by Helen Slavin
Nuala’s thoughts began to flicker like flames around the heartwood of Havoc. Long ago, she had run back here for sanctuary from Thinne after the incident at The Gilded Boar. Havoc had been the only place left for her; any apprentice to Thinne was hated and reviled, hunted down. Now it seemed that all her mistakes had led her here, returned her to the safety of Havoc to fight back for her rightful place.
On the fire a blackened log split and sparked.
Revenge on everyone she had ever crossed made a bird of Nuala’s mind as she drove into town. It was a crow, swooping and diving. She needed to find a way to take Thinne down and acquire his magic. She was too vulnerable, and she needed a power source. There weren’t enough dratted cats to cover it.
She would travel out of town, out of Havoc, into the city. She would find unwanted bones to break. There were sleepers under the bridge in Old Town. The drunk and dispossessed, and out of Havoc the bone magic would not throw a distress flare into the sky for the Gamekeepers. Or would it? She would try it today, feed herself and see what happened.
What of the stones? Might there be fresh energy there? Could she store her own power there? She had done so before. That was the key before the Red Wrangle. The stones were worth trying before she set off, but she was going the wrong way — she needed to turn at the traffic lights.
The small green florist van shot out at her at the junction. There was no way to steer past, and the bonnet of her car clipped the side of the van, the two vehicles spinning in a metal dance. Nuala felt her neck tugged at like a squirrel, the world a whirligig, before the door folded open and the car halted as if shot.
The red-haired young woman was standing but disarranged. There was a cut above her left eye, and Nuala, her head aching to the point of nausea, saw a terrible opportunity. Bones might be broken here and now and seen as part of the accident. Bystanders were staring but were as stunned as the victims. There was fuss and shouting. Nuala saw the young woman from the dress shop on her phone calling the police. Others were rousing, the matronly woman from the Castle approaching down Barbican Steeps. Nuala must act now.
“Sit down,” Nuala commanded. The girl turned, dazed, her hair a wild tumble. Nuala reached for her arm, thin, white, and freckled.
The moment she touched her, she saw the women held within, their desperation as great as her own. The faces blurred and blinked from the mass of hair, a rushing of sharp teeth, squirrel skin, spider web. They clawed at Nuala and snarled. Red Wrangle, they whispered. She felt the power of them, the way it snagged at the Wrangle, so that it tightened, snakelike. Red Wrangle, the voices hissed. Nuala’s hand pulled back in alarm. The faces vanished.
Nuala was perfunctory with the police, her gaze never leaving the young woman’s hair. It crackled with residual energy. Nuala was close enough to breathe it in. Old magic. Strong and bitter brewed. The Red Wrangle burnt with it, as something forged and then quenched as the young woman was driven home.
Who was she? Where did she live? The van hinted, the gold lettering winking at Nuala. This was the answer; this power, of which the young woman was clearly ignorant, was the weapon Nuala needed. This might be the antidote to the Red Wrangle. With this power, at the very least she had the means to finish Thinne. If she finished him, she would have enough to take revenge on Hettie’s granddaughters.
As the accident was cleared away, the cats at Cordwainer Street were shaken from their afternoon naps and, restive, began spilling over the boundary wall to drop on the head of the unsuspecting delivery man cycling up the back lane.
Gone were the days when Nuala could simply exert her will and wield her power. Tonight, to succeed, she must be careful. She stood in the churchyard, watching the front of the florist’s.
The rear of the building had involved too much garden and too many neighbouring security lights. The light in the bedroom above the florist winked out. As the bell in the clock tower behind her tolled midnight, Nuala was grateful for the clouds cloaking the waning moon.
The lettering “MIMOSA” glittered in the light from the streetlamp. All was quiet as Nuala crossed the churchyard. She kept one hand in her pocket, her fingers working at the small collection of cat bones. Light and shadow, she could at least still use them. Each step filled her with vitality as she leeched out the energy of her latest cat victims. Their green eyes infused hers with night vision. She could taste their blood in her mouth.
