. Hettie Way loomed out of the dark in the kitchen cottage, her hand slicing forward with a glint, and then a lock of Nuala’s hair was clutched in her hand. Nuala scrabbled to her feet, brandishing the poppet.
“I hold her.” She held the poppet hostage. She tugged at the black thread, and Hettie’s hand once more sliced forward, a glint of knife, and the black thread was severed.
“Not on my land.” Hettie’s voice like a stone thrown against Nuala’s heart.
Kitty Warren awoke. She cried out. She was in her pyjamas on Castle Hill Road. Oh. What had happened? A waft of vanilla, a tang of strawberry jam, reached her and a hand touched her arm.
“Pop these on, love.” The voice was comfort. Kitty looked down to where a pair of slippers sat by her feet. Kitty slipped them on, and the arm moved about her shoulders, draping a bright coloured woollen shawl. She looked up into twinkling, kind eyes.
“Mrs Massey?”
Mrs Massey nodded.
“Not far, dear,” she said. “Let’s get you home.” And they walked companionably forward.
“Rather a lovely night for it,” Mrs Massey chatted, “with all the starlight.”
/> Kitty looked up. She felt the tightness free itself in her chest.
“What happened? What am I doing out here?” Kitty no longer felt panicked, only interested.
“Sleepwalking, dear. Happens to the best of us.” She smiled.
In the small hours, Nuala, feeling groggy and tired, walked over to The Sisters. After the night’s events, she needed to recoup her energy. As her footsteps drew near the first of the stones, she felt a glimmer of excitement. She would teach the Gamekeeper a lesson. The thrill of it made her laugh, a short, sharp bark of sound. The stone towered above her, and she stretched out a hand to connect.
Lichen, a vivid ochre splash, a patchwork of forest green moss; the stone was stone. Emptied.
She felt heavy and slid down to the ground, sitting with her back to the robbed stone, her shoulders hunched. She thought of the preacher all those long days ago, pressing her under the water because he thought he could win. The memory made her sit up straighter, take in a deep, decisive breath. Didn’t they understand? She would always fight back.
At Day’s Ride, Hettie took the lock of white hair from her pocket. It was tied up with red thread, finished with a small loop. Hettie stepped out onto the track. The shadows pulled one way, so she followed them. The branch reached across the track, and Hettie stood up on tiptoe to reach for it. She hooked the loop of red thread onto a spiny twig and stood back.
“I call Crow.” As she spoke, the shadows stretched and lengthened into feathers: primary, pinion, flight. The air flapped, and a black bird’s wing unfolded from it. The crow rose with heavy grace into the air above her.
Its black dagger beak opened to give a raucous croak. It hooked the thread and its white cargo and took off. Leaves and branches rattled. The air eddied around Hettie.
Thinne would take his time, Hettie knew that, but he would come.
A Flight of Jackdaws
1
Prey
November frosted over, dragging its cold feet into December, which in turn had rolled storm clouds into January. There, snow had gathered at the edges of February and, here and now, shoots and buds were daring to show a little green, hinting at March.
The trees of Havoc Wood, their boughs raised to the skies, hoped for sunshine, hoped for something to illuminate the Gamekeepers. There were only streetlights on Old Castle Road. The only light in Havoc Wood itself was borrowed, the moonlight shining like a silvered torch beam, searching but not finding.
There had been no golden glow of light falling from the windows at Cob Cottage since November when, with the news of their mother’s death hanging in the still air of the cottage, the door closed behind the Way sisters. November had seen the last of the lights going out as Anna, Charlie, and Emz got into the police car. The headlights, white beams trailing their way out through the trees, turned onto Old Castle Road, and darkness had fallen upon Havoc Wood.
No fires had been lit in the woodburner. It sat on the hearth, cast iron cold. In the large round oak-framed window, frost had woven its lacework and brought a scent of damp, of Pike Lake. Of tears.
In the kitchen, something, a two-legged creature that no field guide would recognise, had foraged from the fridge. There was one plate on the draining board, washed and turned over, ready for the next time it was required to hold toast or the plastic tub of a microwaved ready meal. There was one fork and one spoon. One mug held one draggled tea bag from the morning.
In the bedrooms, the bedlinen was frowsty, rumpled from its last use. No clothes had been put away. Soap and shampoo sat unused, save for one strawberry-scented bottle of shower soap of the cheapest kind available in the 24-hour Speedy Shop.
On the sofa, the creature had made a kind of nest in a duvet. The duvet had moulded itself to the short and slight form and waited to fold itself around that small beast when it returned.
The clock did not tick. Only the fridge hummed, a sorry monotonous note.
Anyone stepping into the perimeter of Havoc Wood ought to find the hairs on the back of their neck standing to attention. Any reasonable, sensible person would sense that all was not well, not very well at all and that, more than usual, the taboo about heading for a jolly walk in these woods should most definitely not be broken. But not everyone in Woodcastle was sensible or reasonable. Some were greedy and stupid.
