by Helen Slavin
“Home.” Charlie and Anna concluded. There were several minutes of silence. A fox barked deep in Havoc Wood.
“This Gamekeeping gig…” Charlie began “Do you think Grandma’s been guiding us?”
Anna nodded. “I’ve seen her and…”
“Heard her.” Emz finished.
“What happens if, or when…her ghost leaves? Do you think? Who is going to help us out then?” Anna was brave enough to voice her fear. Could they do this alone?
“Think she left a training manual?” Charlie asked, not looking hopeful. Emz turned to them both.
“She already helped us.”
“Yeah. But is this a one off? Or will there be…”
Emz cut her off.
“We’ve done the training manual, you numpty.”
Emz did not often have the upper hand over her older sisters, she was enjoying this moment and inwardly thanking their dear dead grandmother for furnishing her with it.
“We’ve done it?” Anna was uncertain.
“Yes. Everything she taught us, all our lives.” Emz grinned and the other Ways considered this, the memories like butterflies. Anna smiled.
“She made it so that it’s just there, it’s in us. To be tapped. Our resource.” Emz had never felt so certain of anything in her life.
“We don’t need a manual. We just need to be…” Anna’s uncertainty was beginning to settle. They sifted silently over the week’s events.
“It’s like…” Charlie began, “it’s like… if I don’t think about it, the Strengths comes forward. The minute I think about it…”
Anna snapped her fingers. Charlie nodded agreement.
“You have to be in the Zone,” Emz said.
“You were in the Zone today,” Anna said quietly. Emz shrugged.
“I did what we needed to do. We all did.”
Charlie folded herself deeper into her blanket. It might be a frost tonight, there was a glittering chill to the air.
“If we’re being honest it wouldn’t strictly speaking be a training manual that Grandma Hettie would leave would it…” Charlie gave them a challenging look.
“It would be a field guide,” Emz said. “You know, tracks and signs.”
Charlie’s left eyebrow lifted upward.
“No, it would be a troubleshooting guide. What to do in the event of a poacher. Call this handy 0800 number…” Anna said, trying a smile and failing. Charlie’s right eyebrow joined its compatriot.
“No. Look. It wouldn’t be a training manual. Would it?” Charlie’s eyes widened waiting for the anticipated answer.
“A visitor’s book,” Anna offered. “Who visited, how long they stayed. What happened to them.” Her voice trailed off at a glance at Charlie’s straining face.
“A map. An atlas of which way they went?” Emz and Anna were both looking at Charlie whose face was animated, her lips crimping, her eyes goggling, waiting for one of her sisters to give her the proper answer.
“It wouldn’t be any of those. Would it?” Charlie was willing them to tell. “Hmm?” When no one took up the chance she sucked in a deep breath. The other Way sisters fell quiet, Emz’s mouth thinning as her lips clamped the secret.
“It would be a spell book wouldn’t it?” Charlie blurted, before half hiding her chin in her own cosy camouflage of blanket. She was looking for reassurance, but the Ways held their breath, no one blinked. Charlie breathed in the scent of the blanket for a few moments and then ploughed onward.
“Alright, while I’m sticking our necks out…” She wriggled free of the blanket, sat up straighter. “It’s not normal is it? The Strengths?” She looked at Anna, then at Emz. The Ways considered this for a long time, at least until each of them realised they were once more holding their breath and let out heavy sighs.
“It’s normal for us,” Emz said. Emz thought of the party at Tasha’s house which now seemed like a hundred years ago, but the memory persisted of the black web, of the crazed and speedy run, of the knowledge of where she had to be. She thought of the deer, of its heart in her hand and how she took that almost for granted because things like that, feelings like that, had occurred all her life. She thought of tonight, of the sense of Seren’s lungs, of her heart, the place at her head and of knowing what must be done. It felt right, as right as breathing or walking. She felt the most alive when she was connected to that. Where before they had been a secret, now she felt she could claim them properly, there was freedom and fear in that.
“Okay. I’m going to say this.” Charlie folded the blanket back around herself like a shawl, shifted to the edge of her chair. “Do you think… that maybe Gamekeeper is a euphemism? Or maybe not a euphemism…”
“A disguise,” Anna chipped in. There was an even clearer crispness to the air. Emz and Anna also shifted position, sitting up straighter.
“What do you think we are?” Emz asked.
“What Grandma was,” Charlie hedged. They each looked at each other, and then away and then caught each other out again.
“What was Grandma Hettie?” Anna gave her sister a direct gaze. Charlie cleared her throat.
“Okay. Well. She was a woman. An old woman. Living in a cottage. In a wood.” The thought glared out at them.
“So, she was a Wi…” Anna shied away from the word at the last moment, held Charlie’s gaze without blinking. Charlie raised her eyebrows.
“A Wi?”
Anna had another go at it.
“A Wi…” She shook her head; the word would not finish.
“Are we allowed to say it?” Emz wondered and from her tone it was clear that what was in Charlie and Anna’s heads was also crystal clear in Emz’s head. Charlie shrugged.
“So… anyway… we sort of know what we think Grandma was…”
“A Wi.” Anna grinned.
