The Witch (The Witch Trilogy Book 1)

by Cheryl Potter

  Even by her standards that had been a brazen move. Until now she had always basked in the want of a man, responded to his desire, flattered by the image she saw reflected back at her. But now, knowing for the first time what it was to really want a man, she had turned hunter. And forced the lock on her own latent sensuality.

  She rubbed her breasts, tingling under swathes of cotton and silk, against the windowsill and willed him to come....

  She responded with languid restraint to the hands that began gently to massage her shoulders from behind; to the lips that wafted warm breath along her neck. She gurgled his name and sank back against him, heady with the strange aromas that enveloped her.

  ‘I knew you would come,’ she said throatily. ‘We understand each other, don’t we Mars‒’

  Spread fingers pushed her dark hair forwards over her eyes, cruel nails ploughing ridges over her scalp. Knuckles jammed between her teeth, choking her pained squeal. She pulled blindly at the clenched fist holding a knot of pulled hair over her eyes and nose, fighting to breathe. The unseen hand pulled the knot of hair still tighter, binding her eyelids open, straining every root in her scalp to its painful limit. It jerked her off the bench and sent her sprawling across the wooden floor. Then crushed her face down where she lay.

  Her head had come to rest on her left arm. She attempted to lift it, aware of a dull sensation across the bridge of her nose. Aware too of her own frightened sobs. A blow from behind cracked her forehead down against the boards.

  ‘Dear God, please let me go‒’ she wailed. A hand forced down on her neck while another dragged her skirts up over her head and tied the loose ends over her head. ‘I beg you!’ she howled, but held her tongue to listen to a muffled sound; a rumbling, mirthless laugh. ‘For pity’s sake,’ she choked, ‘you’re not Marsden ... who are you?’

  For a moment she lay quite still, listening intently. The sound had ceased and there was no weight holding her down. She scrambled to her feet, slipping a shoe and flailed against the improvised sack over her head.

  The hands found her again. Tore at her underclothes until cold air rushed at her bare skin. She screamed as the first pin pierced the tender skin of her inner thigh. The more she writhed and tried to escape, the more intense were the cruel stabs to back and buttocks and legs. Fierce jabs behind the knees made her buckle and fall. The unseen tormentor gave a cold laugh and above her sobs, intoned, ‘The whore says she is bored ... t’is easy to bore a whore, ha, ha!’

  ‘Devil, leave me!’ she wailed. Rough hands lifted her up, dragged her still trussed and staggering in one shoe out of the summerhouse, down the steps, along the gravel path. Running across through the orchard grass until she could run no further, she tripped over uneven ground and curled into a ball on the dewy grass. She knew it was there, legs straddled across her. Knew by the pungent odour it exuded, the deep rasping breaths. She held her breath in horror, listening to the rhythmic breathing and the nearby bubble of a stream.

  Hands seized her shredded clothing, dragged her to inclined ground, then sent her rolling into the babbling water. Far off the voice called out to her, ‘The devil never leaves – only takes what is his.’

  Her trembling hands found the leather thong, wrenched until the skirts fell away. Her eyes searched the orchard, the soughing trees behind. Then, in stockinged feet, she fled half-mad towards the house, terrified that the unseen thing might be lurking in the dancing shadows. She burst into the courtyard, staggered across the sets towards the kitchen door and there collapsed into the arms of Marsden.

  Jessie Harris, nurse to the Grafton children, bustled distractedly into the baby’s room. She set down her candle and clamped her plump fingers around the oak crib, her eyes staring at but not seeing the wailing infant.

  Negligent, Samuel Grafton had called her, negligent! And she never off her feet! What did the man want – that she should keep a bedside vigil? How was she to know that the little imps would steal off like that? She had left them quiet in their beds – or so she had thought – without even an inkling of mischief. And all this nonsense about fiendish rhymes. The only fiendish thing was Hannah’s imagination – spells indeed!

