Foxlowe
A compulsive and chilling debut about a girl growing up in a cultWHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO LEAVE?Green and Blue are sisters.Foxlowe is home. Outside is Bad.Green understands.Why can’t Blue?
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4th Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by 4th Estate 2016
Copyright © Eleanor Wasserberg 2016
Eleanor Wasserberg asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780008164089
Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780008164119
Version: 2017-01-04
For my parents
Contents
At Foxlowe everyone has two names. One is a secret, meant to be lost. For most, it worked like this: first they had the one they came to Foxlowe with peeled away like sunburnt skin. Then a new name, for a new life.
I used to get jealous of the Family with their secret outside names, while I only had the one, like half a person. Sometimes an old name would slip, strangled at a syllable with a blush. This was a sign to watch for, in case someone might wish to become a Leaver.
Now I am doubled that way, named twice, but for me, it’s worked in reverse: my new name came later, on the outside, like putting on that crusty old skin that should be lying on the floor.
My one name was Green, but no one calls me that any more. I had no old name to peel away, because I was born at Foxlowe. Freya named me first, of course. She named all of us, except for one. There’s a power in naming. Green was strange even for home — most of the women had flowers, or pretty ideas, like Liberty.
If I could speak to Freya, I’d tell her not to worry, because I hold my new name ever so lightly, ready to shrug it off, if ever Foxlowe could start up again.
Of course I wasn’t Green all the time. With Toby, it was the ungrown; once Blue came, it was the girls, too.
Since this is a story for Blue, first here is the little bit I remember of the world before Blue was in it. I knew that it’s not only names that double: time was split in two, between two Solstices. The winter one falls when the year is dying and you have to be careful then, because the Bad is strong in the dark. The summer one is when the sun sets twice at the Standing Stones, and the Bad is weakest. I don’t remember when I learned these things, only that I knew them by the time Blue existed. I knew Freya and Richard and Libby were the Founders and that the others were the Family and I even remembered that there was a time when I was the only ungrown, before Toby came. I knew that when I was born, it brought the Time of the Crisis, and that everything Freya did, even the things that hurt, were to keep the Family together and safe ever afterwards.
I am meant to tell Blue’s story, but it doesn’t flow as it should: there are broken and jagged edges to it, and some pieces are too sharp for the tongue to tell. I could begin with Blue’s naming, the first little thing I did to love and to hurt Blue all at once. Or I could tell the moment Foxlowe began crumbling all around us, with the front doorbell ringing. But wherever I begin, it all leads to the same place. To the sweet rotting smells, and the warm, slick blood.
PART ONE
Tiny red beads came from the lines on my arm. Those soft scars give way like wet paper. There’s a game that helps: footsteps in the dust, twisting to match the old strides without taking the skin away from the Spike Walk. Another: name steps all the way to the yellow room end of the Spike Walk. Freya, Toby, Green, Egg, Pet, the Bad. I made it to the final nail and squinted at the arm. Red tears and the lines swollen hot; a crying face. I turned to Freya, her long arms wrapped around herself at the ballroom end of the Walk. She nodded, so I breathed deeper and licked some of the salt and coins taste to make it clean.
Freya spoke. —And back again, Green.
Her voice was low, but even softened there was broken glass in it.
I lifted my other arm to the nails that had once hung pictures on these walls in Foxlowe’s old life.
—No, same arm, Freya said, smothering a smile. —Until it bleeds, is the rule.
—It is bleeding.
I held up my arm for her to see. Freya gave a slow blink.
—And back again, Green.
I put the torn skin back to the first nail. By the time I stumbled into Freya’s embrace there were flames under my skin, and I knew the Bad was burning away. I pleaded silently into the wood smoke scent of Freya’s dress. She twined her fingers in my hair, tight at the roots, pulled to search my face. I tried to look pure and good, fixed on her dark eyes and sharp, veined cheeks. Freya nodded, uncurled to her full height, and led me out to the ballroom, where Libby knelt on the huge red rug.
