SATIN

Lover’s Knot: To break off a romance/suppress sexual desire.

Knot Spells, The Book of the Binders

Christmas approached slowly and silently. Anna was stuck in the house without any way to speak to or see her friends. But she was out of her room and taking the tisane again, every sip of it a satisfying act of rebellion. Aunt didn’t have time to get them a tree so their only decorations were some recycled paper chains from the previous year. The front garden was of course adorned with tasteful lights for the neighbours to admire. There was a strict itinerary of chores and revision in accordance with her ongoing grounding.

As Anna worked she thought about Aunt’s offer. No matter what angle she examined it from, it didn’t feel right. She couldn’t believe that Aunt was letting her choose whether to become a Binder or not; was prepared to let her spend time with Effie. It was absurd. She couldn’t trust it. She couldn’t say no either. Perhaps she knows she can’t control me forever, she needs the choice to be mine – or the choice is an illusion like all her other tricks … Either way Anna needed to know the truth – and quickly.

Time was running out and there were so many secrets. How were her parents connected to the house? Why still live here, beneath the room in which they died? Why was magic a danger to their family? Why was her Knotting so imperative? What was she meant to sacrifice? What was in the third-floor room? Why keep it locked? Anna had started listening out every night and was surprised to find that Aunt went to the room more than she’d realized. Twice last week. Once already this week. What are you doing in there?

One day when Aunt was out Christmas shopping, Anna stole her laptop. She’d never researched her mother’s death before, had never wanted to or felt as if there was any reason to, accepting all she’d been told in good faith – but things had changed. She typed ‘Marie Everdell death’ into the browser but as her fingers hovered over the enter key, she could feel her paranoia rising. She could feel Aunt over her shoulder. She spun around but there was no one there – only the rose bush on the piano watching her with red malice.

If she finds out – I’ll be locked away for good.

Anna pressed enter, stomach rolling, but the search brought up no results. It had been sixteen years ago and she doubted the death had been national news, just a run-of-the-mill, if somewhat grisly, domestic. Anna tried a variety of other search terms but nothing appeared.

She eventually located a newspaper archive site. She found scans of several London and local newspapers from the week of the death and began to read through them exhaustively. Eventually she came across the headline: ‘Man strangles partner and takes own life’. Her heart stopped. The words were a bolt through her middle. She didn’t want to know any more. She had to keep reading …

In the quiet southwest London neighbourhood of Earlsfield, a woman has been found strangled to death in her own home by her partner of three years, who then stabbed himself in the heart.

Police received a distress call from Dominic Cruickshank, 28, around 11 p.m. last night, admitting that he had killed his partner Marie Everdell, 25. He claimed she had been having an affair. By the time police arrived at the scene Mr Cruickshank was already dead, having inflicted a stab wound to his own chest. The couple were found lying next to each other in their bed on the top floor of their London home in Cressey Square. Their baby of three months was in the cot beside the bed.

Metropolitan Police Inspector Ian Munro has confirmed that they are not looking for anyone in connection with the deaths. ‘This is a truly tragic incident. It’s understood the woman was violently attacked before the offender took his own life.’

Dominic Cruickshank had been a PhD student and research assistant in Psychology at the University of Edinburgh when he abruptly left his position just before completing his studies. Marie Everdell was working as an HR assistant at a local recruitment firm.

Ex-colleague Sanvi Sharma, from the University of Edinburgh, told the police she understood Mr Cruickshank had left his post to be with Ms Everdell in London. ‘I didn’t know where they were living. It was as if they had gone into hiding. He was a good man; it seems completely out of character. Dominic was no murderer.’

Neighbour Patricia Smith said: ‘We weren’t even aware that the couple had a baby. I’d never seen one leave the house. They kept themselves to themselves. It’s a complete shock. This is a quiet, family neighbourhood. Nothing like this ever happens here.’

Anna stared at the screen until the words lost all meaning. She’d always known about her parents’ death but it had been like a story – a dark and twisted fairy tale. Reading the matter-of-fact print, the unyielding details, for the first time, it felt real.

She found the words again: Cressey Square – they had lived here, in her house. The top floor of the house – they’d died in the third-floor room. She thought she might be sick. Her mother had been strangled two floors above her. The residues of her father’s blood might remain, even now, woven into the fibres of the carpet. She leant forwards, taking deep breaths. Surely it was no coincidence that Aunt kept that room sealed off from her. But why? If she simply wanted the memories of it locked away – why go there at night?

Dominic Cruickshank. Anna had never known his full name. How had a good man turned into a murderer? There was a picture of him next to the article, more serious than the one she had of him, frowning and dark-browed, menacing even. She knew her mother’s name but she was a stranger. Who was this woman who had lived in hiding with a man who controlled her? Who’d given birth and told no one?

