Ashes: Witches of Whitley Bay Book 2

by Katherine Heason

  Mrs Parker smiled toward Tristan. “And I’m pleased to see your memory returned.”

  Tristan shook his head in bewilderment. “Thanks to Uma.”

  “Ah, she was always a good doctor.”

  Lillith stared at Tristan. This was the woman who’d awoken him. Brody’s mother? She turned and gazed at Brody’s mam. “We thought you were dead, and if not dead, captured,” Lillith said. “But you’ve been free?”

  Mrs Parker turned her head and rested her eyes on Lillith. Her smile faded, and was replaced by a serious expression. “We’ve been in hiding. Hardly free.”

  Lillith didn’t want to be confrontational, but that wasn’t a good enough answer. They left Brody to fend for himself for years. They let him think they were dead, and they let him rot in captivity. They awoke Tristan from a sleeping spell, without really knowing what they were doing. It was lucky that Uma was such a good doctor, otherwise he might have lost his memory altogether. What kind of people were they? Lillith looked down to hide her anger.

  “Come in, and sit down. I’ll put the kettle on,” Uma said, ushering her guests into the sitting room.

  Lillith breathed in, and sat back down. She squeezed Tristan’s hand, but didn’t look up, knowing her expression would give away the contempt she was feeling. She felt Tristan squeeze her hand back, and smiled, calming down a little.

  Mrs Parker spoke again. “I’m sure you have lots of questions, and we’ll answer them all.”

  Lillith looked up, and saw Mrs Parker with her arms around Brody. He looked happy. Her sentence had been directed at him, but Lillith saw it as an opportunity. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?” she said. Her tone was harsher than she’d expected.

  Mrs Parker glared at Lillith. “And where’s that, Lillith?” she spat. “Is that where we were run off the road, because we wouldn’t let them use Donny’s power? Or the day it all happened, when we cast the spell and ended up adopting Donny? Or further back than that, the day that you attacked those girls, which started this whole thing in the first place?”

  Lillith froze. What girls? Uma had said something about putting someone in hospital when Lilly was at school. Was it that?

  Mrs Parker continued talking. Her voice was raised, and her eyebrows were furrowed. “You might well judge us, but this has all been about protecting you. You’d do well to remember that.”

  Mr Parker placed a hand on Mrs Parker’s shoulder. “My wife and I have had a tough few years,” he said in a much calmer tone than his wife. “We didn’t abandon Donny. We’ve been watching him, and trying to protect him. We kept him from Arthur’s sights and senses for over two years. Until we were discovered.”

  Brody cleared his throat, and Lillith moved her gaze to him. “How did you escape that car accident? Your bodies were found inside it.”

  “Magic,” Mr Parker said, looking at Brody. “After I changed your face and let you escape, I angered the two witches who’d come for you.”

  “Arthur?” Brody asked.

  Mr Parker shook his head. “We didn’t recognise them. We sensed them following us that night, and we sensed their intention. They didn’t want to kill us. They wanted to capture us, and force us to reveal your location.”

  “But you didn’t know where I was.”

  “They didn’t know that.” Mr Parker sighed. “We lost them for a moment, stopped the car, got out and hid. Then we magically started the car, and drove it from a distance along the road. We just wanted to get them away from us, but there wasn’t enough time. The car following us appeared, took advantage of our car moving slowly, and rammed it. It crashed into a tree. They stopped and got out, and we attacked just as they realised the car was empty.”

  “You killed them?” Brody asked.

  “We didn’t mean to do it, but once it had happened, we saw the opportunity. We knew someone else would be sent after us, but if they thought we were dead, we could be free. So we used them. We sat them in the car and changed their appearances to look like us.”

  “Changed, like what you did with my face?” Brody said.

  “Yes. I put my wallet in the driver’s pocket, and your mam put her bag at the passengers’ feet. We stole their belongings and their car, and drove off.”

  No one spoke. Silence filled the room.

