door stuck a little, then gave way, leather hinges letting it fall askew after she dragged it open over the snow.
Bella loved dark places—nothing to be afraid of in the darkness. It was people you had to fear. Shadows shifted around thin pillars, like inside a mine—perhaps there were jewels down there, or a dragon’s hoard of gold. The Tussler crowded behind her, so she stepped forward into the low space. Once her eyes had adjusted she saw straggling shelves lining the dirt walls, some with dull jars, some empty, furred with dust. Trays of carrots and apples in sand, jars of beets, pickles, jam, crocks of preserved eggs in isinglass. It was a treasure trove, but only of food.
‘We ought not to be in here,’ she said, sadly, and turned to go.
But he was in her way, blocking the passage to the door. He had set his lantern on a shelf and he fumbled with something she could not see beneath his coat. He took her hand and pulled it towards him, and she thought he was going to put something in it—an egg, or perhaps a dead mouse.
Instead he yanked her hand between his legs where he had something bulging. His manhood, she supposed. She had only seen down there in quite small boys, who went swimming in the slough behind the schoolhouse in Paddockwood and jumped into the air, little front-tails waggling; it was a surprise to feel how springy and hard his was.
She felt it jump under her hand and then he pulled her harder and hurt her wrist and at the same time he smeared her mouth with his flabby lip. She had not minded Nando kissing her, she had liked it very much, but this was a different thing. It—She wanted to stop.
‘Stop,’ she said, her voice too soft. She could not make it louder, the wind had gone out of her. She hated her own weakness.
After three thudding heartbeats she wrenched her face away, but he found it again and twisted it back to his mouth, thick fingers like a vise on her cheek. She still held the lantern, and if she dropped it, it would break and the wooden shelves would catch fire. The dirt wall behind her and the roof above them seemed to be moving, the earth closing in around them, and he was still pulling her, his rough jacket scratching her face and the button at the top digging into her neck painfully and all the time he was trying to tuck her hand into his pants, unbuttoning them with one hand and panting—that was maybe the worst of it, the snuffling noise he was making. She was pushed backwards into the shelves and the jars were going to shake together and the crocks on the bottom shelves would break, there would be beet juice and isinglass from the eggs all over her new boots, but she could not make her hands do anything but push vaguely at him. She had forgotten about breathing, even.
Then Verrall, outside in the clearing, called, ‘Bella? East?’
The Tussler was still, his mouth open and the bottom lip hanging purplish. She could not think why she had ever found him handsome.
‘Cunny-cunny fucking cunny,’ he said in her ear. ‘That’s all you are.’ The air of him speaking was hot inside her head.
‘Bugger you,’ she said, and with her free hand slapped his face with all her strength. It made a mighty noise. Her hand stung and her forearm ached.
He slammed her back against the wall. She gasped at the pain, at the shock of it, how strong he was, and his fist came at her—she jerked her head and he almost missed, catching only her cheek instead of her nose and eyes.
She had never been hit before. Her whole skull tingled and rang. He ground her hand into the hard-packed earth-wall for good measure, and shoved out of the cellar past Verrall, cursing him on the way.
Bella took her one hand in the other and rubbed it. She did not want to touch her face and feel that pain from the outside. Her face felt broken.
‘He was bothering you?’ Verrall asked.
‘No, no,’ she said. She ought not to have come in here with him. She had taken him for a weak sister. That was stupid.
‘I could fetch Miss Aurora—let me—’
‘No! No, no, no,’ she said, shaking her head too many times, to stop him.
‘What were you doing out here anyway?’ East said roughly, coming