The Return of the Witch (23 page)

“James!” I tried to make him hear me, to calm him. “James, be still. We wish only to help you.”

“The guns!” he screamed, his eyes staring past me at a horror of the war visible only to him at that moment. “I can hear them! Dear Lord, the guns! We must run. Get away, I tell you, run!”

“Hush, James, there are no guns. You are safe here.” My words were useless.

“What is it, mistress, why has he taken on so?”

“Bone fever,” I said, gasping as I wrestled to put pressure on his gushing wound. “Fetch me brandy, and needle and thread, and a candle. Fetch them now!” I yelled.

I noticed Captain Anderson had joined us. He hovered uncertainly beside me.

“The man has lost his wits,” he murmured.

I explained as best I could. “His wrist was crushed. Tiny fragments of bone have traveled through his body in the bloodstream…”

“The what?” The captain was at a loss to make sense of what I was saying.

In my agitation I forgot to rein in my use of medical terms and references to things jarringly out of time. “His brain has become infected due to the bacteria caused by the compound fracture and in all probability the infection that has entered his system because of it. His mental confusion and psychotic state has been brought about as a result of…” I glanced up and saw the bewilderment on the faces around me. “… by what is taking place in his body. Hold him still! Where is that brandy?”

“I have sent to the kitchen for it, mistress,” the orderly assured me.

At that very moment the army cook came puffing from the servants' entrance carrying a flask from William's dwindling stores.

“Give it to him. James, you must drink. I have to mend your arm…” I had hoped to get at least some alcohol into the writhing soldier. Whilst there was a danger it would add to his problems by thinning the blood and increasing the chance of exsanguination, I had to do something to stop him struggling if I was to stand any chance of repairing the damaged artery before he lost what would prove to be a fatal quantity of blood. But the musketeer was too possessed by imaginary terrors to accept the brandy, or even have it successfully poured down his throat. I knew I must act quickly, or it would be too late to save him. Yet again I cursed the circumstances that meant I could not give the man the benefit of modern medicine to ease his suffering and effect a cure. Already his breathing had become ragged, as his body fought for oxygen. A typical reaction to heavy blood loss—for with insufficient blood to carry the oxygen where it needed to go, the patient was effectively beginning to suffocate—and one that was a precursor to death unless something was done.

James clutched at my sleeve, pulling my face close to his.

“Can't you hear them? Can't you hear their terrible thunder? We will be blown apart, I tell you,” he spat the words in a hoarse cry. I looked into his fear-filled eyes then and I saw Thomas, terrified as he lay dying of the plague; I saw the man on the operating table at the Fitzroy who relied upon me to save him; I saw the brave soldier in Flanders who begged me to save him from drowning in his own blood. In short, I saw every frightened being who had ever looked at me in pain and fear and cried
heal me!
I could not turn away. I would not turn away.

I reached over and took hold of the nearest orderly's hand, placing it firmly over the gash in James's arm.

“Lean your weight here,” I told him. “You must press hard or he will die. Do not move.”

I gently took the fading soldier's face in my own hands, which were red with gore, and as he continued to shake his head and scream out he soon became painted the very color of his imminent death. I leaned forward until my eyes were only a few inches from his.

“James. James,” I called softly. “James, look at me. Look only at me.”

He continued to resist those pinning him down, but he stopped thrashing his head back and fore, and his eyes found mine. The second that happened I had him. I held him fast with my gaze, drawing in a long, slow breath, summoning my ethereal strength, drawing on the craft, my own chest against his as I crouched over him, my own heartbeat slowing, compelling his to do the same. “Be still, James. Lie quietly now. All will be well. You are in my hands. Put yourself in my care and no harm will come to you, I promise. Trust me. Rest now. Only rest.” I lowered my mouth until it nearly touched his, letting a gentle breath flow from me to him. Gradually the tension began to leave his body. He no longer struggled and fought, but lay passive and subdued, his breathing no longer labored. Soon his eyelids fluttered, though they did not close.

I sat up and pushed the orderly's hand from the wound. No blood gushed forth, merely a trickle. I used the hem of my skirt to dry the skin around the wound and then took the brandy from the stunned cook and poured it over the injury. Silently, I set about the intricate task of stitching first the artery that had been severed, and then the flesh surrounding it. I could feel the incredulous stares of those around me, but I did not care. I would not let this man die when it was within my power to save him. I finished sewing up the fissure and sat back on my heels, dragging my hand across my brow, forgetting that it would leave a gruesome trail of blood. I placed my hand upon James's heart, gently coaxing it back to its more normal rhythm, before touching his cheek tenderly.

