A Witch Alone (The Winter Witch Trilogy #3) (13 page)

‘What are you waiting for?’ Emmaline snapped at me and Abe. ‘Help him!’

I shook myself and put my hand against the door, feeling Abe’s magic flowing into the wood along with mine.

After a few moments the din subsided and we all looked at each other.

The wave had retreated, leaving the corridor ankle-deep in Thames mud. There were strange things coiling in the ooze. I tried not to look at them as we picked our way carefully through. Instead I kept my eyes on the walls and ceilings.

We’d only gone a few yards when I heard a familiar voice filtering from an open door.

‘Miss Vane, lock down the Fleet entrance – we must keep all traffic to one entrance for the moment. Partridge, get the word out to the other Chairs, tell them to alert their camps. And will somebody
please
find Ratzinger and get the Effra entrance secured and manned!’

‘Grandmother!’ I ran, slipping in the filth, slimy creatures thrashing underfoot as I sprinted along the corridor to the open door. ‘It’s me!’

I burst into her office and she looked up from the desk she was standing at. She was immaculate as ever, not a hair out of place. But the room was a wreck. The silk sofas and brocade hangings were spattered with mud. Dirty water swilled in the grate where a fire should have burned. Her desk was cracked down the middle, a great charred slash as if a burning beam had fallen on it. But it was still standing – just – and it was spread with grimoires and antique spell books from the Ealdwitan library, each with quills and markers sticking out of pages, as though she had been desperately seeking a remedy for the chaos unfolding all around.

For a moment her face was blank – then she stumbled out from behind the desk, her arms outstretched.

‘Anna – darling …’

I scrambled across the silt-strewn floor and into her arms.

‘Thank God – when I heard …’ Her fingers clutched me, painfully hard.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘I have no idea. That’s the terrifying thing.’

‘Corax is dead, did you know?’

‘I know he’s dead, but not how. No one seems to know if it was an accident or something worse.’

‘It was murder.’ Marcus’ voice was level, but the words cut like a knife. ‘He was stabbed.’

‘Stabbed?’ Elizabeth’s face was a mask of shock. She turned from me to Marcus, and then back again. ‘You saw this?’

‘We saw his body,’ Marcus spoke like an automaton. ‘He’d been stabbed in his office, with a sword.’

‘His
office
? Then it must – it must have been someone known to him.’ My grandmother’s face was grey. ‘One of us.’

‘They’d breached the wards,’ Marcus said. ‘The door was unlocked.’

‘My God,’ my grandmother whispered. She stumbled to a chair and sank on to it, hardly seeming to notice that the velvet upholstery was soaked through with mud. ‘I thought … Oh my God, Thaddeus – how I wronged you.’ She put her face in her hands, the stones in her rings winking in the dim light. But when she raised her head, the steel was back; her expression was hard. ‘We will find his killer and punish them grievously. Marcus, will you gather who you can of your father’s camp? Bring them here.’

‘What can I do?’ I asked. Everything felt suddenly unreal.

Elizabeth shook her head, her eyes bright.

‘Thank you, my darling, but the best thing you can do is to go home. There is no time to teach you what you’d need to know to be of use here – that goes for your friends too. And I would worry. You’re safer in Winter. I will call you tonight.’

‘Do you promise?’ I asked as she kissed me on each cheek.

‘Yes, I promise. Now, go. It’s late. Your father will be worrying.’

Dad. It was like a cold slap. Of course – he’d have been expecting me home hours ago. What could I say? How could I explain?

‘Marcus,’ my grandmother was saying, ‘will you show Anna and her friends out?’

‘Of course,’ Marcus said.

We walked in silence along a maze of corridors, until we reached the door between two palms. They were dead now, crushed to splinters.

‘Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to help?’ I asked. ‘I don’t want to leave you like this.’

‘Look, just go. Your father …’ He put a hand to his temple as if crushing down something he couldn’t bear to think about. ‘Honestly, go home.’

‘You’ll be all right?’ My heart wrung at the sight of his face. He was so self-contained, so reserved, it was hard to remember that he had lost his father today, on top of all this terror and destruction.

‘Of course. Truly, go. I need to do something – to work …’ Some shadow of a very strong emotion shivered over Marcus’ face and I had the feeling that he was close to breaking down. ‘I
need
to work.’

