There is a child at the bottom of the garden, standing pin straight, eyes wide, chin downturned just slightly. A car passes and, when the headlights cross the child’s face, their eyes flash for a moment, like twin torches in the desolate gloom.

Isla punches the grubby plastic light switch and the garden is flush with gold.

There is a fox at the bottom of the garden.

Of course, it’s a fox.

Isla presses her fingers to her eyes. Everyone sees things in the country, it’s part of the draw. Escape the dreary grey of the inner city and have a jaunt with the fairies. Isla has been here for three weeks and she’s not seen a fairy once.

She can’t sleep. Out here, it’s too quiet without the static fuzz of London, and too dark without its all-night lights.

Isla rubs the top of her arms, teasing the gooseflesh she finds there with her fingertips, bothering the skin with her nails. When she closes her eyes, she can see the child there on the path, their shining eyes fixed on hers.

*     *     *
In the morning, there is a near-dead thrush on her back doorstep. A gift from the barn cat hereabouts. The house she’s renting—for a holiday, or longer, she’s not quite decided—is an old barn conversion, though the cat seems to have missed the memo. More than once she’s had to chase it from the rafters lest it leer down at her while she fails to sleep.

“Today’s the day,” she tells herself as she gently brushes the thrush into the shrubs at the side of the path. Isla hasn’t been beyond the back garden since she arrived in the village. Three weeks and she’s finally run out of food. She’s supped all of the tinned beans and dried pasta from the pantry, and unless she wants to starve—which she has considered—she’ll have to go out to the tiny convenience store on the green.

Isla wrestles herself into a threadbare knit, careful to pull the sleeves right down to her fingers. She changes her jeans three times before she settles, and she stands in front of the door for five minutes, just staring at the dented doorknob before it occurs to her that she doesn’t remember where she stashed the keys.

The little house is a mess by the time she finds them—in the fridge no less, tucked up behind a jar of pickled onions that Isla would never eat, so she didn’t have to look at them with their tiny, useless torch and their cheerful carrot-shaped keyring. So they didn’t taunt her with the sure and certain promise of the outside world.

“You can do this,” she says as she stands, hands shaking, at the door. “Everything will be fine.”

It is half an hour before Isla bucks up the courage to step out.

It’s a warm day for late October and the sweater sticks to her skin. She can feel the sweat even before it wells up through her pores. The air is damp with the threat of rain. For the first twenty steps, Isla watches her feet. Then, when the scent of the dying leaves creeps up her nose and the sounds of the birds in the trees crawl into her ears, Isla is brave enough to look up. It was dark when she arrived, and she couldn’t bear to stand outside long enough to take in anything beyond the little old house.

The village is small, quaint, and—thankfully—all of its buildings are stocky one-storey affairs. Their pointed roofs thatched and well cared for. It’s nothing like the city. Isla’s shoulders relax just a little, the shake of her breath calms to more of a wobble.

As she passes, Isla glances at the little primary school, so quiet and dark for a Tuesday lunchtime. Something about it seems stale, as if the windows have not been opened for a time and the stuffy air has seeped out from the cracks in the frames and filled the playground with its must. Someone is moving around inside, but when she catches their eye, they pull the curtains closed so viciously that Isla can hear the snap through the warped single-glaze.

Mercifully, the shop is not too much further, according to the village map left by her host. Just a little way down the winding lane, past the primary school and across the patchy grass of the village green.

Tuppet’s Green Grocer and Convenience is also dark. Affixed on its door is a handwritten note, the kind of handwriting she remembers reading in birthday cards from her grandmother:

Back in Ten Minutes.

Isla almost turns back, hands squeezing the cross strap of her bag so tight that its edges score lines in her palms.

“You’ve not been waiting long, have you?” asks a voice as rough as crinkled paper.

Isla starts and stammers out a “No. No, I haven’t. No.”

“Good. We like to walk at lunchtime—it’s good for the soul.” The woman smiles as she shuffles up to the door, key in hand. Behind her a small gathering of other women looks Isla up and down and she tries to make herself look smaller, slimmer, shorter beneath their owly gaze.

The door opens and the shop bell shrills. The woman’s smile crinkles further. “You’ll be staying at the Tattonhill Barn, I expect.”

Isla wets her lips. “Yes—it’s a lovely house.”

“Been here a while and it’s the first time we’re seeing you. Keep yourself quite hidden, don’t you?” She’s a stout thing, wide and gnarled as a tree stump. Older, it seems, than the village itself.

Isla shifts from foot to foot and the old woman notices.

