A Witch Alone (The Winter Witch Trilogy #3) (7 page)

‘Very summery,’ Dad agreed, spreading his Gore-Tex out on the polished oak bench. ‘We celebrated by walking over the cliffs. It was fantastic wasn’t it, Anna?’

‘Beautiful,’ I agreed. And it had been. The walk had blown away the shadowy fears from earlier and reminded me exactly how lucky I was to live in a place like Winter.

‘Well, I’ll get you some menus and leave you to it,’ Elaine said. ‘But I will tell you that the roast lamb is particularly good – it’s from Jenks’ farm, and it’s absolutely delish.’

‘Lamb it is for me,’ Dad said. ‘And a pint of Old please, Elaine.’

‘Lamb for me too, then,’ I said.

‘Any drink for you, Anna?’ Elaine asked.

‘Just water please.’

‘Okey-doke. See you shortly.’

Dad watched as she made her way back to the kitchen and then turned to me.

‘Sure you don’t want anything more exciting? It’s a special occasion, after all.’

‘Is it?’

I ran through the possibilities in my head, silently panicking that I’d missed something vital. It was only April – Dad’s birthday wasn’t until August. Mine had been and gone. I had no idea when my mother’s birthday was and Dad had never marked it, nor his wedding anniversary. What could it possibly be?

‘Today, my dear, it is exactly a year since we moved to Winter. Remember our first night cuddled up with the spiders and mice? Seems a long time ago, doesn’t it?’

It felt like a
lifetime
ago.

A year. A year to the day since I’d moved to Winter, discovered the truth about myself, met Emmaline, met Seth … How had so much happened since then, how had everything gone so right, and so wrong?

‘I know you didn’t choose to leave London and it wasn’t the best time, what with me being fired and so on, but are you glad we moved?’

I looked out of the window at the children playing in the beer garden while I thought about that. Was I glad? What a question. I was a different
person
because of Winter – my old life in London seemed impossibly ordinary, stiflingly safe. Would I change anything, if I could? Give up all the terrifying and wonderful and heart-wrenching things that had happened to me in Winter?

‘Yes, I’m glad.’ I said at last. ‘There’s lots I miss about London but – yes. I’m still glad.’

‘Good.’ Dad patted my shoulder. ‘I’ve always loved Winter, right from the first time your mum and I saw it. Somehow it always seemed like a place I could call home.’

The word ‘mum’ still gave me a little jolt. Dad’s eighteen-year silence had broken on my birthday, three months ago, but I still wasn’t used to hearing that word on his lips. It took a minute before the little shiver of surprise subsided and I realized what he’d actually said.

‘Hang on.’ I interrupted something he was saying about the house. ‘What did you say? You first came here with my
mum
?’

I didn’t ask:
How come you never told me?
I knew the answer to that: a charm that had silenced his tongue as brutally as a knife. But surely Dad could have told me he’d been here before?

‘Did I never tell you that story?’

‘No,’ I said, astonished that Dad could even ask.

‘We came here on honeymoon. We were supposed to be going to Russia – St Petersburg, I think it was – and then at the last minute your mum had problems with her visa and we cancelled and decided to stay in the UK. So we were flicking through a guide to romantic B&Bs and your mother saw a listing for a fisherman’s cottage in Winter. And she said instantly that
that
was the place we absolutely must go, it was a sign – because she was about to become Mrs Winterson, you see.’ He paused as a waitress put a pint in front of him and a glass of water for me, and then added, ‘It’s a tea room now, that one up past the library, on the cliffs.’

‘So – that was why you came here, when it all fell apart in London?’ I asked. Dad rubbed the side of his nose.

‘Well, if you put it like that, I suppose perhaps yes. It was one of the last places I’d been completely happy with Isla, before – you know.’

I nodded. I knew. Before she got pregnant with me, and the paranoid delusions started, and they had her sectioned and drugged.

‘Because it wasn’t long after that – well …’ He laughed and picked up his pint. ‘Let’s just say, there’s a strong chance that you were conceived in Winter. In fact, pretty much a certainty. Isla gave me the news virtually the day we got back to London.’

‘Ew, Dad!’ I groaned. It wasn’t like I could have got here
without
Dad having had sex. But I didn’t really want to hear about it. I was very used to Dad being comfortably single and that suited me fine.

