by Cari Thomas
THREADNEEDLE
Cari Thomas
Copyright
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021
Copyright © Cari Thomas 2021
Jacket design by Andrew Davis © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021
Jacket images © Shutterstock.com
Map and chapter illustrations copyright © Nicolette Caven 2021
Cari Thomas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008407001
Ebook Edition © May 2021 ISBN: 9780008407025
Version: 2021-05-11
Dedication
To my parents, who showed me there is magic in this world.
Epigraph
Goddess of Silence and Secrets:
Seal our mouths, so we can’t speak.
Pierce our eyes, so we can’t seek.
Knot our hearts, so we can’t feel.
Bind our spells; to you we kneel.
What is forgotten, can’t be known.
What isn’t planted, can’t be sown.
Lock the door and turn the key.
We bear our magic silently.
The Binders’ Blessing
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Map
Joy
Stitches
Moths
Shards
Fairy Tales
Curiosity
The Binders
Nobody
Apples
Iron
Sewing Machine
Bruises
Elements
Secrets
Bindweed
Anger
Feather
Potion
Party or Die
Eyes
Grief
Satin
Salt
Stars
Blades
The Library
Flies
Fear
Snowflakes
Whispers
Letter
Necklace
Maypole
Desire
Footage
Escape
Choke Knot
The Ball
Mirror
Love
Mother
Acknowledgements
About the Publisher
Map
The bells rang out as they had done for hundreds of years, their sombre music sweeping over London with grace and stillness, bright as the moon which was full and ripe in the sky. Despite the late hour, the city below was restless, tossing and turning in the darkness with lights and buses and cars and people – everywhere people – walking, rushing, working, drinking, dancing, sleeping; none taking any notice of the bells at all.
Within the tower, the sound was deafening. Yet the women did not flinch as they stepped closer, forming a circle, their feet bare on the cold stone floor and their hair loose against plain robes. They pulled back their hoods, feeling the vibrations of the bells in their bones; feeling the buzz and blur of the city below; feeling the silence of the moon through the windows; feeling the languages of their own magic rising. The last chime rang out with finality.
Midnight. It was time.
They raised their arms to the sky.
They did not scream when it happened – the Seven were not made for such expressions, but even so they did not have time to scream. They possessed infinite years at their fingertips but not a moment of warning when it came—
The glass of the windows shattered. The night bled in. Words were spoken: impermeable and unbreakable. The women were yanked backwards, bare feet dragged along the floor. They were raised into the air, robes flaring, limbs frozen in the moonlight. All they could feel now was futility – the deep knowing that there was nothing they could do as the ropes wound around their necks and they dropped into the empty night.
Only then, as their bodies ceased to belong to them, did they do what any bodies would do: squirm and jerk and gargle and choke – slowly die.
Below, London carried on as before but the bells of Big Ben had never been so silent.
JOY
Fifteen Years Old
The neighbourhood was much like any other in the suburbs of London: straight-backed terraced houses, tall and narrow, abrupt faces, neat gardens, iron gates – closed now. Curtains were drawn and windows glowed against the darkness outside. It was quiet – only the distant jangle of traffic, footsteps carrying someone home, a dog barking, the whisper of trees in the wind – but one house was quieter than all the others.
Silent.
A silence so deep and still it went unnoticed, just like the house itself. Nobody turned to it as they walked by. The house was but a passing shiver – not a stone out of place on its gravel pathway, its porch primly adorned with hanging baskets, its white front door closed to the world beyond. Nothing stirred. Even the wind seemed to die at the door.
Not a sound could be heard from beyond its walls and yet inside, in the living room, a piano was playing of its own accord – the melody so fragile and heart-achingly beautiful it seemed to be made of silence itself. It fluttered against the windows but, not being able to escape, turned in on itself, disappearing into the emptiness between each note.
Seated in an armchair, a woman drifted her hands along to the music. Upon the floor, a girl had her eyes closed as if lost in it entirely, but her hand was clenched around a piece of knotted cord. She could not listen to the music. She could hear it, but she could not listen to it. Her knuckles were white.
The music slowed and a single note rang out, like a bell, pure and true and full of feeling.
The girl could take it no longer. She let a little of the sound through her defences, breathing in the joy of it. She gasped as the music began to fill her lungs. She grabbed at her throat, trying to breathe, but the air was too thick, too heavy with music – drowning her.
The woman’s hands continued to flutter through the air.
The girl pulled one of the knots in her cord tighter. Tighter. She tried to wade against the panic, removing the music from her body, her mind. She pulled the knot so tight her fingers screamed. The joy in her heart silenced itself abruptly. The music washed against her but went no deeper. She took a tentative breath—
Relieved only for a second, she quickly tightened her eyes, clenched the cord and hardened herself. The song continued, beautiful no more, just a sound, an interesting arrangement of vibrations in the air. Not music.
