Stalking Tender Prey: The Grigori Trilogy, #1

Prologue: The Arrival

Friday, 16th October: A journey by train from Cresterfield in the north of England

The child watched him from across the carriage. His eyes were closed, leaking only a shining sliver, as if tears gathered there in darkness, but he could feel the girl’s intense scrutiny, the half-formed butterfly questions, flitting through her focused child’s mind. He did not mind. Children, untainted by experience, might recognise him sometimes.

His long hands lay loosely clasped in his lap. He felt empty, neither guilty nor exultant. What had happened further north in the city was finished with now. There were no victories to savour, no mistakes to lament. He was not running away but running onwards.

A man came to check tickets, to clip and stamp them. The traveller was forced to open his eyes, search for the square of card. The guard, braced on stiff legs against the movement of the train, did not look at the traveller’s face. He moved on. ‘Tickets please. Passengers since Cresterfield.’

The traveller smiled at the wide-eyed girl who continued to stare, then he looked out at the world through glass.

Beyond the train, the countryside had changed. It looked both younger and older than the flattened areas of industry and human overpopulation he had recently left behind. Spiky hills, raw rock poking through. Blankets of forests, rough heath: a place of ancient legends. The summer was fading into that frowzy, tired interim period — the Earth masquerading as an overdressed and sadly declining female — before a brief spurt of harsh colour led the unforgiving winter in by the nose.

He spent so much time in the city places: the only time he ever saw the seasons change was from the inside of trains or coaches or cars. The land rushed by beyond the dust-veiled window, and he rested his head against the glass.

There was a star in the afternoon sky.

The traveller raised his head, and a flash of light burned against his eyes. Perhaps it was the reflection from a far window of a cottage on the hillside, or a car door being opened, or a discarded glass bottle among the ferns. It if was none of these things, it could only be a true sign, a burst of energy, giving him a signal. A way to the gate! The thought formed half-acknowledged in his mind. It meant nothing, yet everything, like remembering a line from a poem, learned long ago. Abandon the earth, take back the stars! Your kingdom awaits!

Whose voice was it that sang in his brain? When had he learned these words? They kindled excitement within him, yet there was a cost. Fear flapped there too, in darkness. He could almost smell its carrion breath, the stink of its wet feathers. Fear and ecstasy. It must be a flashback to some forgotten drug experience. He smiled, comforted.

The train began to slow down. There was a squeal of brakes, and a tunnel of trees engulfed the carriages, hiding the land beyond. Without thinking, the traveller was on his feet, pulling down the old canvas bag from the overhead storage area, which contained all the artefacts of his life. The station, hardly more than a siding, came into view as he moved towards the door, nodding once at the girl-child, ignoring the reprimanding stare of her mother.

This was the place.

The station was small, air warm and ripe against his skin. He was the only person to get off the train here. The moment his feet touched the concrete of the platform, he scanned the sky for omens, but high trees eclipsed his view, their branches flounced with autumn’s gold and crimson.

As he surrendered his ticket, he received a sour up-and-down glance from a gaunt, inbred looking individual skulking in the inspector’s booth beside the station gateway. The traveller did not bother to smile or speak. As he sauntered out into the empty street beyond, adjusting his backpack for comfort, a familiar sense of unreality stole across his senses. These are cardboard buildings, cardboard props for a second-rate drama. It was not really a town, more a village, and a forgotten one at that. The sense of history was faint, although he was aware that people had lived in this place for many centuries. It had never witnessed any events of importance, he was sure, being no more than a receptacle for a few mundane souls who sped from womb to grave with less purpose than animals, or perhaps, he thought charitably, the same purpose as animals. The place looked empty, but he knew that, had he walked in the other direction, he would have come across the heart of it: the lone, under-stocked supermarket, the row of pubs, a small cinema showing films considerably out of date. This conviction was not the result of some psychometric skill, but merely a familiarity with towns of this type. You had to look hard for the romance in this country. Abroad, little towns seemed to possess a bustling other-life, like insects below the grass. There were often mysteries to uncover, mysteries that could be cherished like gems unexpectedly discovered in a rock that had seemed uniformly grey. Here, the social structure demanded a different kind of behaviour — upright, polite, mannered — but that usually meant the mysteries, when they were coaxed from hiding, were all the more delightful and perverse. He sniffed the air. Something had called to him from the train.

A flash of light beckoned from down the deserted street, like a hand extended round the corners of the buildings, gesturing ‘Come, come.’ He sensed it as a gift from the future, a trail to follow.

Walking towards the signal, where the sun hung high in the sky, the traveller was a solitary figure in an uncluttered scene. He felt as if this was the ending of something, not the beginning. He could walk away out of existence. Yet his boots made a solid, satisfactory sound against the road and his flesh felt real and comfortable about his bones. He was a good performer.

The road led out of the town straight into the landscape of hills and heath. The traveller felt his spirits lift, and tested the air for exciting perfumes. There might be a solitary stone manor squatting in the furze, where deranged family members feuded with sanity. There might be a cottage where a lovesick desertee mulled over the painful intricacies of their past. There might be a farm, with buxom daughters and leery sons, where a traveller might weave a little mischief for a while. The countryside seemed the proper setting for such scenarios. If he walked, he was sure to stumble across the thing he had come here to find. The richness and variety of the human race enchanted him; he was not repelled by weaknesses or failings and was tolerant of most behaviour, even the least endearing. Difficult people interested him far more than those whose conversations and ideas inspired the spirit, or whose physical beauty constricted breath in the throat. He sought out the unusual, observing behaviour with cool, yet committed interest. He loved them all.

