Weyward by Emilia Hart
PART ONE
PROLOGUE
ALTHA
1619
Ten days they’d held me there. Ten days, with only the stink of my own flesh for company. Not even a rat graced me with its presence. There was nothing to attract it; they had brought me no food. Only ale.
Footsteps. Then, the wrench of metal on metal as the bolt was drawn back. The light hurt my eyes. For a moment, the men in the doorway shimmered as if they were not of this world and had come to take me away from it.
The prosecutor’s men.
They had come to take me to trial.
1
KATE
2019
Kate is staring into the mirror when she hears it.
The key, scraping in the lock.
Her fingers shake as she hurries to fix her make-up, dark threads of mascara spidering onto her lower lids.
In the yellow light, she watches her pulse jump at her throat, beneath the necklace he gave her for their last anniversary. The chain is silver and thick, cold against her skin. She doesn’t wear it during the day, when he’s at work.
The front door clicks shut. The slap of his shoes on the floorboards. Wine, gurgling into a glass.
Panic flutters in her, like a bird. She takes a deep breath, touches the ribbon of scar on her left arm. Smiles one last time into the bathroom mirror. She can’t let him see that anything is different. That anything is wrong.
Simon leans against the kitchen counter, wine glass in hand. Her blood pounds at the sight. The long, dark lines of him in his suit, the cut of his cheekbones. His golden hair.
He watches her walk towards him in the dress she knows he likes. Stiff fabric, taut across her hips. Red. The same colour as her underwear. Lace, with little bows. As if Kate herself is something to be unwrapped, to be torn open.
She looks for clues. His tie is gone, three buttons of his shirt open to reveal fine curls. The whites of his eyes glow pink. He hands her a glass of wine and she catches the alcohol on his breath, sweet and pungent. Perspiration beads her back, under her arms.
The wine is chardonnay, usually her favourite. But now the smell turns her stomach, makes her think of rot. She presses the glass to her lips without taking a sip.
‘Hi, babe,’ she says in a bright voice, polished just for him. ‘How was work?’
But the words catch in her throat.
His eyes narrow. He moves quickly, despite the alcohol: his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her bicep.
‘Where did you go today?’
She knows better than to twist out of his grasp, though every cell of her wants to. Instead, she places her hand on his chest.
‘Nowhere,’ she says, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘I’ve been home all day.’ She’d been careful to leave her iPhone at the flat when she walked to the pharmacy, to take only cash with her. She smiles, leans in to kiss him.
His cheek is rough with stubble. Another smell mingles with the alcohol, something heady and floral. Perfume, maybe. It wouldn’t be the first time. A tiny flare of hope in her gut. It could work to her advantage, if there’s someone else.
But she’s miscalculated. He shifts away from her and then— ‘Liar.’
Kate barely hears the word as Simon’s hand connects with her cheek, the pain dizzying like a bright light. At the edges of her vision, the colours of the room slide together: the gold-lit floorboards, the white leather couch, the kaleidoscope of the London skyline through the window.
A distant crashing sound: she has dropped her glass of wine.
She grips the counter, her breath coming out of her in ragged bursts, blood pulsing in her cheek. Simon is putting on his coat, picking up his keys from the dining table.
‘Stay here,’ he says. ‘I’ll know if you don’t.’
His shoes ring out across the floorboards. The door slams. She doesn’t move until she hears the creak of the lift down the shaft.
He’s gone.
The floor glitters with broken glass. Wine hangs sour in the air.
A copper taste in her mouth brings her back to herself. Her lip is bleeding, caught against her teeth by the force of his hand.
Something switches in her brain. I’ll know if you don’t.
It hadn’t been enough, leaving her phone at home. He’s found another way. Another way to track her. She remembers how the doorman eyed her in the lobby: had Simon slipped him a wad of crisp notes to spy on her? Her blood freezes at the thought.
If he finds out where she went – what she did – earlier today, who knows what else he might do. Install cameras, take away her keys.
And all her plans will come to nothing. She’ll never get out.
But no. She’s ready enough, isn’t she?
If she leaves now, she could get there by morning. The drive will take seven hours. She’s plotted it carefully on her second phone, the one he doesn’t know about. Tracing the blue line on the screen, curling up the country like a ribbon. She’s practically memorised it.
Yes, she’ll go now. She has to go now. Before he returns, before she loses her nerve.
She retrieves the Motorola from its hiding place, an envelope taped to the back of her bedside table. Takes a hold-all from the top shelf of the wardrobe, fills it with clothes. From the en-suite, she grabs her toiletries, the box she hid in the cupboard earlier that day.
Quickly, she changes out of her red dress into dark jeans and a tight pink top. Her fingers tremble as she unclasps the necklace. She leaves it on the bed, coiled like a noose. Next to her iPhone with its gold case: the one Simon pays for, knows the passcode to. The one he can track.
She rummages through the jewellery box on her bedside table, fingers closing around the gold bee-shaped brooch she’s had since childhood. She pockets it and pauses, looking around the bedroom: the cream duvet and curtains, the sharp angles of the Scandi-style furniture. There should be other things to pack, shouldn’t there? She had loads of stuff, once – piles and piles of dog-eared books, art prints, mugs. Now, everything belongs to him.
In the lift, adrenalin crackles in her blood. What if he comes back, intercepts her as she’s leaving? She presses the button for the basement garage but the lift jerks to a stop at the ground floor, the doors creaking open. Her heart pounds. The doorman’s broad back is turned: he’s talking to another resident. Barely breathing, Kate presses herself small into the lift, exhaling only when no one else appears and the doors judder shut.
In the garage, she unlocks the Honda, which she bought before they met and is registered in her name. He can’t – surely – ask the police to put a call out if she’s driving her own car? She’s watched enough crime shows. Left of her own volition, they’ll say.
Volition is a nice word. It makes her think of flying.
She turns the key in the ignition, then taps her great-aunt’s address into Google Maps. For months, she’s repeated the words in her head like a mantra.
Weyward Cottage, Crows Beck. Cumbria.
2
VIOLET
1942
Violet hated Graham. She absolutely loathed him. Why did he get to study interesting things all day, like science and Latin and someone called Pythagoras, while she was supposed to be content sticking needles through a canvas? The worst part, she reflected as her wool skirt itched against her legs, was that he got to do all this in trousers.
She ran down the main staircase as quietly as she could, to avoid the wrath of Father, who thoroughly disapproved of female exertion （and, it often seemed, of Violet）。 She stifled a giggle at the sound of Graham puffing behind her. Even in her stuffy clothes she could outrun him easily.