14

Things didn’t change at first. Every Meeting, one of us would ask if anyone had heard anything from Libby (the last Leaver, we would say, but we all said her name in our heads at once) or if Richard had written a letter to say he’d found her. (In the kitchen, one of the windows still taped up with cardboard, Richard’s knuckles bloodied up, and Freya’s snarl, Go after her then, and her tears afterwards, in the attic, curled up under the blankets for days.) Freya would shake her head no. She held Meeting every two days now, but no one drank wine or smoked while they happened, or started singing. Now Richard was away, only Kai was good enough at guitar to start up music, but he never did, and no one was sure what Freya would say if that happened.

That’s how things were in the first months. Freya never made new rules, or said things had changed. She smiled extra-sweet and hugged us all the time, but when she spoke she used her hard glass voice and it was safer not to do things, just in case. So it stuck, and it was too frightening to strike up in the middle of that silence and say, But this isn’t how it was before, because then we would have to admit the before and after that had appeared in our thinking.

Then we fell through another Winter Solstice with no word from Libby or Richard. Freya made the Scattering alone with her steel capped boots stamping through the door, so the year started, she said, with a bang. Then a summer, another winter, another summer, until Richard and Libby began to fade, their things around the house gathering dust and falling into piles that toppled and were kicked into Jumble, until we shared them out. At Meeting, instead of talking for the three of them, saying We the Founders, Freya began to say I.

Every Meeting she made long speeches about the Standing Stones and the Solstice and how we could use them to make Foxlowe a better place to live and work. Then at the end she brought Kai forward, under the cracked mirror, and reminded us what Foxlowe had done for him, and everyone clapped. When I looked around some people’s smiles were strange, like they’d been pulled back by little hooks in their cheeks. Sometimes Kai’s cough came back, on damp, misty days; and then he wasn’t at Meeting, and Freya didn’t mention him at all. He haunted the back corridors, a Leaver who had stayed, who sometimes didn’t remember us, or either of his names.

In this new way of things, I felt safer. I missed Libby, but I didn’t miss the way the room felt stifling, even the huge ballroom where there was so much air, when Freya and Libby and Richard were in one place, or the way Freya would lie awake some nights, twisting her ring, or the way only one of them, Libby or Freya, could be happy at once, laughing and playing with us or with the dogs, while the other shrank. Now Freya was the only Founder, she made all the decisions, and life was simple.

But Blue suffered more. She couldn’t learn to give all the control to Freya, couldn’t see how much better things would be if only she could. The more she had to take the Spike Walk, or be Edged, or stand outside on winter mornings in only her underwear, the more she fought Freya; she held her eye when she should look down, stole food when it had been denied her, and more and more, ran out onto the moor alone, sometimes staying out so late we thought she’d become a Leaver.

One day when the year was new, Winter Solstice only weeks gone, Blue and I stood at the attic window, watching Toby as he was driven away. It had been raining for hours, battering the slate roofs, soaking the dogs, who whimpered, shaking out their fur. Foxlowe sang a chorus of drips into pots and chipped mugs all around the house, the low notes under the leaks in the ballroom calling to higher ones in the upper floors.

—Can you see him? Blue said. She lifted her heels, showing the blisters there. —I think I can see his hair in the back, she said.

I rubbed at the condensation, strained my eyes through the drops, but the back window of the car was dark and shrinking.

—Maybe he didn’t go. He was a bit scared, Blue said.

—No, he’s gone, I said.

We laced and unlaced our fingers, counting. Blue’s were slick with tears and snot; I wiped them on my skirt. It took twelve counts for the car to disappear. The dull ache pulsed in my stomach. Overnight it had taken root there and boiled up my insides.

Blue curled underneath the bookcase and took down the Cancer box. She picked up some of the plastic beads and dropped them one by one back into the pile.

—That’s three things now, she said. —Libby, she mouthed, because it was taboo to say a Leaver’s name out loud, and especially that one. —Richard, she whispered. —And now Toby gone without us and now he won’t be our friend, he’s already not with us most of the time.

I sat next to her, poked around in the box, and took out the crab, which had a leg hanging off, the glue stretching like chewing gum. —He’ll be back this afternoon, I said.

