by Helen Slavin
In the kitchen at the rear of Hartfield Hall, the kettle burbled busily on the hob as Anna dealt the first card. The Scorched Spoon. The bowl of the spoon she saw was burnt to a thin splinter at one side and had caught the things around it. A thick twine of bramble crisped, a tourist tea towel, its view of Woodcastle scorched. She had expected fear when she dealt the card. The image reached out to her, rich in detail. She looked beyond the spoon to a window offering a view that looked out through Mrs Massey’s old kitchen window. She ought to have been spooked that she had not seen this view through this window before, but instead it calmed her. It felt exactly like sitting at the table in the parlour under Mrs Massey’s watchful gaze.
Rather than feel comforted or assured by this, Anna felt prompted. Mrs Massey had been patient, had allowed her time to look at the cards, but there was always anticipation and serious application expected. The thought slid into place, Don’t look, you must see. She looked back at The Scorched Spoon. The damage was severe, the burn intense and destructive. The twine of bramble made the seething limbs of the protective spell at Mimosa vivid in her mind. She examined the scenes on the tourist tea towel more closely. The Castle. Church Lane. Yarl Hill. The hairs on the back of her neck pricked.
She looked at the view from Mrs Massey’s kitchen window. It was not as simple as she had thought. It showed, in the garden, a woman dressed in raggedy black. She was taking what looked like a hedgehog from her pocket. It was parcelled into a nest of moss and leaves. Anna’s mind reeled as she saw this woman had pale-coloured hair. She held her breath. Not white. And it curled close to her head, making Anna think of the houseleeks on the slate windowsill at Mrs Massey’s cottage. Who was this? Anna felt a prompt from Mrs Massey’s cool hand, the blood-berry glitter of the garnets in her only ring. Anna dealt the second card.
The surface of The Harness Lightning caught the crisp sunlight spilling through the kitchen window and seared at her. No. The light came from within the card, intense as a torch and casting black shadows like a web, strands wheeling into the sky. It lashed out once more. The after-image of three women struggling on the steep banks of a river blinked and was gone. The sensation it left was like that of standing beneath a storm, of not being able to quite catch the lightning, just the afterburn. Anna felt cold.
She reached for a third card. The crackle she had felt at the gate in Red Hat Lane spiked out from it even before she had turned it over. The Gate. She recalled the meaning — the way through, consider the paths — but any other thought was vanquished under the weight of the card. It offered a rush akin to falling from a cliff. Her mind blipped with the feeling of falling of Red Hat Lane with Charlie.
Overwhelmed, heart thudding, Anna shuffled the cards back together and fumbled the elastic back around the deck. She put them back into her pocket and tried to focus on the everyday task of brewing her tea.
Her hands were shaking, and she could not get the image of the web illumined by lightning out of her head. It flickered at the edge of her mind, weighted with dread. For a moment, as fleeting as the lightning, she saw Calum’s face.
She abandoned tea and kitchen, her feet pounding across the gravel of the courtyard, heading to The Orangery.
The golden spring light was strong in The Orangery. The rays were distorted by the glass, old and imperfect and capable of throwing rainbows into unexpected corners. As Anna cooked and baked and cleaned down, she tried to take hold of her thoughts. The Prophets’ whispering was still in her ears, and the image of The Gate imprinted on the back of her eyelids every time she shut her eyes.
The discussion with her sisters about the antiquity of Woodcastle had released a flurry of memories about Calum that had been hidden away. The one on almost constant repeat was the image of him on that last night, hefting Ethan into his arms in the kitchen. “The lads have got this catering thing sorted…” A short trip to fetch a takeaway.
Takeaway. A word wider and deeper than she had ever imagined. Taken. Away. Why was this surfacing? Another distress flare flaming above her sea of grief.
She threw herself into the afternoon shift. The clattering of teacups and cutlery worked hard to drown out the sound of her thoughts, but it could not. She grew angry with herself for being so rattled. There again, a flickering at the edge of her mind, like lightning at the far edge of a storm. It was there, but she could not catch it.
