I heard myself screaming and I did not know how to stop. I stabbed at the nearest witch, her scream joining mine.
“You are too late,” Mrs Pender said, her voice cutting through the noise as if she spoke directly into my mind. “The sacrifice is complete. The power is ours.”
I twisted around and stabbed again, desperate to hurt as many witches as possible. My knife met nothing. I whirled again, still stabbing, but I was alone on the foggy moor. Whatever power the witches had taken from my poor cousin’s blood, it had allowed them to escape in a heartbeat.
Sir Philip lay on the boggy ground, and I stumbled towards him, tears tumbling down my face. His expression was calm, showing none of the fear and betrayal he must have felt in the last seconds of his life. I closed his eyes gently and smoothed his grey hair away from his face as I wept over him. What a poor reward for his love.
But I could not stay. I must arrange for his burial, then Theo and I must finally destroy this vicious nest of witches.
I straightened up, my body aching as I came back up to stand.
“Let’s go, Theo,” I said, my voice weary.
No reply.
I tore my gaze away from Sir Philip’s body and looked around. The moor around me was empty. No witches - and no Theo. They had taken him.
Into the Witches' Den
I walked back to the house alone, the moors a misty blur around me. How could Theo be gone? I ran through the events in my head time and time again, trying to pinpoint the moment I had lost him. Had he remained trapped in the witches’ spell, just like Sir Philip? It made no sense that only I had managed to free myself.
Without Theo, the cottage felt more like a prison than a haven. I poked the fire back to life and leaned my forehead against the cold stone of the mantel, desperately trying to shape my thoughts into a coherent plan. The witches would almost certainly have taken Theo back to Killston Hall - but what if I was wrong? And, worse, what if I was right? With Sir Philip gone, walking back into Killston Hall seemed close enough to suicide. I groaned, hitting my head against the stone. There was an answer somewhere - there must be.
Perhaps something in Theo’s study would help. I pulled a few books off the shelf at random and skimmed through, but what should I be looking for? I left them all lying open on the floor. My bag lay on the desk, and I frowned at it for a moment before picking it up. I remembered its contents as well as I remembered the stores in my laboratory, but it seemed worth reconsidering. Was there anything here that I might turn to a new purpose?
I pulled out the compass and the tiny glass vials, the lock picks and the bundles of notes. Unsurprisingly, no instructions for the defeat of a witch coven had miraculously appeared in my bag. It contained only the items I had packed in London. Except - what was that lying at the bottom? I tugged out a loose scrap of paper and unfolded it.
The map from the abandoned wing. And, this time, I knew what it was. Faint lines marked out the now-familiar contours of the moors. Here was the space where Theo’s cottage now stood, and here was Killston Hall. But those thicker lines that dominated the map - I could thank Theo for my knowledge of those. These were the old lines of power, the magic pathways that lay beyond good and evil. With a sudden giddy certainty, I understood how to use them.
I ran back to the books, desperately skimming titles in search of the information I needed. An hour passed, then another, as I soaked in everything I could. But there was no more time for reading. I suspected that the witches would keep Theo alive for as long as they still rode a wave of power from Sir Philip’s death. But who knew when they would need more blood?
As Theo would have wanted, I had kept my calm. I had researched, considered, planned. My supplies were packed and my skirts ripped off at the knee, my hair braided firmly out of my face. I had taken every precaution.
I was ready to kill witches.
Darkness and Rubble
I felt the moment I touched the first line of power. Something fizzed in my blood, faint but distinct. When I squinted, I almost saw those particles of multicoloured dust dancing along the ground. I smiled.
I followed the line towards the Hall, my footsteps sure and steady even when the land angled sharply up and down, or stones slipped under my feet. The strength of the earth seeped up into my bones. The map lay untouched in my bag; I no longer needed it. The reminder had been enough.
