by Kim Wilkins
Bluebell ducked her head through the opening in the tree. Inside the trunk was now mud-black. No opening on the other side. She circled the tree. The mud wall ran behind it. The mud wall that had certainly not been there before. ‘Where are we?’ she said. ‘What is this?’
Ash grasped her hand. ‘This is very bad magic.’
Rose walked carefully, one foot in front of the other, her hand trailing along the mud wall. She had set out in one direction, Bluebell in the other, to see how far the wall stretched and to discover where it ended. It had taken only a few minutes of walking before she realised it curved around, forming a circle. Still she moved on, checking the integrity of the wall, looking for trees close enough to provide climbing opportunities, all the time aware somebody had built this wall, somebody had created the doorway through the tree. Somebody had trapped them.
She tipped her face to look at the sky through the crowding branches. The clouds swirled above, storm-beaten and grey-blue. But it had been a fine, clear day when they’d left the road. The odd quietness of the wood was enhanced by a strange smell. Perhaps it was the wall. She looked at her fingertips. Brown, powdery, dry mud. She held it to her nose and gingerly sniffed. Yes, that was it. A cold smell, like a room that had been locked for a long time. She brushed the mud off her fingers and looked up to see Bluebell approaching. They had reached the middle at the same time.
Bluebell cursed and kicked the wall.
‘Nothing?’ Rose asked.
‘Nothing. I don’t like the smell in here,’ Bluebell said. ‘It smells old. What if there are giants?’
‘The giants died out long ago,’ Rose said, and her voice was even despite the quickening of her heart.
‘Who else could build walls this high?’
‘They are built of mud. Not white stone.’
‘I wonder if Ash had better luck.’
They walked together through the woods, back towards Ash, who they had left with the task of using her talent to open the door in the tree again. A cold wind shivered through the treetops and Rose looked up. In her moment of inattention, she tripped over a tree root and stumbled forwards.
Bluebell caught her under the elbow and Rose steadied herself. She could see now it wasn’t a root she had tripped over. She gasped. Half-hidden in the undergrowth, a collection of brown bones.
‘I’ve seen others,’ Bluebell said.
‘Animal bones?’
‘There are no animals in here. These are human bones.’
Rose’s blood cooled rapidly. She hadn’t yet allowed herself to consider they might die in here.
Bluebell gently released her arm. ‘I won’t let anything kill you, Rosie,’ she said.
But Rose wondered what use Bluebell’s sword was against hunger or cold.
Ash was crouched at the foot of the wall, examining it.
‘What do you think, Ash?’ Bluebell said. ‘Did giants build the walls?’
‘No,’ she replied, standing up. ‘An undermagician did. They are built of magic. None of this is real. Our senses have been charmed. I almost saw through the wall, to the woods. The real woods, which are still here.’
‘So we could walk through the wall?’ Rose asked, hopefully.
‘I tried it. I hurt my shoulder.’ She rubbed her left shoulder. ‘I don’t even know if my premonition of raiders was real.’
‘But I heard their hooves,’ Bluebell said.
‘A trick. I think we’ve been drawn here. We slept in the witch’s circle, and somehow she has gained power over us.’
Rose shivered. She thought about her ordinary life, of running after Rowan, or bickering with Wengest, or sewing or weaving in her quiet bower. Magic never touched her. It was a distant thing that belonged to other, more important people than her. She was lost in trying to understand it. ‘But he will come, won’t he? He’s trapped us for a reason?’
‘I’m certain she will come,’ Ash said. ‘And I’m equally certain I don’t want to meet her.’
Bluebell sank down on the undergrowth, circling her bony knees with her arms and resting her head. Her long fair hair covered her face. ‘Fuck,’ she said.
‘Your ability, Ash?’ Rose asked. ‘Does it count for nothing? Can you not bring the wall down?’
Ash gestured around her. ‘Whoever did this is immensely powerful. I have no idea of my power, of how to control it, or how I would even begin to bring down this grand illusion.’
Bluebell looked up. ‘So we wait for her?’
‘We wait for her,’ Ash said.
