Riley shivers. The air is dank and chilly. There’s a rotting leather couch to her left. As she glances at it, the surface writhes and Riley stifles a scream. A whiskered snout peeps out and disappears.Rat, she thinks, though it could just about be a possum. The dripping sound goes on,plink, plink, plink, in uneven plosive sounds. Something white and broad sails through the high roof and out into the storm-lit sky. The owl glides out into the dark on silent wings.
They go behind the vast stone chimney that houses the great fireplace and turn down a long hallway. The remains of blackened shattered mirrors gleam from the walls.
Plink, plink, the drops keep falling. She shakes her head, irritable. It’s both hypnotic and unsettling.
As they go, she feels the house take them all in its arms. When Riley looks up she sees that the fireflies are out. They dance green overhead, darting in and out of the shell roof of Nowhere House. Riley follows Cal’s straight back through dark passages. She can imagine hands reaching for her from the shadows.
They come out into a long room at the back of the house. Stars peer through the bare rafters, but some roof cover remains towards the back. There is something else there too – a darker scar in the blackened floor.
The woman is beginning to stir in her swaddling. She moans, low and pained.
‘Quickly,’ Noon says.
The dark scar is a circular place, sunk into the floor and through the foundations. The fire didn’t make this, a person did. The floor-boards have been hacked away to show the stone foundations at each side, the ground below. It’s like a window let down to the earth. An indoor garden. There are rocks and earth and small trees, everything covered by a riot of vines. Some night flower has opened with the dark and its light fragrance hangs in the air, over the old scents of char and ash. Patterns of rocks are traced around the plants in whorls, in geometric shapes, making wandering paths through the scented plants. Five smooth round stones form a circle in front of a lilac tree which spreads its branches against the bare stone foundation. Someone took care with this, Riley realises. It is a place with great meaning.
There is a tall wooden chair at the edge of the sunken place. It has wizardly pointed turrets on its back. Cal and Noon put the woman in the chair. There are restraints on the armrests and at the foot – thick cracked leather straps, solid as steel. Cal fastens them about the woman’s wrists and ankles. One of the armrests is set out at an angle and slants curiously downwards. When Cal fixes the woman’s left arm it dangles in space, hanging above the drop, the window down into the earth. Meanwhile Noon takes a piece of cloth from her pocket and binds it about her head, covering her eyes tightly.
Dawn appears through the dim air and Riley starts.
‘I’m glad you’re home.’
Noon hugs her.
Dawn takes out the Tupperware box and puts Noon’s necklace once more about her throat. Midnight takes hers with a visible give of relief. Noon touches her shoulder.
‘You did well,’ Noon says. ‘Go and see your daughter.’ Midnight nods and runs into the dark.
Riley holds out her hand to Dawn, waiting. She’s glad to see it doesn’t shake. Cold thoughts dart through her, crazy thoughts like –maybe she won’t give it back. Maybe I dreamed that I gave it to her, she might have dropped it in the woods, could have lost it.
Dawn smiles and reaches into the Tupperware with delicate fingers. The chain and locket pool gently in Riley’s palm, a slight gleam on the old silver.
‘There’s a well out back,’ Noon puts her hand on Riley’s shoulder. ‘A pail next to it. Bring water.’
Riley jumps, heart pounding then nods. She makes her way towards the place where she can see the largest pattern of stars, where the wall gives way to the land.
The well is protected with a solid wooden cover and when Riley draws the bucket up the water tastes good – clean, almost sweet.
The moaning is louder now, Riley hears it as she makes her way back. Noon takes the pail from Riley and puts the lip very gently to the bound woman’s mouth. The woman sputters and coughs, then drinks eagerly, her throat moving up and down like a piston.
When her gulping slows, Noon takes the bucket away. She nods at Cal.
He comes forward and the moon and starlight gleam on the blade in his hand. He makes a small nick in the woman’s arm, the one that hangs out into space. She moans and struggles. Cal’s mouth is rigid and thin. He holds her forearm firmly, widens the incision a little so that a narrow trickle of blood runs down her wrist, her hand, and then falls into the dark place below. The woman’s moan builds to a scream. It shatters the air, broken and high.
‘Blood in the land,’ Midnight whispers.
Noon murmurs, ‘Blood in the land.’
Beside her Cal hangs his head. His lips hardly move but Riley feels the words, his warm breath on her bare arm. ‘Blood in the land.’
Riley opens her mouth. She hadn’t meant to. But the words come as if they’ve always been waiting in the depths. ‘Blood in the land,’ she breathes. ‘Blood in the land.’
The blood trickles from the woman’s arm. Most falls directly onto the earth below. Blood spills onto the broken boards at the edge of the sunken place, fast now,plink plink plink. It drips down onto the earth.
Riley understands that she heard the sound of the blood dripping as they walked down the corridor. Even before they tied the woman up and cut her, she heard it dripping, because here time doesn’t matter. The blood is always feeding the land.
Noon cleans the woman’s wrist with a cotton ball and antiseptic. She binds it with gauze.
‘Hungry?’ Noon asks, kind.
