A Secret History of Witches

by Louisa Morgan

  The stars illuminated the bombers, too. Several officers, in stoic tones, named the airplanes for their comrades who could no longer see them. “Heinkel. Messerschmidt. Junkers. Fokker.” The blinded ones, leaning on a nurse’s shoulder or sitting in a wheelchair, nodded, and sometimes growled curses.

  Most of the soldiers were British and Canadian, but there were one American, two Australians, and a Frenchman, a casualty of the Dunkirk evacuation. Valéry Chirac, the French soldier, probably should not have been allowed out of his bed, but the physician in charge shrugged and said it hardly mattered now.

  No one expected him to survive. He was one of too many patients for whom the nurses could do little but offer comfort. Both his legs had been broken when one of the valiant little fishing boats trying to save soldiers like him crashed into another craft. He had spent hours standing in seawater up to his shoulders before suffering a miserable crossing to England. By the time he reached Sweetbriar, he had double pneumonia, casts on both legs, and a suppurating gash in his scalp that had required his head to be shaven. He might once have been a strapping young man, but illness and pain had thinned him until his collarbones jutted and his ribs showed beneath his scratched and scarred skin.

  Veronica, moving between wheelchairs with blankets and shawls, saw Valéry tip his head up into the starlight, though his eyes were closed. He had wrapped his long arms around himself as if he were cold, so she crossed the grass to drape a knitted shawl around his shoulders. It was, incongruously, pink, knitted by one of the church ladies in the village. As she tucked it behind the soldier’s wasted shoulders, his eyes opened. They were red with illness, but dark and deep, reflecting the stars and the distant bursts of the bombs. He whispered, “Merci.”

  “De rien.” No one was sure how much English he spoke, or if he spoke any. He had been unconscious for a long time, and the nurses had learned nothing about him. Veronica’s schoolgirl French wasn’t up to real conversations, but so far it hadn’t mattered. She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. He was burning with fever.

  She said, in halting French, “You should be in your bed.”

  He licked his dry lips and shook his head. “I want to watch,” he answered, in the same language.

  Veronica gazed down at him, her heart aching with pity. He must once have been handsome, she thought, with a long, straight nose and narrow lips. His hands, plucking restively at the pink shawl, were fine boned and long fingered. She said, softly, “Monsieur Chirac. Can I bring you something? Tea? Brandy?”

  “Brandy,” he whispered. His eyes closed, as if the lids were too heavy to hold up. “I would love a bit of brandy.”

  Veronica knew there was no brandy in the hospital stores, but Lord Dafydd kept a bottle in his private study, one of the few rooms that had not been invaded by doctors or nurses. She ran up the stairs, poured some into a teacup, and carried it carefully back, braced on a saucer.

  The soldier didn’t move when she crouched beside him, but when she held the cup to his lips, his eyelids fluttered, and he took a sip. “Bon,” he whispered.

  “Drink it all,” she advised.

  He did, and it seemed to give him strength. When he had drained the teacup, he drew a noisy breath that rattled in his agonized lungs, but his eyes were open and he even lifted his head for a moment and tried to smile at her.

  A fresh burst of explosions filled the air over London, the concussions coming a few seconds afterward, made faint by the distance. Veronica said haltingly, searching for the verbs, “I was afraid of those, but no more.”

  He used a French word she didn’t recognize. His eyes closed again, and white marks appeared around his mouth. “Some things,” he said, surprising her by speaking English, “we cannot get used to.”

  The effort of speaking seemed to drain his fragile energy, so she didn’t pursue it. Nurses were beginning to collect their patients, wheeling chairs back inside, urging those on chairs or on the grass to go in. She said, in English this time, “I’m going to take you inside, monsieur.”

  He didn’t answer, but he lifted one trembling hand in assent.

  There was little left of routine at Sweetbriar, but Veronica still sat down for breakfast with her father each day, as much for his sake as for her own. He was reading the Times and she was making a list of pressing chores when Honeychurch came in with a note on a tray. Lord Dafydd reached for it, but Honeychurch said, “It’s for Lady Veronica, sir.”