For example, two men to be observed heading towards Top Hundred. Anyone sitting in the Highwayman Inn a mile away could track them. They moved with the stealth of frightened cattle. Branches snagged and cracked, twigs snapped beneath heavy boots designed for welding rather than hunting and unsuitable for the task of poaching; for let us be clear, that is what the men were about.
One, Anthony, dressed in full camo gear purchased from the army surplus store in Castlebury, carried a small utility satchel. This canvas bag carried wire and clippers and the net, a vast swathe of it, rolled round sticks and ready to be set out for the rabbits.
The other man was dressed in boots borrowed from his brother, and his brother was going to kill him when he discovered the unauthorised usage. This one, Darryl, was uncertain what he was most afraid of. He had a choice: Anthony, his best mate and worst enemy who had bullied him into this little expedition, or that other, possibly more dangerous thing — Havoc Wood itself. He felt watched, followed. Hunted.
“Ant?” Darryl stumbled faster forward, the left boot catching under a fallen branch, and now his brother, Drake, was definitely going to find new ways to rip his head off, because that last branch had torn a massive great hole in the stupid boot.
“Ant?” Darryl persisted, lashed in the face by a low-hanging branch so that he flailed his arms as if under attack. “Ant?” he pleaded now.
“Shut. Up.” Ant turned with a glare and a hiss.
“We shouldn’t be here. We should go,” Darryl whined. His voice cracked as the branch that had just smacked his face now sprang forward to thwack him in the back of the head, and his right foot crooked itself down a rabbit hole. He lurched, catching hold of another branch to save himself and finding the bark had grazed his hand. Blood oozed like a string of beads from the serrated cut.
“Ant… I mean it.” Darryl was twitched, starting at the sudden distress of a car alarm far away in town.
“And I mean it, Darryl. Shut. Up.” Ant pressed onwards and vanished from Darryl’s sight. Darryl was left with further hard choices; he could follow and find himself deeper in Havoc Wood, or turn back alone and find his own way out.
He turned back. It was the wrong choice. The wood closed in around him somehow, a vast, dark tangle of limb and trunk that hid the way he and Anthony had come. Darryl gave a squeak, and in the distance a fox barked. Angry. Warning that he shouldn’t be here.
“Ant? Ant. WAIT.” And Darryl spun about once more, staggered and stumbled after his best mate.
If Darryl thought that Anthony had escaped the whipping branches, potholes, burrows, and roots, he was wrong. Ant’s camouflaged trousers were soggy with mud as his blistered feet found every boggy tummock that Havoc Wood had to offer. Cold water seeped into his oversized army boots, and the rigid leather was shaving at his skin. His socks were too thin and, like his skin, were bunched around his ankle in wet shreds. His toes were bruised and tender from slipping around in the overlarge toe space of the boots. He was carrying on because he was not a princess, and he would kill something in this wood tonight, even if that something was Darryl.
“Seriously. We shouldn’t be here. Let’s just go.” Darryl had caught up, was grabbing at Ant’s Swedish forest-camo jacket. The fabric was stiff and plastic and seemed to scream out at Darryl’s touch.
“Bugger off home then.” Ant turned, the camo jacket rigid as armour around him, so that the zip nipped its tinny teeth at the underneath of his chin. “I’m not stopping you.”
“No. Together. We both go… before…” Darryl stopped.
“Before?” Ant prompted. “Before you wet your pants?” He shrugged away from Darryl.
“My nan told me about H
avoc Wood. You don’t just come in here, Ant. It isn’t right for us to be here.” Darryl’s nose was running, his eyes wide, as he wiped at it with the sleeve of his jacket.
“Your nan? This the nan who knits her own garden gnomes?” Ant sneered. “It’s a wood, Darryl. A wood. It’s just trees.” Ant was losing patience.
“If we turn back now…”
“Turn back? I’m on the scent here, mate.” Ant strode forward. Darryl grasped his sleeve.
“I mean it, Ant. It’s wrong. What if one of them gamekeeper women is out? You heard what they did to Pin Winstanley when he was poaching?”
“No one here. We checked the cottage.” Ant was aware of some insect crawling up his shin and slapped at it. The small death squelch he felt in his trouser leg gave him new bravado. “We recced the cottage. There’s no one here.” He grinned. “No one’s been here since the funeral. It’s ours for the picking.” And with a satisfied and smug grin, he lurched onwards.
“Turn back. Turn back now.” Darryl’s outburst came an hour later as Ant squatted by a fox earth, pretending he knew what he was doing with his snare. The bait was a sorry corpse of a chick stolen from the spoil heap at his mother’s chicken farm. He’d got a pocket full of the miserable creatures. She scragged all the males; good for nothing, she said. He’d always been roped in to help for pocket money as a teenager, but now he was thirty years old and zero-hours contracted for minimum wage.
“We need to leave.” The hair on the back of Darryl’s neck was prickling; he was certain they were being watched. “Someone’s followed us. Someone’s watching.”
