A Curse of Ash and Embers

by Jo Spurrier

  Dedication

  For Liam

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  An Excerpt from The Blackbone Witches Chapter 1

  About the Author

  Also by Jo Spurrier

  Back Ads

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  I sat on the rough stone wall, gazing down the dusty road and grinding my heel against the rocks. The hobnails in my boot squealed against the stone, making me wince, but in truth the sound was a fine match for my mood.

  Somewhere behind me my stepfather cursed, and there came the rattle of a bucket as it was kicked across the yard. I couldn’t help but tense, one hand gripping the wall, the other crushing the letter I clutched.

  That wretched letter. I couldn’t decide if it was a lifeline or a sentence of exile. Could it be both? For months I’d been dreaming of leaving this place, but at the same time I’d been riddled with guilt at the mere thought. Leave my sod of a stepfather and his endless hen-pecking? I’d do it in a heartbeat — if only it didn’t mean leaving Ma and my little brothers and sisters behind as well.

  Now I had no choice. I scowled at the letter, the thick, creamy paper and the broken wax seal. Where did you come from? I don’t understand any of this.

  Boots crunched in the dust behind me, and I clenched my teeth.

  ‘Well look at you,’ Lem sneered. ‘Sitting ’round on your arse while other folk get on with the work. Typical. You’re not going to last two weeks in this new position, Elodie, you mark my words.’

  Slowly, I turned to look at him. ‘You told me to sit on the wall and wait for Yosh.’ Normally I guarded my expression around him. It didn’t take much to set him off ranting about my insolence, my hateful face. Sometimes it didn’t take anything at all. But I didn’t have to put up with him anymore.

  His stupid red cheeks twitched with rage. ‘After you get your chores done, girl! Do I have to tell you every little thing? Lord and Lady, if you talk to your new mistress like this she’s going to beat you black and blue, and you’ll deserve every bit of it!’ He started towards me, fists clenched, shoulders hunched — and then Ma’s voice rang out from the house. ‘Lem! Lem! Do come and help me, sweet!’

  He didn’t look around, not until I slipped down from the wall, tucking the letter in my apron pocket and wiping the grit from my hands. ‘I’ll come, Ma!’

  ‘You stay right there,’ he growled. Then he turned on his heel and marched back into the house. It was oddly quiet, the house and the yard both, what with all my younger siblings absent. They’d been sent off to the river for the day, supposedly as a treat. I knew the real reason was so there’d be no fuss and fanfare to see me off.

  Lem was sweet as pie to Ma, and he fair doted on my little sisters. He was more gruff with my brothers, but he gave praise when they earned it, and if it was scant they valued it all the more for its rarity. No, it was just me that he hated.

  ‘What do you expect, Dee?’ Ma had told me the night the letter came, and I was in shock and tears over being sent away. ‘He’s not your father, as you’re so fond of pointing out. You can’t expect a man to love another fellow’s child as he loves his own. Now, he’s found you a position as a servant; good, honest work, and you can’t even say thank you.’

  The slam of a door startled me. I jumped, and turned to see Ma bustling towards me with a cloth-wrapped bundle in her hands. ‘Here you are, Dee,’ she said. ‘Tuck that away in your basket, quickly.’ She glanced back over her shoulder, checking if Lem had seen her. It was a couple of pies, still hot from the oven, wrapped up in one of my spare dresses, one Lem had deemed too good to take to my new life as a maid-of-all-work. We bundled it into my pack-basket and put my old, worn blanket back in place on top.

  Ma gave me a bright, brittle smile, and pulled me close for a hug. ‘You take care, Dee. Make sure you mind what your mistress says, and watch that tongue of yours, all right?’

  Feeling her arms around me, wondering how long it would be before I felt them again, I couldn’t help myself. I began to cry. ‘Ma—’

  ‘Hush, hush, sweet. You’re nearly seventeen, Dee, lots of girls your age get sent away for work.’

  ‘But, Ma . . .’ I pulled away to look her in the face. ‘You still haven’t told me how it all came about. When did you even send away for the position?’

