by Helen Slavin
Borrower had taken the wrong route. He saw it as he approached the edge of the wood. The way was not open to him, and he understood why at once. This was not the path trodden by the fleeing deer. He paused, mulled over the dream. With a laugh of triumph, he turned in a different direction, towards High Foxes.
Already, he could see ahead to where the bounds of Havoc flickered. This way. That way. Stepping into the trees at Knoll it was a moment’s work to emerge, elsewhere, within the stunted copse of birch trees whose ancestors had shaded the back of the Highwayman Inn for centuries. He was uncertain and, as a precaution, anchored himself to the furthest tree, his fist clenching around a branch, in case. Here, at the border, town met wood in a ragged bit of ground covered with something that looked, to Borrower’s eyes, like black cinder toffee.
He stretched his other arm forward, felt his fingertips leave Havoc Wood. He was startled enough to dart back. He checked his hand. Nothing diminished. He could see where the boundary was thinned, not open, just the deer’s path through. He stepped forward, the bounds bent and opened to him, and, with a wry grin, he stepped forward into Woodcastle.
He breathed in. The air made him cough a little and the music from within the inn was not the fiddle and drum he might have liked. It rattled the head, this sound. He inhaled once more and caught the scent he wanted.
Bridget Quinn had said she wanted a cigarette, but, in reality, she was going to do a runner. Outside, the air mixed with the bad wine she’d been drinking and made her head spin a little and not in a good way. God, Lyle was a boring gorm, and, after tonight, she was never answering a text from him again. About the only thing in his favour was that he had never sent her a dick pic and that, somehow, had seemed charming. Yawn. The phone chirruped as she held it, Lyle asking where she was and a kissy emoji. That was it. She was going home.
She could cut across the car park and into the allotments and be home in no time. She was not afraid in the winter dark. She liked this sneaky route beneath the trees, skirting the edges of town. It was frosty too tonight, everything sparkling in the soft light from her phone, even the tarmac of the car park. She cheered up, found she was humming a tune as she walked off the edge of the car park and under the trees. There was a stile here for the public footpath and she hopped over it, admiring her new boots with the chunky soles as she did so. Red boots. She was beginning to think that she’d found her style nirvana at last, and it involved red boots. Not that she could wear them for work, of course. In the Town Council admin department at the Moot Hall, she had to stick to ‘appropriate dress’. Mr Wheeler getting his perv on with office chic. She grimaced to herself. What another tragic loser he was.
She was deep in the trees now, the branches still holding some leaves. There was the bare unkempt ground of Ditching Yard beyond and then, in the near distance, the edge of the allotments. The ground was hard underfoot, the glistening frost even making her breath seem like it twinkled in the velvet dark. Ha. Clearly, she’d had one glass of wine too many. No. What was that?
She halted. The air was twinkling, and she felt she must have drunk more than two glasses of rosé to make this effect. She took in a deep breath, and, as she did so, the man reached for her hand. He was smiling, she thought he was, it was hard to tell. There was a blur of face, of a tweedy looking waistcoat. His identity didn’t worry her, it was the strength. She could barely move under his grip. She twisted, fighting, and then afraid and then remembering: she had her red boots on.
She kicked. Hard. Accurate. He vanished. She was shocked. As she turned, his arms were around her waist, like a suitor or dance partner but wrong, vice-like, overpowering. With all her strength, she lunged forward, away from him, her leg kicked out behind her. The chunky sole missed his leg, and he was pulling her back towards him, grinning with greediness, lifting her off her feet. No. She was not doing this. She kicked. She flailed. She punched. That connected. She felt his teeth slide behind the mashed lip, and the grip he had on her released instantly. Bridget fell back onto the ground, scrabbling to right herself before he might pounce. No. This was not going to happen. She kicked out once again, hard and certain. Her boot found nothing but cold air.
He had vanished.
8
The Shadow of Trees
Vanessa Way recalled the day that she and her mother, Hettie, had rolled out the oldest of maps on the table at Cob Cottage. She could smell the smoky, fishy scent of the Cullen Skink simmering on her mother’s ancient stove, in what could only be described as a cauldron.
