The males were the worst. For centuries they had owned their womenfolk as though they were mere belongings, not beings like them with an independent mind and voice and a right to determine their own lives. Sorrel’s ancestors had sought another way to live, but they had been persecuted for it. Men rode across the land, taking bits of idle gossip and jealous sniping and using it to put any woman they feared on trial, relishing their screams as they burned at the stake, the flesh melting from their bones. In the years after, many of these women had gathered, forming sisterhoods and covens, living separate from the rest of society and practicing their craft in hidden safety. They swore never to forget those who had been slaughtered so mercilessly. Men, they decided, were to be shunned. They needed them for daughters, but nothing more. Just one of their kind would weaken the bonds of loyalty and trust between the witches. It had been proved time and time again. Even Sorrel, in her short life, had heard one such renegade witch weeping over her broken heart, regretting her betrayal and grieving for the loss of her clan. To watch her helpless, heaving sorrow had been horrifying, and Sorrel had hidden behind her mother’s skirts until Raven had pulled her away and left her. For Raven had to work through the night to mop up the damage, cleaning the chaffs’ minds of what they’d heard, wiping away all evidence of this witch’s existence.
Sorrel tried to imagine Ember in such a state. The more she strived to picture it, the more unlikely it seemed. But Raven had charged Sorrel with a task and she must complete it. Besides, Sorrel liked having a mission. It made her feel important. She liked having a chance to prove her worth. It quieted the nagging voice in her head that told her she wasn’t good enough, not to be queen anyway.
What Raven didn’t tell Sorrel was that the owl from the western oak had circled three times around the camp and then settled on the roof of Charlock’s caravan. A cloud shaped like a wolf had passed the moon, and the soot from the fire had formed seven peaks before a northeast wind had swept them away. All these omens would have incited too many questions from her daughter, and she didn’t want Sorrel knowing too much. Raven longed to investigate herself, but her sister was so attentive to Ember, so sensitive to her frailties, that Raven’s presence or any spell she cast might easily arouse Charlock’s suspicions. Sorrel, however, was often in Ember’s vicinity and Charlock was used to her meddling. Raven must, for now, be prudent and let Sorrel do the work.
That night Raven dreamt that the great yew tree yanked itself from the ground and walked with earthy, fibrous limbs to warn that her life would be uprooted too. In Raven’s nightmare, she saw all her buried secrets come trailing out like worms and centipedes, exposed in all their ugliness by the light of the sun, defenseless against the pecking beaks of hungry birds.
The next morning she found the great yew toppled, its ancient branches crushed. Its needles were scattered far around, and its trunk that had survived a thousand years was now lying prone like a giant corpse, its roots like entrails spilling out and dangling helplessly into the gaping, empty grave that once had been its home. The women and girls of the coven were gathering around and falling to their knees in grief at such a dreadful sight. They had thought this tree would outlive them all, as it had done for countless generations before them. They stroked its bark and gathered its needles, the ululating song of the eldest of the sisters a harrowing funereal dirge.
Later the whisperings began. It was their enemy of old again, the witches of the East.
“They wouldn’t dare,” claimed one sister.
Another suspected the Southerners. She had heard they’d suffered a rot that attacked the heart of their trees and killed whole thickets in days. Perhaps they’d sent it here. Two of them went and inspected the center of the yew but reported back that it was healthy.
“It is an omen. An omen of disaster and ruin,” the blind one said.
The others hushed. They all looked to Raven. She held a piece of bark in one hand and the needles in the other and appeared to be divining a truth of great significance. Her eyes shut and her arms stretched out in supplication. The sisters waited silently. Then Raven spoke.
“It is the Eastern mountain clan. They struck the great tree to make us fear such an omen. For our future is golden. We have the next queen among us. And they mean to tarnish that.”
Sharp as a sword were the words, steely as truth. It was, Raven told herself, the most likely conclusion.
“We must have retribution,” a younger sister cried.
