Burn the Witch

 

The sun left a warm purple light lingering in the sky. Val was watering her tomatoes and basil, her beans and leeks, and scores of flowers she didn’t know the names of. She was tall and sinewy like fennel, and as secretive as a daisy in the shade. It took her years to make friends and seconds to make enemies. She lived alone by choice. Her past drove her to solitude, and solitude asked nothing of her. She had her garden, and like an old friend, it gave back the energy she put in. The Oaks watched on as she grew evermore winter-worn with each passing season. The birds sang evensong, the wind blew her hair, and the rain lulled her to sleep, whispering timpani on the caravan roof. 

 

She was at an age where her primal allure was dwindling. She was glad she no longer had a body that men lusted over. In her youth, she had been so beautiful the men of the town had followed her round like blood hounds. Their advances were folly, for she didn’t find men attractive, what she wanted was a woman. She didn’t get what she wanted. Her lesbian desire went unsatisfied.

            As the years rusted her memories, she began to smile again. She was an only child of a family that didn’t talk. When her parents died, she was the last of the line. She worked as a nurse for a home just five minutes from her caravan. The discs in her back had worn out, but she had enough strength left in her to garden away her retirement. The caravan sat on a couple of acres of fallow land. Her garden began with a patch of tomatoes. After decades of cultivation, her initial bed had grown into a kitchen’s worth of herbs, fruits, and vegetables. In the gaps between produce, she nurtured a sanctuary of scented wonder. All the flowers had Latin names, she didn’t need to know the names to enjoy their petals and scent. The more she grew the more she forgot. In the summer she ate straight from the garden, in the winter she ate last year’s preserves. Her flatulence was legendary. They were loud and long, and brought forth a stench medieval. Luckily, no one came close enough to find out if the legends held true.  

 

One summer evening a group of bored teenagers came across her garden. They wore a strict uniform. They all dressed in blue puff sports coats, with grey tracksuit bottoms, and trainers. They all had the same haircut, cut at the same barbers, trimmed down shades of brown, short back and sides. The uniform of the wild rural youth was compulsory, and was kept to, as if it were the robes of a religious cult. The toughest teachers couldn’t handle them and they were excluded from school. Their parents wanted them out, but had to wait until they were old enough to be thrown out. They wandered the town like post-apocalyptic survivors, fuelled on pot, beer, and energy drinks.

Their leader was a damaged child. His father had beaten him from the moment he could walk. He didn’t get a chance to see the beauty of the world. All he saw was animal. Brutality was so ingrained in him, he could hear the sound of the prison doors that awaited him, long before they shut. The local hog swill police were waiting for him to turn eighteen. As soon as he was legally an adult, they would book him for everything he had done and send him to the hate factory.

            He led the others with fear. He was tough, he looked fat, but he was strong. He could fight boys much older than him. He often welcomed the violence. He took the pocket money from his gang and bought small weights of skunk. They were high from morn to night. When their pocket money ran out, the grew hungry, and the hunger turned to anger. They had nothing to do, nothing to look forward to. Jobs they would grow to hate, filled their dreams like inescapable premonitions, and they were confused about it, as most teenagers are.

            When they found Val’s garden, the leader started to snap the bamboo canes and pull up the plants. He chucked one at his second in command. They followed his lead and started to demolish the flowerbeds.

            Val heard them and felt a surge of fear infect her heart. She peered through the net curtains. They were ripping up her garden. The sight of the devastation turned the fear into rage. She put her boots on and opened the rusty door. The boys saw her and laughed.

            ‘Stop that,’ said Val. Her voice was high pitched and doddery, it failed to deter them. If anything it made them laugh. The leader mimicked her,

            ‘Stop that,’ he said in a mock woman’s voice.

            ‘Stop that,’ she said again, with as much venom as she could muster.

Some of the younger boys stopped. The leader carried on ripping out plants.  He held a pansy in his hand and threw it at Val. It hit her in the face.

            ‘You little bastard.’

The use of “bastard” made them scream with laughter.

            ‘Get out of my garden,’ said Val with cold calm precision. This time the leader stopped and looked her in the eyes. She looked away. She had seen those eyes before and she knew what they were capable of. He sneered.

            ‘Or what? You silly old bitch.’

The word “bitch,” triggered a dormant anger, fire blazed through her heart. She grabbed her gardening Fork, and held it as if it were a bayonet fixed rifle.

            ‘Get out of my garden.’

