EYES

Like a row of knots in a cord, the Dark Times are fated to return over and over. We must remain vigilant. We must be prepared. The Ones Who Know Our Secrets are only waiting, ready to light the fires that will see their shadows rise.

The Return, The Book of the Binders

The car was filled with a silence of such intensity Anna had never known anything like it. It was like watching the readings before the earthquake hits – a silence that threatened to break at any moment, but didn’t, the waves of it growing more severe. Anna knew how to interpret Aunt’s silences, but she didn’t want to know the meaning of this one.

‘Aunt, I—’ Anna’s mouth snapped shut against her will, cleaving her weak explanation in two. It beat against her mouth.

Anna did not attempt to speak again until they arrived home. ‘Aunt, please, let me—’

Aunt made a knotting movement in the air and Anna’s mouth snapped shut again, this time painfully.

‘Please, it’s not as—’

Aunt twisted her fingers and Anna’s tongue twisted in response. Anna tried to call out in pain but the sound forced its way back down her throat like a block of cold air.

She tried to find other words that might break through, but the more she wanted to speak the harder it became to breathe – the words lodged in her throat. Aunt watched her struggle. Please, Anna thought and then tried to think no more. She held her Knotted Cord and let go of the desperation inside her.

Aunt followed her up the stairs. Anna walked into her room braced for the worst telling-off of her life but Aunt shut the door behind her. Anna heard Aunt’s footsteps disappearing down the corridor. She turned the handle gently – it was locked. There was no lock on her door but it was locked nonetheless.

Anna didn’t want to think, she didn’t want to wonder what Aunt would do to her, she didn’t want to remember the faces looking at her from the windows, nor bring to mind Darcey’s satiated smile or – worse – the blue of Peter’s eyes. She took off the green dress and left it in a pile on the floor.

She tried to fall into the nothingness of sleep, but sleep was different now. Dreams came to her.

They laughed at her. Laughed at her like a thousand faces laughing from windows that went on and on forever. They pushed her off a cliff, let her fall and then jolted her awake, heart pounding. She was holding her silver handheld mirror – Attis and Effie stood behind her, their hands over her eyes, then around her body, embracing, suffocating. Attis’s fingers forming symbols on her skin. Seven circles. Effie turned the mirror around and the whole school was before her, waiting for her to speak – only the faces were changing, becoming the Binders, chanting, chanting, chanting; rose petals flying.

The dreams woke her again and again, her pillow damp with sweat, her sheets a twisted prison. Dreams are torture. Let me be. Then noises in the night. Footsteps on the floor above her – the third floor. Is it Aunt? What time is it? Am I dreaming? Then she was locked in the third-floor room, the curtains drawn and the walls drawing in around her, turning to water, to blood, drowning her in a green velvet dress.

When Anna woke in the morning she was exhausted. The dreambinder was tightly knotted. She took it down and began to undo the knots, hoping the action of releasing them might release her mind.

She waited for Aunt to knock, but she did not come. Anna went to her balcony doors. Dark clouds lay across the sky in lines like a ribcage, a frail, breathy breeze passing through the gaps and stirring the trees, knocking off the last few leaves. She tried to open the door but the key rattled against it ineffectually. Everything was locked.

She waited, aware of her growing hunger and fear. She waited all day.

Evening came and Anna’s heart jumped as she heard the door open – finally! Aunt did not look at her. She placed a small plate of food and a glass of milk on the dressing table and closed the door again. Anna felt like throwing the glass against it. She can’t do this! She can’t keep me locked up in here like this! Anna snatched up the glass and stormed to her bathroom, emptying the milk down the sink – she’d had enough of Aunt’s poison. She ate the food greedily; the last thing she’d eaten had been the pizza with Peter.

The night soon came, full of dreams again, disturbing and lucid.