Hours passed, though the sky above them gave little indication of what time of day it was. The sun was a long way behind bruised clouds that swirled unnaturally. Rose watched as Ash paced slowly, lost in thought. She watched as Bluebell grew exhausted trying to bash her way through the wall — with her fists, her shield, her feet. And Rose thought about her little girl, about Rowan, so far away on an unknown road. To fear one’s own death was already torment, but to imagine one’s child motherless stung acutely.
Sometimes, too, a darker thought troubled her. Did she somehow deserve this? Her guilt over the years had become an ordinary, dull thing. Renewing her affair with Heath had sharpened it again. No woman could live in two worlds at the same time: one half of her heart bowing to obligation, while the other half of her heart thudded desperately to be away and away, nearer to a forbidden someone. She sank now to where the self-blame grew, wondering if the Great Mother herself was punishing Rose for raising her child so irresponsibly, letting Wengest think he was her father, while Rose longed always for another.
They ate grainy flatcakes late in the day, when the light was fading from the sky. The lack of birdsong created an uncanny quiet where the echoes of her own pulse thudded in Rose’s ears. Bluebell had dark shadows under her eyes and Ash was quiet and serious. There was no way of telling how long they would be trapped, and the uncertainty was loosening Rose’s nerves from their sockets.
Finally, when it was fully night, Bluebell told them to roll out their blankets and get some rest.
‘I’ll take first watch,’ she said.
‘You’re exhausted,’ Ash replied. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘I’m not closing my eyes,’ Bluebell said forcefully.
As they were arguing, Rose became aware of a noise nearby. She turned. Her blood seemed to slow, pulling like a tide past her ears. Bluebell’s and Ash’s voices became muffled; time stood still a moment. A woman approached. An old woman who leaned heavily on a thick stick. She had around her an aura of sick light, no brighter than moonlight. On her other arm perched an owl. Rose tried to make her lips move, to alert Bluebell and Ash. Then she blinked and the woman was standing directly in front of them, as if she had moved a hundred feet in a second.
Time started again. Rose could see clearly: there was no halo any more. Just an ordinary-looking old woman, her wizened face turned towards the three of them curiously. Around her waist, she wore a belt that bristled with a hundred dangling objects. Some of them Rose could recognise: scissors, a mirror, a proliferation of keys. Others were a mystery to her: glittering things and jangling things and mysterious, soft hanging things woven of leaves and vines. The owl’s powerful claws were locked on her upper arm. It moved its head and didn’t blink.
Bluebell’s hand went to her sword, but Ash stopped her.
‘Who the fuck are you and what have you done to us?’ Bluebell said.
The old woman ignored her, fixing her gaze instead on Ash. Ash gazed back at her, her eyes widening as though alarmed. A moment later, Ash looked away. The old woman smiled cruelly. ‘It will be a long time before you are more powerful than me, dear,’ she said to Ash.
Rose found her voice. ‘Please, let us free. We mean you no harm.’
The old woman turned to her. ‘You will have to earn your freedom.’
‘What do you want us to do?’
The old woman glanced at Ash, lifting her stick and pointing it. ‘She knows.’
Bluebell’s eyebrows
drew down, making her look grim in the dark. ‘Ash?’
‘She is haunted,’ Ash explained, ‘and she doesn’t know what is haunting her. If we can make it go away, she’ll set us free.’
‘So,’ said the woman, with a little nod.
‘She can’t speak of it,’ Ash said. ‘She’s under a curse herself. If we can banish the ghost, she’ll be released from it.’
‘Usually people wander in here and I let them starve to death,’ the old woman said. ‘But she is different. She knows.’ She indicated Ash with a bony finger. ‘She can read me.’
Bluebell was growing impatient. She drew her sword. ‘Well, then, bring out this ghost and we’ll cut it to bits, and then be on our way.’
Rose almost laughed.
The old woman raised her eyebrows in amusement. ‘We wait.’
‘Wait? For how long?’ Bluebell said.
‘It comes. The owl will alert us.’ She raised her arm and the owl flew to the nearest branch and sat there, black eyes shining in the dark. The old woman leaned on her stick, with her bottom lip pushed out as though thinking.
