Raikesdale, North Yorkshire
June 1

It’s only a lump of cloth, and not a particularly alluring one. The sleeves are frayed at the ends, the buttons are missing and some of the stitching is starting to come loose.

But it’ll do its job this morning. Christina Kyte’s cropped denim jacket — vintage 1974 — will persuade her, if no one else, that despite all the other evidence to the contrary the rebel hasn’t quite been tamed.

Tina rests the jacket on the end of her bed before sitting at the dressing table to see to her make-up. This is the third day in a row that she’s done so wearing a girdle and stockings — on Tuesday she’d allowed herself to appear in a blouse and slacks — an unthinkable transformation for someone whose attachment to denim her sister had once described as verging on the pathological.

That was before the letter from SciTel had arrived, inviting her to London for an interview as a trainee computer programmer. Tina hated the idea of selling out, but she detested Ellerby more. She’d decided at once that her best chance of success was to adopt the image of a typical young professional now, so she’d be comfortable with it when the big day rolled around.

Choosing her outfit had been easy. The dark blue jacket with its barely visible grey pinstripe, the matching low-cut knee-length dress and the black, medium-heeled shoes had all but marched up to the till themselves. She’d felt less certain about her smart new hairdo; watching the stylist finish off by removing the last little tufts hiding her ears, then moving her cherished dead-centre parting over to the side had brought home to her how much like her kid sister she now looked.

Maybe she should have bowed to current fashion trends and had it permed.

And wear purple, and a red hat that doesn’t go…

Tina takes extra care masking the laughter lines at the corners of her eyes and the areas around her mouth where she’s recently detected the beginnings of tiny creases. Those who don’t know the family well have always assumed she’s the younger of the pair, when in fact Ellie is twenty-six and Tina twenty-nine. With her hair cut in the same style as Ellie’s, Tina knows the likelihood of that mistake being repeated is low. Even her dad said it was nice to see her looking her age at last.

And go out in my slippers in the rain…

All for a job she probably won’t get.

It would have been different if she was fresh from college. She’d sailed through the City & Guilds course the Department of Employment had sent her on. She was proficient in BASIC and COBOL, drew a mean flowchart and for the practical component of the exam had devised a stock-control system that worked beautifully.

But no modern telecommunications firm was going to be that keen to hire a single girl who’d turn thirty before the end of the summer. They’d figure that within a year or two she’d want to start a family, thus rendering their investment in her training a waste of time and money. She could argue all she liked that she’d never planned to have children, that she’d waited so long for the chance of a meaningful career that she wasn’t about to throw it away now, but would they believe her?

You say that now, Miss Kyte. What about when you’re thirty-four, thirty-five…?

And pick flowers in other people’s gardens…

Tina runs a comb through what remains of her fringe, then sprays it back from her forehead. Her fingers move to the neatly clipped hair above and behind her right ear, and from there to the nape of her neck.

Maybe it’s short enough to put Evan off. He hasn’t seen her ‘shorn sheep’ look yet.

On the other hand, rumour has it that he’s slept with at least one of the Chinese girls — and they’re all as bald as badgers.

No, it’ll take more than a change of image to get Evan Lodge off her back.

The more she thinks about it, the more certain she begins to feel that the only feasible solution is to agree to go out with him. Evan’s the kind of boy who only wants what he can’t have; once Tina becomes just another of his conquests it won’t be long before his gaze wanders elsewhere. It’s not as if she doesn’t find him attractive — and he’s got his own wheels.

Though it means being the older woman, a situation which will be new to her.

And press alarm bells…

“Are yer goin’ to be much longer?”

Her mother’s voice echoes up the staircase, reminding her of the ordeal ahead. Elevenses at aunt Peggy’s in Brompton, followed by a visit to the nursing home where her grandma is now living.

“I’ll be down in a minute.”

And run my stick along the public railings…

Tina steps into the flowery summer dress she’s selected from her sister’s extensive collection, zips herself up and smooths out the ridiculously wide hem. She adds a pair of white slingbacks, plain ear studs and an unpretentious silver necklace.

