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‘Gretel?’ Papa asks.
Immediately, I get a funny feeling in my tummy; a greasy slipperiness, like there’s a snake inside me, coiling and uncoiling. Gretel, I remember, is a secret. I look up and meet Papa’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. His brow is furrowed. My hands begin to shake.
I glance at Mama. A pulse beats in her throat. ‘Thereisno Gretel, Elijah,’ she says. ‘I thought you understood that.’
In my tummy, more of the snake uncurls. ‘I … I mean Magic Annie,’ I stammer, my words rushing out. ‘It’s my play name for her. A thing I invented. Just a silly thing.’
Papa’s eyes float in the mirror. ‘I think Magic Annie suits her better than Gretel,’ he says. ‘Don’t you, buddy?’
My mouth tastes sour, like I’ve bitten down on a beetle or a toad. I run my tongue over my teeth and swallow. ‘Yes, Papa.’
IV
Our estate isn’t like those I’ve seen on Magic Annie’s TV. There are no high-rise blocks or rows of modern homes – only woods, fields, barns, cowsheds and the mansion called Rufus Hall. Dotted about the land are a few stone-built cottages, including our own. Tied cottages, they’re called.
Beyond the Memory Wood lies Knucklebone Lake. That’s not the lake’s real name – I don’t think it has one. It’s just that once, in the reeds lining the bank, I found a tiny trio of bones connected by rotting ligament. They looked like they might form the index finger of a small child. I put them in my Collection of Keepsakes and Weird Finds, a grand name for what’s really a Tupperware box hidden beneath the loose floorboard in my room.
Not far from the lake is the place I call Wheel Town. It’s more of a camp than anything else, a ragtag collection of trucks and caravans that were driven here long ago and are mostly too rusted up to leave. I’ve never worked out why the Meuniers tolerate the Wheel Town folk on their land, but they do.
The Meuniers live up at Rufus Hall. Just the two of them, knocking about with all that space. Leon Meunier spends most of his time in London. On the days he’s at the estate, I see him zooming about in his black Defender with a face like he’s worried the sky’s about to fall. The house and its gardens would be an awesome place to explore, but Papa won’t ever let me go.
Our car jerks to a stop. I realize we’re home. In the front seat, Mama bows her head. I wonder if she’s praying. Looking down, I see my hands have stopped trembling. I pop my seatbelt and grab the door handle, but of course I can’tget out. My parents still use the child locks, even though I’m twelve years old.
I wait for Papa to open the door. Then I worm out of my seat. He lumbers up the garden path, shoulders braced as if he’s carrying all the world’s troubles. Mama and I follow.
Our cottage windows are dark, offering no hint of what lies within. The front door is a single slab of oak. There’s no letterbox. Papa rarely gets any post, and when he does it’s delivered straight to Meunier. Mama gets nothing at all. Our door has no number, because we don’t live on a street. If anyone ever wrote to me, they’d have to put this on the envelope:Elijah North, Gamekeeper’s Cottage, C/O THE RT HON. THE LORD MEUNIER OF FAMERHYTHE, Rufus Hall, Meunier-fields. That’s quite a lot to write, which explains why Mama isn’t the only one the postman ignores.
There’s an upside-down horseshoe nailed to the lintel, put there to catch us some luck. Passing beneath it, I go inside.
V
I’m in my room, standing at the window. We’ve been home twenty minutes. I’m itching to escape, but I daren’t, not yet.
When I hear the back door clatter open, I step closer to the glass. Down in the garden, Papa looms into view. He tugs a packet of Mayfairs from his chest pocket and lights up. Leaning against the coal shed, he breathes a fog of smoke into the sky. I go to the hall, creep down the stairs and out through the front door.
From our cottage, the Memory Wood is a five-minute walk. I make it in half that time, jogging along the track beside Fallow Field. Overhead, the sky presses down like asteel sheet. The day feels heavy, as if it might crumple under its own weight.
I’m halfway there when I hear the screaming. Twisting around, I see a family of crows squabbling in Fallow Field. Something’s got their interest – likely the remains of a rabbit or pheasant that a fox has left. The collective noun for crows, I once read, ismurder.
Pretty gross.
VI
It’s chilly inside the Memory Wood, which is strange because there’s barely any wind. There’s a steady drip of water, leftovers from this morning’s rain. Under my trainers the mulch is soft and wet.
With Fallow Field screened by trees, the screaming of the crows is muted. Ahead, I see a flash of movement. All sorts of things it could be, but there’s only one that I fear. My parents didn’t mention him on the way home, and I made a point of not asking. Sometimes I worry that speaking his name too often will increase his power over me – and with it, his cruelty.
Maybecrueltyisn’t the best word. Once, on the TV in Magic Annie’s caravan, I saw a Great White burst out of the sea and bite a baby seal clean in half. It looked cruel, but it wasn’t, not really – it was just nature. The shark was hungry and the baby seal was prey. The other youngsters stayed out of the water when they saw the shark’s fin cutting the surface, which shows the importance of good instincts. Good instincts are something I worry about quite a lot.
Now, in the Memory Wood, I slow my pace. I’ve seen deer among these trees, but their coats match the woodlandso perfectly that often I only notice their eyes. The flash of movement I spotted a moment ago was no deer.
I think about running back to Fallow Field, and from there all the way home. But I came here for a reason, one far too important to ignore.
Bad instincts.
Even though my heart’s beating faster than it should, I allow myself an eye-roll. Three weeks ago my favourite word wasmelodramatic. Right now, it’s pretty apt. I don’treallyknow if I have bad instincts. One thing I’ve learned, growing up by these woods, is to think twice about trusting what I see.
Steeling myself, I take a forward step. No startled fawn or badger crashes out of the undergrowth. No owl or hawk swoops from the overhead canopy. I take a second step, then a third, twisting my head to check that nothing’s creeping up on me.