Rotating horizontally through the air and counterbalanced at opposite ends by roots and branches, the tree travelled across the field. As if it had been hurled from the hand of a petulant demi-god. Clots of earth and stones jettisoned like shrapnel from its base. The branches, not yet clothed in leaves, twisting and whistling as they flayed the air. Witnessed by a bay mare and her foal, who, when startled, made haste to the other side of the pasture. The other witness, a buzzard, sat on its perch in a gnarly oak tree and turned its head, following the spectacle. It seemed unconcerned that such a thing, a tree, similar to the one under its claws, albeit much smaller, normally rooted and secure, should be flying.
* * *
Stevie felt bullish as he sat behind the wheel of his van, rigged out for his trade with its aluminium slat panels and a tow bar for his chipper. Business was good; the spate of ash die-back had seen his workload increase, and so too his profits. He was, as he kept reminding his mates, just like his favourite little Stihl chainsaw. Buzzing.
Keeping the hedgerow to his left, the narrow road went through its series of bends until it topped the ridge that would bring him away from the Rissingtons. To his right was the open expanse of fields that descended gently away. Stevie didn’t pay any heed to the scenery; he’d passed it a million times before. What occupied his mind was his destination, what could be waiting for him there, and the amount of moolah he might earn that week.
Confidence came naturally to Stevie. What some considered arrogance. Most wouldn’t say that to his face. At 6’2”, charming, and with the strength of a bull, Stevie was intimidating. This morning, his mind was occupied with the girl who lived at the property he was working at today. He’d seen the way she looked at him when he had first visited to assess the work. So today, if she were there, he would engage her casually in conversation. At home from university for the summer, she may well have a term-time boyfriend, but so what? That had never stopped him before. The day promised to be mild, giving him a valid excuse to strip down to his T-shirt. He’d picked one that morning that was a little snug, showing off his physique just the way he liked. Just the way she might like, he thought. First, though, he had to collect his sidekick, hoping the numpty hadn’t slept in nursing another hangover, or worse. Fucking bloke should know when to stop.
* * *
Becca felt weird this morning, her head aching in a way it hadn’t before. The shouting she had come to terms with, having developed a mechanism whereby she shut out most of the volume. But that last slap had caused a ringing in her head that was different. It had remained even while she did her little prayer. Like the ones taught at the tiny church school she had attended as a child. She’d kept them up for all these years. In secret, of course, because he would make fun of her otherwise. And making fun of her was a sport for him. She rubbed the side of her face as if to appease the ringing. Like the caress would pacify it. It was an involuntary, abstract kind of motion. A delayed reaction to the memory of it and the memory of him doing it.
Becca shuffled into the hall and looked in the mirror. The side of her face was a little red but not swollen. Not yet anyway, and she hoped it would stay that way. She was tired of making excuses for the not-so-occasional bruising on her face. The few friends she had, and the people who worked the till in the village shop, looked at her with varying degrees of sympathy or pity. But they never came right out with it. How do you even broach a subject like that? It was a village in a rural community, not some metropolitan hub with its diversity and frank talking. She often thought how marvellous it must be to walk around the corner to your local Citizens Advice Bureau. Or hop on a bus or tube any time of day, if it wasn’t within walking distance. The thoughts jarred with the ringing sensation, and she sighed heavily.
Becca would go to her quiet space, her garden, made beautiful by her own hands. Her garden, not theirs. She took the old shirt she used for outside from the peg and padded to the back door.
Still cool, for the clock had not yet reached eight, the garden was bathed in hazy morning light. Too early in the day for the sun to make its warmth felt. She looked around and across to the field behind their house. Then up at the sky, where pale grey clouds vied with the sun for precedence. Becca thought it would be a good day. She felt the unique energy of the quiet, living things there and was immediately drawn into her sanctuary.
* * *
Todd checked his phone and looked at the time. His boss should have been here already. Being late was unusual. He checked his messages and the apps that dotted his phone. There were no changes of plan, no late messages, or alterations for that day. It didn’t take long before he started scrolling through Instagram. Ten minutes goes quickly when your brain disengages from the here and now. When he did re-engage, Todd realised that he should have been picked up fifteen minutes ago. Where the fuck is he? He pressed the number that would connect them. It went straight to voicemail.