  She took it, thanking Honeychurch, and read it quickly. “It’s from the matron, Papa. There is a patient—do you remember, the French soldier brought from Dunkirk? He’s asked for me to write a letter, since I have some French.”

  “Do you have enough French?”

  “I guess I’ll find out. Will you excuse me? I’ll take this list to the requisition officer as long as I’m going to the hall.” She jumped up and kissed her father’s cheek, saying, “Don’t overdo it today, promise me.” He patted her hand in answer.

  Veronica pattered up the stairs for her French dictionary before going to the hall. Oona, resting on her bed, looked up hopefully when she came in. Veronica stroked her head. “Sorry, girl. You really can’t be in the hospital.” The dog sighed and laid her head on her paws.

  Veronica was glad she had the dictionary with her when she began the soldier’s letter. She suspected his English would have been far better than her French, had he been well. He was terribly weak, slipping in and out of consciousness as she sat beside his bed, leaning close to hear his whispered words. He was trying to write a farewell letter to his mother.

  The words were heartbreaking, but she steeled herself. He would not be the first soldier to die here at the Sweetbriar hospital. She wrote what he said, filling in blanks here and there when he fell silent, willing her tears of sympathy away.

  When they reached the end, she read it back to him, and he whispered, “Oui. Merci.”

  “You need to tell me where to send it,” she said.

  “Drancy,” he said. “I think she’s in Drancy.”

  “Is that a city? A village?”

  His eyes opened and looked directly into hers. “A camp. Drancy is a work camp.”

  She didn’t need to look up the words. They were all too obvious, camp de travail. Valéry Chirac’s mother was in a concentration camp.

  Shocked and miserable, she couldn’t think of the sentence she needed in French. “I’ll send it through the Red Cross,” she said in English. “It may not reach her.”

  He responded in the same language, though his eyes had closed. “Please try.”

  She touched his arm in assent, said, “Rest now,” and rose.

  His hand, hot with fever, found hers. “They took them all,” he whispered.

  She bent over him again. “Sorry? All?”

  “All. My mother. My aunt. My students.”

  Veronica sank back onto her chair. “You’re a teacher, monsieur?”

  “Oui. Musique.”

  She turned her hand to gently hold his. She noticed again the long, tapering fingers. A musician’s fingers. “I’m so sorry, Valéry,” she murmured. “Surely they didn’t take all of your students.”

  “Les Juifs.” The Jews. “Les petits Juifs.”

  “Oh no.” Her own worries, the endless chores awaiting her, her fears for Thomas and for Phillip, seemed as nothing before these losses. Some were still trying to pretend the Germans were protecting those they arrested and interned, but Lord Dafydd said the authorities knew the truth. They were killing them, or allowing them to die of hunger and cold and illness, even the children. She would send the letter, but it was no wonder the will to live was failing in this man.

  He was asleep again. She sat on for a moment, holding his nerveless hand in hers, wishing she could share her own vitality with him. He was one among many who would be lost. She knew that. She wished, just the same, that she could save this one. For his mother, for his students. Even, selfishly, for herself, because it seemed so pointless to waste another yo
ung life.

  It was a day for moping, she found. She dragged herself through her list of tasks, including a long discussion over the telephone with a regimental quartermaster who was questioning their latest supply requisition. She managed to get outside for an hour, with Oona bounding gleefully around her ankles, to ride Mouse for a bit and see that Ynyr was eating well enough, and that the stables were in decent order. At least there was still a supply of hay, brought in the previous summer, but stores of oats were getting low. Through the fog of sorrow and fatigue, she couldn’t think of a remedy for that just now. She decided to put that problem off for a better day.

  As she had for months now, Veronica fell into bed that night half-asleep already, but with a dozen worries plaguing her tired brain. Oona snuggled close to her, whiskery chin over her ankles, and she forced herself to breathe slowly, to blank her mind, until she could sleep. In the distance she heard the crackle of ack-ack.

  She had been asleep for perhaps three or four hours when she startled awake and found herself sitting straight up in her bed. Oona was awake, too, standing at the foot of the bed with her tail straight out. She turned her head and fixed Veronica with an intense stare.

