Little was left in the house; the paintings were all gone, the ornaments, the furniture. The grand entrance was one large grey void, patched with dark spots where things used to be. The fire burned a little lower each day, Cynthia cried a little harder from the hunger, and Isabelle left her room a little less. Abi wandered between the kitchen, the woodshed and a small patch outside that she was now cultivating root vegetables from. She’d cook large pots of turnip soup and Isabelle would complain out loud to her, but this too happened less and less.

Abi would see Isabelle staring out of her window at the gates, waiting for him still. Her face void of emotion, forever cold and vacant, each day more drawn and emaciated. It was sad, but Abi began to feel resentment towards her mistress, she would look down at her own filthy hands, smothered in the earth she potted their food with, dug their earth with. She looked up at Isabelle in her window and wondered if she were truly more miserable and desperate than she herself was.

Inside, Cynthia cried and Abi threw down her trowel and went in to her. The child was wailing from upstairs, next to Isabelle’s room. Abi trudged arduously up each step, holding her back which ached from her labors. As she walked along the landing, the light which expanded from beneath Isabelle’s door broke with Abi’s feet and cast shadows inside across her back but the mistress didn’t turn, or seem to notice. Isabelle stood with a picture frame against her chest. She raised it to her lips and kissed the image of her husband, Alexander. Abi’s feet were outside the door again, she stood for a moment and then knocked against it. She asked Isabelle when she planned to feed her child, when she planned to stop her from crying, or did she think that she didn’t have to? Isabelle didn’t turn to the door but hated Abi for judging her. Abi banged harder on the door, rattled the handle, and told her mistress to come out, but she didn’t, so she took the child downstairs and watched her face grimace as the turnip soup hit her lips. Abi weaved her head to catch Cynthia’s wandering gaze and once they locked, she told the child to not dare say anything about this soup.

Upstairs, Isabelle laid on her bed and pulled her knees to her chest. She looked into her husband’s eyes and asked him when he was going to return. She cried as she spoke to him and yearned for him to reply. She asked him if he still thought about her as she did him. She told him that she felt sick everyday at the loss of her love, at not having him beside her. She remembered a time he held her in this bed, his fingers buried in her hair and scratching the base of her skull, his lips on her forehead until she moved them to her mouth and then she realized that perhaps that didn’t happen, at least, not exactly like that, and then she tried to focus on a real memory, one that she knew she could recall perfectly, but she couldn’t. Little pieces seemed to be missing, or she questioned whether it was his right hand or his left, and it mattered greatly to her, she realized that she was losing him. The only things she had that truly convinced her that he loved her were fading, like salt pillar characters, or ash representations of him, that when she tried to grip, they crumbled away, and the harder she pressed, the worse it became. She’d lost control of herself in this moment and cried from sorrow so deep inside her it was the first time she’d truly considered the simplicity and savior of death. Perhaps she should not exist any longer. She thought of herself as Lot’s wife, punished by God for being disobedient, turned to salt for some infraction of a law she wasn’t aware of, and maybe it wasn’t her memories which were crumbling, but herself entirely.

The house was freezing. Abi couldn’t seem to cut enough wood to heat the entrance. They’d rationed the coal to a few lumps each day. She decided to kindle the fire to one side of the vast grate and to move herself and Cynthia into the smokey inglenook to better benefit from the heat. She sat there with Cynthia swaddled in her arms, her pretty little face looking up at her, searching the recesses deep behind her eyes. Abi kissed her cheek and scratched her chin. She told her that there’s nothing to find in there. The child coughed and Abi wafted the smoke which enshrouded them away from Cynthia’s mouth. Through the crackle of the fire, Isabelle could be heard crying upstairs. Abi tried to block it out, she even closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on something else, her mother, her dead father, how she missed them, but she couldn’t.

Abi pressed Cynthia between the cushions of the sofa and went up to Isabelle’s room and knocked gently, then pressed the handle and opened the door. Isabelle was laid on top of the bed, facing the window. There was only a bed in the room now, no dressing table or chairs. Pictures of Alexander littered the floor; tiny frames with his face looking at her from all directions. Abi told her that it was too cold for her up here and that she should come down to the fire. Isabelle didn’t respond. Her own small fireplace whispered a cry from the wind and Abi pulled the blanket she had wrapped around her shoulders off and took it to her mistress. Isabelle closed her eyes as Abi laid it across her body, pulling it up to her ears. She laid her hand on Isabelle’s shoulder and wished she had words to comfort her, but she felt some resentment inside which wanted to shake her and snap her out of this depression, to show some strength and help her save this house. Isabelle didn’t open her eyes.