I didn’t mean it though. I thought, like she did, that Toby might slip away, find a bus station like the one Pet had described with its roar of engines and plastic chairs, or simply get lost somehow, and never find the road home.

—I thought we’d all do our first shop run at the same time, Blue said. —It’s wrong that he’ll see it, outside, and we won’t.

—He’s older, I said.

—Are you going to go without me too?

—Probably, I said. —But I’ll tell you everything, I swear, and I’ll bring new things that we’ll hide up here, I won’t put them in Jumble. They’ll be ours.

Blue rolled onto her back and stretched her whole body, her toes pointed, her face screwed up, arms lifted over her head. She did this when she felt trapped and angry and bored, when the outside pulled at her, and it worked to stop her breaking things, or yelling at Freya, which could only make things bad for her. I waited until the tension drained from her limbs, and she lay limp on the floor.

—Come on, I said.

We went to the empty kitchen and drank foamy goats’ milk from jugs left out on the sill. I sniffed it first and poked at the gluey skin; it had started to turn, and we drank with the sour edge of it flooding our mouths. Every few seconds Blue craned her neck to see into the gardens and I kicked her bloodied heel under the table to stop her looking for him. Then I’d do the same thing, listening to the clatterings around the house. I thought about the glittering road across the moor and wondered if Foxlowe was visible from that far away.

Egg was gone too. Toby had been begging him for weeks to take him. It had all come out the night before, at Meeting. Toby had put up his hand when Freya said, Is there any other business?

—I want to go on the shop run, he said.

I’d started to make a pile of dust. I liked the grainy feel of it against my hands. When I looked up Freya had her eyes on me, and everyone had followed her to stare. I thrust my fingers back into my lap.

—No, Freya said, after a long time. —Too young, you’re all too young.

—Not the girls, I’m not asking for them, Toby said. He wore jeans I’d patched myself, using bits of the quilt Libby had made for Blue when she was little. Pieces of it were already sewn into draughty curtains or used as cleaning cloths. I didn’t like it, felt it was bits of the baby Blue being passed around and dirtied, although she was long gone and the Blue I knew was next to me on the ballroom floor. He wore a faded silk handkerchief of Richard’s as a bandanna, whether to soften or irritate Freya, I didn’t know. In the light that day, the fuzz over his lip and the down on his cheeks showed; he could have been one of the grown, holding his hands out, addressing the room. —It’s just a request, he shrugged. —Just want to say I’d like to, and if everyone is happy then I would like to go next time.

Rehearsed. I knew he’d practised, maybe in the goat shed, where he liked to go and breathe in the sweet smell and listen to the animals’ gentle shifts.

—Yeah, said Egg, but it came out croaky. He smoothed the greasy moustache. —Yeah, I’d be happy to take him next time.

Freya was still looking at me, and my face burned. The tiny dust-mountain in front of me had a hair on it; I made my eyes focus and refocus on it, blurred and sharp, blurred and sharp.

I’d hoped the milk would drench the heat pain in me and make it cool, but it curdled into a hot sludge. I wanted to be moving, walking; but rain gusted against the windows. Dylan came in, peeling off his overalls and throwing them over our heads, revealing badly fitting cords and a t-shirt underneath. Blue grasped at the overalls like we were playing piggy in the middle. He swooped to wetly kiss my cheek.

—Want to help me clear out one of the back rooms? he asked.

After the Healing, Kai had stayed in the back of the house, where the rooms were small and warm. Last Meeting Kai told us there were rats back there, where the dogs couldn’t catch them. —I can hear them he said. —At night, scratching around the walls. I can’t stand it, I can’t get any peace. Then he’d had one of his turns, where he cried but couldn’t tell us the reason, and stared at us like he didn’t know us at all. Freya said we had to start clearing out the old servants’ rooms, all boarded up from before our time, to flush the rats out.

Through the studios, we waved at everyone and mostly they ignored us, busy in the strange places they went to, with their paints or pencils or thumb-printed clay. Freya flicked under people’s chins if they ignored her. I wondered how long I would have to wait before I could start to do that.

