‘Stop this!’ She pulled on Ellie’s arm so hard the woman’s nails cut into Ellie’s skin. Thunder cracked and it felt the sky would split in two.
Billy’s brother, Raymond, dropped to his knees and, in a cracked and heartbroken voice, beseeched the family spirits to heed his call.
Standing stock still in the centre, Ellie could only stare at the apparition possessing the heart of the storm.
The Reverend Matthew Hopkins. What was he doing here?
Rose’s father was suspended in the middle of the mightiest cloud, his arms outstretched like some kind of deranged demi-god. Rain drove into her eyes, filling her nose and mouth. She didn't understand, but she couldn't look away. Matthew looked to be dancing with the spirits, cavorting, as he pulled them close.
A hand grasped her shoulder. ‘What is that?’ whispered Miss Dorothy.
Ellie shook her head. ‘That is the minister from our church.’
‘Doesn’t look like any minister I’ve ever known.’ Dorothy sniffed. She pulled her sodden cloak around her.
‘What do we do?’ A silver-haired man pushed Dorothy aside. He grabbed for Ellie, his face a mask of anguish. Raymond had risen to his feet. ‘This was your idea!’ He shouted bitterly. ‘Do something!’
‘Make it stop!’ The voices cried and the circle of black-cloaked witches rushed towards her, hands outstretched.
‘Do something.’
‘Fire! Come to me!’
‘Why isn’t it working?’
‘What are we going to do?’
The question cut through the ravaging wind, and Ellie shrank back as the brace of agonised faces bore down out of the darkness.
Oh my God. I don't know!
Chaos.
✽✽✽
Lifting his fist, Matthew roared his victory. From all points of the compass, spirits of earth, air, and fire streamed towards him, their eyes wild, their insubstantial forms streaking long across the night.
Countless, they raged up through the ground, up from the water, and shrieking, they materialised out of the very fabric of the air. Matthew, dazzled by the power at his command, stretched forth his arms and cried louder, calling all to heed him, and defeat the witches. Grind them out of all existence.
Out of the blackness, an ancient enmity stirred.
From the bowels of the earth, from the cracks in the sky and hidden beneath the vast continent across the sea, an ancient enmity answered.
Demons.
They roared towards him, dragging bleakness, blackness, horror...
They came shrieking, dragging a veil of infinite storms and chaos. An all-consuming terror.
What was he doing? Matthew faltered. He was nothing but a small, puny boy insignificant against this massed, heaving malevolence.
‘Stop.’ Matthew whispered, his voice a pathetic scratch above the raging nightmare.
At once, the darkness heeded his will.
They halted, churning the sky in the form of a gigantic cloud, an anvil of sky-bruising thunderstorm, so huge it would dwarf heaven itself.
Cold, sweet triumph raced though Matthew’s veins.
I am stronger.
Yes. Even entities such as these must obey him. Of course they must. All spirits must. Faery, angel, and demon alike - he was the spirit master and all would obey his will. That was his very special talent.
Lifting his jaw, Matthew pointed his finger to the circle of puny witches. There.
The dark spirits did not have to be told how to fulfil their nature. Howling with a sound as menacing and as destructive as a hurricane, they swept low, smashing huge clumps of ice to the ground.
Matthew raised his fist higher.
Ellie and her friends would not last long. They hadn’t moved, their cloaks were whipping around their bodies, billowing in the tumult, while their faces stared upward in horror. Somehow, they had managed to form a shield of some kind. It arced over them, a protective, transparent dome interlaced with fine lines of blue-white light. Like the thinnest of membranes, its surface swirled with shadow and colour as subtly as the sheen of oil on water.
A note soared upward.
Ellie, her red-gold hair crackling with energy and brightness, sang a note. It flared up from the centre of the circle like a beacon. Hope... They were holding the shield of protection up with that most fragile of human emotions.
Matthew laughed. Hope... It will never last. He knew from personal experience, it was the first one to go.
