“That was always your weakness, Gideon. You would never put yourself before someone else, so you could never see that others just might. You saw that I would, but you never had enough interest in people to look any further. It’s called love, Gideon, which you would know if you had ever truly felt it yourself.”
As we were speaking a strange stillness settled upon the boat. The oarsmen, continuing to struggle to steer a course through the melee, seemed unaware of it, but Gideon noticed. He glanced about him and I saw that he was afraid. Few things on this earth could have kindled fear in the man, but what frightened him at that moment was not of this earth. And he was right to be afraid. I became conscious of a pressure upon my eardrums, though there was no sound. I felt the air thicken, as if prior to thunder, and anything more than a few strides away became curiously blurred. It was as if a giant bubble had formed in the center of the boat, transparent but tangible, and Gideon and I were within it, while everything and everyone else was outside. The boat then lurched and jolted in unnatural jumps and bounces, tipping the remaining rowers out of it. I understood what was happening then, and so did Gideon.
When I spoke I found I had to raise my voice to make it audible in the midst of this phenomenon. “You promised him a great prize, Gideon!” I reminded him. “You struck a bargain, and he has come to claim his payment. What makes you think he would settle for me?”
The unpredictable movements of the boat brought us both to our knees.
Gideon shook his head. “I am his disciple—he would not ask that I give myself. I have served him for centuries.”
A sudden pitching of the deck caused me to roll against Gideon, who was also sent sprawling. He clambered to his knees again, looming over me as I lay on the red-and-gold-threaded rug. “You will go in her stead!” His face was close to mine now, and I could see the madness in his eyes, and feel his spittle on my cheek. “Hell was her destiny, now it will be yours.”
“You’re wrong about that.”
“Tegan!” I cried.
At the sound of her voice Gideon turned and stood, so that I was able to twist from under him and scramble beyond his reach. Tegan had swum back to the boat and was holding the side. Her hair was wet and sleek against her head, but she didn’t look cold.
“If anyone is going to hell, Gideon, it’s going to be you,” she said. And then she rose up out of the water. She did not pull herself up on the side of the boat, but simply rose, like a mermaid in a dream, her clothes clinging to her, water cascading as she lifted into the air and then settled on the deck only a stride from Gideon. She showed absolutely no fear, and why would she? For it was obvious to me, as it must have been to him, that her transformation was nearly complete. All that potential, all that gathered magic, raw and untested, had come together at this precise moment, beneath the unique influence of the eclipsed and reborn sun. Her eyes shone so brightly it quickly became hard to look at them. Her whole body appeared to glow, to pulsate with a magic the likes of which I had never seen before.
Even Gideon could not mask his astonishment. He did not try to take hold of her, but staggered backward. The boat had become dangerously unstable, and he struggled to keep his footing.
“Congratulations, Tegan,” he said. “You have at last become the magnificent witch you were meant to be. You will make a worthy sacrifice.”
As he spoke, the preternatural quality of the air around us increased. Slowly, the pressure within the bubble in which we found ourselves mounted. I could see the other boats and the people in them, see that they were shouting and moving about, pulling the oarsmen out of the water, trying to maneuver their own vessels, but they appeared far, far away. They seemed unaware of the dangerous phenomenon that was taking place aboard Gideon’s boat. My witch senses were telling me to protect myself, sensing a great evil, a terrible blackness that could only emanate from one being. I started chanting, summoning the help of my sister witches, calling on the Goddess to lend us her strength and protection.
And all the while, Tegan continued her transformation. Her skin shone and steam rose from her wet clothes as the temperature of her body began to rise. Gideon saw how quickly she was changing and called upon his master to take her, to claim the prize that he had brought for him.
“My promise is fulfilled!” he declared. “The deal is completed, the payment made!”
A heaviness, a thickening in the atmosphere, at the very center of the sphere that held the three of us, began to darken, to throb, to take shape.
Tegan was not going to wait to see what emerged from that noxious fog.
