by C. J. Cooke
“So, are you really a witch?” Saffy asks. “Like, can you cast spells and stuff?”
“Can you?”
“Well, no, but I never said I was a . . .”
“I call myself a witch primarily as a form of protest,” Rowan says. “In defiance of centuries of genocide in Europe against women. To say I’m a witch is to recognize my ancestors who were tortured to death.”
“Oh,” Saffy says, surprised. “So . . . it’s a performance, then?”
Rowan turns to her and frowns. “Just as much as your grunge-girl, Courtney Love–wannabe look is a performance.”
Courtney Love wannabe? Saffy pulls at her blonde hair. Grunge? She feels a stab of disappointment in Rowan. She’d almost figured her for the real thing, an actual witch, capable of conjuring darkness.
They are at the Longing now, the tall, menacing shape of it looming over them. Rowan tugs the door open and gestures at Saffy to follow her inside.
“My mum painted this,” she tells Rowan, flicking on a work lamp to reveal the half-finished mural in all its multicolored glory. They stand for a moment in dreamy, drug-infused silence. “I suppose you’ll recognize the runes, being a witch and all.”
Rowan looks up at the mural. “Oh, yes. It’s the sign for love.”
Saffy can’t help but smile to herself. Rowan hasn’t got a clue what the mural meant, and for a moment she relishes standing in the Longing.
Now that they’ve stopped walking, she feels woozy, and her cheeks are aflame. She presses a hand to her chest and feels the skeleton key there.
“Look what I have,” she tells Rowan.
Rowan’s eyes widen when she sees the key. “For the cave?” she whispers, and Saffy sways, her eyes taking in the grooves of the key. Her mind turns to the history of witches, a cinematic scene of naked, shorn-headed women being flung into a pit. How apt that they chose a phallic building in which to torture women and call them witches. The patriarchy, Alpha and Omega, eternal without end.
“Let’s open it.”
They slide down the long, narrow neck of the entrance, both of them collapsing with a loud “ow” onto the wet floor at the bottom.
Saffy wrenches herself up into a sitting position, though it takes a staggering amount of effort, like a triathlon—were there triathlons that involved sitting up? She hurt her knee on the way down, but the drug has made the pain fabulously distant. Her head is crazy heavy. She wonders if she might be wearing a crown made of some kind of metal that weighs a ton.
“Am I queen now?” she asks Rowan, completely serious.
Rowan stands and dusts her dress down. “I don’t think so.”
The cave spreads out in front of them like the mouth of an enormous beast. Jagged remnants of limestone skewer upward from the floor like fangs and the uneven, craggy floor glimmered with rock pools. Somewhere moonlight is seeping in, and it is astonishing that such a massive space exists beneath the Longing. It would be terrific for candlelight orchestras, Saffy thinks, though the damp would probably affect the instruments. The air is cool and clammy, the kind of dampness that gets into your bones. It is exciting, really, being in such a weird place with such a weird girl.
She turns to Rowan in a dizzy haze. “So this is Witches Hide. They killed witches here.”
Rowan laughs. “You mean, they killed women here, silly. I know this is Witches Hide. I’ve lived here all my life.” She produces a lighter from some hidden pocket in her dress and flicks it.
“So you’ve been in here before?”
Rowan looks away. “They’ve always had it locked. But I’ve seen photographs. Most of the islanders are terrified of this place.” She rights herself, flicking her long black hair over one shoulder. “But I’m not.”
They walk a little farther into the cave, into the part where it seems to swell and deepen, the walls green and damp with algae and shadows swirling on the ground. Rowan walks ahead, holding her lighter to the walls until she finds what she seemed to be looking for. Markings on the walls. She shivers and raised a hand reverently, as though not daring to touch the marks.
“This is incredible,” she whispers.
“So,” Saffy said, in what she deems a valiant attempt to bring herself around, “you’re OK with me and Brodie, then.”