✽✽✽
Colours blazed and Rose woke to chaos on the ground. Footsteps crashed around her. Without thinking, she rolled herself away. Mud and ice splattered into her face. She closed her eyes. ‘This isn’t happening,’ she whispered.
✽✽✽
It was like a knifing pain. Each time Ellie lifted her voice, it felt as though she was shredding something physical, like her voice itself was a thing that could be harmed. It hurt, her throat hurt, though she still forced a sound through.
Standing right beside her, Miss Dorothy sang with operatic fervour.
Billy Buckland, still lying prone, had his hands up, feeding her a current of power. Dorothy’s eyes locked with his.
Above them, colours arced up into the protective dome. Ellie watched it flare in amazement, a force field that had sprung into being, powered by magic.
Dorothy grinned.
The other witches were crouched low behind her, shaking with terror, while more were shouting entreaties to the storm, pleading for respite.
The dome shook.
To Ellie, it seemed as if the black shards of fear and terror from the inside were weakening the force field above, tearing it apart.
The song had fragmented. If it wasn’t for Dorothy...
‘We have to get out of here, now.’ Gladys’s command pierced the gloom.
A cloak whirled and Ellie felt rough hands grabbing at her.
The heavens had turned an ominous, sulphurous yellow and directly overhead, high up in the maelstrom, a huge finger of cloud pointed right towards them.
✽✽✽
Suspended within the heart of the thunderhead, Matthew laughed at the thin, coiling brightness rising up within the dome, powering the lines of energy running across its surface.
Pathetic. What could those scared old men, old women, and a girl - this a circle of insipid, singing witches, do stop to him? Their pitiful protection was weakening with each airborne assault.
Matthew laughed again, his hair crackling with the snap of lightning sizzling through the super-saturated air.
He held the massed power of the spirits; he controlled the storm shades, the wind dancers, the rainmakers, the driving, obliterating energy. With their power, he would bring searing winds to burn the face of the earth; he would bring drought, despair; he would cause the seas to rise upon the land.
Nothing could stop him; the prophecies would come to fruition. He was the avenging sword. He would strike, cut, blast, and wipe out all that was in his path. And the earth would be scorched as the Good Book foretold and then he would rise, ascending to heaven with his rightful inheritance, as one of the blessed.
Matthew clenched his fist. He was the Instrument, and these puny inconsequential witches, who dared to think they had any hope of stopping him, would be the first to feel of his wrath.
There was a single burst of lightning and Matthew sent a smash of thunderous power, as focused as a missile, straight into the circle’s heart.
✽✽✽
'If you stay, you are on your own!’ Gladys cried. ‘This is madness. Madness what this girl, this stranger, has leashed on us! Where is she from? She is not even British! Who is she, Dorothy?’
‘Who is she?’
‘Who is she?’ The voices echoed. In an ugly shriek, their fear and suspicion convulsed upwards and tore a single, gaping hole into the centre of the protective dome.
It was enough.
Powered by shade, by hate, by destruction, the bolt ripped into the heart of the circle with
a deafening roar.
Dorothy and Billy fell to the ground.
‘No!’ Ellie screamed as the circle collapsed around her, falling in graceful folds, the scent of forest, warmth, life, hope...
From his vantage point, Matthew cried his triumph. The dome was down. The witches were exposed. The shades were poised.
The heavens heaved with fury.
More came. From out of the darkness, from further across the wind whipped sea, a focused presence came rushing towards him - fetid, heavy, singed with horror…
And the might of the storm began to spin.
✽✽✽
Knocked to the ground, Ellie could only watch as the Reverend Matthew Hopkins thrust his arms out from his body, cross-like, and the multitude responded - a vast, murderous storm front gathering across the heavens. She felt numb, like her body was encased in a quiet, blanketing coverlet. She couldn’t feel a thing. Ellie was vaguely aware of Miss Dorothy lying still beside her, the old lady’s cloak heaped and sodden beneath the baleful sky. Lightning forked.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
Ellie closed her eyes, her cheek pressed into the cold, muddy earth. If she died now, what would happen to her body? A rich scent filled her nostrils. It made Ellie think of mushrooms, and tiny growing mosses. She breathed in deep. Sorry Ba Set, I failed you. You were right, we must mourn Her passing, what can we do to stop death? Briefly, Ellie thought of her mother and father, and bit back a sob. Annie and Tom, I’ll miss them, will we meet in heaven? Probably not… Sorry to the trees, sorry to the beautiful forest, I love you.