“Beg your pardon,” says the woman. “You’ll be wanting to come in—standing outside as you were. I get carried away; my age, you understand.”

A soft titter ripples out from her companions—all bar one, a young, gaunt-looking thing who still looks at Isla with wide eyes, as if she is some trespasser ready to take up the village and run.

“It’s okay,” says Isla, pressing her lips into what she hopes is a smile.

“Here we go.” The old woman shoves the door open and the wood crunches on the uneven tiles. “Welcome to Tuppet’s, we’ve not got anything fancy like you might find back in the city—you are from London?—but we should be able to provide anything you should need for your stay. You’ll be staying for …”

The gaggle of women step inside and she follows. Isla blinks, trying to sort the words into an orderly queue before she says them. “London, yes. I don’t know how long I’m staying just yet. The owner—”

“Nigel.”

“—Nigel, yes—he said I could stay in the house as long as I’d like. I don’t have any plans yet.” She swallows. The woman watches Isla as if she—Isla—is keeping a secret behind her teeth, some scheme stashed beneath her tongue. She has to say something. Give her a morsel she can chew on. “It’s nice though—the village. I might invite my little sister up to sta—”

“Don’t!” says the young woman with the wide eyes and the pale, pale skin. The word leaps from her mouth as if escaping and her fingers rise to meet it—to shove it back in or tease out the next, Isla cannot be sure. “She shouldn’t come here.”

“Morwenna.” The name is a warning and the old woman shakes her head so softly that she might not be moving at all, but Isla sees it and shrinks back towards the shelves. The other women—three in total—are looking anywhere but at Isla; they make themselves look busy in the shelves until the silence is broken.

The old woman shoves out her hand—“Bridie Tuppet.”—and Isla takes it, all too aware of the sheen of sweat on her palm. Bridie smiles, shows her teeth. “As I said, we should have everything you need. Do let me know if you have trouble finding anything.”

And Isla knows she is being dismissed, that she should collect a wicker basket from the stack and take herself away down the aisles. As she walks she hears a sharp whisper and tries not to listen. The shelves are filled to the brim, piled up like old bricks and ripe to topple if she even thinks of taking from them. Isla feels eyes on her back as she reaches for a tin of chopped tomatoes, but when she looks over her shoulder, most of the women are leaving. The bell chimes thrice and soon it is only Isla, Bridie, and Morwenna left in the little shop.

“Nice healthy shop,” says Bridie as she tots up the items on the till—it’s an old-fashioned thing but there has been an attempt at modernisation, a clunky card machine sits anachronistically beside it covered in a film of dust. The old woman only uses one hand; the other, Isla notices, is clenched white around Morwenna’s wrist. The young woman stares at Isla as if pleading; written in her eyes is a single word. Go.

And she does. Isla shoves her purchases in her bag and leaves without looking up. Neither does she look at the primary school and its darkness nor the birds that squawk and keen as she passes. She doesn’t even breathe—instead, holding her breath until she feels like she might choke on it. Isla marches straight back to the house, opens the door, rushes inside, and slams it shut. She leans her head against one of the cool, frosted windows and sucks in a breath so loud that it scares the barn cat on its perch up in the roof. It shouldn’t be inside, she has shooed it away often enough, but she is glad of its presence. Glad that it chooses not to look at her.

“I’ll deal with you later,” she rasps.

*     *     *
When the knocker clatters against the front door, Isla is trying and failing to tame the mess she made earlier. She sits in the centre of all sorts of knickknacks and books and DVD cases, and she doesn’t remember where any of them go. She would be glad of the distraction, if it were London. If it were before.

Here, the knocks feel like a warning, like trespassing, and Isla almost does not answer.

They knock again. The kind of knock that says, Excuse me; the kind of knock that huffs. Isla runs a hand through her hair and goes for the key—safely stowed on the small coffee table now.

Bridie Tuppet is waiting with a jar of jam clasped between her weathered hands. “You left this at the shop, dear. Didn’t want you to go without.”

The old woman smiles, though Isla and Bridie both know that Isla had not, in fact, purchased any jam. She doesn’t even like jam, especially not the seeded kind, those little kernels that get stuck between her teeth and nag at her gums until she feels like it might be better to get rid of her teeth altogether—but Bridie could not have known that part.

Still, they play pretend. Isla steps to the side—“I’m sorry about the mess. I couldn’t find the keys this morning.”—and Bridie steps in.

“Not to worry …”

“Isla.”

“Isla, such a lovely name. No need to fret about a little mess,” the old woman says, but when her eyes sweep across the scrappy little room, Bridie does not hide the distasteful curl of her lip.

