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1

Willow is the only one who comes to see him after school and Jesse can guess why. The smell of burning thatch has reached Black Hare Road and he learns from Willow that if Iris Cotton did give Paddy the book to help him, then she has been severely punished for it.

Willow explains that she has to be quick and discreet and Jesse can imagine the committee members closing in on them. Bishop, Hewlett and Gordon all work at the school. Perhaps they have been warned off, blackmailed or threatened? He nods and waits for Willow to unload the torrent of information he can sense thrumming inside of her.

She can’t stop checking over her shoulder. ‘They’ve burned her house down. Again,’ she adds for impact. ‘Jaime saw her this morning while Ralph was here. I saw a white hare run down the High Street and Jaime said one came inside Iris’s gate then ran around to the back garden. When Jaime followed it, she found Iris there, sweeping.’

‘She can turn into a hare like Mayfield can turn into some sort of wolf-thing,’ Jesse says because he knows it is true. Having already shown Willow the violent claw marks down his back, he watches her nod in white-faced horror.

‘And so maybe she tried to warn Paddy,’ Willow goes on, grimly. ‘She admitted that she put the book there and so far all Jaime’s translations have come up with spells or poems, maybe, weird stuff all written in Latin.’

‘Anything about the treehouse?’ Jesse wonders. ‘The wolf-thing couldn’t come in the garden and Mayfield still hasn’t come here to find me.’

Willow gulps nervously. ‘Yes. She translated something about a protection spell, a safe circle or something. Maybe that’s all Paddy had time to work out; how to make it safe out here. The committee are closing in though,’ she adds softly, looking over her shoulder again. ‘We all got cornered by Mr Bishop and Mr Hewlett today. Asking where you were, accusing us of lying, that kind of thing.’

‘I can’t stay here forever,’ he tells her helplessly. ‘I’ll go crazy, Willow. Did Jaime find out anything on my mum, or Carol-Anne?’

Willow shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Mark arrived to walk her home from school so I don’t think she got the chance.’

Jesse grimaces. ‘That’s just creepy.’

‘I know. And Ralph’s mum met him too – said something about a few hours work at Hill Fort Farm and off they went.’

‘Keeping us apart,’ he says and Willow smiles at him.

‘Well, it won’t work. And you’re right, you can’t stay here forever. I think we need to do this properly, Jesse.’

He frowns. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Go to the station in the morning hand yourself in. I’ll get Billy to meet you there.’

Jesse ponders it and realises it makes a horrible kind of sense. In daylight, with his family there, what can Mayfield do?

‘Maybe,’ he whispers.

Willow looks around again, her expression half-cautious, half-curious. ‘Jesse,’ she says, ‘I’m sorry I doubted you to begin with.’ She is sitting beside him with her legs dangling from the platform. He looks at her, not understanding. ‘I really did think you were hassling Paddy. Maybe I was a bit jealous too. You know, that he seemed to have a new friend.’ She glances away, her fingers twiddling. ‘I’ve never been that good at making friends myself. Maybe I was a bit, you know, possessive of him.’

Jesse grins. It feels blissful on his tensed features. ‘Hey, I can’t blame you. And I did bully him before. All of you.’

She exhales softly, her shoulders lowering. ‘Yeah, but I kind of get why now. Seems like you’ve had a lot of people bullying you.’

Jesse is not sure so he shrugs.

She pauses, swinging her legs and looking at the sky while her hands knit together in her lap. Then she looks back at him. ‘Can I ask you though? Paddy never, I mean, he never mentioned the book to you? Or spells? Or the committee? In any way?’

He feels her intense gaze. Everything about Willow is intense – her attention, her individuality, her scorn, her clothes – he realises she is as much an outcast as he is.

He shakes his head. ‘No. He never said anything about the book or spells. All I can say is he seemed… energetic, maybe.’

‘Energetic?’

‘Yeah, like focused. Excited, sort of. A bit like he had a secret, if I think about it now. Maybe something he wanted to talk about but just hadn’t decided who to tell yet. Was he like that with you? Different than normal?’

She nods. ‘Yeah if I think about it, he was a bit like that. I mean, he always had this thirst for knowledge, this determination to learn and know everything. But yeah, it seemed like he was super focused, brighter than normal but to be honest? I thought it was because of you. And I was jealous of it. But who knows?’ She shrugs and swings her legs. ‘It could have been both. Or neither.’

