A Witch in Love

by Ruth Warburton

  ‘And this wasn’t, in your opinion, the normal behaviour of a man in love?’

  ‘No, definitely not. I’ve had other girlfriends, other crushes. I know what it feels like. This was something else. A kind of … madness.’

  ‘And how did the defendant react to this? To your behaviour? Did she seem surprised? Pleased?’

  ‘Well, she didn’t act pleased. At first she refused to go out with me.’

  ‘Seriously, in your opinion?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘But she did eventually agree?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Quite.’ There was a rustle from the jurymen as they drew their own conclusions. But the Inquisitor was pressing on. ‘And it was your opinion that she loved you?’

  ‘Yes.’ His eyes met mine fleetingly and then he looked away. ‘At least, she said so.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, moving on, what made you eventually believe that you’d been bewitched?’

  ‘Oh, she told me.’

  At this there was an audible hiss from around the room and the Inquisitor dropped his hammer and looked more closely at Seth and then at me.

  ‘She told you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You swear, under oath, that the defendant admitted her witchcraft, admitted bewitching you with a love spell?’

  ‘Yes.’ Seth nodded. His face was completely without expression; a cold mask that might have been carved of marble.

  I shut my eyes. My knees were suddenly weak beneath me and I held on to the wooden rail to try to hold myself upright. It was all over. It was all over.

  ‘Well … Well, well, well.’ There was the sound of a smile beneath the beak now. ‘I don’t think we need to waste any more time here. Gentlemen,’ he turned to the massed black ranks to his right, ‘can we agree on a verdict in view of this evidence?’

  There was a murmuring in the ranks as they consulted with each other and then one man stood and nodded his hooded head.

  ‘Yes, Inquisitor. We are unanimous in finding the defendant guilty.’

  The room rustled again, a desiccated sound like wind through dry leaves.

  ‘Guilty,’ the Inquisitor repeated, dwelling over the two syllables. Then he turned back to the courtroom, to face me, and if the curved black beak could have smiled, I’m sure it would have.

  ‘Anna Winterson, you have been tried and found guilty of the crime of witchcraft. Your sentence is death by burning. You will be taken to the place from whence you came, to face your execution. May God have mercy on your soul.’

  I hardly heard his words. There was a strange roaring in my head and my heart was thumping, painfully loud. I didn’t see the men in black crowding round, nor the Inquisitor raise his hammer and bang it for silence; my eyes were fixed on Seth. I had loved him. No, that was wrong. I still loved him.

  ‘Seth …’ I tried to speak, but the bridle cut my tongue. The guard started to unlock the padlock chaining my hands to the rail, ready to take me back to the pigsty, and from there – where? To my death?

  ‘Seth …’ I tried again, but my words were drowned out by the hubbub in the court. And then I realized Seth was saying something, calling something above the noise.

  ‘Sir – Inquisitor, sir.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Waters?’ The Inquisitor turned his head, motioning for hush. ‘Do you have something to say?’

  ‘She’s wearing a ring I gave her. Can I take it back? I don’t want it to be destroyed.’

  He took a few steps towards me, his face questioning. The Inquisitor gave an impatient nod and Seth crossed the flagstones to stand in front of me.

  I couldn’t look at him. I thought if I did, my heart might crack. Instead, I looked down at my hand, clenched on the wooden rail. The seaglass ring hung loose, now, on my dirty emaciated finger, and there was blood in the grooves of the metal. My throat choked with bitterness. Seth couldn’t even leave me with that one thing of his. Well, if he wanted it back, he’d have to rip it off himself.

  I shut my eyes. I thought about punching him, about smashing my manacled hands into his face. But I didn’t. I stood very still, I waited, and I trembled as his hands touched mine. They felt just as they’d always done. They felt like Seth, my Seth. His grip was warm and strong. His large hand closed over my smaller one and I felt something hard and cool press against my knuckles. My ring. He was still wearing my ring.

  His calloused thumb stroked, very gently, across the soft inner skin of my wrist.

  And then there was a stabbing, searing pain and he drove something sharp deep, deep into my forearm.