  She blinked at me a couple of times, her face blank. Then she gave a little laugh. ‘Oh, it was probably at the market, I suppose. It must have been. Wasn’t it?’

  I huffed a sigh of frustration. ‘I don’t know, Ma, I’m not allowed to go to the market anymore, remember? But why? You’ve always said that I can’t even think about leaving the farm until all the little ones are grown. Lem wouldn’t even let me go to school and now you’re sending me away for work? Why? I just don’t understand!’

  She gave me that same blank look, and then patted my arm. ‘Dee, lots of girls your age go away for work.’ she repeated, as though she hadn’t just said that same thing moments before. ‘It happens all the time.’

  ‘But why did you change your mind?’

  She didn’t answer. She just looked past me, down the road. ‘Oh look! Here comes Yosh. Lem! Sweet! Yosh is here!’

  While she turned away, I bit my lip, hard, and reached into my apron pocket to touch the thick paper once again. I guess I’d hoped that she’d admit that I deserved better than this, a life of endless cooking and cleaning and looking after children, work that was somehow never done well or quickly enough, work that never got a thank you, and was never worth the cost of keeping me. And yet work that was somehow so essential that I couldn’t be spared to go to school, even though the fee was paid by charity since my real father was dead. Why had they suddenly changed their minds and sent me away? Why?

  I just had to accept that I wasn’t going to get an answer. My ride was here. A team of oxen hauling a heavy cart had appeared amid a cloud of dust, and at Ma’s shout Lem had gone striding out to meet the teamster, who plodded along beside his beasts.

  To my eye the fellow wasn’t exactly overwhelmed with joy to have Lem shaking his hand vigorously, like they were old friends. There was a smaller figure, a lass in a long dress, walking with him, and she hung back to eye Lem with uncertainty.

  Lem was prattling to the teamster as Ma took me by the arm and steered me towards the wagon.

  ‘You haven’t met Elodie, have you, Yosh?’ Lem said as I drew near. ‘She should have been called Melody, but she’s so dang careless she lost the em years ago!’ Lem laughed fit to burst, slapping his thigh, but the expression on Yosh’s face reminded me of the look our boss dog gave the pups when they were making pests of themselves. Lem went on, oblivious. ‘Make sure she lends a hand when you pitch camp. She will actually do some work so long as you stay on her back about it. Ain’t that right, girl?’

  Ma interrupted before Lem could demand that I reply. ‘Brought your daughter along this time, Yosh?’

  The lass, a few years younger than Lucette, was watching Lem with a perplexed expression as she silently plied her spindle.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Yosh drawled. ‘Usual when folk send a daughter off for work her da or her brother goes along to make sure she gets there safe. Since she’s travellin’ alone I thought it best to have another lass along. Tongues’ll wag, otherwise.’ He gave each of them a hard look at that, Lem first and then
Ma. Lem seemed not to hear, but Ma dropped her gaze, her cheeks turning pink.

  Yosh came over and offered a broad hand. ‘Nice to meet ya, Elodie, and this is my eldest lass, Sal.’ He gestured to the girl, who gave me a merry smile. ‘Off to earn some money for a dowry, are ye?’

  ‘I hope so,’ I said, cutting a sly glance at Lem as I hefted my pack-basket.

  Lem scowled. ‘You’d best send your pay right back here, girl, you’ve no idea how to handle money. You’ll be cheated out of it as soon as it’s in your pocket, or else spend it on some useless tat. Not that I expect you’ll get much of it. You won’t last out there in the real world.’

  I stopped to glower at him. If he’d been closer, I’d have kept my mouth shut, but I was well out of reach. And I was about to be free of the wretch. ‘You know, for someone who hates having me around you seem to be awful keen on having me come back. And as for my pay, you’ll never see a penny of it.’

  ‘Dee!’ Ma snapped. ‘You watch your mouth! Sorry, Yosh, I warned you, she’s got a frightful temper.’

  Yosh was looking at me from under beetled brows, holding out his huge hands, ready to heave my basket up into the wagon. I passed it to him with a flush spreading over my cheeks. ‘Sorry, sir,’ I muttered. ‘And thanks.’

