Tasha: Hello, and welcome to episode 6 of The Perplex Files with me, Tasha Brindle.

Claudia: And me, Claudia Larkin.

Tasha: Come on and take a seat, but one at a time, please.

Claudia: And strictly, no couples. So many of them are wrong’uns. The films told us this and the films never lie. Look at Bonnie and Clyde. They were a bad lot, and they weren’t the only ones. We’re not doing a who’s who of villainous couples but trust us, there are some monsters out there. Just don’t google late at night if you value your beauty sleep.

Tasha: Today we’re having a gander at the British Bonnie and Clyde: Edward Sawyer and Veronica Silverthorne. We’ll put their photos up so you can study their faces, because guys, they’re still on the run.

Claudia: They’ve probably changed a tad since 1994. In all the pics, Veronica has that romantic heroine thing going on and Edward looks like the bad boy in a boy band. But now, who knows? It’s been thirty years and they’re not sixteen and seventeen, anymore.

Tasha: Thirty years on the run. Thirty years of hiding and fleeing.

Claudia: Being on the run sounds like a major faff. Especially if it involves actual running.

Tasha: If there’s actual running, I’m waving down the first police car.

Claudia: But disguises sound like heaps of fun. Just put on an old lady wig and natter about the war.

Tasha: A life of crime’s looking pretty appealing now, isn’t it?

Claudia: Tis indeed. Wanna join my old lady bank robber gang? The Granny Gang. I can see headlines now.

Tasha: Speaking of headlines, this was BBC news thirty years ago.

Another body has been recovered from Valeton Reservoir, bringing the number of victims to twelve. The name hasn’t been released but we can confirm that, like the other victims, the young woman was a student at the prestigious WillowMead College. The police are appealing for Edward Sawyer and Veronica Silverthorne to come forward and help with their enquiries.

Tasha: But Edward and Veronica never came forward. Days went by. Four more teenage girls were pulled out of Valeton Reservoir. The police didn’t want help with their enquiries, anymore. Edward and Veronica were wanted for murder.

Claudia: And they still are. But what if they were innocent?

Tasha: How? There were witnesses. Edward was seen leading the girls into the reservoir. Girls who weren’t seen again until the divers found them.

Claudia: But what if the Edward Sawyer who killed the girls wasn’t really him? What if Edward and Veronica have been on the run for crimes they didn’t commit?

Tasha: Why did Veronica flee? None of the witnesses saw her. She wasn’t linked to the murders. In fact, she and Edward were over before he went to the dark side.

Claudia: Veronica had a golden future. A whiz kid born to working class parents, she’d won a scholarship to Willowmead College. She was a dyed in the wool swot. Parties weren’t her bag, and she didn’t run with the in crowd. Her friends were Oxbridge bound. And she didn’t have any truck with boys.

Tasha: Until she met Edward. This is from her diary.

May 3^rd Friday

Edward Sawyer. Obviously, I’d heard his name, but it didn’t sound promising. It sounded like he ought to be a nonagenarian sitting on his porch in the marshy sundown with a tumbler of bootleg liquor, and a shotgun across his knee. Gators beware.

I only went out cos Viv and Jo have both got the lurgy, leaving me to the mercy of Dara Dewbury who’s decided I’m her new project. One of her minions must have dared her to turn me into a popular girl. She practically held me down to put eyeliner on me. Of course, I shoved a couple of books in my bag. I was going out. I needed security, and one novel alone, wouldn’t cut it. Who knows how long I’d be in the park with that lot.

Anyway, there I was, halfway through The Last Unicorn when I felt someone standing in front of me. He was beautiful. Dara and co went quiet, but Jessica Phillpot waved a cider bottle at him, and Savannah Chesil-Browning said his name. Edward Sawyer. He smiled at my book and asked if I had any more. Of course! I dug out my second novel. Great Expectations. We sat next to each other and read until the light had gone. Reader, it was the best day of my life.

Tasha: Suddenly and inexplicably, the park became Veronica’s favourite place to read. As soon as lessons were done, she headed out.

Claudia: And guess who joined her: Edward Sawyer.

Tasha: He was the bookish lass’s holy grail – a hot guy who could read. She was living the dream.

Claudia: Definitely according to Dara’s sneaky snaps. We’ll put her photos up. Here are Edward and Veronica reading in a buttercup patch. And here they are perched on the roots of a great oak. It was as romantic as it gets.

Tasha: The popular girls at Willowmead College flocked. Veronica was Edward Sawyer’s chosen one. She’d been anointed. But she shrugged. He wasn’t her boyfriend. He was more like her reading buddy.

Claudia: But this was her diary.

May 17^{th Friday}

I don’t know if Edward likes me or if he just likes books. Viv and Jo think I’ve lost it. They reckon he’s just stringing me along until the next popular rich girl pops up. I’ll throw myself in the reservoir if he doesn’t want me. Kidding, the reservoir doesn’t have a library. Or does it? There’s that mansion down there somewhere.

May 18^th Saturday

We read until the sun went down. Twas a misty evening and the fair folk were revelling in the meadows. Ok, we shared chips under the Narnia lamppost and sheltered in the church doorway when it rained.

Reader, he kissed me.

Tasha: It was love. The poets never knew such ecstasy.

Claudia: Well, they never shared chips under a Narnia lamppost, did they?

Tasha: Soon, Veronica and Edward were meeting up every evening. Course she couldn’t stay out late. She was a stickler for the rules, and the school locked at nine. But soon she was out all night. With Edward. Her friends, Viv and Jo, shoved pillows in her bed and made excuses at breakfast.

Claudia: The first Saturday in June was a belter. Sun, sun, and sun. Edward and Veronica sweltered. Valeton Reservoir looked pretty inviting. So, what if the olds said it was dangerous, what was the harm in a dip?

Tasha: They left their jeans and boots in a pile. The water was icy and dark. Veronica wasn’t from round here, was she? There was a mansion under the reservoir. Briarend House. Home to notorious family. They’d all hanged.

Claudia: Veronica stayed close to the edge. She was just cooling off. She wasn’t the dare devil kind. But Edward wanted to swim to the other side. Veronica was getting out if he tried it. Ok, then, just a bit further. They trod water. Were they above the mansion? Edward wanted a better look. He went under. Veronica yelled at him. He didn’t come back up. Panic beat in her chest.

Tasha: Suddenly, he surfaced. He laughed. She was fuming. She swam to the shore, clambered out and pulled on her jeans. He caught up. She wasn’t having any of it. She was miffed and then some.

Claudia: Then Edward keeled over. Passersby called an ambulance. A runner stopped and did CPR. Edward was unconscious for three days. The hospital kept him in for a week. Veronica visited but he didn’t want to know.

Tasha: Even when he was sent home, he wouldn’t see her. She knocked on his door, but his dad shook his head. Still, she came back the next day, and the next. Then she saw them through the window: Edward and Dara Dewbury on the sofa. She was in his arms.

Claudia: The swine hadn’t even broken up with Veronica. She took to her bed. She barely ate. She cried more than she slept. She wrote him imploring letters she never sent.

Tasha: But someone shoved a letter under her door. Dara Dewbury.

Veronica,

Edward has asked me to tell you to leave him alone. His dad will complain to the school if you go round there again. Try to be a bit less creepy, will you? It makes me look bad cos I introduced you to him. If I’d known you’d be such an embarrassment, I would’ve left you with those freaks you call your friends.

Claudia: Lovely girl.

Tasha: Indeed. But Veronica wasn’t a shrinking violet. She walked the corridors of Willowmead with her head high, even when Dara and co laughed. She wasn’t going to let a stuck-up rich kid break her. She was looking forward to her golden future.

Claudia: But Dara’s minions were many and noisy. Basically, town criers celebrating Edward and Dara’s romance. They may as well have rung bells. Edward had kissed Dara by the Narnia lamp. He’d taken her out on his brother’s motorbike. They’d had a moonlit swim in the reservoir.

Tasha: Even books couldn’t help Veronica. She missed the silent companionship of Edward reading beside her. The two of them together in separate worlds. Now she was alone.

Claudia: But, somehow, never alone. There was always someone about. She couldn’t have a good cry. She took to early morning walks. Twas allowed by Willowmead cos poshos believe fresh air cures all ills.

Tasha: Two weeks had passed. It still didn’t make sense. Edward had loved her until that day at the reservoir. She stared at the dark waters. How she loathed the grim and icy deeps.

Claudia: Time flies when you’re hating. She’d been there an hour. She ought to get going. Breakfast ahoy. After all, hating is hungry work. Suddenly she saw a figure emerge from the reservoir. A male silhouette. Then a woman climbed out of the waters. Edward and Dara.

Tasha: But she’d been there an hour and hadn’t seen anyone. It was a head scratcher. Mind you, she hadn’t spotted their jeans and boots in a pile on the grass. She hid behind a tree until they left.

Claudia: It wasn’t right. But maybe Veronica just wasn’t observant. And there was Dara at breakfast, triumphant and preening, whispering to her minions. What was she telling them? Veronica itched to listen.

Tasha: She ran to her dorm, grabbed a blank tape, then snuck into Dara’s, shoved it in a stereo and pressed record. Yes, it was sneaky, but Veronica needed answers. Something was wrong with Edward.

Claudia: I always think something’s wrong when folk don’t love me. Gotta be a medical condition.

Tasha: Veronica nabbed her tape back at dinner time. She waited until her friends were asleep before digging out her trusty Walkman. This is what she heard.

Savannah: Seriously, Dara, any more of this and I’m taking you to nurse. You must’ve had a bang on the head or something.

Dara: You believe me, don’t you, Jessica?

Jessica: Now you’re freaking me out. I thought you were just having a laugh. You don’t really think you went swimming underwater for hours, do you? You do realise that’s not possible?

Dara: Where do you think I was last night?

Savannah: Er… just because your bed wasn’t slept in doesn’t prove you were in an underwater mansion.

Dara: Briarend House.

Jessica: I get it. I really do. You used to be obsessed with it, and all this stuff with your parents has made you...

Dara: If I’m making it up, where did I get this?

Jessica: Er… anywhere. Your gran’s jewellery box? Honestly, it doesn’t even look like the real deal.

Dara: This necklace belonged to Lorna Wilde. Edward found it in Briarend. He put it on me. Look it doesn’t matter that you both think I’m bonkers. Come with me tonight. I’m meeting him at the reservoir at one.

Savannah: Okay. I’ll go just to put an end to it.

Claudia: Veronica gasped. Was that why she hadn’t seen Edward and Dara? Had they been underwater the entire time? In Briarend House? But it wasn’t possible, was it? She had to find out.

Tasha: She snuck out ahead of Dara. She found a hiding spot behind an oak at the reservoir. The moon was a sliver, and the owls were calling. The night had Halloween vibes. How Veronica wished she had a torch and a book. But all she could do was watch and wait.

Claudia: Then she saw him. An ominous silhouette by the water. Was that really her Edward? He didn’t move. He didn’t look at her. But she chilled to her bones.

Tasha: Then she heard voices. Dara and Jessica. Dara ran into Edward’s arms. After an embrace, she pulled her boots off and then her jeans. Jessica followed her example. Then the three of them were holding hands and walking into the reservoir.

Claudia: Veronica shook. She held her breath as the water reached their waists, then their shoulders. Then they were gone.

Tasha: It couldn’t be happening. It had to be a trick. They’d resurface further out, laughing. Maybe the whole thing was just an elaborate practical joke? Maybe they just wanted to make her look foolish when she ran for help?

Claudia: But still, they didn’t surface. Veronica ran to the water. But she saw nothing, heard nothing. She shrank back to her hiding spot and waited. And waited.

Tasha: Hours passed. Veronica huddled in her coat. She was chilled to her footprint. It was four in the morning, but she couldn’t leave. Not yet. Then she saw them walking out of the water, holding hands. There was laughter. Told you so. Told you so. Dara’s voice echoed. Jessica spun in the thin moonlit. It wasn’t morning, yet. She wanted a necklace like Dara’s Couldn’t they go back to Briarend?

Claudia: Once they were back in the water, Veronica ran to Willowmead. She pulled her duvet over her head. But she didn’t get close to the land of nod.

Tasha: Who could sleep if an evil reservoir had turned their beloved into a supernatural swimmer?

Claudia: Could be worse, he could be a cyclist.

Tasha: Nuff said.

Claudia: Veronica was in the library ASAP. The sun was barely up. In her PJs and slippers, she scoured the shelves. Her destination was local lore. Briarend House and the Wilde family to be precise. Then she found A Chronology of Withershire by Janet P. Wellington.

Valeton Valley was a popular subject for landscape painters of the eighteenth century, and thanks to the power of art, it lives on in greeting cards and wall calendars. No one who gazes upon these bucolic scenes, on that mansion in the green, could conceive of the evil of its inhabitants. The Wilde family. For three generations, they terrorised East Withershire. The full extent of their crimes shall perhaps never be known. They hanged for a double murder: an elderly vicar and his wife. On November 18^th 1765, Carver Wilde and his wife, Lorna, were found playing cards in the vicar’s cottage. But there was no place for the vicar at the table, he was in his chair, his throat cut from ear to ear.

A great crowd watched the six Wildes hang. A crowd of a magnitude never before seen in Withershire. A crowd that lingered into the night and the lamplight. Perhaps they didn’t trust the Wildes to die, for only when the bodies were removed on a cart did the audience disperse.

But peace didn’t return to the valley. A merchant purchased Briarend House. Shortly after moving in, his young wife and three happy children died in their sleep, or in their waking, for their faces were contorted with terror. The merchant’s body was found at the bottom of the stairs. From what had he been running?

Another family died in Briarend House. The mansion was left empty, yet sometimes candlelight was seen in the windows and ghostly music carried on the wind. All who walked in the valley perished. The sheep died of fright. The crows wouldn’t fly overheard. The foxes fled. Carver had died laughing, was he laughing still?

In 1815, a decision was made to flood the valley and bury the evil of the Wilde family beneath dark waters. And so Valeton Reservoir was born.

Tasha: Was this why Edward could breathe water? Had some lingering evil in the valley changed him into an underwater wrong’un?

Claudia: Dara and co were out every night. From behind her dorm curtain, Veronica watched them crossing Willowmead’s grounds. Three girls at first, then four, then six, then ten.

Tasha: Veronica lingered at doorways. If eavesdropping had been an Olympic sport, she’d have won gold. Soon all the cool girls had been to Briarend House. The home of the notorious Wilde family. A family so evil, their crimes had continued after their deaths.

Claudia: One night, she crept into Dara’s dorm, found her diary, and copied it out.

June 18^th

I’m in a dream. Edward has made my dreams come true. I’ve walked the halls and corridors of Briarend House. There’s a fairytale under the reservoir. There are still roses in the gardens. The grandfather clocks chime. And there’s a four-poster bed that’s now Edward’s and mine. He put a necklace on me and said it was Lorna’s. I’ll never take it off. They’ll have to bury me in it.

June 25^th

We had a party in Briarend. Just a select few. Ten of us. We danced and we laughed, and we saw a golden sunrise in the windows though it was still night in the world above.

June 29^th

Every chandelier in Briarend glows with the flames of a thousand candles. There’s music in the water, and we dance in the ballroom. It’s magic. Edward is magic. He asked me if I wanted to stay there forever. That’s not going to happen with that lot hanging around. Edward’s bored of them and so am I. I wish I’d never told them.

Claudia: Veronica felt a nagging sense of horror. What did Edward mean by staying in Briarend forever? It was a tad sinister.

Tasha: Just a tad.

Claudia: That night, Veronica watched Dara and co running across the Willowmead gardens. Dread beat in her chest, but she didn’t stay awake. A good night’s sleep was what she needed. She’d wake up with a plan.

Tasha: The Sandman didn’t bring her a plan. She just woke up hungry. Nem ‘mind, a full English breakfast would do the job. Dara was already in the hall, serenely eating a grapefruit. But where were her minions? She was alone.

Claudia: Maybe they were still in bed? All those supernatural parties at the bottom of the reservoir had to take it out of you. It was a Monday; they weren’t going to risk being late for Latin. Mrs Luella would kill them.

Tasha: Latin came. But the class was half empty. Mrs Luella was peeved. Fifteen girls hadn’t bothered to turn up. Where were they? They were Dara’s crowd, surely, she’d know. But Dara hadn’t the foggiest. Well, the class would just have to continue without them. If they fell behind, that was their problem.

Claudia: It was the same story in Chemistry. Half the class missing, the teacher frowning, and then Dara shrugging.

Tasha: But there was no need to freak out. Fifteen girls couldn’t be abducted, could they? Fifteen girls couldn’t have had an accident, could they? They were obviously off on a jolly. Maybe they’d gone to London?

Claudia: The Headmistress quizzed Dara. But Dara didn’t have a clue. They hadn’t told her anything. In fact, she was miffed she hadn’t been invited. She’d have loved London.

Tasha: At dinner, rumours abounded. Had the girls skedaddled to Ibiza? Who wouldn’t swap the school canteen for clubbing. Didn’t Jessica have a cousin in Paris? Bet they were being wined and dined. Savannah was always on about her hols in Corfu. They were probably sunbathing on a paradise beach.

Claudia: But two girls didn’t gossip. Dara, sat by herself, a secret in her eyes. Veronica watched her from across the hall. Dara wasn’t a sweetheart, but she wouldn’t have hurt her friends. Would she?

Tasha: Suddenly, there was a stampede to the windows. The police had arrived. The Headteacher led them into the dining hall. If anyone had been covering for the girls, they needed to speak out. Now.

Claudia: No one spoke. Still, it would be cleared up. The police were in contact with the ports. Fifteen girls couldn’t just vanish, could they?

Tasha: By bedtime, a sober atmosphere had descended on the school. What if the girls weren’t on a jolly? What if they were in danger? They had seriously loaded parents who’d cough up big bucks to get them home. Was it a mass kidnapping?

Claudia: In the morning, it was on the telly.

Fifteen students have gone missing from the prestigious girls’ school, Willowmead College. The teenagers haven’t been seen since Sunday evening. Several of the girls belong to prominent families in the worlds of finance and politics, and there are concerns that this may be a factor. The students did not take their belongings or passports. Police are appealing for anyone who has knowledge of the girls’ whereabouts to come forward.

Tasha: Willowmead went into lockdown. No one was allowed off the premises. The school chaplain led the assembly. They prayed for their friends. Everybody closed their eyes. Except for two girls: Dara and Veronica. There was no worry on Dara’s brow, no sorrow in her eyes, no distress in her shoulders. She smirked.

Claudia: But maybe she just knew her friends were sunning themselves? Maybe she was just keeping their secret?

Tasha: Lessons were useless. No one could concentrate. Not with the empty chairs. Not with the empty tables. But no one gossiped now. No one wanted to guess where the girls had gone.

Claudia: A terrible silence stuck to everything. A silence that asked too many questions. Where were they? What happened to them? Were they coming back?

Tasha: By mid-morning, the police had returned. They needed students for a reconstruction. Veronica put up her hand.

Claudia: Then she was down at the reservoir again. There were fifteen of them. All in jeans and t shirts. They had to make it look like they were enjoying themselves. The police wouldn’t give anything else away. Take your boots off and splash in the water. How Veronica hated the water’s touch. The girls performed a grim pantomime. No that wasn’t right. Do it again. And again.

Tasha: That night Veronica watched Dara sneak across the grounds. And there was Edward. And then laughter.

Claudia: Carver Wilde had died laughing.

Tasha: Edward had been unconscious for three days. And then he’d come back changed. He hadn’t been himself. Was he someone else? Was he Carver Wilde?

Claudia: Veronica didn’t stay awake waiting for Dara. Which was just as well because she never returned. This was the news the following day.

Another student has gone missing from prestigious girls school, Willowmead College. Dara Dewbury, the daughter of Edwin Dewbury, the former MP for Henley, was reported missing this morning. Police believe her disappearance is connected to the other students and are appealing for any witnesses to come forward.

Claudia: Where was Dara? Had Edward, or should we say, Carver fulfilled her dreams? Was she forever in Briarend House?

Tasha: The atmosphere in Willowmead wasn’t chilly, it was Arctic. The students weren’t allowed out. June sang in the blue skies, but even the windows were locked. The girls stifled in the fear and heat. Lessons were cancelled. No one could concentrate. They had to stick together in groups. Dining hall, common room, or library. If you needed the loo, a teacher would wait outside the door.

Claudia: No one gossiped because no one wanted to think. The police patrolled. They weren’t shutting down the school, not yet. But some parents turned up. Who could blame them removing their precious daughters? The school couldn’t keep them safe. There was a question in every girl’s eyes. Would they be next?

Tasha: But it wasn’t in Veronica’s eyes. Edward wasn’t a murderer. Not her Edward. He was the boy who read beside her, and who shared his chips, and who kissed her in the church doorway.

Claudia: Like we said, Veronica was a clever clogs. She had a plan. She asked if she could go to the school chapel. A teacher escorted her. Veronica would be okay on her own, wouldn’t she? There was no way out. Veronica nodded. She just wanted to pray.

Tasha: When the coast was clear, she stole a bottle of communion wine and smuggled it to her dorm.

Claudia: No one ate their dinner. The Head said they were safe. There were police outside. Willowmead was under twenty-four-hour guard. There was nothing to worry about.

Tasha: That night, Veronica didn’t sleep, she waited. It was the small hours when she heard him. She looked through the curtains. Edward stood in the moonlight. He wasn’t hiding. He wasn’t in the shadows. Why hadn’t the police stopped him?

Claudia: He beckoned to Veronica. Fear swelled in her chest. He was a murderer. He was Carver. But she had to go. For Edward, the boy under the Narnia lamppost.

Tasha: She was swigging the wine as she stepped outside. He reached for the bottle. She shook her head. She needed it. Hadn’t he come to take her to Briarend? He laughed. Didn’t she want her turn?

Claudia: She took another swig. Where were the police, anyway? They were supposed to be guarding Willowmead. He gestured towards the police cars. Veronica turned her head. A man lay in a pool of blood.

Tasha: Carver snatched the wine. He drank and drank. He drained the bottle. Then he tossed it onto the green. He held out his hand to her. But his hand shook. His whole body shook. What had she done to him? What was in the wine? Poison?

Claudia: No. The wine was consecrated. Carver dropped to his knees. He convulsed. His eyes went glassy. Then he lay still.

Tasha: Was he dead? Had Edward died in the hospital, only to be replaced by Carver? Veronica clutched him. Her tears fell on his face. Then he was clutching her back. He’d seen everything as if in a dream. Carver had taken the girls into Briarend for a party. He’d let them breathe the water until he hadn’t. They couldn’t get out of the mansion in time. The surface had been so far away. They drowned.

