Weyward — Chapter 24: Kate

24

KATE

Kate was right.

She is having a girl. The female GP, Dr Collins, confirmed it today, at her twenty-week scan. She gave Kate a printout of the sonogram: her daughter, cocooned safe inside her womb, iridescent fingers curled into fists. ‘She looks like a fighter, this one,’ Dr Collins said.

Now, Kate sits on Aunt Violet’s bed, caressing the photograph. The window is open and outside, a wood pigeon coos, the gentle notes carrying on the breeze. There’s something she needs to do.

Her mother answers on the second ring. ‘Kate?’ Her voice is muffled, concern driving away traces of sleep. What time is it there? The early hours of the morning. She should have checked. She is forgetting things, these days – lying down for a nap after putting on the kettle, waking with a start to its anguished whine. The tiredness makes her feel as if her bones have been sucked of their marrow. ‘Are you OK? You haven’t been returning my calls.’ ‘I know,’ she says. ‘Sorry – I’ve been a bit distracted. Settling in, you

know.’ Her mother sighs into the phone. ‘I’ve been so worried about you. I wish you’d tell me what’s going on.’

The saliva leaves her mouth.

‘I need to …’ ‘Need to what?’ Her pulse beats a frenzied rhythm in her ears. She can’t do it. ‘I need to ask you something. About Dad’s family.’

‘What is it?’ ‘Do you know who lives in Orton Hall now? Someone in the village said something about a viscount, but I don’t know if he’s related to us.’ ‘Hmm. I think your father said he was a distant relative. There was that scandal, the disinheritance – but I don’t really remember the details.’ ‘So you don’t know why they were disinherited? What the scandal actually was?’ ‘No, love. I’m sorry. I’m not even sure your father knew.’ ‘That’s OK. Um – one more thing …’ She pauses, licks her lips. ‘Did Dad ever say anything about one of his ancestors being accused of

witchcraft?’ ‘Witchcraft? No. Who told you that?’ ‘Just something I overheard,’ she says. ‘They seem to have had some funny ideas about Aunt Violet around here.’ ‘Well, she was a bit of a strange woman,’ her mother says, but Kate can hear the smile in her voice.

Kate looks around her, at Violet’s things. The shelves of books, the framed centipede glimmering on the wall. She thinks of the cape in the wardrobe, the dark glitter of its beads. Violet wouldn’t be afraid, the way

Kate is now.

She would tell the truth. ‘Actually, Mum, I do have to tell you something.’ She takes a breath. The next words, when they leave her mouth, sound as if they’ve been spoken by someone else. ‘I’m pregnant.’ ‘Oh my God.’ For a moment there is silence. ‘Does Simon know?’ ‘No.’ ‘OK, that’s good. And have you … decided what you’re going to do?’ She knows about Simon, Kate realises. She’s always known.

The pain in her mother’s voice sends a jolt of nausea to her gut. Sun flares bright through the window, blinding her.

She knows.

For a moment, she thinks she might be sick. Her eyes sting.

But she won’t cry. Not today. She looks down at the sonogram, grips it tighter in her hand. ‘I’m having it. Her. It’s a girl, I found out today.’ ‘A girl! Kate!’ She can hear her mother crying into the phone.

‘Mum? Are you OK?’ ‘Sorry,’ her mother says. ‘I just – I wish we hadn’t left, Kate. I should have stayed. And then maybe you wouldn’t have met him … I should have

been there.’ ‘Mum. It’s OK. It’s not your fault.’ But it’s too late, the words are tumbling from her mother’s mouth, as if she can undo the years of silence between them. ‘No, I knew something wasn’t right. Quitting your job, losing touch with your friends … it was like you were becoming someone else. But he was always in the room, whenever we spoke on the phone … and then I didn’t know if he was reading your messages, your emails … I didn’t know what to do.’ Kate can’t bear this, her mother’s guilt. It burns, like acid on her skin.

She remembers the night she met Simon. The way she’d been pulled towards him, a moth kissing a flame.

Can’t her mother see? It is no one’s fault but her own. ‘There was nothing you could have done, Mum.’ ‘I’m your mother,’ she says. ‘I sensed it. I should have found a way.’ For a moment, neither of them speak. The line crackles with distance. ‘But I am happy,’ her mother says eventually, in a soft voice. ‘About the baby. As long as it’s what you want.’ Kate touches the photograph, tracing the bright bulb of her daughter’s

shape. ‘It’s what I want.’

After they say goodbye, Kate takes her wallet out of her handbag. She wants to put the sonogram picture inside it, to keep it safe.