When Monday morning arrived, Anna expected to be released – Aunt never let her miss a day of school even when she was ill. She woke thinking about how blissful it would be to take a shower. When six came there was no knock on the door. By seven, she was going out of her mind. By nine, she’d resigned herself to the fact she was not going to school, that she may never be let out of the room again.

She began to feel that she might go insane. She tried to study, she tried to read, she gave up and stared out of the window, watching the December evening come on inch by inch, the light disappearing to nothingness without a trace of it ever having been there at all. She longed to speak to Rowan, Manda, Effie, Attis, to hear them laugh about her psychotic aunt and make her life somehow feel as if it was copeable with, escapable. Are they missing me too?

Aunt dropped off her dinner but when Anna attempted to protest her tongue was twisted and her mouth was locked shut once more. Aunt left and Anna banged against the door ferociously and desperately, knowing she was only making it worse. Eventually, she had nothing left. She took herself to bed and ran her Knotted Cord through her hands, loathing every single knot.

When she fell asleep the dreams were waiting. Aunt was brushing her hair, but then the face in the mirror was her mother’s, the two interchanging, blending into one face, featureless as the Six Women. The mirror in her hand began to melt, running out of the frame like a river in moonlight. The river flowed across her floor, turning the carpet to shadowy grass, small, pale flowers growing among the blades and blossoming – bright as fallen stars. It ran beneath her bookcase, which began to transform into a tree, the wood of the shelves wrapping around themselves, wrinkling with deep lines of bark, spreading branches from which silver fruit began to grow …

Anna walked towards it, feeling the river run over her feet. She reached out to pluck a fruit from the tree but it fell before she could reach it and made a thud as it hit the floor. She woke.

Her toes under the sheets felt distinctly wet. The moonlight was pouring through her window – she’d left the curtains open. It streamed onto her mirror and cast a reflection which fell over her bookcase. A book had fallen onto the floor.

She stepped out of bed and walked over to it. It was the medical encyclopaedia Aunt had given her last Christmas. Anna picked it up and then remembered what she’d done: she quickly peeled the dust cover off the book and there underneath was the collection of fairy tales from Selene. After her birthday, Anna had put the encyclopedia cover over it to hide it from Aunt and then had promptly forgotten about it. The engraving of a tree and its upside-down reflection caught the moonlight and shone like a pearl in the creamy oyster fabric. It was beautiful. Perhaps its old words would be a comfort, or at the very least lull her back to sleep. She crept into bed and opened the book to the first story.

The Eyeless Maiden

Once upon a time there was a young maiden who lived on the edge of the forest with her mother. She longed to explore the forest but her mother would have none of it. An old spindle-seller who had once visited the house had said there was a lake deep within that, when the moon rose in the sky, revealed all truths.

One morning the maiden was picking berries in the garden when a little bird hopped down from the tree above. She put her hand out and the bird jumped onto it, pecking at the berries. It jumped from her hand and down the path into the forest. The maiden unlatched the wooden gate and followed. She looked back at the house. The chimney was puffing away: her mother was cooking. The maiden would not be gone long.

She stepped into the cool shadows of the forest. She walked deeper and deeper still, the darkness thickening, stealing the bird away until she could not see it any more. She became afraid. The trees grew closer; the shadows loomed. She swore they were moving around her, prowling, snarling – beastly, wolfish outlines behind the trees, watching.

A clatter of hooves made her scream, but it was three men on horseback passing her by: one dressed in red, one in black and one in white. She ran after them but they disappeared quickly. Still, their movement and action had chased away the shadows and the trees began to clear. The girl came across a strange house.

It was squatting on four scrawny chicken legs and whirring around and around in a mad dance. It stopped and sat down. The maiden saw with horror that the bolts of its doors and windows were made of human fingers, toes and teeth. She turned to run but heard a voice from within. ‘What is it you seek, little girl?’

She didn’t like to be rude so she replied: ‘Good day to you. I seek the forest lake.’

The old woman cackled and it sounded like the ground was breaking in two. ‘Why should I help you?’

