The Pendle Curse

by Catherine Cavendish

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  James looked into the pleading eyes of Janet Preston as she stood, chained to a prison wall.

  The jailer spoke. “You have denied knowing this woman but she has confessed to knowing you. I say again, do you know her?”

  James closed his eyes and tried to find Janet’s spirit. A faint whisper in his mind told him she could hear him. “Admit it, James. Tell him you know me. It will not save me to deny any longer.”

  “Poor, sweet Janet. You didn’t deserve this.”

  “We will be avenged. One day. Look for me. In the other world.”

  The whisper faded. His eyes snapped open and he met her gaze.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice low. “I know her.”

  But he wouldn’t admit she had attended the Sabbat. Two days later, they took him back to Lancaster Prison and Thomas Covell had him at his mercy.

  “I say again. Was Janet Preston of Gisburn at your feast on Good Friday last?” Thomas Covell’s voice came at James through a haze of pain as he lay, bound hand and foot and spread-eagled on a rack. He heard the ratchets creak an instant before searing pain as his ankle muscles stretched to breaking point. Tendons tore. Ligaments in his legs strained beyond endurance. How much more could his body stand?

  His head tossed from side to side. He would not betray her.

  “No!”

  A sudden tightening of the screw. Two sickening popping noises as his shoulders shot out of joint. His screams of agony tore through the air. Cartilage snapped with a loud crack. His body was being ripped apart. Wave after wave of pain crashed over him like storm-tossed waves. He begged for death to release him. But it would not come.

  “Get him off there. We’ll get nothing out of him this way.”

  Two guards untied him. His useless arms hung awkwardly at his side. He couldn’t stand on legs that had been almost torn from his hips. Pain attacked him from every part of his body. On either side, guards held him up. More torment.

  Covell came within inches of James’s face. Through his agony, James smelled Covell’s sour breath.

  “Your grandmother is already dead. You can choose whether it is your mother or your sister next, if you do not tell me what I want to know. Confess to the murders of John and Blaize Hargreaves, Anne Towneley and John Duckworth. Swear that Janet Preston was at the feast.”

  With all his remaining strength, James started to form no. Covell landed a punch and blood spurted from James’s nose. Blackness descended.

  Pain shot through his dream of green fields and Alizon. Torment from every inch of his body converged into one engulfing, agonizing mass. He opened his eyes. The sun lit up the tiny cell. What remained of his nose inhaled the stench of his own waste. For days, maybe even more than a week, he had lain there as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

  Solitary confinement had compensations. He had no distractions to disturb his thoughts. But when thoughts were as dark as his, he would have welcomed a distraction. Even for a minute.

  A noise. A key turned in the lock and the iron door swung open. Roger Nowell strode in and took in his appearance, and a momentary look of alarm flashed across his face.

  Take a good long look, Master Nowell, James thought. Admire your henchman’s handiwork.

  The magistrate sat on a chair provided by one of the guards. “I hear you have not been cooperating with Master Covell. The assize is next month, and you and your band of witches will all be tried for the heinous crimes you have committed.” He leaned forward. “It will go better for you, your mother and sister if you will only confess.”

  James studied the man’s face. Could this be a genuine offer? So far he had resisted, but if there really was a way he could help his mother and Alizon, then he must take it. “If I do, you will drop charges against my mother and sister?”

  Nowell smiled and sat back in his chair. “I cannot promise that they will go free, but the hangman may need less rope on that day.”

  James could barely think through the pain. Thoughts whirled around his head and he fought to reason. Nowell sat waiting. Finally James decided. Any chance had to be better than this.

  “Very well. For the sake of my mother and sister. I confess.”

  The smile spread across Nowell’s face. “A wise decision. I will have the papers drawn up immediately and I will see to it that your injuries are treated.”

  He stood and left James alone. The door banged shut behind him and the key locked him in his prison cell, alone once more with his thoughts.

