Witchcraft

by Katie M John

  “I have a really bad feeling about this,” Bunny whispered. “I don’t think we really know what we’re getting ourselves into.”

  Violet looked at them with worry etched across her face. Despite agreeing with Bunny full-heartedly in her head, she smiled and said, “Come on, we’re stronger than they are. Just because they like to go around flashing their magic doesn’t mean they’re as powerful as they think they are. What they have in darkness, we outshine them with light. You need to hold on to that.”

  Swan sighed heavily. “Violet is right. Together we are strong. Everything is going to be okay. We’ll all be home safely before the morning – including the little girl.”

  Fox looked at them and begged her heart to believe it, but there was something gnawing at her hope – it was the image of Jeremiah Chase walking barefoot through the rooms of Ravenheart Hall.

  The Meadowsweets fell into a single line, making their way through the woods and towards the hill on top of which sat Heathmoor cottage; home of the legendary Heathmoor witches: killers of children, slayers of priests. Swan fell back and dropped her voice low enough for Fox to hear, “Is there anything you haven’t told me? Have you given me every detail?” Fox looked at her, unwilling to lie but not wanting to say more. Swan continued, “Because I have this terrible feeling there’s something you’re not telling me and that something is very important.”

  Fox could not think Jeremiah was important enough to matter in any of this and so she bit down on her lip and shook her head. “There’s nothing more. I’ve told you everything I have seen.”

  “Hmm,” Swan said cynically.

  Why can’t she read your thoughts about Jeremiah?

  Her sister’s voice spoke loudly in her head, making her jump. “Because you don’t hold Jeremiah in your head – he’s held elsewhere.”

  Her implication was loud and clear. Fox still wasn’t sure why she hadn’t told Swan about Jeremiah being at Ravenheart Hall. Something had stopped her; something deep and intuitive.

  *

  Jeremiah looked out over the snow-laced grounds of Ravenheart Hall. It was bitterly cold. The window was doing a fair impression of being nothing more than a thin slice of ice. The snow was still too deep to drive through, but he wondered if he set out on foot whether he could make it to the village. Jeremiah’s anxiety had reached the point whereby he had even tried the front door to ensure he hadn’t unknowingly been made their prisoner. It had opened with ease and he had blown a sigh of relief through his tense lips.

  Daniel said he was on his way, but in this weather that didn’t offer much reassurance. After all, if Jeremiah couldn’t even get three miles down the road in his four-by-four, what chance did his uncle have of getting from the station by taxi? Night was falling fast. One thing was for sure, Jeremiah did not relish the thought of spending the night at Ravenheart Hall. He had to get out and try and make it to somewhere safe. He listened hard to the sounds of the house. He was listening for the sisters but the house was as silent as the grave, except that was for the incessant ticking of the clock in the grand hallway. Like a metronome, it offered a strange hypnotic effect. Where could they be? What were they doing?

  He stepped away from the window and called out, “Hello!” Silence replied so he tried again, louder this time, placing his cold, naked foot on the first step of the stairs. “Hello, anybody there?”

  He smiled weakly, aware of how much like a bad B-type horror movie it was all turning into. Another step, then another, and still silence. He was convinced he was alone in the house, but he couldn’t even guess where the Ravenheart sisters could have gone in such weather. Jeremiah was already halfway up the sweeping staircase. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to turn around and leave, but the sound of the clock was increasingly maddening and it disturbed his reason. It was coupled with the strangest feeling that something was pulling him up the stairs towards a fate that had been written many months ago – way back when his father had made the decision to exile him from his old life.

  His stomach flipped and a wave of nausea swept over him. It sidelined him, having felt perfectly well just a moment before. He gripped his stomach, fighting the urge to throw up. He struggled up the last of the steps in search of his guest room and the bathroom. The upstairs corridor was an endless row of doors, and obstructing his way, was the door of the laboratory, wide open as if in welcome.

