Mist and memory, p.1
Mist and Memory, page 1
Contents
Copyrights
A Note from the Author
CONTENT NOTES
1. Forest Guardian Wren
2. Stalking Begins Wren
3. The Research Mara
4. First Words Wren
5. The Pattern Wren
6. The Weight of Two Worlds Mara
7. Margot Wren
8. The Breaking Wren
9. The Name Mara
10. Realigned Mara
11. Beckoning Wren
12. Light Leads Home Mara
Reading Group Guide
Acknowledgements
About the author
Also by
Copyright © 2026 Heather Salter-Purves
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, except with brief quotations in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First published 2026
Cover design by BookCoverZone
Published by Heather Salter-Purves
Thornwood Forest and the university town that borders it are completely fictional places. I have shaped this landscape from the atmosphere of Northern England — that ancient woodland, with its damp winters and the dead weight of all those heavy stones. However fictional it is, it is not meant to possess any one specific place. Any resemblance to real geography is incidental. I wish for the forest to feel possible rather than precise — a place that exists quietly and persistently, creeping and listening along the borders of ordinary life.
The history I have engaged with, however, and the question of where Wren truly existed within that time, are genuine enough to matter — particularly in terms of the erasure of women and of lives from the historical record.
The trials of 17th-century England were instrumental in the social control of those seen not to be fulfilling their roles within society, pushing back against its expectations. Women who deviated from the patriarchal order — who refused to marry, who owned property independently, who were considered too outspoken, too solitary, or who may have had intimate relations with other women — were disproportionately targeted during this period. The trials were publicly designed as spectacle, intended to serve as a warning: that those who harboured similar desires were beyond the bounds of what was deemed acceptable.
One significant liberty I took with the historical record is that Wren is hanged, not burned. Burning at the stake was a practice in Scotland and across the continent. I have departed from strict historical accuracy here, and I wanted to name that departure honestly rather than leave it for readers to discover. The emotional truth of the moment — the spectacle, the cruelty of a public execution as performance — is historically grounded, even where the specific method is not.
The queer women in the historical record are not fictional. Across surviving court documentation, accusations of unnatural affections between women, and of leading good Christian women into sin, appear with uncomfortable regularity. These women were not named as monsters by the men who committed violence against them. They were simply unnamed — written out, reduced to passing notes, or not recorded at all.
Wren is fictional, but she is the woman behind that absence — not the one who exists legibly in the archive, but the one who exists in its gaps: in the careful vacancies of certain entries, in the accusations that described intimacy without naming it, in the bodies that were never recovered because no one thought to write about them or to look. That, at its heart, is what this book is. It is an act of recovery and documentation — it makes no claim to represent any specific real person, but it is a refusal to let their stories remain erased. This is Mara's insistence on telling the story correctly. The anger about what history chose not to record comes from a proper place. I am a queer woman who has searched across multiple historical archives, knowing what it feels like to look for yourself in history and find only a blank page staring back.
To the women who were unnamed: you were real, you were loved, and you will be loved in return. That love is worth everything they said it cost you.
It is a long pastime for you to be remembered
CONTENT NOTES
This book contains depictions and references to:
- Death by exposure/freezing
- Historical persecution and execution
- Homophobia and queer persecution
- Grief and trauma
- Violence (historical context)
- Stalking behaviour (contextualised)
Chapter one
Forest Guardian
Wren
The sun dropped below the horizon, casting warm gold through the ancient oaks and small holly bushes of Thornwood Forest. As the trees stood still and silent, their leaves rustling in the evening breeze like whispered secrets. The smell of pine and damp earth filled the air, mingling with the aroma of bluebells that had come into bloom—that English smell of petrichor mixed with decay, the particular richness of soil that held centuries within it. Red robins peeked out from the gnarled roots of trees, tucked in their nests, fluffing their feathers to shelter their eggs from the cool evening air.
Leaves began to rustle and move beneath mounds of dirt as creatures stirred and rose for the evening. The forest was coming alive with the sounds of twilight: distant calls of barn owls, the rustling of small creatures like moles, and a gentle whisper of wind moving through branches.
Beyond the treeline, civilisation pressed close. A large red brick wall ran along the forest's southern edge, and the distant thrum of bass from a student pub carried through the spring air. Car headlights drifted in and out of focus along the road that sliced through the woodland, their beams catching on tree trunks like searching fingers. The rhythmic thumping of music drowned out the sounds of young adults enjoying their first drinks, tasting the hoppy liquid of beer as they ventured into university life in the town just beyond the forest's edge.