The voices rose around Raven and the talk turned to plots and schemes of reprisal against their bitter rivals. The Eastern sisters had fought with the Northern since long before the Hawkweed prophecy was first foretold, but the battles had escalated in more recent times. Three hundred and three years hence, the prophecy claimed. The day was drawing ever closer, and the enmity of other witches had heightened as they readied their own challengers to the throne.
Since Sorrel was a baby Raven had cloaked her daughter in protection. Much of her energy went into creating a barrier around Sorrel that magic couldn’t penetrate. It took such focus and discipline that Raven had partitioned a corner of her mind to deal only with this. Such was the connection with Sorrel that Raven could sense and feel potential danger to her. This invisible shield made Sorrel seem and feel far stronger than she actually was while making Raven more tired and older than her actual years. The effort was so vast and relentless that it had sapped Raven’s youth, drying and wrinkling her skin, hollowing her cheeks and stiffening her joints. But it had to be done. For even though there were those who scoffed and scorned at the prophecy, Raven knew that there were plenty who would kill to gain the throne for themselves.
Raven was not alone in noticing the change in Ember. Charlock had heard Ember singing in her bed, her clear, high voice trilling like a bird. Normally Charlock would hush her in case the sisters complained, but that night Ember had sounded so contented that she let her continue uninterrupted. Let her be happy today, for there is plenty of sorrow on the way, thought Charlock. Later, through the darkness, Ember asked her mother how far she had ever traveled beyond the camp.
“Not far,” Charlock answered.
“Further than the blackberry bushes at the edge of the meadow?”
“Yes.”
“Further than the bluebell wood?”
“Yes.”
“Further than the top of the waterfall?”
“No,” Charlock lied as she always did. Charlock had become so good at lying that it was now easier than telling the truth.
“Did you ever want to?”
“Yes.”
“Might you go further one day?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it is not by steps that I measure the journey of my life.” Charlock heard Ember’s sigh. “Might you go one day?” Charlock asked her daughter.
“No, I don’t think so.” Ember was not a good liar.
“Why not?”
“What if I couldn’t come back?”
Charlock felt a pang in her heart for this sweet, fragile songbird with her clipped wings who longed to take to the skies.
“Tell me about you and Raven when you were young,” Ember asked pleadingly.
Charlock laughed. “Again?!”
“Again!”
Ember’s favorite stories were those of Charlock and Raven and their childhood days before Raven had tied herself to her books and was still eager to play and cause mischief. Charlock told of the time when she and Raven rode the hog like a horse, how it charged through the camp, trampling everything in its path, and how they had laughed, even when they had been scolded by all the elders. As she spoke, Charlock remembered what life was like before they knew of the prophecy. The naiveté of it felt weightless as a dandelion seed spinning in the air. Charlock’s spirits lifted for a moment as she recalled their lost innocence, and then it struck her what a vast shadow the prophecy had cast over them, dimming their light, lowering the temperature of their lives.
&
nbsp; Ember’s breath had steadied, and Charlock knew she was asleep. As she studied her child’s soft features, she marveled at Ember’s grip on hopefulness. It could not be prised from her. No matter the mockery or contempt, Ember had a purity that none of the rest of them could ever find within themselves. She was an oyster with a pearl. All her life, Ember had been criticized for being different, but maybe, thought Charlock, maybe it was because she was better.
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning Poppy opened her curtains and her room remained dark. The sky was not to be seen that day. It was as though a white sheet had shrouded it, leaving the world colorless and drab. Her father had left for work already. The dregs of his coffee slumped in a mug on the counter; a few soggy cornflakes sat seeping in a bowl. Beside them was a note informing Poppy that he’d be home late. Only a few perfunctory words, no trace of the moment they had shared last night. Poppy mentally kicked herself for feeling let down. The flicker of hope that had been lit yesterday in the dell and then fanned by the laughter with her dad was suddenly snuffed out. So much for a new start, she thought, and she left the dirty breakfast things on the counter to sour.