She found a few other articles, most of which said much the same thing, and then came across one which revealed a further detail from the case. Police had uncovered a message from a woman on Dominic’s phone: When can you come and see me? Can you get rid of HER tonight? Carmenta x. The police postulated that Marie might have seen the message and confronted Dominic who had then retaliated. They’d not been able to trace the number or determine who Carmenta was. There was no mention of the message again and the stories petered out altogether.

The case was simple: adultery, domestic violence, a crime of passion. A label that covered all sins of love, that meant they didn’t have to dig deeper; a story they could close shut. A dark and twisted fairy tale.

Anna closed the laptop and went to the piano. She sat down and started playing – a dark, stabbing tune, fingers like knives upon the keys, slicing the song into angry, staccato notes and short, sharp refrains – letting the melody bleed out. Aunt liked to take her joy from her as she played; well, she couldn’t take her anger and there was no one she hated more in this moment than Aunt.

After that, all Anna could think about was the third-floor room. As she polished the silverware for Christmas – she thought about it. As she stirred chutneys for Aunt’s gift collection and smiled sweetly at Aunt – she thought about it. As she hoovered the carpets and stood, vacuum in hand, staring up at the staircase to the third floor – she realized it had consumed her mind. She listened to Aunt going up there at night until she could take the questions no longer. Only one thing had the answer.

One day, after waving Aunt off to work, Anna stood in the hallway and glared at the key on the rack. Aunt’s key. She reached for it hesitantly. The blade immediately began to morph and change, never fixing on one state. Anna wailed in frustration. She put it back knowing that it would not work but marched upstairs anyway, only slowing when she reached the stifling quiet of the third-floor staircase.

She felt for her Knotted Cord and tied her dread away. I shouldn’t be doing this. I have to do this. She carried on up the narrow staircase, winding around at the top to the third-floor landing; all was quiet, all was dark, the door before her plain and ordinary. In her imaginings it was bigger – looming – locked with bolts and chains like the lair of a giant. But in truth the only thing that stopped her getting inside was the small keyhole by the handle.

She moved closer and studied the handle – there was a mark on it, only faint but the colour was distinct. Dark red. Blood? Why would Aunt have blood on her hands? Anna tried to turn it but the door seemed to shudder against her. Locked.

Then the handle moved beneath her hand.

Anna jumped back with a yelp and stared at the handle – it was perfectly still. Am I the one going insane now? She stepped forwards again and put her ear against the door. She was met with nothing but silence.

She watched the handle for several minutes until her frustration grew too much. She went downstairs and stopped outside Aunt’s room. If the third floor would give her nothing, perhaps there would be something in there that could help. It wasn’t entirely breaking the rules – she sometimes went into Aunt’s room to change the sheets … I could be changing the sheets …

She stepped inside.

She searched Aunt’s bedside tables first, moving methodically through each drawer: contact lenses, books, cords, sleep masks, a box of trinkets and old jewellery. Under the bed were drawers containing no more than bed sheets and towels. She opened the wardrobe. It was precisely organized – dresses hung in colour order, jumpers tightly folded, shoes tucked into slots. She opened the drawers in turn – socks, tights, underwear, white and functional, and then … her hand touched silk.

She opened the drawer wider and there, at the back, was something red. She pulled it out. The bra was all lace, its softness at war with its brash colour. Anna dropped it to the floor with shock as if some wild creature had landed in her hands. She searched the drawer deeper and found a pair of matching pants and then another set – green satin. They didn’t belong. They didn’t belong in this clean and white and lifeless room. She tucked them back into the drawer.

She’d been hoping to unearth a diary, or photographs, or something that might reveal more about her mother’s life, her parents’ death. She would sooner have expected to find a firearm or a severed limb than provocative lingerie. She couldn’t imagine Aunt’s bony body wearing something so … soft. Why would she even own them? Aunt was vehemently against everything to do with love and love-making; she’d never shown interest in a man in all Anna’s life.

Perhaps there’s someone at work? Perhaps there was no one at all, the lingerie simply jewelled relics of a past life that Aunt no longer led and Anna had never known. I gave my life up for you. Aunt had said it so many times before. Anna ignored the guilt. Had Aunt given up love for her too? But Aunt hated lust and love and everything in between … doesn’t she?

Christmas Day was a carbon copy of every other Christmas Day. Sensible gifts (socks and textbooks), a small roast chicken (a turkey was too big), over-boiled vegetables, crackers and soon-forgotten paper hats. In the afternoon they drove to Richmond Park for a walk, watching deer cut through the fading light with antlered silhouettes. Snow had been anticipated but it didn’t come, the sky remaining an obstinate grey. They returned to the house and put on a black and white movie and Aunt laid out a puzzle for them while they watched it. The fire finally crackled but it couldn’t chase the loneliness from the house, the loneliness that comes from the space between two people who have nothing left to say to one another. Two people are not quite a family.