  Jessie sighed deeply and lifted the almost hoarse child into her arms. ‘There, there my little one,’ she cooed, ‘a mite colicky are we?’ She dabbed a streak of vomit from the corner of the child’s mouth and gently stroked its temple. By degrees nurse and baby drew quietude from each other. Jessie cupped the downy head in her hand and lowered the quietly purring child into the crib. And doing so touched something hard and tacky. She quickly removed the infant to Caroline’s bed and brought the candle close to the cot sheets.

  ‘Dear Lord, what devilry is this?’ she cried. There, scattered within a pool of semi-dried milk vomit, lay a half-dozen round-headed pins and small crystalline lumps resembling coal. She touched the foreign objects in horrified fascination. ‘Not possible‒’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Some mischief‒’ Then she groaned, ‘Please God, not the children....’

  Samuel Grafton was angrier than the children had ever seen him before. Angrier by far than the time Joseph drank a whole bottle of wine and fell through a glass window into the shrubbery. Even angrier than he had been when Cousin Barbara had tried to run off with a navy captain. His anger turned their stomachs to water, their legs to jelly. It ignored their tears and muddled their minds.

  He had caught them leaving the stable; had marched the six of them up to his study where Hannah already waited, head bowed by the bookshelves. He refused to listen to exhortations on their behalf, either from his wife or nurse Harris; had expelled both women from the room. Then lined the children up before his escritoire while brow-beaten Hannah retold what she had seen.

  ‘Who put you up to this sorcery?’ he demanded, stern eyes fixing each child in turn. He left Francis till last. ‘And you.’ His voice was dangerously low. ‘To slope off so deceitfully and lead your youngers into God knows what! Is this what I am to expect of my son and heir? Was it you taught them this devil verse?’

  Francis swallowed hard and reasoned, ‘It was but a g-game, sir.’ For his pains, his father seized his scruff and threw him across a chair. Far worse than the birching that followed was the unbearable humiliation of having his precious breeches wrenched down. He howled for shame until his father tossed him aside and set about the other boys.

  Grafton repeated his question, ‘Who put you up to this sorcery?’ And when no explanation came forth, he had first Joseph, then Ollie and Ben lie across the dreaded chair to receive one strike for each year of their age.

  It was left to the youngest among them, the girlchild, to begin the rebellion.

  Unlike her sister Cissie, who hovered nervously over a puddle of urine, Caroline had stood passively throughout, her tousled head meekly inclined towards the woolly bundle in her arms. That is, until the angry father attempted to take the lamb from her.

  Then calm turned to fury. She flew at him, all flailing limbs and bared teeth, screeching guttural curses and vile oaths. Grafton’s appalled inertia lasted but a moment, until the demon child sank its teeth into his leg.

  The sight of her father swinging Caroline off the floor with a handful of hair was too much for Cissie. She collapsed into a writhing, screaming fit. Francis dropped to his knees, head lolling on one shoulder, eyes rolled upwards so that only the whites showed. The fingers of his right hand pointed towards the bookcase against which Hannah, clutching her head, had pressed herself.

  ‘Devil take her prying eyes!’ he cursed. ‘Cast her down to cleansing fires ... under nadir under zenith‒’ Hannah screamed. Grafton roared. Joseph, Ollie and Ben began to throw themselves crazedly against the walls and furniture, yelling garbled obscenities at Hannah as she ran the gauntlet in a desperate bid for the study door.

  Marsden crossed Hannah in the doorway. He cut through the squally chaos towards the escritoire on which Grafton had managed with one hand to pin the squirming, spitting girlchild. From his other hand, blarin
g in protest, dangled the lamb. The father glanced up at Marsden, eyes no longer blind with rage but humble with dread and imploring. Marsden turned to see Ellen, the mother, standing wide-eyed in the doorway, her lips slowly parting in a soundless scream. And knew the time had come.

  He stepped over Cissie and moved towards the lectern by a shuttered window. Closed, then lifted the heavy Bible. Breathed life into the words, ‘In the name of the Father, I command you, be gone from this God-fearing house, from these innocent children. Leave them in peace....’

  They would later say there had been something like a rush of wind no more than that. Words experienced, not heard. Words that formed themselves in the minds of the children, their parents, the knot of servants huddled around the door. Strong words that drove out terror ... becalming ... beguiling words.

