Prologue
Bronze Age – circa 2000 B.C.E.
In the moonlight, Seela pushes a small child onto a low, snow-covered branch and swings herself up beside her. Quickly, she clambers higher and leans down to grab her little sister’s hand so she can jerk her even further towards safety. They have been fleeing so long it seems as though they never had a home at all, but it would have meant death if they had stayed. It might still mean death. Running away in winter is dangerous. If the cold does not get them, starvation or hungry animals might.
Despite her stiffening limbs, she doesn’t give up. As she pulls little Duna upwards for a third time, there’s a low, vicious growl from the ground below just before the darkness is split by an agonised cry. Nostrils fill with the stench of wolf and she looks down into frenzied eyes yellow in the ghastly moon-glow. Horrified, she yanks her now sobbing sister still further up.
The next time the wolf hurls itself into the branches, it misses. Again and again it tries to dislodge them yet somehow the quaking tree holds onto them with its freezing fingers and eventually a desperate howl signals the creature’s defeat.
For a while, the only sound is panting and whimpering. As soon as the scent of wolf disappears, Seela becomes aware that something is oozing onto her foot. Wrapping her legs around the branch for purchase, she grips Duna with one hand and reaches down with the other. Sure enough, her fingers encounter a slick of something sticky on the little girl’s thigh. Carefully lowering her head, she starts to lick the deep laceration, not stopping until there’s a taste of salt.
When a clod of snow suddenly drops onto her face, she blinks rapidly before feeling for a strip of cloth from the bag around her waist. Once she has wound it tightly around Duna’s small, thin leg, she rights herself and leans, panting, against the trunk. Then she pulls her sister close under her cloak to lull her to sleep. The five-stringed gitty on her back digs uncomfortably into her bones. She wishes she could reach round to take it off to play the instrument and comfort them both, but she does not dare move. Instead, she starts to shiver uncontrollably. Her breath falters and, as though the wolf has torn off her eyes and ears, all light and sound disappear.
It is a long time before she hears something. At first she thinks it is the whispering of bare branches trying to pluck at her hair with their dead fingers. But then she realises it is the voice of a woman singing far away. The voice becomes louder, joined by another and another, until a long line of grandmothers, mothers, and girls still to be born start to file past the tree.
When they draw to a halt in a huge half ring front of her, the lead woman steps forward, her hair as strikingly red as Seela’s own. One of her eyes is green while the other is as pale as a pearl from a shell. A chain of stones is in her hands, a glimpse of amber and white amongst the grey. As though Seela knows what she is supposed to do, she somehow reaches down from the tree to take it and slip it over her head. Once it is round her neck, a blissful heat begins to melt the ice from her bones, leaving her floating in a sea of comfort, warm as a cradle.
But the relief does not last for long. All too soon the rhythm of her heart resumes, air refills her lungs and she returns outside to the freezing world she has known all her life. As soon as she becomes aware of her sister once again solid in her arms, the women flee into the shadows, taking their song and the necklace with them. And yet Seela no longer feels alone. The woman with the red hair and pearly eye has not gone far. Trembling, Seela looks up through the snowy branches and sees that the moon has returned. Instinctively, she puts her hand on the place where the necklace had lain and feels strength where before there had only been fear. The wolf has gone and the tree is protecting them in its fist.
All she has to do is to hold on for the dawn.
Then they will continue their journey.
Somehow, the woman with the pearly eye will look after them.
Chapter One
Fehu – cattle and prosperity. It is time to move forward
Selena – Present Day
The song goes round and round in my head. I have never heard it before and yet it seems familiar, spellbinding me with unintelligible words in a language from some ancient time, all the while burning an image of two green eyes into my mind. It is only when I realise that the bath has grown cold and I am shivering that I climb out of the water, wrap myself in one of the hotel’s bath sheets, and return to the bedroom.
