The Pendle Curse

by Catherine Cavendish

  The crowd fell silent. Frightened they might miss something. Goodness alone knew what had prompted Old Chattox’s outburst, but the woman’s wits were straying. Today he had been merely going about his business, fetching meal from the miller, John Robinson. The man had a nasty cough and, last week, James had suggested he seek help from his grandmother. He had done as James suggested and recovered quickly.

  Of course! That had to be the answer. The miller had been a client of Chattox. The two crones wouldn’t take kindly to losing one who paid handsomely and in timely fashion. So they had bided their time and waited until they got him in a crowd before confronting him. Well, if they wanted a battle, he would give it to him.

  He pointed at Chattox. “I say to all here present that I accuse you, Anne Whittle, of the murder of my father by witchcraft.”

  A gasp rose from the crowd. More murmurings.

  The old woman leaned more heavily on her daughter, who remained silent but thin lipped. “This will end badly for you, James Device. For you, your evil grandmother, mother and that unnatural sister of yours.”

  James threw back his head and laughed. “You think to scare me, old woman? I am Demdike’s grandson. Take heed and remember before you toss your idle threats.”

  Anne Redferne’s eyes were fearful as they darted around the crowd. “Have a care what you say this day, James Device. Words spoken in haste and anger can never be unsaid.”

  James made to counter her threat but stopped himself. She spoke truly. There were twenty or more witnesses to this exchange. If Master Nowell should hear of it, the feud between the two families wouldn’t end there.

  He said nothing, turned and strode away. His heart thumped as he clutched the heavy bag of meal, paid for by his grandmother’s potion. Behind him, the crowd muttered among themselves. None of it in support of him, of that he was certain.

  Back at the cottage, he said nothing to his mother of what had taken place, but merely sat and watched as she measured out a little less than half the contents of the bag. He would take that to Malkin Tower later.

  James leaned back in his chair. His eyes strayed around the room. Little William played on the floor, his mindless chatter directed at no one. Jennet sat in the corner, watching him as always. Today, it disturbed him more than usual. Her eyes were different in some way…

  He banged his fist on the table, sending the wooden plates jumping. “Don’t stare at me like that, girl!”

  But she carried on. Only for a few moments though. Enough so that the decision to stop could be hers, and once she had made it, she turned away with the trace of an unpleasant smile on her dirt-streaked face.

  At Malkin Tower, James found Alizon baking bread while their grandmother sat by the fire, rocking slightly back and forth, in her usual way.

  James’s instincts told him something was wrong. “What’s happened?” he asked Alizon.

  She stopped kneading the dough and met his eyes. “The peddler’s son has made accusations against me for bewitching his father.”

  James nodded. “It is not unexpected. But the father will say nothing, and without his testimony, you cannot be charged.”

  His grandmother grunted.

  Alizon began to knead the bread again. More roughly this time. “It may not have been enough. And now I cannot get to him. Someone has put a spell of protection on him and I cannot get past it.”

  “You have tried more than once?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I will try.”

  His grandmother stirred again. “You can do nothing, boy. The spell is strong and holds true.”

  “Then who has cast such a spell?”

  “Abraham Law was seen leaving the house of Anne Redferne yesterday evening. As soon as I knew this, I summoned my spirits, but they could not get through.”

  James slammed his fist into the nearest wall. “God’s breath!”

  “Yes, boy, you do well to curse,” his grandmother said. “I fancy there will be a lot more cursing before this affair is done. You argued with Chattox and her daughter this morning in front of the whole village. Now we are all in jeopardy.”

  James looked from one to the other. Both faces accused him.

  “It is but a matter of time before Master Nowell hears of this,” his grandmother said.

  “Then we must go. Leave Pendle.”

  Alizon threw the dough onto the table, where it landed with a slap. “And where should we go? Master Nowell has many friends. They would track us down and our flight would scream out our guilt.”

