Foxlowe. Eleanor Wasserberg
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I spoke and no one was allowed to touch me. I was alone, edging around the circles the Family made around New Thing. I snatched eye contact and accidental touch when I could, watching and listening, haunting rooms.
The rest of the Family loved New Thing. The sounds it made they repeated, called to each other like a new language. After that first night, its crying wasn’t so frightening. The Family worked out what it liked: the jingle-jangle sounds of Libby’s bracelets, shaken above it, Freya’s knuckles in its mouth, the powdery milk not too hot. And what it didn’t like: the sun streaming through the kitchen windows, the dogs panting over it, and the damp orange blanket made it cry. They spent hours just lying on the kitchen floor, next to the aga, staring at it.
Aside from Freya, Ellen loved New Thing best. Her full name was Ellensia, but we’d all forgotten to use it. Her flesh spilled out of her clothes like filling from a pie, and she liked to wear kaftans she made herself, bad stitching pulling at the seams. She’d take New Thing into her arms and rest her on her vast stomach, singing bits of songs I didn’t know, cooing, until Freya took her back. Once, Ellen dared fight Freya on how to make little sister sleep, and she said, —I have done this before, you know, and we all looked away, sad for her at the mistake, and Freya only nodded, and said softly, —Yes, and where is that baby now? and Ellen left the kitchen with spilling eyes.
Meeting came. At the bay windows, Dylan and Ellen lay on their backs, drawing pictures in the frosted glass with their nails. Dylan was huge and strong, the bulk of him like an oak tree, and he gave bear hugs and wet kisses. He liked to spin us around, even Freya, even Ellen, who liked him, she said, because he make her feel dinky. Dancing to Richard’s guitar were Pet and Egg. Egg, Eglantine, was tall and thin. Through his vest, bones pushed out like they were trying to pierce the skin. He had thick black hair and a moustache he liked to grease with cooking fat and twist into curls. Egg was always with Petal, Pet for short, a boy with a girl’s name. Pet wore blusher on his cheekbones, so he looked like the broken dolls in the attic. He and Egg were always snaked around each other, Pet’s fingers in Egg’s hair.
A burning oil lamp sent jasmine puffs into the air. Candles burned everywhere, in old jars, stuck into wine bottles and cluttered along the mantelpieces. Someone had even put tea lights in the old chandelier, balancing them against the crystal. Toby lay with his head on Valentina’s stomach. I pulled at him to come sit with me, for the Naming, but he shook me off. I crouched next to him, Valentina giving me a weak smile. She was Toby’s mum; he’d called her that, Mum, for a while before he lost the habit, while she never seemed to name him at all. Her long blonde hair was so thin you could see the pink scalp underneath. Freya and Libby called her Sweetheart; behind her back, they called her Bitter Bambi, and in one of their strange truces they could make each other laugh by widening their eyes and snarling all at once. In the coldest days after Winter Solstice, Libby gave Valentina the down quilt that she’d taken from Jumble so long ago it was considered hers, and on the days Valentina went quiet and sad, Libby took Toby on long walks, or taught him dance steps in the ballroom. So I knew Bitter Bambi was something unkind: Libby liked life to be in balance.
—We’re naming her now, Valentina whispered to me. —Then she’ll be family and you’ll have to love her, Green, or everything will be very hard for you.
Freya stood up with New Thing in her arms and we all fell silent. She’d chant the new name and we’d watch it soak into new little sister like rainwater into grass. There was no outside name to peel away, not that she’d ever remember. Freya spoke for a while about the Family and Foxlowe and we all recited All The Ways Home Is Better.
—Now, I have a name for new little sister, said Freya.
I thought of the worst things: the rusted nails in the Spike Walk, the hunger of a starve day, the Bad. New Thing was hooked over Freya’s shoulder, so when she turned, the little face peered over, still wrapped in that striped scarf. Her eyes caught on the chandelier. The tiny wet mouth twitched into a smile and she made a small sound of joy. The best things came: jewels on cobwebs, Libby’s little birds. The flames glowing the night I watched Freya heating the milk.
—Blue, I whispered, too quiet for Freya to hear. —Call her Blue.
—Green has a name for her, Toby called.
Everyone looked at me. I kicked Toby hard and said, —No I don’t.
—She does, she just whispered it!
I dug my nails into his arm, and he howled. Valentina sat up and pulled him to her, glaring at me.
Freya bounced the baby in her arms, not looking at me. —Green is Edged, she said.
—It was the first name called, said Libby. —Isn’t that the rule?
—Freya always does the naming, said Richard, and Libby rolled her eyes, lay back on the floor like she was sunbathing in the cold air.
—Well, said Dylan. —It might be nice to—
—A nice way to end the Edging, Ellen jumped in.
Libby sat up. —What is the name, Green?
—Nothing, I said.
—Nothing? Freya crowed.
—Blue, I croaked. Libby caught it and repeated it louder. It sank into Blue and took her and we all knew that was her name.
—There’s a power in naming, Freya said to the Family, continuing to Edge me. —I hope Green knows what she’s given her. Blue can be many things.
—It’s the lights on the cooker, I said.
—It’s cold, Freya said to the Family.
—And she’s a colour like Green, Richard said.
—Yes, and you know she’s on the tape, said Freya. —With you and Green. Her song is all about sadness.
—Oh, I said.
—I love it, Libby said.
Above us in Freya’s arms, Blue squirmed and opened and closed her mouth.
—There’s a power in naming, Freya said again.
—She’s Green’s now, you know. She should do the calling, said Libby.
So I took Blue into my arms, and gave her the name cold and sad. That was the first little thing I did to hurt her.
Life ever after that is full of Blue, and all the trouble she made. It was Blue who made the end of Foxlowe, and Freya and me and all the Family. That wasn’t her fault, but mine. When Blue was a baby everything was already ruined, it only took a long time to happen. Let me tell you about the Bad first, so you understand. We had lots of stories about it, so we didn’t forget. You need to hear them countless times before you can follow the words in your own head, and then tell your own version. Mine is part Freya’s, part Libby’s, knotted together voices.
The Bad is everywhere on the outside. There, it is ignored, and because it has been forgotten, it can move in new ways: it does not creep, or skulk around the edges of shadow, but soars in the open. Listen, and believe it: on the outside, the Bad can force a helpless one to do anything. Imagine the worst you can. Outside, people will twist knives into flesh, pull off one another’s skin. Eat each other.
Now, it is harder for the Bad to take one of us, as it can so easily for outside people, because we have the protection of the Stones and the rituals. And we know the Bad and call it by name.
Never think that safer than the outside means safe.
You have to learn for yourself what the Bad feels like; everyone feels it differently. In the Time of the Crisis, when the Bad got into Foxlowe, it crouched on Freya like a giant fly, and made her world dark, so when the sun shone in, it couldn’t reach her. It made her limbs weak and everything hollow and hopeless. But others speak of the Bad as a voice, inside their own heads,