We came to Freya’s studio last. She had a huge canvas on the far wall, a sky and landscape, sketched in pencil and charcoal. She was smoothing the top of her head when we came in, looking out of the window over the back lawns. She heard us and spun around.

—Visitors! Are you bringing me tea?

—Sorry Freya, Dylan said. —Didn’t think.

—What do you reckon? she said, nodding to the black gashes in the paper.

—The moor! I shouted first, so neither of the others could.

—Yep. She flicked her pencil towards the canvas. —Look closer.

It was the double sunset on Solstice day. Two discs sat above the double peak of the Cloud.

—Not my best, Freya shrugged. —I can never get it right, the angles. Anyway, I’m waiting for the paint to come back with Egg. Golds, for the suns.

Freya’s pencil twirled in her hands.

—Spit it out, she said.

—It doesn’t look gold at Solstice, I said. I glanced at Blue and she nodded, her hair in her mouth. —It goes like grey, I went on. —Like, things are dying in it, and then it’s pink and red and even purple sometimes, like — I twisted to show a bruise on the back of my leg —and even the grass goes that colour, like night-time colours.

Freya looked at the painting again.

—Don’t hog my girls too long, she said to Dylan as we left.

The back rooms were through another door and then down a narrow wooden staircase, nothing like the one at the front of the house. The worn carpet was slippery under my bare feet. Dylan flicked a lighter on. The stairs came out at a lower corridor. We used to play down here, with the bells that had the names of the rooms on, only they had different names to ours: Parlour, Master Bedroom, Nursery. It was fun to ring them and listen to the echo down the corridor. But we hadn’t been in this part of the house since the Healing.

Kai peered around a door in his grey vest and underwear, holding a razor, his face covered in cream.

—What is it? he said, as though there were some emergency.

—Kai, you shouldn’t have that. Where did you get that, hey? said Dylan, gently taking the razor from his hand and, with a flannel from the sink behind Kai, sponging away the cream. Underneath, his beard stood intact, grey and white, snow on slush.

Dylan settled Kai back into the best chair from the ballroom, leather with thick arms and a deep creaking seat.

—Oh, said Kai. —Oh.

—We’re going rat catching, Blue said.

—Come watch, I said.

—Kai’s tired, said Dylan, and kissed his forehead.

Two doors along was the new room. Dylan kicked at the handle and then shouldered the door open, revealing a small wallpapered space, with furniture piled along the walls, and a fireplace full of newspaper. Every surface was littered with things: glass and ornaments, and papers, and even candles that had only been half used.

—But, Blue whispered.

—All this stuff! I said.

—Yeah, load of rubbish. We have to clear it out and take it to the ballroom, in case anything can be used, said Dylan.

—Rubbish? Look at the candles! And I bet there’s clothes in that wardrobe and oh I asked Toby to get me a candle to keep biters away look I bet one of those would do! Are there more rooms like this? We might never have to go on a shop run again! Does Freya know this is here?

—Green, we still have to eat. And this is just … it’s all mouldy and dusty, it’s things Richard didn’t think we’d use when he came, I think. Come on … He picked up some papers. —Let’s get the place cleared out, for starters. Dylan shook out a bundle of sheets, showering us with dust, then chased Blue with one over his head, enveloping her in it and spinning her around in his arms until I thought she would choke with laughing.

Dylan kicked boxes out into the corridor, and threw the candle stubs into a pile. —I’ll take these upstairs, he said. —Keep going, and if you see rat droppings don’t touch.

Blue and I striped the fireplace ash on our cheeks, rubbing it into our hair to tell each other how we’d look when we were old. Then I found it. My nail scratched against it while I was scrabbling at the back of the grate. A mirror. It was small, with a pretty handle made of something like bone.

Blue was frantic. —What is it what is it?

I held it out to her, and she smiled wide.

Mirror hunting was something we’d started the summer before, when a heat wave burned the gardens yellow and it was too hot to sleep under the wool blankets in the attic, where the heat rose and pressed against the roof. We all slept in the ballroom, the windows open, fighting for places close to the air. It was so sticky some mornings that we stripped off and bent our bodies under the garden tap, crouching against the wall, Blue and me. The water gushed onto the gravel and made it swell, and you could dip your feet in the puddle.