  “She is right, boy,” his grandmother said. “But if we are to be taken, we shall not go alone. We will take old Chattox and her girl with us.”

  Alizon hadn’t finished with him. She had her own score to settle. “And what of your lover, Mistress Preston? Will she wait for you while Master Nowell questions you?”

  The bitterness in his sister’s voice cut through James. An image of the pretty, older woman from Gisburn flashed through his mind. He had a fondness for her, but his feelings held none of the intensity and passion he felt for his sister.

  “Janet is nothing to me. She is accomplished in her magic and I even thought her as powerful as you, but she is not. And she has a husband.”

  Alizon’s eyes opened wider. “And does he know of her dalliance with you?”

  James shook his head. He meant what he said; Janet had always been just a pleasurable distraction. One he may have frequented more often than other casual encounters, but nothing could be done about it. He loved Alizon body and soul, and now as he read the hurt—cloaked in fury—on her face, his arms ached for her. He stepped forward but got no further.

  A loud banging on the door rattled the pots. A male voice bellowed from outside. “Open up!”

  “It is time,” his grandmother said. “Open the door, boy.”

  As James did so, two guards pushed past him, revealing another half dozen, armed with pikes, waiting outside. The inevitable small crowd had gathered to watch, and to his horror, two more guards manhandled his mother, roping her ankles and wrists. She struggled, but they tightened the rope, so it cut into her flesh and she cried out.

  James called out to her. “Mother!” A guard thrust him aside and they hauled his grandmother out. She and his mother were bundled onto a small cart.

  The guards shackled James’s hands. They tied Alizon’s arms behind her. No cart for either of them. They would have to walk, side by side, flanked by armed guards.

  The crowd jeered as they trudged along the uneven road. Someone threw a rotten cabbage and it hit James in the face. He spat out the filthy, stinking leaves and glared at the perpetrator, whose expression changed from contempt to fear in less than a second.

  Alizon said nothing, her head bowed, long hair concealing her face. James could only guess what her expression might be. She must be scared. They were powerless to do anything to save themselves. Not even their spirit familiars could help them now. James knew. He had tried. But when he closed his eyes and searched for Dandie, he could find him nowhere.

  His demon spirit had deserted him, and he guessed the same could be said of all the others. Dandie’s prophetic words were now being fulfilled. Their familiars had paid Beelzebub with their power. Anger swelled inside James, and his spirit should have sensed him and stirred at that moment. But he felt like an empty vessel, and for the first time in his life, James knew real fear. Alone in a hostile world.

  Roger Nowell circled around the chair into which James was bound. “James Device. We meet again. Perhaps this time with a more satisfactory outcome.”

  “For you perhaps, Master Nowell, although I doubt it. I am innocent.” James knew he sounded more confident than he felt.

  Roger Nowell laughed. Unpleasant, hollow laughter. He stood in front of James, and as he leaned closer to him, the faint odor of sweat wafted upward.

 
“This time it shall not go so well for you. Your pretty face will buy you no favors here.”

  “I don’t recall it buying me any when we last met, Master Nowell.” James felt almost glad his wrists were bound to the chair arms. If they had been free, he would have found it hard to resist the urge to splatter the magistrate’s nose across his overfed face.

  Nowell’s lip twisted in a grimace. “Your grandmother is old, is she not? I doubt she will last long in Lancaster Prison. And your sister is very pretty. She will provide entertainment for the guards.”

  James spat at his accuser. “You evil bastard.”

  Nowell said nothing and nodded at the guard to James’s left.

  A stinging blow to his left cheek set James’s ears ringing and his teeth shuddering. An explosion went off in his head as the second blow landed on his jaw. Pain shot through him and he tasted blood. He spat out a tooth, gratified a little by the sight of a bloody spray dirtying the magistrate’s clean white shirt.

  “Get him out of here.”

  That was it? No examination for a witch’s mark this time? They could have no evidence.