It’s a mess; more like a floordrobe than a room. As I bend to tidy the tangle of clothes strewn across the carpet, it’s hard to concentrate with the echoes of the song floating in and around me. If only I’d been able to sing something like that tonight, then maybe I wouldn’t have failed in my last chance to be recognised as a singer-songwriter. When the organiser had said I could return for next year’s Winter Festival as ‘The Red Pirate’, I’d briefly blazed with hope, quipping that he’d have to provide a parrot for my shoulder that wouldn’t clash with my outrageously red hair. But then he’d added that he still wouldn’t be able to pay me and my hopes had crashed to the floor.
So this is the end of the road for me. There’s no money in music, at least not at my level. It takes too long to make a name and I don’t have the luxury of time. Now I’ve been made redundant from my job at the library, I need to find paying work not only for myself but also to help Mum and my disabled sister and to keep our wreck of a house from falling down.
Despite my disappointment, the strange song refuses to leave me alone and I remember the girl in the dream. Unable to help myself, I reach for my Celtic harp and start to work out the music. Strangely, my fingers glide over the strings as though they already know the notes even though I only heard them for the first time tonight.
I’m in the middle of the last verse when the phone rings at the side of the bed. Annoyed at the interruption, I don’t answer it at first, but when it continues I reluctantly pick it up. It is the night porter telling me that two policewomen are waiting for me downstairs. Alarmed, I wonder why they could possibly want to see me at nearly 2 o’clock in the morning.
When I reach the foyer, they all stare at me with fascinated revulsion and I realise that I have forgotten to cover my left eye.
“Selena, would you like to sit down?” asks the blonde one in a hard Liverpudlian accent. She points to a sofa in the lobby.
“What’s the matter?” I manage.
There is a long hesitation before she speaks. “I’m afraid there’s been an accident.”
“Your mother and your sister …” says the black one in a soft Jamaican accent.
“We’re so sorry,” continues the first. “They wouldn’t have known anything.”
I stare at them, uncomprehending.
“Your mother was driving. I’m afraid the car wasn’t road-worthy.”
The words make no sense. Mum hasn’t driven in years. I’m the one with the car and it is here with me. The only other car we own is Dad’s and that is as dead as he is. Mum only keeps it as a reminder of happier times. My pearly eye goes cold. This must be a dream, like the one of the girl up the tree. I pinch my skin, expecting to wake up but the scene fails to change and I am left staring at the police women with my one green eye.
“Fortunately nobody else was involved. Otherwise …”
The voice fades and my mind starts to flip. I find myself wondering if the wolf will return to the girl and her sister. Mara would like that. She loves wolves. I must have told her every wolf story in every book. She doesn’t like them portrayed as bad. She thinks they are good, and she often looks down as though one is sitting companionably beside her. I’ve often wished she could speak and tell me what she sees but although Mara is older than me, she has a mental condition meaning that her mind paused and stayed at about five years old.
About the same age as the little sister in the dream.
I feel a touch on my hand and see that one of the police women is kneeling in front of me.
“Selena, here’s some tea. It will help you to feel better.”
She puts the mug into my hand. It turns the skin of my hand red; as red as the colour of the older sister’s hair; as strikingly red as mine, but I barely notice. Instead I take a sip, not realising that it is burning me until it scalds my tongue. Quickly, I put it down on the table at my side. The liquid slops from the mug and drips over the edge; the same colour as dad’s car, flecks of tea leaves floating like rust on the surface.
What was Mum thinking? Driving a car that could barely start? Oh God, I should have been there to stop her. I should have saved them, not been chasing an impossible dream.
Overwhelmed by guilt, I feel the dream returning.
Perhaps the wolf will come back and send me to the oblivion I deserve.
Raff – Present Day
An exceptionally tall man sat at an old oak table in the kitchen of a ramshackle farmhouse with his head in his hands. He could not get the song out of his head. It had been unearthly, like birdsong from another world. Unnerved, he tossed his long black hair over his shoulder and reached for his carving instruments; the best form of distraction that he knew. Carving took him into the zone and consumed most of his time when he was not looking for artefacts at some dig or other.
It was the dig that had brought him to the Stennings although the project did not look very promising. For a start, it was the wrong time of year. But the owners of the land didn’t seem to care about that. They just wanted the job done so that the land could be freed for planning permission. It was ridiculous: the land was part of a flood plain that was waterlogged for much of the year. That was a good thing for archaeology. It meant that the site would not have been wrecked by centuries of ploughing. But it was a disaster for building. Water from the stream would have to be diverted and that meant wrecking the delicate ecosystem.
