The Salt Marsh Read Free

‘I’m fine.’
    The stallholder was still staring at her face. ‘You’ve got a birthmark on your cheek.’
    Sam lifted her hand without thinking to the lumpy brown splodge shaped like a cat’s head. She tried to keep it covered with her hair, especially when she was at school, because her classmates called her bogey face when it was visible.
    â€˜Couple of hundred years ago, people would have thought you were a witch if they saw that mark.’
    Sam laughed nervously. She couldn’t tell whether the woman was joking.
    â€˜Witch?’
    â€˜Witch isn’t necessarily an insult. It was often clever women, cunning folk, who knew about herbs and plants who were accused of witchcraft.’
    The stallholder waved her hand across her cellophane packets, gave Sam a meaningful nod. Sam was desperate to escape now, find her father. She checked over her shoulder; a small queue had formed in front of the candyfloss stall, the flustered black-aproned stallholder was bent over the silver drum, whirring sticks around to collect the sugar wisps. The scar-faced man was nowhere in sight. She clocked the crowds surging towards the roped area to watch the girls prancing around the Maypole, ‘Jake the Peg’ pumping through the tannoy. The leering carousel horses were chasing round and round. She had a sudden idea about where Jim might have gone: if he was trying to avoid being seen by somebody – the man with the scar – he could have slipped away and walked back to the Cortina. It was the one place where he knew Sam might look for him.
    â€˜I’d better go and see if I can find my dad in the beer tent,’ Sam said. She was still holding the cellophane packet. She didn’t want it, but she thought it would be less hassle to pay for it than to hand it back. ‘How much is the willow bark?’
    â€˜Take it. It’s yours for nothing.’
    â€˜Thanks.’
    Sam pulled George’s lead and made her way through the jostle around the roped-off area. A policeman was jigging along with the girls in floaty dresses; the lairy bystanders egged him on – guffawing, cameras snapping. The Morris dancers were warming up their instruments – a violin, an accordion, a penny whistle and drum. The green-cape wearers were huddled in a corner behind the Maypole. One of them lit a bulrush torch, leaned back as it ignited, jabbed the burning wand down his throat and exhaled a leaping flame. Petrol fumes filled the air. The dancing girls shied away from the fire-eater, startled.
    The policeman stopped being jolly, shouted, ‘Oi. Enough of that.’
    The fire-eater shouted back, ‘Fuck off. I’ll do what I want. It’s a free country.’
    â€˜This is my fucking patch. You do what I say here.’
    The fire-eater’s mates jeered, closed ranks. The audience surged, eager for a fight, bored with the waltzer, little girls and Maypole dancing. Sam pressed against the flow, dragging George. As she reached the beer tent, a bunch of stick-wielding men with blackened faces burst out through the open flap – ragged black cloaks flapping from their shoulders and top hats decorated with pheasant feathers. Crow-men, she realized with alarm, dancers from the darkness, birds of death. The crow-men hurtled into the crowd, barged over to the Maypole. Sam heard a shout behind – ‘let’s get ‘em’ – quickened her pace and headed to the gate, George straining on the lead. She had almost reached the exit when a man clutching a stick of candyfloss stepped into their path. He turned to face her and she saw his colourless eyes, the scar. She gasped, inhaled the sickly sweet smell of spun sugar. Her gut dropped, her legs tensed for flight, certain now this was the man Jim had been trying to avoid. What was he? A murderer? A terrorist? He smiled.
    â€˜Your dad gave me a message for you,’ he said.
    His words caught her by surprise – his