‘Sorry, sweetie.’ He raised his glass, drinking to hide his smile. ‘Let’s change the subject to something more suited to your delicate sensibilities. Oh hello, Elaine.’ Elaine bore down on us with two plates of roast lamb. ‘You’re just in time to save Anna’s blushes.’

‘Anna’s blushing?’ Elaine put the plates down. ‘Something I should know?’

‘No, no.’ Dad grinned. ‘Just me trying to embarrass her. Have you got time to sit down for a drink?’

‘Well …’ Elaine looked at the bar, ‘Not really. But I haven’t had a break this morning. Ange!’ she yelled across the bar. ‘Can you manage for a tick? I’m just going to have a quick sit down.’

‘Yup,’ Angelica called back. ‘No probs.’

‘OK, I’m officially on a break.’ Elaine sat gratefully on a bar stool at our table and kicked off her shoes. ‘How are you two?’

‘Oh fine,’ Dad answered for both of us. ‘Anna’s supposed to be home doing her revision, of course. But aside from that … How are you, Elaine? Any news on Bran?’

‘News?’ I looked from one to the other. Elaine sighed and ran her hand through her hair, in an echo of Seth’s characteristic gesture that tugged at my heart.

‘Dad’s not so good. I was telling your dad yesterday. He’s in Brighthaven Infirmary. They don’t think he’ll be coming out. And he’s asking and asking …’

‘For … Seth?’ I concentrated on chopping up a roast potato to avoid her gaze.

‘Yes. But Seth’s in the middle of nowhere on some boat. What can he do? He’s turned back, but I really doubt he’ll be in time.’

The meaning of her words hit me suddenly. Bran was so ill that he was probably going to die before Seth made it back to Winter.

‘What’s funny,’ Elaine went on, ‘well, you’ll laugh …’ She looked like laughter was the last thing on her mind. ‘He – he asked for …’ She looked down at her hands and then took a breath. ‘He asked for you.’

My fork fell from my fingers.

‘
Me?
’

‘Yes. Funny, isn’t it?’ Elaine said in a flat, hollow voice.

‘But – why would he ask for Anna?’ Dad said confusedly. ‘He always seemed quite … um … resistant.’

Resistant
was the understatement of the year.
Full of bitter hate
, was the phrase I’d have chosen. Elaine spread her hands.

‘I know. What can I say. I was surprised too. But don’t worry, Anna – I’m not telling you this to make you feel that you have to go. I wouldn’t put you through it – it’s not like he’s ever done anything to deserve your compassion now. And I don’t think he’s entirely lucid anyway, to be honest. He’s asking for all sorts of people – people from the past. People I’ve never heard of. Last night he was raving about someone called Isla. God knows who that could be – I’ve never even met an Isla.’

‘Isla?’ I choked. I could see from Dad’s face that he was as shocked as me.

‘Yes,’ Elaine looked from me to Dad and back again. ‘Sorry, do you … ?’

‘Anna’s – her mum was called Isla,’ Dad managed at last. He reached for his glass and his hand shook. ‘Funny coincidence, that’s all.’

I picked up my fork again and put the potato to my lips, chewing mechanically. But it was suddenly impossible to swallow.

A
s soon as we got back from the pub I disappeared upstairs, muttering excuses about revision. As I peeled off my walking socks I mentally promised myself that I would actually
do
some revision, so it wasn’t completely a lie. Only – after some extracurricular research.

But two hours later the internet had thrown up nothing. There were lots of hits for
Codex Angelis
but nothing that looked remotely right and ‘The Riddle of the Epiphany’ didn’t return a single hit.

Next I checked the Winter library catalogue and then, when that turned up nothing, the British Library online catalogue. Nothing.

At last I clicked on my email browser and started a new email.

Dear Caradoc,

I hope you’re well and Jonathan too. It would be lovely to come up to London to see you some time.

But I’m afraid I’m emailing to ask a favour; I’m trying to trace a text called ‘The Riddle of the Epiphany’, from a book called the Codex Angelis. The book is in the Ealdwitan library – but their copy was defaced and the page with the riddle in was torn out.

Do you know anything about the book? Might there be another copy in existence? I can’t find any record of it, but I wondered if you might have other avenues.

Any suggestions would be very welcome.

Much love,

Anna

Then I closed down the email and opened up my neglected file of revision notes. Today, according to the timetable above my desk, I was supposed to be doing Maths practice papers.

