night and then the Dark Moon in two weeks’ time, her heart plummeted. Now she wouldn’t be able to gather anything for her collection and there was a whole list of things she needed to prepare. She’d intended to try her spell at the Winter Solstice having missed her chance at Samhain. She bowed her head in misery.
‘Good, I see I’ve finally got through to you! We’ll find Mother and tell her what’s happening.’
He smiled triumphantly as Leveret gazed at the floor in tearful despair. Maizie stood with her arms folded and nodded.
‘’Twill be strange being on my own in the cottage,’ she said, ‘but you do what you think best, Yul. I’m pleased you can all see now what I’m up against. Good to know ‘tis not just me. She’s become a nasty young girl and let’s hope that this punishment sorts her out once and for all. Sweyn and Gefrin were only asking today what’s to become of her, and could they help at all. Those two are really turning out well after all – I feel proud o’ them.’
Leveret let out a strangled cry at this.
‘Do you have something to say?’ asked Yul coldly.
‘None of you know!’ cried Leveret. ‘The things they’ve done to me …’
‘Sweyn and Gefrin? What things?’
‘All sorts, always, all my life!’ she shouted, her voice cracking with emotion. ‘They’ve hurt me, broken my things, mocked me, shouted at me, almost drowned me—’
‘So why didn’t you tell Mother?’
‘I did!’ she wailed. ‘I’ve always tried to tell her!’
‘Aye, she’s a great one for telling tales,’ frowned Maizie. ‘But after a while I took no notice. If even half of what she claimed were true, they’d be complete monsters. Don’t believe her, Yul. She tells lies to try and get them into trouble, I reckon.’
‘No I don’t!’
‘This “drowning” is a good example,’ said Maizie heatedly, her cheeks flushing. ‘She told me Sweyn had tried to drown her in the old apple-bobbing barrel at Samhain! She’d even managed to convince Clip and he came telling tales too! I spoke to our Sweyn and he laughed. He admitted it straight away, dunking her head in the water, but he said ‘twas only a quick bob to bring her back to her senses, seeing as she were in some sort o’ trance . But o’ course Clip got the wrong idea and took her away with him up to the Dolmen of all places! It ruined my Samhain, worrying myself about her and all the time she were fast asleep up in that cave!’
‘You always take their side! You never believe me even when someone else backs me up. And last time they came round to babysit I almost died of suffocation!’
‘Don’t be daft!’ said Maizie sharply. ‘I recall you were told to do the weaving and you didn’t. ‘Tis just another of your —’
‘It’s true!’ Leveret was crying now, a terrible combination of anger and frustration. ‘They told you I’d fallen over but they’d locked me in the cupboard for hours.’
‘Which cupboard?’ asked Yul. ‘I don’t—’
‘The one in your old bedroom! Under the eaves.’
Yul stared at her, any half-conviction he may have harboured turning to cold disbelief.
‘Now I know you’re lying, Leveret. That cupboard’s tiny – you’d never fit in there.’
‘But I did!’ she screamed. ‘They shoved me in so hard I thought I was going to die! They are monsters and they make my life a misery! Why won’t anyone believe me? I hate you all!’
Leveret became hysterical, screaming and flinging the things on Yul’s desk to the floor. She wanted to destroy everything in her frustration at their indifference to her suffering. Yul restrained her, kicking and screeching, pinning her flailing arms to her side and lifting her bodily onto the sofa where he held her down.
‘Get Hazel, with something to calm her down,’ he commanded. Maizie was paralysed with shock at the sight of Leveret so out of control; the girl had lost all reason. She tried to phone through to the hospital wing but Hazel wasn’t there. Then abruptly the screaming and thrashing stopped and Leveret’s eyes rolled up to reveal the whites. She started to shake.
‘Oh goddess, she’s having one of her turns,’ moaned Maizie.
‘What’s the matter with her? Have I hurt her?’
‘No, no she does this sometimes. Remember? How she used to go blank when she were little? She still does it sometimes, never grew out of it as we thought she would. Let go of her, Yul. She’ll come round in