Witch Hunt

by Ruth Warburton

  But in Scotland there was no such law. There, anyone older than fourteen could marry with a simple declaration. There was just one problem. They had to get to Scotland and live there for twenty-one days without being traced.

  ‘We’ll never do it.’ Rosa paced up and down the little bedroom. They were supposed to be packing – that was what they had told Mrs Cleave. But they had already packed the only possessions they had: Luke’s knife, rolled up in the blanket. ‘We’ll never make it for that long.’

  Rosa reached the door and turned to pace the other way, back towards the window. As Luke watched, her uninjured hand crept to her throat, feeling for the missing locket, and then dropped again.

  ‘We must,’ he said. ‘We must do it, that’s all. Twenty-one days – how hard can that be?’

  ‘God!’ Rosa burst out. ‘If only I had the Grimoire! We were so close to it in London – I should have taken it. I was such a fool.’

  ‘It was best you didn’t. Lugging a heavy book along with us – it would have just slowed us down. But listen, it can’t be the only one in the world, surely?’

  ‘No.’ She bit her lip. ‘There are others, of course. Most families have one, or something resembling one. Notes handed down from mother to daughter. Charms that never fail to take out a stain, or heal a fever. But I can’t go knocking on doors asking if there’s a witch in the house. Nothing would get us noticed quicker.’

  ‘What about the old lady?’ Luke said. Rosa looked at him, chewing her lip doubtfully. ‘It’s worth asking, isn’t it? Her grandmother was a witch, she said it herself. And who else would she pass her book on to?’

  ‘I could ask . . . But what should we tell her?’

  ‘Tell her the truth – or some of it. Tell her we’re not married, but eloping, and that you’re on the run from a forced marriage. Tell her your family are on our trail and we need her help.’

  ‘But what if she doesn’t agree? What if she thinks I should be a good daughter, obey my family?’

  ‘Then we’re no worse off than we are now,’ Luke said grimly. Rosa thought about it for a moment and then nodded.

  ‘All right.’ She stood and brushed off her skirt. ‘Wish me luck.’

  ‘I see,’ Mrs Cleave said, as Rosa finished her tale. She was knitting and there was a long pause as she finished her row. Rosa waited, her heart in her throat, twisting her fingers together so that the injured stump throbbed painfully. She almost welcomed the pain. It was a distraction from the fear that had haunted her since Luke had suggested the plan: the fear that the old lady would voice all the doubts in her own heart, tell her she was an ungrateful daughter, that she was flouting the fourth commandment, that she should keep to her own kind and return home and beg for forgiveness from her family and Sebastian.

  ‘I have two conditions.’ Her voice was old and cracked, but firm.

  ‘Anything,’ Rosa said.

  ‘Don’t be rash now, duckie. You don’t want to go making promises you regret after. You’ve done enough of that already, if I’m not mistaken. No, my conditions are these: I’ll let you have the Grimoire – to borrow, mind, not to take – if you do two things for me. The first is this: I have a deal of firewood out the back and it’s a sore trial to me to split the logs. My eyes aren’t what they used to be and neither is my back. Your young man, your Luke, he’s to split the pile.’

  Rosa almost laughed with relief, but she only smiled and said, almost giddily, ‘Of course! He’d split a whole forest for you, if you asked. And the second?’

  ‘The second is that you do my weekly wash for me. And put your dress and smallclothes in it. I’ll give you another night’s lodging and a hot meal into the bargain, but I’ll not have any girl leave my cottage in the state you’re in.’

  ‘V-very well,’ Rosa faltered. She looked down at herself. Was her dress really that bad? She peered at the soot stains and the blood, at the earth and grass stains and mud and all the rest. She had charmed herself into respectability for the doctor but it had worn off long since. Perhaps it was that bad. ‘But what will I wear while I wash them?’

  ‘As to that, you can have one of my old dresses.’

  Rosa looked up from the copper, swiping sweat-soaked hair from her eyes. The promise of the Grimoire for just one week’s washing had seemed like a good exchange at the time – now she was beginning to think she had been cheated. The fire beneath the copper smoked and smuts fell into the tub, and she was afraid the skirts of the borrowed dress would catch fire. And this was only the whites – she would have to do it all again for the darks and the silks. Had the maids at Osborne House really done this every week?