‘Because I asked.’

‘That is the right answer. Come in.’

The girl stepped into the strange cottage. It was a sorry state inside, such a mess and a tangle you could barely move.

‘If you wish to know where the lake is you must clean the house all over by the end of the day!’ said the woman and left with a slam of the door.

Knowing the task was impossible, the maiden sat down and began to cry. But then the little bird hopped through the window and began to tidy. They worked together and soon it was done.

The old woman returned and seeing the maiden had completed her task shrieked with rage. She gave the girl food to eat and a key of silver, then fell asleep on her bed in the corner and snored loudly. The maiden tried the key in the locked door but it did not work. She lay down and slept.

The next day the old woman pointed at a pile of clothes as high as a mountain and said: ‘If you wish to know where the lake is you must wash them all by the end of the day!’

Once she had gone the maiden sat down and began to cry. But the little bird appeared once more and began to take the clothes to the well. They worked together and soon it was done.

The old woman returned and seeing the maiden had completed her task jumped up and down with rage. She gave the girl food to eat and a key made of water, then fell asleep on her bed in the corner. The maiden tried the new key in the locked door but it did not work. She lay down and slept.

The next day the old woman pointed at the clean pile of clothes and said: ‘If you wish to know where the lake is you must sew and mend them all by the end of the day!’

The clothes were as holed as blocks of cheese and the maiden sat down and began to cry. The little bird appeared once more with needle and thread in its mouth and began to sew. They worked together and soon it was done.

The old woman returned and seeing the maiden had completed her task laughed with rage. She asked to see the maiden’s finger. The maiden held out her hand and the old woman chopped her finger clean off. She returned with a key made of blood.

The maiden asked about the three men on horseback.

‘They belong to me,’ said the old woman. ‘They transform day to night and night back to day. Do you wish to know more?’

The maiden said she did not.

‘Good, for to know too much can make one old too soon.’ The old woman led the maiden to the back door. ‘Go that way with your three keys and you shall know the truth.’

The little bird hopped ahead and the maiden followed, travelling deeper into the forest until she reached a clearing in the trees. Before her was a vast ditch. She took the keys from her pocket and threw them into it. The ditch filled quickly with silver water and when the moonlight shone above the lake it became a mirror.

The maiden leant over and looked into the lake. She saw a beautiful apple grove, the grass speckled with daisies, the trees full and green, the apples red as blushes. Her eyes widened in wonder and the little bird flew down and pecked them right out. Her eyes fell into the lake and the girl could see no more.

Aunt had told her a version of the tale when she’d been young. You see, little girls should do as they are told or else … She could almost hear Aunt’s warnings now, waiting like shadows in the wake of the story. She wondered if her mother would have read it to her. Selene had said the tales had been her mother’s favourites. Anna closed the pages and held the book tightly – it was something then, something that connected them.

She reached into the back of her drawer and took out the photograph of her parents. It was full of sunlight compared to the darkness of the night. Who are you? Anna thought. She’d always avoided the question, but now, staring at her mother’s smile, she wondered at all the other things that had brought that smile to her face – what she’d liked, what had made her laugh, whom she’d loved. Anna found herself smiling back. She looked beyond to the green lawn behind, the tree spreading its branches.

Her heart lurched. The branches …

She knew that branch, the way it curved almost back on itself. She knew that tree.

Anna sat holding the photograph until morning arrived. It took a long time – the winter light did not come quickly. She went to her balcony.

The branches of the tree in the centre of their back garden were plain to see, the thickest and lowest curving back on itself. She held up the photo and compared them but she was already sure. It was the same sycamore tree. She knew its leaves when they came in summer and the photo was full of them.

She let the idea of it sink in slowly, sinking to the floor.

My parents were here, at this house. Did they once live here?

Aunt had said that they had lived in London but she’d never said where. Surely she’d mention if it had been here. Another lie, perhaps, or a truth conveniently forgotten? Anna had never considered before how Aunt had even afforded their house on a nurse’s salary – it had just always been their house. Had it?

