Borrowed Moonlight Read online

  Borrowed Moonlight

  Helen Slavin

  About the Author

  Helen Slavin was born in Heywood in Lancashire in 1966. She was raised by eccentric parents on a diet of Laurel and Hardy, William Shakespeare and the Blackpool Illuminations. Educated at her local comp her favourite subjects at school were English and Going Home.

  After The University of Warwick she worked in many jobs including, plant and access hire, a local government Education department typing pool, and a vasectomy clinic. A job as a television scriptwriter gave her the opportunity to spend all day drinking tea, living in a made-up fantasy world and getting paid for it (sometimes).

  Helen has been a professional writer for fifteen years. Her first novel The Extra Large Medium was chosen as the winner in the Long Barn Books competition run by Susan Hill.

  A paragliding Welsh husband and two children distract her and give her ample opportunity to spend all day drinking tea, nagging about homework and washing pants for England. In the wee small hours she still keeps a bijou flat in that fantasy world of writing. When not working with animals and striving for world peace, Helen enjoys the music of Elbow and baking bread. Her favourite colour is purple and if she had to be stranded on a desert island with someone it would be Ray Mears (alright, George Clooney is very good looking but can he make fire with a stick? No. See?)

  She now lives, with her family, in Trowbridge, Wiltshire where, when she’s not writing, she’s asleep. Or in Tesco.

  If you’d like to hear more from Helen, visit her website, www.helenslavin.com

  Also By Helen Slavin

  The Extra Large Medium

  The Stopping Place

  Cross My Heart

  From a Distance

  Little Lies

  After the Andertons

  To the Lake

  Will You Know Me?

  The Witch Ways Series

  Crooked Daylight

  Slow Poison

  Borrowed Moonlight

  The Witch Ways Whispers

  The Ice King

  Breaking Bones

  Whyte Harte

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Agora Books

  Agora Books is a division of Peters Fraser + Dunlop Ltd

  55 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1BS

  Copyright © Helen Slavin, 2019

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  For Dad, always

  1

  Steps

  It was the wrong path that Anna had taken. She could feel it beneath her feet. The moon was high but hidden, silvering the edges of the clouds that obscured it, and Anna’s lantern faltered with a wink as if it might go out.

  Emz was following behind their Guest, who had arrived an hour or more ago, already tired but anxious to move on through the Wood under their escort. No offer of tea or rest or refreshment was enough. The Guest looked, to Anna, in need of some real help. They had been walking for a long time in silence.

  “This is the wrong way,” the Guest said, her tone as flat and weary as her face.

  “I think…” Anna halted and took in a breath. She reached around all her resources. What should she do? What were the options?

  “I think we should head back to Cob Cottage. It’s dark and you need…” she turned with an uncertain smile, but the Guest rounded on her.

  “No. How many times? There’s no time for teacakes. I need to be shown the way and head off. I have to be at Day’s Ride before dawn. Just do your part and show me to Day’s Ride.”

  The Guest was visibly distressed, the shards of it sparking out of her voice. Anna could not think. Nothing at all was coming to mind except for the idea that this was the wrong way.

  “Wait here,” she said and looked with a nod at Emz. The Guest gave a frustrated grunt.

  Anna walked along the path ahead; the wood here appeared darker and more tangled than she had ever known it. The path was all bramble, almost a defensive wall, and this turn just knotted together with rowan and hazel, the trunks of which had twisted together so that it was no longer possible to tell them apart.

  She had never heard of Day’s Ride. Her memory was clicking through every possible day she had spent in Havoc Wood, and couldn’t recall the place, and yet, she knew, Day’s Ride must be here somewhere. She turned to the left path, no, a different vibe came from there, something off and unwelcoming, and, to the right, the wider path, no, again, a wrong feeling, not quite as bad as the left path but not promising. She needed Charlie. Charlie would know. Anna pushed her irritation and anxiety aside. This was not helping. She took a step, her foot tracing against a small flattened-down curve of undergrowth. A fox path. Where did that go? She lifted the lantern. It traced out the snaking line of the thin route. As it did so, the light strengthened, a weight lifted from Anna’s chest.

