Crow Heart (The Witch Ways Book 4)

by Helen Slavin

  As she reached the Hartfield stand, she pointed to the large banner that they had had printed.

  “Can you help me get this down?” She was stretching up to unfasten it.

  Anna came to assist. “We’re not packing up, are we?” Anna was concerned as they manhandled the banner onto the tabletop.

  Winn shook her head. “No. Pass me that pen.”

  Emz moved the vase as Winn popped the lid on the marker. “What’s going on, Winn?”

  Winn was concentrating. Her hand, used to worming foxes and rescuing hedgehogs, moved across the matte white surface of the backside of the banner. In moments she was done, and Emz and Anna helped her put the banner back in place.

  “For a wedding with heart… Hartfield,” it read in an elegant copperplate. Winn was pleased with it.

  “I never thought that all those calligraphy lessons would ever be useful…” Winn was bustling and cheery, feeling like her proper self. “Miss Wethersett would be… well, outraged, most likely.” Winn grimaced at the remembrance of the grumpy tutor. “She was not a lover of people who were ‘in trade’.” Anna and Emz smiled, and the mood of the Hartfield team lifted.

  “It’s perfect,” Anna said, and as they handed out leaflets and brochures, they repeated it, like a spell.

  Charlie, heading out of the fayre on her way to work, had caught sight of Seren’s glorious display. In a sea of ivory and whites, her gowns were rich jewels. Amber. Garnet. Amethyst. Charlie quickened her pace. She had time to say a quick hello, and it would be good to see a friendly face in this nuptial madness.

  Seren was struggling to remain polite. Charlie could see the tight knot in her brow and her determined gaze as she spoke with none other than Aurora Foundling.

  “You’re wrong. You are so wrong,” Seren said. Charlie thought she was brave. “It is an idea worth pursuing. Woodcastle has a lot going for it. A lot.” She was impassioned.

  Charlie kept back out of sight but just within earshot, stepping around a stand for monogrammed table linen and sneaking closer.

  “A lot of what? People want glamour, Seren. They want drama and romance for a wedding. They want owls carrying wedding bands, and they want to wear silver shoes. They want to be a princess for a day.”

  Charlie could see Aurora’s face between the shoulders of two tailor’s dummies. Seren was not to be downcast.

  “Perfect! We have a castle,” she countered with confidence.

  Aurora gave a high, haughty laugh. “If you fancy a siege theme to your wedding. The place is a wreck.”

  Seren shook her head. “It’s a romantic ruin.” She was confident. “Mrs Bentley agrees. There’s a lot of potential, and she’s applied for a wedding licence.”

  Aurora tossed back her mane of red hair and sneered. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Bow down, Mrs Bentley has spoken.” She made a mocking bow.

  Seren was not to be mocked. “You’re the only florist in Woodcastle, Aurora,” Seren said with meaning.

  Aurora’s eyes flared. “What does that mean? The only? You mean I am the one and only.” Aurora was proud. “The best.”

  “Exactly my point. We could make Woodcastle into the place to get married. Destination weddings that are local, low carbon footprint, and lovely,” Seren tried.

  Aurora was unmoved, gave a derisive snort.

  Seren shook her head. “Don’t you get the whole artisan angle of it? I don’t understand why you don’t get it.”

  “Because there’s nothing to ‘get’,” Aurora snapped. “Your business model is hopeless. Why on earth would someone limit themselves to boring old Woodcastle for their wedding?” She was about to continue, but Seren stepped in.

  “Boring? With the Castle? With Hartfield Hall? The Moot Hall? The Plainsong Chapel? Leap Woods?”

  Aurora cackled and tossed her hair.

  To Charlie it seemed to crackle with thorny-looking black sparks. She gasped, and the effect was gone as sunlight lit the red and bronzed crimson tones within.

  “Great,” Aurora sneered. “Leap Woods? Yes. Why not get your wedding wellies on and have a squirrel shit on your cake.” And with only a dismissive wave, she huffed off into the crowd.

  “What a cow,” Seren said to herself.

  “That’s being polite,” Charlie said.

  Seren turned with a caught-out blush and laughed. “I think I might knock up some wedding wellies, just to show her,” she joked.

  Charlie took her leave, weaving her way out amongst the snowdrifts of dresses. On her way to her car, Charlie passed Aurora’s little green van with its golden Mimosa logo. Charlie dug out the last of her Hartfield brochures and, just for the hell of it, placed it under the windscreen wiper on the driver’s side.

  14

  Blackberry Lament

  Michael Chance hid in the office these days and was rarely seen about the brewery. In the last few months, he had staked out his territory like a hibernating bear, and the office was out of bounds.

  Since the death of her mother, Charlie Way had felt no inclination to build bridges or instigate any sort of relationship with her former friend. Michael’s moodiness was more than she could bear.

  “Mike’s going to be out all day,” was her favourite way of being greeted. Today it was news delivered by Carl with the addition of “You want a brew?”, as he spooned coffee into three mugs. She picked up the third and newest mug with a look of enquiry.

  “It’s for Jamie. The new lad,” Carl told her.

