by James Dawson
‘It was you.’ Lis understood now. ‘You put the lavender under my pillow!’
Ms Dandehunt chuckled. ‘All this started when you arrived, Lis. I don’t believe in coincidence, so I knew you were either Laura’s killer or in danger yourself. When the bird appeared in your locker, I knew we had to protect you. In the seventeenth century, the Righteous Protectors took to nailing a familiar to the homes of suspected witches. A gruesome practice, intended to warn people away.’
‘I thought it was you,’ Lis whispered. ‘You had Laura’s diary.’
‘Yes, although perhaps don’t mention that one to Chief Inspector Monroe. I knew what Laura’s death meant. I knew more than the police could ever comprehend – so I took her diary from her locker.’
‘What did it say?’
Ms Dandehunt turned to the window, just as a ray of weak sunshine battled through the overcast sky. ‘Poor Laura, so lost and lonely. Desperate to know who her real family was, what her dreams meant. She threatened to run away.’
With Danny, Lis thought. Just like she’d said that day on the rugby pitch. ‘But Laura wasn’t a witch! None of us are!’
Smiling sadly, Ms Dandehunt said, ‘Hasn’t that always been the way though, Lis?’ she tapped The Crucible. ‘Paranoia, fear, malicious rumours. Some people don’t seem to be able to see who people are, only what they are.’
‘Why did they hate witches so much?’
Ms Dandehunt chuckled. ‘If humans didn’t hate each other so much, what would the papers have to write about?’
Lis felt her cheeks reddening, but she had to ask. She had to know. ‘So you’re . . .’
‘Witches?’ Ms Dandehunt finished for her. ‘If you like, yes.’
‘But white witches?’
‘You watch too much TV, Miss London,’ she said, stroking Lis’s hair.
Lis shook her head. ‘But I don’t believe in—’
Ms Dandehunt put a finger to her lips, silencing her. ‘And perhaps that’s for the best. Is it easier to think of Simon Gray simply as a madman rather than a witch-finder? Will it help you sleep at night?’
Lis couldn’t answer, overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. Ms Dandehunt gave her a soft kiss on the forehead. ‘Sweet dreams, Lis.’
Christmas
Frosty morning light flooded her bedroom, and Lis dived out of bed and headed straight to the mirror to inspect progress on her nose. It was her new morning routine. The swelling had gone down considerably, but although everyone denied it, Lis could tell it wasn’t its normal shape and size. At least the raccoon-like black eyes had faded. Still, there would be no family photos this Christmas.
Laughter drifted up from downstairs. It was Christmas morning. Sighing, Lis threw her dressing gown on and slouched out of her room.
Max had the fire going like The Towering Inferno while Sarah was trying in vain to interest an eleven-month-old infant in presents. And her mother presided over the scene, cup of tea in hand. Lis looked on like the Ghost of Christmas past.
‘There she is!’ exclaimed her mum. ‘Merry Christmas, sweetheart.’
‘Merry Christmas!’ Lis replied, adopting the faux-cheery tone she needed to escape scrutiny. Ow, that still kind of hurt the healing bone in her nose. She moved over to the rug and received a welcome kiss from her mum before planting a similar one on Logan’s fluffy head.
‘Morning, Sleeping Beauty!’ Max grinned.
‘Hardly.’ She pointed to the centre of her face.
‘I think there are some presents under the tree for you . . .’ Max told her.
Sarah leaned back and checked. ‘Sorry, babe. None for you, actually! Bad times!’
Lis snorted. ‘Very funny. Check again.’
With a grand flourish Sarah pulled a neat pile of parcels out and slid them towards her. I wonder if I’ll get a diary this year, Lis suddenly wondered. She squashed that thought before it could take over. These were normal things. Normal things were good. Normal things helped to paint over the cracks.
Lis had always found Christmas Day to be quite boring. Once you’ve opened all your presents and got dressed up, there isn’t a lot left to do other than eat.
‘Mother, will you do the drinks and just let me worry about the bloody food?’ Sarah’s wilting patience echoed from the kitchen. Logan was pulling a piece of wrapping paper across the floor and Lis channel-hopped while Max entertained the next-door neighbours.
