by Emma Carroll
These people looked unimpressed.
‘Who’s invited his Royal Highness?’ someone else asked.
‘That Dr Blood, the tooth-barber from Glastonbury,’ the man said. ‘The king wants justice, so he does, for those who’ve suffered from this flood.’
All the fear I’d felt yesterday came rushing back. Of course Dr Blood was involved – he was the local magistrate – and this sounded very like the plan I’d heard him speaking about on Twelfth Night.
‘So he’s putting the sea on trial, is he?’ the woman said.
‘No, mistress,’ the man answered. ‘They’re saying it’s all the work of a cunning woman. Dr Blood’s summoned a man from Essex – Mr Hopkins he’s called – who’s got a reputation for sniffing them out.’
The woman frowned. ‘Sniffing what out? Cunning?’
‘Witches.’
Susannah gave me a warning nudge with her foot.
‘That’s enough water, guzzle guts,’ I said, pulling up Blaze’s head.
As we hurried away, neither of us dared say a word.
26
What I’d overheard in town put me in a rare fright. We’d not shaken off Dr Blood, that much was evident. With the king on his way and a specialist witch hunter, his mission was, if anything, gathering strength. Nor was it a royal visit to bring charity to our devastated county, it was all about finding someone to blame.
‘Dr Blood won’t think to search for you in a tiny hamlet,’ I tried to reassure Susannah.
‘Won’t he?’ She wasn’t convinced. ‘Blood by name, bloodhound by nature.’
If the witch-hunt did track her down to Fair Maidens Lane, then surely Jem would know what to do. I could picture him now, blocking their passage down our narrow path, but doing so politely; reasoning and listening and even shaking hands with Dr Blood if it meant they’d leave us alone. And if that didn’t work?
Well, it had to.
Still, I caught myself thinking about Maira’s offer again. They were leaving tonight. We might still make it to Withy Cove. And if she really wanted me and my caul on board, then could I persuade her to take Susannah and Bea? Would Susannah even want to go, when she was set on finding Ellis? It wasn’t my finest idea – Susannah couldn’t swim, Bea couldn’t keep still. We’d have to be desperate.
*
The road out of Nether Stowey was achingly familiar, taking us up the hill before striking north-west across open country towards the coast. What I’d not expected on the high ground was so much lying water. As the road dropped a little towards the sea I was soon wading knee-deep through floodwater again. Bea started to grizzle. And poor Blaze, who for the most part had plodded, as faithful as a dog at my shoulder, was now hesitating.
In my head, I’d assumed the hill would have protected us from the worst of the sea, not like Berrow Hall, which had sat at the top of the beach. But as we walked on, I saw how wrong I’d been. Trees were bent, land waterlogged, roof thatch dripping-wet still and hanging down in clumps. The further we walked, the bleaker it became. There were dead things in ditches, furniture abandoned in the middle of fields where the water had taken it. And the smell – that stagnant, rotten, briny smell – was strong enough to make me retch. Just before the crossroads, a dead sheep floated past. There was a parlour chair stuck in the high branches of an oak tree. A cart overturned in a hedge.
Susannah reached down to squeeze my shoulder.
It’ll be all right, that little gesture said, but I didn’t think it would be.
My family might not even be alive. And if they were, the last thing they’d need was more mouths to feed, more people to house. I felt suddenly sick with despair.
Up ahead was the left turn for Fair Maidens Lane, and there was our little church peeping above the water. Something odd was on the church roof. At first, it looked like a flock of gulls or roosting doves. But as we got closer I saw they were prayer books, saved from the flood and laid out to dry. I quickened my pace. The memories of long Sunday services spent fidgeting in my dress were all but forgotten. For if the church was still standing then surely the rest of the hamlet would be too.
As we rounded the corner, there was my mother. She was knee-deep in water, arguing with someone I couldn’t see properly because the sun was right behind them.
Waving, I called out, ‘Mother!’
She spun round.
‘Fortune!’ she gasped, clutching her throat.
I was ready to run to her, calling Jem’s name as well. But the look on her face made me stop. It was an expression I’d never seen before: pleading, terrified, angrier than hell.