  He staggered in, knowing it was most likely a trap but unable to resist the temptation. With one hand still on his stomach, he grabbed the nearest large book and wedged it into doorframe with the hope it might prevent the door from slamming (or possibly being locked) shut. The urge to vomit faded into a general sense of queasiness. He knew he was in the worst possible place. He knew it was madness to return to the room he should never have seen in the first place, but there was an answer here; he was certain of it. It was just a shame he didn’t know what the question was.

  He scanned the room, taking in the same objects he’d seen on his first visit. Aside from the general spookiness of the collection, there seemed nothing specific that should be capturing his attention. His hand indiscriminately trailed across the objects on the workbench with the idea his hand might discover something his eyes couldn’t – which is exactly what happened. His fingers lingered over cool glass and crisp dry herbs until it hit the pages of a heavy book, where they tapped distractedly as he continued to gaze around the room. His fingers had told him loud and clear but he had not been listening. If he had just turned, he would have seen his fingers dancing over an image etched into the thick cream velum; it was the image of a young girl dressed in a simple robe, with a blood-stained bandage wrapped over her eyes. Flames crept up her dress from a pyre on the floor, and amongst the flames, demons danced.

  Jeremiah removed his hand from the book and let his fingers find his temple where they pressed and squeezed until they offered some momentary relief from the pain that throbbed in his head.

  “What am I looking for?” he whispered.

  He turned towards the table, ignoring the book because something else had caught his eye. It was a map and it didn’t take him more than a moment to realise with its cruciform road structure and the markings of the two big houses, it was a map of Heargton. It was from some time ago by the looks of the paper and the hand-drawn quality of the markings. He bent forward to take a closer look, still not sure what it was he was searching for but knowing somehow he was a step closer towards understanding. There were several strange markings added to the map; they were symbols, which had been drawn next to some of the key Heargton buildings. He recognised The Green Man and looked closely at the square with crossed lines running through it, which had been drawn next to it. Then there was Coldstone House, over which there was a heart broken into two parts. His eye travelled to the church and the drawing of the inverted crucifix, which although a little disquieting, was probably to be expected given the reputation of the Ravenhearts.

  His finger tapped on a building, which although obviously important enough to have been marked with its own symbol, was one he didn’t recognise. It was only after closer inspection that he realised it was the cottage linked to the Heargton Witches. Nausea swept over him once more. He picked up the map and revealed the image of the blindfolded girl underneath. This time he didn’t overlook it. The image was too familiar for that. It reminded him of Martha Paisley. Cogs whirred in his mind but they still refused to fully engage.

  Just then, his cell rang, causing him to jump back from the table. It was unnaturally loud and he felt sure it would alert somebody (or something) to his snooping. He grappled at it, desperate to quiet it down.

  “Hello,” he whispered.

  “Jeremiah, it’s me, Daniel.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Close. It’s a nightmare. Am going to try and make it on foot.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “There’s nothing else I can do. I need to get to you. I’ve come prepared.”

  Jeremiah
recalled the various times he had witnessed his eccentric uncle turning up at family functions in the most unusual and often dramatic way.

  “What do you mean prepared?”

  “It means, don’t worry, I’ve got this,” Daniel said.

  “Sure!” Jeremiah replied with a heavy edge of sarcasm.

  “Look, I’m going to be a bit slow but I am on my way. Hold tight and don’t do anything stupid. I should be with you in the next couple of hours.”

  Out of reflex, Jeremiah checked his watch. A couple of hours didn’t sound too long, however a lot could happen in a couple of hours in a place like Ravenheart Hall. It put his uncle’s ETA at around nine o’clock - late enough for it to be very dark and for the light of morning to still be a very long way away.

  He sighed. “Which direction are you travelling? Maybe I can come out and meet you half way,” Jeremiah offered.

  “No point in both of us getting hyperthermia, my boy. I’ll come to you.”

  “Take care.”

  “You too.”

