The Witch’s Daughter

by Paula Brackston

  At that moment I experienced a painful longing for Archie, for his comfort, for his love.

  Oh, Archie. Archie. Archie.

  I lifted my chin, determined not to let my fear show.

  ‘Will you never tire of hounding me, Gideon?’ I asked. ‘Can you never find it within yourself to let me go, to set me free of your obsession?’

  ‘Oh, obsession, is it? Is that how you see it? Perhaps you are right. I have no intention of giving up what is rightfully mine. What I am owed. What you promised me.’

  ‘I made no promise.’

  ‘You knew the terms of our bargain, Bess; do not pretend otherwise. I offered you the power of the craft and you took it. That was your decision, remember?’

  ‘And it is a decision I have been paying for ever since. There is not a day goes by that I do not try to make amends, to use my gifts for the good of others. To heal. To end suffering.’

  ‘Oh, please, Bess, credit me with a little more sense, a little more insight into your character. You may try to convince yourself that you are different from me, that you are a saintly servant of the oppressed and the needy. I’ve heard that speech before. I didn’t believe it then, and I don’t believe it now. The truth is you and I are the same.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes, exactly the same. We are not flimsy white witches bothering ourselves with herbs and potions. We are immortal sorcerers, Bess; we have transcended death by use of the dark arts. The same power that keeps me alive sustains you also.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes! You know it. You feel it. And what is more, my dear, tortured little Bess, you desire it. Just as you once desired me.’

  ‘It’s not true!’ I turned to run, but the lieutenant conjured a whirlwind to spin me, again and again, so that I was unable to move forward. When at last the vortex released me, I slumped to the floor. I looked up to see the figure of Maidstone beginning to dissolve. His features seemed to first distort and then melt until the being before me was no longer recognizable as human. It was a pulsating, swirling mass of light and energy. The colors of the miasma burned orange and smoky red. Then I caught glimpses of flesh, of blood, of bone, until a new being stood before me, fully formed and as solid and real as any man. Gideon. Unchanged since our time together when I was just a girl. Gideon. Possessed of the same malignant force, the same fascinating aura, the same powerful physique that had at one time both repulsed and enthralled me. I clambered to my feet.

  ‘I do not want you!’ I cried. ‘I never wanted you!’

  ‘Now you know that is a lie. Or perhaps you have forgotten. Don’t you remember, Bess? Don’t you remember how your body ached for me? How you longed for me to come to you at night? How you lay sleepless in that bed, yearning for my touch? Don’t you remember?’

  ‘You had bewitched me. I was not myself.’

  ‘Oh, on the contrary, you were more yourself than you have ever been, before or since. Why must you fight against your true nature? Against your destiny? You know, in that poor perplexed heart of yours, you know we are meant for each other.’

  ‘I will never be yours. Never!’ I summoned all my strength and threw up my arms, mustering my magic, calling on my sisters to help me, focusing my energy into one piercing beam of light. I flung the bolt of power at Gideon. The unexpected swiftness and ferocity of the blow caught him off guard and he staggered backward, an arm thrown across his face. For a second I thought he might fall, but he soon regained his balance. He lowered his arm and frowned at me.

  ‘Upon my word, Bess, you have not been idle since our last encounter. The power of your magic is growing. Do you deny how wonderful it feels when your whole being is possessed of that power? Is it not glorious? Is it not divine, the pure strength of that sorcery?’

  ‘There is nothing pure about it.’

  ‘You are alive with it. If you could see now how it transforms you. Imagine how we could be together, my love. Just imagine.’

  ‘I would rather die than exist with you.’

  ‘Sadly, that choice is not yours to make, now, is it? Or at least, you could achieve some sort of corporeal death, but then I would be waiting to claim your soul. Such a waste, I would far rather have you by my side, living, breathing, feeling.’ He started to float upward, his feet lifting effortlessly off the ground. He drifted forward so that he loomed above me, his black clothes and dark features forming a deadly cloud that threatened to envelop me completely. I wanted to run, but the unaccustomed use of my magic had left me drained. Slowly he lowered himself, taking me in his arms, his face close to mine, his lips curled back to reveal unnaturally sharp teeth. His breath was hot against my cheek. I felt his tongue slide around the outline of my lips, testing and tasting. I tried to pull away, but my limbs had become enfeebled.

