‘I’m sorry,’ Betty spluttered. ‘But I can’t understand any of this . . . it’s just too strange.’ And confusing and unfair, she raged silently. All the possibility the enchanted objects seemed to offer had been cruelly snatched away, and seeing the magic for herself made it harder to doubt the rest of what Granny was saying. ‘Are you certain?’ she asked weakly. ‘Couldn’t it just be . . . bad luck?’
‘I was a lot like you, once,’ Granny continued. ‘At first I refused to believe it. Then, one day, I saw it for myself. The day the death toll rose to nine.’
The air in the room seemed to thicken, and not just with smoke. Betty suddenly had difficulty breathing. ‘Nine . . . nine girls died?’ she said faintly. ‘I mean . . . I know you said it happens by sunset after leaving Crowstone, but what exactly happens? They . . . we . . . drop dead?’ She searched Granny’s face, waiting for more horrible revelations and imagining tales of freak accidents. A vision of falling from a great height, of the ground rushing towards her and wind roaring in her ears, floated before her eyes and a wave of terror and grief washed over her. She blinked it away, trembling with adrenaline. Where had that come from?
‘It’s always the same,’ Granny said. ‘It starts with birdsong. The crows’ chorus.’
Betty frowned. ‘But that happens anyway at dawn, doesn’t it?’
Granny nodded. ‘The difference is, no matter how hard you look, you’ll never see them. The sound exists only in your head.’
From the corner of her eye, Betty caught Fliss shuddering.
‘It gets louder,’ Granny continued, staring into the distance, as though remembering. ‘As the sound grows, you become cold, and colder still. And even though your skin is like ice to the touch, the last thing you feel before the end is a cold kiss.’
The hairs on Betty’s arms stood up. ‘How could you . . . know that?’
Granny’s lips quivered, and her hand strayed towards her empty whiskey glass. ‘Because I saw it with your father’s cousin, Clarissa,’ she said finally. ‘I was there.’
‘Did she know about the curse?’ asked Betty. ‘Or was it an accident?’
Granny’s fingers tightened around her glass, then slid to the tabletop, almost lifeless. ‘Yes, she knew. She thought she could undo it. She’d heard of a place where, legend has it, wishes can be made. Horseshoe Bay, across the marshes. She thought making the wish could uncurse us all, but it didn’t work. Whatever magic exists in that bay – if it even does – it’s not strong enough to undo the Widdershins curse. And when she came back, she already knew it had failed. The crows were rasping in her head, her skin was like ice. We couldn’t get her warm . . .’
‘She came back to Crowstone?’ Betty asked. ‘But wouldn’t that stop the curse, if she returned before sunset?’
‘Nothing stops it,’ Granny muttered, glassy-eyed. She linked her thumbs and fanned her fingers like birds’ wings over her heart in the sign of the crow.
‘Tell her about the stones,’ Fliss croaked. Her skin was waxy pale.
‘Stones?’ Betty pressed.
‘Every time the curse is triggered, a stone falls from the tower wall,’ Granny said, in an uncharacteristically quiet voice.
‘You mean, Crowstone Tower . . . ? The prison?’
Granny nodded.
‘But what does the prison have to do with the curse?’ Betty asked. Fliss’s ashen face wasn’t helping with the image of a freezing, dying Clarissa haunting her thoughts. How brave she had been to even try to break the curse, risking everything. To do that, she must have wanted to leave as much as Betty did, and believed there was a way . . . even if she had failed.
Granny shrugged. ‘The Tower is ancient, older than the rest of the prison. As for its link to the curse, well . . . there are stories. But none that tell us how to break it.’
Betty swallowed away the lump in her throat, trying not to cry. Tears solved nothing, but her leaking eyes didn’t seem to care. Before tonight, she’d been able to dream of leaving Crowstone and living a different life. She’d never known that being kept there was more than Granny being overprotective; that leaving was actually impossible. She could see why Fliss had given up, but Betty couldn’t accept it. Not yet. ‘There must be a way to break it. There has to be—’
Granny gave a hollow laugh. ‘Oh, that’s what they all say. You think girls like you haven’t had the same thought for generations? Of course they have. Clarissa was as determined as they come! Everything you can think of has been tried, from marrying to lose the Widdershins name, to taking something of Crowstone with you, to leaving something of yourself in Crowstone. Nothing has worked. So now you know why I can’t let it happen, not to any of you.’