  Lem’s face had turned a deep scarlet. ‘Well you just remember this, you little tart — if you end up with a baby in your belly don’t you dare show your face back here, or I’ll beat you black and blue and turf you out on your ear. Got it?’

  ‘Hey now,’ Yosh said, his face turning stony. ‘My lass don’t need to hear that kind of language. And yours don’t, neither.’

  Lem gave him a wide-eyed look, and then turned on me again. ‘You hear that, Dee? You’d better watch that mouth of yours, or else Yosh will leave you by the side of the road to beg your way home.’

  I could feel myself flushing a deep pink and I turned away, ignoring his words. Ma was standing right there, silent as usual, but when she met my gaze she threw her arms open and came close to wrap me up in a hug. ‘I wish you two could be civil to each other for five blessed minutes,’ she said, tears in her eyes. ‘It wouldn’t have to be this way if you could just be the bigger person and not bite back every time he snipes at you.’

  ‘He’s older than me,’ I said. ‘Shouldn’t he be the bigger person?’

  ‘Why do you always have to argue? I don’t want to have a fight when you’re about to leave.’

  I hugged her tight. ‘Promise me you won’t do too much,’ I said. ‘Make sure Lucette does her share to help you, and Janey, too, she’s old enough now. And promise me you won’t let him be mean to the others, now I’m gone.’

  ‘Oh, Dee, don’t worry about that. It’s hard on a man, raising a child that isn’t his. It’ll be nice to have some peace and quiet, instead of the kitchen turning into a battlefield every time you two cross paths.’

  That stung, deep in my chest, but I shoved it down hard. My heart was beating hard now, and my belly clenched and churned under my stays. It was really happening. I was leaving.

  But even so, if Ma changed her mind and said I could stay, I’d agree in a heartbeat.

  ‘All right, all right,’ Lem muttered. ‘Yosh is a busy man, let him get on his way.’

  ‘Promise you’ll write,’ Ma said, squeezing me tight.

  I heaved a sigh. ‘Ma, you know I can’t.’

  She pulled back, dabbing at her eyes with her apron. ‘Oh . . .’

  I’d been supposed to go to school. She’d promised it over and over again. But somehow it was always the wrong time — she’d just had another baby and needed my help, or harvest-time was coming up, or lambing season. And then it was too late, I was too old. It would look ridiculous to send me when all the others would be half my age. Instead Ma was supposed to teach me at home, or Lucette or one of the others would do it, but there was never any time for that, either. There was always something more important to be done.

  That last thought helped keep my eyes dry. Ma was twisting her apron between her hands.

  ‘Come take the seat, lass,’ Yosh said. ‘You too, Sal, up you hop.’

  I turned my face away as Yosh stirred his bullocks into motion with a click of his tongue, and this time there was nothing I could do to stop the tears from spilling. Well, Dee, you’ve always said you wanted to be free of your wretched stepfather, and here you are. Happy now?

  It was lonely on the road, plodding towards the mountains. Yosh and his daughter Sal were pleasant folk, but quiet, and I was used to the noise of my family — the singing, the arguments, the dogs barking and the cats crying for pats. Out on the road it was almost silent, aside from the creaking of the wagon and the farts of the bullocks. Sal showed me how to get comfortable on the bales and sacks in the wagon bed and I slept long hours, or just lay back watching the clouds drift across the sky.

  Yosh tried to ask me about my new position, but there wasn’t much I could tell him. All I knew was the name of the place: Black Oak Cottage. Lem had told me nothing except that I’d find out when I got there. I showed Yosh the letter, but, after reading it through, he just handed it back to me with a shrug. I wanted to ask if there was anything strange about it, anything that might explain its arrival, so unexpected and so against every plan Ma and Lem had for me, but I didn’t dare. It had always been driven in to me how little I knew about the world, and how dangerous it was for someone like me, with no education, kept sheltered at home.

  Yosh seemed to think so too. ‘Let me give you some advice, lass,’ he said as I tucked the letter away again. ‘When you get your coin, squirrel it away, a little here, a little there. Put some in your shoe and some in the hem of your skirt, don’t keep it all in one place. And don’t send it home to your folks, you’ll never see it again.

