Liston swallowed his misgivings and followed his father into the perfect dark.

The dull jangle of heavy keys, the clunk of the stiff lock opening and the creak of the old door echoed in the night, and Liston held his breath. His mother’s mausoleum had been unlocked.

The rush of air that greeted them was stiff with ice.

Liston shuddered as he stepped over the threshold into the old house. Thirteen years since his mother had gone to God. Thirteen years since his father had shut off these rooms, keeping the only key on his belt at all times, even when he slept. In all that time there had been no fire in the grate, not even a candle lit at the window.

It was as cold and silent as the grave.

“Mary?” Liston was stunned to hear his father’s voice thick with raw and bloody sorrow. “Mary, is it you? Are you coming back to me, my darling? Mary, answer me!”

As they entered what had once been his mother’s bedchamber, it was as if time stopped. The storm quietened in an instant, and suddenly every corner was lit up by the full moon, almost as bright as day. The ancient box bed crouched in the corner, as if it might pounce at any moment. The few things that his mother had owned were still laid out on the dressing table, and a howling wind swept in through a shattered window, leaving jagged, frosted shards glinting in the moonlight.

What had happened here?

Bradshaw fell to his knees on the dust-covered floor, tearing at his hair. “Mary, I’m here. Come back to me. I beg you. Please, please, tell me you forgive me.”

For the space of one sharp inward breath, there was silence. Then the screaming began again, so loud that Liston felt for a moment it was coming from within him. Furiously his father grabbed the poker from him and dug it into the gaps of the drystone chimney breast, forcing out one stone and then another. Dropping the poker, he frantically began to pull the loose stones out, until, at last, a great cascade of them tumbled onto the floor, making the rotten boards tremble.

The shrieking stopped, as if cut short by a smothering hand.

Warily Liston took a step closer to see what his father was staring at. There, tucked into a sooty alcove more than halfway up the chimney, was something bundled and bound into a blackened cloth parcel of considerable size.

“Fetch it down, then,” his father commanded him, and though he felt a sense of dread in his gut unlike any he had ever known, Liston obeyed his father. Though it was large, the parcel was light as a feather, shifting in his arms. As he laid it down, all the fear Liston felt drained suddenly away, and he was left only with horror.