One or two of the more recently dug graves had fresh flowers laid across them, but Annie was heading for the north side of the churchyard, passing her late husband’s headstone on the way without so much as a twitch. This was what local’s referred to as the Devil’s Side and not for ‘decent people’– a comparatively neglected part of the graveyard where the boiler house was situated and the masonry left to crumble. Passing wind-buffeted headstones with indecipherable inscriptions – many for children – she walked through unkempt grass sprinkled with dandelions towards the yews at the far end: to where her own family had been buried in unmarked graves.
Tonight, that damn boy had said, they’d be here making plans to build the new chapel. So then, there was no time to lose. She must quieten her mind and focus.
***
Chapter Twelve
Annie – continued…
She lay on the ground amongst quivering clumps of long grass and bundles of late snowdrops, gazing up at a sky brisk with scudding clouds. Under her back the earth was hard from a long, dry winter, and a gentle skein of mist blew over the headstones. In shafts of sunlight daffodils shivered, and crows cawed from nearby treetops. She closed her eyes, soothed by the sheen of soft spring rain on her skin, drifting through layers of consciousness. Hours passed. Until all at once the answer came.
Thank you, thank you. The corners of her lips lifted and her eyes snapped open. What a delicious and most perfect execution of revenge. Oh, it had been a long time coming but now, oh yes, now she saw the ancient ones had their way of doing things, and patience had paid off. How strangely these things worked.
Her thoughts darkened, tunnelling excitedly with her prize like a worm through dirt, gathering together all the slights, insults and injustices hiding in every crevice and every corner of her memory - all the better for the power needed. Yes, the time had come. Indeed, what had at first seemed like more doom was in fact a gift from the dark angel himself, in the form of that puffed-up cockerel of a boy. Like a picked sore he had reminded her… disinterring a long-buried injury. How dare he present Odin’s Tree as a generous gift of land from the Danbys! How dare he whip up a frenzy of hatred towards all that had gone before!
Pity him, though, oh yes pity him, for he had no notion of the wolf he fed inside her and of what would soon pay him a visit.
The oldest religion had served the people of this village well, had it not? Albeit under cover of darkness the people, almost all of them at one time or another, had come to her in their hour of need and gone away satisfied with the results. Despite going to church the locals possessed an intertwining of beliefs, weaving a blend of Christianity and Paganism to suit themselves, a practice that harmed no one. Only the churchgoing was public, however. Still, the two systems had co-existed down the ages and nothing had ever been outwardly proclaimed against it. Until now. And now it seemed clairvoyance, herbal remedies and love spells were evils to be trounced into the ground. By him! Who the hell did he think he was? Rage curled her fingers into claws that drew blood from her palms. But most of all - what hurt the most, the sword plunged into the very soul of her being - was the plan to wrench from the ground that beautiful, ancient tree; to hack off its branches and axe the trunk. Thinking about it, seeing it happen in front of her as a deed already done, her own blood vessels seared with the pain of gnarled and twisted roots hewed and yanked from the earth; the howling resistance of mandrake roots and all the screeching agony of bottled, stuck and buried curses released from centuries of darkness.
Oh yes, he knew where to build alright – and not just for those reasons. He knew where the power was. How did he know?
No answers came. But he did, and he wanted it for himself.
Well then… by the devil himself he would be cursed to hell for this. He should know since clearly he believed in their power, that if witches can foretell futures and proffer cures, they can damn well hex too.
As she lay there lost in her mind, what had been a light drizzle had now become a curtain of fine rain that swept across the fields, turning the earth to mud, dripping steadily from the yews, trickling from the mouths of gargoyles and pooling onto the church path. The day was rapidly draining of light, low cloud brooding over the moors and tumbling into the valley below. Yet even as a cold breeze blew up and the shower intensified, Annie continued to lie silent as the dead, the movement of her lips barely discernible as deliberately and determinedly she formed her intentions.
***
Odin’s Tree was as ancient as the village itself, depicted in centuries-old etchings. No one knew exactly when the old oak had acquired the title, but hearsay dictated it was named as such because that’s where highwaymen, vagabonds and murderers were strung up and left to swing by the neck, after which they were disembowelled and their throats were cut – fresh blood spraying, saturating and sinking into the ground. The muscular, contorted trunk gave the impression it had firmly knuckled itself down over the years, its great roots resembling a neck jutting with protruding jugulars; the gnarled and knotted limbs so contorted and distinctive they called it, ‘Old Man Odin’.
That there had been human blood spilled there, soaking through to its underground chambers, was not lost on the locals. On a winter’s night, with its blackened branches sharp as toothpicks silhouetted against a stormy sky, one or two folk, usually those lumbering out of The Quarryman, had sworn they’d seen a decomposing corpse dangling from a noose. There were others, though, mostly those whose ancestors had worked the land for centuries, who said the tree’s history could be traced even further back. And then there were those, like Annie, who already knew it could, no matter that occasional artefacts had been found which backed up the theory. The tree’s spiritual imprint was clear if you could see these things. Oh, there had been blood spilled there alright, and not just from hanging vagabonds.