“You’ve claimed your last victim, Gideon,” she told him. “Lucrecia is dead because of you. She died doing your dirty work. I’m not going to let you hurt anyone else. You are all out of chances, Gideon. All out of time.” And in that instant her hands burst into flame! She fought to remain steady, and I could tell that the heat was painful for her. I had worried about her using her magic before she was ready; we both knew of the risks. What if it was still too soon? What if she was not yet able to withstand the ferocity of the magic of the Sacred Sun? She leaned forward, marshaling all her strength, pushing the flames taller, higher, moving them toward Gideon.
“You are still too young, too inexperienced!” he shouted at her. “You cannot control what you have summoned up, girl. It will consume you,” he insisted, standing his ground but forced to throw his arms in front of his face to fend off the encroaching heat. “Take her!” he yelled, looking wildly about him for signs of the evil he had called to earth. “Claim your prize!”
The fire had moved up Tegan’s arms now. It reached downward to her feet and burned with such intensity I could not believe she would survive it. She seemed to falter then, to lose her footing and stumble, sinking to her knees. I heard her cry out. And I heard Gideon laugh. He was laughing at her, mocking her attempts to kill him! I had to act. I could not cower like a coward and watch her die trying to put an end to the man who had tormented her—tormented us both—for so many, long, fear-filled years. I could not. I had to find a way to help her, to give her my own strength. Hauling myself to my feet, summoning all the protective magic available to me, I ran at her, ran through the flames, and grabbed hold of her, flinging my arms around her shoulders, pulling her to me in a fiery embrace.
“Elizabeth, no!” she gasped. “It is too dangerous. Get back!”
“I will not leave you!” I cried, the pain of the fire making my voice hoarse. “Come, we will do this together.” With great difficulty, I helped her back to her feet. When she was standing once more I stepped to the side, which gave me some respite from the terrible heat. I took her hand in mine and we turned to face Gideon. As Tegan redoubled her efforts to fling the full force of the black fire of the Sacred Sun at him, I added my own magic, my own instinctive pulse of energy. It was a clumsy addition to Tegan’s power, but it was just enough to tip the balance. That, and the strength that our standing together gave us both, for magic does not add, it multiplies; each kind working upon the other to magnify and enrich.
That was when Gideon started to scream. The flames had reached him and set his clothing alight. At the same moment, the unnatural bubble dissolved, letting in all the air, the sounds, the turmoil and commotion that was on the river around us. I saw the evil mass shrink and recoil before fading and finally spiraling upward. In its place I could plainly see the ethereal faces of my sisters come to help us! They whispered and chanted and swirled upward and downward, swooping past us with their gentle caresses of spells and blessings. They made no attempt to fight Gideon. They did not seek to attack him, only to protect us as best they could.
In truth, they did not need to do him any more harm. Tegan was doing all that needed to be done. She stood steady and tall now, and the fire that she sent to dispatch Gideon from this life, from this world, forever, found its mark in an inferno of hungry flames.
I thought he would rage and scream and curse, but for the first time in all the hundreds of years I had known
him, Gideon looked defeated. He had no more fight to give. He looked at me the way an ordinary man might have. An ordinary man who had once loved an ordinary woman. Except that he had only ever been extraordinary. He gazed at me through eyes that were fast losing their focus. “Bess,” he said softly, one hand reaching out toward me. “Bess!”
And then the blaze engulfed him, the flames consuming his body, and his soul departed, snapped up by his waiting master, forfeit for his failure to offer up Tegan. The life went from his body, all that intelligence, all that experience, all that magic, used up and spent, come to nothing, mourned by no one. My nemesis, finally slain, gone to an end he brought upon himself, may the Goddess have mercy on his soul.
28
It was largely thanks to the general commotion and holiday mood of people who had turned out to witness the eclipse that we were able to slip away from the scene of Gideon’s death. Those in close proximity were too concerned with putting out the blazing boat, and not having it set fire to their own, to notice Tegan and I plunge into the water and swim back to the rowboat. Erasmus hauled us aboard and rowed back to shore as quickly as he could. We collected Nipper and made our way back to Primrose Hill without earning more than a few puzzled glances, and pinched noses due to our wet and disheveled states and the filth that still coated some of our clothes. Erasmus carried Nipper, who was by then giving me real cause for concern, having become exhausted and being clearly in pain. Erasmus all but kicked open the door into his shop.
