“We raised that boy,” spat the other one. Heather spared her a glance. She looked furious, hectic points of color in the middle of her gray cheeks. “When your idiot father got caught, we became everything to that little lad—his mothers, his sisters. We kept him out here, safe from the world. But when he was old enough, suddenly …”

“Suddenly we weren’t good enough anymore. Cast out,” Lillian continued. “I ask you, Heather, is that fair? After all the work we’d done, the hours we’d put in? All these years we’ve kept track of the children of Fiddler’s Mill. We’ve practically been like second parents to them. And apparently your father approved of our dismissal. He agreed that we should be removed from the boy’s life, even as he himself sat moldering in prison.” She grunted. “When we realized that dear, sweet Colleen had lied all along, well, we thought wouldn’t that make a fitting little present for Michael?”

“The daughter he didn’t know, murdered by his precious son,” the other woman grinned. “Although of course he hasn’t fucking managed it. Should know better than to trust men to do anything right.”

“What do you know about my mother?”

Lillian bared her teeth. “Everything. We’ve always known where she was. We thought of her fondly, of course. We went to see her, didn’t we, Lizbet? Once we realized what she’d done, what she’d been getting away with all these years. We asked her about it, about you, and all the years in between, and she told us everything. After a fashion. After a little … encouragement. She told us about the man who raised you, the birds, how you pushed him to death’s door …”

“Fuck you.”

“And we told her some things, too—about the upcoming harvest, and the role she’d played in it. I have to admit, I wasn’t dreadfully surprised when I heard she’d killed herself. No one wants to find out they birthed a monster. Or a pair of them.”

Heather didn’t move. She couldn’t look away from the point of the knife where it pressed into Lillian’s sagging neck. A little more pressure, just a little, and this revolting woman would never utter another word. Somewhere above them, a seagull cried out, and she moved back, horrified at what she had almost done.

“This is all insane,” she told them. “You are all insane. I’m going in there to get my friend. If you come after me, if I ever see your twisted old faces again, I will kill you.”

Something about this answer pleased the women. She saw them exchange a glance; their eyes bright.

“Like father like daughter,” Lillian said.

Heather left them standing by the car. On the far side, facing the woods, she found the door to the Folly standing open. Inside there was a curiously empty space; flagstones dusted with sand and dead leaves, and curling up the inside of the tower, a set of spiraling stone steps. The smell of salt and blood hung heavy in the air, a silvery kind of light filtering in through dirty windows. She had her foot on the first step when she spotted a pile of old hessian mats in the corner—the furthest one was half folded over, as if someone had thrown them over something in a hurry. The knife still held in one fist, she left the stairs and went over to the mats, dragging them away to reveal a trap door flush with the flag stones.