The Darkening Read online

  Nicholas felt his mind eat its way back, like a snake through its burrow, to the Ealing flat’s bathroom where he sat watching Cate hear her mobile phone, climb down the ladder, slip and fall — sudden as a snapped branch — to strike the icy white of the bath edge, to lie still. She’d never have fallen if he hadn’t phoned. He’d never have phoned if he hadn’t dropped the bike. He wouldn’t have dropped the bike if he hadn’t seen the face between the dark trees in Walpole Park. And he wouldn’t have seen the face if Quill hadn’t asked for him to see it.

  She’d summoned the Green Man.

  ‘You killed my wife,’ he whispered.

  Quill drew a hooked poker through the coals as if she hadn’t heard him, and blew gently through pursed lips. Flame burst alive, and, as reward, her profile grew young and perfect, a sculpture cruel and lovely.

  ‘I asked. The Green Man arranged. But you killed her,’ she corrected.

  The flames in the fire pit licked higher.

  ‘You selfish bitch,’ he whispered. ‘Cate. Me. Tristram. All those children.’

  Quill looked sideways at him. ‘You haven’t asked why,’ she said.

  Nicholas saw she wore a thin belt under her cardigan. On it was slung a sheath, narrow as a letter opener, from which protruded a bone handle.

  ‘I know why.’

  She arched her eyebrows.

  ‘You bought yourself a longer life with theirs,’ he said.

  She watched him for a while, long enough for him to hear the hungry crackle of flames and the eerie moan of high, cold wind — the scene was so rustic, they could be a hundred miles away and a hundred years ago. Then she shook her head and laughed. For just a moment, it was a pretty, girlish laugh without poison or hate. Then it soured and died. She gritted her teeth.

  ‘I did nothing for me, Nicholas Close,’ she tutted. ‘I thought you were wiser than that.’

  He watched her: an ancient woman with a ghostly flicker of youth haunting her features, tending a fire in an old cottage in the middle of woods that should have been bulldozed and built over long ago.

  ‘For the woods?’

  She gave the fire a last prod. Satisfied, she rose painfully to her feet.

  ‘Everything I’ve done was done for these woods.’

  She sat again, and fussed her fingers over the wooden calendar, then leaned to look out the window. As she did, moonlight struck her skin, washing away the years and bringing the young Rowena Quill full into life. She stayed that way — youthful and perfect — as she spoke, staring at the moon.

  ‘My mam had skill. She taught me. Her mam taught her. We were women of the woods for as long as long. There was respect once, for women with knowledge. Who knew how to heal. How to divine this and that. How to help sway luck. Respect and fear. But the world. . the world moved on. .’ Rowena cocked an eye at him. ‘Bought life, ya say? Do you know what was considered an old woman when I was born? Forty years.’ She hissed the words, disgusted. ‘Forty years was old age. We were a dozen folk a cabin in our clachan. Our land was long in the hands of the English. Cromwell did his work well and thorough. My folk were cottiers, pretty low folk. We grew lumpers, ’taters. We all grew lumpers. .’ She nodded to herself. ‘I was jes’ a girl, not twelve, when the ’tater leaves started turnin’ black and rottin’.’ As she spoke, her lilt grew thicker, her gaze farther away. ‘You’ve smelled dead t’ings. But nothin’ stenches like a t’ousand fields of a million wet, rottin’ lumpers. No ’taters. So they sold us corn. Peel’s brimstone. It rips ya up inside and does nothin’ good for ya. Useless. We were payin’ ta die. We started starvin’. My beautiful mam. .’

  Rowena’s skin was the cold blue-white of marble in the moonlight. She might have been carved of milkstone, but for the flicker of her dark eyes.

  ‘She, all of us, we all starved thin. So we all stole. And we all whored. Only I picked poorly. The man I whored for wanted what I wouldn’t give him. He wanted a wife and a sprig.’ She frowned. ‘Sweet words and fancies. I thought about it, I truly did. But the shame of an English husband was too much. Too much.’ Her small nose wrinkled with distaste. ‘He got violent, this Englishman. Got to hittin’ hard, takin’ for free t’only thing I had to sell. So I stabbed him. But I were no good at that, neither. Three days he took to perish. Plenty of time for him to tell who done it and for the coats to find me and gaol me up. And try me. Hangin’, they gave me.’

