Page 32 of The Trouble With Love

Vivienne joined us and got her breath back. ‘Here. Candles. Push them into the snow, then light one each.’ We managed, eventually, to get the candles to light. They kept toppling over in the snow and extinguishing themselves with sad little hisses but we persevered until a small ring of fluttering flame punctuated the hilltop. ‘Now this.’

‘What is it?’ I stared at the bag of dark liquid in Vivienne’s hand. ‘It looks like blood.’

‘It . . . well, yes, I suppose it is, technically.’ Vivienne actually looked a little ashamed.

‘Technically?’

‘It’s from the butcher.’

The bag swayed from her fingers. It seemed unnaturally swollen, as though the blood inside was treacle-thick. ‘From his shop, or him personally?’

Vivienne ignored me and poked a hole in the corner of the bag, using the result like an icing pen to draw dark crimson circles around each of the candles. When the snow was ringed with gore she stood back and nodded satisfaction, like Delia Smith finishing off a Gothic Christmas cake. ‘Now.’ Out came the notepads and pens again.

‘We don’t have to make another potion, do we?’ Megan anxiously tried to juggle her notepad and Rufus’s lead. ‘My system has only just got back to normal.’

Rufus ate her pen.

‘No. We write our wishes down and then use the smoke from the candles to send them skyward.’

‘Like writing to Father Christmas!’

‘Yes, Megan. Exactly like that.’

I wrote my wish but decided that sending it skyward might draw fate’s attention to me even more. So I balled it in my hand and gave it to Rufus, while everyone else was burning theirs, and as their smoke plumed upwards, my wish went the opposite way, dribble-assisted.

‘Your candle burned white,’ Vivienne observed. ‘It’s a sign that your wish is near completion.’

It was actually nearer digestion, but I couldn’t say that. I nodded and tried to look wise, and like someone who was in possession of a nearly-completed wish. And then I wished that I’d wished my wish was completed, but it was too late because Megan had taken my pen.

‘And now let’s join hands, close our eyes and make a silent appeal to the earth to grant us what we wish.’ Vivienne groped for my hand. I held hers loosely, sure that her palm was still slightly tacky with blood, with Megan’s left hand in mine. She was still holding Rufus’s lead, so her hand kept getting tugged away. Isobel gripped Megan and Vivienne’s spare hands and we all closed our eyes. Far away I heard seagulls calling and the sound of snow falling from overloaded branches in the wood beyond. Underfoot it creaked and whistled and fell into my boots with occasional inrushes which dampened my socks.

‘Feel yourselves,’ Vivienne whispered, and I tried, unsuccessfully, not to giggle. She opened one eye and glared at me. ‘Feel yourselves rooting into the earth, as part of the planet. Experience the cold, the snow, the wind. Hear the voices of the beasts, for they are part of the natural order.’

Unfortunately, just then our domestic part of the natural order let out an enormous, deep bark which made us all jump. I opened my eyes to see Rufus standing outside our circle of joined hands, straining his lead to its furthest extent and staring over the crest of the hill. His hackles were up.

‘What . . .’ I had time to say, before the Land Rover came out of nowhere at us and everything got a bit Scooby-Doo. Rufus ran towards it, barking hysterically, and a dog the size of Rufus barking hysterically is not something you want to get in front of. Megan yelled and tried to grab his lead, but he slipped it through her fingers and took off, heading almost under the wheels.

I looked up at the Land Rover and saw something jutting from a window. Something black and slightly shiny.

‘They’ve got a gun!’ I yelled, dashing forward to grab at Megan, but missing as she ran after Rufus. ‘They’ve got a fucking gun!’

Isobel and Vivienne looked frozen. They just stood as the Land Rover drove in a wide circle around us with Rufus in, well, dogged pursuit, still barking. The windows were dense with water vapour, but I was sure I could make out three figures inside, a driver, a passenger and . . . oh God, this sounded so ridiculous, an armed man. They were vague, smeary shapes, and all seemed to be wearing dark clothing.

‘Get out of here,’ I pulled at Vivienne until she looked at me. ‘Get down the hill. You too, Isobel.’

The Land Rover performed a sharp turn, slid several yards and then came back at us. Rufus slithered, trying to turn as well, but skidded out of the circuit, paws raking at the snow for purchase as the driver gunned the engine and drove between Isobel and me, cutting us like a herd of cattle being prepared for a roping.

A window wound low. ‘Satan’s whores!’ a male voice shouted. ‘We don’t want your kind here. Go take your demon lovers and your black bitch and get out of Barndale!’

Black bitch? I opened my mouth to ask what the hell they were talking about, and then realised they must mean Megan.

I found I’d ducked, which was ridiculous, since guns can just as easily aim downwards. ‘It’s a free country,’ I screamed back. ‘We’re not doing any harm.’

The Land Rover came to a halt. Now I could see inside through the wound-down window, three men wearing full-face balaclavas and baseball hats, like hoodies on a skiing holiday. The one in the passenger seat was holding a shotgun loosely out of the window, finger resting threateningly on the trigger. ‘We said we don’t want your kind here. It’s not open to debate.’

Okay, they wore disguise, but there was no disguising the voices: it was Big Ginge and the Moustache Master. The other man, the one with the gun, didn’t speak. ‘So, what, you kill people you don’t want in your woods? You must have bodies stacked up to the rafters.’

We’d not been shot yet, that was my thought. They were trying to frighten us. All right, they were doing a good job there.

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