A Witch Alone

by Ruth Warburton

  The hours wore on and the forest grew darker, and darker, until at last it was full dark. It was colder too. The shrouding cloud did not lift, but now it was more like an ice mist and our breath made white ghosts in front of us, dispersing into the frozen fog. There was frost on the ground and my feet slipped on icy branches. But the witch ahead of us never broke stride, though she turned occasionally, exhorting us to ‘Come!’ over her shoulder in a voice that crackled with urgency.

  I found myself wondering bitterly why they could pull us all this way in Seth’s boat and yet these last few miles had to be so hard. Beside me I could hear Seth’s breath, hear each hoarse involuntary whimper as he set his foot to the ground and the pain stabbed again and again.

  At last I couldn’t bear it any longer.

  ‘Stop!’ I cried out to the witch. ‘Please stop! You’re killing him.’

  To my surprise she did stop and turned, her face glimmering bone-white in the darkness.

  ‘Yes, we stop,’ she said. ‘We are here.’

  I looked around us. There was nothing – nothing but the rough pine trunks and the cold, wreathing cloud.

  ‘Where?’ I said. I could hear the panic in my voice. Why had she brought us all this way, to the dark empty heart of the forest? The wolves howled and it sounded like they were echoing my plea, ‘Where?’

  ‘We descend,’ said the witch. She pointed.

  I looked in the direction of her finger but could see nothing – then the mist cleared a little and in front of us gaped a narrow muddy track, disappearing into the earth. Its mud walls were fortified with felled tree trunks, holding back the soil. And in the centre was a dark opening, a black mouth in the cold, wet mud. A cold breath exhaled from the opening and it smelled of blood.

  Bile rose in my throat – and if it hadn’t been for Seth I would have run, no matter how stupid it was, no matter that the forest was black and the place lonely, and the wolves howling all around. I would have run a hundred miles in the dark and the snow, with the wolves at my heels, rather than enter that place.

  But Seth couldn’t run. He couldn’t even walk another mile. His breath hissed between his teeth and his hand in mine was cold and clammy with pain.

  I’d brought him here. I couldn’t leave him.

  ‘Go,’ said the witch. Her voice was sharp now. There was no hint of invitation any more. ‘Descend.’

  When we didn’t move, she put a cold hand in the small of my back and pushed, and I stumbled forwards on to the rutted muddy track, towards the blackness below.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  We walked into the darkness, Seth and I in front, the witch following. As the tunnel began to descend I heard a sound from behind us and turned around. The mouth of the tunnel had closed, its jaws shutting all but silently. All of a sudden we were in the complete, velvet blackness of the earth.

  ‘Where are we?’ Seth asked in a whisper. It echoed long, as if there were miles of tunnels in front of and beneath us, each reflecting back his voice.

  ‘In the mines.’ The witch’s voice came from behind us. ‘A gulag named Kalya. You have heard, in your country, of the gulag?’

  I nodded, forgetting we were in the darkness.

  ‘We were exiled, sentenced to be worked to death like the rest of the enemies of the state. But they underestimated our power. They confined us here together – and together, weak as we were, we rose up against our gaolers. We extinguished the lights, and without their sight they were helpless, and so we fell upon them in the dark.’

  ‘What did you do to them?’ I whispered. ‘And the other prisoners, the outwith, what happened to them?’

  ‘Nothing was wasted,’ the witch said. ‘And afterwards there was nothing for us above but death and persecution. So we sealed ourselves in the earth to wait for better times. Now, perhaps, these times have come. It is time for us to return to the surface, to make Russia ours again.’

  ‘How did you live all those years down here?’

  ‘Cruelly,’ said the witch; her voice sounded as if she was smiling in the darkness. ‘With suffering. But suffering makes you strong, little Ah-na. It is like fire; if you can survive it, you come out tempered, hard as clay baked in the kiln, or steel from the furnace. We have been tempered by the fire of our suffering.’

  Suffering, suffering, suffering … The sound echoed back at us from the tunnels, hissing and sibilant.

  ‘Come,’ said the witch. ‘Walk.’