“I never said I was OK with it,” Rowan says. She says it so easily that it takes a long minute for the words to spiral in the air and sift their meaning to Saffy’s brain.
“Then how come you’re here?”
Rowan is suddenly sitting next to her with her legs crossed, looking around the cave. She is probably admiring the beautiful ceiling too, Saffy thinks, with its symbols of black magic that have started to glow bloodred, as though a rich sunset was bleeding its light all along the cave floor and up into the engravings.
“I have a proposal for you,” Rowan says.
“A proposal?” Saffy rolls onto her belly. She feels happy and snug. “Do you want to marry me?”
“No, silly,” Rowan says. “I want to cut you.”
Saffy isn’t sure how it happened, but one moment she is on her belly kicking her legs, and the next she is sitting upright staring at a sharp knife that Rowan is holding in front of her.
“What are you doing?” Saffy says, the knowledge that she is in danger pitching her into semi-soberness.
“It’s the law of return,” Rowan says, as if Saffy is stupid. “You took what wasn’t yours. So now you have to pay.”
“No,” Saffy says, rising awkwardly to her feet. Is she dreaming this? Is Rowan really suggesting that she cut her? She tries to will herself sober, but her head is spinning and the ground beneath her feels light as clouds. “I didn’t take anything,” she says.
“Yes, you did,” Rowan says, with surprising clarity. “Three times is what he said. And so you owe me. Three cuts.”
Saffy laughs, but a glance at Rowan’s face tells her she is deadly serious. “I’m not letting you fucking touch me,” she says, backing away. She looks left and right, realizing with panic that she can’t remember how to get out of the cave. Which way is it? The cave seems like an endless loop, with no indication of whether she needs to go up or down, left or right.
“You said you came to warn me,” Saffy says, her heart racing. She reaches to the side and feels the wet, rough contours of the cave wall, a gasp of wind on her skin telling her she is near an exit.
“I did,” Rowan says. “I didn’t lie. But I had promised myself to him, and you took him.”
And with that, she lunges forward, the blade landing in Saffy’s shoulder. Saffy screams, the pain both distant and so gut-wrenchingly real it knocks her to the ground. But when she looks down, her hands are red with blood, and suddenly she is on her feet, running to the night sky ahead. The sea is howling, calling her name. She can hear Rowan calling after her, telling her not to go that way, doesn’t she know where it leads? Come back, she is shouting, come back!
But Saffy gropes her way to the sudden glimpse of daylight ahead, pulling herself to the sea, falling endlessly into the cold, black depths.
LUNA, 2021
I
“What time is it?” Clover asks.
“Almost seven.”
“Is seven early or late?” Clover says through a yawn. “It’s dark, so I think it’s late.”
“Actually, the sun’s coming up, so it’s early.”
Clover leans her head back and closes her eyes. Luna watches her in the rearview mirror. She is wide-awake, her mind sharp and her thoughts clear.
She has to do this.
The road is marked with new signs leading to the forest car park. Luna parks, relieved that there are no other cars nearby. There’s a gate leading to a public footpath through the forest. She has no idea if this is where the burning trees are, but she’s prepared to walk for as long as it takes. She’s packed some sandwiches and a
flask of tea. And the knife.
The day is cold but dry, and the sunrise is glorious, streaking the sky vivid orange. They follow a path marked with a yellow post, past fir trees that soar into the clouds. She could almost marvel at the beauty of it—muscular oaks fluffy with moss, the multicolor branches of a eucalyptus.
Clover has woken up a little. She marches along, arms swinging, giving Luna a running commentary about the parts of the woods she supposedly remembers. It moves Luna, that desire to remember. She can relate.
The path rises uphill, then joins another path that forks. “Which way?” Clover asks.
“I’m not sure,” Luna says. She looks around, paying particular attention to the thick oaks that have evidently been in the forest for hundreds of years. Can she remember them?
