The Return of the Witch (30 page)

“I swear I am innocent,” she repeated tearfully, “and this stranger is the guilty party, for she is trying to trick you all. Who knows her purpose—what manner of person would chant foreign words at a hapless girl? Is anyone here acquainted with this woman?”

Gideon had chosen his little helpers wisely. This one was sharp-witted enough to know that, of course, I would be a stranger to everyone, and that I would have trouble explaining my sudden appearance in the area. Subtle changes began to spread through the small crowd. The man holding the twin now appeared to be supporting rather than restraining her. People shuffled a little farther away from me, a little closer to the convincingly distressed younger woman, who had now been handed a handkerchief with which to dry her tears. I felt my hold on the situation slipping through my fingers. I summoned a spell to weaken her, to confuse and distract her. Her expression altered immediately. She was aware of my attempts and sought to resist them. I increased the intensity of the spell, adding a sting to it that made her yelp. I had hoped that I could goad her into revealing her true nature. If she began to snarl and spit at me, to lash out with her own toxic strength, well, we would see how the good people of Primrose Hill regarded her then.

Unfortunately, she was more resistant than I had anticipated. It was quite possible that even when remote from him she had something of Gideon's protection. One way or another she was able to withstand my spell without giving herself away.

“Let the girl go,” said someone in the crowd.

“You must have been mistaken, madam.” The woman in the large hat spoke kindly but firmly. “Perhaps you dropped your pin earlier and did not miss it until just now.”

“A fuss over nothing,” the baker decided, heading back to his shop.

People began to drift away. The twin pressed home her advantage.

“Please,” she clung to the better looking of the two men beside her, “do me the kindness of escorting me home. I confess I am uneasy to be left alone.” Here she stared at me pointedly. The young man puffed out his chest.

“Of course,” he said, offering her his arm as if they were about to promenade through the park. “Good day to you, madam,” he dismissed me, and strode away with his vile prize.

With so many watching, and her new protector ready to drive me off, there was no way I could follow her. But how could I let her go? As they reached the corner of the street and were about to turn out of view I stepped forward. A hand on my shoulder stopped me in my stride.

“No, Elizabeth.” Erasmus shook his head. “Let her go.”

“But, I cannot! She will lead us to Tegan.”

“You are not so foolish as to believe that. We at least know now that Gideon and his followers are not far from here. Be content with that.”

“But…”

Seeing my desperation he took my face in his hands and looked deep into my eyes. “That creature would die before she led you to him, for if she betrayed him he would kill her anyway. This is not the way, Elizabeth, trust me,” he said, and then he slipped his arm around my waist and took me back to his house.

 

21

I hated being on my own in that dark, cold place, but it was worse when the twins were with me. They didn't want to be in there either, and they took their bad temper out on me, goading me, taunting me, sometimes pinching or slapping me. Lucrecia was far and away the worst, with Florencia copying everything she did. I wasn't sure the younger sister would have treated me so badly if she'd been on her own, but they always came to my cell together. Once or twice they used their own slimy magic to torment me, wrapping their snakelike hair around my throat and squeezing, just for the fun of watching me suffer. I tried to fight them off, of course, but I was at a disadvantage. Although I wasn't under the same heavy type of enchantment Gideon had used on me in Batchcombe, my magic was still horribly suppressed. And my grimy little prison didn't help. There was something about being in the dark, being underground, like being buried alive. What if one day the twins didn't come back with my ration of food and water? What if Gideon lost interest, or one of the many people who must have hated him caught up with him? I could just be left there to rot.

It was hard to tell day from night, as there was not a glimmer of natural light in the place. My best indication that it was daytime was when the sisters turned up with what they insisted was my breakfast.

“Look what treats we've brought you today,” said Lucrecia on what must have been the fourth time they came. She put down her basket and unwrapped a loaf of bread. For once it wasn't stale and old, but smelled fantastic, as if it had just been baked. “Really,” she said, “I think you are being spoiled. And look, there is cheese, too. And some ale. It's not right that we should have to run around to fetch things for you, and then be shut up in here when it is so lovely and sunny outside.”