Cream. Potatoes. Onion. Smoked haddock. A ladle of stock. Her mother chose fish that had been smoked naturally, supplied by her good friend Douglas from his small white van which drove into Woodcastle, Knightstone, and Castle Hill each Thursday, fresh from his brother’s boat at the coast. The sea, Vanessa recalled, was only half an hour’s drive from here.
Vanessa listened to the kettle boiling. Its blue light like starlight, cool to the eye. You could not see the coast from here, of course, too far away, and besides, Yarl Hill blocked the vista. You could, however, see all of Woodcastle and the greater part of Havoc Wood. Half-Built House, as Emz had christened her mother’s new home, was placed at the edge.
Hettie had perused the map for a long time, her bright, brown eyes scanning every last legend and landmark upon it. Havoc Wood itself was marked out by deep green and ornate copses of trees. The map was hand drawn, by a cartographer who had travelled a very long way to embark upon the task.
Unrolled, the parchment smelt of lanolin and oak gall, of burnt earth and charcoal. Beetles had bled for the red inks.
“Here, this shows the Bounds…” Hettie’s finger traced over the document.
“The Bounds?” Vanessa’s memory dinged distantly, she’d heard this word before.
“The edges and boundaries of Havoc.” Hettie was focused on her task. “Where it frays and also where it is strongest.”
“Who knows the Bounds?” Vanessa had asked.
“The oldest. The most rooted. The paths that tread out amongst the houses and gardens can only be trodden by the oldest.”
“Is that a problem? Aren’t the oldest disappearing?” Vanessa had a scientific thirst for empirical evidence. “Surely we can discount them.”
Hettie looked at her daughter.
“The oldest are the worst, they are the best at surviving.” Hettie had paused for dramatic effect and then resumed her quest across the map. She pointed a finger at last, let it rest on a lone bit of territory at the top end of town — it was bounded by trees at the rear and overlooked Woodcastle.
“Here. You’ll be out of bounds here.” She tapped at the map. “This is the best place. It’s a blind spot.”
“We could walk up there if you like?” Vanessa felt like making a peace offering after her churlish enquiries. “Check out the energy?”
She looked out of the window now. Her mother’s shade, a darker piece with the winter night, stood with its back to her looking down into the town. The black waxed raincoat gave her the demeanour of a watchman. Vanessa did not blink, held her mother’s ghost in her gaze until the kettle clicked off and the brief spell was broken.
She took her mug to the black lounger chair and sat on its edge. It was growing twilight and the sky was a beautiful gilded-pink in the setting sun. It had been a tough day again at the De Quincey Langport laboratory, and Vanessa needed to clear up her thoughts.
She was uncertain these days of what Far North had unleashed. On her return after the disaster at the Arctic research lab, a debriefing session had been followed by the offer of a job and funding for her PhD. She knew then that it was bribery, to keep her on side and silent. When the wreckage and debris were shipped back from the Tundra, however, questions were asked.
“You hold the answers,” Dr Fell said, a greedy look in his eye. Vanessa worked hard not to give anything away. Each time, just when she was suspected of not cooperating fully, when Dr Fell’s professional patience wore thin, she would vanish to Far N
orth and everything would return to a default of grasping for knowledge. They wanted to know, they wanted everything, what did she discover this time? She let them have so little, only scraps to keep them at bay.
Nearly thirty years later, her own work had spawned the Dark Laboratory complex where small teams worked on eclectic and fantastical projects. Science melded with the supernatural, looked more closely at the paranormal, nothing was dismissed, nothing was out of bounds within Dark Lab. Vanessa worked hard to keep her secrets. She walked a line of misinformation.
Her mother had warned her, time and again.
“You are not in control of Far North, Vanessa. You can’t find the way back, it finds you.”
Her mother was right. Ever since Hettie’s death something had skewed. Vanessa understood that all her efforts to conceal and hide were nothing. Far North could look after itself. It only told its secrets to those who owned them.