“This way,” she tells Clover, taking her steps slowly, consciously breathing in the smell of the forest, listening to the sounds of the ocean in the distance, the birds calling in the trees. Slowly, images gather in her mind, and she tunes out Clover’s chatter with the noises that nudge at her memory.
She remembers being in Witches Hide the night she went to find Saffy. She remembers the etchings in the walls, and now she remembers spying a hole at the end of the chamber. Saffy was nowhere to be found, and she’d had two choices—turn back and scale the tunnel at the entrance or go out the other end, where the ocean was visible. The water wouldn’t be that deep, she’d thought. Probably only up to her knees, and then she could wade to shore.
After a few minutes of deliberating, she’d stepped down into the water, yelping when she felt the cold.
But it wasn’t knee-deep at all. She’d plunged down, gulping down mouthfuls of salty seawater, before shooting back up to the surface and gasping for air.
She’d expected then that she’d drown. The shore was suddenly so far away, and the rocks were sharp at her legs and no one was around to help. Arching her head back, Luna had spotted a house light in the distance. It was a marker of the beach. So she’d wheeled her arms and kicked her legs in the water, and not long after, she’d felt sand beneath her feet and had fallen forward into a mound of seaweed, hacking and coughing.
She sat upright on the beach and huddled her legs to her chest. She was near the spot where she’d spent much of the afternoon with Mr. McPherson, pouring buckets of seawater over Basil the basking shark. Mr. McPherson had told her to keep away from the body, that toxins would make her sick. But the huge shape was nowhere to be seen. She stood and scanned the bay all the way to the cliffs. The moon was bright, and she could see the bay clearly, but there was no sign of Basil’s body. And he was so huge she couldn’t imagine missing him.
She’d turned to the waves to see if the tide had carried him away. There, cutting through the surface just thirty feet away, was a dorsal fin. It was Basil! She’d jumped and shouted. She’d saved him! He was alive!
She couldn’t wait to go home and tell her mum. Maybe Clover and Saffy would be there, too, and she’d tell them, and they’d all laugh and be happy again. But in her excitement, she had taken a wrong turn and found herself in the woods, tripping over branches. The forest had seemed endless, no sign at all of the bay through the trees. She had been scared out of her wits, jumping at every hoot of an owl and call of the wind.
Something had caught her ankle and she’d fallen forward, right over the edge of a ravine. It had felt like she’d never stop falling. Tumbling head over foot through mud and brambles and nettles, until at last she’d landed flat on her back at the bottom. She’d lain there, wondering if she’d broken her neck, staring up at the sky. Navy blue and streaked with stars. She had tasted mud and something else, something like metal. She’d wiped her nose on the back of her hand and saw a liquid shining there. Blood.
After what had felt like hours, she’d managed to roll over and pull herself onto all fours. A small tree stuck out of the hill on the other side of the ravine, and she’d pulled on it, hoisting herself up.
She had no idea what time she’d got home, but it was light. Her mother had answered the door. Luna had burst into tears as soon as she saw her, but the relief was soon swept away by something else—confusion. Standing behind her mother had been another girl. The girl had been wearing Luna’s nightdress. She’d also looked exactly like Luna. She had the same hair, same mouth, same everything.
“What’s your name?” she’d asked the girl, curious.
“Luna,” the girl had said. “I’m Luna.”
II
Cassie gets into her car and reverses quickly down to the road. She woke to find Luna and the girl gone, and a horrible knot in her gut is telling her that it’s going to end badly. Luna thinks the girl is a wildling. Those nutcases from the island have wormed their fucking stupid ideologies into Luna and now her vulnerabilities are giving rise to it. She’s seen it so many times—intelligent people, capable of reasoning and critical thinking, giving in to these stories the moment they experience grief or some kind of emotional upheaval. Coming back to Lòn Haven must have taken balls, but now Luna’s alone and dealing with her childhood all over again. Cassie needs to warn her.
She had messaged her dad late last night back home in Auckland, where he was enjoying an early morning surf at Takapuna Beach. Finn was recently divorced, had taken up veganism and surfing as part of his “new me” regime. He worked in forestry. At fifty-seven years old, he was the healthiest he’d ever been.