She grasped Betty’s hand suddenly, startling her. ‘Please, Betty.’ Her shrewd old eyes were haunted. ‘I’m begging you . . . don’t try. I couldn’t go through that again, not with one of you. Not . . . not like Clarissa. It’d kill me.’
Betty felt as though her heart was being wrung out. The last time she had seen Granny vulnerable like this had been when their father was taken away. It was easy to pretend this side of her didn’t exist when it was so well hidden.
‘And Father?’ Betty asked. ‘Surely he knows about the curse?’
‘Yes.’ Granny’s voice was grave. ‘Something like this . . . the whole family has to know, it’s too dangerous not to. I often wonder if it was guilt, as well as your mother’s death, that pushed him down the wrong path.’
‘Guilt?’ Fliss asked. ‘You mean . . . for passing the curse on to us?’
Granny nodded. ‘He hated the unfairness of it, that no Widdershins woman could ever leave. Yet, through his own foolishness, he’s now as trapped as we are.’
‘And Mother?’ Betty asked. ‘Was it really an accident, like you said, or was . . . was it the curse?’
Charlie had been just a baby, but Fliss and Betty both remembered the morning they’d learned their mother was gone. Granny and Father had been sick, though their father had been the worse of the two. It was Granny who’d broken the news that their mother had gone to fetch a doctor in the night while a dense fog had lain over the island. On the way she had become lost and wandered on to a frozen pond, falling through the ice.
‘I was telling the truth about that.’ Granny rubbed her ruddy nose. ‘I’m not sure whether that makes you feel better or worse, but your mother . . . it wasn’t the curse. It was bad luck.’
Bad luck: the unwanted guest Granny was always trying to ward off with her charms, but nothing ever worked. Their parents were gone. The inn never made enough money to clear its debts. Fliss never kept a boyfriend, and all Betty’s travel schemes had failed miserably. Even Charlie was always getting nits. Yes, thought Betty. It was fair to say that Lady Luck crossed the road when she saw the Widdershins coming.
They were interrupted by a low, rumbling chant accompanied by a rhythmic thudding from downstairs. A moment later came the sound of a door being flung open. The chanting of, ‘Beer! Beer! Beer!’ was followed by a shriek from Gladys at the foot of the stairs: ‘Bunny! If I don’t get some help right now, I’m leaving!’
‘They’re thumping on the bar, the louts!’ Granny said, outraged. She leapt to her feet with a fresh surge of energy, her knees clicking. ‘Get yourself together, Fliss,’ she said. ‘Then come downstairs. We’ve already been gone too long.’ She left the kitchen, and a moment later the noise downstairs surged as Granny rushed through the door into the bar. Momentarily, the spell over them was broken and things felt almost normal.
Normal? How could life below carry on as it always had, when for Betty, everything had changed? All this time, she’d thought she was in control of her destiny, but if what Granny said was true her only destiny was this. One there was no escape from.
Betty glanced at her sisters. Charlie had been struck dumb and had one thumb lodged firmly in her mouth, a habit Betty had thought was long broken. Fliss was silent, brooding.
‘You should have told me about the curse,’
Betty said at last. She felt heavy, as though the revelations of the evening were crushing her like fallen stones from the prison tower.
Fliss looked up, her dark eyes weary. ‘I wanted you to still have hope that someday you’d leave this place.’
Betty felt herself getting prickly now. ‘What’s the point if it can’t ever happen? Wouldn’t it have been kinder to tell the truth?’
‘Yes, I mean . . . no, oh, I don’t know!’ Fliss bit her lower lip. ‘I wanted to, but Granny made me promise.’
‘It never stopped you before,’ Betty said, hurt creeping into her voice. ‘We used to tell each other everything.’
Fliss’s cheeks went pink. ‘Do you remember when you were little?’ She glanced meaningfully at Charlie. ‘The thing that I told you?’’
Betty nodded, scowling. When Fliss was eight and Betty just five, Fliss had discovered that the tooth fairy wasn’t real, and had in fact been Granny putting a copper Rook under the pillow. She had immediately told Betty. Granny had been furious and had never let Fliss forget it.