And her denim jacket. The rock chick won’t be kicking the bucket today.

She picks up her handbag and trots downstairs. Mum is in her tweeds and brogues, fussing with the round-brimmed hat pinned to her hairnet. Dad is on his way out to the shed; retirement fits him like a faithful old raincoat.

The keys to the Skoda are on the telephone table. Tina reaches for them, but her mother gets there first.

“I’ll do drivin’,” she insists. “You hare along them lanes like yer at Brands Hatch.”

“Suit yourself.”

“An’ couldn’t yer ‘ave found yerself a cardie instead o’ that thing?”

“Obviously not.”

“It’s hacky.”

“Well if any of us gets fleas I’ll take blame, right?”

Tina opens the front door and moves to stand by the car. The weather is warm but overcast. From the moors at the top of the valley come the sound of curlews. Nothing seems to be moving in the fields and woods below them.

This isn’t life.

It’s a tableau, frozen in time.

If she’s not careful she’ll become part of it.

And hoard pens and pencils…

Her mother eventually appears carrying a large parcel tied with a bow. She asks Tina to hold it while she unlocks the boot, at the same time giving her a look that says she ought to have had the common courtesy to enquire whether anything needed to be taken out.

And that she should have a steady job like her sister.

Or if she didn’t fancy working for a living, a husband to provide for her.

Not that a subtext is necessary. Those statements are implicit in every interaction Tina and her parents engage in.

She lowers herself into the front passenger seat, twists open her handbag and finds she’s left her cigarettes behind. But wasn’t she down to her last couple anyway? It makes more sense to buy another pack at the village shop than to traipse back up to her room for them.

“Mind if we–“ she begins, but her mother is frowning at the folds of cotton covering the gear stick.

“If yer can move all that lot I might be able to get it started,” she grumbles.

“Sorry…”

“Yer never do owt by ‘alves, do yer? For years we despair, Fred an’ me, o’ seein’ yer in a nice frock, now it seems yer can’t wear owt else. An’ for goodness sake pull that ‘em down. Yer a thirty year old woman.”

It’s going to be a long, long day.

There are more censorious mutterings when Tina asks her mother to stop outside Josie’s, but she doesn’t care. All she wants is nicotine, and fast.

She hurries through the shop doorway and immediately feels her whole body go rigid. To her left, holding a bag of long-grain rice, stands an apparition who’d have been perfectly at home stalking the torchlit corridors of a Transilvanian castle. She’s dressed in a heavy black cloak, the hood pulled back to reveal her hairless scalp and the sinister row of black gemstones running from the centre of her forehead to the nape of her neck. And if she can’t be more than seventeen years old, there’s something deep inside her oriental eyes that speaks of a force more ancient than the dawn of humanity.

Tina edges away from her, glad of the central display that allows her to reach the counter without having to push past the witch.

“What’s she doing dressed like that?” she whispers to the shopkeeper, a blowsy woman of forty-five with sagging jowls and Sybil Fawlty hair. “I thought they always wore wigs and proper clothes when they came down to village?”

“Blessed if I know, love. That ‘un there might. She’s in charge of ‘em, or I’m Florence out o’ Magic Roundabout.”

Tina follows Josie’s glance over to the freezer, where two more black-cloaked figures are loading pre-packed onions, carrots and greens into their shopping baskets.

The taller of the pair turns towards her.

“Salam, Christina Kyte,” she says through her jet black lips.

Tina’s hand goes to her mouth. This must be the girl she and Ellie had spoken to for a few minutes one evening last week. Then she’d been wearing a headscarf; a lock of her dark hair had escaped from it. And there’d been none of those black jewels stuck to her forehead. Now she looks exactly the same as the others.

But it isn’t just that. Tina had got the impression that the girl was a novice, that her beliefs were still in their formative stages. The person standing in front of her now has no such misgivings. Her faith is sure and immovable.

“Sorry, I don’t remember your name,” Tina mumbles.