She should trust herself. Emz was right. Their Strengths were freer, switched on, as evidenced that they had not been blindsided by the new visitor. It was not that she was rattled; rather, they were, she thought, on guard. Charlie’s own description of the Beacons showed that there was renewed energy radiating through the Wood. Future intruders might well pick up the message that the Way sisters left out for them and stay away.
After work, Anna set out on a patrol of town. Now that they had remembered the interwoven nature of town and Wood, the sisters’ three-pronged approach felt right. Charlie kept Havoc ticking; Emz knew Leap Woods better than anyone, including, possibly, Winn; Anna’s knowledge of the topography of town had increased a hundredfold since their mother’s death.
Her feet kept taking her around town. She tried not to follow them, to detour and to stray, but it was inevitable that they tramped her back to the same destination. The Paper Prophets held their breath. She turned away three times, but at last she understood that this street and that avenue were always going to lead her here: to the end of Weaver Lane.
There was no escape from her Strength. She felt odd. The Strength was old and familiar, like the cosiest cardigan, and yet she knew that it was armour, a metallic, protective, combative glint to it that she had never seen. It was beautiful and exhilarating. For all of that, as she stood at the threshold of Red Hat Lane, she could hardly breathe.
She was only three steps down the lane when she picked up the crackle. It spiked and spat spiny pieces at her. She flinched and then, taking a deep breath, reached for it, held it. The moment that it began jabbing at her hand, she had a dim and distant recollection of something hidden inside it.
There was a flash of light, the sensation again of standing beneath a storm and not quite being able to see the lightning, exactly the same as in the kitchen at Hartfield. If you looked out of the corner of your eye. The sensation of falling out of the sky was too intense. She dropped the crackle.
The light felt dangerous, darker than the rest of the crackle, not that that made any sense. How could that wild light be worse? The white heat of it burnt away. She took hold of the crackle once more. She needed to focus; the light might be a trap, a distraction.
As a test, Anna tugged at the crackle. The pieces fractured into shards, and these crumbled into dust, falling through the air. She felt a visceral thrill at their destruction. That crooked daylight she had pulled forward to soothe herself and Kitty now receded; the shadows deepened. She felt her dark self, the same person who had shut down after Calum’s death — hollow, numb, dangerous. Anna breathed in shallow bursts. This darkness was stepping up, not being tricked out of her. She took a moment to wear it in, feel the shape of it, before she reached to the crackling power.
One piece, pinched between her finger and thumb, squirmed and chinked, the surface reflective as it had been in Kitty Boyle’s Flickerbook. She flared her Strength a little to take a look. White lightning seared across her as if she had been struck before the shard splintered itself into dust.
Her heart was like a kettle drum, sonorous and deep within her. A far edge of her Strength called to her with an old voice that was just too distant. It carried a mournful tone pierced by a visceral anger that lit a hot panic inside her. A sense of something terrible dragged at her like claws. She was afraid to go further but more afraid to walk away. She let the rhythm of her heart take her forward, stepping to its song. Finding Strength. She picked at the crackle, snapping it like winter twigs, moving with purpose to break it apart as she approached the gate.
The crackle flailed at the touch of her hand on the peeling pa
int. Unbidden, Anna felt a flare of emotion, as if someone had set light to her grief, and it burnt with an arc light. This was the light she must see by. It was like stepping out of herself. The crackle reacted with needle spears, cloaking a central blade unsheathing itself. Anna caught it as it came for her. Her fingers snapped it, the fragments spilling the white light and falling to earth as black dust.
The gate almost bent open, it was so softened with rot. Anna took in the scene. The garden was wild and overgrown, but a thin path still snaked to the door. The thatch was almost a forest in itself; saplings rooted and reached for the sky. Anna walked a few more steps along the path. The deep dread began to drag at her, the arc light of her grief cast deep shadows that confused her. She halted. Was the crackle using her grief? Feasting like Mrs Fyfe? Anna let her heart rhythm hold her and watched. The crackle shrank from her, cowed. If she took another step, she might fall into the deepest of the shadows. She would be lost. She would be found. Heart, beat, beat, beat. There was a message in that, too, tantalising and close. She could not find it. She would be lost. She would be found. Anna stepped forward, looked up through the layers of her Strength. The arc light of her grief dimmed a little, the shadows thinned. She took a step to the door.