  ‘Let me go,’ I whispered, my whole being enervated. ‘Please, let me go.’

  ‘Hush, Bess,’ he said, pulling me closer, lifting me to him so that we hovered together, suspended in an evanescent cloud of his dark magic. ‘Do not be afraid. I have waited so long for this moment. We both have. The time is right, Bess. Here, amidst all the madness these foolish mortals have created. Drink in the energy their futile thrashing releases. Feed upon it, as I do. Join me in eternal bliss.’

  I felt my will weakening. Despite my horror at being so close to him, despite the revulsion I felt at his touch, I was aware also of a stirring of desire. It was as if his hold over me was so strong, so far in excess of anything I myself could understand, that I had no chance against it. I was certain I was moments away from being lost forever, from being made his for all time, when a voice, clear and strong, cut through my stupefied consciousness.

  ‘Let her go!’ Archie’s words were full of barely controlled anger. ‘I said, let her go!’

  Gideon altered his grip on me to glare down at Archie, who stood in the open doorway. Gideon growled as he saw the gun in Archie’s hand. The unearthly rumble echoed through his chest and shuddered through my own body.

  ‘How dare you!’ he hissed at Archie. ‘How dare you try to come between us. She is mine.’ He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and held me aloft, ‘Mine! To do with as I please.’ He shook me like a cloth doll.

  Archie shouted at him to stop, pointing the Webley revolver squarely at his head.

  ‘Let her go or I’ll shoot.’

  Gideon let out a roar and with his free hand summoned a ball of sulfurous fire, which he flung toward the door. Archie leaped to his left, but the flames caught his shoulder. He rolled on the ground to extinguish the fire but could not put it out before it had burned right through the serge of his uniform tunic. I could smell the smoldering fibers. Gideon raised his hand to fling a second charge.

  ‘No!’ I screamed, at last managing to reclaim my wits. I countered his spell with one of my own, spoiling his aim, so that the fireball fell harmlessly to the floor. Enraged, he hurled me to the ground. I felt a rib crack as I connected with the wooden floor.

  ‘Bess!’ Archie scrambled to his feet.

  ‘Archie, look out!’ I could see Gideon spinning, gathering strength, preparing to strike again.

  Archie raised his gun and fired, but Gideon vanished into nothing, reappearing in the far corner of the room. Archie shot at him once again, but before the bullet could reach him he became as insubstantial as a cloud, letting the charge pass harmlessly through him before rematerializing. I pulled myself painfully to a sitting position, raising my arms, summoning desperate force. I sent a silent message to Archie, not knowing if he would pick it up but certain that working together was our only hope.

  Wait. Wait while I hold him.

  Archie threw me a glance before diving behind the piano to avoid a further fiery blow. He looked at me steadily and nodded. I turned my attention back to Gideon, thanking our luck and his arrogance that he had not noticed what had passed between Archie and myself. Let him believe he is indestructible, I thought; his pride will be his downfall. I took a deep breath, deeper than a pearl diver, s
ucking in the air around me until my lungs burned. In my mind, I called my sister witches, imploring them to aid me, to protect me, to assist me in ridding the world of such a rancid soul. I felt my body infused with the power of the ancients, the strength of the craft, the dangerous force of the supernatural. I gathered every atom of that power and hurled it at Gideon. He hurtled backward, slamming against the wall of the schoolroom. He let out a roar of rage, but he was unable to move from the spot.

  ‘Now, Archie! Now!’ I screamed.

  Archie sprang out from his cover and took aim. Gideon saw at once that he could not evade the bullets that were about to be fired at him. He was trapped. I fancied, in that fleeting instant, I saw real fear flash across his face. It was quickly replaced by fury.

  ‘What?’ he bellowed. ‘You dare to face me with your puny weapons and your repulsive affection for each other!’ His features distorted, dissolving into a monstrous visage of scale and horns with blood-red eyes and snakes coiling from his nostrils. His body doubled in size, the clothes falling from it in shreds, until a tailed beast with cloven hooves and the chest and arms of a giant loomed above us. Archie was frozen by the apparition.