Jesse wants to ask what she thinks about the black hare, what she thinks about all of it, and he wants to ask if Paddy ever said anything about him to her, anything good, but he doesn’t. He enjoys the relative peace and normality of a friend sat beside him in a treehouse and soon she goes home.

Jesse feels impatient sat in the treehouse with only his wounds and a torch for company. Mr Finnis has been providing food and drink but he’s worried about popping out to him too often – he doesn’t want to draw attention to Jesse’s hiding place.

Jesse settles on his belly and feels the scratches pulsating on his back. He stares at the quiet blackness of the garden and longs for something to happen. He fixates on the shadows, hoping to see one move, hoping to see a black shape emerge… A sign, maybe. Something to tell them what to do.

It’s not quite dark when he hears a, ‘Psstt!’ from the bottom of the garden. Jesse stares into the shadows, trying to decipher shape or form. His stomach contracts as his skin prickles in warning. Then,

‘Jesse! Hey bud, it’s just us!’ A pause. ‘You there?’

Jesse is momentarily relieved – it’s Steven and Dominic, but then his back is up again. He hasn’t seen them since Mayfield broke up their fight. What the hell do they want and how the hell did they know he was here? Maybe they want to talk to him about Mayfield blackmailing them to take the book?

Feeling vaguely hopeful, he steps uneasily onto the rope ladder, gripping the wall as it sways under his weight. He can see them now, lingering at the gate and he calls out a gruff, ‘Hang on,’ before descending the ladder.

Jesse meets them at the gate. Steven is smoking a cigarette and Dominic just stands there with his oversized hands stuffed inside the pockets of his grimy denim jacket.

‘What?’ he hisses at them.

Steven slips a conspiratorial arm around his neck and starts to walk. ‘Need to talk to you, man. Where the hell you been? You’re a wanted man for fucks sake! I mean, what the hell?’

Jesse’s movements are stiff but somehow he has allowed Steven to propel him out of the gate. ‘Complicated,’ he replies, looking over his shoulder. He catches Dominic’s eye but the bigger boy just looks away miserably.

‘Yeah, I bet, I bet,’ says Steven, grinning at him. He smells of smoke. Its suddenly too strange and Jesse wriggles free of Steven’s arm. ‘Whoa, what mate?’

‘Nothing.’ Jesse looks around anxiously, his senses on high alert. He shrugs at Steven’s confused face. ‘What do you want, Steven?’

‘Just to hang out,’ he shrugs, finishing his cigarette and chucking it down. ‘I thought we were mates.’

Jesse is tempted to tell him the truth, that they have never been friends, not really. They just grew up in the same building and drifted towards each other to escape their equally horrible parents. They linked up with dumb Dominic and passed their anger and frustration on to anyone weaker than them. It disgusts Jesse now – what they did, who he was when he was with them. But he just wants them gone – not another fight.

‘Yeah, we are,’ he tells Steven to shut him up. ‘It’s just stuff. Complicated.’

But suddenly they are gone. Jesse almost misses their exit. One minute they were right there – Dominic looking unhappy and scared and Steven looked mock-friendly as usual and he looked away, just for a moment, just to scour the darkness, just for a moment, just to check and in that second they have vanished. Drifted away.

It’s eerie but Jesse doesn’t have time to ponder it for long. He steps towards the garden and bumps into something instead, something that wasn’t there a moment ago. His eyes drift slowly, fearfully up the thick barrel chest, tightly contained inside a policeman’s uniform, and fix in horror on Sergeant Mayfield’s unsmiling face.

A choked sound escapes his lips then the police baton is shoved sideways into his neck and he is slammed back into the fence behind. He feels it give, hears a crack in the old wood. Mayfield’s weight is behind the baton and the fence creaks again. Jesse uses his last breath to force his body backwards, kicking out at the rotten slats behind him then gasping as he feels it give way completely.

Wood splinters and cracks in the air around him and he’s falling weightlessly and free of the dreaded baton. He can breathe again, though he’s instantly winded when his body hits the ground with a thud.

Mayfield rears up and over him, face twisted in rage, eyes glowing – but he does not advance. He can’t. Jesse scrambles backwards, his heels digging into dirt, his hands splayed into grass. Mayfield glares at him in pure hatred and then lets out a roar, sending strings of saliva whipping around his twisted face.

Jesse spins onto all fours and crawls, then staggers to his feet, and runs for the treehouse. He can hear nothing but his own terrified breath rasping in his throat and his legs are shaking as he scrambles up the ladder and hauls himself inside. He whips around and stares at the fence but Mayfield has gone.