“Wake up now, James,” I said calmly. “Wake up.”

He opened his eyes properly now. He appeared dazed, but all the terror had left him. As if he had just awoken from a deep refreshing sleep he sighed, and then blessed me with the sweetest of smiles.

I looked up and saw to my dismay, though not my surprise, that I was being regarded in a manner that was chillingly familiar to me. The orderlies, the soldiers, the cook, even Captain Anderson, they all looked at me with such expressions as can only be brought about by a mixture of fear, wonder, and horror. And the greatest of these was fear.

The captain whispered, “What manner of magic is this?”

Warily, the orderlies and soldiers moved back, stepping away from James. Away from me. Soon I knelt beside the blood-soaked soldier alone, a ring of suspicious observers around me.

“She stopped his heart and started it again!” One of the soldiers declared.

“I saw her,” an orderly agreed. “She sucked his spirit from his body and then filled it with her own!”

“She had him bewitched!” the cook cried, and then, more loudly, with increasing conviction, he began to shout, pointing at me with trembling hand as he did so, “Witch! She is a witch! The devil is among us. Witch! Witch! Witch!”

 

16

The woods had swallowed me up. I ran so blindly, so without an idea of where I was going that even though, at one point, I dashed across open fields I soon found myself drawn back into the woods. Perhaps I felt more protected there, more hidden. My body zinged with conflicting magical forces. I was aware of Gideon's enchantment, dragging at me, tasting bitter in my mouth. I felt Elizabeth's sweet counter spell, warm with love, but not strong enough to free me. And under it all I knew my own vibrant energies were trying to wake up, to break free. But I was a long way from being OK. I blundered through the dense woodland, clumsily bashing into tree trunks, stupidly, almost drunkenly dragging myself through tangles of brambles. It wasn't long before I started getting fainter and weaker. Was Gideon reaching me even then? Where was he getting so much powerful stuff from? It was as if his abilities had grown madly since he had been taken to the Summerlands. Elizabeth said someone had helped him escape; were they helping him now, too?

After an hour or so I couldn't go any farther. I found a hollow tree and crept inside. The smell of moss and fern and fungi and damp bark were soothing and familiar. I closed my eyes. I was in a crazy situation, had been for days, and I had barely had any time with a clear head to try to make sense of it all. I had to get a grip on things before something else happened. Before Gideon found me again. Had to give myself a chance to shake off his spell so that I could properly defend myself.

I felt a tiny warmth moving about in my pocket and my battered little mouse stuck out his head. I stroked his grubby white fur and tried to focus on his bright eyes. “Looks like we're not in Kansas anymore, Aloysius,” I whispered to him. Some things I knew for sure. The first of these was that I was still near home. These were definitely Batchcombe Woods, which were only a few miles from Willow Cottage. The second thing was that I was no longer in the twenty-first century. Through a fog of enchantment I'd gathered together the crumbs of information the vile twins had let slip. They made pretty effective jailers, but they forgot I wasn't completely out of it. So, we were smack in the middle of the Civil War, by the sound of it. How and why, well, I didn't have the strength to try and figure that out. And Elizabeth had come after me. If it hadn't been for her, I'd still have been in that house, still been Gideon's prisoner. And I left her there to face him. After I'd been the one that said I wouldn't run, wouldn't live my life being hunted. And there I was, holed up in a tree, hiding. Despite the warm summer day I began to shiver. My body seemed to be reacting to all the turmoil it had been going through, all the unnatural forces battling inside it. I felt achingly cold, my teeth beginning to chatter, my feet and hands going numb.

“Not real cold,” I told myself. Aloysius burrowed deep into my pocket again, as if trying to add his minute warmth to my struggling body. “Not real. Think yourself warm. Remember Balik Kiis. Balik Kiis!”

I closed my eyes, repeating the ancient words over and over like a mantra, and let myself drift back to a different time, a different place, a different world, it seemed to me.