  Out of the window she could hear the energetic thwack, thwack of Luke splitting firewood with the little axe the old lady had pressed into his hand and she felt, not for the first time, that the lot of women in this world was deeply unfair.

  ‘I wish I was chopping,’ she muttered under her breath. Mrs Cleave looked up from her knitting, the clickety-clack of her needles momentarily stilled.

  ‘What did you say, dearie?’

  ‘Nothing, Mrs Cleave.’

  Think of the Grimoire. She gave the greasy white slurry a final twist with the dolly and then hauled the slippery wet mass out of the copper and into the rinse tub as Mrs Cleave had instructed, her back almost breaking with the strain.

  ‘There’s more rain water in the water butt if you need it, dearie,’ Mrs Cleave said. She bit off her wool. ‘And you can let the fire die down now. It doesn’t need to be as hot for the darks.’

  Rosa said nothing, but swilled the whites around in the rinse tub and then heaved them out to drain into the stone sink by the window. She would mangle them later in the yard. Or maybe make Luke do it. The temptation to use magic was almost irresistible, but she had a horrible feeling that whatever spell she found to keep Sebastian at bay, it would take all her magic and more.

  ‘Pass me the pot, would you?’ Luke collapsed on the settle just as Rosa passed through the tiny sitting room for the last time, the final armful of wet washing for mangling in her arms.

  ‘What?’ She stopped in the middle of the room, heedless of the soapy rinse water dripping down her apron and on to the rug.

  ‘I said pass me the teapot. My back’s killing me. On your way back, I meant.’

  ‘Your back’s killing you!’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I said.’ He looked up at her, his face puzzled. ‘I just chopped and stacked a couple of trees’ worth of wood, or didn’t you notice?’

  ‘Well, I just washed several thousand tons of wet linen, you lazy slob!’ She felt a strong urge to fling the armful of wet dresses at his head.

  ‘I only—’

  ‘Get it yourself!’ She gave the door a furious kick and stalked out into the yard. It was full dark now, but thank God the night was clear. The thought of pegging all that stinking, dripping washing inside the tiny cottage made her feel sick. She ran it through the mangle, listening to the buttons pop and squeak against the rubber rollers, and imagined she was mangling Luke’s head. The bastard. ‘Pass me the teapot,’ she hissed under her breath, twisting the mangle handle so forcefully that her injured finger gave a throb of protest at the effort. ‘I may look like a bloody servant but—’

  She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Luke standing behind her. He said nothing, just pushed her gently aside and began finishing the mangling himself. She wanted to push him out of the way and snarl that if he thought he was coming in here now, right at the end, to claim credit for her work . . .

  But she was too tired. Her arms felt like wet wool. Instead she sank on to the chopping block he’d been using, her soaked skirts around her legs, and felt her aching arms throb with thankfulness.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, as he began to pin up the last couple of dresses with a surprising deftness. ‘I know what it’s like. I just forgot.’

  ‘You do?’ She couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.

  ‘Course. William sent out to a wa
sherwoman most weeks, but I helped Minna often enough. She didn’t even have a yard to mangle in, or hang the washing.’

  ‘How did she dry it?’

  ‘Around the house – if you can call it drying. Mostly in the winter it just hung there getting warmer and damper. You’d walk in and get a lungful of this sour smell of drying nappies – but they always had a clean tucker somehow. I don’t know how she managed . . . There.’ He put the last peg in place and then rubbed his face. ‘Come on, let’s get in and get tea for both of us.’

  Mrs Cleave was at the table when they made their way back inside the tiny cottage, putting the lid on a fresh steaming pot of tea. She was smiling.

  ‘Thank you, my duckies. You’ve earned this and no mistake.’

  For a moment Rosa thought she was talking about the tea, and she reached out for the cup Mrs Cleave had poured. But her sleeve snagged on something on the near side of the table, and she looked down. There it was. Mrs Cleave’s Grimoire.

