A shadow fell across the road. There was a distant roar, and then a monster – the kind that she pretended she was too old to believe in, with red scales and silver teeth – appeared around the corner, bearing down on her.
Her father reached her just in time. He shoved her, hard, onto the grassy verge. There was a sound like paper ripping, like the air tearing in two. She watched, stunned, as the monster ploughed into him.
Slow, then fast, he fell.
Later, when the emergency services had arrived – two ambulances and a police car, a convoy of death – Kate saw something gold on the tarmac.
It was her bee brooch, the one she always carried in her pocket. It must have fallen out when her father shoved her away, saving her from the monster – the monster that she now knew was really just a car, with chipped red paint and a rusted grille. She looked around and saw the driver, a thin-shouldered man, sobbing in the back of one of the ambulances.
A stretcher bearing something black and shiny was being loaded into the other ambulance. It took her a moment to realise that the thing on the stretcher was her father; that she would never again see his smile, the crinkles around his eyes. He was gone.
I killed my father, she thought. I am the monster.
She picked up the brooch and turned it over in her hand. There were ugly gaps like missing teeth where it had lost some of its crystals. One wing was dented.
She put it back in her pocket as a reminder of what she had done.
From that day on, she kept away from the squirrels and the worms, from the forest and the gardens. Birds in particular were to be avoided. Nature – and the glow of fascination it had always sparked in her – was too dangerous.
She was too dangerous.
As her fascination turned to fear, she stayed inside, putting herself behind glass. Just like her great-aunt’s framed centipede. And she didn’t let anyone in.
Until she met Simon.
In the cottage, she chokes down tears. Her throat feels parched and narrow. She can’t remember when she last had a drink: she needs some water, something. Vodka would be better, but her aunt’s spirits collection – crammed into the kitchen cupboard along with jars of instant coffee and Ovaltine – hasn’t yielded anything so pedestrian, only unfamiliar words curled on yellowed labels: arak, slivovitz, soju. Languages Kate doesn’t even recognise. And anyway – she’s not sure it’s a good idea. She remembers the chardonnay, with its stink of rot. The decision she has to make, about the baby, sits heavy inside her.
The shadowy shapes of the kitchen loom out at her in the second before she switches on the light. She averts her eyes from the pale rope of cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and turns to the chipped enamel sink.
Taking a mug from the rack on the windowsill, her knuckles brush against something: a jam jar full of feathers. White and delicate, tawny red. The largest is glossy and black – almost blue with iridescence. Looking closer, she sees that it is speckled with white, as though it has been dipped in snow. Just like the crow from the fireplace, which, she realises now, was flecked not with ash but with similar white marks. Perhaps it is some sort of disease that afflicts the crows around here? The thought spikes the hairs on the back of her neck. She turns on the tap, gulps the water down as if it could cleanse her, from the inside out.
Afterwards, she takes a moment to look out of the window. She can see the moon clearly, so full that she can make out the dips and ridges of its craters. It casts its yellow light on the ramshackle garden, landing on the leaves of the plants, on the branches of the oaks and sycamores. She is looking at the trees, wondering how old they are, when she sees them … move.
She can feel her heart beating in her ears. Her breathing grows shallow, the panic washing over her like a tide. Then, as she watches, dark shapes – hundreds of them, it seems – rise from the trees in unison, as if pulled by a puppeteer’s string. Silhouetted against the moon.
Birds.
7
ALTHA
The guards took me down a cramped stone staircase to the dungeon. If the castle had swallowed me, now it had me in its bowels; for here it was even darker than where they’d held me in the village.
My gut churned between hunger and sickness, thirst clawing at my throat. My heart hammered at the sight of the heavy wooden door. I was already so weak. I did not know how much longer I would last.
But they gave me provisions, this time, before they locked me away – a thin blanket, a pot and a pitcher of water. And an old hunk of bread, which I ate slowly, biting off tiny amounts and chewing until the saliva flooded my mouth.
I only took note of my surroundings once I had eaten my fill, my shrunken stomach cramping. They had given me no candle, but there was a small grate set high in the wall, letting in the last embers of the day.
The stone walls felt cold to the touch, and when I took my fingers away, they were damp. A dripping sound came from somewhere, echoing like a warning.
The straw beneath my feet was sodden, mouldering; the sweet rot mingling with the reek of old piss. There was another smell, too. I thought of all who had been held there before me, growing pale as mushrooms in the dark, awaiting their fate. It was their fear I could smell, as if it had bled into the air, seeped into the stone.
The fear hummed within me, gave me strength for what I had to do.
I pulled up my shift so that my belly met with the chill air. Then, gritting my teeth I began to scratch; fingernails tearing at the tiny bauble of flesh below my ribcage. Below my heart.
Just when I was sure that I could bear the pain no longer, I felt flesh come away, then the thick wetness of blood, its sweet tang filling the air. I wished that I had honey, or some thyme, to make a poultice for the wound; instead, I made do with some water from the pitcher. When I had cleaned it as best I could, I lay down and drew the blanket over me. The straw did little against the stone floor, and my bones rang with the cold.
Only then did I allow myself to think of home: my little rooms, neat and bright with jars and vials; the moths that danced round my candles at night. And outside, my garden. My heart ached at the thought of my plants and flowers, my dear nanny goat who kept me in milk and comfort, the sycamore that sheltered me with its boughs. For the first time since they’d torn me from my pallet, I let myself sob. I wondered if I would die of the loneliness, before they had the chance to hang me. But at that moment, something brushed my skin, as delicate as a kiss. It was a spider, its legs and pincers blue with moonlight. My new friend crawled into the hollow between my neck and shoulder, clinging to my hair. I thanked it for its presence, which did more to lift my spirit than even the bread and water.
As I watched a moonbeam dance through the grate, I wondered who would give testimony against me the next day. Then I thought of Grace.
I was sure I would never sleep. But it seemed the thought had barely left my mind when I was woken by the creak of the door swinging open. The spider scuttled away at the burn of torchlight, and my heart lurched at the sight of a man in Lancaster livery. Court would begin shortly, he said. I was to make myself presentable.
He gave me a kirtle, spun of rough cloth and smelling of sweat. I did not like to think who had worn it before me, where they were now. I winced at the feel of the cloth against my wound, but when the man returned, I was glad that I had on a proper dress, even if it was crudely made. I wished I had a cap, or something to neaten my hair with, for it hung about my face in rags. Adding to my shame.