  I opened my eyes in shock and looked down to see a syringe full of a dark liquid sticking out of my arm. Seth looked up at me and his eyes seemed to beg me to understand something – and then he pressed the plunger.

  For a minute nothing happened. And then it was like wildfire ripping through my veins, pumping through my muscles and bones and arteries. It was agony. Burning and biting and searing. And then I felt the stuff – whatever it was – reach my heart and something inside me seemed to explode. I think I screamed – a howl ripped through the room – and everything slammed into colour.

  I was back. I had my power back.

  It had all happened far, far faster than it takes to tell. In the same instant, Seth had wrenched the cattle prod off the unsuspecting guard and stunned him with a vicious butt end blow to the side of the skull. Another guard came running up behind and Seth whipped the cattle prod right way round and jabbed him in the neck with both prongs. The guard dropped like a felled tree, with a cracking thud as his skull hit the stone floor. More guards were coming but Seth took a step forward, holding the cattle prod out in front of him to stop anyone else from closing in.

  ‘Keep back!’ he shouted. ‘Now, listen – Anna doesn’t want to harm you, but she will if it’s what it takes to get us out of here. Either you let us go, or people will get hurt.’

  ‘She doesn’t have any powers,’ snarled the Inquisitor. ‘Don’t listen to the fool. Guards – grab her.’

  A hooded guard came running towards us, intending to vault the rail, and almost without thinking I raised my hand and flung a spell at him. He staggered back, crashed into a bench and then fell to the floor completely motionless. There was an echoing crash as my manacles fell away and I raised my hands to the witch’s bridle, ripping at the straps. There were cries and yells from around the room, screams of ‘She’s working spells!’ and ‘The witch is loose!’

  Behind me I saw Seth stabbing with the cattle prod at the guards trying to close in from behind, and heard him gasp, ‘Anna, I can keep them at bay, but this is up to you. Get those chains off and get us out of here.’

  With a wrench I pulled off the bridle, letting my hair stream free, and I looked out, over the black sea of struggling, hooded forms, clawing at each other in their desperation. I shut my eyes and drew a long breath.

  Then I opened my eyes and blew.

  At first it was just a breeze, that ruffled the long black gowns and made the flames in the chimney rise up like fiery spectres. But I blew again and the wind picked up, swirling round the confined space, plucking at hoods and stools and papers – anything not fixed to the ground. I saw the Inquisitor, his scarlet robes flapping, holding on to the rough-hewn throne with one hand and clutching at his beaked mask with the other.

  Still the wind rose, and now those guards not running for the door were holding on to each other, on to furniture, doors, anything that would anchor them down. But the wind was whipping into a spiralling maelstrom. Soon nothing would be able to resist it.

  I grabbed Seth and together we jumped over the rail and huddled in the centre of the whirlwind, in the tiny stillness at the eye of the storm. Objects flew past, just inches from our heads – boxes, benches, ripped black shreds of gown. I saw a flailing silver snake flash past and recognized the chain that had manacled me to the rail. A black hood whipped by, flapping like a misshapen crow, and now for the first time I could see naked faces, contorted with panic.
My captors no longer looked like hooded nightmares, but men, ordinary men. Workers, fishermen, dads, uncles. Ordinary folk you might see on the quayside at Winter any day, only their expressions were twisted with fear.

  I couldn’t see Greg anywhere but I caught glimpses of other faces I half recognized – a man, was he a sailor? And beneath a torn mask, a red beard that I was sure I knew. But this couldn’t go on – the room couldn’t hold. I could hear great tearing, rending noises, as if the building itself was being swept into the whirlwind. I didn’t even try to stop it – I didn’t want to. A fierce destructive delight was raging out of me – raging out of control. I had the sense that I could do anything, shape this stormwind into anything I chose.

  ‘Anna!’ Seth shouted. ‘Anna, focus!’

  And then there was a shriek like nothing I’d ever heard before, a crashing, rending screech of wood and stone and metal. Tiles began to rain down into the swirling, spiralling mass – and I felt Seth’s arms tighten around me.

  ‘Oh hell!’ His yell was barely audible above the screaming wind. ‘The roof’s going. Get down.’