He had been travelling for many years, and had lost count of the exact figure. He had visited most countries where it was easy to gain access, and several where it wasn’t. He wore a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed his eyes, shutting out the history of the world, if not his own history, to the casual observer. Sometimes he would play the role of enigmatic stranger, dark and impenetrable; at other times, he would be the world’s fool, the travelling jester, and at these times, he might play an instrument or tell stories. Some countries reacted more favourably to this persona than others. In England, he observed the code of reticence and became the withdrawn one, the stranger on a train. Few people sat next to him on his travels, but those that did, he generally liked to communicate with. Now, at least for a while, he wanted to feel the bones of the planet beneath his feet.

Something had gone awry in Cresterfield. He had begun dreaming of the closed gateway again, and the dreams had urged him to act. It was like trying to find his way through a cluttered room in the dark, where objects were hard and sharp, positioned to bruise his uncertain limbs. What was this obsession with gateways? He still could not understand it, and his waking mind shrank from examining the image. All he could do was obey the instinct when it seized him, use the old magic as a battering ram to force the gate, to blow it apart. He was aware that the gate was not a physical object, but a psychic portal within himself. What lay beyond he did not know, and sometimes feared it might be death or madness. Still, to ignore the compulsion when it came was unthinkable, worse than the most intense sexual need. He had to spend himself in ritual, direct energy towards the obstruction in his mind. So far, satisfaction had eluded him. His performances quietened the urge, sometimes for months at a time, but never sated it. Desperation had driven him to greater excesses in Cresterfield, and he had left incriminating evidence behind him. This was not the first time it had happened, but this country was small, and it was more difficult to pass unnoticed. He’d wondered, at first, whether he would be pursued, and was alert for it, but he was adept at covering his tracks, and had sensed no invisible eyes upon him, or other, less familiar, organs of sight. Here, in this timeless wilderness, he would vanish into the landscape. He would walk the moors and see what the future exposed to him, or exposed him to. There was always the hope that this time someone or something would happen to him that might change his life, liberate him, reveal to him the answers to the puzzles of his existence.

It was a moist country, rich with the fecund smells of earth. Hills swelled towards the horizon, punctuated by the moving pale dots that were sheep. The sky was a high, bleached blue, and once out of the town, a waspish wind scoured the land. The traveller walked in an appreciative daze. He saw some people with dogs striding through the heather: he heard the pixie call of excited children. The polished hides of parked cars burned in the distance, winking glares where they caught the sun. These things did not call to him. He was aware of the timeless ambience of this land. Perhaps the things he saw and heard were simply ghosts, or echoes, of high summer that would fade into the approaching cold. When his steps faltered, he had come to a crossroads. The light, the flash in the sky he’d seen from the train, had been his guide, both physically and mentally. He knew it would continue to be. Something was waiting to be discovered.

Chapter One

Friday 16th October: Little Moor

Lily Winter stood at the top of the hill, looking down across the grounds of the deserted manor house in the valley below. She often paused here in her walks, for she liked to stare at the choked garden, with its still, stagnant lake, and the dark, forbidding towers of the house itself. She had always been nervous of exploring the place in person, even though she and her twin brother, Owen, had a fascination for abandoned old houses. Long Eden. Its name alone conjured stories. Lily had concocted many languid romances in her mind as she’d sat upon the hill, gazing down. Long Eden had been empty since before her birth. The people who’d once lived there, with their imagined laughter, tragedies, riches and fantastical parties had all left the area, no doubt to avoid death duties and expense. Lily sometimes wondered what the true story was.

A chill breeze, smelling of smoke, of autumn, moulded her long skirt around her goose-pimpled legs. She felt cold, but enjoyed the experience of it, the promise of another season, something new, yet familiar.

The distant, mournful blare of a train’s horn broke Lily’s reverie, brought her back into the afternoon. October. The month of brown and red and yellow; the smoke month. Today was the sixteenth day. She would count the others, each with its own unique flavour, until the end.

Two red setters bounded over the crest of the hill and gambolled, barking, towards her, their owner following behind.

‘Amber! Lester!’ Lily called and hunkered down, extending her arms. The animals threw themselves against her, ecstatic with pleasure at this unexpected meeting.

‘Dogs! Dogs!’ A middle-aged woman came striding behind her charges. She was dressed in yellow jodhpurs and polished black riding boots, a thick, quilted jacket hanging open to reveal a startling white jumper, which covered a bosom resplendent with gold chains.

Lily stood up, her hands upon the dogs’ heads, their tails beating against her bare legs. ‘Hello, Mrs Eager. How are you today?’

The woman smiled up at her. Lily was considerably taller than her. ‘Fine. But, you must be freezing.’ She pantomimed a shiver. ‘No coat or tights! What are you thinking of, child?’

‘It’s all right. I don’t feel the cold.’

‘Ah, youth!’ sighed the woman.

Lily didn’t like being called a child. She was a woman, nearly twenty years old. Barbara Eager was a pleasant sort, but a relative newcomer to Little Moor. She had brought her values with her, ways that had settled uneasily over the community, although she was not disliked. She and her husband ran the big hotel, The White House, which was popular with walking tourists in summer, and used at weekends by the locals as a pub. During the week, everyone tended to favour The Black Dog, which was run by a surly, one-eyed tyrant and his mean-spirited wife, both of whom were over-familiar and acid with their clientele according to their moods. Owen had told Lily he had once walked past The Black Dog in the small hours of the morning and had heard the landlord and his wife having sex; her wild moans had drifted from the open window. Lily was unsure whether this could be true. Owen was prone to fantasising. Mr and Mrs Eager, on the other hand, would have a comfortable, mannered relationship. She would utter no moan of passion or otherwise, but perhaps a polite cough. Lily couldn’t help smiling at this thought.