  The path was slender but gave them speed, cutting, as it did, in a neat diagonal across to the ridge. Anna made mental notes of this route. It had not occurred to her that they might ever find new places in Havoc Wood.

  They began to follow the rise of the land towards a ridge, she was uncertain which one, but just below them she could hear the trinkling sound of The Splash, one of the skinny tributaries that criss-crossed Havoc. They were to the South, she thought. She would be able to see more clearly from the top of the ridge.

  Up, up in a long steep effort, the trees dense and dark until the path broke out into a long holloway. It was domed over with hawthorn, the branches as intertwined as Celtic knotwork. In each direction, the vanishing point of shadows, the shimmering sound of leaves in the wind.

  “At last.” Their Guest pushed forward from the banking, her coat catching a little and tearing, but she didn’t care as she strode off along the green lane. She had not taken five steps before she was hidden by the shadows. Gone.

  “Where are we?” Emz asked. “Do you know?” Emz stepped closer, and Anna shook her head.

  “Day’s Ride, I suppose.”

  “Yeah. I know that. But, you know, where are we? Exactly.” Emz examined the landscape around them.

  “No idea. Let’s get up onto the ridge and find out,” said Anna. They stepped across the holloway to pick up the rest of the fox route.

  They walked higher and the trees broke a little cover, a sort of viewing point so that they could look East to Crow Houses and further East to Yarl Hill.

  “What do you think?” Anna asked.

  “I think we’re a long way East here. Beyond Frog Pond.” Frog Pond sounded a familiar note for them, and they felt, at once, more settled. Yes. Of course. It was just a mile or so down into the valley if they hung a left.

  “Do you think there’s a quicker way back?” Anna asked, scanning the trees. In the distance, Emz could just make out the north tower of Woodcastle Castle. It was a good landmark.

  “Probably, but we don’t know it, so let’s just retrace our steps. Yeah?” Emz was already taking steps back the way they had come. The two made their way back across Day’s Ride and along the fox route that had led them here. They walked in silence, neither admitting that what they were doing was hurrying, that what they were feeling was afraid.

  Back at the cottage Anna moved to put the kettle on, her usual safety mechanism. Emz did not even take off the black waxed raincoat she’d habitually worn since their grandmother’s death before
heading down the hall.

  “I’m going to bed. G’night.” Emz said, the sound of her door shutting before Anna had chance to reply.

  “G’night,” she said, almost to herself. She pottered in the kitchen for a while longer, trying to organise her mind along with the supper dishes, and then, as the clock ticked to midnight, she gave up.

  Down the hallway, she knocked on Charlie’s door knowing that there would be no reply. She opened the door anyway, peering in, half hoping that Charlie might be there, snoring gently and oblivious. The bed was empty, still ruffled from the last time Charlie had slept there, some days ago. Anna shut the door, shut out the hall light, then shut her own bedroom door behind her.

  Cob Cottage creaked a little, and outside the wind whispered in the trees.

  2

  Morning, Broken

  Aron was calling Charlie, repeatedly. It was an embarrassment, made more intense by the fact that she was at Drawbridge Brewery inside the aged mash tun, in the midst of shovelling out, and the ringtone, which she had forgotten to turn off, was pinging out like sonar trying to find her.

  “Is that your phone?” She could see Michael framed doubly by the office door and the small hatchway into the mash tun.

  “Yeah.” Her voice echoed around the metal. Charlie shovelled the mash harder, the scent of it drifting up, sending her messages of what might be missing, what needed to be added. The ringtone and Michael’s annoyed voice were distracting her focus.

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?” Michael yelled.

  “No,” she yelled back, the sound once again making a bell of the tun. She breathed in more of the last scents of the wort.

  Focus.

