A Witch Alone (The Winter Witch Trilogy #3) (8 page)

‘Elaine.’ I kissed her. ‘You look … tired.’

‘I am tired.’ She passed a hand over her face and it trembled. ‘It’s been … Oh, I can’t bear it.’

It hurt to see her like this, her face so raw and naked, and so alone. Seth should have been here, helping her. And he wasn’t.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ I asked in a whisper.

‘Well … I hate to ask … but could you sit with him for a few minutes while I go to the loo? I didn’t want to leave him before, but he’s asleep now so I think he’ll be fine for a while. They gave him something to help. You know, with … with the pain …’ she put a hand to her face.

‘Of course.’ I swallowed. ‘It’s no problem, I promise.’

‘OK,’ Elaine nodded and drew a deep breath. ‘Thank you. I’ll feel better knowing you’re here and can ring the bell. Just to warn you –’ she took another shaky breath ‘– he’s not very … lucid. He’s on very strong pain medication. He might not recognize you if he wakes, but maybe …’

She stopped. I knew what she was thinking. Maybe that would be for the best.

‘It’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll get one of the nurses to call you if he wakes up, I promise.’

‘Thanks, Anna.’ She gave me a watery smile and I watched as she walked, slow and stiff, away down the corridor.

When she’d gone I turned to Bran.

He lay under the sheets and his body was as thin and frail as a ten-year-old child’s. It was impossible to believe that this was the same man who, just a few months ago, had been hobbling around his island kingdom, fishing off the rocks, cackling and swearing and imposing his will on everyone.

Now he lay completely still, his skin sunken around the bones of his face, his clawed hands slack against his chest. There was rheum around the edge of his mouth and at the corners of each eye. As I watched he seemed to shiver and I saw his eyes move restlessly beneath the paper-thin lids. Then he gave a gusting, weary moan that made my heart wring.

‘Seth …’ It was almost impossible to make out the word, but I caught it – just a whimper, the sound of someone keening for their lost child.

‘Oh Bran,’ I couldn’t help it. The words slipped out and I took his fragile old hand and pressed it to my cheek.

‘Eh … ?’ He gave a croaking sigh and his eyelids opened. I let his hand drop and steeled myself for his reaction, but it didn’t come. His filmy eyes searched the room. ‘Who’s there? Elaine?’

‘No, no, Bran.’ I leaned closer, so that he didn’t have to strain to see me. ‘It’s me, Anna. Elaine said that you were asking for me.’

‘Asking … yes, I was asking. For my grandson. Do you know him?’ His voice was piteous. ‘Do you know my grandson, Seth?’

‘Yes.’ My throat hurt. ‘Yes I know him.’

‘He’s a good boy,’ Bran said with a weary sigh and the ghost of a smile cracked his lips. ‘The sins of the fathers … but he’s a good boy. And who’re you, again?’

‘I’m Anna.’

‘No you’re not.’ He lifted his head from the pillow, shaking with the effort, and for a moment his eyes were as piercing as before and the grey flashed an impossible fire. ‘I know you, I
know
you!’

‘I’m Anna,’ I repeated. ‘Anna Winterson. I go – I used to go out with Seth.’

‘I did you wrong.’ His hand suddenly clutched mine. ‘Didn’t I? When I turned you away. And you turned your vengeance on me, with your curse.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said uneasily. His grip was hard, his nails digging into my skin.

‘You poor bitch, God knows your load was heavy enough, and I should have helped you, you and your child, but your curse took everything from me, everything. My life, my livelihood. When you crippled me, did you know what you did? I know it was aught but what I deserved, I know that now.’ His breath reeked on my face. ‘But don’t make my grandson pay for my mistake. Don’t pass the curse to him, I’m begging you.’ Tears flooded suddenly from his eyes, running down the lines graven in his cheeks. ‘I’m begging you!’

‘Bran, I don’t know what you mean!’

‘Say you won’t,’ he wept. ‘Don’t harm my grandson. And for my part, dear God in heaven I’m sorry – every day since, I’ve rued the night I spat at your feet and turned you away into the night. But don’t harm my Seth!’

‘I won’t!’ I said, bewildered but desperate to comfort him. ‘I promise I won’t – I love him. I love Seth. I’d never hurt him.’