  Nowell seemed a man of his word. During that afternoon, a sullen, middle-aged man came and managed to fix his dislocated shoulders. James screamed out as each popped back into its joint. He still couldn’t use them properly, but at least the constant, stabbing pain had left him. A guard brought him a bowl of water and he cleaned his face up as best he could, turning the water a brilliant scarlet. He tried to stand, but his legs refused to support him.

  Dusk had settled when the door opened again and Roger Nowell appeared with a rolled-up piece of paper. Behind him a guard carried a quill pen and inkstand.

  “Can you read and write?” he asked.

  “Enough,” James replied.

  “Then you will sign your name.” He unrolled the paper and spread it on the bed next to James. He pointed to the space below the words. “Here.”

  James held the pen with difficulty but managed to scrawl an approximation of his name. He didn’t read the sheet. What did it matter what it said? Nowell wouldn’t change anything written on there anyway.

  Nowell took the sheet from him and blew on the signature to dry the ink. A satisfied smile spread over his face. “You could have spared yourself so much pain if only you had been wise earlier. Your grandmother knew. She told me everything I needed to know once I found the witch’s mark upon her. She told me all about her familiar, Tibb, and the deeds he did at her behest. Tell me, James. What was your familiar called?”

  James stared at him. “Familiar? I don’t understand.”

  “Come now. I hope you will be more ready to speak in court.”

  James continued to stare at him. Nowell would get nothing more from him today.

  The magistrate made to leave, hesitated, then turned back to James. “You may be interested to know that they held a trial in York a couple of days ago. They tried a friend of yours, Janet Preston, and found her guilty of the murder of Master Thomas Lister by witchcraft. They hanged her this very morning.” He and his lackey left.

  James stared at the closing door. Anger raged within him. So they hadn’t needed him to confirm Janet’s presence at the feast. They had already hanged her! What else hadn’t Nowell told him? Were Alizon and his mother still alive? Or had he tricked him there as well?

  He tried to punch the wall, to release some of his impotent frustration. But, with his joints still traumatized, neither hand would make a fist. He tried to stand again but fell back, weak and exhausted from the effort. A diet of water, thin gruel and stale bread hadn’t helped to build up his strength. He lay back and wept.

  Into his mind came the now-familiar vision. The girl with blonde hair. The girl not of this time.

  He had to find her.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “I can’t believe you’ve brought him back with you, Laura. I really can’t. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

  Dawn had agreed to see me and I’d come over, full of intentions to make things right between us. But the Dawn I found was not the lively, bubbly friend I’d known half my life. She seemed to have undergone a personality change. I hardly recognized her.

  “You’re my best friend. And Martin saved my life. Possibly more than my life, if you believe in such things. I’ll love Rich till the day I die, but I have to be realistic. I’m only thirty-three.”

  Dawn stared at me, fury in her eyes. “Laura, believe me, if
I thought he was good for you, I would be happy for you. But he’s not. He’ll destroy you. You’re living with a—someone who isn’t of this world—and it’s changed you. You’re not the same person. He’s done this to you. I know who he really is, and he isn’t Martin Davies. There is no Martin Davies.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Okay, well, you try finding any record of him.”

  “It’s a common enough name. You must have found loads of them. I assume you’ve been checking up?”

  “Of course. I care about you, Laura.”

  “Well, you’ve got a bloody strange way of showing it. Why can’t you be happy for me?”

  “I would be—if it was anyone else you’d fallen in love with. He’s done something to me too. Something I don’t understand. And I’m not even sure you’re really in love with him. I think he’s bewitched you.”

  “Oh for God’s sake! I’ve had about enough of this. You’re jealous. Jealous of me because I’ve found happiness with Martin and you’re all alone.”

  How could I have said that to her, of all people? The words were out. I wanted to take them back, but I couldn’t. Dawn’s expression mixed horror with sadness, but her words left no doubt what she wanted.

  “Get out, Laura. Get out now before I say something I might regret. And don’t ever forget, I did my best to warn you.”

