by Syd Moore
And very, very angry.
As I hit the floor my feet kicked out and caught his legs. I pushed hard on his shins and threw him off balance, kicked out again and brought him down. There was a crack from his elbow as he hit the ground. With a movement that was at once of me and yet not so, I was on him.
Unable to struggle against all our strength he tried again to wrest the gun from my grip, but failed. This time he took one look at my face, gritted his teeth, then, just as his fingers crept forwards to curl round the gun, it seemed his attention was drawn to something just beyond my head. He paused for a millisecond then stopped moving, his face wrinkled into confusion.
His body twitched back away from me, and I considered the notion that somewhere inside Felix had relented, realised the error of his ways or experienced a brief pang of conscience.
Those thoughts disappeared when I saw his eyes widen into huge semi-circles of white. In them was an expression of utter terror. Suddenly his body went limp.
As I lay transfixed, gazing at him, unsure of what to do, something detached itself from my hair – a tiny winged thing, black and wriggling. It circled the Witchfinder’s face then settled on his eyebrow. He released his hand from the gun and tried to brush it off, but another landed beside it. A shiver ran through me as another, then another, then another dived onto his face.
He gasped out and tried to yell but it was no good. Within a couple of seconds his face was swarming with tiny creatures.
Everything happened very fast. The moths became a bobbly blanket covering his features, like an enormous beard of bees that spread over all his face. Only his mouth grew visible as he opened it to breathe. They had been waiting for that. A couple peeled away from his cheek and flew into the red cavern. As his lips opened wider in a silent panicked scream, I saw at least fifty pairs of black wings waddling over his tongue, disappearing behind the curve of his throat. More poured into his mouth, so that shortly his tongue and teeth were no longer to be seen. Groping for air, his hands clutched his face, clawing at his mouth, then flung out in desperation to his sides. That was when he felt me. At least, his knuckles bruised against the barrel of the gun. I don’t think he could see what he was doing. I don’t think he meant to do it at all. Maybe the moths had got right down inside him and cut off his oxygen supply. I don’t know. But I can tell you this – it was over in one quick movement. His upper body spasmed as he squeezed the trigger. There were a couple of flashes or maybe three, and two loud shots echoed across the river.
In the seconds that followed I can’t be sure what occurred. Even now I have only a vague memory of being giant-like, of wings and voices and screams, of fire and smoke and dewdrops.
And then it was all over.
Chapter Forty-Six
When I came back to myself I could distinguish Felix’s form across the grass. The moonlight crawled across him. There were no moths upon what was left of his face.
His body wasn’t moving.
From where I lay, maybe three feet away, I just about made out a dark stain seeping over his clothes. I pulled myself onto my hands and knees and crawled to him. My body felt out of sync, as if on some time delay. I couldn’t hear a thing – I’d been temporarily deafened by the shots.
Part of Felix’s head was misshapen and concave. One remaining red eye stared up into the night sky, unseeing. The expression on his face was a rictus of surprise. His shiny brown hair was covered in thick bloody clumps of matter. I prodded his arm. My hand met with no resistance. A ragged and bloody hole was in the place where his chest should have been.
In the struggle his clothes had become dishevelled. And that’s when I saw it – glinting, sticking up from between the ragged exposed ribs.
The bone pipe.
I knew there was something in that bloody thing. An evil or menace that may have even predated Hopkins, but was certainly compounded by him. A dark suckling thing that fed off corruption and horror and fear and blood.
And perverted those who used it.
Felix had given it a taste for blood back then at St Botolph’s Priory and now it was guzzling greedily.
‘You shouldn’t have blown it, Felix,’ I said and closed his eye.
Then I trailed my fingers over his chest and grabbed hold of the pipe. With a wrench I yanked it out of his heart. A warm jet of liquid gushed round my fingers, making them slippery, but I kept hold of it.