Isabelle woke shivering. She looked out of her window and saw only her face in the black pool. Her husband watched from his frames as she moved slowly between his faces. She lit a match and put it to a candle she’d hidden beneath her mattress. Her thin fingers twisted around its stem like cold thin branches. She stepped into the corridor and saw light coming from her daughters room. She felt the warmth of a fire emanating from beneath the door. She took the handle and gently used it to give enough of an opening for her to slip through. Inside, the child slept in its crib and Abigale was laid on the floor wrapped in blankets. The mistress laid down the candle and moved up beside the child, the light missing her face and revealing only her fingers as they wove their way beneath Cynthia and picked her up. She took the child downstairs and without a coat for either of them, she left the house and walked blind in the darkness towards the wood.

Abi woke at the sound of the front door snapping loudly. She saw that Cynthia had gone and looked out of the window where she caught Isabelle’s feet disappearing out of sight.

In the wood, Isabelle lit another match and showed Cynthia. She told her that the flame was the wood ceasing to exist, that now the head was gone, the flame was the wood itself, consuming itself uncontrollably, whether it wanted this fate or not, it’s now something only something else can stop. Cynthia watched her mother’s black eyes fill with the flame which shone back thin and red like a demon’s, Marchosias.

Abi opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. She saw a small glimmer in the tree line and headed for it.

Isabelle asked the child, what am I going to do with you? What was a mother to do with such a burden? She’d laid the child in a patch of dry leaves beside a fallen tree. Cynthia reached out to be picked up and her mother looked into her eyes, Isabelle searched deep into her own soul for love and found none. She sighed and smiled sadly at her child; she thought about how much easier it would be without her, then she blew the match out and turned for the house. Abigale stood in her way, a figure slightly brighter than the darkness around her, and she asked where Cynthia was. Isabelle tried to walk around her but Abigale blocked her again.

‘Where is she?’

‘Gone!’

Isabelle pushed past her and ran back to the house. Abi held out her hands in the darkness and used them to navigate the trees. She called out the child’s name and heard her laugh not too far away. She found her next to a rotten tree trunk. The damp earth beneath the leaves she sat on had already soaked her clothes and her little cheeks were very cold. Abi began to cry. She loved this child so deeply. She took Cynthia into her arms and squeezed her face into her neck and started to walk away from the house. She had to get her away.

Abi left the wood and joined the heavily rutted track which led the way to the great black gates of their home. She trod through pools of stagnant water which soaked her shoes. Cynthia was getting heavy, she wasn’t a baby anymore and the walk to town was long. The child complained in her arms and writhed to be put down. Abi pleaded with her to stop, she told her that they couldn’t go back, they couldn’t stay with her mother any longer.

She heard a dog bark from beside the road and saw little green burns in the black fabric between the trees that must have been eyes. The town was too far, and what would she do when she got there? She knew no one, she had no money; she had nowhere to go, she had to turn back. The dog snapped again and she startled, then began to run back towards their home.

At the house, Isabelle was sat on the sofa facing the fire which she’d lit with the last of the wood. Her profile was dark and artificial as she held her head in a strange aloof pose. Abigale was distraught, drenched and exhausted. Her arms were barely holding the child. She dropped to her knees and sobbed. Cynthia cried with her but Abi touched her lips and shh’d her.

‘Please, please little child.’

Lifting her head to Isabelle, she spoke through clamped teeth, hissing out the command that Isabelle will never, never do that again. That she could keep her pathetic misery to herself. That from now on, Cynthia is not her child to care for, she was hers, Abigale’s. She asked Isabelle if she understood. Ashamed, Isabelle raised her head a little, then wiped a tear from her cheek and nodded. Then her facade crumbled and her face fell into her hands. She told Abi that she was sorry, that she didn’t know what was happening to her, that she was so sad and alone. Then she promised that this would all end, that she was done.

