Helen Slavin [Slavin - Slow Poison

Helen Slavin was born in Heywood in Lancashire in 1966. She was raised by eccentric parents on a diet of Laurel and Hardy, William Shakespeare and the Blackpool Illuminations. Educated at her local comp her favourite subjects at school were English and Going Home.

After The University of Warwick she worked in many jobs including, plant and access hire, a local government Education department typing pool, and a vasectomy clinic. A job as a television scriptwriter gave her the opportunity to spend all day drinking tea, living in a made-up fantasy world and getting paid for it (sometimes).

Helen has been a professional writer for fifteen years. Her first novel The Extra Large Medium was chosen as the winner in the Long Barn Books competition run by Susan Hill.

A paragliding Welsh husband and two children distract her and give her ample opportunity to spend all day drinking tea, nagging about homework and washing pants for England. In the wee small hours she still keeps a bijou flat in that fantasy world of writing. When not working with animals and striving for world peace, Helen enjoys the music of Elbow and baking bread. Her favourite colour is purple and if she had to be stranded on a desert island with someone it would be Ray Mears (alright, George Clooney is very good looking but can he make fire with a stick? No. See?)

She now lives, with her family, in Trowbridge, Wiltshire where, when shes not writing, shes asleep. Or in Tesco.

If youd like to hear more from Helen, visit her website, www.helenslavin.com

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C ob Cottage shuddered in the wind, the rain lashing on the windows like tears as the Way sisters stared at the rounded object on the floor at Charlies feet. It was a head. Definitely, without any doubt, this was a mans head. The wind howled mournfully as Emz looked down at the rather waxen closed eye corpse face, the flesh hanging a bit flaccid just there, where the cheek met the mat, the hair streaked across the forehead where it was brown with blood, but, if she looked for a longer moment she saw the ghost image of his real face, offering her a glimpse of how he had looked when alive. This lost face looked up at her, tired and sad and weary. She knelt beside him, reached to push the hair out of his face, where a strand straggled across his eye and into his slightly open mouth.

Emz touching the head seemed to break a spell that had drifted over them. The waif-like woman, who had carried this burden, darted forward to retrieve her fallen treasure, her small thin fingers pulling the rags around it.

What are you doing? she snapped, holding the head tight to her body. Emz held up her hands in a small surrendering gesture.

Tidying his hair, she said in a quiet voice. This answer wiped the cross expression from the womans weather bedraggled face and her shoulders dropped slightly before she reached again for her bravado and drew herself up. She was distracted for a moment, stashing the tattered package into her ragged coat. The material, Anna noted, was thin and black and worn and it was torn in places so that she looked as if she had been clawed by wild animals. Anna looked up into her face. Pale. Tired. Strained.

She was breathing hard, her lips pinched as she regarded the three of them.

This is Cob Cottage? the woman asked, her eyes darting quick glances at the furniture, the windows. In Havoc Wood? Im at the right place?

Annas muscle memory kicked her a little.

Come far? she asked. The woman backed off a step as if stung, and, Charlie noted, clenched her fist at her side as if in readiness for a fight.

Wheres Hettie Way? The womans voice was strong, but Anna could hear the undercurrent of uncertainty, recognised it from her own voice in the last year. Annas head filled with a smoky image of the boat carrying their grandmothers coffin, burning its way across the lake. She found she couldnt speak for a moment. You arent her. The woman asked again, angrier this time, Where is she?

She died. It was Charlie who spoke, brief and to the horrible point. At this the woman looked quite as distraught as the Ways. Her early bravado drained out of her with the rainwater that was puddled on the mat beneath her feet. She had looked skinny before but now she looked ethereal, a pearly grey tone glossed over her skin. Anna was about to say something more welcoming, but their weary guest was crumpling like a paper bag, the head once more rolling from her grasp. Anna stepped forward with a sharp cry, her fingers clutching at the falling womans sleeve as Charlie lurched to the rescue, arms outstretched.

Help, Charlie yelped. As Charlie and Emz lifted the slight figure, Anna pulled over the long one-armed sofa. Cushions propped their visitor up as Anna, who by now was shaking, moved to the kitchen to put the kettle on and start to grill a cheese sandwich. There was safety of sorts, in food, for Anna at least.

Emz picked up the severed head and tried to wrap it up in the rags it had been transported in. They were not up to the task, too raggedy and tattered to be of any use at all. Unwilling to throw them away Emz put them to one side and reached for a clean tea towel. That still didnt feel right. To top it all as she put the head down on the table it began to roll slightly once more, as if, scary thought, dont think the scary thought Emz, it might still be alive. Emz took her fine wool scarf from the chair by the window and wrapped the head in that before placing it in the crook of the visitors arm between her and the sofa. Safe.

There was a sudden silence, broken only by the kettle sounds. The Ways looked at each other. Charlie made a face at Anna who shrugged and then they both looked at Emz as if she might have an explanation.

What are you looking at me for? Emz asked. Her sisters hesitated for a second.

It saves having to look at the head, Charlie reasoned.

What would Grandma do? Annas face was creased into a frown as she turned back through the arch as the kettle boiled up. There was the sound of teapot and teabags and chinking of mugs so that life seemed still to be real and happening.