Winterbringers (13 page)

The power eventually came back on at ten o’clock that night, and it looked as though, this time, it might stay on. Other places weren’t so lucky, however. As they watched the news reports that seemed to be almost the only thing on television just now, they realized that compared with the rest of the country they’d missed the worst of the weather.

There was footage of huge snowdrifts that had swallowed up whole houses in Wales, and fishing boats locked in frozen harbours all round the coast. Thousands of people were still without electricity, and the thaw that was now well underway seemed certain to make things worse before they got better, with forecasts of flooding in many areas.

Anna’s mobile went while they were watching. “Susan? Hello? I can hardly hear you. Where are you?” Everyone else in the room could hear a loud throbbing coming from the phone. Anna went out of the room to take the rest of the call.

When she came back in she looked worried again.

“What’s going on, mum? Where’s Susan?”

“She was calling from our kitchen.”

“What? But that noise …”

Anna sighed. “It’s very good of them really … They’ve organized a company to put dehumidifiers in our flat to dry it out. That’s what you heard. They’re there for another three days. All the time. Twenty four hours.”

“We can’t go back there. We’ll never sleep.”

“I know, but what else can we do?”

“Stay here,” said Rose. “You don’t have to spend the time talking to us, you know. I know you’ve got your book to finish. Spread yourself out in the dining room and have a couple of days of peace and quiet and I’ll bet you find it doesn’t take as long to finish as you think. Now that the heating’s back on you should be quite comfortable in there.”

She hadn’t needed much persuading and was in there by seven the next morning, books and papers and photos spread all over the big table.

Everyone else slept late, the tension that had wound them up for the last few days suddenly gone. The house was unwarded now, for Rose had let the lights die with the night, knowing without understanding the reason, that the danger was past. She couldn’t rid herself of an unreasonable suspicion that Josh and Callie knew something about it, although that was plainly ridiculous.

Bessie phoned that morning.

“What did you do, you clever girl?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Rose replied.

“But it’s gone. It
has
gone, hasn’t it?”

“Yes. The world feels normal again, but I don’t know why and that bothers me. I keep thinking it’s got something to do with Callie, but I know it can’t have.”

“You don’t know that at all. You’re not even sure if she has the Gift. For all you know, she does and she was strong enough to do this on her own.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rose spluttered. “I would know.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

“Bessie? Are you still there?”

“You’re going to have to talk to her sometime.”

Rose sighed. “I know. But I promised her mother I wouldn’t do it while she was away. You know she would prefer it if I never spoke to Callie about it at all.”

“Do you think it would have been different if she’d had the Gift herself?”

“I doubt it. She always hated the fact that I did. She used to try to pretend it wasn’t real. I think it frightened her – still does, in fact.”

Bessie gave a snort. “Well, I’m glad that’s your problem, not mine.

“Anyway, it doesn’t really matter if we understand what happened, does it? After all, we’re just four eccentric old dears in most people’s eyes. What’ll we find to worry about now?” mused Bessie.

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll soon find something,” Rose said, smiling.

She and George were busy in the garden for most of the day, trying to salvage plants that were never meant to have been exposed to such extreme temperatures.

To George’s joy, the bees seemed to have survived unscathed. Josh watched, fascinated, from what he hoped was a safe distance, as he fed the hive with a mixture of sugar and water.

Josh and Callie had stayed up late into the night, talking about what had happened; trying to fix it in their memories, for already it seemed to be melting a little with the thaw, becoming indistinct round the edges. They looked out of the windows as they spoke, watching for any signs of Winterbringers, any sound of breathing snow, but the world seemed to be remembering how to behave, and the only sound was of water dripping constantly as the snowy landscape thawed around them.

On the way back from the bees in search of a cup of tea, George suddenly said, “I’ve kept forgetting to ask, with everything that’s been going on: did you ever manage to open that box you found up the smithy chimney?”

They’d realized that someone would eventually ask.

“Yes,” Callie replied. “I meant to tell you, but, you know …” She made a gesture that encompassed the snow and Josh and life in general.

“What was in it?”

“Just some letters. Well, not letters exactly: a sort of journal, from … when was it Josh?”

“Seventeen-oh-something.”

“Some girl called Agnes Blair.”

George stopped in his tracks. “Really? That’s interesting.” He went on towards the house without elaborating.

They sat down with tea and huge slices of fruit cake and after five minutes or so, George said, “Let’s have a look at the box and this journal then Callie.”

Callie brought it down from her room and handed George the bundle of folded papers, then she and Josh went back out to help Rose for a bit longer.

“I thought George was coming back out?” she said.

“He’s reading. Remember that box I found up the chimney when Chutney Mary got stuck? Well, it had a sort of diary thing in it from ages ago.”

“Goodness, how interesting.”

“Not really. It doesn’t make sense. I reckon she must have made a lot of it up.”

“She?”

“The girl who wrote it – Agnes Blair.”

Rose looked up sharply. “Agnes Blair? Now that
is
interesting.” And she headed off towards the house without another word.

Callie and Josh looked at each other.

“What was all that about?”

“I’ve got no idea. But we’d better stay put here for a while. We don’t want to look too fascinated after pretending we
weren’t interested in it.” Callie scratched her nose with a muddy hand.

They forced themselves to wait for half an hour, finishing things off and tidying up, before they went back in.

In the kitchen Rose sat at the big table, the open strongbox on the table in front of her and Agnes’ journal in her hand. She looked up at them with an unfathomable expression on her face.

“Imagine this being up the chimney all that time.” She shook her head and said, a little too casually, “Was there anything else in the box when you opened it?”

Callie gave her a stare of wide-eyed innocence. “No, just that. Why?”

“Oh, I just wondered. No treasure then?”

“No.”