2

Margaret Sumner carries six dead pheasants by the neck into the kitchen, three in each hand, and dumps them on the table. She brushes her hands off on a nearby tea towel then smiles lovingly down at Horatio, her faithful Labrador. It’s a cool night and he has arranged himself beside the Aga, stretched out on one of his blankets with a chewed and misshapen tennis ball beside him.

‘Good boy, Horatio,’ she says kindly, before gathering two bottles of wine from the sideboard. ‘You are a very good boy.’ He looks up with adoring eyes and his thick tail thumps against the floor. ‘I always knew you would be,’ she adds softly before leaving the room.

Her guests have arrived on time and are already gathered in the drawing room. As it’s not an official neighbourhood watch meeting, Catherine Aster is not present. Margaret sent a message earlier telling her the urgent meeting had been cancelled. Margaret strides in with the bottles of wine and takes a moment to survey the group.

Aaron is agonised, she notes with some amusement. He prowls around the edge of the group with a whisky already on the go and his hackles up under his shirt. He paces like an animal, more beast than man tonight. He lets his instincts rule him, she notes then looks at the two women, Eugenie and Sylvia. Separated by generations yet so similar in outlook and mannerisms.

They are sat beside each other in the fireside armchairs. Each with legs crossed and hands resting demurely on the arm rests. Eugenie is small and sharp and made up of hard angles and natural suspicion – nothing gets past her and like Aaron, she knows everyone’s secrets. The only difference is, Aaron knows hers thanks to the extra eyes he places around town.

Margaret watches her now, eyeing her long neat fingers and wonders how many small and pointless items she has stolen over the decades. She smiles a little – compulsive stealing was after all, what got Eugenie into trouble as a young girl.

And Sylvia, the newest member until the arrival of Catherine. Margaret admires her haughtiness, the old-fashioned no-nonsense attitude that does little to quell the seeping sexuality of her. She has cast a powerful spell over Greg Roberts, that’s for sure. But none of that is on the agenda this evening.

Margaret’s eyes track over to Greg who is deep in conversation with Neville and Edward. Though talking and gesturing wildly, Greg cannot prevent his gaze from drifting almost constantly back to Sylvia. Neville appears calm but slightly nervous, as is his default setting. He likes to appease people, stay on neutral ground and everyone’s good sides, so he always listens attentively to every word said and nods and smiles in all the right places. Margaret knows that Aaron has several interesting videos of his late night clinches with seventeen-year-old Nathan Cotton.

Edward, meanwhile, wears his usual expression of thinly veiled disgust, but he has a new, replenished air about him too. He eyes them all as scathingly as normal and his top lip is almost always raised in a sneer, as if the stain of working with children all day cannot be washed away, but he does seem brighter tonight, she thinks, louder, more alive. Margaret wonders if he is enjoying his new, elevated, elongated life.

She supposes she feels a bit like mother to all of them. A mother welcoming them to the flock, teaching, advising, nurturing and punishing until they are all ready to take the next step. Her gaze drifts to the large windows and she supposes at one point Bob Rowan was the father of the group and Iris Cotton, the grandmother. She feels a twinge of regret but it doesn’t last long. They have too much to discuss. There is a lively atmosphere in the room; a taut tension sparkling in the air. She senses excitement, fear and frustration and she thrives on it all.

She places the bottles on the small fireside table and begins to twist the cork out of the red. ‘Red or white?’ she calls out, her firm harsh voice instantly cutting through their chatter and silencing them. ‘Grab a glass and drink. We’ve got a lot to talk about.’

Eugenie is the first to hold out a glass. ‘Red please, Margaret.’

‘Oh and for me too,’ says Sylvia.

Margaret fills their glasses while the men collect theirs from the sideboard. There is a series of thumps heard from upstairs and Margaret rolls her eyes at her guests. ‘Hilda. She’s in the playroom. Aaron? Red or white?’

He arrives silently at her side, broad and tall and white-haired, a mountain of a man capable of just about anything. She finds his cruelty and rage endlessly exciting. He grunts for red and she fills his glass.

Edward, Neville and Greg choose white and everyone settles down, only Margaret and Aaron remain standing. Sylvia has her notebook and pen on her lap ready to make notes.

‘It’s been quite a week,’ Margaret addresses them. ‘Quite a challenging one. Also, quite an interesting one. We’ll start with Iris Cotton. Any news?’

‘I heard her grand-daughter took her in,’ Eugenie speaks with authority. ‘I let Nathan go after his Rhyme Time once he’d heard the news. He was heading home. Not long after that someone said they saw Iris going into Sarah-Jane’s house on Maze Lane.’