Claudia: Everyone would think Edward was guilty. The security cameras would show him slitting the policeman’s throat. He had to run. Veronica grabbed his hand. Not without her. No, he couldn’t let her. What about her golden future? But she only wanted him.

Tasha: So, they ran together. Their photos were everywhere, but no one found them. There was no trail of murders. No more wicked crimes. Eventually, the police search was abandoned.

Claudia: Time rattled on. Edward and Veronica just became fodder for podcasts. Podcasts like The Perplex Files. They listened to so many people telling their story all wrong, they ended up reaching out to us.

Tasha: The final word is from Veronica’s email.

We live by different names now. But when it’s just the two of us, we’re Edward and Veronica again. We read together. And we still share our chips.

Not long after that Ma stopped taking me to my father. Not that we ever found him. No matter how many times we traipsed those streets where the fine folk lived. No matter how often Ma crushed lavender with her fingers and rubbed it on her wrists. ‘It’s time your Pa started paying for you,’ she’d say. I’d thought the windows would open and spit out gold and I’d ducked my head under her arm. My feet felt like bruised tongues. ‘There were another street and all the houses there, they was thrice as tall and they bended in the winds. A door swung wide and he called me, like a song sucks the darkness out of the night.’ And she’d wiped her tears and flung them into the gutter.

Ma grew lines on her forehead and her eyes tucked into creases. She only looked at me to yank the rags from my ears, her hands fast as starlings and sharper than the Sundays when I’d press against the dry window and see other Mas with their arms round their daughters. ‘Couldn’t take a wretch like you to church,’ she said. And she held my sleeve not my hand. And the fellas eyed her like the peddler’s mut eyed the bags o’ mystery in the butcher’s window, though her laugh was cruel as a sky of blacking cloud. That was when I made myself useful. Small hands you wouldn’t even notice until you wanted the time. Then you’d find your pocket watch was missing and you’d remember a lady finer than her clothes and a straggle of a girl. But only when the sky was clear. Only when the blueness went all the way down to the dirt. Only when the clouds were too far to hear.

But the blueness was rare as one of Ma’s smiles that bloomed into her eyes. London had more rain than folk, more cloud than air, more screams than noise. And they shook through me making my hands leaden and fumbling. ‘Here what’s your girl doing?’ And the man who stenched of mutton crackling gripped my wrist, held it up. Ma didn’t tuck me into her smell of lavender. She didn’t hurry me out of the rain that tumbled down the back of my dress. She didn’t stroke my hair until the screams passed. She took to silence for days, left me home scrubbing the burnt bottom of the pan while she went somewhere.

A man came to our door, his face like handsomeness made too pale, his voice like parsnips baked sweet. ‘I live in a place where you wouldn’t hear the clouds, Elwinna,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t have need of rags to plug your ears.’ He gave me a cone of chestnuts, all cracked and black and I gobbled each one and emptied the burnt bits into my palm. ‘Go with the nice gentlemen,’ Ma said, and she smoothed my hair with a shuddery hand. I didn’t know how many coins he gave her. I only heard them clinking in the bag she clutched. And then I was in the carriage. And he was nattering and the horses clip clopping and I pushed my face into the bundle of my dresses and smelt Ma – her lavender and grimace.

I bet you thought this was a happy ever after, a tale to make you all cosy – the urchin, the changeling lifted high, and higher than the clouds, too. For where could he take me that I wouldn’t hear them? And as the horses clip clopped, I lost myself in make beliefs of towers on the moon and a lady’s face dark at a narrow window. Of course, he lied. She’d sold me to a man of science. But he was right I wouldn’t have the rags, for he forbid me to plug my ears. Even when the clouds screeched loud enough to clatter my teeth. Even when I couldn’t keep myself from screeching back at them. I sleep in a room that’s a startle of white. I shake my door till my arms hurt. And I call for my Ma, even though I know she won’t come. Experiments, that what he calls what he does to me. He ties me up to machines and opens the windows in the storms and the wailings and my own screams go as loud as the clouds. Those footsteps coming, they’re his.

First published in Second Chance Lit

Art by Augustus Edwin Mulready

Art by Jyrki Pitkä.

Every night, we wrote down the names of the stars which had gone. So we could watch the skies, Nora brushed the star ash from our window – our parents still called it snow. Sunset was ‘curtain close’ and then we weren’t meant to look out. So after we’d gone to bed, we lay awake listening for sleep sounds. The old space books were under our beds, but when we held them up to the window their pages had stopped matching the skies.

When the star ash first started falling, we were in school. It looked like cloud feathers. We didn’t know it wasn’t snow. The teacher shouted us away from the windows but we just heard the silence more: it was space-wide. The windows were behind us. Nora sat in front of me and didn’t turn round even when I nudged her chair. The classroom became cold. I sneaked peeks at the windows. The world was white wings.

In the playground, I ran until my legs were wobbles and everything felt like downhill. Nora grabbed my hand and we fell onto a drift – it was as soft as hushed mist. We lifted our hands in the falling snow but when we stared up through it, we could see the clouds weren’t there.

By home time, the streets were wading-deep. The others raced off, but we lingered behind. The snow looked like it was falling on the wrong speed. When we finally got home, we shook it from our hair. Nora said it didn’t smell like ice or cold, and I opened the window to see. Outside, the air smelled like underground sounds.

We never found out the name of the first star that crumbled. Nora looked for missing glints in the skies and I imagined stars which had never been there. We huddled under our blankets. The ashfall was as cold as crystal song. At night, all the windows down our street were full of faces.

No one was allowed space books anymore. I tried to draw all the stars before they were gone, but my pictures looked like torn webs. We went to the library to find the old books. Nora led the way through streets that sounded like mountain hearts. The sky shivered into star ash and we tried to breathe it in. We stole books and space maps from the cupboards where they’d been packed away. When we walked home with them, my bag felt as heavy as storm winds. I stared at my feet in the ash and tried to pretend it was snow.

I didn’t want to see the ash ploughs. In the mornings, when they cleared the streets, I hid under my blankets and covered my ears until the crunch of the ploughs sounded like folding feathers. We found the piles they’d left behind. When no one was looking, we played in the star ash until we smelled of space. Nora filled her pockets with it and pressed it into our notepads next to the names we’d copied from the old books.

At school, the teacher pulled the blinds down so we couldn’t see the falling ash. But its hush stretched over us like lightning paths. Nora said ash silence was so loud because it was as old as the stars. No one was allowed out at break. Our class played cramped games. But we crept away and searched until we found a window the teachers hadn’t covered. I pressed my hands against the glass until the coldness hurt. We didn’t know which star was crumbling. We wanted to see what was left of it before the ploughs took it away.

When our parents were asleep, we pulled the space maps out from under our beds. I blacked out the missing stars on mine so it matched the night. Nora left the stars on hers and when she held it next to mine, we ran our fingers on the galaxies of the old sky. I tried to pretend they were still above us. Sometimes, I wished them back; but when we peered out the patches of the sky were still black. There were no faces at the windows anymore.

I was glad when the ploughs stopped coming. Nora talked about trying to find where they’d taken the crumbled stars, but I wouldn’t go. I didn’t tell her that I wanted to believe winds carried them away, back out into space. I knew it wasn’t true. Every night, the skies were blacker. I counted the stars left on my space map. We filled our jewellery boxes with ash so we could keep bits of them with us. We didn’t know how long before they’d all be gone.

After the ash stopped falling, no one talked about the stars. We wondered if they still remembered them. Nora slept with her space map under her pillow. Every night, we looked at the old books and turned all the pages until we’d seen all the stars there used to be. We knew their names.

First published by Maudlin House.

“These scissors can cut the skin off a star or a hill or a river, Yana,” her mother said as she opened the purse. “And with this needle and this thread, you can sew it. But be careful, your great auntie became stuck in a starskin dress and now she dwells in the caves, for she’s so bright and shining, she’ll blind the kingdom.” And the Princess hung the purse on her necklace and ran to play in the rockpools.

This was longer ago than you could count, so long ago that clouds still lived on the ground. You had to shoo them from your doorstep with a broom and send your hounds to nip them or they would weep on your boots. But Princess Yana never chased the clouds and, if she fell asleep on the shore and they nestled in her hair, she didn’t cry or roughly shake them out.

Clouds caught in the gusts and bumped against the castle walls, leaving wisps on the rock. For the castle was carved into a great rock that jutted up from the sea and Yana’s days were pearl lit and wind warm.

“Wherever you go, you must take the scissors, needle, and thread with you,” her mother said. Her hair had become the colour of the clouds that stranded in the rocks.

“But I’ll never go. I’ll never leave.” And Yana pushed shells in her pockets.

“You never know what dangers may befall you. My great grandmama was journeying through the mountains when bandits seized her carriage. They held her ransom, but she sewed herself a dress from mountain skin and ran through the mountain and out the other side.” The Queen shook a cloud from her skirts.

Years drifted by, sea blown and gull flown. The queen became pale and poorly and saw the sea only from her window. The king summoned doctors and wise women. But they all shook their heads. Yana put sun-warm pebbles in her mother’s hands.

“I’m going away,” the queen said. “Don’t be sad. There’s a golden land past the horizon, no matter how fast you travel, you can never reach it. Only souls can find it.” And she closed her eyes. After she’d gone, the castle was loud with silence. Yana moved through it like a butterfly in a puddle. Then, one day, laughter came back to the castle. The King married again. Yana’s step-mother had a voice as soft as a bumblebee’s belly, but her smile was an icicle’s bite.

“The Princess is old enough to be a bride,” she said to the King. “Why do you let her run about in the sand like a fisherman’s brat?”

And the King forbid Yana from sitting on the rocks and from sleeping with clouds in her hair. The Queen took the shells from Yana’s window and flung them back into the sea.

“I’ve found you a prince from the ice lands, handsome as the midnight sun and strong as the winter that grips his palace. He’s travelling here on a white bear to take you back with him, daughter.”

“I’m not your daughter,” Yana said. “And I won’t go with him.” The queen gripped her arm.

“There’s no use talking to your father. It was his idea. He’ll have a new son or daughter soon, and no time for you.” The queen smiled. Yana curled on her bed, her heart sore. When night filled the castle, she crept to the sea. She opened the purse, took out the scissors, and cut off a length of sea skin. It glimmered like sapphires if sapphires were dreams. Then she rolled it up, tucked it under her arm, carried it to her room and hid it under her bed.

“The Prince will be here tomorrow, daughter,” the queen said at the breakfast table. “He’s bringing a dress of silver fur and a crown carved out of a mammoth’s tusk, and you shall wear them at your wedding. You’ll dance with him until the guests fall asleep where they stand. Then the white bear will roar five times and the prince will take you away. Make sure you wish farewell to every wave and cloud, for you’ll never see them again.”

All day, while the castle bustled with banners and whispers, Yana sewed the sea skin into a dress. At midnight, she slipped the dress on over her gown and stepped onto the waves. Her legs wobbled. The waves lifted and dipped. Her knees buckled and she fell.

“It’s like balancing on a plate of golden berry jelly that’s spinning on an otter’s nose,” she muttered to herself. Moonshine flitted on her dress. Seals peeped at her. “I might have to crawl.” She glanced up at the castle, at the dark window of the queen. “No. I have to hurry. The Prince on the white bear is on his way. And he’ll take me to his home where the only waters are ice, and the only waves are memories.” She steadied herself to her feet, outstretched her arms and took large steps. Her feet were damp. She walked across the sea, over whales and shipwrecks, around great slumbering clouds. Her dress shivered moonlight. Winds tucked in her hair. She walked so far, when she turned, her castle looked as small as a spiral shell. She could cup it in her palm. Her heart stung.

“The queen will be glad I’ve gone. She’ll tell father I’ve swum away and drowned or been gobbled by a beast with black tentacles. And when he cries, she’ll wipe his tears with a silk handkerchief and she’ll smile behind her hair,” she said to herself, to the clouds, to the waves, to the stars, for there was no one else to hear her. And she strode onwards to the horizon. And then to the horizon after that. For there is always another waiting. Hours passed. Her legs ached. She wearied and wobbled. “I’ll just have a sloom.” She curled up on the waves with a small cloud for her pillow. But the sea rocked her as gently as a mouse lullaby and she slept and slept.

Hands gripped Yana awake. Before she could cry out, they bundled her into a rowing boat and tied a rope around her wrists.

“It’s no use struggling,” said a man as broad and bald as a moon egg.

“And don’t start screaming,” a ginger bearded man laughed. “Not unless you want to anger the captain. And you never want to anger the captain.” He picked up oars and rowed toward a ship with black sails. Yana struggled to her feet and launched herself over the side, landing on her bottom on the waves. But before she could run, the bald man grabbed her shoulders and knocked her back into the boat. He tied a rope round her waist. She kicked as she was hauled onto the pirate’s ship.

“And what’s this?” The captain eyed her. He strode in heavy boots. He was handsome and cruel as a city in a fable. “Who enchanted you? Why don’t you sink in water?” He gripped the purse on her necklace, opened it and tipped it upside down. The scissors, needle, and thread dropped on the deck. He knelt. He gasped. “She’s a Seastress!” He took off his captain’s hat.

Perhaps you’ve never wondered who makes the waves? Look closer at the sea and you may spy the seams. Listen beneath the winds and you may hear the click clack of knitting needles. The Seastresses were once mortal women. Women who laughed and bickered and feasted and wept. Now they only knit. They can knit a wave savage enough to gobble a city in a grasshopper’s blink, or a wave kind enough to carry a ship-wrecked soul to a shore. They can turn sea to desert and desert to sea. The tide turns on their knitting needles.

The captain cut Yana’s bonds. She put her scissors, needle, and thread back in her purse.

“You oafs,” he shouted at his crew. “Don’t you know a Seastress when you see one? Show some respect.” He glowered until they knelt. Then he glowered until they mumbled.

“Do not be afeared,” Yana said, trying to speak like a lady of the deeps, but sounding half like a river rasping and half like a cod yodelling. “I only wish to rest. I’ve been knitting waves since before the hills were young.” She looked down at the captain. He stared up at her with eyes like sorrowful stones. “I’ve been knitting waves since before the deserts learned to sigh, since before the stars took to blinking, since before the dawn was fire.” The crew bowed their heads. Sun glinted on their cutlasses. “I only want to stand on the sea edge and look upon the world of men.”

“We’ll take you wherever you wish.” The captain stood.

“A village in a cove,” Yana said. The captain turned to his crew and gestured at the sails.

The ship sped, black sails whipping, prow slicing through clouds. Yana watched the horizon for cliffs, for sands, for boats bobbing in a cove. Her seaskin dress shimmered. Her heart was full of escape. The captain gave her sugared almonds and, as she munched them, he thanked her for waves.

“I would’ve perished in the kraken’s claws if you hadn’t swept him into the chasm,” he said. And Yana nodded and smiled as peacefully as a whale’s dream.

Suddenly, the sea churned. The ship spun. A wave arched and reached along the deck, coiled about Yana’s waist, and lifted her high. She kicked her feet. Three old ladies rose from the sea, knitting. Their needles click clacked. Seaweed twisted in their hair.

“Who you think you are, pretending to be one of us? Bet you couldn’t even knit a puddle.”

“Bet she couldn’t knit a tear.”

“Give her a chance. She’ll have a lot of time to learn. She’ll have forever.”

And they carried her off across the sea, the pirate’s ship shrinking until it folded behind the horizon. They sat her on a small rock perched atop a savage wave. Clouds bumbled and bumped on the waters.

“And you can give that back and all.” The seaskin dress was torn from her. She shivered in her damp gown. “And don’t think about sewing another one. These waves have teeth, and they’ll take your fingers off if you snip them.” The Seastresses began to sink.

“You can’t just leave me here,” Yana said.

“We’ve got deciding to do. And deciding takes time. You’re going to be switching places with one of us. Me, most likely. For I’ve been at this job the longest. Got tricked into this, I did. Just minding my own business, I was. But, before I knew it, I was slap bang in eternity. Eternity of knitting.”

“It should be me. I’ve knitted more waves than the two of you put together. Who’s always having a ‘little nap’ on a sea turtle’s back?”

“Na. It’s got to be me. I never really got to grips with this knitting business. You’d be better off without me. You wouldn’t have to keep reminding me which stitch suits each wave. I’ll pack my things.”

And, still bickering, they disappeared. Yana sat cross legged on the rock. The night came. The moon passed near and low, bright as a pearl if pearls were hopes. Yana took the scissors from her purse and cut off a length of moon skin. She rolled it up and hid it down the back of her dress.

In the morning, the Seastresses rose from the waves, knitting and bickering.

“We’ll have made up our minds by sunset. They’ve just got to realise it should be me,” one of them said. And then they sank again. A cloud swept up against Yana’s rock. She rested her chill feet on it. Then she pulled out the length of moon skin and began to sew. But the moon skin was too small, and she couldn’t sew it into a dress.

“What am I going to do now?” she said to the cloud. “The Seastresses will be back as soon as the sun sets and then I’ll be doomed to spend the rest of forever knitting.” She unstitched the moon skin and coaxed the cloud closer. Then she sewed the moon skin to the cloud. It quivered and began to lift from the sea top. Swiftly, Yana wrapped her arms around the cloud. It rose up into the air, high over the sea, and as it climbed into the sky, all the other clouds began to float. Soon, the sky was crowded. Yana stood on the cloud and peered down – the sea was so far below, she could barely hear the click clack of the Seastresses’ knitting needles. “I’ll make a dress of sky skin and fly away,” she said. But when she put her hand to the purse, she found it empty. She hadn’t closed it properly, and the scissors, needle, and thread had fallen out. And they’re still lost. Keep an eye out for them if you hunt crabs in the rockpools. And should you find them, perhaps you could tie them to a bat’s ankle and send him up to Yana. But there is no hurry. For time moves slowly in the clouds.

First published in Seaborne Magazine

Painting by John William Waterhouse

‘The pale butterflies will bring us home,’ she had always said to me while she knitted blankets, her needles clacking like a blundering clock. And what a home it had been, so she said: turrets so tall you could pluck feathers from gliding condors, windows so wide whole sagas shone in a single stained-glass pane. I curled under a knitted blanket beside her and sank into her smell of wool and peppermint. Glass jars crammed our shelves in place of books, blocked our windows in place of views, filled our cupboards in place of food. And in the jars, pale butterflies shone. Every evening, after our supper of carrots baked until they seeped caramel, we counted the butterflies. Then we shook daffodils, collected the pollen in a chipped china bowl, and dropped a pinch into each jar.

‘Careful,’ Granny said as we propped the tandem against the hedgerow. She hitched up the waistband of her skirt, unbuckled her satchel, and pulled out a glass jar. ‘The last one,’ she said as she handed it to me. I inched forward. ‘Hurry.’ Everything smelled of green warmth. Nettles stung my wrist, but I didn’t flinch. I lowered the jar over the butterfly. Its wings beat against the glass. ‘Now, we wait for the full moon,’ Granny said. And as we cycled back, she said, her voice as low as field mist, ‘my bedroom ceiling was a golden map and I read the names of hills and ports until I fell asleep.’

On the day of the full moon, Granny tethered a cart to our bicycle, and I filled it with the butterfly jars. ‘Careful,’ she barked. We cycled on the smoothest paths, the jars rattling in the cart, the lowering sun soft on our faces. We cycled in a silence that felt like peacefulness. And when the horizon was copper and gold and the silhouettes of geese were fast shapes in the sky, we stopped in a vast field. The hedgerows were so far away they merged into the blue dusk. I picked up one of the jars, but Granny shook her head. ‘Wait,’ she said. And when the full moon flushed the sky in fat light, we unscrewed the jars and let out the butterflies.

They flitted and swooped, the moonglow weighting them, the night brushing their wings. And then they were settling one atop each other. And they made the shape of a great castle, towers tall as winds, windows wide as seas. In the moonshine, Granny’s face was all crags and shadows, her eyes tear bright. ‘What did I tell you?’ she said, hitching up the waistband of her skirt. There was a sound like hounds chasing through autumn leaves, and then a stilted shiver passed through the butterflies, and then they were gone, and in their place, marble stretched, smooth and cool. Granny pushed the great door open and we stepped inside.

The halls smelled of crowns and legends. I could hardly feel my feet, hardly feel myself moving. Ceilings glided over us, golden and high as clouds, and I felt as if I might float up and bump my head. ‘Didn’t I tell you it was like this?’ Granny said as she wiped away my tears. I could only nod. And her laugh was soft in the gilded spaces and in the moonlight that turned red and purple and blue as it filtered through the stained glass.

I didn’t feel tired, I only felt swoopy and far away, so I didn’t feel the night passing, or the moon fading. And then there was a sound like wild poppies in summer gusts, and a ripple passed through the walls, the ceilings, the windows coloured by myths. And then the castle was just butterflies again, pale and flickering, and then they flew up into the morning skies and away across the fields. I sat on the damp grass, Granny’s arm around me, and watched them until they were gone.

First published in Milk Candy Review

Art from Readers Digest Field Guide to the Butterflies and Other Insects of Britain.

Tasha: Hello and welcome to Episode 5 of The Perplex Files with me, Tasha Brindle.

Claudia: And me, Claudia Larkin.

Tasha: Come on in and join us. Walk our corridors. Dine at our table. Nap by our fireplace. Slumber under our blankets. Sounds inviting, doesn’t it?

Claudia: Not really to be honest. You’d be a rubbish cult leader. You’ve started with the creepiness turned up to eleven. Begin with cake, then work up to the creepiness.

Tasha: You wouldn’t join my cult? Rude.

Claudia: Face it, you’ll be running a cult of one.

Tasha: You’d run a cult of one, too. Luring people in with cake means sharing the cake. Nope. Not going to happen.

Claudia: My cult members would be cakes. Who needs people when you can have Battenburg and Swiss roll?

Tasha: But then you’d scoff the lot and be left on your lonesome, again.

Claudia: Foiled. Let’s face it neither of us has what it takes. But we might pick up some tips in today’s episode cos our topic is Mother Maggie.

Tasha: Mother Maggie. Now that’s a name to send you hiding behind the sofa. Mother Maggie was a notorious cult leader, possible serial killer and … fantastic baker. She had a huge grim mansion that overlooked the Norfolk wetlands, the fens. We’ll put the photos up. It’s the archetypal murder house.

Claudia: See how it looms right out of the mist. I bet each time you count the windows it’s a different number.

Tasha: Mardle House had been in Maggie’s family for yonks. And it looks as much a part of the fens as the fog and the marshes.

Claudia: Quick history lesson – go back a couple of centuries and the fens were massive. Huge. They were underwater for a big stretch of the year. Wasn’t much there but eels and malaria, but local folk loved it. They had peat for fuel and reeds for thatch. What else did you need?