One morning I was standing dripping off with my arms held out to the sun, letting the water run off my hair in streams, when I caught Blue looking at me with her eyes screwed against the strong light.

—Your hips are all funny, she said.

I thrust one out, putting my hand on it and pursing my lips.

—And there— she pointed to my breasts.

—Yeah.

I cupped them, but I could never see them properly, not from above.

Blue looked down at her own girl’s body.

—I’m older, I said proudly.

—How much?

—I remember when you were a baby, so I think I’m around four or five summers more than you, I said. —You have four or five more summers until you change.

—I don’t want to, she said. —It looks ugly.

I made a face and put my cotton dress on. It stuck at my back where I was still damp.

I turned back to Blue. —Fine, I said. Let’s look for a mirror and see who’s ugly.

—Don’t need to, she said. —We can see each other.

—Don’t you want to know how you look?

She was still crouched under the running tap, holding her knees. The sun caught on the water fanning behind her head. She nodded.

We’d agreed to find mirrors around the house and arrange them so we could see ourselves head to toe without needing each other as talking mirrors, not distorted like the warped image in the ballroom windows, and not in pieces like in the bath, knee foot elbow stomach. We’d already found two small ones in the rooms at the top of the house, near the attic, where Pet and Egg liked to sleep, frameless with sharp edges, sweat spots left by blu-tack around the edges. We needed one more piece, and this was it.

Blue snatched for the mirror and I kicked her away. It was covered in a mouldy speckled skin that I tried to scrape off with the sharp edge of the mantelpiece. Dylan’s footsteps rang down the corridor, and his low voice, speaking to Kai, his Hush and Shush.

—We have to wait, I hissed.

—Let me look.

So I held it up above us both. The cracks ran in two seams down the centre. We could see in pieces: eyes, freckles, lips. We pressed together so our faces split amongst the mirror and I had to blink or stretch my skin to find the pieces that were me. My eyes were dark like Freya’s and I had shadows under them; Blue’s were lighter. We closed and opened our eyes to watch the irises bloom.

—Let’s put them all together, Blue whispered. —We can put them in the attic where no one goes, we can see all of us.

I held the mirror further away and dipped it so I could see a dim and fragmented view of my body. My stomach pulsed, a cramp. I was used to hunger cramps and held my breath until it passed, but this one stayed. I stuffed the mirror in the back of my jeans. The glass was cool against my skin. Blue fumbled at my back, —Come on, let’s … and I whipped around and caught her by the arm.

She struggled but I pinched her until the skin broke under my fingers. She kicked me but I held on until she looked at me.

—Stop. Being. A baby. We have to wait.

She wrenched away from me, and slammed into Dylan as he came through the doorway.

—Blue? he said, but let her go.

I knew she would stamp up the stairs, breathing in gulps. By the time I guessed she’d reached the top of the first staircase, twenty-nine steps, I was sorry, seeing the red on my fingers. I’d do something nice for her. I’d collect up the mirrors on my own, somewhere quiet, secret, and show them to her. It would kill time until Toby came back, if he came back, when he’d tell us about outside, the things the others didn’t bother with, like what colour the ground was, and how the air tasted, and how the money felt in his hands.

—Is it lunch? I said. I wasn’t hungry but I wanted to get away, to put the mirror together. And perhaps the shop run was back already.

—No, not yet. But let’s get a drink, Dylan said.

We wove our way to the kitchen, back through the dank narrow passage and up to the art rooms. Freya was gone and the canvas stood lonely without her. I saw that she had struck deep charcoal cuts through the sun. I took Dylan’s arm, like I was much smaller, and he patted my hand and said, —Good girl.

The kitchen was still Freya’s place; her thumbprints on every surface, her herbs and drying grasses hung from the rafters; I was tall enough now to hit the lower hanging ones if I stood on my toes. She worked in here sometimes, her paints and brushes scattered across the workbenches. Everyone knew not to use them. The space Libby used to cook in, when it was her turn, or when she and Richard were hidden away for a while and came in here at strange hours to burn toast and giggle together, was now draped in Freya’s aprons and paint sheets. The mirror still lay flat against my spine, snug under the waistband of my jeans.