* * *
The rowan tree continued on its flight, rotating slowly over the field. Guided by unknown forces, spitting small shards of debris that stung the morning air.
* * *
Becca took her kneeling pad from the shed and walked to the border she’d worked on yesterday. Small fork in hand, she knelt and began to dig at the soil, turning it over and pulling out weeds. The therapy was immediate, and she began to retreat into the safety that separated her from outside stimuli, drawing sustenance from her connection to the soil and the plants around her. Her actions turned over stones and with them invertebrates, which, when exposed, scuttled about seeking shelter. The sky shifted, Becca felt warmth at her back as a cloud passed, exposing her to the sun. A shaft of light bathed a patch of ground near some fading forget-me-nots, encouraging her to move towards it. She continued her labours until she uncovered something that was not a stone. About two inches long and heavy. Becca picked up the object and gave it a closer look. It appeared to be made of metal and resembled a human figure. Intrigued, she rubbed at the caked-on soil, then removed her gloves to better inspect it. As she touched it, a sensation came over her that sent a weird, cold shiver up her arm. The ringing that had plagued her earlier came back with a vengeance, threatening to split her head in two. Then it disappeared as a dizzy wave of nausea took over, forcing her to bend at the waist, her head nearly touching the ground. The sensation passed as quickly as it had arrived. All the while, Becca held on to the little figure. She straightened up groaning, expecting to be sick. When it didn’t come, she gingerly got to her feet, object in hand. For a moment she stood, disoriented, then turned and went back into the kitchen, leaving her kneeling pad, gloves and fork next to the flower bed.
At the sink, Becca washed the caked-on mud from the figure with an old toothbrush. To her surprise, the ingrained dirt came off easily, revealing something golden. It was a statuette of a woman in a robe or toga, she thought. She had wings and was holding something in her hand. It looked old, ancient even, she wasn’t sure, wasn’t knowledgeable about history. The figure was dried and slipped into her jeans pocket.
* * *
Not from his perch in the oak, but following it from above now, on the wing, the buzzard continued to watch the tree. It turned lazily, root before branch, branch before root, always keeping the same distance from the ground, the branches avoiding the earth so as not to slow its progress. Then the buzzard watched as the root end disappeared into thin air, followed instantly by the branches as they swung round. Seemingly unconcerned, the buzzard carried on flying, right into the unseen membrane that separated where it came from, to where it was going. Everything disappeared for a moment in a vortex of hazy light, forcing the creature to adjust its wings and momentum. For a second it dropped several feet from its altitude and then carried on regardless, eyes constantly vigilant. The tree reappeared seconds later, on the other side, rotating slowly on its course, the buzzard following at its distance above.
* * *
Stevie was approaching a long bend in the road. The ground had levelled off some, though the hedgerow to his left remained, the open expanse to his right also. He was driving on semi-autopilot – still thinking about the possibility of sex with the nineteen- or twenty-year-old daughter of the customer he was travelling to. Pushing far back in his mind what he had done to his partner at home earlier that morning.
He was only aware of the moving object the moment it made contact with the right-hand pillar of his windscreen. The tree trunk hit the vehicle with enough force to split the steel inwards like two bent tines of a huge fork. Stevie’s body was propelled forward with such velocity that his face smashed against the ruptured steel. It held him, impaled for the split second it took the van to skid to a halt. One of the tines skewered his right eye socket; the other punctured his neck. When the van came to a stop against the hedge, the tree moved, making one last gruesome gesture as it released his face from its impalement. Stevie slumped back in his seat, his face peppered with shards of broken window glass. His body felt the full impact, as the malfunctioning airbags offered no assistance.
It wasn’t long before a motorist came from the other direction, pulling violently to a stop. The vehicle was known to the motorist as he had seen it about. Seen it parked at his favourite watering hole. He didn’t know Stevie personally, had never needed the services of a tree surgeon, but he was aware of who he was. He’d seen him at the pub, heard about his reputation. Getting out of the car, he approached the mangled mess of metal and did a double take. Wedged right up into the corner of the windscreen was a tree, a bloody tree! It hadn’t come off the van, couldn’t have, it was in front of it. The root end was stuck in the hedgerow, the branches splayed across the road. It made access to the driver’s door impossible. He had a macabre thought then that almost made him smile. We’re going to need a tree surgeon to cut this thing away from the van. The thought quickly subsided however, when he imagined what state the driver must be in. Instead, he tried to access the passenger door on the hedge side. An action that proved futile; there was no way to get close.
