The Witch Hunter

by Virginia Boecker

  “You’re a witch hunter,” he says, finally.

  I don’t reply. My heart is beating somewhere in my throat, and my palms are damp with sweat. I slide them against my trousers, hoping he won’t notice.

  “I wouldn’t have guessed it,” he continues. “You don’t look the part. Then, that’s probably the point.” He goes quiet again. “You wanted to kill me at Fleet, didn’t you?”

  I still don’t reply. I quickly scan the room for something to protect myself with. The candlesticks, the stones on the table. The mirror I could break, use the shards as knives.…

  “I think we should have a little chat.” He stands and pulls out a chair. “Sit.”

  I don’t move.

  “Sit,” he repeats. “I won’t harm you.”

  I hesitate for a moment before moving to the chair. I watch him closely, waiting for him to make a move. He just sits down and resumes staring.

  “I thought you were a witch,” he says. “An untrained witch. I thought it was how you knew to procure those herbs, how you survived jail. John said you should have died.”

  “I heard,” I say.

  “Your stigma protected you?”

  “No. It protects against wounds, not illness. It makes me strong, so I can hold out longer than most. But if you hadn’t found me and John hadn’t healed me, I would have died.”

  Nicholas doesn’t respond to this. Maybe he’s wishing I had died; there’d be one less witch hunter in the world. He can wish it all he wants; but if he wants to stay alive, he needs me alive, too. Just as I need him.

  “John said you’re cursed. That you’re dying.” I don’t bother dressing up the words into something more tactful. Nicholas grunts in disapproval—maybe at my impertinence, maybe at John’s carelessness—but I continue. “Veda said the thing you seek only I can find. It’s a wizard, isn’t it? You need me to find the wizard who’s cursing you and kill him.”

  “It’s not a wizard,” he says. “It’s a curse tablet.”

  Now it’s my turn to be surprised. “A curse tablet?”

  “Yes. Do you know what they are?”

  I nod. I’ve come across a few curse tablets before. The idea behind them is simple: Etch a curse onto a flat piece of stone, lead, or bronze, then dispose of it someplace it can never be found. Wells, lakes, and rivers are popular choices. But while the idea is simple, the execution is not. To create the curse, you have to use a specific material, a certain stylus to write with, the correct runes. If a single step is done incorrectly, it won’t work.

  And most of them don’t. The curse tablets I’ve seen were always incomplete, abandoned at some point in the process. But if done correctly, it’s one of the most effective ways that I know of killing another human being. The only way to break the curse is to find the tablet and destroy it. Which is nearly impossible.

  “You may be looking for a curse tablet,” I say. “But it still amounts to me finding a wizard. A wizard cursed it, a wizard hid it. One of your enemies, I presume.” Nicholas raises an eyebrow at that, but I go on. “I find him, persuade him to tell me where it is. Then I destroy it. It’s really not that difficult.”

  “You’re very confident,” Nicholas remarks.

  “I’m good at finding things.”

  “Perhaps you wouldn’t be so confident if you knew the curse tablet is the Thirteenth Tablet.”

  “What?” I gape at him. “That’s impossible. The Thirteenth Tablet has been missing for years. If you were cursed by it, you’d be dead by now.” No one can hold out against a curse tablet that long.

  “The Thirteenth Tablet disappeared two years ago,” Nicholas says. “My symptoms began around that time and have grown progressively worse. Still, I thought I was ill. I never suspected I was cursed, not until Veda told me a few months ago.”

  “But why?” I say. “It’s a lot of trouble to go through. Stealing it from the gates at Ravenscourt, hauling it off, then there’s the matter of disposal…”

  “Yes. It would have been much simpler to create a traditional curse tablet, though for a curse of this scope, it would need to be quite large anyway.”

  He’s right. If you want to kill a man’s dog or make him lose all his hair, you can use a smaller tablet to write the curse on. But the bigger the curse, the more complicated, the bigger the tablet needs to be.