Now, it holds a Polaroid of her and Simon. Taken on holiday, in Venice.

They are holding ice cream cones on the Ponte di Rialto. It had been a hot day: she remembers the fetid stink of the canal, the blisters that had formed on her feet from hours of walking. She looks happy in the picture – they both do. He has a smudge of ice cream on his lip.

The following day, he had yelled at her in the middle of St Mark’s Square. She can’t remember why. Probably he didn’t like something she’d said, or a particular way that she had looked at him. Later, in the hotel, he had hit her during sex, so hard that blood blisters formed on her thigh.

She crumples the Polaroid in her hand, then rips it to tiny shreds. They float to the floor, like snow.

The next day, Kate frowns as she walks. She zips up her rain-jacket: the day is muggy but overcast, the clouds swollen purple. It begins to spit. Already, the hedgerows glisten with water, tiny drops quivering like crystals on the wildflowers. Some she recognises: frothy white pignut; the golden bells of cow wheat. She has been learning the names from a great botanical tome of Aunt Violet’s.

She has to cross the fells to get to Orton Hall. The ground becomes steeper as she leaves the familiar comfort of the hedged paths for open fields. The grey sky suddenly seems both enormous and far too close.

Her calves burn, her trainers slipping on the rocky trail. Her heart beats dizzyingly fast and her mouth feels dry. She’s never much liked heights, or wide open spaces. She touches the bee brooch for reassurance, and then, on impulse, takes it from the pocket of her jeans and pins it to her lapel like an amulet.

At the crest of the hill, she pauses, doubled over and panting for breath.

She can see a dark pocket of woods ahead, next to an old railway line.

According to the blurry map on the Motorola, Orton Hall is just behind the trees.

She reaches the bottom of the hill with relief. Drystone walls rise on either side of her, the flint green with age and moss. Raindrops begin to fall in earnest as she enters the woods. The trees are tight and claustrophobic, and she can barely see the sky for the branches overhead. The winding trail is uneven and overgrown: greenery rustles as she walks, and a pale rabbit streaks away into the undergrowth.

The downpour grows heavier, and soon the leaves and tree trunks are shining wet. Kate pulls up her hood. She looks at her phone: she should be nearing the edge of the woods now. She walks a little faster. Something about the woods makes her feel uneasy: the cloying scent of damp earth, the snap of twigs around her. A shape flickers at the edge of her vision, shadow-black, a shiver of wings against leaves.

She turns around, scans the twisted canopy overhead. There is nothing, other than a brown and orange butterfly quivering on a leaf. She takes a deep, steadying breath and keeps walking.

The woods are so thick that she doesn’t see Orton Hall until she is almost out of them. It rises up before her so suddenly that she gasps. She was not expecting this. She wonders if Emily was wrong about someone living here – the whole place looks as if it’s been abandoned for years. Its stone is dull

and faded, with great craters where the render has worn away. Thick ropes of ivy climb the turrets. Movement flutters on the roof, and she sees that the gutters are lined with birds’ nests. As she approaches, she can’t shake the feeling that she is being watched – but that could just be the huge, dark windows, staring down at her like eyes.

She walks through the weed-choked gardens to get to the imposing front door. There is no doorbell. She clangs the heavy iron knocker and waits.

Nothing. Kate shuffles her feet. The stone is slick with a patina of old leaves, the balustrades fissured with cracks. The whole place has an air of neglect, sadness, and she has just decided to leave when she hears the scrape and click of a bolt being drawn back. The door creaks open slowly, until she and a wispy old man in a tartan dressing gown are staring at each other in mutual surprise. The viscount. It’s got to be him. ‘Yes?’ says the man in a thin, reedy voice. ‘What do you want?’ His eyes narrow behind the clouded lenses of his glasses, and for a moment Kate can’t think what to say. ‘Hi,’ she begins. ‘I hope I haven’t disturbed you – um – my name is Kate.

I’ve just moved in around the corner. I’m doing some research into my family history, and I think some of my relatives used to live here …’ She trails off awkwardly. The man blinks and for a moment she wonders if he hasn’t heard her, if he could be deaf. The whites of his green eyes are yellow, the lids pink and hairless.

He opens the door wider, and then turns, disappearing into the fathomless dark of the house. It takes her a while to realise that he means for her to come inside.