My mouth was watering, but I knew I couldn't take it off her. She would make me wait. Florencia was quieter than usual, and as she stepped into the reach of the lamplight I saw that she was sporting a vivid purple bruise on her cheek and a swollen, blackened eye. Clearly she had done something to upset her lord and master. I wondered what. I also wondered how far her loyalty to him would stretch. Once you start whipping a dog it's only a matter of time before it tries to bite you.

“That looks nasty,” I said. “Walk into a door, did you?”

She didn't reply.

“You should look after your sister,” I told Lucrecia. “I bet you're the youngest, aren't you, Florencia? The youngest always gets the blame for everything.” She looked at me, still wary, but I could see a glimmer of interest.

Her sister tutted. “It was her own fault,” she insisted. “She was sent to do something and she didn't do it well. Not at all well. In fact, she got herself into a great deal of trouble. I should have gone myself. I said so.” She gave an irritated little sniff.

Florencia put her hand to her cheek. “I did my best. I wasn't to know what would happen. How could I?”

“You weren't supposed to be seen! You might have been followed. We might have been discovered. Then you would have been in
real
trouble.”

I folded my arms. “Sounds to me like you would have quite enjoyed that, Lucrecia. Have you always been jealous of your sister? I could understand it if you were, I mean, her hair is a bit longer than yours, and thicker. And shinier, too, I think.”

The girl scowled at me. With calculated slowness she lifted the loaf and the cheese up and then dropped them onto the filthy floor. “Oh, dear!” she said sweetly. “Look what I've done—silly little me.”

I had to clench my fists and dig my nails into my palms to stop myself from lunging at her. “It must be hard for both of you,” I said levelly, “competing for Gideon's attention. Who does he like more, d'you think?”

Lucrecia couldn't resist. “He would never have struck me!” she said.

Florencia rounded on her. “He wouldn't have been so angry with me if you had kept quiet!”

“He needed to know how foolish you had been. You could have led her to us.”

“I would not have let that happen. I did what he asked. I found her, I found out where it is she is staying. That's what I was supposed to do.”

Who were they talking about? Could it be Elizabeth? Could she really have managed to follow us? To come to the right time, the right place … I hardly dared hope. I had to know. I had to be sure.

“Who did he send you after this time? Another one of his old girlfriends, I expect. He's got so many of them.”

“He and Elizabeth were never lovers!” It was Lucrecia who blurted out her name. The second she realized what she had done she screamed in fury and stamped on my food, grinding the bread and cheese into the cobbled floor with the heel of her shoe. “You think you're so clever, but you're not! You are the one locked up in here, and we are free to come and go as we please. Remember that when you are hungry and thirsty hours from now and perhaps you will behave in a more fitting manner toward us next time!” With that, she snatched up the jar of beer and grabbed her sister by the wrist. “Come along, Florencia. Let's leave her to improve her manners.”

As they went Florencia glanced backward and, even in the patchy light, I could see she looked guilty, or sad, or possibly just sorry. It was only a tiny flash of humanity, but it was something to work on. After they had gone I salvaged what I could of the food, but without anything to drink I didn't feel like eating it. I should have been desperate, but the thought that Elizabeth was near, and that she had spotted one of the twins, gave me such hope. If only I could reach out to her … But I had tried so hard. One way or another, my magic was blocked. I was blocked. Brick by bloody brick.

Aloysius was trotting among the crumbs on the floor, finding several choice pieces of bread. I watched him nibble. An idea struck me, and immediately I started up an argument with myself in my head.
Too risky! Worth a try! Can't work. But what if it did?

I knelt next to the mouse and reached out a hand. He finished feasting and hopped aboard. I brought him up close so I could look him in his bright, clear eyes.

“We have got to get out of here, we both know that,” I told him. “Thing is, I'm stuck, but there is a way for you to escape, my dear little friend.” I took him over to the far corner of the room. By going on tiptoe and stretching my hand up, I was just able to place him on the narrow ledge that ran along beneath the air vents. These were simply missing bricks, and for them to work, there had to be a space going all the way up to fresh air. To the surface. I blew him a kiss and sent him whatever magic protection and strength I could summon.