  The children lay where they had fallen. Some slept, others quietly wept; their nervous energy spent. Marsden instructed the servants to carry them off to their beds. All except Caroline, whom he personally carried upstairs. He watched from the foot of the bed long after she and Cissie were fast asleep. He put an arm of comfort around Jessie Harris’s trembling shoulders and listened while she unburdened herself and softly wept about the things in the crib.

  When, at last, he returned to the study, Grafton was crouched round-shouldered over the unmade fire. Marsden decanted two glasses of wine, then broke the news about Barbara and the baby.

  After a long, clock-filled silence, Grafton looked up and with a ragged sigh, said, ‘Marsden, you learned the physician’s art‒’

  ‘An art I have sadly neglected,’ Marsden demurred.

  Grafton persisted, ‘Could it be that they have all been struck down by the same sickness? Some affliction of the mind? Earlier, when you spoke of Caroline‒’

  ‘I hoped it was no more than a bodily imbalance,’ Marsden reminded.

  ‘But even then you suspected something more insidious ... if I had but listened. Now it has come to this. Dear God, what am I to do?’

  Marsden set his empty glass on the desk and taking Grafton’s elbow, coaxed him to his feet. ‘You must send for a priest, without delay.’

  ‘You believe they are possessed?’ Grafton said, his voice jagged with emotion. ‘Bewitched? What else would explain this ... this evil that has taken hold under my roof? The words you spoke‒’

  ‘The children were afraid. The words gave them an outlet for their fear – a safe harbour, I used a simple metaphysical technique, that was all.’

  ‘Do not take me for a fool sir! There was pandemonium in this room until you invoked the name of God.’

  ‘It may yet prove to be hysterical delusion,’ Marsden said evenly.

  Grafton seized the other man’s collar and jerked his face close to Marsden. ‘Was it delusion induced my children to utter incantations in a dark stable?’ he flared. ‘Lured my niece to a summerhouse and stuck her with pins? Am I to believe that an old stalwart like Jessie Harris was deluded about the baby? Dear Lord‒’ He fell back, his face suddenly drained of colour and stared in horror at the hands which seemed to have assumed a will of their own. He begged Marsden’s forbearance – pleaded with him to remain in the manor, to guide the family through the trials ahead. He would not go for the priest until he had that assurance.

  Marsden opened the shutter and watched him go. The master and his Prince, galloping pell-mell into the darkness. Questing for a peace of mind that he alone could grant.

  He refastened the shutter and sank into the padded armchair by the escritoire. Then poured himself another glass of Grafton’s best Bordeaux.

  First light....

  Caleb Peebles eased his Prayer Book shut and with age-crooked fingers blessed the sleeping babe. Suffer the little children, the Lord had said, et libera nos a malo....

  The priest mournfully shook his head and glanced around at the murmuring onlookers. During the long years of his parish priesthood he had seen many tormented souls. He had driven out demon spirits, rested unquiet bodies but never before in children so young, or so many. It was as if the Grafton household had been visited by a pestilence of evil.

  He had witnessed the girlchild’s wild aggression; the boys’ self-inflicted wounds. He had suffered their blasphemies and vile obscenities; had provoked them with his prayers.

  But this wordless babe? This infant he himself had baptized only days after its birth, to purge its soul of wicked influence. Had evil truly cast its net over this one too?

  He raised his hand for silence and directed the nurse to slide the bowl of water beneath the crib. Waiting for the swaying liquid to come to rest, he drew three knobbly oak-apples from a pocket deep within his sleeve, placed them on the water’s surface and stepped back.

  Let the galls float and the infant was safe. Let them sink and baby Julia was in as much peril as her siblings....

  As the last oak-apple plopped beneath the surface, Ellen Grafton lurched towards the child; her cries of disbelief raking the awed silence. First Cissie, then Joseph, dropped insensibly to the floor.

  ‘Bewitched,’ groaned the priest, visibly bowed. Clutching the crib, he lowered himself down to his knees, quoting, ‘Deliver me a woman that hath a familiar spirit....’

  Shades ...