He’d lost his father. He had lost everything.

We walked through the door and, as I let it close gently behind me, I had the feeling of a traitor, shutting him in, abandoning him to his grief and the blood-soaked waters.

‘A
re you sure you won’t come in, Abe? You look like death. You too, Anna.’ Maya put her hands on the open car window, her face white and worried beneath the street lamp. Inside the car the hazard lights blinked, striking a staccato ruby fire off Abe’s eyebrow ring.

Abe rubbed his face tiredly, but shook his head.

‘We can’t stop. I’ve got to get Anna home.’

‘Did you reach my dad?’ I asked anxiously.

Emmaline had managed to breathe a bit of magic into her mobile and had spoken to Maya on the train, but between the crackles and cut-outs it was hard to know how much Maya had understood. Then the phone had died completely and we’d been left hoping that Maya would pass on a message.

Maya nodded.

‘Yes, but I didn’t really know what to say – I wasn’t sure if you’d come here first or go there, so I didn’t want to contradict whatever you might tell him. He knows you’re alive – but that’s about it. I think he’s a bit …’

‘I’ll stand well back,’ Abe said dryly.

‘He was pretty angry,’ Maya said apologetically.

I held that thought in my head as we drove in silence along the coast road and tried to work out what I could say.

As he pulled into the drive Abe’s headlamps swept the front of Wicker House, coming to rest on Dad, his arms ominously folded, standing outside the front door.

‘Anna Winterson,’ he cut in before I’d even got out of the car, let alone started speaking, ‘there had better be a bloody good explanation for this.’

‘Dad—’

‘You weren’t at school, apparently.’

‘How did you know?’

‘I thought better of you, honestly, Anna.’ His face twisted. ‘I mean, cutting school – OK. Honestly, I’m not impressed, but there’s not much I can say. But leaving me until –’ he looked at his watch ‘– until eleven p.m. without a word, when you knew, you
knew
I’d be frantic—’

‘Look,’ Abe broke in, ‘don’t blame Anna. It wasn’t her fault.’

‘You!’ Dad spat. ‘Mind your own business.’

‘You’re being unfair – Anna wasn’t to blame, she—’

‘Who
was
to blame then?’ Dad snarled. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself – she’s half your age. You should be letting her get on with her schoolwork, not dragging her off to—’

‘Dad, stop it,’ I said. ‘Abe didn’t drag me anywhere. If you must know, he came up to London to get me back.’

‘London! What in God’s name were you doing in London?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes, it matters! For goodness’ sake, Anna, what’s wrong with you?’

‘Look,’ Abe said in a low voice, ‘she’s had a long day and she’s been through a lot. Can’t you just let her go to bed and leave this for the morning?’

‘Thanks,’ Dad said furiously, ‘but I’m not quite reduced to taking parenting advice from someone who …’ he stopped, biting his tongue.

‘Who … ?’ Abe said dangerously. ‘Go on?’

‘Stop it, both of you,’ I cried. ‘Dad, stop taking it out on Abe. It was nothing to do with him. And Abe, just go. You’re not helping.’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘OK. I’m going.’

He turned, but then, as if thinking of something he’d forgotten, he stopped and put a hand on my shoulder.

‘Anna?’

‘What?’

He bent and kissed my cheek, his lips soft and warm, the gesture unbearably tender.

Then he turned away to the car, the door slammed, and the engine revved with its throaty, choking roar.

Dad stood and watched in stiff fury as the car bumped up the track and out of sight, and then he let out a great gust of breath and some enormous tension seemed to roll off his shoulders.

‘Anna, I’m your dad,’ he said as we turned to the house. ‘I don’t want to police your life, but didn’t it occur to you that I’d be beside myself with worry? Couldn’t you have called?’

‘Of course it occurred to me,’ I said wearily. I put a hand to my aching head, trying to remember when I’d last had food or drink. It must have been – breakfast? ‘I tried to call, Dad. Really I did. But – stuff happened.’

‘What kind of stuff?’ Dad asked.

The memory of Caradoc’s broken, bloodied body rose up in front of my eyes like a waking nightmare and I put my hands to my face, pressing back the sobs that were suddenly threatening to break free.

