Foxlowe. Eleanor Wasserberg
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in two, between two Solstices. The winter one falls when the year is dying and you have to be careful then, because the Bad is strong in the dark. The summer one is when the sun sets twice at the Standing Stones, and the Bad is weakest. I don’t remember when I learned these things, only that I knew them by the time Blue existed. I knew Freya and Richard and Libby were the Founders and that the others were the Family and I even remembered that there was a time when I was the only ungrown, before Toby came. I knew that when I was born, it brought the Time of the Crisis, and that everything Freya did, even the things that hurt, were to keep the Family together and safe ever afterwards.
I am meant to tell Blue’s story, but it doesn’t flow as it should: there are broken and jagged edges to it, and some pieces are too sharp for the tongue to tell. I could begin with Blue’s naming, the first little thing I did to love and to hurt Blue all at once. Or I could tell the moment Foxlowe began crumbling all around us, with the front doorbell ringing. But wherever I begin, it all leads to the same place. To the sweet rotting smells, and the warm, slick blood.
PART ONE
Tiny red beads came from the lines on my arm. Those soft scars give way like wet paper. There’s a game that helps: footsteps in the dust, twisting to match the old strides without taking the skin away from the Spike Walk. Another: name steps all the way to the yellow room end of the Spike Walk. Freya, Toby, Green, Egg, Pet, the Bad. I made it to the final nail and squinted at the arm. Red tears and the lines swollen hot; a crying face. I turned to Freya, her long arms wrapped around herself at the ballroom end of the Walk. She nodded, so I breathed deeper and licked some of the salt and coins taste to make it clean.
Freya spoke. —And back again, Green.
Her voice was low, but even softened there was broken glass in it.
I lifted my other arm to the nails that had once hung pictures on these walls in Foxlowe’s old life.
—No, same arm, Freya said, smothering a smile. —Until it bleeds, is the rule.
—It is bleeding.
I held up my arm for her to see. Freya gave a slow blink.
—And back again, Green.
I put the torn skin back to the first nail. By the time I stumbled into Freya’s embrace there were flames under my skin, and I knew the Bad was burning away. I pleaded silently into the wood smoke scent of Freya’s dress. She twined her fingers in my hair, tight at the roots, pulled to search my face. I tried to look pure and good, fixed on her dark eyes and sharp, veined cheeks. Freya nodded, uncurled to her full height, and led me out to the ballroom, where Libby knelt on the huge red rug.
Libby wrapped me in the cardigan with the daisy shaped buttons and left me for the kitchen. The curve of a broken button fitted snug around the tip of my little finger.
It wasn’t Freya who returned but Libby with the poultice of lavender and honey.
—Why’re you doing it? I asked, as Libby wrapped the warm cloth below my elbow. Freya did this for me, while telling the story of the Crisis, then she’d bring her forehead to mine, and pour her thick, black hair around us, making a little world for us away from the rest of the Family. This was her way of forgiving me. A little ritual of our own, an always.
—What did you do for the Spike Walk? Libby asked.
She liked to answer questions with questions. Her full name was Liberty, but only Freya ever called her that. Her hair was greasy with egg yolk, ready to wash out when the water came on after sunset.
I shrugged. It was between Freya and me. That morning I’d tried to pierce my ears with a needle and ice snapped from the attic window frame. It wasn’t for that I was punished, but because Freya, who could read all my secrets just by looking at my face or the way I moved my hands, knew it was because I wanted to look like Libby.
Libby’s earrings were blue hoops with little gold birds perched on them. They were special. Richard had brought them for her from the outside, and they never went into Jumble. She let me play with them now that my arm was bandaged, pressing one against my ear, while she held up the back of a spoon for me to see the blurry image. My hair didn’t move like her curls but like the knotted hair of a wet dog left out in the rain.
After a while the Family came in from the gardens, their arms full of holly, or branches of white and red berries. I looked for Toby, but only the grown had been outside collecting for the Solstice decorations. They were flushed from the cold and the carrying, but it was almost festival time, and they filled the huge room with whistles and snatches of song and bits of stories. I threw my head back to see if the sounds bouncing around the ceiling beams were visible. Richard dragged a crate of wine and raised his eyebrows at Libby as he passed. She gave him a wide smile and shifted her hips on the floor, touched her sticky yolked hair. His eyes slid to my arm, then away, and he left towards the kitchen. The Family started to pull out vine and branch, strangling them into wreaths.
I was finding deeper breaths now, my heart settling.
—That’s it, breathe into it, Libby soothed. —Imagine the pain like a ball that’s moving to your hands.
I always tried but my pain ran in lines, so I made it into a track to be walked across the moor, leading to my fingers. Libby had me make a fist and release it. She told me I could watch the ball float up and away like a bubble. Instead, behind my eyelids were threads spooling out from the new cuts, unravelling, unpicked bad stitches.
—Have you heard the secret? Libby asked me.
—Secret? Is it new family? New clothes? I said. —Can I have a—
—No. It’s something really good, she said, giggling so her snaggle tooth showed.
—New … animals? More dogs, are there going to be puppies?
Libby shook her head, plaiting the tassels at the edge of the ballroom rug.
—I know, I lied.
—You’ve guessed! And I’m not supposed to tell, Freya wants to!
—Why hasn’t Freya come? I said. —Is she to do with it, the secret?
Libby held out her earring. —Try it on your other ear.
But I didn’t care about the earrings any more. I tried to think of all the secrets there had ever been, but it wasn’t new family or animals and I knew it couldn’t be a Leaver, because Libby said something good. I begged Libby to tell me, hung from her shoulders, kissed her then kicked her, and eventually she said, —Green! Enough, go and find Toby and play, and she shoved me away.
He wasn’t far, on the middle landing, eating berries from the new wreath that hung there. His woolly blond hair stuck out from his head in untidy curls; a layer of dirt crusted around his knees. I stole some berries and for a while we showed each other our red-stained tongues.
—D’you know there’s a secret happening, something good? I asked Toby.
—Like what?
—Something to do with me.
He frowned. —You have to clean, is all. We all have to before Solstice.
—Stupid, that’s not a good thing.
—Stupid, of course they aren’t going to tell you it’s a bad thing, stupid!
—Libby said something good. Are you calling Libby a liar?
My palm made red shapes on the skin of his back, where the safety pin left his t-shirt gaping. He kicked me away and twisted my arm, right where the fresh blood was. I spat in his face, foam on his cheeks. That settled it. Spit wins. Besides, Toby might be older, taller, but he was still newer than me: I remembered the