The Darkening

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 and 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