She looked out to the garden again and imagined her mother sitting beneath the tree. It was another connection. A connection that was too much to bear.

The tears came from nowhere. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried but now they poured out of her, hot on her cheeks, a surrendering deep inside her body. Everything threatened to overwhelm her – being locked in the room, missing her friends, fearing her aunt and the Binders, love, magic, longing for a mother she’d never known.

She cried until she had nothing left to give, shuddering to a stop, lying down on the floor and falling back into a deep and blissful sleep upon a grassy, starlit bank near a silver river.

The rest of the week passed in slow torture. At first, Anna’s discovery kept her occupied. She spent hours looking at the photo, wondering about Aunt’s lies, her parents, the room on the third floor above her – Does that hold secrets too? – obsessing over what it could all mean – if it meant anything at all. But as the days rolled by, her desperation, without anything but hopelessness to sustain it, began to wither. She wasn’t drinking the milk but she wasn’t taking her tisane either and she could feel the tendrils of the bindweed still inside her taking hold. The dreams began to slow and then stopped altogether. Her thoughts slowed too; her sense of purpose dispersed like the clouds beyond her window. Will I ever escape?

Late on Thursday a banging on the front door disturbed her gloom. Voices. Selene. Selene was shouting. Anna ran to her door and pressed her ear against it.

‘She’s sixteen! She went to a party, for Goddess’s sake, she didn’t kill someone! How dare you keep her locked up there! You’re insane, Vivienne, you’re—’

Then Aunt’s harsh tones. Anna couldn’t quite make out the words – their voices turned to a bickering murmur and then disappeared. Anna listened for what seemed like forever until she heard the front door slam shut. Selene was gone. Don’t go!

The next day came and went. Hearing Selene’s voice had made it all harder again, had run like a river through her defences. When Aunt brought dinner Anna was close to falling on the floor and begging, but then she noticed that Aunt didn’t have a plate in her hand at all. Instead, she opened the door wider. ‘You can come downstairs.’ Her voice was as strained as a spring pulled out of shape.

It’s a trick. A trap. Anna didn’t care.

‘Shower first or you’ll ruin dinner.’ They were the best words Aunt had ever said.

Anna felt almost human again, entering the kitchen. The food was dry and flavourless but she ate eagerly. Aunt watched the speed at which she consumed with transparent contempt but said nothing. As soon as Anna had finished the queasiness set in; she realized that she might be out of her room now but that she was probably safer locked inside.

Aunt beckoned her into the living room. The glow from the lamp couldn’t quite permeate the room. The fire remained bare, the tapestries glared down at them remorselessly, garrulous, muttering verses of fear and protection. Aunt patted the seat beside her. Anna sat down, ready for the worst.

‘Do you know that the skin around your mother’s neck was black and blue?’ said Aunt matter-of-factly. ‘The strangulation had been so intense she’d bled from her mouth.’

Anna thought of her mother’s face in the photograph, full of life, her smile inescapable. She held the Knotted Cord in her pocket, worried the tears would come again.

‘They asked me to identify the body. I had to look at my sister like that.’

Anna needed her to stop. ‘I only went to a party.’

‘She met your father at a party. One chance meeting and that was it. She fell for him. I’ll never know if it was magic that supplied the poison and love that dispensed it or the other way round. It doesn’t matter. Love, magic, they feed off each other – they are both poison in the end.’

Poison! Anna clenched the cord at Aunt’s use of the word. How can she speak of poison? She wanted to scream but the walls of her room reared up in her head – she couldn’t risk being locked away again. ‘But surely not all magic is harmful? Surely there can be—’

‘All magic is harmful! All. You must listen to me.’ Aunt grabbed Anna’s chin, her green eyes trembling, urging. ‘I’m not trying to ruin your life. I’m trying to save it.’

