The Monster's Wife(51)

She ran without thinking or really feeling her legs, ran towards the cry, for it was a voice she knew. Over the clutter of old cart wheels and rusted hay knives that grew around the byre, to the narrow window that sagged under the roof of the cottage. Grass sprouting from the slates tickled her forehead as she squinted through it. Nothing but darkness. After a moment she realised that someone had boarded it over. She knew Victor went hunting near here, searching out hares and birds, gathering the fruit of his snares. Maybe he’d gone inside the cottage to escape the rain.

The rear of the building had collapsed into a tumble of broken stones, muck and thorn bushes. She groped over the rubble, scratching her feet with each step. There was another small window. She squatted next to it and peered inside. It was boarded up like the other, but there was a small crack between the pieces of wood. Through it she saw the blackness of an empty grate, a pile of broken furniture against the far wall and a jumble of straw and wool shaped into a rough palette.

The palette was covered in crumpled clothes and sheets and a blanket lay in a heap at the foot of it. They looked clean. Strange when the place had been abandoned all these years, as if someone had been hiding out in the ruins. The crumpled clothes moved. A face emerged from them.

It was Victor.





44


Stretched on his back, Victor’s arms and legs sagged off the sides of the palette. It grieved Oona to see him prone like that. Stuart came into view. He hunched over Victor, gripping his collar.

“Tell me the answer, monster, before I beat it from your lips.”

“I don’t. I wouldn’t –” Victor turned his face to the side.

Andrew stood by the door, biting his nails.

Stuart straightened and opened his hand. Balled inside it was May’s stocking. “We found this outside your door.” He let the length of it fall, dangling it so that the sock foot brushed Victor’s cheek. “What else is there, her petticoats? When those are discovered at the big house, what will you say then?”

“Please.” Victor squeezed his eyes shut and Oona realised that for all his boldness, he was smaller than Stuart and weak in comparison. If Stuart wished, he could kill him easily.

“Stop hurting him!” Oona blurted the words before she could stop herself. Three pairs of eyes turned to her.

Stuart dropped Victor and came to the window. “I told you to stop following us, damn bitch.” He reached out, his fingers grabbing at her.

She shrank from him, tumbling back into the muck. Something sharp jabbed her in the ribs. Her heart raced and it was hard to breathe. Now would be the time to run, but she couldn’t leave Victor. However tangled and strange their friendship was, she knew she cared for him in ways she did not yet understand and it hurt her more than she would have thought possible to see him lying there. She must protect him.

She pushed herself up and hurried around to the doorway. Andrew stood before her, blocking her way.

“Go home, Oona.” His eyes were flat.

“I cannot.” She pushed past him.

A pile of snares blocked her way, some with small birds chirruping and squawking inside them. She climbed over them the same way she had the rocks and the thorns, anger driving her forward. From inside, the room looked even sadder. It had collapsed in on itself until it was a fraction of the original grandiose plan her father had made for his family seat.

The main room was a tip crowded with mouldering furniture and heaped peat. Stuart nearly filled what space was left. He dangled Victor over the bed with one hand. The other gripped a distaff. Oona thought he would shout at her when he saw her, but instead he smiled and caught Victor a jab to the ribs.

“Where is May?”

Victor shook his head from side to side, his slim body hunched round Stuart’s fist.

Another blow. “What did you do?”

Victor’s yowl was high and strange. Oona flung out her arms as if it would make the beating stop. Stuart let him go with a grunt. Victor fell into the snarl of covers and curled over on his side, his head tucked between his sinewy arms. Stuart reached into his pocket and pulled out a fishing knife. He flashed a tight grin at Oona.

Stuart twisted the knife between his fingers, his eyes never leaving Oona’s. “Come now, you clever devil. I ken what you’re like, drawing dead girls, cutting their naked bodies. How would you like to be cut?”

Victor mumbled into his folded arms, but Oona could not hear what he was saying. She leaned in.

“I would never hurt a living girl,” he muttered the words over and over like a half-forgotten prayer.

She took a step forward, wrapping her arms around herself, a mirror of Victor. If only she could get between them, but in this mood, Stuart might snap her neck.

He leered up at her. “You cold, girl, when the sun’s high? We won’t be long, then Andy and I will take you home, make you a nice warm fire.” He smiled. His eyes were wet. He picked up the distaff and smashed it into Victor’s face. “You poisoned the water so that all the fish died and the beach filled with flies and frogs. You stole my livelihood and took the only other thing I had.”

“I...” Blood bubbled from Victor’s nose.

Stuart raised the distaff above his head.

“Stop!” Oona stepped forward and put her hands in the space between Stuart and Victor. “You’ll kill him if you continue.”