Freya was scattering flour over the kitchen table.

—Taking a break? Dylan asked.

—I’m done for the day, Freya replied. Then, —Dear, would you let me have Green for a couple of hours, leave the clearing out for now? We need bread for lunch.

Dylan gave me a half hug as he left. —Later, alligator! he said.

I couldn’t remember the other bit he’d taught us, so I just hugged back and smiled after him so he wouldn’t be hurt.

Then we were alone in the kitchen, me and Freya. She pulled me close, and I smelled white spirit and soil. The mirror seemed to burn at my back, her hands pressing me just above it. —I miss you, little one, she said, releasing me. —I never get to see you these days, do I?

I shook my head. —Yes? Freya said to me. —Play in the kitchen with me a while. You used to love that. When’s the last time I had you all to myself, hmm?

I tried to remember. Some old, old time. Before Kai came, before Valentina became a Leaver; even further back. Before Blue came? Blue’s skin under my nails.

—I’m … I want to find something. Can I look first? I said.

Freya’s head moved sharp from side to side, a joke, but her grip on my shoulders dug in until I said, —Yes, okay, yes, yes.

I kneaded the dough hard, pushed it into the wooden bench, and it stuck; I’d forgotten to sprinkle the flour first, but I kept pushing, because I placed my own stomach there, in place of the dough, and it soothed me to imagine the roll and press of my hands on it.

Freya loved rolling dough. She thwacked it onto the bench, pummelling it with her fists. I gave up mine, stuck to the bench in stringy clumps, and watched her. A thick line of white ran through her black hair, which she wore twisted up in a high bun. Her long skirt was pulled down over her hips, and above it she had tied her t-shirt in a knot. Silvery lines zigzagged over her skin, around her back.

She caught me in her eyes. In the gloom of the kitchen there wasn’t a fleck of colour in them, so dark they made the whites seem to glow.

—Why the staring, Green dear?

Sweet voice. She was in a sarcastic mood. She uncoiled her arm, so long, and prodded my dough.

—Can we still use it? I said.

—We’ll have to, you’ve used the last of the flour, she said.

—I can go on the shop run, next time—

—Oh, can you?

She surveyed me then, coming close. Her eyes lingered on my body and she pulled me away from the bench, held me at arm’s length. Then she darted a hand behind my back, under my clothes, and whipped out the mirror.

She laughed, rocking her body in her way.

—What have we here? Is this what sent Blue sniffle—running back through the studios without you? Did she get a shock when she looked? She wiped her eyes. —What about you, my Green? You looked?

Freya brought her arm around me, and held up the mirror, just as I had done with Blue. Split by the cracks, our eyes and brows and lips came back to us disassembled, and I saw how much my eyes were Freya’s eyes, how they narrowed at the ends, how the lashes didn’t curl like Blue’s but stuck out long and startling.

—What a beauty you’re growing up to be, Freya said.

I smiled and one of the broken lips curled up, showing straight stained teeth.

Freya laughed again, holding her nose, like she was underwater.

—Oh! Poor Green. I don’t mean it. You can’t see, you’re a skinny rag, no flesh on you, your arse is flat and you’ve no boobs at all, and your hips jut out like knives. But don’t worry— she pulled my hair. —You’re a good girl. Want to keep it? Finders keepers?

I knew the answer to this one.

—No, it’s everyone’s. I’ll put it in Jumble to share, I said.

Freya waved the mirror by its handle. —You should have one, I suppose, never thought of it. But don’t think you really see yourself. Only I can do that. Keep it, she said.

Then Freya hugged me from behind, putting her hands on my stomach, and I winced.

—What’s that? she said. —Don’t want your Freya pawing at you?

—It hurts, I said. —My stomach.

—Don’t guzzle all the fruit then. I told you.

—No, it’s not like sick, I said. And when she released me and tilted her head in that way, so I knew I couldn’t stop there, I said, —It feels all tight, like wound up, like …

She frowned. —It’s the bleed coming.

—Oh.

