Imogen Robertson - Island of Bones

Agnes’s eyes were wet with tears. She’d seen sparks jump, but they would not catch. For a moment she rested, then neatened the pile of threads and began again, striking metal and stone with a chant in her head of ‘this time, this time.’

When the threads started to glow, she gazed at them stupidly a second then dropped the arrow and blew on them as gently as she could. One of the twigs began to catch. The thin light beyond the barricade was lessening. She began to tremble. What if all the light went before the smoke from her fire made it out of the tunnel’s mouth? She tended the fire and cooed to it like a mother with a child. Then looked up to see the first smoke pulled through the gap in the barrier.

Harriet had taken Mrs Briggs’s best saddle-horse and Felix rode beside her on his own mount. He had grown sulky finding Mrs Westerman had no intention of explaining to him what they were about. She simply ignored his questions as if they had no more sense to them than the calls of the birds. As they reached Portinscale, Mrs Westerman suddenly reined in her horse and bent low in the saddle to speak to a woman with a basket on her hip.

‘Miriam! Have you been in town? Have you seen any sign of Mr Crowther?’

The servant looked up with a smile. ‘Yes, madam. I saw him not ten minutes ago a way ahead of me. He turned up into Mr Sturgess’s house.’

Mrs Westerman’s horse leaped forward and Felix spurred his own in pursuit.

The evening was coming on. Slowly the light was leaching from the air, and its taste began to change in Casper’s mouth. The blooms of the day were closing, and the scents of darker flowers started to tendril out among the shadows. He felt no difference between himself and the trees and rocks around him; he was a part of the turn of the hill, just like the white lady and the black witch. The heavy air shifted with a faint sound: something was coming along the path, someone. He turned his eyes to where the white lady still sat like a mermaid on her stone in the stream. She put her finger to her lips.

It was Swithun. Alone. He looked about himself and ducked inside one of the rough covers, coming out a moment later with a large canvas bag which he began to stuff with his goods. Casper tensed his muscles and as Swithun bent forward to drive his blanket as deep and tight into the bag as he could, Casper swung down from his hiding-place. As his feet touched the ground, Swithun spun round to find the evening air had split open and Casper before him. He cried out and Casper brought his fist up hard under Swithun’s chin. He fell back onto the ground and Casper was on him, sat on his chest and pinning his arms to the earth with his knees. Casper lifted his knife so Swithun could see it, then brought it to his eye. Swithun stopped struggling at once. His long eyelashes tickled the point of Casper’s blade. He shifted his weight onto Swithun’s right arm. He groaned but so afraid was he of the knife he did not dare move. Casper lowered his face over Swithun’s until he could taste the younger man’s breath. He tasted the fear on it.

‘Where is she?’

Swithun was panting like a fox cornered. ‘I can’t say. He’ll kill me. Please, Casper! I’ll send word. Please. You won’t kill me?’

There were times when the evil that bubbled and stewed in the black witch were of use. Casper let her speak now, through his own throat. His voice became older.

‘I won’t.’ He moved the knife a little so Swithun could feel its point just on the bone of his eye-socket, flicked away a strand of the boy’s hair then returned its tip to the white and pushed just enough with the flat for the pressure to be felt. Swithun whimpered. ‘But I’ll put out your eyes if you don’t tell me, and leave you to wander blind. Imagine the pain of that, Swithun. Think of the dark.’

‘Sturgess’s folly!’ He said it fast; his body was shaking so hard it was as if he were fitting. Casper kept his face close, and blew gently on Swithun’s eye so he blinked and his eyelashes touched the blade.

‘That’s nowt but a little dip for him to sit in. I’ll do your left eye now, see if that makes you more inclined to be truthful.’ He began to press.

‘No!’ Swithun screamed. ‘I swear, it goes further back! He tried to mine! Some fella told him there was more copper there, when he first came. He tried it for three months.’ Casper released the pressure a little and waited for Swithun to calm himself. ‘It’s deep enough; just on from where he’s got all his shells it narrows and goes back. There’s a barrier — she’s behind that. I swear it!’

‘And how come I hear this from you?’

‘He brought in workers. Did it while he was landscaping his garden, like he was some fucking Lord. You were off somewhere.’

Casper thought back, keeping his knife where it was. There had been dark times now and again where he’d hardly notice a season pass, and come stumbling back to the village thin and hurting. It could be. And he would take no note of an out-comer prettifying his garden.

‘Is she living?’

‘Yes, yes, Casper! I swear! My da said Sturgess tried to do her, but he let go of her arm in time. I took her food, and water. We never wanted to hurt anyone, Casper. But he said we’d hang.’

‘Sturgess? You tried to bargain with him?’

‘He said we’d hang, I say! Over a snuffbox. Everyone knows he’s always looking for the Luck. We had no choice! We didn’t know it would come to this.’

Casper lifted his knife away and straightened, then shifted his weight to take the pressure off Swithun’s injured arm a little.

‘She do that to you?’

‘Yes.’ The voice was small, miserable. There was a smell of piss in the air.

‘You brought her food? Your da helped her live?’

‘Yes, Casper! We did! Swear on the Luck, we did!’

The black witch wanted blood. She always did. She wanted to see the knife go into the eye and watch the jelly of it burst. Casper ignored her. He felt the white lady standing behind him, her hand on his shoulder, and leaned back into her touch.

‘That’s earned you one chance, Swithun. One. Pack your stuff, find your da and then leave here. Don’t do anything else. Whatever you’ve been promised, put it out of your mind. If you run now, you can live. I’ll even keep an eye on your ma and you can send for her later if you want. But you and your da are banished from here. If you’re ever seen here again, you’ll breathe your last in those moments. You hear?’ Swithun nodded. ‘Swear it. Swear on the Luck you tried to take which sees and knows and remembers.’

‘I swear it.’

Casper sprang up and was swallowed into the woods before Swithun even knew he was free. He rolled over, got to his knees and vomited onto the earth.

Crowther used the head of his cane to knock at the door of Mr Sturgess’s house. It was a convenient sort of place for a gentleman, with a long drive coming to a pleasant villa that would be perfect for a well-to-do parson and his family. Crowther was surprised, therefore, when the door was opened by the owner himself.

‘Mr Crowther, what do you want?’

‘Your maid’s day off, Mr Sturgess?’

He looked rather flustered by the question, and annoyed. ‘As you say.’

‘There are matters I wish to discuss with you,’ Crowther said. ‘I am beginning to be of the opinion you were right all along, and these crimes must be laid at the feet of Casper Grace.’

Sturgess smiled more pleasantly, opened the door fully and gestured for Crowther to follow him. ‘I am pleased to hear you are willing to see sense. Come in, we can speak in the study.’

Crowther followed him slowly. There were bare places on the walls, like the ghosts of the portraits in Mr Askew’s museum, and a general air of neglect around the place that could not be explained by a maid only absent for one day. The study into which he was shown, however, was completely furnished. There were bookshelves down one wall and an imposing-looking desk with a chair behind it of antique style and almost throne-like pretensions, backed with a heavy dresser. One or two more modern, rather spindly dining chairs sat against the wall. There were a number of portraits. Crowther noticed another door leading to the lawns at the back of the house, and through the window to his left saw a pathway that he assumed circled round to the front. Sturgess had obviously noticed him absorbing the scene.