“Yes. One of them.” Charlie pointed at her sister. The sisters looked at the gesture, the pointing finger, distinctly witchy, Charlie looked as though the finger was alien and put it down, sat upon it. “A good old… Wi.” She hesitated, looking to the lake for some kind of inspiration on how to talk about this. “So… but…”
“What about us?” Anna finished the thought. Emz dived straight in.
“There are three of us.”
“Living in a cottage,” Charlie put in.
“Are we going to live in the cottage do you think?” Anna had already realised that that was what she needed. What she wanted now was for her sisters to allow it to happen. Charlie gave a snort.
“No. I don’t think. I know for an absolute and total fact that we are definitely living here at Cob Cottage. I only feel at home here.”
“Even when weird things are happening?” Emz asked.
“Especially when weird things are happening.” Charlie was certain. She felt lifted now that that sentiment was out in the open.
“So, we are three sisters, living in a cottage, in a wood.” Anna felt that pinned the thought.
No sister could bring herself to say the word that was printed inside each of their heads. The breeze blew a sudden hard little gust that rattled the trees. If the sisters had turned slightly to the left, they would have glimpsed the word they were thinking spelt out in twigs, W for just that breath of breeze, I, the letters, T, rattling up, C into the branches, H of the nearest trees.
“I wonder what mum has to say about all this,” said Charlie.
26
A Broken Heart
It was many hours before Tighe Rourke woke, crumpled, curled up in the rear of his own car, his black base layer still damp with the tears he’d shed. He was stiff in every muscle and he felt as if his heart had stopped. He shuffled himself into some kind of seating position. It was barely light, the river running fast beside the car because it had rained heavily in the night.
He could only think of Seren, lying lifeless with that woman blowing uselessly into her. Flaccid. Lifeless. Worse than a doll. Her skin waxy-looking and her hair like weed. Seren was dead. The women would witness to the fact that he wa
s there. He was there. What had he done? He must think of himself.
His mind made lists. Evidence. Proof. He’d left a rambling trail this week. He’d lied at work about being ill and needing time off, had told no one he was going after Seren, no one needed to know she had left him. She hadn’t left him. He was going to get her back. There was the Scottish plan. Land. Seren.
What had he done? He’d left them there. Was that leaving the scene of an accident? What had he done with the rope? The women had seen him trying to catch her with the rope. Shit. He’d left the rope at the lake.
Calm. The Scottish plan showed he was planning a future, not murder. Christ, there was that little stink the police officer had kicked up just before he left.
What should he do?
Seren was his. He should claim the body. Except. What had he done? What were the parameters for manslaughter? He could retrieve the rope. Yes. Take it back. Away. There was accidental death, wasn’t there? Inquest. Maybe a court case. Worst case, a trial. Blame. There would be blame and, to the letter of the law, punishment. His life for her life. He considered this very deeply. That, it struck him, did not seem fair. It was, after all, her fault, this whole game in the woods. She’d made him chase her. His life, for her life. The thought winked like an indicator in his head. His life. For her life. How was that fair? Didn’t she owe him in the end?
He hitched himself through to the driving seat and fished out his keys. The engine started, and he felt energised by it.
The wheels spun a little in the mud of the river path, but he slid around and inched towards the track, the tree branches clawed and scraped at the body work, but that was already wrecked. There you are, something he had against the women, vandalism. But murder. He’d killed her. His Birdy.
He sat at the junction, the indicator ticking at him. Day was brightening all around. The Scottish plan. That could be a plan for him. To just vanish. To get away from here. From everywhere. Escape. Keep his head down and see.
He didn’t see the truck coming as he pulled out.
27
Homecoming
Vanessa Way saw that the house was empty as she pulled in to the drive. It had been a week, probably, since she’d managed to get home from the labs at the Research Centre and she anticipated that there would be a considerable mess left by her three daughters.
As she moved through to the kitchen she was surprised, and possibly a little disappointed, that there was very little in the way of disarray; a few mugs on the worktop, a half-eaten sandwich on a side plate.
There was nothing much in the fridge, so she cobbled together a sandwich out of some cheese and two different kinds of bread that were only edible through the medium of toasting and she sat and ate the terrible concoction looking out across the garden.
She had felt out of sorts since her mother died, something inside her had broken open again and she couldn’t shove all the squirming thoughts back inside. She had been half looking forward to having them all home again, it had been rather too quiet with just her and Emily rattling around the place, but it was, in the final analysis, Death that had brought them there. Anna had suffered doubly in the last year and Vanessa worried about her. But her mother’s funeral had been of such significance to Vanessa she couldn’t deal with it.
She had done the wrong thing, as always, and, as always, she had been excluded. She was disconnected. Cut off. There you are, it helps to make a list. She did not smile to herself at this.
Science was her armour. In the lab she could feel some sense that she was controlling things and yet, she understood completely that she controlled nothing.
She had been troubled lately by memories of the last time she had spoken to her mother. Vanessa had been on a supermarket run and was calling in at Cob Cottage with a few supplies.
“You look tired.” It was not much of a greeting. In fact, if her mother had come into her home and made such a comment she would have snapped back instantly, but her mother did not. Her mother nodded.
