“Sorry, child,” Lillian said. “But that isn’t what is meant to be.”
I stared at her. That voice. Not the voice of Lillian Sayer. Another, older voice. Now the owner of it stepped out of the shadows and I cried out. I stared at the old woman—Demdike.
“Don’t be frightened, child. It will soon be over and you will be with us again. We have looked for you for a long time. We thought you might be lost to us, but now we have found you.”
“Virginia, what’s happening?” I turned to where she had been standing, but Virginia had gone. In her place stood someone whose face I also recognized from Malkin Tower.
She spoke. “Not Virginia, Laura. Janet. I am Janet Preston.”
“Now you are seeing more clearly.” Demdike hobbled around to stand directly in front of her. She pointed to Ella. “This is my daughter. You will remember her.”
I recognized the sullen face of Elizabeth Device.
“And this—” She pointed to Jerry. “Janet’s husband. He has waited long to be reunited with her. You have helped bring us all together. Soon the circle will be complete.”
I tried to move, but couldn’t. The room grew darker. Somehow, I had to get out of there.
They moved closer, encircling me. The atmosphere thickened, became stifling. I couldn’t breathe and clutched at my throat. I felt bile rising as the room started spinning.
“Martin! Martin! Help me, please. Please help me!”
Their laughter sounded like the cackling of a pack of jackals. The noise of a tempest raged around me, but no wind blew. Images washed over me. Faces flew towards me. A child’s face. A little girl. Closer. Its eyes dissolved into black holes, crawling with maggots. Its mouth—a gorge. It would surely swallow me. Somewhere inside me, a prayer began.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…
The hideous child flew off, its foul breath grazing my cheek. Burning. Stinging.
Then—Rich’s face. He stood back as if imprisoned behind some invisible wall. Horrified, but powerless to help. I tried to reach him but the evil ones held me back. Their claws dug into my flesh. Their arms—gray, old, withered skin flaking. Their long-dead bodies reeked like a cemetery where all the coffins had been opened.
“Rich!” Again I struggled to reach out for him, and he stretched his arms out to me, fighting the invisible barrier between us, but the witches held me back until his face dissolved into shadow and disappeared. Tears streamed down my face. My screams grew hoarse.
“For God’s sake, help me!”
Demdike roared. “Now you will be truly ours.”
“No! No!” I fought with all my remaining strength, straining against the arms dragging me back. Beneath me, the searing heat of a white-hot inferno came ever closer as I fell. Then I felt the words before I heard them. A man’s familiar voice. But not Rich’s.
Martin’s voice. “This shall not be. This is not the way.”
I stopped falling. No terrible heat sucked me into itself. No roaring tempest in my ears or clawlike hands gripping me.
Martin and I, alone in the hut. He’d saved me. I had become confused. Somehow I’d confused Rich’s face with Martin’s. How could I have done that?
I almost fell into his arms, and he half carried me outside. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “So sorry you had to go through that.”
“Martin, I don’t understand.”
“I know, my love. I know. Come on, we’ll get away from this place. I’ll drive you down to the Feathers.”
I felt in no condition to protest and let him help me into one of the three cars—the Land Rover. I hardly noticed the short trip down the hill, into the pub car park.
The Feathers had only just opened, so there were few people about. My legs buckled, and I leaned on Martin as he took my key, opened the residents’ door and helped me up the stairs. I lay down on the bed. The shock of everything that had happened hit me and I started shaking uncontrollably.
“You’re in shock. You need to keep warm,” he said and covered me with the duvet.
“But what—”
He sat down on the bed and stroked my forehead. It soothed me with the steady, almost hypnotic rhythm.
“I’ll tell you everything, but you need to rest now. Try and sleep.”
“Please don’t leave me, Martin. I’m so scared.”
But I was already drifting off. The shaking had stopped, and he lulled me into a peaceful sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Anne Redferne struggled to her feet and kicked out at the old woman, who resembled little more than a heap of filthy rags. “She is nearly dead. She shouldn’t be down here with us.”
Alizon leaped to her feet in an instant. “You are damned, evil bitch.”
Anne Redferne threw back her head. A cackling, foul laugh echoed around the walls. “Only as much as you are. You’ll swing by your pretty little neck.”
“Not until I have seen you drop.”
Something in Alizon’s voice stopped the other woman, and she grabbed her by the throat. “What have you done?”
Alizon threw her off. “Only what I had to.”
The woman nodded towards Alizon’s grandmother, who drifted in and out of consciousness. “And what of her? What did she tell Master Covell?”
Alizon shook her head. Her enemy would not hear what her grandmother had whispered to her before they were thrust into the cart at Read Hall. She had freely told Master Nowell that she had seen Chattox and her daughter making clay images of their enemies and, shortly after, a father and son who had offended them—Robert and Christopher Nutter—had died.
Alizon forced a smile onto her face and dodged out of the way before Redferne’s fist came down on her.
“Did you honestly believe that you and that feeble mother of yours would be the only ones to try and get out of this stinking pit?” Alizon spat out the words, ignoring the sound of the key scraping in the lock at the top of the steps.
