by Helen Slavin
Anna looked blank. Casey gave a weary sigh.
“Ivan Herald? He owns half of Castlebury… No, probably all of Castlebury by now, and most of Kingham and Knightstone, Castle Hill. Probably quicker to list what he doesn’t own.”
Anna was no wiser.
“He’s the biggest entrepreneur in the area. The most successful, rich…” Anna’s face remained blank. Casey threw her hands in the air. “I give up. Anyway, trust me, if Ivan Herald is looking round, Lella is selling up.”
The small rag rug of hopes and tasks in Havoc Wood was whipped out from beneath Anna’s feet. Dizzy, sick, she put a hand out to the worktop, for inside she was falling.
18
Gossip
No one was very hungry at Cob Cottage that evening. Anna had brought home leftovers from the afternoon tea, the sight of which only added to her rattled mood.
Charlie was late home from her shift at the brewery and did not so much as pick at the small hoard of Castle Inn goodies.
“Aron took me to lunch. Sorry, I’m full.” Charlie’s hunger had been sated more by uncertain thoughts of Aron and the future than by the food she’d eaten.
“What’s he up to?” Anna’s tone was judgmental, and Charlie’s mood locked onto it at once.
“What do you mean ‘What’s he up to’?” Charlie frowned. Her own mind had been chewing at this question for half the afternoon, and she did not like to be called out on it.
“He’s been wining and dining you a lot lately. The gold dress. The Ark dinner. Lunch today. What’s going on?” Anna was stern and suspicious.
“Can you just dial it down there, mate,” Charlie said. “What’s your sudden problem with Aron? I didn’t realise it’s illegal to go out on a date.”
“It just seems… I don’t know, different. More…”
“More what? As if he cares? More as if we want to be together?” Charlie’s thoughts were boiling over. “And that’s suspicious is it?”
“I never said that.” Anna was backing off, realised how she had stoked an argument and regretted it.
“I’m spending time with him because we’re together, and that’s what you do when you’re supposed to be a couple.” Charlie’s voice rose in volume until it was loud enough to startle the sparrows from the bush outside the kitchen window.
Anna was silent.
“Oh. God. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Charlie crumpled a little, her face white.
“For what?” Anna hugged her. “I’m sorry. Why should you be sorry for trying to live a life? I’m sorry for getting on your case. I’ve had an off day.”
Charlie gave a short laugh. “Snap.”
“When Emz gets here, let’s just head out,” Anna suggested, and Charlie gave a derisive snort.
“Yeh. Right. We can run away into the wood,” Charlie sighed.
“Do you know a bloke called Ivan Herald?” Anna asked.
“Whoa, handbrake turn on the subject matter, there.” Charlie looked startled.
“Do you know him?” Anna had softened. Charlie groaned.
“God, don’t remind me.” She sagged her shoulders. “He was at that terrible Ark dinner thing the other night when I jumped overboard.” Charlie winced at the memory. “Aron’s working with him on some massive deal or something.”
Anna was stony faced.
“What is it?” Charlie asked.
“The massive deal. Only he was at the Castle Inn today and Casey is convinced Lella will be selling up.”
“What?” Charlie was about to be outraged but the door burst open and Emz charged in.
“You won’t believe it, Winn found a young woman in Leap Woods who’d fallen off the horse.”
Charlie and Anna looked nonplussed at the news. Emz clarified her excitement.
“She fell off the Great Grey Havoc Horse.”
The Way sisters walked through Havoc towards Leap Woods. They were en route for Prickles where Winn had put the Great Grey Havoc Horse into a pen and offered it refreshment. Emz had missed all the fuss of police and ambulance, just rolling up in time to witness the horse taking up the offer of a bag of hay. It had been a relief to see the beast in such an everyday environment, and the sight of Winn patting its vast shoulder had made Emz laugh. It was a big horse, but it was just a horse.
On the way to Prickles, the Way sisters had been delighted by the idea that the grey beast they had half-feared was, in point of fact, just a hack for one of the local horsey girls.
