Snake Ropes

by Jess Richards

  Memories dun have to be real, them’re just pictures, like broideries. Just got to make the memory strong enough, the picture real. Stitch it so fine that the colours gleam. Think of it over and over, pass my thoughts through the eye of the needle, make the threads hold firm, like a herringbone ladder stitch, get the split stitches with the needle right through the middle of the thread, till it looks just the way I want it to.

  Or if it dun come easy, cut it all away and stitch something different.

  The question I asked the key were: who is watching me?

  So it’s Mam.

  Mam holding the doors shut when she wants me to stay home. Mam putting her broiderie of the owl woman on my pillow.

  The windows rattle in the wind. Nothing here but me and a draught. And this key I shouldn’t have. A cold breath on my cheek. Not really. Just a draught. I need to piss. I get out of bed, wrap a shawl around me, go out the back door to the outhouse, freeze my backside, come back in through the kitchen, get the moppet and go into the main room and get under the table.

  The table is like a house indoors what gets no weather. I feel younger, smaller than I really am. I can pretend I live down here with Barney, in our house under the table. I whisper to the moppet, ‘Where are you?’ but it blows back the sound of waves in the wind.

  Outside, a gale picks up. It wails around the cliffs.

  I hug my knees to my chest.

  Rain raps hard and the window rattles. I crawl out from under the table and stuff a cloth along the edges of the window to catch the leaks. The sky is dark, thick with black clouds. The wind rages, the waves crash, froth and roar like them’re being chased.

  There’s three women with dark shawls over thems hair coming along the beach through the rain, and the women have seen me. One raises a hand but I can’t see who them are, for the ripples in the windowpanes blur with the rain.

  I hide the moppet in the bedroom.

  A loud knock on the front door.

  I put the Thrashing House key up the chimney, on the ledge where the flue twists back, wipe the soot off my hands onto my dress, go to the front door, twist the latchkey and call out, ‘Come in.’

  Them open the door. It’s Chanty, Nell and Beattie.

  ‘Come in, you’re drenched.’ I smile at Nell and Beattie.

  Nell says, ‘We’re not here for long. Got others to see, unless—’

  I gasp out. ‘Is there news of Barney?’

  Beattie says, ‘The key’s gone.’

  ‘What key? Come in, you’re soaked.’

  Chanty says, ‘Look, Mary, we all know you’re in the habit of thieving keys. You were round Nell’s and she dun find hers since she left you stood by her front door. Had to break the window, and though you’d think Dougan wouldn’t mind putting a new window in—’

  Nell says, ‘Him’d walloped hims head on something, and weren’t feeling up to it.’ She glares at Chanty. ‘Anyway, hims fixed the window, and there’s no real harm done.’

  Chanty says, ‘And—’

  I say, ‘I never took anything that’s not mine.’ Nell’s looking at me like she’s being kind and she’s about to stop. Rain streams down her face.

  Beattie says, ‘It’s the Thrashing House key. Valmarie had it last, and it’s gone. We need it back. Now, we’re not blaming you, we’re doing the rounds. If you got anything to say, you’d best say—’

  Chanty butts in, ‘Folk’ll be worse angered if someone turns out to have lied about it and made all us women go out in the rain, instead of being indoors.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry you’re wet, Chanty. I have asked you in, but you’re not wanting any warm from me. Funny that.’

  Nell says, ‘Settle, you pair.’

  ‘I dun know anything of the key.’ I scratch my cheek. ‘If Valmarie had it last, you’d best be going to her. She might’ve hung onto it. Want to use it to call up something more fearful than the owl woman.’ I nod at Chanty. ‘You’d best watch out.’ I glance up at the dark sky.

  Nell says, ‘Is Annie indoors? Does she—’

  ‘She’s not said anything to me.’

  ‘Keep your ears open. The bells need to be rung.’

  ‘I’ll say if I hear anything.’

  Beattie says, quiet, ‘Do that, Mary. Soon.’