  She swiped the fire lazily with the poker, and turned her eyes to Nicholas.

  ‘But we had a calf, a skinny ragged t’ing. But the most valuable t’ing me mam owned. Mam took it to the woods on Mabon, when we say thanks for the harvest. Not much ta thank for. But she took it and cut it and asked Him to save me from swingin’.’ Rowena nodded her head at the carved image of the Green Man. ‘The next week, m’ sentence was commuted to transportation. Mam waved me off from Youghal. She walked all the way, poor pinched t’ing, and as we were marched to the pier, she ran up and told me how she bought my life. What He did for her. She made me promise, wherever I ended up, to show m’ thanks by lookin’ after His woods.

  ‘He saved me.’

  She stared at Nicholas, chin high.

  The fire ticked uneasily.

  Nicholas held her eyes.

  ‘And who is here to save the children from you?’

  Quill didn’t move a muscle. She seemed frozen in light and time, an ice statue that could stare implacably for a thousand years. She spoke at last.

  ‘Blood is the only sacrifice that pleases the Lord.’

  There was nothing left in Hannah’s stomach to sick up. As she’d struggled to ease her hands out of the silk, the clinging strands had stuck between her fingers and under her nails. Finally, she’d freed her fingers enough to rip a hole through which she could shove her forearm. She cleared her eyes and mouth, but the feel of the persistent, sticky web pulling at her face and hair made her choke. What she removed from her hair stuck to her fingertips. After a while, the sense of it clinging and grasping sent her into a panic, and she danced about, trying to fling it from herself; as she whirled, she collided with the mummified black boy in his cocoon, sending him rattling dryly. Her stomach gave itself up in a long retching fit.

  It was while she was on her hands and knees, ropy spit hanging from her mouth and nose, that she spotted something curled in the corner of the cellar. She wiped her mouth and hurried to it. Her backpack!

  She carried it to the brick stairs and, under the three slivers of moonlight, opened it, heart thumping excitedly. Inside were sodden newspapers, still tangy with the smell of alcohol. Loose matches scattered like tiny bones. She dug, and found what she was looking for: the paring knife, its blade still wrapped in crinkled aluminium foil. Just holding its plastic handle in her fingers made her feel better. A weapon.

  She climbed the stairs and pressed on one of the wooden doors. It was heavy, but as she strained, it lifted the barest amount. . then the solid clack of metal on metal marked the limit of its travel. A barrel bolt on the upper side of the doors was locking her in.

  She was trapped.

  38

  Wind from the west whipped the treetops into a breathy susurrus, driving the women faster.

  Suzette felt pushed, urged by dry fingers to a place and fate that was pregnant and black and waiting. She wondered again, as she had since her mother told her about Pritam’s death, if this was just another part of Quill’s plan.

  ‘What a trio we make,’ said Katharine as they strode side by side. Three women: one stern-eyed and pretty, one lean and quite beautiful, the other sliding into attractive late middle age, all with hair pulled back sensibly as they trotted with a fork or spade in hand and grim purpose on their faces.

  Laine smiled. ‘Are we mad?’

  Katharine slid a sure eye back. ‘Oh, yes. It’s good, isn’t it?’

  Suzette recalled Nicholas’s words from days ago — days that felt like weeks. I thought you just liked gardening, he’d said. That was. . what? Hemlock and mandrake an
d double-double-toil-and-trouble shit?

  ‘Fire burn, and cauldron bubble,’ said Suzette. She looked at her mother. Katharine held her gaze and gave a small nod. It made Suzette smile.

  ‘That’s us,’ said Katharine. ‘Three witches armed by Bunnings.’

  Laine let out a small laugh, but her smile soon evaporated.

  The word ‘witch’ seemed to scare them all. They were silent, perhaps sharing the same thoughts. Where was Nicholas? Still in the woods? Had he found Quill? Had she found him?

  The night was young but cold, and something was shifting on the air. Suzette noticed Katharine watching the sky, and followed her mother’s gaze upwards. Clouds, heavy as slate and swollen like the underbellies of diseased beasts, were rolling across the sky. Rain was coming. Heavy rain.

