be a part of the heartbeat of Stonewylde. She looked across to Magpie’s bed and was alarmed to see it stripped and empty. Her heart jolted but then with a sob of relief, she saw that he lay underneath it, all the bedclothes crumpled up into a nest, sleeping peacefully. She doubted he’d ever slept in a proper bed before. His bruised and filthy face was child-like in its innocence and she thanked the goddess she hadn’t killed him after all.
She looked across to the other bed where Maizie lay asleep, her dark curls spread on the white pillow. As she gazed at her mother’s plump face, relaxed at last after last night’s frantic worry, Leveret felt a great lump in her throat and the ready tears prickled her sore eyes. She’d cried so much and felt emotionally wrung out, drained and exhausted. She also felt like a complete fool.
Her mother’s reaction as she’d come barging into the wing not long after Leveret and Magpie’s arrival had proved that Maizie loved her as much as ever. Maizie had crushed her in such an embrace, scooping her daughter onto her lap as if she were still a little girl, cradling her tight and planting endless kisses all over her face, interspersed with breathless, sobbing entreaties.
‘How could you do that, Leveret? Don’t you know how precious you are? Don’t you realise how much I love you? What were you thinking? You silly, silly girl! Oh – please Goddess say ‘tis not Death Cap! It can’t be – you’d be suffering by now if ‘twas. Don’t you ever, ever do anything like that again, do you hear me, girl? To think I almost lost you. I might still but – oh, no ‘twill be some other mushroom, I’m sure! Oh, Leveret, how could you so such a thing? You’re my special child, my very special little one, and I nearly lost you!’
On and on it went, rocking her like a baby, washing her with tears. Leveret had cried uncontrollably too, clinging to her mother and basking in the comfort of her soft, warm bosom. The nurse left them to it for a while as she tried to undress Magpie and get him into bed. But he’d screeched in panic and made such a fuss that Hazel and the nurse had given in and concentrated on putting him into bed fully-clothed. Then they’d done the same with Leveret, prising her from her mother’s grasp and giving everyone a warm, soothing drink.
Leveret sighed deeply, feeling safe and warm and so very pleased that the suicide attempt hadn’t worked. She was amazed at how suddenly the prospect of entering the Otherworld had become the worst thing ever, when only yesterday it was what she longed for most. The huge crushing weight of misery that had sapped her will to continue had lifted instantly the moment she realised just how much her mother truly loved her.
Leveret should have been lying on the Snake Stone right now, chilled and sluggish with hypothermia after a night out in the midwinter cold, the poison inside her body attacking her vital organs irrevocably. She may even have been dead by now. One of the reasons she’d chosen Death Cap above other poisons was because she knew there was no antidote. The victims always, without exception, died … except that, like an idiot, she’d used the wrong mushroom.
She remembered Clip’s triumphant entrance into the room not long after Maizie’s hysterical arrival, shouting at the top of his voice that it was False Death Cap they’d taken, which was completely harmless. Although she was so relieved now that it hadn’t worked, she felt stupid for making such a mistake. Everyone accepted Old Violet’s identification, although Hazel had been on the phone to Guy’s Hospital to verify the details and possible symptoms. Somebody had been despatched from Stonewylde with the remaining mushroom, instructed to drive through the night to the Toxicology Department for scientific identification. But Leveret knew she hadn’t poisoned herself – she’d have felt it by now. All she felt was hungry, exhausted and very embarrassed at the thought of facing the community. As far as she knew no young Stonewylder had ever tried to take their own life before.
*
Much later in the day Leveret watched a crow flapping about in the cold, wintry air and eventually landing on a branch outside the window. The crow fixed her with its beady eye and let out an enormous croak. She stared intently at