  It was nothing like her mama’s one, with its fake binding and heavy brass lock to deter prying eyes. This was just a collection of papers sewn together by hand with painstaking care. The covers were plain board, no printer’s mark or binding. But, leafing through the fragile pages, Rosa could tell it was the real thing. There were scraps from other books, older ones, in heavy gothic lettering, and pencilled notes copied out from other sources. Some were obviously folk remedies: Let They who trauell Far cary a Sticke of Rowan to their side, to kepe their Path True. And To Cure a Babe of the Running Pox:– let him drinke only from his Mother’s pap or, if she canne nat, the Well at Wycks Farm.

  Others were true spells. Spells to bind. Spells to heal. Spells to blight a crop, with the warning scrawled at the bottom: Do nat emploie lightly. As Mistresse Alyce knoweth welle, this will rebound threefold upon the spell-caster.

  Rosa carried on turning the pages, her tea cooling by her elbow, her tiredness forgotten. Then she stopped at one.

  A Spelle to Cache, Conceale or Throwe a Pursuer. Take an arm full of green wood – Birch if it can be had.

  Lyght it to a Fier & lette the Room or Shelter or Clearing be filled w/ Smoke. Stand within & hold the Objet to be Hid.

  Lete the witch cut her skinne & Pour her Blod upon the Fier & on the Objet, & while ðe Flammes feast uponn the blod, Speake thrice these Words:

  Hyde sé ðe Wylle, Hyde sé ðe Canne, Hydende be fram both God ond Man.

  If the Pursuer be Known than let the Witch hold his face in her Mind’s Eye an she Speake.

  Thus it shalle be like as if the Objet hath been Consuméd by Fire, & wreath’d in Smoke.

  She closed the book and looked up at Luke, nursing his cup silently on the other side of the table. His eyes met hers, his question unspoken, and she nodded.

  ‘I’ve found something. We’ll need to gather firewood. And bring your knife.’

  They were deep in the woods. It was dark, but Rosa picked her way through the trees unerringly, collecting sticks as she went: a branch here, a handful of bark there. Luke trudged in her wake, marvelling at her ability to keep going in spite of the darkness and the cold, in spite of her tiredness of a few hours before. He did not know what time it was, but it was late, and they’d had no supper. Time enough for that when we’re safe, she’d said when Mrs Cleave had suggested a meat pie, and he’d had to bite his tongue to stop himself from pointing out that Sebastian had waited four days and nights, and would likely wait for them both to eat a pie.

  But now her anxiety to get this done and finished had infected him, and he willed her to stop walking, get the damn spell over and done with.

  He shivered. How had it come to this?

  ‘Here,’ she said at last. They were standing above a hollow where the soft leaf-strewn ground gave way to a short rocky drop a few feet deep. He followed Rosa down the boulders into the hollow itself and felt the trees above rise above him, their tall, pale trunks made taller still by the lowered ground. There was no denying it was the perfect place – quiet, sheltered, no wind to whip the smoke of the fire away. Instead it would pool in the hollow, wreathing them. But it gave him a feeling of foreboding.

  ‘I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood . . .’ he said in a low voice. Rosa dropped her armful of sticks and looked up.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing.’ It was a poem they’d had to learn at school. He’d recited it and been given a penny as a prize, but even then it had made him shiver.

  ‘Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath,’ Rosa said softly. ‘The red-ribb’d ledges drip with a silent horror of blood, and Echo there, whatever is ask’d her, answers “Death”.’

  ‘You know it?’

  ‘Yes. My father used to read us Tennyson. But I always hated that verse.’ She gave a shiver and said, ‘Don’t spook me. I need to concentrate. Come – help me build the fire.’

  Luke added his own armful to her pile.

  ‘Keep back the green wood,’ she said as they began to build. ‘We’ll light the dry wood first, then add the green.’

  Luke nodded.

  At last they had a stack built in the centre of the hollow and Rosa bit her lip.

  ‘Do you have your knife?’

  Luke felt in his pocket and drew it out. The rag around the blade was still stained with Rosa’s blood, and he saw her look at it – at the sharp, wicked edge – and felt her revulsion. How many witches had it taken in its long life?

  ‘What about matches?’ he asked. Rosa shook her head.

  ‘We don’t need them.’

  She knelt in front of the wood, her head bowed, her hair twisted up so that it showed the white glimmer of skin above her shawl, and he saw her magic build and swell and flare out, bright as a fire, bright enough to burn and blind.