“Would you like a cup of tea, coffee?”

“Tea, please. In a pot. Nigel always kept such nice teapots.”

Isla chews the inside of her cheek and sloughs off to the kitchen, certain that the moment she’s out of the room Bridie will be looking about, searching for things she doesn’t recognise and trying to get the measure of her. Should never have left the house, Isla thinks. Should have starved.

When she returns with the steaming pot on a tray, complete with a small jug of milk, a bowl of sugar and the nicest cup and saucer she can find, Bridie Tuppet is sitting with her hands knit on her lap. The old woman does not waste her time in saying, “I’m sorry about Morwenna. She’s not been well of late; had a lot on her mind, you see. We’re more hospitable than all that.”

Isla wets her lips. “I’m sure,” she says.

“I hope you took no offence to it.”

Bridie leans forward, and Isla knows that she is being tested. The old woman is gauging her, goading her. If she even blinks the wrong way, the old woman will pop her in a box, secure the lid, and toss her out of the village to be run over by country traffic. Isla tucks her hair behind her ear, and her sleeve slips. Bridie’s gaze flicks to the round red welts at her wrist. If she looks close enough, she might see the matching stains around her nails and know what Isla does. Without thinking, she pushes her hair further, and this time, Bridie spies the newly-healed scar at her hairline.

“Been through the wars.” It is not a question, but Bridie expects an answer. Isla can tell by the way she quirks her brow, by the hungry gleam in her eye.

Isla presses her lips into a tight smile. “Something like that.”

“That’ll be why you’re hiding out here, I expect.” At any other time Bridie’s smile might come across kindly, but Isla is beginning to know her better.

“I’m not hiding.” The lie slips from her lips a little too easily, a little too quickly, and the both of them know it. But Isla cannot tell her that the mark on her head is the reason she cannot bear to be in the city, surrounded by its great glass-and-concrete towers. The reason she could barely go outside—can still barely go outside. The reason her nails find her skin and dig, and her fingers pinch at the rolls of fat at her hips, her stomach, her back, and pull, as if she can peel herself out of her flesh and step out pristine and unafraid. Bridie would not understand.

Isla does not understand.

One moment, she was walking and there was a shout from somewhere above. From a balcony in a building made of windows. She remembers her reflection frowning back at her and then, she was on the ground, her own blood pooling around her, and a broken plant pot smashed by her side—fallen from up there. Isla remembers thinking what a shame it was to have ruined such a pretty shrub.

She’d gone outside and it had nearly killed her.

Bridie’s smile deepens. “Beg pardon, didn’t mean to offend.”

The two women stare at each other across a syrupy silence so thick Isla thinks she might drown in it—until Bridie says, “Well, I’d best be off. I will see you in the village.”

Another loaded not-question. No, Bridie has made a promise.

Isla flashes a terse smile and follows the old woman to the door.

*     *     *
The child is in the garden again. A boy. Isla can see him clearly now. He is lingering on the path with a grin so wide she can see his too-sharp milk teeth. This time there is a girl with him, her hair in dishevelled pigtails. Their clasped hands swing, the only thing about them that moves, besides the gone-midnight breeze through their hair.

Isla moves to the back door, pulls it open, ready to shout at them, to tell them to go home, go to bed—but the pair are already gone.

“Maybe you really are crazy,” she mutters as she trudges back to the nest of blankets on the sofa and, reluctantly, pulls the still-present cat into her lap. She won’t admit it aloud but again, she’s glad of its scruffy, snaggle-toothed presence, the warmth of it against her skin.

Her therapist, Colin—an expensive man in an expensive suit hired by her company to get her back in working order as soon as possible—wouldn’t approve of her doubt in his good work. “Brilliant. Just brilliant,” he’d said when she told him about her jaunt to the shop—but not about the hollow face of Morwenna or the probing gaze of Bridie, though she had told him about the tea. “And did anything terrible happen when you went out?”

“No,” she’d said begrudgingly.

The video had been choppy—the village is not a haven for modern technology with very little in the way of phone reception and broadband speed—but Isla hadn’t missed the smug rise of his shoulders. “What can we learn from this? We’ve spoken about catastrophising, haven’t we? Look what you can achieve when you cast it aside. It’s not London, but it’s something and you should be very proud of yourself. I’d like you to try to go out once a day, even if just for ten minutes. Longer, if you can.”

Colin calls it exposure therapy, and that is how Isla feels when she thinks about it: exposed.