  “That aside, I suspect using the Thirteenth Tablet was symbolic,” Nicholas continues. “To curse a wizard using the very tablet written as an edict against witchcraft? It must have held some amusement to the wizard who performed the curse.”

  “Don’t you know who it is?” I say. “Surely you have an idea. There can’t be more than a handful of people who could manage a curse like that.”

  Nicholas looks at me, his gaze turning to steel again. “To my knowledge, the only witch or wizard who could perform a curse like that was captured and tried and burned at the stake.”

  Something floods through me then. Fear? Shame? Guilt? I don’t know. But whatever it is makes my insides twist and my cheeks grow warm. I knew this admonishment was coming, but I didn’t know the effect it would have.

  And I don’t like it.

  “I was doing my job.” I return his look with equal force. “The job given to me by the king, enforcing the laws of the kingdom. Laws that were put in place for a reason.” I gesture at him with a sweep of my hand. “As you can plainly see.”

  “It’s curious that you defend these laws,” Nicholas replies. “Considering you yourself are a victim of them.” He mimics my gesture. “As you can plainly see.”

  Anger lances through me, quick and sharp. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you!”

  “Indeed, you wouldn’t.”

  “It’s because of you I had no trial,” I continue. “It’s because of you I had no leniency. It’s because of you I’m the most wanted criminal in Anglia!”

  “That is how irony works.”

  “At least I did what I did for the country,” I snap. “You did what you did for yourself.”

  “You are no patriot, Elizabeth. You do us both a disservice by claiming it.”

  “A patriot? That’s what you call yourself?”

  “I call myself a Reformist.”

  “You mean lawbreaker?”

  “I don’t seek to break laws. I seek to change them. I seek fairness. Tolerance. For everyone, regardless of the side they align with.”

  I shake my head. “Impossible.”

  Nicholas waves his hand, and the candles abruptly die out. “Improbable,” he says. He waves his hand once more, and they relight. “But not impossible.”

  We stare at each other across the table.

  “Let me get this straight,” I say. “A cursed wizard needs a witch hunter to find a tablet cursed by yet another wizard, so that said cursed wizard can rid the country of the laws that were created to prevent the curse in the first place.” I smirk. I can’t help it. “Yes. That is how irony works.”

  Nicholas’s mouth twitches.

  “I have terms, of course.”

  “Terms?”

  “For finding your tablet.”

  “Ah.” Nicholas raises a finger. “I didn’t ask you.”

  Inwardly, I roll my eyes. These old wizards are so set in their ways. He probably wants to issue a scrolled proclamation for me to sign with a plumed pen in front of robed witnesses.

  “There’s no need to stand on ceremony,” I say. “You can just ask me.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple.”

  Outwardly, I roll my eyes.

  “If I ask you to help me, I’m asking a witch hunter to come into my home, to be around the people I care about. To put them in danger. As it stands, I have done that already. It simply cannot continue.”

  This, I was not expecting.

  “It would be far better for me to die than to continue risking their lives on my behalf.” Nicholas slides his chair back and stands. “I’m afraid this is where we part ways.”

  “Yo
u aren’t serious,” I say. “You don’t want me to find your tablet because I’m a witch hunter? It’s because I’m a witch hunter that I can find it.” I shake my head. “You didn’t really think an untrained witch could manage that, did you?”

  Nicholas arches an eyebrow. “Why are you so eager to help me?”

  I shrug. “It’s a means to an end.”

  “Money, I presume.”

  “For starters. Enough to get out of the country and to live on for a while. And safe passage.”

  A pause.

  “And?”

  “And what?” I say. “That’s it. Your life in exchange for mine. A fair deal.”

  Nicholas doesn’t reply. He’s still standing, gazing at the parchment on the table, Veda’s prophecy written on it in his careful hand. I didn’t understand it all—any of it, really—but I do see the word death written there. Twice. Other words jump out at me, too: darkness, end, break, betrayed. Last breath. I feel a momentary twist of fear. Are those words meant for him, or for me?