  “Dawn, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Really? No, the problem is you did mean it. Every word. He’s infected your mind, and soon he’ll take away everything that makes you who you are. He warned me to back off from you. I said I wouldn’t, and he told me he’d make me pay. Well, you can go back to him now and tell him he succeeded. We’re done here.”

  I drove home through a mist of tears. I’d lost my best friend, and for the life of me I didn’t know how to get her back. Except give up Martin, of course. And I couldn’t do that. I’d fallen in too deep.

  “Why did she say you didn’t exist?”

  Martin handed me a glass of chilled Chablis and sat next to me on my settee. “She’s met me. How could I not exist?”

  “She said she had done some sort of research and Martin Davies—your Martin Davies—doesn’t exist. She could find no trace of you.”

  He laughed. “Probably because I don’t have a Facebook page.”

  I wasn’t in the mood for levity. “No, Martin, I’m serious. She said you were ‘not of this world’ and that you would destroy me.”

  The smile left Martin’s face and his lip curled. He said nothing and seemed to be fighting to control his anger. Could he feel the same about Dawn as she did about him?

  I tried to make light of it. “Oh, I’m sure she was exaggerating. She’s jealous. I told her so. This will be all part of it, but I wish I knew why, when we’ve been through so much together.”

  Martin’s expression lifted. “It’s late. Why don’t you let me take the pain away?” He stood and held out his hands, and I went to him.

  Later, as we lay in the afterglow of lovemaking, I listened to him breathing beside me, soft and rhythmical, but I couldn’t sleep. My thoughts were too disturbed. Still awake an hour later, I wandered into the kitchen and made a mug of tea.

  The living room lay in deep shadow. I glanced at the kitchen wall clock. Three o’clock. Again.

  Something tapped across the laminated floor. It sounded familiar. There it went again. Tap, tap, tap, taptaptaptap. Something light. Coming to rest.

  Like a ping-pong ball.

  I flicked on the main switches, flooding both kitchen and living room in bright light.

  There. By the settee.

  I dashed over and picked it up. The little ball felt warm in my fingers. As if someone had been holding it before picking the right moment to throw it and get my attention.

  “Who are you?” I said aloud to the empty room. Then I whispered, “Rich? Is that you?”

  Silence.

  No sound came from the bedroom either, but I tiptoed down the hall and looked in, just in case. Martin lay as I’d left him, fast asleep.

  Back I went into the living room. Something was wrong. I’d left the lights on. Now they were off. I flipped the switches. They flickered on for a couple of seconds and then went off. I was standing right next to the switch and heard it click. The sound it would make if a person pressed it. Not me. Both my hands were occupied in hugging myself as I trembled.

  I wanted to call for Martin, but a clear voice sounded in my head.

  “No.”

  A shadow over by the window moved. Blurred but…it had to be him. Even if it couldn’t be. I gasped. My head and heart pounded. Again Rich’s voice sounded in my head.

  “Look at your birth records. Check. Find William Device. Tell no one. No one.”

  The wall switch clicked again and the lights blazed into life.

  Finally my feet obeyed me, and like an automaton, I made my way back to bed.

  I pulled the duvet over my head, oblivious to the heat. The need to bury myself overpowered everything.

  The next day, I slept late, and Martin had already gone out. He had left a note telling me he wanted to take advantage of the sunshine to take a sketchbook down to the river and draw some of the people and scenes he saw there. He would be back by six and suggested we eat out tonight.

  I wandered around the apartment in a fog, convinced I must have dreamed all that stuff about the lights switching on and off and that voice that sounded so much like Rich. I thought back over Dawn’s warnings, and to the last time I had been at Barrowbrooke Farm. Those awful visions. Martin’s incredible explanation that, somehow, I had accepted without question. Why had I done that? What he described wasn’t possible. Yet Martin had been the one who saved me from the clutches of those evil, long-dead witches.