  Focus.

  Hops tumbled in her mind and she felt calmer. Yes. That was it. Add that later. Exactly the handfuls required appeared in her mind, an instructional calculation of aroma and bitterness.

  “It’s bloody annoying,” Michael shouted from the gantry, his footsteps clattering towards her. The ringing stopped. Charlie shovelled the last of the mash into the barrow and wheeled it out.

  “Switch it off if you’re not answering it,” Michael chided from above. Charlie didn’t look up.

  She had been spending a lot of time with Aron of late, pretending to be cheery Charlie. Her real self lay protected behind the smokescreen of stupid banter and fake laughing that had peppered her conversation in the wake of Apple Day and Halloween. As she finished dealing with the mash, her phone pinged out again with a text from Aron. She checked it over, headed towards the office.

  “Can you sort the phone issue please?” Michael asked, his pencil tapping at the spreadsheet in front of him.

  “Issue?” Charlie felt her anger bubble. Michael had been scratching at her nerves as of late.

  “Keep it on silent in work hours. Please. It’s just bloody annoying.”

  She made a show of switching off the ringtone. Her real self, sitting in the dark, shook her head at all this. Words tickled at her throat, but she could say none of them. She turned away from him to check the wall planner, despite knowing every notation and reminder on it.

  Michael tapped the pencil for a moment longer and flicked another page of the order book.

  “I need to sort out the wort for the Leap Woods Brew,” Charlie said, distracting herself with the business of brewing. The required ingredients for the new brew were popping into her head with ease, another distraction.

  “Charlie?” chimed Michael’s voice, quiet, but not so quiet that it didn’t reach her as she headed out of the office. She heard him throwing down the pencil too, but she didn’t turn back.

  When her shift finished a few hours later, she found Aron parked up behind her car.

  “Get in,” he said with a wry grin, and Charlie did. She didn’t much care where they were going, just so long as it was away.

  He had an evening-out planned, and she already had a change of clothing in her bag, so they headed to Aron’s flat at the marina. It seemed to Charlie that it became barer the more time she spent there.

  “I sold on a couple of gadgets. That coffee maker for a start, never use that.” Aron reached for their mugs from last night and pulled a slightly aged kettle from the cupboard.

  “Where were you this morning?” he asked, his hand trailing from the kettle to the small of her back, his head tilting in to kiss at her neck.

  “Had to get in to work. You were sleeping.”

  “Had to get in? Got some emergency brewing to do?” He was smiling with a hint of snide.

  “Yes.” She spoke firmly, her eyes rising to challenge his and, as he always did, he backed down. “What time did you get up?” She didn’t really want the answer, she wanted to shift focus from herself. Aron grinned.

  “Later. Shall we leave it at that?” He glugged some juice and looked at her. “You getting ready?”

  Charlie looked down at her work clothes. She was tired and hungry and out of sorts.

  “Ready for what?”

  “Anything.” He grinned, a smoochy kiss, a pat on the bottom shoving her to the bedroom and her stash of clothes. She watched as he picked at the few items.

  “This all you brought?” he asked with a frown. She stared at him, his fingers like claws picking over the clothes. The energy of him was sharp and unpleasant, in the way of electricity coming through a fork jammed into a socket.

  “Cinderella borrowed my ball gown,” she said. Aron reached to open the tall white wardrobe door. The dress within was slim and a muted gold.

  “No, she didn’t,” he grinned.

  At the harbourside, Charlie turned right to head to their favourite eating-place, Chunk, a gourmet burger place by the swing bridge. Aron grabbed for her arm, tugged her the other way.

  “Whoa, whoa, where you going?” he asked, edgy.

  “Chunk. Where we always eat.” If she was being honest then, Chunk, with its red-raw slabs of beef and venison, was not her favourite place to eat. It was Aron’s favourite, but he was shaking his head.