She’ll do it, of course. Not because it will help—though her therapist insists that it will—but because Isla is already letting so many people down, and he has the perfect wiry eyebrows to caricature his disappointment and Isla couldn’t take them bowing low.

If nothing else, her venturing will keep Bridie placated.

There is a thump from the front door, so loud that the cat darts from Isla’s lap and the wood crunches beneath the weight of the knocker. Isla holds the thick woollen blanket to her throat.

Then comes the laughter—high, pitchy, keening.

She has to move, has to do something, has to make them stop. Isla creeps to the hallway, keeping close to the wall, with the blanket held tightly around her. “I can hear you,” she whispers, and then, more confidently: “I can hear you.”

At first, only the dark answers.

Until, thump. The knocker bangs again and the children’s laughter grows riotous. Isla is sure there’s more than two of them now, but she can’t make them out through the frosted windows.

“It’s not funny,” she says, and beneath the blanket, her hand finds her hip and she squeezes a nearly healed scab until it pops between her fingers. She wonders if it might be a sort of hazing, something done to those new to the village. Perhaps Bridie has set them to it. Or perhaps, it’s because she’s strange and easily frightened, or because she’s fat, or because she’s from the city. Children are cruel. She was, when she was a girl. She hadn’t meant to be, not really, but it’s easy to get swept up when you’re young. She was braver then, too. “You’ve had your fun”—Isla edges closer to the door—“please, just go.”

Again, the heavy thump; the cracking of the wood. Again, the wild cackles, like animals yipping.

Isla rushes to the door and shoves her fists up against the glass. “Stop it. Stop it. Go home.”

But the laughs grow louder and louder until—

In one motion, she twists the key and pulls the door open with her eyes squeezed shut. “Leave me alone!”

There’s no one there. Nothing on the path except a little knitted jumper, just big enough for a child. When she lifts the knocker, she finds nothing but pristine, painted wood beneath the large brass fox head. Isla looks up at the empty sky and her breath clouds in the cool night air. “It’s all in your head, Isla. You’re imagining things now.”

Except, she can’t have imagined it—at least, not all of it. There is the jumper, bundled up on the path, proof that there was a boy and he was at her door. Isla lifts it and brings it inside. It’s worn and clearly handmade. Across the front is a row of colourful mallards and the curvy blue of a river. Someone stitched love into this jumper—how disappointed they will be when they find out their child is a menace.

“I’ll return it tomorrow … on my walk,” she says to the mobile phone sitting on the table, as if Colin can hear her—though, she doesn’t know to whom she ought to return it. “I’ll take it to the school. They’ll know.”

Isla sets the jumper on the coffee table, pressing her palm flat on one bright duck. She looks for the cat, eager to settle again, but wherever it is, the animal is gone.

*     *     *
Despite yesterday’s warmth, today’s mid-morning chill carries with it hints of the soon-to-be minted November frost, though October still clings to the fence posts—Isla has always preferred the winter, hearing it crunch beneath her feet. She is more at home in her skin when it’s cold.

Revitalised by the chill, Isla marches up to the hunched figure of the primary school. She pushes the nagging prods of the outside world back and pretends she cannot feel them—she has a purpose. She is out here for a reason, and she’s not going to turn around now (even if she wants to). Isla tries the main entrance, but the door is locked. Strange for a school day, but perhaps they do things differently in the country.

Isla knocks, then rings the bell on the door frame labelled ‘deliveries’. It is what she’s doing, she supposes. Delivering the jumper.

A face sways into view in the dark. Gaunt and haggard, and though the woman stands beneath the arched, rainbow-coloured welcome sign, she looks anything but welcoming, and she doesn’t open the door.

“Hello,” Isla says through the glass. “Hello, I—”

“Why are you here?” The voice is shrill, and it doesn’t come from the woman in the school.

Isla turns. “Oh, Morwenna. I—”

“Why are you here?” She looks wild as she strides up the path, so frail that the breeze could break her. “What are you do—” Morwenna’s eyes dart to the colourful lump in Isla’s hands. “Where did you get that?”

She moves faster now, almost running across the cracked paving stones. “Where did you get it? Where did you get that? What have you done? What have you—”

Morwenna takes Isla by the shoulders, her bony fingers digging through the bunched cotton of Isla’s jacket. Morwenna holds her there for a moment, staring into Isla’s eyes as if to make sure she’s real, before her face crumples and her hands loosen. Now, she reaches for the jumper, pulls it clumsily from Isla’s grasp, and holds it against her chest.

“I wasn’t sure who to return it to, so I thought I’d best bring it here—the kids left it on my path last night.”

