Beneath the Tor (5 page)

Babe clearly loved to paint and sketch, and the passion behind her talent showed through. Most of the work was conventional, orthodox. The things you'd expect a teenager to study were all there: the family dog, the New Forest landscape, the view from her window. Later on in the book were pictures of her brothers. It was easy to spot Ricky, and fun to see him without his gothic makeup and gelled hairstyle.

Nothing was revealed through the pictures in the book. Nothing that whispered
I am here …
or
I am gone …

I lay it on the passenger seat and drove to the grandly named Oak Villa—actually a narrow terraced house with no front garden—where my foster parents lived. I knew the Davidsons would welcome me in; they were as generous to me as they had been the day I went to live with them, eighteen years back. Right that moment, I was driving along in the continued proof of their generosity—a couple of months ago my foster dad Philip upgraded his car and donated his
ten-year
-old Vauxhall Astra to me.

I'd once had a wonderful car, a classic Morris Mini Minor with the original racing strips and metal wing mirrors still intact. I wept when I sold her, but I'd got into debt and thanks to an eBay auction, she netted me enough to reduce my outgoings.

I parked outside Oak Villa and was brandishing a Pinot Grigio, straight from the local shop, when Gloria opened the door.

“You look done in, girl.”

“Yep.” I entered the house and flopped onto the sofa in the living room. The telly was on low, the curtains
half-pulled
against the sun. It felt like heaven. “Been a ghastly day.”

“Want to stay the night?”

It was an offer I couldn't refuse. My
next-door
neighbours had been commandeered to feed my hens while I was away; they weren't expecting me back yet anyhow. I smiled my acceptance.

“Supper's in an hour.”

“That sounds wonderful. Can we eat in the garden?”

“Why not?”

“Is Dennon in?”

“He's in his room, packing.”

“He's going on holiday?”

“Moving out.”

“What's he done now to get the old
heave-ho
?”

“I mean, he's moving in … to a flat of his own.”

I sat up. “Ye gods. This I have to see. It might even cheer me up a bit.”

Up in Dennon's bedroom, things were at hurricane level. I closed the door tight and leaned against it to prevent any flying objects sailing
past.

My foster brother stood straight as I came in, knuckles in the small of his back, and grinned. I laughed—Dennon's smile has made me do that ever since I first encountered it. I was twelve then; he was thirteen, and I knew soon as I looked at the guy that he intended to cause even more trouble than I did. Now he was thirty, and, until this moment, still living with his parents. He looked groovy, though. Better dressed, now his job had become regular, and he'd clipped his hair short enough to see his scalp, although this evening he'd pulled a baseball cap over his head. He was wearing a loose, grey marl
t-shirt
over Diesels and his forearms showed bare sinewy muscles beneath skin the colour of an Americano coffee.

“You do understand the principles of packing, right, Den?”

“Get it in the boxes somehow?”

“Fold flat. Neatly wrap against breakage. Stack to allow maximum room. Wedge to prevent sliding and knocking. Not stuffed so full you can't lift the package.”

“Hell … all that? I haven't left the family threshold yet and already I'm useless in the wider world.”

“Where you going, anyway?” I took a drawerful of socks and started sorting and balling them into pairs.

“Northville. Me and a mate.”

“I'm impressed. Does this mean you're sticking to the promotion you got?”

“They've made it permanent. Not bad, eh?”

“Shocking.” I continued to ball the socks. “Den, do you remember those
so-called
legal highs you had once?”

“Er …” Dennon looked me over, trying to spot the trick in my question. “Sort of.”

“How much do you know about that drug?”

“Come on, Sabbie, you were the one that was all over the Internet about it. You're the one with the facts.”

“I'm trying to remember.
Para-meth
-something? PMA, and lots of pretty names for it too. Pink Lady?”

“Dr. Death, we called it. Some guy round my mate's place, he had some. We bought half a doz each. Thought they'd be the same as E.”

“Weren't they the same?”

“Yeah and no. They were bloody amazing, but mad. One minute there's nothing there at all, and the next, you're trippin' balls.”

“So you did take it?”

“We all popped one and sat round, waiting. Waiting and waiting. Bark, he couldn't wait no longer, took another … two, maybe. I didn't bother, I was on the beer. Then I started feeling really horny.”

“Eugh,” I said. “Too much information.”

“But not high, is my point. Not for a bit. We stuck the music up on max and suddenly I was smashed, right along with all the others. We was flyin' round Kyle's house to the sounds. Then Bark went onto his knees. He was sort of retching, y'know? I took his pulse.”

“
You
? How did you know where to find it?”

“I watch
Casualty
, don't I? Anyway, it was fast, man, racing like a
pro.”

“Was he hot?”