It grew dark outside. The girl drowne
d again, and again, and again. Eventually the woman ceased to move her hands. The music stopped.
‘Magic is the first sin; we must bear it silently,’ said the woman, making the disappointment in her voice plainly heard.
‘Magic is the first sin; we must bear it silently,’ the girl responded.
‘Go to bed, Anna.’
The girl was too tired to reply. She stood up, kissed her aunt goodnight on a cold, turned-away cheek and went upstairs.
The woman continued to sit in the armchair, thoughts turning slowly and heavy as the wheel of a mill. Soon it would be the girl’s birthday. Would she be ready when the time came? She had to be ready. She moved her hands in the air and the piano began again.
She was pleased to find nothing but silence in her heart.
STITCHES
Stitch in, stitch back, I sew with fear,
The needle’s eye watches me clear.
Stitch in, stitch back, I sew with blood,
A secret trapped in every thread.
Stitch in, stitch back, I sew with might,
Silence in each knot pulled tight.
Stitch in, stitch back, and now I see:
The tighter the stitch, the stronger the knot,
The sweeter the embroidery.
Stitch Chant, Pastimes, The Book of the Binders
Anna woke with something tugging at her. An ache. An urge. A feeling she couldn’t place. She tried to chase it but it was already gone. A dream? She did not dream.
She looked up at the dreambinder hanging above her, a few knots caught down its length. The Binders’ twisted take on a witch’s ladder, Aunt had put it there years ago – a long length of cord – to prevent her from dreaming. It catches each dream with a knot. As the knots began to undo themselves, the dreambinder unwinding itself back into a gnarled string, Anna yawned, exhaustion weighing heavy on her. She had not slept well. She never slept well. She did not have to look at the clock to know the time. She waited.
A knock on her door. It came every morning at half past six. The first stitch in their daily routine. Stitch in, stitch back.
‘Anna!’
‘Coming, Aunt.’
‘The early bird catches the worm but the earliest worm escapes from the bird.’
I know because you say it every – single – morning.
‘Coming,’ Anna repeated, trying to make herself sound more lively, trying to feel more alive. The book she’d been reading when she eventually fell asleep was still perched on top of her quilt – her only escape in the empty hours of the night. She moved it aside and pulled herself out of bed. She padded to the doors on the other side of her room. She threw them open and walked out onto her small balcony at the back of the house. Suburban London stretched out before her, the same as always: the sky a distant, grey wall, a patchwork of tight-knit roofs and dark brick houses threaded with tired greens. The gardens were motionless – shorn lawns and sculpted flower beds; a water feature tinkled neatly next door.
She breathed in the wind and thought, or perhaps imagined, she could smell a change in the air: a stirring of smoke, of autumn, of Selene. A smile rose to Anna’s lips before she could catch it.
Three more days.
Three more days until her birthday – until Selene arrived. Several evenings ago they’d been sitting silently in the living room, as usual, sewing embroideries, as usual, and then, as if it was nothing, Aunt had announced: We’re expecting visitors for your birthday.
Anna’s heart had jolted with fear, her thoughts swerving violently to the Binders. Were they coming? A celebratory interrogation? But then Aunt had said Selene would be visiting and that she was bringing her daughter with her. Anna had nodded quietly at the news, but it had been so unexpected and she’d been so excited she’d sewed the last part of her embroidery with untidy stitches that looped up and down as big as the beats of her heart. She’d been made to unpick it and redo it all before she’d been excused.
Selene hadn’t visited for years and the last time had hardly ended well. She was an old family friend, having gone to boarding school with Aunt and Anna’s mother. They’d all been inseparable back then – so Anna had been told – although she’d always struggled to imagine Aunt and Selene ever having been friends. During her brief and explosive visitations they had barely seemed to tolerate one another. But for Anna, Selene had been a wonderful, intoxicating interruption in the tedium of her life; a ribbon of colour amid a length of plain cord; a bright key to another world. She was everything Aunt was not: full of life, full of joy, playful and hedonistic; a temptress, a wonder, a witch. A witch like them and nothing like them at all. Certainly not a Binder.
Anna went back inside. She shook out the sheets, made the bed, put on her slippers and dressing gown and picked up her Knotted Cord from her bedside table, placing it in the pocket. She tied her hair back in the mirror. She’d always felt as if some part of her were missing and she saw it whenever she looked at her reflection – not quite there, not quite whole – the girl staring back at her dreadfully pale, eyes shadowed and faded, red hair tangled; a spot gaining slow but steady ground on her chin. What will Selene make of me now?
‘ANNA!’
‘Coming!’