“Find Elizabeth,” I told him. “Find Elizabeth and bring her to me.”

The mouse looked at me for a moment longer, as if considering his options. Then he sniffed the air, seeming to pick up the scent of the outdoors, of trees and rivers and grass and food and whatever a magic mouse longs for. And suddenly, silently and swiftly, he was gone.

The weight of loneliness once he had disappeared was crushing. Now I was truly alone. Had I just sent my trusty companion of all these years on an impossible errand? Could he really find Elizabeth? Shoulders sagging, I curled up on the bed and pulled the rough blanket over me. However sunny it might be outside, in my jail there was a damp chill in the air that was starting to find its way into my bones. It wasn't just the warmth of the sun I missed, it was the brightness. That sunshine that makes you squint, that dazzles, that flares and flashes and reflects off things.

I closed my eyes tightly and tried to go to a place in my memory that was sunlit and warm and special. There was only one place, really, that I could dream up, that I could return to in my head, which was guaranteed to make me feel warmer.

When Elizabeth had returned to find me at Willow Cottage, I had not long been back there myself. In fact, I had only just about had time to settle again after my travels. Which wasn't surprising, given what I'd seen. Where I'd been. What I'd experienced. Being home after that sort of journey, well, it took time to adjust. Like getting your land legs back after a long sea voyage. There is a place just north of the equator, an oasis in the uppermost reaches of the vastness of the Sahara, where I once sat in the shade of a mud wall and wondered if I would ever live to feel cold again. I had been traveling with a caravan of camels for three weeks, so I was about as used to the heat as I was ever going to get. I had adopted a practical if slightly odd outfit; a hybrid of the traditional Berber; loose, long shirt, one of the wraparound ankle-length skirts favored by the women, a broad-brimmed Australian bushman's style hat, and walking boots. My head kept reasonably cool, the sun was off my face, what air there might be could get to my body, and I was free of blisters. More importantly, I wasn't going to tread on a scorpion or snake in sandals. At first it felt odd wearing a skirt, but an American traveler I met at the airport and chatted with pointed to the absence of bushes or cover in the desert. She made me see the difficulties of dropping one's trousers to answer the call of nature, versus the ease with which a woman could modestly squat in a capacious skirt. I had been grateful for the advice from day one, particularly as I was the only woman among a dozen men working the caravan of camels across the endless sands. I carried a small backpack, mostly filled with water.

I had quickly fallen into the rhythm of moving on through the desert, resting, eating, moving again, making camp, sleeping, breaking camp, moving on. It was a pattern governed by things I could never quite work out. Sometimes we traveled by night, other times we moved by day. Sometimes we would stop after a couple of hours, others we would press on until I was ready to drop from exhaustion. In my few faltering words of the Berber language I tried to make sense of it, but I never really did. There was a sandstorm brewing so we had to stop. The storm never came. One of the camels was sick so we had to rest. It looked just fine to me and continued the next day with no trouble at all. Or we had to keep going to meet an important person at the next well. Except that when we got there, nobody showed up. And nobody seemed to care.

The upside of this irregular progress over the dunes was I had to learn how to cope fast. I couldn't rely on rest or a chance to find water, and it would have been wrong to expect these nomadic people who had agreed to take me with them to baby me. I had to be self-sufficient as much as I could. A lot of the time I was entirely focused on the next horizon, the next drink of water, the next sleep. Sometimes just the next step. But then there were moments of such beauty and such wonder that all the hardships melted away quick as an ice cube under the desert sun. Like the size of that sun as it set, which was astonishingly huge to someone from the northern hemisphere. Like the indigo night sky and the stars so many and so bright the first time I saw them I lay there laughing like a madwoman, overcome with the sheer joy of creation. Like the taste of freshly made flatbread, cooked on the campfire, handed to me by a smiling grandfather, who must have thought me a creature from another planet but was still willing to share with me whatever he had. Like the mournful yet stirring music the nomads made in their leisure; hypnotic, subtle, and ancient.