The Witch in the Lake (9 page)

Yes! Leo wanted to shout, I am a wizard, with the twin signs. So was my great grandfather. Look at me, I'm a hero like him!

But he knew he must not. He knew the penalty of practising magic.
The Church fears magic . . . The consequences of being discovered could well be death
. In the village it was only Meri who knew his secret, and she kept it like the grave. He only had to think for a moment about the horror that would show on Marco's face if he told, and the words died in his throat.

So when the villagers clapped Leo on the back and marvelled and exclaimed, he answered them with murmurs of ‘luck' and ‘being in the right place'. Fabbio wanted to give him a whole piglet that had been hanging up on a hook, but Leo said he'd have to hire a cart to take it home. So Fabbio just loaded him up with his best sausages, and the promise of a year's free supply.

Leo opened his front door with cries of ‘Bravo, Leo! What courage!' still ringing in his ears. As he threw down the sausages in the kitchen, he realised how hugely, overwhelmingly hungry he was.

‘I'll cook the sausages and celebrate!' he told himself and he did a little dance to the kitchen. It was only later, while he was chewing and savouring the spicy meat, that the full impact of the morning flooded him.

He had trusted his magic, that's what he'd done. He hadn't agonised or doubted himself. He'd known, like he knew that he had ten fingers on his hands, that if he wanted to save Fabbio, he had to trust his vision. It was the only truth he knew.

When he finished his sausages, he sat for a while longer. In the silence there was a sense of peace and stillness and he rested inside it, like a cat in a warm patch of sun. But even as he emptied his mind—no thoughts, no tensions—a moaning sound trickled in.

Leo tried to block it, clapping his hands over his ears, but like water running into crevices, it found a way in.

Leo stood up. He still glowed with the triumph of the morning. He had seen something important, had acted upon it. Great heavens, he'd only had to glance at the man to see inside. Just like—dare he say it?—the great Illuminato. Maybe he was ready. Maybe he, Leo Pericolo, could hear the witch calling because it was time.

Without even putting on his cloak, Leo walked out the door and headed for the forest.

As he ran down the path, the smell of pine leaves reminded him so sharply of Merilee. He almost expected her to jump out of the bushes and shout ‘Here I am!' as she used to when they played hide and seek. He thought of the time they'd been together down at the lake, the time when he'd so unthinkingly challenged the witch. He winced now, wishing he'd done that alone.

Leo didn't want Merilee to suffer. He knew somehow that the witch was his. His alone.

And there was the voice in the breeze now, lifting, blowing back his hair. Calling to him.
Whoo pheye
. . . He clenched his fists. Well, he was ready for her, wasn't he? If I see the witch, he thought, I'll bring her into the light. Maybe she'll disappear like mist in the sun, maybe she feeds on darkness and secrecy, like all evil . . .

The trees gave way to sandy ground and there, in ten steps, was the lake. Leo breathed out with a gasp. His own thoughts had been so loud in his head, bolstering him, giving him courage, that now the reality of where he was sent a bolt of fear shooting through him. He picked up a stone near his foot. He cradled it in his hand. It felt good; smooth and flat and oval. The voice was beating in the air, like a pulse, snuffing out his own. It was hard to think any more. He squared his shoulders, but the muscles beneath his skin felt suddenly puny. What was it he was going to do when he saw the witch? What had he thought? His mind went blank, he didn't know . . .

In panic he swung back his arm and hurled the stone into the lake. It skipped three times, bounding in a wide arc between each point before settling into the depths. Leo watched, mesmerised, as the ripples around each point grew deeper, faster, joining up with the one in front until there was a long line of swirling water, churning towards the horizon.

As Leo gazed, the blue afternoon sky dulled above the lake, and the air darkened. Soon there was no horizon, no definition, as blackness fell like a curtain, out there, at the far edge of the lake. Leo was trembling on the sand, his knees hardly holding him. But he went on staring into the darkness in front of him, trying to see beyond it, through it, while he held fast to his memory of the bright afternoon. Behind him there was the forest, still dappled in sunlight. Before him was the blackening dome of the sky.

