A Dark and Secret Place

by Jen Williams

  He took a step forward, and Heather held her own knife up in front of her. If she got up and fled down the stairs, she’d have to turn her back on him, and she still didn’t know where Nikki was.

  “To take them home.” The last word was filled with such longing, such raw emotion, that Heather found herself bewildered. Tears were running freely down his gaunt face. “They were born here, they belong to the woods, so I’m just bringing them back to their home. I can’t let you stop me from doing that, because it’s what I was made for.”

  “What do you mean, they were born here?” With a shudder, Heather remembered Anna in the hospital, her hands hovering over her stomach. How she had shouted about the baby—the baby taken from her. “Fucking hell. The babies born on the commune, is that what you mean? They would be my age now, or older, and you’re …” The sea roared in the silence. “What’s your name?”

  “My name?”

  “Yes, your fucking name. You’re my brother, I should at least know your bloody name.”

  “I am the wolf, I am—”

  “Your name.”

  Her flash of anger seemed to startle him.

  “Lyle,” he said in a quiet voice. “My name is Lyle, Lyle Reave, and I am the barghest, the new Red Wolf. It’s what I was made for.”

  “Listen to me, Lyle. My friend Nikki, who you took, she wasn’t born here. She wasn’t born in Fiddler’s Woods, okay? She hasn’t got anything to do with this, all right? Let me take her away from here. That’s all. And I’ll leave you be.”

  “No.” He said it softly. “No, it’s a bit late for that.”

  “What do you mean? Where is she, Lyle?”

  “She’s in the Folly,” he said, coming forward again. “With the other one. That’s why she can’t go, because she’s seen her, and she’s seen me. And anyway, the old wolf is there now.” He seemed to brighten. “But maybe this is right. If you’re my sister, then you belong to the woods, too. I can take you there.”

  “No!”

  He came forward, the knife raised. Heather sprang at him, trying with everything she had to push him over, but he was too strong. Instead, he shoved her roughly toward the bannister, which struck her across the middle of her back, and then slashed at her with the knife. Heather threw herself out of the way just in time to avoid a blow that would have struck her in the chest, but he came straight after her. A thin line of agony moved down her left arm and she knew he’d got her.

  “Stop it!” She swung her own knife around, but it seemed hopelessly inelegant in the face of his wicked little blade, and the flat of it bounced off his arm. “Do you think Michael Reave would want you to kill me? Your own sister?”

  But his face was closed, masklike. There was nothing behind his eyes now but a terrible flatness that made her think of the red painting downstairs. His knife flashed again, this time slicing across her belly, and she screamed thinly, horrified by the immediate hot wetness soaking into her jumper. The stairs were directly behind her now, and she clasped onto the newel post for balance, her fingers slippery with her own blood.

  “It’s good that you came,” he said. His cheeks were still wet from his tears. “This is how it should be. I am the wolf.”

  “Oh fuck you,” Heather spat through her teeth. “You’re nothing but a murderer, a desperate sad waste of space. Every woman you’ve killed is worth ten of you!”

  For the first time, a flicker of some alien emotion passed over his face, and Heather was reminded of the time she had seen Michael Reave lose his temper—the truth, she thought bitterly. He doesn’t want to hear it.

  “There’s nothing grand or mysterious about you,” she said, and she laughed, genuinely amused. Her head felt very light. “Just a little man hurting women because it’s the only way you feel powerful. God, losers like you are ten a penny.”

  His face twisted and he leapt at her again. This time, Heather embraced him, ignoring the bright white agony as the knife tore across her midriff, and pivoted herself. When she had gravity back on her side, she pushed with everything she had left, and Lyle Reave fell away from her, into the dark space filling the stairs.

  There was a shout and series of thumps, and then silence. Heather stood very still, waiting.

  Later, Heather wouldn’t be able to say how long she had stood at the top of the stairs, bleeding from three knife wounds and staring down into the dark, waiting for her brother to come charging back up. When she thought of that time, she remembered the sound of the sea, somewhere beyond the windows, and the steady drip of her blood splashing onto bare floorboards.