Hurried footsteps behind her prevented her from saying more. One guard held her arms, while the other unlocked the chain on her ankle. The filthy bandage came away with it, revealing a mass of suppurating sores. Alizon stared at her ankle as if it belonged to someone else. It throbbed and burned with the power of a branding iron.
As they brought her out to the daylight and her eyes blinked painfully, she looked down, sure she saw movement. Maggots. Her ankle and foot were alive with them. The guard slapped her face hard as a thin, watery vomit projected onto his uniform.
“Filthy whore witch!”
A third guard called up from below. “I need help down here. This one’s dead.”
Alizon’s body went rigid. Not Grandmother. She had been awake earlier. Very weak, but she had opened her eyes and even tried to smile. She had refused a sip of water, but she had drunk hardly anything and eaten nothing for days now. Alizon stared at the entrance and willed it to be Chattox they hauled up there.
As the two guards appeared, she saw what they dragged between them and tears fell unheeded from her eyes. They dropped their bundle onto the ground and she let out a wail like an animal in its death throes.
There, curled up like some grotesque fetus, lay her grandmother.
“You are coming with us.” The guard pushed Alizon forward.
They couldn’t do this to her. “But my grandmother—”
“You can do nothing for her. She’s dead. You are to be moved. Away from those two.”
Alizon wept. Great, heaving sobs that rose from the depths of her belly. She still wept as the women removed her stinking clothes. Sobbed as they led her to the tub. She barely noticed the chill of the water or the way her ankle stung. One of the women took pity on her and washed her hair, then tried to tend to the ruined ankle, picking out the maggots before washing her again.
Alizon stared down at her wasted limbs and e
maciated body. Still the tears flowed unabated. Barely able to stand on the infected foot, she let the women dry her. Then, when there were no tears left, her sobs became dry heaves. From time to time, she caught the women exchanging fearful glances, though they could hardly be scared of her anymore. Her spirits had deserted her and now her beloved grandmother was dead. Maybe her mother and James were dead too. And what would become of little William? Surely someone—their uncle maybe—would take him in.
As for Jennet… Alizon neither knew nor cared.
In the dark cell, meager daylight crept through a tiny, glassless window high up in the stone wall. Two hard beds stood on opposite sides, each with a thin, threadbare blanket, inadequate during the chill May nights. For now, Alizon had been left alone and grateful for her own company. It gave her time to grieve. She had long ago given up trying to summon her familiar. The black dog had abandoned her and no other spirit answered her call.
A grayish-pink light filtered through the window grille. Alizon sat up, clutching the blanket. She shivered in the cold breeze that wafted around her as she took in the small, narrow room. In the corner, a bucket served as her latrine, but at least this was more civilized than she had been used to in the Well Tower. Almost every night, nightmares took her back to that dreadful place. Were Chattox and her daughter still there? She hoped so. Unless they were dead.
As she heard doors bang and the wails of other prisoners, she thought of James. If he still lived, where was he now? He had vowed to set them free but nothing had come of it. Could he be here? She closed her eyes and tried to find him on some spiritual plane, but they all seemed barred to her.
The key scraped in the lock. The heavy door creaked open and Alizon leaped up and cried out.
“Mother! What have they done to you?”
The guard pushed her, and the older woman half fell into Alizon’s arms. The unexpected weight forced her back onto the bed.
Alizon laid her down as the guard locked the door without saying a word.
Elizabeth opened her eyes and tried to speak. Alizon felt sick to the core. Her mother’s once careworn but still attractive face was now a mess of bruises—purple, red, black, yellow and blue. More colors than a rainbow covered every inch. Her lips were cracked, caked with blood and swollen, but her eyes concerned Alizon the most. Alizon had inherited her mother’s beautiful eyes, but now one of Elizabeth’s sat higher than the other and the lower one bulged. She didn’t seem able to focus. One eye looked up, while the other looked down in a hideous parody of a squint. Alizon silently cursed those who had done this.
“I wouldn’t confess. And I wouldn’t accuse. Master Covell could get nothing from me. They read out charges…” The effort of speaking proved too much and her mother began to cough.
Alizon reached for the cup containing a few sips of water left from yesterday. Her mother took it in trembling hands, and Alizon saw her nails were broken and bloody, as if she had tried to claw her way out of something.
“Covell’s men set about me with iron rods. They told me I could save James and you if I would confess. They said Mistress Nutter had confessed to killing Henry Mitton and that I conspired with her. They also said James stood accused of killing the miller John Robinson. I told them they were wrong. I had done that. That’s when they beat me. Then they brought me back and said I had killed Robinson’s boy. They said if I confessed to both murders, they would let you and your brother go, but I knew they were lying…” Her voice tailed away.
Alizon went over to the wall under the window so her mother wouldn’t see the tears coursing down her face. Behind her, she heard the sounds of her mother sobbing out her broken heart. Soon she would have to add to her mother’s misery by telling her that Grandmother was dead.