  Chanty turns to Beattie and moans that I stole her key five years ago, and she had to trade for a new one from the smithy by doing a lot of stitching, and that her Mam said she were careless, but she knew it were me, and she says how she felt terrible – and poor her, and her poor Mam …

  ‘Oh, dun wallow in it,’ says Nell.

  I fold my arms. ‘Chanty you’re half drowned. Best get indoors or you’ll get full drowned. That’d be a shame.’

  Beattie steps away from the door. ‘Chanty, you’re of age. Act it. Come on. Annie’s next.’

  Them walk away towards Annie’s cottage. I pull the door shut and lock it, quick. Can’t keep this key. But … if the bells ring out, them’ll think the key’s been found and I can keep it for longer.

  For them’re right, the bells still need to be rung.

  No one is up here on the cliff path. I walk around the side of the Thrashing House, the wind tangles my hair. I unlock the bell tower door and step inside. The hinge on the door creaks as I close it behind me and lock myself in.

  There’s a curved wooden staircase, the steps worn from women’s feet. A box of matches and a jar of candles at the foot of the steps. I light a candle. The walls are curved, made from wood, but all in one piece, no joins anywhere. There are pictures of women painted on the wood, the colours faded. The pictures show women climbing the stairs, each holding the Thrashing House key. All different women – a bride, a pregnant woman, a dancing woman, a woman with a spade, one with a spindle, another at a loom and a stooped old woman with an axe. The staircase curves around and I touch my fingertips on the cracked face of a young pregnant woman, clover flowers painted on her dress over her bump.

  A groan, from inside the wall. I climb faster, my boots stamp too loud. A creak. The pictures look angered, dark red eyelashes, all the painted eyes of the women can see me, too young to be here.

  I stop and hold the candle to the nearest picture. A drip of sap comes out of the corner of one of her eyes. Mixes with the red paint. She’s crying blood.

  I spin round and crash down the stairs, the candle goes out and I drop it and run so fast I wallop into the back of the door. I unlock it, take the key from the lock, get outside, away, slip and slide on the grass, get to the top of the steep path what leads back home.

  Back in my cottage, breathing hard, I put the key on the table and loosen the bindings around my chest. Through the dark, through the wind, the bells ring out. I dun lock the bell tower door behind me. That’s all it is.

  Someone’s gone in there and is clanging out the bells.

  The rain rattles down on the roof and I get under the table and put my hands over my ears, and even when the bells stop, I stay here, listening to my breathing.

  Someone knocks on the door.

  I call out, ‘Come in!’ Scrabble out, see the Thrashing House key lying on the table and put a cushion over it as the front door opens. I spin round. It’s Beattie, her hair still wet, clinging to her plump cheeks.

  I say, ‘The bells rang – someone must’ve found the key.’

  ‘We looked – no one were ringing them bells.’

  ‘How—’

  ‘Mary, I’m done in. Dark in here, but.’ She glances around the room. ‘I’ve got to get home. Sleep. But the women are pointing the finger at you. Chanty’s stirring.’

  ‘I dun ever take—’

  She sighs. ‘See, Mary, old Jessup says her key’s gone as well, and she swears she left it in her door, on the inside. So folk’re talking.’

  ‘If the bells ring by themselves – what does that mean?’

  She shudders. ‘Dun know. But the bell tower door were open. Camery’s gone off, says she knows where she can get a strong plank to hammer it
shut.’

  Morgan

  Tonight, my bedroom door isn’t locked. I look out of the window. A woman wearing a pale shawl thrown around her head and shoulders is surging forwards through the fields in the dark.

  I wave.

  She doesn’t see me. But she’s coming this way. Moving like the wind is blowing her here, the rain, lashing her face. She’s still closer, and disappears behind the fence.

  I tiptoe out of my room and downstairs, turn the key in the front door and dash outside.

  My bare feet are cold in the wet grass.

  She stands by the gate, I can see her between the slats in the fence. I put my eye to a gap.

  She’s got red fingers and they’re clutching a small sack of rice.

  I ask her, ‘Have you come for me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you a witch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, what do you—’

  Dad is right behind me, in his satin dressing gown. He pulls me away from her. ‘Quiet, child.’ He asks her, ‘Has someone died?’

