ESCAPE

In silence and secrets we are bound.

Tenet Eight, The Book of the Binders

Anna took a deep breath and wrote her name down on the Performance Assembly sign-up sheet: Anna Everdell – piano recital.

Even writing it made her feel sick with nerves – she didn’t know if she’d be able to go through with it when the time came, but she had to. There was no choice any more.

It had been a few weeks since she’d left the coven and it had been surprisingly easy to sink back into it, into being a nobody: going to school, keeping her head down, speaking to no one, having no one to speak to. In other ways it was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. She’d never had friends before and so she’d never experienced the all-encompassing pain of losing them.

She’d thought Attis might try to talk to her – to say sorry for backing down so quickly – but it seemed he was too much of a coward for that too. She barely saw him anyway and Rowan and Manda avoided her. Effie didn’t spare her that dignity, she simply carried on as always and acted as if Anna were not there at all. With Darcey, Anna had chosen to be a nobody, but Effie forced her to become one.

She heard about them through rumour only now. Manda and Karim had supposedly slept together. She didn’t know if it was true. She discovered Rowan had been asked by David aka trumpet-boy to the ball. Anna smiled when she heard until she remembered she couldn’t ask Rowan about it. Effie and Attis were going together, of course. For a few days she’d been whispered about too; the abrupt end to her friendship with Effie had been of some interest, but then, not belonging to her orbit any more, Anna was quickly forgotten.

Fortunately school was winding down, with only coursework to get through. Anna gravitated between the library to work and the music room to play – taking it all out on the piano in the only way she knew how. When it all became too much she put the rest into her Knotted Cord. She didn’t have time to indulge her anger, to wallow in her sadness, to bleed and to ache – she had too much to do. She had to end the rumour spell. Corinne had been suspended, Olivia was off school again for an upcoming procedure and Darcey was … Anna didn’t want to know but could vividly imagine.

She’d taken herself off to the Library when Aunt was at work. She’d got lost in its corridors once more, trying to find something that might be useful, half expecting to stumble across Pesachya again, but he did not surface from the papery depths. She returned home with books up to her chin. She ended up discarding all but one. The lengthy rituals, the potions, the binding spells – it was all impossible on her own, but a single spell buried in one of the books gave her the seed of an idea. She didn’t know if it would work. She had to try.

When the day of the performance came round she could feel herself crumbling.

I’m ready, I’m ready. I can do this.

She walked quickly to school before her legs could carry her anywhere else, repeating the mantra to herself. You have to be ready. There isn’t a choice.

It was busy behind the scenes of the school stage. The other performers rushed around her: the school choir, a trio of violinists, a band testing vocals, checking instruments, while she sat alone, trying to work out how to stop her hands shaking. What in the name of the Goddess am I doing?

The spell idea she’d found in the Library had dealt with the language of song – how a piece of music could be a spell. There had been nothing specific but it had suggested a witch could compose her own musical spell – ‘infused with Hira and delivered with magic’ – for whatever purpose was required. Anna had no real clue how to achieve this but she had to try. The Performance Assembly was the one time where the entire school would be together – the Boys’ and the Girls’ Schools combined.

She’d composed the spell with Attis’s music book. As she played she’d imagined the rumours dying in the air, clean winds sweeping away the flies, mouths sealed, phones silenced. The song wrote itself across the pages; the musical staves – threads, the notes – little knots of silence. Everyone’s going to laugh at me – the Nobody – who does she think she is …

‘You’re on last,’ a prefect with a clipboard told her. ‘The piano is already on stage. Where’s your sheet music? Do you need someone to turn the pages for you?’

‘No. I don’t have any sheet music.’

‘Whatever. Just don’t mess up.’

Headmaster Connaughty was on stage already, introducing the assembly. I’m not going to remember the song. What if the spell doesn’t work? Or worse … Anna couldn’t think about that now. She had to try something.

The performances began. Anna could hear the violins going off with slight discord, a note wrong here, the rhythm out of time there. Loud clapping. Whispering. There were a lot of people out there. She imagined Effie in the audience, Rowan, Manda, Attis – the look on their faces when she stepped out to play. She didn’t want Attis thinking she was doing this for him. It was in spite of him.

