The Witch in the Lake (4 page)

‘Soon she'll be married to some rich, handsome lad, don't you worry!' her mother said, and Laura had grimaced, blushing.

The day after Laura's birthday, a band of troubadours came to Florence, and they put on a play in the square. Most of the village came to see it, and Signor Butteri made space in the front for Leo to get a better view. (‘Don't stand too long with those legs of yours,' Marco warned him, but Butteri was in a particularly good mood and asked if Marco had another pair of legs he could stand on.) Afterwards, there was music and one of the young troubadours asked Laura to dance. The musicians strolled around with their lutes and piccolos, and singers lifted their fine voices in pure harmony as Laura and the young man flew around the square, their feet hardly seeming to touch the cobblestones.

It was Marco who first noticed the high colour in Laura's cheeks. Her mother thought it was natural, due to all the exercise, but Marco saw how even when she sat and rested, the scarlet in her cheeks didn't pale, and the fine pearls of sweat on her forehead didn't dry.

The next day it was clear that Laura had a fever. She shivered with cold and sweated through a pile of sheets. Any food she took came up only minutes later. And when her Aunt Beatrice, changing Laura's nightclothes, felt a swelling in her neck, she cried out in terror.

‘The Black Death!' she screamed, running into the yard, making the hens squawk and jump, and the pigs squeal with fright. Merilee's mother told her to hush, but her hands shook as she poured water over the cloth to soothe her daughter's forehead.

Leo knew all about the plague that had swept like a hurricane over the country—two hundred years ago Pope Clement had announced it left half the world dead. The sickness had never really disappeared. People still told stories about infants crawling over their mothers' dead bodies; towns deserted and strewn with corpses, with only the rats left alive, wolves living in houses where all the people had died. And every now and then the illness returned—a fever ending in death, perhaps a chill or vomiting, and people would start to whisper and tremble all over again.

In Leo's own village, almost two-thirds of the people had died of plague. Over the decades, priests had cut their monthly visits so that now they were lucky to see a man of the Church once a year. (Although Leo sometimes wondered if it weren't the fog of horror drifting over the lake that kept the priests away, as much as the small number of villagers.)

It was an ever present fear, Leo knew, fear of the plague, and he couldn't sleep with the worry of it.

Leo was worried about Laura, surely, but perhaps he was even more anxious about Merilee. No one had discovered what caused the Black Death, but everyone knew it was catching. So often they'd heard that one person in a family was sick and then it was only a matter of days before the others in the same house were struck down. The great surgeon, Guy de Chauliac said that the grand meeting of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, in the sign of Aquarius had produced the Black Death. Leo's father looked sceptical when he heard that. Others looked at the sky fearfully each night.

All Leo knew was that he wouldn't want to wake up every morning without Merilee in the world.

Leo and Merilee were born on the same day, within minutes of each other. As toddlers, they often slept in the same little bed for their midday nap, when Marco had to work in the city, and Merilee's mother looked after them. They drank their milk and ate their
pappina
together, and Leo taught Merilee to fight like a boy. Out in the yard they'd wrestle and laugh at the dogs barking hysterically and the hens flapping away until someone would yell for them to come inside immediately and clean up or there'd be no dessert for lunch, and all when Mamma had made a
torta di albicocche
, an apricot tart! They shared the same tutor, too, who was a bit too fond of his wine, and when he fell asleep over their books, they'd sneak out and race into the forest to climb trees.

Leo and Merilee were as close as two peas in a pod until Laura fell sick, and everything changed.

The first morning of Laura's fever, Leo came over and refused to leave. He insisted so passionately that Merilee's mother finally made a bed up for him outside, on the
loggia
. It was summer, and baking hot, and Leo said he didn't need a roof. Marco wasn't happy about it, but he understood Leo's decision.

Marco read everything he could about fevers and chills. In the city he asked all the doctors and people he knew if they'd heard of any new cures, any new ideas of how to treat the illness. But it was hard to actually get near Laura, what with Aunt Beatrice bent over her every minute.