  “I’m not going to hurt them,” I say. “I don’t even care about them.” Though this isn’t exactly true. I’ve come to like George, and Peter is kind. Fifer I could do without, but she’s not worth the trouble I’d have to go through to kill her. And John saved my life. The idea of hurting him bothers me more than I care to admit. “Did Veda say I would?”

  “No,” Nicholas says. “She didn’t. In fact, she implied the opposite. That you may actually—” He breaks off, running his finger along Veda’s words, lost in thought. “Even taking that into consideration, there’s no guarantee. And the risk—”

  “Becomes a certainty,” I say. “You turn away my help, you die. Without your protection, Blackwell will find them. And they die, too.”

  Nicholas scowls at me. But it’s the truth and we both know it.

  “Blackwell always told us to remember the greater game,” I say. “The greater victory. It’s good advice. You should remember it, too.”

  He looks at me and shakes his head, as if he can’t quite understand me or doesn’t know what to do with me. “How exactly did you become involved in all this?”

  It’s the same question George asked me. So I give Nicholas the same answer: the truth. There’s no reason to keep it from him now.

  I start with the plague, with Caleb finding me and taking me to Ravenscourt. I tell him about working in the kitchen, about Blackwell asking Caleb to witch-hunt for him. About my going along. I even tell him about training, something I never talk about.

  “We trained for a year,” I say. “There were tests along the way. We had to pass them in order to move forward.”

  “What kind of tests?”

  “Fighting, mostly. Swords, knives, archery, unarmed combat. We fought one another at first, then Blackwell brought in creatures for us to fight. At first, they were fairly regular. Snakes, scorpions, storks—”

  “You fought a stork?”

  “Yes. It was seven feet high, with bright red eyes and a steel beak. The scorpion was probably twelve feet long with a stinger that dripped poison that killed on contact. The snake had a head that if you cut it off, it grew two more in its place.”

  “These creatures were, as you say, fairly regular?”

  “I just meant they were recognizable. After that, we had to fight things I couldn’t name. Things that looked like giant rodents but had six legs and a head like a crocodile. Or reptiles with wings and metal feathers that would fly off their bodies and try to impale you. Something that, just as you started to kill it, changed its appearance so it couldn’t die. So if you tried to poke its eye out, it would change into something that didn’t have an eye. You see.”

  “I’m starting to,” Nicholas murmurs.

  “Then there were endurance tests. Like spending the night in a severely haunted house.”

  I particularly hated that one. I spent the night huddled into a ball, a foul-smelling, frigid wind swirling in the air, the ghosts’ hateful voices echoing around me while they scratched frightening messages to me in blood on the wall. I thought it couldn’t get much worse than that test. Of course, as I came to find out later, I was wrong.

  “There was a hedge maze we had to figure our way out of. The walls would shift. Things would come after you. We had no food, no water. No supplies. It took me three days to get out.” The only person who got out in less time than I was Caleb. It took him two and a half days.

  “What happened if you couldn’t get out?” Nicholas asks.

  I don’t reply. What does he think happened? We lost three prospective witch hunters to the maze test. I never did see them again.

  He’s quiet for a while. His eyes shift from me to the parchment on the table in front of him, then back to me again.

  “Well?” I say. “Do we have a deal or not?”

  Nicholas starts to speak but is cut off by a knock at the door. It’s George.

  “We’ve got a problem.”

  Nicholas pushes past him into the other room, George and I behind him. Immediately, I see what’s wrong. Veda is standing in the middle of the room, arms held stiffly by her sides. Her tiny body is rigid, but her head lolls from side to side, her eyes rolling into the back of her head. Avis and Fifer are kneeling next to her.

  “What happened?” Nicholas demands.

  “I don’t know,” Fifer says, looking frightened. “We were sitting on the floor, playing with the doll I brought her. Then she jumped up and started doing this.”

  Nicholas crouches in front of her. He’s so tall that he’s practically on his hands and knees to get eye level with her.