I knew about the bleed, of course: the women kept tampons from town under the sink in the bathroom, but sometimes, if no one had been on a shop run, or we didn’t have enough money, they used rags instead, then washed them out in sudsy water and laid them to dry on the rockery; in winter they’d sit over the aga, dripping, holding their marks. The men flinched if they touched them while they were cooking.

—Oh, I said again.

—Be careful. The Bad is attracted to it.

I went back to the dough. I didn’t want to talk about the Bad. As I rolled and slapped I felt a need to look in a mirror, stronger than before. I stared at the door without knowing I did it. Freya hummed and lit the aga. Then she hitched herself up onto the table and nibbled on the skin around her thumb, eyeing me.

—What is it? she said. —Is it Toby gone today, is that it? You’re not missing anything.

I dug my nails into the palm of my hands.

—Not missing her, is it?

I kept still.

—Or him?

She looked out over the garden. —They’re probably together somewhere, she said. —He’ll be back. He’ll be back, she said again, and tore off a strip of skin with her teeth, sucked the blood that came up there. I wondered if the bleed felt like that. —Well?

—Nothing. Nothing’s wrong, I said.

—Come here.

The weight in my stomach dragged on me, but I went. She was still sitting with legs swinging, high on the oak table, next to our mirror.

—What’s wrong with you? Here.

She pulled me forward, held me in a double knot, arms and legs. Her t-shirt smelled of wood smoke.

I swivelled my head towards the door and it was stupid because of course she’d feel that, she’d notice that. She moved so quick that when the hit came I lagged behind it. My head whipped back, pain in my neck. I had my eyes closed, so there was just the colour behind my eyelids and the familiar salt taste.

—Sorry, I said. I swallowed hard, opened my eyes.

Freya’s lips were sucked in. It had been a while since she’d hit me full force.

—Well, she said. —Well. Your precious October is away for one day and you can’t wait to get away from me and you think I don’t know the Solstice, what it looks like? Perhaps you think you’re all grown up now your bony little body is spitting out blood. But— she jabbed my shoulder so I rocked back, —don’t get too full of yourself. I think I’ll take that mirror after all.

Pet came through the bead curtain, Kai on his arm. His face was painted with inks from the studios: a line of red kohl around his lips. He took Kai over to his chair by the aga and slid a blanket out from under a dog, tucking it over Kai’s knees. —He’s cold today, Pet said. Then he looked into Freya’s face and turned to me.

—All right? he said.

I clicked my jaw, swallowed. Freya wiped her eyes.

—Oh, just a tiff, she said.

—Blue’s all in tears too, upstairs, said Pet. —I found her in the attic, she told me to go get Kai, that he looked cold.

—They’re jealous of Toby going, Freya said. —I thought it wasn’t the greatest idea, but … She shrugged. —He’s older, and they’re both spoiled, thinking he can’t have something they don’t.

She used her apron to wipe my face, though I wasn’t crying. She held my face in her hands. —Let’s say no more about it, she said.

Pet nodded, smiling at me, and poured coffee granules into a mug of hot water.

—Don’t look so tragic, Greenie, he said.

When the door beads stopped their tick tock against themselves, and the footsteps were gone, Freya gave me a smile.

—You hurt Blue, didn’t you?

I looked at the floor. From his chair, Kai gave a low chuckle as the dog pushed its head under his hands to stroke.

—What did she do? Did she try to get out alone again? Did she tell you about an outsider she spoke to?

—She didn’t do anything bad, I said. —It was me, I lost my temper.

—Because she was being naughty again?

—She was trying to see in the mirror, that’s all.

Freya nodded. —Vain. Blood will out.

—Why can’t she go out on the moor alone? I said. —We go, me and Toby, we go all the time.

—She’s not like you, Freya said softly. —She doesn’t love her home.

Ellen rattled the curtain, grinning.

—I smell bread. Is it done? We’re starving!

She didn’t wait for an answer, but hollered back into the house and the others began to pile in, squeezing around the table. Toby and Egg still weren’t back, and Blue didn’t appear. Freya sat with her legs dangling, laughing with Ellen. Dylan was on lunch. Tomato soup. I went over to sniff. It smelled sour, and my stomach twisted.

