A Witch Alone

by James Nicol

  ‘Estar? Oh, my goodness!’ Arianwyn darted forwards, falling to the wet floor of the wood before her friend.

  He was battered and bashed, his blue skin dark with bruises and dirt, his arms lined with cuts and scratches. Could it really be Estar, here at last?

  ‘Hello, Arianwyn Gribble, my friend,’ he whispered.

  ‘Oh, Estar. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.’ Something urgent bubbled up from inside her then: the worry, fear, everything from the last weeks. Suddenly it all erupted in a burst of tears as she wrapped her arms around Estar and pulled him close.

  ‘Of course, it’s very lovely to see you again as well, Arianwyn,’ Estar said, patting her back gently. ‘But the thing is, there is a rather horrible creature just over there and I think it may wish to eat one or indeed all of us!’

  Chapter 30

  BLACK LIGHTNING

  rianwyn pulled herself up, wiping her tears away and gulping a lungful of air. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a skalk,’ Estar said calmly, trying to get to his mismatched feet: one was hoofed like a goat’s, the other scaled and clawed like a lizard. ‘My suggestion would be that we move quickly and quietly away as soon as possible.’ He secured a small pouch around his waist and lifted a small knife-shaped stone, rather like the one the feathered feyling had carried.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Arianwyn breathed.

  ‘Do you need help?’ Gimma stepped forwards.

  ‘Oh, it’s you . . . again. Hello,’ Estar said uncertainly.

  Gimma’s face had grown pale again, the bright sparkle in her eyes gone. She looked scared and remote once more.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Arianwyn asked.

  ‘I’m fine – stop fussing,’ Gimma snapped. ‘Let’s just get out of here, shall we?’

  Gimma swung her torch around, looking for the way they had come. And that was when Arianwyn saw it: the torch beam illuminated a huge dead tree about five metres away . . . and something that clung to the dark, wet trunk. Its skin was pale, pink and raw, like too-cold hands. It looked almost human but for its bones, jutting under the skin at odd angles, its spine a twisted mess. It had a knotty tangle of too many arms and legs and its head was hidden from view under thick, shaggy, matted hair.

  It hadn’t moved, so perhaps it hadn’t detected them . . .

  Arianwyn put a finger to her lips and glared at Gimma and Estar, willing them to stay quiet. She took a few cautious steps backwards, grabbing Gimma’s rain mac and Estar’s arm, pulling them along with her. The torch beam wobbled and the creature was swallowed up in the darkness.

  And after another few backwards steps they turned to run, but Gimma stumbled – Arianwyn tried to hold on to her but she fell to the ground. The torch slipped from her hands and there was the sound of breaking glass as it smashed against a tree stump or a rock.

  Darkness swallowed them.

  ‘Gimma? Are you OK?’ Arianwyn hissed. She breathed O· ru, the light glyph, and a faint orb of light formed just ahead of her.

  ‘I’m here. Watch where you’re going!’ Gimma snarled angrily.

  Arianwyn could see Gimma sprawled across a huge tree root, covered in damp leaves and mud, the remains of the broken torch shattered near her hand.

  There was the sudden sound of many hurried feet – quick and scuttling. It’s seen us, Arianwyn realized, a sick feeling rushing over her. She glanced at the fallen tree, but the skalk was not there. Lurking in the shadows?

  She twisted her hand, pulling magic towards the light orb, which glowed brighter at once.

  Arianwyn glimpsed movement to her left, behind the closely grouped trees. She ducked forwards, pulled Gimma to her feet and grabbed Estar by the hand. ‘Come on!’ she said, dragging them into the trees in the opposite direction, back the way they’d come. The light orb flickered and dimmed, but Arianwyn pushed it ahead: clouds covered the moon, and the wood was pitch-black – they needed something to light the way.

  They turned on to a narrow path, their feet pounding quietly against the soft, damp carpet of leaves as they dodged in and out of trees, barely visible in the spell orb’s half-light. They bounded over tangles of bramble and vine. Arianwyn’s mac caught on sharp spines or snagged on branches that reached out to her like eager menacing hands. Once or twice she stumbled over lumps in the ground, but thankfully she righted herself or Gimma reached out for her, pulling her to her feet. Estar limped a little behind, slowed as ever by his mismatched legs.

