Atlantic Books Quotes

I think about the story I always tell her – of the kind lady who gave her to us. I suppose that must be how she imagines her father – as a kind man who gave her away too, as if she were a gift. Only now he wants her back.

He places the skull in the palm of my hand. There are four canines; the top two are so long and curved I can feel them pricking my skin. There’s a green tinge round the eye socket and in a fine line across the cranium. I’m not sure what animal it’s from. ‘Stoat,’ Harris says, as if I’ve spoken out loud. ‘They hunt grouse and partridge. I found it behind my house. I buried the body in the furze until it was just bone.’ His hand is still beneath mine, supporting it. I think of him seeing the small dead creature and digging a tiny grave for it. Planning ahead for all those months just so he’d see the skeleton. Or maybe he severed the animal’s head and that was the only part he buried. ‘It’s been waiting for you all this time. Like I have.

My husband hands me my glass, full to the brim with green-gold wine and I stifle my resentment and attempt to smile at him. I mustn’t lose sight of what we have – two beautiful children; an amazing house that I never, in a million years, thought we’d be able to afford; Gill and Andy, my best friends – and this perfect day. I take a deep breath and feel my shoulders relax. I can smell the faintest trace of heather, drifting down from the moor.

She said that the mummy and the daddy took their daughter up onto the moor. They had a picnic. They’d brought all of her favourite food – cheese sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off and strawberry-pink cupcakes – and when the little girl had finished eating, she looked around for her mummy and the daddy. But they’d gone. They’d left Evelyn on the moor by herself.