Storm Witch

by Alys West

  “I’ve got a dinner date.”

  “Oh?” His stomach felt suddenly leaden. “With Hal?”

  “No!” Her laugh broke off too quickly. “With my uncle. I’m invited to his bigsie house in Stenness.”

  “Bigsie?” He raised an eyebrow. She rarely used dialect words. This one meant flashy or brash and not in a good way.

  “He’s got this enormous house overlooking the sea. It’s like something out of Grand Designs; all glass and slate and granite. It’s their summer home as they live in Aberdeen the rest of the time. Andrew drives a Range Rover and Felicity, that’s his wife, has a red BMW. The boys go to private school. That kind of thing.”

  “In Glasgow we just call that successful.”

  She smiled at him as she pulled out a tray. “In Edinburgh too.” Then her face fell. “But I’m about as enthusiastic about it as you are about your conference.”

  “You and your uncle don’t get on?”

  “Not exactly. It was always tense. He treated Mum like some washed-up hippy who knew nothing about anything. I guess you could say he’s a pretty typical business man—”

  “You mean a total wanker!”

  A quick laugh burst from her. “Something like that. It’s been worse since Mum died. They had some huge falling out not long before about the stupid development he built outside Stromness.”

  “He’s a property developer?”

  “Yes. He’s quite good at it apparently. He’s won awards—”

  “What?” In his career, he’d had the misfortune to meet quite a few developers, usually during a stand-off over protection of the archaeological remains on their sites. “Best concrete monstrosity? Least sympathetic development?”

  “Definitely the last one.” Jenna loaded mugs and spoons onto the tray. “But he is good at taking on projects where the locals are dead set against it and not only getting planning permission but really taking the community with him. There was a development in Skye where they burnt his effigy on Bonfire Night they were so against it—”

  “Very Wicker Man.”

  “Exactly. And anyone else would have backed off but Andrew pushed it through and ended up with an award from the local Council.”

  “Sounds like money changed hands. A few brown envelopes handed to the right people?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him. But if I don’t go, I won’t see the boys. They’re a lot younger than me but they are my cousins. I don’t have much family so…”

  Again it came back to family. What would she have been like if Nina hadn’t died? Would she always have been the good girl doing the right thing or had that kicked in because of her mother’s death?

  “Let me take that,” he stepped forward and before she could argue, picked up the tray.

  She led the way through the hall. “Anyway, what about you? Where’s your family? You never talk about them.”

  He could feel his shoulder hunch just thinking about them. “North Berwick.” Naming the swanky suburb of Edinburgh where his mum and step-father lived was easy. Far easier than explaining about Cam.

  Jenna opened the front door and held it as he went through. “Nice.”

  He tried to shrug but stopped when the items on the tray clattered. “If you like that kind of thing.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I don’t see much of them. They do their thing, I do mine.” That line usually stopped the questions. Women seemed to recognise he’d said all he was going to and backed off.

  “Was your dad a druid?”

  He should have known it wouldn’t work with Jenna. And there were so many different answers to that question. None of which he wanted to get into. In the end, he told the simplest version of the truth. “Yes.”

  Glancing at her he could tell she wasn’t satisfied, could feel the next question brewing behind her furrowed forehead. To pre-empt it, he nodded at the hag stones in the window. “Did Nina believe they worked?”

  “The hag stones? I guess. There’s one on the key to this room too. She believed in a lot of the old ways.” Jenna gestured for him to enter. “Sorry it smells a bit musty. I was in here earlier and opened the windows but it’s not made much difference.”

  The big picture window gave a hundred-and-eighty-degree view along the coastline. The walls were painted pale green. A worn armchair in sage green piled with cushions stood next to it. An oak desk stood beside the door with a swivel chair in front of it. Overstuffed bookshelves filled most of the back wall and a brightly-striped rug covered much of the wooden floor.

  Seeing the shelves and the rug together brought back Zoe’s drawing. One of the birds had been perched on those bookshelves while the other cawed, enormous beak open, next to the woman on the floor. As he put the tray on the desk by the door, he glanced at Jenna. Her hand was fastened protectively around her left arm as she stared absently out of the window. She’d been through enough over the past few days. She didn’t need reminding of inexplicable portents.

  “Hag stones, witch bottle, charm bag.” He pointed to each of them, finishing with the small bag embroidered with a picture of a labyrinth which hung over the door. “Was Nina always this well-prepared or was she expecting trouble?”

  “Oh my God!” Jenna spread her hands. “How did I miss that?”

  “I guess you had a lot on your mind when you first came home.” Slipping his leather jacket off, he hung it over the back of the desk chair.

  “With the mess the place was in, I didn’t take time to wonder why she felt the need for that many different forms of protection.” She was silent for a moment before adding, “I don’t remember them being here the last time I came home before she died.”

  “When was that?”

  “The end of August. I came over for a long weekend.”

  Nodding, he walked over the rug to the doorway in the opposite wall. Tacked to the white painted door was a pentacle fashioned from pieces of driftwood. “This the dispensary?” he asked, his hand on the door handle.

  “Yes, all the herbs are gone. There wasn’t much left after the break-in and we threw the rest away.”