‘Aaron, can you confirm?’

‘Yes,’ he says with certainty. ‘She’s there. They have a spare room.’

‘Unhurt?’

He nods. ‘Nothing can hurt that old witch.’

A snigger moves around the room. Margaret smiles in empathy. ‘Quite. And the cottage?’

Aaron grunts. ‘I was there earlier. It’s just rubble. A few incomplete walls and that’s it. No roof left. I caught a couple of local reprobates there smashing glass for fun.’

‘Yes well, we’ll come to that in a moment,’ says Margaret. ‘But the house is badly damaged and can’t be salvaged?’

He shakes his head. ‘No. It’s gone. And everything in it.’

Another murmur drifts among them. Margaret can feel their excitement rising.

‘And do you want to tell us about the boys you caught, Aaron?’

He sniffs, his eyes dark with anger. ‘Dominic Robeson, the half-wit from the caravan park and Steven Davies, the thug from Taylor Drive, both used to be in a gang with Jesse Archer. At one point, the three of them were always together causing trouble. Not so much now. Anyway, I tried to use the boys to lure Archer from the Finnis garden.’

‘Tried to?’ Edward cannot hide the ridicule in his voice.

Aaron glares at him. ‘It worked. I had that little bastard but he broke the bloody fence down. I lost him.’

This time there is a collective sigh.

‘Again,’ says Edward, unhelpfully.

Aaron growls.

‘Now, now.’ Margaret holds up a calming hand. ‘There’s no need for that, gentleman. Jesse Archer is a smart boy and he’s not acting alone, let’s remember. He has others helping him but we will get him eventually. We’ll get him in custody and bring him here.’

‘Then what?’ asks Sylvia. ‘You can’t… You know. It isn’t time.’

‘I realise that,’ replies Margaret. ‘He’s a very lucky boy and he doesn’t even know it. We still need him here though. He knows far too much and we need to set him straight. Give him a chance.’

‘A chance for what?’ wonders Eugenie, looking unsure. ‘Joining us?’

‘Maybe, yes,’ smiles Margaret, enjoying the look of disgust on Aaron’s face. ‘In years to come of course and that will be very much up to him. We should be a group of nine, remember.’

‘True, but that does seem risky.’ Eugenie pushes her glasses up her nose and shifts in her chair.

‘You could let him go,’ Neville suggests with a weak smile. ‘Like you did with his mother? Wouldn’t that be better for everyone? If he just left town?’

‘I think he’d come back,’ replies Margaret and Aaron nods in agreement. ‘And as for the rest of them, they’re in too deep. Plotting and digging. If he left too, it would only spur them on.’

‘So, what is it you’re suggesting?’ asks Edward.

‘Our best bet is to weaken them,’ she says. ‘To split them up and tire them out. To keep them busy, or scared or distracted. We need to put water on the fire, in other words. They’re all very different and different techniques will work for each, but that’s my suggestion. They are weaker divided. Weaker confused. Weaker scared. They are, after all, just children. They’ll give up. It will not be worth it to them to continue. They’ll have to accept that Paddy is gone. And then soon they will forget like everyone else.’

She looks around at them, smiling pleasantly while her words sink in. This is the way Margaret envisions it. After all, it’s not the first time they’ve been through this and it’s not the first time a fuss has been made about a missing child. She does agree with Aaron on one thing; it really should have been Jesse Archer who went missing. No one would have bothered to look for him. But Iris Cotton had to interfere. Revenge, she supposes, or maybe just good old-fashioned mischief. Iris always did like to set the cat among the pigeons. It doesn’t matter now. They had no choice and what’s done is done.

‘So,’ she continues smoothly when no voice rises to challenge her. ‘We need a way to get him away from that garden so Aaron can arrest him for the break-in. The paperwork to take him into care is already prepared and signed by his father. He’s very easy to persuade when he’s drunk and can barely see the hand in front of his face, let alone what he’s signing. So, everything is ready. We just need the boy.’

‘You could always light another fire?’ Sylvia suggests with a shrug. She looks around at the others. ‘Just a small one in the garden. He’d have to move then, wouldn’t he?’

It’s a risky proposition but Margaret quite likes it. As long as the fire doesn’t get out of control, it could work. It could be the fastest and simplest solution.

As if reading her mind, Aaron nods and say, ‘I could get Dominic and Steven to light it.’

‘You could,’ nods Margaret. ‘And you’d be on hand and ready to catch him when he runs.’

