'Don't look, Lillian. Never look into the eyes of a Sin-Eater, you will be as cursed as he is and will forever languish in darkness.'
Lillian Elmes remembers the warning her mother gave her about the town's Sin-Eater only too well.
How could she n...
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I am not afraid of Rectory Wood.
I'm not.
I am not in the least bit affected by the words of little Stella Turner, that girl with the fierce face and the dark warnings of something I might discover here that I should not look at.
I'm not.
Absolutely not afraid.
Having mastered the hillside pathway at the entrance - with some trouble, it has to be said, for it is not easy to climb a hill with two laden basketfuls on my arms and skirts that seem intent on tangling around my legs – I find myself walking in woodland rich with a sublime beauty. The foliage is luscious and thick, layer upon layer of greens, gentle ambers and soft velvety browns. I spy the serrated edged leaves and deep grooved bark of the sweet chestnut tree. Either side of the pathway, huge beech trees stretch up, joining together to form a cathedral-like canopy. A dense carpet of fallen leaves and bristly catkins covers the ground. Pockets of sunlight stream through gaps in the tall trees, creating pools of warmth where pollen dances in the air with the bugs, like a magical miniature ballroom.
It is truly breath-taking to behold, but it feels like a trickery, for Rectory Wood is as silent as the parlour room when Grand-Papa Elmes lay like cold stone in the open casket.
Perhaps it is the sharp contrast with the hubbub of the marketplace that makes this place seem as unwelcoming as a graveyard, but it is not just the silence.
It's the stillness.
Apart from the bugs, it is eerily still. I expect the flutter of bird wings in the trees. The soft sway of the branches cascading gentle waves through the lush foliage. Crickets stirring in the long, wild grasses.
Instead, there is nothing. Nothing but the sound of my footsteps on the path, the swish of my skirts about my legs and my laboured breaths as the heavy load and strange atmosphere takes it toll.
I have half a mind to turn back, to forget this mad mission of mine, and if it were not for Stella's basket banging against my side, I would do just that, but I know I cannot. She entrusted me with the task that I practically begged her into letting me do and what would happen if I did not deliver the basket as promised? She would surely lose this employment and I will not allow that to happen.
No. I must continue, no matter how much the hair on the back of my neck prickles with each step farther into the woods and no matter how fast my heart beats in my chest.
Up ahead, I am greeted by a fork in the pathway. The thick, scarlet ribbon stretches around to the left. The right pathway, I know, leads directly to the Long Mynd and I can see in the distance, the valley where Carding Mill fills the air with the constant clunk and whirr of machinery.
As a child, William had been fascinated by the Mill and badgered Papa to take him to visit, so enamoured he was by the idea of the great machines that prepared the wool for spinning. When Papa had finally given in and taken him on a tour, William returned quite subdued. Later I discovered that a child worker at the mill had lost three of his fingers as he'd attempted to clean the carding machine and Papa had to usher William out, except William had already seen the blood and horror of that day and was not about to forget it.