‘Do you want a glass of champagne, Lis, love?’ he asked, refilling glasses.
‘No, thanks.’ Her attention rested on the news channel. A striking blonde anchor woman sat in front of a picture of Mr Gray.
‘A spokesperson for North Yorkshire Police yesterday refused to comment on growing speculation that local schoolgirl, Laura Rigg, had been a victim of a ritual-style killing. Since her death—’
Max stepped in front of the screen, putting down the champagne and turning the TV off.
‘Max!’ Lis objected.
‘You shouldn’t be watching that,’ he said gently.
‘I can’t hide from the TV.’ She gave him a cold stare. Why wouldn’t anyone let her talk about it? She hadn’t left the house since she’d been discharged from hospital. She’d escaped only to become a prisoner in her own home. She knew Sarah meant well, but wrapping her up in cotton wool was making her feel worse.
‘You can today. It’s Christmas, love, and we have guests,’ Max insisted.
She nodded silently. There was so much she wanted, needed, to say, but no one wanted to listen. Maybe it was just too scary.
‘Lis!’ Sarah hollered. ‘Door!’
Which nosy neighbour was it now? Even for Christmas, an unusually high volume of guests had ‘dropped by’ since the night of the Great Storm. Lis was almost at the stage where she was ready to sign autographs. She shuffled past her bickering mother and sister to the door.
Outside stood Danny Marriott, his cheeks cartoon-red from the cold. ‘Merry Christmas!’ he announced, a grey beanie hat hiding the stitches Lis knew he’d had in his head.
Merry Christmas, indeed. Danny had been one of only two things on Lis’s Christmas list, the other being news from her friends.
‘You’re meant to say “Merry Christmas” back and invite me in,’ Danny told her. ‘It’s fricking freezing, Lis!’
She opened the door wider and bowed her head, completely overcome with embarrassment. ‘Come on in.’
He stepped past her and entered the sweltering kitchen. ‘Something smells good! Hi, Sarah.’
‘Hi, Danny. Merry Christmas!’ Sarah replied, briefly looking up from a large pan of gravy.
‘Oh, this is Danny, is it, Lis?’ Her mum wiped her hands on a towel and came to greet Danny. ‘I’m Lis’s mum, Deborah. You never said he was so lovely looking!’ she told Lis.
Jesus Christ. ‘Thank you, Mother!’ In fact, after everything that had happened, Lis was so weirdly thankful for her mum and family that she only half died inside. But she grabbed Danny by the hand before her mum could locate any childhood pictures, and pulled him straight through the party in the lounge and into the conservatory on the other side. Seasonal goodwill drifted through the double doors, but they were alone.
‘Sorry about her! She’s always like that,’ Lis said.
‘She seemed . . . nice.’
They stood awkwardly in the glass box, which was a tinsel jungle of Christmas decorations at present. Many times Lis had thought about how to apologise to Danny. She’d written so many scripts in her head, but she hadn’t considered stage fright in her plans.
‘Danny, I’m sorry!’ she blurted out.
‘Sorry? What for?’ He frowned.
She reached up and pulled his hat off, revealing the wound from the fall.
‘Oh. That wasn’t your fault.’ He guided her onto the futon. ‘Well, yes, it was your fault, but what were you meant to think? I had Laura’s diary, plus the school was full of magic mushroom smoke, or whatever!’
‘That’s the thing that really bugg
ed me while I was stuck in the hospital,’ Lis told him. ‘Why did you have Laura’s diary?’
He unconsciously rubbed his scabby stitches. ‘I saw it on Dandehunt’s desk. She called me in to ask if I knew why you were leaving, and I thought that if I stole it for you, you might be, like, impressed. I sneaked in after rugby.’
As romantic gestures go, stealing a dead girl’s diary from your headteacher was certainly original. A faint suggestion of a smile appeared on Lis’s face.
‘And you know what?’ Danny continued. ‘That psycho bastard’s dead. The rest of them are going to jail. It’s over.’
‘What do you think happened?’ Lis asked him. This was her chance to gauge what people had been saying in her absence.
‘It’s been all over the news. Mr Gray was like a Bible freak or something! They’re saying he was in a cult. Some people at school have been saying it’s something to do with the Hollow Pike witch trials, but . . .’