‘Eh?’ He blinked and seemed momentarily confused, then he sighed. ‘Oh, aye.’ He gave my hand a feeble squeeze and lay back against the pillow. ‘Child, I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Aye, sorry. Sorry can’t undo the wrong I did your mother, I know, but that lies a score of years back.’

‘My mother?’ I found I was standing, my breath coming fast. ‘Bran, who do you think I am?’

‘Who are you?’ His eyes shifted from side to side and then he frowned. ‘Aye, who are you? Where’s my daughter?’

‘She’s gone for a coffee, but Bran –’ I found I was nearly weeping ‘– you said something about my mother. Did you know my mother?’

‘Know her?’ His eyes welled with tears. ‘No. I met her but once. And then I failed her, drove her to her death, and she cursed me for it, damn her for a cold-hearted witch. Ahhh …’

A horrible groan of agony bubbled from his lips and he clutched at his side, then jabbed frantically at a red button on a wire. A nurse came hurrying through the door, holding a tray of tablets and vials.

‘Mr Fisher, are you in pain?’

‘Aye.’ He was white and sweating. ‘A bad go just now.’

‘Would you like some more morphine? It’s past time, if you want it.’

‘Aye.’ He nodded gratefully. ‘Morphine. Yes.’

I watched as the nurse administered the dose, then helped Bran to sip a little water. Then he sank back on the pillows and his lids fluttered closed.

The nurse gave a sigh.

‘He’ll do now for another few hours. It’s very sad when they get to this stage. Are you all right dear?’ She turned to me. ‘It’s very upsetting seeing them in pain, I know, but he’ll be comfortable now for a while.’

‘I’m OK,’ I said huskily.

She nodded, then said, ‘Well, I’ll leave you be.’

After she went I took Bran’s hand and sat, holding it very gently and listening to his harsh, rattling breaths. His hand was thin and brittle in mine, and I closed my eyes.

When I opened them he was looking at me, his grey eyes, so like Seth’s, filled with tears. He seemed to beg me to understand something – his lips moved, but no sound came out.

‘I can’t hear you Bran,’ I said. His grip tightened and he took a painful breath and tried to speak again, but the words were just sighs and rattling clicks. His face twisted, full of effort, and then his lids drifted closed, but his grip on mine was hard, as if he was trying to communicate his message through touch alone.

I thought of Em and the way we spoke to each other in our heads, mind to mind.

I thought of my promise never to interfere with an outwith again, never to cast a spell on an ordinary person.

And then I thought of Bran’s agonized eyes, begging me to understand something he couldn’t say, begging me to help him before it was too late.

I took a breath, closed my eyes, and touched my fingers to Bran’s temple. Then I waited.

It hit me like the buffet of a wave – the smell of the quay, the howl of the wind, and the woman standing in front of Bran, her black hair whipping in the wind, her face white in the darkness, her coat clutched around her huge swollen belly.

What do you mean, no?
Her voice trembled.

I said no
. Bran’s voice – but not his voice. His voice as it must have been twenty years ago, strong, sure, above the crashing waves and shrieking wind.

But I’ve come all this way – you don’t understand. You’ll be condemning us to death – me and the baby. The prophecy said you would save her – that you’d give your life for her.

I’ll not give a brass farthing for her, or you, or any of your kind. Understood? You and your talk of prophecies – what do you know? My will is my own.

Her face twisted. She took a step forwards, towards him.

I’ve read the prophecy a hundred times – it can’t be wrong. A man of the sea – the Fisher King’s line. It’s you – it
must
be you. I scryed a hundred different ways and every way – the water, the rods, the bones – they all led me here, to Winter.

And I will drive you away, back where you came from, witch.
He spat at her feet, a gob of filth on the quayside, and she staggered back, her hands over her belly.
I’ll die meself before me or my kin helps your kind. Understood?

She looked at him. Her blue-grey eyes were full of tears and hate, and her voice, when she spoke, was a hiss.

Then I curse you, Bran Fisher. I – Isla Winterson – I curse you for what you’ve done to me and my child. I curse you to limp through life a broken man, chained to the sea, your life in its grip. That wound you got in the war will fester, you will die a little more each time your foot hits solid land, and every tide that pulls away from the shore will take a little of your strength, a little of your life, a little of your hope. You will walk in pain every day until your death, and when you die the curse will pass to every son of your line, until they die themselves.