  There was a spitting hiss from the twigs in the centre of the clearing and the sticks burst into flame, like no fire he had ever seen kindled before. One moment there was nothing but twigs and logs, and the next there was a roaring mass of heat, mingling with Rosa’s magic into a shimmering column that reached into the sky, like a beacon.

  He took a step back, but Rosa didn’t flinch, only stood looking into the flames, her eyes reflecting their glow.

  ‘What shall we use . . .’ He found his voice was hoarse, and coughed, trying to clear his throat. ‘For the object, I mean.’

  ‘We are the object.’ She looked at him. ‘You and I. Now, come here. Give me the knife.’

  Suddenly he didn’t want her to do it. He thought of all the blood that had been spilt – their own, others’ – by Sebastian’s beatings, by the Malleus executions. The thought of adding another drop to the pool seemed unutterably wrong in every way. The hairs on his arms were prickling with some strong emotion – not quite fear, but close to it. He swallowed.

  ‘Rose . . .’

  ‘Come here.’ She took his hand and pulled him close to the blaze and took the knife from his hand. The blade burnt bright in the firelight, so bright his eyes hurt to look at it. ‘Ready?’

  He wasn’t. He never would be. But he nodded, and she picked up the mass of green wood and threw it on to the flames.

  There was a sudden spitting and a choking mass of steam and smoke began to wreath around them, pooling in the hollow. Luke coughed, his eyes watering. Beside him, Rosa’s hand felt for his, and he saw her standing in the wreathing white smoke, her magic mingling with the firelight and illuminating the cloud from within so that the whole clearing seemed to glow, setting them both aflame.

  ‘Rosa,’ he choked, ‘I can’t—’

  ‘Give me the knife,’ she said, her voice hoarse with the fumes.

  ‘Wait—’

  But she took it from his hand, her fingers groping for the hilt, and he saw her lift her arm in the white coiling miasma, the pointed blade silhouetted sharp against the flickering blaze.

  ‘Rosa,’ he said again, but his voice was lost in coughing, and she had her eyes shut. The point of the blade was against
her arm. ‘Rosa, stop!’

  Lete the witch cut her skinne . . . The words rang in his head as if it were Rosa speaking them.

  She gave a cry as it bit, and then suddenly blood was running down her arm, dark against the white skin.

  ‘Luke!’ she cried, above the roar of the flames, and he felt her grab his hand and press them both together against the wound, the blood hot and slick against his skin, so that his hand slipped stickily in hers. Pour her Blod upon the Fier & on the Objet . . .

  Still holding his hand against her arm, she dragged their joined hands above the fire.

  ‘We’ll burn!’ Luke shouted as the flames hissed beneath them. The heat was unbearable, scaldingly fierce. He tried to pull away but her fingers tightened on his, the blood running through her fingers and over his knuckles, drip by drip . . .

  As it met the fire there was a crackle and the flames shot scarlet and green into the sky.

  ‘Hyde sé ðe Wylle!’ she cried, and he hardly recognized her voice. It was not the Rosa who had slept beside him, walked beside him, wept in his arms. It was someone else, someone full of an elemental power so fierce he was almost afraid of her. Her voice was harsh and hoarse with smoke, and the words rolled from her as if she had not learnt them, but had always known them, as if it was her mother tongue. ‘Hyde sé ðe Canne, Hydende be fram both God ond Man!’

  Her grip tightened on his hand, her nails digging into his fingers with painful intensity.

  ‘Hyde sé ðe Wylle!’ she called again, her voice growing louder. ‘Hyde sé ðe Canne, Hydende be fram both God ond Man!’

  Sebastian’s face rose up in front of his eyes. The snake’s-head cane. The Black Witch. Everything he had fought for and given up for Rosa. Leave us alone!

  ‘Hyde sé ðe Wylle!’ she cried again for a third time, her voice almost to a scream now, and he found his lips moving along with hers, his voice sobbing, the heat of the fire on his skin and in his veins. ‘Hyde sé ðe Canne! Hydende be fram both God ond Man!’

  Her magic was like a beacon now, flaming out so bright he could not believe that everyone from a thousand miles around would not come running. As it flared to its height there was a sudden crack from the fire like a gunshot, and a piece of wood exploded outwards, hitting him in the chest. He dropped his grip and stumbled backwards, beating the sparks from his coat.