Barbara was oblivious, as she was of most things subtle in Little Moor. She smiled back. ‘Well, it’s a lovely day, and the smells are divine! What are you up to, Lily?’ There was a note in her voice, which she could never contain, that revealed her slight disapproval of the fact that neither Lily nor Owen worked for a living. She often tried to interrogate them about where their income came from, which Lily and Owen both side-stepped with dexterity. There was no secret, but it amused them to frustrate the woman. Their mother had left them with an adequate income. Once a month, Owen and Lily drove into the nearest town, Patterham, and withdrew the interest on the account, which was more than enough for their needs. Owen had buried some of it in the walled garden to their house. Just in case.

‘I’m just walking,’ Lily said. ‘Thinking.’ Sometimes, she offered to do jobs for Barbara, to make the woman feel better, but today was not one of her most altruistic days.

‘You must do a lot of thinking,’ Barbara said, somewhat sharply.

Lily shrugged, and then said abruptly, ‘I’m going to write a book.’

‘Oh, how splendid!’ Barbara’s face bloomed with delighted relief. ‘You know, you ought to come to my little writing circle some time. Get some feedback. It’d be good for you.’

‘Thanks,’ Lily said. ‘I might.’ She had no intention of ever doing so. Barbara’s group comprised several middle-aged women and men, all well-heeled, who had retired to the moors from affluent occupations. Lily suspected that most of them were entirely talentless. The thought of writing something had only just come to her. She had no idea whether she’d be able to do it or not. It might be a boring thing to do, in the event.

‘So, what are you writing about?’ Barbara asked, and then grinned roguishly, ‘or haven’t you reached the stage where you want to talk about it yet?’

‘Well, I have a few ideas...’ Lily screwed up her face. ‘It’s quite difficult.’

‘Oh, I know!’ Barbara’s hand shot out to grab Lily’s arm in a moment of artistic understanding. ‘You know me and my little scribblings... It’s such agony sometimes, like trying to dig your way out of a buried cave with your bare hands!’

‘Is it?’ Lily didn’t fancy getting involved in anything that sounded so painful.

‘Oh yes! Sometimes the muse sits on my shoulder, but most often not. I have a devil of a job tempting her back!’ She laughed with inappropriate loudness.

‘Mmm, well I don’t think I’ve even met my muse yet.’

‘Oh, don’t worry, you will!’

Barbara summoned her dogs, who had lost interest in Lily and were now investigating cow pats a few feet away. ‘Are you walking back down the hill, dear?’

‘If you like.’ Lily put her hands into her skirt pockets and strolled along beside the woman. She noticed Barbara casting condemning glances at her down-at-heel work-boots, which were in fact a pair of Owen’s, and also at her chest, where because of the cold, it was obvious she was not wearing a bra. Lily could almost feel Barbara’s itching desire to take her in hand, dress her up, give her a purpose in life. She had yet to meet the Eager daughter, Audrey, who was away at university studying law. Lily knew she’d dislike her intensely. Audrey had never come to Little Moor during the holidays, as she always went abroad, travelling with friends. Barbara was always talking about this paragon of intelligence, wit and beauty, and didn’t seem to take offence that her daughter hadn’t even bothered to come and see The White House. Her parents had lived there for nearly a year now.

‘We’re having a barbecue on Halloween,’ Barbara said. ‘Few fireworks and sausages. Sort of combination with Guy Fawkes’ night. Will you and Owen come?’

‘Halloween’s on Saturday this year,’ Lily answered. ‘We always come to The White House on Saturdays.’

Barbara smiled uneasily. ‘So young to be such creatures of habit,’ she said. ‘But I’d planned for the ‘do’ to be on the Friday night, in any case.’

They’d reached the bottom of the hill and Barbara was clambering over the stile. Woods bustled darkly away to their right, while the black stones of Long Eden to the left were now hidden from view. Lily paused and looked backwards before following Barbara into the lane.

‘What is it, dear?’ Barbara asked.

Lily turned round and shrugged. ‘Nothing. It’s just the pull of the day, I think.’

Barbara laughed. ‘My, how poetic! The pull of the day! What do you mean by it?’

They had begun to walk along the lane that led back to the village. ‘I don’t know, really. Some moments are just significant, aren’t they?’ Lily had only just realised she’d experienced such a moment, and wasn’t quite sure when it had happened. Only the taste of it lingered in her heart.

‘The sooner you start writing, the better!’ Barbara said. ‘I hope you’re not going to show us all up!’

Lily smiled. ‘Not much chance of that, Mrs. Eager.’

Low Mede was an old house rooted on the outskirts of Little Moor. It was three-storeyed, yet somehow appeared low slung and rambling, and comprised of warm red brick. This was the home of the Cranton family, like the Eagers, relative newcomers to the village. The house possessed an air of tranquillity, a mellow ambience suited to the autumn season. Within it, however, tensions stretched and reverberated like wires.