*

Isabelle and Abigale had largely avoided each other after that evening. Isabelle still clung to images of her husband for much of the day, her eyes still vacant as her soul converged with his memory taking her further and further away into the ethereal. The house was largely bare and now seemed harder to heat than ever. Abi continued to pull what root vegetables were left from the ground while Cynthia made her first toddles across the wet earth in front of her. They were all gaunt and Cynthia’s nose was forever raw from running and being wiped.

After a few weeks of this, and against her better judgement, Abigale decided she couldn’t let the child starve or get ill and needed to leave for a few days. She planned to visit her mother and bring back some food and remedies for the child. She worried about leaving her with Isabelle, but knew she couldn’t take Cynthia from her; she wasn’t really hers.

She went into Isabelle’s room and made her stand, then relinquish the picture she clung to. She told her that his memory had no place to go other than here. Then she squeezed her shoulders so hard that Isabelle winced and cowered before her. She told her that she was failing them, that there was no more money to feed them. She told her that she must now go home to her mother to fetch some money for food, and medicine for Cynthia. In these three days, she’s to spend every moment with her daughter, to take care of her, to keep her warm and her little belly full, to love her like a mother should.

Isabelle stood before the nanny with her chin high in the air, listening to the truths she was assaulting her with. Her lip trembled and her dark eyes looked up at the Abigale and hers were burning deep inside of her.

The carriage arrived and Abigale kissed the child and glared at the mother. She climbed into the cabin and waved as she left. Cynthia, at her mothers feet, watched on silently; Isabelle stood, dark and vacant, with her arms crossed.

*

Abi slept for much of the journey, exhaustion took hold of her body and she slumped against the window, unaware of the other passengers which joined her and left at various points on her long journey. He stomach growled loudly at one point and woke her; a small boy was sat opposite and he giggled. Abi smiled at him so he held out a small biscuit for her which she took and ate hungrily. The boy’s father rubbed his back and smiled down at his little miniature. Abi thanked the boy and then looked up at his handsome father coyly. He shifted in his seat and nodded his head, his wedding band clear on the fingers which gripped his son’s shoulder.

The next time she woke, she could recognize the long dry stone wall which marked the land of her old master’s home. Moss covered much of it making it look like an ancient snake skin abandoned on this vast expanse of land. Within the voluptuous rolling hills, she could see her mother’s stout cottage nestled happily in a small dell. It’s tiny chimney chugged out a thick line of black smoke, it’s soft grey walls and slate roof made it look like a pile of rubble from this distance. Behind it, a vast manor house grew from the earth, bright and imposing. It was here that Abigale had learnt to clean and tidy, to cook and serve; it was here she’d learnt to love. She imagined the horses in the grand stables, the riders grooming their beasts. She saw the other maids rushing through the warren of rooms and passageways beneath the ground which served the different areas of the house, their destination guided by which bell the master or his family had chimed. She imagined him, the master, stood at the door, his hand between the buttons of his waistcoat, waiting for her.

Abigale’s mother was at the gates hopping on the spot as her daughters carriage turned the corner to their small holding on the edge of her master’s land; a parcel he’d given to her family for all the years of service they’d provided. Abi’s heart was heavy with the dreadful feeling that she’d abandoned little Cynthia.

Her mother beamed and her old round face could barely be recognized she was smiling and crying so hard. Her arm shook crazily above her head and Abi laughed at the sight of it.

She stepped from the carriage and her mother near fell over the fence while fussing with the latch. Before her bag was on the ground, her mother was wrapped around her, trying with her frail might to squeeze the air from her. She asked her mother to let her turn and so she loosened her grip slightly and Abi twisted to face her. She said, oh mum, then kissed the top of her sweet head.

*

Isabelle sat on the sofa with the child beside her. She’d already changed her and now they sat uncomfortably on the same chair silent. They were wrapped in blankets as Isabelle couldn’t get the fire to stay alight. They ate some stew that Abi had left and she complained about how bad it was to the child. Not just the soup, but everything. The child mumbled to itself happily and her mother told her that she knew she didn’t care. Isabelle asked her when she planned to start speaking, that she wasn’t sure, but she expected a child to be speaking by now. Cynthia chewed on her fist. Isabelle took her daughter’s hand from her mouth and told her that that kind of behavior wasn’t fitting for a young lady. Cynthia looked at her wet hand, then her mother, then back at the hand as it moved back between her soft teeth. Isabelle exhaled loudly.