‘Go!’ She came towards me, shooing me away. ‘Don’t speak to me. Don’t look at me. Go!’
I was completely thrown. What on earth had I done wrong?
‘But Mother, I’ve come all this way.’ I started to explain about Susannah and Bea, and the kind brown horse they were sitting on.
Abigail appeared, wearing the same baffling expression. ‘Get out of here,’ my sister hissed. ‘And don’t come back.’
‘What’s all this about?’ I insisted. ‘Where’s Jem?’
‘He’s not here,’ she replied, glancing nervously over her shoulder. ‘You’d better leave, Fortune, before it’s too late.’
The person who’d been arguing with Mother stepped out of the sun. I could see him properly now, for it was a man. He was wearing a black cape, a black doublet straining over his paunch. I felt a stab of fear.
‘Fortune Sharpe?’ Dr Blood said. ‘Just the person I’m looking for.’
Quick as anything, I stood in front of Blaze.
‘Get away from us! You’re not taking Susannah anywhere!’ I cried.
‘Do not ill-wish me, child,’ Dr Blood warned. ‘The evidence is here, look!’ In his fist was Susannah’s crewel work, showing the sea rearing up, and a boy in a yellow-feathered hat, running away.
‘That proves nothing!’ I spat. ‘You’re finding in it what you want to see!’
He took a step towards me. And another.
Mother screamed. ‘Don’t speak with him, Fortune! Run! RUN!’
It was too late. The fingers of his free hand were closing round my wrist.
‘It’s not Susannah Spicer we’re after,’ Dr Blood informed me. ‘It’s you. It always has been. All I needed was the proof.’
I stared at his hand, damp on my arm. Then at him. His clever ferret eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
‘Me? What’ve I done?’ I cried.
I yanked my arm free, but quick as I did so, he grabbed the other one.
‘You knew this flood was coming all along,’ he said. ‘The devil advised you to be prepared, and so you built a boat.’
‘That’s nonsense!’ I replied. And yet, I had built a boat, that part was true enough. ‘You’ve been spying on our hamlet!’ I cried, remembering the man who watched Jem and me from the clifftop.
‘Not me, no,’ Dr Blood smiled horribly. ‘I paid someone to do it on my behalf.’
The soldier.
‘Well, it’s all codswallop,’ I muttered.
He forced his face close to mine. His breath stank of herrings. ‘Is it, now? Let me tell you another of my discoveries. Susannah Spicer’s crewel work is dictated by you. You’re the one who tells her what to sew.’
I gazed at him, stunned. The man was completely mad.
Susannah, meanwhile, had slid down from Blaze. She pushed past me to square up to Dr Blood.
‘How dare you speak such utter drivel!’ she cried. ‘I sew alone, by myself, and always have done. Though why that’s any business of yours, I’ve no idea.’
Dr Blood drew himself up to his full height. ‘And yet only when Fortune Sharpe joined your household did you start predicting events. Your dear departed father thought you had a God-given talent, but when he showed me your work I saw how strange it was.’
‘What I find strange,’ Susannah said icily, ‘is your need to place the blame of this flood at someone’s feet.’
‘We’ll let Mr Hopkins be the judge of that,’ he replied. ‘Now don’t make a fuss. You’re coming with us.’
As I struggled, Susannah tried to prise his fingers off my arm.
‘You can’t take her!’ she screamed. ‘How dare you!’
Two more dark-cloaked figures waded towards us from the direction of the church. Both had swords and wore the king’s emblem at their breasts.
‘I am NOT going anywhere!’ I kicked up water in Dr Blood’s face.
Mother yelled at him to let go of me. One of the soldiers grabbed her arms and pinned them behind her back. Susannah was dragged away, with Bea screaming in her sling. Abigail fell to the ground in tears.
‘You’d better take your hands off me, mister!’ I cried.
But when I tried to tear myself free again, Dr Blood and more men I didn’t recognise blocked my path. I was surrounded by witch hunters.
And that made me the witch.