Wiping the vile thing on his jacket I reached into my pocket for my lighter. There was an old cigarette packet in there. I put the pipe into it, lit the packet and poured the liquid lighter fuel on top. Then I sat and watched it burn.
I don’t know how long I stayed there beside Felix’s body under the all-seeing moon. The bullet had caught my shoulder and I was losing blood, going into shock. Scared that I was going to bleed out, with a mega effort I raised myself up, washed my clothes down in the river, wiped my fingerprints from the gun.
Then, taking the briefcase, I slipped into the mist, just like my forefather had done.
Chapter Forty-Seven
There was only one place I could go, though I knew I shouldn’t.
When he opened the door his face was like a cartoon: all wriggles and frowns. I might have laughed if I hadn’t have been half dead.
‘You know that shoulder you once offered me?’ I said. ‘I think I could do with it now.’ And then I placed myself in Joe’s capable hands.
He wanted to take me to hospital of course. But I wouldn’t let him, insisting he stitched me up instead with a sterilised needle and some strong cotton. I was already fading in and out of consciousness by then so the pain never seemed too bad. I can’t even remember what it was like now.
What I do remember is Joe’s reaction as I gabbled on about what had happened. His face switched into an expression of disbelief as I took him through the last days and finished with the scene on the riverbank. When I showed him the suitcase and its contents his features changed. Then he sat down and put his head in his hands.
I was trying with all my might to keep myself conscious, figuring I had only hours to get out of the country. Felix’s absence would be noticed come morning – if Cutt wasn’t already alarmed by now.
‘You have to get me to an airport,’ I told Joe. ‘I’ve got to be out on an early flight.’
He just sat there, cradling his head, passing his hands back and forth over the stubble of his hair. ‘I’m sorry to involve you but I didn’t know who else to turn to.’
He looked up and I saw that there was fear in his eyes. ‘Sadie, you’ve really screwed this up. Do you have any idea of what a serious situation this is?’
‘Of course I do. I’m sorry, really I am. Just give me six hours and then you can report me.’
Joe glared at the floor and for a second his face was so tightly drawn I thought he might start to cry or curse me. ‘But you’re here now.’ He pointed at me, then hit his chest. ‘You’ve made me an accessory for Christ’s sake.’
‘I’m …’ I gave up. Sorry didn’t cut it, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say and my vision was coming and going. I was starting to see double.
Joe stood up abruptly. ‘I’m a policeman, Sadie. You know that. You’ve come here for a reason, even if you don’t realise what it is right now. Or else you wouldn’t have chosen to come to me.’
‘Please, Joe.’ I couldn’t even move towards him. My head was so heavy, shoulder burning, and the disinfectant Joe had dabbed on my cuts was stinging like hell. All my concentration was going into staying upright. ‘I need to get some stuff from the flat.’
He pulled on a jacket. ‘You have to turn yourself in. It’s self-defence. Let me go with you.’
But I was not to be persuaded. Cutt had friends in very high places. I didn’t trust anyone any more, except Joe. And that’s what I told him. I think he saw my point.
I thought again that he was going to sob but in the end he stood up. ‘Wait here one moment,’ he said, then went into his bedroom.
; When he returned he had a small holdall.
I made Joe wait for me in the car outside my flat. It was safer for him that way.
I had one last thing to do and for that I needed solitude.
In the living room I pulled the blanket from the mirror. Then I called her up.
‘Rebecca, are you there?’ My voice was a whisper leached of strength. In the shattered reflection I could see myself swaying from side to side. And I could now feel the throb of my shoulder. But I had to do this.
Silence.
‘Are you there?’ Please come.
A small noise from the other side of fractured glass. A snuffling in the everworld.
‘Yes, I’m here.’ Her voice, frail, shaky.
I was chill and faint, pushing myself on with pure will. I had to tell her what I’d realised. She needed to know.
So I summoned the last scraps and told her, ‘I am Mercy.’
A sudden exhalation beyond the mirror. Then the words, ‘Mercy, my child.’
