Witchcraft

by Katie M John

  8

  “Come on, slowcoach,” Swan called out behind her.

  Fox was picking her way through the winter debris of the woodland, cursing that she’d worn her impractical converse pumps rather than having, like Swan, opted for a sturdy pair of wellies. At this time of year, the forest was pretty bare, and what fruits it did still bear long after the damp autumn, were tired and insect nibbled.

  “I don’t see the point of this; it’s the wrong time of year for nettles. What was mum thinking?”

  “She said she saw some the other day; the winter has been mild.”

  “Still, it’s hardly likely.”

  Swan shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. Maybe she cast a growth spell.”

  “Hmm,” Fox grunted. The nettle gathering exercise wasn’t the only pointless thing they were about to undertake. Swan had attempted to convince Fox they would find success scrying at the pool. Scrying was an old parlour trick and far too much like proper magic for Fox’s comfort.

  Swan continued to march on slightly ahead with purpose. She had always loved a project and Fox guessed she had now become just that – a project. Both of them purposely stayed off the subject of boys, filling their walk with sporadic observations about the woods. Despite the growing darkness, neither Swan nor Fox felt any fear at being in The Abundance Wood. They had known it since birth as a safe and bountiful place. In the summer, they pretty much lived off salads gathered from the tree line, nettle soup, acorn bread, and elderflower press. The woods were scattered with ancient English trees, hazels, cobnuts, walnuts, and chestnuts. In the summer it was a magical place filled with the green filtered sun but tonight, in the strange winter light, it reminded Fox of a silent army of skeletons.

  They approached the pool where Wren had told Swan the nettles were, and snuggled right against the rock in their own little shelter, there they were. Fox sighed and rolled her eyes in defeat. “Well, what would you know.”

  Swan took a handkerchief from her basket and used it to pluck the spikey, nipping leaves.

  “Look!” Swan commanded, pointing to a little group of mushrooms nestled deep under the rock in a warm bed of moss.

  “It’s far too late for them,” Fox said, trying to muster some kind of interest.

  “I’ll take them back for mum – they’ll be powerful if they’ve survived the season change.

  “What would mum want with Cortinarius Ruebellus?”

  “She can dry them and put them by.”

  “What for? Poisoning somebody?” Fox giggled.

  “Well, you never know; it’s good to have some things in stock – they might come in handy.”

  “Well if Cortinarius Ruebellus suddenly becomes handy, I guess we’ll have bigger problems.”

  Swan cast her sister a glance before returning to harvesting the precious and deadly mushrooms. “Mum asked me to keep an eye out.”

  Fox’s interest prickled. Now that was curious. Why would her mum ask that? What were the chances of them actually finding any?

  When Swan had plucked the last one and laid it into its cotton cradle, Fox asked, “Seriously, what does mum want them for? Do you know?”

  Swan fixed Fox with a stare. “Some things are best left unasked.”

  Not convinced leaving the subject was best at all, she muttered, “Bordering a bit towards the dark, don’t you think?”

  “Not everything can be defined as dark or light, Fox. You really need to try and work that out before that kind of thinking brings you to harm. In nature, there isn’t just day or night, there are times between; highly magical times, when the world is softly lit with either a birthing or dying light. Dawn and twilight are times of promise, and sometimes a promise is more powerful than a certainty.”

  Fox twisted her lips. “Have you been reading those dippy-hippy books in the shop again?”

  Swan laughed. “Don’t mock what you don’t understand. Sometimes you are such an arrogant ass.”

  Fox raised her eyebrows, “Sssh! What would The Mother think of you swearing in one of her sacred spaces?”

  “She’d think you were being an ass!”

  Swan flipped the cotton cloth over the mushrooms, stabilised the basket, and knelt down beside the pool.

  “We haven’t got much time; the night is coming and the water will start to be affected by the shadows. Here, kneel beside me.”

  Fox reluctantly did as her sister bid, feeling the hard, uncomfortable rock pressing against her knees. She looked down into the depths of the pool. It looked endless.

  “Breathe deeply and free your mind,” Swan commanded before muttering under her breath, “Which in your case, shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “If you’re going to keep poking me, how am I meant to concentrate?”

  Swan wrinkled her nose and inhaled deeply, her usual patience and serenity felt sorely pushed with the day’s events. She reached over and gently grasped Fox’s hair in her hand, pulling it back off her face for her. “Don’t look into the pool – look across the surface of it and watch the light. Be patient. It takes time for the image to come. You need to coax it from the surface.”

  Fox fleetingly wondered how often Swan undertook the practice. There was nothing, just a few dead leaves floating on the surface and other woodland debris. Then Fox caught sight of a pale patch of light, sitting on the surface. It was shapeless and formless but there was no denying it was spreading. She focused all of her concentration onto it and grounded her breathing deep at the bottom of her diaphragm. Her head started to swim and she began to feel the increasingly familiar feeling of a vision coming on. Part of her wanted to shy away, but somehow, the presence of the water’s surface made her feel safer, more removed.

