‘It’s just a tree.’
‘That’s right. The tree is the gateway.’
I stamped my feet, urged my hands to be still. ‘Shall we get on with it?’
‘What about Moya?’ Nancy said.
‘We have to wait. It has to be four. An even number.’ Charlie again. I wondered how she knew so much about rituals and spell-casting and then I remembered someone telling me that all magic relied upon was the strength of your belief in it. Everything else was window-dressing.
Charlie suddenly sighed dramatically, hunching her shoulders as if in pain. She stretched out a hand to me, black-tipped nails over the cold stone.
‘She’s waiting for us,’ she whispered. ‘I can feel her presence drawing closer.’
‘Who is it?’
Charlie didn’t answer. Behind her I saw movement and for a moment my heart rose into my mouth, my vision blurred. It was her! But no, it was just Moya, walking at a brisk pace, long coat dwarfing her small frame.
‘I’m sorry!’ she said breathlessly. ‘My dad’s a miserable bastard. Am I too late?’
Everyone looked to Charlie, even me. It’s a pantomime, I told myself, but I couldn’t help feeling swept along with it – the candles, the graveside, the smell of old stones and frost as sharp as blades. The Rattlesnakes themselves looked like psychopomps, black shrouded creatures taking the newly deceased into the afterlife. I shuddered again. It’s the cold, I told myself. I took another sip of the wine.
I helped Nancy to her feet and we wordlessly drew closer to the large yew. Moya took my hand on one side, Nancy on the other. We formed a loose circle in the darkness, the candlelight making our faces stutter and seize. What would Rupert think if he could see me now? I wondered, and immediately dismissed the thought from my mind. I had to do this right. I had to get into Edie’s frame of mind. I had to find some trace of her, anything. Rupert had told me it was desperation, and I’d answered simply, ‘Yes, it is.’
‘Mrs Hudson? Samantha?’
The girls were all looking at me expectantly, except of course for Charlie with the veil obscuring her face. Her head was turned towards me, though, and her voice was as smooth as antique silks.
‘We need your knife. Hand it over, please.’
I hesitated. Moya squeezed my hand. Go ahead, it’s okay. As I passed it to Charlie I couldn’t help saying, ‘Be careful with that, it’s sharp.’
‘I should hope so,’ she whispered, and took it from me, expertly flicking it out and turning it so the blade caught the candlelight. She extended her other arm and slowly carved a line in the skin of her palm. Blood welled to the surface, deep and rich and slow-moving. I stared at her in horror as she passed the knife to Nancy and said, ‘Your turn.’
Nancy gingerly took the knife and quickly sliced into her own palm, drawing a shallow, hair-thin scratch before hurriedly passing the knife to me and closing her fist.
Charlie lifted her voice. ‘Quiet Mary, can you hear us?’
I could see blood smeared on the knife handle and absent-mindedly wiped it clean on my jeans. Is this what Edie did with them that night? A blood bond between friends? Perhaps they were just pushing me to see how far I’d go. This is madness, I thought, but I held my palm out anyway, feeling the blade open the skin there just above the mount of Venus. The pain was sharp and exhilarating, making me gasp. A silver cloud of my breath rose like a ghost. Blood seeped through the tear in my skin. Nancy took my bloodied hand in hers. It felt slippery and warm. A wave of dizziness, a warm tide, swept over me. I closed my eyes, feeling heady. What was in that pill?
‘The veil is thinning. Let our blood command you to rise, rise!’
I opened my eyes to see Charlie with her bloodied hand spread against the bark of the old yew. Moya did the same, and Nancy next, urging me on. The trunk was sheened almost lilac-coloured and satin-soft with age. Huge, sombre-looking, like something primordial, the bark so thick we couldn’t comfortably fit in a circle around it. Instead we stood in a line, all four of us, heads bowed, hearts racing, palms pressed flat against the tree. When I heard the tapping at first I thought it was coming from somewhere beyond the tree. My mind turned to the gateway Charlie had spoken about, the one that led to worlds beyond this one. A jolt of fear rushed through me, brief and bright as a spark.
One, two, three, four,
Rattlesnake hunters knocking at your door.
Give them meat and give them bone,
And pray that they leave you alone.
The air was cold against my teeth. I felt that wave again, building, building beneath me. It was like too much caffeine, a warm rush, sharp and anxious at the edges. When I opened my eyes it looked like there were shimmering auras around the Rattlesnakes, like the one I could see around the moon. I smiled at them, these funereal girls with their ebony plumage.
‘Now what?’ I heard myself say.
‘Quiet,’ Charlie said, her hand held up. In that moment, stiff and tall and regal in her black fur collar and silk slip, she looked like a murderous queen. ‘Do you hear it? Samantha, do you hear that?’
I strained to listen but the blood was rushing in my ears so fast it sounded like a high wind. I looked over at Moya, her eyes white and round in the darkness. Then I heard it. A rattling, like stones being shaken in a hand. Old bones knitting together. My temples pounded. I itched all over. My muscles tensed, like fight or flight.
‘I hear it,’ I said.
Something sailed out of the darkness, a small white object, striking the ground near our feet. It was a pebble. Water-washed smooth. Then another, from out there in the dark. It rolled to a stop in the grass.
‘Who’s there?’ Nancy called out in a quavering voice, and at the same time Charlie intoned, ‘It’s her. Quiet Mary. She’s coming.’
I listened, straining to see into the blackness, where the frost had laced everything an icy blue. Then the cracking sound of branches broken underfoot. Someone was back there, in the shadows. I saw a movement, a shadow detaching from the black trunks of the trees, receding further into the dark. I didn’t even think about it. I peeled my sticky palm from the trunk and called out her name.
‘Edie!’
My heart was instantly racing, my pupils were wide black moons. God, what was in that pill? I dashed into the shadows under the trees, moonlight speckling the ground like scattered silver pennies. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust but when they did I caught sight of a hooded figure a little way ahead of me.
‘Edie!’
Nothing. I forced myself to stop running, to catch my hoarse breath. My lungs burned but I was still jittery with energy. I turned and turned again, feeling as if I was being circled. Eyes in the gloom, watching me. I heard the telltale rustling of her pushing through thicket and I rushed ahead towards the sound, heels drumming up clods of earth.
‘Hey!’ I shouted, as branches tangled themselves in my hair. ‘Hey, Edie, wait! It’s Mum! Don’t run, Edie!’
There, to my left. She’d feinted, swerving away from me. I turned sharply, feeling a branch whip across my cheek. The drumming of my feet was a cadence, her name, over and over, Ee-dee, Ee-dee, Ee-dee. I must be catching her up. My arms pistoned at my sides. I wanted to tell her to stop running, I just wanted to talk to her, I just wanted to explai— whumph! Something slammed into my shoulder with a flat whacking sound, knocking me off balance. I fell with an ugly grunt, tasting mud and dirt. A stitch roared in my side like boiling oil. For a moment I wondered if I’d been shot. Then I saw that hooded figure – Edie? – standing a little way off with something in its hand. A stick? A bat? I propped myself up, reaching out to her. There was so much I wanted to tell her. About how I’d missed her, how things would be different now, how she could have all the freedom and boyfriends she wanted if she’d just come home. I don’t mind, I wanted to tell her, but my voice snagged in my throat. I don’t mind the pain, Edie.