As the song continued to worm its way through his mind, he touched the wood on the table so that he might feel rather than listen. He loved trees. Always careful to choose wood from a sustainable source, he had experimented to see what worked best, beginning with basswood, a malleable and inexpensive white wood without grain that grew throughout Europe and the Americas. With his love of the flute, he had tried making simple musical instruments but getting the holes in the right place for perfect tuning had proved extremely difficult. He had then tried aspen which was good for carving animals. After that, he had experimented with butternut which worked well for making furniture. Black walnut had been next. It was more expensive and needed sharper tools and a mallet for working, but the wood had proved wonderful for its rich colour and grain. Finally, oak had taught him how to use power carvers.
Now he was a master craftsman, able to carve anything from raised scenes and characters to letters and caricatures in both two and three dimensions. His favourite subjects were animals, and with his impressive set of tools, he could lose himself for hours. To date, his most impressive piece was the large wolf that sat outside by the front door like a guardian of the farmhouse.
This latest carving, however, was proving rather more elusive. His aim had been to carve a smaller wolf but this one was turning out to be more of a dog. He had used black walnut, a tree which could reach thirty or forty meters in height, and named for its dark, heavily ridged bark. Larger than the common walnut, it needed plenty of sun and perhaps that was why he liked it so much. The black walnut was an intriguing example of dark and light, rather like life, he thought, in which one was continually treading a path between the two. Nevertheless, why its inner shape was insisting on becoming a dog rather than a wolf, he had no idea. It was as though conviction was not only coming from deep inside the grain but also from deep inside him, carving a memory that he did not realise he had.
Frowning, he pushed his spectacles onto the top of his head and rubbed his eyes. For a split second, the light in the farmhouse faded as though it had gone behind a cloud. Unsettled, he stood and stretched, his impossibly tall body wavering like one of his beloved trees in the wind. Then he sat again and laid his hand on the unfinished head of the carving as though he might discover what was in its mind. The song grew louder and then, without warning, suddenly stopped.
He breathed a sigh of relief. Now it was quiet, he would be able to concentrate. Carefully, he picked up a chisel and began to search the wood for answers.
Selena – Present Day
The funeral passes in a blur. Only a handful of people turn up and not just because of the snow. Mum became something of a recluse after Dad died and despite the fact that our family had lived there for generations, we were strangers to the community. Besides, they think I’m weird and refuse to look me in the eye.
As I arrive back at the house, I can’t help but notice what a monster of a mansion it is. Highhill is like a mouth which needs constant feeding, haemorrhaging money faster than rats devour food. Mum only managed to keep it going by opening the house up as a bed and breakfast. According to the will, it is mine but I have no idea what I’m going to do with it.
Overwhelmed by guilt. I trudge to the back door. As though the house doesn’t want me here anymore, the heavy key refuses to turn in the lock. It takes three attempts to open it and the moment I step inside I wish it had never let me in. Mara’s haphazard scribblings on the walls call out to me as though she is still here and my heart feels as though it will break all over again. In the living room I draw the curtains and switch on the lamps, but the light does nothing to dispel the silence. So I lift the lid of the piano to play a chord and then run my hand across the strings of the harp but the sounds die away as though they too are weeping.
It’s no better upstairs. Mum’s room yawns emptily, the only colour the faded pink bedspread that she crocheted so painstakingly many years ago. Old toys lie on Mara’s floor as though, rather than being a woman of nearly thirty, she was still a child. I pass the guest rooms and arrive at my room at the end of the corridor. Inside is an iron-framed bed with an enormous black chest at its foot. Two trunks occupy one wall and an old oak wardrobe another. The single picture on the wall is of a Pre-Raphaelite girl sitting by water, her Titian hair flowing in a ripple down her back. I chose it when I was eleven because it seemed full of promise. Now I can only see tragedy.
