The Whitby Witches

by Robin Jarvis

  ‘Now for a true demonstration of your power,’ she cried.

  The staff blazed with evil energy and she flourished it in the air. A large whirlpool of shadow began to form above her. It spiralled out, growing larger with every swing and changing everything it touched.

  The tombstones blistered and moss fell from them as the ancient magic passed over. The weathered inscriptions glowed with purple fire until they were as clear and sharp as the day they had been carved. Still the staff poured out its might. The solid, immovable shape of St Mary’s quivered as the coils of blackness pounded its walls and the years fell away from it.

  Rowena looked around at what she had done, impressed and delighted. Even as she admired her handiwork, the expanding web of darkness engulfed the abbey. The majestic ruin shimmered and its ragged walls switched in and out of past ages. For an instant it was the grand structure it had once been, whole and with light shining through its high stained-glass windows, and the next it was partially built. Then it disappeared entirely, replaced by a collection of smaller buildings. Rowena was unravelling time.

  Lowering her arm, the witch pointed the staff at the huddled houses below her and screeched with glee. The twisting helix of magic spun towards the town. It blasted through the narrow lanes and confusion rampaged in its wake. Street lamps dimmed as they became gas lights and then they too were whisked away. Paved roads buckled and the tarmac split apart as cobbles forced their way to the surface. Modern buildings vanished and the surrounding houses grew shabby, while in the harbour the fishing boats were replaced by high-masted whaling ships.

  On the sands of Tate Hill Pier five figures gazed at the town, bewildered.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Jennet in disbelief. ‘The houses are changing.’

  ‘Rowena is dragging Whitby back through its own history,’ said Aunt Alice, ‘but this is only the beginning. If she is not stopped then everywhere will be plunged into chaos.’ The old lady held on to her hat and darted over the beach. ‘We must take that staff from her,’ she told them, ‘whatever the cost.’

  ‘How?’ Jennet began, but Miss Boston was already scampering up the path towards the hundred and ninety-nine steps. Hesper ran after her, closely followed by Ben and Nelda.

  Jennet was scared; anything might happen to them. ‘Stop!’ she shouted. ‘Wait, you won’t be able to take it from her. Stop!’ But they were caught up in the urgency of the moment and did not hear her.

  The girl glanced wildly at the town. Whitby continued to judder through the past, but the rate at which the centuries devoured it was not constant. Some areas were still untouched by the crackling power of the staff whilst others were totally devastated. Primitive stone huts stood beside Victorian houses and next to them an arcade sparkled.

  Jennet looked at the church steps. As yet they were unchanged and she saw Aunt Alice striding up them with her brother close behind. There was nothing she could do to make them turn back, so, with her heart pounding, she rushed after them as fast as she could.

  Upon the bleak, empty cliff, where the churchyard had once been, Rowena Cooper flung her arms open and embraced the glorious spectacle below. As the town hurtled down the ages she contemplated, with relish, the new life that stretched before her. ‘No more will you rule me, Nathaniel!’ she hooted ecstatically. ‘No more will I be bound to you. I am free at last – free to do whatever I choose, and you shall cringe before me.’ She breathed a great sigh of contentment and drank in the devastation all around. Her glittering eyes swivelled from barren marshland to the rapidly shrinking piers and along the wide expanse of cliff. There her gaze was arrested as it fixed upon the five figures that toiled up the steps.

  Miss Boston had almost made it to the top; Hesper was at her side and below them came Ben and Nelda, while Jennet was right at the bottom of the steps. And even if she ran for all she was worth she would never catch up.

  Rowena regarded them as she might a collection of insects. ‘Futile creatures,’ the witch spat. ‘How they plague me. Will they never learn that I have beaten them?’ She pounded the staff on the ground in irritation, then smiled cruelly. ‘Perhaps I could have some sport with them.’ Filled with evil purpose, she raised the staff and pointed it at Ben and Nelda.

  The boy and the young aufwader were running side by side. The clamour of the tormented night was rising behind them but neither dared to look on the horror that Whitby had become. Ben’s ribs ached and the blood thumped in his head. He felt responsible for everything – if only he had not succumbed to the enchantment Rowena had put on his tongue. If he had been stronger, then none of this would have happened. Tears of guilt trickled down his cheeks and he blamed himself with each step.

