Dazed and tearful, Lisa watched in horror as Kurt slammed the door of the car he had just hauled her out of. Stumbling up the grassy bank, she snatched at the handle just as he started to drive off. The car’s motion momentarily trapped her fingers, and she screamed as they were released; a wave of sickness shifting the heathland floor beneath her feet. Kurt didn’t stop. But through the shifting dark shapes in her eyeballs, she saw the car window open and a small dark object fly out. Struggling to keep her unfocusing eyes fixed on its landing place, Lisa gingerly moved her throbbing fingers as she staggered along the roadside.  She felt amongst the grass and heather with her good hand and was eventually rewarded by the familiar feel of her phone. With a sob of relief, she saw that it still worked, despite the new maze of cracks on the screen. 

 

Lisa crouched on the grass that had grown damp with the chill of the evening and wiped smears of snot and mascara across her sleeve. She touched the painful spot on her head where she’d hit it on a concealed stone as she tumbled down the grassy bank. No blood. 

 

Desperately trying to control her breathing and calm her anxiety, she found Penny’s number and rang her. 

 

“You’re supposed to be on holiday!” her best friend’s teasing voice was like a warm blanket around her shoulders, and it turned Lisa’s tears of fright to tears of relief. Lisa knew there’d be no fooling Penny, and her friend’s tone instantly changed. 
 

“What the hell has he done now?” 

 

“We… we had a row…” she started to explain, her breath coming in snatches. “It was my fault. I...”

 

“Don’t you dare start that!” Penny interrupted her. “How many times, Lisa? The man is a thug! Has he hurt you? Where are you?”

 

“No, no! Well, not really. My head is a bit sore and my fingers got bruised, but he didn’t hit me. Honestly, Pen: I wind him up. I shouldn’t say the things I say that make him so angry. He did leave me my phone…” She tailed off, knowing Penny thought her pathetic. But it was true. If she didn’t criticise Kurt, if she didn’t challenge the things that he said, then he would have no cause to fly into a rage. She just had to learn to hold her tongue and then they could be happy together.

 

“Lisa! Can you hear me? Where are you? Are you still at the holiday place?”

 

“No. No, we were driving. Erm...” Lisa looked around her, trying to find any sort of landmark, and realised that she could see nothing but trees and scrubland, with the narrow snake of tarmac slicing through the middle.

 

“Lisa!” Penny grew insistent.

 

“He stopped the car and threw me out,” Lisa admitted, and she heard Penny swear under her breath. “I don’t really know where I am. Somewhere in the New Forest. We were heading back from some pub in the middle of nowhere. High something. High Post? High Corner?”

 

“Right. Can you get back there?”

 

“I don’t know. We’d been driving quite a while. Well, a few miles anyway.”

 

Lisa’s phone beeped ominously and she looked at the screen. Less than 5% battery! Kurt had said he would charge hers once he’d finished charging his, but he’d obviously forgotten.

 

“Pen, I’m running out of battery!” The panic that had begun to subside suddenly hit the accelerator.

 

“Okay, okay! Look, don’t worry. Turn your phone off. Keep walking along the road until you find civilisation, and someone who can tell you where you are. Then turn it back on, call me back, and I’ll come and find you.”

 

“You’re miles away,” said Lisa piteously.

 

“I’m just over an hour away. And I drive quicker than you walk. Don’t worry. Just follow the road and call me when you know where you are.”

 

With an increased sense of isolation, Lisa held down the power off button on her phone and watched as the screen turned black. Taking a few deep breaths, she looked around her, glanced up and down the road in both directions, and assessed  her options. The pub they’d come from was over two miles away, and she couldn’t remember seeing any houses before it. But then, she couldn’t remember passing much when they came from the other direction either. A sudden noise behind her made her jump and she spun round. A piebald pony gazed at her steadily as it sniffed a gorse bush. Blackbirds chattered in the trees nearby, heralding the approach of night. The sky had gone from the bright aqua of daylight to a duskier blue, with thin stripes of cloud turned pink and orange around the edges. The first stars were starting to twinkle, and a round moon that had appeared faintly some hours previously was now starting to look more lustrous, determined to shine. 