Sensing danger the gang began to edge away. The leader remained. He was weighing up the consequences of taking her out. There were seven people including Val. One of them was sure to tell their parents, who would inform police. He knew he couldn’t harm her. But her defiance burnt coals inside his brain. He had to retreat. His gang saw him back away from the elderly woman with the fork. His pride was bruised. He ground his teeth. A voice inside his head spoke for him,

            ‘You’ll get her later,’ said the voice inside his head.

The voice reassured him, and he and the gang left Val’s garden. She stood firm, as her whole body shook with adrenalin.

 

 

 

The blue night flooded over the warm concrete of the town. The gang broke away and headed home. The leader hadn’t said much since Val defended her garden. He brooded over her. Before he knew it, he was back home. The familiar smell, he no longer smelt, greeted him. It was an artificial onion odour. The mixture of cigarette smoke, manky half dry washing, and cat. He opened the door. His step-mother sat in a dark smoke filled living room. She was in a trance, and not a good one, an unresponsive gin coma. She didn’t acknowledge him. His father sat in the kitchen. The big drunk brute was drinking beer and smoking, without book, television, or music. He was caught in a dull lifeless stupor, waiting for his son.

            ‘Where the fuck have you been?’

Mark ignored his father. His father didn’t say it again. He got up and slapped the boy full power across his face.

            ‘Gene cooked a roast, I threw yours in the bin you little bastard.’

Mark rubbed his jaw and went out to the garden.

            ‘Mark, I’m talking to you, where you going?’

Mark went out to the shed and found a jerry can. It was empty.

            ‘Get back in here,’ said his father. Mark ignored him. He hopped over the garden fence and went out into the fresh summer night.

 

 

Val was slurping vegetable broth when she heard a knock. She put the spoon down and peered through the net curtains. She saw two men dressed in black. They shone bright torch light over everything. It was the police. She unlocked the door and stood there with her innocent smile.

            ‘Valerie Butterford,’ said the man.

            ‘Yes.’

            ‘We had a call from a woman, who claimed you threatened her son with a gardening fork.’

Val froze. There wasn’t a deceitful bone in her tired body.

            ‘Yes I did.’

The police looked at her for a long time before they said,

            ‘Why did you threaten him with a fork?’

            ‘They were destroying my garden, and one threw a pansy at me. There were six of them.’

            ‘They were teenagers. You should have called the police.’

            ‘How long would it have taken for you to get here? My plants are precious. Without my garden I’m nothing.’

            ‘I am going to give you a warning. If they return call us.’

            ‘What are you going to do about the vandalism?’

            ‘You can call and report it as a crime. Here’s the number.’

            ‘Can’t you make a report?’

            ‘It doesn’t work like that Miss Butterford. We are here to establish whether or not you are a danger to the public. Threatening people with forks is a crime. Those boys are on our radar. They are being monitored.’

They police left the caravan and drove into the darkness.   

 

Mark snuck down the backstreets towards the edge of town. He walked up a gravel track to Marston Farm. He took out his knife and cut a piece of hose from a coil. Then he undid the tank on the tractor and fed the hose in. He blew until the diesel gushed out and filled his father’s jerry can. Then he took the muddy path round the town to Val’s caravan.

 

Val was sleeping. She had finished her dinner. She read some poems from a dusty book of sonnet by the light of a candle. Then she pulled a blanket over her and drifted off. Her homemade raspberry wine was strong. A shot of it before sleep helped her tired back rest.

 

Outside in the dark, Mark piled wood and paper under the wheels of Val’s caravan. He built the bonfire with a barefoot quiet. He poured diesel in a ring around and lent three pallets softly against the door. Then he stopped. He drew out his lighter and waited. There was a part of him that called out. The old voice was saying: “don’t do it.” He almost listened. But then the voice that drove him to gather the diesel spoke up.

            ‘Do it, she deserves to die,’ said the new voice inside his head.

            ‘I don’t know, if I get caught, they will take me away.’

            ‘You won’t get caught. The fire will destroy the evidence. Burn the Witch, burn the witch, burn the witch.’

He flicked the flint until a flame sparked into the darkness. Then he put the flame to the diesel. In seconds the wood under the wheels caught fire. Everything was summer dry. The caravan was ablaze and Mark ran from the inferno.

 

TWO

Mark slept a long and dreamless sleep the night of the fire. He woke to the sound of a drill. His father had a fetish for drilling holes in the wall. He liked to put shelves up and thread wires through rooms. He didn’t care what time he started. He would rise and drill into the wall before breakfast if the desire took him. Mark came down stairs. He wore the same clothes he had on the night before. There was a faint smell of smoke on his shirt. It made him smile. Mark’s stepmother had slept on the sofa.  She rose to the sound of the drill. She didn’t say much. She filled a cup with instant coffee and went back into the living room to watch T.V. The smell of cigarettes wafted out to Mark and his thought were of the fire.