When her name was called she just stared at the prefect.

‘Oh Christ, you’re not going to bail on me, are you? I knew I shouldn’t have let you play. Anna the Nobody.’

It was one of her old names. It made her feel stronger.

‘I’m ready.’ She pulled herself off the floor. Her entire body was shaking now, her mouth dry as a desert. She stood in the wings while she was introduced.

She stepped out. The lights were bright, but not bright enough – she could still make out the faces of pupils and teachers before her. She sat down at the piano. The silence, as they waited for her to do something, was the loudest silence of her life. She put her hands on the keys and they trembled. Suddenly her perfectly orchestrated plan crumbled – What if the spell spreads the darkness of my magic? Curses everyone? She couldn’t remember the first note of the song. She didn’t want to remember it.

She put one hand in her pocket, feeling the old fears in her Knotted Cord. She looked into the wings and saw the prefect mouthing something at her.

I have to do something. I have to try …

She put her hands back on the piano. She couldn’t feel any magic or even remotely remember what magic felt like, but she thought of the rumours – Olivia’s face falling apart, Corinne’s suspension, Headmaster Connaughty’s hands on Darcey, Darcey’s accusations—

She began.

A simple series of notes, exposed and raw, trembling under her fingers, drawing together the silence of the room, gaining ground and pace: a melody floating like a white, silent sail through the dark seas of the crowd, rippling minor chords that spoke of anguish, remorse, forgetting.

The magic came to her then, quietly, unfurling in the spaces between each note. She threaded it into the music and found the song was different to the one she’d practised. What was coming out of her was new, painful to the touch, as if her fingers were leaving their usual bloodstains on the keys: she was locked in a dark cupboard; watching a picture of her mother curling in the flames of a fire; falling asleep, one hand in Effie’s; Attis was reaching out to touch her neck; breaking up pianos in his forge, white keys scattered like bones; there was a small white key she wanted but could not have; a door that was locked, forever.

The song reached its crescendo, melody crashing, notes binding together, pulling tight, tighter – a moment of pause – the quietest of endings, a gentle warning, repeating over and over: stitch up, stitch back, stitch up, stitch back.

Anna stopped playing.

She was met with a wall of silence. No applause, no murmuring, not even a whisper. It was broken by a small sob, then whimpering sounds, a nose blowing. She stood up and looked over the crowd. The faces looking back at her were distraught. She could see teachers along the front row crying, tears rolling down their cheeks, dabbing eyes with sleeves.

Has it worked? Or have I broken the entire school?

One of the teachers dropped a head into her hands, shuddering.

A lone beat of applause from somewhere in the crowd. Attis. Others joining in and then they were clapping. It was not great applause by any measure. It was slow and startled and wary. Anna removed herself from the stage as quickly as she could. The prefect with the clipboard was sitting weeping in the wings. She wound her way through the backstage area and out of the door.

What have I done?

Anna ran through the corridors. Students were beginning to filter out of assembly but no one was speaking, not even a whisper. What is that sound? Anna realized it wasn’t a sound but a lack of one – dead flies littered the ground but not a single live one buzzed. She put her head down and made her way through the deafening silence to the library.

She’d been hiding out for a few hours when a low voice behind her spoke. ‘I thought I might find you here.’ For a moment she thought it was Attis, but the voice was too quiet, too finely composed. She turned around to find Peter. Since she’d been shunned by her friends, she’d been talking to Peter a little more – walking back from class with him. She was sure he was just taking pity on her. He was smiling at her now, a dazed look on his face.

She gave him a worried smile.

‘Anna, this morning – your performance, that was incredible. Everybody is – I don’t know what … stunned. I didn’t even know you played the piano.’

‘Do you feel … OK?’

‘I feel fine.’ He laughed, sitting down beside her, running a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t think you get it. You’re incredible. I’ve seen what Effie’ – he said the name gratingly – ‘has done to you. Discarding you like that.’

‘She didn’t discard—’

‘It’s for the best. You’re so much better than her. She’s trash. You’re an angel in comparison.’

‘I’m no angel and Effie isn’t trash, she’s – complicated.’ Anna sighed. ‘We’re just too different.’

‘I like you different.’ He lowered his head to catch her eyes. ‘You’re different from all the other girls here. I’m just sorry I hadn’t noticed it sooner.’