 

Lisa turned and started to head back down the road. A car came towards her and she stopped, mesmerised by its headlights in the gathering gloom. She considered trying to flag it down but could hear her mother’s voice inside her head, alongside all the primary school videos warning of Stranger Danger. No—Penny had given her a plan and she should stick to it. Anyway, Kurt might come back for her and what would he think if she’d disappeared? Especially if it was a man in the car that stopped for her. The row at the pub had started because Kurt thought she was trying to eye up some bloke at the bar. She hadn’t been. He had caught her eye and she had given him a small smile out of friendliness. Nothing more. Just an old habit, born out of a childhood desire of wanting to be liked. Smile and the world smiles with you—isn’t that what they said? But if it made your boyfriend want to punch the lights out of the person you smiled at, and then resulted in you being dragged out of a car at the side of a country lane, then frankly the world could go on being bloody miserable on its own.

 

A couple more cars passed, but Lisa had moved onto the open grassland that bordered the road and was walking parallel to it. Noises emanated from the woodland to her right and she stopped fearfully at every snapped twig, every rustled leaf, every snort of breath. The dark shapes among the trees slowly emerged and turned from demonic nightmare to Forest ponies. 

 

“It’s only the animals, it’s only the animals,” she chanted under her breath, focusing on the words to slow her hammering heart.

 

Suddenly a single scream pierced the air, and Lisa only narrowly avoided adding one of her own. She had been so focused on calming herself down that she hadn’t noticed the tree line edging ever closer, and now the woods loomed threateningly before her. 

 

Her breathing shallow and her heartbeats barely indistinguishable from each other, Lisa stared wildly ahead of her. A night breeze caught the smaller branches, which shifted in a sinister fashion over the trunks; hide and reveal, hide and reveal. Silence. Could it have been an owl?

 

“It’s only the animals, it’s only…” she started to repeat, but a new noise stopped her. The new noise was sobbing, and no pony ever sobbed like that.

 

A woman. A woman in trouble. Human company in this isolated place but also a chance to be the helper for once, and not always the victim. Lisa took a few tentative steps towards the edge of the wood and called out, “Hello?”

 

The sobbing was punctuated with loud, short breaths and appeared to be getting nearer. Lisa tried again. 

 

“Hello?” 

 

She gasped as a figure ran raggedly through the trees in front of her, parallel to where she was standing. It was a young woman, probably no more than 20, wearing a long white cotton dress with a high neck and an old-fashioned bibbed frill. Her long hair was half up and the rest fell in long dark curls over her shoulders. It caught in some of the overhanging branches as she ran, and she stopped short with a cry as it spun her round. 

 

Lisa took a step towards her, aiming to help, but stopped as another figure emerged from the woods: a tall, broad figure in a longish dark-coloured coat and trousers. His stride seemed impossibly long as he knocked the flimsy overhanging branches out of his way with ease. The girl was still tangled in the branches and he grabbed her by the arm, twisting her towards him and tearing her hair in the process. She cried out, “No!” fiercely at first, then again weaker, helpless, resigned to her fate. Lisa recognised the tone; she had heard from her own mouth more than once. 

 

The man had hold of both of the girl’s wrists in his hands, overpowering her struggles. 

 

“For God’s sake, Mary!” 

 

His voice sounded cultured – posh even. At odds with his violent demeanour.

 

“Stand still, you little bitch! Mary!”

 

Taking the girl’s wrists in one hand, he used his free one to slap her hard about the face. Mary was knocked sideways by the blow, held upright only by the hand of her tormentor. A pair of rooks took off from a nearby tree, chattering in alarm and disapproval. Lisa heard herself yell out, “Stop it!” and recoiled in fear. She wanted the man to stop, but supposing he turned on her instead? Even the combined strength of the two women would be no match against his stature and rage. But her shout went unheeded. 

 

The man pushed Mary back against the trunk of a large oak tree and, still holding both her wrists, put his hand over her lower stomach as she twisted and writhed against him.

 

“You lying little whore! You told me you were getting rid of it!” he growled in her ear. Mary shook her head.