V
IN WHICH OUR HERO PROTESTS HER INNOCENCE
27
They took me kicking and yelling all the way back to Bridgwater. I didn’t remember much of the journey, but I knew that if they’d let go of me for an instant, I’d have run for my life.
In a chamber inside the town hall, two different soldiers took charge of me. Though it was a relief to be rid of Dr Blood, I didn’t fancy my chances with these two, either. Both soldiers were as big as bears, with swords like that man on the moors who’d stopped Mother, and it put even more fear into me, thinking they’d readily use them.
‘Stop your squirming, brat!’ the fiercest soldier growled.
‘I’m not a witch!’ I protested for the umpteenth time. ‘I shouldn’t be here!’
‘Save your breath for the expert,’ Fierce Soldier replied as the chamber door was unlocked. ‘This’ll be him now.’
The door swung open, admitting a man I didn’t recognise. He had something wrong with the left side of his face, like a burn or a birthmark, and wore the cleanest white collar and cuffs I’d ever seen. He didn’t introduce himself. But from the fresh panic coursing through me, I guessed he was the famous witch hunter from Essex, Mr Hopkins.
‘You must be Fortune Sharpe,’ the man said.
‘I am, and I’m no witch.’
‘Indeed, it is what most of them say,’ he replied, not looking at me but at a spot of sunlight on the wall.
‘I speak the truth. I’m not a liar.’
Mr Hopkins pursed his lips, pressing his fingertips against them. For one wildly hopeful moment I thought he was considering letting me go.
‘Take her down to the strong room,’ he said to the soldiers.
The speed of it left me no time to scream. We went along a passageway, down a set of stone steps so fast I tripped over my own feet. The lack of windows and smell of damp told me we were now underneath the town hall. The room we entered had one stool in its centre, and stank of tallow candles and fear. Hands on my shoulders pressed me down on to the seat. The soldiers stood either side of me, Mr Hopkins directly in front.
‘You’re here on charges of witchcraft,’ he said, a long scroll unravelling in his hands. ‘Dr Blood tells me you knew the flood was coming months beforehand. That you influenced Susannah Spicer’s sewing to cover any suspicions that might arise from your own second sight. And that on the morning of 6th January you did cast a wicked spell on the sea.’
‘No!’ I insisted. ‘None of that is true!’
He glanced up from the scroll. ‘I warn you, whatever you say will be written down for the court.’
I breathed through my nose, trying to calm myself. Yet here I was, locked up like a sheep-stealer or a jewel-robber, all because of what the sea had done. Mr Hopkins must be insane to believe what Dr Blood told him. And that was the baffling thing, because he didn’t seem mad in the slightest. He spoke gently, politely, much like our curate did if you passed him in the lane.
‘The locals say you’ve always had a close affinity with the sea. Are they right?’ Mr Hopkins asked.
I wondered who he’d spoken to: my neighbours? My family? Jem? Any of them might’ve told him. In Fair Maidens Lane it was common knowledge I loved the beach, though that hardly made me a witch.
He waited for my answer, pen hovering, with the look of someone who had all day. Whereas I didn’t. I needed to know my family and friends were safe. Plus, in my panicked brain, Maira’s offer was becoming more appealing by the second.
‘How long will I be here?’ I asked.
‘I cannot say.’
‘Please, can we hurry?’
Mr Hopkins sighed. Marked something on his paper. Moved down the page. ‘Have you ever built a boat?’
I scowled. ‘A what?’
‘A boat,’ he repeated patiently. ‘The more you tell me, the quicker this will be over.’
And I’d be free to leave, I hoped. Which was all I wanted. I sat a little straighter on the stool.
‘Yes,’ I said, fighting to keep my voice level. ‘I built a boat with my brother Jem, just for a jape. Only a little boat – more of a dugout, really.’
‘You were ready for the flood when it arrived, then?’
‘Hardly! It let in too much water. It was a pretty useless craft, all told.’
But he didn’t seem to be listening. ‘Indeed, Dr Blood suggests you had prior knowledge of the flood coming?’
‘How? I’ve never seen a sea like it in my life.’
‘But you’d made a boat beforehand,’ he insisted. ‘Doesn’t that strike you as a strange coincidence?’
