I keep throwing, and my mind clears. I don’t think of anything. Just the knife. The throw. The spin. The sight of it sticking out from the tree trunk. It gets dark, but I keep throwing, grateful that I don’t have to think about Mirrie dead and naked in the woods, and that I couldn’t find the man who killed her.
Chapter One
Ryah
Nineteen years later
I know that today is going to be a nightmare as soon as I come downstairs.
There’s an open bottle of whisky on the draining board. Amber liquid spills down the sides and pools on the grubby stainless steel, as if someone just took a messy swig and slammed it down. I freeze, and glance around the kitchen: dirty dishes and frypans in the sink and on the stovetop; muddy boots laying beneath the kitchen table; a chair lying on its side on the floor.
No sign of Dad.
I let out the tight, scared breath I’m holding. I’m okay this second. That might change in an hour, a quarter hour, the next minute, but for this second I’m safe.
I hurry over to the draining board, screw the cap back on the whisky bottle and hide it under the sink. I glance guiltily out the window at the front garden and the road, and then behind me to the door onto the stable yard. Dad didn’t see me. Maybe he won’t remember the bottle. Maybe he’ll drink coffee instead.
I make a pot, hoping the smell will distract him when he comes back inside and that my helpfulness will mean he won’t hit me for being useless and in the way. I turn the hot tap on and feverishly start to unload and scrub the dirty sink. Dad likes to fry bacon and sausages at night while he’s drunk and makes an almighty mess for me to clean up in the morning.
It’s a warm July day, and through the open window I hear talking and laughter. The Jones and Symes kids from the farms up the hill seem to be heading to the bus stop. They’ll board the old village bus and grind up the narrow lanes the fifteen miles to the nearest town. I suppose they’re going shopping, or to the cinema. Normal things teenagers do. I turned seventeen four months ago. This September, I should be starting my final year of school but I haven’t attended in two years. Dad says I’m needed here, especially since my slut of a mother abandoned us. His word, not mine. I watch them longingly through the window. Smiling. Happy. Free.
There’s a deep, angry expletive from out by the stables, and I jump and get back to work. If Dad comes back inside and the kitchen’s not clean he’ll start shouting at me. Or worse. I put a stack of dirty plates into the sudsy water and grimace as several cigarette butts float to the surface.
I’ve got the sink tidy and the table cleared and I’m starting on wiping down the counters when I hear the clip-clop of a horse. At first I ignore it, thinking it’s probably Dad with Lester, his gelding, but the sound gets louder and louder and becomes a clatter. I go to the window and see four horses in the road, hitched to a bright red wagon. Behind it is another wagon, and another wagon. They’re painted in bright colors, some emblazoned with Meriful’s Traveling Circus. There are people sitting up front of each one; tanned, happy people in bright, unusual clothes. A huge, muscular strongman. Slender, ballerina-like girls who probably tread tightropes. Lanky young men who might juggle or tumble.
A huge chasm of longing opens in my chest. The circus appears in the village every year around this time. I want to be with them, going somewhere far from here where people are happy to see you and they applaud you and cheer. Where you can smile and do something that you love, and feel loved.
The circus passes on, disappearing from view. A few minutes later even the sounds of the wagons and horses recede.
I want to go out and ride Dandelion, but I don’t dare with Dad somewhere out by the stables. I end up just staring out the window. I hate that this is my life. I hate that I can’t think of any way to make all this fear and misery end. I’m only ever happy when I’m riding Dandelion and we’re performing some complicated move together. Concentrating on the feel of her bare back beneath my legs. I want to run away with her, but no one will take in a girl with no money and her horse.
A door slams behind me and I drop the dishcloth I’m holding. I quickly bend down to pick it up. There are rapid footsteps behind me, and a hand grasps me viciously by the hair and pulls me up.
“What are you doing just standing there?” Dad roars in my ear, blasting me with the stench of bad breath and stale alcohol.
I gasp and come up on my toes. I know better than to try and twist out of his grip. “I thought I saw a spider. On the window.”
“I don’t see any spider.”
“It ran away. It’s gone.”
He releases me with a shove and turns to open the fridge. I go to the coffee pot and quickly pour him a cup, hoping to distract him. When I put it down on the counter beside him he takes a drink, and I risk putting a hand to my hair to rub my aching scalp while his back is turned.
Dad drinks his coffee and I start to relax a little. As soon as the kitchen is clean and I’ve put a load of washing on, I’ll go out for a ride. Maybe I can catch up with the circus and follow them for a few miles, and dream about being with them. I wish I could go anywhere far, far away from here. I wish I had one penny to my name, or some ID, or even a bank card. I have nothing. Dad’s made it impossible for me to exist in this world without him. He did the same to Mum, giving her cash to do the weekly shopping and demanding the receipts and change as soon as she got back. In the end it all became too much for her, and she fled when I was twelve.
I don’t blame her for leaving. I just wish she’d taken me with her.
“Ryah.”
The calmness in his voice tricks me. I should know by now never to trust him when he sounds calm, but my head is filled with the circus. I turn around, just in time to see something flying at my face. The back of Dad’s hand slams into my left eye and cheekbone and I go sprawling across the floor, knocking over several kitchen chairs as I grab for anything to keep my balance.
I can feel Dad standing over me, but I can’t open my eyes. The breath has been knocked from my lungs and my face is throbbing with pain.
“What did you do with it?” When I don’t answer, he grabs me by the hair again and wrenches my face up to his. I scream. I can’t help it. The pain is intense.
“I said, what did you do with it?”
I try to hold back the tears, because he hates tears, but they spill in hot rivers down my cheeks.
“What did I do with what?” I whisper. I’m not sassing him. I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“You lying bitch, don’t pretend you don’t know. You’ve poured it down the sink, haven’t you?”
He lets go of me and stomps into the next room, and it finally dawns on me what he’s so angry about. The whisky bottle. I shouldn’t have touched it. He’s unpredictable when he’s drunk, but sometimes he’s worse when he’s sober. Meaner. More calculated.
I hear an ominous chunk from the next room, and all the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. He loved to threaten Mum with the shotgun, holding it to her throat or making her open her mouth and shoving the barrels between her teeth. Once, she wet herself she was so scared, and he made her lie in it for hours while she sobbed.