Snake Ropes (24 page)

Mam is the ghost Valmarie and Kelmar raised up to make into the owl woman. Using earth from her grave. My hands over my mouth smell of soil. She were my Mam, no matter what the trade she made with Langward were. I tap on the desk. Faster and faster. Read it again. Them put Mam’s ghost into a barn owl and set her on the men what took the boys.

Mam sent Da mad. Scratching at hims thoughts.

When she’d done what Valmarie and Kelmar wanted, Mam’s ghost were homeless, so she must’ve flitted off. And come home.

Give life. Not death. Not same before
.

Them gave her death and then brought her back. Which means Mam were murdered by Valmarie or Kelmar, or both of them. Not Annie. Annie loved her. She’s always been afraid of that pair, so she must’ve been too scared to ever say what them’d done.

I’ve read more than the four pages I traded with the deadtaker, so I open the documentation book at the front page and write in the names on the list of the dead:

I flick forwards to the next blank page and write:

I feel a bit better. Not better enough.

I put the book back in the drawer and lock it. My head is getting unravelled. I can think of Mam as murdered and feel angry at Valmarie and Kelmar, but I can’t get angered at Mam, even if …

Something lands in my hair.

I look up …

White owl feathers fall in this room.

I shout, ‘Stop it!’

The feathers fall thicker. Cover the desk. All over the floor. I stand up, can’t see where the feathers are falling from, like a blizzard from the Glimmeras what fills the room. Feathers blow and twist all around me. Settle in clumps, curl into each other. The desk, chair and floor are covered, thick. I blow one off my mouth and more get stuck on my lips.

The feathers are all over my bag, I pick it up and put it on the desk. I rummage inside and pull out the moppet.

‘What’s going on?’ I whisper. ‘What do the feathers mean?’

Shadow Mary’s voice hisses, ‘Leave. Us. Alone.’

‘Barney, are you here in this house, did the deadtaker lie? Are you here, in a coffin box?’ My heart, thud thud thud.

Barney’s voice says, ‘Mary, get this Mary away. Tell her go.’

Shadow Mary hisses, ‘Quiet, sniveller.’

I say, ‘Dun talk to him like that!’

Barney’s voice says, ‘She angry you.’

I say, ‘Barney, dun listen to her, you talk – tell me—’

Him says, ‘Shh, dun make angry this Mary …’

The sound of the sea washes through the shell.

‘Barney?’

The moppet droops forwards, silent.

The feathers fly around me, land all over my hair, cover the moppet in my hand, but now I’m looking at the feathers twisting and spiralling through the room, making everything white, this dun feel like anything bad.

It’s quiet and still and the door is locked.

Warm snow. It’s comfort.

Think.

The moppet’s got Shadow Mary’s voice as well as Barney’s.

Think.

Shadow Mary has peeled off me.

If shadows are made when bad things happen, or feelings what are too big just tear themselves off a person, a shadow of Barney could have peeled off him. Him could have left a shadow in the net him were tangled up in. The shadow must have crept away and hid itself in the shell lying on the beach.

If Shadow Mary has peeled off me, and
I’m
still alive … Someone must’ve found Barney, washed up on the shore. Him must’ve been hurt bad for hims shadow to peel off, but them’ve kept him alive.

So I’ve got to get out of this house and find out who.

I fall back in the feathers, send them floating up into the room. Grab handfuls and throw them twisting over me. I blow them off my smile.

I’m at the Thrashing House door. I pull the key from my pocket and Annie’s letter comes out twisted around it. I can smell the salt in the fog that drifts through the air around me. I slide the key into the lock.

The key won’t turn, it won’t fit into the right parts of the mechanism. I put Annie’s letter on the doorstep and use both hands to push the key in further. It fits into place – the maze on the key has found the puzzle in the lock and it clicks. I turn the handle, the door creaks open. It’s dark inside.

The fog thickens in swirls around my feet. I take the key from the lock. A feeling of someone behind me in the fog, someone reaching out a hand. A woman’s voice shouts, ‘Stop, dun, give me the key—’

I lock myself in. The door’s slam echoes above me in the dark. A creak, the sound of wood breaking. A crack. A groan.

Mary’s brother’s name … I
know
his name … a name to call …

A crack, a creak, a snap.

‘Hello?’ I shout.

I step forwards. My eyes can’t see in the dark. Something touches my hair. I spin round, step back, feel along the wall,
the texture rough like bark. The key is still in the lock. I should be able to feel the door …

A low thud.

My eyes adjust. Archways high above me, faint light coming through small windows high in the ceiling.

A sigh.

‘Who’s there?’

Another sigh.

I step forwards. A footstep, right behind me. I spin round.

A stooped woman stands, half in shadow, between me and the door. A man joins her and smiles. He has no teeth. A teenage girl appears out of the shadows, puts her hand on the woman’s shoulder and says, ‘She can see us.’

The girl steps forwards. Her curly hair covers half her face.

‘Them dun usually see us,’ the man groans. He shields his eyes from me with a weathered hand. The woman turns and knocks on the door but her hand makes no sound. Their faded simple clothes are from another time.