Louis Cranton was out in the garden, staring down at the fading plants in a flower bed, worrying about his daughter, Verity. They had not had a row exactly, but in his eyes it had been an argument: without raised voices, without bitter words, an exchange of chilled silence. The subject had been a familiar one. Everything had been said countless times before. Verity had done nothing with herself since she’d left college, which seemed such a waste to Louis, and he could not help, on occasion, telling her so. He did not begrudge the money he’d invested in her future, but felt pained she herself seemed to care so little about it. Her degree in modern studies had been a first; she could have pursued many avenues to success. But, whenever he broached the subject, Verity quietly, chillingly, reminded him she was happy to care for him and her brother, Daniel. She did not trust her father to look after the pair of them. Although he found it uncomfortable to think about, Louis suspected something more than filial duty kept Verity in Little Moor. The village was a sanctuary, a time capsule, in which she could conceal herself. Why, and from what? She was an articulate and attractive girl. When she chose to, she could make friends easily, but the only people she spent time with, other than her family, were older women in the village. She seemed happy, but Louis was uneasy. Perhaps he was projecting his own desires onto the girl. The accident that had killed his wife, Janine, had also left him disabled. He could no longer court the world’s wonders, flit from country to country, sampling life’s most potent liquors. He’d had no formal education, and was a self-made man, so successfully self-made that the forced early retirement had not posed a financial threat to him. He wanted the best for his children. Verity, he felt, was brilliant, capable of achieving the very best, while Daniel, he had to admit, did not share his sister’s fine intellect. He should worry more about Daniel, surely, with his disappointingly mediocre grades at school and his youthful, lazy disposition. Also, Daniel had an over-active imagination. As a child, he’d always chatted to invisible ‘friends’, and been able to ‘see’ what people in other rooms, even houses, were doing. Janine had been more worried about it than Louis, because she’d been the one to confirm Daniel’s ‘predictions’ by talking with the people concerned. As he’d grown older, this tendency had dropped off, but he’d always been rather a solitary child. Now, he seemed withdrawn from normal teenagers, preferring the company of an unsavoury band of local acquaintances, all of whom looked as if they practised the Black Mass with their families on a regular basis, or had slithered out of some H P Lovecraft story about incestuous hill-billies. Louis had tried to get his son to bring friends home from school for the weekend — healthy, ordinary lads — but Daniel resisted this in an unrelentingly passive manner. Louis deplored Daniel’s choice in reading matter, the most tacky of popular occult novels — surely an unhealthy interest for a growing boy — and was positively unnerved by the posters which adorned the walls of Daniel’s rooms: demons, devils, peculiar animals. Perhaps it was just a phase. Louis himself had never experienced such a phase, but life had been very different back in the ‘Fifties. He wished Daniel could get a girlfriend. He was seventeen years old now, and a good-looking lad, if a little too slender. He didn’t do himself any favours by dressing so scruffily when he was at home, but perhaps the sort of girls Daniel might prefer would like that. At least, while he was still at the private grammar school Louis had sent him to, Daniel couldn’t grow his hair to an unacceptable length. The school was strict about things like that.

Louis surveyed the garden and leaned down painfully, putting his weight on his stick, to pluck a thin weed from the flower bed at his feet. Verity’s last words to him as he’d limped in anger from the drawing room had been, ‘And you spend too much time bending and stretching out there. Hire a gardener. It’s time you faced your limitations.’ He knew she was right. There was more pain than pleasure involved in caring for his private domain. Still, he had a peevish urge to defy her. Sometimes, she was too much the fount of all knowledge — perhaps a legacy of her university education — which he found irritating and humiliating. Sometimes, he wept alone at night, with only a bottle of whisky for company, the lights burning low in his study. He wept for Janine, his lost light, and for his ruined body. Sometimes he thought, I’d do anything, anything, to be fit again. But there was never any angel or devil listening, who could manifest before him and name a price.

The Crantons had lived in Low Mede since the spring of the year before, moving in in the wake of an army of interior decorators, who had restored the six bedroomed building to its original splendour: wood stripped of a century of paint, dried flowers gouting from ornate vases, glossy floors spread with sumptuous Persian rugs. Louis had been out of hospital four months then, and had been able to walk small distances, aided by two sticks. Now, he only needed one stick, but a stroll anywhere further than down to one of the two village pubs both exhausted and agonised him. Age conspired with his injured bones and muscles to prevent a full recovery.

At least he could look forward to one of his little pleasures this evening: the writer’s circle held upstairs at The White House, in Barbara Eager’s living room. Now that he had the time, Louis wrote reams of poetry — bad poetry, he knew — but because there was so little he could do physically, it no longer seemed like a waste of time. Poetry, no matter how clumsy, had been his one solace during the dreadful grieving time following Janine’s death and his own slow recuperation. The countryside around Little Moor inspired him; he wrote mawkishly of the seasons, the land, lost youth and love, time’s passing. Once a month, he enjoyed the indulgence of reading his work aloud to a receptive audience; their criticism was gentle, and in return, he held his tongue concerning their own efforts. Barbara Eager had collected what she considered to be the group’s best work and had published it herself. It was sold in the local post office and also on the front counter at the tiny, part-time library near The Black Dog. Most copies had been bought by the writers themselves to give to friends and relatives back in the real world, part of the lives they had left behind. Verity had never seen her father’s poetry; Louis could not have stood it if she had. She would only recognise its badness, and consequently praise him in a patronising manner.

A noise from the house advised him of the arrival of his patroness. On Fridays, Barbara Eager drove in her Land Rover to Ellbrook, a small town, seven miles west that boasted a large supermarket on its outskirts. Without actually saying so, she made it plain she didn’t think Louis got out enough, and had briskly offered to take him with her on her excursions. He sat in the cafe attached to the shop, while she marched round behind a shopping trolley, and later, after drinking coffee together, she would drive them home the ‘picturesque’ way. This took them beneath the canopy of an ancient forest, known locally as Herman’s Wood, through which the road cut east. The forest spread right to the edge of Little Moor. When the weather was fine, Barbara would say ‘How about getting back to nature, then?’ and would wrench the steering wheel around, so that the Land Rover bounced off the lane and up one of the off-road tracks. After a short, bone-jolting ride, she would stop the vehicle with a screech of the handbrake. Then, she would help Louis down from the passenger seat and take his arm, leading him a short way into the trees. They would talk about poetry, and writers, and complain about television programs they’d both seen. Then, Barbara Eager would look at her watch, make a groaning sound and hurry Louis back to the Land Rover. She had to be back at The White House to help her husband, Barney, open up for the evening. Once a week, Louis went to the Eagers’ for dinner. Barney would play him marching band CDs on his hi-fi system and break open exquisite brandies. Louis liked the Eagers. He was grateful for the way in which they enhanced his diminished life.