Anna couldn’t look away from her. Aunt was so convincing; she had a way of transferring her beliefs into you until they were all you could see, the same way Effie could.

‘From what?’

‘Magic is a danger to our family!’

Aunt had always cast the net of danger wide, across all witches, but now it was around Anna like a trap: our family. ‘I thought magic was a danger to all?’

‘I—it is …’ Aunt stuttered. ‘There are dangers close and far. Especially now.’

‘What do you mean now? Is this to do with the Faceless Women? The Seven?’ Anna knew the questions were risky but she had to ask.

Aunt’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you know of the Seven?’

‘Nothing really – I overheard Effie. Just that they are some great witch grove.’

Aunt snorted. ‘The Seven. The First Sinners who brought the sins of magic upon us all. We, the Binders, don’t care that they were killed, only what their deaths mean. It is a statement. A statement of power. Whoever did it wanted to sow the seeds of fear. Was it another grove? Internal warfare? Or are our old enemies stirring? The Ones Who Know Our Secrets.’

Anna shivered though the room was not cold. ‘Aunt, surely it’s nothing that drastic, it could be any—’

‘The Hunters never forget, Anna,’ Aunt said forcibly. ‘History has shown us that they always return. When we relax, when we stop looking behind us, when we think we are finally free – that is when they strike. We do not forget. The fire never dies; beware smoke on the wind.’

‘But that was so long ago, a different time—’

‘Is it? You think people have changed so much? Fear is an instinct. It never changes. We tried to warn them all and now look what’s happening – cowans beginning to believe again.’

‘But cowans don’t see magic …’

‘Oh really,’ said Aunt, seizing her laptop. She opened it and drew up a news story from only the day before: ‘Cult being investigated for links to harmful “witchcraft” practices’.

Anna read it quickly. It seemed nothing more than a bunch of crazy people carrying out strange acts. ‘Are they witches?’ she asked.

‘Probably not, but it doesn’t matter, does it? They are linking them with witchcraft. Have you read the news recently? All doom and gloom – the economy nosediving, cutbacks, terrorist threats, climate disasters, racial tensions – but, oh, these new stories are something different. Something deliciously, horribly distracting. Whispers are spreading.’

Aunt flicked to the next tab. ‘Items of sorcery discovered in illegal immigrant hideout’.

Then another tab: ‘WATCH: Disturbing new video of Six Faceless Women’.

‘Look at the comments beneath,’ Aunt snapped.

Their faces are so creepy, definitely something not right here …

How did a bunch of women break through Big Ben’s high security?

Why are police revealing so little about the case? We’re being lied to.

Bet they’re naked under those robes.

Old Hags. Better dead than alive!

‘The hangings have opened a door and magic is starting to creep out. If cowans believe again – then they fear again.’

‘These are just rumours—’

‘It only takes a few sparks to light a fire!’ Aunt’s eyes were distant – lit with something: Terror? Thrill? It ran through Anna too and she could feel the force that had been growing within her falter. What if Aunt is right?

Aunt closed her laptop and picked up her embroidery, suddenly calm and collected. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself. Witches who flaunt their magic without shame or prudence put us all at risk. I can only imagine the sort of illusions Effie is filling your head with – boys and sex and spells and power.’

Anna winced at Aunt’s words; they were uncannily accurate. She thought of Effie’s cantrip – Darcey’s heel breaking in front of a room full of people. She waited for it, waited to be told she must never speak to Effie again, to stay away from boys, that she was to be removed from school.

‘Selene tells me you like a boy called Peter.’

Anna stifled her gasp. The last name she’d expected to come out of Aunt’s mouth at that moment was Peter’s. She felt a sting of betrayal. Why did Selene tell her?