‘I never forgave myself for that,’ Fliss said quietly. ‘Spoiling it for you, when you could have had the magic a while longer.’
‘This is nothing like that,’ said Betty. ‘That was a silly childhood belief. A family curse is not the same!’
‘I think it is. It comes down to the same thing, which is innocence.’ Fliss tried to smile. ‘I wanted that for you, just for a little longer. To not have this be the first thing you think of in the morning, and the last thing at night. Because once it’s there, that’s it.’ Her eyes shone suddenly. ‘This is the rest of our lives.’
The rest of our lives. Betty stared into her sister’s desperate eyes and saw her own mirrored there. She had felt smothered before, but that was nothing compared to now. The curse had snared her like an invisible bindweed, strangling the hope out of her. And not even magic could make up for it.
Hours later, Betty lay awake in bed with Charlie snoring softly next to her. It had taken ages for Charlie to fall into a restless sleep, hours of fidgeting and thumb-sucking as Betty told every story she knew to try and settle her – but none was as strange or as dark as the one they had just heard. Eventually Charlie dozed off, but Betty was wide awake.
Voices burbled beneath them. How odd, she thought, to live the way they did. Even though the Poacher’s Pocket was theirs, it never truly felt it. It always hummed with other people’s voices, creaked under other people’s feet.
Even the bedroom was shared, a jumble of Charlie’s stuffed toys, rag dolls, shells and pebbles, and then novels, jam jars of buttons and other useful bits and a sewing kit of Betty’s. Her most treasured items were her book of stamps and her map collection, which she had pored over on many a quiet afternoon, jotting down the names of places she planned on exploring.
It had all begun when her father had been haggling down at the harbour one morning. Betty had wandered off with a mapmaker’s daughter from one of the ships. Her name was Roma, and she had smooth brown skin and braided hair, as well as a thousand memories of clear turquoise waters, arid deserts and snow-capped mountains. Betty had listened, spellbound, wishing more than anything that she could see them herself. Later, as Roma helped pack up the maps, Betty had begged until her father had relented and bought her one: her very first map. She had cradled it like treasure as the mapmaker’s ship set sail, becoming a speck in the distance. They never saw Roma again, but the spell she had cast over Betty remained.
Her eyes lingered on her maps, a whole world she’d longed to explore rolled within them. Now the curse had ruined them for her, like a tempting but poisoned box of chocolates. She could look, but a single taste would kill her. Her gaze slid from the maps to a flicker of moonlight on the cracked ceiling, and a tear trickled down her cheek. She couldn’t imagine a world she was forbidden to explore, just as she couldn’t imagine that there wasn’t an answer, somewhere out there, to make it possible.
And then she sat up in bed, realising something. Granny hadn’t said it wasn’t possible. She had said that nothing the other girls had attempted before had worked. Which meant that Granny still believed there was a way the curse could be undone, even if she was too afraid to pursue it.
‘I’m sorry, Granny,’ Betty whispered determinedly in the darkness. ‘But if there’s a way to break the curse, I have to try.’
Chapter Six
Leechpond Latchdow
BETTY LISTENED FOR ANOTHER HALF an hour until she heard Granny and Fliss creaking up the stairs. There followed the sounds of running water, bedroom doors clicking closed, and the groan of beds being slid into. Then silence.
Betty waited until Granny’s snores were rumbling through the wall. Then she slipped out of bed, shivering as her bare feet met the chilly air. Quickly, she hopped into her slippers and crept out to the hall. Her arms prickled with goosepimples as she approached the dank, creepy cupboard on the landing. It was full of cleaning things and junk, and was the one part of the building all three girls disliked. After getting locked in once during a game of hide and seek, Charlie especially hated it. Betty shivered, hurrying past. The snores were regular and deep now. She pushed Granny’s door open a little way and slunk into the darkened room.
The scent of pipe smoke lingered in the air, along with the distinctive smell of whiskey breath. Granny was out for the count all right. Betty remembered Granny’s plea and felt a moment of guilt.
Please, Betty . . . don’t try. I couldn’t go through that again . . . It’d kill me.
The idea of hurting Granny was even worse than the thought of angering her. But I have to do this, Betty reminded herself. As much for Granny as for us.
