The dawning of 1919 was a subdued affair, with little to celebrate as the new horror unfolded across the country. Father Mason's deceased wife turned up in his kitchen one night and the encounter shattered the last of his fragile confidence. Over at Serenity House, the former duke escaped the mausoleum and was dispatched by the capable butler, Warrens.Winter deepened and created a frozen tableau, which bought us some time. It's much harder to climb from your grave when the topsoil is frozen solid. We all wondered if the victims would sprout up with the warmer temperatures like daffodils.As January unfurled, Lady Jeffrey grew tired of us all peeking around the parlour door and moved the wireless to the kitchen. She deemed news of the Turned, as they were now called, far too unsavoury for her girls anyway and only suitable for our lowborn ears. That included Ella.The square wooden box crackled and chirped all day long. It seemed the horror would never end, as reports emerged that t
February 1919 and work never stopped, despite the solid ground that showed no sign of spring. An unexpected cold snap saw a light snowfall blanket the ground. It meant we either bundled up and continued on regardless, or undertook one of the endless inside jobs. Due to the weather, I decided to clean tack and dragged a chair to the end of the barn aisle. With the doors open to the frigid air, I sat with a pile of bridles in a box next to me. On my other side, a bucket of warm water and a cloth for working in the saddle soap and cleaning off sweat and dirt.The horses were quiet in their stalls and a sense of peace suffused the world. As though the drop in temperature had frozen time itself and allowed us all a chance to draw a deep breath and recover from events of the last few weeks.I should be cleaning the leather, but my mind couldn't concentrate in the quiet. I picked at my worries, pushed to the front by the voice that whispered from the back of my skull. Muttering about sins
March 22nd, 1919 was an important date in my mental diary. Things happened on this day far more than the signs of new life pushing up through frigid ground as the earth threw off winter and embraced spring. It was Hazel's eighteenth birthday. Not even the threat of Mr Morris tearing me limb from limb could make me miss her birthday.Sadness and regret formed a swamp in my gut. That day she would leave her tower forever, having agreed to stay only until she reached this milestone. This would most likely be our last day together. I had promised to take her to the village, where she would be safe from roving vermin, until she decided on her course of action.It was early afternoon by the time I had finished my chores and then penned a note to Magda asking for hot water to wash. All the while, Ella and Alice twittered and laughed. Honestly, what was wrong with a fellow wanting to wash the sweat and dirt off before he visited a girl on her birthday?As I rode out, the other women stood b
I reached out and grasped Hazel by the shoulders. I gave a gentle shake to break the staring contest but she tried to swat me away. There were some advantages to being taller, and spending all day engaged in manual farm chores had finally put some muscle on my frame. I turned her and pointed out the window.At that point Mr Morris remembered why he had ran up the stairs. "You don't understand, love. Those things are outside the gate."Hazel and I kneeled on the window ledge and looked out. Below, in the approaching dusk, shuffled at least four of them. They stared at the thick door as though trying to remember how they worked. Push or pull?If they figured it out, they would swarm into the enclosure. We all stared at each other, realising there was one other person down there who didn't know what waited outside. Someone who couldn't ascend the steep tower stairs or run.Mrs Morris."Rachel!" Mr Morris screamed and ran for the door at the same time. His heavy boots and weight shook
Hazel followed my line of sight and glanced down at her mother's leg. Then she looked up to meet my horrified gaze. She shook her head, silencing me, not that there was anything to say, assuming I could say anything. My vocal cords had managed only two words in the past two years, and that rusty sound was only for Hazel's ears.I gestured to the trapped creatures and drew a line across my throat and then mimed lifting the head off. The vermin would keep struggling to free themselves and we needed to deal with them while they were still trapped."Father, Henry says you must remove the heads of these things to silence them forever." Hazel placed the fallen walking stick in her mother's hand, but kept an arm around the woman's shoulders.Mr Morris' eyes widened as he looked from the vermin stuck in a tree, one pinned to the roots through the side, and another back by the front door. That one was still trying to swim across the grass. I had a strong urge to go check on Phelps; with my l
PART ONE: Ella, the SlayerSomerset, England. Summer, 1919.I dream of a time when there was only one type of death.Mother died when I was ten years old. We buried her and packed away her clothing. Father and I mourned the empty space in our souls and at our table. Back then death only had one meaning: your life snuffed out, never to rekindle.After the Great War, we learned of a new type of death in the form of returned soldiers with fragmented minds. Doctors call it shell shock. Unable to grasp the horrors they saw or the deprivations they suffered, their chests rise and fall, but they have blank eyes?the windows to their souls have shattered, leaving thousands of shards that cannot be pieced together again. They follow the routine of their pre-war lives, but there is no spark within them.Then there are those who hover even closer to death?like father. Doctors removed the shrapnel in his head, but it left him with an irrecoverable brain injury. He sits in his chair by the wind
It was a hard ride to check the rest of the fence. Not because of terrain or interruptions, but because slaying a vermin always left me twitchy. I found it hard to sit still in the saddle. It seemed as though the maggots eating their dead flesh had burrowed into me and were squirming under my skin. With each step the mare took, my adrenaline levels fizzed higher. Strange really, I held perfectly calm while doing the deed. It was only afterwards that it slammed into my body. I needed to steal a few moments of peace to practice with my sword. The slow rhythm of a tai chi form would settle my mind and allow the adrenaline to dissipate.We finished our route, checking not just our fences, but also those of our closest neighbours. Our flock of sheep grazed peacefully, unaware of the vermin that had tested the fences under the cover of darkness. Lambs frolicked and grew and would soon be sold to the butcher. I had no idea why the vermin rarely disturbed the livestock, but at least I didn't
The horse's shoes rang out on the cobbles and the horses in the barn called out in greeting. Blasted horses! So much for sneaking back so no one knew I was late. Alice rushed from the back door and was at my side as I dismounted."Where have you been? You were gone so long I was getting worried." She grabbed me by the arm and hauled me closer. My collar was pulled back and my neck inspected, then she pushed up my sleeves to check my arms. Inspection over, she sighed and let me go. "She's in a right state that her scones are late and is most insistent that you must serve them. She made me take the tray back to the kitchen and come find you."I held in the sigh. Of course, she'd want me to curtsey and serve her tea; there was less sport in lording her superior position over Alice. "Sorry, I found a vermin that had tried to crawl under the wire last night, and it was trapped. I had to dispatch it and needed time alone after." Probably best not to mention that I nearly gave the new Duk