I say, ‘You’re all dead.’

The woman freezes.

She spins round. ‘Can you
hear
us?’

I nod.

‘You can
talk
…’ She reaches out her hand.

I step back. ‘Yes.’

Her voice is shrill, ‘Tell Ailsa I’m sorry I stole it. I never meant to upset her. I knew it were her Nan’s – it’s just it were such a lovely green, all shiny, and I just wanted it till I couldn’t think of nothing else. She made such the biggest fuss, near on got everyone there is to get all angered, and
I’m
angered for what she did, but if she’d just have took it back, I could …’

The man limps closer to me, talks over her voice, ‘No, tell Margaret I never meant to take Billy away. I just missed him
and she dun let me see him. I weren’t for keeping him, I never meant for her to think …’

The girl yells, ‘I
did
mean it, but tell her it were her or me, and it weren’t going to be me, an’ she’d do well to understand that. I’m sure she’s managed well enough without it, I mean I dun axe her
right
hand off an’ she
is
right-handed—’

‘Stop it!’ I shout.

‘No, listen,’ says the woman. ‘You’re the only one who’s heard us. The others never saw us. We’ve got things to say to folks. You got to take our messages … tell the folks we needed to tell—’

‘I don’t
know
anyone. I’m here to find a small boy. His sister’s looking for him, but she’s hurt. Have you seen him? He’s three years old.’

‘It were her or me, you tell her that!’ shrieks the girl.

‘I can’t.’

The man leans on the wall, tilts his head to the side and says, ‘You’re not scared to be in here. The others were scared.’

The woman says, ‘Apart from the tall man … Now him saw the face of some woman, in a broken mirror.’

I say, ‘Does a cracked mirror really bring bad luck?’

The man says, ‘Why ‘ent you scared?’

A huge creak from the ceiling. They all glance upwards. I step sideways so I have a clear run at the door.

The girl frowns at me and says, ‘Small ones dun get sent here.
I’m
the youngest. All over a
hand
. My Mam’s bloody hand, right enough, but it were her or me. What’ve you done then?’

The man says, ‘You got the main land speak. Are them sending thems wrong ‘uns all the way over here now?’

A creak from inside the wall.

‘What are these noises?’ I ask.

He says, ‘It wants to thrash you, love. It’s just gettin’ itself trunked up.’ He grins, his toothless mouth a wide hole in his face.

‘Thrash me – with what?’

A branch falls from the ceiling, crashes on the floor across the middle of the room. I leap back. Another branch grows out, spreads from the base of a wooden archway.

‘With what it’s made of. Its
own
truth,’ says the girl, frowning. ‘You’re not afeart?’

‘Of branches?’ I shake my head.

Another branch peels from a high archway, creaks and thwacks down on the floorboards. Leaves scatter across the floor.

‘Is this real?’ I pick up a leaf and hold it out to the woman.

She turns away and walks into the shadows.

I turn and face the girl, shake the leaf at her. ‘Is it?’

She touches my hair, whispers, ‘Give me
your
colour …’ and disappears.

I can feel the girl’s fingers in my hair like tangled cobwebs.

The man mutters, ‘Not like the others, you’re not. Other folk what came in through that same door as you, them saw other things. Get yourself out an’ just be. You got us, ‘cause we got things to be saying, an’
you
could’ve listened. Not if you’ll not do it, but. This place is full.’

There are faint faces around the edges of the room, like distant candle flames in the shadows. A whole army of ghosts. ‘Who are they?’

A branch crashes down on the other side of the room. The pale faces flicker and fade away.

He says, ‘The dead must be buried.’

‘That’s what I’ve always been told. My father—’

He interrupts, ‘We weren’t. Buried, see. So you get what’s happened. We’re stuck here.’

A branch thumps down, scatters twigs across the middle of the floor.

I ask him, ‘Why weren’t you—’

‘Anyone put in here dun have anything left to bury, ‘ent it.’

‘What
is
this place?’

‘Tree growed into this. Needed to protect itself, dun it. All trees cut down, some for the houses, barns, for weaving rooms, others for the platform and hanging pole. Punishing by death, that were. Folks liked to watch them twitch.’ He cringes. ‘Punished all kinds of folks for not that much wrongdoing. Dun think this tree wanted to see the wood from the others used that way. And it saw the other trees drop, get sliced, hammered, bolted. It twisted, grew itself into this place.’

A huge branch crashes, not far from where we stand.

‘It’s angry,’ I whisper.

He glances upwards and back at me. ‘Calls what’s needed, gets rid of what’s not. Listen, whatever you’ve come here for, you’ll not be finding young boys. Get yourself out. An’ quick. Dun know if it’ll open a door for you. Opened one for the tall man, but.’ He fades into the wall. He’s gone.

A branch swooshes down. Twigs scatter across the floor. I back away, towards the door. A huge bough creaks, swishes, cracks down. Branches and twigs tear at each other over my head. I stumble over branches into the middle of the room, a muscular bough hurtles down. It’s blocked the door and the key away from me.