Morwenna’s head snaps up. “You’ve seen him? You’ve seen—where is he? Tell me. Tell me now. Where is my boy? Where are they?” The young woman is desperate. Her fists are clenched so tightly that Isla worries that her knuckles will pop from their sockets and they will have to scoop up her mangled fingers from the floor.

Isla casts a nervous glance back to the school door. “I—I thought they’d be at school. Wednesday morning and all—unless there’s a holiday I don’t know about? Some village event?”

“No, no, no.” Morwenna presses her face into the jumper and inhales. An awkward silence settles like dust before Morwenna stirs it up again—she grabs Isla’s arm and drags her back down the path.

“Morwen—”

“Sh.”

The women wend their way through the village—Morwenna’s hand clamped on Isla like a vice—until they come to a small cottage with a pretty, if overgrown, garden. The signs of a once-attentive hand are nestled in with the weeds. Morwenna doesn’t stop; she tugs Isla through the front door and into a dingy living room. She jabs her finger at a slim frame: the picture inside shows the boy, holding a toy car and wearing the jumper Morwenna has scrunched in her fist.

“Have you seen him? Have you seen my Luc?”

She moves down the cabinet and thrusts another photograph at Isla, catching her cheek with the corner of the frame. This time there are seven faces smiling up at her, all rosy cheeks and gappy teeth, most of them little, but two of them—not the two who were in the garden—are older. Off to one side is the woman from the school, not quite so harrowed then as she looks now.

“Them,” Morwenna begs. “Have you seen them?”

Again, she doesn’t let Isla answer and instead brings both photo and jumper to her face and sobs, sinking to the ground like an animal shot. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m so, so sorry.”

But Isla isn’t sure it is she Morwenna is talking to.

“Let me get you a drink,” Isla says gently. Isn’t that what you do when someone’s distressed? Ply them with tea? Isla has never really been good with people, she’s always been nervous and an expert in making things worse rather than better. But she can make a good cup of tea, even in an unfamiliar kitchen.

She finds the room easily enough, but as soon as she opens the door, she is hit by the smell of rotting. On the table is a place setting, heaped high with food far beyond edible. Flies buzz around it and Isla gags. She steps towards the table—

“Leave it.”

Morwenna stands at the doorway, a ghost of a woman, still holding the jumper between her shaking hands. “Bridie tells us to leave offerings, says they help, says it’s respectful and. … That day—the day that they … I made Luc’s favourite. I made Luc’s favourite because he always came home in time for tea when I make his favourite, and I can’t—I can’t clear it away because he’s not come back and if I clear it away that means he’s gone and he’s not coming home but this”—she holds up the jumper—“This means he’s still here, he’s been here. But why, why did he come to you? Why didn’t he come home? He doesn’t know you. He’s never met you. You weren’t …”

Her eyes widen and her mouth falls slack. “You weren’t here when we did it.”

Isla moves slowly towards her, hands raised as if she might dart at any moment. “What happened? What did you do?” she asks, but she isn’t sure she wants to know.

“Bridie told us.” Morwenna chuckles then, a hollow laugh. “She tried to tell us but we—we do everything by vote. Very democratic like that.”

Isla leads her back to the sitting room, away from the bustle and buzz of the flies and the stench of rancid food and Morwenna follows along, still chattering. She’s calmer now, but Isla knows that the woman is not calm, not really. Isla had been just as calm, as eloquent, when she came home from the hospital. It was only after that the trouble started.

“We were overrun, you see. They’d been killing chickens and ripping up gardens and the village was fed up with them.”

“The children?” Isla frowns.

“The foxes. Nigel—the man whose house you’re … Nigel wanted to take action. So we held a meeting—of course, we held a meeting. Meetings are everything here, you can’t decide to plant a shrub without either a meeting or the nod from Bridie. Small villages, you know?”

Isla doesn’t—she’s a child of the city, that large, anonymous place where anyone can creep by unnoticed, can grow up, can live and die without even knowing the person who lives two or three doors down.

Morwenna continues. “We voted, all of us. All of us except for Bridie. She told us to leave it well alone. That nature does what it does and if we want it to not do something, we should take it up with”—Morwenna waves her hands—“leave offerings and what have you. Ask nicely. But we didn’t.”

Morwenna looks lost, like someone set adrift, and Isla squeezes her shoulder. “Go on,” she says.