She turned and began to walk into the storm-drenched night, her coat flapping in the wind.

Don’t you dare walk away from me, you bitch!
Bran shouted. He began to walk after her and then he stumbled, his foot hitting the ground in such a way that pain shot up through his knee and thigh and hip, a piercing pain from his old war-wound. He let out a groan, but forced himself on, after Isla’s retreating shadow.
Get back here!
The pain stabbed again, crueller, harsher than before, and he fell to the ground, clutching at his hip, and lifted his voice in a roar of inarticulate rage. The sound rose above the storm, echoing around the empty quay. Then it faded slowly into the noise of the hospital monitors bleeping and the sound of laboured breathing. The morphine took over and Bran drifted into a drugged and dreamless sleep.

I sat holding his hand very gently, until Elaine came back.

‘Was everything OK?’ she asked in a whisper.

‘He woke up,’ I said slowly, still trying to process what I had seen and heard. ‘But … he didn’t really recognize me. The nurse gave him some more morphine.’

‘Oh good.’ Elaine gave a relieved sigh. I didn’t know if she was relieved about the morphine or his lack of recognition. ‘Thank you. For coming, I mean. I really appreciate it. Even if Bran doesn’t exactly remember, I think somewhere he’ll know. I just wish … I wish Seth …’

She stopped. I nodded, and we both stood, dry-eyed mirrors of each other’s pain.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I hoped she knew what I meant. For Bran – for Seth – for everything.

Bran died that night, in his sleep. The funeral was three days later, at the small stone fishermen’s church on the cliff, with the granite memorial to all the townsmen lost at sea over the centuries.

Dad parked on the verge and we walked slowly along the cliff path, the wind whipping at my black skirt and flinging Dad’s funeral tie irreverently over his shoulder.

‘Do you know who’s going to be there?’ I asked. I thought my voice was convincingly level, but Dad wasn’t fooled.

‘Lots of townspeople, I’m sure. But Elaine’s very upset because it looks like Seth won’t make it. She was thinking of postponing, but no one could guarantee when he’d be allowed to fly out.’

‘Oh.’ I closed my eyes for a moment and some strong feeling washed over me like a wave. I wasn’t sure what it was. Relief? Disappointment? My cheeks felt hot in the cold sea wind. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘Apparently he put into some port he didn’t have a permit for, because he was trying to get back quickly. It backfired and he ended up mired in red tape and without an exit visa, so they wouldn’t let him fly. Elaine got the embassy involved, but last I heard it wasn’t going to be resolved this week.’

Poor Seth. Poor Elaine. We walked in silence until we reached the graveyard, where townspeople were milling around the door of the church, smoking last-minute cigarettes and chatting with an air of grim concern.

‘Tom!’ someone called and Dad was absorbed into the crowd. It struck me for the first time what a part of this community he was now, how easily he fitted in.

Someone passed me an order of service and I glanced at it. On the back was printed a poem.

Death is nothing at all

I have only slipped away into the next room

I am I and you are you

Whatever we were to each other

That we are still

Life means all that it ever meant

It is the same as it ever was

There is absolute unbroken continuity

What is death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind

Because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you for an interval

Somewhere very near

Just around the corner

All is well.

Canon Henry Scott Holland

The lines were familiar but strange – and they gave me a little prickle of anger I couldn’t put my finger on. Then I realized. They were the same lines my mother had used in her last note to me, only longer. More of the poem was here. But something – something was missing …

‘Hey,’ said a familiar voice at my elbow and I looked up in surprise.

‘Abe! What are you doing here?’ It wasn’t only his presence that shocked me. He was barely recognizable. He still hadn’t shaved, but he was wearing a beautifully ironed white shirt and a black tie, and an impeccably cut black suit that I suspected belonged to Simon. He looked – well, he looked hot, if I was being honest. I pushed the thought away, disgusted with myself, hoping Abe couldn’t read the flush on my cheeks. Hoping no one could read it.

‘I’m here with Maya and the gang.’

‘But Bran – you know … He hates, I mean he hated …’ The word ‘witches’ hung in the air, like an unspeakable swearword. Abe shrugged.

‘We still owe him respect. He was a powerful man.’