She hurried down the stairs, tightening one of the knots in her Knotted Cord until she felt her excitement fade. If Aunt caught a whiff of it, she’d no doubt cancel the visit out of spite. They prepared and ate breakfast without speaking. Toast and kippers. The portion was small and Anna was still hungry. She was always hungry. Aunt flicked through the headlines on her tablet, tutting methodically.
‘UK economy slumps as PM vows “bounceback”.’
‘Are migrants robbing young Brits of jobs?’
‘Sexual harassment at work causing depression’.
Tut, tut, tut, like the tick of a metronome, her long, regal face remaining neutral as she read. Aunt was adept at arranging the lines of it, placid and polite, suitable for addressing the world, but Anna knew how tightly the lines were pulled, how, stretched too far, they could snap at any moment.
‘Can you please locate the clock for me?’ Aunt said without looking up.
Anna looked towards the clock hung on the kitchen wall.
‘Ah! There you go.’ Aunt switched the tablet off and locked eyes with her. ‘You are aware of its location. Why then are you still sitting at the table when it is almost half past seven? Are your chores completing themselves this morning?’ Aunt was always difficult, but she’d been particularly irritable the last few days, as restless as Anna herself.
‘Sorry, Aunt.’ Anna stood up quickly and began clearing away breakfast. ‘On it.’
Aunt made a displeased noise. ‘I need to go to the supermarket to get some things for this weekend’s visit.’ She laced the word with her particular brand of acid. ‘I expect every room sparkling by the time I’m back. I won’t be long.’ She stood up, tucking the stray wisps of her red hair into her bun and pulling her scarf tighter. Aunt always kept her neck covered, like the other Binders. ‘And, Anna,’ she added sharply, ‘don’t forget the leaves. They’re beginning to fall on the path – we’ll be the talk of the square.’
God forbid! Anna waited to hear the front door slam shut and then looked around despairingly at the ordered cupboards and white surfaces of their kitchen. Everything was already sparkling. Perhaps sparkling was the wrong word. Stale, silent, still. All the rooms of the house were the same: cream walls, floral curtains, antique furniture, sparsely and specifically ornamented. If she’d taken a vase and moved it to another table the house would not have looked right. There was an order here; things had their place. Even the potted roses in the corner of every room: dark leaves shiny as tongues and tightly sealed rose buds that never opened.
Even me.
Anna went to the fridge and stole a few strawberries, sweet on her tongue – one, two, three – not enough to notice; then she pulled up her sleeves and got to work. Carpets needed hoovering, surfaces dusting, bathrooms bleaching, leaves
sweeping, all signs of life scrubbing away. If one’s house is in disarray one’s mind will follow suit, Anna. Every day of the summer holidays had been the same: chores, studies, piano practice, evenings of sewing, Binders’ training, back to chores – on and on in an endless, inescapable loop. Stitch in, stitch back, three … more … days.
During Selene’s last visit three years ago, Aunt had caught her trying to teach Anna magic – love magic – a language certainly not tolerated by the Binders. They’d argued and seemingly cleared the air but then Selene had thrown a dinner party …
Anna remembered coming down the next morning to find their perfect house in disarray: people passed out on the sofas, glasses everywhere, wine stains on the carpet, what appeared to be whipped cream all over one of Aunt’s still-life paintings in the hallway and their barbecue set releasing ten-foot-high purple flames in the garden. Sent to her room, Anna had tried to listen to the ensuing shouting match. She thought she’d heard Selene scream, We wanted marshmallows! Aunt hissing, What if the neighbours had seen! and repeating the words abominable behaviour! over and over, but then their tones had grown hushed, if not harsher. She hadn’t been able to make out any more before the front door had slammed shut. Anna had never expected to see her again.
Why would Aunt allow her to visit now? After all this time? Then again, Selene had a way of getting exactly what she wanted, and even Aunt wasn’t impervious to her persuasions. She’d never brought her daughter before. Anna vaguely recalled seeing a picture once: a skinny girl her age with black hair and a scowl. Effie. She remembered feeling only an uncomfortable jealousy for the girl lucky enough to have Selene for a mother. She hadn’t wanted to meet her then and she still didn’t now. Effie would no doubt be as charming and magical and overflowing with life as Selene: everything Anna was not.
She fetched the broom and went outside, glad to clear the stench of detergent from her nose. The clouds had loosened, the day brightening, etched with a fine wind, a feeble scattering of leaves on the ground – summer was almost over. The houses of Cressey Square stared back at her shrewdly, every one identical, front doors closed like disapproving mouths. Anna gathered the leaves together from the front garden and threw them in the bin but one sprang free, landing back on the path. Reaching down, she picked it up and turned it over in her hands; this one was already dry and brown. Lifeless.