Barbara Eager breezed into Low Mede without knocking on the door or ringing the bell. The front door was always ajar in warm weather until evening. She called out a bright greeting, which invoked Verity from the dining room. Barbara couldn’t repress the slight shudder that always accompanied a first sighting of the girl. She was somehow sinister, with her lean, rigid stance and expressionless face. Barbara had never seen Verity wearing dark clothes — most of her dresses were long and of a discreet floral print — but she still managed to give the impression that she dressed in black. Barbara knew Verity had little time for her, yet always attempted to be friendly with the girl for Louis’ sake. Secretly, Barbara felt Verity to be a cold, selfish creature, someone who needed a good talking to, bringing down a peg. How different she was to Audrey, with her busy life, her ambitions and skills.

‘He’s in the garden,’ Verity said, without returning a greeting. ‘I’ll call him for you.’

‘Thank you,’ Barbara answered shortly. She sensed the atmosphere immediately. There had been a disagreement. When Verity and Louis were on good terms, Verity would say hello to Barbara, and then direct her to wherever Louis was in the house. On bad days Barbara was kept waiting in the dark, highly polished hallway, while Verity behaved like a chatelaine, jealously keeping the keys of the house, and seemingly the keys to the lives of those who lived there.

Barbara’s heart contracted when Louis came out of the drawing room. He looked fragile. She wanted to rush forward and hug him, but of course that would be entirely inappropriate, and Verity was lurking behind him in the doorway, her eyes like flints. Barbara experienced a spasm of anger that Verity could do this to Louis. The girl did not seem to appreciate (or simply did not care) how delicate he was, how the storms of her moods buffeted his waning strengths.

‘Louis, you’re having dinner with us tonight!’ Barbara announced impulsively. ‘Come back to The White House with me after we’ve been to Ellbrook.’

Louis visibly brightened. ‘Oh, that’s very...’

‘Dad, you should come home first for your massage,’ Verity interrupted. She addressed Barbara. ‘I give him aromatherapy on Friday evenings. He needs it before going down to the pub.’

Barbara acknowledged a slight censure in Verity’s tone. She wanted to say, ‘Well, give me the oils, and I’ll do it’. She’d done a short course on therapeutic massage at her women’s group before she’d moved to Little Moor, and certainly felt she had the expertise. But because of the way she felt about Louis, albeit repressed, she couldn’t bring herself to suggest it.

In the event, Louis himself intervened. ‘I’ll have it tomorrow, Vez. It won’t make that much difference.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Verity answered, ‘but don’t complain to me about aches and pains.’

Louis directed a crooked smile at Barbara, which Verity could not see. He rolled his eyes. It was tragic what life had done to him. Barbara could see a ghost of his former self in his smile. He was still a very handsome man, with his stooped, lean form and thick, greying hair. She wanted to cure all of Louis’ aches, but their friendship was polite and restrained. She could barely voice her sympathy for him.

‘Have you got your list?’ Verity said.

Louis nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Well, don’t forget to bring the shopping home with you tonight.’

‘I won’t.’

She speaks to him as if she’s his wife, Barbara thought with distaste, or his mother.

‘I’ll give him a lift back tonight,’ she said, and realised she was conspiring in Verity’s game. You didn’t let children walk the streets alone at night. They had to be escorted.

After her father had left the house, Verity Cranton stood alone in the hallway, closed her eyes and allowed herself a few moments to soak up the atmosphere she adored. Her hand reached out to touch the glossy sphere on top of the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. She could hear the grandmother clock ticking precisely in the dining room, the hum of the fridge/freezer coming from the kitchen. Everything was perfectly still. It was blissful when Daniel and her father were both out, a time when she could walk the rooms of the house to experience the satisfaction of everything being in its place, the perfect symmetry of the furniture and paintings and ornaments, which drew her eyes sensuously like a well-composed picture. In this house, Verity felt completely at home, which was more than an appreciation of her possessions being around her, the spaciousness of the building, the expensive decor. The house seemed to hug her closely. She needed nothing more than the simple life Little Moor provided for her. If she dreamed of romance, she was cynical and experienced enough to realise that dreams were often preferable to reality. She liked her own company, and on the occasions she needed outside stimuli, the gentle friendship of the few women she’d become acquainted with was more than adequate to satisfy her.

The cross words she’d had with her father a short time before had left an unpleasant resonance behind them. Verity walked slowly into the drawing room, with the intention of cleansing the atmosphere there. Like Daniel, she was a very sensitive person, although she chose to hide and repress her more psychic aspects, and had always done so. She suspected that Louis wanted to get rid of her, that he didn’t particularly like her as a person, and resented her presence. She had never been close to either of her parents, and the loss of her mother had made barely an impact on her life. She remembered when the news had come to her, in the final year of her studies at university, the phone call from her maternal grandmother at her digs. Verity was very similar to her grandmother — they had always understood one another, even when Verity had been a prim and undemonstrative child.

‘Vez, I have something very unpleasant to tell you,’ her grandmother had said. ‘I’m afraid there’s been an accident. Janine is dead.’

‘Oh,’ Verity had answered. She could think of nothing else to say. No tide of emotion had crashed over her head, no horrified incredulity, panic or grief. In fact, she recalled a premonition earlier in the day which she’d impatiently ignored.

There had been a brief silence and then her grandmother had asked, ‘Are you upset?’

The question, under the circumstances, should have seemed bizarre, but despite the distance and the impersonality of the instrument in her hand, Verity knew instinctively that on the other end of the line a remote soul reverberated completely in tune with her own. Neither of them felt upset.

‘I’m shocked,’ Verity had eventually responded in an even voice.

‘Yes. Your father is badly hurt. Perhaps you should come home.’

Netty, the girl with whom Verity shared a house, reacted far more strongly when the news was broken to her. She wanted to hug Verity and weep with her. She ran to the off-licence to fetch a nepenthe of cheap vodka. Verity was glad that her icy stillness was interpreted as horrified numbness. She drank the vodka, wondering how this event would affect her life. Surely, she wouldn’t be expected to give up her studies at this crucial stage?