The whole area had once been the site of a violent battleground during the Civil War – a war that raged between King Charles I supporters and the Roundheads for several years. And here in remote rural Britain, half way between Leek and the west coast of England, one of the bloodiest battles of all had taken place: in rows of three, men were lined up eyeball to eyeball to fire muskets directly at each other. Cavaliers trampled over heads and bodies indiscriminately on charging horses; and twelve to eighteen foot long pikes were used to impale assailants. As soon as the front lines were down, more men surged forwards to take their place, and in the end tens of thousands had perished in one blood-soaked battle in just one afternoon. What brought it to an end was a cannon loaded with local stone that blasted through the castle walls and then into the battle field. Afterwards, hundreds of corpses – both men and beast – lay in the muddy field for days on end, as the rain came down and washed away the blood, which ran in scarlet rivulets down, down, down into the roots of Odin’s Tree; sucked into mud that fed the mandrake, the hardy grass, the sheep, and those with wildly furtive imaginations.
A tiny nerve underneath Annie Bailey’s left eye began to twitch involuntarily.
Betrayal, ingratitude, weakness and fear. They were full of it. Those same women, who had stood on the moors this very morning singing praise to the Lord and demanding a chapel, were the same ones who’d come to her in the dead of night. And yet none of them had said a damn word when Aaron Danby ‘generously donated’ the land on which Odin’s Tree stood, so that ‘all the wickedness that had gone before could be eradicated and trampled into the ground’. As if the sanctimonious cock believed he was the last word in divine purity; that in his self-appointed position as preacher he presumed the right to dictate what God wanted. How the hell did he know what God wanted? How did any of them – these men in robes who told the rest of them what to do?
Her lips moved faster. But she forced his pious face from her mind, storing the energy for later; and began to concentrate first on the tree. On what was there. On what was buried beneath in the rich, fertile earth along with the twisted bodies of mandrake root - all the little phials of brain, bo
ne, hair and herbs; the love potions that got those women what they wanted; and the curses and death spells burned in oil. Not least, of course, the special one she’d cast for her late husband, Jed - the God-fearing man who had no conscience when it came to pummelling her with his fists on a regular basis, no matter if she was lying asleep or up feeding one of the infants when he rolled in from The Quarryman reeking of ale. She smiled a little. That one had worked pretty well, had it not? But the smile faded quickly. Every single spell had been carefully worked at particular times of the lunar calendar, each as individually designed as the other. Hundreds of them and not only from herself but from those who had gone before. From The Four…Agnus, Meg, Elizabeth and Anne…Their wrath would surely be incited now, too? And they would help her; would come when she summoned Hecate. They were here now, spirits rustling in the green breeze…How many secrets and spells lay beneath that tree? Thousands? Oh, but the blood of life that ran beneath it, the pulsing, telluric power that belonged to them and them alone - that it would now be Aaron Danby’s…
Of course, she would not be able to prevent this desecration. No one would prevent it – especially those pathetic and desperate creatures who had come to her because no doctor could help them with what they had – the inability to conceive or the heartache of unrequited love. Oh, how the poor wretches had snivelled into their snotty handkerchiefs, sitting in her tiny front room, eyes downwards, cheeks aflame, as they asked for a magic potion to give them what they desired. Magic potion. How silly they felt uttering the words. No one must know…oh, and how he or she would kill them if they found out…
Annie’s features contorted into a sneer of disgust. These same women were the ones who crossed the street to avoid her. Oh, but how they must have this chapel now they had secured what they wanted: standing in the pews with hymn books and hats, holding the hands of the children nature did not care whether or not they had. She gripped the tiny stones in the earth until her nails began to impale the beds from which they grew, a shock of raw pain tracking up her arm. There was a place in Grytton Forest on the same line as Odin’s Tree that would suit her purpose – a beautiful, spiritual spot imbued with the power of water – where The Four were buried. She often visited it for clarity of vision but certain forces guarded the magnetic field and she had only once been allowed into its powerful centre. The Four were with her now, though. And already she could feel her feet carrying her there. It was time. For this was not a simple love spell but a binding hex.
Agnes would make Aaron Danby a fine wife, would she not? Undoubtedly he would prefer to marry a well-to-do girl from the Gentry but that was not what he’d be getting.
Suddenly Annie’s eyes flew open in alarm.
More time had passed than she realised.
Murmured voices had roused her from meditation and she jumped up. Several black-cloaked figures were rapidly approaching the church – no doubt in order to prepare for tonight’s meeting?
Darting behind a large headstone she crouched low, the grim afternoon and darkly bowing yews shadowing her presence.
Flanking the local vicar as they walked up the path were Aaron and Edward Danby. Her black eyes sparked with a hatred so all-consuming their fate was almost sealed there and then. But not quite. There was much to prepare yet.