‘Once he’s out of that bloody garden he’ll never outrun me,’ says Aaron brashly and Margaret knows he is right.

She glances around at the rest of them. ‘Well then, we’ll try that tomorrow. I’ll leave it in your capable hands, Aaron. Call me as soon as you have him. Now, on to the rest of the group. Eugenie?’

Eugenie sits up straight, knees pressed together. ‘Charlotte and Ralph have settled in well next door to me,’ she reports. ‘On the very first day Charlotte offered to prune my apple tree for me. She’s already done a lot to the garden. She never stops, does she?’

Margaret smiles fondly. ‘No, she’s a force of nature that one.’

‘And the boy seems well-behaved,’ Eugenie adds. ‘I think I’ll enjoy having them as neighbours.’

‘I’ll be keeping Ralph busy here,’ says Margaret. ‘He’s always keen to help his mother and provide. He’s just like her really. A hard worker. Of course, we’re all relieved he didn’t take after his father.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ remarks Edward with raised eyebrows. ‘He might be a hard worker like his mum but he’s got the same nosy streak his old man had if you ask me.’

Margaret nods in regret. ‘Possibly. Possibly that could be Archer’s bad influence. But we do need to keep an eye on him. He’s such a lovely child, it would be a real shame to see him led astray.’

There are nods from everyone. Ralph Maxwell is just the kind of boy Black Hare Velly thrives on nurturing.

‘Jaime, the new girl,’ Edward goes on. ‘She shows a lot of promise and is very smart but I’m afraid she’s mixed up in all this too and her teachers have seen her concentration nosedive as the week has gone on.’

‘Mark is concerned, I can tell,’ nods Eugenie, who often likes to end her day with a quick sherry in the Hare and Hound. ‘He and Catherine will keep an eye on her. I see them as fair but strict parents.’

‘Willow Harrison’s parents are not though,’ sighs Greg. ‘And I think we know why.’

Margaret knows he views them as nothing more than godless, misguided pagans and permissive hippy types but she’s not too concerned herself. It stands to reason that Willow would act out the most. Paddy was her best and only friend.

‘She was very confrontational with me,’ Neville adds sadly as Edward shakes his head slowly and gravely. ‘It’s her I fear Archer has his claws into the most.’

‘Her mother was the same,’ nods Greg, his expression dour. ‘I’ve been tempted to encourage her to leave town enough times. Is there a chance she could be fuelling Willow? Her and Nick Archer were thick as thieves last time.’

‘No,’ Aaron shakes his head with certainty. ‘She doesn’t remember. None of them do.’

‘We’ll keep an eye on Willow,’ nods Margaret looking at Aaron. He nods back and sips his whiskey. His eyes, of course, are everywhere. ‘But yes, this does all come back to Jesse Archer, which is why most of this can be resolved and ironed out once I have him here with me. Like I said, we weaken them, distract them and divide them. The others will drift away and I have every confidence I can get through to the Archer boy. Iris has been dealt with. It’s just one last loose end to tie up.’

‘What about Bob Rowan?’ asks Greg. ‘I thought I saw him at the fire.’

Margaret waves a hand dismissively. ‘We don’t have to worry about him. He didn’t want to be on the committee anymore and that’s his right. As long as he keeps to his side and stays out of our business, I don’t see a problem.’

There is a collective sigh of relief and contentment. Only Aaron still seems riled up – but that’s nothing new. When the others start talking about Edward and how he’s been feeling since his transition, Margaret positions herself beside Aaron and waits for him to acknowledge her.

He does so with a reluctant grunt. Sometimes she thinks he is more beast than man and always has been.

‘All of this could have been avoided if it had been Archer, not Finnis,’ he says in a low voice.

Margaret does not hide her irritation. It’s like listening to a broken record. ‘Oh, Aaron, do get over it. What’s done is done and you know we had no choice. Blame Iris, not me.’

‘Oh, I do. I do.’

‘You’ve got to calm down, Aaron. You’re letting your mask slip too often. I’m going to have to do a lot of damage control with the Archer boy when he’s here, thanks to you.’

Aaron glares at her, his lips pressed and trembling. She reaches out and clasps his wrist in her hand.

‘Aaron, forgive me, but you know I always speak my mind. You have a temper. And you like drama. That is not a good combination. In fact, it is your weakness.’

She watches the anger flare in his blue eyes. He feels rigid with rage and his muscles are tensed under her touch but she is not afraid. ‘It’s all right,’ she tells him soothingly. ‘Everyone has a weakness. That’s yours.’