—Can’t we wait for the shop run to come back?

—This will be gorge, Dylan said. —You’ll see.

I waited for him to yell out, —Okay everyone, and the surge for bowls and spoons and the push towards the smoking pan, and I snatched up the mirror, returned it to my back.

I sat between Pet and Ellen, who wove me a bracelet out of some loose wicker on the fruit basket. When the bowls were in the sink and the roll ups came out and there were murmurs of warmer air and a night in the gardens, Freya gave me a nod, so I could go.

In the attic, Blue lay on the bed, facing away from me. She was curled around her arm, and as I came close she curled tighter. I sat on the edge of the bed.

—Hungry? Soup and bread downstairs, I said.

I took out the mirror and balanced it on the blanket next to Blue, waving it like a toy.

—I was going to set them all up together for you, I said, —but Freya …

My cheek ached. I wanted to lie down, to sleep. I edged onto the bed next to Blue.

—I’m sorry, I whispered. —Is it bad? Can I look?

She thrust her arm up, and I saw the red welts on the skin.

—Look, take the mirror, I said.

—Don’t need to. I can see.

—Ah, got you talking …

I peered around into her face. She didn’t smile. I leaned closer, making stupid faces, and began to poke her in the ribs, until she kicked me and rolled over to the far end of the bed.

—No! No! You hurt me! You bitch, she said.

—I’m sorry, I said, to her back.

—I hate you.

—You don’t.

—I hate it here.

—You don’t! This is Foxlowe, this is home. Listen, All The Ways Home Is Better, I said. —One …

—Shut up.

—Toby will be back soon. He can tell us all about it, outside, the shop run.

Blue kicked the wall and the bed shuddered, its old slats creaked.

—Get out, she said, and she sounded like she was the older one, and I the younger ungrown, and her fists were clenched as though ready to punch, and I did as she said.

I went to the goat shed, a tiny room tacked on to the side of the house, with cobbles beneath the straw. We had three goats, who tottered around the garden, bleating when the dogs came near, chewing up sheets left to dry on the rockery. They came inside in the winter, and I watched them now, weaving in the straw, nudging each other, imagined their secret conversations. I would stay there until my tears stopped.

When Toby appeared, I wasn’t shocked, as though my thoughts had simply taken shape in the air.

—Is it Freya? What’s she said to you now?

He crouched in the straw next to me. The smell of apples and milk. He must have come from the kitchen, where the others were probably mashing them together and adding new-bought sugar.

The end of my nose was dripping and I wiped it with my sleeve.

—So what did Freya do?

—Just, I said.

—Let’s talk to Dylan. I’m sure he’ll say something at least—

—No, I said.

His hair was tied back in a rough ponytail so his face was uncovered; his skin flushed pink from the cold. I hadn’t been this close to him for a long time.

—There’s a load of new stuff. Come on, he said.

He was grinning, excited. The outside clung to him. It seemed like a long time ago that he’d been driven away from us.

—Toby, remember at Winter Solstice, that time?

He blinked. —What? He sat down next to me. —Green, you have to get on the next one. It was great. I’ll take you, I bet I can drive soon. Okay, so there’s these rows of stalls like tables all put together, and they have everything, and it’s crowded, like imagine a thousand more than us—

—Don’t pretend you don’t remember. I put Blue out for the Bad, remember?

He sat back, crossed his legs.

—Of course I remember, he said. —It’s all right. We’ve taken care of her since then, haven’t we? She’s all right, isn’t she?

I nodded.

—Stop now, he said. He rubbed my cheek roughly with the collar of his shirt. —Stop crying.

—Is the sky the same there?

—Of course! It’s only the other side of the Cloud.

—Did you talk to outsiders?

—Yeah, in a shop. I changed a mirror for a pile of blankets at this shop where you give things instead of money, I mean you just give like one coin and it’s all Jumble like here—

—A mirror? You gave one of the mirrors away? Toby, we need them! We’ve spent ages collecting them all up! I only just got the last piece!

—All right, all right! What d’you need a mirror for? There’s one right in the ballroom.

—It’s too broken. And it’s too heavy for me to get it down on my own. How could you just take one without asking? Did you take it from the attic? That’s our room!