I’m in a forest of trees being felled. Another branch thwacks down. I leap forwards and a sharp twig scratches my leg. It’s bleeding.

The creaks and cracks are so loud I can’t hear my footsteps as I jump over branches strewn across the floor, some still attached to the curving walls and archways. I call up into the
ceiling but my voice is lost in cracks and creaks. Leaves grow from archways, branches push out of walls and pillars, extend between the small windows, tangled twigs spread from thick boughs that lean from the walls.

A thickening branch splits away from the tallest archway, a branch thick enough to break all my bones with one thwack. It creaks as it bends. The branch tilts, sways. It’s seeking me out, creaking, twisting, the leaves churn, build up force, a storm, trapped inside it.

Along one of the walls are small curved doors. One is open. I clamber over broken branches, kick fallen twigs away, yank the door, squeeze into the small space behind it. A branch thwacks down, bashes the door shut. I’m locked in. Again.

In this tiny cramped space behind the door there’s a slight glow, but I can’t see where it’s coming from. The wooden floor underneath me is rotten and branches smash and crash outside. I run my fingertips along the floor away from the door. The floor disappears. There’s a hole right behind where I crouch. I can’t see how far down it goes. The smell of dank earth seeps up from it into this tiny space. I hang on to the doorframe.

The room outside this door crashes. Twigs rip, branches tear. This building remembers the ghosts of the other trees. It wants to punish.

It’s silent out there.

I push at the small door. It sticks against a pile of branches. I shove it, hard, and it opens.

I crawl out into the room and stand up.

The room stretches into high arches up above, the light coming in has faded – outside it must be getting dark. There’s a strange light in this room: I can see all around me, where pillars stretch
and curve around the high ceiling, the walls are wooden, solid, with curves instead of corners. The wood is moulded, and I can’t see where any part of it has been joined together. No nails, screws or any kind of join. Nothing creaks or crashes, no boughs or leaves grow from the walls. The floor is hidden under a felled forest: ripped boughs, torn branches, fallen leaves. Insects fill the air; moths flicker, dragonflies flit, a hoverfly vibrates, held by wings that move so fast they blur.

Nothing falls, nothing crashes, everything is still. Whatever this building needs to do, when its branches churn, thwack and beat whoever comes in, it has finished. The only sounds left are the sounds of vibrating insect wings.

Mary lied. Her brother isn’t in here.

I extract a strong branch and gather up a bundle of twigs. My hair falls over my face. That ghost who touched it has turned it white. So that’s what she meant when she said,
Give me your colour
.

But right now I’m going to do the thing I know how to do the best.

I’m going to clean up this mess.

Using the thinnest twigs to bind larger ones to the branch, I make a witch’s broom. I sweep the leaves into one pile and it feels like a dance. Sweeping the twigs into another pile, I realise that some choices lead into danger, and some lead out of it. I can sweep this floor, clear my mind and see stillness in a building that seemed full of danger. Danger is something that thrashes and beats and breaks itself down, and leaves calm in the air when it’s gone.

I sweep the cobwebs that the spiders are spinning just over my head. The insects hover in the air. This whole room is full of green smells. I sweep up clumps of moss and bark.

My white hair glows in the dark, and that’s why I can see.
Dragonflies dance around my white hair as I sit on the floor and break up some twigs and use them to make letters. Three choices:

Go home.

Look for Mary the liar.

Wait for boats.

Why
should
I only have three? I think up some more:

Open up the door and turn the Thrashing House into a school where I can teach all the boys and men to read.

Build my own raft out of the branches in this room and set off out to sea.

Knock on every single door on this island till I find someone to fall in love with.

Go to the Weaving Rooms and weave a great big web to live in.

Reinvent myself as a wise witch, sit in a cave and have people come to visit so I can hear lots of stories. Hand out magical potions that are really just seawater.

Capture all the insects in this room and make an insect circus. Charge a fortune for each showing, and become rich.

All these choices would be the best thing in the world to do. So why am I sitting on this floor not moving?

Because I’m still thinking of Mary.

This was meant to be escape. Freedom, the mainland. My real home. And even if Mary’s a liar, maybe
because
she’s a liar, I want to find her.

Right now I hate her.

I walk towards the mountain of branches still blocking the front door as I rummage in my coat pockets for Annie’s letter.

It’s not there.

It must have fallen out of my pocket behind the small door.
I crawl halfway into the dark space behind the door, the light from my hair shines on the hole at the back, wide enough to fall down. I feel with my fingertips for the rough paper of the letter. I crawl further in, my hands are on the edge of the rotten wooden floor, the smell of dank earth … I stop.

Remember.

I put the letter outside on the doorstep when I was unlocking the front door. And didn’t pick it up. So that woman reaching out from the fog at the door might have found it.

The sound of footsteps behind me and a sharp shove. The door crashes against my feet. The sound of a girl, laughing. My hair has stopped glowing. I’m hurtling through darkness, my empty hands grasp at air,