 

It was late morning when a dog walker discovered the smoking remains of Val’s caravan. The fire brigade, police, and ambulance came. The fire had burnt itself to black smoulders. All that remained were heat warped bits of metal framing sunk into pools of smouldering plastic. All the wood had been incinerated. The ambulance left as they were no longer required. The fire fighters were poking around trying to establish the cause and whether or not the occupant had escaped. The birds were quiet. The fire ripped through the garden leaving charred leafless stumps where once there were green herbaceous beds. As the fire fighters prodded away a group of police officers stood round chatting.

            ‘I called on her last night. Mrs. Ornery reported her for threatening her son with a fork. It was that Thompson boy, she should have hit him with a shovel.’

The constables started to laugh. The detective inspector,  a gruff and wrinkled man, didn’t find it funny.

            ‘You stand about laughing like a bunch of apes.  We could be stood next to a murder scene. And you P.C Brown, you had knowledge that the Thompson boy had harassed her. And you didn’t file a report. If the fire team find the charred remains of Valerie Butterford, it will be on your head. This smacks of arson. And there’s only one boy that could have done it, Mark Thompson.’

They stopped laughing and waited in silence for the fire chief’s report. The fire chief was a butch woman with arms like tree trunks. She gestured for the Detective inspector. He was old and shabby but his mind was sharp as broken glass.

            ‘In my professional opinion this was arson. The fire began outside the caravan and spread up from under the tires. My team looked for electronics and found none. She used a gas cooker but there was no sign of accidental ignition. The caravan was full of books. Once the fire got inside it would have been quick. We have searched every inch of the site and we found no human remains. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t harmed, the fire could have incinerated the body, but it is unlikely. I believe this site to be free of human remains. You will have to make contact with Miss Butterford to be sure.’

 

The detective ran all the information through his brain. He didn’t like it. Arson was one thing, murder was another. Without a body, the arson wouldn’t carry as much of a penalty, especially if they booked Mark as a minor.

            ‘Can’t you conduct a more in depth search? I want to know for sure that miss Butterford wasn’t harmed.’

            ‘We have done our best, we always do, my team have done all they can, you need to call in forensics. Are you willing to put your neck on the line? Cos I won’t. There is a high chance that she escaped the fire.’

The detective rubbed his head. He had to call it.

            ‘Have you had much experience with caravan fires?’ he said.

            ‘I have seen caravan fires in which people have died, and I have not found evidence that would suggest someone has died here.’

The detective knew that even if he cordoned it off as a murder scene, forensics may refuse on the strength fire chiefs report. Money was always tight.

Just as he was about to call in a non-fatal, a phone call came through from control. A report had been made about a theft of diesel from Marston Farm. That was evidence. Someone had stolen diesel on the night the caravan caught fire. The fire chief’s report corroborated the suspicion of arson. He had enough to call in fire forensics.

They didn’t take long. Val’s garden was cordoned off. A team of white suited fire forensics bods began to analyse every inch of the charred remains. The detective waited at the scene. He set up an office in the back of a police van, and began putting evidence together. The prime suspect was Mark Thompson. He was at the scene of the crime the same day of the fire. He was seen threatening the owner of the caravan. He had a history of violent crimes involving men and women. The most damning piece of evidence was finger prints on a jerry can found near a burnt out car. They had evidence that he had torched a car some months previous. He had a history of arson. If Mark had been eighteen they would have arrested him hours ago. The detective sat on a hard bench. He thumbed through paperwork, called up constables, and drank large mugs of black coffee. It was dark when forensics brought him their final report.

            ‘We found no evidence of human remains. The occupant of this caravan was not killed by the fire. We did find traces of diesel on some of the unburnt debris that survived the fire. In conclusion non-fatal arson.’

The Detective slumped over his coffee stained papers. ‘non-fatal arson.’ he said to himself. The case against Mark changed in severity. If they found a body he would have been sent to a hospital for the criminally insane. With no body, he could work the legal system. The boy needed medical attention. He needed to be taken off the streets. There was a small chance he could walk free. Even with a folder full of evidence he could walk free.

