Chapter One
THEN
I met my daughter under unusual circumstances.
To say I wasn’t prepared for what happened to me, and my daughter, would be an understatement. No one could predict waking up one day to endure the events I endured. But I lived through them, and in return for my suffering, the universe gave me a child.
Everything started on a cold January day. A Saturday. I’d had a stressful start to the morning, with two awkward and unpleasant phone calls. My husband, Simon, insistent on keeping the house in the divorce, took pleasure in reminding me that he’d paid the full deposit and over half of the mortgage payments.
His clipped voice muttered, “It’s only fair.”
Rolling my eyes, I listened as he gave me more reasons, but I didn’t argue.
Ten minutes after I’d hung up with Simon, my mum called to tell me I should under no circumstances let Simon keep the house and that I was weak and stupid for marrying him at all.
“The man is a narcissist. He’s going to say whatever works to make you give up everything. Don’t allow him to take everything, Zoe. He doesn’t deserve it,” she ranted. “Fight back.”
“Sure,” I lied.
And as she carried on, I stopped listening, because she wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know. Then I did feel weak and stupid—which made me agitated. The four walls of that much-contested house closed in on me until I had to get out. So I hung up, grabbed my car keys, and drove out to the one place I felt alive and alone.
My fingernails drummed against the steering wheel as I ventured into the Peak District, passing the popular beauty spots like Stanage Edge, until there were no more walkers striding across the landscape. It took thirty minutes or so to find the place I loved. But as soon as I saw my hidden parking spot in the middle of a seemingly forgotten valley, I exhaled with relief.
The January wind bit deep into my body, taking a chunk out of my lungs when I tried to breathe. I set off jogging up the long, shallow hill, forcing my muscles to work hard. As I warmed, I tried to push the voices of my husband and my mother out of my mind. Mum’s tuts and staccato-quick judgements. Simon’s nasally whine, the one that made my ovaries shrivel into raisins. Three years earlier, a few months after our wedding, I’d suggested that I come off the pill so we could try for a baby. He’d disagreed. Now the thought of bearing his child made me want to vomit.
And in the back of my mind were those words from my mum: “weak and stupid.” My feet pounded the tarmac, left foot weak, right foot stupid. Holding on to the house meant keeping Simon in my life for longer. It meant putting up with his gaslighting, whining, and passive aggression. It meant listening to him talk about how much he loved his new girlfriend, the twenty-year-old administrative assistant he’d sweet-talked into afternoon delights between meetings. It meant fighting a man I never wanted to see ever again.
I breathed, letting it all out, and slowly, my rounded shoulders moved up and back as the coil of my muscles unfurled. All around me stretched the moorland with its dead, burnt-brown heather and scrubby grass. I remained vaguely aware of a farm about half a mile behind me. Its presence made me feel less alone. I’d often considered the fact that it might be dangerous to jog in such a secluded spot, but then I reminded myself that I could run to the farm to get help. It seemed like the best of both worlds: I got to see the untouched parts of the landscape. I got to be alone. But I always had a place to ask for help.
I wore bright running gear, even in the early afternoon like today. I kept my keys in my pocket and planned to poke them through my knuckles if anything bad happened. I never listened to music, always aware of my surroundings, paying close attention to the sound of passing cars or other people. But those who want to do others harm will always find away, no matter what.
And then it happened.
In an empty field, the little girl appeared from behind an oak tree like a fairy-tale nymph. Dressed in shorts so ill-fitting they cut into her waist and a T-shirt that rode up her torso to reveal her belly button, she shivered and clutched her tiny body for warmth. My heart could hardly take it all in. I let out a muted yelp when I saw her. It was the strangest feeling, like I’d stepped into a movie or a television show. My brain told me that it wasn’t possible for a child to be standing alone in a field in January. And yet, she was there.
“Hello,” she said.
Finally, my body leapt into action. I hurried over to the wall, searching for a jutting stone to help me climb. She pointed to a stile a few metres down the road. I sprinted over to it and ran into the field to get to her.
“Hello,” she said again, a bright, if quivering, grin on her face. “What’s your name?”
She shivered violently, her poor skinny knees knocking together. She clearly hadn’t had a bath in days. Her fingernails were filthy and her ankles black. I slipped out of my jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“I’m Zoe,” I said. “Wh…What are you doing out here alone?”
“I ran away. But now I’d like to go home to my mummy, please. Can you take me?”
“Of course, I can. Where do you live?”
She sounded it out carefully, her eyebrows rising and her chin bobbing up and down in concentration. “Eye. Vee. Cwoss.”
While I thought about what she meant, I rubbed her fingers with my hands, desperately trying to warm her up. “Eye. Vee. Oh, Ivycross. You live at the farm?”
She nodded enthusiastically.
“Is it okay if I pick you up?”
“Yes,” she said, and her face lit up. Genuinely happy to be lifted into my arms, she even nestled her head into my neck. “Thank you, Zoe.”
The earnestness in her tone made my scalp tingle. What had happened here? Why wasn’t she wearing clothes that fit her? Or a coat and boots? She had on scruffy trainers with the stitching falling apart. A squirming, uncomfortable horror crept up inside me as I carried her back to the place that had allowed this to happen. I was tempted to put her in my car and drive her straight to the nearest police station. Fear stopped me from doing that because… would it be kidnapping? Would I be convicted of a crime? Would it make everything worse for the child in my arms?
My thoughts looped around until I settled on a compromise. I decided to take her back to the farm and call the police while I waited in my car for them to arrive.
“What’s your name?” I asked her, realising I didn’t know.
“Maddie.”
“That’s so pretty.”
“Yes,” she said. “I think so too.”
Her response made me chuckle. She wasn’t afraid of strangers at all.
“How long have you been out here, Maddie?”
“Not long,” she said.
“Why were you behind the tree?”
“I was playing a game.”
“Like hide-and-seek?”
“Yes!” She laughed. “I was playing it with you.”
I shook my head. “But you don’t know me.”
“I saw you.”
“But how could I find you if I didn’t know I was playing?”
Maddie slapped her head like I was stupid.
Wow, rough crowd. First my mum and now this kid.
“I was seeking,” she said. “I had to find you.”
I stepped onto the farm with Maddie in my arms, and a sense of dread lay cold and hard at the bottom of my belly. I’d never seen the place close up. A dead body had more life in it than the farm. No livestock brayed or cooed. I passed a beaten-up Land Rover. Facing the house, my gaze trailed up to the windows. Every curtain was drawn shut, blocking the view within. There were no ornaments or vases on the windowsills, just the dirty fabric of those old curtains. To my left, I noticed several sunken and decaying outbuildings and a long barn. No one used those buildings. No one had bothered to fix the broken window or brush away the crumbling brick. I approached the door with reticence, my heart beating hard.
“Zoe,” Maddie said, pulling me from my fears. She wasn’t smiling anymore. “Can you put me down now please?”
I gently placed her down on those broken shoes.
“You’re very nice,” she said.
At first, I thought I’d imagined the sadness in her voice. But when a pair of strong arms grabbed me by the neck, I realised I had not imagined it.
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