‘You don’t believe in . . .’
‘In witches?’ Danny laughed. ‘Are you kidding?’
Lis merely shrugged. She honestly didn’t know what to think any more.
Danny continued. ‘Anyway, I didn’t come here to talk about that crap. I haven’t been allowed to see you for weeks!’
Brilliant. Someone else who didn’t want to talk about it. ‘So why did you come?’
‘Er . . . hello? It’s Christmas! I brought you your present!’ Danny told her with a grin.
Internally Lis slapped herself. Gifts, of course! Exchanging gifts is what human beings do on Christmas Day. Living in Sarah’s protective bubble, with no access to shops, Lis had figured that not being dead would have to be her present to her family. But what about Danny?
‘You got me something? Danny, I didn’t get you anything!’
‘Good!’ he said and grinned. ‘That will make my present look even better and earn me points! I didn’t expect one, seriously.’
He reached into his coat pocket and produced a long, slender package, neatly wrapped in gold paper. Taking it from him, she ripped the paper off and pulled out what could only be a jewellery box. ‘It’s not a silver cross, is it?’
‘What? No, why?’ Danny asked, confused.
‘Never mind!’ She snapped the box open and pulled out a web-fine silver chain with a little silver swallow suspended from it. Its eye was a tiny, glistening blue stone. It was perfect.
‘I thought that after all your encounters with birds, you could use a nice, friendly one.’
If only he had the first clue how apt his gift was. Tears, the good kind, threatened to spill down Lis’s face.
‘Danny,’ she began, ‘I adore it! You have no idea!’ She gave him the only gift she could at that moment: a slow, tender kiss on his lips, which he happily accepted.
‘That’ll do me,’ he said, and grinned.
‘And, now that I’m safe, I don’t have to go back to Wales,’ Lis told him.
‘You’re staying?’ He jumped off the futon. ‘That’s the best present ever!’
He pulled her up and kissed her again, holding her face in both hands. Lis felt a happy glow. This was the best Christmas since she’d been given the Sylvanian Families tree house when she was eight.
St Wilfred’s Church was a typical village church in rural England. Its elegant spire glistened in the early morning frost on Boxing Day. Behind the church was a graveyard, full to capacity for well over a hundred years, the headstones eroded and cracked, some leaning perilously close to collapse.
A couple with a poodle rested some flowers on a grave, before walking away hand in hand. It was a crisp, fresh December morning.
But at the very edge of the graveyard, beyond the crumbling perimeter wall and behind the hanging willow trees, there lay an overgrown wasteland. It was covered in shrubs and litter and junk, but at that moment, four friends reunited stood around a burning dustbin.
‘This is where they buried the witches,’ Delilah explained. ‘The church ground is holy, so a woman suspected of being a witch was buried outside the graveyard. No headstones, no memorial, no nothing.’
‘Those poor women. It’s so unfair,’ Lis said, looking mournfully at the five floral notebooks in her hands. She couldn’t bring herself to drop them into the flames. This was the only record of the real Laura Rigg. ‘Can we really do this?’
‘We have to!’ Kitty replied. ‘Laura’s secret dies with her. No one has to know she was . . .’
‘An actual witch?’ Jack finished. Thank God he’d had the presence of mind to shove Laura’s diary into his trousers seconds before the police arrived. This was for the best.
‘If people read these,’ Kitty went on, ‘there’s a chance they’d track us down too. Like it or not, it’s in our blood.’
They’d all looked up their family trees, of course. Gray had been right. All of them, even Jack, had Hollow Pike roots going back hundreds of years. Maybe, just maybe, they were all descended from those women in the woods.
‘Do you think there are more of them? More Righteous Protectors?’ Delilah asked. The worry that they could still be hunted down and burned at the stake had crossed Lis’s mind too.
‘I don’t know. Dad says Jennifer and Daphne are refusing to speak. It’s like they’ve taken a vow of silence or something. They just sit in their cells, staring at the walls. They’re protecting the Protectors.’
Lis imagined the women, still and silent, waiting. But waiting for what? It was hard knowing that Righteous Protectors might still be out there with their murderous beliefs.