‘Don’t worry.’ Anna laughed, trying to hide from the intensity in his eyes. ‘I don’t think anyone noticed me.’

‘Well, the world is a better place now you’re in it.’

She wanted to reach out then, to hold him and to have him make everything better, but no – he thinks I’m an angel, but I’m not: I’m as cursed as hell.

A few days later she found the roses taped to her locker. A tag read: ‘Everdell. There’s no one else I’d rather go to the ball with than you. I hope you feel the same. Peter x’.

Anna pulled them free and leant against her locker, hardly believing that through all of the chaos of the year, the most unlikely thing had happened. Peter liked her. The boy she’d had a crush on for years actually liked her, when no one else did. The flowers were just beginning to open. She’d always promised to herself, to Aunt, to keep her heart at a safe distance from any threats of emotion – but she’d broken a lot of promises, and this one couldn’t hurt. Peter wasn’t caught up in the world of magic, he was normal, steady, decent; someone she could depend on.

Anna smelt the flowers and soaked up the wonderful quiet of the corridor. She was beginning to believe that her spell had worked – the flies had gone, the rumours had begun to peter out and Darcey hadn’t posted about them in some time. She hadn’t come to school either; she was apparently taking some time off. To recover? Anna hoped it would be possible and a worse part of her hoped she’d never return.

In class, she spent the whole time catching Peter’s eye. Afterwards he came up to her: ‘So did you like the roses?’

‘I loved them.’

‘And?’

She’d been set on avoiding the ball – it would be too painful to see them all there together, but looking into Peter’s hopeful eyes, she knew she couldn’t say no to him. She didn’t want to.

‘Yes.’

They laughed and then he moved closer and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

‘They reminded me of you. Red.’ He pulled at a lock of her hair. ‘Delicate, beautiful …’

She felt herself blushing and switched off to his words, instead looking into the steady calm of his eyes. Peter taking the Nobody to the ball! It might have been the most absurd rumour of them all.

Rowan found her leaning on the wall behind the common room the next day. She approached tentatively. ‘Is it true, then? Peter asked you to the ball?’

‘Yes,’ Anna replied warily.

Rowan’s smile grew wider. ‘I knew it! I knew he would! I’d hoped for it. You’ve liked him for so long, you deserve it and—’ She stopped herself. ‘I’ll talk forever if you let me go on.’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Anna, realizing how much she’d missed the sound of Rowan’s voice.

‘You don’t hate me?’

‘I don’t hate you.’

‘I’ve been too ashamed, I—’ Rowan’s smile wobbled. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m sorry too.’

‘I do not accept your apology.’

‘OK …’

‘No, wait, I mean, because you don’t need to apologize. You were right. You were so right, those rumours – they were nasty but they weren’t meant to come true. When they started to … I didn’t want to admit to myself what was happening. I’d got so caught up with everything. I’d never been popular and suddenly people wanted to talk to me, to hear what I had to say and – I know, I know, it was Effie’s attention they really wanted but it still felt good and I don’t know … I lost it. Couldn’t see the wood for the trees, the flowers for the bee stings, the—’

‘I get it, Rowan.’ Anna smiled.

‘And what you did with the piano, I swear by my Hira that was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. I was a blubbering mess, genuinely, tears, snot, dribble – the unholy trinity. Did Attis tell you we put gag root herb in all the school food?’

‘No, I haven’t spoken to him.’

‘It banishes gossip. We wanted to make sure the spell was definitely over, but I don’t think we needed to after what you did. It’s been so quiet, hasn’t it? And Darcey, she’s disappeared. You were right about her too; we should have been more careful. I know people think she’s lost it but even so, that footage and her spouting off about satanic cults and the like, it was not a good idea, especially right now.’

‘What do you mean, right now?’

‘I don’t know.’ Rowan sat beside her. ‘I’ve been trying to deny it too, but maybe there’s something going on. Mum still seems a little spooked and the Wort-Cunnings have been meeting more often. These conspiracy theories in the news aren’t going away either. I checked out that Institute for Research into Organized and Ritual Violence. It looks like it only came into existence a year ago, not long before the hangings, and suddenly it’s got all this sway in the media.’

