The Darkening

swallowed by the darkness — it could be three metres away, or three hundred for all she could see. She twisted her head to the right. From the corner of her eye, she could just make out the wall she was hung from; into its earth were cut rows of horizontal shelves, and on them were jars and jars and jars. So that’s what was rattling. She twisted her head left, and bit back a scream.

The skull looking back at her had its mouth open. The spider webs that bound the mummified child had long turned grey, and now sagged morosely. The child’s skin was the black of old book leather. Curled black hair poked dully between the smoky silk around its skull. Its eye sockets had been built over with fresher webs.

She looked away, heart cascading. How long had she been here? How long would she need to hang here until she was too weak to do anything and met the same fate? How much time did she have? A fresh wave of tears built up inside her, threatening to burst out. How much time?

Time.

T-i-m-e. T-I-M-E. T-I. .

If she screamed now that she’d spat the gag, the witch would surely hear her. She closed her eyes, focused on the letters. T-I-M-E. T-I-M-E. Tick tock. Tick tock goes the clock. Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock. . Her breaths came more evenly as she ran the children’s rhyme through her mind. The bird looked at the clock. The dog barked at the clock. The bear slept by the clock. . Her heartbeat slowed. Before she realised what she was doing, she moved her legs left, just a little, then let them drop back. As she swung down, she lifted her legs right. And drop. Tick tock. She began a rhythm, a human pendulum, swaying on the wall. She didn’t ask herself why; she knew it felt right. With each drop and swoop up, she strained, getting higher and higher. She felt her back, her bottom, her elbows, her heels, scrape on the dirt, grinding through the silk. That’s it! Scrape! Tick! Scrape! Tock! She swung herself, straining left, straining right; swing-scrape, swing-scrape. The tightness around her chest eased just slightly. Her strapped ankles grew slightly freer. She felt wet, cold earth trickle into her shirt, down her back. Left-swing-scrape. . Right-swing-scrape. . a little higher, a little higher. . She could flex her arms, just a little, but that little bought her room to swell and contract as she swung. A couple more! She could hold her legs a few centimetres apart. Her shoulders could shrug. She could slide her hands across her belly. Yes! One more! She swung. .

And felt a line of fire draw across her shoulder blades. She yelped. Her body scraping across the raw earth had exposed a sharp rock, and it dug deep into her flesh as she slid across it. It felt like a line of boiling oil had been dribbled from shoulder to shoulder. Hot tears poured from her eyes and she bit her bottom lip hard to stop the scream from coming out. She stopped swinging.

And, despite the tears, grinned in triumph. Her feet were on the floor.

Laine watched the very last of the day’s colour leach from the sky. A thin slip of cobalt blue kissing the western hills was being subsumed by the black arch of night.

She turned to Katharine. They’d hesitated and delayed, both hoping Nicholas would walk through the door, but as each minute passed it confirmed what they suspected: that he’d never gone to the library, instead had slipped into the woods to deal with Quill himself.

‘He’s in trouble,’ said Katharine.

Laine nodded.

Then they heard a key in the front door.

‘Nicholas?’ called Katharine.

‘Mum?’ called Suzette.

She was halfway down the hall when she must have glanced into her bedroom and seen what was pinned to the floor with a pitchfork — she let out a shriek. Katharine and Laine ran to her.

Introductions were quick, but Laine felt a warmth when Suzette took her hand. She liked these Close women.

They explained to Suzette that Nicholas had not come home.

‘The fucking twit,’ said Suzette.

‘Well,’ said Laine. ‘Let’s go get him.’

The three women looked at one another, and smiled.

‘Yes,’ said Katharine. ‘We’ll need some things.’

Laine found it hard to suppress nervous, insane giggles as she watched Katharine rock the pitchfork free of the mass that had been Garnock. The massive spider’s flesh was rotting at a rate that reminded her of time-lapse clips where flowers sprang forth, bloomed, wilted and died in seconds. As Katharine yanked the fork out, the corpse fell apart into a grey, pungent soup that made both women retch, and which — ironically, it seemed to Laine — buzzed with flies.

Suzette hurried across the twilit back lawn to the garden shed, where she found two spades with blades polished silver and sharp by being driven into unwelcoming shaly soil.

From under the kitchen sink, Katharine produced a torch, spare batteries and another can of insect spray.

Stars were opening their eyes in the black sky when they shut the front door behind them. Katharine checked it was locked, and the three women hurried down towards Carmichael Road.

Nicholas watched Quill rise from her chair and walk to the fire pit.

Her calves — squat and blue and veined, then slender and pale and taut — passed before his face. She knelt at the larger fire and began stoking its coals. Glowing orange sparks rose in a syrupy fountain of dying stars.

Outside, the wind grew stronger. It batted at the window, setting it knocking in its frame, and whistled sorrowfully in the flue. The fire behind the grate grew brighter as if jealous of its increscent neighbour.

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