  Despite the thundering pain in his head and jaw, James felt his spirits lift. If they had nothing on him, surely they had nothing on any of his family. He had no idea of what crimes his mother stood accused, or his grandmother. He guessed Alizon stood accused by Abraham Law’s testimony, but without John Law to back it up, they would have nothing on her either.

  The guards threw him out of the front door and he landed in a painful heap on the gravel. His ankles were still numb from the ropes, and his wrists throbbed as the blood flowed through his veins once more. The long driveway stretched before him and he struggled to his feet, reeling from the shocks of pain that shot through his head.

  He glanced back at the hall. No sign that anyone else would be joining him. How long had he been in there? An hour? Two maybe? He had lost track of time, but the sun hung low, so it must be late afternoon. A chill breeze blew through his thin shirt and he shivered. He rubbed his wrists and stamped his feet to try and stimulate the circulation.

  Behind him, the door opened. He spun around and ran forward, just in time to catch his mother as she fell.

  She leaned against him, her feet as yet too weak to support her.

  “What have they done to you, Mother?” He peered at her face. She seemed unharmed, but there were many places they could have targeted where they would leave no visible trace.

  She opened her eyes and he read horror in them. His face must look a bloody mess, and he knew his voice came thickly through his rapidly swelling jaw.

  She seemed to be waiting for an explanation and he tried to make light of it. “I would not give Master Nowell the satisfaction of thinking he had broken me, so he set his lackey onto me.”

  His mother could manage no more than a whisper. “They examined me. They put me on this board and they removed everything.”

  “The guards? Male guards did that to you?”

  She tried to shake her head but the effort proved too much. “No. They brought four women in and then another came with the sticker. They found a mole and poked at it, but it bled, so they knew it wasn’t a witch’s mark.”

  “What of Alizon? And Grandmother?”

  “Of Alizon I know nothing, save that she will not be released yet. Your grandmother…” Tears coursed down her cheeks. “Oh, James, they found a mark. It’s an old wart she has had for as long as I can remember. They took her back to Master Nowell with her clothes strewn about her. The indecency! She was barely covered. Just so that he could see the mark on her hip. They questioned me about it and I told them the truth—that I thought maybe she was born with it.”

  “So what did Master Nowell say? Did they stick her?”

  She nodded. “He used his own stick and it didn’t bleed. Oh, James.” She clutched at his shirt. “They are to take her to Lancaster in the morning, and I fear they will take Alizon with her. Remember, she has a tiny wart on her…”

  James remembered. He had often stroked Alizon’s tiny wart, at the top of her thigh. Many times, she had said she would use one of grandmother’s potions to remove it, but he had told her not to. “It is your one little blemish and I adore it,” he had said, kissing it. Now he wished with all his heart he had encouraged her. Even that he had painted the mixture on himself.

  Elizabeth tried to stand unaided and he steadied her.

  “I heard voices when I was being taken away,” she said. “I swear it. Old Chattox and her daughter were pleading for mercy. I think they may be taken to Lancaster too.”

  Chattox and his grandmother in the same cart on that long, arduous journey? How would they be stopped from killing each other and doing the court’s work for them? Then he thought of his lovely Alizon.

  “Mother, I will go to Lancaster. I must see where they are being held and help them where I can.”

  “But, son, our familiars…”

  “I know, Mother. I have searched my soul and I have looked for him, but Dandie is gone. They paid the price for our salvation from the evil one.”

  Elizabeth winced. “Either that, or there is one among us who betrays us and keeps our familiars from us. One more powerful than our combined forces.”

  James shivered. A witch more powerful than all of them? But who? Not Chattox or Redferne certainly. No; it had to be someone else then. He must think on it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I zipped up my jacket against the chill breeze that whipped down from Pendle Hill. The field looked as lush, green and empty as before. Trees clustered together in sparse clumps—hardly the dense woodland you would expect from the name Pendle Forest.

