She could see movement in the shadows. There was something dark hanging from the beam above the porch. The shape came clearer as she moved closer. She could see a face. The face was watching her, but the eyes were half-closed and sunken. The hair, which was white, was pulled into a neat bun, like Mama’s. And the breeze blew, and she almost expected to smell Mama, the smell of lavender and herbs that she knew so well. But the smell that the breeze carried was foul.
And as the forest breathed around her, she knew what it was. She waited, frozen, for the house to stand up on chicken legs and step towards her with deliberate but silent tread. Her hands let go of the corners of her apron, and the berries fell, unheeded, to the ground. She backed away, and again, then turned and ran down the path not stopping, not daring to look back, until suddenly she was past the trees and into the clearing, and she could hear Mama calling her, and Marek had come back from the railway with potatoes and Mama had made soup. She couldn’t eat it, though Mama scolded and worried.
Over the next few days, she heard the women talking about the old woman in the woods–‘…her boy…shot in the fighting…hanged herself…’ And they made the sign of the cross, and Mama sighed.
But Eva had seen Baba Yaga’s house, seen the fence hung with the bodies of the people she’d killed. And at night, she would lie in bed, tense, listening to the sounds of the forest, trying to pick out the scrape of chicken feet stepping across the forest floor. She could remember the way chickens walked, the way they lifted their feet, the way the tendons moved under the wrinkled skin of their legs, the way their claws stepped on to the ground with slow deliberation. And she knew that Baba Yaga’s house was hunting her through the forest, stealthy and inexorable.
She had stolen Baba Yaga’s berries and now her bones would hang on that high, white fence.
The following morning dawned bright and clear with the promise of an early spring. The sun was rising as Faith left for work, the winter light warming the grey stone and gleaming off the rocky outcrops on the high moors in the distance.
She was worried about Helen. She’d tried contacting her, but no one answered the phone. She’d left messages, but there had been no response. She thought back to the last time they’d talked. Helen had seemed distracted. Daniel was putting a lot of pressure on her. ‘He wants his share of the house,’ she’d said. ‘I didn’t want all of this to go through lawyers and the courts. I thought we could sort it ourselves.’
‘Why don’t you just buy him out?’ Faith said. It seemed the simplest way–a clean break.
‘I can’t take on a mortgage that size. It’ll mean moving, and the kids…Now he’s saying he’s going to take me to court for custody.’ She sighed, apparently more exasperated than concerned.
‘Do you think he means it?’
Helen shook her head. ‘He’s just making smoke. He thinks we’re going to get back together. He’ll come round.’
‘Are you?’ Helen had blossomed since she had left her marriage. Despite all the worries and all the hassle, she’d seemed brighter and happier than Faith had seen her in years.
‘Sometimes I think it would be the easiest way, but…’ She shook her head. ‘It’s not going to happen.’
Faith thought about this conversation as she negotiated the traffic. Helen had been evasive about the break-up, about what had been the final trigger. Though Helen hadn’t said anything definite, Faith suspected that there was someone else in the picture. She had been astonished when she saw Helen for the first time after the break-up. Despite all the problems, she’d looked years younger. She had been the buoyant, vivacious woman Faith remembered from their university days, but a sophisticated one now, beautifully turned out, her hair styled, her clothes immaculate.
Another time–just after her birthday–Helen had been wearing a new watch with a delicate silver band. ‘Present from Daniel?’ Faith had asked, though it looked a bit subtle for Daniel.
‘No,’ Helen had said, caressing the band round her wrist. ‘Just a treat.’
A couple of days ago, Faith had met her in the lobby coming back from lunch. She was carrying a bag with the logo of one of the expensive department stores, filled with tiny boxes that looked as though they contained filmy, lacy garments, not workaday cotton.
‘I’m sick of the hausfrau image, that’s all,’ she’d said rather defensively when Faith had raised an ironic eyebrow at her.
Faith put the matter of Helen to the back of her mind, and tried to focus on putting together the budget to finance the research programme that had been approved in yesterday’s meeting. But her thoughts drifted to her own family. She’d phoned Katya the evening before, choosing a time when she was pretty sure her mother would be out, and left a message to say that the interview had gone ahead and there hadn’t been any problems. But it wasn’t the interview that worried Faith. It was the sense of a gathering futility in Grandpapa’s life, epitomized by the slow decay of the house. It was as if he had stopped caring–as if his life no longer had any use or purpose.
His life had always been his work. He hadn’t let the reins of business go until he was well into his seventies. And after that, she had been his project for a while–he had supported her through university, helped her out when she was first trying to get established and living hand to mouth on post-graduate grants. But she was independent now, had been for years. Maybe that was it. Maybe for him, life had lost its point.
She was due to see him tomorrow evening. He was making supper for her–he enjoyed making small occasions of her visits. She could talk to him about it, try and find out what was wrong. While she was at it, she meant to put pressure on him about the house–he could at least get it weatherproof. She’d seen the rainwater stains on the ceilings upstairs, and she had felt the chilly draughts from ill-fitting doors and windows. He was going to make himself ill.
Her worries about him occupied her all the way to work. She walked across the campus, the detritus of other people’s lives clamouring for attention in her head. Enough! she wanted to shout. She needed to focus on the day ahead.
As she approached the Centre, she saw that there were vehicles parked outside, cars and a van. The campus was generally vehicle free and she wondered what was going on. As she got nearer, she saw a man coming out of the main entrance, his arms loaded with files, which he put into the back of the van.
He was in uniform.
She stopped. The writing on the van came into focus. Police. And there was a police logo on one of the cars. Someone else was coming down the steps now, carrying a computer. There was a flash of colour from the side of the machine, a bright rectangle of card that flipped over as the breeze caught it. And suddenly she remembered standing in Helen’s cubicle the day before, seeing the photo stuck to the computer, the photo of Helen with Finn and Hannah, Helen squinting into the sun with her hair blowing across her face, Hannah’s cheek pressed close to hers.
That was Helen’s computer. The police were taking Helen’s computer away. And Helen hadn’t been around yesterday, had missed her meetings, not answered her phone, not replied to messages…
Faith could feel a chill inside her, a tension that twisted her stomach and left a feeling of rising sickness in her throat. She was moving again now, walking faster towards the Centre, breaking into a half-run and stopping as a woman in uniform emerged from the doorway.
‘What’s happened?’
The woman didn’t answer Faith’s question. ‘Do you work here?’
‘Yes. What’s going on?’ She looked past the woman into the lobby. It was empty and silent.
‘And