  When Martin had first described his version of reincarnation to me, I had gained the impression he found it perfectly natural and acceptable. But if it was true, then surely it was more like possession? What had happened to the people who used to inhabit the bodies the witches had taken over? How could it be right?

  And then the awful thought I had tried hard to suppress. Who was Martin—really? When I thought about it, I still knew so little about him. Dawn had been right. I should find out more. I could, of course, ask him. But my laptop sat inches away. Then I remembered the voice from last night, opened a drawer of my bureau and extracted a battered manila folder.

  I unfolded a creased sheet of paper and spread it out on the table. My birth certificate.

  Laura Elizabeth Sutton. On the certificate, my birth mother was shown as Elizabeth Sutton. Her status, unemployed. My father was listed as unknown.

  I sighed and was about to fold it up again when I noticed my mother’s address: 18 Trawden Forest Road, Colne.

  I stared at it. When had I last looked at this? Years ago probably. Out of idle curiosity, I’d applied for it as an eighteen-year-old, but had put it away soon after. Maybe I’d never even seen it since then. Until recently, the place name would have meant nothing to me, so little wonder it hadn’t registered at the time.

  For the next five hours, I searched for both my birth mother and William Device. The deeper I delved, the more convoluted the story became.

  I found precious little information on my birth mother, beyond further confirmation that, as my adoptive mother had told me, Elizabeth Sutton had died at seventeen giving birth to me, and I’d been put into care straight away. The local authority had dealt with everything by the looks of it, and I could find no immediate sign of any other relatives.

  When I searched for William Device, I filtered out all but those with a Pendle connection. I found little of any use at first. Then I came across an obscure document—a letter from 1634, written by one William Device to a Christopher Holgate, whose name I remembered from my books on Pendle. Christopher Holgate had been Demdik
e’s son, and uncle to Alizon and James. He and his wife had disappeared soon after the arrests. Now it appeared that they had taken William with them. Maybe even Jennet.

  I printed it off and read it again.

  I have communed this day with my sister and brother. They are of a mind to wait in that other world until their union can be completed. Those who brought them to the gallows live on, save for Master Covell, who died of a bloody flux. We who remain are anxious. Jennet is hopeful of success, but I have heard that they will come for her ere her work is done. Soon I alone will bide here in this world. Jennet is with child by her husband, Henry Sutton, and it will be born in the spring. A son or daughter to carry on the work.

  For now I will call on the spirits of my sister and brother to keep you safe. We may all lie cold and long forgotten in our graves before this business is settled and they are together, justice being served to all.

  I told Martin nothing of what I’d found. But all through the evening, I felt doubts creeping into my mind.

  The next day I resumed my search. This time, Henry Sutton stood firmly in my sights. Jennet had apparently died in Lancaster Prison in 1635. Not as many results to search through this time, and finally, on an ancestry site, I traced the man I felt it had to be.

  After his wife’s death, Henry married again, and I kept careful note to ensure I pursued the right son—his namesake, Henry, whom I discovered to be Jennet’s boy. I began trawling forward, down the line that proceeded, unbroken, to 1962, where it stopped with one record of a birth, all other direct relatives having died.

  The cursor flashed next to the name that seemed to bounce off the page.

  Elizabeth Sutton.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  August 18, 1612

  The crowd packed the courtroom. James saw their faces. Jeering, hostile. They would have their fun today. They waved fists at him, swore and cursed him. Some even spat. With the noise and melee, he would be lucky if he could even hear the charges against him, let alone reply to them.

  They dragged him to the witness stand—weak as he was from his injuries and lack of food—and handed him a Bible that he might be sworn in. The roars from the crowd grew louder, and he knew they would have torn him apart if they could have got their hands on him. He still couldn’t stand, and a guard on each side of him held him upright as the judge entered, his scarlet robes and long, powdered wig contrasting sharply with the drab clothes of the assembled. He made no attempt to still the noise but merely shouted over it.