  ‘Do you feel small?’ asked Katharine. ‘I feel very small.’

  By the time they reached Carmichael Road, their faces were toneless shadows.

  ‘What are those cars parked there?’

  Suzette and Katharine followed Laine’s grey eyes.

  On the dark strip of grass bordering the black trees were several cars.

  ‘I don’t know-’

  Red and blue lights flashed on, dazzling the women, and a siren hoo-hooed once in warning.

  ‘Ladies?’ called a man’s voice. ‘Please step over here.’

  39

  After Rowena Quill had told her story, she’d fallen silent, tending her fire.

  Nicholas had tried to turn away, to close his eyes, to think, to plan how to escape and kill her. . but then he had started watching her fingers.

  The fire was fully birthed and breathing on its own, and Quill put down the poker and tongs so her hands were free. They began to weave the air above the flames, seeming to pull shadows and firelight through each other, drawing symbols in the shimmering, sparking air above the fire pit.

  Nicholas stared, mesmerised. Her voice was a singsong of words he didn’t understand, but their tone was clear. Invoking. Inviting. Imploring. Please. Please. .

  He was startled from the spell by the thudding of the first heavy drops of rain on the shingles above him. It was a short entree; in just moments, drenching rain stampeded down. Rain to deter the searchers. Rain to buy Quill time enough to kill Hannah Gerlic and move her body to be found kilometres away.

  Nicholas rolled onto his back. The ropes dug painfully, pinching the skin of his wrists and cutting most of the blood to his feet, making them cold and numb.

  ‘Let the girl go, Rowena.’

  For a while Quill said nothing, but cocked her head and listened to the tapdance on the roof.

  ‘She can’t go back,’ she said. ‘She will bring them here.’

  ‘You killed her sister, her parents are already-’

  ‘She won’t suffer,’ snapped Quill. She rose quickly to her feet and hobbled across the room. No sign of the young, svelte Rowena now.

  He’d seen the terror on dead Dylan Thomas’s face as he was hauled, again and again, to a violent death that occurred somewhere near here. A death, Nicholas was sure, he would see tonight.

  ‘They suffer,’ he said.

  She sent an angry glance at him, ready to bite again.

  ‘It’s an honour. They don’t know it, but they give of themselves so that others live.’

  ‘Trees,’ whispered Nicholas.

  ‘Yes, trees!’ snarled Quill. Orange light danced under her chin and eyes, so she seemed to rise like a fiery djinni. ‘And more than trees. There are secrets in live wood.’ She turned her full face to him and, as her passion rose, she again grew younger, so chillingly beautiful that Nicholas could only stare. ‘The woods ruled once, and men were tiny in them — tiny an’ afraid. The woods fed us an’ taught us an’ shared their secrets with those that listened to Him. Oh, how terrified they were when we learned fire! Fire an’ steel. Fire an’ steel, an’ the scales swung. Then we grew more plentiful than the trees. We became the blight on ’em, like that cursed fungus on our lumpers. Poisonous, infecting everythin’. One of them,’ she pointed out the window at the black panorama of hidden forest, ‘can grow five hundred years. Do you know how many people can breed from two humans in five hundred years? A million! A million mouths an’ bodies needin’ more fire, more wood, more food, more space.’

  She shook her head and her long, blonde hair sparkled like silk. Her eyes probed his, desperate.

  ‘We’re the disease,’ she whispered. ‘What odds if a few young ones must die? There’s always more. Trust me on that.’

  She lifted her head, her throat was long and slender and white. On the skin that plunged down from her neck to the curving tops of her breasts glistened delicate gems of perspiration. Nicholas found his skin growing hot, and looked away, angry with his body. The rain swelled on the roof. Rowena and he could have been the only people in a hundred kilometres, a thousand kilometres. Despite his fury, despite his disgust, his body wanted her.

  ‘It’s a lie,’ he whispered. ‘You’re a lie.’

  She rose from her chair, lithe and light as air, and crouched over him. Her eyes sparkled.

  ‘This hair’s a lie?’

  Her face hovered over his and her hair fell like gold curtains around them. Her teeth were perfect pearls behind thick, soft lips. She lowered her mouth till her lower lip grazed his forehead.

  ‘This skin?’ she murmured.