‘The media likes giving voices to the outspoken.’

‘It just all seems weird. The magical world is such a wonderful place. It’s free, you know?’

Anna remembered its wonderful freedoms all too well. She missed it more than she could put into words. Her future was likely to contain little of it.

‘I don’t know,’ Rowan continued. ‘If I’ve learnt anything from the past few weeks it’s that there’s no smoke without fire …’

‘The fire never dies; beware smoke on the wind,’ said Anna quietly.

Rowan gave her a quizzical look. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s just something my aunt says. She’s …’ Anna hesitated. ‘She’s a member of a grove known as the Binders.’

‘What are the Binders?’

‘I thought you might have heard of them?’

Rowan shook her head. ‘No, but I don’t like how they sound.’

‘They don’t exactly tolerate magic. They use knot magic to control and manipulate it. They’ve always feared the return of the Hunters, but, honestly, their claims have stopped feeling like the usual fearmongering and started to feel real. I’m worried about what’s going on too, and—’ Anna stopped herself. She had almost told the whole truth, about what the Binders intended to do with her once the year was up, but she sensed Rowan would not take that calmly.

‘Anna, you have to speak to my mum. These Binders don’t sound like a legitimate grove and if they know something about what’s going on we all ought to hear it.’

Anna shook her head firmly. ‘The Binders don’t work that way, trust me, and please don’t tell your mum, OK? After everything that’s happened, I’m asking you that. I need to deal with them – my beloved aunt – on my own.’

Anna couldn’t trust anyone else. Not any more. She’d already said too much.

Rowan’s heavy eyebrows knitted themselves together. ‘I won’t say anything, but I am here.’

Anna nodded, holding her Knotted Cord to stop herself relenting.

‘So with all this fear in the news, do you reckon you could play the piano and silence the whole of London too?’

Anna smiled. ‘We’re going to need a bigger stage …’

Rowan laughed and then fiddled with a weed sticking out of the wall. ‘You know Effie was impressed by what you did. Angry, but impressed.’

Anna shrugged, trying to seem indifferent.

‘She talks about you a lot. Goddess knows I have so much to tell you …’

And that was that, Rowan didn’t stop talking for the next half an hour. Anna listened and was late for class and didn’t care.

That weekend, Anna escaped to Cressey Square garden. She leant her head against the oak tree and took out a book, listening to the hum of activity around her: birds flitting, bees frantic, breeze rustling and dusting off the leaves. The sun was warm on her face. Summer was in the air, like bubbles in a glass, rising to the surface through the earth below.

Things are getting better – school was going back to normal, Rowan was speaking to her again, Peter was taking her to the ball – and yet nothing is OK – the effects of the rumour spell, what they’d done, would never truly go away. Effie isn’t talking to me. Attis doesn’t care. The year is almost up and I have to decide whether to bind my magic – if the decision is even mine. After everything that happened Anna knew that the sensible thing to do was to proceed with the Knotting; she had more than enough evidence to know that there was something wrong – dangerous – about her magic, but with so many secrets still locked away, she couldn’t help hoping that there was another way.

The truth is within the leaves. The mirror within the mirror. The mirror is the key. Nana’s words were maddening, going round in her head every day like a melody she couldn’t forget. She snatched a leaf from a nearby bush – how can the answer be within you? She held it up to the light – there’s nothing there. The mirror within the mirror. What mirror? What key? The key to the third-floor room? The room was all she had left now. Does it hold the answers to my questions?

‘There’s a ladybug in your hair.’

She knew the voice and yet it was so incongruous to the setting, so inconceivable that he should be here, that it took her a moment to recognize it.

‘What are you doing here?’ Her words didn’t come out as a shout, but slowly and icily.

Attis was standing above her, blocking the sun from the pages of her book. ‘OK, it just flew away, we’re all clear.’ He sat down.

‘Attis, go away.’ She closed her eyes. He can’t be here. ‘It’s a private garden. I have a key. You don’t have a key.’

‘I have a key.’ He held up the skeleton key and then put it back in his pocket.

‘You don’t live here. You’re not allowed in this garden.’

‘Stickler for rules suddenly, are we?’

Anna knew she sounded pathetic but this was the one place she could be alone. Where she could escape. The one place that was hers.