“Deng Liu-xiang.”

“Oh yeah. Um, okay…”

“There is no reason to fear us, Christina Kyte. Nor should you do so, Josephine Bishop.”

The three cult members have drawn together. The fact that they’re all clutching items of food does nothing to detract from the air of menace the trio are generating.

Pull t’other one, love. Yer’ve got that look in yer eyes, same as rest of ‘em. Now clear off afore I set dogs on yer.

That’s what her dad had shouted at the English girl. Tina had heard him when she crept into her parents’ bedroom to get a closer look at her.

Ruth Pattison tried to deceive us. She did not know that our policy has always been to make enquiries into the background of any woman who professes a desire to join our community. When we discovered that she was facing quite a serious criminal charge, we told her that as guests of this country we felt obliged to contact the authorities. We also confiscated her belongings.

Yet Ruth had gone back to Sunny Hollow of her own free will. She’d even taken the witch’s arm.

And there hadn’t been a police car. Dad was out the front all morning. He’d never have kept quiet about it, not when someone had claimed she was being kidnapped.

What had they done to her? What the hell was going on in that house?

Ignoring Josie’s anxious shake of the head, she strides forward and pushes Deng Liu-xiang in the shoulder.

“That Ruth you were on about the other night, it’s you isn’ it? You’re the lass who asked dad for help.”

“Am I ‘earin’ this right?” says Josie, lifting the hatch at the end of the counter.

“Get her to wipe that muck off her eyes an’ I bet anything you like we’ll find the bald-headed cow’s as Chinese as we are.”

Deng Liu-xiang lean overs to the two younger converts in turn, whirring and chirruping into their ears.

Three sets of ebony lips curl in identical smiles. The syllables they hiss are in no language Tina is familiar with. But their meaning is clear — and when she looks at Josie she knows the shopkeeper has received the same message.

Deng Liu-xiang pays for the goods and leads her acolytes from the shop. They raise their hoods as they step through the door, spectres haunting the quiet village street.

Tina stares at the pound note she’s taken from her purse. She puts it back and walks outside, knowing mum is anxious to be on her way.

Eleanor Kyte frowns as Terry Wogan lavishes his melodious Emerald-Isle charm on yet another contestant destined to win nothing more memorable than a Blankety Blank cheque book and pen.

“Yer wonder why they bother,” she sighs. “I mean, top prizes are nowt to write ‘ome about either.”

“I think that’s supposed to be the point,” says her sister from the front window.

“Come again?”

“It’s called post-modern irony. Doing the opposite to what people expect.”

“Seems more like an excuse to save a few coppers to me.”

Ellie leans forward to pick up the Teesside Gazette from the coffee table and opens it at the television page. At this time on a Friday evening she’d normally be getting ready to go out with Rob, but he’s at a stag do in Northallerton. She hopes for his sake that he keeps himself right; if he starts mithering on about his hangover tomorrow she’ll make sure she has a headache of her own when they get back from the reception.

ITV, 8pm. Play Your Cards Right. Bruce Forsyth’s latest opportunity to spout his inane catchphrase.

Nice to see you. To see you, nice.

Why did the audience find that funny? What did it even mean?

So another game show, then a sit-com, a police series and the news. Not much better on the other two channels.

But at least they had a choice. Most nights it was mam who decreed what the family watched. Perhaps there was something to be said for Tupperware parties after all.

Ellie tosses the newspaper aside. She spends a few moments filing her nails, her mind flitting forward to what shade she’s going to paint them in the morning. Nothing too dramatic; she can’t be seen trying to outshine the bride.

She notices that Tina is still at the window.

“Expectin’ somebody?” she jokes.

“No, not really.”

“Not really? Yer either are or yer aren’t.”

“You can’t reduce everything to dualisms.”

“Always ‘ave to use posh words, don’t yer?”

Tina picks a speck of dirt from the side of her dress — Ellie’s dress — then takes her vanity case from the handbag resting on the sill.