So they were not prepared for the sight of an anxious Winn hovering at the door to the education centre.
“Did you find it?” she asked. The Way sisters visibly sagged. “Is it with you?” With the Prickles pen empty, the hunt for the escaped horse was, once more, on.
“Why do we have to hunt it down?” Emz asked as they trudged back through Leap Woods, checking out every possible pathway and trail. “I mean, if it’s just a town horse like we think, well, it’ll wander back home, surely?”
“It is not just a town horse,” Charlie insisted. “I told you. I saw it come out of Havoc.”
“Just think it through…” Anna said. “If it is a town horse and wandered back into Havoc then it needs to be taken back out. If it’s come, as Charlie says, out of Havoc, then we can’t let it wander about Woodcastle.”
“I see your point,” Emz said.
“The real point is that it came out of Havoc.” Charlie trudged harder.
“We can’t have a Havoc visitor or a Guest or Trespasser or a Poacher or a…”
“Rustler,” Emz teased. Anna and Charlie glared.
“It’s not funny.” Anna gave Emz a hard stare. “We can’t mix plain, old Woodcastle horses with Havoc Wood… erm…” she struggled for the word, “…personnel.”
Charlie drew herself up.
“I don’t care about the girl who fell off,” she said. “My theory is she fell off the bastard thing because she wasn’t supposed to be riding it because IT CAME OUT OF HAVOC.” Her words rattled around the trees to silence Anna and Emz. Charlie grabbed her moment.
“This incident is our responsibility. She could have been hurt. That Havoc Horse should not have been wandering about. We should have lassoed it to a tree or something, pinned it in a stave circle to keep it until whoever fell off or lost it came back. When they come back…” she took a deep breath, “we deal with them.”
Anna and Emz nodded, chastised.
“We need to do a proper sweep of the wood. See if we can pick up where it went today. Find a lead.” Emz began to stride ahead, keen to show she was on her top game. Charlie followed, Anna bringing up the rear, casting glances behind them in case there was any sign of the horse.
They took in their usual patrol routes and found nothing and no one, and finally they rolled round via Frog Pond to check out any activity. If anything, it seemed more abandoned than the previous visit. In the distance an owl hooted, and the three sisters turned in its direction.
“Where was that?” Anna asked. Charlie, without a thought, let her Strength loose and saw the flight path, speckled light.
“Up towards Mrs Massey’s old place.”
“Sounds like.” Emz yawned. “We going up there?”
Anna took in a deep breath and looked at Charlie.
“What do you think?” she asked at last. “Check it out?”
Charlie shook her head. “I think enough is enough. It’s gone midnight. Time to go home.”
They began to make their way back down through the trees to where the lights of Cob Cottage could be seen in the distance.
19
The Night Horse
Borrower had not reached far into Leap Woods when he scented the girl. Tears and anger fuelled her gait, and there was not a finer perfume anywhere. He tracked her to the old road, just at the bend where the Hollows of Havoc Wood met Leap Woods in a tangle of dead-nettles and frost-burnt brambles that those who lived in Havoc Wood called High Foxes.
She was beside a fallen tree at the wood’s edge, cursin
g to herself and shaking forest bits from her shoe. The shoe dropped from her hand, and at once Borrower tugged at it so that it tipped further over the bank and rolled deeper into Leap Woods. At this, the girl cursed louder, the word like the beak of a woodpecker tapping at the air.
She was wearing some flimsy rag of white, so she had an elemental air that appealed to Borrower more than the violence of the red boots worn by the other maiden. This girl picked her way through the undergrowth with disgust, and Borrower laughed to himself at every curse and grunt she gave, and, with nothing more than a wink, he twisted the bramble to her.
As she tried to free herself from his snare, she was cut and prickled and sliced. He thanked the bramble for securing his prisoner and loosed her. She took flight, scrabbling up towards the banking, away from him.
“Need some help?” he asked, as she clawed at the earth, the bramble dragging at her hem, sinking its thorns deep into her calf at his bidding.