  The anguish Nelda had felt before was nothing compared to this. If the alternative was living in a world of Rowena’s making, the curse of the Deep Ones was a thing to be welcomed. In all the legends of the tribe there was never a more deadly threat than that vile witch woman. Nelda glanced quickly at Ben, feeling the torture of his guilt. Suddenly her face fell and she stumbled.

  ‘Ben!’ she screamed. ‘Look out!’

  Too late. A twisting jet of power streamed down from the staff and cannoned into them with staggering force.

  Ben and Nelda were plucked off the steps and swept into the air. Torrents of unstable time thrashed about them as the full fury of Rowena’s might was unleashed. The staff blazed and a yawning fissure opened in the sky above their heads.

  ‘Jennet!’ the boy shrieked as the swirling chasm widened over him. Hideous forms rushed through the cyclone of darkness that bore him into the heavens and the coils of the past seized him utterly. Nelda yelled and kicked but the gaping mouth bore down on them both. With a flash of purple fire, they were sucked into its spinning centre and their cries were swallowed by the night.

  On the steps beneath, Jennet staggered to a halt. She howled her brother’s name but he had vanished into the whirling void. ‘Ben, Ben,’ she sobbed, falling to her knees.

  The maelstrom crackled and spun towards her prostrate form. Jennet stared up at the awful vision that threatened her with oblivion. Springing to her feet, she ran down the steps but the wind tore at her hair and dragged her backwards. Jennet clung to the railing as the gale lifted her off the ground and the spiralling maw of night closed on her. She felt her fingers slip from the rail then, with one final cry, was lost.

  Rowena crowed with amusement. ‘Back you go,’ she laughed, ‘out of reach forever!’

  Miss Boston’s breath rattled and wheezed in her throat. She glared at the empty steps below and threw her hat down in dismay. ‘Cooper!’ she cried. ‘May God forgive you!’

  Hesper was distraught. ‘Nelda!’ she wept bitterly. ‘What has happened to her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ murmured the old lady. ‘I just don’t know.’

  Whitby was almost completely destroyed – gone were the houses and only the River Esk glinted between the rippling shadows on either of its muddy banks. The menacing waves of power crept over the bottom-most steps and they melted beneath it, dissolving into clay and shale.

  The sound of Rowena’s laughter broke into the night. ‘Fools,’ she cried. ‘See how easily I vanquish you.’

  From out of a shimmering rent in the fragmented heavens there suddenly came a fierce burst of gunfire. Above the valley two aircraft appeared, locked in combat, their engines roaring in the shredded clouds.

  Miss Boston looked up incredulously. ‘Good Lord,’ she muttered.

  The planes swooped low over the cliffs. Hugging the ground, they zoomed perilously close to Aunt Alice and Hesper and a blizzard of lead hailed from their spluttering guns. Sparks rang off the steps and the bullets plunged into the soft soil beyond. That was too close for comfort and Miss Boston staggered back. One of the planes bore a swastika: they were witnessing the dogfight which had taken place over the rooftops of Whitby during the Second World War. Rowena had snatched the planes out of time to fight again.

  ‘She’s toying with
us,’ declared the old lady; ‘using history itself to do her dirty work!’

  The aircraft soared upwards, gaining height and preparing for another strike.

  ‘Run,’ Aunt Alice shouted to Hesper.

  The aufwader turned but even as the Nazi fighter bore down on them and lethal rain blasted the steps, the air trembled and both planes faded from the sky. Miss Boston looked uncertainly across to Rowena. She knew what the witch was up to: taking them to the brink of disaster and dragging them away again. Dangling the inevitable before their eyes, watching them squirm and beg for mercy. ‘Well, I’ll not gratify her ego,’ declared Aunt Alice firmly. ‘I won’t play her games – if I die then so be it, but I shan’t abase myself before that one!’

  ‘You may not have to,’ cried Hesper at her side. ‘Look!’

