‘Just because I look like him doesn’t mean she owes me anything,’ Jake argued. ‘It wasn’t her fault he died, and it won’t be her fault if I die.’
‘Four hundred years of progress and still men seem unable to understand the strength and the heart of women. Ah well, all will become clear before the end.’ The Preacher reached up for Jake’s hand. ‘Goodbye, Jacob Harker.’
Jake pulled off his leather riding glove and took the Preacher’s hand. At the touch of that weathered skin a fragment of memory flashed into his mind. He turned to the churchyard and there, amid the gravestones, he saw two figures looking up at the old church. A small boy and a middle-aged man, hand in hand. Jake gasped at the image: the boy looked exactly like his five-year-old self.
‘Why is the church all bent and broken, Papa?’ the boy asked.
The Preacher appeared to shiver. ‘Because of the storm.’
‘A storm? With wind and rain and lightning?’ young Josiah asked.
‘Something like that, yes. Five years ago the church was hit by … lightning, as you say. A terrible strike that smashed through the roof and trembled the walls askew. I was in the church myself at the time and … ’ His hands went to the hollow sockets where his eyes had been. ‘It was a blessing, my child—the storm that came to Starfall.’
Jake took a sharp breath and the ghosts in the graveyard vanished. He tried to speak, but the Preacher cut him short.
‘Do not ask, for I cannot tell you.’
Jake gripped the reins and pressed his knees against Pepper’s flanks. He’d had enough of mysteries.
‘Murderer!’
John Hobarron had not laid eyes on his wife in over nineteen years, but in his mind he saw a vivid picture of her. Eyes raw from months of crying, Elizabeth Hobarron hurtled down the lane to meet him. She flailed her hands against his face and body, striking the old man hard. When at last she tired, the Preacher went to his wife and put shaking arms around her.
‘Murderer, murderer, murderer,’ she repeated, her voice a hoarse whisper.
‘I’m sorry, my love,’ he said, ‘but I’ve always done what I thought was right.’
‘Right for who? For our son? For that boy? You sent Josiah to his death and now you are happy to send him again.’ She wailed as if her soul was being crucified. ‘Last night, while he slept, I sat beside him and stroked his hair. Deep brown, just like our child’s. What I would not have done to have spoken to him this dawn and to have received his kiss. But I could not. Not when I knew you were sending him to his ruin.’
‘I have no choice, woman! The very world hangs upon the boy.’ The Preacher rested his head against his wife’s shoulder. ‘It always has.’
‘Then why not tell him all?’
Her words made John Hobarron shudder.
‘Why not tell him that Josiah was not our son?’
The Preacher released his wife and turned his face to the church. In his world of endless night, he sensed a deeper darkness stir.
‘Josiah never knew and nor shall he.’ His speech had the grandeur of a sermon. ‘Not until the End is near and this world stands in the shadow of nightfall. Until then, let Jacob Harker find what peace he can … ’
Her laugh was malicious and cracked with age, but to him it was beautiful. Her scent, the stale aroma of unwashed clothes and poisonous herbs, was a sublime perfume. Her smile, seldom seen and always cruel …
‘Beautiful,’ he whispered in his sleep. ‘My beautiful Esther.’
The ghost of Esther Inglethorpe haunted Tobias Quilp, as it had every night since he had learned of her death. Her murder. The dream always ended in the same way, with Quilp’s fury finding its voice in the dead witch—
‘They killed me, Tobias. Struck me dead without a second thought.’ She stalked through the dream world. ‘You are my avenger, my dark angel. Hunt them down, strip the still-warm flesh from their bones and wallow in their hot blood. The father pulled the trigger but the son stands guilty, too. Jacob Harker … ’
Light flashed against Quilp’s closed eyelids. The vision of Esther Inglethorpe began to fade.
‘Be merciless, my love,’ she called. ‘Be cruel.’
Quilp came squinting out of the dream. He looked to the woman at the window and felt a little of his fury seep out.
‘I told you I was not to be disturbed.’
