What Doesn't Break Us by Helen Sedgwick

Author:Helen Sedgwick
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780861541959
Publisher: Oneworld Publications

BLOOD

DEEP IN A DIFFERENT NIGHT

Abigail Moss runs fast through the landscaped gardens of Wyndham Manor. Outside, the evening is a cool, deep purple, no clouds to keep the breeze away, no mist to mask the stars. She’s circling round the rose beds, jumping the ornamental displays of marigolds and allium, both caring and not caring that she might be seen – and who would be watching? Some of the other kids, all need and envy? Well. They can have their party and she’s pleased for them; they can have their pills and their night swimming in the stream. She wonders what Betty Marshall is going to make of that. She’s all nervous smiles and keen-to-please eyes, that girl, full of yes ma’am no ma’am. Abi likes her though. Or maybe that’s the night talking, the whisper of leaves from the edge of the woodlands, the grass soft as rabbit fur beneath her bare feet as she runs.

Then: a low whistle, could almost be the call of a bird.

He’s here, all the way from the city. She warned him his car would be recognised if anyone saw it – her mother or her father, the neighbours, the locals, all the eyes, all the watchers. The likes of him round here.

‘Abi.’

Whispered, urgent. Like he wants her. She can hear the smile on his lips, the gravel in his throat.

‘You’re supposed to be at the clearing.’

‘Couldn’t wait.’

‘Someone might see you.’

‘Might see you and all.’

‘Me alone is better than me with you.’

‘Now that I’ll never agree to.’ Dougie steps out from behind the trees where he was hiding. Dark jeans. Leather jacket. Black skin. The speed of her pulse.

‘C’mon,’ she says. ‘Let’s get going.’

‘Not so fast.’

His arms around her waist, lips soft on her neck and she loves the way he does this, loves the heat that spreads through her. She presses her hips forward, feels his hand rising up the back of her miniskirt.

‘Not here,’ she whispers. ‘Later.’ Slipping her hand down his arm to lead him into the woods. A glance over her shoulder.

‘You think someone might be watching?’

‘Old Mrs Pettigrew, maybe.’

She certainly likes to watch close when Abi’s working – making sure the fresh towels are neatly folded, like so, hung smooth, like so. Everything has to be perfect in Wyndham Manor. And she’s so grateful for her job, that woman. She seems honoured to have been tasked with keeping an eye on Abigail. For her part, Abigail feels more sorry for her than anything. This world is not the one Abi would have designed, but it’s changing and she’s helping it along.

‘Come on.’

They weave hand in hand through hawthorn trees, through the scattering of cherry and silver birch at the woods’ edge and delve deeper, between thick bronzed trunks and feathered shrubs and something startles in the night, birds taking flight, squirrels scampering through undergrowth. Something bigger. There are deer in the woods, though she’s never seen them. Her pace slows as they approach the stream, follow the bank further from the manor.

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