Sleep. Since her mother died it had come fitfully. She was so drained physically that one afternoon, in a lull as Rufus set up the baselines for their Shadow Matter experiment, Vanessa dozed off on the lab couch. When, an hour later, she woke up and was told of the power spikes and alterations in the magnetic field around the lab, of twitched electronics, she and the team pulled focus on her and her REM dream state. Sleep now was induced, under laboratory conditions. She had never been more tired or more exhilarated than today. She had begun to see that patterns were emerging within the data they gathered. Something was building, a storm possibly; the next few weeks would tell.
She sat in the perfect silence of the living room at Half-Built House and breathed deeply. It was a good place. The energy had been right from the moment that she and her mother had strolled up here. Hettie had been light of foot and mood at once, flitting around the space, her gnarly hands touching bark and branch of the thin line of trees before stepping out into the space beyond. They had looked out across Woodcastle together.
Vanessa’s mind did not clear. Instead it ran over the dreams she’d had under the laboratory’s strict conditions, the images prickling at her.
Dreams were gone when you awoke, but, for Vanessa, they were written into the scratchings of the encephalograph, and today, at the lab, they had resembled lightning on a distant horizon. Troubling.
It troubled Eleanor, her chief scientist. Late in the afternoon they had spent too long arguing, Eleanor unconvinced by the old technology. Surely the computers were more than enough, more accurate? Vanessa insisted that the skinny finger of the encephalograph, the roll of paper, made her feel more comfortable. “Think of it as my blanky,” she’d said. “Something comforting that helps me sleep.”
“Something’s altered,” Eleanor thought aloud. “Only I can’t see what it is that’s happening.” And Vanessa had looked away, her eyes tracing over the jags and spurs of the readout.
There was no blind or curtain across the window at Half-Built House and, if Vanessa did not move, if she looked with the very farthest corner of her eye, she could see him in the shadow, watching her as he had always watched. Her sleep rolled her deeper and the snowflakes drifted, freckling at her out of the pewter-clouded sky. In the breaks here or there the aurora glimmered, now green, now sulphurous yellow. It was cold in the snow.
The wolf padded towards her, its breath on her cheek awoke her.
It took a moment for Vanessa to work out where she was. Home? Or the lab? Her neck cricked from her doze. She rolled her shoulder, kneaded her fingers into her nape. Home. She was home. Half-Built House. She looked down to where the wooden flooring shimmered and danced with the shadows from the trees. They were lacework, an intricate filigree of light and darkness.
Except that there were no trees outside the window, no sunlight to cast such shadows.
At once, Vanessa Way understood. Everything had altered. There was no time.
9
For Want of a Rider
Charlie sat in her car for a few moments, aware that there were no lights on in Cob Cottage, which signified that Anna and Emz weren’t yet home. Her phone buzzed in her pocket and, as had been her habit today, she ignored it. Charlie sniffed into the chilly November air and pushed her thoughts around, tried to bring forward the ones that concerned brewing and what she might forage from the fridge for her tea. She was hungry. At least her stomach had been growling at Drawbridge, and she’d thought of a big buttery baked potato and a scoop of Anna’s homemade coleslaw and possibly a grate or three of cheese. Sitting in her car at the rear of Cob Cottage with the wood dark around her, it appeared that her stomach had changed its mind. It was churning rather than growling.
She pipped the horn with a sharp, determined gesture and, at its brief fanfare, stepped out of the car. She shut the door and took in a deep breath. The scents of Havoc rushed her: leaf litter and squirrel breath, boggy earth and wormwood. Her feet were attempting to rush her to the cottage, to head inside and shut the door, but she dragged them towards the garden and made herself walk around her territory. She began to feel more at ease; the scent of frosting grass beneath her feet reached like a small hand to hold her. She knew this place. This place was home.
The sudden waft of horse and leather almost made her sneeze. What? She sniffed, her nose making mousey twitches. Charlie almost tripped over the wheelbarrow as she rushed for Cob Cottage.
It was shadowy and dark inside, and she switched the light on and reached for the kettle. She did not take her coat off. She stood by the sink. Her breath was coming in short and shallow, and she concentrated on making herself take in better breaths. Slow. Deep. There you go, the sound of the kettle, the scent of water, coffee, the cure-all.