‘Forgive me, Master Quilp,’ Lethe Crowden bowed, ‘but my sister and I thought you might like to know—Frija is spinning again.’
Quilp had been lying on the four-poster bed fully dressed, Mr Pinch curled like a baby in his arms. Now he set the sleeping demon aside, strode out of the chamber and plunged down the stairs.
Taking the steps three at a time, Quilp’s thoughts returned to the day of his arrival in 1645. How long ago had it been? Two weeks? Three? Four? Wrapped up in thoughts of revenge he had failed to keep track of the time. His mission had been to convince the Crowden sisters that he was an emissary sent by their brother from the future. His arrival inside Marcus’s nightmare box, his intimate knowledge of their brother’s appearance, character, and history had convinced the sisters of his story. He had been welcomed as an honoured guest and shown directly to the witch ball.
It had been strange, striding through the corridors of the old-new house. Seconds before, he had been standing in the ruined shell of Havlock Grange; now here he was, in the dusty but unspoiled Great Hall. Drude had gone to a little cupboard under the stairs and retrieved a leather bag from its hiding place. Passing the bag to Quilp, the witch had said, ‘Frija saw the ball in one of her visions. It seemed important and so Lethe and I travelled to the cave and stole it. A waste of time, of course.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘See for yourself.’
Quilp felt inside the bag and his fingers brushed against the cold glass of the witch ball. Bringing it out into the light, he had stared into the orb’s dark heart.
‘But it’s—’
‘Dead,’ Lethe nodded.
‘Powerless,’ Drude added.
‘This is Josiah Hobarron’s witch ball,’ Tobias cried. ‘Its magic is legendary!’
‘Its power is spent,’ Drude said. ‘Frija’s vision must have been at fault, it sometimes is. We punished her severely, of course. Still, it is rather funny.’
Caught up in thoughts of what the Demon Father would do to him if he brought the dead ball back through time, Tobias snapped, ‘Funny?’
‘Why yes,’ Lethe tittered. ‘You and the boy using such powerful magic to come looking for this glorified bauble!’
‘Jacob Harker,’ Tobias murmured. ‘How did you know he was here in 1645?’
‘Frija. She sees many things. The boy is presently a prisoner in Cravenmouth, a town many days’ ride from here. Frija has foretold that he will suffer at the hands of a witch-finder, but will escape and come looking for the ball. In a few weeks hence, Jacob Harker will be at our door.’
That had settled matters. If he returned to the Demon Father with this powerless orb, Quilp was as good as dead. If, however, he could bring Jacob Harker with him … He would lay the boy at his Master’s feet and then, after the Demon Father had had his sport, Quilp would be allowed to kill him.
And so the weeks passed and Quilp waited for news of Jacob’s coming …
Now he burst into the Crowden sisters’ chamber.
‘What’s happened?’ he demanded.
His eyes flitted between Drude and Frija. Lethe slipped in from the corridor and joined Drude at the long oak table. She began to nibble at a bone taken from her sister’s cauldron. A rib, Quilp thought, though he was not an expert in the size and shape of children’s bones.
‘Don’t just sit there eating!’ he barked. ‘I said—what news?’
Drude got up from the table and took him by the arm. She led him to the veiled woman sitting at the spinning wheel.
‘The cloud has dispersed, but while it held we saw the boy leaving the village of Starfall. He will be here soon. Tell hi
m, Frija.’
The woman at the wheel turned her head aside. The chains that bound her to the floor clanked as she moved.
‘You will tell him or I will be forced to boil my cauldron … ’ Drude reached out and caressed her sister’s veil, ‘and hurt you all over again.’
Drude’s cauldron; Frija’s spinning wheel; Lethe’s harp; Marcus’s cabinet. Quilp had met other witches whose demons took on the form of objects, but usually familiars were more comfortable in the guise of monstrous creatures or, like Mr Pinch, malformed humans. Such things possessed the horror of the strange and the ghastly, but the Crowden demons were different. Their apparent ordinariness lent them a quiet terror.