  The skalk thundered behind them, occasionally launching itself into the trees and swinging above them, like a bald ape, but always landing back on the ground and – thankfully – each time it was still behind them, but the gap was closing. All of a sudden, the skalk was beside them and Arianwyn saw it clearly for the first time: a snarled mess of white arms and legs, scuttling across the ground like a fleshy spider. It swiped out at their ankles as they moved. Gimma screamed and they ran faster, Arianwyn pulling a weakening Estar by his hand.

  They were near to the edge of the forest now, the trees thinning, and Arianwyn glimpsed the walls of Lull across the wide dark meadow. She could hear the gentle haunting call of the qered.

  She couldn’t let the skalk beyond the boundary of the wood. Without the trees to slow it down it could attack the qered – and worse, if it found its way beyond the town walls . . .

  Arianwyn summoned and hurled a spell orb at the skalk, but the orb evaporated in mid-air before it got anywhere close. ‘Boil it!’ Arianwyn spat, and she shoved Gimma and Estar to one side so they were running along the edge of the wood now, the meadow parallel to them but still a short way off.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Estar panted. He was barely running. It felt to Arianwyn as though she were dragging him through the wood.

  ‘Get on my back,’ Arianwyn said, pulling Estar into place, his arms reaching round her neck to hold on. ‘We can’t lead it into the meadow – we’ll put everyone in danger. And the trees are slowing it at the moment!’

  ‘This is slow?’ Gimma gasped.

  The change of direction seemed to have thrown it off, and for a second Arianwyn wondered if they had lost it. She paused, hoping and listening.

  Gimma panted beside her, trying to catch her breath.

  ‘Did we lose it? Estar asked, his grip tightening on her shoulders.

  ‘I don’t think so . . .’ It just seemed a little too easy.

  The light orb now hovered just behind Arianwyn, illuminating the patch of wood directly ahead of them. The ground looked churned up but there was no sign of the skalk. Then, from above, came a strange clacking sound. Arianwyn tipped her head back and found she couldn’t breathe: the creature was hanging upside down from the branches above, gripping on to the tree with a mixture of feet and hands. Its bone-like beak snapped at them again.

  And then it dropped!

  She and Gimma dived in opposite directions as the skalk landed with a thud and a whoosh of leaves and twigs. It cast its snapping beaky head, covered with matted hair, this way and that, sensing each of them, picking its prey. Estar clung to Arianwyn’s back, his hands shaking with fear.

  ‘Run!’ Arianwyn shouted to Gimma. ‘Get to town. I’ll try and draw it back into the wood!’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Just do it, Gimma!’ Arianwyn ordered.

  She tried to ready a spell orb, but all she got was a handful of sparks and a brief blinding headache. She tried again but still no orb would form . . . what was going on? She turned to run again, Estar clinging tightly to her back. She’d only gone a few steps when she felt something crash into them and they were falling, tumbling head first to the ground – Estar flew off her back and landed nearby, lying very still. Mud and leaves filled Arianwyn’s mouth and blocked her nose. She tried to scramble to her feet but she was too slow and the ground too slippery. The skalk pounced again, wrapping its legs and arms around her.

  She was pinned. The skalk had her firmly in its grip!

  Estar lay stunned, unconscious a couple of metres away. She tried
to reach for him but it was no good. She tried to move, to wriggle, anything but she couldn’t even flex her fingers to finish a spell. She wasn’t sure she even had enough air in her lungs to summon a glyph, so tight had the skalk enfolded her. It snapped its yellow-white bony beak close to her face, and she glimpsed fiery red eyes through matted hair. Its beak snapped again, the sound echoing through the wood.

  And now it was so close, she could smell its rank hot breath. Was this how it would all end, here alone in the Great Wood?

  Arianwyn felt the burst of energy more than saw it, and the skalk was suddenly flying away from her. She turned quickly and saw it crash against a nearby tree trunk – and then it was still, just for a second. Arianwyn tried to scrabble towards Estar, but the skalk had found its feet again, flipped itself around and was charging back towards them.

  This time she saw something dark shoot across the wood, like a bolt of black lightning. It smashed into the skalk head-on. The creature cried out as it was slammed hard into another tree. There was the sickening sound of bones and bark cracking. The skalk fell to the ground and the full-grown tree it had hit snapped in half as though it were a mere sapling. Arianwyn shielded her head as a shower of twigs and wet leaves flew down from the canopy. When she looked up, the skalk had been buried in the flurry of leaves and roots and bark. Arianwyn twisted to see who had sent the strange spell – who had saved them.