It seemed to take an eternity for evening to arrive. Isabelle had sold all of the clocks and so she could only guess the hour that she took the child to her room. She laid Cynthia in her crib, which she stood up in immediately, ready to climb out. Isabelle told her to not be disobedient and to sleep immediately. Cynthia stood looking back at her with no intention of sleeping. Isabelle shivered and could see Cynthia edged in blue. She told her that perhaps she should sleep in the bed with her tonight, or else Abigale may be unhappy. She picked up the child and took her into her own room. Piling blankets around her so she couldn’t move, she laid next to her. The ceiling shifted with black branches dragging their forms in through the window. She pulled her husbands photo from beneath her pillow and held it to her chest.

‘Cynthia? Are you scared? You shouldn’t be. They’re just branches. Even that scratching, that banging, it’s all just the branches; so don’t be afraid.’ Isabelle paused. ‘He’ll watch out for us. He’s waiting for us. He misses me so badly, you know. He thinks about me every day. He knows how much I love him, how much I long for him to come home, do you know that?’

She started to cry in that bed, beside the child, and the rain began to beat down on the window and then a crack of thunder caused her to scream out in fright. Cynthia wailed out and began to cry and her mother told her to be quiet. She roared at her to shut up.

*

Abi sat with her mother in the kitchen. From the window, she could see her father’s grave, placed as close to the house as he would have liked without spoiling his view of the hills in the distance. Her mother loved to look out at him when she caught a moment between chores and tasks. Her master had a new family serving him and so she was rarely called upon. She instead went to the house each morning and evening to eat with them and she’d give them advice and make sure they were doing everything the way the master liked.

Abi was so happy to be home, to be with her poor mother. Seeing her broke her heart, she worried about how lonely she must be, that maybe she thought she had abandoned her. Tears sprang into her eyes and her mother for a second didn’t recognize her. She reached out a hand and cupped her cheek. She told her that her little girl has no business being upset, not while her mother and father love her so dearly. Abi laughed. Her mother asked if it was a man causing her this sadness and Abi said that it wasn’t. She wiped her eyes and told her about the child, about Isabelle and the house. She asked her mother for her advice.

Her mother smiled at her and told her that she’s welcome to anything she can find in the house. Abi knew this, but there was something more she wanted to say, they sat in silence while she tried to articulate it in her own mind. Her mother, ready to hear, told her to just speak.

‘I feel like a coward’

‘Why, darling, why?’

‘Because I shouldn’t have left the child.’

‘She had to stay. Besides, you came for the child, to help the child; what is there that’s more loving than that?’

Abi shook her head. ‘I don’t think I did, mum. I don’t think so. I think I had to leave, I think I had had enough, of everything. I think I ran away. How could I be such a monster?’

‘You’re anything but a monster, young woman. Everyone needs some space, some time. She isn’t your child in blood, but she’s yours in many other ways, just like all the spoilt girls and boys I raised in that house. No matter what, there’ll be a place in their hearts for you, but you’ll never be their mother, and you’ll always know that, and most so when you have a baby girl of your own. You left her because you know this, deep down. If she were yours, you’d still be there.’

Abigale broke down on the table and felt in that moment that it would be easier to die. She asked her mother what she should do now. Her mother told her that there is a place for her here and with the master, but she didn’t see it. She didn’t see it for her now.

‘You’re your own woman, your father had always thought you’d leave and be the most wonderful and happy woman. He didn’t know what you’d be, or if you’d have any money, he only knew what he saw, and that was the brightest thing he’d ever laid eyes on, something which made him smile no matter how dire things may be, his little bird.’

In that moment, it was Abi’s father’s hand touching her face, not her mother’s, and she missed him so badly. She asked her mother how she gets on without him. She told her that she didn’t. She looked out of the window and told her that she didn’t have to.

‘Will I ever meet someone who loved me like he loved you?’

‘I hope so, my little one, I dearly hope so. But I dare say he loved you the most.’

’That’s not true.’