“I think I should keep it like this,” she mutters, patting the cropped hair at the back of her neck.

“I might grow mine for a bit. Just till it’s long enough to tek a curl.”

“Good idea. It’ll give everyone time to get used to me being the one with the short hair.”

“All right,” sighs Ellie. “First yer knock cigs on ‘ead an’ now this. Where’s Tina an’ what ‘ave yer done wi’ er?”

“She’s growing up, that’s all.”

Ellie thinks about having a bath. She hasn’t changed out of her work clothes, and she’s beginning to whiff a bit. If the bank would relax the rule about stockings she might not have this problem. It wasn’t as if any of the customers could actually see her legs.

She lifts her weary body from the sofa, bends to pick up the shoes she kicked off when she first got in, and climbs the stairs to her room. Opening her wardrobe, she fondles the lemon suit she’ll wear at the wedding; with any luck it’ll be the last one she attends before her own. If she only knew Bev a bit better, they could have arranged for Ellie to catch the bouquet. Let Rob try and worm his way out of that one!

A car pulls up outside. The engine continues to run. The front door slams shut.

The lying little tart! ‘Not really’ my backside!

Ellie dashes down to the living room. From the safety of the curtains she peers at a scene which becomes stranger by the second.

Tina is standing perfectly still, her arms by her sides. A few yards away, a woman is hauling her bulk from the front passenger seat of a red Mini Minor.

Josie Bishop! What’s she doing here?

Now the driver joins her. She’s a girl roughly Ellie’s age, maybe a year or two younger, with bright red hair cut in a short bob. She’s also heavily pregnant.

Tina is shaking her head. She backs away from them — one step, then another — but stops.

Now Josie is walking towards her. She raises a hand, and for a moment Ellie fears she’s about to slap Tina in the face. Instead she trails chubby fingers along her cheek, and leans forward to whisper something in her ear.

Tina relaxes, but Ellie has seen enough. She strides into the hallway, pulls open the door and gasps at the sight of Josie bundling her sister into the back of the Mini.

“No! You can’t make me!” she hears Tina cry before the overweight shopkeeper dives in beside her and the car screeches away up the lane.

Ellie wants to run after it, but she’s in her stockinged feet and has to waste valuable time fetching her shoes.

She doesn’t think about going out to the shed to tell dad. He’d have a fit if she told him they were heading up to Sunny Hollow.

Because that’s where this came from. After what mam said she saw in the village this morning she’s convinced of it.

She sets off with fire in her belly. Although Tina makes it difficult for people to get close to her, she’s family — and in Ellie’s eyes that counts for a lot. What it might do to her parents if their eldest falls into the hands of those witches is something she daren’t contemplate.

She’s jogged less than a hundred yards when another vehicle, a dark blue Vauxhall Cavalier, roars past the old crossing. She waves at it frantically, stepping into the middle of the road as if challenging the driver to either stop or run her down. To her relief he chooses the former option.

“Can yer…can yer give us a lift?” she wheezes at the young man behind the wheel. “I’ve got to catch up wi’ our Tina. In’t far where they took ‘er…”

“Who took her?” asks his companion, an attractive woman in early middle age.

“Josie from shop an’ this lass wi’ red ‘air. She were up stick–“

“We know who you mean. Get in.”

Ellie’s too shocked by her sister’s abduction to register this information on any but the most superficial level. She’s still in a daze when the Cavalier stops outside Raikes barn, behind a Dormobile and the red Mini Minor.

“I’m Gemma, and this is Paul,” says the woman as they leave the car. “The young lady in question is Paul’s sister-in-law.”

Ellie nods, but hasn’t the presence of mind to introduce herself.

“It’s them witches down there,” she murmurs, pointing to the concealed entrance to Sunny Hollow.

Gemma touches her lightly on the shoulder.

“Everything’s going to be all right,” she says softly. “I know who those women are. I’ve dealt with them before.”

“I knew summat was up when mam said she saw three of ‘em in black cloaks ‘stead o’ gear they normally wear when they go in village.”