The cottage looked abandoned, the windows grubby and cobwebbed. The dread deepened; the arc light within her sparked against it. What was this? She adjusted her viewpoint. This dread seemed altered. At once, she understood it did not belong to her. It was imprinted here, a glimmer of someone else. Hiding. Worse, this pinpoint of light here, white hot with fear.
Anna took a moment to breathe, to feel sorry for the cottage in its parlous state. Matching her steps to her heart beats, she walked the perimeter. She circled back to the gate, closed it behind her, and walked back down Red Hat Lane.
The crackle was the same as she had felt around Kitty. What was the cottage’s connection to the white-haired woman? The crackle was clear; the crackle belonged to the woman. It marked out the boundary. Did it protect? From what? From the white-haired woman? Did the white-haired woman need to come to the cottage and it would not let her in? Had she laid the crackle? Protecting, or worse, imprisoning. The cottage was ancient, older than any of the buildings on Church Lane, except for the church, of course. Anna’s mind tumbled with thoughts as she made her way swiftly to Mimosa.
At Mimosa, all seemed quiet. Anna was ready for any sign of the crackle, but none lingered. Anna moved closer and reached to touch an outlying branch of the whitewash bramble. The plant did not react against her. Anna felt reassured that the Trespasser had not returned. As she stepped back, she saw where the deadened crackle was still caged, the thorns grown a little deeper into it. A warning no doubt.
Aurora’s artistic nature had taken over, and she had decorated the blank window boards with a monochrome floral artwork. Tendrils of vines coiled and knotted and were, to Anna’s eye at least, largely snared amongst a thick nest of the now-familiar whitewash bramble. Feeling reassured by that, she found a spot out of sight on the wall underneath the shadow of the vast and ancient yew and watched.
Charlie was already at the eastern shore of Pike Lake when she felt the edge of the Wood behind her give a distinct prickle. As she headed up towards Crow Houses, Charlie thought of the sense that Emz had made. She was aware that she could set Beacons, that her intention was walked into the wood. It was more than likely that she gave off a warning, too, like a cat with a bell. Tonight she banked down her Strength, finding where the balance was; she did not want to alert this intruder. Tonight she’d quite like to catch them and find out what was going on. Thoughts of the white-haired woman felt like a warning flare, so she blinked them aside. She needed to be calm. To breathe. Focus. It was easier said.
Charlie intended to cut in on the bridleway via a fox path that crossed it about half a mile from town. She moved amongst the dried-out bracken with a vulpine grace. Not a twig snapped beneath her swift-moving boots.
Her clothing and her Strength sank her into the shadows. She took a step up over a fallen trunk and felt lightheaded. Looking down, she saw where her shape fell in speckled shadows. Her movements within those shadows resembled the branches of a tree swaying. She was melted into the wood. Her breath caught.
The sensation of space and light was overpowering. Her veins felt as if they trickled out into the mycelium of the wood. The earth, the leaf litter, the moss, rooted her. The sensation rushed her and bled away as she thought about it. What happened? Was it safe? Her Strength pinked at her, revealing a glimpse of light and space, and a memory, something distant and dusty from her childhood. Feet running. Hide and seek with Grandma. The memory, that had been dusty and dim, was suddenly sun bright. How had she even done that? She took a step, placed her thoughts with her footprint. Banking down the Strength, the wood slid around her like a cloak. She breathed shallowly, everything within her still and poised, when she felt the pinprick at the edge of her Strength.
The pinprick grew nearer, pricked at her Strength once distant. Twice closer. She was right that the Trespasser was once again taking the bridleway. She was just ahead. Charlie knew the route like breathing. If they wanted to outrun her, they might take the sidestep route and walk the very thin line between Havoc and Leap to bring themselves out at Red Hat Lane. She hoped Emz was picking up the same pinprick signals from Leap Woods.