“Yeah, and he knew it. S'if he had rabies or something, he was scrabbling at his clothes, stripping them off, panting. We got him under the armpits and he sort of squealed, like a pig, but we dragged him into the garden.”

“Cool air. Good thinking.”

“Yeah, 'cept my heart was doing about a million to a minute by then. It made me panicky. I could see why Bark was squealing all the time, just layin' there on the patio, making these piggy noises.”

“And you didn't think to call an ambulance?”

“Are you kiddin', man? This was Kyle's house, his mum would've killed him!”

I shook my head. I'd forgotten about balling socks; they lay limp in my hands. “What happened in the end?”

“He was okay. We all came out kicking. It was the scariest experience of my life.”

“And that's saying something.”

“It was the panic. You go totally down the rat hole. I'm not 'xactly a panicky person, would you say?”

“No, Den, I'd say you were generally mellow.”

“For ages after that, slightest thing would set me off. Sweatin' and dizzy and not seeing proper, like club lighting strobing into my brain.”

I remembered Stefan, his eyes red hot. Had Wolfs been right about spiking the flying tea?

“It kinda did make me think some,” Den was saying. “After, I mean. Like, what is a high, really?”

“D'you mean, what is real ecstasy? For me, it's the joy of being a shaman. That's as close to the divine as I reckon I'll ever be getting.”

“Yeah, sort of that. And you—God, Sabbie—you're such a good role model for me.”

“I
am
?”

“Yeah, like, you got your head sorted, and you went and did your degree, and like … you're
happy
.”

I paused. Happy? Not this day. “I've just watched someone die.”

“Shit, no!” Dennon rocked back. “Did they take something?”

“I'm sure we'll find out. They'll be doing the tests. They'll be examining the body. Awful thought. Alys had a lovely face, you know? I hate to think of them examining her body, stretched out and totally naked. Cutting her with a scalpel. Taking samples. I hate it.”

I thought about both of them. The Hollingberrys. Alys has wanted to dance, so Brice spent a night on the Tor even though he thought it was “purgatory.” How must he feel about that now?

“I can't believe it only happened today.” I stoppered the light, folding my hands over my eyes. “It seems years have gone past. Decades. And seconds, at the same time.”

“Fucking unbelievable,” said Dennon. “Come here, sis.”

He put his arms all round me.

six

laura

I got home around
eight the following morning. It had come onto rain in the night. The brilliance of the sun's zenith had passed. It was the twenty-second of June already. I felt something wrench, deep inside. It was almost physical, as if I'd torn a hole in my body. Death and sadness.

I needed Rey. I reached for my phone. I put it down again. He'd be on his way to Bridgwater Police Station to start his day as detective inspector. As soon as he walked into his office, the pressure would begin. He would not be pleased to have a call from his girlfriend.

Girlfriend. That's what I was. The girl he dated. The girl he came round and bonked when he had a spare evening.

For quite some time now, that hadn't been enough for me. I wasn't pushing him; I wasn't even mentioning it, but I wanted more. Rey lived in a microscopic studio flat—what was the point in that? He could move in with me whenever he liked. I had two bedrooms—the spare one could be his den (if we cleared it up a bit), or office, or whatever coppers need in their life.

I hadn't asked, and he never raised the subject. I don't think he ever considered it. The extent of our relationship was the toothbrush he kept in my bathroom.

Usually, I left the phoning to him. I knew he would call me; that or turn up on my doorstep after work, holding a couple of bottles of Merlot. He initiated the moves and I let him, because cops worked antisocial hours and had their heads totally immersed in the job, and because I was afraid that a nagging girlfriend might quickly become an
ex-girlfriend
.

I went out into the garden with the hens' breakfast. I stood in the rain, letting it trickle over my face. I wanted something to soothe me, cool me. Alys's death was a heartache. I touched my neck, half expecting to feel an open sore, my throat felt so raw.

The cock, Kaiser, didn't come near me as I checked the nesting boxes. He sat on his favourite post, watching his flock get under my feet. There were three eggs, still warm. Suddenly, my appetite was back. Scrambled eggs, maybe with one of my
greenhouse-ripened
tomatoes. I just loved this time of year in my vegetable plot—there was food sprouting in every direction. Even if the therapy business I ran from my front room went a bit slow, I knew I'd eat dinner.

Only three eggs from six layers. The two old Warrens, Ginger and Melissa, didn't lay so often, but Jessie, Emili, Rihanna, and Florence were still young and—

I stopped. Florence was not under my feet. She was not anywhere at all.

“Florence,” I called, even though she had no idea that was her name. “Flo, where are you?
Chuck-chuck
?”