Quilp’s gaze turned to the black cabinet that stood in the corner of the room, waiting. His journey into the past had taken less than ten seconds, but ten seconds in the nightmare box had seemed like a lifetime of horrors. Soon he would have to make the return trip. The thought made him shudder.
Drude’s voice returned him to the moment.
‘I will do it,’ she purred, ‘I will heat the magical oil until it is bubbling, and then I will—’
‘Please, sister,’ Frija sobbed.
‘Then tell him what you saw.’
‘Jacob Harker,’ she gasped from behind her veil. ‘In two days he will be at our door.’
‘And?’ Drude prompted.
‘Another will be at his side. A girl. He … he already cares for her.’
‘Joyous news,’ Quilp murmured.
A girl. A loved one. This was too perfect. Before he killed him, Quilp would strike at the heart of Jacob Harker. The thought fell like summer rain upon the parched soul of Tobias Quilp.
‘My master—your brother—he told me that Jake’s powers had dwindled since that night in the cavern. Even so, he may still be a formidable opponent.’
Drude frowned. ‘There are three of us and one of him.’
‘We must be sure,’ Quilp insisted. ‘We must weaken him before he reaches us.’
Drude hurried to the table. She tipped the contents of her cauldron into the empty fireplace. Bones and little hearts turned grey in the ash. Lethe watched her elder sister dash around the room, collecting odds and ends from various chests and cubbyholes.
‘Dear Drude, I haven’t seen you this excited for years! Not since Christmas Eve 1640 when those orphan triplets turned up on the doorstep. What a Christmas dinner that was!’
Drude set the cauldron on the table. She half-filled it with water from a jug and started throwing handfuls of herbs and other unidentifiable things into the mix. She passed her hands over the brew and muttered words, some of which Quilp recognized from spells worked by Esther Inglethorpe. Minutes later the dark green stew was bubbling and spitting. Drude filled a small glass bottle from the cauldron and tucked it into the pocket of her apron.
‘I will bring him to you, Master Quilp, weak and frail.’
Drude plunged her hand into the boiling cauldron. She pulled it out again red raw and steaming, and licked the juice from her fingers. Energy crackled through the air. A phantom wind rose up from nowhere and swirled around the witch. Her hair twisted in a grey cyclone and she seemed to flicker in and out of existence. Before vanishing completely, her voice shrieked around the room—
‘I will bring Jacob Harker to you on the wings of a nightmare!’
Chapter 28
The Pursuing Shadow
The first hour was the worst. Eleanor rolled her eyes and did nothing but complain about the time they were losing. As she watched Jake fall from the horse and climb doggedly back into the saddle for the fourth time, however, her tone softened. She trotted back, took his hands, and showed him again how to hold the reins properly.
‘Not very good at this, am I?’ Jake muttered.
Eleanor laced the reins through his fingers. ‘My father was the best horseman in the shire until, one day, a musket was accidentally fired next to his head. Like you, he lost his hearing in one ear. After that he could never keep his balance on a horse.’
‘Told you it wasn’t my fault,’ Jake grinned.
Eleanor laughed. ‘Come on, we’ve a lot of ground to cover before nightfall.’
Navigating by the sun and by church steeples, she led them on.
It was not until late morning that Jake became aware of their pursuer. It was a feeling more than anything else—a niggle at the back of his neck, a sense that eyes were trained upon him. He looked back often and, although he sometimes caught a glimpse of a shadow moving down the dirt track road behind them, it was never more than that. He didn’t mention it to Eleanor until they stopped for lunch.
They made temporary camp on the side of a hill. Marian and Pepper were busy with their nosebags while their riders ate a simple meal of bread and cheese. The ageing summer sun beat down across the hillside and into the treeless valley below. Listening to Jake’s story, Eleanor brushed the bread crumbs from her lap and began searching through her saddlebag. She took out a small telescope and scanned the valley.
‘I don’t see anything.’
‘Can I take a look?’
Jake found the view fuzzy but there was no way to focus the lens.
‘All I can see is a green blur. This is a pretty primitive telescope.’