  He pulled me down to the floor and crouched with his arms around me, and I knew he was trying to protect me, futile as that was. But I didn’t need protection. This was my storm. Everything, every particle of air, would do my bidding. I was completely focused as I wrenched it back under my control – and then sent it spiralling up.

  A strange, tearing exhilaration flooded through me, as the roof ripped away and the storm was free. I felt like a seagull must feel when they’re whipped and tossed by the sea winds, just escaping the murderous waves beneath. The roof lifted, the tiles fluttering away like scattered leaves, the beams flipping up and outwards like matchsticks.

  I caught a glimpse of the Inquisitor in his scarlet robes, his beaked mask ripped free, his face deformed into a snarl of terror.

  ‘Damn you, you bitch!’ he screamed. But I didn’t quail. I could have laughed – his face beneath the imposing mask had the fat, white jowls of a middle manager. I’d never seen him before – but I knew I’d never forget his face, forget the hate in his eyes as he leapt over a table, running towards us with his gavel raised above his head like a war-hammer. His other hand swung a length of rusty chain like a medieval flail.

  Seth raised his arm, warding off the vicious blow – but it never came. Instead the tall chimney shivered, tottered … and then it began to crash slowly down, stone by stone, in a fiery explosion of shattered embers, ash ballooning up in a mushroom cloud.

  The first stone hit the inquisitor on the back of his skull and he dropped full length, the gavel flying from his hand into the storm. Then stone after stone rained down on his body, spraying across the room like murderous hail.

  ‘Hold on,’ I said to Seth, and his arms gripped my waist with a fierce strength.

  I felt my feet lift from the floor.

  And then we flew.

  We shot out of the middle of the storm into a deep-blue sky, streaked with rosy clouds and dawn-bright contrails, and hovered twenty or thirty feet above the wreckage. It took a minute for me to make sense of what I could see – which was nothing. Nothing but choppy blue and orange, reflecting the sunrise. It was only when I looked down that I realized we’d been on an island. Below us was a small rocky outcrop; a stone building in the centre being ripped apart before our eyes. As I watched there was a deafening explosion. Roof tiles scattered into the air like confetti, chunks of masonry flew outwards to land in the sea with great splashes, and clouds of sea birds rose into the air with angry screams.

  As their shrieks died down, silence filled the air, broken only by the crash and wash of the waves against the rocky shore of the island. Below us the building was just a pile of rocks and ashes, with thick black smoke drifting in the sea wind, and the stench of petrol filled my nostrils. It seemed impossible that anyone could have got out alive – I found it hard to care about the fate of the guards, but had Caroline got away?

  I scanned the sea for a boat, but all around us the empty blue stretched away to the horizon.

  ‘Seth,’ I gasped, ‘where are we?’

  ‘Holy shit.’ Seth’s arms were wrapped so tightly around me that it hurt. He weighed a ton. ‘Anna, you’re flying. We’re flying.’ He risked a glance down and then closed his eyes looking sick.

  ‘I know,’ I said, trying not to let my desperation show. ‘I know we’re flying, but I don’t know where. Where are we? Where do we go?’

  ‘It’s OK, I know this island. It’s a bird sanctuary – you’re not supposed to land but there’s good fishing off the rocks, so some people do. It’s only a few miles off shore.’ He opened his eyes slightly and then closed them again hastily. ‘Christ. Anna, did I ever tell you I’m not good with heights?’ I felt his sweat trickle down my cheek.

  ‘We’ve got to head north,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, but which way is north?’ I felt as sick as Seth looked. The massive adrenalin rush of the storm and the fight was wearing off, and I felt bone tired. We could be flying in circles for ever, with Seth a dead weight around my neck – until my strength gave out and we both plunged into the sea.

  ‘It’s OK.’ Seth was breathing deeply, trying to calm himself, nerve himself to look down again. ‘It’s dawn, the sun’ll be nearly due east. So keep that to your right and you’ll be heading in the right direction.’ He opened his eyes and I felt his fingers tighten. ‘Ugh. OK, look, there, see that dark shape on the horizon? That’s Castle Spit and the lighthouse.’

  ‘It’s miles away.’ A sob rose in my throat.

  Seth must have felt my panic for he raised his head painfully to look at me and the belief in his calm grey eyes anchored me.