 

“I tried!” she replied in a choked voice. “I went to see Old Joan and she gave me something. I drank it—I swear I drank it. But nothing happened.”

 

“Liar!”

 

“I’m not! I swear! On my little brother’s life. I tried all I could!”

 

Mary gave a shout like all the air had been expelled from her body and doubled over in pain. The man had punched her hard in the stomach, and Lisa felt a visceral reaction within herself as she watched. She had to do something.

 

“Stop it!” she yelled again and looked around for some sort of weapon. “Leave her alone!” She ran into the trees to the right of the couple, but still neither of them acknowledged her presence.

 

He hit Mary again and she collapsed at the base of the tree, crying loudly and clutching at her belly. Lisa snatched up a promising-looking log, but its rotten body fell apart in her hands, scattering woodlice and ants around her. Undeterred, she dusted off her hands and grabbed at a fallen branch tangled among brambles, ignoring the scratches and the pain in her fingers. About to charge in, she turned and saw in the moonlight the man crouched at the base of the tree, cradling the crying Mary in his arms and softly stroking her hair. 

 

“There, there,” he said. “You know it’s for the best, Mary. We can’t be together if you’re with child. I’m sorry; I never intended to hurt you. But you lied to me and that made me angry. You know what happens when you make me angry, don’t you?”

 

Mary nodded silently and sniffed away her tears, drying them on the back of her hand. “I… I’m sorry,” she stuttered through still uneven breaths.

 

“No!” screamed Lisa. “No! He’s not sorry! You didn’t lie to him and you’ve done nothing wrong!”

 

Once again, the couple seemed not to hear her. 

 

“Now you come along with me,” said the man as he stood up and, with one hand under the girl’s arm, helped her unsteadily to her feet. “Let’s get you a drink and a hot bath and we can decide what to do about your little problem.”

 

Mary swayed unsteadily against him and Lisa watched helplessly as she leaned her head against the man’s shoulder and let him lead her back into the woods. They hadn’t gone far when Mary cried out and folded over in pain. She stumbled, vomited and Lisa watched in horror as a dark patch appeared on the back of the girl’s white dress. The man seemed frozen in shock. He watched as Mary writhed on the forest floor at his feet, crying out in pain.

 

“Stephen! Help me!” she begged. “You’ll have to take me to the cottage. Fetch Doctor Harper.”

 

The man towered over her, not moving. “I... I can’t…” His voice was quiet and it was his turn to stutter. 

 

“Stephen...?”

 

The man lifted Mary up by her armpits and leant her against the trunk of a broad beech tree. She looked up at him disbelievingly. “Are you going to get help?” she asked weakly.

 

He cupped one hand around the side of her pale, frightened face, supporting her with the other. 

 

“Mary, I can’t. Not in your condition. The shame... My reputation... You don’t understand. I’m sorry.” He kissed her on the forehead and let go. Unsupported, she slid down the trunk of the tree and sat, exhausted, among the leaf litter, scrabbling her feet weakly in an attempt to stand. Even through the trees, Lisa could see the dark patch on the girl’s dress had grown larger and watched in horror as Mary begged her tormentor not to leave her.

 

“I’m sorry, Mary. I really am sorry.” 

 

He turned his back and walked swiftly and silently away among the trees.

 

With bruised and shaking hands Lisa pressed the power button on her phone and dialled 999.

 

“Emergency. Which service please?” 

 

“Ambulance!” Lisa shouted as she ran towards the girl. “There’s a woman and she’s been assaulted. I think she’s pregnant. She’s bleeding!”

 

As Lisa reached the foot of the tree where Mary was slumped, she could see her more clearly. Her face, though pretty, was pallid and had a matt sheen to it. Her breathing came in rasps and her dark curls were plastered to the sweat around her neck. A pool of blood reflected the moonlight in its sheen and as Lisa bent down to reassure the girl, a smell hit her—cloyingly sweet and metallic, it brought bile to the back of her throat and her head swam. The voice at the other end of the phone was trying to get her attention and Lisa tried to focus on what it was saying.