  Her voice shakes. ‘None are dead. But we need a plank. Just one. Need to seal up a door.’

  ‘A door?’ he asks.

  ‘Can’t say more, but it’s to be done tonight. Now. Look, I’ve brought you another sack of this stuff.’

  I press my hands on the fence and look at her between the slats. ‘You’ve been leaving the rice here – is it some kind of message?’

  Dad pulls me away, frowning. His face shines with rain. He says, ‘Morgan. Indoors.’

  The woman says, ‘It’s forwards trade, I want a good coffin box, solid, polished wood, flowers and everything, but if I can have a plank, I’ll ask the tall men for another sack of this stuff, and bring it the next time …’

  ‘No, don’t,’ Dad says, glaring at me. ‘We don’t have any use for it.’

  Pulling Dad’s sleeve, I say, ‘Get the padlock key from Mum, let me get the plank, I’ll go with her – she’ll need help to carry it.’

  ‘Dun need help,’ the woman says. ‘Only a plank is all.’

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘No. You can’t. Indoors,’ Dad says. ‘Now.’ Rain drips from his nose. He glares at me.

  My soaked hair sticks to my face as I walk to the side of the house and watch him from the corner. I listen. He says to the woman, ‘I’ll get you one if you take it quietly, and don’t come back for another. My wife’s asleep – I don’t want her disturbed. I’ll pass it over the fence. You’re strong enough?’

  ‘Aye.’

  He glances up at the windows and goes indoors.

  I go back to the gate. ‘Can you get me out? Can I stay with you?’ I whisper.

  ‘Got no room at mine. Can you stitch?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Knit? Weave? Spin?’

  ‘No.’

  She steps towards the fence and looks closely at me between the slats. ‘Any good at hooking?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Crochet.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, what can you do then, hidden daughter? What’re them doing, keeping you indoors, wrapping your soft toes in petals?’ She comes still closer to the fence and her eye stares through the gap at my bare feet.

  ‘I can read, cook, sweep – I can tell stories, I know some things – I’ve read—’

  ‘You’d need to trade.’

  ‘Trade?’

  ‘Trade with your hands. Or have your belonging people,’ she nods at our house, ‘let you grow with useless fingers?’

  ‘They’ve taught me all kinds of—’

  The front door opens.

  Back at the side of the house, I watch Dad lean a dusty plank of shipwreck wood up against the thirteen-foot-high fence. He lifts it and tilts it over with a push. The woman must have caught it as the end of the plank rises, then slides down, disappears on the other side.

  She says to Dad, ‘I’ll leave this here anyway.’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘We don’t need any rice. Tell me, is there news about those men?’

  ‘Ta for this.’ I hear her dragging the plank away through the grass.

  Dad glances up at the windows again and goes back in through the front door.

  I’m feeling too useless to find any choices at all, so I stare up at the dark sky and let the rain soak my face.

  Mary

  ‘You’re different to my other keys. I’m borrowing you. I might sound mad and crazed talking to you but it helps me think and no one’s listening. So this is what you’ve done.

  ‘You’ve made me remember Grandmam’s stories for comfort, so that makes me think there’s something bad I’m going to find out.

  ‘I know that Da took Barney, and that’s why him were sent mad.

  ‘But I dun think Barney were took to the main land by the tall men like the others, for Langward were searching for him here. So Da must have given him to someone.

  ‘And you’ve told me Mam’s watching me.’ I swallow, hard. ‘Is it that I were meant to hear?’

  The key lies there, silent.

  ‘Look, I know I’ve got to give you back.’

  Think.

  I stare at the key. ‘What do I need to know from this whole day you’ve made go too fast? Memories and stories and voices …’

  Think.

  Mam in the caves on the north shore. The loneliest place, furthest from all our homes. Caves and tunnels what stretch back so deep under the island, no one knows how far. That would be the best place on this island to hide someone, if you dun want them to be found.

  Think.

  Da went up to the peat pits not far from the north shore near on every week of hims life. If I were Da and I dun want to hurt Barney myself, but I had to hide him so well him would never be found, that’s where I’d choose.

