If I wrote about Rob dying, I would describe how it’s broken me as completely as the sea broke his body on the rocks. You would learn that I’m still frequently ambushed by grief. That there are times when I imagine it shutting me down internally: the coagulation of my blood, a thickening of my saliva until my mouth can barely open, the softening of my bones into the consistency of milk-soaked bread.
Honestly, since he died, nothing can be the same.
Which is why I’ve done what I’ve done. Imogen and I need a new life.
All being well, the parcel and the letter will soon be in place at the barn and Jayne, Ruth, and Emily won’t be far behind.
Dark Fell Barn is compact, built from square blocks of local sandstone. A door punctuates the façade, as do four windows, asymmetrically placed and each one different in size to the others. Each pane of glass reflects the restless cloudscape.
John and Maggie get out of the car and she opens the back. The dog jumps down.
“Bring the bags in for me?” she asks.
He nods. Why is she asking? She doesn’t need to. Of course, he’ll do it.
She carries the wrapped parcel into the barn. He’s distracted by the view. Deep in the valley, a tributary catches the sun fleetingly and glints as if it were forked lightning. It’s breathtaking. Is it an omen? As a boy he believed this valley, the most isolated on his family’s land, is where the creatures that his father warned him about lived: bogles and brags, shapeshifters who might trick you or lead you astray. Everything up here can change in an instant.
Beyond, far to the north, a veil of rain obscures a rocky outcrop. Heavy anvil-shaped clouds are gathering behind it, dense enough that it looks to John as if the sky might collapse under their weight. The storm is no more than a few hours away and it’s heading in this direction. They’ll have to get the guests up here before it breaks, or the lane will be impassable.
He follows Maggie into the barn, Birdie at his feet.
“John!” she says. “The bags!”
“What bags?”
“In the car. Can you please bring them in?”
“You only had to ask.”
“I did.”
She didn’t. He’s sure of it. But he hates nothing more than to argue with her.
They work through the chores in the barn in silence. Maggiechecks everything John does to make sure it’s perfect; he says nothing but resents it.
She feels tired and uneasy. Today was supposed to be ordinary but everything that’s happened so far seems determined to catch her out. This strange delivery, and even before that John’s behavior. He’s having a bad day.
When everything is dusted, beds made, towels hung, the welcome basket packed with beautifully arranged local produce and placed on the kitchen surface, Maggie takes time to position the letter and the wrapped present on the table, just as instructed. She checks how it looks from the kitchen door, and from the hallway, tweaks the angle slightly and adjusts the envelope so it’s propped a little more upright.
John watches with a bad taste in his mouth. One of the things the people who come here don’t understand, he thinks, is that this barn, with its meter-thick walls, here on the borders of England and Scotland, like all others in this area, was built to protect people and their livestock from invaders. From outsiders.
“Right!” Maggie says. “That’ll do. Time to go back down.”
He nods.Goodbyehe says to the barn, but silently. He always does this when he departs, even though he plans to be back up here in a couple of hours, delivering their guests. He considers it a courtesy.
It was as a child that he first heard the walls whisper back:We will protect you.He heard it again, during the long months he spent restoring the place. And he’s heard it since.
But for outsiders, those walls have a different message. He senses the restlessness of the walls when he leaves guests here, and he hears them muttering:
We can contain you. We can teach you.
“Why can’t we drive up to the barn ourselves?” Emily asks.
She watches the farmer, John Elliott, put their cases into theback of his Land Rover. The farmhouse looks well-kept, but mud slicks the yard and she’s afraid it’s not just mud, but shit. She hardly dares inhale in case a stink hits the back of her throat.
“You’ll see,” he says. Or, at least, that’s what she thinks he says. His accent is strangely singsong to her ears and difficult to understand.
“The track up to the barn isn’t passable with a normal car,” Jayne explains, like a know-it-all. “You need a four-wheel drive. They say it on their website. The link I sent you?”