  Eventually the spell, whatever it was, broke, and she snatched up her phone and the knife before heading, very slowly, downstairs. At the bottom she found a light switch, which she flicked on, and there was Lyle Reave, lying in a heap just to one side of the final step. Gritting her teeth, Heather pressed her fingers to his throat—she thought, for a moment, she felt a flicker there, some movement in his blood, but then she seemed to lose it; it was difficult to tell if he was alive or not, over the thumping in her own head and the pain in her arm and stomach.

  Nikki.

  Nikki was in the Folly, possibly with another woman, possibly under the care of something Lyle had called “the old wolf.” Heather had no idea who that could be—it couldn’t be Michael Reave, who was, presumably, still safely locked up—but whoever they were, they would be expecting Lyle. Lyle could get into the Folly, could probably even get to the women. It was where he was supposed to be.

  As quickly as she could, Heather stripped off his stained shirt and his jeans—underneath them he was lean and scarred, little round marks on his thighs and stomach suggesting that someone had once used him as an ashtray—and, dumping her own clothes on the floor, dressed in them herself. They were a little large, but not significantly so, and she rolled down the sleeves of the dark shirt to cover the wound on her arm. With the wicked little knife, which had landed on the stairs, she stood and cut raggedly at the back of her hair, chopping off the last three inches or so that curled at her neck and at the sides of her face. Feathery pieces of dark hair fell across her brother’s face and chest as she did so.

  With her phone and the big knife shoved into the jeans pocket and the lethal blade in her hand, Heather stepped back into the night.

  CHAPTER

  44

  BEFORE

  SHE HAD THOUGHT she was safe. She had thought she had walked away from it all, had left that dark time behind her.

  Yes, she had made a mistake. It was about as bad a mistake as anyone could make, that was true, but they happened. Colleen had always been a trusting girl, an optimist; the sort to believe the best about everyone. It was a good thing, surely, to be so sure that people were good at heart? She still thought that. Or at least, most of the time she did. When she stumbled from her bed at 3AM, both babies screaming fit to bring down the heavens, and she sat with their warm little shapes curled under her breast, her mind would return inevitably to the babies born at Fiddler’s Mill, and the women who had vanished over the last few years. Her inherent goodness, her relentless optimism hadn’t saved them. There would be a price to pay for her weakness.

  So, perhaps that was why, deep down in her bones, she wasn’t surprised when she opened her door one night to see them both standing there. Michael, looking not so much angry as bewildered—he had lost weight since she’d seen him last, there were hollow places on his cheeks—and the old man, his eyes gleaming with triumph. She made a noise in her throat and went to slam the door shut, but Michael pushed his boot in the gap, holding it open easily.

  “You were pregnant?” was all he said.

  She lifted her chin, setting her face into an expression of determination she didn’t feel. “Oh? And I was the only one with secrets, was I?”

  Michael didn’t move. He looked hurt, and ludicrously, she felt a pang of sorrow. Once, she had genuinely loved him—had thought of him as her wild, country boy, had craved his rough, scarred hands and every moment they
had spent alone in the woods together. When she had missed her first period, she’d experienced a trembling moment of euphoria. This baby, she had thought, would be blessed—born of love and raised to have a love of nature … it had all seemed perfect. And then she had seen the inside of his van.

  “That child belongs to Fiddler’s Mill.” The old man elbowed his way in front of Michael. “More than any of them. It’s ours.”

  “Come back,” said Michael simply. “Please, I want to see my child. To know them. Was it a boy or a girl? Please, Colleen.”

  “I’ll call the police,” she said, glancing past them at the road. It was late on a school night, and the little cul-de-sac was empty. She was renting the tiny house for a pittance; a favor from the owner of the women’s refuge, and no one knew where she was. Too late, she realized, what a mistake that was. “I’ll call them right now. You can’t threaten me like this.”