She took the cat femur from her pocket and licked it before putting it into the lock. Three twists and a turn. The bone bent almost to snapping. Nuala tugged it free and took a deep breath. Again, she licked at the bone, put it back into the lock. Three twists and a turn of a skeleton key, the oldest charm Thinne had taught her. The bone snapped. Her hand jabbed forward with the momentum, and the broken bone skewered her finger. She hissed and rattled at the door.
The instant she did so, the glass in the display window trembled, the vibration of it shoving her back. She slapped an angry palm at it. It did not break, so she reached her bloodied hand to twist at the doorknob. Three twists and a turn, three twists and a turn. Her blood slicked the brass handle.
The glass gave a tight creaking sound; lines began to thread across it. Nuala waited for it to shatter. It was working, three twists and a turn. Three twists.
The glass in the window splintered, the pieces slicing around Nuala. She gasped and reached forward. She could step inside. She purred with delight as she lifted herself up and over the threshold of the display.
She was uncertain of what happened next. There was nowhere to move or breathe. Fronds, chalk white and whipping, snarled with thorns, ravelled and coiled about her. There was a scent of turned earth, a sound of sappy creaking. Long branches lashed her shoulders, pinioned her arms to her sides. She was being twisted into the heart of a whitewash bramble. Thorns jagged at her skin, and she could not move against it. Her muscles tensed and strained, her bones bending to breaking point as the bramble lifted her off her feet. Her shoulder distorted, grinding in its socket as her left hand, her wrangled hand, was dragged upwards. She was a rag doll, hooked onto the branches. Slithering outwards, she was cracked like a whip.
Inside Mimosa, Aurora Foundling still felt out of sorts and had had an overpowering urge to boil up a vast pan of hot chocolate. It was what she and her mother had done sometimes when she was a small girl. She had an odd, blurry memory of the last time, in fact, and that was not helping her mood.
Aurora glanced out of the window. The garden was swarming with Cordwainer cats. The chief of them, the one-eyed horror, was rubbing black velvet fur against the window glass. She was reaching for a cloth, something to flap at him, when behind her, from the shop, was a sound of shattering glass.
The last patch of comfort Aurora Foundling had felt fled.
21
Whitewash Bramble
Anna Way’s Strength gave a determined spark. She wasn’t certain that Seren Lake could not hear it. Or see it. The feeling was so strong, her hair must surely be standing out like a dandelion clock.
“Broken into?” Her voice sounded calm.
Seren nodded. “Through the shop window.”
“Did they steal anything?” Anna’s spark was finding a rhythm, like firelight chewing at a good, dry log. She was listening to Seren, but her mind was wandering along parallel thought paths.
“Don’t think so,” Seren sighed. “But the damage is bad. The whole window shattered. It’s being boarded this morning.” Seren looked around. “Anyway, I was wondering if Winn was around? Or should I pop up to Prickles?”
Anna nodded and Seren went on her way.
Anna could not halt the spark. As she and Casey bustled and cooked, she observed the crackle. It did not feel comfortable; that was too soft a word. It was familiar once again, and this time she felt there was knowledge there, a thread she should pick up.
She was carrying fresh quiches from the kitchen when a dream from the night before resurfaced. It had been a mental tangle of whitewash bramble. The plan
t had been alive, like a serpent crossed with an octopus in its powerful writhing. It had slid from her memory on waking, but now it was familiar. She’d seen that before. In a dream? Where was the other side of that thought?
Mimosa. Of course. She had seen the whitewash bramble in the window so many times. With Casey capable of cleaning down, Anna made her way down into town to Church Lane, and the moment she saw the window of Mimosa, she felt the spark burn with saltpetre ferocity. What was the whitewash bramble about? The spark frittered itself upwards to where there were tangles caught in the bramble. Anna recognised it at once. The black crackle held there, the whips and thorns growing in a tight cage around it. Anna felt her heart jump. It was not shiny here. It was matte black, dulled to stone. The sight of five Cordwainer cats sitting on the church wall opposite Mimosa only sealed the significance for Anna.
It was a measure of Aurora Foundling that the shop was not closed. She had set up her buckets of flowers outside and was clearing the last of the blooms into a bouquet for Matt Woodhill.