The man reached for his phone, did the sensible thing, and called the emergency services.
* * *
Todd tried Stevie’s phone again with the same result – straight to voicemail. He was twenty minutes late now. Stevie was never late, pride saw to that and the opportunity, possibly, to catch Todd out by being slightly early. An opportunity to have a gentle dig at his employee whom he considered a bit of a loser. Todd liked working for Stevie insofar as the work was steady, well paid and kept him fit. He wasn’t as big as his boss, so Todd often did the climbing, especially in smaller trees. Sometimes the casual verbal abuse he received at work irked him. But he was laid back enough not to let it play on his mind. It was only at work; he wasn’t required to socialise with his boss. The occasional pint after work was fine, but that was as far as it went. He was happier gaming, online preferably, with his friends – virtual mostly. I wonder what’s happened? he thought and went back to scrolling through his phone.
* * *
There was no sound to greet Stevie when he regained consciousness. Only the searing, vivid pain that wracked his whole being. Like a constant weight pressing on a joint that would eventually snap and buckle backwards. He could still see out of his left eye, breathing was difficult, and he was unable to move. It dawned on him that he was totally screwed. Remarkable that he had come around at all, he thought. And what in hell’s name smashed into me? His remaining vision was clear enough to see that it was a tree. What the fuck! A fucking tree! How…
Thoughts came and went as he sat immobile, trapped and bleeding. Unrelated, random thoughts about his situation, the day that had been planned, Todd, the girl, that new sixteen-inch Stihl he had his eyes on, what the guest beer would be at the King’s Head. Then Becca came into his head and a weird, cold sensation filled him. The pain, as bad as it was, vanished immediately. What came into his thoughts then, like an image that appeared through the melting celluloid of an old movie reel, an image conveniently stored away, was a clenched fist smashing into soft flesh. The fleshy areas which could be hidden under clothing. The fist, his fist, moving relentlessly, pounding, brutalising. Then the sensation stopped, and the pain came back. It hit him like a freight train hitting a balsa wood cart on a rail crossing. And sweet fucking Jesus the pain was like all his joints had been snapped backwards at the same time.
Instinctively, Steven Hunter knew he was dying; his body told him as much. But his brain had decided to react outside of his prognosis and was very much alive. It was keeping him awake despite the fact he would rather be unconscious. In a series of vignettes, played out in his head in perfect colour and sound, scenes of his twenty-nine years rolled by. But not the good stuff. There were some, of course, because even the most brutal dictator was never one hundred per cent evil. Not all their lives. Most of these scenes concerned Becca, and Nicola before her. But, they went right back to when he was a child. The smaller kids in the playground he harassed and bullied. The girlfriends, his partners. And the scenes of brutality were relentless and unforgiving.
Minutes ticked by when a disturbance to his left pulled him out of his trance. A flapping, rustling sound at his side window. I’m being rescued, he thought. With difficulty and a new pain he thought impossible, he turned in its direction. A buzzard had perched on a branch in the hedge, no more than five feet from his face. Unknown to him, the very same that had arrived with the tree. Fate’s harbinger and the instrument of its reckoning. It sat staring, its beady eyes focusing on him. I’m not dead yet, pal, Stevie thought, watching it with his remaining good eye. The buzzard looked on, silent and still. But time is short, the flinty orbs implied, for you, time is short. The pair remained with their eyes locked until Stevie felt a new lightness overcome him. Like an ethereal emptying of pain and torment. Then he turned his head forwards again, his eyelids closing on eternal darkness.
* * *
Sergeant Mick East of the Gloucestershire Constabulary was the first uniform on the scene following the emergency call. It hadn’t taken him too long, screaming along the lanes on his blues and twos. It wasn’t often he had the opportunity to use them, this being the countryside. The nearest ambulance was miles away, this being the countryside, and the lack of resources. When he arrived, he simply stared at the carnage, scratching his head in bewilderment, then called dispatch to relay the situation before him. Next on the scene was a First Responder, an off-duty firefighter. Between the three men, they managed to pull the tree away from the front of the van. It was difficult, but luckily the rowan wasn’t fully mature. The buzzard had relocated to a stiff branch of hawthorn in the hedgerow. It watched the action with interest, the smell of death close at hand.