‘And what’s yours?’ he asks in a tight, thin voice.

Margaret smiles. ‘Why, I should think that is very obvious, Aaron. It’s this town, of course.’

3

Jaime looks up with a start when someone knocks on her door. The entire investigation is spread out on her bed and it’ll take time she maybe doesn’t have to clear away – or she could call out – maybe it’s just a knock to say that dinner is ready. She checks the time – it’s probably that.

She gathers up the notepaper, the timeline, the translated notes and the photos and bundles them into her school backpack. Hiding them is becoming a constant source of worry for her. She can’t lock her door when she leaves her room – so how is she to know that they won’t come looking? Jaime used to trust her mum implicitly but she can’t help feeling that trust has been damaged by Black Hare Valley and the secrets it holds.

‘Yes?’ she calls out, zipping the bag and shoving it under her bed. She grabs a book from the bedside table and flips it open on her pillow.

‘Jaime, it’s Mum.’

She gets up reluctantly and opens the door, already dreading her mother’s concerned and cautious expression. Her mother smiles weakly. She looks pale and winces as she rubs both hands across her taut belly.

‘You okay, Mum? I thought you had a meeting?’

‘They cancelled it last minute and I really don’t feel like cooking so I thought me and you could grab fish and chips from down the road and have a nice walk?’

Jaime stiffens. What if it is a guise to get her away from her backpack?

‘Okay, sure.’ She smiles as breezily as she can. ‘Can I just get changed?’ She feels weak with relief that she hasn’t yet changed out of her uniform.

‘Of course. I’ll wait downstairs for you.’

Jaime closes the door and panics. She can’t take the bag with her; it’ll look odd. She can’t leave it under the bed either; Mark could come in and see it. She opens the wardrobe – a messy splurge of colours and textures bursts out at her, but again, Mark could easily search it. Finally, she opens the bag and takes it all out. She needs to make it smaller. Make it fit somewhere else. The treehouse she thinks with certainty.

For now, Jaime uses the large timeline of events to envelope all the other pieces in. She rolls it up until it’s a tight, neat tube then she slips it inside one of her wellington boots and pushes the boots to the back of the wardrobe. Her heart is beating painfully because it still doesn’t feel like enough.

But when she joins her mother downstairs she is less concerned. The bar is heaving; Mark and Tahlia look overworked and stressed.

‘Don’t they need your help?’ Jaime wonders as they head for the kitchen and the back door.

‘I’ve worked all day,’ her mum replies with a weary smile. ‘I just need a breather to catch up with my girl. They’ll be fine.’

‘All right.’

They head out into the dark garden, then turn through the gate onto Lupin Lane, before making their way to the High Street. It’s quiet and the air still smells of burnt thatch. Jaime recalls the whispers she heard all day at school and at the pub. The gossip is that Iris Cotton’s house burned down because she’s a very old and forgetful lady. She probably left something dangling too close to a candle or made a mistake with the log burner or the stove. Nothing remains, they say, such a shame, one of the oldest houses in the valley, they say.

Only Jaime seems to know that it has burned down before, when Agnes Salter was accused of being a witch. Were they related, she wonders, did Iris marry a Cotton before she had her daughter? Was her maiden name Salter? And even more worrying, was her house burned down on purpose? As a punishment for helping Paddy and admitting such to Jaime? Or perhaps she gave him the book to place him in harm?

Jaime shudders. Not for the first time she wonders if she herself is in danger. She doesn’t have much information for Jesse and she feels bad about it. She found a newspaper story from the year Carol-Anne Radley vanished, and that was hard enough to come by. She spent lunch and second break in the school library where she was almost about to give up until she found a pile of old newspapers collecting dust in the history section.

A quick rummage revealed Black Hare Valley Times – a paper that was apparently no longer in existence. It was a thin publication mostly full of adverts, upcoming events and a few mild local news stories. Jaime has the clipping in her tube of evidence. A front page story from the year 1966, ‘Have You Seen Carol-Anne?’ It seemed that no one had and no one ever did again.

As Jaime’s mum steps into the fish and chip shop, she can’t stop thinking about it. Another missing child. The same town. No answers. Does anyone even remember it? We have to bring it up, she decides, no matter what danger that brings. She reasons that they are already in danger to some extent, so why stop now? She’s thinking about it as her mother orders the food and makes friendly small talk with the other customers. Should she tell her mum? Not about all of it, but some of it?