‘I tell you, I’m tired of this shit,’ Bluebell grumbled.
The darkness was cool and primeval, settling quietly on the twisted yew branches and the undergrowth and making Rose’s skin shiver into goosebumps. Or maybe it was the thought of confronting a ghost that was making her shiver. Ash sat and pulled Rose down next to her, but Bluebell stood, back against the wall, her hand always ready to draw her sword. Did she really think she could kill something that was already dead?
‘What do we do?’ Rose said to Ash.
‘As she asks,’ Ash said with a shrug.
‘Do you believe her?’
‘I don’t know. But stranger things than ghosts have troubled me lately.’
The old woman gave no indication she heard or cared for their conversation. Rose pulled her fingers through her hair, accidentally brushing the wound on her head. She winced. It always fell to Bluebell and Ash to sort things out. It seemed Rose was only good for riding off in a rage and getting herself injured. She leaned on Ash’s shoulder, and Ash touched her hair softly.
‘Don’t give up hope, sister,’ Ash said.
Bluebell drove her sword tip into the ground and crouched with them. ‘Do you know how to banish a ghost, Ash?’
‘I know nothing,’ Ash said, and Rose noticed she looked pale and frightened, ‘but I’ll do my best.’
‘I know you can do it,’ Bluebell said.
Rose left her sisters to talk softly, her attention fixed instead on the woman’s face. She was turned away, her profile harsh and pale in the dark. But it wasn’t witchcraft or evil that had made her such a time-scarred crone. There were lines of grief on her brow and around her mouth. This woman had spent many years in misery. The woman turned, caught Rose looking and returned the gaze. And, strange as it seemed, Rose felt a sense of connection to her. A soft lock, as a bond formed in the dark.
Then Rose looked away, put her head on her knees to wait for the ghost. Time passed. Perhaps an hour, though it was difficult to judge with no moonlight.
And then, the owl let out a hoot. After a day without the sound of birds, it seemed unnaturally loud in the dark.
The woman straightened her back. ‘It comes,’ she said again, but this time her voice trembled with fear.
Rose’s skin prickled. She and her sisters stood, close, the three of them shoulder to shoulder.
A noise. Rose’s senses grew sick, topsy-turvy. Was she hearing a noise? Or was she seeing a noise? Reality shivered. She could see the woods beyond the mud wall, then they were gone again. Cold crept across her skin. In front of them, a light began to grow, that same sick light that had surrounded the old woman. And yet ... Rose looked again. There was no light. There was nothing but clear forest air. The noise and the light were nothing, and yet they pressed on her senses heavy as a millstone.
‘It’s a trick,’ Bluebell said, as ever made uncomfortable by what she couldn’t kill.
‘Let me,’ Ash said, stepping forwards.
Rose watched as Ash moved towards the light that was there and yet not there. It became bright, formed into a vaguely human shape, and the sound of crying — a man sobbing — filled her ears. Rose had a strong sensation, deep in bones and belly, of recognition. But thoughts wouldn’t form chains in her mind; they were as confused as her senses.
Ash held up her hands. ‘Tell us who you are,’ she said to the ghost, ‘so we can set you on your way and this woman can be free of you.’
The sobbing turned into a snarling, then tangled over itself and became a noise that could not really be heard at all, except as a violent echo in Rose’s head. If she looked at the light directly, it disappeared, became merely a blue-green impression on the back of her eyelids. But if she looked just beside it, it was terrifyingly bright.
Ash’s voice was calm. ‘Reveal yourself. Let us send you on your way.’ The shape compressed itself together suddenly and a blue-white arc of light — brighter than lightning — leapt towards Ash. It wrapped like a vine around her wrist and yanked her forwards. She skidded to the ground with a yelp. The light left its trace on Rose’s vision, even after it had rapidly extinguished, making it difficult to see. Bluebell instinctively rushed forwards with her sword and raised it, but the blue-white vine of light flashed to life again and snapped upwards, grabbing the point of the sword and tearing it from her hands. Bluebell cursed in shock as her sword flew away from her, landing with a dull thump somewhere in the woods.