Tasha: Well, cake would be a start.

Claudia: So, when King Charles 1^st got in it his head to drain the fens, folk weren’t pleased. In fact, they were miffed. They attacked the windmills and the dams. But they couldn’t win. They couldn’t fight the future.

Tasha: But Maggie’s ancestors had a real try. This is from ‘Fen Folktales’ by James Clopton.

No anthology of local lore would be complete without Robert Walsham, a hero to some, but a villain to others, and undoubtedly the most ferocious of all the Fenland Tigers. It was said he worshipped the fens. Certainly, he felt no remorse for his crimes, for the innocent blood he shed, for the eight lives he took. He showed no mercy to those who threatened the fens. But did the fens show mercy to him? His body disappeared after he was hanged, rumoured to be stolen and returned to the very waters he idolised. Did the fens restore him to life? For there have been many sightings of him down the years. Some say he carries a lantern and that in that lantern is no ordinary light, no flame, but a will-o-the-wisp.

Claudia: For our international listeners, will-o-the-wisps were eerie lights out on marshes and bogs. They were said to be spirits that led folk to their doom.

Tasha: Was Robert Walsham leading folk to watery graves? He had beef. But poor unfortunate folk were often perishing in the marshes. Anyway, if he was so deadly, surely no one who’d seen him would’ve lived to tell the tale?

Claudia: Maybe he was just a bogey man. A tale told to children to spook them, to keep them away from the deadly waters.

Tasha: Like those terrifying public information films in the 1980s. Don’t climb a pylon – you will die. Don’t fall asleep smoking – you will die. Don’t go back to that firework…

Claudia: To be fair, that’s all solid advice. They just went a bit nuts by the time they got to rugs. Polish a floor? Put a rug on it? You might as well have laid a mantrap.

Tasha: No doubt Robert Walsham was an intimidating fella. We’ll put his portrait up on our socials. Just don’t make eye contact.

Claudia: I mean, look at that glower. Never mind, the fens. I don’t even want to go near a bath now. Mission accomplished.

Tasha: Robert was sighted just a few years ago, in the BBC afternoon prog Moving to the Country.

Claudia: What country was he moving to? Atlantis? Surely, he wasn’t the type to sell up?

Tasha: No one noticed the figure on the drive until the episode aired. The tv presenter hadn’t glanced at the severely handsome bloke in 17^th century clobber. Just have a listen to her chatting away.

Our house search starts near the Norfolk village of Lure, beside the famous fens. An area of outstanding natural beauty, of waterways and windmills, and endless Norfolk skies. The call it the big sky. And you can see why. Our first property today is unique and, despite its generous size, falls well within Clare and Barry’s budget. But will they fall in love with it? They asked for a character property with at least five bedrooms and a view. And the all-important inglenook fireplace. Well, Clare what do you think?

It’s beautiful, just beautiful. But it’s got to be well out of our range.

That’s just where you’re wrong. It’s on the market for offers starting at £400,000.

You’re joking.

I’m very serious, Barry. Mardle House has an interesting history, and that’s reflected in the price. It was home to Margaret Walsham, better known as Mother Maggie.

The cult leader?

Tasha: Needless to say, Clare and Barry didn’t buy Mardle House. As for the fella in the tricorn hat? Perhaps the BBC were just having a laugh. Afterall, that episode had been broadcast near Halloween. We’ll put the screenshots up. Geezer or ghost, he’s the spit of Robert Marshall.

Claudia: The BBC had so many complaints about featuring Mardle House, they had to apologise.

Tasha: Turned out, they’d promoted Margaret Walsham back in the 80s. A do-gooder on local news. She’d been reaching out to troubled teens, taking them into her home, and teaching them old crafts and skills.

Claudia: Margaret had such a way with the youngsters, they called her Mother Maggie. Locals thought highly of her. Hadn’t she got the kids off the streets? Hadn’t she turned lives around?

Tasha: We’ve got a clip from Norfolk news. But you might be surprised. Maggie was a no nonsense, warm, middle-aged woman. Everybody’s favourite aunt.

These days Mardle House is more like a boarding school than a lady’s mansion. And it’s all thanks to the owner, Margaret Walsham, or as these teenagers call her, Mother Maggie. Margaret, what possessed you to devote yourself to helping young people?

Well, far as I can see, it’s them that’s helping me. Given me a purpose, they have. And if I can make a difference in just one life, just one, that’s the greatest achievement of all. Course I get to pass down all my knowledge of the fens, too. And that were vanishing. But it won’t vanish now. Now don’t just stand about filming, give us a hand with these reeds.

Claudia: Maggie’s results were astonishing. Ruffian after ruffian went to stay at Mardle House. The local council even got involved. Soon, they were recommending her to the families of kids expelled from school. Mardle Mansion became the young offenders’ halfway house.

Tasha: Laura Jonson moved in Feb 87. Laura was a sixteen-year-old who’d been expelled from three schools and hadn’t a hope of an O Level. Not unless they were going to bring in O Levels in shop lifting and crashing your dad’s Volvo.

Claudia: Laura was surly, skinny, and sour. Mardle House was her last chance. Her parents had had enough. If she didn’t shape up, she’d have to ship out. Laura had an attitude and then some. She didn’t want any truck with reeds or peat. Maggie didn’t bother talking to her. She just gave her jobs. Sweeping at first. Then peeling veg.

Tasha: Laura sulked and sighed. There wasn’t even a telly. She hadn’t even been allowed to bring her Walkman. In the evenings, they all played board games like losers. It was worse than home.

Claudia: But something happened. Laura changed. Was it the chores? Was it the dinners? Was it the learning? Or was it the fens themselves? She wrote home to her sister, Sarah.

Dear Fartface,

It pains me to admit mum and dad were right about something (cos it’s never happened before), but Mardle’s okay. Mother Maggie isn’t such a battleaxe, after all. She proper scared me when I got here, but once you get to know her, she’s nice. An adult who actually cares! Shocker! How rare is that? That’s like finding a dodo or something.

It’s calm out here. No one shouts at you. I thought I’d go mad without a telly, but I like it. Even the monopoly has grown on me. Yeah, I was going to run away, but that’s basically a death wish. You’re not going to last long out on the fens at night. Glug, glug, glug. So, I had to stay put. Now I don’t want to leave.

It’s peaceful here. Maggie says that’s the fens soothing my soul. I thought that was a pile of poo, but it’s true. You breath them right in and they take all the bad stuff away. You should come.

Byyyyyye,

Your loving (not really) sister, Laura.

Tasha: Laura flourished. She swapped attitude for gratitude. Aimless brooding was replaced by busy contentment. She wrote home often – long rhapsodies about the fens. Laura was in love. True love. With the mist, with the marsh, with Mardle.

Claudia: Her parents were overjoyed. Their daughter was herself again. The troubled years were over. Her dad even thought about giving her driving lessons. She’d be home soon, wouldn’t she?

Tasha: The months went by. Spring wafted into Summer, but Laura wasn’t home. Her parents fretted. What if she wasn’t coming back?

Claudia: Laura’s sister, Sarah, had just finished her A Levels. She was a solid gold swot. Top in everything. Oxbridge bound. Okay, the sisters had had their clashes, but surely Sarah could get through to her. Mardle House wasn’t meant to be forever.

Tasha: Sarah packed her bags and got on the train. She was met at the station by Mother Maggie in her jeep.

Claudia: Sarah later described Maggie as hostile. She swore Maggie drove recklessly to scare her. Why else did Maggie tell her about all the poor folk who’d perished in the fens? Did she want Sarah to demand she turn around?

Tasha: Then she saw Mardle. Was this grim mansion really her sister’s salvation? Were those dank marshes really her Eden? She climbed out of the jeep clutching her bag. She wanted to leg it. But where could she go?

Claudia: I’d have stolen the jeep.

Tasha: And driven right into a watery grave.

Claudia: But then Laura ran out the door and pulled her into a hug. Who was this girl and what had they done with her sister? Pallid, skinny, and grumpy had bloomed into tanned, hearty, and cheery.

Tasha: Okay so the mansion was eerie and Maggie creepy. But look at Laura! And Sarah had a pressie for her – teen mags. But Laura’s face fell. What was Sarah thinking bringing this trash to Mardle?

Claudia: Laura binned the mags. Mardle had to be kept pure. Pure from the outside world, the modern world. Sarah was aghast. Laura sounded like a nutter. And there was a weird glow in her eyes.

Tasha: But then the bell rang for dinner. It was a real spread. No doubt, they feasted in the fens. Sarah was famished from the journey, so she tucked in. Things aren’t so sinister when you’re stuffing your face.

Claudia: It was proper hearty grub, too. Pies for days. And Maggie’s pastry was fantastic. Maybe she wasn’t so bad, after all.

Tasha: But soon as she woke the following morning, Sarah asked Maggie to take her to the station. She didn’t even say goodbye to her sister. She huddled in the jeep, pale-faced, as Maggie told her Laura wasn’t going anywhere. Laura was meant for Mardle. Her soul’s home was the fens.

Claudia: My soul’s home is the Cadbury factory.

Tasha: Sarah didn’t tell her parents what happened. But she did write in her diary.

How do I tell Mum and Dad they sent her to a cult? They blame themselves enough as it is. If they knew what’s really going on in Mardle.... Dad would go up there and try to drag Laura home, and he can’t, he can’t. They’d hurt him. I was being warned off. So, I’ll just have to let Mum and Dad think Laura’s staying on a couple more months.

But I have to write down everything that happened, so I don’t forget. It started with breathing in the fens. That’s their sunset ceremony when they all go out and breathe in that stinking air. Maggie was beating that tambourine with each breath. Then they sang that horrible song. Maggie said it’d been passed down her family. It sent chills down my spine. Then we played Monopoly, but everything felt wrong. They didn’t close the curtains. I thought there were lights out there. That ginger girl – Olivia – asked if I wanted to meet Maggie’s children. Her real children. The whole rotten lot of them were looking at each other like it was a hilarious secret.

They made me go upstairs. They made me go into that room. There was a lantern. One of those old-fashioned ones. It had a weird light inside it. Not like a flame. They were laughing at me. They said it was one of Maggie’s children. Jessica Matthews, that’s what they called it. Then that ginger girl opened the lantern and the light wobbled out. It just hovered. Then the girl opened the window, and it went out to the fens.

Tasha: What on earth was going on? Still, who knows what kind of trickery they had.

Claudia: The months went by. Summer cooled into Autumn. And still no Laura. She wasn’t even writing home anymore. Sarah couldn’t fool her parents forever. She fessed up. Her parents were horrified. And that was without hearing the tale of Maggie’s child, the strange light.

Tasha: Mr Jonson phoned Mardle House. A cheery voice answered. He had to speak to his daughter. Now. The receiver was passed to someone else. But it wasn’t Laura, it was Maggie.

Claudia: What did Mr Jonson mean he wanted to talk to his daughter? Wasn’t Laura with him? Wasn’t she home? She’d left Mardle weeks ago. Of course, Maggie was certain – she’d driven Laura to the station herself.

Tasha: The Jonsons were frantic. They called the police. PC Plod pootled over. But there wasn’t much the police could do. Laura was seventeen now. He took notes but made no promises.

Claudia: Mr Jonson wasn’t having that. The next morning, him and Sarah hit the road. Norfolk ahoy. It was a long drive from Bristol. Finally, they reached Lure police station.

Tasha: But the police were as much use as a chocolate teapot. Not this again. How many times did they have to tell people – Maragret Walsham was a pillar of the community. Of course, teens were going to move on from Mardle. The police were fed up with these blinking parents.

Claudia: Fed up? Had other teenagers gone missing?

Tasha: The policeman had had it. He wasn’t listening to anymore of this rot. He got enough of it from that Michael Matthews.

Claudia: Sarah ears pricked up. She told her dad about Maggie’s child, the strange light, Jessica Matthews. It was trickery. But what if a real Jessica Matthews had gone missing?

Tasha: They had to find that Michael Matthews. And they found him in the pub. The pub had become Michael’s natural habitat since his daughter had vanished, ten years previously. Folk had stopped listening to him. He never made any sense. Dark forces? Vanishing youths? He’d lost it.

Claudia: But Sarah and her dad listened. They went back to his. It was a total mess. There could’ve been lost cities under the mess. But Michael had heaps to say, so Sarah took notes.

Michael: Things ain’t right, but if you ask me, they ain’t never been right here. The village of Lure. Well, ain’t that the name for it – for she lures them in and then they don’t come back. Happened to my Jessica and now it’s happened to your girl, too. And her – Mother Maggie. Wicked as wicked, she is.

Dad: What do you think she did to our daughters?

Michael: You heard of Robert Walsham?

[Dad shakes his head.]

Michael: Thought not. You not being from these parts and all. Well, he was what we call a Fenland Tiger. Brutal, he was. It was back in the draining times. Course lots of folk didn’t want their way of life ruined, and who can blame them. But he murdered, and he hanged for it. He left a wife behind. Not much is said about her, but who does she remind you of?

[Michael passes a book to Dad. Dad shakes his head and hands it to me]

Me: She’s the spit of Mother Maggie.

Michael: She ain’t the spit. She’s her.

Dad: What on earth are you talking about?

Michael: That Robert Walsham – he reckoned he’d found the secret to eternal life. Know what that secret was?

[Dad gestures]

Michael: It was the fens themselves.

[Dad scoffs]

Me: They had a song. Something like – give yourself to the waters, give yourself to the peat, give yourself to the mist, and you will never grow old.

[Dad shakes head]

Michael: Don’t want to listen to me? Try Kevin Rocca. He’s looking into all this. He’s going to expose it all.

[Michael hands Dad a business card]

Claudia: Kevin Rocca was a half hour drive. He lived in a terrace house in the nearest big town. A wiry fella. He smoked and eyed them suspiciously. Then he let them in. Did they really want to be part of this? They had a choice to make. If they had any brains, they’d go home.

Tasha: It was their last chance to turn back, but they stayed. Michael put out his cigarette. He made them sit down.

Claudia: He gave them a list of names. Many names. Names of missing teenagers. Teenagers like Laura who trusted Margaret Walsham, who called her Mother Maggie, who moved into Mardle House. And had never moved out.

Tasha: Sarah’s blood chilled. So many names. So many young people. How could the police possibly ignore this?

Claudia: But then she saw the dates next to the names. Teens had vanished in the 1930s. Mother Maggie couldn’t be more than mid-fifties. Back then, she’d have been a child herself. Did she witness terrible acts that led her down a dark path?

Tasha: Sarah turned the page over. More names. More missing folk. In the 1870s, and the 1820s, then all the way back to the 17^th century.

Claudia: What on earth was going on? Was this a family of serial killers? Were they carrying on Robert Walsham’s legacy?

Tasha: But Kevin laughed. Robert didn’t need no help with his legacy. He had that covered. Hadn’t they heard about the sightings of him? He wasn’t a ghost. He wasn’t a spirit. He’d risen out of the marsh and throttled men to death.

Claudia: Kevin passed Sarah an open book. ‘The Haunted Fens’ by James Clopton.

You could call Mardle House the keeper of the fens, for no harm can come to these wetlands while it stands watch. Those who have arrived here with ill intentions have met Robert Walsham, the most fearsome of the Fenland Tigers, and they have had to answer to him. He has been their judge and executioner. But there are those that have escaped his swift and brutal justice. Simon Tyrell, for one.

In the Summer of 1787, Mardle House had been empty for decades, or so the villagers of Lure believed. The three Tyrell brothers, Simon, Oliver and Martin, had drifted up from Hampshire. Three brothers and yet not a single day of honest work between them, for they were footpads and thieves, and they thought Mardle House was theirs for the taking. They arrived as the sun was lowering in the July sky, but only Simon returned to the village. He staggered into the inn and cowered in a corner. He said a man had risen up out of the marshes. A great and terrible figure. A man in a tricorn hat. He’d seized Simon’s brothers and strangled them to death.

Claudia: Sarah closed the book. She didn’t believe that nonsense. The Walshams were a family of murderers. They’d killed throughout the centuries. They’d killed her sister.

Tasha: But Kevin shook his head. None of those people on the list had been murdered. In fact, none of them were dead.

Claudia: Mr Jonson was livid. What utter tosh! He stormed out with Sarah trailing behind. It was too late to drive home so they had an Indian takeaway and then found a local B&B.

Tasha: Sarah was done in. But sleep took a long time coming her way.

Claudia: Not a surprise considering her sister was either murdered and laying in a watery grave. Or ever living and hanging out with Mr Murderer himself, Robert Walsham. And what if this behatted bogey man was headed their way?

Tasha: Indeed. Sarah saw the witching hour. Then two o’clock. Then three AM. Finally, she closed her eyes, but no peaceful slumber claimed her. She dreamed.

Claudia: On waking, she grabbed her notepad.

I dreamed of the fens last night. I was at Mardle. I was in the drawing room at the window. I was alone there. I gazed at the marshes as the dusk reached over from the corners of the sky. Then I was outside in a starless night. The only light came from the fens. Will-o-the-wisps danced away from me. I took a step onto the fens. It was boggy underfoot, but I managed to pick my way along. I followed the wisps, but they kept dancing away from me. I had to follow them. I couldn’t turn back. Hands reached up from the peat and grabbed at me. So many hands. I struggled but I couldn’t escape. They pulled me down into the marshes.

Claudia: Suddenly, there was a knock on her door. It was her dad. She needed to hurry up and get dressed. They were leaving in five.

Tasha: Sarah protested. It didn’t feel right to go home, to give up on Laura so easily. If someone had hurt them, Laura would’ve dragged the villain into the police station herself.

Claudia: But her dad had no intention of giving up. They weren’t going home. They were going to Mardle.

Tasha: Sarah was bricking it, but she put on a brave face. She didn’t mention her dream. Her dad drove fast, his face severe. Then the fens appeared, unfolding to the horizon. The same fens she’d dreamed. Sarah clutched her bag. They were going to Mardle House, to Mother Maggie, to Robert Walsham.

Claudia: But someone had beaten them to it. They turned the corner and saw flashing blue lights. Five police cars were on the drive. And there was Mother Maggie, handcuffed, and being led down the steps, being shoved into the back of a car.

Tasha: This was BBC news that night.

To the vulnerable young people she rescued, Margaret Walsham was a second mother, perhaps an ideal mother? One who never spoke a cross word, who understood how they felt, and who had all the answers. But far from being a salvation, Mardle House had a cruel legacy that is only now coming to light. A legacy that the so-called Mother Maggie was continuing. She was arrested this morning on multiple charges of murder. The total number of her victims has yet to be confirmed. The local community is in shock. In the oncoming days many questions will need to be answered. How was Margaret Walsham able to get away with it for so long?

Claudia: Margaret was charged with the murders of eighty-three young people.

Tasha: She became the most hated woman in the country. She’d taken the lives of eighty-three young people. And she wouldn’t even do their loved ones the decency of revealing where their bodies were buried.

Claudia: In fact, she wouldn’t speak at all. But soon other details emerged. Things found at Mardle House. Centuries old prayer books. And Margaret’s own notebooks.

Tasha: She’d been running a cult. She’d brainwashed the teens. Then she’d killed them.

Claudia: But where were they? It wasn’t easy to hide eighty-three bodies. Or was it? Police started looking towards the fens. The bogs, the marshes, the waters. How many innocents did they hide?

Tasha: But still Margaret Walsham wouldn’t speak.

Claudia: The police had had it. They told her they would drain every inch of her beloved fens and they wouldn’t stop until they’d found every single body.

Tasha: That evening, a man was seen walking through Norwich. A man in a tricorn hat. He carried an empty lantern. Passersby said he was heading towards the prison.

Claudia: In the morning, Margaret was found dead in her cell.

Tasha: The police swore it wouldn’t stop them. Their team arrived at Mardle House.

Claudia: PC Osbourne was a steady fella. It took a lot to spook him. He stepped carefully on the fens. Something brushed his boot. He reached down and touched a hand. A warm hand. He jumped back as a young woman rose out of the marsh.

Tasha: She staggered towards him, gasping. She said she’d been lost out on the fens for years. That she’d drifted and drifted.

Claudia: Then a young lad climbed out of the waters.

Tasha: Kevin Rocca was right. The teens weren’t dead.

Claudia: None of the names on his list were dead. They climbed out of the marshes in their hundreds. Some had been in there for weeks, others for centuries. And all had the same story.

Tasha: All had been floating out on the fens.

Claudia: They talked and shivered. The police phoned for ambulances, for back up. Then they all fell silent. Out on the marshes was a grim figure. A man in a tricorn hat. He held a lantern with a glowing light. They watched as he slowly sank into the peat.

Tasha: Laura went home. At first, she was quiet and withdrawn. Family holidays followed. Sarah took a gap year to stay with her sister. She never let her out of her sight. And slowly, very slowly, Laura became herself again.

Claudia: Laura was one of the lucky ones. She’d only been in the fens for a couple of months. Others had been there for years, for decades, for centuries.

Tasha: Jessica Matthews had been a will-o-the-wisp for ten years while her body had lain in the peat. Now she was back home. But how strange to be in her body now. How curious to walk instead of float. The world was harsh and uncomfortable.

Claudia: This was her diary.

Dad tries his best, but he can’t help me. He forces himself to be all cheerful, but it just makes me feel guilty. I wish they’d left me in the fens. I was home and now I’m not, and I don’t know how to get back, except when I dream. But I always wake up. I wake up crying.

Claudia: Things didn’t get better for Jessica. Her homesickness grew. Then one evening, a man was seen walking through Lure. He had a tricorn hat and an empty lantern. He was spotted later, heading towards the fens. But this time, his lantern held a ghostly light.

Tasha: Jessica’s dad found her dead body. He knew she’d gone back to the fens. At dusk, he drove to Mardle House. There out on the marshes was a will-o-the-wisp, floating out to the horizon.

Claudia: The other members of Mardle House fared poorly. Those that had been in the marshes for centuries soon ailed. And every time, the man with the lantern was seen before they died.

Tasha: But Laura healed. She went to evening classes and got her O Levels. Then it was on to nursing college. And if sometimes, there was a pang in her heart she ignored it. And if she dreamed of mists and waterways, she woke and tried to forget.

Claudia: But she knew one day, the longing would become too great. And then a man in a tricorn hat would come for her. And carry her soul home.

First published in Luna Station Quarterly

A Flood on the Fens by Robert Farren

But I heard Ma on the phone when she didn’t know I was listening – that Cassie girl was pure star stuff. Maybe she’s where she was always meant to be? And I ran down the shore and I lobbed pebbles into where the waves had been. I cut those satellite photos out of the newspapers, the ones of the oceans all whale-shaped swimming through space and I kept them in an envelope with Cassie’s letters. And when I couldn’t sleep cos of the soreness in my chest, I held Ma’s magnifying glass to the photos. But I didn’t see Cassie’s Pa’s boat. You’ve got to pull yourself together, Ruby – Ma said. Stop wallowing. No one knew where the oceans were going. No point moving away cos the water would be back before we knew it. So, we stayed to pretend, though everything went quiet around us.