  Mr Parker scanned the room, taking in the faces staring back at him. “Then we went further. We wanted to know who was after you.” He looked at Brody again. “If we found that out, we could protect you. So we took on our followers’ identities. It was easy. We had their car, their phones, their keys, and their driving licences. All we had to do was change our faces to look like theirs, and wait for someone to contact them.”

  Brody shook his head. “So you’ve been pretending to be someone else all this time?”

  Mr and Mrs Parker nodded.

  Tristan spoke up next, his expression was puzzled. “How do you do that?” he asked. “Change your face, I mean.”

  Mr Parker grinned. “It’s my talent. I can rearrange any living organism.”

  Tristan was about to speak again, but Brody interrupted. “Could you actually turn people into frogs?” he asked.

  Mr Parker laughed. “No,” he said. “Humans and frogs are made of different things, so I can’t do that. That would be like making china out of paper. I can rearrange what’s already there. Make hair grow, change skin colour, change bone structure. That sort of thing.”

  Brody looked down.

  Tristan took his opportunity. “That’s an unusual talent. I’ve never heard of it before. I mean, we can all change our hair and nail colour, but your entire appearance is something else altogether.”

  Mr. Parker raised his chin, looking proud. “I think it’s quite unique.”

  Tristan furrowed his brows. “And coveted, I would imagine. Does Arthur know of your talent?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Why have you come back, now?” Lillith asked, narrowing her eyes.

  Mrs Parker glared at Lillith.

  Mr Parker placed his hand on his wife’s arm. “Arthur’s trial,” he said. “We’re going to reveal our true identities there. We hope that by doing so, we’ll convince everyone of Arthur’s guilt, which will keep him locked up. We thought it would be easier on Brody to reveal ourselves to him first.”

  Lillith shook her head. None of this made sense. “Wouldn’t that have helped at Brody’s trial more?” she asked. She was met with silence.

  Mr Parker bowed his head, but still didn’t answer.

  “And how do we know you’re even the real Parkers?” Lillith asked.

  Everyone, including the Parkers, glared at Lillith, as if she’d just asked the worst question.

  Lillith held her head high, and continued. “You can change your face. How do we know that you’re not in disguise right now?”

  There was a pause before Mr Parker answered. “Ask us some questions,” he said. “Ones that only we would know.”

  Brody was the only one who’d be able to do that, Lillith thought. She gazed at Brody. He was looking at the floor.

  Uma entered with a large tray. On it stood cups, a teapot, a sugar bowl and a milk jug. “Here’s some tea,” she said. “Would anyone prefer coffee?” She looked around at the silent faces, and seemed to sense the tension. She placed the tray on the table at the centre of the room. “What’s up?” she said, sitting on the floor, ready to pour teas out.

  Mrs Parker answered. “Lillith doesn’t believe that we are who we are,” she said.

  Uma looked at Lillith, sternly.

  “They can change their faces. We’d be stupid not to ask,” she said.

  Uma began to pour tea into a cup. “If they’re not Brody’s parents, what’s their motive for pretending to be?” She asked.

  “I don’t know. Insight for Arthur’s trial, maybe?”

  Uma poured another tea, and another. Eventually, she regarded the Parkers. “Milk and sugar?” she asked.

  Mr Parker shook his head. “N
ot for me,” he said.

  Uma handed him a cup of black tea. She turned to Brody’s mam. “Mrs Parker?”

  “Just milk, please.”

  Uma nodded, poured some milk into a cup, and passed it to Brody’s mam.

  “When you change your face, does your sense change?” Uma asked.

  Mrs Parker smiled. “No.” She turned to Brody. “You can sense us, right, son?”

  Brody shook his head. “My magic’s not active magic. I can’t sense anyone.”

  Uma looked at Mr Parker. “I treated you, once,” she said. “Can you remember?”

  Mr Parker nodded. “Accident on the A19. I was brought to your hospital in an ambulance.”

  Uma smiled. “Yes, that’s right. You were lucky. Four other vehicles were involved in that crash, and two people died. You had nothing, not even a scratch.”

  “It wasn’t luck. It was magic,” Mr Parker said. “I can change my appearance. I can certainly fix broken bones and cut skin.”