“I’ve been tackling tiring things… tiresome things.” Her gaze had drifted out across the lake. Cob Cottage, usually so neat and clean, was a tip. Vanessa collected up a few stray bits of clothing, a t-shirt or two, a sweater, a pair of jeans dropped on the floor behind the chair. As Vanessa picked them up she found they were soaked through. Her mother turned.
“Leave it, Vanessa,” she said, shaking her head. Vanessa felt her hands grow sticky and there was a smell of something rotting. She looked down at the jeans, at the reddish-brown stain licking over her hands.
“What the…?”
“‘What the’ indeed. Bin them. They’re no use to anyone.”
Vanessa was motionless.
“Is this—?”
“Blood. Yes. Not mine. So, don’t worry.”
Vanessa shoved the jeans into a bin bag along with a couple of towels she found on the bathroom floor. It looked as though her mother had been attending a butchery course.
“What is going on?”
“The usual.”
“This isn’t usual.”
“Yes. More usual than usual then… Vanessa, don’t go on so. You know how things are.”
Vanessa had grown up with her mother’s stubborn streak and knew that it was pointless to pursue this line of questioning. She was about to use the tactic of a conversation about the girls when her mother beat her to it.
“The girls. They will be alright Vanessa. You mustn’t worry.”
The very statement, Vanessa thought, that was guaranteed to make you think you might have something to worry about. “When it all kicks off they will know what to do.”
“Because you taught them.” Vanessa could not keep the bitterness out of her voice.
“I ask one thing of you…” Her mother’s voice was very stern now, reminding Vanessa of a day long ago, a day of wheeling gulls and fishermen. “Just one thing… they will know what to do… so let them do it.”
Vanessa took in a deep sigh, the kind of sigh she had taken when she was a teenager to signify that her mother would have a battle on her hands. This time, Hettie Way reached out a hand, gripped her daughter’s arm too tightly and, with a face that Vanessa hardly recognised, said:
“Let them do it.”
The memory played that section over and over. She could not get over her mother’s face, the strength of it, the age, a stranger’s face.
* * *
The doorbell rang, and its digital musical perfection grounded her. She moved through the hallway, jabbing a finger at the digital display that was supposed to work the lighting system. She managed to create a blue LED ambience.
“Vanessa…” It was Detective Inspector Williamson. “Can I come in for a minute?”
They picked their way around each other in the kitchen, Detective Inspector Williamson having no trouble searching out the spoons or reaching for what was clearly a favoured mug.
“When?” Vanessa asked, her mind clashing with imagined images of wreckage.
“Early this morning… the truck driver is alright, bruised a bit and obviously shaken up.”
“Why did you come to me?” she asked as she jabbed her finger at the digital display once more to adjust the lights in the kitchen. The white LEDs sparkled like stars, it was rather soothing, at least it was if you were someone who liked the ice-hearted bleakness of space travel.
“I wasn’t sure who to go to… now that your mother is gone. I… I know the young woman is staying at Cob Cottage so I…”
Vanessa nodded.
“You were just checking.” She nodded. Detective Inspector Williamson nodded back.
“Biscuits,” Vanessa said. DI Williamson reached into the soft-touch drawer beside him and brought out the chocolate Hobnobs hidden there.
“It’s happening then?” As they munched together. “They’re taking it on.”
Vanessa nodded.
“They don’t have a choice, do they?”
Vanessa nodded. DI Williamson looked surprised.
>
“Actually no… technically the choice isn’t theirs, the Lake chooses… if they weren’t up to it then…”
DI Williamson nodded.
“I’ll leave the news with you then…” He seemed relieved to be freed of this one task after a lifetime of breaking bad news.
* * *
It was late when Vanessa Way took the turning off Old Castle Road and the familiar route of tarmac and gravel track and dirt road. The lights were on in Cob Cottage, and she could see Anna moving back from the sink with a steaming pot. Charlie was out on the porch, Emz’s voice called out something indistinct from the bedroom.
Vanessa knocked at the door with her basket of groceries.
* * *
She felt uncomfortable the moment that Anna let her in. They were, she could see very clearly, completely at home in a way that they had not been in her own house. Perhaps, once or twice a long time ago, when they had all rattled around at Way Towers, but, she saw it clearly, only perhaps.
Seren Lake was looking rested and well after her ordeal. Vanessa had cut and pasted a hundred speeches in her head on the drive over and she still couldn’t work out the best way to break the news. She had thought of chickening out entirely, of handing the responsibility over to Anna, after all, the Way sisters were now the Gamekeepers at Pike Lake. They would be learning how to deal with matters, but Vanessa’s thought was that Anna had already dealt with so much.
Break the news. She had to do it and the key as to how was in the word ‘break’; let it be done swiftly.
* * *
Later, with Seren settled and sleeping at last, the Ways and their mother took up the everyday tasks of the kitchen. It was really the only reason that Vanessa had called in at the supermarket. There would need, at some point, to be distraction, now, juice and milk and bread provided that.
“So. We’ve been thinking about this whole holiday lets business,” Charlie began with a glance to her sisters.