  I felt her hand again, hard and cold between my shoulder blades, and I stumbled.

  ‘But I can’t see. How can you see in this dark?’

  ‘There is no need for us to see,’ she said scornfully. ‘But at first we used our magic to light the paths. So … if you must…’

  I held out my hand and the whiteish glow illuminated the walls. Beside me I could see Seth’s face, his eyes huge and black. And behind us the beautiful, skull-white face of the witch. Tunnels led down and outwards – four, five branching off, maybe more. The witch pointed to one and said, ‘Go. Bread and salt awaits.’

  I glanced at Seth and together we began to walk.

  As we descended the floor changed from mud to rock. The walls were stone too, marked with the chips from a thousand picks. In places there were veins of strange crystals and in others the rock glowed with a phosphorescent light, picking up the glow of my witchlight and reflecting it back.

  At last we came into a vast echoing chamber, huge, like a cathedral. I let the light flare up, holding my hand up above my head like a torch – but it barely pricked the immensity of the place. I caught sight of the tips of stalactites, the wetness glinting, but the roof itself arched into shadow.

  In the centre of the room were a dozen or so large stones, each about knee-height, arranged in a circle around a pile of charred bones. Around the bones was arranged an elaborate ring of smaller stones in intricate, geometric patterns; some of them pebbles; others huge lumps of crystal; or half-split geodes, the jewel-like centres glittering in the witchlight. It looked like the set-up for a macabre camp-fire.

  ‘Sit,’ said the witch. She gestured to the large stones. ‘We bring you food.’

  I exchanged a glance with Seth and a tiny shrug, and we both did as we’d been told. The witch disappeared with a rustle of garments and we were left alone. I looked at Seth, hunched next to me on the makeshift stone seat. His face was pale and glistened with sweat, in spite of the cold and he closed his eyes tight shut, the sockets bruised and blue in the pale witchlight.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but before I could speak, a sound came from all the far corners of the chamber. It was an almost imperceptible whisper; the shush of bare feet, light on the stone. I let the witchlight flare, burning bright, and into the circle of light came face, after face, after face.

  They were all white as bone, glimmering like ghosts in the pale light. And they were all thin and gaunt, with broad cheekbones that jutted through their skin. They crept forward into the circle of light, their faces full of a terrified yearning. At their head was the black-haired witch, Tatiana, and she was holding a rough wooden plate with two chunks of dark bread and a little mound of salt. In her other hand was a beaker of water.

  Before she handed us the plate she took a pinch of salt and sprinkled it reverently on the pile of bones. Then she held out the food to us.

  ‘Eat,’ she said. ‘You are our guests. You are welcome to Kalya, to our sobor.’ She gestured grandly to the vast space.

  Seth and I fell on the bread like starving animals. We’d neither of us eaten or drunk since that lunch in the galley. I didn’t know what the time was now, but it felt like long gone midnight, and we’d walked without stopping for most of the evening and night.

  I took a long gulp of the water – it was cold and sweet and very good – and then tore into the bread again.

  The circle of faces watched in fascinated silence, their eyes following every bite, every sip. At last I paused and wiped my mouth. The bread had a strange aftertaste, not c
ompletely pleasant; slightly metallic. But at this point I didn’t care. It was food, and it had filled my stomach and Seth’s.

  ‘What now?’ I asked.

  ‘Now, you sleep,’ Tatiana said. ‘For tomorrow is an important day. There is work to be done.’

  My legs were stiff from walking and standing hurt. From the look on Seth’s face as I helped him to his feet, I could see he was in more pain than I was. I waited while he gritted his teeth and manoeuvred the fir branch under his arm. But Tatiana was walking away. At the edge of the circle of light she paused. Her white, skeleton-thin hand beckoned.

  ‘Come.’

  We followed her, down passage after passage after passage, some so low that I had to crouch and Seth was almost bent double. We walked past rooms of huddled women, lying on mats in the dark, who looked up, blinking as we passed. Past a room where a fire burned low and the smell of burnt meat drifted into the corridor, together with choking smoke. Past rooms where stalactites dripped ceaselessly and rooms of carved patterns so lovely I might have stopped to marvel under other circumstances.