As the van door was impossible to open, the retained firefighter leaned in through the smashed window. Although Steven Hunter was brutally mangled, he had seen worse; victims of fires crisp and blackened, a suicide who had placed their head under a bus wheel. He checked for signs of life and when he found none, turned to Mick, shaking his head.
* * *
Mick East had to do the thing he hated the most. A thing he had done many times before but came no easier. The woman who answered the door was wearing an old shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. She rolled them down almost absentmindedly, but not before he noticed the purple and yellow marks. These he had seen before, on other women. As too, that familiar haunted look on her face. He explained what happened while she sat on the sofa. Not all of it, not the nitty gritty fine points of what happened to Stevie. And wasn’t surprised when she didn’t immediately break down sobbing. He’d seen most reactions, Becca’s included.
* * *
Later, Becca turned on her PC and trawled a multitude of sites, numb by what she had been told. She could feel the numbness, but what seemed to be missing was any sense of grief. She expected this may come later, perhaps she was in shock. Her mother had come over to keep an eye on her. More at the insistence of the police family liaison officer than any request from herself. They hadn’t talked much; she hadn’t felt like it. Instead, her mother busied herself around the house, doing small chores. The small golden figure sat on the desk by Becca’s keypad. She would, when she felt up to it, travel down to Cirencester to the museum there and talk to someone who knew about these things. But for now, she was content to do her own research. This process was a task her brain had set her, to keep her from derailing. A process she came to realise only later.
* * *
There was an inquest. The coroner was involved because of the nature of the accident. No one was able to explain how it had happened. There was speculation, but no credible evidence was produced as to how the tree came to be embedded in the front of the van. There had been no wind on the day strong enough to uproot a tree, of any size. The only conclusion they could offer was death by misadventure. There was no explanation.
* * *
Several days after the hearing, Becca took that trip down to the museum in Cirencester. She had made the appointment before the hearing. The curator, an expert in the Roman colonisation of Britain, was eager to see what she had brought. When Becca had explained over the phone, his interest had been piqued.
She arrived at the scheduled time. Professor Malcolm Bainbridge greeted her warmly and took her into his small, cluttered office. She handed him the object and his face lit up. As if the gold has its own luminosity.
“You say you found this in your garden?”
“Yes.”
“And you only turned over a trowel full of soil?”
“Yes, I was weeding.”
“Remarkable, truly remarkable.”
Professor Bainbridge turned the object over in his hand, then produced a magnifying glass from his desk drawer. He studied the object closely, his interest obvious.
“Your guess was very good. I suppose you searched the internet?”
“Yes, you can find all kinds of stuff online.”
“Indeed, you can. This, I believe, and I’m pretty confident about it, is not Roman but Greek. Well, the goddess is certainly Greek. She is Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution. This is an early depiction of her; she is holding a whip in one hand and those are wings on her back. There are other later depictions of her wielding a sword or tally stick.”
Becca’s eyes widened as he told her.
“You think a Greek person dropped it in my garden?”
“I think more likely a Roman who had Greek connections. Or it could have been a merchant. And not literally in your garden,” he gave his visitor a look of encouragement, “it was most likely just a field then, around the time of Christ.” He placed the figure on his desk. “You know, the ancient Romans weren’t as fussy about their gods as the Abrahamic religions are.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, as the empire stretched out, they often absorbed the gods of other cultures into their own. And used different names for what were, in principle, the same gods. The person who owned this may have been someone who had an affinity with this particular god. We’ll never know for sure.”
“Is it solid gold?”
“I’m certain, if not it would have tarnished over time. I can have it tested and studied in more detail. I have friends at the British Museum who would be keen to see it.”
The professor studied Becca with interest, waiting for a reply.
“I’ll have to think about that. I’m not sure I can part with it right now.”
“I can understand that, Miss Heath, but will you at least allow me to make enquiries? I can keep in touch if you change your mind.”
“Yes, okay, it’s just that I’m dealing with a recent loss at the moment, and I need time to figure things out.”
Bainbridge held up his hands. “All perfectly understandable. Will you allow me to take some photographs and measurements?”
“Yes, okay.” Becca paused. “Is it valuable?”
