by Helen Slavin
She thought of Villette at the boutique. She thought of the wedding dresses she had not completed and felt a pang of guilt at how she had left her employer in the lurch. Villette had been a good boss and a good friend and they relied upon each other. It was a loose end, a thread that, as a seamstress, Seren felt she could now pick up. She headed up into the cottage, picked up her phone.
“Oh, thank God, thank you God.” Seren could hear the catch in Villette’s throat. “Oh, I have been waiting and waiting for you to call… you don’t have your phone?”
“No.” Seren thought of all the things she’d left behind. Things. Objects. You could walk away. “I had to get a new one. I’m sorry Villette. I’m so sorry…”
“No.” Villette was adamant, her voice half a laugh, half a cry. “No. Don’t. Just promise me you’ll stay in touch. I know why Seren… I know why.”
Seren was the one with a choked feeling in her throat now.
“Seren?” Villette was anxious “You still there?”
“Yes.” Seren managed the word. Her mind was glittering with the beadwork they’d been completing, the yardage of silk cool beneath her fingers. She had lived for the escape of that job, the little workshop in the centre of town and their window display, always magical, fairy-tale. She thought of all of the wedding fayres she and Villette had attended, all the brides they had laced into their gowns, veiled with tulle, sent twinkling to their partners.
“I don’t know if I am coming back.” Seren said it out loud at last. There was no doubt about it, she knew that she would stay in Woodcastle. “The car, you need your…”
“No. Forget the car. We can work the car out.” There was some small disturbance at her end, a woman’s voice asking about an order they were waiting for. It sounded so real, so distant. Seren wasn’t sure if she had done the right thing, leaving the safety that the studio had always seemed to offer. “…No… this is an important call… no Nibs, tell her I’ll call her back… yes, go, go…”
There was rustling, the sound of Villette’s movements, and then suddenly her voice once more, strong and determined.
“Don’t come back, Seren. Be safe. Just let me know where you are. Sometime? Yes?”
Seren could barely speak.
“Seren…” Villette’s voice was low and strong “…Do not be afraid…” And she took all the strength from her friend’s voice and carried it inside her.
Seren Lake was renewed. As twilight began to close in she felt, once more, the pull of the lake water, a need to feel the biting cold of the water hold her in its jaws. She ventured out along the jetty and sat at the farthest end so that she was on the water without being in it. There was a different scent in the air this evening. She had begun to take notice of such things. She wanted to swim further, to go deeper as if the lake might not end at the far shore, as if it might go on forever and ever, the water carrying her like a leaf, but, before today, there had been a limit to her courage. Now she had swum the length of the lake she felt invigorated, a move had been made. Tonight, she would swim as she pleased. She peeled off her coat and slipped into the water.
Except that there was a point where the water seemed blacker, colder, and a voice whispered into her head ‘wait’. Seren did not feel afraid by the voice. Instead she felt instructed. Something was being heralded. She trod water, her toes feeling the long arms of the weed rising up towards her, tangling her legs. Wait.
And that is the moment she saw Tighe.
He was, at first, indistinct — a black shape that moved in the lengthening twilit shadow of the trees. Her eye snagged on the jarring shape and then he stepped out from the trees, his eyes on the cottage. He paused. In the water, Seren let herself sink a little deeper, her nose almost resting on the surface of the water. Her breathing slowed to the lapping rhythm of the lake. He moved a few steps further and it seemed to her that, rather than shield him, the trees stood as a crowd behind him, sentinels.
Seren was barely moving in the water, her arms floating, her feet drifting. He dropped from her sight, moving as he did towards the rear of the cottage. In a moment or so she saw him through the curves of the sitting room window prowling through the building picking up the towel she had dried herself with earlier and sniffing at it. He moved out onto the porch, patrolled it, his gaze looking first into the empty cottage and then at last, out across the water.
“Wait,” the water whispered. Light and lake combined and hid her from his view.
* * *
Tighe was enjoying this game with Birdy. He thought it was the best treat she’d ever offered him and if he’d known it was going to be this exciting and arousing then he would have sent her on her way long, long before this.
He’d been pissed off initially. Ha. More than pissed off. And he’d looked like an idiot at the police station with that smug policewoman informing him that his girlfriend had the right to leave him if she so wished. So, they’d been no help in tracing her whereabouts and her transactions but then, he’d stepped up to that task.
In fact, now he was thinking that once he had her back, and that was a matter of a short time away, he would, after an interim of taking his pleasures, send her out like this again. He thought of those packs of dogs baying across the fields.
There had been a little more trouble with the police before he left of course. One of the female officers, clearly on the blob, had put out the idea that he might have done away with his lady friend, and, really, he had only Birdy’s boss, the wedding dress woman, to thank for his continued freedom. If she hadn’t stepped in, then he’d most likely be cooling his heels in a cell roundabout now and racking up legal bills.
No matter. After that brief nightmare it was Rob at work who had suggested the idea of keylogging the computer and that had sent him off on the trail.