That quiet was the only ocean we had. And we were right at the bottom of it. All slow and weighted down by the miles of quiet going up and up. There were no birds or cars. There was only the whir of our water-maker. We drank stale cups and sometimes I tossed mine onto the beach just to see the sand darken. I was here – in the winds without salt. But Cassie? She was trailing her hands in Jupiter’s storms, she was sleeping with the stars in her hair, she was whistling wrensong to Ganymede.

Ten years of quiet crept by. I could count the words Ma spoke. I walked where the ocean had been and whispered the constellations. All the stars belonged to Cassie. Always had. Since we were little and she dreamed of riding Ursa Major, the bear, across the universe. She pawed at a nebula and ate it like honeycomb, she’d giggled. And we’d huddled under a blanket as the fire went to embers.

There were no new satellite photos. The oceans had swum past Pluto. It was all over the TV. Some folk reckoned they’d loop round, head back, be home by next Christmas. But they just swam out the solar system.

I stopped walking on the beach. I shook the waiting from me. Not that there was anything else to do. When I got home, there were men in our living room. Suited and booted. Ma hadn’t even offered them a cup of whir water. Her arms were folded.

“You come to move us on?” I asked.

“Why did you never leave?”

“Couldn’t.”

“We’re looking for someone who knows the ocean real well. Would that be you?” And it was. And I was off. Clutching my envelope with Cassie’s letters. I didn’t wave to Ma from the back of their car. I knew she wasn’t watching. I had hours of withered ways and rotted roads. What happened to the green? I asked. But they just looked at each other. I shut up after that.

I didn’t have any skills. Just a long time in one place. I was good at waiting when there was nothing else to do. Turns out that’s what they were looking for. You’ll be on your own up there – they said. I didn’t tell them I was on my own down here.

I was an ocean hunter. That’s what they called me in the interviews. I got letters but I didn’t read them. They stank of hope. What did folk think I was going to do? Harpoon the oceans and drag them back to Earth? TV nicknamed me Ruby Rocket cos I was going to be the fastest human there ever was.

I was glad to go. But I wasn’t glad to look down. They never showed us the satellite photos of what Earth had become, so I wasn’t ready for the grey. I still expected blue. And I didn’t wave. Though all the folk of Earth were waving up at me. I saw them on my screens. Not waving, but drowning.

Then Earth was gone.

They were wrong, I wasn’t on my own up here. Cassie was out there. And the oceans with their seals and shipwrecks. I read her letters. And when I looked up, Jupiter was on my shoulder. And I was close enough to see if there were krakens fighting in its red storm. Just like Cassie’s whispered stories. The winds of Saturn were golden. Pluto was dusk dipped. Then I left the solar system. Stars turned to clouds turned to blue.

Forever was night to its edges.

There were no years where I was going. I’d left them behind. Behind Sirius and Vega. Behind Neptune’s wings. And if there were years on Earth, I didn’t know how to count them. For I was in the always of unknown stars. And somewhere among them were the waves that had lulled me to sleep, was the tide that had carried me from shore.

I found the oceans swimming in a nebula’s towers. Five whales of salt water. Blue deep in orange. I followed the last whale through the star moss, and I saw icebergs on its tail and walruses basking. I flew between the whales. There was no dark in the water, only shining. Only blue. And then I was gliding round my ocean. Those were my waves. That was my tide. I landed by Cassie’s boat. And she was leaning over the side – her tangle hair – her tiger eyes. I didn’t ask her why she’d left me behind. I sat by her on the deck. We huddled under the blanket. It still smelled of home. And for a long time, I couldn’t talk. For so long, that she fell asleep on my shoulder. And I breathed quietly, so’s not to wake her as our ocean swam through the nebula and on to the distant stars.

First published in All Worlds Wayfarer

Photo of Lagoon Nebula from Hubble.

“Nope, doesn’t ring a bell,” Kate said. “Still at least you’re not Hermione like half the office.” She waved her wand at me. “It’s more like Witch Day than Book Day in here.”

“Dresdabella was a proper witch, though. Got burned for it and everything.”

“Well then, Witch Day it is.” Kate shuffled back to her cubicle. No doubt I had that look in my eye when I’m about to waffle till twilight. But Dresdabella’s worth waffling about. She was my Snow White, my Sleeping Beauty, my Rapunzel.

Her eyes were so bright and seeking, so soft and beckoning, no man could look upon them without falling recklessly in love.

So said Folktales of Withershire, and the illustration showed a haunting beauty framed by oaks. She had a red scarf in her hair. But in the next picture, that same scarf was tied over her eyes.

“They basically killed her cos they didn’t like their husbands fancying her,” I said to Kate. Yes, I’d followed her to her cubicle. That concentrating-on-spreadsheets forehead furrow wasn’t going to get her off the hook. “But she got them back. One by one, the men went to her. And each time, all that was left behind was a red scarf.”

“Sarah.” She raised her eyebrows.

“Ok.” I could take a hint. In the end. I shuffled to my desk. The reason for my costume was walking to the water cooler. James Tawney. Because of him, I’d eaten an apple at midnight, tied a red scarf in my hair, and called Dresdabella in the mirror. Of course, nothing had happened. Folktales of Withershire had lied to me.

Loveless maidens would invoke Dresdabella to lure their unrequited loves, and ‘thanks to Dresdabella’ was a saying commonly uttered on wedding anniversaries.

I took umbrage at ‘loveless maidens’, but I needed all the help I could get. James Tawney. Even his name was delicious. A Ferrero Rocher of a name.

“Sarah,” he said, walking over. “Didn’t you get the memo that it’s Hermione Day?”

“I’ll change if you do,” I replied.

“You look so…” His eyes locked on mine. He reached out and touched the red scarf in my hair. I tried not to shiver.

“I’m Dresdabella.” My heartbeat was all through me. And it sounded like horses, like hooves. “Who are you meant to be?” But he didn’t answer, he only looked. There was a stirring in the air. A feeling of echo and call. A chill of longing and sky. Everything hushed. His gaze was heavy on me, was velvet and winter. Was this Dresdabella? Was this how men had looked at her? The office had gone quiet. I felt everyone watching. Then a wolf whistle hit us like a dart. He shook his head and strode off.

“What was that?” Kate said, hurrying over. “You? And James Tawney? You?”

“You don’t have to sound so shocked.” I sank into my chair. But my hands were trembling. Had Dresdabella really answered me?

There have been sightings of Dresdabella down the years, a maiden of uncommon beauty, a red scarf in her hair, a laugh in her eyes. Signs precede her arrival: the darkening of the sky, a scarlet wind on the horizon. Stable your horses or they will run away and never return.

“Earth to Sarah,” Kate said. I jolted. “The meeting?”

I scrambled to my feet and followed her into the boardroom. James watched me as I sat down.

“What have you to done to him?” Kate whispered. But I couldn’t answer. I felt hoofbeats in the floor, in the table as I rested my hands on its cool surface.

“Can you feel that?” I spread my fingers, pressed my palms flat.

“What?” Kate ran her hands on the table.

“Nothing.” I looked up and there was James looking back. The hoofbeats thrummed. And I whirled. I ached. Was this really happening? I’d been after him for years, and by after him, I mean pining from afar, dreaming from even more afar. And now… I should’ve known Dresdabella wouldn’t let me down. All those hours in her story, drawing my own pictures of her. I even wrote to Disney asking for her own film. And now? He was standing, he was moving towards me, he was reaching for me. But there was something in the sky behind him. Something flickered between the clouds.

He stood statue still. The sky was thickening outside, high over the river and the roads. It opened at its edges like a chasm. Dark came and more dark. Pouring over the blue and the white. And then there was a red movement in the faraway, like a tail or a wind. Or a scarf. A strange ripple in the darkness above the city – the sky was under horses, under hooves, beaten and trampled and thunderous.

“What’s happening?” I turned to Kate, but she was frozen. I scrambled to my feet, looked about me, but everybody was unseeing, unmoving. The hoofbeats thundered, shook the walls. The red wind curled above the rooftops, flowed over the river. The red wind filled the windows. And she came. She was in the room. I shrank in my chair. She looked at me with laughter in her eyes.

Dresdabella. Her hair billowed about her. Her red scarf whipped. He turned to her. He only saw her. And then he was in her arms, in her embrace. The red scarf wrapped him. His lips were on hers.

And then they were gone.

“If you don’t behave, Morushka will rise up from the snows, junder down the slopes, whack down the wall with his two tails and gobble you in one bite,” Granny had always said as she’d tucked me into bed. I’d breathed in her smell of bloom cake and kite wax and I’d watched the smoke from my dying candle in the light of the five moons.

“Can you see him?” I’d whispered as Granny reached for my curtain.

“He’s still just a shadow. Jinna will keep you safe.” And she’d placed my ragdoll in my arms.

And I’d hugged Jinna when I’d stood on the edge of the mountain, on the precipice above the fogs, the winds pinching my nose and tugging the tangles in my white hair. I’d hugged her while Granny rode the winds on her blue kite.

“How’s my old kite faring?” Granny asked as I tipped my apron up. Flowers fell onto the table.

“Still the fastest in the sky,” I nodded. “Faster than an oopty hawk that ate a blowing cloud.”

“Well I don’t know that such a bird would be fast. Seems to me he’d be more likely to have the sorest belly on the mountain, and we’d hear it grumbling all though the night – echoing under the five moons and down the labbin warrens - and on into tomorrow, too,” she said, setting the blooms in piles. “You’d better get to work, or we’ll have no supper.” She winked and lowered herself onto her stool, her face in a half smile that felt like a morning alone in the skies. And I crushed the blooms until they wept colours.

I lay in my bed in a stillness like drifting, my belly full of bloom cake, my blankets heavy as sleep. The mountains sung under the five moons and the night was in my room, carrying me. I was almost dreaming when there were three taps at my window. I shuffled from my blankets. The taps came again. I pulled back my curtains. Morushka stood in the shine of the sickle moons. Winds lit his fur. His breath was white puffs. His two tails tapped on the glass.

“But, you’re just a shadow,” I said. And I pressed my palms to the pane, stared into his eyes as great and dark as slumbering coals. And I felt shivery and falling all at once. “You were just Granny’s story.” I looked past him, all the way past our village, past the church with the bending steeple at its edge, to the snows all white and sharp as his fangs. And then he yawned. “Did you nibble the moons into sickles?” I whispered. I thought I saw him nod, and I wanted to bury into his fur and sleep there until it was time to ride the sky. I ran from my room, past Granny’s closed door that trembled with her snores, past the stove that still eeked bread warmth. I crept outside and the coldness curled into my white hair as I ran around the side of our home. But Morushka wasn’t there. And all I found, was a purple lily.

“Last night, I dreamed Morushka came to me,” I said. Granny crumbled the last slice of bloom cake into the porridge and added a shake of nutmeg. Morning filled our windows. The sickle moons were fading to blue.

“Morushka – there’s a name I haven’t heard since I rode the winds,” she said, lowering herself onto her stool.

“It was a dream, wasn’t it”’ I scooped the porridge into our chipped china bowls.

“Look up the mountain, can you see him now?” And I looked and past the church with the bending steeple, all I saw was snow.

“But he was so real – the blowing winds were in his fur. And there was a purple lily under my window.” I darted to my room and lifted the flower from my pillow. “Here.” She leaned forward, took a loud sniff.

I thought the lily would fade, but it gleamed more than the rivers that move in the far-off skies. And sometimes Granny looked at it strangely. We didn’t talk about Morushka, but sometimes, when the night clung close and each breath was dark, I opened my curtains and watched for a shadow thick with fur.

And long after Granny had gone, the lily still shone. And I grew older still. And I sat by the window and watched my daughter riding the winds on the blue kite. And I watched her crush the flowers she’d plucked. And we ate bloom cake in the dusks when the only sound was the music of the deep fogs, and even softer – a grumbling like a creature with ten fangs hungry for the moon.

“I saw Morushka,” Sally said. “He left me a purple lily.” And she held it out to me, but I shook my head.

“He’s just a story,” I said.

But later, when the sickle moons hung on the edges of the sky, I heard the squeak of floorboards. I wrapped my blanket tightly about me, and I ran. And I saw him, all fur and shadow and fangs, his two tails whipping the dark, his feet swift as he ran up the mountain, faster than winds, my daughter sitting on his shoulders, her hair flinging white.

‘A long time ago, now. Before the ice grew meadows and mountains and river falls, before the lumta herds took to the plains, their song echoing halfway around the sun and then back again,’ she said as she combed the tangles out of my hair.

‘What was it like?’ I asked as the icy blossoms of the nishla trees floated past the window of our small hut.

‘We didn’t know it would work. We just had to hope and try,’ she said. Her comb caught in one of my long curls. ‘This mop of yours is so tangled, even the knots have knots. Have you been running through the Icknam woods, again?’ I felt her gaze like pin pricks. Outside, ice-grasses swayed, lit from below by the sun.

‘Course not,’ I said. But she grabbed my hand, lifted it up, and studied my fingernails.

‘Then why are your nails stained purple?’ I wriggled my hand away from her.

‘So what? Why can’t I go to the woods?’ I said, my voice brittle. ‘You just want me to stay here with you all the time, spinning yarn from the kep reeds. You only let me go out to gather them from the river falls.’ I stood up and turned to face her.

‘I forbid you,’ she snapped, and she dropped the comb. And I ran outside into the nishla blossoms and let them cool my face. And the sun shone upwards through our silver world turning the edges of the blossoms and grasses golden.

I didn’t go to the woods. But I dreamed. And in those dreams, the leaves of the oolm trees crunched under my bare feet and my hands trailed in the purple ferns, and I woke with my fingers stained. And sometimes, I woke with the songs of the sun birds beating through me like a strange heart. And I felt the woods pulling me like a kep reed is pulled by the river falls.

‘We didn’t know, of course. We didn’t know,’ Granny said as she spun the reeds into yarn.

‘Are you talking about the sun birds again?’ I said as I set a pile of the reeds by her chair. She just gave me a look.

‘Just stay away from…’ she began, but I didn’t let her finish because of the melody glittering in my ears. I was afraid she might hear it, so I ran outside into the bitter sparkle of the winds.

‘The sun birds called them all down into the sun, all of my friends,’ she said as she combed my hair. ‘We trapped them, you see.’ But I could hardly hear her because of the song burning through me. ‘There are burrows and they lead...’ She meant to warn me, but my heart only beat faster. And when she was back at her spinning wheel and the creaking filled our hut, I ran to the woods. I didn’t know if the song of the sun birds was in the oolm trees and the ferns or just in me, but it carried me deeper into the woods to where golden light flared up the trunks of the towering lilies and the burrows glinted like cruel coins.

Photo by me.

Art by Natacha Chohra.

There is a king below the ground. He wears a tarnished crown. His robes are velvet and earth. If you pass a crevice, look down. That flash is his pickaxe. That spark is him striking the rock. That glint is diamonds falling. He toils for the granite men. He toils without end. No one has wept for him, not his kingdom, nor his wife. Once she cried until his coffers were full, until rubies poured from his turrets, until his moat was sapphires. How he smiled to see her tears. How he caught them in his hands. For each one was a jewel.

Now, walk three days until you reach a village in the crook of a river, and idle by the meanest home. More hut than cottage. Walls, more tumble than brick. Roof, more cobwebs than thatch. Step inside, breath the gloom. You may find a ruby stuck to your shoe. The poor folk who lived here craved treasure. Not the treasure of chests and maps. Nor the treasure of crowns and castles. They longed for the treasure of gurglings and chortles. A child. But none came. Days bended grey into nights. Silence held them. Tears lodged inside them. And so they prayed. They prayed to the bright folk who heave the stars, and the dark folk who dine on shadows. They wished upon the wind hogs that breeze over the river, and the snartlkif that lurks in the water weeds, fangs ready for dinner. They sang to the ghosts of silver mammoths and the spirits of fire bats. They even lit a candle to the granite men.

A child came. They named her Daisy. For she made a meadow of their days. When there were only scraps on their table, they feasted on her giggling. When there was ice on their windows, they basked in her babbling. The mother whispered thanks to the bright folk and the dark, the wind hogs and the snartlkif, the silver mammoths and the fire bats. And the father lit a candle to the granite men.

One day, Daisy pricked her thumb on a thistle. She cried. But in place of tears, jewels sprang from her eyes. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds. The mother scooped them in her apron.

“Are we rich folk now?” she said as she tipped them onto their table.

“Thieving! You’ll bring trouble to our door,” the father said.

“Daisy wept them. They’re her tears.”

They left their hut, their tumble walls, their cobweb thatch. The mother carried Daisy across the village. The father carried the jewels. Their new home smelled of cloves and comfort. They lived among folk who didn’t scrape, didn’t hunger, didn’t fret. The mother threw away Daisy’s dresses that were more holes than wool. She brushed her hair and clothed her in silk until she made a sunrise of her. But soon, there were no jewels left.

“I won’t go back to that wretched hut. It’s only fit for blind spiders,” the mother said. And she hugged Daisy tighter in the fire glow and silk shine and clove scent.

“Well, as I can see it, we don’t have much choice. We’ve spent our last diamond,” the father said. “Unless Daisy cries us another.”

“I won’t have her afeared.” The mother stroked Daisy’s golden hair.

“Will you have her poor?”

The mother paced the thin hours. Hours thin as the gruel she once ladelled into bowls. Hours thin as the blanket she once huddled beneath. Daisy was her treasure, her meadow, her sunrise. A pain bloomed in her heart.

“She need only cry once. Once would be plenty,” she said to the oak shadows.

In the morning, Daisy toddled in the fields. The bluebells and winds teased her. The sky was fast with swallows. The day was as warm as a butterbear’s belly, but the mother felt as chill as a silver mammoth’s sleep.

“Just once,” she said to the sparrows. And she pushed Daisy, made her fall, made her bruise. Daisy wept rubies and sapphires and emeralds and diamonds. The mother scooped them into a velvet purse.

“It’s done.” She dropped the purse by the father’s boots. “Now she need never weep.”

But the jewels were spent. And ‘never’ became ‘again’ became ‘often’ became ‘always’.

***

Walk East until the Dog Star blinks ten times, and on the horizon, you’ll spy a house grand as a sea goddess’s palace. Count the windows. The twenty third was Daisy’s. She sat here, her window flung open to rain, and she shared her scraps with the starlings. For that’s what her mother and father fed her: scraps. They forgot she was their treasure, their meadow, their sunrise. She became their bank, their coffers, their jewel mine. Cruel words they spoke to her. Words of thistles and bruises. Words that pricked her eyes and made the jewels fall. And they made a hoar frost of their home.

Daisy grew up, her only friends starlings and jays, moonlight and wisps. She was a secret, a soft footstep, a swift shadow. And if a guest glimpsed her, the mother and father would tell them a tale. The golden ghost, they called her.

“Such a sorrowful story,” the mother said, sipping from a silver goblet. “As bonny a girl as any you’d see. Hair like buttercups, skin pink as a bitten apple. But there was no joy in her. None. And she cried so much, she cried herself to nothing.” And she glanced towards the curtain where Daisy hid. There were sapphires on the floorboards.

Daisy’s belly always grumbled. Her heart was always sore. She sat by her window, moonshine puddling on her shining hair. There was a tap on the glass.

“Drackle!” She opened the window. A magpie hopped inside, his beak stuffed with copper leaves and hedgehog quills. He sat them at her feet and perched on her lap. She stroked his head. “A fair exchange,” she said, unwrapping her handkerchief. He pecked at the pie crust. “Now we’ve dealt with trade, tell me of the woods, or the winds shaking the oaks, or the leaves bursting in a swirl,” she said. “It’s a dance, and I’m straining for the music, the piping soft as rain. Can you hear it, Drackle?” He tilted his head. “Help me sew. Then I shall know it for myself. I will wear leaves in my hair and join the winds’ dance and sing with the piper.” She unwrapped a garment. A green velvet cloak smelling of wine and cruelty. “It was my mother’s. But she has so many, she won’t notice. And she wouldn’t know it now. See!” She held it up. On the other side, were quills, feathers, bracken, and leaves. “I will wear this and be hidden. And folk who do see me, shall think me a hedgemaiden and leave me snail shells.” She threaded a needle and began to sew the copper leaves on to the cape. “I will never come back here.” A ruby fell from her eye. “Take it, Drackle.” She handed him the jewel.

He flew back to the woods, the gem glinting in his beak, but a savage wind tumbled him. He dropped the ruby. Down it fell, bumping against an oak trunk and landing in a heap of lichen. A sound rang through the woods, like a gasp if a gasp was rock. A granite man pulled the jewel from his lichen beard. He knew this ruby. He turned it in his grey fingers. He had watched it grow in the far down of the earth, where the rock meets forever, where the dark becomes jewels. Drackle landed between bending oaks and ferreted in the leaf mulch for his gem. There was a sound like laughter if laughter was lava cooling to stone. He looked up, saw his ruby in the grey grip, flapped his way into the high bare branches, and watched the granite man’s slow tread through the forest.

And so, Daisy sewed by star blink and moon smudge, her magpie all chatter and nudge. Each leaf an escape. Each quill a path. Each stitch a horizon. Her fingers ached but her heart uncurled. She fell asleep with Drackle in her arms. By day, the mother and father taunted gems from her, collecting them in teacups and buckets. Until, one night, Daisy threaded the last quill onto the cloak.

“It’s finished, Drackle,” she said. She wrapped the cloak around her shoulders. It smelled of peat and hiding places. “At dawn, they will find me gone. Do they know how they’ve hurt me, or do they only count my pain in jewels?” She cried sixteen diamonds, one for each of her years. “I won’t weep for them again.” She put her tears in her purse and tucked it under her cloak.

She whisper-stepped through the corridors, the archways, the spiralling towers. She stole a pie from the pantry. Drackle was a swift shape in the shadows. She followed him out into the winds. And then they were fast in fields and frost and fog.

“Can you see the horizon, Drackle?” Daisy whispered. He settled on her shoulder as the woods flung up around them. She pushed her hood down to let the winds into her hair. She breathed the night. The scent of lichen and rock. The sound of a granite head turning to watch. On she walked. She never heard her mother’s shock. She didn’t feel her father’s rage. She didn’t see their carriage race.

“Faster,” the mother spat as the horses rattled through the day. By dusk, they reached the King’s castle. The sun bowed below the turrets.