  At last she stopped, at a room that was empty apart from a pile of rags.

  ‘Please.’ She gestured to the room – it was a cave really, the roof too low for Seth to stand completely upright. ‘Take sleep. Be rested. Tomorrow we work.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said desperately. ‘Before you go – can I ask you a question—’

  But she was gone, swallowed up into the darkness.

  With a groan Seth lowered himself to the floor of the cave, his good leg curled under him, his bad leg stretched out on one of the ragged blankets. I was still staring around the little room, but after a while Seth looked up at me from the floor and held out his arms.

  ‘Come here,’ he said. I lay down beside him and we huddled together under the covers, locked in each other’s arms, and I let the witchlight burn out. I couldn’t keep it going indefinitely. I might need my strength tomorrow.

  My mind was buzzing with fears, possibilities, but Seth’s voice broke in on my thoughts.

  ‘Where are all the men?’

  ‘The men?’ I echoed stupidly.

  ‘The male witches – have you noticed, there aren’t any?’

  ‘N-no …’ It was an oddly uncomfortable thought.

  ‘What do you think happened to them?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I bit my lip. ‘Maybe they were in a different camp?’ But how had they survived without men for so many years? Had they been breeding with hapless, captured outwiths? I thought of my grandmother’s words about Thaddeus Corax – about him extending his life with methods she couldn’t bear to think about. I shuddered.

  ‘What was the question you were going to ask?’ Seth’s voice broke in on my thoughts. ‘Before that woman – before she left.’

  ‘Oh.’ I hunched my knees up to my chest, trying to get warm. ‘I … I was going to ask about my mother.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  ‘She went to the Russian witches to buy protection for me. I think she might have come here, to Kalya.’

  ‘But …’ Seth’s hand went up to rub his face. ‘Anna, chasing a shadow – it’s not going to bring her back, is it?’

  I didn’t answer.

  I thought I’d never sleep. Eventually Seth fell into an exhausted doze in my arms, shifting even in his sleep to try to find a comfortable position for his leg against the hard, cold rock. But I stayed awake, staring into the darkness, trying to see through the blackness to the truth. I don’t know how long I lay there, but at one point, as I was drifting in the strange halfway state between waking and sleep, I thought I heard a scream, the tearing, throbbing scream of someone in extreme pain. I jolted awake and scrambled upright in the dark, sweating and trembling, waiting for it to come again, but it never did and Seth slept on, untroubled.

  At last I began to think I must have dreamed it and I lay back down. I put my arms around Seth, my lips against his forehead, and eventually I slept.

  I woke with a start.

  Someone was in the room, crouched over me.

  I let my witchlight flash out like an electric spark and the witch fell back, shielding her eyes. It was Tatiana.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I hissed, furious with fear.

  ‘It is morning,’ she said.

  My hammering heart slowed slightly and I sat up, looking around the little room. It was dark as ever; it could have been the middle of the night for all I knew. It certainly didn’t feel like I’d slept long. My eyes scratched and my legs felt as weary as if I’d only just lain down. Beside me Seth stirred uneasily.

  ‘Seth,’ I said softly.

  He moved again in his sleep but didn’t wake.

  ‘Let him sleep,’ said the witch. ‘His wound consumes him.’

  Consumes him … I shuddered. It was such a horrible image: Seth being eaten away by the pain. And yet she was right; it was eating at him. Eating at his strength, and his happiness, and his ability to live. In ten, twenty years he’d be another Bran: bitter with constant pain.

  I slid out from under Seth’s arm and got slowly to my feet.

  ‘While he sleeps we will show you our kingdom,’ the witch said.

  Kingdom. It seemed an odd word to use for a place inhabited solely by women. Where was the king?

  ‘Come,’ she said. ‘Let us begin. Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes.’ I straightened my sleep-crumpled clothes. ‘Only, I need to leave Seth a message for when he wakes.’

  ‘I will call Svetlana,’ the witch said. She said nothing, but a moment later a white, ghostly face appeared at the door and Tatiana spoke in Russian. The girl nodded and turned to me.