‘I saw …’ I tried to think of something that was true, but bearable for Dad. ‘I saw an accident, in London. It was horrible. Someone died.’

‘Oh love.’ Dad’s anger ebbed. He’d never been able to stay cross with me for long. He pulled me into his arms and I pressed my forehead to his shoulder, wishing there was some way I could explain what had happened today. But Dad didn’t ask any more questions and at last I stood stiffly, wiping at my cheek with my sleeve.

‘D’you mind if I go up now, Dad? School tomorrow …’ I said it with a laugh, trying to make it a joke, but my voice faltered and it sounded more like a sob. Dad only nodded, soberly, and watched as I walked slowly up the stairs to my room.

Upstairs, I stripped off my clothes. Even though Marcus had made them clean, I couldn’t shake the feeling of the river silt ground into my hair and skin, and I went and stood under the shower for a long time, trying to think of nothing at all – not of Caradoc, not of Thaddeus Corax, most of all not of Marcus’ white, stark face as he turned back to the horror and the mud.

We’d both lost our mothers, too early to remember, and we’d had that great aching absent loss in common, but now Marcus had gone beyond. He’d lost both parents. He was a true orphan, no longer a child in any sense. I couldn’t begin to imagine his loneliness tonight.

Before I went to bed I checked my email. What I saw made my heart leap, chokingly, into my throat.

From: Caradoc Truelove. Sent: Today, 10.33 a.m.

Subject: Further to my call.

For a moment my hands shook so badly I couldn’t work the mouse, and I had to stop, take a deep breath, and wait for the trembling to subside. Then I clicked on the header and the email opened.

Dear Anna,

I imagine by the time you read this, you will probably have received my telephone message and will know that I have managed to track down, not the original, but the translation I spoke of in my message.

In view of the ‘accidents’ with previous versions of this text, I thought that it might be wise to send you an electronic copy – attached herewith. Dear Jonathan has gone out for a moment so this is my first experiment in using the scanner – I hope it succeeds!

In brief, it is a Victorian reprint of a sixteenth-century translation of the original. As you will see, it has been rather inelegantly transmuted into a form of sonnet which is certainly
not
an accurate reflection of the original poem. Without access to the Anglo-Saxon text it is very hard to know what is pure invention and what is original material, but I’m sorry to say that much of it appears to be, at best, a creative interpretation. Some of it is almost certainly entirely fabricated to fit the requirements of the sonnet form. Some parts are not even sixteenth century, in my opinion, but Victorian insertions.

I am sure you will appreciate the significance of some of the elements, but I’m afraid I write in haste – dear Jonathan has run out for milk and a customer has just come into the shop above – so I must leave you for the moment, but perhaps you could call me when you are at leisure and we can discuss it in greater detail then.

Your affectionate friend,

Caradoc Truelove

I should have cried myself dry today – but the tears threatened to overwhelm me again as I closed down the email, Caradoc’s distinctive chocolate-dark drawl still echoing in my head, and clicked on the attachment. For the longest time I could see nothing – nothing but swimming patterns of black and white and blue, though I scrubbed angrily at my eyes, drawing great shuddering breaths in an effort to calm myself.

At last the screen swam into focus – the secret that had cost Caradoc his life. And it was blank. A beautifully rendered scan of a blank sheet of yellowing paper, with a few fly spots and marks and, very faintly through the thick paper, the heavy black type of the poem showing through the other side, utterly unreadable.

He had scanned the wrong side of the page.

He’d been so close to sending me the information – and then he’d put the paper in the scanner the wrong way up and, in his haste, never checked.

I put my head in my hands, the water from my damp hair running down my wrists like tears.

I woke with a jolt and a beating heart to find myself slumped uncomfortably over my desk, the wood damp and warm beneath my cheek. The phone downstairs was shrilling out in the darkness, and the clock on my computer screen said 5.43 a.m.

I shut the laptop with a click and ran down the stairs, trying not to trip over my towel. Still the phone shrilled as I stumbled to the ground floor. Then I stood in the hall for a brief moment, trying to gather myself, face the worst.

I picked up the receiver.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s me.’ It was Marcus’ voice, low, full of weariness.

‘Are you all right?’ Stupid question. As soon as the words fell from my lips I wanted to hit my head on the oak beam in front of me. His father was dead. Why would he be all right?