  Taking that as permission he swung the door open and stepped into a narrow room with a tiled floor. It was L shaped with a long work bench along one wall, a sink unit filling the space in the shorter wall with a small window above it. A grey filing cabinet stood behind the door and empty shelves filled most of the wall space. Even after six years, it retained a hint of the distinctive smell of drying herbs and fermenting potions.

  “Tell me about the break-in. Did they take much?” he said, peering through the window, which showed a slightly smeared view of the tearooms’ car park.

  “As far as we could tell, they didn’t take anything except The Spiral Path. I think they must have been looking for her grimoires. They were the only thing in here of any value. I just don’t understand why they made such a mess in the process. The worst of it was in here.” Leaning against the door frame, Jenna gestured as she spoke. “The window was broken, there was water all over the floor because the taps were smashed. Half of the jars had been knocked on the floor. There were herbs everywhere. In the other room, one of the bookcases had been pushed over. The flower pots were smashed. There were papers from her desk all over the floor. It was like a tornado had gone through the place. We were lucky that some of the ladies from the village helped clear up. It would have taken me months on my own.”

  “Your dad didn’t help?”

  She shook her head. “He was barely getting out of bed back then.”

  Her matter-of-fact tone made the words doubly powerful. Her blue eyes were clouded, her chin down, a stray dark curl falling across her face. Loneliness emanated from her like an aura. And he’d never been able to see those.

  Moving to the filing cabinet, he opened the top drawer. It was empty. “What happened to her patient record? I’m guessing they were in here.”

  “They were but the filing cabinet was knocked over in the break-in and the files were soaked.
There didn’t seem much point in drying them out and keeping them.”

  “Did Nina have many patients before she died?” Nina’s reputation as an herbalist had spread far outside of the magical community. He’d been aware, before The Order was destroyed, of a few mutterings about Nina drawing too much attention to herself.

  “Enough, I think. She certainly wasn’t complaining about lack of work. She was heavily involved with the campaign against the Nethertown development and that must have taken up a lot of her time.”

  “Tell me about that.” Winston closed the dispensary door behind him and returned to the desk to pick up his tea. “You said she and your uncle fell out about it?”

  “His company, Steambridge Developments wanted to build in Nethertown, outside Stromness.” Joining him, she wrapped her hands around her mug. “It’s lovely out there, gorgeous views over Scapa Flow to Hoy and it’s right by the cemetery. All the folk with family buried there were furious and he just wouldn’t listen. The development was far too big for that site, a hotel with fifty bedrooms and eco-chalets for tourists. In the end, he was allowed to put up half a dozen of the eco-chalets. He told me at Mum’s funeral that he’d scaled the plans down out of respect for her but I found out later the Council made him do it.”

  Winston could feel his eyes widen as she talked. “All this was going on in the months before Nina died?”

  “Yes, I’m not quite sure when she got involved in the campaign but she had a leading role in it by the time they had the big demonstration through Stromness.”

  “And how did your uncle react to that?”

  “Badly. She didn’t tell me all that much about it. I guess she didn’t want to affect my relationship with him but I found out afterwards that they had a couple of god-awful rows.”

  In every cop show he’d ever watched the police asked if the victim had any enemies and if they’d fallen out with anyone before they died. Nina’s death had to be connected to her role in The Order but he’d be a fool not to look into this. He needed to know all he could about her life in the months before her death. “Do you think your uncle will tell you anything about it?”

  “You mean ask him what happened between them?” She clutched the mug to her chest. “No way! I am not stirring that hornet’s nest.”

  He took a sip of tea, considered his next words. “It might be helpful to know.”

  “Why?”

  What could he tell her? He was curious, he didn’t trust property developers and her uncle sounded like a total twat? Were those good enough reasons? He settled for saying, “We need to know as much as we can about Nina’s life before she died.”

  “There are other ways to find that out.” Her chin came up. “I’ll ask Pippa Lloyd.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “She co-ordinated the campaign against Nethertown. I know she and Mum worked closely together before Mum died.”

  It was as much as he was going to get until he’d dug a bit deeper and knew which questions to ask. After taking another gulp of tea, he said, “I got the blood from the bowl we found at Maeshowe tested and it’s cow’s which is a relief as it means the magic wasn’t as dark as I feared but doesn’t take us much further forward.”

  “Plenty of cows on Orkney. Plenty of butchers too.”

  “Exactly. And as we’re not CSI Kirkwall we can’t start asking who they sold some to.” He took a step closer and bumped his shoulder against hers. “Anyway, now I’m here, is there any chance I can see Nina’s grimoires?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “They might help. We’re looking for anything that gives a clue to who the storm witch is. We suspect she’s the woman Nina was teaching before she died but there might be something in the grimoires that confirms that.”

  “Alright.” She put her mug down on the desk as she turned to him. “But this is between you and me, okay? No one ever knows.”

  He mimed a cross somewhere loosely near his heart. “Scout’s honour.”

  Jenna’s gaze ran from the crown of his head to his toes and then back again. “You were never a scout!”