She moved to the wardrobe and, opening it, retrieved an old biscuit tin from the shelf. Then she tiptoed into the kitchen. She didn’t want Charlie waking and asking questions, and if Granny woke up she could easily hide the tin and say she’d come to get a drink.
She sat at the table, easing the lid off the tin. She wasn’t doing anything particularly wrong: all three girls had seen this tin many times. Granny had often amused them with its family keepsakes and knick-knacks, such as the girls’ cards and drawings, a couple of old photographs and a pair of baby shoes that all three of them had worn. There was also a sheaf of papers which Granny had always whipped away ‘in case something got mislaid’, but tonight, this was exactly what Betty was looking for. She lifted them out and spread them over the table. First she found a stash of letters which their grandfather had sent to Granny during the war, each one limp and yellowed with age. They were all Granny had left of him now. Betty set them aside. They were not hers to look through.
She passed over the girls’ birth documents and her mother’s death papers. A quick glance confirmed what Granny had said: their mother had drowned. She slipped the papers back into the pile – then froze as a light creak sounded from the hallway. Granny’s rumbling snores had stopped! Desperately, she gathered up the papers, but the pile of letters teetered, scattering on the floor as someone stepped into the kitchen. The glow from a candle flickered over a heart-shaped face and a mass of dark, shiny hair.
‘Jumping jackdaws!’ Betty hissed, heart thumping.
‘Betty?’ Fliss whispered, rubbing her eyes. ‘What are you up to?’
Betty pressed a finger to her lips, beckoning. In silence, Fliss came closer, setting the candle on the table. Both girls kneeled down, retrieving the letters. Moments later, another loud snore assured Betty that Granny was still asleep.
‘I was just looking for something . . . anything that might help us find out more about the curse,’ Betty said. ‘Something Granny might have missed.’
‘But Betty,’ Fliss began worriedly. ‘Granny said—’
‘I know what she said.’ Betty shot her a warning glance. ‘But there’s no harm in looking.’ She gathered up another handful of letters. ‘I hope there isn’t an order to these.’ She frowned, lifting an envelope to the light.
‘What is it?’ Fliss whispe
red.
‘These letters . . . I thought they were all Granny’s, but there was another pile underneath them. Look.’ She pushed the envelope at her sister, pointing at the familiar scrawl on the front. ‘It’s Father’s writing, and it’s addressed to us, but . . .’ She turned the envelope over. ‘It’s never been opened.’
Fliss snatched up another of the envelopes, stricken. ‘But . . . Granny said Father had stopped writing. That he’d been too ashamed, too miserable. Why would she lie? Unless . . . what if he’s sick? Dying?’ She slid her thumbnail under the seal. ‘We have to open them!’
‘No!’ Betty snatched it away. Something was very wrong here, she felt it as much as Fliss did. Granny was brutally honest most of the time, especially when it came to their parents, so why would she conceal these letters? The only things she had hidden were connected to the curse . . .
‘But they’re ours!’ Fliss insisted. ‘We’ve every right to see what’s in them!’
‘I know,’ Betty answered. ‘But there must be a reason why Granny’s kept them from us. We need to be smart – she’s planning on giving them to us at some point. Otherwise why keep them at all?’
‘When, though? Look . . . the postmark is from three months ago!’
Betty squinted at the envelope, trying to work out what was different. Then she saw it. ‘There!’ She jabbed at the paper, where a slightly smudged emblem had been stamped. ‘See that? I can’t believe I didn’t notice it straight away!’
Fliss peered closer. ‘Wait . . . that’s not the Crowstone Prison emblem. It’s different.’
‘Too right it’s different.’ Betty could recall the Crowstone emblem perfectly: an ornate etching of the prison tower surrounded by a flock of crows. However, this emblem was unfamiliar: a heavy padlock entwined with what appeared to be writhing eels.
‘He never stopped writing to us,’ Betty murmured, suddenly ashamed of how readily she’d accepted the idea of their father cutting off contact. Of him letting them down, again. Only he hadn’t. A surge of love lifted the grudge inside, lightening it. ‘He’s been moved to a different prison away from Crowstone, and Granny didn’t want us to find out.’
A Pinch of Magic Page 5