‘Oh, Evey! I’ll look to it! I will so! It will be no trouble!’
‘No, Dill, another babe will pull us back.’
‘I am nine years tall. I am no babe and I do promise—’
‘No. It’s ever pups and play with you. We have far to go to make the coven by night.’
She fell quiet then, full of temper, tossing gobbets to Berry.
‘Come, Dill.’ I pulled our bag and rose from the table.
‘No. I’m stayin’.’
She dropped her head, hair across her eyes, but I knew their sullen shape.
‘Dill, we must away. The day is risen…’
‘Then go to it,’ she said quiet. ‘I want a pup.’
‘Dill. Now, I say.’
But I did not have Mother’s voice, her tongue stinging as a whip if I crossed her.
So Dill crept to Berry and whispered to her. The dog licked Dill’s hand as she plucked a pup with a patched eye from its tussling kin. She fixed me a look and her eyes shone fierce. I remembered in the night, how I spoiled to fight her.
‘And I say, now I have a pup, Evey. And that’s that.’
Then the pup caught her waving fingers, like a fly trapped in her jaws.
‘Ow!’ Dill sucked her hand. ‘Ow! You weasel!’
Croake laughed out and smacked his old hands upon the hearth, and laughter came to me. I breathed it in the flying dust, and Dill laughed too, wagging her bitten finger to the pup, and I saw Mother in her face and I was happy and sad at once.
‘So be it, Dill. You will have to look to it though, else it will die most likes.’
Dill gave a shrug.
‘We all die, Evey.’
She jumped her fingers across that pup’s jaws, mouthing to catch those pesky things.
‘Don’t we, my sweet? Yes, we do. I will, and you will, and Evey will…’
‘Dill, enough!’
Her sing-song ways. Soon I would not need to hear them. I opened the door, and morning air rushed in, the smell of rain on grass. Outside was all grey light.
‘I will call you… Spring!’
And so named, Spring barked. Dill turned to the old man.
‘Mind you name the rest now, or I’ll be back!’ She brought the pup to her cheek. ‘Thank you, Jim Croake!’
She was happy, and not to be stopped, life nipping at her heels. One moment a child she was, another older than her years she seemed. I had not thought to thank the old man, who bent for his raggy doll in the dust.
‘Come on, Evey! Spring wants to see the world!’
Dill ran from the yard, her pup yapping with glee.
The tree creaked and I thought of when we played in our wood, climbing high as we dared, Mother reaching to guide our toes. Then I saw not us, but Alice who Mother lifted down so gentle, kissing her still cheek.
A fresh wind chased across the valley.
‘Eveyyyy!’
Dill was above the farm, climbing into the day.
The tree stood empty. The door closed.
I turned and I followed her, and I never came back to Croake Farm.
The wind moaned as we made towards the ridge. My legs ached from the climb, and from the running. Fear makes you faster.
Dill ran on with Spring, showing her all there was to see under the great sky. Two pups now weighed my skirt. We had to make the coven by nightfall. It would be better then, better for all.
We climbed on and up, heads down, and made for a brace of trees tilted by the wind.
Dill hopped that last to claim her perch and crow to the land below. She stopped and shouted back to me, her words blown away.
‘Not far, I told you!’
But Dill only shook her head and shouted again. Sighing, I climbed to her side, where the wind came rushing, and then I saw what she saw.
They were across the valley, galloping fast. I pulled Dill low. Flint stones moved at my fingers. I counted them out.
Meakin from town. Cooper from across the valley. Tom, a wicked lad…
One burly who broke Mother’s arm. One thin who pissed upon her. One younger who smashed her skull.
They have a leader. A tall one.
I marked his black hat, proud of his pack.
‘It’s them, ain’t it, Evey?’
‘If that beast howls we are got.’
‘She don’t howl.’ Dill stroked the wind through Spring’s fur. ‘Do you? Evey is a silly sister to think so. Yes, she is…’
‘Do you think of nothing but that stupid pup?’
Dill only stared ahead. That made me crosser.
‘These men killed Mother—’
‘I knows it, Evey.’
‘If you’re not whispering to a dog, it’s that stupid stone—’
‘It’s not stupid. It’s Mother’s, and I promised—’
I grabbed her.
‘Look at me, will you—’
‘Leave me be—’
Sudden a bird cried through our quarrel, swooped out above the ridge.
It was a hawk lifting, searching.
The riders looked up to this hunter as it dropped to the valley.
‘Get lower, Dill!’ Pebbles slipped under our feet.
We all watched that lord of the air as he frowned upon us.
‘What is it, Evey? You know the birds…’
‘Goshawk. See, his pale crown…’
‘Ah, he’s beautiful.’
That he was, as he furled the cloak of his speckled wings, and fell, as an arrow straight and silent to the land. Where a rabbit broke, and leaped this way and that, jumping, jumping, jumping. In a plunge of wings and beak and talons, the hawk struck. If there was a last cry, it was lost on the wind, like that rabbit he lifted up, away into the white sky.
And as we watched from high and below, the hunted, the hunter, I felt a pull in my heart, a song for my tender prey.
‘Mark me, Tall One, think you are the hawk?
Nay, you are the rabbit spied from far above.
Run quick, Tall One, run ahead and see.
Think your beak is sharp, my love?
Nay, Tall One, not as sharp as me.’
And like the hawk, I watched him, as he raised to rally his pack. They kicked on, one behind the other, like black ants across the earth.
So I opened my fingers, and I squashed them tight in my sight.
‘I knows what you’re thinking on, Evey.’
I started. I had forgotten Dill. She lay flat to the wind, Spring against her chest.
‘I do hate them too.’ She bit her lip, looking to that distant pack, now specks of dirt.
How I wanted after them.
‘Come on.’ I swung my bag for leaving. ‘They are gone, we must hurry.’
Dill sighed and all slovenly she pulled herself to.
‘How far is it, Evey Bird?’
‘Don’t call me that!’ I said, smarting to her sing-song name.
She sighed again as the wind pulled at Spring’s ears.
‘Sorry, Evey…’
Slow I pulled them on and slow we began the climb down. Away over the next hill I saw it, a thick furrow of trees. The coven’s wood.
The wind came pushing, and we leaned into it like little boats upon a great green wave. The hills rose and fell into the distance. Beyond them I knew was the sea. I had only seen it once, a memory more like a dream. Mother hugging me, baby Dill griping. Cold spray, salt on my face. Then like they flew from my thoughts, a flock of gulls came crying over the rise, circling and banking above us. Ever on the beady take are gulls, haunted by the hunger of their young.