As I came closer to the Hall, the magic changed. Darker strands wrapped around the clear line, tangling with it and muddying its brightness. But I could see those strands now and feel them whispering in my blood. I stepped over them and through them, my progress slow but my movements confident. The witches would not sense me coming. At the property boundary, I stopped, eyeing the fresh wounds in the earth. Someone had dug up the earth here and removed the iron that once protected this place.
Reaching into my bag, I pulled out one of the iron ingots from Theo’s weapon store. I tied the witch-killing twine around it, then lay it carefully in the hole and scooped earth back over the top. The boundary snapped back into place, tightening around the Hall. And I had strengthened it now, more than ever before. The witches might have crossed the old boundary even if it weakened their magic and blocked their monstrous familiars. But this new line would hold them fast.
No witch would escape from Killston Hall alive.
Still, I must be more careful now. The coven might have felt the magical vibrations from the repaired boundary. I could take no chances.
I edged my way towards the house with agonising slowness, hiding in the bushes for what seemed like hours. With this damned fog obscuring the sun, it was almost impossible to gauge time accurately.
At last, I slipped across the final stretch of lawn to the abandoned wing, lock picks already in my hand. I had sprinkled them with a few pinches of my special silencing powder, another idea of Daniel’s. There was not even the slightest noise as I slipped inside. I left the door open. The witches could not escape.
I heard the chanting at once, a low sound drifting from somewhere above me. I cursed viciously, enjoying the feel of the word in my mouth, even if it came out only as a whisper. If they were upstairs that meant the worst. They must plan to sacrifice Theo in an attempt to resurrect their frozen queen.
Theo might already be dead, my treacherous mind whispered, but I pushed the thought away. Theo was alive, and I would rescue him. I pulled the knife from the bag, grasped an enchanted flint arrowhead in my other hand, and set off up the stairs.
No witches in the corridor. This spell must require the strength of the entire coven. That meant that Theo must also be in that terrible little room.
I sucked in a deep breath, forcing my trembling hands to still. To free Theo, I would have to act quickly. But first, I had preparations to make. My heart ached to step away from him, back down the stairs, but I knew he would not want me to throw myself recklessly into danger.
Back downstairs, I already knew exactly where to look. The old map, with its lines of magic, had revealed to me why Mrs Pender hated this wing so much. It had been designed and built as a magical trap. Whatever sympathy poor Sir Philip had felt for the witches, his forefathers had evidently not shared it. No wonder the witches had needed such a blood sacrifice; the power required to free their queen when she lay trapped in such a place must be considerable indeed. If I was correct, Mrs Pender must have altered the protections in order for her sisters to gain access at all.
The map showed me where four lines converged, each marked by a corner of the wing. I suspected some sort of physical sign, something similar to the iron that lined the boundaries outside, but the map did not indicate what this might be. Nevertheless, I knew it as soon as I stepped into the first corner room.
Built into the wall, protruding past the plaster, was a rough stone. About as high as my waist, odd carvings marked it, faded almost beyond recognition. As I crouched to see it better in the dim light, my heart lurched with a combination of fear and satisfaction. There, on the uneven surface of
the stone, were faint streaks of red. Blood on the stones.
Now came the moment of greatest risk. If I timed this wrong, I would have no time to free Theo. I had no margin for error. My hand steady, I uncorked my tiny bottle of blood ointment and smeared a line across the stone, just above the blood. Carefully, I smudged it with my fingers, letting the ointment soften under the heat of my skin.
Then I ran from the room, moving as quickly as possible without drawing attention to myself, thankful I had thought to sprinkle the silencing powder on my feet. In the next room, across the corridor, I found another stone and repeated the process. At the opposite end of the corridor came the third and fourth stones. All four corners attended to, I ran for the stairs, the magic of the place already shifting and changing.
This time, I did not need to hide my presence. I raced along the corridor and slammed through the door, flinching as the waves of magic hit me. A dozen women turned to focus on me, their faces near-identical white ovals in the growing darkness. On the floor sat Theo, bound and gagged, staring up at me with the same shock.