She watches the ragged hem of his dressing gown lick away from his feet as she follows him into a dim entrance hall. The only source of light comes from a dusty-looking lamp on a large side table. In its yellow pool, she can see that the table is stacked high with mail: old, gnawed-looking envelopes at the bottom, and plastic covered brochures at the top. The stack of mail rustles as they walk past, and Kate notices that the curling envelopes are covered with a strange, glittering film, like tiny particles of broken glass.

The other furniture in the room is covered in ragged dust sheets, as is a large painting on the wall, above a cavernous fireplace. Something glints on the mantelpiece, and Kate sees that it is an old carriage clock, swathed in cobwebs. Its hands are stopped; frozen forever at six o’clock.

Kate wonders how on earth the man can see as she follows him up a sweeping staircase. The large windows over the staircase are dark with filth, and only let in a chink of light here and there. Kate squints to see the little man bobbing up the steps in front of her. For a moment, she stumbles and grips the banister, feeling grit under her palm. Peering at her hand, she sees it is the same glittering substance that covered the mail. It is not dust, she realises with horror. Her palm is coated with the crystal flakes of wings.

Insect wings.

With a jolt, Kate realises that she has lost sight of him. There’s the creak of a door opening somewhere. She reaches the top of the staircase, and, following the sound, turns left down the corridor.

There is a slender chink of orange light ahead, and her eyes adjust to make out the form of the old man standing outside a slightly open door, waiting for her. When she is a few paces away, he enters the room and she follows. As she crosses the threshold, fear leaps in her veins, for what she sees unsettles her even more than the rest of the house.

There are no wings to be found in this room, which would have been impressive, once. The space is dominated by a beautiful mahogany desk. A floor-to-ceiling window, largely hidden by rotting curtains, takes up much of the wall behind the desk. The rest of it is covered by a dark portrait of a bald man with an angry expression.

The desk itself is crowded with strange trinkets: mirrored boxes, an old compass. A globe, half of its sphere rotted away. Most startling is an elephant’s enormous tusk, which she initially takes to be a human bone, yellow in the dull light.

There is a sour stink of flesh, and Kate quickly averts her eyes from a sort of nest in the corner of the room, made from blankets, rags, and even items of clothing. There’s another smell, too: over-sweet and chemical, abrasive in her nostrils. Insect repellent. A hurricane lamp – of the kind she’s only ever seen in old films, or antique shops – burns on the floor, giving the room its gauzy glow. Empty tins glint orange in the lamplight.

He has been living here, she realises. In this one room. ‘They can’t – couldn’t – get in,’ the little man says, as if he has read her thoughts. ‘I made sure.’ He gestures to the door, and Kate turns to see a roll of fabric nailed to it, another stretched across its hinges. Turning back, she realises suddenly why

the room is so dark: behind the frayed, rotted curtains, the windows have been boarded up.

The little man sits down at the desk, slowly lowering himself into a high- backed chair, its leather streaked with mould. ‘Please,’ he says, gesturing to a small chair in front of the desk. Kate sits, and dust rises around her. She stifles a cough. ‘What did you say your name was?’ the man asks. Kate finds the contrast between his cut-glass accent and shabby appearance jarring – unsettling, even. She notices that his hands are shaking, that his gaze flickers repeatedly to the edges of the room. He’s looking for them, she realises.

The insects. The skin on the nape of her neck prickles. ‘Kate,’ she says, her unease growing. She wants to leave, to get away from this little man with his vacant stare and animal smell. ‘Kate Ayres.’ He leans forward, the papery skin of his forehead furrowed. ‘Did you say Ayres?’ ‘Yes, my grandfather was Graham Ayres,’ she explains. ‘I think he used to live here, as a child. With his sister, Violet. Do you – are we … related?’ Kate isn’t sure if she’s imagining things, but his hands seem to shake harder at the mention of her great-aunt, the bony knuckles whitening. ‘There were so many of them.’ He licks his lips, which are pale and cracked. His voice is so quiet that it takes her a moment to understand the words. He is looking past her, now, his eyes glazed with distance. ‘And then

the swarm …’

What is he talking about? ‘The swarm?’ ‘The male taking the female … and then the eggs, everywhere … covering every surface …’ Doubt nags at her. This man – whoever he is – clearly isn’t well. The way he is talking, the way he is living – he needs help, rather than to be pestered with questions. He seems … traumatised.