“His Highness owes us. If he doesn’t help us, we’ll demand our diamonds back. And how will he pay for his knights then? Or his ships? Or his wars?” the father said. They waited among the torch light and courtier whispers for the sound of the King’s footsteps. The mother dropped into a curtsy. The King was handsomeness made cruel.

“Your Highness, our daughter has gone. She is all to us. We beg you to send your men to find her and bring her back to us,” she said.

“Daughter? Why have you hidden her all these years?”

“She is a tender girl, too timid for the world of men,” she said.

“And yet, you have lost her.” The King gestured for her to rise.

“We need your help. And if we don’t get her back, that’s it, we won’t have any more jewels for ourselves, let alone for you,” the father said.

“And why’s that?” the King said.

“My husband just means that Daisy is our treasure, your Highness.”

So, the King sent his men to the forests.

“The jewels came from their daughter,” he muttered to himself. “But how? And why has she fled?” And he paced hours guessing and waiting. But his men couldn’t find Daisy. They were seeking a girl of silk and gleam, not a maid of quill and bracken. They rode past her.

She walked on. The pie was soon gone. Her belly was louder than crows. Her hands were numb. Dusk caught in the oaks. Sunset snipped the clouds. Snow fell. She curled in a hollow and tried not to ache. Drackle nested under her cloak. She closed her eyes. She didn’t hear the footsteps.

“Well, hedge maid, you can’t go sleeping out in this snow, not if you want to wake up with all your toes,” said a voice like firewood. She opened her eyes. An old lady leaned on a cane. “Come with me or you’ll be ice before midnight.” Daisy scrambled to her feet. Drackle hopped out from under her cloak. The old lady nodded. “I’m Bessy.”

“Daisy, and this is Drackle.” They walked, heart deep in silence and snowfall. A hut leaned between the bare trees. Bessy led her into the smell of carrots baked sweet and crackling twigs.

“Hungry?” Bessy asked as she scooped carrot soup into a bowl. Daisy could only nod. She slurped one warm bowl and a second and a third. Bessy laughed. “You can sleep in the chair by the fire.” And Daisy did. Embers cosied into her dreams. She woke before dawn. Bessy had left her a chunk of bread on the table. She nibbled it in the blue gloom, sharing crusts with Drackle.

“I must give her something. No one has ever been kind to me before,” she said. Drackle flapped his wings. “No one but you.” She opened her purse and took out a diamond. Then she crept out into the snow. She didn’t see the granite figure by the wall, didn’t see stone eyes blink, didn’t hear a sound like a murmur if a murmur was marble. Then she was gone.

The granite man peered in the window. He knew that diamond. He had heard it form in the low places of the earth, where the stone leans into always, where the silence turns to gems. He watched Bessy gasp, grip the jewel, clutch it close. Then he moved through the bare oaks. Snow settled in the crags of his face. Frost lit his lichen beard. He walked into the barrows. The earth closed behind him. Darkness held him, coaxed him, led him. Into the deep places, he walked. Other voices met him, other shapes, other breath. Perhaps you have heard these voices, too? When the wood thickens, hold still. Listen below the roots. The granite men don’t speak of their missing jewels now. But they did when Daisy walked the woods. Their gems were vanishing. They blinked from the rocks. They had been disappearing since the day she pricked her thumb on a thistle, since she first wept. The granite man spoke of the hedgemaid and her diamond. And the granite men walked from the barrows. To listen. To watch. To follow.

Daisy went on through the woods. Poor folk shared their fires and their pies, their shelter and their laughter. She left them diamonds. And whispers of her blew through the woods, the villages, the fields, all the way to the castle.

“Where did a hedgemaid find diamonds?” the king said. And he thought of his coffers, his ships, his wars. “She’s their daughter. They want her for her jewels. They must have been cruel.” He saddled his horse and rode out with his men.

“I feel eyes following me, Drackle,” Daisy said as they took a path between birches. Snow clogged the quills on her cape. Her breath was puffs. “But when I turn, there’s no one there. Is it my fancy?” Drackle cawed and circled. Daisy looked round: snow sparked and trees hushed. The woods smelled of badgers and stone. “Mine are the only shoe prints.” She wrapped her cloak tighter. “Come, Drackle.” She took swift steps. The wind was still, but she heard branches bending. She felt the ground trembling. There was a sound like laughter if laughter was a white cliff crumbling. She froze. Drackle was in her arms. And then she was turning around. A man of stone was following her. His gaze met hers. She clutched Drackle harder. Stone men trekked from the deeps, branches snapping, trees bending. She ran. She couldn’t feel her feet. Her breath was gasps and cries. She heard them faster behind her. She stumbled. Suddenly, a horse was in front of her and a man was reaching for her. Hands pulled her onto the horse. She held on. He rode and rode. She felt Drackle on her cloak. She didn’t look back.

“Where are we?” she asked as woods became fields became towers.

“My home, Hedgemaid. Don’t you recognise me?” He halted the horse in front of the castle. She jumped down. “Don’t flee. You’re safe here. You may stay as long as you wish. Forever, if you choose.” He held out his hand. “Or just for dinner.” She glanced towards the wood, felt the tremor of stone steps following, and took his hand.

“I demand a place at the table for my magpie,” she smiled.

“He shall be guest of honour,” the king said.

Daisy took off her cloak. The hall was tapestry and torch light, spice and syrup. She dined until her belly ached from eating, talked until her jaw hurt from laughing. Drackle perched at the Head of the Table and pecked at a silver goblet. The king told tales of banners and beasts. She slept in a round room, soft with velvet, Drackle nesting on her pillow.

A clamour of words woke her. Words shouting in a hall. Words echoing up the tower. Her mother’s words. Then a knock on her door.

“Your mother and father are here, Hedgemaid. One word from you, and I shall send them away,” the king said. He stepped into her room. “Be my Queen.”

“You want us to wed?” She was already wrapped in her cloak.

“There’s never been a hedgemaid queen before. Will you be the first?” He reached out his hands to her. “Or will you go back with your mother and father?”

So they wed, though Daisy wore her quill cloak, though Drackle perched on her shoulder. The vows were strange shapes in her mouth. The torchlight flared like stinging flags. Courtiers watched all murmur and gawp. Music sharp and sweet held her as they danced.

“How do you make your jewels, Hedgemaid?” the King said into her ear.

“I never made them,” she said as she danced.

“Tell me, or do I have to find out for myself?” And he took her in his arms. His face was handsomeness made with spite and winter.

“The jewels are my tears,” she said.

“Cry for me.”

“I cannot.”

“Then I shall make you.” And he took her from the hall, dragged her to his chambers, slammed Drackle out of the room. All night, through hours long with Daisy’s cries, with the King laughing as he scooped handfuls of diamonds, Drackle scratched at the door. At dawn, the King let him in. The chambers were kneel deep in jewels.

The king paid his debts. Towers crammed with gems. Diamonds dripped from the turrets. Sapphires overflowed the moat. Rubies scattered over the fields. Emeralds tucked into horses hooves and were trod into far off roads. Roads that dwindled into paths. Paths that shrank to trails in the trees. Trees the granite men wandered between. And so they found and followed their jewels.

Daisy sat on her throne beside the king. There were rubies on her cheeks. Drackle perched on her shoulder. The castle smelled of sapphires and hurt.

“Hold your head up. Try to look like a queen,” he said. She brushed the jewels from her face, scattering them across the hall. There was a trumpet and then a voice bellowing her parents’ names. She jolted. And then they were before her.

“Your Highness,” her mother said, curtseying low to the king. “As you know, you have our only child by your side. All we ask if that she be returned to us for one day a fortnight. One day when we can treasure her.”

“Your daughter is my queen now. She has duties here.”

“We miss her,” the father said.

“You miss her jewels. I tire of this. You may collect as many jewels from her as you can before the clock strikes midnight.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” And her parents moved towards her. Drackle cawed at them. He lunged for the mother’s hands.

“It is time that bird was dealt with,” the king said. He gestured to a guard. Daisy gripped Drackle and ducked out of her mother’s reach.

“Leave him alone,” she said. Suddenly, hands locked her arms, took Drackle from her. “Let him go,” she screamed at the guards. She tried to shake free. The air wheeled. The ground began to tremor, began to shiver, began to shake. And she smelled granite and lichen. “The grey men.” Stone steps thudded through the corridors. A crack etched up to the ceiling.

“Who goes there?” the King shouted. A window shattered. And then the granite men were in the hall. A grey hand pointed at Daisy. She felt the day twisting. Her breath was sharp in her throat. “Who are you?” the King said. Granite heads turned. Granite eyes fixed him. He quaked.

“We come for our jewels,” they said in one voice. One voice that scratched the walls. Daisy felt caught and falling.

“The only jewels here are mine.”

“We come for our jewels,” they said. A granite man stepped forward. The king cowered behind his throne. The granite man snatched the throne and dashed it aside.

“She has them,” the king pointed at Daisy.

“Don’t,” Daisy gasped.

“I didn’t know they were yours. She cries them. They’re her tears.” The granite men turned to look at Daisy. “Tell them,” he urged her parents.

“She’s been weeping jewels since she was a tot,” her mother said. “It’s her, not us. We didn’t know. It’s always been her.”

“Show them,” the king commanded his guard. He let go of Daisy for a moment. Then he lifted a gloved hand and hit her across her face. Diamonds sprang from her eyes, clattering on the floor. A granite man knelt and lifted a jewel. “See. It’s her. Take her. She’s yours.” Daisy felt stone eyes grazing her. Her heartbeat hurt.

“She cries the jewels,” the granite man said. “She shall cry no more.” Suddenly, the granite men were moving, were seizing the king and her mother and father, lifting them, and carrying them out and out. And then down and down, into the earth, into the dark. They still toil below the ground.

And there were no more tears in the kingdom. Not while Queen Daisy ruled, her magpies on her shoulders, her cloak of quills and bracken. She ruled for many years. Years mellow as bluebells shaking. Years soft as a dove’s belly. She grew old and loved. There was always a smile in her voice, always a greeting in her hands, and always a crust for a bird. Until the day they found her in the deepest sleep of all, the sleep without dreaming, without waking. And tears returned to the kingdom. The folk followed her coffin, their heads bowed and their hearts low. But the magpies led the procession, and they guard her grave now.

First published in Wyldblood Magazine.

A Lost History of Cheese by Wilfred B Dumble

Introduction

Dear Cheese Connoisseur,

Or should I say, welcome pilgrim of forgotten majesty, though you’re sitting deep in your armchair, winter dark at your window, contentment on your brow. How I recognise that contentment. You have partaken in a supper of Welsh rarebit, a tad heavy on the mustard, and now sleep is settling in your toes. Slumber is your next destination. But postpone your departure, linger here. Or should I say, don your wellington boots and join me for a jaunt, our first stop the simple Ploughman’s lunch. Pay no heed to the wind, spurn the sleet, a hunk of roughly milled bread, three limp lettuce leaves, a goodly portion of Branston pickle, and a corner of sharp cheddar await. Cheddar is our first point on our pilgrims’ way. Come with me and learn the heritage of the humble, for it is glorious indeed.

Cheddar

Are you a midnight visitor of the pantry, or a loiterer of the cheese board? Tread carefully for you walk the way of Pariana. And if you dizzy yourself in dreams of cheese, do not be surprised if a maiden pale of face and copper of hair meets you in your slumbers. Pariana, gifted with beauty and gluttony, was wed for the former, banished for the latter. And if you suffer cheese-less visions, perhaps she has already traversed the hills and valleys of your corner of the land of nod. I confess to this sleeping fate, and believe she patrols all perimeters, a faithful wheel of cheese rolling by her side. One hopes the pathways there are softer on her soul and her soles than the unkind roads of her old kingdom. For in Nanmullet, the winds hunted jagged, the seasons bloomed thorns, and the birds chorused taunts. And so, the rocks wearied of the world and sealed shut the earth, and no metal could be wrenched from its grasp, not for shield nor sword, and gentleness forced itself into the realm. Disputes were fought with cheese. Wars were won with cheddar.

Have you an acquaintance with hills? Have you met valleys and bimbled beside them, the winds bright with Spring, the clouds awisp above? And yet the hills of here are meagre. In Nanmullet, the hills rolled so high they forgot to stop at the sky. The clouds slumbered as flocks on the slopes and were chased by club-wielding cloud herds back into the blue. Here was the king’s castle, though perhaps it would be better named a jumble for, thanks to the mean earth, they had neither axe nor chisel, and so the stones fitted together in lumps and bumps. And with neither precious metals nor precious stones, the king wore no crown. Yet, he had one jewel: cheddar.

King Althdeld had been humble of home, yet great of gift, his mother a milk maid, and his father unknown. No one who saw him in his raggamuffin youth would’ve glimpsed glimmers of grandeur. Yet, he had a genius for cheese. And all who tasted his cheddar urged him to challenge, to seize, to rule. He was little more than a lad when he rolled a wheel of cheddar through the valleys and windings of Nanmullet, all the way over the hills, all the way to the king’s castle. Into that hall he strode, and with one shove, his wheel of cheddar rolled to the old king. A challenge. A challenge he won. For none could deny the majesty of his cheese. And so the old king, King Yaffle, was robbed of robe and throne. Yet, Yaffle minded not when he was shooed from the castle and a cloud herd’s club placed in his hand. For he had no fondness for wisdom, and his only talent was fury. Merry is the man whose foe is the clouds. Yaffle raged a legendary rage. A rage that sent the clouds scooting into the skies. Whisper the name Yaffle to a cloud and it’ll skedaddle with such swiftness you’ll wonder who greased the wind. Even Death himself cheered to see the lost king shake his club. Death cheered so much he never took him into his dim lands but left him to the hills. And Yaffle rages there still.

King Althdeld had two sons: Geln and Parnell. Each inherited half his genius. But half genius is no genius. So who should he name heir? The brothers decided on a dual. Geln rolled his wheel of cheese to the top of a hill, and Parnell took his up the opposite slope. They faced each other, a drummer drummed thrice, then they let their cheeses roll. There was a crash of cheddar. The cheese wars had begun.

The wars were many, the cheese wheels numerous, and the feasts unceasing. Each battle ended in dinner. Each coronation culminated in cheddar. The years rolled fast down the hills of Nanmullet all the way to the two hundredth cheese war. A war between two houses, two castles, and two kings: Lelth and Farrow. Here we glimpse Pariana as a maiden fair of face and sweet of smile. Next, we see her as a bride promised a queendom. Now we hear the bards singing of her copper hair. Her hair the colour of memories of withheld treasures glinting in the spiteful earth. King Lelth loved her more than the rolling hills, the hills that would be hers for no king had ever had such weaponry as him. Cheese wheels by the thousands. They would roll and he would rule.

Too bewitched was Lelth by Pariana’s lapis eyes, eyes the colour of underworld treasure, to notice the torment in her gaze, in her step, in her shadow, in her whisper. How her soul hungered for cheese. A terrible hunger. A hunger that woke her in the silver hours of the night, bundled her in her cloak, linked its arm in hers, and led to the armoury. There thousands of cheese wheels awaited the dawn. But none met it. For before the sun rose, Pariana gobbled each one.

Battle lost, princess banished, Lelth lamented his hair white. White as the walls of his empty armoury. White as the flag he flew from his knobbly towers. White as the silence that held his days. For he walked alone, but for his constant companions: defeat and humiliation. Oh, they never let him be, only in sleep did he sidestep them, and then he dreamed of cheese. One wheel. One cheddar. Tall as the Nanmullet hills. Fast as the Nanmullet winds. How it would flatten Farrow’s castle. And so he left his sorry halls and sought men of vision and pride. He found them in all corners of loneliness and sorrow. Misfits, each one, but they dreamed the same dream, and they dreamed that dream till twas too big and unruly to remain in the land of Nod.

Then there it was: the big cheese. One wheel to roll over the world. Lelth had many men with many hands, but they couldn’t heave the cheese. Yet, the Nanmullet winds recognised the wheel as a kindred of chaos, and so lent their breath. Up the slopes the wheel went, to the top, and there it wobbled and poised. Then it rolled. Even the sun gawped, even the earth wailed. The great cheese barrelled across the valleys and windings of Namullet, all the way to Farrow’s castle. But the bouldering had begun a softness in the cheddar, so it scooped up the castle and took it rolling until it ran out of world and dropped into the void. And still it goes. I believe the cheese was last seen rolling past the shoulder of Orion.

Art by Floris Claesz van Dijck

Tasha: Hello, and welcome to episode 4 of The Perplex Files with me, Tasha Brindle.

Claudia: And me, Claudia Larkin.

Tasha: Come on in and take a seat. And bolt the door behind you. The moon is full tonight. Can you hear the howling? The wolves are running.

Claudia: That’s actually next door’s tabby caterwauling. My neighbour could be a were-tabby. I’m a tad suspicious. I’ve never seen him and this cat at the same time in the same place. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him for months.

Tasha: That doesn’t mean he’s a were-cat. Maybe he just keeled over one day and the cat ate him?

Claudia: To be fair, that’s one corpulent cat. You don’t get that fat without eating at least one of your owners. Maybe an entire family? Beware obese moggies. They’re far scarier than werewolves.

Tasha: Easy enough for you to say. You weren’t living in Ravenpeat village in the 1980s. Ravenpeat was mainly sheep. Sheep as far as the eye could see. It was sheep paradise until ‘83. Then it was sheep carnage. A whole flock was devoured in one night. It even made BBC local news.

Just three days ago, these fields were a perfect Spring scene: the skies were blue, the winds were mild, and the lambs were gambolling. Now they’re empty. The entire flock of sheep was killed over night. The grass is still stained with their blood. What creatures could have caused such carnage? Some of the villagers are blaming wild dogs. Others talk of rumours of a great black cat, like a jaguar. Perhaps a big cat escaped from a zoo? But, no one saw the attacks, so they remain a mystery. One thing’s for certain, the villagers will be locking their doors tonight.

Claudia: The rumours of giant black cats rolled on. What else could have bitten through the spines and legs of sheep like that? What else could have left such huge bite marks on the poor lambs?

Tasha: No one wanted to be out after dark.

Claudia: Don’t blame them. That dark had teeth. Big ones.

Tasha: Lord and Lady Bowen were the village toffs. They lived in Chamomile Towers, a mega mansion, with their four toothy teenagers: Marianne, Rhys, Boyd, and Ivy. Marianne and the lads were eager to hunt the beast. They were in the shooting and hunting set. But their olds shook their heads. This wasn’t a fox, or a partridge. This was a monster. Cue sulking.

Claudia: We’ll put a family photo up so you can have a gander at the Bowens. They’re all hearty and outdoorsy, except for Ivy. Ivy was very pretty with strawberry blonde hair and dark blue eyes.

Tasha: I’d call them violet. Like good old Liz Taylor’s eyes. But aside from her looks, Ivy was a poor thing. She didn’t get out much. In fact, she never got out. Born in 1966, Ivy had a rare condition that had plagued the Bowen family for yonks. Each generation had one fragile child. One ailing child. One child who never made it to adulthood.

Claudia: Ivy wouldn’t see her twentieth birthday. With special care, she might make her eighteenth. Special care meant cotton wool. Ivy had to watch her siblings from the windows. Watch them riding horses and climbing trees and playing in the brook.

Tasha: Ivy was a sensitive soul. This was a story she wrote when she was six.

Clara the Candle

Clara the candle sat on the window. She saw the rabbits running in the fields and the larks flying. She was a very lonely candle, and she was very sad. She had a small flame. It shone brightly.

One day, she jumped out of the candle stick. She hopped across the floor and out the front door. She met a merry robin, and a magpie with a laughing beak. They hopped together. They hopped into the fields. She met rabbits with twitching noses. She made a butterfly friend.

She shone brighter. She was happy. Her butterfly friend danced. She met the wind, and he blew her out.

Claudia: Ivy wasn’t a happy bunny.

Tasha: But her dad made her a garden – a fairytale garden. He was clearly taking his cue from The Secret Garden. Of course, they’d been a walled garden at Chamomile Towers for yonks. But it had gone to seed.

Claudia: Nice punning.

Tasha: Lord Bowen pulled his sleeves up and got out his spade. It was a labour of love. He didn’t get in gardeners. He slogged away himself. This was all the world he could give his daughter. All the world she could ever have.

Claudia: Ivy loved it. She had robins and roses. She took her books in her garden and read. One day, she looked up to see a boy sitting on the wall. A boy with sandy hair and brown eyes.

Tasha: David was a farmer’s son. One of his friends had dared him to climb up and get a look at the weird girl. So, he had. But he came back. And back.

Claudia: Ivy had a friend. They chatted and laughed. He didn’t think she was weird. She was the magic girl in the garden. Course he wasn’t a secret for long. But her parents were delighted. As long as he didn’t try to lure Ivy into the great outdoors, he was welcome.

Tasha: The farmer’s boy became part of the family.

Claudia: David loved Ivy. But he didn’t know she was a candle burning out. She was fragile. She was special. She needed to be kept safe. But he didn’t know she’d never grow old. Never grow up. He brought her pieces from the great outdoors: jay feathers, conkers, buttercups, and even a jar of frogspawn. He brought her his mum’s cakes. She needed to be fed properly. If she was a farmer’s wife, she’d grow hale and hearty, wouldn’t she?

Tasha: Then Ivy was nine. David was ten. But he still didn’t know. Lady Bowen put her arm round Ivy and gently, ever so gently, told her David needed to know the truth. He loved her. He adored her. He spoke about marrying her when they were older. He needed to know he never would.

Claudia: This is from Ivy’s diary.

Mama says I’ve got to tell David the truth. But he won’t like me once he knows. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be me. David makes everything better. He says we can get married when we’re older and live in his dad’s farmhouse. He says I can have a golden retriever and a Birman cat. If I tell him, I won’t be able to imagine it, anymore. I like pretending it could happen. Mama says if I don’t tell him, I’ll break his heart.

Tasha: But she did tell David. He didn’t take it well. He ran. That was that. Her friend was gone. She cried in her garden. She wouldn’t come in. Her dad had to carry her inside. She wept all night long. Marianne stayed with her. She wouldn’t see her mum.

Claudia: But the next day, David was back. He adored her. He wasn’t going to let her die. She was going to grow up. And marry him. And she’d have a golden retriever called Lucy and a Birman cat called Cyril, a big sofa to curl up on and all the apple cake she could scoff.

Tasha: In other words - the perfect life. But it was all just a dream.

Claudia: An impossible hope. But one he wouldn’t give up. And the Bowens loved him for it. Loved him like he was one of their own. He would always be part of their family. Even after Ivy had gone.

Tasha: Ivy was thirteen. David was fourteen. They had their first kiss. And David made Ivy a promise. He promised her that she would never die.

