Kate isn’t sure if she’s imagining things, but his hands seem to shake harder at the mention of her great-aunt, the bony knuckles whitening.
‘There were so many of them.’ He licks his lips, which are pale and cracked. His voice is so quiet that it takes her a moment to understand the words. He is looking past her, now, his eyes glazed with distance. ‘And then the swarm …’
What is he talking about?
‘The swarm?’
‘The male taking the female … and then the eggs, everywhere … covering every surface …’
Doubt nags at her. This man – whoever he is – clearly isn’t well. The way he is talking, the way he is living – he needs help, rather than to be pestered with questions. He seems … traumatised.
But just as she rises in her chair, making to leave, his gaze fixes on her with a startling clarity.
‘You had some questions for me?’
Perhaps he is more lucid than she thought. Really, she knows, she should leave – but she’s walked all the way here, over the dizzying fells and through the woods. Surely there would be no harm in asking a question or two …
She takes a deep breath, trying not to think about the staleness of the air.
‘I was wondering, actually – if you could tell me anything about my grandfather and his sister? They’ve both passed away, and so I don’t have anyone to ask. My father is dead, too – and I … well, I was hoping you might be able to tell me a bit about them.’
The man shakes his head vigorously, as if trying to dislodge her words from his ears.
‘Terribly sorry,’ he says. ‘Memory isn’t what it was.’
Kate looks around the room. There are shelves stacked with old books, the spines cracked and dusty.
‘Oh,’ she says, hearing the disappointment in her voice. ‘What about records? Would you have any I could look at? Family trees, birth certificates, that sort of thing? Letters?’
The man shakes his head again.
‘Those are all farm records, tax ledgers,’ he says, seeing her look at the shelves. ‘Wouldn’t be of help to you, I’m afraid. Everything else … gone. The insects …’ He trembles.
‘Oh. That’s OK.’ Kate sits quietly for a moment. She feels a twinge of pity for him, all alone in this decrepit house, with only dead bugs and old ledgers for company. ‘What happened? With the insects, I mean. That must have been awful. I’m not such a fan of bugs, myself. Did you have to get an exterminator?’
The man’s eyes become dark pools as he fixes them upon the space above Kate’s head. When he speaks, even his voice has changed; the accent that sounded cold and hard moments ago is now tremulous, uncertain.
‘I must give thanks,’ he says, his voice barely louder than a whisper. ‘The Lord answered my prayers. Last August, they all began to die – the sweetest sound, it was, their little bodies falling to the floor. Like rain on parched earth. It was then that I knew … she had released me at last.’
‘Sorry – what do you mean? Who had released you?’
She takes a deep breath as she waits for him to answer – the air is rank in her mouth. How can he stand it? She unzips her jacket, to alleviate the feeling of being choked.
Suddenly, the man jolts in his chair. He is staring at her, she realises.
‘Oh dear,’ she says, standing hurriedly. ‘Um – sir? Are you all right?’
He lifts his hand and points. Kate sees that his fingers are shaking again. The nails are yellow and curved, their undersides coated with grime.
‘Where’， he says, his breath coming in little ragged bursts, ‘did you get that?’
For a moment, Kate thinks he is pointing at Aunt Violet’s old necklace, which she’d almost forgotten she was wearing. But then she realises: he means the brooch, in the shape of a bee.
‘This?’ she says, touching it. ‘Sorry – it looks quite real, doesn’t it? It’s silly, really; I’ve carried it around since I was a child …’
The man rises out of the chair, his small frame trembling.
‘Get. Out.’ The eyes are wide, the lips snarled away to reveal pale, desiccated gums.
‘OK,’ says Kate, zipping up her jacket. ‘I’m so sorry for disturbing you. Really.’
Kate fumbles her way down the corridor and the stairs, wincing at the crunch of the wings beneath her shoes. Shutting the heavy front door behind her, she gulps in the air, fresh with the scent of rain. It is coming down in sheets and she begins to run, forcing herself to look straight ahead. The leaves of the trees whisper in the downpour and she wishes she’d brought headphones to block out the eerie noise. The fell seems even steeper on the way back: the wind buffets her, knocking the hood from her head. Water runs into her eyes, so that the valley is a blur of green and grey.
Fear turns to frustration as she finally reaches the cottage. She is no closer to knowing anything about her family. No closer to knowing why Violet and Graham were disinherited, no closer to knowing what – or who – is buried in Violet’s garden.
Kate sighs as she shuts the front door behind her. She turns on the shower, desperate to scrub away the memory and the grime of the house, with its blanket of tiny, broken wings. The dank, animal stench of the study. While she waits for the water to heat, she unpins her brooch, then holds it up to the light. The viscount must be very traumatised indeed to have had such a reaction to a mere replica of an insect.
She remembers the way his eyes danced from side to side, as if he were searching for movement in the corners of the room. She can still taste the acrid stink of insect repellent on her tongue.
If she closes her eyes, she can picture it.
The air shimmering with thousands of beating wings, the sound droning through the walls of the house, the little man cowering in his fetid nest inside the study … and then, the briefest moment of stillness, silence … before the rain of tiny bodies.
She had released me at last.
Once the bathroom fills with steam from the heat of the shower, Kate begins to undress. Unbuttoning her shirt, she shivers as her fingers brush against a pale, glimmering wing.
The words from ‘Witch Burning’ come back to her.
Mother of beetles.
Who had released him? And from what?
25
ALTHA
In the dungeons, I wished for parchment and ink. These words were already forming in my head, you see, and I wanted to set them down while I still could. So that something remained of me, after they cut my body down from the rope. Something other than the cottage, which would hold my things – things that belonged to my mother, and her mother before her – until someone came to clear them away.
But I had no parchment and ink then, of course – and even if they’d given me some, I’d have had no light to see my letters. My mother had taught me to read and write. She considered it as important a skill as knowing which herbs brought relief from which ailments. She taught me the alphabet just as she taught me the uses for marshmallow and foxglove. Just as she taught me the other things, of which I cannot yet speak.
Having no way of writing, back in the dungeons, I ordered things in my head. I was practising, almost, in case what Reverend Goode said about the next life was true and I would soon see my mother again.