  “Do you think the police can keep you safe, lass?” The old man grinned, baring all his long, yellow teeth. “You know better than that, I reckon. The child is ours. Give it to us, now, and think no more of it. I know you ran away and had that baby in secret. Who even knows about it? Not your parents, I reckon.”

  Colleen looked at Michael, hoping that he would be outraged by this obvious threat to her life, but he was looking at his feet. He had also, she noticed, moved so that his body was blocking the door. How far would she get if she ran back inside? He would be on her in moments. She had always admired his easy strength, his grace. Now, the thought made her want to be sick.

  “How am I to know you won’t come back for me? How do I know …” She paused to gasp in a panicky breath, “that you won’t just show up here one night, with your van.”

  “I swear it.” He met her eyes then. “Give us the child, and we’ll go. You’ll never see me again. I’ll keep my distance.” His green eyes flashed. “But I’ll write. And you’ll write to me. That’s all. I love you, Colleen. I just want what’s mine.”

  “Yours.” She laughed a little, although tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  “He’ll write, and you’ll write back,” added the old man, “and we’ll know where you are at all times. Do you understand me, lass? You keep on writing to my boy here, because we’ll need to know you’re on side. Just in case you start feeling the need to unburden yourself. You never speak of this child to anyone. To you, they no longer exist. And for that, we’ll keep our distance. I can promise you that.” He lifted his lips in a sneer. “What are you sniveling about? You can have more babies. That’s what women do, isn’t it?”

  Michael turned to look at the older man, a scowl briefly darkening his brow. “That’s enough.”

  “What will you do? With the baby?”

  “Raise him, Colleen. He’s my boy.” Michael smiled slightly, and quite abruptly she hated him with every part of her, a hate to shake the stars down from the sky. “Or girl. I’ll look after him. It might even, you know, help me. To be …”

  He licked his lips and looked down at his feet again.

  “To be less of a monster?” Colleen provided. He gave her that hurt look again, and suddenly she couldn’t stand it. She raised her hand. “You will stay here. You will wait here, and not come inside my home, or I swear to god I will kill the baby myself before you get to us. Do you understand?”

  The old man looked like he might argue, but Michael nodded. Colleen went back down the hall to the little spare room she had been using as a makeshift nursery, trying with every step not to be sick. The twins were in matching basinets, snug in tiny yellow and white baby grows, their little pink faces scrunched up tight with sleep. She stood over them, knowing that she had no time, no time at all—the foul old man would get impatient, would come after her, then they would all be lost—but still, it was hard to look away, knowing this would be the last time she saw them together.

  Over all the long years to come, Colleen would often look back on the moment she had decided, looking for reasons, for the truth. Hours spent awake as dawn stained the net curtains yellow. Every time she took Heather to the park and watched little kids playing on the slides or pushing each other into the dirt—always the question was hanging over her. But the truth was that when she bent down and plucked the little boy from his crib, she wasn’t thinking at all. Her mind was a terrifying blank, all comfort and hope blasted from it in one searing moment.

  She carried him back down the hall and gave him to the monsters.

  CHAPTER

  45

  OUTSIDE THE SKY had changed color. The inky darkness of the middle of the night had gone, to be replaced with a kind of dark silvery mauve. Heather looked at it for a moment, confused. How long had it taken her to run through the woods? How long had she been in the house? It seemed only minutes ago that she had found Harry’s body in the cottage, and now dawn was edging over the horizon.

  As she rounded the base of the Folly, looking for a way in, she spotted an old-fashioned car parked up on the far side, with two figures standing next to it. One of them raised its hand to its eyes, clearly peering at her with interest. A voice she recognized floated toward her.

  “Lyle!”

  Heather nodded and waved, and began to jog over to them. It was Lillian, and the woman she had caught outside the cottage, her sister. Now that they stood next to each other, it was clear she was a few years older than Lillian, or had had a rougher life. Lillian was wearing a long camel hair coat, the collar turned up, and her gray hair was whipped by the wind, while the other still wore the heavy parker. It was Lillian who stepped forward, a wide grin splitting her face.

