by Stacey Halls
Puck, who was used to their noise but declined to participate in his old age, watched lazily from the carpet. Sometimes they forced him to take part in their japes, but today he was spared.
“Why are boys so loud and badly behaved?” I asked. “Why could I not have had two lovely daughters to sit and sew with me?”
Nicholas collapsed to the floor, breathless and giggling.
“Father, take me hunting with you!” Richard demanded, pulling at Richard’s cloak.
“Not until you are older.”
“What do we say to Father when he goes on a hunt?”
“Don’t kill the foxes!” they both cried, each trying to be the loudest.
I smiled, and Richard sighed in a playful way.
“Even though they kill the hares and rabbits, and make it much harder work for my birds, I think your mother would turn the musket to me if I came home with a fox pelt.”
I nodded sternly, and smiled, but I was troubled by the news he brought. He left the hall and the boys went back to their games. I went to the window and looked at Pendle Hill.
* * *
I set out at first light, leaving Richard and his light snores. The bag I’d packed and hidden under the bed the night before, and I swept it up silently and went to dress, arriving at the stables before dawn. The morning was clear and fine, with a bright sun and a slight chill. One of the apprentices appeared in a doorway at the sound of hooves on the stable yard, and was startled to see me.
“I am going to spend the day with Mistress Towneley,” I told him as he blinked sleepily, reminding me of my boys. “Please tell the master to expect me back by evening.”
The road out of Padiham was deserted, and I made a good start. By the time I arrived a few hours later, my thighs were aching, my corset digging into my stomach, and I was drenched with sweat. I hadn’t ridden this far in years, and felt it in every muscle. When I got down, I leaned against the horse for a moment, its coat hot and gleaming under the midday sun. I tied it to a tree out of sight, and trudged the last few hundred yards with the string of the bag digging into my wet palm.
I fumbled in it for the key, and unlocked the door. The last time I was here it had been nighttime, with shadows dancing everywhere, but now its mystery was gone. It was just an old, dusty, empty house. The final few survivors of furniture stood listless, and I went to the old cabinet in the hall that had been my father’s, running my hands over its grooves and edges. But I could not take it, or anything else, so I patted it as though it was a pet, and moved on.
I looked in every room and opened every cupboard. No doubt the servants would have been through every room after Judith left, taking candle stubs and needles and broken vases forgotten in cupboards and every scrap of food. I wanted to avoid the parlor, where I’d been taken away from my dolls to meet my first husband, but I went in and appraised it swiftly. There was the fireplace in front of which he had sat, but with no furniture it was just an empty room. I saved my chamber for last. There was just one bed frame in there—mine—my mother’s was moved to a different room. I thought of her sleeping near me every night: I had thought it torture, but now knew it to be something quite different.
I went to the window and looked at the waving trees, and the farmland stretching flat behind them. It was a beautiful summer’s day, with barely any wind. I made sure all the doors were open before I went back downstairs to the great hall, where I had met Judith five years before. It was as though the ghost of her was here, watching me as I went to the large windows overlooking the front of the grounds. The curtains were still there, thick with dust, no doubt too high and heavy for whoever cleared the house to get down. There was no chair to rest on, no table to set down my things. I knelt on the cold stone floor beneath the window, and the sunlight streamed in and bathed my face, and I lifted it up to feel the warmth, closing my eyes.
Then I set to work. I took the little silver tinderbox from my velvet bag and opened it, and bunched the charred cloth in the bottom to air it. I was pleased to see my hands were steady. I took out the flint and the steel and began striking them together. In the empty room, the clinks rang as loudly as they did in a blacksmith’s workshop. After half a minute of effort, a spark caught the scraps in the tinderbox, and I leaned in to blow it gently into a flame. Fearful of it going out, I held a splinter to it, and when it had caught put it to the bottom of the curtain. Flames bloomed immediately on the dry, dusty fabric, and I cheered silently as fire licked the bottom of the scarlet threads, rising like damp. There were no mattresses, no firewood in the house—I had counted on this working, and it was. I sat and watched it for a minute, and by the time I stood up the curtain was half covered in flames. I thought of the time my skirts had caught in Joseph Gray’s house, and I stepped backward and gathered up my things, shutting the front door behind me and locking it.
The king could not stay in a house that had burned down to the ground.
I stood on the front lawn for a long time, watching the front room swell with flickering light that was hard to see in sunlight, but would be magnificent at night. The wainscoted walls caught easily, and when the windows were black with smoke and I felt sure the fire was big and angry enough to attack the rest of Barton, I turned to go home.
Someone had been watching me. I jumped, startled, as a movement caught my eye at the edge of the trees. A stunning red fox fixed me with its wide amber eyes and placed a hesitant paw onto the grass. We stared at one another, and time stood still. The fire raged on behind me, and my breath caught in my throat. Then I blinked, and it was gone.
* * *
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Fleetwood and Richard Shuttleworth, Alice Gray, Roger Nowell, the Device family and many other characters in the novel were real people, but The Familiars is a work of fiction. Fleetwood Shuttleworth (born 1595) was mistress at Gawthorpe during the witch trials, and had her first child in 1612, but there is nothing in history to connect her with Alice. However, her husband, Richard, was present at the assizes—at which Alice Gray and the other ten Pendle witches stood trial in August 1612—possibly because it generated so much interest at the time. Very little is known about Alice Gray other than from Thomas Potts’s account of the trial, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster. For some unknown reason, Alice’s transcript is not recorded in Potts’s book. Why she was the only one of the Pendle witches to be acquitted remains a mystery.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
If it takes a village to raise a child, it certainly takes a hamlet to raise a book. To start with, thank you, Juliet—friend first, agent second—for making my dream come true and holding my hand through all of it. In no particular order, the following people deserve my utmost gratitude: Katie Brown, Francesca Russell, Felicity Jethwa, Becky Short, Felicity White, Kate Hilsen, Claire Frost, Catriona Innes, Cyan Turan, Ed Wood, Lauren Hadden, Beth Underdown, Rosie Short and John Short. Thank you for your sharp eyes, bright ideas and enthusiasm. There aren’t the words to tell my editor, Sophie Orme, and all at Bonnier Zaffre how thrilled I am that The Familiars found its home with you. I knew you were The One as soon as I met you, and you’ve made the whole process a joy. I am grateful to Rachel Pollitt at Gawthorpe Hall for answering my questions and Robert Poole for modernizing Thomas Potts’s account of the trials. Last but not least, thank you to my parents, Eileen and Stuart, and brother, Sam, for your endless support and love, and Andy for being my number one cheerleader in life. You’re always there when I need you, and I always will.
ISBN-13: 9781488035029
The Familiars
Copyright © 2019 by Stacey Halls
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