‘You’re still mad at me then.’

She refused to look at him. ‘If you’re going to stay, can you go somewhere else? I need to read.’

‘I like this tree though.’ He patted the oak as if they were old friends.

Anna bit her tongue to stop herself from shouting: IT’S MY TREE.

‘Could I just stay for a while? I won’t speak,’ he said. She made the mistake of looking at him. He smiled – a little hopeful, full of open-hearted willingness, a smile so adept to shaping itself to the requirements of the moment it could win awards. It pinned you to the spot while brushing your legs from underneath you.

‘Fine.’ She began to read. He lay back on the grass next to her and watched the sky.

Anna managed fifteen minutes before she broke. ‘What do you want?’

He sat up. ‘You were amazing.’

‘What?’

‘The piano spell. It was amazing. I …’ She’d never seen him lost for words before. ‘Mr Ramsden was blubbing everywhere. Best thing I’ve seen all year.’

‘Why are you here?’

‘I came to see how you are. I’ve barely seen you at school and when I do, it’s like you’re not there.’

‘Ha! You’re the one avoiding me, not the other way around. How’s the coven going?’ She tried and failed to hide the bitterness in her voice.

‘It’s on and off. Not quite the same really. Effie misses you.’

Anna turned away. ‘She made her choice.’

‘You and Effie didn’t have to do that – draw a line between you.’

‘I didn’t; Effie did. Everyone chose their sides anyway.’

‘There are no sides.’

‘Really?’ She looked back into his eyes.

‘She needs you – you’re a good influence on her.’

‘Oh, but she has you.’

He smirked. ‘I have some influence – I’m not sure if it’s good. You still doing magic?’

Anna nodded. ‘I’ve got to decide though. Soon.’

He lowered his head, understanding. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know … become a Binder, live with my aunt and maybe, one day, get my magic back. I’m too much of a coward to run.’

‘You’re not a coward, Anna, you’re afraid. It’s different. No one is exempt from fear.’

Anna shook her head at his words. ‘Even after everything, I just – I don’t know how to leave her. She’s my only family.’

He frowned, his face peculiarly ageless, somewhere between a young boy unsure what to do and a man tired of life already. She wanted to get up and leave, before he found a way into her head as he always did, but instead she found herself asking: ‘Did you ever know your biological family? You said before your father wasn’t your real father …’

He ran his hands through the grass. She thought he wouldn’t answer but then he said: ‘No. I was adopted by my father and his partner, though one passed away when I was ten and the other – well, I haven’t seen him in a while.’

‘I’m sorry, Attis. The one you haven’t seen, is that the professor? Where’s he now?’

‘We had a falling-out. We’re not – we don’t speak now. I don’t know where he is.’

‘Over what?’ Anna knew she was asking too much of a boy who never spoke about himself, but she was hungry to know more.

He took a while to answer, his eyes passing through several grey clouds of thought. ‘Effie. Love. Fate.’

It was a bigger answer than she’d expected. ‘Oh.’

‘No matter. I’m ploughing ahead anyway. Live fast, die young, maybe get a dog – I don’t know.’

‘Right.’ Anna could see he would give her no more today. She could only learn about him a little at a time. Perhaps it was better that way – all at once would be too much.

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the breeze, and then he said: ‘So I heard someone’s going to the ball with dreamboat Peter.’ He made eyes at her. Anna kicked at him. ‘Heard he got you flowers and everything.’

‘He’s a gentleman.’

‘Roses, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m terribly sorry to hear that.’

‘Roses are a perfectly lovely flower.’

‘They’re boring. A rose is a rose is a rose …’

‘At least he gets a girl flowers, what do you give them, an STI?’

He fell over on the grass as if she’d shot him down. ‘Well, that was uncalled-for. Besides, I don’t go on dates.’

‘Of course, why bother with all the preamble when you can just go straight for the prize?’

‘At least I’m honest about it. You’re just annoyed he bought you generic flowers.’

‘They’re not generic. They’re classic, timeless, romantic.’

‘But, Anna, you are none of these things.’

‘Thanks.’ She gave him a look that could have withered any flower. ‘What should I receive then – a bunch of weeds?’