  The phone went dead. Still holding the map, Jeremiah walked over to the small window that looked out over the woods and onto the hilly moorlands beyond. The snow impeded his visibility, but he knew the notorious little cottage sat out there on top of the moor; like a black bird of death, it perched over the village, waiting…

  According to the village accounts, the Heargton Witches had been so cloaked in evil that after they were hanged above the burning pyres, it took three days for their bodies to burn to ash. Others said their bodies were so full of magic, other witches had come and stolen the bodies to use in powerful, demon-raising rituals. There was a lot of saying and not a lot of knowing, but one thing most people agreed on was, the witches had never really left Heathmoor Cottage.

  Somewhere amongst the mess of clues and local legend, was the truth. Martha Paisley had been laid out ritualistically, dressed like the image of the girl in the book. There was no mistaking she had been the victim of some horrendous ritual killing, and that whatever that ritual had sought to achieve, it had failed. There would be another victim, of that he was sure. Somehow, if this book was to be believed, the killing of Martha Paisley was connected to the Ravenheart sisters and the Heargton Witches. If that was the case, what were the chance of the Meadowsweets also being involved? It was clearly a question his uncle, and other higher powers, were also asking.

  He studied the map hard, committing it to memory before returning it to the table. He paused at the door and looked both ways before progressing back into the corridor and down the stairs. He went to the kitchen and put on his shoes, hoping he would find some warm clothing hanging in the hallway cupboard so he could make his escape without catching his death.

  He was in luck, the cupboard was stocked with a good range of waxed country jackets and woolen scarves. Not exactly hip and happening, but warm and weatherproof. He picked the largest of the jackets and put it on, pulling one of the soft cashmere scarves from the peg. His flesh crept with the thought of wearing the clothes of murdering Witches, but he was in no position to get all sensitive about it. He needed to get out of there, and he needed to do it without dying.

  He headed towards the door and clicked it open, cursing the deep snow and the fact it was going to happily announce the direction of Jeremiah’s flight. At first, he tried to sweep over his footsteps but it was far too laborious and when he looked back, it did little more than making his track even more conspicuous, as well as taking an impossibly long time. If he were lucky, the snow would continue to fall at the rate it was and would cover his tracks before the Ravenhearts spied him – not that they probably didn’t have other magical way of tracking him down.

  He walked towards the woods and the dark, little cottage, compelled by a strange force. Until he had come to Heargton, Jeremiah had never been into that whole destiny, esoteric rubbish – he’d believed in money, soccer, love, and good times. Now, he was traipsing across ancient English woodlands, searching out supernatural horrors on a whim strong enough to lead him through a violent snowstorm and to ignore his uncle’s instruction to stay put and keep out of trouble.

  The going was tough. It would take at least an hour at the rate he was travelling, but at least he was warm enough. Within moments of entering the tree line, he became disorientated and understood just how hard, and foolish, his task was going to be.

  16

  Violet had been right, Primrose and Rose were already waiting for them behind the mausoleum. They were both dressed in black skinny jeans and black woolen cloaks. Whether the effect was intentional or not, Fox couldn’t help but smile on seeing them; there was no mistaking their Witch status in that garb. On seeing them approach, Rose lifted her black leather clad hand and offered a wave. Snowflakes had wound their way into her impressively straight blond hair.

  “Hello!” she said in a far too cheery way. You’d never guess she was moments from battling with a rival coven. Something about her attitude was pleasantly reassuring.

  “Anything to report, sister?” Violet asked.

  “Nope, not a dickie bird. All very quiet indeed.”

  “Good.” Violet wrinkled her nose. “I mean not good. Quiet means they’re already in position, doing…” her words trailed off as none of them wanted to think on the horrors that might already be happening.

  “Indeed.”

  “Any other activity?” Fox asked.

  “We thought we saw movement about twenty minutes ago, but the weather has made it a bit difficult for proper surveillance. We put it down to a deer or something. It was certainly nothing to worry about; no negative vibes.”