  Highlighted by a wavering torch beam at the edge of the wood was a pale-faced Gimma, her wet hair whipped around her like tendrils.

  Chapter 31

  POLICY AND PROTOCOL

  an you stand, dear?’ Miss Delafield was suddenly at Arianwyn’s side, helping her to her feet. A light orb bobbed at her side. Arianwyn felt every part of her ache, every single muscle.

  ‘Whatever it was you did worked a treat, I would say . . . it is gone, isn’t it?’ Miss Delafield asked, her eyes shifting to the tumbled, broken tree.

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ Arianwyn said, straightening. ‘It was Gimma.’

  They both looked over to Gimma now, who stood still as a statue. She was staring straight past them, and looking deep into the wood. ‘Well done, Miss Alverston. What spell did you use, dear?’

  Gimma mumbled a reply too quiet to hear, pulling her gloves straight and rubbing at her wrists.

  ‘Best get it banished, dear,’ Miss Delafield said. Gimma wandered past them as if she were in some sort of daze. She crossed to the fallen tree and sketched the banishing glyph close to the trunk. Arianwyn could see, could feel, the small rift open, a sliver of darkness far darker than the night-time shadows of the wood that surrounded around it.

  A wet gust of wind hit Arianwyn and she caught another hot rancid sniff of dark magic from the Great Wood.

  ‘Estar!’ Arianwyn said as she turned and saw her friend lying so still amongst the churned-up earth and leaves of the woodland floor. She hobbled across to him and gave him a gentle shake, but he simply moaned, his eyelids fluttering.

  ‘Well, that was a surprise, wasn’t it?’ Miss Delafield whispered, her eyes flicking across to where Gimma waited, facing back to Lull.

  ‘But don’t you think it’s a bit . . . odd?’ Arianwyn asked quietly.

  ‘How do you mean, dear?’

  ‘Where did that come from? Gimma was never the best with any sort of spell. She could barely handle one bogglin in the summer and now she’s just seen off a skalk – a creature no one has seen in decades!’

  Miss Delafield’s expression suddenly hardened. ‘Don’t be jealous, Arianwyn – it really doesn’t suit you. Besides, who knows what might have happened if Gimma hadn’t been here to help.’

  Arianwyn lifted Estar easily and held him close, his small blue chest rising and falling with every breath. She glanced back at Gimma who had turned back, gazing into the Great Wood again – though not with fear or worry but with something different, something that Arianwyn couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  ‘I should get you all back to town at once,’ Miss Delafield said calmly. ‘It’s not safe out here. Whatever were you thinking, running off into the wood alone like that? You should have called me!’ She shepherded them all into the car, Arianwyn holding Estar close, Gimma wandering in a stunned daze.

  They were back at the Spellorium in just a few minutes. Arianwyn was surprised to see Salle waiting on the doorstep. Miss Delafield hurriedly clambered out of the car to unlock the door as Arianwyn climbed down into Kettle Lane. Salle stepped forwards, a small parcel wrapped in red chequered cloth in her hands. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you, but Aunt Grace asked me to bring you . . .’ Her words trailed off and her face darkened when she saw Arianwyn’s burden. ‘What’s happened? Is that Estar?’

  ‘He was hurt in the Great Wood – I need to get him inside.’ She hurried past Salle. No time for sympathy or recriminations now.

  Gimma followed them all inside, apparently still stunned and in shock. She waited near the door, fidgeting with her gloves. She looked as though she might be sick any second.

  ‘I’d sit down if I were you, dear,’ Miss Delafield offered calmly.

  Arianwyn placed Estar near the stove and busied herself laying a small fire. He felt worryingly cold, his breathing was shallow and there were the longest gaps when his chest didn’t move at all. ‘Hang on, Estar,’ she muttered in his ear. She couldn’t lose him when she had only just got him back. Her hands trembled as she lit the stove.

  ‘What should I do, dear?’ Miss Delafield asked, standing over her, her mac dripping on the floor. Arianwyn reached out a trembling hand and held it against Estar’s forehead, which felt cold and clammy. Then she checked his wrist for a pulse – she couldn’t feel anything, but then she wasn’t even sure feylings had a pulse. She had no idea what she was doing!