Gemma’s eyes narrow. Only now does Ellie notice how immaculately turned out she is, from the pillbox hat pinned to the stippled veil covering her dark brown curls to the trendy Dior-inspired Corolle jacket and flared skirt.

“Are you sure, dear?”

“Course I am. An’ she said our Tina were in shop at same time as ‘em an’ all.”

Paul takes Gemma to one side.

“What d’you reckon?” he asks her.

“I don’t know. The MoD wouldn’t have put them here if they thought there was any serious threat to the local population. They couldn’t afford the publicity. You remember how quickly the press descended on Northcroft.”

“Didn’t stop our Trisha catchin’ this virus or whatever it is.”

“She may not have been infected here. This nest could have acted as the trigger.”

“But that means–“

“Yes, if Helen Sutton was responsible your wife probably has it too. Why do you think I was so keen to meet her? All I can tell you is that the prognosis is hopeful. In fact I’d…oh God, stop her, Paul.”

Ellie has run out of patience. She flies down the path, trips and falls headlong into the dirt. Paul lifts her to her feet, then lets out a low groan.

On the grassy terrace in front of the house stand Josie Bishop and the pregnant redhead, the girl Paul called Trisha. Both are holding one of Tina’s arms; she continues to struggle, but can’t seem to break free.

But it’s the four refugees facing them, bald and bare-breasted, their jewelled crests at once reptilian and utterly alien, that have stunned him into helpless immobility.

Ellie dusts down her skirt. She turns to steady Gemma as she arrives at the foot of the path, suddenly finding strength in the solidarity of their shared womanhood.

“Are you all right?” Gemma asks her.

“A few ladders, but I’ll live.”

“Paul? Paul! Get it together, me old china!”

Me old china?

Ellie has no time to ponder over Gemma’s incomprehensible lapse into Cockney rhyming slang. Another witch has arrived, and this one carries herself with the authority of a high priestess. Every head bows in supplication.

Except Tina’s, Ellie notes with pride.

“Oh look, it’s Baba Yaga,” her sister spits. “Well you might’ve put these two under your spell but it won’t work on me.”

The witch smiles through her evil black lips.

“How many cigarettes have you smoked today, Christina Kyte?”

“What?”

“It is a simple question.”

“But I don’t…”

A single movement of the witch’s jewelled brow has Josie and Trisha releasing their hold on Tina.

“Of course you do not. The hive does not wish it.” She extends a beringed, black-nailed finger to Tina’s chin, lets it fall to her neck and trails it languidly across her breast. “And though we do not intend to transform you now, Christina Kyte, you are an avatar of the Sunny Hollow hive. As are Josephine Bishop and Alice Hodgson.”

Josie and Trisha turn towards Tina.

“One shall be all, then all shall be as one,” they intone.

“This is your new type of consciousness, is it, Ruth Pattison?” Tina snarls, and now Gemma is tugging at Ellie’s elbow, saying they have to leave at once. “Make us all into fuckin’ robots?”

Ellie shrugs Gemma’s hand away.

“Come on!” the older woman insists. “We can’t do anything for them!”

“Like ‘ell we can’t!”

“You don’t understand. That’s–“

“No, you’re the one that doesn’t understand. I’m goin’ for me sister.”

Ellie launches herself forward, determined to tear the witch’s ugly face to ribbons. Two of her followers, women almost as large as Josie, quickly move to block the way. Gemma pushes her aside and throws herself straight at the slightly shorter of the pair, delivering a right hook Mohammed Ali would have admired.

“Run, you idiot!” she yells as the other bald-headed matron crashes into her and the three go down in a heap.

Run she does — but Ruth Pattison is her target, and she isn’t going to let anything deflect her aim.

How she ends up on her back, winded, the two teenage witches resting their feet on her wrists, Ellie can’t say. Nor is it clear to her why Ruth’s attention is now fixed on Gemma, who is being dragged from the ground by her captors. And what Paul thinks he’s playing at by staring at his sister-in-law like a dog waiting to be asked to sit up and beg is beyond her.

