At the path’s end, a low white gate with crooked slats opened onto the road that ran alongside the old Tregarrick estate, with its dark moorstone chapel (which everyone just called Roche Rock). It was an unnaturally quiet old place. People said there’d once been a manor house as well, but it had burned down a long time ago. The cottage I lived in with Jack lay just beyond the estate, in the hamlet of Carbis.
At this hour, and with the close of the grain harvest, the road seemed almost as still as the graveyard. One lonely hay cart passed before I was left to haunt the twilight alone in the gathering mist.
A thick hedge, going to golds and yellows now, mostly blocked my view of the estate until I was closer to home. But a narrow gap showed a path climbing toward Roche Rock, first rounding the edge of an oak wood on the right, then winding up through overgrown grasses, clumps of heather, and large stones.
One of the family still lived here, in the chapel itself. I’d never been anywhere close to the old, dark tower, nor known anyone who had, but sometimes I crossed the heath that spread below it down toward Carbis. I always paused to study the high moorstone ridge and its fortress, black against the green of the hilly grounds. Sometimes I fancied a face looked out at me through a window, though it was too far to see such a thing.
On my way to and from work, I often wondered about the master of Roche Rock. I’d never glimpsed him, nor any of his relations or servants. I’d never learned his Christian name. I didn’t know how old he might be, though I’d pictured him wrinkled and gray, wearing fine, outdated clothing, like some of the paintings in the tearoom. No oneelse seemed to know anything about him, either, but when people mentioned Roche Rock, they crossed themselves.
Though the place made me uneasy, especially after dark, it also made me curious. My mother had always said the heath belonged to the fairies, and that was why the estate had gone to ruin. It had no business being built there.
About halfway to the cluster of whitewashed miners’ cottages, the hedgerow ended and an old tumbledown stone wall took over, running along the heath toward the estate’s eastern boundary. No animals were kept on the property, and no person was ever seen tending it. Other folk besides me ignored the boundary, hopping the low wall and crossing the heath on the way to the holy well at Coldvreath. I’d often seen boys collecting rabbit traps from a silver birch coppice on the estate’s southern edge. Poachers, to be sure, but no one ever made any trouble about them. Could be that the master of Roche Rock was both oldandinfirm.
As I reached the spot where hedge gave way to wall, a small movement caused me to stop, and I spotted a yellowhammer in the brambly tangle. The hedges were always thick with birds in early autumn, feasting on the haws, brambleberries, and hazelnuts. They usually kept quiet and out of sight at twilight, when I’d seen many a fox skulking about. The bird gave a few short, high chirps and dove deeper into the hedge.
I was starting toward home again when another movement—this time just the other side of the wall—caught my eye. There was a kind of hollow here and the mist was thicker, but I thought I’d glimpsed something slipping from wall to hedgerow. Something like antlers, so probably I’d startled a deer.
As I strained my eyes in the fading light, the mist shifted, and I noticed an unfamiliar shape on my side of the wall. It looked like nothing more than a low pile of stones—plentiful on the estate—but I’d passed this hollow many times and hadn’t seen it before. Curious, I stepped off the road.
A tingling sensation traveled up the middle of my back as I drew closer. It was almost dark, and I knew I should hurry home. I couldsatisfy my curiosity in the morning on my way to work. But I was nearly there already, and maybe the thing wouldn’tbethere tomorrow.
Likely a dropped cloak or coat, nosy miss.
When I was within a couple of yards of the thing, the almost-full moon peeped its bright face out from the clouds.
My heart bounded up and nearly out of my body.
Not a cloak, but amanlying there. Still as stones.
A Bad End
“Sir?” I knelt beside him, setting my basket on the ground. “Sir?Are you all right?”
Sniffing the air above him, I caught no scent of drink. Still, it was the most likely explanation. I’d found Jack like this once on the side of the road in front of our cottage; thankfully I’d managed to rouse him before any of our neighbors noticed.
The man lay on his stomach, head turned to one side, his hat crushed and half covering his face. Heart thumping, I reached out and gently lifted the hat.
I snatched my hand back with a gasp, upsetting the basket of scones. The whites of the man’s eyes—open and staring—glowed in the silver light of the moon. Something dark smeared his cheek.Blood?
Holding a fist to my chest, I struggled for breath.
Then it struck me that Iknewthis man. The customer with the newspaper.The customer with the magpie in his teapot.
Before I could recover enough to think what to do, I noticed another movement beyond the wall.
“Hello?” I called in a reedy voice. “Is anyone there? Please help!”
No answer came. A curtain of cloud fell back over the moon, leaving me alone in the dark with a dead man.
I darted up, lifted my skirt, and ran—stumbling, tears streaming down my face—back to The Magpie.
Settled in front of the stove again with another cup of tea—this time with a blanket, too, and no mind for reading about a girl who dreamed up imaginary terrors—I tried to attend to the constable’s questions.
Fetched from his supper table, Mr. Hilliard sat in the armchair across from me, his own cup of tea untouched. He was about the age my father would have been and more well-to-do, his dark hair and mustache groomed and greased with care, skin grayed from the shock he’d received this evening.
“You saw no one else in the area, Miss—er—” He looked down at his pocket diary, where he had scribbled a few notes. “Miss Penrose.” Glancing up again, he said, “There are Penroses aplenty on and around these moorlands, but with that hair I reckon you must be kin to Jack Penrose.”
Mr. Hilliard was one of the bosses from Wheal Enys, Jack’s mine. “Yes, sir. Jack is my brother.”