  Her touch was electric. His blood throbbed and his groin ached.

  ‘It is fleeting now, yes,’ she purred. ‘But it needn’t be. I have only to ask. I have never asked for anything for me, just for me.’ Her head crept forward until her white throat was over his face, and her breath blew over his chin, his neck, his chest. Her breasts swung loose and full, tantalising centimetres from his eyes, his mouth. ‘We can be young together.’ She prowled backwards till her lips were above his.

  Nicholas felt his heart thumping in his chest, so hard it shook him on the floor. He felt the pulsing rain outside was driving his blood, falling hard and alive, desperate to sink into the ground, to rise through roots and trunks, to explode in lush, bright leaves.

  But Hannah. .

  ‘And what will that cost?’ he whispered.

  The corners of her perfect lips curled upwards in a gentle smile. ‘She’ll not suffer long,’ she whispered back, a breath as young as saplings.

  He could feel her heat. Smell her sweet sweat. The skin above him was so white and perfect that there was nothing else to the world — she could be his sky, his bed, his food. He gritted his teeth. It’s a lie, he thought. It’s all a lie. Her excuses, her double life, her names. Pretending to be part of a town that she fed off, that she bled, which she plucked children from as carelessly as weeds from a herb garden.

  ‘Your church was a lie, too,’ he hissed. ‘A church to one God, but meant for another.’

  She hovered over him, her lips so close to his the air tingled as if lightning were ready to leap between them. She smiled.

  ‘What makes you think they are not one and the same?’

  Nicholas blinked. Did Pritam once say that, too? It was so hard to think. His groin throbbed painfully, ravenously. His chest hammered. His mouth felt at once wet and dry. What was she saying? Church of Christ? Church of the Green Man?

  Her tongue danced behind her white teeth. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dark and large with excitement, her breath was sweet and lightly spiced.

  ‘He has gone by many names in many ages. But His story is the same,’ she said. ‘He dies so we can live. Each year He dies for us, and then is reborn for us. And all He asks in return is humility,’ her lips touched his, ‘and a little sacrifice.’

  It seemed so simple now. Stay. All he had to do was stay. Wasn’t this what people dreamed of? An idyll, a singing nest of trees in which to live a life so long he would be like the trees themselves: deep-rooted and protected and safe. A woman who understood him, who knew his gift, who wanted him enough to kill for him, who was achingly beautiful and raised his flesh
like a drug. Time would lose its weight. Life would be perfect.

  Rowena smiled at him, as if reading his thoughts. Her fingertips ran down his throat — her lips gentled the air above his own. His mouth was wet with the need to taste her flesh. Her body was so close its heat poured down with the erotic rhythm of the rain. Yes, she said without words. Life would be perfect.

  Except. .

  ‘Except for the ghosts,’ whispered Nicholas.

  He spat in her face.

  As she shrieked, the mask of youth ripped apart like smoke in a sudden gust and the old hag Quill reared over him, wrinkled and rotting. She slapped his face so hard that white stars joined the orange sparks in the air.

  Rain clouds rolled overhead and what little light the night sky had given was vanished. Where moonlight had sliced three white knives through the gaps between the heavy timbers of the cellar doors, raindrops now leaked, accreting into globs of cold water as big as marbles that fell and spattered on the brick stairs.

  Hannah was soaking wet and sobbing. Her fingers were frustrating millimetres too thick to slip between the boards of the trap doors and reach the bolt. So, she crouched on the stairs on the underside of the doors, reaching between the heavy timbers with the paring knife, trying to snick and persuade the barrel bolt to move. . but it was fruitless. The bolt needed to twist ninety degrees before its loop would clear the guide and it could be slid aside. The blade found no purchase on the round steel.

  Hannah could feel her heart trotting faster. She didn’t know how long she’d been down here, but it had certainly been hours. She remembered that it had rained this heavily the night Miriam had been taken. Time surely was running out. She was going to die.

  She slid on her bottom back down the stairs into the inky gloom. She had to find something to move the barrel bolt, but what? Such an idiot! If only she’d worn her sneakers instead of the slip-ons, she would have had shoelaces! She could picture slipping the lace over the bolt, pulling down hard on both ends, and gently rolling the bolt free. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, Vee would say.