‘It was my father’s perspective glass.’ Eleanor’s words came at Jake like stony missiles. ‘He took it with him whenever he fought for the king, and he died with it clasped in his hand. I can see through it clear as clear.’
Jake lowered the telescope from his eye. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’
‘Why should you know anything about me?’ Eleanor shrugged.
Jake had opened his mouth to answer, not even sure what he was going to say, when the horses started whinnying and pawing at the ground. Birds exploded from the fringe of trees on the opposing hillside and a family of frightened deer galloped out of the forest. Heart thumping, Jake trained the telescope on the trees.
A pale moon of a face stared back at him.
From this distance, the features were little more than black scratches: two lines for eyes, the hint of a nose and an ‘O’ marking out the mouth. Before Jake could see any more, the figure stepped back into the forest.
Eleanor at his shoulder: ‘What is it?’
‘A woman. She’s gone now.’
‘Who do you think she was?’
‘No idea, but I’m sure she’s been following us. We’d better keep our eyes peeled.’
‘What are you doing?!’
Eleanor’s cry snatched Jake from his daydreams. He glanced down at the blur of meadow grass thrashing against the horse’s legs. All he could hear was the rush of air and the hammer of Pepper’s hooves against the ground. With his knees locked against her flanks, Jake felt the striving muscles of the horse as she galloped on.
Another shout from behind. Jake glanced over his shoulder and saw Eleanor kick against Marian’s sides and put on a burst of speed. Jake knew that he should be desperately afraid. He had spent most of the day falling off the horse, and now she was bolting at full gallop across this overgrown meadow. Instead of tugging the rein, however, he leaned forward into a comfortable crouch and whispered into Pepper’s ear, ‘Yah! Faster, girl! Faster!’
Pepper snorted her agreement and jolted into a higher gear. Looking back, Jake grinned and waved at the girl pursuing him. He felt no fear, just a rush of confidence and exhilaration. While his mind had been swamped by a hundred cares and questions, old instincts had stirred and his body had responded. Without thinking, he had shaped himself along the natural lines of the horse, feeling its rhythms as he spurred it on to greater speeds. It was like magic, he guessed. The old Preacher had told him that, at its best, Oldcraft was responsive to instinct and emotion; just like the horse, neither had much use for rules and logic.
Jake had caught Eleanor by surprise, but she was by far the better rider. With her long hair flying behind her, she passed him like a comet trailing golden fire. Jake released his grip on Pepper’s
flanks. The thunder of hooves softened and the meadow grass came back into focus. He patted the horse’s damp neck and they trotted forward to meet Eleanor.
She tried to show her anger, but amazement won the day.
‘How on earth did you do that?’
‘Not sure,’ Jake panted. ‘Pretty cool though, eh?’
‘Cool? I can’t see what temperature has to do with it! This morning you couldn’t ride five paces without falling off , now this? Did you use magic?’
‘I don’t think so. One minute I was thinking about the witch ball, the next I’m galloping across a field. I think maybe I was subconsciously tapping into Josiah’s memories. His experience of riding. My dad told me it’s all to do with genetic memories and … ’
He stopped dead.
‘Jake? What is it?’
Jake swung himself down from the horse and handed the reins to Eleanor. Then he ran across the hard, sun-baked ground until he came to the place where the strange flower grew. At his approach, the crow that had been picking at the flower’s five pink petals took fright and flew away. A moment later, he felt the dry snort of horse breath on his neck and Eleanor’s hand on his arm.
‘My God,’ she whispered.
Together, they stared down at the human hand that sprouted out of the earth.
Eleanor stepped forward and took a sharp breath.
‘More,’ she murmured. ‘There are more of them.’
Just beyond the hand, the ground fell away sharply. At the bottom of a deep, narrow ditch pools of glinting red water lapped against the bodies of four dead men. Swarms of flies droned over the corpses while beetles crawled in and out of noses, ears, and mouths. A family of rats feasted on the men’s eyes and gnawed their cheeks down to the skull. Twisted together, they were dressed in filthy, bloodstained clothes with tatty yellow sashes tied around their waists.
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