  Veronica listened but didn’t hear anything. The blackout curtain was in place, and the room lay in almost complete darkness. Only the faint glow of the moon shone past the edges of the curtain. What had waked her? She wasn’t sure, but an overwhelming feeling of anxiety drove her from the bed. She hesitated before opening the door, deciding it would be wise to slip into the blouse and skirt she had been wearing all day. She stuck her feet into a pair of flat slippers and, with Oona close behind, went out into the corridor.

  Sweetbriar was never silent these days. There was always a muted hum of activity from the hall, where the rows of hospital beds were arranged. It seemed to her there was something else going on tonight, a slight fuss of people coming and going, trying to be quiet. She didn’t work there in the night, since she had so much to do in the daylight hours. She was on the point of going back into her bedroom, but Oona had gone to the head of the staircase and was facing down the stairs, whining.

  “Oona, quiet!” Veronica hissed, but the dog paid no attention. Sighing, supposing she had to go out, Veronica gave in. The moment her foot touched the first tread, Oona was skipping downstairs, where she waited at the bottom. Veronica turned toward the kitchen and the back door, but the dog headed straight for the front of the house. “Oona!” Veronica whispered again, to no avail. She had no choice but to follow.

  She meant to stop the dog before she made it into the hall, but Oona stayed three steps ahead of her. Veronica trotted after her, weaving among the beds of the sleeping men, casting apologetic glances to the nurses working here and there. Oona didn’t stop until she reached the bed of Valéry Chirac. She sat beside it, her head tilted to one side, her eyes fixed expectantly on Veronica.

  This, Veronica could see, was the source of the commotion she had heard. Two nurses and a doctor were murmuring orders to one another. It was terrible to watch. Valéry, worn down by his ordeal and the pain of his fractured bones, had no resistance to the infection that had settled into his lungs. He was struggling for breath, his lips and nostrils mottled blue as he gasped and thrashed. One nurse held his arm, and the doctor bent over him to administer an injection. The other nurse stood beside the bed, her hands clasped, tears trickling down her cheeks.

  The injection seemed to ease Valéry a bit, at least enough to stop his thrashing. His breathing was still labored, bubbling alarmingly in his lungs. The doctor straightened and backed away, shaking his head. Veronica took his place, pulling up a stool to sit on, laying one hand on the patient’s arm. It was as cold and clammy as if he were already dead. She said softly, “I’m here, Valéry. I’ll sit with you.” There was no response.

  “Nothing to be done,” the doctor said gruffly. Veronica glanced up at him. He wasn’t much older than his patient, and his face was drawn with weariness. “Keep him comfortable if you can. Pray for him.”

  He turned away and went to the far end of the room, where another soldier was groaning in pain. One of the nurses followed him, while the one in tears brought a chair to sit opposite Veronica. For a time they sat that way, waiting in silent misery as their patient’s suffering dragged on and on. The nurse’s tears dried, and she let her head fall forward onto her breast. Veronica could see she had fallen asleep. She thought she might do the same, inching her stool a little closer so she could lean against the bed.

  It was Oona, once again, who interfered. The dog had scrambled under the bed, out of everyone’s way. Now she crept to Veronica’s foot and scratched at it with one paw.

  Veronica glanced down. She had forgotten Oona was there.

  Oona looked back at her, one ear up and one ear down, button eyes bright in the dimness.

  Under her breath Veronica said, “What now?” and the dog scooted out from under the bed. She moved to the end of the bed and glanced back with an expectant air. Veronica muttered, “All right, Oona. I’m coming.” She pushed herself up. The nurse opposite slept on, and Valéry, at least for the moment, did, too. It was likely he would die before she made it back to his bedside, but it was also clear he didn’t know she was there.

  She followed Oona, thinking now she would be going out onto the lawn, but the dog led her up the stairs and into her bedroom. Oona padded to the walnut wardrobe and glared fixedly at it, that expressive tail like an arrow behind her. “I don’t know what you expect me to do,” Veronica murmured.