“Double, double toil and trouble . . . ” Poppy hated reading out loud to the class. She had kept her hand down while plenty of others had shot up, but Mrs. Walters had chosen her anyway.
“Speak up!” Mrs. Walters was now demanding in a shrill voice that demonstrated her desired volume.
“Fire burn, and cauldron bubble . . . ” Poppy raised her voice, and the words seemed to echo around the classroom.
“Like a witch, Poppy. Not a moody teenager.”
The class broke into laughter. Poppy’s eyes flashed and she quickly looked back down at the text. She took a deep breath to try to slow the blood gushing through her veins. Only two more lines to go.
“Cool it with a baboon’s blood, then the charm is firm and good.” She finished with a flourish, relieved it was over.
“Okay. Talk to me about the weird sisters, Poppy. Enlighten us with your analysis.”
Poppy’s relief vanished. Mrs. Walters smirked at her, enjoying Poppy’s discomfort.
“Come on. You just read it out . . . you must have understood something.”
Poppy shrugged. She stared at Mrs. Walters, perched on the table so condescendingly. There was a smudge of lipstick on her teeth, noted Poppy, and the shop label was still stuck on the bottom of her shoe.
Mrs. Walters rolled her eyes at the class in an exaggerated expression of exasperation. “No? . . . Nothing? . . . Nothing at all?” The teacher gestured to the heavens despairingly, an actress on her classroom stage.
Poppy took a breath, then raised her eyes to Mrs. Walters and stared at her intently. “I think the witches see Macbeth,” she said angrily. “He’s all smug and superior, looking down on them and thinking they’re just ugly, old hags and they’re glad they’re messing with him, showing him how he and his Mrs. Macbeth are more ugly and evil than they’ll ever be . . . and maybe that’s why they hang out on the moor and not in the town or up in the castle with the rest of the deluded bunch of hypocrites who think they’re so civilized.”
There was silence, then the snickering started.
Mrs. Walters uncrossed her legs with a flick of her toes and sprang up from her desk. “I’m not entirely sure that’s what Shakespeare had in mind, Poppy, but colorfully put. Jamie, why don’t you continue—go down to where Macbeth enters?”
Jamie started stammering and stuttering his way through the speech, and as she listened, it dawned on Poppy that nothing had gone wrong. No one was hurt, nothing was broken. She hadn’t been ordered out of the classroom or sent to the principal’s office. She had simply said what she thought. Perhaps it was a new start after all.
Poppy took the long way back that evening. She was in no rush to reach home. She wandered past the uninspiring shops and fast food places in what was fancifully known as the town center—a small bit of street, closed to cars, where the stores kept their doors open, heat and music wafting out, trying to tempt people in from the cold, damp air. Groups of kids gathered, talking loudly, utterly unaware of anyone around them. Girls bitching, their strident voices interrupting and overlapping so no sentence was finished before another started. Boys pushing and pulling one another, exploding into laughter, chasing one another down the street. Couples clinging to each other, lips locked, like they were one four-legged, two-faced being. At least that’s how they appeared to Poppy as she glanced at them curiously, trying to imagine herself as one of them, wanting to but finding it inconceivable.
She passed them unnoticed, hidden by her hat, lost inside the baggy folds of her coat. Then she stopped suddenly outside a pharmacy as the nail polish on display in the window caught her eye, a rainbow of glistening colors. She walked inside the store, and when she came out it was raining hard, the groups had dispersed, and people weren’t lingering anymore; they were rushing past, underneath umbrellas. Poppy tucked the small shopping bag into the wide pocket of her coat. She didn’t want it to get wet. Inside was a manicure set, the first she’d ever bought. Not for herself—her nails were bitten to the flesh—but for Ember. Just in case, she told herself. Just in case she ever saw her again.