***
Chapter Thirteen
1951
Louise
Once, after a particularly harrowing night terror, my mother told me I could and should learn to control them. These were irrational fears without foundation, she explained, and it was possible to tell myself not to be afraid: all children had bad dreams but unlike me they didn’t feel the need to scream the house down. It began to occur to me then, through the fog of childhood that she was trying to shut me up, and by telling me I’d be taken away as a mad girl she accomplished this pretty effectively. In all my years I never told a soul about the things I instinctively knew without ever being told, or when I first started to see and hear things that weren’t there.
The nightmares and visions started soon after that night my brothers and I had to spend the night at Grandma Ellen’s down at Lake View. The boys were put in the bedroom next to Auntie Marion’s at the front and never saw or heard anything untoward; but I was at the back in the room next door to Grandma. It must have been autumn because I remember the walk down to the house after school. We were kicking up leaves on a bonfire-scented afternoon and a low sun was slanting through the trees. To the left of us lay Grytton Forest, which we were under strict orders not to enter, but to continue down the lane in full view of any passers-by and go straight to Lake View Villa.
It was deeply tempting to defy instruction. The woods, we had heard, were both ancient and haunted; and hidden deep within them was a magic pond with five pure white stepping stones that if crossed without getting wet would take you to another land – a world without parents. Of course you had to appease the goblins that guarded the holy well, and you had to take no notice of the wood sprites and the evil fairies. All three of us looked across longingly at the leaves, spread like a lavish golden cloth chequered with light and shade, gently rustling between the trees.
“Pixies and elves live in there,” said Iddy.
“No they don’t,” said Arthur.
“Yes, they do. Fairies live in the grass and sit on the rocks. They spin dresses out of cobwebs, and the elves have boats made of leaves that they fish from on the magic pond.”
“How do you know all that, our Iddy?”
“I’ve seen them, Lou.”
“No, you haven’t,” Arthur scoffed. “You saw it in a book and that’s not the same thing.”
“Can we go and see if we can see them now?” I said. “Please? Arthur, please!”
“No.” Arthur quickened his pace in the dying light. He was, of course, as the eldest, responsible for getting us to Grandma’s safely and on time. Dad would be phoning from the funeral parlour at bang on half past four to make sure we’d arrived with no dallying.
A stirring of excitement was fizzing between the three of us. We’d been to the big house many times, sat outside on the grass, played on the tree swing, paddled in the lake and been given tea; but never stayed overnight, and we were always accompanied by one or both parents. This was a huge adventure. The main draw, though, was the lake. A vast expanse, it mirrored the shimmering oaks along its scalloped edge and rippled darkly on the horizon. Grytton Mere, however, was not a natural lake but a flooded valley, which had once housed an entire village. They said that during one long, dry summer the water level fell so low the church spire had spiked clean out, and when the dawn mists lifted the bells could be heard ringing out in a funereal toll. In fact, many swimmers vowed never to dive into its depths again for fear of further encounters with the long-drowned dead reputed to haunt its depths. Everyone had a story to tell about the ghosts of Grytton Lake.
We rounded the bend at the bottom of the hill and tramped up the drive, school satchels weighing heavily with overnight clothes and books from class. Bordered with rhododendrons and laurels, the driveway eventually veered to the left for Lake View Villa and to the right for Spite Hall. Spite Hall was far bigger than my grandma’s house; a mansion as elaborate as you can imagine with turrets and verandas. You could only see it properly from the opposite side of the lake, shrouded as it was by high walls, shrubs and trees – not to mention an imposing wrought iron gate. My mother’s cousin lived there, although we’d never been invited, and their boys went to a private school in Danby. I never met them. They didn’t even go to Chapel.
As far as I can remember the rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully. It never occurred to any of us children that such a big house with so many bedrooms stood almost empty while we slept three to a room in our cramped terrace on Moody Street – we were just excited to be there and especially on our own with separate beds. I had never had my own room before and there suddenly was the pure heart-lifting joy of silence. No boys! I shut the door, ran to the window seat and sat th
ere for ages with my knees drawn up to my chest, just staring out at the fiery blaze of an autumn afternoon, and the shadows stealing across the lawn at the end of a God-given day. Far away, from its secret place in the woods, came the sonorous echo of a wood pigeon and I wished with all my heart and soul that the moment would stretch into forever.
In their room across the landing my brothers were playing conkers, but it was a distant provocation and I had the door firmly shut, content to sit and dream – making up stories in my head about how one day I would live in a turreted castle with a view of a softly rippling lake; and how beautiful I would be when I grew up. My hair would be piled on top of my head in shiny, black coils studded with diamante; my red lips would be full, and my eyes feline green. My dress, of course, would be a long, emerald ball gown cut very low indeed because I’ll be going out dancing. I’ll be wined and dined, and everyone will stare when I walk into the room. Oh, and my bedroom would be just like the one at the front of the house that used to be Grandma Ellen’s, with a balcony and a dressing room and a four poster bed.
Not for me a cluttered, sunless back bedroom that stinks of cooking and rattles with street noise. Not for me a damp terrace with condensation running down the windows. No pegging out washing in a cobbled back yard, no scrubbing net curtains until my knuckles bleed and definitely no sweaty, back-breaking factory work. No, you see I did not want to be who I was cut out to be. Not at all.
The Soprano Page 9