Too agitated to lie down, I make my way to the bathroom. A mistake. Above the sink is a mirror that shows me my reflection all too clearly; one green eye pink from crying, and a black eye-patch over the other one to match my dress. I pull it off and gaze hatefully into my pearly orb, so pale that it appears to be inside out. My hair is the opposite, its colour an impossible red. I look a fright. No wonder the people at the funeral gave me a wide berth. I wouldn’t want to talk to me, either.
Grief-stricken, I run downstairs and escape into the garden. The February sky is dark with the brooding clouds of winter waiting to vomit more snow. I don’t stop till I reach the lake and climb into the little boat moored up at the side. Then I row across to the island in the middle and the treehouse that Dad built for me before he died. It sits between two sturdy oaks with a ladder hanging down from a doorway at the top. Inside, it is almost completely round with a platform for sleeping on and a duvet wrapped in a plastic bag to keep it from the damp. Above, several curved shelves are fixed on the wall for food and books. This used to be my refuge. When I couldn’t stand the name-calling or bullying any longer I would hide here and pretend I’d entered another world where everyone was kind, and a pearly eye didn’t turn you into a freak. A great sob rushes up from my belly and threatens to strangle me. Turning tail, I run back to the boat, row across the lake and scramble back up to the house. Then I grab my bag, put on my coat, lock up the house and start walking.
I have to get out of here. I have no idea where to but I don’t care. For now, the house will just have to stay empty.
Nowhere can be as painful as this.
Bertie – Present Day
Bertie woke from the nightmare, his thick greying hair damp with sweat. There had been a girl with red hair. And his sister had been cowering. Impossible; Hester was never afraid of anything. As for the song, he had never heard anything like it before. Part melody and part unintelligible words, it had pulled at something inside him, something he hadn’t known existed and something he most definitely didn’t want to feel. With a shudder, he straightened in the chair. For heaven’s sake, this was no way to take an afternoon nap.
Stiffly, he pushed himself to his feet, walked to the kitchen, switched on the kettle and made himself a pot of tea. Why was he dreaming about his sister when they hadn’t spoken in years? To change your gender was hard enough; to lose your family as well was devastating. Hester had broken his heart when she had refused to call him Bertie rather than Beatrice and banned him from seeing any of her family again.
Taking his tea into the sitting room, Bertie returned to his favourite armchair and tried to push the dream out of his mind. He should be thinking about the deadline his agent had set for a new book proposal, not weird warnings about his sister. His last book might have sold well and all five of his books and his name, Bertie Fratton, might have their rightful place in the British Library, but that meant little these days. If he was to stay a leading light in popular psychology, he needed a new idea. He always thought better when discussing his thoughts out loud. Fortunately, he had the perfect friend for this in Larna. She had supported him during this transgender surgery and was a very good listener. They had met quite by accident one day when he, as Beatrice, had been about to buy too many pills to put an end to the misery. She had talked him round in the chemist into becoming Bertie and they had been best friends ever since.
Two weeks ago and some twenty years after they had met, she had just moored her boat on the river in the Stennings in Oxfordshire to be near to him. He was thrilled. Although he had many other friends now, she had always remained the closest, and in many ways, the most interesting. It was time he showed her around Oxford so he wondered if she would like to go to a concert. There was one coming up on Thursday lunchtime in one of the colleges at the university.
She would love the rarefied atmosphere of the chapel and he could use the opportunity to run through some ideas.
Selena – Present Day
The departures board is covered by cancellation notices. That’s England for you. One sniff of snow and everything grinds to a halt. There is a train running to Paddington and that is as good a place as any. It is also far away from Norfolk. But when we arrive in London, I panic. There are too many people. So I choose another train, this time to Oxford which is reputed to be beautiful.
After sleeping most of the way, I wake up hungry for the first time since the funeral. I follow a gaggle of women into Oxford town centre and find a café whose front is decorated in a lovely shade of duck egg blue. Inside it appears to be teeming with life. On one side is a group of foreign tourists with expensive cameras seemingly unperturbed by the foul weather. On the other side, two women, surrounded by shopping bags, are discussing their purchases. Next to the window a group of students, fashionably scruffy in jeans and thick jumpers are arguing animatedly with each other. I find a seat at the back and order some food. Once I’ve devoured eggs on toast and two mugs of tea, I start to relax. There’s a strange kind of freedom in being away from home and somehow I don’t care about occasional stares. Nobody knows me here or realises that my eye-patch covers a bizarre, pearly eye.