A spectral presence began to move and drift, collecting in tendrils as the last sunlight filtered through the canopy before taking form. Hovering two feet above the worn trail—mud packed down over years of people cutting through the forest—Wren existed. Nothing more than mist in the dying light, a shimmer that blended with shadows. As the sun set, the light changed, casting long shadows that danced across the forest floor, and Wren's presence intensified, her ethereal glow brightening in the darkness.
She moved deeper into the forest, away from the intruding, forceful neighbours who encroached upon the woodland's boundaries.
She settled into her routine of vigilance and protection. The guardian of the sanctuary within Thornwood Forest, watching every inch for any sign of danger. She had sensed the encroachment for decades now—first the Tudors, then others, and now these modern people with their strange boxes and loud machines. When trespassers ventured too far, she would lead them astray, twisting and turning paths deeper into the heart of the forest. Over the centuries, she had perfected her methods, using the landscape she knew better than her own forgotten face. She would create illusions, make paths appear and disappear in circles until intruders were too disoriented to continue. They would surrender to their predicament and stumble back out the way they came.
She had not seen one return after they had met her.
One evening, as the weather began its seasonal change toward summer, she noticed a group of men with axes and torches prowling into her sanctuary. Small dormice skittered toward her in warning, their distress palpable on the cool evening breeze. Sensing malicious intentions, she moved the men deeper into the forest, where the thicket of underbrush grew thick and hostile. Thorns seemed to reach out and pin them in place as they struggled to free themselves. She created appearing deer, their eyes glowing in the dark, stampeding toward the intruders.
The men fled, leaving their tools behind.
Moonlight filtered through the tall branches and struck the metal of an abandoned axe, casting a kaleidoscope of small shards of light across the dark, lush leaves of the holly bushes. She could hear the joyful calls of the owls as they swept their long wings through the branches of Thornwood, the soft padding of creatures' paws beneath the undergrowth—almost as if the entire forest celebrated the defeat of the latest intruders.
***
Wren didn't remember being human.
She had vague, fragmented memories of a time long past, but they were like shadows in the mist—elusive and insubstantial. All she knew was that the forest was hers, and she must protect it. Yet there were moments when she felt a sense of loss, a deep, aching void that she couldn't explain. She would watch the humans who wandered into her domain—their laughter and companionship stirred something deep within her. It was a feeling she couldn't quite grasp, a reminder of something she had lost but couldn't remember.
Despite her forgotten humanity, Wren's connection to the forest was unbreakable. She felt every rustle of the leaves, every shift in the wind, every heartbeat of the creatures that called it home. The forest was her sanctuary, her purpose, her identity.
And she would do whatever it took to protect it.
The memory came unbidden, like a whisper carried on the wind.
Wren stood in a sunlit meadow, the air filled with the sweet scent of blooming flowers—chamomile and wild r oses, she thought, though the names felt foreign to her tongue. She was no longer mist and light but a young woman with long, flowing hair and a carefree smile. She could feel the warmth of the sun on her skin, the soft grass beneath her bare feet.
Laughter echoed around her as she ran through the meadow, her heart light and free. She was not alone. There were others with her—faces blurred by time, friends and family whose names she couldn't recall. They called her name. Their voices were filled with joy and affection. She felt a deep sense of belonging, a connection to these people that transcended years.
But the edges of the memory held darker fragments.
The acrid smell of smoke—not wood smoke from a hearth, but something more sinister, more consuming. A woman's voice, shrill with accusation, words she couldn't quite make out. Rough hands binding her wrists, rough rope cutting into skin. Fear, thick and suffocating, pressed down on her chest until she couldn't breathe.
And then, the fragment shattered before it could form.
As she reached the edge of the meadow, she turned to look back, her eyes meeting those of a young man standing among the flowers. His face was clear, his eyes filled with love and warmth. He held out his hand to her, and she felt an overwhelming urge to run to him, to be with him. His mouth moved, forming words she couldn't hear. A warning? A plea?
But the memory faded, the colours and sounds dissolving into mist. Wren reached out, trying to hold on to the fleeting images, but they slipped through her fingers like water. She was back in the forest, in her spectral form once again, nothing but mist and light.
Her form trembled, her glow flickering like a candle in the wind. The forest pressed in around her, suffocating despite being her home. She tried to grasp the young man's face, the sound of the woman's voice, the smell of the meadow, but they were already fading, slipping back into the void where most of her humanity had vanished.
She hovered motionless by an ancient oak, and for a moment, the entire forest seemed to hold its breath with her.
The memory faded further, leaving Wren with an ache that resonated deep within her. She hovered in the forest. Her form shimmered with a faint, ethereal light. The warmth of the sunlit meadow and the laughter of her loved ones were gone, replaced by the cool, shadowed embrace of the forest. The smell of pine and damp earth filled her senses, but it did little to soothe the emptiness that had settled in her chest.