 

“I’m sorry…?” she muttered vaguely as the stars above her spun like sparklers and the trees appeared to bend in all directions. The smell hit her again and as the forest floor came up to meet her, Lisa blacked out. 

 

It was some hours later when she woke up in a hospital bed with a worried-looking Penny holding her hand. As she focused on her friend’s face, she remembered Mary and sat up sharply—the sudden movement making her head spin.

 

“Woah!” cautioned Penny. “Where’s the fire?”

 

“How’s Mary? Is she ok? Did they bring me with her?” she asked.

 

“Who’s Mary? Do you mean in the ambulance? I don’t think so. They found you passed out in the wood. Luckily your phone had just enough battery left for them to try and pinpoint where you were. You’d blacked out. They think you were concussed.”

 

“No, I think it was all the blood,” Lisa insisted. “The smell... But where is she? I need to know that she’s ok. Will you go and ask them for me?”

 

“Lisa, there was nobody with you,” began Penny, but she broke off as Lisa started to pull back the sheets to stand up. “Okay, okay! I’ll go and find a nurse.”

 

When Penny returned ten minutes later and told Lisa that she had been alone when they had found her, that there was no sign of the mysterious Mary or anyone else and no sign of any struggle, Lisa insisted on discharging herself there and then. 

 

“This is a really bad idea,” argued Penny. “The nurse says you were concussed and that probably made you hallucinate. Especially after the trauma with Kurt.”

 

“You told them?” Lisa was aghast.

 

“Yes, but I didn’t have to. They saw the scars, Lisa. This has to stop!”

 

“Whatever,” said Lisa, ignoring the dizziness as she pulled on her clothes. “But right now I need you to take me back to the woods.”

 

With the help of the hospital and Lisa’s somewhat sketchy visual memory, the two women eventually managed to pinpoint the woods where Lisa had been found and pulled up in a car park at the edge of them. Lisa was out of the car in an instant and ran into the woods.

 

“You’re looking for a young woman with dark curly hair. She was wearing a white dress,” she called out to Penny as she ran. 

 

Before too long Lisa stopped under the beech trees, trying to work out exactly where she had seen Mary collapse.

 

“It all looks so different in the daylight,” she admitted. “I didn’t even see the car park that close by. But I’m sure this is it, because the trees are nearer the road here.”

 

“Lisa, there’s nothing to find,” said Penny, gently. “You were hallucinating. Think about it: you said they had ignored you when you shouted, more than once. Why would they do that if they could hear you? You must have been dreaming.”

 

Lisa shook her head and frowned. “It was so real, Penny. I was so frightened. He was being so awful towards her and she was just accepting it and apologising for upsetting him. She’d done nothing wrong!”

 

“That sounds familiar,” said Penny bitterly.

 

The helpless feeling of the previous evening hit Lisa afresh. Standing among the trees, she replayed the scene in her head, but this time the voice coming from the tall man was not his but Kurt’s. She looked at the bandages on her bruised fingers; at Penny’s frown of deep concern.

 

“I’ve been an idiot,” she said simply.

 

“Promise me you won’t go back to him.”

 

Lisa drew Penny into a hug. “I promise,” she said, then gasped as she looked up at the tree they were standing beneath. She didn’t know how she recognised it, but she knew it was the tree that Mary had collapsed against. She scrabbled at its base but could find no sign of blood or any indication that a young woman’s life might have ebbed away at its roots. Several sets of initials had been carved into its surface in recent years but none of them included the letter M. 

 

“Lisa?” Penny was resting her hand on writing on the other side of the tree. It looked much older than the rest and had been evenly carved in an old-fashioned script. Lisa’s head swam as she followed the letters on the curve of the trunk and read out the name “Mary.”

 

“There’s something else underneath it,” she said. “Can you see what it says?”

 

Penny nodded. “It’s a date. It’s 1860.”

 

Lisa never did find out the truth of what had happened to Mary, a century and a half before she thought she had witnessed it. But every year, on the anniversary of that night, she visited the tree, placed a small posy of flowers at its base and gave thanks to the young woman whose tragic end had changed her own life. 

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