  She returned back to the farm and the barn. She heard the sounds of the chant and the screams. She looked up towards the moon, in all her pale majesty. She was full-ripe. It was the night of tomorrow. There was still time. She walked up to the barn and entered brazenly – there was nothing to fear, they could not see her because she wasn’t really there. Or so she thought, until Lilith suddenly broke from chanting over Martha’s bound and supine body and looked to the space where Fox was standing. Lilith’s eyes looked right through her as though aware of a presence but unable to identify it. Her sisters, sensing their sister turn alert, all stopped and turned in the same direction. Nigella’s face registered with surprise at the sight of a familiar although unwelcome face. Fox pulled away out of the vision quickly, escaping the Ravenheart sisters and their bloody ritual. She fell backwards off the rock and landed painfully on a branch.

  “Shit! They saw me!”

  Swan had leapt to her sister but failed to catch her in time before part of the branch skewered her skin. Despite the physical pain, Fox was too preoccupied to worry about it.

  “Nigella saw me watching them!”

  Swan shook her head. “That’s impossible! You’re just being paranoid.”

  “She bloody saw me! Nigella looked right at me and she recognised me.”

  Swan made soothing noises. “Ssh, ssh. You’re hurt, sit still.” Swan examined the wound and snapped the small penetrating branch away from the larger stump.

  “Are you going to leave it in there?” Fox asked incredulously.

  “You really shouldn’t…” Swan trailed off as Fox grabbed ahold of the stick and gave it a good yank accompanied by a loud echoing expletive. Blood seeped quickly across her shirt.

  “That was really stupid!” Swan shouted.

  “It’s alright, it wasn’t that deep.”

  “Deep enough to get infected. Deep enough to bleed – a lot!”

  Fox fought back the tears in her eyes. It hurt like hell. “We’ve got to get to Heathmoor Cottage – that’s where Martha is. I can’t believe I didn’t recognise it earlier.”

  “Why should you? You’ve never been, have you?” Swan’s question was loaded with accusation. The Meadowsweet girls had been raised with knowledge of the Heathmoor Witches and the terrible events that took
place at the farm and in the village. Unlike many who now believed them to have been persecuted innocents, Wren was in no doubt about their dark magical practices, and although a peaceful person by nature, she felt no sadness for their execution. The girls had been told in no uncertain terms that should they ever set foot near Heathmoor Cottage they would feel Wren’s parental force at full blast. She had told them it was a place stained with misery and fear; a place where true evil resided. Her warning extended to most of the north eastern quarter of the village; the quarter dominated by Ravenheart Hall and The Rookeries.

  Fox didn’t have time for a sibling spat. She stood, wincing, and pressed her hand tight against her checked shirt and into the wound to try and stem the bleeding.

  “Here, let me help you.” Swan rummaged in the basket and pulled out a clean cloth, which she folded into a compress. “We need to get you home and let mum take a look at it.”

  “No, we need to go to Heathmoor Cottage,” Fox said, already heading off through the woods.

  “Of course we do,” Swan muttered. “Totally sensible idea for just the two of us to take on another coven with no preparation.” She sighed and followed after her sister. She knew when Fox was in this frame of mind, the only thing be done was to follow her and hope she would be able to catch her when she fell.

  Twilight had already slipped into the inky darkness of evening. Within the hour, it would be too dark to see anything. Swan took out her wand and channelled her energy through the shaft of oak and out the end as light. Fox turned to her and grinned with genuine admiration. “Soooo, you’re carrying a wand now?”

  Swan nodded.

  “Someone has been watching far too much Harry Potter!” Fox teased, despite wincing after almost every word.

  “Give it up!” Swan said, pretending to be offended but unable to hide the proud smile on her lips.

  “Cool!” Fox nodded her head. “I didn’t realise your magical skills had become so developed.”

  “Violet has been tutoring me,” Swan replied. “But you mustn’t let onto mum. You know she doesn’t really approve.”

  “Oh!”

  Swan had always had a secretive side but Fox had assumed her secrecy only extended to the way she handled her emotions; to discover she had been going out behind their mum’s back felt more hurtful than Fox would have thought. It was a feeling mixed with a little jealousy. A surge of anger rose in her. She had been cursed with her gift but had no weapons to use alongside it. She hadn’t even had her wand ceremony yet, despite turning sixteen almost a year ago. Swan was still meant to be waiting for hers, but evidently she’d gone ahead without their mother’s blessing; a surprising act of subversion for Swan.

  Fox was so wrapped up in her grumpy jealously that she arrived at the roadside with some surprise. The wound on her back felt like it was literally killing her, and her shoulder had started to ache with the awkward angle and pressure of holding the makeshift compress. Every instinct told her this was a fool’s mission; that she should wait until tomorrow. But what if they take out her eyes tonight, in preparation? the internal asked.

