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Little Darlings
Melanie Golding
‘Chilling story, beautiful prose. Little Darlings is stunning’ Clare MackintoshLeila Slimani’s Lullaby meets Rosemary’s Baby in the most unsettling book of the year.THE TWINS ARE CRYING.THE TWINS ARE HUNGRY.LAUREN IS CRYING.LAUREN IS EXHAUSTED.Behind the hospital curtain, someone is waiting . . .After a traumatic birth, Lauren is alone on the maternity ward with her newborn twins. Her husband has gone home. The nurses are doing their rounds. She can’t stop thinking about every danger her babies now face. But all new mothers think like that. Don’t they?A terrifying encounter in the middle of the night leaves Lauren convinced someone or something is trying to steal her children. But with every step she takes to keep her babies safe, Lauren sinks deeper and deeper into paranoia and fear. From the stark loneliness of returning home after birth, to the confines of a psychiatric unit, Lauren’s desperation increases as no one will listen to her. But here’s the question: is she mad, or does she know something we don’t?Loosely inspired by the ghostly folktale The Brewery of Eggshells, where a mother becomes convinced her twins are in danger, Little Darlings offers a fresh perspective on modern motherhood, postnatal psychosis and the roles women play. It has always been thus: folk tales do not spring from whimsy; they warn us and teach us, and speak to the fear in us all.
MELANIE GOLDING is a graduate of the MA in creative writing program at Bath Spa University, with distinction. She has been employed in many occupations including farm hand, factory worker, childminder and music teacher. Throughout all this, because and in spite of it, there was always the writing. In recent years she has won and been shortlisted in several local and national short story competitions. Little Darlings is her first novel and has been optioned for screen by Free Range Films, the team behind the adaptation of My Cousin Rachel.
Copyright (#ulink_1b94569e-6a74-50b3-b658-cc60469192c9)
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019
Copyright © Melanie Golding 2019
Melanie Golding asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008293697
Praise for Little Darlings (#ulink_ee0e6527-3805-5590-b611-5cf3802d15a7)
‘Chilling story, beautiful prose. Little Darlings is stunning’
Clare Mackintosh, number one Sunday Times bestseller
‘Dark, richly evocative, tense and thought-provoking. Taps into every woman’s fear thath she will not be believed’
Mel McGrath, author of Give Me The Child
‘Melanie Golding tells the truth about motherhood like no other writer since Sylvia Plath … It delivers on all fronts and will continue to rattle you, long after you have put it down’
Felicity Everett, author of The People at Number 9
‘Deep. Dark. Utterly addictive … Be warned – you can’t unread this story. It will haunt you’
Teresa Driscoll, author of I Am Watching You
‘A story that is in turn enthralling, creepy and downright sinister, Melanie Golding turns fairy tales on their heads in Little Darlings … A brilliant, heart-pounding read’
Lisa Hall, author of Between You and Me
‘Little Darlings is brilliant – beautifully written, disturbing and deliciously creepy’
Roz Watkins, author of The Devil’s Dice
‘Riveting, terrifying and at times heartbreaking … Melanie Golding’s disturbing portrait of a new mother’s paranoia is superbly written, cleverly plotted and gruesomely beautiful in an unforgettable way’
Annie Ward, author of Beautiful Bad
Dedicated to the memory of Amber Baxter (née Fink)
1979-2012
Contents
Cover (#ub20ea494-ff4c-5595-a051-1359d6a11864)
About the Author (#u5ae2c344-9e15-55ba-9c14-ae8c51fcab50)
Title Page (#uf46d3cac-d042-5bca-9afb-3b732ab25721)
Copyright (#ulink_02ccc957-b1ee-5be7-b18c-d7c2b1242b83)
Praise (#ulink_d571206f-c091-5f5a-b1af-045bef7f6110)
Dedication (#ubba58309-22e9-5f3e-84f1-083712baedf2)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_1fbf7085-7f30-5206-ac33-b67636306165)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_f5acb8b5-e598-5418-bcfe-50b009e87022)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_b8ad6d14-710e-5d3e-9b52-a71b321df0c2)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_872998e9-310d-54d4-80c4-b348d7268d94)
Chapter 5 (#ulink_6792b9f9-52e5-5059-9c79-9ebff7e69814)
Chapter 6 (#ulink_6e48dd69-7eb0-56c7-a1a9-a5c7720f47e1)
Chapter 7 (#ulink_a7a8ba8f-57d3-52c4-b18c-f10d9d49fa72)
Chapter 8 (#ulink_0ce3400a-48eb-5906-a904-b53d4ea7c6b0)
Chapter 9 (#ulink_e35937cf-f81d-5a63-8fb7-69645f542eea)
Chapter 10 (#ulink_59ca0efc-636b-50e3-b117-87d9f70cdf85)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)
Quotes and Sources (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
August 18th
Peak District, UK
DS Joanna Harper stood on the viaduct with the other police officers. On the far bank, across the great expanse of the reservoir, a woman paused at the water’s edge, about to go in, her twin baby boys held tightly in her arms.
Harper turned to the DI. ‘How close are the officers on that side?’
Dense woodland surrounded the scrap of shore where the woman stood. Even at this distance, Harper could see that her legs were scarlet with blood from the thorns.
‘Not close enough,’ said Thrupp. ‘They can’t find a way to get to her.’
In a fury of thudding, the helicopter flew over their heads, disturbing the surface of the reservoir, bellowing its command: Step away from the water. It loomed above the tiny figure of the mother, deafening and relentless, but the officers on board wouldn’t be able to stop her. There was nowhere in the valley where the craft could make a safe landing, or get low enough to drop the winch.
Through the binoculars, Harper saw the woman collapse into a sitting position on the dried-out silt, her face turned to the sky, still clutching the babies. Perhaps she wouldn’t do it, after all.
A memory surfaced then, of what the old lady had said to her:
‘She’ll have to put them in the water, if she wants her own babies back . . . Right under the water. Hold ’em down.’
The woman wasn’t sitting at the water’s edge anymore; she was knee-deep, and wading further in. The DS kicked off her shoes, climbed up on the rail and prepared to dive.
Chapter 1 (#ulink_89a82e44-670b-53c2-99d4-a5e3778d38c6)
The child is not mine as the first was,
I cannot sing it to rest,
I cannot lift it up fatherly