  My belly feels hungry-sore. I rummage in the kitchen cupboard and cook up some kale and onions in butter. Kale’s good for strength and I’ll need that if I’m to go up to the caves. I throw an egg in the mix and the smell of it makes me shake I’m so hungry.

  As soon as the food’s ready, I sit on my bed with a spoon and the pot, like me and Barney did when Da were out fishing, and gannet it all down. The moppet lies on the blanket next to me. It dun move and won’t talk. There’s not even the sound of the sea inside it. On the blanket is a small light coil of hair like the finest thread. One of Barney’s. I put the pot on the floor, pinch the hair off the blanket and twist it around my thumb.

  Someone taps on the window.

  ‘Mary? It’s Kelmar again.’

  ‘Get gone.’ I whisper. I put the hair under my pillow.

  Kelmar taps again. ‘It’s important.’

  I scrunch down under the blanket and shut up my ears with my hands. Mam were important. Mam dun talk to her, and I’ve got to have one belonging person I can trust, even if she’s deaded. I push my hands even harder over my ears and close my eyes.

  I start awake, see the moppet’s raggedy face on the pillow. Dun mean to fall asleep.

  The bedroom door rattles. I hurl myself out of bed and swing open the bedroom door.

  In the main room the curtains blow up. The window is open. There’s a lit candle guttering on the table. Valmarie’s been here. The room looks the same: Mam’s chair, the empty table, the worn rugs … the tongs on the hearth …

  I put my hand up the chimney and run my fingers over the empty ledge. I put my hands over my ears and crouch down on the floor. Groan so loud it echoes below me through the floorboards, comes back up at me from the storm room.

  The Thrashing House key has gone.

  I get a bag and put in the moppet, a blanket, a sharp knife and a small box of broiderie threads and needles of Mam’s. Dun want to be away for long without something of hers with me. I blow out the candle, put my coat on and sling the bag over me.

  I try the front door, but it won’t open. I whisper, ‘I know that’s you holding it shut Mam, stop scaring me.’ I make sure it’s locked, take out the latchkey, climb o
n the table and get outside through the window.

  I take the latchkey to the cold room. I close my eyes to the dark and the ice and the barrels and whisper to the latchkey, ‘I’m leaving you here, for I dun know how long I’ll be away for. But if I get lost in the caves, and if Barney’s found by someone else, be here for him. Let him safe into our home.’ I put the latchkey on the ledge near the cold room door.

  I’m going to thieve the Thrashing House key back and go up to the caves on the north shore. Because if I’m wrong about Da hiding Barney in the caves, I’ll still need the key and all the women’s voices in it.

  I’m going to burglar Valmarie’s house.

  It’s a long climb up the path, and in the dark after the rain the grass and rocks are all streaked with silver and shadows. The night makes everything different colours. Puts me in mind of a broiderie of Mam’s. Stars up above and all these dragonflies skittering around green and grey flowers, what grew and stretched towards the moon.

  I bit my lip and told her, ‘The colours are wrong.’

  She said, ‘It isn’t wrong, it’s just different, for there’s a sliver of a moon throwing shadows around.’

  I thought hard about it and decided she meant that the moon is like a fisherman, up there disguised in all that deep blue, catching stars in a net. Only it catches shadows as well, and throws them back down to us.

  From the circle of boulderstones, I can see the graveyard hill. Starlight glints on the granite headstones. Mam’s buried in the graveyard, a headstone with her name, Beatrice Jared, and mine and Barney’s names carved below it. When Barney and me die, the deadtaker will score out our names from Mam’s grave and we’ll get our own graves.

  I remember the coldness of Mam’s skin in her coffin box. I kissed her brow to say goodbye, and she were covered all over in sea thrift with pink flowers. The flowers seemed so alive, though them’d die all over her when them were sealed up and under the soil. I felt sorry for them flowers.

  A sharp wind whips my hair across my face. I crouch in the wet grass next to one of the boulderstones. I can feel the cold of the stone on my cheek. Just below the Thrashing House, with a clear view of the graveyard hill, Valmarie’s house is tucked in a hollow.