“Mrs. Timms! Mr. Timms! We have need of you! Quickly, if you please,” he shouted. They must have heard the note of seriousness in his voice, for they came at the run.
Mrs. Timms’s hands flew to her face at the sight of us.
“My gracious, what a state! What a sight! And oh, the boy! We had thought you run away and lost to us forever.”
Mr. Timms whipped a handkerchief from his pocket and clamped it to his nose.
“Good Lord, sir, that … that…”
“Stink?” Erasmus said what Mr. Timms could not for love of manners. “Baths, hot water,” he instructed. “The ladies require clean, dry clothing.”
I grabbed hold of Tegan, turning her to me, searching for which burns I would need to treat first. But I could not find a mark upon her. I took her hands in mine and turned them over. The flesh was smooth and cool, without a single blister or welt. I looked at her incredulously, my mouth agape. She smiled back at me, and for a moment we stood wordlessly, lost in the wonder of what she had done, of what she had become.
“Elizabeth?” Erasmus touched my arm as he spoke. “Are you hurt?”
I shook my head and patted his hand. “No. I am quite well. Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for everything.”
Mrs. Timms flapped him away. “Let the poor dears be, Mr. Balmoral,” she said. “Come, sit yourself down, Mrs. Hawksmith.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Timms, but I am unharmed. I shall rest after I have attended to Nipper,” I insisted. “Tegan, go with Mrs. Timms, she will look after you. Take Florencia with you, and do not let her from your sight. The girl is in shock.” Tegan nodded and coaxed the fragile-looking twin from the room. My heart was near to bursting with pride at what Tegan had done. Aloysius had once again taken up his place upon her shoulder.
Mr. Timms set about lighting extra fires and summoning their maid to fetch brandy from the kitchen, while his wife clucked around the girls, whisking them upstairs. I had Erasmus carry Nipper to his room and together we undressed and bathed him. I was relieved to find that his splint had held in place, and that the dressings on his hand were not, in fact, soiled. I spoon-fed him a little beef tea brought from Mrs. Timms’s own kitchen and then encouraged him to take some laudanum to relieve his pain. He quickly became drowsy. Erasmus and I sat as we had done before, on either side of his narrow bed. I saw the concern on Erasmus’s face.
“He will be quite well,” I assured him. “He needs rest now. To be safe and warm and well-fed. Young bones knit quickly. Time will do the rest.”
“Such a brave little soul,” he observed. “You are a lion of a boy, Nipper.”
“I should be feeding Stardust,” he muttered sleepily. “’e will be missing me.”
Erasmus patted his shoulder. “Do not concern yourself; the pony will be cared for in your absence.”
“Could he ’ave more carrots?” he asked.
“I’m certain that could be arranged. I shall send Mr. Timms.”
“No, not ’im.” Nipper was alarmed at the idea. ’E’s too big and loud, ’e’ll give him a scare. Could not your wife go?”
Erasmus was puzzled. “Nipper, I have no wife.”
“’Course you do, mister,” he replied, his words slurred by the medication. “She’s sitting right ’ere.” And with that, he drifted into sleep.
I looked across at Erasmus. His mouth was open and for a moment he did nothing but stare at me.
I smiled. “It is the laudanum speaking. The boy is confused and talking nonsense,” I told him.
Erasmus reached over and took my hand in his. “On the contrary,” he said earnestly. “I believe he is talking perfect sense.”