Panic welled up. I didn't understand this; none of the other hens were missing. They didn't even seem perturbed, which they would have been if a fox had come near them. I'd already experienced a fox in the night. It had wreaked havoc, blood and feathers everywhere. I thought of other, more stealthy predators. A polecat, even a sparrowhawk, might have snatched her away if she'd escaped from the run.

I worked around the perimeter of the garden,
chuck-chucking
.

Florence was my secret favourite. She was a curious hen, bright eyed and comical. I'd had her and her siblings for over a year; a farmer had given me a recently hatched clutch of Sussex hens and they'd been productive and so beautiful to look at.

I went into the lane at the back of my garden. My house was on the edge of a
sixty-year
-old estate. Behind the lane was a patch of scrubland. I half slid down the slope to the stream that was almost a drain, filled with rubbish and old bikes. I clambered back up, still calling, over and over. “Florence? Flo?
Chuck-chuck
-chuck?”

Florence wouldn't go missing by choice. As soon as dusk fell, my hens took themselves off to bed. My neighbours, the Wraxalls, were happy to feed them in the mornings if I was away. The only tricky bit was checking they didn't escape the
fox-proof
run as they fed them. The Wraxalls had said nothing about a missing hen when I'd popped in to thank them after I'd got back.

“Damn. Damn!” I kicked at the
water-butt
, making it slosh and spill. It seemed a shitty thing to happen, as if the spirit world was reminding me that the loss of a hen was not to be compared with the loss of a partner. Brice must feel a hundred times worse than I, a million times more heartsick.

There in my garden, I sobbed for the deaths of Florence and Alys.

I waited until I'd recovered my composure before I rang my boyfriend.

“Hi,” I said. “S'me.”

“Hi, Sabbie. I'm in a meeting.”

“Okay.”

“I'll come over later, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Bye, then.”

“Bye.”

That conversation rather summed up our relationship: me passive and ill at ease, him busy and distracted. Rey was at the
near-centre
of my world while I was at the edge of his.

I wasn't sure how I'd let it get like that.

I rewound the thought, because I knew exactly how I'd let it get like that. When it came to men, my solid perspective on life goes all distorted. Like I've picked up the wrong spectacles. At least with Reynard Buckley, I knew I had a good guy. He wasn't abusive. He wasn't using me as
eye-candy
(fat hope!) and he wasn't a
two-timer
—he was still officially married to Lesley, but she was living with another man and I wished that relationship a long and happy existence.

I flicked a duster and a floor mop over the house, which looked crumby after two nights away. I checked my phone diary. I knew it would be empty, as I should've been at the workshop, so I had a free day. As I stared at the screen, the phone buzzed in my hand.

“Hello? Is that Sabbie Dare?”

“Speaking.”

“Oh, er … a friend gave me your card.”

The caller sounded a bit frantic. “You'd like to book a therapy session with me.”

“Er, yeah, that would be great.”

“Reiki, reflexology, aromatherapy, or shamanic therapy?”

“Uh, I dunno. The last? Yes, the last one.”

“Okay. Usually, people book a prelim appointment and then think about taking a course of therapeutic shamanism once they've met me. Would you like to do that?”

“Er … yes … I don't suppose you're free now, are you?”

“I am, but you—”

“Would it be okay if I saw you this morning? I have your address. I could come straight away.”

“Well, okay, if you're sure.” I took a breath. Her urgency was catching. “Can I have your name, please?”

“Laura Munroe. If I set out now, I could be there soon.”

“Don't rush, Laura. You need to give me an hour to prepare for you.”

I changed into my black shamanic gown which fitted my figure from shoulders to hips then flared out to my ankles, bright embroidery swirling round the hem. I loved pulling on that dress; it transformed me. I brushed my hair, merciless as I tugged the bristles through the tight curls which had a tendency to boil out of my scalp. I brushed and brushed, eventually it shone like a halo of black gossamer.

The therapy room felt chilled after two days of inactivity. I lit candles around the entire room. I held a flame to a charcoal disc until it fizzed with heat and laid a sprig of garden sage across it, throwing a pinch of frankincense resin on top. The grey smoke spiralled up, filling the room with secret scents. When the room was ready for work, I sat on a cushion and meditated for a while, trying at first to empty my mind, but actually recalling the journey I'd experienced at Stonedown Farm—the land of worms, the ancient black man, and the clearing in the woodland. I had a strong desire to use my drum to journey again, but in the scurry to get out of Stonedown Farm, I'd left it behind.

So instead, I pressed the remote to start the drumming CD, lay back on the floor cushions and rested a scarf over my eyes.