“You might find this interesting.” Rose pushed a wooden box across the table to Josh and Callie.

Callie picked it up. It looked old, and was heavy for its size, quite plain, apart from a crude letter A carved into the lid. She glanced quickly at Rose, then opened the tarnished brass clasp. Inside was a sheaf of folded papers, much like the ones Rose still held.

She unfolded them and immediately recognized the angular black writing.

“Is this Agnes’ too?”

Rose nodded.

“Where did it come from?”

“We found it when we had the central heating put in. It was under the floorboards in your bedroom.”

Josh and Callie pulled out chairs and sat down and began to read.

My name is Agnes Blair and I write this as a record of what happened to my friends Beatrix Laing and Janet Corphat, and what happened to me, so that one day someone will know the truth.

Patrick Morton denounced them as witches to Minister Cowper, a very wicked man, who I think now must simply have hated all women. He saw to it that they were arrested and taken to Pittenweem to be put to the question.

I did not dare to go there, coward that I was, and instead I waited for news of what was happening to make its way back to Pitmillie.

They were kept for days with no sleep and hardly any food, but they kept their wits and admitted nothing. And named no one else. Eventually Cowper tired of his sport and sent to Edinburgh to have them tried at the High Court.

It was nearly five months before they gave him an answer, and all that time Beatrix and Janet were kept in prison and that wicked fool Patrick Morton strutted about preening as though he had done something good.

When the answer came from Edinburgh, it wasn’t what Mr Cowper wanted to hear. It said there wasn’t the evidence for a trial at the High Court and that he should fine them and let them go.

Beatrix’s family paid the fine and she came back to Pitmillie, thinking she could take up her life again, but nobody wanted her there, not even her own relatives. When I heard she was being forced out of the village, I sneaked away from the Smithy with some food for her.

I caught up with her on the road to St Andrews, shouting at her to make her stop.

“Beatrix! Wait! It’s Agnes.”

She turned round and my heart caught in my throat, she was so changed. Her face was gaunt and her eyes were dead and her hair
had turned grey, all in the space of those few months.

“Go away Agnes. I’m tainted. You mustn’t be seen talking to me.”

“I brought you some food.” I thrust a bundle at her, with bread and cheese and apples in it.

She took it and looked at me for a few seconds, as if she was trying to fix my face in her mind, and sighed.

“We meant no harm. We did no harm. We helped them, stupid fools.”

She turned and walked away from me and I never saw her again.

What happened to Beatrix was bad enough, but I can hardly bear to write of Janet. The Lords in Edinburgh had said that she should be released too, but she was arrested again as soon as she set foot outside the prison a few days after Beatrix. It was her tongue got her into trouble, as folk had always said it would. She’d ridiculed Cowper when he questioned her and he had determined to take revenge for the injury to his dignity.

He had her flogged, or I should say, flogged her himself, trying to force her into a confession, but she wouldn’t give in to him, so he flung her back into jail again, to rot there forever, the folk in Pitmillie said, when the news reached here the next day.

I’d had enough. It was time I stood by my friends as they’d stood by me. I waited until the family were all in bed and safely asleep, then took my father’s horse and set out for Pittenweem.

I remember that night so clearly. There wasn’t a breath of wind, and the air smelled clean and new and full of spring and green things growing. The moon was almost full, and so bright the horse and I had no trouble finding our way. In no time at all, I was in Pittenweem.

I saw no one as we went silently through the streets. Not a light showed at the fisher cottage windows. I tied the horse a little way from the Tolbooth Jail and crept through the night towards Janet.

Even here the windows were dark, and there seemed to be no guard. I risked sound.

“Janet!” I hissed. “Where are you?”

No answer. I walked round the building a bit and tried again.

“Janet! Answer me. I’ve come to help.”

This time, there was a noise, low down, and after a few seconds a voice spoke, close to my knees.

“Who’s there?”

I hardly recognized the weak, cracked voice. I knelt down and saw there was an iron grille in the wall, just above the ground. The moonlight didn’t penetrate into the dank dark beyond.

“It’s Agnes. Come to the window.”

There was a shuffling sound, and then a thin bruised hand grasped one of the bars and I saw Janet’s face. Meeting Beatrix had prepared me a little for how changed she’d be, or I would not have known her. I tried to smile.

“Can you get through here if I can get the grille off?”

She nodded.

The grille had a hinge at one side and a lock at the other. I had brought one of my father’s hammers with me, the head wrapped in a rag to deaden the sound.

“Stand back,” I said and raised the hammer.

Even with the rags it sounded terribly loud. I struck blow after blow at the lock, maybe a dozen in all. Nothing happened.

Janet’s face reappeared. “Agnes, you can’t do it. Go away before someone hears you. Beatrix and I tried so hard to keep you safe: I couldn’t bear it if you were taken now.”

“I’m not leaving you here.” I raised the hammer high again and put all my strength behind it. “Break!” I hissed at the lock as
I swung it down.

It broke.

I knelt there, stupid with amazement. I’d no idea how I’d done it. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to break that lock.

“Agnes?”

Janet’s voice brought me back to myself. I hauled open the grille and reached in to help her climb through.

She lay gasping on the ground. In the moonlight I could see the weals on her back through her tattered clothes. I took off my cloak and helped her to her feet and wrapped it round her to hide her rags. She leaned against the corner of the building, catching her breath.

“Come on,” I said. “We can’t stay here.”

“No Agnes. We part here. You’ve given me my life. You must take the hammer and go home so that no one will ever know what you did. I’ll go my own road.” She pulled me close and hugged me and kissed me, then released me, grinning so that for a moment she looked almost like the old Janet. “Goodbye. We’ll not meet again.” She limped off across the street towards a narrow wynd.

I knew she was right, but I hated to leave her like that. I still wonder what would have happened if I’d stayed.