  “Veda? Can you hear me?” He places his hand on her cheek and mutters something under his breath. Nothing happens. I take a step toward her to get a better look, but Nicholas glances up at me.

  “Stay back, Elizabeth—”

  At the sound of my name, Veda’s head snaps up and her eyes stop rolling. She stares straight ahead and speaks, her soft voice ominous.

  “They’re coming. They’re coming for her. They’re coming.” She looks at me. “They’re here.”

  THE REACTION IS INSTANTANEOUS. Fifer and George race to the window, flinging back the lace curtains. Veda bursts into tears. John scoops her up, grabs Avis’s arm, and pulls them into the bedroom. Nicholas joins Fifer and George at the window, and together they peer into the darkness.

  In the distance, I hear male voices: shouting, laughing, catcalling. Soft at first, growing louder by the second. Pinpricks of light flicker between the cottages in the village. Torches.

  I rush to the window and quickly start to count. Two, six, ten, fourteen bobbing lights. Fourteen. I give a little huff of relief. It’s only the king’s guard. They always patrol in groups of fourteen. But what are they doing out here? We’re too far from Upminster for this to be part of their route.

  Then I see it: a fifteenth torch blazing to life, its bearer stepping from behind a house and into the empty street. He holds the torch high above his head, the bright flame illuminating his features. He’s far away still, too far for me to hear him. But there’s no mistaking who it is.

  “Caleb,” I whisper.

  Nicholas lifts a hand and at once, Caleb’s voice fills the tiny sitting room.

  “I want this whole village searched,” he barks. “I want every house torn apart until she’s found.”

  I’m up against the window now, my fingers gripping the windowsill. Caleb and the other witch hunters make their way down the narrow, lamp-lit lane. I watch him kick down door after door, storm into house after house. Listen to his threats, his demands, the terrified screams of the people inside. Hear the anger in his voice as he shouts my name over and over. I know it’s an act, a show he’s putting on for the other witch hunters. There’s no reason for me to be afraid.

  But the pounding of my heart tells me otherwise.

  I turn to Nicholas. “You said they couldn’t find us.”

  Nicholas glances at me but doesn’t reply.

  “Well?” I
say.

  “Shut your mouth,” Fifer hisses. “How dare you question him.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” I fire back. “I’ll question who I want.”

  “Quiet,” Nicholas says. “Both of you. They’re heading this way.”

  I turn back to the window as the witch hunters approach Veda’s home. Caleb leads the way, Marcus, Linus, and the others behind him. They point and gesture in the direction of the cabin.

  “They know,” George whispers.

  He’s right. Maybe one of the neighbors was frightened into giving them our location, maybe they’re guessing. Either way, if they keep walking, they’ll run right into us. The illusion acts like a veil: As long as the house stays behind it, it’s invisible. But if they somehow manage to slip through it, it won’t be. And neither will we.

  The room erupts into silent movement. Nicholas whirls away from the window, points to the table in the corner. Fifer and George rush to it, pick it up, and move it quietly to the side. On the floor beneath it is a small door. George reaches down and, with a creak and a puff of dust, opens it to reveal a narrow staircase that descends into darkness. John emerges from the back bedroom, still carrying Veda. Avis is on his heels. One by one they start down the stairs.

  I turn back to the window. Caleb is so close now I can see his face: his blue eyes narrowed, forehead slightly creased. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Is he worried about me? Is he afraid of what will happen if he finds me? Or what will happen if he doesn’t?

  “Elizabeth.” The whisper in my ear makes me jump. It’s John. “We need to go.”

  The cottage is empty now save for Nicholas and Fifer. They both stand at the window, muttering some kind of spell. Caleb and the others are having difficulty moving now, their quick strides turning slow and sluggish, as if they’re walking through water.

  John takes my arm and steers me toward the door in the floor, down the narrow wooden stairs. I go willingly, but when I reach the bottom, I balk. I’m in a tunnel. It’s tiny: six feet high, three feet wide, carved entirely from dirt. I feel as if I’m standing in a grave.