 

THREE

Three days past before the police had enough to arrest Mark. He walked the town as if he had gotten away with it. Every hour emboldened him, he was stoned and looking for something else to burn. When the detective inspector called on the Thompson residence Mark was in. His step mother was where she always was, in front of the T.V in her dressing gown. His father was in the shed drilling a hole through a piece of wood. Mark was sleeping off a strong joint. The heavy fisted thump of the police was a sound Mark knew, so did his step mother. His father was too far to hear. Mark got up, put his trainers on, and got ready to run. Mark’s step mother got up but didn’t open the door.

            ‘Open up, it’s the police, open up.’

Mark’s father heard the sound of knocking. He left his drill and came into the house. Mark ran into him, and before he could get past, his father grabbed hold of his wrist.

            ‘What have you done boy?’ said his father.

Mark didn’t answer.

            ‘You brought the pigs to my door. You won’t get far? they will catch you. Like they caught me. Remember what I told you.’

Mark didn’t reply.

            ‘Hold on,’ Mark’s father called to the police.

Mark tried to break free from his father’s grip. But he held him tight like a noose.

            ‘Say nothing.’ He said to his son, then he shouted to his wife to open the door.

The door opened and six police officers barged in. Two officers grabbed hold of Mark while the Detective read the rights.

            ‘Mark Thompson, I am arresting you on suspicion of Arson, and attempted murder, you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned something which you later rely on in court.’

The detective gestured to take him to the van. Then he turned to the boy’s father,

            ‘You have the right to accompany him.’

Mark turned to see if his dad would stay with him.

            ‘He will be fine.’

Mark cried out ‘Dad,’ crushed that his father had refused his right to stay with his son.

‘Don’t say anything boy.’

They dragged Mark to the van and drove him to the police station. He was given the right to an advocate and a lawyer. Mark waved all rights. He began to meditate on his silence. A police officer sat with him at all times. Even when they were waiting for the necessary paper work to begin the interview. The young officer tried to make conversation. Mark said nothing. He just stared at the dark plastic floor. occasionally looking up at the pale beige walls. The detective walked in.

            ‘We’re ready for you, are you ready for your interview?’

Mark nodded.

            ‘Come this way.’

They led Mark along a corridor, past the vacant cells, past the desk, and in the interview room. Inside the room the walls were a deeper shade of brown.

            ‘Are you aware of your rights?’

The detective read a list of rights that he had refused. Mark didn’t listen. All he focused on was not saying a word.

            ‘Where were on the fifth of July?’

Mark said nothing.

            ‘You refuse to answer?’

Mark said nothing.

            ‘Your dad taught you well, but even if you refuse to answer, the evidence will be enough.’

The interview ran on and Mark said nothing. The detective switched off the recorder.

            ‘We know you set fire to the caravan. They didn’t find a body.’

Mark’s expression changed. He went from emotionless to agitated. She had escaped him. They took him to a cell.

The detective’s time was running out. He had no confession. The evidence was overwhelming and yet it would be hard to make it stick if he maintained his vow of silence. The detective made the decision to charge Mark with arson and drop the attempted murder.

 

On the day of the trial, Mark’s father and stepmother put on their best clothes, and accompanied their son to the magistrate’s court. The building was a concrete box from the nineteen seventies. The concrete had turned grey and weeds grew in the patches of grass under the steps. A dump of fag butts had collected on the pavement of the designated smoking area. All three of them puffed their last fags before they went in. A stiff looking guard took their names and frisked them. When they were through the metal detector they were told to wait for the call. They sat in silence until a woman with a clip board told Mark to be ready. He was shown to the dock and his parents took their seats.

            Mark had plead not guilty. The prosecution presented the evidence. Mark refused to say a word. The only thing he opened his mouth for was the response to his whereabouts.

            ‘I went home and watched T.V. in my room.’

He refused to answer most of the questions. If he had to answer he said yes and no. His father had taught him how to behave in court. From a young age his father had been in and out of prison. Each time he learnt how to evade the law, a little better than before. The knowledge was passed on like an ancient religious tradition. Mark’s final statement was short.

            ‘I am innocent.’

The magistrate ruled in Mark’s favour. He beat the case. For the first time in many years his father smiled at him.

            ‘Well done son.’

The detective took himself into a nearby toilet and punched the wall. Valerie was still missing. The sad thing was if her remains had been found at the scene the whole thing would have been taken more seriously, without a body there was no charge of murder. The detective walked out into the afternoon. The night was waiting for the sun to soften its gaze.