He had a clear vision of their future. Birdy stripped bare and running across the fields and he would get a dog, possibly two. They would relocate, somewhere remote. He’d already trawled the internet to see what Wales was like but Scotland seemed wilder and emptier. He had seen a couple of properties available with large tracts of land for less than the sale price of his current city house. He’d have land, he’d have cash and, most of all, he would have his beloved Birdy.
What this was, was a test, this whole situation, whilst it had made him furious at first and he did not want ever to relive the moment he understood she was gone, this situation she had made had pushed him. She had taken the idea of their relationship and remade it on a grander scale than he could ever have imagined. It had made a man of him. A hunter. A warrior. He would reclaim her because that is what their future was. Theirs.
The little upset in the other wood, that was nothing. That was Fate grabbing his balls and making damn certain he focused his attention.
He stepped out of the trees. The twilight made pewter blades of the lake water as he stepped towards the house. Wasn’t even locked. A turn of the handle and he was inside and at once he could smell her, familiar and exciting. He moved past the kitchen, found his way to the bathroom, the bedrooms, finally into the sitting room at the front and the towel strewn for him like a pennant. Here she is.
It was a beautiful lake. He stepped out onto the porch, taking in every step, familiarising himself with the place. He would take his time about this, there was something to savour here in his watching and waiting. She would rest here tonight, unaware that he had put his fingerprints on everything, she would breathe in his breath. Did she not yet understand that his fingerprints marked her as his? He put the towel back where he had found it and headed back through the trees. He would recce a spot, a place for his camp.
* * *
An hour or so later he was bivouacked in with a view down to the lake. He was surprised to hear a vehicle on the distant road, the sound altering as the tyres bit dirt track and then gravel and then the tarmac that led to the Old Castle Road. He took out the binoculars, a vast Russian army surplus model that looked out owl-eyed on the landscape. Her car was g
one. He couldn’t quite register the logic. The car had been there. She had not. Had she walked back in as he was walking up through the wood? So close, so close, he relished the almost meeting. Whatever, he made a mental note and then hunted out some twigs and scraps to fill the Kelly Kettle. Yes. He was a survivor, a warrior. Her champion.
20
Cry Havoc
As Charlie pulled up the bend onto Old Castle Road she could see Anna walking along the roadside up ahead of her.
“What are you doing?” Anna had asked as she climbed in. “I thought you were in the middle of your Wedding brew?”
“I think I’m doing whatever you’re doing, which is obeying the same weird craving to head to Havoc? Did you see Emz on your travels?”
Anna shook her head as they pulled out, Charlie cutting up a Range Rover, waving dismissively at the belligerent pipping.
“She’s gone to a party. At Tasha’s.”
Charlie laughed, a small hard sound.
“She’ll be here.”
There was silence for a moment save for the sound of the engine struggling up the hill. They were only a minute from the turn off to Cob Cottage.
“What’s happening?” they both asked at once.
* * *
Emz was flowing. The vodka had worn off but the wide open, not thinking zone had taken over her head.
She was running, in a way that she had never run in her life. She had set off from Tasha’s house at a steady jog, and without her thinking about time or pace she was running full pelt. She had crossed beneath the castle and taken the south steps onto the town walls and she was flying along now with the sky dark velvet above her and she knew exactly where to step up onto the wall itself and she felt the age of the stones rise up through her feet before she came to the place where she must drop down into the darkness beyond. She didn’t think how far she dropped, only that this was the place and she continued onwards, her feet powering beneath her, her breath a wind she travelled upon. She did not tire, her muscles did not protest or cramp, instead it was as if she was stretching comfortably, as if she’d always been able to run like this. She had no idea of speed, only of the fact that she was almost at the gate at the townmost boundary of Havoc Wood and then she was jumping the fence, springing from the nettles beyond, careless of stinging and prickles and picking her way away from the lake and the cottage, towards a place in the woods where she needed to be.
She was startled as she raced out of the trees onto the top track, headlights winked over her and with an extra gasp she had diverted, cut through beyond a different tree and all the time knowing exactly where she was headed.
“Emz.” The voice cut in suddenly and Emz halted as if she’d hit a brick wall. She turned, and she could see Anna and Charlie hurrying up through the trees. “Emz… WAIT…” There was a sharp tug at Emz, an instinct to run onwards, she refused it, for a second, until they had caught up far enough.
“This way…” And she hurtled onwards. She was aware that they followed and only when she sensed they were going to fall behind did she slow her pace.
They were moving up through the most ancient part of the wood, the footing was almost a carpet, a soft matting of ancient humus and detritus, of rotting trunks and mossed over branches being munched and nested in. Emz knew the place was not much further, she could recognise the tree, the lichen, the shadows.
She halted at last when the car was visible through the trees. The waning moon marked the darkness of the windscreen as Charlie and Anna caught up.
“What is happening?” Emz asked, her headspace was returning to normal, filling with thoughts and trying to hold onto vivid pictures of the route she had just run.
“That’s Seren Lake’s car.” Anna stepped forward “What’s it doing up here?”
“We were meant to find it. We’ve been told to come here.” Charlie didn’t even ask the questions. The sisters looked at each other.
“Grandma Hettie.” They all said the name and half expected that, at such a spell, she would appear.