In that moment of clarity, when everything around me seemed to move slowly, I whirled into action. A lunge towards Theo, and one slash to free his feet, the bespelled blade slicing through the witches’ rope with ease. He rose gracefully as the witches moved towards us, their hands carving through the air in agonisingly slow motion. A second slash freed his wrists, and I set the knife in his hand. And then time restarted.
The witches were on top of me, their hands clutching and grasping with icy agony. Their voices chanted loud and angry in my ears. I saw nothing but the blackness of their robes and the whiteness of their skin. I heard myself screaming, the vicious magic burning me. I lashed out with the old arrowhead, relishing each screech of pain as the witches fell away from me and surged back again like the waves of the sea.
“We have to get out,” I shouted to Theo. “Fight for the door!”
He pushed towards me, our shoulders touching as we struggled to force a way through the tide of witches - and then the building trembled. My ointment had reached the blood. Mrs Pender’s dark magic was about to dissolve, and I feared the results would be terrible.
That second of hesitation from the witches was all I needed. I grabbed Theo’s hand, and we ran out into the corridor. The witches came after us, hands clutching at the rags of my skirt, but I kept running. We did not have far to go. We half-fell down the stairs, the iron ringing loud with footsteps and echoing screams. I could not trust the doorway into the Hall, so I kept moving, dragging Theo with me towards the still-open door to the garden. Almost there. Almost safe.
“You will never escape us,” Mrs Pender said, her voice calm as she stood between us and the doorway. How had she come to stand in front of us? I stopped, blinking in the thick fog. What had I not seen? Theo trembled beside me as he edged backwards, trying to stay away from Mrs Pender. But as I glared at her, my fear diminished. She was wrong. We would escape.
With a scream, I threw myself at her, arrowhead raised. The vision - the casting - disappeared into nothingness, and Theo and I tumbled out into the garden, hands gripped tightly together, as the first stones began to fall. I thought of that night, just a few days earlier, when I believed the building had collapsed on me. Some deep magic within the very stones had shown me the way to victory.
It was a gentle shower of dust at first, then the entire building shuddered and tilted. The once-straight lines of stones seemed to buckle and twist, shifting in wave patterns that made me dizzy to watch. Black faces and white hands appeared in the open doorway, but it was as I had thought. With the tainted blood washed clean from the stones, they could not pass. The line that should once have kept them out of this place instead held them trapped as the building collapsed around them.
The doorway crumbled into nothing as stones tumbled from above. The roof gave way in a crash of dust and a whirl of agonised screams. Theo and I ran for cover, sprinting the length of the orchard as stones rained down around us. I screamed, the sound almost drowned out in the thunder of collapse. I sank to the ground, arms wrapped around my head, Theo’s body draped protectively over mine.
After a few moments, the chaos stilled. I stumbled to my feet, Theo’s arms still wrapped around me. The fog had vanished as if it had never been, but the air was thick with dust.
“Are they all gone?” I asked, hesitant.
“Being crushed won’t quite kill them,” Theo said. “But they should be helpless. It’s time to finish the job.”
We edged towards the dusty pile of rubble that marked the spot where the abandoned wing had once stood.
“I don’t see anything,” Theo said, his voice unsteady.
“That doesn’t mean there’s nothing there,” I said. I saw from his expression that I had echoed his own thoughts.
We poked through the rubble, shifting those stones we could move and skirting around the ones that were too large to shift. There was no sign of any witch.
“Has it really worked?” Theo asked, a trace of hope in his words. “Perhaps it simply never occurred to my grandfather to trap and crush witches.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said grimly. Surely, there should be something, some sign that an entire coven of witches had perished here. What if they had transported themselves, as before? The magic should have held them trapped, but how could I be sure beyond all doubt? I knew if I did not end this here, now, I would forever see those red lips and white hands in my nightmares.