  Uma looked shocked. “You were hurt, and healed yourself?” she asked.

  “Never needed a doctor for physical things.”

  “You should become a doctor, Mr Parker. We could do with that kind of gift.”

  “Wouldn’t that raise suspicion?”

  Uma chuckled. “I guess it would.” She shook her head, pouring a cup of tea for herself.

  Lillith took a sip of her black tea, and wondered where all this was leading. Was Uma trying to test the Parkers? That was no test. Surely accidents were on public record, which any imposter could have accessed and memorised.

  Uma took a sip of her own tea. “I remember your sense from that day,” Uma said. “I had to sense you, it’s part of my magic. I kind of scan people to see what’s wrong with them. Then I know how to treat them. Of course, if I find anything that I shouldn’t know, like a fracture for example, I can order something like an x-ray to confirm it non-magically.” She sipped some more tea. “I don’t normally remember how people sense, because I see so many in a day, but yours was different. It was so similar to Lillith’s, that it shocked me. I knew you were father to Lillith’s twin, but adopted, not real.

  “At the time I couldn’t explain it. I assumed some of Brody had rubbed off on you, somehow, but I wasn’t sure how. Now that I know Brody’s an Assan, it makes more sense. If your magic was connecting with his, then I suppose it got mixed together.”

  Mr Parker was staring at Uma, wide eyed. “I’m surprised you didn’t say anything at the time,” he said. “It’s not like you to hold back, Doctor Orenda.”

  Uma smiled. “I was busy that day, if you remember. I didn’t have time to linger on someone who was absolutely fine.” She sipped some more tea. “The point being that I know your sense from then.”

  Mrs Parker began to speak. “We haven’t been around Donny – I mean Brody – for a while. What if his sense is not the same as it was then?”

  Uma smiled widely. “It is,” she said. “I sensed it the minute I opened the door.”

  The Parkers smiled.

  Brody hugged them both again, almost knocking their tea out of their hands. “It’s you, it’s really you.”

  Lillith looked at the floor. She was right to want it to be confirmed, and the fact that they’d left Brody locked up was still something she wanted an explanation for, but now wasn’t the time. She’d let Brody have his happy reunion first.

  Chapter 17: Arthurs Trial

  Arthur’s trial went on for eight weeks. Lillith’s testimony was last again, which meant she couldn’t attend, and no one was able to give her any information. She’d heard snippets, like the Parkers returning from the dead; that had been a massive shock, apparently. She was sorry to have missed it, but she wasn’t sure whether it had helped.

  No one she knew had been able to attend the full eight weeks, but between them, there’d been someone there every day. Eight weeks was a ridiculous amount of time for a witch trial apparently, but to Lillith it was perfect timing. It meant she could get all her A-Level exams out of the way, without worrying about Arthur trying to kill her again.

  On the day of her testimony, Lillith followed her mam into the old gothic building, and shivered. It was warm outside, but it felt as cold as ever in here. She regretted wearing cropped jeans and a t-shirt, and wished she’d worn something thicker.

  “It’s warm in the room,” Uma said, seeming to notice her discomfort. “Especially with all the people in it.”

  Lillith nodded, and took her seat in the hallway while her mam disappeared into the trial room. Just like Brody’s trial, Lillith was to wait here until called for. She wondered if she could wait outside where it was warm, but she didn’t ask anyone. She folded her arms around her body and rubbed, trying to make the goose-bumps go away. Brody’s trial had been set at Christmas, and she’d at least been wearing warm clothes, then. She took out her phone, and started playing games.

  An hour passed. Lillith paced up and down to keep warm.

  Another hour passed. Lillith sighed. She was bored of playing games on her phone, and stared at the wall instead.

  Just before she reached the third hour, Lillith picked up her phone and started playing again. Diane, the mind-reading witch who looked like Mrs Claus, opened the door to the trial room. “We’re ready for you, Lillith,” she said.

  Lillith stood up. She switched off her phone, popped it in her pocket and walked through the door. Uma was right; the room was hot. Walking into the room was like walking into a different country, the contrast was so distinct. Some witches had come prepared, and were fanning themselves with paper fans. The smell of sweat consumed the air. Lillith swallowed, nervously.