  ‘Work hard, even if you don’t like your mistress, and keep your ear to the ground for a better position. Folk who see you workin’ hard for a bad mistress will be happy to hire you themselves. Don’t go back home if you can help it. That sod Lem will soon miss all the work you did, and he won’t be so keen to let you leave a second time. And if you find a young lad to turn your head, make him marry you sooner rather than later, if you take my meaning.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t go down that road,’ I said. ‘Don’t trouble yourself on that account.’ Da never ran off on us, he died of lockjaw after an accident out in the woods, but it was much the same to me and Ma. I was very young when it happened, but I still remembered how hard it had been after he died.

  ‘Good lass. But don’t let all the tales of hard masters and mistresses get to your head; most folk are good and will treat you as well as you treat them.’

  It was interesting to hear him say so. All I’d heard from Ma and Lem was how hard and cruel the world was, how evil people were and how lucky I was to have a home like the one they gave me. I tucked Yosh’s words away inside my head and nodded to make him think that I agreed.

  That night, after Yosh and Sal had fallen asleep, I lay awake, restless after dozing so much during the day. I pulled out the bit of cloth I’d found hidden within the dress Ma had given to me. It was a kerchief, embroidered all over with flowers and leaves, though the colours had long since faded — Ma’s wedding scarf, the one she’d worn when she married my da. I’d found it once at the bottom of a basket of fabric scraps. When I’d brought it to show her, certain it must have been put in the wrong place, she’d shushed me and quickly tucked it away again.

  It smelled like home, and as I ran a fingertip over the interlaced threads my mind kept going back to the talk I’d had with Ma, the night before I’d left.

  ‘He’d never send Lucette away like this,’ I’d said as I folded up the one spare set of clothes Lem said I could take.

  Ma had no answer for that. Everyone knew Lucette was his favourite. She’d be the beauty of the village in a few years’ time, with her fair curls and her wide blue eyes. It was a miracle she’d kept a sweet temper through all his doting.

  Instead
of denying it, Ma just sighed. ‘I swear, Dee, if you could just curb your temper and not bite back—’

  ‘I tried that,’ I muttered. I truly had, years ago, swallowing my pride and trying to be the good girl Ma always urged me to be. It had made no difference; in fact, it had goaded him on to try harder to get a reaction from me. I had realised, that summer, that Lem didn’t care what I said or didn’t say. I could be as dumb as a fence post and he’d still make it my fault if he stubbed his toe on the way to the market.

  ‘Look, he’s not a bad man,’ Ma said.

  I snorted at that, not looking up.

  ‘He’s not! Lord and Lady, Dee, do you remember that winter after your father died?’

  I stopped, letting the badly folded skirt fall in my lap.

  ‘Do you?’ she demanded.

  ‘I remember the coat you made me,’ I said. ‘Out of the old horse blanket. I remember how it smelled.’ I also remembered how the other children had teased me for it, until old Mrs Waxcomb took pity and washed it, letting me stay in her kitchen where it was warm until the wretched thing dried.

  ‘Do you remember how hungry we were? I had chilblains so bad they would crack and bleed. We lived off scraps and rubbish, well, you did. I lived off air and snow, and let me tell you, if you ever go hungry like I did, maybe then you’ll understand. Lem took us in, he gave us warm beds and put food on the table — but you’ve never shown him the smallest hint of gratitude for it. Well, have you?’

  I scowled down at the crumpled skirt. ‘He wouldn’t send Lucette away to empty some old woman’s chamber-pots and scrub her floors.’

  Ma sighed. ‘Lucette is his daughter. You can’t expect him to treat you the same.’

  ‘Lucette will get a dowry and a big fancy wedding.’

  ‘And you’ll get to leave the home of the man who’s provided for you for most of your life,’ Ma snapped. ‘You can travel far away and you’ll never have to see him again? Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?’

  I couldn’t reply. I was at war with myself. Yes, I want to leave. I need to leave. But not like this, leaving everyone I love behind.