Mark has been weird with her again – tense, edgy – accusing her once more of knowing where Jesse Archer is hiding out. Jaime doesn’t know how much more she can take. She feels she will crack like an egg, mess oozing out everywhere, secrets and lies revealed all over the place. But then she thinks, what is the worst that can happen?

Her mother carries the food to the park and they sit on a bench overlooking the pond. And after a few bites, her mother says, ‘Mark and I are quite worried about you, darling.’

Jaime doesn’t look at her mother as she chews and swallows her first chip then says, ‘Mum, did you know another kid vanished from here in 1966? Carol-Anne Radley. She was fourteen too. No one ever found out what happened to her.’

4

Willow is quiet throughout dinner. While her parents are discussing a novel they both recently read, she is trying to work out the best way to tackle her mum about Angie and Carol-Anne Radley. She is desperate to question her mother and keen to examine the look on her face when she either remembers or doesn’t. The need to know is under her skin making her want to tear at it with her nails, but she is afraid.

She’s already let it slip to Mr Hewlett that she has seen Jesse since he escaped custody and the fear of what that could bring is churning her stomach and making it impossible to eat. As she pushes her mashed potato around the plate, she has to bite her lip to stop her from screaming. She is also wary of upsetting her mother. Her mother has what her father sometimes describes as ‘a nervous constitution’ which, he has explained to Willow before, sometimes leads to her getting swallowed up by the blues. Willow knows this because when she looks back on her childhood there are patches of time when her mother was absent. She didn’t go anywhere physically – in fact, for sometimes months at a time she was unable to leave their home – but she did go somewhere in her own head.

During those times her father often warned Willow not to upset or worry her mother, to be extra good, extra considerate until her mother was better able to cope again. Willow has never understood where the nerves or the blues come from. She often wonders if she might suffer from them herself, one way or the other. Although nerves for her often manifests itself in anger, she can admit that the anger does sometimes lead her down a dark and lonely path.

Paddy saw that in her, she thinks now, and he would always gently pull her back. He wouldn’t ask her what was wrong, and he wouldn’t try to cheer her up or distract her. But he would make her come outside with him. Just for walks, sometimes even at night to look at the stars. She misses that about Paddy the most. His way of just knowing.

Finally, her father leaves the table to answer the phone and Willow jumps to her feet and starts to help clear the table. It’s now or never, she thinks, and although she is loath to push her mother into a state of nervousness, she has to at least try.

‘You grew up here, right Mum?’

Her mother is at the kitchen sink swirling Fairy Liquid into the running water. Willow hears her sigh softly as she circles a hand in the basin. Tiny bubbles rise in the air around her.

‘Yes, sweetie.’

Willow opens her mouth then pauses. Suddenly a hundred questions want to erupt out of her. What was it like? Why did you stay? Why didn’t you move away when you were old enough? Who were your friends? What kind of trouble did you get into? She wonders then why they have never talked about these things before. But then she supposes it is because her mother has never wanted to.

Her mother looks over her shoulder, frowning gently. ‘You okay?’

Willow clears her throat. It is now or never. She can’t think of a subtle way to ask and if she leaves it much longer, her dad will get off the phone and come back in. She knows he moved to the valley when he was twenty, so whatever went on when her mother was a teenager, has nothing to do with him.

‘Um.’ She arrives at her mother’s side and pushes her hair behind her ears. ‘You never talk about it much,’ she says, glancing anxiously towards the door. She can hear her father laughing on the phone.

‘Don’t I?’ Lizzie Harrison looks slightly perturbed as she turns off the taps and starts lowering dishes and cutlery into the bubbly water. ‘I suppose I assumed you wouldn’t be interested. Why? Something you want to talk about, love?’

‘What were you like?’ Willow bursts out suddenly. She knows she should get straight to the point but suddenly she really wants to know. ‘Have you got any photos?’

Her mother laughs. ‘Oh, I expect there are some lying about somewhere. I’ll dig some out for you if you like.’

‘Yes please.’

‘Curious, all of a sudden?’ Her mother side-eyes her, still smiling.

Willow shrugs. ‘Yeah, maybe. Like, were you like me?’

‘I was a lot like you,’ Lizzie laughs, rubbing vigorously at a bowl.

‘In what ways?’

‘Um, well, I guess I didn’t like authority much. You definitely get that from me.’

Willow nods and waits for more, but although her mother is not exactly shutting her down or ignoring her, she’s starting to get the sense that she isn’t particularly keen on revisiting the past either.

‘Anything else?’ she urges. ‘Did you get in trouble at school? What was your favourite subject?’ Suddenly, there are so many things she wants to know.