  Fox continued across the road with no real plan except for a vague notion that somehow she would manage to stop the horrendous events she had foretold. As if reading her mind, Swan said,

  “We have time, Fox. We should go home and gather the others. We need strength in numbers.” She paused and said with a heavy weight of authority, “We need Violet.”

  Since when had Violet become so damned important? the internal snarked. It was the second time Swan had mentioned her in as many minutes, and both times her name had been said in a way that almost sounded like a talisman.

  “Why?”

  Swan shook her head, not fully understanding the question.

  “Why specifically do we need Violet?” Fox asked.

  Swan’s face flickered as she quickly pulled together an answer that might satisfy. “No other reason than she’s the eldest.”

  “What other reason might there be?”

  “Pardon?” Swan asked, playing innocent.

  Fox continued to needle the point, “Saying ‘no other reason’ suggests there is exactly another reason, which you are keen to conceal.”

  Swan crumpled her forehead. She was far from stupid but her sister had always been impossible to outwit. Fox had a way of taking words and tying thoughts into knots so you were left feeling completely defeated. The best way to try and hold out against her was to go silent, which is exactly what Swan did.

  Fox waited for the car to pass before she crossed the road into Ravenheart territory. The woods here were very different, having being planted just a couple of hundred years ago with Norwegian spruce and Nordic pines. The ground was mostly bare, made acidic and poisonous by the dropped needles. Fox thought it was a fitting woodland for the Ravenhearts. Tall, proud, and poisonous. The woods were a natural labyrinth of crisscrossing pathways. A low mist hung around the ankles of the trees.

  With no soft ferns, mosses, or nettles to cushion the woodland noises, the sound of the crows echoed around the hollow chamber of the woods. Fox shivered. It was amazing how uneasy she felt amongst these woods compared to The Abundance Wood. She couldn’t imagine what those poor lunatics must have thought when they looked through their bars; no hope in and no hope out. The ground was spongy underneath her feet, making their journey silent. The light from Swan’s wand was just enough to make the whole place look more eerie.

  “Do you actually know where you are going?” Swan asked Fox with irritation. Their twenty-minute stride through the forest should have taken them to the foot of Heathmoor Hill, on top of which, sat the nasty little cottage and its barn of horrors. They had been travelling for twice that time and still the trees showed no sign of thinning or the ground no sign of incline.

  “I reckon we’re going around in circles,” Swan complained.

  Fox stopped and turned full circle, scanning the woods. “Something isn’t right. We’re travelling straight but we’re not going forward.”

  Swan’s face screwed up in confusion, “I don’t get what you mean.”

  “I mean, I think you might be right – sort of. Wait here a minute. I’m going to stand in front of you and put one foot in front of the other in a straight line. Watch what happens.”

  Fox looked carefully at her feet, placing one tightly in front of the other, sure to travel a straight line. After about thirty footsteps, she stopped and turned to seek out Swan. As she had predicted, her sister was not stood directly in front of her but at a twenty-degree angle.

  “Magic!” Swan’s whispered word floated over to Fox, who walked back towards her sister. Swan continued, “It looks like a shield spell. We could walk all night and not arrive at Heathmoor Cottage.”

  “How far are we away from the road?”

  “It can’t be far. The chimneys of The Rookeries are just over there,” Fox said pointing her hand in their direction. “If we head towards it, there is a path straight out towards the road. It should only be ten minutes or so from there.” Fox winced and pulled her hand from her back. It was stained with blood and tiny rivulets of blood flowed down over her wrist.

  “It’s not stopping.” Her statement was directed more at herself than Swan.

  Swan swept the light up over the wound and saw her sister’s shirt was soaked with a dark and spreading blood stain. It was serious and Fox needed to get home before she lost any more blood. The stick really hadn’t looked as if it had gone in deep enough to do any real damage and yet…

  Fox had already set off in the direction of The Rookeries and Swan fell back into her sullen mood. She really couldn’t think of a more ridiculous idea than traipsing through Raven Woods, heading towards a derelict asylum but she didn’t put up an argument as it was probably the quickest way home and that was what really mattered.

  The Rookeries Asylum for the Insane and Morally Degenerate (another name for any woman out of wedlock and found to be with child) loomed large in front of them. The sc
rappy metal fence surrounding the crumbling building served less as a barrier and more as somewhere merely to hang the requisite yellow health and safety signs. Where some of the local village kids had taken a fancy to creeping themselves out, sections of fencing lay scattered on the floor.

  “Have you ever been inside?” Swan asked Fox, knowing it was exactly the kind of temptation her wild and insubordinate sister would relish.

  Fox shook her head. “No, even I’m not that stupid!”

  They laughed and the sound of it echoed around the woods eerily. A large clattering of metal caused both of them to jump and reach out for each other’s hand.

  “What the hell was that?” Fox whispered.

  “I don’t know but I’m not going to wait to find out.” The flash of sisterly solidarity soon faded as Swan snapped, “I knew this was a stupid idea. We need to get you home NOW!”