‘I hoped it might be useful for travelling along the coast. In winter, rain can turn our roads into swamps.’
Mr Hopkins changed tack. ‘What age are you, thirteen?’
I was glad of a sensible question.
‘Fourteen next year,’ I replied. ‘Though that depends which calendar you’re following.’ In the countryside, our year still started the olden way in March, though in the cities it had already changed to begin in January.
Mr Hopkins nodded. He’d written down what he wanted.
‘On the sixth day of January, the day of the flood, you were employed at Berrow Hall, as a servant to the son of a Mr Thomas Spicer?’ he asked.
I said I was.
‘And you were on the beach when the wave struck?’
‘Yes, looking for Master Ellis, who we’d reason to believe had run off with a troupe of travelling actors.’
Up until this point the soldiers had been as still as stone. Now one of them sniggered.
Mr Hopkins tutted irritably. ‘Tell me about the wave. You saw it first-hand?’
‘I did. The sea disappeared completely like you wouldn’t believe. It was all just wet sand. Then it started coming in—’
‘Wait,’ he interrupted. ‘Who made the sea disappear? Who called it back in again?’
‘What do you mean, who?’
‘Was it you, Fortune?’
‘Of course it wasn’t!’ I cried. ‘The sea isn’t like a dog! You can’t bid it to come and go at will!’
‘Did you cast a spell on Susannah Spicer’s needlework, then?’
‘No! I’ve told you, I’m not a witch!’
Mr Hopkins put his pen aside and folded his arms. ‘Yet the evidence is stacked against you. If only Mr Spicer were still here to clear your name. But he perished that day, didn’t he? Dr Blood tells me you weren’t overly fond of the man.’
I didn’t speak.
‘Well?’ he asked.
I ground my teeth in frustration.
‘Come now,’ Mr Hopkins said, impatience creeping into his tone. ‘Has the devil stolen your tongue?’
Still, I didn’t answer: he’d only twist my words if I did.
‘Very well. We’ll try something else.’ He snapped his fingers at the soldiers. ‘Search her for moles, birthmarks, anything unusual. A witch will bear the marks of her kind.’
I shrank back in my seat. The soldiers grabbed my arms, pushing up my sleeves. When they didn’t find what they were looking for, they yanked off my cap, pulling at my hair, checking behind my ears. I ducked away, which made them rougher.
It was only when I finally started crying that they stopped – and hastily too, jumping away from me as if I was poxed.
‘Don’t ever touch a witch’s tears!’ Fierce Soldier warned. ‘She’ll use them to curse us!’
‘Isn’t it that witches don’t cry?’ the other soldier asked.
They both looked at me, suddenly not sure what I was.
Mr Hopkins dropped to his knees, seizing my feet before I’d the wit to kick him.
‘Look harder, friends,’ he said, almost gleeful. ‘See this mark here on her left foot?’
I tried to wriggle free, but he held me impossibly tight.
‘It’s a birthmark, that’s all!’ I stammered. The mark was only small, about the size of an acorn and as unremarkable. It’d been there all my life.
Yet you’d have thought Mr Hopkins had found manna from heaven. From his pocket, he produced an implement that might’ve been for opening wine flagons or coring a cheese, except it ended in a needle – a hefty one too. The sight of it made me tremble.
‘This,’ he explained, to the soldiers rather than me, ‘is my witch tester. I’m going to put it to use.’
28
I hoped beyond hope that he was jesting, or very poorly in the mind. Yet looming over me with a needle big enough for knitting wool, Mr Hopkins looked dangerously sane. He was still holding my foot in his free hand: no amount of squirming would make him release it. I twisted as far as I could away from him, which wasn’t far enough by a mile.
‘I don’t much care for needles,’ I tried to reason.
He spoke only to the soldiers. ‘If she’s a witch the needle will go in without pain. And you’ll witness no injury—’
He jabbed at my foot.
The shock made me jump. So did the fact it didn’t hurt, though not for the reasons he claimed.
‘It’s a trick!’ I blurted out. ‘The needle clicked. It retracted! I heard it!’