It had taken me three months of traveling to reach the most far-flung corner of Siberia. Knowing how low the temperatures were in the region I had left Aloysius at home for this trip, and I missed his fury little presence. I had gone there wanting to find a shaman who would show me what they believed and how they worked. It was one of the few places left in the world where shamanic practices are part of the mainstream, part of everyday life. Even so, I didn't have much luck finding one prepared to take me on as a short-term apprentice. They were wary of my interest, and rightly so. How could I hope to understand and assimilate their learning in a few short months? How could I presume to absorb the knowledge and insight that had taken them a lifetime to acquire, and that was part of their culture and heritage, not mine? Well, I couldn't. But I would be open to whatever they were generous enough to offer me. I found one who spoke no English but let me watch and listen and take in what I could. Just being with him was an incredibly charged experience, and he did show me something of the special connection a shaman has with the otherworld, but still I had hoped for more. At last, when I was on the point of giving up and starting the daunting journey back west, I found Ulvi, the daughter and granddaughter of Shamans. Ulvi lived in the center of a drab, one-horse town. It didn't have the romance of a remote log cabin, or an ancient Yakuts settlement. It looked more like the outskirts of a forgotten industrial development back home, with lots of prefabs and concrete and buildings that had gone up whenever and wherever without much thought or planning and just about no interest in how they looked. But Ulvi was fiercely proud of her one-bedroom bungalow. She liked me to visit, and she would show me her fine china with as much delight as she showed me her shamanic necklaces. It didn't matter where she lived, Ulvi was one of the most powerfully spiritual, most magical people I ever met. I lapped up every morsel of wisdom she gave me, for weeks that turned into months, and for months that could have very easily turned into years.

Then, one sharply sunlit November morning, she invited me to go to the lake with her. The moment I climbed into her battered four-by-four that day I knew this was to be no ordinary fishing trip. She was dressed in full shamanic regalia, from her brightly colored beaded headdress, through her scarlet coat with vivid green and blue braiding, and the necklaces of bones and bells and feathers that hung to her waist, to the intricately stitched reindeer skin boots, she was every inch a woman of the otherworld. A woman of magic. We drove out of town and for the next hour bumped along icy, pot-holed roads and then snowpacked tracks until we came to the shore of Lake Kurkip. She had me carry her woodpile, rolled mats, and shaman's sticks and all kinds of stuff she insisted we needed. She carried the kindling. She never mentioned the fact that there was no fishing rod. We scrunched across the frozen snow until Ulvi decided we had found a spot she liked the look of. We set down the mats and she made herself comfortable while I lit a fire.

Those days in eastern Siberia, when daylight hours were short, when the sun was always low in the sky, when the temperature didn't rise above freezing for months, when any sensible animal was asleep and all the birds with the wit and wings to do so had long ago flown off to somewhere warmer, they were testing times. But, if you could find one without a wind that could peel a layer of skin off your face, one where no fresh snow whipped up to blind you or freeze your eyelashes together, one where the air was so clear and the light was so bright that you could feel it entering your very soul, one of those days was more precious than a hundred anywhere else. This was such a day.

We brewed black tea in an old tin kettle over the fire and settled there, letting our gaze fall on the lake as we sipped, the steam from our drinks freezing into puffs of icy mist. The lake was three miles across and twenty-five along, and deeper than anyone knew. Tangled forests, or
taiga,
ringed around it, dense and dark. The lake was frozen, had been for weeks, but still there were tiny figures dotted upon it, men fishing through ice holes. It was a miracle they didn't freeze to the ice themselves. Ulvi said very little that day, which was unusual for her. She seemed to want us to take in the passing hours mostly in silence. Twice I walked into the woods to find more fuel for the fire. Every twenty minutes or so I had to run up and down to stop my body temperature from getting dangerously low. Ulvi seemed immune to the intense cold. She was born to it, she told me. It wasn't until the last of the fishermen had packed up and gone home that she stood up, stamping her feet, and then broke into a song that echoed around the stadium of the lake. Her voice was pure Yakuts, a thousand years and a hundred generations of living with the life and death offered by an extreme Siberian existence. The sound came from her throat, vibrating, stirring the air around us with its low pulsing notes. She called upon her ancestors to join us, to lend us their strength, to gift us with their magic. For the second song she had me join in, accompanying her in my thin, Western voice. We sang on, Ulvi powerful and resolute, me sometimes stumbling over the words but committed, as sincere as I knew how.