She smirked. ‘Well, then. Rather suits you. Have you worn one before?’

The lurcher barked somewhere, and the house, in that way it did sometimes, seemed to shiver, as if it were made of nothing but smoke. The clock in the hallway struck six times.

‘What are they – the people outside?’ Tom asked.

Zita buckled the scabbard onto a belt for him.

‘The people who attacked us!’

Zita yawned, showing her pretty white teeth, and said, ‘Darling, don’t be such a frightful bore about it. When you’ve got time, go and have a look in the library. Now be a dear, and adjust this strap for me.’

Chapter 7

20th April, 1846

Papa has begun to ask me where I go to when I am not in the Rectory. He has noticed that I return with twigs in my dress and earth under my fingernails. I told him I was walking in the woods, to contemplate God’s beauty in nature. He nodded, and seemed pleased. But he ordered me to go and scrub my hands, and I obeyed.

— From the diary of Margaret Ravenswood

‘It’s only after you’ve crossed over the moat that you have to worry,’ Zita said as she closed the wooden gate on the bridge behind them.

The early evening sun was moving towards the horizon, but it was still pleasantly warm. The horse was grazing in the field beyond, swatting its tail lazily. Leana lolloped ahead, pausing under a tree, her ears pricked, one paw out as if pointing.

‘They can’t get over the water, and the wards are meant to stop their magic – but it doesn’t always work.’

Magic. It was the first time someone had said that explicitly. That was what he was dealing with here. That was what he had been doing, making the wards.

‘Darling, don’t gape so. It makes you look like a fish. Didn’t your mother tell you not to gape?’ She caught herself and cleared her throat. ‘Of course. I had forgotten. I am sorry, old thing.’

‘It’s fine,’ said Tom. He swallowed down the sob that had risen in his throat.

Zita looked him fully in the face. Tom blushed and turned towards the sun. ‘If you ever want to talk about it, darling, you’ve got a friend here. No stiff upper lips necessary. Not any more.’

Tom nodded gratefully. ‘Thank you.’

Leana had already shot away and was a small black speck in the distance nearing the woods. In the light behind them, the farmhouse looked inviting, with its warm red brick and a chimney smoking from the fire perpetually burning in the entrance hall.

They reached the wooden gate into the woods. Zita leapt over it without even looking back, and then, before Tom could follow her, unlatched the gate so that he could come through. He gave an ironic bow as he passed her, and she held his gaze mockingly.