The first one said fifty-five minutes and I set my alarm clock and got down to it. But I’d barely got halfway through the first problem when my email pinged. The harder I tried to ignore it, the more it niggled at the edge of my consciousness, stopping me from concentrating. At last I gave in – it’d be better just to check the sender and then, when it turned out to be something boring, I could go back to the exam paper.

But it wasn’t boring. It was from Caradoc.

I clicked it open, ignoring the ticking clock. Had he found something so soon?

Dear Anna,

How delightful to hear from you – and with such an intriguing question too.

I know of course the volume to which you refer. The
Codex Angelis,
named for the illuminated angel on page two, is a tenth-century collection of Anglo-Saxon riddles, prophecies and poetry. Much of the mundane content is similar to that in
Codex Exoniensis
and the
Vercelli Book
, but it is a shadow volume – that is to say, unknown to the outwith world, hence your difficulty with the British Library – and the prophesies are, as far as I am aware, totally unique. I know of only one copy in existence: that which resides in the Ealdwitan library.

Your quest to find the text of this missing riddle will not be simple. My cursory researches have turned up a mention of a translation dating around 1570, but the reference is to a copy in the library of Peter the Great, the Tsar of Russia, and I can find no mention of the work since that date.

However, I will make enquiries and will be in touch as soon as I have any news to convey.

Your most affectionate friend,

Caradoc Truelove

Somehow it didn’t sound too positive and I typed a quick thank you then turned back to my Maths with a sigh.

The alarm pinged for the final time to say that my time was up again and I set the last practice paper on the floor and stretched my tired back, before turning off the timer. It was nearly quarter to ten. No wonder I was knackered. I could hear faint film music filtering up the stairs and I guessed that Dad was probably snoring on the sofa. He always flaked out if he drank at lunchtime.

Maybe it was doing the practice papers tonight, but all of a sudden the exams felt terrifyingly close. How many weeks were left? I wasn’t certain, but I had a horrible feeling that it might be down to single figures.

As if in time with my thoughts the wind groaned in the chimney and I went to the window and looked out. There was something wrong about the weather again, the same false note Abe had mentioned the other night.

But the air outside was sharp and cold, not a wisp of fog to be seen. So it wasn’t that. There was a storm building though. I could hear it in the howl of the wind and the crash of the surf against the far-off cliffs. The sky was clear overhead, but away out to sea I could see rolling black shadows, building and boiling in the distance. A crow wheeled and cried in the darkness, its wingspan a star-blotted blackness against the dark of the night sky.

And then the phone started ringing.

Automatically I looked at the clock. 9.50 p.m.? Who’d be ringing now? I clattered down the stairs to grab the phone before it rang out.

‘Hello?’

‘Anna?’ The voice at the other end was strange: croaky and hoarse, like someone who’d been crying.

‘Um … yes … ?’

‘Anna, it’s me – Elaine.’

‘Elaine! What – what’s happened? Are you OK? Is Seth—?’ I stopped. I couldn’t speak. My hands were cold and numb against the phone. I thought of the storm, of the distant boiling clouds in the black night, of a small boat, horribly fragile …

‘Seth’s fine,’ Elaine said, but her voice was cracked and odd, and there was an echo on the line. She wasn’t phoning from the pub. ‘Anna, I’m really sorry to ring so late, and I’m really, really sorry to ask you this …’

She stopped and I swallowed against the fear and said, more harshly than I meant, ‘Elaine, please, you’re scaring me. Just say it.’

‘Anna, it’s Bran,’ she gulped, and there was a sob in her voice. ‘He’s d-dying. I really think he’s dying and so do the doctors. And he’s raving and sobbing and c-crying out – for Seth, but also for you. And I can’t do anything about Seth, he’s stuck in some port, trying to get a visa. And I know I have no right to ask you this, p-please believe me I do know that. You don’t owe him anything. But I thought—’

‘I’m coming,’ I said.

Even as I spoke, getting the right department and ward, I was shrugging into my coat.

Elaine was wrong. I owed Bran. And I owed this to Seth.

‘Dad,’ I called as I ran into the night, ‘Dad, get your keys.’

‘Anna!’ Elaine jumped up from the side of the bed as I entered. Her face, even in the soft, low light from the bedside lamp, was grey and drawn.