An image of Rose came into view, and her shoulder spasmed with a sudden knife of pain. Oh God, Rose, I was an idiot. I thought I could help heal the world…
Her shoulder hurt again, and the vision sharpened into a mass of dark curly hair, a dress fluttering in the chaos of the storm, and words mouthed against the sky.
‘Wake up, Ellie, hurry!’
‘Yeh,’ Ellie whispered sadly. ‘I’m also slow.’
‘Wake up!’ A bolt of pain whacked into the side of Ellie's head, and the image of Rose snapped into a loud, angry focus.
The ground shook as the air quaked with renewed violence. I’m dead, Ellie smiled. I’m dead and Rose is here to take me to heaven.
✽✽✽
Ice bit into Matthew’s skin as the temperature dropped. The weather shades gathered tighter still, and out from the twisting cloud there came the sound of a ruthless, guttural roaring.
‘God, show me if this is your way.’ Matthew’s body shook with the fervour of his prayer. ‘Show me!’
He’d never felt so alive.
Thunder snapped as the agents of destruction surged for release, each one bound inexorably to his will.
Brightness scored the night. Below, a pair of figures moved in a stop-start awkward fashion.
Why don’t they ever give up? Matthew studied the witches for the briefest of moments. One had lost her cloak, her arms were uncovered, and her long, dark hair whipped around her crown like a thing alive.
A growl, and the storm coiled tighter still, contracting into a viscious cone of rain, hail, fury...
Curious, Matthew flexed his will, forcing the architects of destruction to wait a heartbeat longer. This one seemed so insubstantial, and young. Her slender form was clad in only the thinnest of summer dresses, and she struggled to pull her prone companion to her feet. Abruptly, the young woman halted, and in frustration, she smacked her hair out of her eyes and dropped her charge to the ground.
✽✽✽
‘Wake up!’ Rose screamed.
Ellie smiled, she liked this version of Rose. She looked like her friend of old, back when they were kids, muddy and sort of wild; she only wished she’d just stop pulling at her.
Ellie clenched the hag stone tighter.
✽✽✽
Below, the young woman stamped her foot on the ground.
The wind moaned as the storm, held in check, began to heave and buck.
Matthew’s skin prickled in the super-charged atmosphere. Why doesn’t she just give up?
The young woman was standing alone, her pale form surrounded by the black-cloaked bodies of her fallen companions. Like a pyre of blackened embers, Matthew mused, like embers surrounding the burnt husks of witches. His hatred flared.
‘It’s over,’ he bellowed, his voice strengthened by the roaring of the wind. ‘You, and all your kind have failed.’
Stretching forth his arms to release the storm, Matthew unclenched his fists, just as the lone, remaining witch lifted her head and met his gaze. Golden-eyes…
✽✽✽
A thunderous howl rent the sky and Ellie snapped awake. Pain pummelled across her back. She rolled away, struggling in the sodden mess of her cloak and wrenched it off.
Rose stood before her, golden eyes flashing, with her fist raised to strike.
Ellie shook her head. Her face hurt, her body ached all over.
Chunks of hail were pelting out of the heavens, as hard and as large as stones.
She lurched to her feet.
‘Hurry!’ Rose was shouting; she looked on the edge on hysteria. ‘God, you’re always so slow!’
Mutely, Ellie gazed at the wreck of the circle and then back to her friend. ‘Rose? What are you doing here?’
‘I don’t know!’ Suddenly Rose tipped back her head and laughed, the sound a clear, bright bell lifting above the deadening roar of the storm. ‘It’s crazy, Ellie. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but look my Dad is up there, in the middle of that!’