“Instead, we killed them. So, so many tiny furry bodies but … We had to. That’s what Nigel said. It was the only way.” Morwenna counts the stitches in the little jumper and Isla sits so still she might be made of marble. “Everything was fine for a week—maybe two. We continued as normal, replanted, bought more chickens. Went on as if nothing had happened, as if we hadn’t defiled anything.”

She wets her lips and looks briefly at the ceiling. There’s a smile there for a second, but then it’s gone. “There was a sleepover at the school. We’re such a small place, they had all of the children in the one class, the littles and the older ones before they go off to secondary school.”

Morwenna meets Isla’s eye with a look so ferocious that she imagines Morwenna’s teeth sharpening. “We thought it was her, at first. That she’d done it. It had to be her, she was there. She was with them—”

“Who, Morwenna?” Isla coaxes. “Who was with them?”

“Catriona—the teacher. She insisted that she didn’t do anything, that she didn’t even fall asleep, but everyone knows she drinks. But she’s sweet and she’s nice and she teaches the children so we ignore it—ignored it for so long. It was a little while before we realised that it wasn’t—that she was just … But Bridie knew. Bridie knew all along. She warned us and she knew.”

“What happened to the children, Morwenna?”

“One day, we dropped them off at the school with their pyjamas and their snacks and Luc, he took his rabbit—not a real rabbit, a little stuffed thing, he needs it to sleep. One day, we took them to school and it was supposed to be fun, and the next morning, their sleeping bags were empty. They were gone. The school doors were still locked, but they were gone.” Morwenna is still for the first time since they entered the house. Her hands sit limp in her lap, the jumper cradled between them. She stares ahead and Isla shuffles in her seat. Everything is silent, save for the two of them breathing.

Morwenna’s gaze snaps to Isla again and the woman grasps Isla’s lapels. “You have to come with me. To bring an offering like Bridie says. They’ve come to you. If you leave something, maybe …”

And Isla knows she cannot say no.

*     *     *
They’re a little way away from the village, stomping through briars and bracken to a place that Morwenna calls the foxhole. She’s brighter now—cheerful, even. Isla can see the stirrings of hope crinkling the corner of her eyes. Her intestines have made a knot of themselves—what will Morwenna do when it doesn’t work?

“There’s no guarantee,” she says and Morwenna waves her off, buoyed by possibility.

“You’ll see. When we get there, you’ll see.”

Isla holds her hands in front of herself and digs her nails into each wrist. The sting of it, and the burn of her calves as she walks, distract her from the idea that she’s letting someone else down—whole families—even before they know she exists. Though Bridie has probably mentioned her to every villager by now: the strange, sad, mad girl staying in the barn.

“It’s not far now,” Morwenna says as she whips sticky weeds away from her legs.

And it isn’t, Isla can see the strange formation of stones rising up out of the brush, the dim-lit dusk painting them in shades of autumn. They stand in an arc, the six of them, like sentinels—three either side of a large hole in the hill behind. The foxhole, or a tomb, Isla cannot be sure which.

It’s not empty, either. The foxhole is filled with flowers and cakes and pies and little dolls made from twigs and twine. Nestled up between them are several pale, white shapes. Isla doesn’t know what they are at first—perhaps they’re pebbles, or ornaments. It is not until she steps closer that she can see them true: seven little fox skulls, not yet grown. Behind them lie seven tiny fox pelts, not large enough yet to have turned red, though the colour stains them still.

Isla turns to run, to slip back to the house, collect her things and the cat and go. But Morwenna is beside her with a little box. Seven speckled eggs sit in cotton wool cups. “I have a nice plate,” she says. “If you put them on it and place it down, she’ll give the children back. I know it. I know she will.”

Though she wants to shove Morwenna aside and not stay long enough to hear the eggs crack beneath her, Isla takes the box and the plate and kneels in front of the foxhole. Morwenna has already placed the little jumper, neatly folded, towards the back of the hole. The plate, Isla notices, has the same row of mallards, crudely painted around its edge. “She, who? Who will give them back, Morwenna?” she asks.

It could be the teacher, Catriona, Morwenna had said she was a suspect. Isla even considered Bridie until—

“The Foxmother.”

Here she comes, Bridie, old as stone, through the tangled weeds. A ring of twigs rises up from the back of her white hair like a halo, and she wears a thick robe of bleached hessian. Isla can still see the ghosts of old ink in the fabric—the ensemble had once been sacks of potatoes or flour or wheat. Behind her, the other women from Tuppet’s trail in a line, not so easily picking through the path with the heavy, squirming load they pull behind them. Catriona, too, staggers at the rear. Thick with drink, her gaze finds Isla’s, and the weight of it makes Isla look away.