But just as she rises in her chair, making to leave, his gaze fixes on her

with a startling clarity. ‘You had some questions for me?’ Perhaps he is more lucid than she thought. Really, she knows, she should leave – but she’s walked all the way here, over the dizzying fells and through the woods. Surely there would be no harm in asking a question or two …

She takes a deep breath, trying not to think about the staleness of the air. ‘I was wondering, actually – if you could tell me anything about my grandfather and his sister? They’ve both passed away, and so I don’t have anyone to ask. My father is dead, too – and I … well, I was hoping you might be able to tell me a bit about them.’ The man shakes his head vigorously, as if trying to dislodge her words from his ears. ‘Terribly sorry,’ he says. ‘Memory isn’t what it was.’ Kate looks around the room. There are shelves stacked with old books, the spines cracked and dusty. ‘Oh,’ she says, hearing the disappointment in her voice. ‘What about records? Would you have any I could look at? Family trees, birth certificates, that sort of thing? Letters?’ The man shakes his head again. ‘Those are all farm records, tax ledgers,’ he says, seeing her look at the shelves. ‘Wouldn’t be of help to you, I’m afraid. Everything else … gone.

The insects …’ He trembles. ‘Oh. That’s OK.’ Kate sits quietly for a moment. She feels a twinge of pity for him, all alone in this decrepit house, with only dead bugs and old ledgers for company. ‘What happened? With the insects, I mean. That must have been awful. I’m not such a fan of bugs, myself. Did you have to get an exterminator?’ The man’s eyes become dark pools as he fixes them upon the space above Kate’s head. When he speaks, even his voice has changed; the accent that sounded cold and hard moments ago is now tremulous, uncertain. ‘I must give thanks,’ he says, his voice barely louder than a whisper. ‘The Lord answered my prayers. Last August, they all began to die – the sweetest sound, it was, their little bodies falling to the floor. Like rain on parched earth. It was then that I knew … she had released me at last.’ ‘Sorry – what do you mean? Who had released you?’ She takes a deep breath as she waits for him to answer – the air is rank in her mouth. How can he stand it? She unzips her jacket, to alleviate the feeling of being choked.

Suddenly, the man jolts in his chair. He is staring at her, she realises. ‘Oh dear,’ she says, standing hurriedly. ‘Um – sir? Are you all right?’ He lifts his hand and points. Kate sees that his fingers are shaking again.

The nails are yellow and curved, their undersides coated with grime.

‘Where’, he says, his breath coming in little ragged bursts, ‘did you get that?’ For a moment, Kate thinks he is pointing at Aunt Violet’s old necklace, which she’d almost forgotten she was wearing. But then she realises: he means the brooch, in the shape of a bee. ‘This?’ she says, touching it. ‘Sorry – it looks quite real, doesn’t it? It’s silly, really; I’ve carried it around since I was a child …’ The man rises out of the chair, his small frame trembling. ‘Get. Out.’ The eyes are wide, the lips snarled away to reveal pale, desiccated gums. ‘OK,’ says Kate, zipping up her jacket. ‘I’m so sorry for disturbing you.

Really.’ Kate fumbles her way down the corridor and the stairs, wincing at the crunch of the wings beneath her shoes. Shutting the heavy front door behind her, she gulps in the air, fresh with the scent of rain. It is coming down in sheets and she begins to run, forcing herself to look straight ahead. The leaves of the trees whisper in the downpour and she wishes she’d brought headphones to block out the eerie noise. The fell seems even steeper on the way back: the wind buffets her, knocking the hood from her head. Water runs into her eyes, so that the valley is a blur of green and grey.

Fear turns to frustration as she finally reaches the cottage. She is no closer to knowing anything about her family. No closer to knowing why Violet and Graham were disinherited, no closer to knowing what – or who – is buried in Violet’s garden.

Kate sighs as she shuts the front door behind her. She turns on the shower, desperate to scrub away the memory and the grime of the house, with its blanket of tiny, broken wings. The dank, animal stench of the study.

While she waits for the water to heat, she unpins her brooch, then holds it up to the light. The viscount must be very traumatised indeed to have had such a reaction to a mere replica of an insect.

She remembers the way his eyes danced from side to side, as if he were searching for movement in the corners of the room. She can still taste the acrid stink of insect repellent on her tongue.

If she closes her eyes, she can picture it.

The air shimmering with thousands of beating wings, the sound droning through the walls of the house, the little man cowering in his fetid nest

inside the study … and then, the briefest moment of stillness, silence …

before the rain of tiny bodies.

She had released me at last.

Once the bathroom fills with steam from the heat of the shower, Kate begins to undress. Unbuttoning her shirt, she shivers as her fingers brush against a pale, glimmering wing.

The words from ‘Witch Burning’ come back to her.

Mother of beetles.

Who had released him? And from what?

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