‘One day, we’ll see. But hopefully not for many years, my beauty. Now, tomorrow, you leave. You’re to go back and finish what you started at that house. You go and take care of that child, because, even if it’s just for now, it needs you, she needs you. No matter what, that child must not grow up like her mother, but if she does, know you’ve done all you can; know you’ve done all you can to make her good and loving and kind. And when you’re done with that, you find some happiness for yourself, do you hear me? You make some time to find some time for you. Else, what do you have?’

'Do you think when it’s all done, that I might come back? Would you have me?’

'Oh, my Darling, why would you even ask, this will always be a home for you.’

'Do you think the master would have me back?’

'You know he would. How long has it been since you’ve seen him?’

'A long time, mother. A very long time.’

'He’s a grown man now, married a beautiful young woman named Celine. He still asks about you though.’

'Really? What does he ask?’

'Why are you so interested, young lady?’ Her mother closed one eye and pointed a finger at her, half in jest.

'Life was a lot simpler before I left, before dad died. That’s all.’

'It was. It was, but our lives are always on the move, like a river telling a story we’re all just bobbing along with. No matter if you wanted to walk back up-stream, it’d all be different anyway.’ Her mother moved her chair a little closer to her daughter so that their arms were touching. ‘There’s always a place for you here, my Abigale, but you have your own life now, your own opportunities - whether you can see it now or not, opportunity is everywhere, you just have to chase it down and make it yours. What we have here might not look like much, but it’s all your father and I ever dreamt of. You’ve just got to find what you’re after, whether you know what it is or not.’

Abi put her arms around her mother’s shoulders and felt content for the first time in years. She told her that she loved her and her mother told her to visit more often.

In the morning, she kissed her mother and they hugged delicately. She watched the breeze dance over the flowers around her father’s head stone and then she left.

*

As Abi pulled up to the house, she could see Cynthia stumbling around and then resting on the porch floor; Abi exhaled, finally knowing she was safe. Isabelle stood beside her, arms crossed, wearing the same dress as when Abi had left. Cynthia reached out an arm to touch her mother’s ankle and Isabelle stepped a little further away.

Once Abi had disembarked, Isabelle turned and disappeared into the house. The driver took Abi’s bag from the roof of the carriage and handed it down to her. Isabelle re-appeared in the doorway wearing a large black cloak, her arms hidden within it holding something she wished not to reveal.

‘Driver.’ Isabelle called out. ‘Take me to town on your way back.’ Then she boarded and he looked at Abi in surprise, then called the horses onward and they left.

Isabelle hadn’t been into town in quite some time and didn’t want anyone to recognize her. She skulked low in the cab of the carriage, she sank her face back into the shadow of her black hood. The iron wheel bands rode roughly over the dank rutted earth. The town sat like a black welt in the green countryside ahead, growing like a cigar burning through from beneath until they were engulfed and the carriage bumped onto the hard cobbles. The driver pulled the carriage up beside a bakery and Isabelle stepped out and passed him his payment in a fistful of small coins.

Isabelle, wrapped in her dark cloak, moved surreptitiously along the pavement beside the road, conscious not to draw attention. She wove through any people she passed and kept her chin to her chest, her pupils painfully pressed up into her skull so she could see her path. Beneath her cloak, she clutched the last of her jewelry, a plated candelabra and a small crystal box that Alexander used to leave her notes in. All around her people shouted, horses clattered, engines from new automobiles roared - she had never seen one before and was startled at the sight of it. She was tense and nervous, her breath filled the hood around her face; the atmosphere was stifling, tepid, cold and damp; the sky ahead split violently like a tear in the fabric of the heavens ready to spew its stormy contents across the land. She pulled the last of valuables into her ribs and felt reassured by the pain that they were safe. She took a deep breath and marched onwards.

The jewelers was on the other side of the street - a soft light dusted the hard iron window casings and inside you could see a jumble of metal objects and stained glass. She was nearly there; she smiled and stepped into the street but in her haste, she caught her foot on the curb and fell heavily against the cobbles. Everything lost its detail and there was no sound other than the ringing fizzing through her body. The street was at a standstill, the fall had rippled through the people like a current of electricity, everyone stood and watched the dark cloak sprawled lifelessly in the road. A carriage pulled up its horse before her. The driver crossed the reigns across his knees and craned his neck to see what was about to unfold.