Bridie opens her hands. “The village took her children, and so …”

“... She took theirs,” Isla whispers. It’s superstitious nonsense, village folklore, the kind of country eccentricity that city folk scoff at from their busy streets and over their steady internet connection. But out here between the stones and Bridie, the truth of it sings in her bone marrow, and somewhere deep down, Isla believes it.

Morwenna falls into the grass beside her and clasps Isla’s hands in her own, shoving them into the box as if Isla is a puppet she can control. “Please,” she says as she squeezes Isla’s hands so that the eggs nearly break between her fingers. “Please lay them out.”

“You know it’s not that simple, Morwenna.” Bridie sighs, and it sounds like wind through the thin barn house windows.

“But they came to her. Luc came to her. She’s seen them.”

Bridie stares at Isla for a long moment. “She is to be witness then.”

Witness to what? Isla doesn’t ask. The roiling in the pit of her stomach tells her she’s going to find out soon enough.

“You’ll not have met Nigel,” the old woman says, nodding to those assembled behind her. The women roll their wriggling sack towards the foxhole, and Isla’s hands fly to her mouth. She shifts, ready to run headlong from the clearing—there is a phone box at the edge of the village, she can call for help if only she can reach it.

Bridie tuts and sinks her fingers in Isla’s hair, tugging her backwards with surprising strength. The old woman hauls her up and hurls her to the side. Isla’s forehead hits the stone and her vision swims. “Not again,” she rasps as her fingers come away bloody.

“What did you say?” Morwenna is still on her knees, her wide eyes shining through the dim.

“Don’t worry about that,” says Bridie as she slides a long blade from her belled sleeve, marred by time’s jagged teeth. “She’ll live.” The old woman inclines her head towards the foxhole. “Ladies, if you please.”

Morwenna stays on the ground, clumps of grass between her fingers, while the others—the three from the shop and the teacher—untie the sack and tug it away. There is Nigel with his hands tied behind his back, ankles strung together and a tea towel shoved in his mouth. The saliva-soaked gingham is pretty, Isla could see it in a country kitchen. Fitting, she thinks, and then she frowns at the thought. Blood seeps into her eyes. She shakes her head and the world feels liquid, like it’s swaying beneath her.

Nigel has seen the knife and he tries to shout through the towel; he looks at Morwenna with pleading eyes.

“Bridie, what …?” Morwenna moves away from the foxhole as Isla tries to crawl towards it. The old woman kicks out at Isla’s head and blood spatters up her robe.

Bridie says, “Justice. It was Nigel who decided we should kill them, and it is Nigel whose life should be forfeit.”

Morwenna shakes her head, horror pulling her jaw down low. “Bridie. Bridie, no.”

“Don’t you want to have Luc back where he belongs? The Foxmother provides and will provide again. The Foxmother demands justice for her murdered children—only when she has it will she release ours. Morwenna, you know this to be true. You feel it. We all feel it.”

Isla stares through the blood and Morwenna stares back.

“But it’s wrong, Bridie. Can’t you see that it’s wrong?” Morwenna reaches for Nigel and tears well up in his eyes.

Isla pushes herself shakily to her knees and slurs out, “This is crazy. You’re all mad.”

She grips the stone and wedges her shoulder against it. When she tries to pull herself up to her feet, nausea sweeps up into her throat. Isla coughs out bile, but Bridie is ignoring her now.

“We all voted, Bridie.” Morwenna, who appears more sane, more stable than ever Isla has seen her, looks to the others. “And you’re happy with this? You’re for this?”

“They know it is best, and so will you when Luc comes back.” Bridie doesn’t let them speak. Isla would be surprised if they have tongues at all, so little do they use them.

There is a movement in the foxhole; deep behind the offerings and the skulls and the pelts, two tiny eyes shine out. Isla sees it first, then Morwenna, whose eyes fill up with tears. There is something familiar about those little eyes, those sharp teeth, and the way it places a tiny paw on the jumper—its sharp claws picking at the stitches.

The little fox withdraws; when she looks back, the foxhole is empty. Morwenna’s grief and her hope shatter like porcelain to reveal the beating heart beneath, stuck full by a knife of its own. “He’s not coming back!” she roars. “He’s gone. They’re all gone and we’re never getting them back.”

Isla finds her feet, and her tongue. “You’re going to commit literal murder because some old bat says so? Enjoy prison, ladies.”