“Something’s wrong then.” Emz did not feel edgy, she felt charged, as if this was a job that had to be tackled and she could do it.
“We’re here in time.” Anna whispered and took a step towards the car. They approached quietly and carefully. Emz stepped closest and peered in through the window. A soft white light bathed the interior of the car. Seren Lake was inside, huddled into a woollen blanket in the boot. She was awake and looking at Emz.
“Friend.” Emz spoke the word softly and touched the window of the car, the soft light spilled over and Seren Lake recognised them at once, the car unlocked, and she clambered over the seat as Anna opened the door. Seren Lake said nothing, tired and wired she fell into Anna’s arms and Anna simply wrapped the blanket around her and began to step away into the forest.
“Leave it. It might throw him off the scent if it’s abandoned here,” Anna said without anyone having asked the question about why they were not taking the car. The soft light from Emz’s hand lit their way back down through the muttering leaves and creaking boughs of the ancient forest to Cob Cottage.
No one noticed, and so no one asked, how Emz, who had left her phone at the party, managed to shine the soft light to illuminate their way. At the cottage door Emz held back for a moment, watching the light die back into her skin, cooling, the bones tingling a little. She had no idea how she had done that. It doesn’t belong. But there was no time to think about it now.
* * *
At the cottage the Way sisters felt instantly as if all the doubts and troubles that had nipped at their heels were suddenly nothing. It was moments before the lights and the kettle were on and Cob Cottage wrapped itself around them.
“All the lights on. Tonight, we’re a beacon.” Anna announced with a determined smile.
Seren protested, shaking and tearful.
“No… please, no. You can’t. You don’t want to bring him here.” But Charlie sat her in the comfiest chair.
“Oh yes. We do.” Charlie shared a look with her sisters. They all knew, they all understood. “We’re here to deal with him.”
It was as if a small and colourful butterfly fluttered about the room. Seren was suddenly not alone in her troubles and the Way sisters understood, in the way that they had been taught by their grandmother, a way they had not paid their full attention to since Anna’s Terrible October. Almost a year had passed since then and, now that Grandma Hettie was dead, it felt as though things were shifting and unsettling themselves. Seren began to cry softly. Charlie reached for a box of tissues.
“We’re here to help, Seren, you can tell us.” Anna said handing over a mug of tea. The Way sisters arranged themselves around the sitting room and waited as Seren gathered herself.
Only Emz turned to the window then, watchful, took a step outside and looked up into the trees on the far side of the lake. Emz stared for a long time until Seren’s tears dried and she found, somewhere down inside her, the voice with which she could, at last, tell her tale.
* * *
Up in Havoc Woods Tighe had been struggling to find his way. He knew that the car was up here. He’d come across the tracks cut into the mud as he moved his own vehicle into cover. He’d stepped out into the wood with the intention of taking up his recce point, but the tracks had caught his eye and he’d followed them.
Seren was asleep in the back of the car. He imagined how many nights she’d spent in there prior to her arrival at the cottage. You could be completely off grid if you wanted. She was clever and resourceful and there was even joy to be found in the anger she’d brought him. He watched her for some time, taking out his camera and taking some photos to tide him over later.
He heard the women running through the woods and as a consequence made himself scarce. What was wrong with these women? Had they no business of their own to mind? Didn’t they understand that this was nothing to do with them? This belonged to him and Birdy.
He watched the little encounter, how they wrap
ped his Birdy in her blanket and stole her away. Here we were again, the anger rising; still, it would fuel him, he’d regroup back at his recce point and keep watch. Let them think they were in control. He would know when he owned the moment and would act accordingly.
Later, scouting with his night vision gear at the lighthouse they’d made of the cottage, Tighe was spooked by the way that the youngest one came out onto the porch and, far from scanning the landscape like a watchman might, she looked straight at him, her image caught cleanly in the view offered by his night vision goggles, her stare so intense that, at once, he had to look away.
21
The Strikes
Tighe had struck Seren, the first time, with his red hair and his charm, a killer blow of kisses and the almost teal green of his eyes. Tighe Rourke. She had been working at the bridal hire shop in the city back then because she was a skilled seamstress and because Bill Banner, who ran the place, said she added grace. She was young and pretty and she made all the men who came in for their wedding gear feel handsome and masculine.
“Instead of like a bunch of dressed up dandies out of their depth,” he laughed. Bill Banner was never out of his suit, had them made for him, bespoke.
Tighe Rourke had been an usher at a friend’s wedding and had come into the shop with five others for a fitting.
“She’s straight from the mouth of Hell,” he had joked about the bride and her choices for their attire. It was going to be top hats all around and pale cream morning coats over pale cream trousers.
“I look like Mr Whippy,” Tighe Rourke had joked and led the mutiny to charcoal.
She ought to have understood, from that first moment, who and what he was. Alpha. Male. Seren had stepped out of the shop after closing time, Bill Banner heading around the back to his car and she heading towards the bus stop, and Tighe Rourke had been waiting for her, stepped out from… could you call it a hiding place? Stepped out, from the Victorian arcade that ran beside.
