Stop.
Percy could be hard, she could even be unkind, but she wasn’t capable of that. Saffy would never believe such a thing. Her twin loved the castle with a passion, but never at the expense of her own humanity. Percy was brave and decent and honorable; she climbed into bomb craters to save lives. Besides, it wasn’t Percy who’d been covered in someone else’s blood …
Saffy trembled, stood suddenly. Percy was right: there was little to be gained by keeping silent vigil while Juniper slept. It had taken three of Daddy’s pills to calm her into slumber, poor lamb, and there was little chance she’d surface now for hours.
To leave her as she lay like this, small and vulnerable, went against every maternal instinct Saffy had, and yet … To remain, she knew, was to invite descent into abject panic. Already her mind was addled by ugly possibilities: Juniper didn’t lose time unless she’d suffered trauma of some sort, unless she’d seen or done something to excite her senses, something to set her heart racing faster than it should. Combined with the blood on her blouse, the general air of unease that had followed her into the house—
No.
Stop.
Saffy pressed the heels of her hands hard against her chest. Tried to ease the knot that fear was tying there. Now was not the time to succumb to one of her panics. She had to stay calm. So much was still unknown, yet one thing was certain. She would be of little use to Juniper if she couldn’t keep her own jagged fears in check.
She would go downstairs and she would write her novel, just as Percy had suggested. An hour or so in Adele’s lovely company was just the thing. Juniper was safe, Percy would find whatever there was to be found, and Saffy Would. Not. Panic.
Shemustnot.
Resolved, she straightened the blanket and smoothed it gently across Juniper’s front. Her little sister didn’t flinch. She was sleeping so still: like a child, spent from a day beneath the sun; the clear, blue sky; a day beside the sea.
Such a special child she’d been. A memory came, instant and complete, a flash: Juniper as a girl, matchstick legs with white hairs shining in the sunlight. Crouching so her haunches supported her, knees with scabs, bare feet flat and dusty on the scorched summer earth. Perched above an old drain, scrabbling in the dirt with a stick, looking for the perfect stone to drop through the grille—
A sheet of rain slid across the window, and the girl, the sun, the smell of dry earth turned to smoke and blew away. Only the dim, musty attic remained. The attic where Saffy and Percy had been children together; within whose walls they’d grown from mewling babies into moody young ladies. Little evidence of their tenure remained, the sort that could be seen. Only the bed, the ink stain on the floor, the bookcase by the window that she’d—
No!
Stop!
Saffy clenched her fists. She noticed the bottle of Daddy’s pills. Considered a moment, then unscrewed the lid and shook one into her hand. It would take the edge off, help her to relax.
She left the door ajar and crept carefully down the narrow stairs.
Behind her in the attic room the curtains sighed.
Juniper flinched.
A long dress shimmered against the wardrobe like a pale, forgotten ghost.
IT WASmoonless, it was wet, and despite her raincoat and boots, Percy was drenched. To make matters worse, the torch was being temperamental. She planted her feet on the muddied drive and gave the torch a whack against her palm; the battery rattled, light flickered, and hope rose. Then it died. All of it.
Percy swore beneath her breath and swiped with her wrist at the hair that clung to her forehead. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting to find, only that she’d hoped to have found it by now. The longer it took, the further from the castle she traveled, the less likely it was that the matter could be contained. And it must be contained.
She squinted through the rain, trying to make out what she could.
The brook was running high; she could hear it somersaulting, roaring on its way towards the wood. At this rate, the bridge would be out by morning.
She turned her head a little more to the left, sensed the glowering battalions of Cardarker Wood. Heard the wind skulking in the treetops.
Percy gave the torch another try. Damned thing ignored her still. She kept walking in the direction of the road, slowly, cautiously, scanning the way ahead as best she could.
A shard of lightning and the world was white, the sodden fields rolling away from her, the wood recoiling, the castle, its arms crossed in disappointment. A frozen moment in which Percy felt entirely alone, the cold, wet white within as well as without.
She saw it as the light’s last echo died. A shape on the drive beyond. Something lying very still.
Dear God: the size, the shape, of a man.
TWO
TOMhad brought flowers from London, a small bunch of orchids. They’d been hard to find, fiendishly expensive, and as day had dragged into night he’d come to regret the decision. They looked rather the worse for wear, and he’d started to wonder whether Juniper’s sisters would like shop-bought flowers any more than she did. He’d brought the birthday jam, too. Christ, he was nervous.