When Aunt left her room that evening, Anna looked at herself in the mirror, pulling at the skin on her face. It was definitely brighter, and the green of her eyes was too. Even her hair had grown stronger in colour, finding the reds and golds of its old life. Perhaps the tisane was truly working at last. Although she couldn’t pinpoint any sudden change, Anna felt different as well. She hadn’t had any nosebleeds, she wasn’t so hungry all the time, she was sleeping better. There was a growing agitation too, a kind of roving urgency within her which longed for release, but what that was she couldn’t say. It made the silent prison of life with Aunt even harder. It made her need for escape greater.

She went to close her balcony curtains and stopped. Something was glinting on the floor outside – a package? She opened the doors and picked it up. A gift. It was wrapped in festive paper covered with goats wearing Santa hats. The tag read:

Merry Christmas, Anna. I thought this book might help along your musical genius. Just put it on the piano and it will capture the notes you are playing. Don’t worry if you go wrong, it will correct itself as you refine the song. It’ll never run out of paper either. Attis x

Anna almost dropped it in shock. She ran to the edge of the balcony and looked out over the quiet gardens – there was no one to be seen. When did he come? She laughed with sudden delight and went back inside. She sat on her bed and eagerly unwrapped the music book. It had a plain blue front, her name appearing on it in silver script as she held it, making her squeal with excitement. She silenced herself and opened the book, finding empty musical staves, ready for her compositions. It was unexpectedly thoughtful. She hugged it tightly, desperate to run downstairs and try it. Could I …?

She crept out of her room and tiptoed up the stairs. She stood in the dark hallway and listened until she could make out Aunt’s slow, heavy breathing – she was asleep. No third-floor visitation tonight. Anna made her way down to the living room. She knew it was risky but she would only play gently.

She sat down at the piano and placed the book in front of her. A frail moonlight webbed its way into the room from the window; the book glowed white, empty as snowfall waiting for footprints. She pressed a key and watched as the note wrote itself upon the stave in a shiver of black script. A treble clef appeared beside it, curved and dark as a cloaked stranger. She let out the first joyful laugh of the day and then clapped her hands over her mouth.

She began to play then, softly. The book responded, threading the tune through the staves before it flew away into the darkness. The notes were shadows, rising and falling, growing from one another, entwining, as if Anna were sewing the fabric of night itself into the pages. She began to feel something like magic. She stopped playing. The notes broke off – waiting.

She’d been avoiding it all holidays. Magic. She was taking her tisane daily but hadn’t attempted casting, in case, in case it’s no different …

She went over to Aunt’s stash of cords and selected a brown one. For focus. She took it back to the piano. She held the cord in her hands and focused on the C key. My Hira is twine and thorn. She formed a Weaver’s Knot – for weaving together – and pulled it tight. Nothing happened. Anna shifted the cord along her hands and focused harder, forming another knot. Come on. My Hira is twine and thorn.

The piano key remained still.

She thought about how Effie, Attis and Rowan had talked about their Hiras: sharp as whetstone, strong as fire, nourishing like soil – she tried to embody each of their descriptions in turn, with no success. A fear gripped at her heart. What if I’ll never be able to do it?

She grew tired, but refused to go to bed. She sat forming knots along the cord – undoing them, tying them again – drowsy eyes on the keys, trying to feel something until her arm ached and her eyes grew sleepy. Her mind began to wander, drifting like the clouds towards the edges of dreaming. The moonlight lit up the C key and her fingers made a knot in the cord without thinking.

The sound broke the silence of night. A clear C note.

Anna wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it. She quickly made another knot in the cord and the sound came again. She did it again and this time watched as the key pressed itself down, as if some invisible finger of night were playing it.

She could feel something – the steady strength of the cord, the chill of the endless moonlight, the pure sound of the note, the silence between it all. Worlds colliding. Magic, like twine – no, like threads, tying them together, forming a pattern …

Anna tied the knots more quickly, a small and simple tune playing in response: a melody of knots. She’d never known cord magic to make anything beautiful. She knotted faster – different notes, different rhythms, a travelling octave. Her thoughts broke through. I’m doing it! Magic! I can feel something. As her mind lost focus the music petered out. She could feel the strength of the magic wane and then disappear altogether until the knots were no more than knots once more.

Anna tried to recall how it had felt but it was like the translator had left and the feeling she had been so certain of was now in another language she didn’t understand. It didn’t matter. Magic had beckoned its hand and she had followed. It was a beginning – the door was ever so slightly ajar.