‘Oh, don’t look like that. Selene was trying to convince me that you’re just young, just having fun, that it’s all harmless enough, you want to hang out with your friends, that you like some Peter – shouldn’t Anna be allowed to date at sixteen?’ Aunt began to sew. ‘I don’t blame your father for what he did, you know. I blame her. Your mother chose it. She knew he was having an affair and she stayed with him. She was stupid and weak, but I believe you are strong, Anna. You’re like me, you see through the illusions of things, you see people for what they are. That is why I have decided to let you decide for yourself.’

The silence that followed was delicate. Anna knew if she said the wrong thing she might break it. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Whether to become a Binder or not.’

Anna could not comprehend her words. Impossible. Her whole life had been leading towards the Binders. It had never been a discussion, but an inevitability, an unbreakable knot in the thread of her life. ‘But why?’

‘Because I trust you.’ The word trust stung like an open cut. ‘I’m not going to stop you seeing Effie. I have come to an agreement with Selene. You may stay at her house on the occasional Friday, at my discretion and under Selene’s supervision.’

‘Let me stay with Effie …’ said Anna, bewildered. Now nothing made any sense.

‘I want you to know the alternative so when you join the Binders – the choice is yours and not mine.’

Anna looked into Aunt’s eyes and found them strained. It didn’t make any sense. Aunt did not offer choices. Minutes ago she’d been ranting about Hunters and chaos and danger and now she was allowing Anna to spend time with Effie of all people. Anna knew Selene was persuasive but this was too much. What did she say? Does Selene have more power over Aunt than I know?

‘I believe you will come to see the harms of magic and love for yourself and then you will understand why the Binders do what we do. In your heart you are a Binder, I know it as I know myself. There are conditions, of course. All other nights of the week you must be home by six. If you grow closer to this Peter I must know about it. You will not practise magic.’ She doesn’t know about the coven then. ‘And if you deceive me on any of these points again I will arrange your Knotting immediately and your choice will be gone. Are we clear?’

Anna was completely unclear. Was Aunt just taunting her? Was it some sort of test? Would her answer end up locking her back up in her bedroom indefinitely?

‘Yes,’ said Anna, waiting for the trap door to fall but Aunt simply nodded.

What else can I say? If Anna didn’t agree she would have no freedom at all. At least this gave her something – an opening – even if it was all a trick. It’s always a trick.

‘I hope I choose the right path.’ Anna turned away, Aunt’s vulturine look already hunting for the lies in her eyes.

‘You will.’

‘So – I can go back to school?’

‘After the holidays. Until then you’re grounded – no leaving the house, no seeing friends, no Effie, until you return to school. And you must still be punished for your prior actions. Here.’ Aunt reached over and picked up Anna’s embroidery. ‘Sew.’

Anna’s stomach clenched. It had all been too easy. Anna took it and pulled out the needle which she’d left in the fabric. Aunt was watching her. Anna’s mouth had gone dry. As soon as she put the needle into the material she felt the pain. She cried out and pulled down the neck of her jumper. There on the skin just above her heart was a pinprick of blood.

‘I didn’t say to stop sewing.’

‘Aunt, please.’

‘Sew or you will become a Binder tonight, no questions, no decisions, no say.’

Anna began to sew, feeling every stitch above her heart as if she were sewing directly into her skin. Stitch in. Stitch back. Stitch in. Stitch back. The pain became a constant until she could barely think straight. She regretted the image she’d chosen for the embroidery: a blood-red flower. It slowly took shape.

Anna looked in the mirror before bed and saw the rose stitched into her skin, raw and red. It would heal and fade, but she would never forget the half-hour she’d spent sewing it. She thought of the pattern of circles she’d seen sewn into Aunt’s own skin – had Aunt sewn them there herself with the same spell? She thrived on punishment, both to others and herself. What did it mean?

Aunt walked in and winced at the sight of Anna’s injury. She came over and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I needed you to know your behaviour won’t be tolerated again. My father was always too soft on us and look where it got his daughters. One dead and one—’ Aunt looked at herself in the mirror and winced again. ‘I just need you to trust me.’ She placed the glass of milk down on the dressing table. ‘Now let me brush your hair.’