Prologue

The two figures stood, close enough to touch but not touching, in the midsummer moonlight.

A man.

A young woman.

Around them the bounties of his garden slumbered on the ground or on their stalks or in their pods. Their surfaces shone luminous grey; their bulk cast blacker velveteen shadows on the already black earth. A tiny breeze, barely the breath of an infant, touched every leaf and stem, stirring them to sigh in their sleep.

There was a dragging ache deep in Agatha’s abdomen.

‘Are you certain this is what you want?’ Mason asked. His words made puffs of mist, slow to dissipate. They were so quietly spoken she wasn’t even sure she’d heard them. The vapour from his lungs was the only clue. Yet another chilled English summer, she thought. Another thing she wanted to be free of.

‘Yes.’

A cloud dampened the moon.

The man watched her. Even by this insufficient silver light, she knew he could see her well enough. Not her face, not her eyes, but what she held behind them. She had to make it convincing. She, in turn, could see his eyes and not much else behind the bramble of his beard. His pupils were black pearls, lost in the deep, dark wells of his irises. She would never see into him, no matter how hard she looked, no matter how long.

The cloud thickened. Her belly cramped. She hesitated. There was still time to change her mind. All she had to do was walk away. She needn’t even speak. If she turned and tiptoed back up the garden, along the side wall, out onto Bluebell Way and back to the house where her family slept, if she merely did that and said not another word to Mason Brand, he would know what it meant. He would understand. And they would never talk again.

But she’d come this far, hadn’t she? Risked being caught outside late at night with a man old enough to have fathered her. A few more minutes and she’d have done it, given him what he wanted. In half an hour she could be snuggled into bed. There was no sense in leaving now, was there? It was so nearly complete. She almost had what she’d come for - his promise to give her what she needed most. And once he’d fulfilled his end of their agreement - sometime in the next few days - she would be free. Free of her family, free of the Meadowlands Estate, free of the dead-end town of Shreve and away into a decent future. A real future, not just some girl’s fantasy.

Perhaps he saw all this and mistook it for commitment and conviction. For a man so awkward and hesitant by day, he was suddenly very direct.

‘Good. You have what I asked you for?’

‘Y . . . yes.’

‘Let me see it.’

She supposed she could have carried it here some other way but what would have been easier than the method she’d chosen? Besides, it would be fresher this way. He’d made it clear that was important.

She turned and stepped away, far enough that he’d see her shape and movement perhaps, but nothing more than that. She unzipped and pulled down her jeans and used the fingers of her left hand to tug the gusset of her underwear towards her left thigh. It was a cold night and her skin roughened to the touch of the air. With her right hand she took hold of the soft tassel of cotton thread and gently drew the obstruction from herself. Her flow was heavy; the cotton wadding brought partially coagulated strings with it. They struck and clung to her bare thigh, black lightning against a sky of white skin.

‘Shit,’ she whispered. She held it out to him. ‘Here.’

‘I can’t touch it.’

‘Don’t be pathetic.’

‘No. I must not touch the blood.’

‘I need to get myself sorted out.’

She heard him take a few steps away and quickly return. He held out his palm to her. On it was a runner bean leaf. She dropped the tampon onto it. Steam rose from it like Mason’s breath, adhered to the platinum-edged shadows of his garden. When she’d cleaned herself up with a tissue as best she could and renewed her protection, she pulled up her jeans and went to stand with him. He returned her offering. It warmed her palm through the delicate leaf.

‘Over here,’ he said. He knelt on a patch of recently dug earth. When she didn’t follow suit, he took her wrist and pulled her down beside him. ‘Dig,’ he said, pointing to a place in the centre of the bare earth. ‘Right there.’

Aggie looked around for something to use.

‘Have you got a trowel or something?’ He turned to her slowly.

‘Use your hands.’

She placed the blood-burdened leaf to one side. Disgusted that she would get muck under her manicured nails or chip the varnish off, she fingered the grainy soil, brushing it out of the way. There was little progress.

‘If you’re not serious, there’s still time to forget all this. You must act willingly or not at all.’