  ‘Anna, you can do this. You’ve got to do this. It’ll be OK. Just fly.’

  So I flew.

  It seemed to take for ever. The waves skimmed beneath us, an insouciant blue that belied the depths beneath and the merciless cold of the water. I flew and flew, the sun rose in the sky, and still the distant smudge of Castle Spit stayed just out of reach. I could feel my strength beginning to fail. Seth’s weight grew heavier and heavier, and we flew lower and lower, until the cold spray of the waves splashed against my bare legs and the crash of the breakers was very near. Soon the fishing boats would be leaving the harbour, but I had no choice; there was nothing I could do but keep going.

  I was cold. I couldn’t feel my feet; only the heat of Seth’s body against mine stopped me shuddering convulsively. And still we flew, now just inches above the waves.

  Seth said nothing, but I knew that he must be able to hear the way my breath tore in my throat, feel my heart beating harder and harder. He said nothing and I loved him for it. I wasn’t sure if I could have kept silent in his place, watching the waves get closer and closer. And I knew that he must be suffering himself, the muscles of his arms must be screaming in protest from hanging on to my neck for so long.

  He turned his head and I knew he was looking at the distance to the Spit, calculating if I could last. Could I? My breath sobbed in my ears and my vision was breaking into fragments of black and red. Everything hurt. My arms hurt, and my lungs hurt, and my heart felt like it was going to beat itself to death.

  ‘Anna, you can make it,’ Seth said urgently.

  ‘I can’t,’ I gasped. But I knew I had no choice.

  ‘You can, if I do this,’ Seth said. He drew a breath.

  And then he let go.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ‘Seth!’ I screamed as he plunged towards the dark waves. But it was too late, he hit the water with an almighty splash and disappeared.

  For a moment I hung in the air, paralysed with shock. There was a roaring in my ears and my limbs felt like jelly. I watched in horror as the dark waves closed over Seth’s head, like a nightmarish replay of the events last year.

  There was only one thing I could do. I took a deep breath – and plunged in after him.

  For a minute there was a confusion of roaring water and c
rashing waves, and a tearing pain in my lungs. I felt myself tumbling over and over – and then I opened my eyes to the stinging salt water and saw Seth’s body floating in the deep, his eyes wide with shock. The roaring in my ears grew louder, the red and black fragments in front of my eyes shook apart, plunging me into a swirling darkness, and I thought, So this is what it’s like to die.

  I didn’t die. But as I lay on the beach, choking salt-water phlegm into the sand, for a while I wished I had. At least if I was dead I wouldn’t be so cold, and so tired, and everything wouldn’t hurt so much.

  But something kept dragging me back, a hand shaking me, a voice saying, ‘Anna, oh, Anna! You fool, you bloody idiot. Come on, sweetheart. Sit up, get up!’

  I choked again, great gouts of salty foam, and the hand stroked my spine as I vomited up the meagre chunk of bread and dry cheese that had been my last meal.

  ‘Seth,’ I croaked, and opened my eyes. He was there. He was alive. Blue and shivering, but alive.

  ‘Anna, you fool,’ he said, and his voice cracked. ‘Why did you dive after me?’

  ‘Couldn’t … couldn’t let you die.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to die, you idiot. I was going to swim and let you fly the last bit alone. I knew I’d be all right; I just didn’t expect you to fall out of the sky like a dead seagull after me and have to tow you back as well.’

  Great. I let my head fall back and tears leaked out to join the salty vomit.

  ‘I’m s-sorry … I d-didn’t …’

  ‘Hey, hey.’ He put an arm round me and pulled me up against his chest. I felt like a sack of potatoes in his arms. ‘It’s OK. Don’t be silly, you were fantastic. You got us out of there.’

  ‘You came back for me,’ I said. I put my head against his shoulder, feeling the stupid, weak tears come again, but powerless to stop them. ‘You came back.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. So quietly that I should have realized, even then. I should have known there was something wrong. But I was too tired, and too relieved to think straight. I just let my head rest against his shoulder and I shut my eyes as Seth gathered me up and carried me up the beach. Somewhere before we reached the land, I fell asleep.