Claudia: David was an ambitious lad. No doubt. But as Ivy got into her teens, she became weaker. There were hospital stays and transfusions. It was all mitochondrial this and blood count that.

Tasha: Time was running out. Her candle was burning to its end. Then she was seventeen and he was eighteen. She was weak. She was bedbound. He sat by her bed and told her about the fat robins in the hedgerows and the red berries on the holly. She couldn’t even watch the snowy scene from her window – her eyes hurt.

Claudia: Her parents lingered in the doorway. While Ivy slept, they thanked him for loving her. For doing so much for her. But David shook his head. He’d hadn’t kept his promise.

Tasha: He brought her cakes. She ate little but she smiled. She was happy with him. She was nearing the end. He slept in the armchair in the corner of her room.

Claudia: He was woken by the curtains yanked open. By bright March sunlight pouring on him. He jolted. There she was - standing at the window, staring at the fields.

Tasha: But she wasn’t weak and leaning. Her back was straight. Her eyes were wide.

Claudia: What was going on? She practically skipped out of her bedroom. Her dad phoned for the doctor. He hurried over. He listened to her heart. He couldn’t make any assumptions. She needed to be fully accessed. That meant the hospital. They took bloods and scans.

Tasha: Ivy was normal. Better than normal. She was in perfect health.

Claudia: The Bowens broke down sobbing. They clung to Ivy. The fragile girl. The precious girl. The girl in the garden. The girl who would never be old. Only now, she would.

Tasha: Marianne laughed Ivy was already going grey. There was a silver streak in her hair. Of course, they celebrated for days. All their Christmases had been muted. All their New Years had been sad. But now the sun shone on Chamomile Towers. It would never set.

Claudia: Ivy even made the national papers. Page eight of The Daily Word.

Terminally Ill Aristocrat’s Daughter Makes Miraculous Recovery

Ivy Bowen is miracle, but at first glance, she seems like an ordinary young woman. She tucks into her Mr Whippy ice cream like she hasn’t a care in the world. But look closer - behind the violet eyes are years of pain. Ivy never had a snowball fight, never built a sandcastle, never went to a friend’s birthday party. In fact, she never even went to school.

Seventeen-year-old Ivy, the second daughter of Lord and Lady Bowen, was born with a rare condition that controlled her life. A terminal condition. But here she is, her violet eyes sparkling with life. She laughs when the wind blows her hair into her ice cream. “I’ve swapped a funeral for a future,” she says as she bites into her 99 Flake. What will she do, I ask? “Everything,” she replies. But she’s starting with horse riding and swimming. Long term, she tells me she wants to be a farmer. After all those years in the mahogany halls of Chamomile Towers, she wants to get her hands dirty.

Is she a miracle? “That’s what my doctors say,” she smiles. The medical professionals are baffled. The only sign that Ivy ever suffered with ill health is perhaps the silver streak in her strawberry blonde hair. “I never gave up. My boyfriend gave me hope. Even when we children, he’d tell me I wasn’t going to die. Everybody else saw my funeral when they looked at me, but David saw the two of us all grown up and married, sitting by the fire in his dad’s farmhouse. Maybe he was my miracle?” Perhaps love did heal her illness? What a story! The beautiful young aristocrat and the farmer’s son. It’s worthy of the poets, I tell her. She grins and goes to get another ice cream.

Claudia: The future was back. Not just for Ivy, but for all the Bowens. They had so much future, they didn’t know what to do with it. Marianne was taking Ivy clothes shopping in London. Then they’d have tea at the Ritz. Rhys and Boyd were going to take Ivy rock climbing. Their Pa shook his head: Ivy was well, she wasn’t immortal.

Tasha: But Ivy felt immortal. She ran through the fields like a giddy fox. She couldn’t get enough of the wind. She didn’t want to sleep. She’d missed out on too much.

Claudia: And she wanted to get married ASAP. Did her olds object? Nope. David was the miracle boy. The boy who prised her from the Grim Reaper’s grasp. They loved him like a son.

Tasha: Ivy wasn’t just a fast mover. She was practically Road Runner. Three weeks after her miraculous recovery, there she was in her local church. It was packed. Just weeks ago, the church had been expecting her coffin.

Claudia: But here she was walking up the aisle on her father’s arm. There were sighs and tears. Wasn’t she the most beautiful bride Ravenpeat had ever seen? Her strawberry blonde hair was curled. Her Edwardian wedding dress was a family heirloom. Then there was David, the farmer’s son. Handsome as handsome. A golden couple.

Tasha: All the villagers wanted to be part of the miracle of Ivy and David’s happiness. Even the sun had his best hat on. We’ll put the wedding photos up. No doubt, David and Ivy were a couple of lookers.

Claudia: Then it was back to Chamomile Towers for the reception. And a feast. An epic feast. Ivy wasn’t just a miracle - she was a glutton. When she eyed the laden tables, she joked what was everyone else going to eat?

Tasha: Don’t diss gluttons. They’re my people.

Claudia: Apologies.

Tasha: Forgiven. As long as you henceforth hand over your chips to me.

Claudia: As if you’ve left any chips for anyone else.

Tasha: Rude. Anyway, the reception was glorious. Lord Bowen’s speech had the crowd weeping and laughing. Ivy and David had their first dance to Something. And they rode away on his dad’s tractor. Off to the farmhouse.

Claudia: All they needed now were Lucy the golden retriever and Cyril the Birman cat.

Tasha: Later, Ivy slept like a log. But what vivid dreams. She wrote in her diary when she woke up.

The birds are singing. The sun is on our curtains, and it’s my first full day as a married woman. Ivy Murphy. But Ivy Murphy has weird dreams. They were so vivid. I was in fields. I ran faster and faster. No wind could keep up with me. I could smell the moonlight. I still can, though the sun’s up and the moon has skedaddled. For the first time since my resurrection, I’m not hungry. I’m not even peckish. I must have finally eaten my fill yesterday. Papa did say I excelled myself.

Claudia: Ivy and David wanted a lazy day. Just a day basking in their love, in their marriage. But the village was in panic. David’s parents were arable farmers, they grew wheat and hay. But the chap over there – he had sheep. Had. Sheep. Not anymore. The whole flock had been devoured.

Tasha: The village went into panic mode. Like we said, Ravenpeat had sheep for days. Right off past the horizon. Whose flock was next? Farmers stalked the fields with their rifles. Let the wild dogs come. They’d slay ‘em.

Claudia: But no wild dogs came. No sheep were maimed.

Tasha: Days went by, and the sun rose on bucolic scenes. It was a one off, right?

Claudia: Ivy and David shrugged it off. She was busy learning how to be a farmer. She had boundless energy. Despite her willowy frame, she was freakishly strong. David’s dad said come the hay harvest, they wouldn’t need any help. Ivy had the strength of four men. And the appetite of five, Ivy grinned.

Tasha: Like I said, don’t diss gluttons. We get things done.

Claudia: You get to the bottom of the biscuit barrel.

Tasha: Oi.

Claudia: It was all happy days. Monday, Tuesday and so on. Until the May full moon. It was a beautiful night. No rain, no clouds. Only stars. Farmer Cooper was patrolling his sheep fields. So what if the other farmers had packed it in weeks ago? He was a cautious chap. Two hours passed. Nothing. Midnight was looming. He was knackered. He leaned against a great oak. Then he saw it.

Tasha: A great wolf. Silver and swift. And huge as a bear. It prowled into the field. He held his breath. The great wolf sniffed the air. It opened its terrible jaws and howled. Farmer Cooper huddled against the trunk. Terror iced through him. He shut his eyes.

Claudia: He was found in the morning by his wife, cowering against the oak. His fields were bloody. His flock was dead.

Tasha: Cue panic. This wasn’t wild dogs. This wasn’t even a jaguar. This was a monster.

Claudia: And this was the BBC news.

They’re calling it the Ravenpeat Beast. But what is it? Farmer Cooper saw the monster with his own eyes. He described it as a silver wolf as large as a grizzly bear. But that’s the stuff of fantasy. There hasn’t been a wolf in these parts for centuries. And back then, the silver wolves were only myths told to terrify children. Perhaps this is all an elaborate hoax? One thing’s for certain, the villagers are truly spooked.

Tasha: Bit flippant. Should’ve got a glutton on the job. We make the best journalists.

Claudia: Only if there’s a conspiracy to steal the world’s chips.

Tasha: Anyway – what were these silver wolves of myth? Lord Bowen had been traumatised by such stories as a little’un. On hearing of Farmer Cooper’s plight, he headed for his library.

Claudia: Chamomile Towers was a book lovers paradise. The library was a garden of books, a temple of books. Ivy and David had had many content hours reading together. Lord Bowen scoured the shelves. Then he found his old book. But it wasn’t dusty. He hadn’t opened it for thirty years. Who’d been reading it?

Tasha: This is from The Abbey of the Silver Monks by R.A. Kingsworth.

Cross the bridge at Witherfield, walk east through the oak wood, and you’ll find the ruins of the silver monks’ abbey. Only the walls of the moon garden are still intact. Do not be tempted to enter the garden, but if you do enter, do not linger. And do not pick the strange plants. It is said, the monks lived for centuries after eating those blooms.

Claudia: Lord Bowen frowned. He thought of Ivy – her miraculous recovery, her freakish strength, the silver streak in her hair. But she’d never been to Thornvale Abbey. Besides, it was all just a story.

Tasha: But then he saw another book. Folklore of Denbyshire by Wilfred Pierce. He took it down and read.

Those were mean years. Years when the wheat rotted, and the rain was a blight. The Thornvale Abbey monks tended their garden in vain. Nothing grew. They would starve, and their bones would return to the spiteful earth. But there was one hope – an old magic. The tears of the moon.

Perhaps Roger ought not to have collected the moon’s tears? Perhaps he ought not to have sprinkled the tears in the garden? Perhaps he ought not to have let the moon garden grow? The moon garden grew in one night. A garden of silver and strangeness. The monks ate. And they changed.

They were strong, vivid men, with silver in their hair. But when the moon was full, they were beasts. Great and terrible wolves that reigned over bloody nights. For centuries, they were a bane. Though it is said that Alfred the Great had them devour the Vikings on the hillside. In the end, they were felled by silver arrows. But no fire could burn the moon garden, and no salt could wither the plants.

Claudia: Lord Bowen chilled. Was his daughter the beast? Was she the terrible wolf? But it couldn’t be her. She hadn’t been well enough to go anywhere, let alone the garden of the silver monks.

Tasha: But she didn’t have to.

Claudia: David had promised her he’d never let her die. And now she was a miracle.

Tasha: Lord Bowen was still holding the book when his sons burst into the library. Rhys and Boyd were in their early twenties. Of course, they were going to hunt the giant wolf. Of course, they were going to mount its head on the wall.

Claudia: Lord Bowen had to save Ivy.

Tasha: He headed out. He knocked on the farmhouse door. He didn’t need to tell David he knew. It was in his grim eyes.

Claudia: Virtuoso father-in-lawing.

Tasha: Lord Bowen was distressed. How could David have done it? He’d turned his daughter into a monster. But David stood his ground. Ivy was alive. That was all that mattered. And she was only a wolf at the full moon. One night each month. It was nothing. Really.

Claudia: Lord Bowen frowned. Rhys and Boyd were going to kill Ivy and mount her head on the wall.

Tasha: But Lord Bowen had a plan. Every full moon, David would bring Ivy to Chamomile Towers. The mansion was so old, it had a dungeon. They had no choice. They’d have to chain Ivy and lock her up until the sun rose.

Claudia: It was brutal. But it was the only way. But Ivy was so much stronger than both of them. Lord Bowen shook his head. Then they’d have to drug her, too.

Tasha: Ivy didn’t have a clue she was a monster. She only thought she was a miracle. She didn’t fear the beast. She didn’t think of it at all. Not when there were tractors to master and combine harvesters to steer. Not to mention all the ginormous meals her mother-in-law cooked. And she had her David. The boy whose love had saved her from death. She was content in her miracles, and she didn’t fear the silver wolf.

Claudia: And then it was the June moon. Ivy was persuaded to go to Chamomile Towers. It was safer. Even for Mrs Samson. (She’d earned this nickname from her in laws.) Lord Bowen poured spiked wine. Ivy passed out. They carried her to the dungeon.

Tasha: Lovely.

Claudia: It was horrid. But it was necessary. Rhys and Boyd knew about the silver wolves. They had crossbows with silver arrows, and they’d had years of practise. They wanted to kill the wolf. And mount its head on the wall.

Tasha: Lovely cubed.

Claudia: Of course, it hurt David to fasten the chains about Ivy’s wrists and ankles. She was the magic girl in the garden. His heart was sore. Had he turned her into a monster? He’d made her a promise she would never die. And now she never would. He kissed her forehead. Lord Bowen led him out.

Tasha: With grim hands, Lord Bowen locked his daughter in the dungeon. His precious girl. He’d made a fairytale garden for her. She’d been meant for roses, not chains. He couldn’t look at his son in law. He went to his study. As night uncurled over the mansion, he looked at the keepsakes in his desk. He read a letter Ivy had given him long ago.

Dear Papa,

The white roses in my garden are all my friends, but the wind laughs in them like it knows my secrets. How did it know I stole the last of the apple crumble? It must have stared in the kitchen window at me. The robin and the wren don’t laugh at me. They sit on the bench, and I read them my stories. The robin is called Percy, and the wren is Emily. I love them very much.

Claudia: Suddenly, Lord Bowen heard an almighty crash. Ivy. The wolf. Fear shook through him. He ran out of his study. He bumped into David. They ran. They heard a terrible howl. A howl that chilled them to their bones. A howl followed by a whimper. They burst into the hall.

Tasha: It was too late. The silver wolf had a silver arrow in its side. Its eyes were closed. It shrank until it was Ivy again. The girl with violet eyes, now closed. Forever.

Claudia: Of course, they were all inconsolable. Rhys and Boyd had killed their beloved sister. Of course, they blamed their father. Why hadn’t he told them? And Lord Bowen blamed David. But David blamed them all for never trying to save her. He’d given her a future, hadn’t he?

Tasha: They said he’d turned her into a monster. But he’d promised her she would never die. He’d made her immortal. And now she was dead.

Claudia: But he hadn’t broken his promise. They had.

Tasha: Perhaps his revenge was unjust? He went to Thornvale Abbey, to the moon garden. He gathered the silver harvest, and he took it home. He ground the plants and mixed them into the flour. Then that flour was on the shelf in the local shop.

Claudia: David had gone by the time they buried Ivy. He did not come back.

Tasha: The villagers and the Bowens ate the flour. And they changed.

Claudia: There’s a wall around Ravenpeat now. A great towering wall wound with silver. No one with silver in their hair can cross that wall. But on nights of the full moon, you can hear them howling with their terrible jaws.

Have you walked the Vale of Uffington? Have you looked up at the White Horse on the hills? And have you wondered, what horse would have such a tail, what horse would have such teeth? None. Folk have forgotten she was a hound. A hound taller than church towers and windmills. A hound swifter than seablasts and arrows. A hound three times more loyal than always. And her name was Clover.

But first, she was a pup. One of a gaggle, one of a litter. One chased by the castle cook from the kitchen. One feeling the broom on her backside. One of the King’s many pups bred for bugles and hunts. His army against the fox and the deer. And while he hunted in the woods, the dragon hunted from the skies.

Draca. Feel the wind from her wings and hide. Feel her roar in your bones and run. Feel the chill of her shadow and pray. Draca. A fury of claw and fire. A galleon of teeth and scales. And in his towers, the king whispered of her treasure. Treasure richer than jewels and gold. A dragon egg. A dragon of his own. How his enemies would burn. How lands would fall under his flag. And he sent his men on the path of screams and bones. One returned. And he held an egg. The King took the egg as gently as a butterfly waking a whisper bird. Slowly, he carried it to his chambers and laid it on velvet.

“I shall call you Emberwind,” he said. “And when your wingspan is seven times the castle moat, we’ll fly to the Tiltfrist mountains, where no man has ever stood, where the ice is pulled into strange shapes when the heavens shift and turn, and I’ll build a tower to the top of the sky, and from there we’ll see all the kingdoms of the world. One by one, they’ll be ours. You shall dine on the fallen Kings.” He dreamed of cinder cities and molten crowns. And he sent his men to the ice forests of the north to collect lichen as fine as a spider’s sneeze for the egg’s nest. But he dreamed so much he forgot to close the door.

Clover of the sooty paw and the midnight yelp, huntress of plum dumplings, was fleeing the cook’s broom. She fled the kitchen hearth and the pantry, the great hall and the corridors, the passageways of armour and history, the stairways winding up and up and into the king’s chambers. She bit and pawed at purple velvet and heaved it down. And down came the dragon’s egg. There was a crack and then there was spilling yolk and then there was lapping. Then there was only a broken shell.

And then there was the king. And a howling. And boots. And hands lifting her, carrying her, tossing her out into the dusk. Clover was alone. Cold winds nipped her, chased her into burrows and bracken, made her curl and huddle. She shivered in dreams of dumplings. Dawn came, carrying bugles and arrows and she ran, out and out, onto the fields. Her days became wanderings and winds, hailstones and howls. She drank from puddles. And all the time, a lengthening in her stride and a biggening in her paws. Clover grew. Grew until the wolves were low as her ankles, until the lakes became her ponds. And her lonely howl rolled across the fields and over the villages.

“Even the wolves hide from the White Hound, Bertha. You can’t go roaming the fields, not now,” said the blacksmith. “As if it wasn’t bad enough when we had just one monster to hide from, now we have two.” He shook his head.

“The white hound is no monster, Pa. It’s just a dog.” Bertha pulled her wool cape around her shoulders.

“A dog that eats bears.”

“All the better if it does. Maybe it’ll even eat Draca.” And she stepped outside into the dimming sun. The fields carried winds to each horizon. Winds that tasted of starblown nights. Bertha gulped them in. Her hair was always tangled. Her forehead was always soot smudged. She smelled of forges and smoke and iron cooling into horseshoes. Folk that didn’t know her called her wild, and folk that did know her called her strange. For she dreamed too much for one who lives in a land of monsters and cruel kings.

The horizons darkened into night, the winds called to each other, and Bertha walked herself dreamful. So dreamful, she didn’t hear the tread of bear paws. So dreamful, she didn’t catch the scent of meaty breath. A growling. A shape rearing up and up, and Bertha was running, stumbling, gasping. Claws tore her cloak. She fell. The bear was pawing her, was sniffing her, was opening its savage jaws. She shut her eyes. A howl trembled through the ground and echoed into the sky. Growl became whimper became rush became silence. She looked: the bear was a black shape lumbering far off. And standing, moon bright, was the white hound, sniffing the night.

“It’s you,” Bertha said. The great dog lowered its head. She stood and reached for its muzzle, stroked the soft fur. “You’re not much more than a pup. No wonder you howl. I’d howl, too, if I were a hound with no blanket or fireside or bowl of scraps and gravy.” She jumped backwards as the white hound sighed and slumped down, shaking the moor. Bertha sat and leaned against the hound’s floppy ear. “I’m Bertha. My village is under that blue star over there. My Pa has set a candle in our window for me. He’s the blacksmith, but I make the horseshoes now, for his hands are lumpy and sore,” she said, but she told nothing more, for the hound was snoring. “I think I will call you Clover.” And with that, sleepiness grew in her until she was snoring, too.

Bertha woke. Dawn and starlings and heather. Her hair was dew damp. The cold ached her bones. Clover was still snoring. Bertha shuffled to her feet.

“First things first, Clover,” she said as the white hound yawned awake. “A blanket.” She took twenty steps, but Clover just blinked. “Come to my village.” But Clover just curled. All she knew of folk was brooms and shouts. “You can’t stay here with only lakes for company.” But Clover just looked, her eyes sad saucers. So Bertha sat by Clover’s floppy ear and told soothing words. And Clover grumbled her sorrows. Then when all was said, Bertha stood on tiptoes to pat her head. Clover sniffed. Bertha darted left and right, spun round ten times then flopped. Clover nudged her with her wet nose. Bertha laughed. And so they went, flop and nudge, dart and wag, leap and laugh, across the purple meadows. Bertha’s cloak flung wide. Clover wagged a wind that tumbled the clouds.

The village. Morning was in the smoke puffing from the chimneys, in the eggs warm beneath the hens, in the opening curtains. And in the villagers’ wails. A crowd.

“Bertha Smith, bringing a monster to our doors?” Madge, the washerwoman, bellowed.

“Clover’s just a hound.” Bertha stood bold. Clover howled so loudly the rooftops jumped.

“We have trouble enough from the bears,” the miller frowned.

“Clover will see off the bears. They won’t come near if she’s guard. Or she’ll eat them in one gulp,” she said. The villagers calmed. Then calm became murmuring became nodding became cheering. “Clover won’t work for free. She’ll want pay.” Bertha said, her hands on her hips. “Scraps and a blanket.” Clover nudged her. “And a bonfire when the nights go foggy or there’s a prickling frost.”

For three days, the villagers sewed and weaved and knitted. A blanket of patchworks and pieces. But it was Clover’s own. Hers to curl in and snore under. She dreamed with twitching paws. And if bears disturbed her slumber, she gobbled them whole.

Fogs fattened over the fields and frosts grew prickling. Clover sat by her bonfire and Bertha sat with her. They listened to the logs crackling and the stars sleeping. Sometimes, the moon was gone, and they looked up at the dark shape of Draca. Then they shivered by the fire. The days turned silver and sparkling. Bertha sat on Clover’s shoulders, and they went five leaps East, ten leaps West, twenty leaps South. To the mountains, to the forests, to the sea, but always home for scraps and gravy.

Never were such friends. Not before, nor since.

The village waxed bearless. But always over the kingdom was the dark shape of Draca: fast and high and wings and fire. Clouds burned and fell. Peaks singed. Even in her sleep, Draca roared of her stolen egg. She searched a scorching trail in the sky. In his castle, the King watched and quaked.

“It’s only a matter of time before she tracks her egg here, and when she does, no crossbow will stop her. My castle will be ash.” He turned to another window, saw Clover sprint. “If it hadn’t been for that hound.” His hands went to fists. Then an idea lit him, cruel and cold. “She may well serve some purpose, yet.”

Clover was deep in a dumplings dream. The sunrise turned to trumpets, then horses and men. A clamour. Hoofbeats shook her awake. Morning flashed on armour and arrows and on the cruel king’s crown. The king who had tossed her into the cold. She howled. Her howl pierced Bertha’s sleep. Bertha stumbled to her window and saw the king and his men fast and faster. She ran.