Alizon raised her tear-filled eyes upward. She knew for certain now. They would all die. Roger Nowell was determined on it. He would have his convictions by any means possible. Lies, deceit, torture. But it would all end the same way—at the end of a hangman’s rope. At least her grandmother had been spared that.
She could bear it no longer and broke down. Sobs racked her body. If only she could see James just one last time. She had been so angry with him, but she had to tell him how much she loved him. Even if they couldn’t have each other in this life, then surely there would be chance in the next?
James, love of my life. I am bound to you forever. Through all eternity.
Thunder rolled across a sky grown black as night, and the birds stopped singing.
Alizon cradled her mother in her arms and ceased her sobbing. A bright vision appeared in her mind, and at the corners of her mouth, a smile began.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I awoke with a start. For a blissful split second, in that half awake, half asleep state, I felt fleeting contentment—then dismay as it all flooded back.
Someone sat on my bed and I opened my eyes. Martin smiled.
“I’ve been watching you while you slept.” He kissed my forehead. He had showered and I could smell the clean, fresh scent of his body. His damp hair framed his face and his breath smelled of peppermint.
I struggled to sit upright.
“Please, Martin, please tell me what this is all about. I don’t understand anything. Except that I’ve never been so scared as I felt in that hut.”
He took my right hand in both of his. “This is going to be hard for you to believe and difficult for me to say. You’re going to have to trust me when I tell you that, at this moment, I can only tell you part of the story. Firstly for your own safety, and secondly because there is a piece of the jigsaw that I need to put in place. It will be difficult, and when the time comes, I’ll need your help. Believe me, I know the powers that are involved and what they are capable of.”
“I don’t understand any of this.”
Martin kissed my hand. “I know. I’ll do my best, but I need you to trust me. It’s vital. Will you promise me that?”
Did I have a choice? I nodded.
“You’ve seen the witches around you as they really are. You’ve also felt someone standing close to you, am I right?”
How did he know that? I’d never told him about the times I could have sworn I felt someone come up behind me—breathe on me even—only to find no one there.
“Remember, I spoke to you about reincarnation? That day at your flat.”
“Yes, but…”
“Look in the mirror. See what I see when I look at you now.”
I went over to the mirror on the wall and stared at it. Hard. I gasped.
Behind me, a shadow gradually took form. Gray at first, misty, like smoke, but then…
“Oh my God!”
A young woman with long, dark hair and a defiant smile stood behind my left shoulder. Reflected in the mirror, her dark eyes burned into mine. My hands started to shake, then my whole body.
“Don’t be afraid. You see her, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Martin moved into view and the vision faded. I tore my eyes away from the reflection and he held me close, stroking my hair.
“What was that? Who was she?”
“Hush now.” He kissed my hair as I clung to him. “Don’t worry; I’m with you. You have nothing to fear.”
And from somewhere deep within, a calmness spread over me and my fear melted away.
Later, with Martin in the passenger seat, I turned in to the drive of Barrowbrooke Farm. The hedge seemed neglected and overgrown. My newfound capacity to simply accept whatever I saw on face value astonished me. Almost as if I had taken some powerful tranquilizer and no longer cared what was fact and what was fantasy. Even when I saw Barrowbrooke Farm—as dilapidated as George had described—I just accepted it. Two battered cars were parked outside a ramshackle building with guttering hanging down, paint peeling off rotten window frames, and a door that needed serious attention.
“I should have warned you,” Martin said. “Now you know who they are, the illusions they created in your mind have gone. You’re seeing the farm as it really is. And you saw the witches, reincarnated as I described. Together, they are very powerful, so powerful that they made you see things you wanted to see, but which didn’t really exist. You will have seen the Barrowbrooke of your dreams, your ideal of a farmhouse, but it never looked like that.”
“But it looked exactly like the photos on TripAdvisor.”
“If you were to go onto TripAdvisor now, you would find no mention of Barrowbrooke. Virginia did think she might run a guesthouse for real, but stopped as soon as she realized how much hard work it was going to be, and how much of a distraction.”
“She told me stories of guests who had stayed here—and the ghosts that haunted the place.”
Martin smiled. “She’s a good storyteller, I’ll give her that.”
“So it was all lies then?”
“I’m afraid so, made up for your benefit to make you feel welcome and at home. Well intentioned, you see.” He touched my arm. “Wait here.” He opened the passenger door. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
After he had got out, I locked the doors. I felt safer that way. Part of me wanted to drive off and leave this place forever, but I couldn’t leave Martin. I’d stopped questioning my love for him. He’d saved me from the fires of hell. He loved me. And when I was with him, that’s all I needed to know.
In a few minutes, he came out, carrying a medium-sized suitcase, and I unlocked the doors. He threw his luggage in the back and sat next to me.
I hit the accelerator and the tires squealed.
He laughed. “Can’t wait to get away from here, eh?”
All the way down that drive I felt we were being watched—that eyes gazed down at us from the broken windows.
“Don’t worry,” Martin said. “I told you, you’re safe now. With me.”
The Pendle Curse Page 21