She was just holding back at the edge of the bridleway when the pinprick morphed into a brief starburst. Her Strength seared at the intensity, and she felt a change in direction. The breeze carried the faintest breath of scent, the odour of old stones, graveyard dirt. Yew. She moved quickly down towards town. Anna might also be picking up this activity. Charlie crossed to Weaver Lane and at once saw a shadow some distance ahead. Their Trespasser was not going to Red Hat Lane; she had swerved away, heading towards the town allotments. Charlie felt a brief wave of panic and pushed past it. There was no cover at that side of town, no easy way back to the confines of Havoc. What was the white-haired Trespasser doing?
Charlie was deep along the narrow access lane to the allotments that ran from Twists Ginnel, when she was overpowered by the scent of headstones and yew. Charlie felt her Strength spike; the darkness lit with a cold white light. Ahead of her, she saw the Trespasser only a few feet away, and her heart lurched. This was not a white-haired woman; the figure before her was a tall, thin man, cutting down the back lane by the back garden of the huge villa known as The Hawthorns. The trees in the vast garden of the house loomed over the high stone wall, and he used their shadow to evade her light. She knew she was gaining on him, his boots within tripping distance. He darted down the alleyway between The Hawthorns and Rise House, swift as a rat. He was running scared, and she pursued. Suddenly, all the paths lit as if she had flared her own Strength. She was blinded by the tangled trails. Where was he? The moment she asked it, her Strength punched through the lights, and everything darkened to his ragged track. The same track she had picked up on the bridleway.
At once, she saw he was not of light at all. His trail picked out a route of darkness, using the spaces between, the edges. She stopped in her own tracks to watch as his trail revealed itself, making swift progress back to Havoc.
From here, the quickest route back to Havoc was along Old Castle Road. Charlie ran until her lungs were bursting, her feet pounding on the tarmac, the gravel, the dirt track, and from the porch at Cob Cottage she watched him pick up the bridleway as soon as he could to make his farewell to Havoc. Charlie spotted when he moved towards Leap Woods and at once followed.
Emz was crossing the lawn at Hartfield at a steady trot. She had come down through the walled garden, and at once all her Havoc senses were at full volume. The sound in her head was like someone blowing a hunting horn in the near distance. Once she was within the cover of Leap, she could tell where the Trespasser was. The horn in her head sounded out a note that bounced back like sonar. She moved through the trees, certain of her prey. Without thinking, she borrowed the speed and agilit
y from the deer she had healed, a skill that had come in handy once before when rescuing Seren Lake, a skill she had acquired from that other Havoc resident, Borrower. She was fleet, springing footfalls taking her onto the trail. She burst out from a clump of birch trees to cut the Trespasser off and was startled herself. This was no white-haired woman but a man, his coat tails swishing by her as he dodged out of her grasp with a guttural grunt. She saw his real face, as real as any she had ever looked on. The skin was grey, hinting at animal, a polecat or stoat, and his eyes were cold as tunnels. She felt herself falling downwards into deep-cut dirt piled with bones.
She was only grazed. He had vanished up onto the bridleway. Emz felt rattled and sat still for a moment or two to catch her breath. It was difficult; her lungs felt stretched, and she could taste tin in her mouth. She was scared, so, picking herself up, she let the deer’s borrowed instincts guide her. They did not choose to give chase. Instead, Emz turned tail, setting off along the nearest badger path to hurry back to the safety of Hartfield.
At Hartfield, Emz expected to find her sisters in the kitchen or perhaps in The Orangery. They were nowhere to be seen, and just as panic started to squeeze at her lungs, she heard a rolling sound from down the corridor to the billiards room. A light was visible and there were voices, familiar and sisterly.
The library at Hartfield was a long thin room, lined with gilded shelving. A tall wheeled ladder gave access to the uppermost shelves. It was the vast maps and charts that the Way sisters had manhandled and wrestled onto the broad mahogany table.
“How far back does that volume go?” Anna asked as Charlie opened the pages. She was skimming the other portfolios stacked in alongside a set of plan drawers. “These are all twentieth century…”