She can’t see Tina, but out of the corner of her eye she watches Gemma’s gaze travel from Ruth’s bald, crested scalp to the oversized breasts protruding from the long strings of beads hanging to her waist.

“How did they get to you?” she asks.

“Your enemies and ours, Yvette de Monnier.” Ruth leans closer. “No, not Yvette…”

“Very good.”

The witch’s almond-shaped eyes widen.

“Oh, you’re him! How fascinating for you!”

“Yeah, it’s a laugh a minute. But you’d know all about that.”

“Raise your voice all you wish, J G Egerton. A kuzkardesh gara’s former identity is of no concern to us. It is what she is that matters.”

“And you’re a hive queen. I’ll admit it’s better than working at the Gladstone. So what’s the plan then? Create some deranged fantasy like that vampire bitch in Bucovina? You might as well tell me, you’re going to convert me anyway.”

“Deng Liu-xiang intends to be a great deal more circumspect than that misguided creature. Did Yvette tell you about her? Together they transformed thousands.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Yvette de Monnier was once a kuzkardesh gara. She and Gabriela Balcescu are jointly responsible for the situation that exists in Bucovina today.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Yvette was infected by Helen Sutton. She searched for a cure, but the pull of the universal female mind was too strong.”

“How the hell can you possibly know that?”

Ruth indicates her four acolytes with a graceful sweep of the hand.

“They were converted in Bucovina, where they learned much that the enemy is unaware of.”

“But Yvette isn’t kuzkardesh gara now,” Gemma points out.

“No, she is not. Perhaps your assimilation will help us find out why.”

Ellie has listened to every word of this exchange and understood none of it. Who is Yvette de Monnier? Who are these ‘enemies’ Gemma and the Chinese witch seem to have in common? And why did Ruth refer to Gemma as ‘him’?

“First we must transfer our centre of operations,” Ruth is saying, and now her words are meant for everyone to hear, even Ellie. “Alice Hodgson has been chosen to initiate proceedings in Northcroft. She will be assisted by her hyzmatkar Paul Smailes. The transformed kuzkardesh gara will remain in Sunny Hollow.”

“What about the rest of them?” asks Gemma.

“You will all retain your human characteristics until the Northcroft hive is established and enough subsidiary nests have been set up to make military intervention futile.”

“And you?”

“The time has come for Ruth Pattison to go back to work.”

Ruth’s ebony lips curl in a conspiratorial grin — one which Gemma, to Ellie’s horror, mimics faithfully.

The young acolytes release Ellie’s wrists. She sits up, rubbing the feeling back into them.

“Let it take you, Eleanor Kyte,” says Josie, smiling down at her.

“There’s really nothing to be afraid of,” adds Tina.

Ellie starts to cry. The world she knew less than half an hour ago has gone.

“I won’t be me any more,” she sobs.

“You won’t be just you,” Josie assures her.

Ruth, Gemma and the four transformed kuzkardesh gara go into the house. Tina and Josie help Ellie to stand while Paul and his sister-in-law walk over to join them.

“This avatar is to wait here for instructions,” Trisha — or Alice as she’ll be known from now on — informs them. “Hyzmatkar, you will take the others to their homes, then return to your family.”

Paul nods his agreement.

“Something very special has begun this evening,” Tina tells her sister. “We are both privileged to be a part of it.”

“But what about that job in London you were after?”

“Christina Kyte must attend the interview as planned — and now she is certain that the position will be hers.”

“This isn’t goin’ to stop ‘ere, is it?”

“The universal female mind is eternal. It will embrace everyone.”

Tina’s hand reaches to caress Ellie’s cheek. Her own fingers have returned the gesture before she’s aware of them moving.

“Bir bolmak hemme,” she hears herself chant in unison with the other converts, “song hemme bolmak agzybir.”

And although Eleanor Kyte has lost a sister today, she knows she’s gained something immeasurably more wonderful.