  Oona looked back at her, then again at the wardrobe, her tail vibrating. “You think I should bring out the stone, don’t you?” Veronica sighed. “I don’t know why. I have no idea how to use it.”

  The dog’s hackles lifted, and she began to growl, a deep, menacing sound Veronica hadn’t known she could make.

  “Hush!” Veronica said. “You’ll wake the house.” Oona’s growl went on, rising and falling, a sound too big for her small body. Veronica blew out a tired breath and surrendered. “Very well. I suppose at least I can try. Hush now, I’ll do it. Hush, please.”

  Oona’s growl fell to a grumble, then died away.

  Remembering Jago’s warning that she must never be caught, Veronica locked the door before she went to open the wardrobe. She knelt to reach far into the back, past dresses and coats and suits, to pull out the old Fortnum & Mason hamper.

  It still frightened her to open the lid and fold back the wrappings. She had no idea what would happen, or if anything would. Breathing with exaggerated evenness to screw up her courage, she lifted the crystal out of the hamper and set it on her table. She had kept the vial of salt water in the hamper, and she sprinkled drops in a circle. She had no white candle, but she had a slender beeswax taper tucked into the drawer of her dressing table in case of a power cut. This she set into a holder and put a match to. In a saucer she also set fire to a twist of dried herbs, ones she had managed to decipher from the book she now knew was called a grimoire: romarin, rosemary; sauge, sage; écorce de bouleau, birch bark. She didn’t know if they were the right ones, but they were what she had. They filled the room with pungent smoke, making her eyes water and her nose sting.

  Beyond the blackout curtains the moon had set, and dawn was still an hour away. The room was murky, lit only by the dancing flame of the taper. Veronica sank to her knees beside the table, as she had before, and extended her hands to the smooth top of the crystal. She felt as if she were feeling her way through an unknown landscape, blundering in the dark with nothing to guide her.

  She stiffened and snatched her hands back. A light had begun to glimmer inside the stone the moment she touched it. Others joined it, whirling, touching, breaking apart like fireflies on a summer night. For a moment she gazed into the stone, confounded, with no idea of how to proceed. Oona whined.

  At a loss, Veronica whispered, “Help me. Please. I don’t know the words to say, or what I’m supposed to do. I need help.”

  Gooseflesh pri
ckled her arms as a face emerged, a different one this time, younger, prettier. It coalesced from the shifting lights like a reflection steadying itself in the ripples of a pond. The woman seemed familiar, with dark curls over her forehead and eyes of midnight. She gazed at Veronica for a moment, her eyes searching, struggling to focus as if she, too, were peering through a cloud. A sense of longing radiated from her, distinct as a wisp of perfume.

  Veronica pressed her hand to her breast. She recognized this face. This woman’s portrait—the portrait of the mother she had never known—hung in the great hall.

  She said, wonderingly, “Mama?”

  She heard Morwen’s answering voice, not through her ears, but between them.

  Mother Goddess, hear my prayer:

  No sorrow for my child to bear.

  Take pity on one so young and fair.

  Heal the man who is in her care.

  Veronica said, “Oh!” and the words came again, the odd, old-fashioned rhyme. Veronica repeated them aloud, stumbling at first. Morwen, the spirit in the crystal, spoke them with her. Together they repeated the words, the simple, straightforward spell, over and over. Veronica lost count of how many times they said them. None of it felt real. She would not have been surprised to find herself starting awake in her bed, shedding the remnants of a bizarre dream.

  It was not a dream. Her aching knees told her she was awake. Her burning eyes reminded her time was spinning past. By the time Morwen’s face began to fade back among the whirling lights, the candle had burned to a nub. Nothing remained of the herbs but a mound of ash, and even their smoke had dispersed. The room felt empty, as if it had been crowded with people who all departed at once. Oona lay flat on her side. Veronica shivered with cold and fatigue, and with the memory of an ache deep in her body.

  Stiffly she rose, covered the crystal, and restored it to its hamper. When it was safely hidden away in the wardrobe, she walked downstairs, trepidation warring with hope in her heart.