  “No, I wasn’t.” They didn’t go in for scouting at Glenard. Far too imperialistic for its socialist principles. “But I won’t tell. Swear on my staff.” His fingers tightened around it. “You don’t get any better than that from a druid.”

  “Fine.” Jenna pointed at the shelves filling most of the opposite wall. “They’re in the bookcases.”

  A few quick strides took him over there. They contained an eclectic collection which said a lot about Nina’s personality. There were the books he’d expected; a wide selection on herbalism and a few books on the theory and history of magic including The Golden Bough; and ones that surprised him, poetry, a diverse collection of modern novels, travel guides and a book on Scottish planning law. Crammed on the edge of each shelf were ornaments, photographs, crystals and candles.

  Remembering their conversation at Maeshowe, he pointed at The Golden Bough. “You read it?”

  She laughed. “No. You?”

  “Bits of it. There’s some interesting stuff in it but it’s hard to get over the fact that his entire premise is that magic doesn’t exist.”

  Her fingers fiddled with her pendant, running it up and down its silver chain. “He got that wrong, didn’t he?”

  “What’s this?” From the shelf by his shoulder, he picked up a crudely made clay sculpture. Its head was far too big for its body and it appeared to have an excessive number of limbs.

  Jenna stepped forward, her uninjured hand outstretched. “Give that back!”

  He held it up out of her reach. “Does it really have three legs or is this an enormous willy?”

  “I should have known it was a bad idea bringing you here! If you must know, its Thor. That’s his hammer.”

  He couldn’t stop himself laughing. “That’s one name for it! How old were you when you made this?”

  “Twelve. Now put it back.”

  He was about to replace it, when he saw the letters ‘JBH’ carved into the base. He turned it so they faced her. “What’s the B for?”

  “There is no way I’m telling you that.”

  “Why? Is it that bad?” Eyes on hers, watching for a reaction, he kept talking. “Barbara? Beryl? Bertha? Please tell me it’s Bertha? Jenna Bertha Henderson. It’s got a nice ring to it.”

  She crossed her arms. “It is not Bertha.”

  “Shame. Bernadette? Belinda? I quite like Belinda. No? Brenda? Bridget?” There was a minute flicker as he spoke the first syllable. “It’s Bridget, isn’t it?”

  She shook her head but when she spoke, he could tell she was trying not to smile. “It’s not Bridget.”

  He took a step closer. “But I’m getting warm, aren’t I?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Brigitte?” Again, she shook her head. “What else is there? B…B… What about Brigid?”

  “No, it’s not…” Then with a burst of laughter, she raised a hand. “Yes, alright! It’s Brigid.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that. Named after an Irish goddess? I’d call that a good name. Better than everyone thinking you’re named after Churchill.”

  “You said it’s a family name?”

  He took a step back, glanced out the window. Mist was rolling in across the bay, obliterating the setting sun. She was far too quick. The women he dated were never this sharp. “It is. It’s my father’s middle name.”

  “Oh. What’s his first name?”

  “Cam.” Replacing Thor on the shelf, Winston picked up the photo next to it. He knew all of the faces. The five members of The Order had their arms around each other’s shoulders. Nina was in the centre, her grey hair cropped into a pixie cut which highlighted her cheekbones, a smudge of pink brightening her fringe. Next to her stood Bryn Williams, a wide smile creasing his ruddy face. Harry Field was the other man. His bald head shone as he laughed at the camera. Eve’s usually stern expression had been replaced with a reluctant half-smile. Tamar
a was beaming at the camera, her red-gold hair blowing around her face.

  “When was this taken?” he asked.

  “The September before they died.”

  “In Avebury?”

  “Yes. Were you there?”

  He nodded. There had been an annual gathering of the magical community at Mabon. To the outside world it looked like the gathering of a somewhat eclectic group interested in the esoteric and occult. The location changed each year but it was always somewhere with a connection to magic. This had been the first gathering he’d been to since his own run in with The Order —fortunately differently constituted back then— five years previously. Little had he, or anyone else, expected that only three months later all of the members of The Order would be dead or missing.

  Putting the photo back, he spotted one of a younger – and rather thinner – Jenna with a dark-haired man in his mid-fifties. “This your dad?”

  “Mum left this photograph face down in the top drawer of her desk with her pendant—” her fingers moved again to touch the pink crystal at her throat “—underneath it. She never took it off.”

  He looked at her, saw her eyes blink too fast. “And now you don’t.”

  “I…You noticed?” Again, she was surprised. She really did have a low opinion of him.

  “You touch it when you talk about her.”

  Her fingers tightened around it, her gaze fixed on the floor. “I didn’t realise.”

  There was a smattering of freckles across her nose. They suited her.

  Shit! What was he doing? Jenna was off limits. He’d been down that road once and he wasn’t ever risking it again. Suzie was what he wanted. No strings sex and a bit of fun. That he could handle. That, he’d been told, he was very good at.

  He scanned the shelves, overplaying it slightly. “I thought you said the grimoires were on here?”

  “I said the grimoires were in here.” She pointed at the second shelf down. “They’re behind the back of that shelf. You need to take the books off and then the panel slides.”