After the funeral, which Louis was too ill to attend, everyone went back to Janine’s parents’ house. There, Verity had begun to weep. Her grandfather had hurried to console her, but she had shaken him off impatiently. She didn’t need his sentimental words.

‘Don’t you understand?’ she’d cried. ‘I’m crying because I cannot grieve! All these people, look at them, they all feel more for her than I ever did!’ She instantly became aware of the monstrousness of her words. Her grandfather had withdrawn as if scalded, and there was a weary recognition in his eyes. He had lived with a woman like Verity for many years. Janine had been his darling, his true daughter. Verity could tell he was sad that Janine had spawned another frozen monster like her mother. Yet Verity could not regret her outburst. It was the simple truth.

That was the only time Verity had ever considered her passionlessness might be abnormal, or even disabling in some way. She had known a similar outburst would not happen again. Scant weeks after this event, her life had become catastrophic, as if she’d incurred a psychic backlash for her behaviour. It had ended in one man committing suicide and another man’s wife going insane. Louis knew nothing about this, and if Daniel had intuited it, he never mentioned it. In Little Moor, Verity could shut the door on the past. She believed she had thrown away the key.

The argument with Louis had been about the usual topic: how she should get away and immerse herself in a suitable career, meet people, find a boyfriend. Verity never shouted back at Louis, no matter how frustrated he became, how loud his voice. He, after all, was ignorant of her reasons for choosing the life she lived. She was prepared to hang on doggedly until the house became hers; she would not let him push her out. Anyway, he needed her, no matter how he liked to deny it. Although he annoyed her at times, and she considered him a weak, emotional person, she did not dislike him. Often, she felt surprisingly protective towards him, in the same way that she looked after her belongings, kept them clean and in the correct place. As well as massaging what she hoped was energy into his damaged body, she bought his clothes for him to keep him spry, and had arranged for a local hairdresser to come to the house regularly to keep him well groomed. Similarly, because she was not a good cook, she had hired someone to prepare their meals, to make jam and pickled onions for them, bake pies using fruit from the small orchard at the bottom of the garden. The rest of the housekeeping duties she kept jealously to herself. The house was large, but she devoted herself to its care. When Louis had shown an interest in the garden — a hitherto unknown interest — she had grudgingly ordered a lawn-mower he could sit down in, and various tools adapted to his needs. He no longer went shooting, which had been his favourite recreation in the past, so she supposed the gardening was therapeutic for him. Verity now also kept the accounts, presenting neatly written cheques to Louis for him to sign. The attic had been converted into two rooms and a bathroom for Daniel, where he could live comfortably in an infuriating slobbiness that Verity could ignore. The door to the attic stairs was kept shut. Daniel would come in through the front door, rampage up the stairs and disappear into his lair. The only annoyance was the thump of the raucous music he liked to listen to, but even that was slight; the rooms had been soundproofed. Once a month, the cook’s two grand-daughters came and cleaned up there. Sometimes, Daniel would be around, and the sound of high-pitched flirty giggling would come down the attic stairs. Verity was forever slamming the door shut as she passed it, although she sensed Daniel abhorred the giggling as much as she did.

Verity extended her honed senses into the drawing room, imagining she was pushing back a gritty, grey cloud. Presently, all residue of the argument had been expunged. She breathed deeply in satisfaction, felt better. A sound from the kitchen advised her Mrs Roan had come to begin dinner. It was always eaten early on a Friday, because it was Louis’ night at The White House. Now, Verity would eat alone. She doubted Daniel would put in an appearance, and would not appreciate it if he did. She herself favoured late meals, eaten in dim light with expensive cutlery and accompanied by acid wines. She felt more affection for the correct placement of tableware than she ever did for other people. She and Mrs Roan had a mutual respect for one another. Mrs Roan was pleased a young person in ‘this day and age’ had an appreciation of a well-kept house, while Verity admired Mrs Roan’s polite distance and tidy way of working. Verity was altogether approved of by the village women. Even those she visited could not claim to know her, but she could keep up an even stream of conversation and was knowledgeable about the subjects that interested them. The only thing she was not given to was gossip, but that was generally kept for more intimate friends anyway.

As she turned to leave the room, someone called, ‘Verity!’ The voice was urgent, as if warning her of something. Alarmed, Verity wheeled round, for the voice had sounded as if it was in the room behind her. There was, as she should have known, nothing there.

‘What?’ she demanded irritably. For years, she had shut out this kind of silliness, messages from nowhere. It annoyed her. But there was no response to her enquiry. As she passed from the drawing room into the hall, she felt the day change. Involuntarily, she shivered, then repressed the feeling with a firm thought. The only prospect for the future was the preparation of dinner, the consuming of dinner, and all the other regular routines she had created for herself. She would let nothing else in.

Chapter Two

Lily Winter knew that her brother was going to be out all night again. He always told her he’d be back late, not to wait up, but invariably when he went out at tea time on a Friday, he would not return until morning. Sometimes he’d be asleep in the kitchen when Lily went down for her breakfast. Sometimes he’d be in the parlour on the floor. But she knew he never came in and went to bed. What he got up to on his mysterious nights out, she did not enquire. Not that she wasn’t curious — she was — but they had a mutual respect for one another. Owen needed his private times. They shared so much, knew each other so well, yet he had a need to escape their relationship sometimes. Lily did not begrudge this.

Now, Owen sat at the kitchen table, one foot up among the milk bottles, dirty plates and old papers, lacing his boots. He possessed a startling, pale beauty, which only became apparent upon long acquaintance. People generally thought there was something strange, or even unpleasant, about Owen when they first met him. Like Lily, he was very tall, but whereas Lily dyed her fair hair red, Owen’s was a white-blond mane, invariably unwashed, and generally held back in a pony-tail at his neck. On the occasions he allowed Lily to brush it or wash it for him, she told him he looked like an angel. ‘You only need wings,’ she’d say.