  The creeping darkness that had swiftly consumed Whitby finally reached them. Boiling mud bubbled up through the cracks in the stonework and the steps sank into a mire of soft clay. Before they had a chance to escape, the ravenous time floe devoured them.

  Everything was dark – an eternity of blackness seemed to have passed since Ben and Nelda had been swept into the twisting gulf. He felt an icy wind rush up to meet him, then his feet struck something solid and his legs gave way.

  It was bitterly cold. Sleet hammered into Ben’s face, driven by a savage north-easterly gale, and the freezing air hurt his lungs. His mind was reeling – where was he? Stinging ice pelted his cheeks and chapped his skin. He shivered and the veil before his eyes began to lift.

  The lifeboat crashed through the sea and huge grey waves smashed over its bow. Twelve bush-bearded men wearing lifejackets of cork pulled on the oars whilst another grappled with the rudder.

  ‘Put yer backs into it, lads,’ he boomed. ‘We’ve done aright so far this evil day.’

  ‘Ben,’ a voice called, ‘what’s happening?’

  He shifted uneasily and turned. Through the drizzle that the breakers threw at them he recognised the aufwader at his side. ‘I . . . I’m not sure, Nelda,’ he replied with a shout.

  ‘You there!’ bawled the coxswain. Ben jumped and looked round but the man seemed to look straight through them. ‘Henry Freeman, pull yer weight! Want them folk to die on that schooner, does yer?’

  The man he was addressing glowered and his clenched teeth showed white within the frost-dripping beard. ‘I’ll clout thee over t’side, John Storr,’ he growled. ‘I’ve done as well this day as all t’others ’ere.’ His great hands tightened round the oar and he bellowed like a bear as he heaved it through the squalling water, his face turning purple with the strain and the cold.

  ‘Aye, five crews we’ve saved a’ready,’ the coxswain shouted to the rest of his valiant men, ‘so we’re not gonna let thissun confound us. Heave on it, we’ll get through!’

  Nelda held on to Ben and stared ahead as the boat smashed into the towering, ice-capped waves. They were making for a ship that had been driven ashore but the surf was treacherous and pummelled their boat ferociously. Nelda squinted over her shoulder at the East Cliff. It was shrouded in mist but the sight of an aufwader is sharp and hers was no exception. Very briefly the fog parted, and there was Rowena Cooper.

  The witch invaded all times now. She was the one fixed point about which all this confusion spun; a beacon of despair that shone only misery and death.

  Nelda turned away and studied the faces of all the doughty, stern men at the oars – they were from an earlier time. She nudged Ben. ‘They can’t see you,’ she told him hoarsely. ‘We are phantoms here.’

  Ben didn’t feel like a ghost, but he was in no mood to argue. It took all his strength to hold on to the side of the boat and he felt violently sick. At that moment he didn’t care whether anyone could see him or not. The storm was filthy – a veritable devil’s tempest.

  He choked back a cry as that phrase surfaced in his mind. Where had he heard it before?

  ‘Nelda,’ he yelled, ‘what’s the name of that ship?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ she cried.

  ‘Just tell me! Can you make it out?’

  She stared at him for a second, then shielded her eyes from the constant battering spray. ‘It is called Merchant,’ she told him. ‘What does that signify?’

  ‘Oh no!’ Ben wailed. ‘Nelda, we’re done for!’

  He knew exactly what was going to happen, for he had been told the whole story before. All but one of these men were going to die.

  Ben was too terrified to look at them. With the seawater flattening the oilskin hats against their skulls and their faces drenched and pinched with cold, the lifeboatmen seemed drowned already.

  ‘Watch out theer,’ warned the coxswain as a giant wave rolled towards them. ‘Hold hard, theer’s another girt beggar this side.’

  This was it! Ben clutched Nelda’s frozen hand and waited, with his round eyes defying the smarting spray. The storm-mad sea charged at them. With a terrible crash, the two waves smashed into one another and the lifeboat was hurled into the air upon a massive spout of water. Fifteen souls were cast into the freezing brine, their cries smothered by the tumult.

  Nelda struggled in the water. The tide was too strong to swim against and, although her race was suited to a harsh life, the dreadful cold numbed and pained her.