  “Not tonight. I’ve got something on.” He put his hands in his trouser pockets, the line of his suit ruffling. It must be important, this thing, Charlie thought. She could see his best shirt, the Italian linen one. He flicked his wrist out, checking the time, and she noticed he didn’t have his watch. He noticed too, and the look of pique on his face stopped her making a joke.

  “Come on then…” he said. “Don’t want to be late.”

  “For what?” she asked, and he didn’t answer. He smiled and planted a quick peck on her cheek. He did not, she noticed, take her hand.

  The Ark was a very swanky restaurant indeed, moored by the bonded warehouse wharf. It was a long wooden vessel of some age, the portholes winked with candlelight, and the doormen wore dinner jackets. The gantry was painted black and bordered with black coffin-like hoppers housing ebullient navy-blue hydrangeas so that anyone boarding could not be glimpsed from the harbourside.

  “Are you jok…?” She didn’t have a chance to finish the question as the doorman ushered them aboard with a nod.

  “He knows you,” Charlie said as they walked the planks to the inner glimmer of the boat. “You’ve been here before.”

  Aron did not answer, he did not hear her. His attention, she saw, was focused on the doorway to the wheelhouse. There was a burst of laughter from within, glasses chinked with a musical note, and underneath it all someone trinkled notes from a piano.

  Inside, the tables were set with white cloths and crystal goblets. The candlelight burnished everything into beauty. The air was scented with savoury threads that Charlie picked up without thinking: thyme, salt, saffron, rosemary, garlic. They were the only genuine things in the entire room.

  A dark-haired man turned from his conversation and, without apology, abandoned his companions and his champagne glass and walked towards them.

  “Aron.” His hand reached out, took Aron’s scrawny paw, and pulled him into an embrace. “You made it. Good. Good to see you.” He was pointedly n
ot looking at Charlie. There was the smallest bead of sweat on his hairline. The candlelight winked it into Charlie’s vision. Wink, wink, like a signal.

  “This…” Aron stood aside a little, “is Charlotte.”

  The dark-haired man reached out to Charlie. She shook his square and heavy hand, the gold ring on the third finger giving off warmth and something more, a bursting of energy that spoke directly to the heart of her Strength; it was like a flock of rooks taking to the skies. Was this a warning? Danger, Charlie Way.

  “Charlotte. Delighted to meet you.” He smiled with his mouth as his eyes watched her, and she was surprised at their soft expression, the hint of nervousness they conveyed.

  “This is Mr Herald.” Aron spoke with a hint of reverence that made Charlie glance up for the halo or the possible crown. The dark-haired man’s soft eyes didn’t blink as they held hers.

  “Call me Ivan,” he commanded.

  Charlie usually had a good appetite, but the sensation she had felt on shaking Ivan Herald’s hand had rattled her. She had managed to fake the starter, cutting up the smoked salmon into pieces and breaking the tiny triangles of toast apart so it looked as if she had eaten something, so she wouldn’t draw attention or seem rude. Rosemary-scented red wine pooled around the lamb shank, the bone sticking up accusingly at Charlie. She wasn’t going to be able to fake this. Her stomach lurched a little. What was this feeling? It was like a physical alarm going off.

  Call Me Ivan was sitting at the head of the table and had been making light-hearted conversation with the two women on either side of him about a recent holiday to Positano. Other subjects included golf and, for extra tedium, cars. Charlie thought that the wine might help, but, as she reached forward, the wine, jewel-red, looked like blood, and so her glass remained full. She glanced around the table. She noticed that the other few women in the room were wearing similar gold and bronze coloured outfits. The blonde beside Call Me Ivan wore a stiff-looking silk number, the fabric artfully draped so that she resembled a Greek statue come to life. The woman beside her in a wider skirt, a vast bow at the neckline so she looked like a gift. The fabrics and the dresses and the whole chinkling-china formality poked at a memory. Of wedding fabrics and a veil. Anna. Emz. She looked away from the thoughts that crowded. Every plate held bones. The air was hot.