As he looked, the darkness seemed to move closer, like an approaching storm. Leo felt it settle over him, the cold fog of it against his mouth. Then the dark was in his head, it had seeped in like floodwater and he suddenly knew what it would be like to drown in there, to thrash in the darkness, die in the lake. The voice was circling all around him, in tighter and faster circles, like the ripples, like a noose.

With a cry Leo flung out his arms and kicked against the dark. His feet felt the solid ground, and gratefully he clung to it, digging into the gritty sand until his fingers stung. Then he turned and ran, clawing at his eyes as he stumbled over the shore, racing into the blue afternoon. The breath was aching in his chest, his throat was raw and still he ran like the wind, away from the darkness, away from the terror.

For just a moment, at the entrance to the forest, he swung around to face the lake.

Help me!
screamed the voice—near, it seemed so near—
Illuminato!

Merilee had often dreamt of riding in a carriage like a great lady. She'd gaze around her, watching the fields and trees rush by in a tumble of green.

But there was only the night outside. She saw nothing but the dark outline of hills, streaming like veils behind the mist. There was the driver's voice from the front, urging on the horses, the harsh bark of the whip. And pushed right up against her, taking up most of the seat with her heavy cloak and layers of petticoats and box of sachets was her hateful Aunt Beatrice.

The lump in Merilee's throat wouldn't go away.

‘Are you hearing me, girl?' Aunt Beatrice poked her with a hard finger. ‘You'd better learn to listen, and change your lazy ways.'

Merilee was thinking of her mother. The thin, heart-shaped face kept getting smaller in her mind, like someone shrinking in size as you got further and further away from them. She wanted her mother's face back into focus, big and real and comforting. But her mind wouldn't do it.

‘If you keep on like that, looking all around like a great idiot while I'm talking to you, you'll be locked in your room as soon as we arrive.'

The carriage bumped over the narrow road. Merilee swallowed hard. Her throat ached with tears. But she clamped her teeth together and wiped her eyes quickly with the back of her hand.

‘How long is the journey?' she asked.

‘Long enough for you to change your ways and show some respect,' was the answer.

Merilee turned her head away. She hated breathing in the heavy flesh of Beatrice. If you breathed someone in they became a part of you. She couldn't bear the thought of taking in air that had once settled in the dark caverns of Aunt Beatrice's body.

A tide of panic rose in her chest. She shifted in her seat and Aunt Beatrice's elbow shot into her side. ‘Sit still, fidget bones,' she snapped.

Two weeks, Merilee told herself. I'll just have to hold my breath for two weeks, and then I'll be free. I'll breathe so deep I'll just float away, like a feather on the breeze.

‘So please behave yourself,' Aunt Beatrice was saying. ‘You'll be in the company of the most respected Wise Women in the country—my
friends!
It's very important to me that you work hard and do well. Your dear sister was a delight to teach.
She
was never rebellious or lazy. Try to be more like her. I beg your pardon?'

‘Nothing, Aunt. I'm just—'

‘At the last meeting,' Aunt Beatrice looked at Merilee slyly, ‘there was a young girl who just lolled about brushing her hair all day. “He loves me, he loves me not.” Oh, it was sickening. You know what they did to her? Cut off all those long golden curls and burned them in her room. Pah!' Beatrice gave a great shout of laughter. ‘What a stink!'

The carriage rolled on, parting great curtains of dark on its way north, to the town of Fiesole.

Merilee had fallen into a dream when the wheels finally stopped. She jolted awake and saw they'd come through a huge iron door, set in a wall that circled them like a stone arm. Beatrice paid the driver, who began to grumble, turning over the small coins in his hand.

‘A flea couldn't live on that,' he muttered.

Beatrice glared at him shrilly, and he fell silent. As she thrust packages and cases into Merilee's arms, the driver winked at Merilee.

Merilee smiled back.

‘Get off with you, you insolent beast,' Beatrice hissed at the man, ‘and be thankful you had the chance to accompany such honourable ladies.'

Merilee saw him roll his eyes and spit into the dust, but he hoisted himself into his seat and took up the reins.

‘
Buona sera
, signorina,' he said just to Merilee, and in a second the carriage was gone.