Wren's light flickered, mirroring the turmoil within her. She felt a profound sense of loss, a longing for a life she couldn't remember. Her friends' and family's faces were unclear, their voices distant echoes. The young man with the loving eyes—who was he? What had they meant to each other? The questions swirled in her thoughts, unanswered and unanswerable.
She drifted through the trees, her movements slow and aimless. The forest—her sanctuary and prison—seemed to close in around her. Every rustle of the leaves, every whisper of the wind, reminded her of what she had lost. The forest was her home, but it was also a constant reminder of her isolation.
Wren paused by the ancient oak, its gnarled branches reaching out like arms that could never quite embrace her. She pressed her misty form against the tree, feeling the rough bark as a distant sensation, like touching something through thick cloth. The forest was hers to protect, but in moments like this, she wished she could be free of her duty, free to remember and reclaim her humanity.
A soft sigh escaped her, a sound that echoed through the stillness of the twilight. She closed her eyes—or what passed for eyes in her current form—trying to hold on to the fleeting warmth of the memory. But it slipped away, leaving only the cold reality of her existence.
She was Wren, the guardian of Thornwood Forest. She would continue to watch, protect, and lead intruders astray. But the memory had awakened something within her, a spark of longing that she could not ignore.
As the darkness deepened, Wren's resolve hardened. She would protect the forest, but she would also look to understand the fragments of her past. The memory had shown her a glimpse of what she had lost, and she would not let it fade. She would try to remember, to reclaim the humanity that someone—or something—had taken from her.
With renewed purpose, Wren continued her vigil, her light shining brighter against the encroaching night. The forest was her home, and she would protect it with all that she had. But she would also look to uncover the truth of her past, to find the pieces of herself that time had scattered and lost.
She shook off the lingering sadness. She had a duty to the forest, and she would not let her past distract her. The memory was a reminder of what she had lost, but it also strengthened her determination to protect the sanctuary that was now her life.
***
Centuries had passed, and Wren had still been the same—unchanging, a relic of a time no one remembered. Time moved differently for her, in strange leaps and stutters. What felt like decades to the living could pass in mere moments, while a single night might stretch.
The world beyond the forest had transformed. The fear that once kept people away had faded, replaced by indifference. They walked through her domain disconnected, their attention drawn to devices she didn't understand, their ears blocked from the forest's voice.
The badger that lived near the old oak had become something like a friend—or at least a companion. She would hover near his sett as the sun set each evening, watching him appear and snuffle around the roots. His grey-striped face would turn toward her sometimes, and their eyes would meet, and she felt a warmth spread through her spectral form. He didn't fear her. He accepted her presence as part of the forest, the way he accepted the trees and the earth itself.
When winter came and the badger retreated underground for his long sleep, the loneliness became almost unbearable. Snow would fall through her form, and she would watch the empty forest, waiting for spring, for her one companion to return.
She was unmoored in time, adrift in a world she no longer recognised, protecting a forest from people who no longer believed she existed.
***
"Did you see her, I mean?" The man's voice was gruff as he gestured toward his chest, laughter erupting between the two men.
Wren hovered nearby, her displeasure growing with the conversation.
"Yeah, but she had her nose in that stupid book and that snooty attitude about how if we read more, she might consider talking to us. I mean, where did the little bitch get the idea?" The second man's voice dripped with annoyance.
Wren felt a compulsion pulling her forward onto the centre of the trail. A gasp escaped both men as one of them looked at her.
"What was that?" The man stood with his mouth agape, colour draining from his face, his finger pointing toward where Wren hovered. A thrill ran through her—just being present might have caused enough of a shock to his system.
"Come off it, you don't believe the stories, do you?" The man with the gruff voice gestured, sneering at his friend.
"I'm not sure if I believe the stories, but that's not the point. You and I both haven't had enough to drink to be seeing things." The second one's eyes widened as he continued to stare.
"Someone told us when we were little that the forest was haunted, so we wouldn't go into it after dark. It's just a stupid tale from around the village. Just the cars on the road." The first one grumbled, pulling on the sleeve of his friend's shirt, trying to drag him away.
Wren watched them stumble back toward the main path, their bravado crumbling.
She felt no satisfaction in their fear anymore. Just a hollow sort of duty.
One day as she floated through the forest, Wren heard melodic humming coming from a figure with headphones over her ears. The thrumming sound mixed with the heavy crunch of large black boots on the forest path. Wren felt a compulsion to follow.