“It is extremely rare, especially finding it here in Britain. It’s certainly valuable.”
Becca nodded.
“Tell me, Miss Heath, have you reported this to the Portable Antiquities Scheme? You’re obliged to with treasure like this. It’s an important archaeological find.”
Becca shook her head slowly.
“I thought so. I could help you if you like. How long have you had it?”
“About a week or so.”
“There may be some reward for you as finder. It depends on what happens to it. I’m sure there will be many museums interested to see it.”
Take it from me…, is that what he means? They want to take it from me? Becca was aghast but tried her best to conceal it.
“No, it’s okay, I was going to get around to it after you confirmed what it was.”
She hoped she sounded convincing. “Do you want to take your photos and measurements?”
Professor Bainbridge set about his task and pressed the goddess into some soft clay to make a mould for good measure. When he was done, they said their goodbyes. Becca promising to let him know how it went registering the find with the authorities; Malcolm promising to keep in touch to see how it went, adding, no doubt, that he would hear about it through his friend at the British Museum.
* * *
Becca never heard from or saw Malcolm again, only reading by chance a week later of his death. It was while trawling the internet. ‘Eminent local historian and curator of antiquities at Cirencester Museum found dead in his office.’
She went on to read that foul play was not suspected, and that he had died while making a phone call. He was found slumped onto his desk from a massive heart attack. The newspaper didn’t mention the whole story, because the police hadn’t revealed it. When he was discovered, the phone still gripped tightly in his right hand and his face contorted into a mask of terror, his left hand was missing. Gone. And unknown to anyone, it was the hand that had been holding a reproduction statuette of an ancient deity. It seemed to have been expertly cauterised, as there was no apparent blood loss. But by whom, and why? What was even stranger was the neat space across the otherwise cluttered desk. A space where a shaft of sunlight might make its journey through the room. A space about nine inches wide, devoid of all objects, including the hand that had been resting there. And when studied closely, those objects were only missing the parts that were in that empty space. Like the shaft of light that had cut across them, had simply erased them.
* * *
Becca felt chilly when she came downstairs, her time online, static in her seat, made a fire seem welcome. Nemesis was propped on the mantlepiece in her customary position. Taking the idol from her resting place, she stroked her thumb along it. The gold felt warm, at odds with the room. Becca replaced her on the mantle, then looked down at the book in her other hand. It was her copy of the bible, the one her mother had given her as a child.
“You haven’t been all that much help over the years, have you? Not really, when it’s come right down to it. All that praying; what did it give me? I might as well have prayed to a stone.” Becca spoke directly at the book’s cover.
When it didn’t reply, she decided to play a game and open it randomly. The first time, the pages fell open at Deuteronomy 5. She looked from the book to the mantlepiece, then read briefly from verses 7 and 8 before tearing the pages out, crumpling them up and placing them on the grate. She played the game again. It opened on Exodus 34. Again, she looked from the book to the mantle while reading the text. Then did the same as before with the pages. She made the fire with a calm assurance that surprised her, waited a moment just staring at it, and then lit the aged and dry paper. Becca glanced up at the ceiling when the fire took.
“If you’re going to smite me, God, then I suggest you do it now.”
As the kindling burned, Becca placed three logs on top of it. Fitting, she thought, then waited long enough for the trio to slowly smoulder. She stood then, feeling lightheaded, but not in a bad way. It felt like a lightness of being, as if a great weight had been removed from her. A sense and awareness of herself right there, right then. And with that, a cleansing of the last four years. An urge to break the links that tied her to her old existence. The fire burned brighter and larger. In her final act of rebellion, she gave the book in her hand one last look and tossed it onto the flames. It felt liberating.
Nemesis watched, silent and golden from her place on the mantlepiece. Becca gazed at her and thought she glowed then, as though struck by a beam of sunlight, brilliant and beautiful.
* * *
Miles away and far from the ground, soaring and free, a buzzard flew across a field. Satisfied in its delivery and execution of fate’s work, it flew solitary on its journey home, observing the creatures below. Without the rowan as guide to mark the separation, the carrion messenger entered the vortex unexpectedly, once again adjusting its wing and flight. When it recovered, and appeared on the other side, the buzzard spied the mare and her foal in the distance, and beyond them, huge and familiar, the gnarly old oak.