Rain from the awning above Poppy’s head overflowed and spilled onto her hat with a plop. The sound made her smile.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Leo was sheltering in a doorway, cursing the weather. He had stuffed his bag between his legs, trying to shield it from the rain, and was wondering where he was going to sleep that night when a bike zipped past on the pavement and its wheel sprayed a dirty puddle over him. As he looked up angrily, a girl on the pavement caught his eye.
She was alone but she was smiling. The smile laid her bare, stripping her from all the usual disguises people wear to cover up how they really feel. And she was standing still. If she had been frowning like everyone else, or hurrying on her way like everyone else, or under an umbrella like everyone else, Leo wouldn’t have paid any attention. Instead, he noticed her and he saw not just her smile but the shape of her lips, the line of her jaw, the length of her neck.
Then the girl stepped out from under the edge of the awning, took off her hat, and raised her head to the sky. The cool rain hit her face, gliding over her skin, pooling in her collarbones, and trickling down beneath her coat, under her clothes.
Leo became conscious of how huddled he was on the doorstep, hiding from the elements while she embraced them. He bent his head, contrite somehow, and when he looked again, she was walking away. Her hat was pulled down low on her head and her big coat flowed behind her so that Leo had to search for a last sight of the girl within. Then he saw them, her fingertips, just visible beneath the long sleeves, the tiniest glimpse revealed before the girl was gone.
He had been living on the streets for nearly a year now. It felt like forever, though. Occasionally he’d see a newbie roaming around the train station, with a cheek bruised and swollen or a gash on his head. As he witnessed them being kicked away from the usual hangouts, not knowing where to curl up for the night or which shops gave away the “past their sell-by date” food, he’d remember what he had been like when he first ran away. Defiant by day, terrified by night. Now he knew to keep his head down. He’d marked out his small piece of turf, and he’d found out who was all right and which crazies to steer well clear of. Life was all about survival, day to day, hour to hour sometimes.
When Leo felt sorry for himself, he often thought about the kids who had trod the same piece of land all those centuries before him—working in the fields, or down in the pits, or in the mills, or homeless just like him. Perhaps things weren’t that different after all. Food, water, warmth—still the essentials, and still hard to come by for someone like him, someone without a home or a family or anyone who gave a damn.
Yet among the alkies and the druggies, the psychos and the pervs, there was kindness to be found too. Not just a favor or a bit of sympathy, but real, big gestures that humbled hi
m. The woman at the gym—Kim—who let him sneak inside to take a shower after closing time. The librarian who let him spend hours in the warmth of the library, reading books, and told him when the new ones came in. The antiques guy who, without asking questions, found odd jobs for him to do and paid him in hot meals and spare change so that Leo left with his stomach full and his pockets clinking. The old-timer who had fought off a group of boys who had been about to attack him in the middle of the night. His friend from school, who never told a soul where Leo was, despite a grilling from the teachers. So life was tough, but it wasn’t all bad.
When you’re on the street, you hone your instincts. You learn to pay attention. You see how arguments erupt, how romance sparks, how betrayal wounds and love heals. You see the same people day after day, stepping from the bus to the road, stepping over the cracks in the pavement, stepping from the highs to the lows of their existence and back again. Leo had seen tears, tantrums, brawls. He’d seen a proposal under last year’s Christmas tree in the shopping center, the ring glinting under the fairy lights. He’d seen a heart attack on a pedestrian crossing, an elderly lady giving mouth-to-mouth to an elderly man. He’d seen a teenage girl go into labor outside the supermarket, clutching hold of a shopping cart for support. And he’d seen a mother lose sight of her child, screaming as she ran up and down the road until she found him, hitting the toddler over the head before clutching him tightly to her.
Sometimes it was far more subtle, no obvious drama. Even then, if you observed carefully, you could witness life turning on a single moment. So Leo recognized it when such a moment happened to him.
He had seen a girl smiling in the rain and he had felt himself change direction. Call it luck, or serendipity, or fate, but Leo knew that he would see this girl again and that their paths would cross and twist and entwine until they were hand in hand, journeying together. He knew this without a doubt. It was simply a matter of time.
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