“No.” Her voice no longer a curse, Borrower heard the whimper, all the fight gone from her. How to remedy that? Borrower rooted amongst her memories to find what he needed, a face he might use, a mask, a disguise, and, when the girl turned, he appeared to her as someone else: the boy she knew.
“What the fuck?” She was so relieved to see his new self. “What the fuck are you doing, Logan?”
“Rescuing you.” He held out a hand, his mind edging her forward to him. She was pulled off balance, stumbled.
“What the fuck?” The curse was sharpened by fear. “Logan?... Logan, stop... Logan?” Borrower gave a low laugh and twitched her forward a few steps. She was too scared to cry, bewitched, unable to see what was real.
“Logan?”
Borrower dropped his borrowed face to startle her, and the scream was worth it. It was a skinned sound, and he used it to shove her backwards into the brambles.
Borrower stood over her, unfastening his belt. The buckle gave a louder chink than was usual as he licked his lips. He was reaching, pushing, his hand up her thigh, and the thigh was escaping him, the girl squirming, scraping her skin through the brambles to evade him. He laughed as he pulled at her ankle, dragged her back. She gave a frightened grunt, but the sound became heavy, disconnected, and, before Borrower could reason it out, he was kicked hard from behind, the pain slamming into his back.
Iron. The hoof raised against him so that Borrower was now the one scrambling back from the prone girl, away from the angered horse.
It was a majestic creature, the head glowering down at him with a sense of strength in the curved muscle of its meaty neck. Borrower reached for it, his heart racing at such a rare find. A Night Horse, it must be. How long since the Night Horses had grazed Havoc? Too long. What had Halloween unleashed?
The Horse pushed him away, but Borrower dodged, his hand darting forward to take the dangling reins. The horse shook its head, the reins whipping out of Borrower’s hand, leaving red welts across his fingers. As the horse shoved him forward, Borrower skipped back out of reach. Beside him, the girl lay on the floor, moaned as if in pain, and the horse gave a lower, deeper nicker that rattled at Borrower’s heart.
He held up his hands in surrender.
“Whoa. Whoa, lad.” He made his voice soft, his memory prompted him on what ought to be done. “Here, lad, come to your master.” He claimed the Night Horse. Was that not how it worked?
No. The horse took a threatening step towards him. Borrower held his hands a little higher.
“Now, lad. I claim you. We shall not fight over a girl.” He was his most charming, reaching into his borrowed bag of smiles. “Come, lad, help me carry her.”
Borrower moved to pick the girl up, lifting her into his arms as she protested, writhing like a netted fish, her cries shrill and echoing through the wood, loud enough for any Gamekeeper to hear.
He flicked her upwards once, in his arms, as if she was a bolt of cloth and he was straightening her. At once the girl was silent and limp.
“Come, Beast, bend to your master,” Borrower commanded. The horse stood taller. Strength rippled up through its neck as it reared. There was something other in its eyes, in the fall of the charcoal mane, as if the night sky and the stars altered.
Borrower did not drop the girl, unsure whether she was shield or talisman against the ire of the horse. His instinct shouted that she was the only thing between him and the hooves, and that she would have to be a hostage until he could run clear.
“I have her,” he threatened and took a step backward. His escape lay behind him, back towards Hollows, and the Night Horse would not be able to walk free of the Bounds, Borrower guessed that much. He turned with his prize, ready to run.
In the three steps, the horse was on him, a hoof planted past his shoulder, the great cavern of chest pressing at his back, the breath damping his hair. No, not damp. It was ice, biting.
He dropped the girl, he cared not where, and ran, fleet as the wind, not stopping until he was out of the other side of Hollows, beyond Hare’s Ell and high in the branches of the old oak trees at Grove. Pausing at last to catch his breath, he realised that the Night Horse was not in pursuit.
Frog Pond, staked out with its warning stave, offered no respite, and so he walked on further, winding his way through fox paths towards the highest western edge of Havoc Wood.