And then I heard it. A low moan, drifting from the deepest part of the rubble pile. I glanced at Theo in alarm. His thin-lipped expression showed that he had heard it too. He gripped the knife more tightly in his hand, and together we started forwards.
The pile of tumbled masonry shifted and shook, gradually sliding away as if some great force pushed up from below. Theo and I stumbled to a halt.
Mrs Pender knelt over the body of her coven queen. They were both dusty, and bloody cuts littered Mrs Pender’s arms and face, but I saw no terrible damage. What power had preserved them?
She rose to her feet with that uncanny grace, turning to face us with eyes as black as darkness.
“You will pay for the deaths of my sisters,” she promised, her voice eerily flat. How had I ever mistaken this woman for an ordinary human?
But I would not let her hurt me, or my loved ones, ever again.
I turned to Theo.
“You stab, I’ll burn.”
His eyes flashed with surprise for a moment, and then we flew into action. Theo leapt forward with the knife raised as I fumbled with the tinderbox in my pocket. Mrs Pender shrieked in fury but she was too slow, too surprised. I felt the pulse of magic as Theo sank his knife deep into her body, but I focused all my attention on the flame in my hand.
“Burn,” I whispered, coaxing the tiny spark into a raging fire with sheer force of will. And I threw it.
The queen burst into flames, her face still calm and beautiful as her body began to blacken. Theo stumbled backwards, letting Mrs Pender’s limp body collapse over that of her mistress. They burned together, the flames sending sparks of all colours soaring out into the night sky.
Theo and I huddled together in the enclosed porch of the main house, neither of us speaking. Part of me wanted to watch the bonfire, wanted to know for certain that the last of the witches were gone. But I could not bear to see Mrs Pender burn, for all the harm she had caused me. Sir Philip had loved her.
“I suppose the other servants are probably dead,” Theo said at last, and it was as if his words threw open some door to my feelings. I collapsed into sobs, so loud and harsh that my body ached as I stumbled against him. He wrapped his arms tightly around me, dropping light kisses on my hair and whispering soft words into my ears.
By the time I cried myself out and came back to full consciousness, the chill of the night had set in and I found myself shivering.
“Let’s get you in to bed,” Theo said. The main door was locked, bu
t I handed my lock picks over, and Theo had it open in a matter of moments. I should have known that he would have talents similar to my own.
The hallway was empty, but I smelled old blood and almost retched right there on the flagstone floor. Theo, pale-faced, stuck his head into the kitchen and stumbled backwards instantly.
“Poor souls,” he said, looking sick. “They did not deserve this.”
He looked torn.
“Deal with them now,” I said gently. Working at the Hall as a servant, he had known those people far more closely than I had. “I’ll be safe. There’s no one left to hurt us now.”
Theo shook his head. “I’ll not leave you alone. We’ll fetch help in the morning and arrange for burial then. For Sir Philip as well. But for now, let’s sleep.”
I nodded and let him lead me through the hall, towards the main staircase. I eyed the door to the abandoned wing, but it showed no signs of change. This part of the house seemed unscathed, despite the chaos beyond that very wall.
My bedroom also looked remarkably unchanged, my hairbrush and mirror still neatly laid out on the table, my dresses pressed and waiting for me in the chest. I touched everything gently, feeling as if I wandered through a dream. I had almost stopped believing that my old life would ever be mine again.
“I’ll leave you to settle back in,” Theo said awkwardly. I realised that he had not crossed over the threshold, but stood in his old position leaning against the door frame.
“No. Stay,” I said, reaching out a hand to him.
His fingertips brushed against mine, his expression unsure as he stepped towards me.
“Things have to change now,” he said, his voice throaty, as if he held back tears. “We’re no longer in our little cottage on the moors. This is your family’s house, and it would be wrong for me to stay here with you.”
“I don’t care,” I said fiercely, wrapping my fingers around his wrist and pulling him to me. “I need you here with me.”
Witchfog Page 14