She had asked what happened after the Stay girls went missing back in 1998.
He’d told her the rumor that had spread across Lòn Haven: folk said there had been two Lunas, one a wildling, one the “real” Luna. He’s pretty sure it was nonsense. Luna was found. He was the one who had taken her to the police station—he’d been worried that Isla might take her to the burning trees—and insisted they call social services until her mother was found. He had helped the search teams look for Liv for two months solid, swept every part of the island. But to no avail.
She’d told him about Clover. About how Luna had said Clover had a mark on her, that she suspected she was a wildling.
“What do you think, Dad?” she’d asked. “Why would Clover be a kid instead of a grown-up?”
“I have no idea,” Finn had said. “But you need to get them both off the island. Now.”
III
“Why are these trees all black?” Clover says, screwing up her face.
They’re at the burning trees, and Luna is shaking. She has to do this.
“Can you stand against this tree?” she asks Clover.
“Why?”
“Please?”
Clover looks at her darkly before stepping toward the tree.
“This is weird,” she says.
Luna positions herself in front of Clover, taking everything in: the small form of her amidst the trees, the wet, black branches above like spikes, the leaves at her feet. The faint smell of fire lingering in the burned wood, stoked by the wind. She steps forward, lifting her hand in the air, and Clover flinches.
“What are you doing?” she whimpers.
IV
“Come out, you dogs! We know you’re in there!”
Through the slats in the door I could make out about fifteen of them. Angus and his men—Stevens, a bear in human form, as wide as he was tall, holding a length of rope and a scabbard; Fotheringham with a pail of oil; and Argyle clutching a dirk. There would be no trial. They wanted blood, and they’d take it.
I boarded the door as best I could, then pressed a knife into Amy’s hand and threw my coat across her shoulders. “Run,” I told her. “Do not look back.”
“I’ll go to the cave,” she said, her eyes wild. “Promise me you’ll follow.”
I didn’t get a chance to answer. The door was beaten down and in a moment Stevens was lifting his scabbard and bringing the butt of it down hard on my head.
When I came to, we were in the broc
h surrounded by the men. Amy had not made it to Witches Hide, though we were in the broch. Amy was crying and shaking with fear, and I wanted to comfort her.
“No, you don’t,” Stevens said, his sword at my throat. He uncurled his filthy fingers to show me a handful of stones before plunging them into my mouth, breaking my teeth. They dragged Amy to a milking stool and began to hack off her hair, tossing her long black locks to the ground. They were so rough, hacking so close to the scalp that blood began to ooze out. I yelled at them, and with a terrific lunge Stevens plunged his knife deep into my chest. I fell to the ground, unable to breathe.
They had lit a fire, the hiss and crackle of it in the courtyard indicating that it was already a good size. When I came to again I saw Angus Reid at the back of the barn, watching darkly. He wanted to be sure the punishment was done before the Council found out.
“Patrick,” Amy wailed, and I looked up to see her being dragged off, naked as a babe, to the stake.
“You needn’t worry,” Stevens replied gruffly. “He’ll be joining you soon enough.”
I heard her cries as they tied her to the stake, the terrible shrieks that fell quickly to whimpers. I felt like I had stepped outside my body. Everything was happening so fast, and the smell of the fire had wrenched me back to the day I’d witnessed my mother being murdered.
A voice in my head shouted that Amy would not suffer the same fate, not if I acted. Amy would find a way. She had brought fish back from the dead. She had cursed the cave to thrust living people into the distant corners of time itself. She wouldn’t die. I just had to get to Witches Hide, like we’d planned.
We would escape. And so would the child that was growing in her belly.
The men were murmuring about whether the stake would topple if they added another body to it. I stayed put on the ground, feigning collapse, as they decided whether to take Amy off before tying me to the stake. Soon a decision was reached, and they began removing her, leaving me unattended.