 On the night of the fire Val slept inside a dream she couldn’t visualise. She wandered steep streets, sunlit systems of weedy canal locks flowed down for miles. The buildings were hewn from cliffs, and the people sat still in the afternoon. It was hot in her dream. The temperature rose and all the buildings caught fire. She woke to the blaze. The smoke choked her and she felt her hair burning. She tried the door but couldn’t move it. The weight of the pallets locked her in. Her flesh singed. She turned and dove out the window by her bed. Her hair was on fire. Her clothes smouldered on her flesh. She picked herself up and screamed off into the night. The pain fire drove her mad. She ran into the wild without looking back. She ran into the woods screaming.  The burns that covered her body stabbed with pain. She saw the smouldering remains of her clothes on her wrists. She ran deeper into the woods until she found a hidden pool under a low water fall. She plunged herself into the moon milk water. It was cool. She submerged her whole body and soaked off the charred clothing stuck to her flesh. The spring was fresh she drank some to cool her smoke burnt throat. The water soothed her burns. The fire had burnt her scalp bare. It would have killed her if she had waited for an ambulance. The pool had saved her. An hour after the plunge she began to shiver. She had no phone, no home, no clothes, and her burns were so severe she feared she may not make it to the hospital. She daren’t get out of the pool. There she crouched shivering. She had to get out. Her body told her to get out. She left the soothing cool of the pool for the sticky heat of the summer night. She found a patch of fresh undergrowth. There she made a bed of cow parsley and wild garlic. Enough to keep the mud from her burns. The pain and horror had taken all of her energy. She fell into a dreamless sleep.

 

The night deepened and the last of the blue light was extinguished. Three clocked figures descended on Val. One applied a natural ointment made from gathered plants. The other two lifted her onto a black dyed piece of cloth. They wrapped her up and took her deeper into the woods.

            Each morning they carried her to the pool and bathed her burns. Val was too weak to protest. She let the faceless hands carry her and bathe her. She was frightened at first. But they did her no harm. They were trying to heal her. She felt no evil intent. Although she couldn’t look at them. Their burnt ash faces were hideous. In the day time they let her rest, in the evenings when twilight began, they returned and continued her care. Every time Val tried to speak to them they shook their heads.

            It took a month for Val to stand up. Her burns had begun to scar. Every time she moved the tautness of the skin stung her. Patches of her scalp were left hairless. Her face was burnt beyond repair. The witches of the woods saved her life, but they lacked the skills to graft skin. When Val was well enough to wash herself the first of the witches made an attempt to talk. The witch’s voice was coarse and strained as if it caused her great pain to speak.

            ‘The one who burnt you, we know his name, it was Mark Thompson,’

The witch would say no more. Before Val could reply, the witches vanished into the twilight. Val stood in the woods alone. She was wrapped in a black cloth with a rope belt. That cloth and rope was all Val possessed. She had no savings, and no cards to access her meagre pension. The pain of her burns was tolerable. Every movement, every footstep she stung her wounds. The pain reminded her of the burning horror that almost took her life. She wandered back to what was left of her caravan. When she saw it she knelt and cried. When she saw the burnt remains of her garden her tears dried up. She clenched her fists. The scars on her hands bled in her rage. The name the witches gave her came into her mind. “Mark Thompson,” she whispered to herself, “Thompson? I remember that name.”

Mark learned nothing from his trial. He felt untouchable. A confident venom spewed from his mouth. His father had to check him a few times. The hour of joy after the trial faded faster than black denim. His stepmother went back to the living room and his dad went back to the bottle.

            Will Thompson, was a big man, his son Mark had inherited his height but had yet to fill out. Wild Willy Thompson had run a small firm of thugs, who dealt pot and speed to the youth of the town. He had made enough to give it up. But his reputation for violence was still talked of in quite corners of shady bars. Will saved his fists for his wife and son.

Thirty years is a long time but some things can never be forgotten. If you try hard enough you can block memories. You can bury them under tons of mind rubble, you can live each hour in the moment never looking back, but the memory is buried and takes hold of you. It is buried so deep, the roots of your soul are poisoned by the memory even if your conscious mind no longer sees the past.

The last time Will saw Valerie he was fifteen. She was in her late thirties. He raped her. And she was so frightened by his eyes she told no one. She buried it and began her life as a recluse. He got away with it. And he carried on his life without giving her another thought. He tried to rape again but when the father found out a group of men gave him such a kicking, he vowed never to try it again. But there was no justice for Val.                                        

Will had gone to bed, five beers down the hatch and the summer heat had melted him away. Mark’s stepmother was asleep in the living room next to a full ash tray, and an empty glass of gin. Mark had just finished himself off and sat watching some film, drifting in and out of sleep, half watching, as Robert De Niro shot up the bad guys, or was it the good guys, it was confusing to one so stoned.