I heard a pattering and scratching on the other side of the glass. First the uncombed black hair came into view, then her face, pale and wild, eyes wide, vivid. And I gasped too, shocked to the quick, seeming to look into the very face of my mother at fifteen.
‘Mother? Rebecca?’
The girl’s dirty brow creased. ‘You. As pale as an angel.’
‘I am alive. I am Mercy. He’s dead now.’ I said it again. ‘I’m here.’
‘I’m so sorry. You understand?’ Her eyes begged for the response that I came here to give.
‘Yes,’ I told her. ‘I forgive you. Of course I do.’
‘I was a child.’
‘I know.’
I watched a weak smile creep over her features, then the blackness seemed to strengthen and move across her, beginning to dissolve her form into nothingness. ‘You can go now,’ I said. ‘I’m going too. I love you. You are forgiven. Mercy.’
‘It’s ended?’ she asked with only her eyes.
‘It’s ended,’ I repeated to the reflection.
Chapter Forty-Eight
And so I walked like a ghost through the memories of my afterlife. For that was all it was: Mercedes Asquith was a phantom self, following in the footsteps of the bastard child, Mercy.
Mercy – a life that was what? A plea? A statement? A gift? Perhaps a destiny.
I don’t know.
I guess I never will now.
But then I’ve been guessing a lot. I guessed that Mum had tried to tell me, back then before she died. I think she knew she wasn’t going to hold on much longer, though it was the last thing she wanted to disclose. She must have known what the consequences would have been. I was a sticky little bugger. Tenacious and, to a certain extent, ruthless too. I obviously inherited that from my father. She must have expected I’d find out, bring it into the light. And I’m guessing she kept the certificate with the coordinates on to guide me to the document, as some poorly thought-out insurance policy. Hoping it might at least offer some power of negotiation if I ever discovered what happened to her, and who my father was.
We were both naïve on that count. Locked into our world of Essex witches, far removed from the power struggles of those whose path we had stumbled across. In some ways we were pawns, just like our ancestors before us. The female kind, that is. Except this time, I didn’t do what I was told. Though it cost me my life. Well, my identity anyway. This new one is several incarnations away from the one I took off Felix. And he’s right – I’m untraceable. You’ve got to give me credit for that – I never was a stupid girl. Naïve perhaps, but not thick. And that’s how I’ve managed to get word to Dan, who is doing okay now. He was going to tell me about what he knew when he saw me face to face. But obviously events conspired against us. He understands why I had to go. And he’s told Dad too. My real dad, Ted Asquith, who loved me and reared me and earned my respect. That’s what the word ‘father’ means to me. The blood running through my veins is that of an unwanted sperm donor who gave me life – but took my life, and who I blame for sending my poor mum to an early grave. I’ve had to think a lot about this and it’s not been a pleasant journey, but I’ve worked out that a child born of rape is not a child of hate. I can see that from the way my mother cherished me, protected me, loved me. And look at Rebecca too; searching across the centuries for her lost daughter, finding her line at last and finding too that they heard her cries.
For I believe somewhere back in the past, Rebecca is my ancestor. Which means I am born from her child, Mercy. My real name – that was the clue.
I’ve heard no more from Rebecca. I’m hoping she’s passed on now too. It was a strange tale and Joe’s still not convinced I wasn’t mad with grief – projecting my neuroses, enacting some freakish psychodrama that eventually uncovered an ancient truth. But I know that trying to explain it fully would be like trying to pin down why Hopkins started the witch hunts in the first place or fixated on the Wests. There’s too much gone into the darkness for us ever to know for sure. And sometimes you just have to accept that and move on.
That’s not to say you forget about it. That leads to ignorance and blindness. You commemorate it, like Flick is doing – bless her. The campaign I see on the website is gaining momentum too. And I see Amelia Whitting’s name signed up to it. Good for her. Good for all of you. It’s about time it happened. You see, when you fully acknowledge that bad stuff, you can at last draw a line under it and turn a new page. Start afresh. But you never forget and you sure as hell never let it happen again. Believe me – this is something I have some experience of.