The old woman laughed. ‘Two of you have failed. What does your other sister have to offer?’
Rose’s heart sped. Ash climbed to her feet, rubbing her wrist. Bluebell stood back helplessly.
Rose thought about the skeleton in the woods, about the insides of her own body eventually being exposed to the wind and the rain. Ash couldn’t help, Bluebell couldn’t help. Their fate was clear. And yet her thoughts weren’t clear. She felt something that would not jump onto her tongue. She felt the ghost; in her sinews and blood, a sense of knowing.
‘You give up?’ the old woman asked, and Rose realised the question was directed at her. This was her chance to save them.
‘It’s all right, Rose,’ said Ash. ‘We did our best.’
‘No, wait,’ Rose said. ‘It’s just ... I feel ...’ The strange, physical familiarity stirred inside her. Deep in unknown places. She tried to concentrate, but when that didn’t work, she tried instead to turn her mind away from the problem. Like the light, perhaps this feeling could only be identified if not looked upon directly.
It was her breasts. A prickling sensation deep in her breasts, like the sensations she’d had in the years she had breastfed Rowan; the moment before the milk let down and started to flow. She put her right hand over her left breast, half-expecting it to feel damp.
‘It’s a child,’ she said.
The old woman gasped and grew very still.
‘That doesn’t sound like a child crying,’ Ash said.
Rose closed her eyes, and tried to hear and see with her body rather than her ears and eyes. Unfathomable grief opened up inside her; she stood uncertainly on the brink. Down there was only one thing, only one event horrific enough to pull her in.
‘You lost her.’ The words escaped Rose’s lips before she knew she was going to form them. Rose opened her eyes and pointed at the old woman. ‘You lost a child. An infant. The grief drove you mad.’
‘But the man crying?’ Bluebell asked.
‘The child’s father. He left. He didn’t recognise you any more.’
The old woman raised her hands and she froze like that a moment, as though she didn’t know whether to cover her face, or tear out her hair. Even in the dark, Rose could see the tendons in her wrists were locked with terrible tension.
‘Oh,’ the old woman said. ‘Oh.’
Rose approached, moved by sympathy to touch her.
‘Don’t get close,’ Bluebell warned.
&nbs
p; But Rose ignored her, grasping the old woman’s hands and pressing them together.
As she did so, the light vanished, and the mud wall began to tremble like a dream upon waking.
‘I remember,’ the old woman said. ‘I remember. But I don’t want to remember.’
‘It’s gone now,’ Rose said. ‘The ghost is gone.’
‘Every night for fifty years,’ she said. ‘The torture.’
‘Tell me about her,’ Rose said.
Bluebell was already pulling away. ‘The wall’s down. Let’s go.’
Ash hushed her. ‘Let Rose do what she must do. She saved us.’
‘I’m going to look for my sword,’ Bluebell harrumphed.
Ash and Rose exchanged glances, then invited the old woman to sit with them in the dark woods and tell her tale. The woman told the story of her infant daughter’s long illness and the unrelenting pressure of hope and despair; how in the end nothing could be done and how she had buried the little body, then been unable to lift her head for weeks, months, years. How the child’s father had finally left her one snowy day to make a life among the living. Some time after that, she had forgotten herself; all that remained were the hauntings. Her voice wove through the dark, and even Bluebell came to sit and settle and listen. Though Rose noticed she didn’t cry.
Towards the end of the old woman’s story, Rose realised the dark was not as complete as it had been. Then, a sound that Rose hadn’t heard in here before. Morning birdsong. At first one tentative call in the dark, then, as the sun flushed warm behind the clouds, another and another, building to a chorus. The day reborn.
The old woman finished her tale bent forwards on her own knees like a doll without enough stuffing. Bluebell, Rose could tell, was itching to be on her way. She stood and shifted from foot to foot.
‘You should go,’ the old woman said. ‘I have held you here long enough.’
‘So we can go straight out now?’ Bluebell said, indicating where the wall had stood.
‘Yes, the magic has collapsed.’ She managed a weak smile. ‘I have been very weary holding it in place all these years.’
‘How did you do it?’ Ash asked.