Aside from her blood and this midnight tryst, Agatha Smithfield didn’t intend to keep her side of the bargain. Not the commitments he wanted later - not a chance. No matter how much what he’d asked her to do in the future frightened her, no matter how much gravity he’d attached to her ‘responsibility’. She would go through with the actions he demanded right now, detached and cool. And that was all. She would give nothing more of herself after this. When she possessed what he promised her - just a few hours of his expertise - she would be long gone and he would never find her.

‘I am willing,’ she lied.

‘Then dig the earth like you mean it, girl. Like you love it.’

Her anger flared unexpectedly, fuelled by her passion to escape Shreve.

I’ll show you some fucking digging.

She heaved at the earth, scooping up double handfuls of Mason’s loose, fertile soil and dumping them to one side. If he was impressed by her endeavour he didn’t show it. He merely knelt there, nodding solemnly. Her fingers struck something smooth and yielding in the dirt. She brushed away some granules and recognised pieces of an image she’d seen before. Just like the one she’d seen on the wall of his stairs.

‘Hey . . . Isn’t that the pho -’

‘Put your blood into the earth.’

‘I was only as -’

‘Do it now.’

I’m not going to miss you at all, Mr. Mason Brand. I’ll take what I need from you and you’ll get nothing in return. When I get out of this town, I’m never going to think about you again.

She dumped the leaf and tampon into the hole. The blood-logged cotton stuck to the matt photographic paper with a damp thud. She tried to cover it all over but he stopped her.

‘One last thing,’ he whispered.

He was holding out an index card. There was writing on it. Right in that moment the moon pulled free of the clouds, illuminating them and their midnight labours in mercurial brightness. Years later, she would often think of that moment, how the moon had showed her the words, conspired to make them clear and give her one last chance not to go through with it. Of course, in the actual moment that it happened, she merely cursed the moon for assisting Mason in his madness. She was suddenly more than able to see what he’d written:

I, Agatha Smithfield,

- thank God he doesn’t know my middle name -

give my word that I will study the ways of the Earth from Mason Brand. In time, I too will find a student and pass the knowledge to them.

Signed,

The index card awaited her touch.

‘In blood, I suppose?’ she asked. He passed her a pen.

‘Biro’s fine. Make your mark.’

She hesitated again when the tip of the pen touched the card, and almost as quickly dismissed her foolishness. All of this was bullshit. Mason was full of lies and neuroses. The

Earth was not alive and the moon was not their witness. There was no creator to keep a tally of deals done, deals broken. When she had what she wanted, she’d be free.

She had one final point to make. Might as well pretend to be part of his delusion.

‘There’s no time limit.’ She said.

‘No.’

‘So what happens if you die?’

‘I’m not going to die for a long time. But whatever happens, you must fulfil your promise before that day comes.’

‘What if you . . . you know . . . have an accident or something?’

He reached into his trouser pocket.

‘I’ve already thought of that. This is the key to my back door. If I drop dead or get hit by a bus, go up to the cupboard in the spare bedroom. In there you’ll find a small pine chest about the size of picnic basket. In it are my papers. They’ll tell you eighty percent of what you need to know. The rest you’ll have to learn without me.’

He handed her the key, still warm from his thigh. She slipped it into her jeans pocket. Before she could give the whole stupid issue any more thought, she signed the index card.

‘Put it in the ground,’ he said. ‘Bury everything.’

‘Can’t you get your hands dirty for a change?’

‘It has to be you who touches the Earth.’

‘Fine.’

Testily, she pushed all the excavated dirt back into the small hole and patted it down. She brushed her hands off against each other and began to stand. Once again, Mason pulled her to the dirt. He held her there while he whispered among the cool silver shadows.

‘Great Mother, we thank you for your gifts and comforts.

Daily we serve and respect your ways. Witness our offerings and oaths to you this night. May we fulfil them honourably. Blessed be.’

When he let go of her hand she ran from his garden, not caring how much noise she made, not caring who might see a schoolgirl running home through the streets of the Meadowlands estate long after midnight.