The night that ended the life of my cousin forces outside of the mundane world were in control and coming through me. I was simply an instrument for their reckoning. But I took the advice of shamans: ‘When you walk in the woods, never leave tracks.’ Well, I didn’t, but you won’t know that till now. I’m not sure exactly how much you do know. Or how much damage Cutt’s people managed to limit. I can’t imagine they could have got it all. We’ve been monitoring the papers over here, whenever we can get them. I see the tide is turning against him now, just like it did with his ancestor, Master Hopkins. But I doubt he can run away from all this. Dan knows what happened with his medication was most likely down to them. And he’s prepared to testify. So too, the break-in had to be them. I don’t buy the kids on drugs theory. Not now.
They must have started the Phelps’s fire and all those other things too. You can work it out yourself. Or the police can. Send them a copy of this. It’s the truth about what happened. And I’ll send them the recording of Felix, which should back up what’s written down here: self-defence.
When you get this, Maggie, I guess you’ll know that Mercedes Asquith has gone. Ceased to exist. Flown away like a moth into the night. But honestly Mags, it’s okay.
Really it is.
I know this is not exactly what you wanted, and I’m sorry I’ve missed a deadline or two, but I’ve had quite a bit going on.
Still, you wanted something ‘contentious’ and I reckon this will hit the spot. Do what you will with it. Get a book deal. I don’t care how the truth comes out. But if it does then maybe we’ll come back some time. Just print this and we’ll see. Should get a front page or two.
Sometimes when Joe goes into town, I drag my chair out onto the porch and sit staring at the ocean. My mind is clearer now. Gone are the days when it used to buzz around like a bumblebee, chasing thought after thought. So I meditate upon what would have happened if I’d never been drawn to the witches or if Mum had never thought about writing or never wanted to get into publishing. But then I’m wondering myself out of existence. And although I wouldn’t have wanted things to pan out as they did, I am certainly glad to be here and I intend to enjoy it as much as I can.
There is a strange tranquillity that follows me now and I think I know what that is. As much as I struggled with it when I first realised, I get it now. You see, I am the Witchfinder, descendant of Hopkins, the last child of my line. And like
he I have too hunted witches and so found my witch. But the difference between me and that Witchfinder of old is instead of fear I brought mercy.
And that is so very neat. It is almost perfection. A justice or symmetry of sorts. So, dear Maggie, it’s all here.
Take it and have Mercy.
Much love,
From me.
Your friend.
Note to the Reader
Using Occam’s Razor, i.e. the theory that the simplest explanation is most probably the correct one, it seems pretty likely (however unjust and boring) that Matthew Hopkins met his end of tuberculosis quietly, surrounded by his family in Manningtree. Although there were consequently many outbreaks of similar witch hunting, using the methods he outlined in his Discovery of Witches, the consensus is that it was his book that travelled out to New England, not he. For a full and very evocative book which examines the Civil War witch hunts, I would recommend to any reader what was commended to me; Witchfinders, A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy by Malcolm Gaskill.
Rebecca West did testify against her mother and friends at the age of fifteen. There are no documents in existence that record what happened to her thereafter.
The story of the boy and his mare and all of the witches’ tales are, regrettably, true.
Q & A with Syd Moore
Where did the idea for Witch Hunt come from?
I think the idea of writing something about the witches was always lurking at the back of my mind (just like Sadie), but it fired up while I was researching my first book The Drowning Pool. I came across the statistic about the number of Essex folk indicted for witchcraft and was pretty taken aback. I never had any idea that so many were accused. I had heard about the Pendle witch trials, the Scottish witch trials, Salem and the terrible continental craze for witch hunts but I hadn’t come across much about the Essex witches. Which was odd really as I was born and bred in the county. So I started reading around the subject and that’s when I found out about Matthew Hopkins and his witch hunt.