  Fox looked at them intensely and wondered if it had been Jeremiah they’d seen.

  “So what’s the plan then?” Rose asked.

  For a moment or two, they all looked to one another to provide the answer. It seemed nobody had really got that far. Bunny surprised them all by suddenly speaking up.

  “I guess we just walk right up to the protective shield, let me wave my wand at it and then we…” Her light humorous tone could not last the entire sentence. Whichever way events played out, there was a serious risk one of them would end up hurt or worse.

  Swan jumped in, taking charge of the conversation. “I don’t think we can really plan how we’re going to do this until we’ve been up and taken a look,”

  “They’ll be waiting for us. They’ll be able to see us coming,” Fox added, thinking back to the time she had been caught scrying.

  “We can do something about that,” offered Primrose, pulling out a small silver mirror from inside her cloak.

  “What’s that?” Bunny asked nervously. Her anxiety was understandable; the object was giving out very strong vibes and they didn’t feel all white.

  “It was passed down to me,” she muttered in reply.

  Fox noted that this seemed to be the first time either of her sisters had known about it.

  “That’s not…?” Violet stopped, her face furrowed in concern. “I didn’t believe it really existed. I mean I’ve read about it, but I never thought…” her voice trailed off. “I thought it had been destroyed. Why have you kept this to yourself, Prim?”

  Fox had tired of trying to work out what the magical object was and of the sibling fight about to erupt. She put out her hand to touch it briefly before snatching her fingers back.

  “So what exactly is it?”

  Prim pulled it protectively close to her chest so it was out of Fox’s reach.

  “I really don’t like this, Prim,” said Violet, spinning on her heel and turning her back as if to walk away.

  “It’s a traveller mirror,” whispered Swan. “It allows you to carry hidden people with you – it works a bit like the Trojan Horse.”

  “How is that possible?” asked Bunny, who was excited by the prospect of using a “real” and powerful magical object.

  Primrose knelt down on the floor and placed the mirror on top of the snow. It was no bigger than the size of a large footstep
and was made in roughly the same shape. “You step into the glass and it holds you so that the carrier can transport you with them.”

  “Whoa, that is totally awesome!” Bunny said with her foot already poised to take a step. Swan pulled her back sharply.

  “How many people can it hold?” she asked.

  “I don’t know exactly, but I think it’s no more than eight.”

  “Eight!”

  Primrose nodded. Her fingers were still protectively resting on the handle.

  “Problem solved then,” Bunny said, clapping her hands together.

  Violet turned her attention back to the group, her ineffectual protest over. “I think it’s about time you also told them about the dangers of the traveller mirror.”

  Primrose shifted uncomfortably and shrugged. “It’s not really worth worrying about is it? I mean it sounds dramatic but it’s highly unlikely to happen.”

  “What is?” Fox asked.

  Rose stepped forward, breaking her unusually silent stance. “If the mirror gets broken and you’re inside of it, then you’re trapped for eternity. Your soul fractures like the shards of glass across time and space.”

  “Oh,” Bunny emitted the sound over a gulp in her throat. “Nothing to worry about then!”

  Fox slipped Swan a knowing look. The mirror, despite clearly having survived hundreds of years more than they’d all thought, was still only a fragile piece of glass. It would only take Primrose slipping on the snow, or some other minor incident, and they would all be in peril.

  “I don’t know about this,” Fox said. “I’m with Violet on this one. I really don’t think it’s a good idea – too much could go wrong.”

  “It’s a stupid idea!” Violet said viciously. “One of us would have to carry it and the Ravenhearts would see them. They’re not stupid; they’d guess something odd was going on.”

  “Agreed,” Rose said, stepping towards Prim, “but she could wear this,” she said removing a green stoned ring from her hand and holding it out. “Then they wouldn’t see her. She’d also be protected from any scrying or psychic identification.”