When I'd guided the workshoppers yesterday, I'd told them to find their shamanic portal. Every shaman should have a haven of safety—the place where, if possible, they begin and end their journey. For me, this is the bank of a
fast-flowing
brook. I have never been to the Highlands of Scotland (I've never been to the Lowlands, for that matter), but I've seen photos of the burns that flow there. Like Scottish streams, my haven is green with moss and blue with heather, which makes a cushiony place to sit.

I dangled my bare feet in the stream now. The water rushed over them. My otter came splashing out, shaking his coat like a dog and scattering droplets over my black dress.

“What is your purpose?” he asked.

“I'm here to touch base. To check out two new possible clients and to calm myself for the day ahead.”

“You should go to the Lady of the River.”

I always felt wary of the Lady of the River. I wouldn't disrespect a guardian, but she was a hard taskmaster, more strict headmistress than goddess. She never quite seemed on my side. Or, rather, she gave the impression that my best life choices were not the ones I tended to make. She was prone to offering difficult advice and I'd avoided her since the last time she'd insisted on helping me, which was half a year back.

“I don't know how to find her.”

“True,” said Trendle, as if he also thought it my excuse.

He trotted ahead on his short paws, leading me along the bank. As we walked, the brook altered. The bank became high and slippery, the water below wider and deeper and muddy brown. Every so often a tiny wave of frothing white slipped and skidded along.

On my right hand, the woodland had grown deep and Trendle was weaving through the trees while my bare feet glided along the country path. I felt the hazy sun struggling to shine through a layer of cirrostratus. All at once, I stopped in my tracks. A tantalising scent came at me on the breeze. “There's honey in the air,” I said. “As if someone is pouring it from warm combs.”

I quickened my pace. Ahead was a single massive lime tree in full leaf, shaped like a green heart. Standing under the tree was the Lady of the River. Her grey eyes were as sad as forgotten lakes.

I bent my head in humility. “Lady of the River … I witnessed something. Something terrible. A young woman's death. I …”

“You have done well,” the Lady interrupted.

“Have I?” I shook my head, even though she would not want me to disagree.

“You are a support to friends, new and
long-standing
, in this world and in the apparent world.”

“I can't be of help to Alys,” I whispered. “She's gone …”

“I see such tenacity in you, Sabbie Dare. You do not let go until you have your answer.”

“Yeah. Hell or high water.”

“Tenacity. Commitment. Love. Hell and high water. You have faced those things and you will again.”

I hadn't expected such a generous response, and it heartened me to ask further things. “I am about to take on a new client. Laura Munroe. What should I know before I begin?”

“Use your silken braid to journey. Seek out mirrors, masks, and symbols that turn things upon their own heads.”

“And … what should I do about Babette Johnson? Ricky has asked me find his sister.”

“Such a search might help you in ways you cannot yet imagine. Examine all that comes to you. When you eliminate that which you no longer need, one possibility will remain.”

I was going to ask, “examine what things?” but she spoke again. “Soon, you will have to face your past.”

She caught me unawares. I didn't want to discuss this subject. I never had seen the point in chasing after my own past.

“I know it is the hardest thing for you.”

The longer I worked with spirit, the more I understood that past was everything. It wasn't the opposite of future. It wasn't dead and gone. The story already told was as crucial as the story not yet known. Ancestors were as important as friends around the table. Knowing this made my past all the more difficult to come to terms with. I'd been a motherless child in the state care system, pushed from foster home to children's home for years before I met the Davidsons. Yet for all that lonely time, I'd recently discovered, I'd had blood relations.

When I'd been a child, I had no idea that there was anyone out there who might have rescued me, cared for, loved me. Six months ago, someone who thought they were my cousin came into my life, and with her came an unbearable thought: if this family been informed of my existence earlier on, things might have been so different.

I hadn't been able to hack the sudden immersion into a new family. I'd told them not to contact me again. That decision still had the smell of shame about it, like a rude word
spray-painted
on a concrete wall.

At the back of my throat came the scent of honey. It made me feel positive, reinforced. It shored me up, as if the Lady knew what I needed most at this point. I'd experienced hardness from her; she often stonewalled my questions and took me to grim places. This time she was filled with honey.

“Tell me what you saw, when you descended the realms,” she said, out of the blue.

I forced a shudder away. Too many images. “A plague of worms and dry ground, nothing growing …”

“Yes,” said the Lady. “A wasted land, stagnant, despoiled.”

“I met a guardian, an ancient black man, beside a fire. He showed me a powerful totem—a red hind. What did that mean?”

“It would be better if you asked him yourself.”

I shook my head, violently. I had no intentions of returning.

“There are roots that penetrate deep. That bind tight. You will find them at the hut of the old man.”

“Lady of the River, please tell me what you mean.”

“Sabbie Dare,” she said, and her voice was firm. “When will you call me by my true name?”