She watches her mother tuck loose black hair behind her ears just as Willow did moments before, and she watches her mother frowning slightly as her teeth pull gently at her lower lip. Her mother is thinking, she can tell. Her mother is working out what to say.

‘Anything arty, I guess,’ she replies with a soft chuckle and a shake of her head. ‘I don’t know. Anything to do with music or art, or drama. I liked those things. Same as you really.’

‘Who were your friends?’ Willow can see the questions are getting her nowhere so she goes straight for the jugular.

Lizzie shifts her position, lifting one foot and then the other, then shaking her hair back and wincing slightly before offering up another smile. Willow stares at her, her eyes slowly narrowing.

‘Um. Well, let me think.’

‘Were you friends with Jesse Archer’s dad, by any chance?’

Willow can see the question has shocked her mother. Her dark eyes blink rapidly and her tongue runs across her lips while her cheeks gently flush. Willow wants to grab hold of her and shake her.

‘Did he say that? Where did you hear that?’

‘I didn’t, I was just wondering.’

‘Willow.’ Her mother drops the dish she is holding, wipes her hands off on a tea towel and turns to face her daughter. Her expression has now settled into one of stern suspicion.

‘What? I’m just asking who you were friends with when you were my age. You’ve never told me stuff like that.’

‘There’s nothing to tell.’

‘So, were you then?’

‘What?’

Willow resists the urge to roll her eyes and suspects her mother of stalling. ‘Friends with Nick Archer?’

‘No,’ Lizzie says firmly. ‘Not really, and I do want to know where you heard that, Willow. You know you’re supposed to tell us if you see that boy, don’t you? The police are looking for him.’

Willow crosses her arms defensively. ‘I haven’t seen him,’ she replies evenly. ‘He told me ages ago. He was teasing me about it actually and I just didn’t like to ask you at the time. But is it true, Mum? Did you hang around Nick Archer and what about Angie and Carol-Anne Radley? Remember them?’

Now it’s her mother’s turn to open her mouth then close it again before anything can emerge. Willow watches her eyes widen before she turns back to the sink and plunges her hands back under the water.

‘Mum? Why are you being so cagey?’

‘Because it was a long time ago, that’s why.’

‘So? What’s the big deal?’

‘Nothing,’ she shrugs irritably and glances over her shoulder. ‘Just, you know. It was a long time ago. I was a kid, who didn’t know any better.’

‘So, you did then? And the Radley’s too? Angie and Carol-Anne, right?’

Lizzie winces again as if in pain. ‘I don’t… I’m not sure…’

‘Jesus Christ, Mum, it’s a simple question!’

Her mother slams a plate down onto the side. ‘You don’t have to take that tone with me, young lady. I can’t help it if I can’t remember. It was a very long time ago and I haven’t thought about any of those people since…’ She frowns heavily and suddenly reminds Willow of a petulant chid.

‘You’re saying you’ve forgotten?’ Willow lowers her voice and tries a gentler tone.

Her mother nods and swallows. ‘Yes. I had forgotten.’

‘Do you remember now?’ she asks gently. ‘Who you hung out with? What sort of stuff you got up to?’

‘No, not really…’ Lizzie waves a hand, sending foam across the floor tiles. ‘Willow, I’m getting a bit of a headache. Perhaps you could finish this up for me?’

‘Okay, but seriously Mum. Jesse’s dad said you were all friends. You and him, and Angie and Carol-Anne. Do you remember Carol-Anne? Could you maybe check your photos?’

Her mother nods and wipes her hands down her legs. She won’t make eye contact with her daughter as she turns and heads for the door.

‘I’ll see if I can find them in a bit,’ she says as she goes. ‘I just need to lie down a bit first.’

‘Okay, Mum. Thanks.’

Willow is left alone in the kitchen with the dirty dishes and her ruffled thoughts. She starts to wash up, her mind spinning as she tries to determine her mother’s reactions. Were they genuine? Had her mother genuinely forgotten who her teenage friends were, and if so, how disturbing and strange is that? Or was she lying for some reason?

Willow cannot decide what is worse.

Thanks for reading!

Please feel free to leave a comment letting me know what you thought of this latest chapter.

NOTE: Please remember this is NOT the finished version of Black Hare Valley Book 1. This book has not been to my editor yet or even my beta readers. There will be typos, grammatical mistakes, and sentences that need rewriting.

COMING NEXT THURSDAY: Chapter Twenty “The Prisoner”