  Marsden had clawed his way out of the dream. He lay face down in a breathless, semi-clothed sprawl, chemise and hose cold with sweat.

  It had been so long since the last time the dam had haunted his sleep. Why should she come now, just when it was all in the palm of his hand? He had buried it deep; left it far, far behind. He had crushed the emasculating hold his mother had once had many times over ... only for it to be exhumed in the image of the shepherdess.

  He slashed back the curtains of the guest bed and swore irritably until, at last, the worn flint of the tinderbox sparked. While the candle flames drew life, he rummaged through the dresser for paper and charcoal pencil. Then he sat before the oval mirror and began a frenzied sketch.

  Alone in the cottage, Kate lay on her pallet, staring beyond the darkness of the ceiling timbers. She was keenly aware of arousal; of the musky warmth of her body. With palms stretched taut she coursed the pulsing contours. Finding the bruised pain in the slightly distended stomach, she knew that the moon was upon her and exulted in the overflowing sap of her womanhood.

  She had dreamt of stars, of standing on Blackwood Top and staring into a heaven full of them; some in winking cliques, others jaded in their isolation, new stars bright with wonder – and one most brilliant star of all.

  The glowing ascendency was still upon her – it throbbed through her veins. Such burning intensity, she knew, such physical elation, would have its price. But not yet ... not yet.

  She trailed her fingers over the kitlin’s back as it brushed past in the darkness, stretched vitality into her neck and limbs, then reached for her cloak.

  He was absorbed by the sketch. Adrenalin spent on the savage outline strokes, he lost himself in the detailed shading; his art a raw, untutored talent; the germ, as ever, unvented passion.

  He dropped the finished piece against the mirror and stood back. This was the dreamt Kate – the naked shadow-danced splendour; flaming swords of sunset radiating from behind, her arms upstretched, neck arched back and her legs astride some abject form....

  He felt a tightening at the base of his skull. A sudden draining impotence. She filled his head, disabling every other thought, forcing his attention – even in wakefulness.

  A gentle breeze rippled across the drawing. It made the candles gutter and within the picture seemed to ruffle her loose hair. He saw, as he knew he must, the glistening red trickle streaking the creamy red of her thighs. He watched it spill from her navel, shuddered as it spread over the ill-defined being beneath ... as the red filled his sight.

  He howled hoarsely, wiping the running wet from his eyes and forehead. He stared at his trembling hands – no blood on them, no red – only sweat.

  He looked up, past his creation, at the mirror-reflected se
lf; at the sweat-matted, chest-heaving image of himself. He slipped the knife from his boot and struck the bleeding navel, carved the burning image out of his head and left its strewn shreds on the guest-room floor. Then he went out into the night.

  Ned was perched on the edge of his straw mattress in the hayloft, waiting for a wave of stomach gripes either to subside or once more propel his shaky legs down the ladder to the nettle patch outside. He gritted his teeth and hurled a stone down at eyes that glowed eerie green in the dark. Then curled up and sank into the goose-feather pillow, his head swimming for lack of sleep.

  Above the gnawing of his stomach he heard sounds across at the cottage. He listened keenly above the straw-rustling of rats below him, to the clicking of the door latch and Kate’s whispered commands for Jack to stay. He rolled over and spying through vents in the brickwork, saw Kate, wearing no more than a chemise under her parted cloak, close the door and hasten past the barn.

  Ned snatched on his boots, buttoned his loosened breeches and swarmed down the ladder after her. Keeping his distance, he followed her out of the yard, down into the dip beyond the chaffinch hedge and the folds to the next hollow. When she stopped halfway down the furze and thistle incline, he wondered if he ought to go down to her, wake her. He could not imagine a body walking barefoot through thistle and thorn unless it was in sleep. But as he went to move he wrenched his foot on the uneven ground and staggered into a tangle of brambles. Swearing venomously, he ripped himself free and sat rubbing his sore foot.

  Kate stood quite still, holding the flapping cloak tightly to her – stood and stared up at the ridge beyond. Ned followed her gaze ... and seeing the profile of a man on a horse silhouetted against the night sky, rose unsteadily to his feet.