Isabelle started to feel the pain. She pressed her palms onto the ground to raise herself and felt the shards of crystal push further into her flesh. She screamed out in pain and still no one moved to help her. She started to cry, her forehead against the hard stone, unable to move. Further along the street another dark coat was forcing its way through the bystanders. It reached the woman and two hands appeared from the sleeves. Isabelle didn’t fight as they gripped beneath her shoulders and lifted her from the wet ground. The figure swept up her feet and her objects fell from her coat and clattered on the stone. A few people laughed and the figure twisted his head toward them and he appeared impossibly large and dangerous and the laughter stopped. He knelt, and without dropping her, picked up the candelabra, a few pieces of jewelry and left the shattered crystal, then he carried her to a small tea room nearby.

Inside, he sat her on a chair and she laid flat across the table in front of it. He ordered her some tea and asked her to sit back so he can see if she was hurt. She didn’t move. He saw blood dripping with the water from her cloak. He pulled back her sleeve and saw the shards of glass protruding from her hand. He asked for a bucket, sponge and some gauze and bandage. The waitress brought him a bucket and sponge.

The man took back the hood of his own cloak and the waitress gasped and went back into the kitchen. He laid Isabelle’s wrist across his knee and then pulled the largest shards from her hand. Each hole squirted some more blood into the bucket. He moved his chair to the other side and took her second hand. The owner of the tea room emerged from the back; the waitress, his daughter, gripped his shirt and stared around the side of his belly from behind. The owner told the man that he was not welcome in here. That this was not a place for a person like him.

‘A person like what?’ The man asked. His voice low, slow and harsh.

‘A murderer.’

‘You have me mistaken, I’m a war hero, am I not?’

The owner shook his head.

‘Why not?’

‘Hero’s don’t drink blood.’

The man put his hood back up and exhaled heavily, then he told the owner that no matter what he wished, or what he had to say, he and this woman would not be leaving until he’d properly cleaned her up. Then, and only then, would he leave, but not until the blood in this bucket has been poured into a flask for him to drink when he left. The owner gasped and pushed his daughter backwards and they both retreated into the kitchen.

When he turned back, Isabelle was sat up glaring at him from beneath her hood.

‘Who are you?’ She asked.

‘My name is Constantine.’

’A murderer?’

‘So they say.’

‘Is it true?’

‘It’s true that they say it. It’s true that I’ve taken lives.’

‘Murder?’

‘Some would say. Now give me your hand.’

Isabelle snapped her hand up against her chest the moment he reached for it. He huffed and looked down at his feet, then he stood and pulled the hood up over his head. He paused for a moment and from the darkness he told her that he had just returned from the war. He walked to the door of the tea room and Isabelle yelped in pain as the shards still in her palm crunched against each other and buried a little deeper into her body. Constantine opened the door, then shut it and returned to his seat beside her. Holding out his hand, she slowly gave him hers and he pulled the remaining glass roughly from her palm.

When they had finished, he tore a strip from around the base of his shirt by slashing at it with one of the tea rooms forks and tied it around her hand, then he tore another strip revealing his base of his stomach and used that for her other hand. They stood and he spat into the blood bucket and they left.

Outside, it rained even harder than before. Isabelle clutched her candelabra and felt the jewelry in her pocket. She looked out at the street and tried to spot the remains of her little crystal chest. She thought of her husband, she felt embarrassed, there were still some dedicated people waiting to see her come out but most had left once the rain had started.

Constantine asked her where she was heading and she told him that it was none of his business. He asked her what her name was. She turned to him and didn’t speak. He tried to make out her features in the darkness. He saw the edge of her chin, her lips catching some light, her incandescent green eyes, their own source of light. She told him that her name was Isabelle.

They walked together without really realizing, both magnetized in their extreme loneliness. They reached the jewelers and she pressed open the door, then paused, and told him she was thankful for what he had done. Behind her, he nodded his head, then left.

She pushed open the door of the store and a small bell chimed above it. The man inside stood with both hands flat against the counter. He asked the empty crowd around him: what do we have here then? Isabelle was a little confused and coyly checked for other people around her - perhaps he was trying to be funny, she thought.