  Mavis was overseeing the trial. She beckoned Lillith to take a seat at the front, facing everyone. Also sat at the front was Arthur. Lillith shuddered inside. The last time she’d seen Arthur was in December, before Brody’s trial. He’d looked vile, and the smell of him still churned her stomach when she thought of it. Today, he was washed and neat. She assumed he smelled better, but she’d find out soon enough.

  Lillith walked slowly to the chair and sat down. She didn’t look in Arthur’s direction, but couldn’t smell urine. That was a bonus. Diane followed her, and stood nearby.

  Mavis smiled. “Hi, Lillith,” she said, in a nauseatingly sweet voice.

  Lillith smiled back, as widely as she could. She didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot by annoying Mavis. “Hi,” she said.

  Mavis waved her hand towards the coven. “Everyone already knows you, Lillith, so we’ll get straight to the point. Can you tell everyone how you know Arthur, please?” she asked.

  Lillith took a deep breath. “He tried to kill me,” she said. She scanned the room, looking for the coven’s reaction to that. She found a few friendly faces in her mam, Angela, Cassandra and Brody, as well as a few other witches that she’d spoken to in meetings. A few – more than a few – wore aggravated expressions. Lillith’s stomach fluttered. Did she have less supporters than she thought?

  “That’s not in question, Miss Orenda,” said a male voice.

  Lillith turned towards the voice and saw a stern-looking male witch. He was young; early thirties, Lillith assumed. His face had sharp features: pointy chin, and a long nose, which seemed to cast a shadow over his thin lips. If he smiled, he might be good looking, but with the sour expression that he wore, he looked wretched.

  “I intend to prove that Arthur acted in justifiable self-defence,” he said.

  Justifiable? Lillith thought. How was it justifiable? She glared at the man, wondering who he was, and why he was talking.

  Diane cleared her throat. “This is Robert, Lillith,” she said. “He’s representing Arthur.”

  Lillith eyed Robert. Arthur had a representative? Was that like a lawyer? Brody hadn’t had one. Why did Arthur?

  “Yes, it’s similar to a lawyer,” Diane said. “Not everyone has a representative, but Arthur’s crime is serious, and linked to other witches’ fates. A representative mak
es it fairer. Robert’s from a different coven, and is, therefore, completely impartial.”

  Lillith looked at Diane. She was reminded that her mind was being read. Diane looked tired. She’d once told Lillith that it was an effort to read minds. If she’d been doing this for eight weeks, she must be drained.

  Diane gave Lillith a small smile and half nod, confirming that was the case.

  Robert’s voice jolted Lillith, and she turned towards him.

  “You’re aware of your history, Lillith?” he posed it as a question, but didn’t give her time to answer. “So you know what Arthur had to deal with before you were regressed?”

  Lillith nodded, hesitantly.

  “Do you agree that you were evil, then?” Robert asked.

  Lillith breathed in deeply. She didn’t like where this questioning was heading.

  “Answer the question, please,” Robert pressed.

  “I agree that the person I was, before I was regressed, seems to have had a dark side,” she said.

  Robert laughed. Actually laughed. He grabbed at his belly and made a noise that sounded like a donkey. Lillith had been wrong; he wasn’t good looking when he smiled.

  He walked towards her. Was he trying to intimidate her? Lillith fingered her amulet. It still worked to protect her. He couldn’t hurt her, even if he was willing to try in a room full of witches.

  Robert reached a point where he was towering above her. “To be honest, I don’t know why we need her testimony,” he said, unexpectedly. “We already know what she’s going to tell us. We’ve seen the video of what actually happened. I don’t think anything she’ll have to say will make a difference.” Robert said all of this without moving, and without taking his eyes off Lillith.

  Lillith held his gaze, defiantly. He was goading her, but she wasn’t going to allow the decision on whether Arthur was justified in trying to kill her to be made without having her say. “How do you know?” she asked.

  Robert eyed Lillith. “How do I know whether you’ll have anything different to say?”