‘Good question.’ His eyebrows met in thought. ‘There’s the daisy.’ He picked one from the grass. ‘Pretty, understated, undervalued, but no, too common.’ He went quiet. ‘There’s ivy – strong, loyal, but too poisonous perhaps. Or the poppy – a redhead, mysterious, intoxicating, quite the death stare, matches the one you’re giving me right now – but no, no.’ He fell silent again.

‘See, you’ve got noth—’

He sat up, excited. ‘I’ve got it. Springwort.’

‘Now that does sound like an STI.’

Attis snorted. ‘It’s not an STI. It’s a flower. A flower few have ever seen. A flower that belongs to another world.’ He leant forwards. ‘Its stem is as green as your eyes, its petals like your hair – not red, not gold, but somewhere in the middle, bright as a fallen star. It grows only in wild places, hiding away in the dark and lonely shadows of the woods. Its roots are deep; its vines run free; it is rare. They say one drop of its nectar can kill a man or bring him back to life.’ He moved closer to her, holding her gaze. ‘It produces but a single flower, which blooms only once, but when it does the whole world falls on its knees for the beauty of it.’

Silence ensued and Anna burst into laughter. ‘You expect me to believe that? And what is its intoxicating aroma? Bullshit?’

‘No. It smells like a first kiss, like your skin right here …’ He reached out a hand to the side of her neck and she froze.

‘You try that one on all the girls?’ she replied hastily, ignoring the melting feeling down her spine. ‘Does Effie know you’re here?’

Attis dropped his hand. ‘I am able to do some things without her knowledge, you know.’

‘Not much.’

Attis shrugged. ‘She’s my family.’

Anna nodded. That she could understand. Her heart was beating fast. She looked out beyond the park to the row of stern-faced houses beyond. ‘I just wish – I wish I could escape.’

‘I wish you could too.’ He looked so sad then she wanted to reach out and touch his cheek, but as her hand fluttered, his eyes lit up in that way they did whenever he was charged with an idea.

‘Take my hand.’ He extended it towards her. She looked at him warily and, deciding to throw caution to the breeze, moved closer and took it, her skin bright against his smoke-stained fingers. He closed his eyes and focused. She felt the magic pass between them. It didn’t happen all at once, but slowly, like falling asleep, and then suddenly the whole world was different.

The oak tree was still there, rising above them, and the grass beside them and the flowers, but the park … the railings were gone, the road gone, the houses gone. London was nowhere to be seen. Instead the green lawn of the park billowed out, becoming a meadow which extended in all directions, lit with flowers and dotted with trees, dressed up in blossom. Beyond, it extended outwards to fields and wooded hills, the landscape uneven and undecided, full of light and shadow. Wild.

‘What is this?’ she said, looking up at the sky, and then down at the grass beneath her, which looked and felt entirely real.

‘It’s a chimera.’ Attis let go of her hand, but the illusion didn’t falter. She was still here, in this paradise, in a park in London and yet a very long way from the city.

She breathed in. There were no fumes, no wet tarmac; the air was fresh as new grass, as if the green of a flower stem had been cut and spilt over the earth. She pulled a blade of grass and held it to her eye – beyond it the horizon glimmered in the warm, bright sun.

‘It’s not real, is it?’

‘It is and it isn’t. I’ve created it in my head, so it’s as real as any thought.’

Anna smiled and looked at him. ‘I like this thought of yours.’ His eyes were softer here, one lighter, one darker, his smile somewhere in between. ‘Am I in Wales? Is it your memories?’

‘Some memory perhaps and something new too. Let’s call it an escape.’

Anna sank back onto the grass, the sky blue and without edges above her. ‘I don’t care if it’s real or not,’ she said. ‘Not now, not for a while.’

Anna stayed inside Attis’s thought for as long as she could, watching the sky roll through different shades of blue. Attis didn’t speak and she didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t ruin it all, so she was quiet too, watching butterflies and strands of grass fade in and out of focus.

Eventually she knew she had to leave. She was afraid Aunt would come out looking for her and find her lying on the grass in the park in a daze with him.

‘Attis. I have to go home.’