She approached him and laid out the candelabra, a shard of glass she’d gathered by mistake, then from her pockets, a silver necklace with a single diamond and two matching earrings. As she laid them in front of him, drops of blood landed on the glass cabinet and after pulling back her arm, he could see that this was all she had left and he scalded her for the blood.

The bell rang again and Constantine stood in the door way.

The shop keeper peered around the woman to see him but the light from outside had gone and he hadn’t yet lit a candle. He asked the woman what she expected him to do with these things, gesturing to the trinkets, the last of her possessions. She shivered and looked at them again, questioning her own view of their worth, then she went to pick up her necklace when Constantine called out from behind:

‘She wants a fair price for them.’

‘Does she now.’ The shop keeper replied. ‘Well that’s all I give.’

She traced the chain with her fingertip and then Brought back her hand until it disappeared beneath the deep hollows of the coat. The shop keeper lifted the necklace and looked at the diamond, then he inspected the earrings and pushed the candlestick to one side.

‘I’ll give you two pounds for it all.’

‘You’ll give her 15 pounds for it all.’ The voice came from all around her, Isabelle was scared now, vulnerable from the pain.

‘Listen, you.’ The shop keeper was trying to see the man stood behind her, he darted his head from one side to another. ‘I’m the expert here. Besides, it’s a buyers market. It’s 2 pounds or nothing.’

‘Nothing then.’ Constantine boomed.

The woman lifted her head and revealed her beautiful face, hair streaked across it and soaked, but there was no hiding it, the men stood humbled by her. She told the Jeweler that she would take the two pounds. He smiled and turned to his register, fetched her money and placed the coins beside her necklace. She looked at them beside one another and slowly moved her hand out for the money.

Constantine walked up beside her and put a small pile of notes on top of her items.

‘I’ll buy them from you.’ He told her.

The shop keeper, irritated, took him by the arm and in an instant Constantine turned his wrist over and gripped the back of his shoulder, then he pushed his head down into the counter. Isabelle watched wide-eyed as this brute spread the Jewelers cheek across the glass.

Isabelle hesitated for a moment, then took Constantine’s money and left the store.

Outside, the sky churned and bellowed and she set off quickly for her home, near three miles away.

A black carriage led by two horses pulled up beside her and the door swung open.

‘You expect me to get in?’ She asked, knowing it was Constantine again.

The man didn’t speak. She carried on walking and the horses trotted beside her.

‘Let me be!’ She shouted hoarsely.

‘You have my coat.’ He said.

She looked at her own coat and then up at him, the edges of his cloak catching the silver light. She bent down, picked up a rock from the ground and through it into the door of the carriage. The driver looked down at her, then waited for the man inside’s response. Constantine sat silent, his breath plumed from the darkness and dissipated around Isabelle, who was breathing heavily, exhilarated from the adrenaline.

‘You’re soaked. I wish you no harm. Just some warmth.’ Constantine sounded softer this time. Isabelle felt empowered for a moment.

‘No! I’m fine, thank you.’

‘You’re shaking. If you must, you can sit up top with Frederick.’

She was silent so Constantine thumped the ceiling from inside the cabin darkness and the horses cut in front of her path. Her feet were blistered and the redness of them was creeping up her ankles. She gripped the door and lifted herself into the cabin. He was sat opposite but she still couldn’t make out his shape, his face.

‘Something wrong with Frederick?’ He asked jokingly.

She reached for the door handle and he asked her to stop, he touched her forearm and she recoiled and asked him to please not touch her. He leant forward into the grey window light and she saw his face. Small scars littered it and a long slash ran from his bottom lip to his neck, without his eyes, he was fearsome, but in his eyes was softness and calm, it was the first gaze of real concern she’d seen since Abigale had heard her husband was captured.

He moved back into the darkness and they rode silently to her home. He watched her as she moved up the stairs and rattled her front door but it was locked. She tried not to look back at him, but it took near a minute for Abi to answer the door. Abigale stuck her head out and asked her where the hell she’d been, then she noticed the carriage and said with shock: ‘with a man?’ Isabelle tried to push her back inside as Abi fought with her to get a glimpse of him.

‘Does he want to come in?’ Abi called.

The carriage door closed and the horses turned their mighty bodies and led a path away from the house.