I gave in to the rush of sobs, burying my face in my knees.

Toby’s hand stroked my head. —All right, it’s all right. Green, I can show you where … Come on, come in and I’ll show you, and we’ll fetch Blue too, and you can make up.

—There’s nothing to make up. What d’you mean?

—Come on, you only cry when she’s not speaking to you, or Freya’s been a cow. So if it’s not Freya—

He gave me a rag to blow my nose on.

—Leave Blue. She’ll calm down, I said.

—Okay, just us then. He pulled me up and held on to my hand as we left the shed.

In the hallway, the Family was spilling onto the stairs and chucking material and boxes to each other. Toby tugged me past and silently headed through the Spike Walk, to the yellow room.

No one came in here any more. Libby’s jewellery still hung over the corners of things, and I picked up some beads, wound them around my wrist, and missed her. Toby had let go of my hand and was biting the skin around his fingers, looking away from me.

—What? I said. I’d meant it to sound sharp but it came out whispery, like I was excited too.

—Okay, he said. —It’s not a new thing, but I don’t think you know it’s here.

—What? You don’t know Foxlowe better than me!

But I was already casting around the room. There was the chest of drawers that Freya had taken Blue’s first bed from. Toby went over and bent down to peer into the gap.

—Still there! Look, he said.

The dust balls skittered at my breath. A cloud appeared. I stretched a hand through and tapped with a fingernail. I turned to Toby and his face was closer than I thought; I could see the new hairs on his lip.

The chest of drawers was heavy but we shoved it in tiny diagonals until a shore of dust had formed at its edge. Then we wrenched the mirror out from its hiding place. It was another beautiful broken thing: gold leaf split around the edges, and it was speckled with brown spots. It had been here all the time. Of course Libby would have a full one. She used to dress so the ribbon hem, hand-stitched on the bottom of her skirt, matched the bands on her wrists and the flowers in her hair. It was big enough so we didn’t need the others, the small scattered pieces. We propped it against the wardrobe, standing side by side.

No cracks, so it was how we really were. We looked at each other first, what we already knew, then at ourselves. My face I knew in broad strokes, from the attic window. Little sharp nose, eyes dark, lips too big. The lower lip fuller than the upper one. Up close I saw how the skin under my eyes was dry and red, studied the roots of my hair, the chip in my front tooth that I’d felt with my tongue for years.

—We should get Blue, I said. —She’ll want to see too.

But we didn’t move. We listened; it was easy to hear someone coming along the Spike Walk.

I peeled off my jeans first, Toby his t-shirt. We’d seen each other like that a thousand times; further back, we’d been naked together all the time. I took off my vest, showing the new breasts, and slid down my knickers: the elastic had gone, so I just had to wriggle my hips a little.

I was aware of Toby doing the same. We stayed side by side, shivering, untouching, and I looked at him in the mirror, him me. He was still thin and dirty, streaks along his belly, probably from the car. A new pelt had grown along his chest and down to his navel. After a long while I got bored of Toby’s body and turned back to myself.

It was like Freya’s, my figure, skinny and tall, with sharp bones seeming to stick out everywhere, and long arms and legs. I swung my arms and then posed with them on my hips, leaning forward to get a better look at my breasts. I’d been cupping them on bath days, trying to see the nipple. I knew you got two types, either the brown ones like Libby’s, or red like Freya’s. Mine were pink. I lifted my arms to see the dark hair there, saw that between my legs it was less than it seemed underwater. I stared at myself for a long time. I posed with my back to the mirror and twisted to look at myself, and tried different ways of standing to make my hips rounder; with legs apart, or one before the other, but either way, they stuck stubbornly out. I remembered Blue under the taps. Ugly, she’d said.

—Okay, I said. —Thanks, Toby.

We dressed again in our own cold air, watching each other in the mirror. Then because things felt strange between us, I gave him a hug, putting my head under his chin, snuggling into his chest. My arms at the small of his back, feeling the hard spine under the cotton. When I leaned back he pinched my nose so I gave him a shove, laughing. I didn’t hit him. I sensed that we wouldn’t touch each other like that any more.