  Overwhelmed by the mountainous waves, Ben could not remain afloat. The sleet-covered sea filled his mouth and poured into his ears, cutting off all sound from the world above. Swiftly he sank beneath the surface and his frantic thrashings grew weaker until he moved no more.

  ‘Ben!’ called Nelda. ‘Ben!’ But soon her voice too was drowned.

  Jennet fell on to the cool turf and the last traces of the shadowy void curled away from her, swirling into the night. She rubbed her head, dazed, and her thoughts a disordered jumble. Then she remembered her brother.

  Scrambling to her feet, the girl looked around desperately. The abbey reared up behind her, but without its floodlights it seemed unfriendly and larger than before. She was standing near the edge of the cliff but there was no sign of Ben. Everything seemed back to normal and she wondered how this could have happened. There was Whitby sleeping peacefully below. It was a calm December night and columns of smoke rose from the many chimneys. Jennet frowned: something was not quite right. Where was the hospital and what had happened to the amusement arcades? Gradually she realised that she was looking on some bygone time, before she was even born.

  A black figure stepped from the shadows under the church. Rowena Cooper was tall and monstrous, transformed into something beyond humanity. A nightmare to harry the waking world.

  The witch turned slowly and faced Jennet, her eyes glinting sinisterly. ‘I do not believe you have met Derflinger and Von der Tan,’ she cried. ‘Allow me to introduce them to you.’

  Jennet wondered what she was talking about until Rowena stretched out her hand and gestured to the sea. Two dark shapes were on the water. The girl peered at them – they almost looked like battleships.

  A small explosion burst from one of the vessels. Overhead something whistled through the darkness and suddenly the cliff-top was ablaze with flame. Jennet dropped down as the ground shook from the force of the blast. Another missile screamed through the sky, this time hitting the cliff face and large chunks of rock fell into the sea. The ships were firing on Whitby.

  The air seemed alive as shells exploded. Flowers of death flashed and flared, as dazzling blooms of yellow and orange fire raged above the cliff. Jennet crawled along the ground, trying to get under cover quickly. With her head down she wriggled towards the abbey; if she could only reach the west wall she would be safe. Flying shrapnel sliced through the grass around her and streams of liquid flame showered down.

  Seconds felt like hours as she laboured along the ground towards the high walls of the ruin. She breathed a thankful sigh when she passed under the tall arches and cowered against the pillars of stone within.

  The abbey flashed beneath the volleys of fire that erupted around i
t, a well-lit target for the German cruisers to bombard. In a deafening blast one of the mortars struck the west wall and the stones flew apart. The place Jennet had chosen to shelter behind was blown out of existence.

  Shrieks of death stabbed into the gloom and the dragon boat rammed on to the beach. Brandishing fiery torches the raiders jumped ashore, spears and swords flashing in their hands.

  From the small collection of wooden and stone huts built near the marshy estuary there came a shout. ‘Northmen! The Northmen are come!’

  Panic and fear filled the air. Out of the small buildings women and children poured. ‘To the abbey!’ they called to one another.

  With their eyes blazing and their faces hungry for war, the raiders charged through the village. Torches were thrown into the thatches and soon the huts were aflame. The menfolk had few weapons to defend themselves with and the thirsty swords of the invaders eagerly drank their blood.

  On the slope of the cliff, Miss Boston and Hesper slithered in the soft clay. Harsh war cries resounded in their ears and they looked fearfully on the burning settlement below.

  Miss Boston clapped her hands with wonder at the unfolding scene. ‘Extraordinary!’ she exclaimed. ‘Positively marvellous – a real Viking raid.’

  Hesper was not so enthusiastic. ‘We must not linger here,’ she said urgently. ‘Listen to those screams, they are the sounds of death.’

  Aunt Alice blinked. ‘Heavens,’ she muttered, ‘how dreadful. I don’t know what came over me. You’re right, people are dying down there.’

  ‘Not all,’ Hesper put in. ‘See, some have crept out unseen.’

  The old lady stared down and there, fleeing barefoot through the undergrowth, came the women and children. Crouching low, they ran to the cliffside and scrambled up.