With her mug, she felt compelled to stand in the kitchen doorway. She was watching out. She understood that she was, of course, watching out for her sisters who were heading home, weren’t they? She’d had that text and a missed call from Emz earlier. She checked her phone once more, sipped coffee, which could not mask the smell of horse and leather, a sound of bridle. Charlie held her breath. She didn’t dare look up, not yet. Count to three maybe? After two she looked into the edges of Havoc Wood that stood just beyond the garden. Twilight had darkened into evening and the shadows huddled. Charlie let out a breath through her mouth and took a step away from the cottage door. The faintest chink of bridle. There. She took another step. Another. Within the treeline, a grey shadow shifted and with the movement came another heavier scent of horse and leather. A short rhythm of hooves and branches cracked, the ground pounded as the horse cleared the treeline and stumbled, uncertain, into the garden.
Charlie gasped. It was, without a doubt, the most beautiful horse she’d ever seen. It was strong and sturdy and tall, the grey hide was speckled with black and white, and a deeply grey mane draped across the powerful curve of its neck. It nickered and snorted, stumbling backwards, its head rearing as if to look at her and not liking what it saw. She had no experience of horses other than feeding an occasional apple to the trio who lived in the field at the foot of Two Hills Farm.
“Hey…” She kept her voice soft and low. “Hey…” She took a step and the horse stepped away from her with a desperate whinny. She looked at it, the wild rolling of its eye and the sweat that had gathered at its flank. It was uneasy, a hoof raising and stamping at the earth as the tail whisked. With a brief high nicker, it turned and disappeared back into the trees of Havoc Wood.
What she ought to do, Charlie understood only too well, was to follow it. She thought about this as she drew the bolt on the back door at Cob Cottage. She was breathing hard. What did she know about horses? Nothing. It was a beast. Powerful.
It bore a saddle but no rider.
Charlie Way was a Gamekeeper of Havoc Wood.
Shouldn’t she be out there, following the horse? Finding the unseated Rider? Someone had fallen off their horse. They could be hurt.
Her fingers held onto the bolt, felt its cold iron. The inside of Cob Cottage creaked a little with, yes, Charlie heard it, disapproval. Her heart w
as running for Yarl Hill, beating so fast she could barely breathe.
The bolt slid back, the door pulled open. It appeared to be her fingers and hands doing the work. Charlie heard her footsteps chugging through the soft detritus underfoot. She was breathing in knife blades as she trudged towards the gap between the trees where the horse had gone.
Gone. No sign. She glanced down at the ground looking for hoofprints. The leaves were frosted, the air sparkled. Her breath clouded before her and she saw, through the fog of it, a glimmer of track. It flickered like lights in a power cut. Charlie took two, three steps and no further. In her mind, unbidden and instinctual, another path lit up, bright and clear.
She was rushing now, her breath fast-paced with exertion, the fear providing enough adrenalin to keep her moving forward. She knew where she was going and that something was happening. Something had come out of Havoc Wood and gone back in again. She strode on through the undergrowth. If her sisters wanted to look for her, then her trail was easy to pick up, and because she knew where she was going, it seemed reasonable that they might pick up on the same sign.
Day’s Ride. A horse. A Ride. Charlie’s boots bit into the soft ground as she made her way up the ridge, the bronzed bracken broken in her wake. In a matter of steps, she was at the edge of Day’s Ride and at once slowed her pace. It was a magnificent horse, but, like all its brethren, it was easy to spook. It had come to find them, surely. It had come to lead them back to its lost rider? She took care.
At the edge, she paused, kept herself hidden in the trees as she looked up towards the lemon-balm scented direction of travel. In the near distance there was a movement, a shiver of mane and the drum of hooves. Charlie weaved in and out of the trees alongside Day’s Ride. It was important, she knew, to keep out of sight and, more important still, not to tread upon Day’s Ride itself. Instead, the pathway ran like a river beside her, the light travelling in the direction of the lost horse.