Lily was listlessly transferring dishes from the table to the sink. She cleaned the house properly once a week, on Fridays. Owen was generally out for the night, and she took pleasure in relaxing in tidy surroundings, playing CDs, drinking a bottle of wine all to herself, dancing alone in the firelight of the parlour. She never wanted anyone else to share these evenings with her; it would spoil them.

‘Barbara Eager invited me to her writing group today,’ she said.

Owen made a disparaging sound. ‘Whatever for?’ His voice, accompanied by his satyr’s smile, was not the debased drawl that might be expected, but clipped and cultured.

‘I thought I might write something.’

‘You don’t need her kind for that!’

Lily smiled to herself. Owen always supported her whims, however impractical they seemed. If she wanted to write, then she would and could, as far as he was concerned.

‘I don’t know what to write about,’ she said.

Owen went across to the sink and hugged her. He kissed the top of her head. ‘Just do it,’ he said. ‘Will you let me read it?’

‘Of course I will — when I think of something.’ She paused. ‘O, is it a normal day today?’

Owen grinned. ‘Well, it was until now. What’s happened?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I feel excited. It’s hard to explain, but it’s how I used to feel when I was a kid, on my way to a party or something. Haven’t you felt anything?’

Owen pulled a face and was silent for a moment. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ He ruffled his sister’s hair. ‘It must be a female thing. Anyway, I’m off now. Don’t wait up.’

Lily watched him walk down the lane from the kitchen window. She saw him turn into the drive of Low Mede, which was just visible if she leaned forward. Owen had struck up a friendship with Daniel Cranton. Lily couldn’t work out why. She knew all three of Owen’s other regular friends, who were locals, and Daniel didn’t seem to conform to their type. He was an outsider, less rough, less mature, but more educated. Unlike the other three, Luke, Bobby and Ray, Daniel was never brought into the cottage. Lily wondered if her brother had a special purpose in mind for the Cranton boy, and hoped he knew what he was doing. Little Moor was their home, but they still had to be careful. She remembered her mother, Helen, saying to her, ‘You are my little jewels. You are precious and you are different.’ Perhaps mothers said things like that to their children all the time, but Lily had always felt there was some secret message in the words. Helen Winter had repeated the message often, in many different ways. ‘Look at the snow. It is as strange and wonderful as you are. You cannot see all the stars in the sky, but they are there. Just imagine them. Then you can see. You can do that. Look, look at Orion. That is the stargate, and it is a secret.’

Lily wished she had kept a record of all the messages, because surely together they would have told a whole story. Like who their father was, for example, and why Helen had been so secretive about her past. Lily had accepted that she and Owen were different, and not just in obvious ways. It scared her that he had started seeing Daniel Cranton so much, but she couldn’t identify why exactly. Luke, Bobby and Ray were no great intellects and they were native to the area; from them she felt no threat. But the other... Tomorrow, she must go to one of their secret places and think for an answer to it all. Sometimes, that worked.

Verity was in the middle of her early dinner when the door bell rang. Three long, importunate rings. She set down her knife and fork and waited for the sound of Daniel’s heavy feet thundering down the stairs. It did not come. The door bell rang again, a long, insulting intrusion. Annoyed, Verity put down her napkin and went into the hall. The muffled thump of music drifted down from upstairs. Why on earth Daniel didn’t listen out for his friends when he was expecting them, Verity couldn’t tell. Perhaps he did it on purpose to aggravate her. She went to the door, her face a mask of disapproval.

Owen Winter was lounging against one of the wooden pillars of the porch. Of all Daniel’s horrible friends, this had to be the worst. Verity hated the way he looked at her, the way he dressed, his idle way of moving. She thought his face was odd, so much so, you had to stare at it, an experience wholly without delight, in her opinion. There was something unwholesome about Owen Winter. If Verity had had any concern for her brother at all, she might have done something to dissolve the friendship. ‘He’s upstairs,’ she said and turned away from the open door. It grieved her to have the creature in the house, treading upon her floors, touching her stair-rail, but it would grieve her more to wait on him and fetch Daniel herself.

Without speaking, Owen Winter loped towards the stairs. Verity went back into the dining room and sat down, but felt unable to recommence her meal until Daniel and his friend left the house. She waited tensely, every sense alert. What a joyous day it would be when her brother finally left home. He was like a persistent stain that no amount of scrubbing could remove. She was aware that the comforts Louis’ affluence provided would inevitably delay this day of release. Daniel was lazy. She would have to remind her father about his education. Perhaps a little pressure needed to be applied. Daniel’s choice of friends appalled her: local roughnecks lacking any points of merit. She knew Owen Winter sometimes drove them all to towns where they’d go to night clubs which catered for their anti-social tastes. Perhaps Daniel took drugs. She would do nothing to prevent that. It could surely only speed his departure from home. If it wasn’t for the fact he had his own rooms in the house, Verity would have had to take action about him. Fortunately, he could be ignored most of the time.

She heard Daniel and Owen tromping down the stairs, laughing coarsely in that particularly grating way uncouth young males seemed to adopt. Daniel was a slender, graceful boy. Why he had to sound like a herd of wildebeest whenever he slouched around the house she could not explain. ‘Get out,’ she murmured under her breath, clutching a fork. ‘Just get out.’