  ‘Svetlana speaks English,’ Tatiana said. ‘Give to her your message. She will tell it to your Seth when he awakes.’

  It wasn’t what I’d had in mind – I’d thought of a pen and paper. But now I had no choice.

  ‘All right,’ I said slowly. ‘Um … Tell him I went with Tatiana to – to look around … and I’ll be back as soon as I can. Tell him …’ Tell him I love him, was what I wanted to say. But I couldn’t say it to this strange ghost-girl hovering in the doorway. ‘Tell him I’ll come back as fast as possible.’

  Svetlana nodded and then pressed herself to the wall of the cave. Tatiana looked at me and I nodded and followed her out of the room.

  My heart began to beat fast as I followed Tatiana down the mazelike corridors again. Faster, and faster, and painfully hard. As we passed caves I looked into each entrance. What was I looking for?

  I knew the answer of course. I was looking for my mother. Perhaps I’d always been looking for her, ever since I first realized what the word meant. And perhaps I always would, until I knew for sure what had happened to her.

  But as I scanned the faces that glimmered out of the dark at me, I wondered. Did I really want to find my mother here, hidden in the dark for eighteen years, in the knowledge that somewhere her daughter was growing up alone? What would I say? What could I say?

  ‘The bathing room …’ Tatiana waved a hand as we passed a cave with a metal drum of water, glinting black in the witchlight. ‘This is where we cook … here we weave cloth …’ My witchlight lit up the dark chambers as we passed, showing white-faced women hunched over their tasks, their startled faces jerking up at the sight of my light passing the doorway.

  ‘And now, our Cathedral,’ Tatiana said, and she stood back to let me pass in front of her, into the room where we’d sat last night and eaten bread.

  I walked into the huge cavern, my footsteps setting echoes ringing around the walls, and as I reached the circle of stones Tatiana held up her hand. A huge white light blazed out, dowsing my witchlight like the sun eclipsing a star. The stone walls blazed, white and luminous. I saw a roof stretching fifty, seventy, a hundred feet above our heads – arched like the roof of a cathedral and crusted with filigree white crystals that sparkled in the blaze, like quartz, or diamonds, almost blinding me with their brilliance.

  ‘It�
��s beautiful!’ I gasped. ‘What – what is it?’

  ‘It is salt,’ Tatiana said. ‘It is beautiful and it grants a sort of … immortality to everything it touches.’

  She let her light die down and the room dipped into shadow again.

  ‘How?’ I asked, suddenly unable to hold back. ‘How are you so strong? I don’t understand. That light – I’ve never seen anyone make a witchlight like that. I’ve never seen a power like yours.’

  An echo jangled in my head, and I remembered Simon’s words when we found the charm buried under my step: This is power the likes of which I’ve never seen.

  ‘We have our secrets, little Ah-na.’ She smiled, a strange and terrible smile, that showed her gums, red like the gums of the witch on the bridge. I shivered and she sat, patting the stone next to her in the circle. My heart was still beating hard in my chest and I’d never felt less like taking my courage in my hands, but I sat and took a deep breath.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  Tatiana inclined her head.

  ‘Perhaps I will not answer, but you may ask.’

  ‘Did you ever meet a woman – her name was Isabella, but she called herself Isla sometimes too? She looked …’ I swallowed. ‘They say, she looked a little like me.’

  Tatiana said nothing; she only looked at me with her dark, dilated eyes. She had allowed her witchlight to burn out completely and it was only my dwindling strength illuminating the hall now, a glowing ember in the palm of my hand between us.

  Then she spoke.

  ‘Let me tell you a story, little Ah-na.’ She looked at the pile of bones in the centre of the hall, as if gathering her strength, gathering her thoughts. ‘Once there was a people. They were good and bad, weak and strong, foolish and wise, as people will be. But they were also at war. The problem was, they did not know this. Over many years, centuries even, the war was waged and the people lost ground, a little more every year. Little by little they were driven to the brink. They were burned and imprisoned. They were persecuted and killed. Their numbers dwindled and at last they were forced into hiding, forced to pretend they were other than they were in order to survive. And still they did not know there was a war. Still they did not fight back.