  I swallowed hard, but my mouth felt too dry and I wanted to run like hell in the opposite direction. I told myself this had happened for the best. I had to confront my fears to overcome them. I wished I had someone with me. Martin? I had almost called into Barrowbrooke Farm on the way here, but when it came to it, I just kept driving. My devils, so I had to face them alone, I supposed.

  Now I had second thoughts as I reached the part of the field where the buzzing usually started. One more step, and even though I expected it, the noise hit me, sudden and penetrating. I bent double and covered my ears.

  The buzzing stopped as suddenly as it had started and the breeze had gone. I felt warmth on my face and the smell of peat in my nostrils.

  “Come, child, eat your soup. You’ll feel better.”

  The old woman’s face swam before my eyes before fully materializing. The wrinkled features, almost toothless smile. The eyes misted over with cataracts. This time she wasn’t alone.

  Behind her stood a middle-aged woman with graying hair and a sullen expression. She pointed at me and spoke.

  “Who is she, Mother? Is she the one you scryed?”

  “Aye. There is much work to be done if we are to succeed in our quest.”

  The younger woman grabbed my arm. Her fingers pressed into my flesh, but she wouldn’t care if she hurt me. Her eyes were hard. Cold.

  “Get your hands off me!” I tried to struggle free, but the old woman had hold of my other arm now and they propelled me out of the living room and into a bedroom.

  “Tie her.” The old woman pinned both my arms behind my back while her daughter deftly wound rope around them. The bonds bit into my flesh and I winced.

  “Sit down, child.” The old woman’s voice, little more than a rasp, sounded strangely gentle. Why be nice to someone you had just manhandled against her will?

  I obeyed and her daughter stood back, still glaring at me. Whatever they intended to do to me, there would be no point in appealing to her finer instincts.

  The old woman spoke. “I brought you here because I know I will not live much longer. Maybe none of us will survive after what has happened in these past days.”

  “I don’t understan
d,” I said.

  “She’s no good, Mother. She isn’t strong enough.”

  “All in good time, daughter; all in good time. Now, child, I want you to close your eyes.”

  The old woman passed a dirty hand over my face, dragging the mingled smells of peat and herbs with it. My eyes closed. All I could hear was the old woman’s voice as I floated away.

  Images of clouds and shadowy shapes, like the one I’d seen in my bedroom, passed by me. But the shadows didn’t frighten me this time and I felt strangely calm. Then, far off in the distance, I saw a familiar face. “Rich!” If I could just reach him…

  I saw him searching for me, but he couldn’t see me. Then our eyes met. Only for an instant. He opened his mouth to speak. And vanished.

  “Rich…” I had never felt so alone. Not even the night I lost him. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks as I stood in the midst of swirling clouds. My hands were no longer bound and I had substance. No longer some sort of ghost. Dreams weren’t like this. Certainly none I’d ever experienced.

  A tall man stood in front of me. Young, smiling and beautiful. I didn’t recognize him, but he seemed to know me. I took a step closer to him and he drifted towards me. He didn’t belong in the twenty-first century any more than the old woman and the girl. Then he reached out and touched my arm.

  A hissing, like a hundred snakes, behind me. I dared not turn around. The man smiled and drew me closer to him. His eyes locked onto mine and bored deep inside me. Searching for something. I knew he’d kiss me and I knew I’d let him. Why? I didn’t know. His lips parted. I recoiled.

  The white, pockmarked tongue, punctured by lesions, bled and stank of pus and something long dead. A sickly sweet smell of decay, the iron tang of blood and stench of human waste seeped through every pore of his rotting body as he laughed. Raucous. Grating. I had to stop it. I put my hands up in front of me.

  The hissing moved round and now I faced two of them. The other one was female. Her eyes bulged in what had been a face but had decayed to mainly bone, with flaps of festering flesh scaling off it. The bony jaws opened and harsh laughter issued from the foul, decomposing maw.