Owen hadn’t brought the car, which meant he’d decided they wouldn’t be clubbing it tonight. This signalled one of the group’s more esoteric pursuits was presaged. Daniel always felt nervous about this, even though he was fascinated by the unseen and the whiff of forbidden knowledge. There was no pattern to Owen’s behaviour, but some Fridays he insisted they all went to the High Place, a hill deep within Herman’s Wood, where a natural circle was formed at the summit, hemmed by ancient trees. Here, Owen enacted his own arcane rituals, in which the others were expected to participate. It was a necessary part of being a member of the group, but something which Daniel didn’t really enjoy. He felt that Owen was partly mad, but as this madness was never threatening, it could be overlooked. Still, the forays into the woods, to the High Place, sometimes frightened Daniel. Perhaps this was because of his own hidden talents, which he never spoke about to anyone, not even Owen. While the others, excepting perhaps Owen, were happy to smoke dope and drink beers, then do whatever Owen directed in intoxicated cheeriness, Daniel was attuned to the energies they invoked, the watching presence of the trees. Often he saw shadowy shapes lurking at the edge of the circle, attracted by what the group were doing. They were not malign, but they had the potential to be mischievous. Daniel eventually found it was better to smoke as much dope and drink as much beer as he could before anything started. Then he could do whatever Owen asked without feeling scared or weird: the chanting, the strange, shuffling dancing, the rituals of snarling words and significant pantomimes of malevolence. The other three didn’t seem to question what Owen did, or asked them to do, but neither did they seem particularly committed to it. This was Owen’s obsession; they simply went along with it to enjoy the benefits of Owen’s friendship. He had money, he had his own house, he had a car, he had charisma. Like Lily Winter, Daniel was unsure why Owen was interested in him. They had struck up a friendship only a couple of weeks after the Crantons had moved to Little Moor. Daniel had been walking past the Winters’ cottage one afternoon and Owen had been working on his car in the driveway. As Daniel had come down the lane, Owen had straightened up from the car, wiping his hands on a rag, watching Daniel intently. Daniel had been sure Owen had recognised something in him, which made him feel ashamed. He’d always been chastised by his parents for his peculiarities and dreaded anyone else becoming aware of them now. Owen, however, had just said, ‘Hi, you’ve moved in down there, haven’t you?’ Their friendship had come easily after that, which had surprised Daniel. Why he couldn’t tell Owen about his odd premonitions and feelings he didn’t know. Surely Owen would be deeply interested? Yet still Daniel feared scorn or punishment, and kept silent, repressing the unbidden feelings as much as he could. In private, he could indulge himself and dream strange, new realities, but he had learned at any early age this indulgence was not to be shared.

The first time Owen had taken him to the High Place, Daniel had been horrified, and had barely kept control of himself, anxious that no-one should notice how much the proceedings affected him. Since then, he had mastered getting drunk and how to act. It came as second nature now. He was aware how different he was from the others, and also how his background and slightly younger age sometimes grated against their own. Occasionally, this manifested as verbal baiting, but he had discovered how to combat that, and to give as good as he got. When he answered back and stood up for himself, Owen seemed pleased. Then he would say something really cruel. Daniel found it harder to answer Owen back than any of the others.

Owen had set off in the direction of Herman’s Wood, his hands in his pockets, his long stride lazily devouring the lane. ‘Where are the others?’ Daniel asked, hurrying to keep up.

‘Meeting us there,’ Owen answered shortly. He seemed to be in a distant mood.

They walked in silence, until they came to the place where a path, almost hidden by undergrowth, led into the trees. It was almost dark and the woods, on the right of the lane, looked oppressive and dangerous. Owen led the way into the moist shadows, his hands still in his pockets. Daniel hit out at trailing thorns that snagged his clothing. He wanted this part to be over. It was like a trial, a test, the journey through the woods to the sanctuary of the High Place.

The deciduous trees gave way to pines, and the ground was spongy with fallen needles underfoot. When they approached the High Place, Daniel could see two lights burning up among the trees. The High Place was crowned by a ring of ancient oaks, and there was a hollow in the middle, where the group built fires. A solitary figure, a sentinel, was silhouetted against the light of one of the lamps. Daniel recognised the aggressive stance of Ray Perks, his least favourite of the group. He felt that Bobby and Luke actually liked him most of the time, while Ray just played at it to keep Owen happy. In another situation, Ray would be the one to jump Daniel in a dark street, knock him senseless, take his money, his watch, kick him in resentment for his comfortable life. Ray came from the most shunned of the village families. Apart from Ray, his three sisters and his mother, the rest of the family seemed ancient and senile, including the father. If you walked past their rundown cottage, one of the ancients would invariably shout obscenities at you from the garden, or a window of the house. Bobby and Luke came from farming families, were boisterous and crude, but mostly well-meaning.

Owen and Daniel climbed the hill. Ray said, ‘All right?’ as Owen passed him.

‘Yeah.’ Owen walked directly down to the hollow, where Luke and Bobby were already building a fire. Daniel followed, uncomfortably aware of Ray slouching behind him. Owen took a can of beer from one of the four-packs lying near the fire. ‘Have one, Daniel,’ he said, gesturing. Daniel helped himself. He would need to drink at least three of these before he felt part of the group again.

For about ten minutes the youths drank beer, while Owen rolled a joint. They bantered awkwardly with one another, casting sidelong glances at their mentor. Owen lit up, and exhaled a perfect plume of silvery smoke up to the treetops. His head was cast back, his eyes alight with some weird inner quirk; he seemed elemental, threatening. He’s not one of us, Daniel thought, but what Owen might actually be, he could not guess.

The youths had formed a circle, which Owen dominated through his pallor and his presence. He passed the joint languidly to Ray, who noisily inhaled. The sparking end of the joint illumined his face,his features generous and satyr-like in red shadow. Daniel was sitting next to him. The group had fallen silent, as if Owen had willed it. Daniel’s heart was beating fast. He didn’t want to be there, yet lacked the will to leave. He knew that Owen would pick on him tonight; he’d been spared too many times these last few weeks. Ray handed him the joint, and he took careful, measured inhalations. The dope helped; it altered his reality, made the ridiculous seem sane and required. He could feel Bobby’s impatience, waiting for the joint to pass on, yet was reluctant to hand