He turned his head to her as if he wanted to say something, but then nodded. The world shifted around them, the horizon diminishing to the park railings, the sound of traffic returning. The sun above them no longer seemed as bright and that scared Anna for a moment, as if somehow the real world would now always fall short.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

His smile was complete. ‘I’ll speak to Effie, OK? She just needs a push to get over her pride.’

Anna was still angry at her, but she missed her more. ‘Would you?’

‘I have some influence, minimal as it is.’

She smiled. ‘Can you just go and see if my aunt’s car is outside the house? I may need to sneak in.’

‘Sure.’ He jumped to his feet and walked to the fence.

Anna leant over and reached a hand inside the pocket of his coat. She pulled out his set of keys. Fortunately the skeleton key was on its own ring – quick and easy to pull away from the others. She slipped the keys back into his pocket just in time.

‘She’s there,’ he said, returning.

She couldn’t quite meet his eye. He’d given her a moment of escape, but she needed more.

He picked up his jacket. ‘Don’t take any shit from her now. Right, I’ll see you Monday then.’

‘Bye, Attis and – thank you.’

He nodded, sadly, and left.

She went back to the house, scents of disinfectant souring the air.

‘Anna, is that you? I need your help.’

‘Coming, Aunt.’

Anna wandered into the living room, remembering the sweet freedom of the sky extending in all directions. The rose bush in the corner began to open, one bloom at a time.

‘NO.’ Anna took a cord out of her pocket. ‘NO.’ She made little Choke Knots in it, fear coursing through her. The buds locked tight again.

‘Anna.’ Aunt rounded the corner as the last one closed. ‘I said I needed your help.’

‘Sorry, Aunt.’ Anna bundled the cord up in her trembling hands.

Anna fretted all night that Attis would come back looking for his key. She just needed a little longer. Aunt would be off to work early and then she could do it. She could break into the third-floor room. She barely slept, talking herself into it and out of it and into it again.

In the morning she watched Aunt drive off from the window. She would wait half an hour, to be sure, and then … She pulled the key out of her pocket.

She paced the hallway until it was time. Stepping out in front of the whole school had been terrifying but this was a different kind of fear. A more absolute kind. It was not humiliation she was risking, but her past and her future. It was the sort of fear that was so great you couldn’t look directly at it, but only glance from the side and hope you could still breathe after facing it. She’d been avoiding it for too long. It was time.

She walked up the stairs. The third floor was dark despite the sunshine outside. She put her ear to the door and could hear nothing from behind it. The room where her parents died. I’m sure it’s going to be full of Aunt’s tax files and then I’ll feel like an idiot.

Without thinking, with a lifetime of curiosity urging her on, she put the key in the lock and turned it. She heard it click open and her heart jumped, but then – the key began to bleed. The lock twisted back shut of its own accord and spat the key out onto the floor, blood seeping from the key onto the cream carpet.

She stood immobile, watching the blood spill out, before horror tore through her. She grabbed the key from the floor but the blood would not stop. She wrapped it in her sleeves and they began to turn red. She fled downstairs, blood seeping through her hands and onto the floor like footprints following her. She threw the key into the sink and left it to bleed down the plughole.

Stay calm, stay calm. Anna couldn’t remember what calm felt like. Her heart was hammering, a pure black fear threatening at the sides of her vision. She poured water into a bowl, grabbed a cloth and cleaning products and ran upstairs. Back outside the third-floor room, she wiped the blood from the door and scrubbed furiously at the carpet. The blood did not come away. She poured water on it, sprayed it with every spray at hand, scrubbed it and scrubbed it, and still it did not budge.

Aunt would be home in two hours. Fear coursed through her uncontrollably.

She ran back downstairs; the key was still bleeding out into the sink. She looked up and saw the rose bush in the corner of the room had opened – every single rose – like sirens going off. She ran blindly into the dining room – they were all open too. She ran to the living room – the same: roses looking back at her, agape and laughing.

She felt as if she would faint and fell to her knees, fear edging her mind with darkness. The wall of embroideries looked down at her, but they weren’t the embroideries she’d sewn; the pretty borders, the Bible verses, the flowers had turned, were turning … turning into the sign of the curse … threads reweaving themselves into seven circles, the centre a dark hole, into which her mind was descending …

She looked at her hands. They were covered in blood.

The darkness took over.