  “Did you catch her, Lyle? Did you kill her?”

  Heather, who was still in the deeper shadow of the Folly, turned her face away and down, keen that they should not recognize her until the very last moment. Lillian though, seemed unconcerned, stepping toward her with her arms open.

  “Little wolf, your father will be so pleased.”

  Heather grabbed the older woman by the shoulders and slammed her backwards into the car. She squawked like a chicken, while her sister shouted something Heather didn’t catch.

  “Who are you?” Heather brought the lethal little knife up to Lillian’s throat and pressed it there. When the other woman moved, she shook her head. “Another step and she’s dead. I bloody promise you.”

  “Calm down, Heather, dear,” said Lillian. She cleared her throat. “We’re old friends of your father. You know who that is now, don’t you?”

  “Why? All that stuff with the house, the funeral. You wanted me to come up here. Why?”

  “A little family reunion.” Lillian grimaced. “We thought Lyle should know about his sister.”

  “We raised that boy,” spat the other one. Heather spared her a glance. She looked furious, hectic points of color in the middle of her gray cheeks. “When your idiot father got caught, we became everything to that little lad—his mothers, his sisters. We kept him out here, safe from the world. But when he was old enough, suddenly …”

  “Suddenly we weren’t good enough anymore. Cast out,” Lillian continued. “I ask you, Heather, is that fair? After all the work we’d done, the hours we’d put in? All these years we’ve kept track of the children of Fiddler’s Mill. We’ve practically been like second parents to them. And apparently your father approved of our dismissal. He agreed that we should be removed from the boy’s life, even as he himself sat moldering in prison.” She grunted. “When we realized that dear, sweet Colleen had lied all along, well, we thought wouldn’t that make a fitting little present for Michael?”

  “The daughter he didn’t know, murdered by his precious son,” the other woman grinned. “Although of course he hasn’t fucking managed it. Should know better than to trust men to do anything right.”

  “What do you know about my mother?”

  Lillian bared her teeth. “Everything. We’ve always known where she was. We thought of her fondly, of course. We went to see her, didn’t we, Lizbet? Once we realized what sh
e’d done, what she’d been getting away with all these years. We asked her about it, about you, and all the years in between, and she told us everything. After a fashion. After a little … encouragement. She told us about the man who raised you, the birds, how you pushed him to death’s door …”

  “Fuck you.”

  “And we told her some things, too—about the upcoming harvest, and the role she’d played in it. I have to admit, I wasn’t dreadfully surprised when I heard she’d killed herself. No one wants to find out they birthed a monster. Or a pair of them.”

  Heather didn’t move. She couldn’t look away from the point of the knife where it pressed into Lillian’s sagging neck. A little more pressure, just a little, and this revolting woman would never utter another word. Somewhere above them, a seagull cried out, and she moved back, horrified at what she had almost done.

  “This is all insane,” she told them. “You are all insane. I’m going in there to get my friend. If you come after me, if I ever see your twisted old faces again, I will kill you.”

  Something about this answer pleased the women. She saw them exchange a glance; their eyes bright.

  “Like father like daughter,” Lillian said.

  Heather left them standing by the car. On the far side, facing the woods, she found the door to the Folly standing open. Inside there was a curiously empty space; flagstones dusted with sand and dead leaves, and curling up the inside of the tower, a set of spiraling stone steps. The smell of salt and blood hung heavy in the air, a silvery kind of light filtering in through dirty windows. She had her foot on the first step when she spotted a pile of old hessian mats in the corner—the furthest one was half folded over, as if someone had thrown them over something in a hurry. The knife still held in one fist, she left the stairs and went over to the mats, dragging them away to reveal a trap door flush with the flag stones.

  It revealed another staircase, this one spiraling downwards. There were bright, modern electric lights fitted to the walls, and from somewhere far below, she could hear soft noises—someone moving, the faint sound of crying.