  ‘Shoot, Archie! Shoot him!’

  Still, he was unable to move. The hideous creature that was Gideon’s spirit-made-flesh drooled as it grinned.

  ‘So brave, your little soldier, is he not?’ He laughed. ‘See how he trembles. See how his hand shakes now that he knows who it is he dares to face. Thought you would do anything for your lovely Bess, didn’t you, hmmm? And yet now you lack even the courage to use that silly weapon. Now you see what it is that confronts you, all your fine words come to nothing. Disappointing, isn’t it, Bess? To see such weakness in someone you had thought to honor with your attentions.’

  Gideon was straining against the magical ties that bound him, and I knew my strength would soon give out.

  ‘Archie! Archie, please…’

  ‘Save your breath, Bess. I must say I expected better of you. Do you really prefer him to me? Can you truly want to spend your life with … that?’

  My vision began to blur and my limbs to ache. The effort of the spell was draining the last scrap of energy from me.

  ‘You know, Bess,’ Gideon sneered at me, ‘I grow tired of this. Tired of these games. Tired of your pious resistance. Tired even, I have to admit it, of you.’ He exhaled a great, malodorous sigh. ‘Perhaps it is time, after all, to finish what was begun.’

  I frowned at him, uncertain of his intentions. I struggled to hold him and to focus my thoughts.

  ‘Finish?’

  ‘Yes, why not. After all, there are other women, other witches. All this unrequited desire, it’s beginning to feel … undignified.’

  ‘You mean … you mean you will let me go?’ My voice was little more than a whisper.

  Gideon set his jaw and spoke through gritted yellow fangs.

  ‘Let you go. Let you go! Hah! I will be humiliated no longer by a foolish woman. You are not worthy of me! But you will pay for your stubbornness, for your stupid refusal to accept your true destiny. You will pay for it with your life!’

  So saying, he bounded forward, breaking free of his bonds as if they had never been. In two bestial strides, he was almost upon me. I flung my arms over my head in what I knew would be a futile act of self-defense. I waited for the fatal blow. It did not come. Gideon hesitated. I still do not know what made him pause. Could it be that there was, in that devilish creature, still some vestige of a human soul, some spark of love that stayed his hand? Whatever it was, it allowed the fraction of a moment in which Archie chose to act. Seeing what was about to happen, he made a swift and crucial calculation. Gideon was about to use the full might of his magic to kill me, that was plain to see. No man-made bullet could have stopped him. And there was no time for Archie to pull me from danger. He did the only thing that was left for him to do. The only thing that a man who loves beyond reason, beyond life, would do for his beloved. Archie flung himself in front of me at the precise moment that Gideon struck. The demonic energy that hit him was meant for me. It was conjured with sufficient force to extinguish the life of a sorceress, a witch, a possessor of the craft. Archie had no hope of withstanding it. Even so, as he threw himself in the path of Gideon’s wrath, he held his nerve and pulled the trigger. The shot struck home a heartbeat before the sledgehammer of magic collided with his mortal body, snapping his spine and ending his short life before I could even cry out his name. Gideon let out a roar as blood spurted from his shoulder. The unexpected pain of the injury sent him spinning and squealing; the room filled with the unearthly sounds so that I was forced to cover my ears with my hands. The last sight I had of him was as his grotesque form shifted shape again and again before re-forming as a raven and flying from the room.

  Gasping for breath, I crawled to Archie. His face looked so gentle. So peaceful. I stroked his pale cheek as my own tears fell unchecked onto him.

  ‘Oh, Archie! Archie, my love. I am so sorry. Forgive me.’ I wept. Then, with startling clarity, I heard his voice in my head.

  For whatever time we might have, my love. For whatever time we might have.

  POST OFFICE TELEGRAMS

  Office of Origin: Edinburgh.

  OHMS Received here at: 10:30 A.M., 24/9/17

  To: Lady Lydia Carmichael.