It is only when the tables begin to empty and the clock on the wall approaches five o’clock, that I realise I’m going to have to leave. Wrapping my scarf around my head and turning up my collar, I step out into the whirling snow. I’ll have to look for a place to stay. There’s a little money in my bank account but not much, so I’m going to have to be careful.
The city centre seems to be sewn together by a crossroads where Aldgate, the High Street, Cornmarket, and Queen Street meet, like thoughts going off in different tangents. Down medieval-looking side lanes the accommodation is too expensive so I ask a couple of people where I might find somewhere cheaper to stay and am pointed in the direction of Cowley, a suburb just outside the city centre.
After a long, cold walk I eventually find a sign for a bed and breakfast and knock on the door. A woman answers. She stares at my eye-patch for a moment longer than necessary and asks for £40 upfront. Once she’s led me upstairs to a small room with a single bed and plain chest of drawers, she quickly tells me that breakfast is between 7 and 9 o’clock. Then she bids me good-night and closes the door behind her as though she can’t get away fast enough.
Alone again, I stare around the room, looking for something to distract me from the images of Mum and Mara which flit painfully round my mind. There’s nothing worth watching on the television and I didn’t think to bring a book. Tired as I am, I’m too anxious to sleep so I recharge my phone, peel off the eye-patch and have a shower. By the time I am done, there’s enough juice in the phone to check my bank account. I still have some savings left but after paying for the return train ticket and food at the café, the balance is alarmingly low.
I’m going to have to go back to Highhill tomorrow.
It feels like yet another failure.
Larna – Present Day
Larna put down her phone and smiled as she smoothed down her dress of peacock blue and bright orange. A concert. How wonderful. Delighted that she’d made the decision to move into a narrowboat on the Thames, she felt like the luckiest person in the world. Water Haven was beautiful, and it was hers. She would have to get used to living on the water, but it was the best decision she had ever made. A podcast about travelling the waterways of England had given her the idea and, as she had no dependents, and enough money from her inheritance, she could roam wherever she wanted to.
Now she couldn’t wait for the spring. Apparently river folk were a sociable bunch in the sunshine and she was eager to make some new friends. Spring would make nature erupt with colour again and the world would stop looking so drab. Her dislike of sadness had turned her into something of a rescuer and this had got her into trouble more than once. After one too many glasses of wine, Bertie had made her promise not to save anyone else, but if he thought she would stick to that he didn’t know her well enough. For now, she couldn’t wait to explore Oxford, even if the winter was hanging on and the weather was abnormally cold. As far as she had seen, it was a magnificent town, full of history and character. With a broad smile of sheer happiness, she went to her wardrobe at the back of the boat so that she could choose something bright to wear for the concert.
How thrilling life was.
Selena – Present Day
The next day I slip on some ice and only just prevent a nasty fall. In air chill enough to freeze skin to bones, I reluctantly make my way back to the train station for the return journeys to Paddington and Norfolk. Once I’ve thawed my hands under the hot tap of the ladies’ loo, I sit on one of the red chairs in the waiting area. The idea of going back to an empty house is almost beyond me. If only I’d saved harder when I’d worked in the library rather than spending my money on the harp and a dream of earning my living with music, I might not be in such a precarious position. Besides, I’m not ready to face estate agents and listen to what I already know: that Highhill is run down to the point of dilapidation and won’t be easy to sell.
A voice alerts me to the arrival of the first train. Wearily, I push myself to my feet and make my way to the platform. I’m just about to put my ticket in the machine when a girl steps out in front of me. She has astonishingly red hair like mine and is carrying a smaller child who seems to be asleep on her shoulder. She stares at me with her intense green eyes and refuses to budge. Embarrassed, I try to move round her but my hand start to shake and the ticket falls to the floor. At the same time, we both reach down to pick it up and, for a split second, our hands touch. Her skin is icy cold and a smell of old rotting fruit fills my nostrils. At the same time, a shock, like electricity, jolts my hand back and I shoot to my feet. Blinking hard, I prepare to challenge her but she and the child have vanished. I look back down at the ground. There is no sign of the ticket either.