Isla doesn’t know why she’s laughing. It’s not funny at all, and she hasn’t laughed in months. Not really. But as she looks at the knife-wielding old woman wearing potato sacks; the town drunk; three women with no discernible personality to split between them; Morwenna, who is grief made human; poor hostage Nigel (to whom Isla feels the almost uncontrollable urge to nod, say, “How do you do?,” and introduce herself); and the blood that coats her hands and her jacket, flowing freely from exactly the same spot that almost killed her the first time, Isla cackles. She’s concussed, she has to be, but the whole thing is so unlikely, so completely ridiculous, that she can’t help but imagine telling her therapist.

How’s that for exposure therapy, Colin?

Isla thinks of the number seven: seven fox kits dashed to pieces, seven children stolen, seven villagers losing their collective shit before her eyes. She has to leave, to go back to London and forget anything ever happened. Isla brings her bloody hand to her hip and scrapes at it with her nails—the pain is grounding. The pain tells her she is awake, she is alive, she can get out of here.

“Well, grab him then.” Bridie says to the others.

But none of them move. They look at each other, at Nigel, at Morwenna, then step backwards.

The old woman whips around, knife blade pointing at Isla. “This is your doing. You’ve poisoned them. You’ve ruined everything. Just like a tourist. I should’ve known, should’ve cut you out before you even left that house. I saw you arrive, you know. I saw you pull up in that expensive car with your expensive London luggage. I saw how pitiful you were huddled in the dark, afraid of your own shadow. I tried to take you under my wing, tried to bring you into the fold, but you city folk …”

Bridie advances on her and all of the giddiness bubbling up in Isla’s chest fizzles away. The old woman raises the knife and brings it down with a crash—the blade snags Isla’s hair and bounces off of the rough stone. Isla lugs herself around the rock. Her limbs are heavier than they should be, and she’s moving too slow, but she has to try.

“Bridie!” Morwenna screeches and then her skeletal fingers are digging into the old woman’s cheeks as she wrestles Bridie away.

“Run now. Go. Get away,” Morwenna hisses.

But Isla cannot leave Nigel—she should, it isn’t her business, but Isla believes she is a good person and good people do not leave strangers—especially strangers who let her rent their house for an indefinite period of time—to be used as a human sacrifice in the middle of the countryside. As Morwenna struggles with Bridie, Isla wobbles over to him and yanks the tea towel from his mouth.

“Thank you,” he says. “Hurry. Don’t bother with the hands. Just do the feet. Hurry, hurry.”

Isla has never been brilliant with knots, and the rope is already slick with her blood.

“Let me.” Catriona, breath stinking of alcohol, crouches beside her. She pulls a pen knife from her pocket and hacks at the rope. “This is my fault. I was with—This is my fault.”

With both hands and feet untied, Nigel and Isla stagger to their feet. He has a matching head wound, though the blood on his face is dry. Isla looks back—woman tussles with woman, and the teacher chugs back a hip flask. Catriona nods to Isla, takes her knife and joins Morwenna and Bridie—where the other three are, Isla cannot say. The thought is as heavy as her legs as they drag behind her: what if they come for them? What if they’re waiting just down the track?

“They’re gone,” Nigel says, the thought written across Isla’s face. “Never had the stomach for much, those three.”

Isla nods and swallows. Blood coats her throat, the taste of metal making her grimace. From behind, there is a shout, and someone falls but the pair of them don’t turn to find out who. They stumble on through the brush and the branches, back towards the village.

When they finally find the dirt track, thick grooves cutting through its surface, Isla swears she sees someone up ahead. She shoves her hand into the pocket of her coat, scrabbling around for the keys.

“What are you doing?” Nigel asks, his frown cracking the blood on his forehead.

Isla pulls the keys from her pocket. “Shhh.”

She points the little torch out into the track.

When the light hits them, eyes reflect back from the dark and Isla jumps.

There is a woman on the road. She is tall and slim-faced, surrounded by seven sets of shining eyes—standing around her are seven little bodies. The boy smiles his too-many-toothed smile and raises his hand. The girl beside him titters.

“Oh god,” Isla whispers.

“What?” says Nigel. “What is it?”

Isla squeezes her eyes shut, rubbing at them with her sleeve. She opens them again and thrusts the dim light ahead once more.

There is a fox on the road.

Of course, it’s a fox.

“It’s just a fox. It’s okay. Just a fox.” Isla breathes, and Nigel shudders beside her. After tonight, after everything, just a fox isn’t as comforting a thought as it used to be.

The fox turns to the forest, takes one last look over its red-furred shoulder, and slinks away into the underbrush. A trail of seven kits follow her. The last of them stops and yips down the track, and then mother and pups are gone.