‘Fancy speaking to us like that,' Beatrice said angrily, picking up her case. ‘You see, it's your fault, you with your common manners—you invited that peasant to flirt with you.' She sniffed. ‘Comes from all your keeping company with that troublemaker back home. You only encourage bad behaviour.'

She sighed heavily, as if the weight of a hundred ignorant girls lay on her shoulders. But as she turned to look at the elegant garden that led up to the grand building before them, her face changed.

‘There, young lady,' she crowed, sweeping out her hand at the view, ‘I hope you are grateful for the opportunity of becoming a member of an Order such as this!'

Merilee stared. She dropped a box of little jars on the ground.

But Beatrice was so entranced by her surroundings she didn't even notice.

As they struggled up the path with all their packages, a servant in a coarse grey dress with a black cape came hurrying towards them.

‘Greetings, ladies,' said the woman. She pulled nervously at her servant's hat of linen tucked around her head.

Beatrice pushed her cases into the woman's arms. Merilee saw that the woman had a slight figure, which barely reached Aunt Beatrice's shoulder. Soon she was loaded up like a donkey. Beatrice wasn't finished yet. She thrust a final package under the woman's chin. The veins stood out on the servant's forearms.

‘Aunt,' Merilee said quickly, ‘I'll carry mine. Surely the signorina can't manage all of them,' but Beatrice gave her a sharp dig in the ribs and told her to mind her tongue.

‘The woman's a slave, for heaven's sake,' she whispered. ‘That's her job. And a lot better off she is too than back in that freezing old Russia or Poland or wherever she came from, without a roof over her head or decent people to serve. Signorina indeed! Pah!'

Merilee walked silently behind them. She tried to wipe away the effect of Beatrice's words that always settled like scum over any still surface. She kept moving, staring straight ahead of her.

The Academy soared above them, a massive three storeys high. Merilee had to crane her neck till she ached, to see to the top. But it was so beautifully proportioned, so simple with its regular arched windows and wheat-coloured stone blocks, that Merilee felt calmer just looking at it. As they grew closer she saw that the building was lit by an invention of iron lanterns. On thin stems the little flames leaned out from the corners of the building like sparkling flowers.

She followed Beatrice through the open door into an entrance hall. Her eyes swept up the marble staircase which led, the servant said, to the main living rooms upstairs.

‘Some of the ladies are still dining,' the woman told Beatrice. ‘If you would like to take some refreshment there, I'll put your things in your rooms.'

Beatrice waved her hand at the woman as if she were batting away a fly, and marched ahead of her up the stairs.

‘Thank you,' whispered Merilee.

The place was truly wondrous, she thought. Never had she set foot in such a grand
palazzo
as this. The marble floor, the glowing tapestries on the walls . . . The size of the entrance hall alone was staggering—you could fit several bedrooms in here, she decided, her eyes widening.

Merilee grinned suddenly, thinking of Leo. ‘What a waste,' he'd say with disgust. She imagined his bustling energy as he set about with plans of housing poor families amongst all this generous space.

But when she came to the dining room she couldn't help letting out a cry of admiration.

‘The Green Room,' Beatrice hissed in her ear. ‘Don't speak until you're spoken to.'

The room was like a gleaming, well-kept garden. The long walls were covered in green silk, shimmering with leafy shadows cast by the fire in the hearth. A procession of candles stood straight and tall as trees along the wooden tables, strewn with plates and jars of white wine and fat bowls of fruit. Everywhere there were women sitting, standing in groups, huddled around on cushions talking. The hum of busy conversation and shouts of laughter filled Merilee with a sharp thrill of excitement.

A woman in a low-necked gown, embroidered with pearls, stepped out of the group near the fire.

‘Welcome,' she said. She walked towards them with a slow smile.

Beatrice rushed forward with her hands out. ‘It's absolutely wonderful to see you, Brigida!' she cried so loudly that several women nearby stopped talking and turned to see. ‘And you're looking magnificent—my, how smooth your skin appears—are you using my new face salve? You know, it's been such a success at home, I'm quite worn out with all my customers! Well, that and all the work I've had to do for the family. It's hard to keep it all going single-handed, I can tell you. This visit will seem quite a rest cure!'