“Well, at least it isn’t raining.” He was consoling.
Aurora tossed her head, her hair as dramatic as any facial expression. “Wouldn’t have bothered me. I have a pop-up gazebo.” She smiled a cold, determined smile. “Bring it on.” She handed him the bouquet, a mass of burgundy and vermillion blooms seemingly as dramatic as her mood.
As Matt went on his way, Aurora began sorting out the makeshift shop front. She tipped the water from the first of the empty buckets over the church wall, startling a wood pigeon.
“Need a hand?” Anna offered.
Aurora’s hair flashed and flared in the crisp March sunlight as she turned to glare at Anna. “No thanks.” Without any farewell, she moved into the shop.
Anna took a few steps further on, pausing in the door of Betty’s. After a moment or so, Aurora emerged. She cast a haughty look in the direction Anna had been standing and, confirming the coast was clear, she came back out of the shop and took up the next of the buckets. Anna took up the last one and, following, tipped it beside her.
Aurora jumped. “What are you doing?” she snapped.
“Did you see who broke the window?” Anna was direct, and held Aurora’s emptied flower bucket as hostage for an answer.
Aurora flinched just enough before she answered. “Of course not. Some chicken-hearted vandal.” She drew herself up, as haughty as possible, which was a considerable amount as this was Aurora Foundling. “You live here. You know what people are like.”
Aurora’s hair flounced. The red caught the sunlight making a furnace around her head. “Did you want something?” Her tone was imperious, her stance defensive. She held her own flower bucket as if she might be tempted to bop Anna on the head with it if she was insolent. Anna was about to speak, but Aurora snarled, “If you do, you’re too late. I’m closed.”
The door slammed behind her and the bell rattled inside. Anna felt the sharp edges of the crackle and paused. She watched the tendrils and leader shoots of the whitewash bramble reach like fingers around the edges of the boarding. They writhed and knotted themselves tight.
Anna’s pace was swift as her thoughts. Her grandmother’s face loomed large, the intense and serious expression in her dream, the hand on her arm stirring her awake.
“Wake up.”
The farm at Two Hills had been in the Boyle family for a lot of generations. As Anna trudged steadily up the birch avenue towards the main farmhouse, she felt her Strength lift and breathe. She looked out across the field beside her, at the burial mounds in a triumvirate bounded by hawthorns. When she looked up to the house and the ridge beyond it, she saw how it was framed by the sweep of Havoc.
A vast and meaty-looking dog set up a basso profundo barking as she entered the yard. She looked into his glittering eyes, the heavy snap of his jaws, and wished Emz was here.
“Keeper!” The voice, commanding, sounded across the gravel, and both Anna and the dog halted under its authority. “Where’re your manners?” Kitty Boyle was crossing towards them from the converted stable block at the far end of the yard. She whistled, and Keeper lost all interest in Anna, bounding to his mistress, tail wagging, tongue lolling and joyful.
“Don’t fret. He’s noisy, but he’s more likely to lick you to death.” The vast maw slobbered cheerily all over his mistress’s hands. She furled the heavy pelt that fell in folds about his neck, and he stood obedient at her side. “Come in. Kettle’s on.” Kitty turned back to the stable.
Anna had never been in the holiday let. She was reminded of their own early but mistaken business-like plans to let Cob Cottage. The stable was a light and cheery space with a feature stone fireplace and comfy furniture. It was homey and welcoming.
“Been busy this morning or I’d have seen you coming.” Kitty brought a tea tray to the Victorian pine table. She sat without looking at Anna, her focus on the perfect china, the stirring of the pot. “It’s leaves, if you need them.” Kitty put the lid on the pot and looked up to Anna.
“Leaves are always… useful.” Anna smiled and Kitty nodded. She put the spoon down, rested her hands on the table. “I was going to come and see you. I planned to this afternoon. I’ve been run off my feet the last few days.” She was confessional, guilty.
“I saved you the job,” Anna said. “I was passing.”