The old cottage, not much above a ruin now, offered shelter enough. There were no longer hens in the run, but a wood pigeon was woken from its bleary dreaming with a twist of Borrower’s hands. Fire lit. Herbs gathered from the wild, and woody collection bequeathed by the long-gone old woman, and Borrower’s feast was under way.
The fire, on his hearth of stones lifted from the crumbling wall, warmed his spirit. He was a fool to lie low at Frog Pond where it was damp and mossy. This cottage suited his temperament much better. He dug out a few of the potatoes running mad in the overgrown vegetable patch and was sorry there was no butter churned in the dark cool of the scullery.
His mind shifted back to the Night Horse. What could he do with a beast like that in his power... Travel would be nothing to it. He could escape Havoc, take himself somewhere, anywhere that was a day’s ride from here.
Or he could trade it. A Night Horse was a priceless commodity. He lay on the soft, mossy grass by the fire and mused upon his wants.
A wife was top of the list. The taking of a wife would establish him within Havoc once more. They would have to wake up to his power after its long sleep. Borrower grinned to himself. With a wife and the Night Horse, he would be next to a King at the least.
The flaw in his plan was that he had never been a Rider. His domain had been forest and wood. He hunted on foot and, while he had borrowed many gifts and skills over his lifetime, horsemanship was not amongst them.
The plan shaped itself. He must find a horseman and borrow his skills, someone to give him sway with the great grey Night Horse. Then, thus armed, he could easily hunt down a wife, sling her over the saddle. He smacked his lips, wiped his pigeon-greased fingers on his moleskin trousers.
Denied access to Frog Pond and its perfect obsidian surface, Borrower scavenged in the ruined cottage. On a wall in the kitchen was a frame and a fragment of mirror within it, about the same size as his face. He grinned and took the shard out. Clearing spiders and mice from the old table he laid the mirror flat and thought of the hooves and haunches and breath of the Night Horse. The mirror awakened, winked with movement, showing him the beast. He grinned. Tonight he would rest and tomorrow he would triumph.
He settled himself on the mouldering sofa to sleep.
Hours later he woke in a sweat and, convinced the shade of the old woman had tainted his dreams, headed out into the tumbledown garden.
He had dreamt, once more, that he was hunting the deer down, revelling in the speed of movement, the punching heart of it skittering through Havoc Wood. But he was not alone and, as the dream gathered, he understood that he was the one pursued. At every breath he must hide and conceal himself, the other presence clo
se at his shoulder. He could not see them, not even reflected in the brown globe of the deer’s left eye. All that visibly moved was a shadow cloaked in velvet night, punctured with stars.
20
The Paper Prophets
The driver of the skip lorry was not in a jovial mood.
“You know this place doesn’t show up on the sat nav?” he grumbled. His severe look reminded Vanessa Way of the one the old primary school headmaster had given out at assemblies.
“It’s a new build.” Vanessa did not care to argue the point. “Apologies. I did tell your admin person.” Vanessa could hear how defensive she sounded.
“No point telling her, love, she’s not driving the lorry.” The driver looked away with disdain and scanned the driveway, the wide gate. “Where are we going to put it then?” The lorry was partially backed into the lane outside. He surveyed the width of the gates and then the side access to the rear garden, a half-hearted tide of gravel swamped with mud. “Please tell me you don’t need it round the back.”
With the skip settled in the driveway, Vanessa had made the driver some tea and offered a piece of Anna’s banana and chocolate cake, which was gratefully received.
“You on your own up here then?” he asked with a furrowed brow.
“Yes. Lovely and quiet.” Vanessa reassured him.
“Out of the way though,” he mused. “Do my head in being away up here, all them trees.” He reached for the last of his chunk of cake.
“I used to live in town,” Vanessa confessed.
“And you chose this spot to move to?” he laughed.
“Yes. It’s the perfect getaway.” Vanessa was summoning her mother’s ghost to come along and supernaturally shunt him out of here.
“Oh. Wait. Wait.” He stopped; the last bit of cake seemed to choke him. He swilled the last of the tea. “I know you. I know who you are.” His tone veered at once from avuncular concern to fear.