back out they put her paleness and trembling down to fear.
It was their favourite torture and the one they generally reserved for occasions when they had plenty of time and were bored with everything else. The fun lay in getting her up the stairs and stuffing her into the cupboard; once she was actually in there they lost interest and sometimes they went off and forgot about her. They’d warned her once, long ago, of the folly of calling out. That was what had happened to the other child, they said – he’d tried to call out and a rat had leapt at his throat in the darkness and he’d bled slowly to death. She’d learnt to keep quiet early on; the sound of her strangled voice in the darkness just frightened her more.
‘Didn’t think we’d be doing this again,’ laughed Gefrin as they crowded into the cramped room that had once been Yul’s. Sweyn leant over and pulled back the bolt of the cupboard door. It was low and had never been high enough for her to stand in, even as a child; now she couldn’t even sit up in it.
‘It’s her own fault for being such a naughty girl,’ he grunted, shoving Leveret towards it. ‘Get in there – you’re wasting time. Move!’
‘No!’ she cried, wriggling and trying to get away from the dark, gaping mouth of the tiny cupboard. ‘I’m not going in there! No!’
Gefrin crushed her down, twisting her flailing arms, and Sweyn kicked her hard. Together they manhandled her onto her knees and forced her to crawl into the small space. She had to crouch sideways with her knees bent up to her chin and her head wedged down. Her shoulder and arm still poked outside but Sweyn started to shut the old wooden door, pushing and squeezing her in.
‘No, no, please Sweyn! I beg you – don’t!’
He stopped and looked at her, with her face squashed up and twisted sideways against her knees.
‘What?’
‘Please don’t do this,’ she whimpered, her voice high with terror. ‘I can’t breathe – it’s too tight and I might die in here. Please don’t shut me in.’
‘Well, I’m not sure. What do you think, Gef?’
‘Ooh, I don’t know. Shall we let her out? It’s so hard to decide, isn’t it?’
‘Let her out or lock her in? Choices, choices. I think … LOCK HER IN!’
With a yell he shoved violently on the door and her arm and shoulder were crammed inside. He pushed and pushed on the thick wooden door, harder and harder. Gradually the breath was forced out of her and somehow her body squeezed and squashed into the tiny space. The crack of light gradually disappeared and the bolt was finally driven into its socket. The darkness was complete and the smell made her heart almost stop – the smell that haunted her nightmares, of old wood and damp thatch with something decaying too. If she’d been rational she’d have realised it was only a mouse or bird, but the tale of the dead child still lingered in her subconscious.
Leveret would’ve been trembling violently with absolute terror, but she was so tightly squashed and contorted that no movement was possible. Very quickly she felt her feet and hands go numb and she couldn’t take a proper breath for her lungs were so compressed. She had to take small, shallow breaths that hurt and made her feel dizzy. She heard muffled laughter on the other side of the door and then footsteps receded as her brothers left her trapped in there. Leveret took a constricted breath and her eyes rolled up in their sockets.
In the office, Yul and Clip sat on the leather sofas facing each other in silence. Yul sipped his coffee and regarded his uncle steadily. Lamplight fell onto Clip’s lined face and Yul thought how he’d aged lately, becoming more other-worldly than ever before. He seemed never to change his threadbare blue robe and his long white-blond hair was stringy and matted. Only his eyes blazed as brightly as before, pale grey in his thin, whiskery face.
Clip was thinking that he’d stepped back in time. Were it not for the glossy dark curls and deep grey eyes, the handsome man opposite him, as taut and controlled as a coiled spring, could’ve been his brother. They were virtually identical; that chiselled face, the powerful body – Yul even tapped his thigh impatiently in the same way that Magus had done and spoke in the same deep, softly resonant