* * *
It took us all some time to wash the grime of the events of the day from ourselves. Mrs. Timms found a bottle of particularly pungent rosewater and insisted we, all of us, including Erasmus, douse ourselves in it even after bathing and washing our hair. Florencia was in a poor way, affected by grief for her sister, the violent events of the day, and from emerging from the enchantment which Gideon had placed upon her. It quickly became apparent that she had not been his accomplice through free choice, and that when not bewitched she was a somewhat fragile creature. Tegan cajoled her into taking hot milk heavily laced with rum, and the girl was soon sleeping deeply. Night had fallen by the time I had the opportunity to speak to Tegan alone. She was unable to settle in the house, and I believed her agitation was most likely a reaction to having been locked up. Erasmus showed her a door from the attic that led onto the roof. There was a small area where it was possible to sit out and look at the stars and out across the many rooftops of the city. I went to join her with a tray bearing two mugs. I sat beside her on the little bench seat which was set against the chimney stack, and handed her a steaming cup of broth.
“Here,” I said gently, “you need a little feeding up.”
She took it from me and sniffed the fumes. “Parsnip soup!”
“That’s right. I made a batch yesterday. Do you remember the first time I gave you some?”
“Yes. You had just moved into Willow Cottage, and I kept turning up like a bad penny and pestering you.”
“You were such a slight, flimsy girl. A stiff breeze could have knocked you off your feet.”
Tegan smiled, sipping the soup. “I remember you warned me to watch out for the leg of toad in it. You were joking, of course, but I hardly knew you then. I was never sure what to expect.”
“You were a child.” I paused, regarding her fondly. “And look at you now.”
She became pensive, staring out across the jagged urban vista before us. I found myself watching her, my heart constricting at the thought of how close I came to losing her forever. Of how near Gideon came to damning her soul. I shuddered. It would take a long time to rid myself of the image of him on that boat, the river rendered silver by the eerie light of the eclipse, Tegan’s life hanging by a thread. But he had underestimated her. We all had.
“You are a rare witch, Tegan,” I told her. “I am so very proud of you.”
“He said … Gideon said … that I didn’t know what I had become. Sounded ridiculous at the time, but d’you know, he was right? I didn’t know what was inside me, what I could do. What I can do. I’m still trying to get my head around it. I should have known after my time with Taklit, in the desert. I did, at the time, when I was with her, then, there, but when I got home…” She shook her head and then went on. “If I could have talked to you about it, if you and me had had a bit more time before Gideo
n came, so that I could have understood. So that I could have made sense of it.”
“It makes perfect sense. You studied with not one but many witches and shamans and other practitioners of magic. A person is not a store cupboard, where each vessel of knowledge can be lined up in rows as jars on a shelf. That wisdom, those talents and gifts, they acted one upon the other. They melded and blended. And the results are … magnificent.”
Tegan gave a small, self-conscious laugh. “Still came close to losing everything though, didn’t I?” She paused and then added, “It will be wonderful to see Willow Cottage again, to be at home, but, you know, I don’t think I can settle there just yet.”
“It is understandable that you should feel restless. You are young. For all that you have become, you are still at the beginning of your journey.”
“There are so many places I want to go, things I want to learn.”
“Tegan, you are a student no longer. Others can learn from you.”
She shrugged. “I need time, time to figure out what to do with … this” she said, indicating herself in a gesture that spoke of her continuing confusion and uncertainty about her own abilities. About the purpose of all the magic she had acquired. About her destiny. For a moment I saw the fear and pain of the last few weeks written on her face. However transformed she was, she could not but be affected by what Gideon had done to her, and what he had tried to do.
“He is gone, Tegan. Truly gone. Now, drink your soup before it gets cold.”
We sat in companionable silence then, and I was taken back to those days when she had been my pupil. The first thing she had to learn was to be still, be quiet, be receptive. What a very long way she had come since then.
She looked up at me, her face pale and lovely in the moonlight.
“I knew you’d come,” she said. “I knew you would find me.” She placed her hand over mine and I felt the unmistakable tingle of magic flowing from her. “And I knew one day we would finish him. At last I feel … safe.” She smiled and then snuggled up to me, resting her head on my shoulder, the two of us bathed in the beams of the summer moon, London laid out before us, free at last from Gideon’s shadow.
The Return of the Witch Page 33