“That hound belongs to me. I now claim her.” The king pointed his sword. “She ate my egg. My dragon’s egg.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t steal dragon’s eggs in the first place.” Bertha put her hand on Clover’s trembling paw. “Clover can’t fight Draca, nothing can.”

“You mistake my intentions, blacksmith’s daughter. The hound will not fight the dragon.” He smiled. “The hound will be fed to the dragon. Poisoned.” He laughed. Bertha’s eyes stung as iron hands seized her.

“Flee, Clover,” she said. But Clover would not run. Clover would not leap. She laid her great head on her paws and looked at Bertha.

“What a loyal hound, you have. There’ll be no need to chain her, she’ll follow obediently to her doom.”

“Please. You can’t. I’ll stop Draca.”

“The blacksmith’s daughter will slay the dragon?”

“I’m strong from the forge. I’ve been helping my Pa since I was a little’un.”

“Never let it be said I’m not merciful. You may burn if you wish.” He turned to his men. “Bring the blacksmith. It’ll be the dungeon for him if they flee.” Soldiers stormed.

“Please. Leave my Pa be.” But the blacksmith was hauled from his home and bundled onto a horse. His nightcap fell on the ground.

“You have three days, blacksmith’s daughter.” The king gestured to his men. Iron hands released her. She collapsed to her knees. How could she fight Draca? How could she save Clover? Her heart was the bottom of a well. And she leaned against Clover’s great paw as the king and his men galloped away. The morning grew about them, in lark song and March rains, but they did not move. They did not move when the baker and her daughter carried baskets of steaming butter cakes by. They did not move when the town crier rang and bellowed beside Clover’s ear. Only when Farmer Billow tethered his shire horse to his plough, did Bertha jump to her feet.

“Pa told me that plough’s enchanted. It has an old magic on it, there is no ground it can’t sow.” An idea gripped her.

When night was broad, Clover lifted the plough in her mighty jaws and set it outside the forge. She broke it with her great paws and Bertha melted it down. There was smoke and heat and hope. Then embers sparking under her hammer. Soot puffed in the air, smudged her forehead. Her arms ached and her eyes stung, but still she worked. The stars moved across the fields. Bertha hammered the plough into a needle and a thread. A needle long as her forearm and a thread long as the fields.

“There,” she said, winding it into a bundle. “If this works, we’ll only need to fear Farmer Billow.” Clover nudged her. “His tempers are fearful indeed.”

Then they were off. Bertha sat on Clover’s shoulders, and they went two leaps south, one leap east, and five steps to the dragon hills: the hills hollowed into Draca’s den. The ground trembled with Draca’s snores, her sleeping roars.

“We must be quick, before she wakes,” Bertha whispered. She unwound the thread and slipped it through the eye of the needle. Then she pushed the needle into the cave’s edge, into the grass, into the earth, into the rock. It moved like a sword through a cloud. She pulled the metal thread through the rock, and the sides of the cave began to close. Her hands shook. Fear beat in her. Clover kept by her – her shield if Draca woke.

Bertha sewed up the hills, higher and higher, closing the cave. All the way to the top. The final stitches. A knot in the metal thread. And Draca was sealed in her den. No more dark shadows across the kingdom. No more scorched trails in the sky. Bertha pushed the needle into the ground. Relief billowed through her, over her, was carried into the starlings swirling and the clouds bumbling.

“Now to fetch Pa,” she said, clambering onto Clover’s shoulders. She kissed the top of Clover’s head. But Clover could not leap. Clover could not stride. Her tail was caught, was stuck, was sewn into the hill. Into Draca’s den. She could not get free. How she howled. How Bertha wept. And how Draca roared.

Clover perished on the hillside. And long ago became the white figure you see on the hills. And if you walk through the vale, listen, and you will hear Bertha who mourned so much she became the wind over Uffington.

Photo from Country Life Magazine.

Have the walls of your city begun to sing? Mournful and misty like a thousand hymns or bellowing sorrow like tormented trumpets? Or a whisper you can only hear in the wolf hours of the night? A weeping song. A song of yesterdays and starways. A song that tugs your heart and prickles your eyes. Maybe you’re reading this letter while your grandpapa’s tears plop into his drink, or your little’un buries her head in pillows. Maybe you’re wishing your city had a bit more gumption. But there hasn’t been a stoic city, yet. And I know cos I’ve raised them. Just like my mama and grandmama. The thing about a city is - sooner or later, it wants to go home.

Home. Should I tell you about it or should I let it be a surprise? Your city is on the verge of unfolding its great silver wings. And when it flaps them – make sure you’ve got something sturdy in grabbing range. You’re in for a journey. On the tumble wings of the city you’ll fly silver through the stars. Your neighbours will be comets and lost moons. Your city will rest in a nebula’s towers. The only clouds passing your window will be the blue billows of stars. No longer will you look on the purple plains of Janmik or the golden lakes of Thiam or … Truth is - I don’t know your planet. See, I’ve written heaps of these letters, and I’ll write heaps more cos I’m only at the beginning. Right now, Grandmama’s still in charge. And I’m slogging away while she and Mama sup brew and she croons about her glory days. And when they see me chasing through the valley after the just-hatched cities and falling on my face, they laugh so loud it echoes until the five suns set. It’s a job for young legs, Grandmama says. My young legs. But you’re reading this way past my end. And you’re on route to my grave.

I won’t need flowers or prayers from you. Not when I’ll have a city mourning me. You’ll lower onto the mountains of Tianabala, and you’ll look down on my headstone. Here lies Bellina the greatest of them all. Or, if Grandmama has outlived me: Here lies Bellina doing naff all as usual. So, I won’t be there. Even though I cried buckets when your city left: fluttering on spindly wings, no bigger than a chunky house and up, up, up, until it was gone. Grandmama says I’ve got to toughen up. Cities don’t stay little for long. Once they’re with the stars, they’re biggening right away, getting fat on the songs of galaxies.

Your city will sing to my grave. But don’t join in. You’ve got a job to do. If your city freezes in sorrow, all the folk will freeze, too. Then you’re in trouble. I’ve seen cities die from grief. I’ve seen them purple and fade. Nothing left but shadow. Only Lija didn’t freeze, even though all the folk of her city were gawpy statues. She was my best friend though I only knew her for one day. You might think we didn’t fit cos she was a queen, and I was me. But when we met, we clicked forever. So you see, I couldn’t leave her on her own, though Mama grabbed at me, though Grandmama yelled. Course I was scared running into a grief-freeze city. But she was more scared. So I ran and I ran. And in that weeping melody that shone from the walls, I heard her running, too.

Under her halo of humming jewels, Lija was just like me. So, I didn’t want to tell her she’d die the fading way – first purple, then shadow. But she held my hands too tight for me to lie. ‘Least you’re not frozen,’ I said. For the gawpers were all about statue-ing at the windows. ‘They can’t see me, can they?’ she asked. I shook my head. And she puffed her cheeks out and juddered. I could tell she’d never mucked about in her life cos she wasn’t very good at it. So I pulled a monster face to show her how. Soon we were jumping at the statue folk and whooping. I giggled until it gave me a stitch. ‘Queens aren’t allowed to laugh,’ Lija said. ‘What do you do when something’s funny?’ And her eyes went big with sadness. ‘Nothing ever is.’

Every bit of that city was hers. And she wanted to show me all of it before it was gone. I’m not daft, no matter what Grandmama claims, and I knew this was Lija’s goodbye. Goodbye to the silver garden that floated through the city on a wind. Goodbye to the catacowls that paced golden on the rooftops. Goodbye to the story trees that shed tales on their leaves. We walked through piles of story-leaves, all crisp and crunch. She gave me three leaves, but I didn’t read them, I put them in my pocket for later. She hadn’t had a friend before, but she was a natural. ‘Queens aren’t allowed to be sad,’ she said. So, I held her shaking hand. ‘You can be sad with me.’ And she was.

Being a queen was being looked at and never seen. I thought I had I raw deal cos Grandmama was a tyrant, but she was nothing compared to servants and subjects and pomp and parades. ‘They see what they want to see – and it isn’t me,’ Lija said. And we stood at the big toe of the shining statue and looked up as far as far. And it was her face. But there was purple beginning in its forehead. It was the worst thing I’d ever seen, and I’d seen cities shiver and die. But none of them had had Lija. ‘Will it hurt?’ But I didn’t know. So I hugged her. And the city purpled about us. And the walls thinned. And I didn’t know if my face was wet with her tears or mine. And those halo jewels hummed in my ears. They hummed like an itch. That was when I twigged. ‘They’re why you’re not frozen.’ And I grabbed a green jewel. It cracked in my hands and a song flew out, wings burning.

The song grew large as the statue. And we clung to each other as it shone and the walls turned from wisp to marble. And then there were folk hurrying and weeping and kneeling at their queen. I heard the city open its great silver wings. ‘Don’t go,’ Lija said. But I had to.

You see, the song in the jewel healed the city. And it’ll heal your city, too. When you land, turn this letter over and fold along the lines I’ve drawn. I put the song in the paper - folding will release it. But I won’t be there to watch. Not like I watched Lija’s city soar into the clouds as the five suns set and Grandmama wrapped a blanket round me in the dark.

Good luck,

From your friend, Bellina – the greatest of them all.

Photo of Orion Nebula by NASA, ESA, M. Robberto

The soldiers were sent to the green lagoon. They scooped the lagoon into ten thousand buckets and marched it across the land. For fifty days, the lagoon was boiled and stirred until it fit into a beer barrel. Then a cashmere dress was dyed deep. Its green glare was as savage as volcano burst. Princess Emma poked the sleeves. ‘Greener’ she screamed.

The huntsmen clamoured through the forests and woods, plucked each leaf from the trees, tied the Kingdom’s leaves in bundles to the backs of hounds and hurried them to the palace. There, each leaf was torn into a thousand pieces and spiced with dew collected from diamond mines. A velvet dress was rolled in this green for one hundred days. Princess Emma stroked the collar. She smiled, put the dress on, and paraded through the palace grounds.

As she strode past statues, the sky rippled with wing beats, with magpies and robins, wrens and crows. A chaffinch fluttered low and settled on her shoulder. Princess Emma smiled. A dove dropped onto her head. Princess Emma stopped smiling. Birds flocked and lowered and landed on her until she was hidden beneath beaks, eyes and feathers. The King and Queen and all the courtiers scrambled inside. The palace doors were closed and bolted. From then on, Princess Emma wandered bird-laden in the bare woods.

Bettina had a metronome for a heart. Every night, when the city was softened by gas light and silence, she curled up beneath her grand piano and listened to her heart’s steady beat. There, under mahogany shadows, she dreamed in minor melodies. At dawn, when the wing beats of pigeons and starlings shook the skies, she sat at her piano and played the music from her sleep.

As a child, Bettina was as silent as smoke shadows. She couldn’t feel words. When her mother tried to coax her with rhymes and laughter, Bettina only heard jagged patterns. Her father stopped speaking her name, but her mother wrapped her in blankets the colour of forest winds and cradled her while a hush like empty churches swaddled their home. Bettina pressed her face to the cottage windows and saw the world outside only as rain dim and tree sway. Her mother, watching her silence, pressed felts and threads into her grasp and tried to teach her to sew, but Bettina couldn’t stitch. Her hands wouldn’t speak.

On a morning as grey as cloud fossils, the wind puddle-damp, Bettina gripped her mother’s hand and trekked through the village pathways to a grand house. Inside, beneath the carved ceilings and gilded air, she watched her mother unfold a bundle of velvet cloth. She felt the vast spaces of the house about her. No one was watching; she crept through a doorway and down a corridor. Shadows stretched the walls. The gloom felt like lost dusk. She stepped past archways and through an open door: the room seemed as long as field skies. A strange creature stood before her, the colour of polished night. Her metronome heart was loud. She climbed up onto the piano stool and stared; the keyboard was an open jaw. She reached out and pressed the keys. The creature’s song felt like herself.

Her parents gave her a piano: shabby and upright, with some keys silent. She gave it a name made of fluttering chords. Her hands filled the days with her voice. Later, after her parents had gone to sleep, she sneaked from her room through the chill dark to curl up against her piano. The nights smelled of worn ivory. In the mornings, she huddled by the window watching birds and clouds, before rushing to her piano to make her own words for them out of flowing notes. Villagers paused outside the cottage. One day, a music teacher came from the city and she was taken to a school.

She never went home. In the small cottage, the shabby piano’s silence felt like waiting words. Her mother wouldn’t close the lid. Dust dimmed the ivory keys. On the city edge, in the music school, Bettina’s days jumbled among symphonies and songs. The rooms smelled of sunlit paper. She filled her arms with sheet music and slept with pieces under her pillow. Other students gathered round when she played. Teachers whispered. When she gave her first concert, she felt the hall around her like a sealed cave; the audience’s murmurs sounded like jewel shadows. She played rivers and heights. In the morning, the newspapers printed her name.

Years went by. The city swelled with music, and high in the centre, lived Bettina with her piano. Her name brightened posters and her steps hushed concert halls. At parties, in gowns the colour of startled flowers, she moved through whirlpool crowds. Their voices were strange shapes. To understand words, she had to translate them into music: chatter became quavers and arpeggio leaps, and she lagged behind the ladies’ talk. She lingered by windows and listened to her metronome heart. She tried to peer into the night outside, but saw only her reflection. The air was stiff with champagne scent. Afterwards, at home, she played slow secrets on her piano.

She travelled to foreign lands which she saw only as glimpses from windows, rain-blurred and dim. In concert halls, before clamouring audiences, she played music of peaks and flight until applause broke over the stage. The noise felt like shattered notes. Her ears hurt. Her metronome heart was fast. Afterwards, she found herself ushered through crowds and begged for the secret of her talent.

“When I was very little, I didn’t talk,” she said. “I only played. And I played until I fell asleep with my head on the keyboard. I didn’t care about going outside. The pieces of music were cities and mountains which I wandered through and climbed.” But she didn’t tell anyone about her heart. She left parties early to sit alone in hotel rooms where listening to the night winds felt like eavesdropping, and there she slept in beds, longing for the weight and coolness of her piano’s shadow.

Her tour ended. She arrived home: her rooms smelled of crochet rests, and her piano sat in gloom, full of waiting melodies. She opened the curtains, sat in moon-splash, and played until dawn. For days, she stayed by her piano, the city shrinking into the distance. She didn’t feel her aching hands. She lived in a gliding world. In the streets outside, passers-by paused to listen and glimpsed her music like strange skies. They spoke her name.

One morning, there was a knock on her door. The Countess strode inside, smelling of furs and marble. Bettina remembered the first time she’d performed for her at the music school; she’d played louder to hide from her stare, the sonatas marble forests where she’d run pathless ways. The Countess stepped closer. Bettina sat back down at her piano.

“Bettina, you can’t keep yourself shut up in here. All of Europe is asking for you. As your patron, I wouldn’t be fulfilling my duties if I let such sublime talent rot away between these walls,” the Countess said, her eyes icicle bright. With a gloved hand, she closed the piano lid. “This tour they’re proposing – you will go.”

Weeks sped by: cities and days, railways and nights merged with train whistles and racing skies, flashing jewellery and raised glasses. Bettina felt far away. The countries seemed to be made from corners and laughter. In streets and parties, the chatter was like smashed octaves, so she tapped rhythms which felt like shelter. But in the concert halls, her hands on black and white keys, she played valleys and seas, different suns and endless plains. Her audiences threw flowers.

One evening, in a grand hall deep in a foreign city, Bettina walked on stage; the ceiling arched above her like unseen treetops. Applause shook the night. She sat at the piano and waited while the audience became quiet. Lamplight deepened the hush. Then music blazed from the orchestra. She felt wrapped in stained-glass colours, but when she put her hands on the keyboard and tried to race notes, her fingers moved too slowly. Violins sagged. Her hands played at half speed. The conductor stopped the concert. She ran from the stage.

She cancelled the foreign dates of her tour and travelled home. There, wrapped in blankets, she curled up beneath her piano, listening to her metronome heart. Her breath felt like stone. The room was cold and she didn’t sleep. She tried not to hear the night hush; it sounded like stopped concerts. Before dawn, she opened the curtains to watch the sunrise, but as she gazed at the smoke shapes and warming sky, she felt her heart slowing. She saw day speeding up until the streets were crammed with blurred colours. When the clouds began to redden, the city calmed. She closed the curtains. She stayed by the piano away from the windows. In the night hours, she played music as quiet as wind ghosts until morning seeped through the curtains.

“Bettina Klausner, what an honour. Your playing makes my wife weep,” the doctor said, ushering her to a seat. “Now, how may I help you?” Bettina sank into the chair and stared at her hands. Time stretched. Her thoughts jumbled in plummeting scales – she struggled them into words.

“There’s something wrong with me. Suddenly, I go cold and everything about me is rushing too fast – double speed. But, it’s not really fast at all. It’s me – I’m going too slow,” she said. And she told him about her heart. He listened to it.

“Your heart is running out,” he said. “I need to perform an operation to wind it back up, but it could get damaged, and I don’t know how that would affect your playing. If your heart is what makes you play the way you do, then…” The room seemed cathedral vast.

“I can’t lose the piano,” she said. Her words felt like the silent keys of her first piano. She remembered curling against it in the darkness of her childhood home.

“Perhaps you don’t understand how serious a matter this is.”

“I’m not having the operation. I can’t. Thank you for concern, but I’ve made my decision.”

Bettina found herself in the streets. She didn’t remember running from the doctor. She became cold. As she watched the pathways, the coaches and passers-by began to chase. The pale blue sky over the rooftops shimmered red and then blackened. She knew her heart had slowed down. Past the street lights, carriages stormed – she glimpsed ladies in furs and diamonds at the windows. Suddenly, the city trembled and settled into a normal pace. A carriage halted in front of her, the door opened, and the Countess climbed out.

Bettina, what are you doing here at this time of night?” she said, gripping Bettina’s hands. “You’re like ice.” She led Bettina to the carriage and sat her next to a lady draped in gems. The carriage jolted and moved through the city. Bettina pressed against the window and felt the night chill. The streets outside moved as hard shapes.

“I thought we’d never arrive,” the Countess said, as the carriage stopped before a grand house. Bettina peered out at towering archways and wide stone steps. The night smelled of lamps. She followed the Countess up the steps. Broad doors opened before them; the crowd inside was a surge of chatter and silk, chandelier glare and smoke. Shrill voices spoke her name. She saw people dancing slowly then faster and faster until they blurred and the candles behind them burned swiftly into stumps, and in the hallways and high on the walls the clock hands raced, and below the flurry and the din she felt the ticking of her metronome heart.

Dawn lit the windows and the city slowed. Bettina walked out into the street, among the crowd – she saw them point at the orange sky low on the rooftops. Someone was talking to her but she didn’t listen to the words. Winds stirred the empty pathways. Her coat felt thin. The street lamps had gone out. Someone was singing a song she didn’t know. Her feet ached. She lingered behind and watched the crowd wander away past the houses until they disappeared around a far corner. Then, her heart loud beneath the city’s silence, she began to walk towards the concert hall.

The day swayed about her, the sky turning blue and becoming faster with clouds while below the rooftops the streets brimmed until the people were just hurrying sounds. As she reached the concert hall, dusk bloomed. The world became steady once more. She stepped inside and moved through carpeted corridors which smelled of late nights. The air felt old. Her breathing was loud. Then out onto the stage, she walked. The audience was noise and colour. Her heart kept pace. She sat at the piano and played ocean depths and mountain winds, strange woods and soaring towers. The music wrapped around her like the passageways of a gilded city. She played and played, her hands fast, the melodies surging and filling the hall until the last chord. The audience were on their feet. She felt cold. She rested her head on the keyboard. She didn’t hear the cheers. Her metronome heart had stopped.

First published in Half Mystic.

Art by Berthe Burgkan.

There is no pride like a mama star’s pride. How they shine on their young. A mama star knows her starlings are a boisterous bunch, and she guides them half gently half sternly. The galaxies are playgrounds with perils. Course you’d call her starlings meteors, a mean name of rock and tumble. They ain’t rocks when home in the heavens. In their celestial abode, they’re flocks of fire and glory. And a good bit of mischief too.

Too much mischief to listen to mama star. I have lit a garden in the heavens for you, she told her starlings. Be fast, be fire. But do not fly near the planets. Their cruel skies would turn you to rock. But the starlings just spun and swirled. They flew close to the world below. Too close. The sky was a strange sea, and then they were in its tide. Mama star called to the sky to show mercy. To not turn her children to rock. The sky swelled with pity. It changed the starlings fire to feathers. Course they couldn’t return to the heavens. But they flock in shapes of the galaxies where they once played.

Art by Ben Powell.

Kingfisher

A Bohemian princess, Zuzu, had a little white bird. A cruel king conquered the castle, but when he stormed the nursery to slay Zuzu, she was not in her cot. Her nanny had smuggled her to safety and taken three precious jewels. Jewels which would one day prove Zuzu’s identity. One day, she would go home, but for now, she would be a woodcutter’s daughter.

So, Zuzu and her little white bird lived in a little house. She had a new mother who combed her wispy hair, a new father who called her thistle-top, and five new sisters who each loved her more than the last. She slept happy on a straw bed between her sisters with her little white bird on her pillow, but she dreamed of home and woke crying. One day, she would return, but only if she kept the three jewels safe.

She hid the jewels in a tree hollow, but a woodpecker pecked them out. She pushed them into a beehive, but a honey bear knocked them out. She buried them under a beech tree, but a rabbit dug them out. So, she kept the jewels in her pocket and her little white bird on her shoulder.

The years went by. She played with her five sisters on the edge of the woods. They sang songs in the mountain’s shadow and looked up at the palace. One day, Zuzu would be queen. But only if she kept the three jewels safe. So, she asked her little white bird to hide them. He took the jewels in his beak and flew thrice over the forest. What place was safer than his belly, he thought? He swallowed the three precious stones. His white wings became green and blue. His white belly turned orange. He was the jewel of the sky. But how Zuzu wept when he landed on her shoulder. Now she would never go home. And so, she cried until she became a river. But her faithful bird never left her side. He stays with her still.

Art by Dick Twinney

Puffin

I bet you think that’s a nice plot of sky. Good portion of fluffed cloud tossed in blue and bronze, and a few breezes idling by. Makes you proper content just looking at it. But you never saw the sky don its finery. You never saw the sky fish in their jewelled flocks. Oh they brought colours you couldn’t name. A bounty of beauty. A dance of dazzlement and delight. What happened to them? That was the puffins doing.

Course back then, we called them spindlings. Right skinny they were with white beaks, and lazy as lazy. Didn’t want to dine on sea stuffs – too much doing. Nope. They walked on rainbows right to the top of the sky. Just stood, beaks open and gorged as the flocks swirled by. They ate and ate and puffed themselves up all portly. But that didn’t stop them. Gobbled the sky’s glory, they did. Every bit.

