It revealed another staircase, this one spiraling downwards. There were bright, modern electric lights fitted to the walls, and from somewhere far below, she could hear soft noises—someone moving, the faint sound of crying.

“Nikki?”

Her voice sank into nothing, but below her the noises increased. Heather headed down, one hand braced against the wall, until she came to a nondescript wooden door. Beyond it was a dank, cold little room, and in it Nikki and another woman she didn’t know huddled together on the floor. At the sight of her, the other woman moaned, a desperate, terrified noise, but Nikki sat up, her eyes very wide. They were both bound with nylon rope, hands cinched tightly behind their backs and gags around their mouths, and Nikki was sitting slightly in front of the other woman, as though to shield her from something.

“Christ.” Heather went to them, bringing up the wicked little knife, and the woman behind Nikki wailed behind her gag. “It’s all right, I’m just going to cut you loose.”

There was a noise on the staircase behind her. Heather turned, the knife held up again.

“Here you are, lass. I suppose it was inevitable you’d get here eventually.” It was the old man who had given them tea; the small, bent old man who peered at them out of one eye and had seemed so frail and fragile. Now, standing in the doorway and blocking the staircase, he did not look frail at all. His dog, the huge shaggy black creature, was standing at his knee. Bert smiled and nodded, as though confirming something. “Jesus wept, but you look like him. Like both of them. Where is my boy, eh? What have you done with him?”

“He’s dead,” said Heather. “Who are you, really?”

The old man shrugged, taking a further step into the room. Behind her, the two women were silent.

“You can’t save them,” he said quietly. “Especially not my Cathy. Cathy belongs here, do you understand? She belongs to me.” The eerie contentment on his face began to fade, to be replaced by something else. “I made her. I brought her parents here, I gave them this free world to live in, and the fruits of that are mine. All of them …”

“The women were all born here, at Fiddler’s Mill. And then what? Taken away? Adopted out?”

Bert smiled. “The Bickerstaff sisters you just met were nurses, did you know that? Or at least, nurses in training. I’m not sure they ever qualified though, or whatever you might call it. They knew the drugs to use, they knew how to deliver babies onto pure, black earth. Very persuasive, the Bickerstaff sisters. The children of Fiddler’s Woods went off to their new families, and we’ve waited until now. Until the harvest.”

“You are out of your fucking mind.” Heather swallowed hard. Standing up felt like the hardest thing in the world, and there was a ringing noise in her ears. Distantly she was aware of blood pooling inside her jeans, and every time she moved fresh lines of pain encircled her body. “All of you.”