Ellie followed her friend’s gesture. The sky hung, blackened and bruised. The thunderhead had swelled double in size and now spanned the heavens like a vast, malignant disease. It was circling, moving in on itself and shot through with streaks of deepest red. At its centre lightning pulsed, and, as if revelling in their attention, thunder cracked, like an echoing, mocking laugh.
Below it, illuminated on the muddy ground, were the witches - Miss Dorothy, Billy, Gladys, and all the others. The flaming torches had long been extinguished, and the circle lay broken and silent, devoid of any hint of magic. Ellie dropped her face in her hands. It was over, Gladys was right; her meddling had destroyed them all.
‘Wake up.’ A slap hit Ellie’s shoulder. Rose raised her voice. ‘If that storm breaks it will kill us all. Come on, Ellie. Think! What have you been learning all these months?’
‘Nothing you would understand.’ Exhausted, Ellie closed her eyes. Her shoulder ached.
‘Well try me.’
Ellie shook her head.
Rose laughed, but she didn’t sound amused. ‘For God’s sake, Ellie, stop being so stupid. You’re not the only one who’s been caught up in this craziness. God, you are always so self-obsessed.’
Ellie stared at her friend in disbelief. ‘Me?’
‘Yes, you,’ Rose snapped back. ‘Look, I believe you. Does that change anything? No, it doesn’t. Just tell me what that hideous creature has been teaching you.’ She paused, flashing a grin. ‘Besides, it can’t be that hard, if you and all these badly dressed witches can do it.’
Ellie didn’t reply. Rose, it didn’t make sense, how come she was even here?
The ground lurched, and Ellie felt she was falling deeper into a world that she would never, ever, understand.
She closed her eyes. Paradox. Is that what Ba Set had called it? A state of being or a thing that was so absurd it couldn’t possibly be true, and yet somehow, it turned out to be real, even if it didn’t make sense.
Like magic...
Ellie shivered.
‘What does she say, Ellie?’ cried Rose, stamping her foot. ‘Hurry!’
‘She says you have to feel the magic in here.’ Ellie pointed to her heart, ‘like it's a part of you. And sing.’ Ellie tensed, ready for her friend’s peel of teasing laughter.
‘That doesn’t sound so bad,’ Rose was gazing up into the storm, ‘and I’ve got the best voice in church. What do we sing?’<
br />
‘Not words … exactly,’ Ellie said slowly, acutely aware of how crazy it sounded. ‘We use our voices and connect to power - in the earth.’
‘What? Is that all?’ Rose snorted in disbelief. ‘Where’s the magic in that?
Overhead, an eerie sound shrieked through the sky.
‘Okay, hurry.’ Rose ordered.
‘What?’
‘Do it!’
The sky convulsed and the great roiling cloud tightened still.
✽✽✽
Within the heart of the thunderhead, Matthew shook in agony, howling in bitterness, over and over, until at last he hung suspended in the midst of the storm, doubled over, and retching in horror.
His sweet girl, they have taken her.
The curse had been fulfilled.
Her blood is tainted. Her accursed heritage has come to claim her.
Pulsing with malevolent light, the spirits heard him. Massing closer, tighter, they lent their combined energy to feed his own.
Bile, blackness, hatred.
Destruction, death, chaos.
Shade, fury.
Obliteration.
✽✽✽
‘Hurry!’ Rose shrieked.
Ellie held the hag stone to her cheek. Around them, chips of ice bit into their exposed skin, but it was weird; the wind had dropped almost completely, and it felt hard to breathe as though all the oxygen in the air had fled.
Her hag stone, how she loved it, and it had chosen her.
Closing her eyes, she breathed a deep tone towards the earth, more a vibrating rumble than any kind of real song. Barely audible, it hummed low and close to the ground. But it was enough to send minute particles of soil shivering, like dust vibrating on the surface of a set of speakers.
‘Bass, tone, earth,’ Ellie sang again into the stone, and a thin, coiling brightness erupted from its centre.
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