It is only when someone nudges me aside and swears under their breath at me that I realise that I am in the way of the other passengers who are trying to get to the train. Bewildered, I walk away. I don’t know what else to do. Without enough money to buy another ticket, I return to the red chairs in the waiting area, trying to work out what has just happened. The ticket was in my hand. I was about to put it into the machine. The girl blocked my way, holding a child just as the girl had done in the dream. She reached for the ticket just as I did when it had dropped to the floor and girls and ticket disappeared into thin air.
Am I going mad?
In the end, all I can do is to try to look as though I’m waiting to catch another train. I stay there all day. Lunch is the cheapest sandwich I can find, and I miss dinner altogether. Eventually it grows dark again. I loiter for as long as I dare but when a member of staff approaches, stares suspiciously at my eye-patch and then at me, I trudge over to the door.
Outside, the sky has cleared. The temperature on a nearby display says it is minus two. Jamming my hands into my pockets, I start walking again. I must keep moving. If I stop, I’ll freeze where I stand. Time slows to a crawl. I trudge round and round this way. Then that way. Finally in a wonky figure of eight around the centre.
By 4 o’clock, my eyelids are so heavy that my face is falling onto my chin. My legs are dragging along the ground. My spine is collapsing into itself. Too weary to continue, I stop in a doorway where there’s a large piece of discarded cardboard. I drop my bag onto it and kneel down. Then I curl up where I am, face first into the cold ground and close my eyes, wondering if I will ever open them again.
Bronze Age – circa 2000 B.C.E.
It was hard going trudging through the snow. The air was frigid with cold, and Seela wondered how much longer she would be able to carry Duna. In the whiteness, everything looked the same and with the sun hidden beneath heavy yellow clouds, she was no longer sure where she should go. She was starting to lose all sense of direction now that all sense of the red-headed woman with the pearly eye had gone.
Desperate to find shelter before night and the wolf returned to claim them, she kept her head down until she heard a rustling. Nearby, a little brown bird with a yellow beak was perched upon a branch, a crest of feathers raised on the top of its head above its twinkly black eyes. For a moment, she forgot how tired she was, pursed her lips and whistled back. The little brown bird cocked its head, looked at her before answering and then took off from the branch, causing great clumps of snow to fall to the ground.
As Duna moaned in her arms, Seela sighed and shifted the weight of her sister before walking on. After a while, the little bird found them again, this time singing more urgently as though it was trying to tell her something. Curious, Seela whistled back and watched as the bird listened. This time, when it flew off, she followed. The bird stopped frequently enough for her to keep up and after a while alighted in an enormous oak tree.
Relieved to stop at last, Seela sniffed the air and caught the scent of smoke. Clutching Duna closely, she walked for a while longer, not stopping until she heard a woman’s voice. Hoping that it was the woman with the pearly eye, she began to move forward but when the voice was joined by a man’s, she quickly hid behind the massive trunk of an oak tree, trying to control her breathing. Not daring to move, she clutched Duna tighter, praying that her little sister would not wake yet.
When a third voice joined, she mustered the courage to peer around the trunk. A man, a woman and a youth were talking animatedly around a fire, the flames flickering over their faces, lending them colours of red, orange and yellow. They were the first people she had seen since she had run away, and she only just stopped herself from crying out loud in relief.
Watching carefully, she tried to judge whether they would harm her and her sister or offer them shelter. In the end, the knowledge that they hadn’t eaten in several days and that her sister was wounded, made her decide to trust them. Praying to The Mother to keep them safe, she took a deep breath and raised her foot ready to step out and ask for help, but before she could move forward, an image of the woman with the pearl eye flashed in front of her, holding up her hand and telling her to stop.
Seela put her foot carefully down again and slid back behind the tree.
The woman with the pearly eye had spoken.
It was time to wait.