 

Val made her way into town. The pubs had closed and everyone was dozing in the summer heat. She saw a fox cross the road and bolt over a fence into the allotments. She said “Thompson,” to herself every few minutes, trying to remember. Then she clicked. Will’s eyes flashed into hers. She remembered. She remembered his eyes and nothing else. Then she remembered the day of the fire. “Mark Thompson his son.” It filled her with a fire hotter than the blaze that took her home. She knew where Will had lived. She used to go there to help his elderly grandmother before he raped her. As past filled her mind, she found she was walking along the lanes towards the Thompson house. She didn’t know what she would do when she got there, but the rage drove her on. Will had taken her joy, and after years of recovery, his son had burnt the happiness she fought to rebuild. She didn’t have thirty years left to recover. Everything she had, had been destroyed. She found the house and let herself into the garden.

She began to shake with rage. She went into the shed and found a billhook. She felt it, it was sharp. She found the back door of the house open. She let herself in. She saw the stepmother and let her be. She climbed up the stairs. Mark’s room was the first she checked. She found him passed out. She crept over him and put the blade to his neck. He felt the pressure. He opened his eyes and cried out. Val’s burn scarred face and scorched straggles of hair looked down at him. She was hideous. Some of her wounds were still weeping. He felt the hotness of her wrists. He cried out again. He pissed himself. A thin line of blood dripped from his throat. She could have ended him but she stopped. Even in her rage, she couldn’t bring herself to kill him.

            ‘You burnt me alive,’ she whispered.

            ‘I’m sorry.’

            ‘Silence.’

Will staggered in furious that he had been woken up.

            ‘Get the fuck away from my son.’

            ‘You,’ said Val and turned her eyes upon him.

Will ran to strike Val but missed. She flew back into a pile of dirty clothes. She kept a hold of the bill hook and swung it at Will’s ankle. She caught him and he screamed like an animal. Mark didn’t move. Val picked herself up and walked over to Will as he clutched at his leg.

            ‘Remember me.’

            ‘Who are you?’

            ‘Valerie Butterford.’

He remembered. She swung the blade across his face missing his nose by a millimetre. He flinched and recoiled in fear. She spat out her rage phlegm into his face and walked slowly down the stairs, out the back door, into the night. As soon as he was sure she was gone, Will crawled back to his room and called an Ambulance. The police came to investigate.

            ‘Valerie Butterford…Valerie Butterford did this to me,’ said Will. The police took a quick statement and left them to comb the town for Valerie.

 

It was three o’clock in the morning when the Thompson family  got back from the A and E. The stepmother made a round of tea and toast, and father and son went upstairs to their rooms. She lit her last cigarette. She walked to the front door, double checked it was locked, then did the same with the back door. She lay on the sofa. Sleep wouldn’t come, she poured a clumsy cup of gin and downed it. She felt drowsy and put her cigarette in the ashtray. It rolled off onto the table and into a pool of gin. The gin caught and started a magazine smouldering. She was asleep when smoke filled the living room. She never woke up. The fire ripped through the living room and up the stairs. Mark woke to the smoke. He was only dozing. By the time he reacted the stairs was nearly alight. The carpet in the corridor caught fire. He called to his father. Will rolled out of bed and hobbled to his door. The fire was raging.

            ‘Help me,’ said Will. Mark just stared at his father through the flames. The years of pain inflicted by his father’s fists stopped him. He made no effort to save him from the flames. He said nothing and ran to his window and jumped.

 

Val watched the dawn break over the woods. She walked through the trees listening to the birds. The sun shone through the leaves sweetening the air. She kept walking deeper. She walked past the pool and into the heart of the trees. She lay down in the afternoon and listened to the wind and the birds. Twilight moved across the sky. When the darkness was complete Val vanished into the shadows.

The detective was called and the town was searched. They didn’t find Val. In the last of the afternoon light, he went back to her burnt out caravan. He walked round looking for a lead. Some of the garden had come back alive. He looked at the oaks silhouetted against the setting sun. He walked round the caravan and found the shattered glass. The fire chief said the window had exploded. He saw some glass. He picked it up. It had a hair on it. He realised that Val had escaped the fire and that she had made her way to the woods. But he didn’t call it in. He put threw the glass into the brush and drove away under the deepening twilight.