Aunt Beatrice kept the iron cooking pot boiling all day over the fire. She boiled up potions of cabbage leaves, mashed and sprinkled with garlic. She strained juniper and dandelion infusions for Laura's aching bones. She and the doctor talked in low voices and tried immersing her in aromatic baths. The doctor suggested a good bleeding, with leeches, but Aunt Beatrice disagreed. She was a Wise Woman, with a certificate from the High Order, and all her Wisdom lay in her knowledge of plants, and the medicinal potions they yielded. She believed in nothing else.

Once, when Leo and Merilee were little, they took a knife and both made a cut in their middle finger so they could mix their blood. When they put their fingertips together, they swore they would always be friends, and save each other in time of trouble. Leo had felt a blazing joy, seeing the drops of scarlet meet and mingle until neither of them knew whose blood it was that pooled in their hands. But Aunt Beatrice had caught them.

‘You filthy devil!' she screamed at Leo. ‘What's this—some demon witchcraft of yours? Get away from her!' and even though Merilee protested, she sent Leo off and made Merilee wipe her fingers with fresh roots and garlic, and stand in the yard with her hands above her head for an hour, so that the blood would leave the poisoned area.

From that time on, Leo knew he had an enemy. Aunt Beatrice was one of the people his father had mentioned long ago—the ones who were ‘annoyed' by wizardry.

A bed was made up for Aunt Beatrice now, too, right next to Laura. She made the sick girl swallow all kinds of infusions, but nothing ever stayed down. After three days her fever had worsened. The family were becoming desperate.

‘I think we should try opium leaves,' Beatrice suggested. ‘At least that will send her to sleep, and let her body rest.'

But while she slept, Laura called out in terror, seeing monstrous things in the dark.

‘She's delirious,' Aunt Beatrice moaned, ‘her mind is failing.'

That night Merilee's mother decided to call Marco. He came out in his nightshirt. Leo remembered thinking he'd look funny if only this was about something else. His sandals flapped at the heels and he'd put his hat on backwards. Leo ran out with them, and when they arrived back at Merilee's house, she was at the door to meet them.

‘Aunty won't have it,' she told them. ‘She said she won't have any wizards doing their demon work in her house.'

Leo looked about fearfully lest anyone should hear. The Church dealt swiftly with someone accused of wizardry. Leo didn't want his father burned at the stake.

‘Laura is not
her
daughter,' Merilee's mother said grimly, and marched inside. But Aunt Beatrice was in a towering rage and she blocked the door with her body, as if they were executioners about to cut off her niece's head.

‘Francesca,' Marco said to Meri's mother in a low voice, ‘you know I want to help in any way I can. But my magic has never been strong. I . . . I can't trust it. And even if my power is kindled, I don't know that I can control it. A little magic is a dangerous thing—I've seen what it can do, the despair it can bring.'

‘Let me try,' cried Leo. ‘What about me? You said I had the twin signs.'

Leo's heart burned in his chest. His favourite daydream had always been of saving Merilee. So many nights he'd imagined her in danger—attacked by a wolf, set upon by robbers—and he would leap in and rescue her, whirling a sword around his head.

‘No son, you're too young. You need years more practice.'

Francesca put her hand on Marco's arm. ‘I understand your fears. Thank you for being so honest. But we don't have any choice. Look at her. Only some kind of miracle can save her.'

Through the frame of Beatrice's arms and hips Marco saw Laura tossing on the bed. Her hair was wet with sweat and her mouth was moving as she wrestled with shadows.

‘Well, I can't do anything here,' muttered Marco. ‘Not with that woman cursing me. I'll have to take Laura away.'

In the end it took all of them and Merilee's father, who had to threaten Beatrice with the farmyard axe, to persuade her to stand aside.

And that is how Marco came to be the last person to see Laura alive.

Leo couldn't sleep. When he closed his eyes he could see the moonlight through his lids. It sank in pools into the hollows of the bedclothes—on his feet, above his knees. The pearly shine had a voice. It rustled and breathed at him from those intense, white puddles of light.