“A likely story.” Kitty laughed, and at once they were both at ease. They let the tea sit and brew.
“Have to thank your sister.” Kitty patted her hip. “My hip feels better than it ever did.”
“What do you remember?” Anna was direct, her voice soft.
Kitty shook her head. “That’s the bother of it.” She looked very directly at Anna. “I have a good memory, no word of a lie. I remember you and your sisters up at the place and the ride home.”
“You remember the story you told Etta?” Anna opted to be open. This was going to be an exchange of information.
Kitty nodded. “I panicked,” she admitted. “Sorry. I didn’t want her worrying. I’m sorry if it seemed like lying.”
“Seemed like necessity,” Anna assured her.
“What else could I say? It’s a blank. I’ve picked my brains the last few days. Kept myself awake at night trying to find it. I remember being up at Yarl Hill…” She fussed with her cup. Anna let her, allowing for Kitty to come to it in her own fashion.
“It reminds me…” Kitty hesitated.
Anna felt calm, aware of a sensation of the crooked daylight through the trees at Gabriel’s Hundred, dappled, gold. The light in the room pooled and blended with this, and Kitty drew in a breath.
“It felt familiar. Something… a long time ago. Before I married Niven.” Kitty’s brow furrowed a little. “It’s something that I don’t remember properly, unless…” She looked up with an uneasy smile. Anna reached for that crooked daylight within herself and let it warm Kitty. The old woman breathed out. “You’ll think this is silly.”
“I’m from Havoc, Mrs Boyle.” Anna’s voice carried with it the soft rustle of leaves, the coolness of the edge of the water at Pike Lake. “I don’t think anything is silly.”
Kitty took in a deep breath. “Right. Well. Like I say, it was years since. 1965, maybe ’66. Whenever.” Kitty waved away the timeline. “I was sleepwalking.” She smiled wan and amused. “Can you imagine? Never done that before or…” She looked at Anna, who nodded. Kitty looked afraid, and Anna let the daylight drift a little deeper, drawing on an intensity of October light.
Kitty gave a small laugh. “It was so daft at the time. I woke up and that old lady from…” A realisation struck Kitty Boyle. “Oh. I see it now. It was that old lady from the cottage. Not your grandmother, the other one. Lived up in…”
“Mrs Massey.” Anna spoke the name with true affection, and the scent of vanilla and strawberry jam began to filter into the warmth of the crooked daylight.
Kitty looked shaken at her memories. “I recall that, clear as day. She was there, on the Old Castlebury Road. Wi
th slippers. As if she… my feet were… she had the slippers with her. Ready.” The daylight speckled and soothed. Kitty took a moment, pensive. “It’s not entirely true that I don’t remember,” she said. “I dream about it. Have for years.”
“Bad dreams?” Anna did not have to ask, but it gave Kitty a moment to gather herself.
She nodded. “They’re vivid. I know that. Like I’m there. But then I wake up and… I couldn’t tell you a thing about it.” Kitty was shaken.
“My grandmother came to me in a dream the other night and said, ‘Find Kitty Warren’.”
Kitty gave a small gasp. With serious intent, she moved her teacup forward. “Will you see it in the leaves? Will that help?”
“It might. But there is another way.” Anna put her hand out, palm up, and looked at Kitty. “This way… you can show me.”
Kitty was thoughtful for just a moment, then she put her hand into Anna’s. Anna let the crooked daylight shimmer and illuminate. Kitty sighed and closed her eyes as Anna’s other hand closed over her own.
The Flickerbook rattled through itself at breakneck speed. Anna saw at once where, just here and just there, it was pierced by the shiny black crackle. It held its glitter, painful and blinding, but she did not look away. She was unsure of herself. She had never approached her Strength so directly. Where before her use of it was random and fluttering, she saw how this time she must focus. But on what? The crackle splintered the light. She tried to look beside it, beyond it, at the flurry of images of the most recent incident. She could see the comet’s tail of light from the pain of a broken hip, but the crackle affected it. What was it doing? Slicing? Yes. She saw the sharpness of the crackle’s edges, the thinness of it, like old glass. Look into the glass.