‘You know what I think?’ said Delilah. ‘I think the police know more than they let on. How could you live in Hollow Pike and not realise there’s something peculiar going on? Everyone has heard the stories; everyone knows what happened to all those women, but they just ignore it.’
‘Because it’s too scary to admit something so dark happened on your doorstep. How would you ever sleep at night? It’s easier if it’s just a bad dream.’ Lis closed her eyes tightly, blocking out the image of Gray’s dead face that flashed through her mind.
Kitty gently reached over the flickering fire, taking the diaries from Lis’s hands. She looked at each of her friends in turn. They all silently nodded agreement. And Kitty let them drop. Initially, the books squashed the flames, but first the corners blackened and then vibrant, yellow tongues of fire licked the pages. Ashes swirled into the December air, taking Laura’s final words away with them.
‘It’s over.’ Kitty walked away from the fire.
‘But we have to go back to school.’ Jack shuddered. ‘I don’t know if I can go back there after what happened.’
‘Jack, we have to. The exams.’ Kitty took his hand. ‘If we’re ever going to get the hell out of Hollow Pike, we need good grades.’
Jack nodded sombrely.
‘So we just go back to normal?’ Lis queried. For a second she almost thought that could be possible.
‘I wouldn’t say that. We’re not exactly normal, are we?’ Jack lamented.
‘And we never were in the first place!’ Delilah laughed, searching in the undergrowth for something.
‘And I say, thank God!’ Kitty added brightly, folding her arms across her army jacket.
Delilah fashioned a rough cross out of two long sticks, binding them with a long black ribbon, pulled from her hair. Then she wedged it into the earth: the witches of Hollow Pike finally had a memorial.
Their work done, the friends helped each other over the wall and back into the official graveyard.
‘That only leaves one question,’ Lis murmured, staring into the distance. ‘Which is worse? Being a witch, or being Laura Rigg’s less pretty cousin?’
Jack and Kitty laughed and Lis couldn’t keep a straight face for a moment longer. Their giggles rang around the churchyard like bells.
Delilah’s green eyes twinkled. ‘Can you smell that?’
‘What?’ Lis, Kitty and Jack chorused.
‘Snow. Snow’s on its way.’
Like a winter fairy, Delilah skipped around the deserted graveyard gazing up at the gentle clouds in the milky sky.
‘How do you know?’ Jack looked up too.
‘I just do.’
As she said it, the first feathery snowflakes fell, carelessly drifting down from the clouds.
‘OMG!’ Jack said gleefully.
The first flakes were soon joined by a polar flurry, drifts first clotting on the grass and then the pathways. The graveyard soon turned radiantly white: a clean, fresh page stretching before them, ready for new stories.
‘White Christmas!’ Delilah turned back to them.
Kitty shook her head, grinning in disbelief. ‘Dee, sometimes you scare me a little!’
Lis caught the intricate flakes of snow in her hands. They were real. She was real. It was impossible to think of herself as the same girl who’d come from Wales. She was something new. Maybe a witch – or maybe she’d turned into a butterfly. It was too early to tell. A smile full of hope burst across her face. At that moment, she knew only one thing for certain: she had friends.
‘Right, then. Who’s up for a snowball fight?’ Lis yelled. Her feet crunching in the snow, she darted through the headstones, as carefree and unique as the snowflakes spiralling around her.
Acknowledgements
This is all a bit Oscar winner’s speech, but here goes. Hollow Pike was made possible with the help of the following people, and I owe them a lot because this book means everything to me.
I’ll start by thanking my agent, Jo, for recognising the good in Hollow Pike when it was in a much sketchier state than you find it today. You’ve supported me every step of the way and took me to The Ivy. Amazing. Next, to the wonderful team at Indigo/Orion, you’ve made Hollow Pike flesh! I’m grateful to Amber and Jenny, my editors, for intuitively knowing exactly what I wanted to say; Nina for her PR witchcraft; Alex and the rights team; and Fiona for her sophistication and wisdom.
I’d also like to thank my own growing coven of internet followers on Twitter and Facebook. This book feels supported even before its release, and that is just lovely. I pray you like the finished product.