Whooo, pheye
, moaned the moonlight, and the hair on Leo's neck rose stiff and prickly, and wouldn't lie down.

At three o'clock in the morning Leo went to close the shutters. He drew the curtains against the light. Marco snored and turned over. Leo thought how surprised he'd be to see his son doing those silly things the other villagers did. Those rituals of fear.

But Leo believed in the witch now. He'd seen something. And he'd heard her. He could feel her presence deep inside him, behind his eyes, where the blood ran. He could feel her moan stroking his bones, inching in, under his flesh. She made him ache.

When he closed his eyes and turned on his side, his brain wouldn't quieten. Words spelled themselves out in his head.
Demon witchcraft, twin signs
. . . The words snaked through winking red fireworks behind his eyes.
Forests of wizardry
,
lake of death, help me
.

Leo turned over and buried his head in the pillow.

‘
One two three four

Who is knocking on your door?

Is it the doctor with his bill

Or is it the Witch come to make you ill?
'

Leo tried to think about something else—Latin verbs, the bun he'd had for breakfast, Leonardo's heart. But there was the voice behind everything, like an undertow in a river. It rushed his thoughts on, heading always towards the black hungry mouth of the lake.

So many questions, so many mysteries—they kept pushing at him, breathing on him, like the soft wings of a million moths. As he sank down into sleep, he dreamt he was falling into the lake, plunging beneath layers of warm dark water, thick and oily as blood.

The next morning Leo woke late. He didn't even hear Marco leave for work. He got out of bed and put some more kindling on the fire to warm his milk. It was grey outside, the sky lumpy and soiled like an old mattress.

Leo yawned, numb with tiredness. He sat on the edge of his bed and sipped the steaming brew. He felt smudged, as if someone had come along with a cloth and half rubbed him out. The milk burned his throat.

Today he was supposed to learn his Latin and practise Metamorphosis. How do you concentrate when you're not all there? he wondered bleakly.

‘Choose any two objects you like for the lesson,' Marco had told him, ‘providing they are not alive nor valuable. I want you to take notes on your progress, and show me when I come home.'

Leo decided to do his Latin first. He'd take his books into the forest and study in the fresh air, in the shade of the trees. Maybe he'd stay there all day, and choose his two subjects for transformation from the forest. A leaf perhaps, a stone. He wondered if he'd have to be ninety-nine before his father allowed him to practise on a live subject.

But all the while he said his Latin words out loud and looked at his leaf, there was a voice floating on the air, faint as a sigh on his cheek,
whooo, pheye
.

When Marco arrived home, late, as usual, showering Leo with apologies and news and enquiries about dinner—Leo was able to show him two pages of Latin, and twenty of magic.

‘What's this, just
Gallia est divisa in partes tres
—Gaul is divided into three parts—oh, Leo, this is baby stuff. We learned that years ago!'

‘I know,' sighed Leo. ‘I just felt so tired today, it was hard to concentrate. And Latin is so . . .'

‘Latin is the language of learning, my boy. Anything worth reading is written in Latin. Imagine if you can't read the best books—you'll be shut out from the world!' Marco frowned. ‘Why are you so tired? Do you feel ill, have you got a headache?'

Leo grinned. ‘No, Papà—but look, look how far I got with the transformation.'

Marco bent over his son's notebook. He nodded. ‘Your depth of vision is splendid. You are ready to go on. Do you have any questions about the second stage?'

Leo hesitated. He studied his father. ‘I do have one question.'

‘Yes?'

‘Well, I can't stop thinking about our conversation last night,' Leo began in a rush. ‘You know, about Laura, about how you tried to help her. You've never told me,' he said more softly, ‘where you took Laura that night.'

Leo could feel his breath sharp in his chest. In the long silence he almost hoped Marco would ignore him and pretend not to have heard the last part of the question. They had never spoken about Laura. Leo knew Marco's mind slithered away from it like a lizard creeping under a stone.

‘To the place my father took me,' Marco said quietly. ‘The place his father took him.'

Leo swallowed. ‘Where's that?'

‘A cave in the forest. It's quite deep. No one disturbs you.'