  REGRET 1ST/LT A.T.W. CARMICHAEL 9TH BATTALION ROYAL SCOTS REGIMENT WOUNDED 23/9/17 STOP TAKEN TO CCS SAINT JUSTINE STOP DIED OF WOUNDS SAME DAY STOP LETTER TO FOLLOW STOP

  SAMHAIN

  OCTOBER 6—SECOND QUARTER

  Tegan listened to my story in silence. When I had finished, she turned away from me. We had sat beside the dying light of the fire all the long night, and now a reluctant dawn began to further dim the glow of the fading embers. I added more logs and dusted moss from my hands. I felt a great deal of pity for Tegan. She had so much to contend with. To come to terms with. And time was not on our side.

  ‘Tegan,’ I said, gently but with a firmness to my voice I knew she could not miss, ‘you must see him now, see him for what he really is.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to. I can’t. I let him touch me, you know? We…’

  ‘I know. I know. But you must see him now. Come.’

  I took her hand and led her along the path that followed the stream up a few yards to the pool. I drew her close to the water’s edge and pointed at its dark surface.

  ‘Look in the pool and say his name so that you may know precisely what it is that we are confronting.’

  Reluctantly, Tegan edged forward. She knelt down and leaned toward the water. The mouse, her constant companion now, who had been slumbering in her pocket, ventured out to sit upon her shoulder. Tegan sniffed loudly, wiping her nose on her sleeve. After a deep breath, she said in a trembling voice, ‘Ian. Show me Ian.’

  For a moment nothing happened; then the water began to turn as in a whirlpool. Round and round it went until the surface shimmered and pulsated. Then, atop the vortex, a face could be discerned. Ian’s appealing features swam into view. Just as they had formed, they began to change. First, they darkened, became more angular, still handsome but most definitely altered. I recognized the face at once as that of Gideon. Then the face distorted, changing again. Tegan began to cry loudly. While we watched, the features melted into the water and then re-formed into a hideous, terrifying visage. It was a face from a nightmare. A demon. A monster.

  Tegan got up, staggering backward, her hands over her eyes. I went after her and caught her up in my arms.

  ‘Shhh, there now,’ I said. ‘It’s all right. It’s gone. It’s gone.’

  ‘It has,’ she sobbed, pointing a shaking finger toward the reflection in the pool, ‘but he hasn’t.’ She looked at me directly now, her expression desperate. ‘He hasn’t, has he? He is still here.’

  She sees plainly now what I have known in my heart all along. What the pool has shown us is the true nature of the man Tegan had fallen in love with. He may
give the outward appearance of a gentle young drifter, but there is something very rotten hiding behind those pretty eyes. And that thing will do Tegan great harm if I do not stop it.

  I nodded at Tegan, slowly. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘he is still there. And you and I are going to do something about that, aren’t we? Together.’

  OCTOBER 14—DARK OF THE MOON.

  We have talked at some length of what must be done. I recognized that Tegan needed a little time to digest the events of the other night. I told her to stay at home, claim a cold or some such to avoid having to see Gideon, to give her time to accept there is no such person as Ian, and to simply allow herself a brief moment of adjustment. It is not every day one’s entire system of beliefs and understanding of the way the world works is turned on its head. She is young and often impulsive, but she has a good soul and a kind heart. She knows, deep down, what is right and what is wrong. She knows also that Gideon will have to be dealt with, once and for all time. She was appalled at the thought of spending time in his company and unsure if she could feign affection and normality in his presence. I told her she must. To arouse his suspicions now, before we are ready, would be highly dangerous. She can avoid him only so far. Beyond that, she must stall him. My hope is that we are able to maintain the pretense until the All Hallow Eve. There is much to do and I must prepare. The auspicious date I am sure will be of great help. It is a day when departed spirits are near at hand, and I will have need of them. Although All Hallows is a night for remembering and communing with the dead, it is not, contrary to popular myth, a time for darkness or fear of death. I must also find a way to bring about the confrontation on blessed ground. I am under no illusions—Gideon’s power far exceeds my own. I must use everything at my disposal if I am to defeat him. There is a place near here that will serve our purposes well. It is fitting that we should return to it, Gideon and I, at last. I know I have been putting off revisiting the spot where it all began, where I, Elizabeth Hawksmith, witch, began my long, singular journey. No doubt the area will have undergone changes, but the woodland itself is protected and still stands, albeit smaller. There is a timelessness in the trees.