Well, the sky wasn’t best pleased and shook with fury. Shook the puffins from their waddling feet. But they didn’t fall. They clung to the rainbows with their beaks. The sky shook and shook till the rainbows broke and the puffins tumbled out of the sky. Well, the bits of rainbow stuck to their beaks. And the fall knocked a heap of befuddlement into them. And they’re still befuddled now. Not a pinch of sense between them.

Can I tell you a secret? I’ve never heard the ravens. Not up here, in the crow’s nest, a quarter mile above deck, winds pinching me all over and turning my hair into black flames. Not when I’m shouting, clouds clagging my mouth, ‘Wings beat fast, east, east, south.’ Not when I’m flinging my arms and the sky tugs me anchor like and I tuck my feet tighter under the iron bar. And all the folk are specks below me, and the ship groans across the trees as the captain steers and we sail, hunt fast, for the raven that isn’t there.

And afterwards, when all the spy glasses are lowered, and the sails rolled and the ship drifts over the treetops in a slowness that feels like dreaming. When the sky is fat with sunset and Hamish yowls at my feet and the windows down the great mast are lantern lit and you can see the homes inside: all soft and wide and evening like. We descend from the crow’s nest. Hamish goes ahead of me down the spiral stairway where I have to remember not to run for ‘only a falling magpie is faster than a wildcat on a mast.’ Nor far though, for we live in the dizzies with the clouds the machine doesn’t eat. I wait outside our window and watch Granny stirring the stew with a leaf to salt it. I wait while she sets three places at our little round table. I wait until Hamish claws my ankle, then I fling open the door and Granny says

“Almost had the raven that time, you did.”

“He was too fast.” I pull the door shut behind me. I’m chilled to my footprint. I slip into my chair and rub my wind-bitten hands. Lantern light swings over me. Our little round home smells of tiredness and comfort.

“You’ll get the hang of it, Billa,” Ma says as she scoops Hamish in her arms. He swats at the sea glass in her long black hair. “You didn’t fall out the crow’s nest – that’s the first challenge.” She smiles a dazzle like she does when she tells of capturing her first raven. The raven Thunlor - how folk cheered when they locked him in his cage. His cage that swings in that windowless hall where the feathers crunch under your feet. I shiver. Ma sets Hamish down and takes her seat.

“What’s the second challenge?” I say. Granny plonks a bowl of stew in front of me. My belly is noisy with hunger. I seize my spoon.

“The second challenge? Well, that’s even easier – catch the rest of the ravens and free the world from this wretched forest.” Ma swigs her nose-tingling drink and slams the glass on the table. There’s a shrinking in me. I lower my gaze to Hamish and watch him clean his paws. Ma is magpie from her eyes that flash when she hears a raven’s wingbeat to her voice that dwarfs the winds. But me? I never heard the free ravens even when the tree sea burst up, up, up and the ship climbed tilted back like it would topple, though I listened until my whole body was clagged full of listening. I walked the sails as quiet as Hamish blinks and I heard the sails women sewing the tears, their stitches so small only a beetle could count them. I listened the suck of the machine gulping a cloud wisp and slurping it down its copper throat. And I listened to the far off singing from the city inside the whale.

“Us magpies, why, we’re the only ones who can take this ship home,” Granny says as she scrapes her bowl. “Hear that?” Her laughter-deep eyes fix on me.

“Hear what, Granny?”

“The sea. Listen. It’s below us all the time. Not the Tree Sea course you can hear that. That’s the groan and rustle part. The other, lower – the water. It’s all bunched up around those trees now. It can’t flow.” She leans back in her chair, her face half myths, half leaf song. “All Grisadella had to do was feed the ravens lavender. She didn’t even have to pluck it herself and get her hands all stinking. Maybe she missed the outdoors too much? Maybe she wanted to cavort with her pals stealing steaming butter cakes? Maybe the tower was altogether too dank and round and smelling of birds for a young girl to do as she was told?” I reach for Hamish, pull him onto my lap, and hide my face in his warm fur.

“Grisadella let the whole all of them out,” Ma says. “She had a good plenty of time to stop but she kept on until all the cages were open. And out they went one by one. And where they flew, the great trees grew up until all the world was covered, top to bottom.”

“And now we’re stuck making up for what she did. And I have to be in that crow’s nest till the cold makes my bones too rickety for me to climb up there, or the wind steals my voice.”

“Billamina!” Ma’s eyes are gale wide.

“I don’t want to be a magpie. I don’t want to chase the ravens.”

“Well, as I can see it, you don’t get a choice,” Granny says. “You gonna become a sails woman stitching and stitching? You wouldn’t know one end of the needle from the other. You’d make the sails tatty as tatty.” She slurps a noisy mouthful and pushes her empty bowl away.

“We’re magpies, Billa. We always have been. Ever since Grisadella let the ravens out of the tower.”

“You got a fancy you could be a cloud wringer? You’ve got to know your cogs and copper to tend the machines.” Granny folds her arms. I shake my head. “Don’t tell me you think yourself a cannon heart. You’d blast a cannon ball through the Great Mast – most likely through my kitchen – before you vanquished the city rats.” Her face wrinkles sour like she’s watching her china bowls blown to bits. Ma unties a piece of sea glass from her long dark hair.

“That’s what the ocean was like, Billa.” She holds the sea glass so that the lantern light goes into it. The blue shine tugs at my heart. “Almost all around the world it reached. Like glass and wind both at once and filled with gods, too.” She places it in my palm – smooth and cool. “If you give up, the ocean will never come back.” My eyes are prickling. For I know I’ll never take us home.

“Why does it have to be me? Couldn’t someone else be the magpie?” I turn it in my fingers just as I did when I was a little’un and Ma had untied the sea glass to wash her hair and I’d stolen three pieces – turquoise and polished – and pushed them into my two plaits. ‘Not until you catch your first raven,’ Granny had told me as I returned them to the gleam shell before Ma found out.

“Enough of this rot,” Granny says. “What you gonna do? Run off to the city in the whale? I’ve heard you singing and it’s worse than Hamish when he got his tail trapped in the copper cogs. Why, I was only a little’un then, but it’s stuck with me all these years. Right shuddering it was.” She sips her steaming cocoa noisily. Hamish yowls a remembrance. I place the sea glass on the tablecloth and rub his ears. “Now don’t go comforting Hamish – t’was his own fault. Three hundred years old he was then and hadn’t yet got the sense to dodge the cogs.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, don’t think you’re going to be joining the city’s fine folk singing to the ghost. You’d scare it right away.” She chuckles, then gulps down the rest of her cocoa. “City rats.” She shakes her head, and there’s story in her eyes. “I used to fall asleep listening to them singing – right across the Tree Sea it carried. Course I thought them a bunch of loons. If you build your city in the skeleton of a beast, you don’t want to summon his ghost. He won’t thank you. But you can’t expect city folk to have any sense.” She stacks the empty bowls. And I remember being small and huddled in Ma’s cloak as clouds wafted round us, all grey and sticking up my nose. We watched a shine in the faraway – the city in the whale. And Ma said ‘the trees lifted the whale right out of the old dark, out of the waters, into the sky and there it perished, and the winds bleached its bones.’

Ma picks up the sea glass.

“We’re magpies, Billamina.” She ties it into her hair. “It’s in our blood. Who else could lead this ship to the ravens?”

“No one, that’s who. You listen to your mother. What’s she’s done, no one else could ever have. The greatest magpie, yet. Thunlor. Nisala. Pancish. Reveep. Janalta. Kinnolloll. Oon. Gedden. Lawkip. Wedhano. All in cages. All in the dark. All locked away. No other magpie caught so many ravens. Why, I thought I was a marvel capturing three, but even I was a snarpling next to your mother. Though I must say, I had better looks – right beautiful, I was.” She winks. “Proper violet my eyes were, like you see over the ice forests when the sun never comes but the gods troop the dark with their torches aloft. So beautiful was I that the lord of the city in the whale called off his rats and granted a peace. He couldn’t bear the thought of such a beauty suffering,” she laughs, legend in her smile. There’s more sinking in me. Though I’m sixteen, I’m still all eyes and elbows and can never brush the shape of the wind out of my hair.

“Billamina, the world was all glories before the ravens,” Ma says. Her voice is soft with guilt as if she’d unlocked the cages and let the ravens out the tower. And it pinches me. For I’m not Grisadella and I’m not what she did. “We’re magpies. We have to make the world right again.”

“I wish I wasn’t a magpie.”

“You have no choice. You’re my daughter.” I bury my face in Hamish’s fur, in his smell of chasing and goat milk.

“I wish I wasn’t.”

“What did you say?” Ma’s voice is gasp and pain. I lift my head and meet her hunt-flash gaze. And I see years to come – Ma old and stooping, her eyes dim, her hands lumpy, but sea glass swinging in her grey tresses – turquoise and blue and azure. For I would never capture a raven. And I would never wear the colours of home in my hair.

“I wish I wasn’t your daughter.” Silence slaps and Ma’s mouth pulls down and lines kraken across her forehead and her eyes are hurt, hurt, hurt. And I’m stuck, stuck in her sorrowful gaze, feeling it all through me, until a clatter breaks the hush.

“Get out of my sight,” Granny barks.

Chapter Two

I huddle on my bed and lean against my little round window. Outside, the night is tender with hanging stars, with the fat moon that dips into the tree sea, with the boughs rustling silver. But inside, all is still and sour, though Granny’s snores are rumbling through my walls, and the hull creaks and groans below. I pull my quilt around my shoulders and breathe in its smell of time and cotton just as I did when I was small, and Ma told the stories of the patchwork squares. ‘The golden magpie laid a purple egg and from it hatched the ocean, but it was small enough to carry in Granny’s herb pouch. It only grew big because it got so old.’

Hamish sits on my pillow, his face turned to the wall, his ears flat. I stroke his back, but he wags a warning.

“I didn’t mean it, Hamish,” I whisper. “I don’t wish Ma wasn’t my mother. I just wish I wasn’t me.” I wipe my tears with my sleeve. Hamish pads over and squeezes beside me, his head resting on my knee. Moonshine pales his striped fur, changing his colours from Autumn to Winter. I scratch his ears, but he doesn’t purr. “I’m proud of Ma. I never wanted to be anyone else’s daughter. There’s no one like her.” And even though I’m stinging from my tears to my toes, pride rises in me like Granny’s cheese scones in the oven. And I remember being tiny and standing on railings, Granny holding me steady. We watched Ma, her hair like black smoke, her eyes noisy jewels, lock Gedden in his iron cage. She held the key aloft all triumphant and the folk cheered and stamped so much, I nearly wobbled to the deck. And then there was the captain, his face handsomeness made wild. How the folk hushed as he took off his hat. How they gasped as he knelt and kissed the hem of her dress. ‘The swagger on her,’ Granny said, pursing her lips as we climbed the great mast home.

Hamish purrs and clouds bob against my window, and a shoal of silver fish flies so close I could catch tomorrow’s dinner in my hands. The night turns to whirl and sparkle, and sleepiness grows in me until I’m half floating, and steps sound dimly through our little round home. I startle at the click of a door.

“Where’s Ma going?” I nudge Hamish, and he opens his scowling eyes. And shame stings me again. “I’ve got to tell her I didn’t mean it.” He slumps down into the quilt. “You can sleep after. Come on.” I slip from my bed, pull my dress over my shoulders, and wrap myself in my blue cloak. It smells of heights and wool. And I remember the story of many times great granny who thieved five goats from the city in the whale. ‘Course she didn’t twig they’d go about multiplying themselves, let alone developing a taste for sails. That’s when they got Hamish to keep them in line.’

I lift Hamish and he yowls defiance, the quilt clinging to his claws. He makes himself as heavy as sleep. I set him down.

“Can you hear that, Hamish? It sounds like…” I lean towards the window and open my eyes gasp wide. “The goats are at the great sails. Tearing and chomping and belching. If we don’t stop them, they’ll be nothing left by sunrise. And the ship will be stuck on this patch of sea for years while the sails women weave a new sail. And the captain will banish you and get another wildcat.” He yowls but stretches his front legs. Then he jumps down from the bed, as I wrench my door open. I follow him as he saunters, tail aloft, through the dark. We step outside into the smarting night.

“Which way did Ma go?” I gaze towards the crows nest, but there’s no swift shape, no cloak flinging out. The ship is night full and quiet but for the low churn of the machine as it mills the clouds it caught in early dusk, except for the drip of cloud weep in the copper pipes. Everyone in the dizzies is asleep. We stand by the plucking stars, the ones so juicy and low, you could almost snatch them. Hamish is at my ankles, his fur bristling soft. He sinks into a stalking walk and crouches to leap onto the sails. “Not that way.” I grab him. “I was only teasing about the goats.” His eyes are full of pouncing. “I’m sorry. We’ll chase them later. But now we’re on Ma’s trail.” I stroke his back, but he’s still tense with hunting. “If we find Ma, you can have my share of the goat’s cheese for dewbit.” He purrs agreement, and so we begin down the great mast. The cold nibbles my hands and tucks in my hair. The windows are dark and reflection full and I see myself worry faced. Hamish runs ahead, waits for me to catch up, then runs ahead again. The moon rises from the Tree Sea, and all is silver and shine below us - the barnacles carved on the walls of the temple where the sea sisters sleep, the slow turn of the copper cogs of the cloud mill, the black flocks on the banners that hang windless. The great square is already festival deep with bunting and booths, though Lockenful is not for three days. And I glance towards the stage where Ma, sea glass glinting in her hair, will be carried aloft through the crowds as they sing the Magpie’s Way.

Suddenly, I see her crossing the square, her navy wave-embroidered cloak pulled about her, a sneaking in her step. She moves between booths, past the stage, and around the cloud mill. I shrink back as she turns, pushes her hood aside and looks up at the mast. Her face is guilt pale. Does she see me? But then the ship tilts over taller trees, and as if called, she hurries. I startle as Hamish paws my ankle.

“Ok, ok, I’m coming.” And I go slipping fast, though there’s a wariness in me. How the sails women gossip about Ma. How they hush into tight lips and tighter stiches when they notice me. But I can be quiet as the flit fish in the sighing winds, and I heard Madge Dreary say the captain was my father. And I kept it anchor deep in me and never asked Ma. For I saw him take her by her hand to the wheel and place his hat on her head, and her face was raven triumph as she steered the ship.

I keep Ma in my sight though she is fast. And I look beyond her to the captain’s towers. A shoal of silver fish swirls between the turrets. And I wonder if the captain’s watching from his dark windows. When we sailed the frozen forests at the top of the world where the night held purple and green, and icicles grew on the mast, I saw him climb to the crows nest, a bear fur coat in his arms. And then there was Ma, small in the bear coat, her hair frost-dusted, but her face rosy. Granny winked at me and said ‘Cap’n never married, did he.’

I pause at the bottom of the great mast. My view is cramped, and I can’t see Ma, though the captain’s towers loom. Hamish darts under a tent, rummages along its edge, then emerges a scarlet ribbon in his mouth.

“Treena Pebble will swat you if she catches you with that,” I say. But he darts off, the ribbon trailing. The rustle and bend of the Tree Sea hums through the deck and it carries faint howling, and I wonder if the oaks wolves are running in the far away. If Granny were awake, she’d be bolting the door three times. ‘Chased me on the sails they did, fast as fast. I’d have been dinner if a cannon hadn’t blasted them. You laugh, but an oaks wolf can run a mile up a tree trunk quicker than you could fall down it.’

I shiver, turn a corner, and see Hamish playing with the ribbon. “We’ve got to find Ma. Only I don’t know where’s she gone. She was heading to the towers but…” And suddenly, I realise, and guilt washes me again. “She’s gone to Ravenhall.” How many times have I walked with her in that iron smelling gloom, feathers crunching under our feet, and Granny pausing by Tilomee’s cage and saying ‘this one led me a merry dance. The trees shook me right out the nest, flung me like a wet leaf, and I clung to the sails, my dress flapping so loudly, I could hardly hear the wings.’

I move between booths, though my heart is leaden. The night beats over us. And then we are outside Ravenhall staring at the grim windowless walls, at the broad door with its many padlocks – all open. I pause, wary of that stale dark, of the iron cages swaying, of black wings and blacker beaks, but mostly of Ma. How will she look at me? Hamish sits, his tail twitching. I linger and I linger. I’m stuck in lingering. Then just as I reach for the door, it swings wide. And there’s Ma. Her face is full of questions, and there’s worry in the lines on her forehead, in the downturn of her mouth. Lavender scent wafts over me.

“Billa? What are you doing here?” she startles. But before I can answer, she heaves the door shut, and closes each padlock. The smell of iron and wings clings to her.

“I just wanted to…” I begin.

“Have you seen anyone?” She looks about us, peering this way, that way, between booths, towards the towers. I just stare at her.

“What’s going on, Ma?”

“Go home, Billa.” Her gaze fixes on me and there’s still hurt in her eyes. It pricks me. And my words are stuck in me, and I can’t tell her I didn’t mean it and I’m glad I’m her daughter. The night hardens about us.

Suddenly, a bell rings, faint and far off. Then another bell answers, and another. Bell song moves fire fast along the ship, and then we’re in a furnace of ringing. Ma’s eyes are horror wide. There’s shouting. I look to the towers – a flag is being raised among the swirling silver fish. They swarm and I cannot see its image. Then the shoal shifts and the flag whips and I see an arrow piercing a whale. Fear floods me.

“We have to get back, Billa,” Ma says. We run. Her cloak flings out and Hamish is under my feet and his ribbon trails dirty, and the booths are cramped and we squeeze between them and my hem catches and tears and my feet trip. The cannon hearts are running. Buttons flash on green jackets. A fury of bellsong. The clamour of boots. Then the blast of a cannon. And we’re at the great mast. I lean. The night is lighting with cannon fire. My breathing stings. I scoop Hamish in my arms. And then drifting over the bells, over the boots, over the cannons, comes a song sorrowful as a mourning bird, yet sweet as Nora Wellworth’s Lockenful punch. “City rats,” Ma says. “They’ve come for the ravens.”

“They won’t get them. They never do.” My teeth chatter, gobbling my words. “They’ve been trying since before Hamish was a kitten.” And even in my shaking and gasping, I’m proper indignant about our ravens caught by Ma and Granny and all the other magpies going back to Grisadella. The city folk would set them free. And then there’d be no hope of home. “Can’t fight cannon balls with ballads,” I shout, though my voice is drowned out.

“The stairs will take too long,” Ma says. “We’ll have to go in the cage.” And her voice is clipped and cold. She opens the iron cage door, and though all is noise and flashing and shaking, the creak of iron hinges still shudders me. How I hate the cage. The rising, the swaying, the iron smell, the feeling like a raven locked in forever. I would rather run the great mast fifty times than have that door swing shut on me. But the air is fire and fear, and Ma’s gaze is steel stern, so I squeeze in beside her. The door clangs. Ma grapples with the lever. Then we lift upwards. And through the iron bars, I see the cannon hearts, green jackets bright under the burning sky. I clutch Hamish tighter. There are faces at the windows up the great mast. I see Sasha Imperial, her silver hair tangled, her usually prayerful face all horror. Her eyes meet mine.

“What’s happening?” she mouths. But before I can reply, the cage whips up higher and higher. I glance at Ma and her face is grave, but not fearful. She doesn’t flinch as each blast feels through the cage. There’s so much thinking in her knitted brow, so much elsewhere in her lowered eyelids. Why was she so strange at Ravenhall? Another blast. I wobble. The night smells of gunpowder and panic. We go higher, high enough for the cannon hearts to become green specks, high enough to see the city ship, the Whale Song. From up here, its small enough to cup in my palm. ‘Ugly as ugly the city rats ships are. Piddly things with no grace in their sails. But what can you expect from folk who don’t know their prow from their stern?’

“Why are they always singing?” I ask.

“They’re singing to the ghost,” Ma says. “They think he’s going to swim up to us and whack us with his ghostly tail.”

The cage jolts to a stop. We’re at the dizzies. Ma wrenches the door open. I follow her out. Suddenly, the ship tilts and we slide back into the cage. The door slams. The sea is billowing, and the trees are growing, taller and taller. A raven is flying. A free raven. And even though the night is full to its seams with panic, Ma’s eyes light. They look like stinging emeralds. She grips the bars of the cage as the ship climbs. I look down and see the Whale Song is lower is faltering is wavering. I clutch Hamish tighter and hold my breath. Will it topple on its side? Will it sink beneath the boughs of the sea? I shiver thinking of the down and down and the creatures in that dark. Then the Whale Song steadies, and the wind brings it after us. Ahead, the tree sea is all boughs shaking and trunks stretching. The leaf roar is louder than cannons.

“The raven,” Ma says, pushing the door open.

“We can’t chase the raven. We’re being attacked.”

“I’m the magpie, Billamina.” And her eyes are sorrowful jewels. “Go home and look after Granny.”

“Ma.”

“Go home.” She turns and then she’s climbing up to the crows nest, though all is tilt and shake and her feet slip and she’s hanging – her hands are white, white, white. I’m clinging to the banister. Hamish’s claws dig in my shoulder. Then the ship crashes forward, and I stagger to my feet and see Ma – fast and fast into the crow’s nest. She’s small in the high above, but there’s hunting in her shoulders, in her whipping hair. Pride billows in me. And then I see – someone behind her. Tall and tall. A dark hood. A face I can’t see. Hands on Ma’s shoulders. She turns. She can’t pull away. His hands on her shoulders. We tilt. I fling out. Grip the banister. Ma. He pushes her. She’s falling – her arms flailing – her cloak is wind – and down and overboard and into the sea. The boughs rustle. And Ma is gone.

Art by Archibald Thorburn

“There’s a whole country down there,” he said as his pebble skipped twelve times and then sank.

“No, there ain’t,” I said, and I lobbed mine and heard it plop. Sunlight scratched my bare arms making them red as the stinging weeds had when I tripped in the graveyard.

“A whole country – that drowned in the giant’s tears. They chained up that giant and it were just a wee baby, all stinking and squealing for its mam. But he got them good – he cried and cried so many tears until he cried the whole sea and all them drowned.” He tossed a grey pebble out into the shine. I counted the ripples as it skipped. My hair was tuning into one big salted tangle. “He’s still crying down there now. Listen, Gertie.” So, I did. But I only heard the gulls, torn-winged and hungry.

And then Dylan got the boat. He rowed and I clung to the sides. He rowed and I listened. And I licked the water that splashed my lips and it tasted like tears. And we leaned down into the waves and saw turrets lit by turquoise fish. And behind them a great shape, fists raised and face red. And the sea grew and lapped us.

Art by David James