  ‘I think we need the doctor,’ Arianwyn said. Though she wasn’t sure the doctor would be able to help, either.

  The door opened. ‘Hello, all! We thought we’d just come to see how you got on this evening. My word, what on earth is going on here?’ Mayor Belcher’s voice cut through the anxious quiet in the Spellorium.

  Arianwyn twisted around to see him, Miss Newam and Colin at the door. The mayor looked at Gimma and Salle hovering nearby, then at Miss Delafield, and finally at Arianwyn and Estar on the floor. She imagined they were a strange sight indeed, soaked through and muddy, surrounding the still form of the little blue feyling.

  ‘Estar was attacked by a skalk in the wood, Arianwyn and Gimma rescued him and Gimma managed to dispatch the skalk. But Estar has been badly hurt,’ Miss Delafield explained quickly.

  Mayor Belcher gazed more carefully at Estar and gave a dismissive sniff. ‘Oh!’ He pulled out his little black notebook.

  ‘Are you telling me that creature has come from the Great Wood?’ Miss Newam asked, taking a step back.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I just said,’ Miss Delafield sighed.

  ‘Well, you can’t bring him in here then. He could be crawling with hex!’ Miss Newam said, her voice shrill and panicked.

  ‘Miss Newam, this is Estar!’ Arianwyn said, hoping she would catch on and realize this was who they had been looking for in the Great Wood, that Estar held the key to the Book of Quiet Glyphs.

  ‘I don’t care if he’s the Emperor of Dannis, Miss Gribble. Look at him, he’s covered in hex’ – she backed away, her eyes widening – ‘and by bringing him here you are putting us all at risk!’

  ‘That’s mud!’ Arianwyn replied, wiping away at Estar’s thin arm.

  Miss Newam stared hard at Arianwyn, her eyes unblinking like a lizard’s behind her thick spectacles.

  Colin looked as though he were about to respond but Miss Newam shot him a cold hard look and he stopped dead.

  ‘He needs help, Miss Newam,’ Arianwyn said. ‘We have to—’

  ‘We have to do nothing but get him outside the town walls,’ Miss Newam said levelly.

  Salle was suddenly at Arianwyn’s side with a pile of blankets. She knelt down and handed one to Aria
nwyn who wrapped it carefully around Estar. He looked so ill. She couldn’t possibly leave him outside the town! He would die, she was certain of it!

  ‘I’m fetching the doctor,’ Arianwyn said, getting to her feet.

  ‘As a representative of the C.W.A., I am telling you that you’re not allowed!’ Miss Newam said, her voice raising ever so slightly. ‘Until we’re certain he is free of the hex, he will have to stay outside the town walls. Your duty is to the people of this town, and at present you are putting everyone at risk, Miss Gribble.’

  The mayor coughed. ‘It seems to me that Hortensia . . . I mean Miss Newam, is right, Miss Gribble. I can’t have you risking everyone’s lives for the sake of this . . . creature.’

  Arianwyn felt tears of frustration in her eyes. Why didn’t they understand? ‘But he doesn’t have any hex on him, Miss Newam. Estar might die! Is that what you want? Will you be happy then? He might die and then everything we’ve been doing will be for nothing.’ Surely she would catch on? Arianwyn looked at Colin, who seemed totally lost.

  ‘You’re just being dramatic now—’

  ‘And you’re just being difficult!’ Arianwyn snapped.

  ‘I am following policy and protocol, set down by the Civil Witchcraft Authority,’ Miss Newam said coldly.

  Salle suddenly stood up. ‘Wait here, I’ll only be a few minutes,’ she said.

  ‘And just where do you think you’re going?’ Miss Newam barked.

  ‘I’m going to see Dr Cadbury!’ Salle said, standing and lifting her head a little higher. She pushed her way past Miss Newam. ‘And if you don’t like it . . . then you can boggin well arrest me!’

  Chapter 32

  MORE POWERFUL THAN A SPELL

  t felt like hours before Salle returned to the Spellorium. Arianwyn turned at the sound of the door charm’s bright notes and Salle was suddenly at her side, clutching a small tin in her shaking hands.

  ‘Where’s Dr Cadbury?’ Arianwyn hissed.