  Charlie was unaware they had enough cash flow to fund the current lads. When Ryan had quit after Christmas, Michael had been very clear that they could manage without him. Jake’s request to go part time had not been a request either. She had discovered some weeks later that Michael had offered him an ultimatum: part time or nothing. Their disagreement over that was the last time she had been into the office and spoken to Michael. Well, as she thought back to the altercation, spoken was probably not the word. Upbraided. Yelled. It was unfair to Jake, surely, but there it was. Michael was in the habit of springing decisions on her and then hiding behind his desk. What did Michael think he was doing?

  “Jamie? Do I know him?” Charlie asked Carl, as she opened a new packet of biscuits.

  Carl nodded.

  “Graeme Wilkes’ youngest.” Charlie placed him at once. He was a well-liked guy. He’d been in the paper for a daring rescue he’d carried out on a Duke of Edinburgh event on Dartmoor last year. She felt unnecessarily moved by this fact. What was going on in her head this morning? There was an edge to things that she could not quite pinpoint. She wrote it off as the twanging tension she felt between herself and Michael. She must shrug this feeling or it would taint all the brewing. Charlie headed off to the brewhouse to lose herself in hops and mash.

  It proved difficult to concentrate. Somewhere between leaving Cob Cottage that morning, rolling up at the Wedding Fayre, and arriving at Drawbridge, there had been an effect, an alteration, creaking a new, crisp sense of anxiety into the permafrost of her grief. Her mind persistently winked the warning lights of Havoc. A phrase came to her, something Grandma Hettie had said perhaps, something from a dream: borrowed moonlight. Did it link in with the orbs? The words hummed around her head like a catchy tune as she retraced the steps she had taken on her patrol last night, and thought about the Beacon thrown into the brambles. Intermittently, it taunted her with the black spiny crackles of Aurora Foundling’s hair.

  Just after lunchtime, she dragged out a memory from way back in school: that of a sense of unease she had always felt when forced to sit near those wild tresses. Aurora’s snooty primary-school face morphed into Aurora at the Wedding Fayre, the dismissive way she’d spoken to Seren. Why did it matter?

  The cocktail of thoughts was throwing off Charlie’s whole shift. No one wanted beer tainted by thoughts like this. With this in mind, she called in the new hire and left him to shovel spent mash as she took herself off to the workroom to catch up on paperwork.

  Instead, her thoughts focused in on he
r patrol. The lights in Havoc winked like Beacons. Something, or someone, had interrupted the line of them, and she’d been able to follow them because the lone light had steadied and lit the way for her. That was purposeful, but she could not understand how she had managed it. If indeed she had, perhaps the net of lights was a legacy from their grandmother…? No. She knew she could throw that stupid theory out. Trust yourself. She tried to make that the mantra intoning in her head.

  Charlie considered the options. There had been no such net before, not a hint of it, nothing visible, even when Mrs Fyfe and Borrower had been running around the place. It wasn’t just that thought, it was the fact that it corresponded with the paths she’d been treading in the last few months.

  She had felt driven since December. It was not quite running away from the grief. It was keeping at the leading edge of it. She had walked Havoc in fear and sorrow. Her thoughts had been strong with emotion. She had thought at all times of keeping out intruders and of warnings. She had wanted to feel safe, and the simple answer was that she had woven this net herself. Her Strength had set it, dragging markers and Beacons to stake out Havoc.

  Whatever she had pursued last night had got away, and that led to anxiety. She reined it in. No, the true outcome of last night’s patrol was not that they had got away. They had been chased off, and she was made aware of their presence. Tonight it would be wise to patrol the same routes, and, while testing her Beacon theory, she could also pick up on any other tracks. She would begin where she had left off at the brambles.

  Decision made, Charlie felt her worry recede a little into the back of her mind, and she was able to concentrate on the last of the brewery orders. She tapped at the workroom keyboard, paying proper attention when she saw a new contract in the inbox. The brewery would be supplying The Ark? Since when? Michael had mentioned nothing about this, and it was a good contract, a sizeable income stream.

  “Carl?” Charlie called out, standing in the workroom door.

  “Just who do you think you are?” The voice was harsh and made her jump.

  Charlie looked to the delivery-bay door, where Carl was darting out of the way. Michael was standing on the threshold, his face creased and bitter.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Charlie said.

  Carl must have heard the timbre of the conversation and made a swift exit to the brewhouse. Charlie looked at Michael, his aggressive stance. Was he drunk? There was an odd mood about him, and she wondered if he had been at the last flagon of Blackberry Ferment, perhaps in his lunch hour. He looked greasy. She ought to call it Blackberry Lament, since nothing had been the same since she brewed it.

  “I asked who the actual fuck you think you are.”

  Charlie made no response. If Michael wanted a fight, he must pick it.

  His eyes widened, carrying threat. “Mm?” His mouth pinched tight.

  “What are you talking about?” Charlie was still and calm, and there was no other response to give.

  “Anthony Gamble. Who do you think you are? That’s assault, you do know that? He’s pressing charges.” Michael was stepping forward, leaning towards her, menacing.

  Charlie took a slow breath. Her thoughts crackled and spiked.

  “Not a thing to say for yourself? Hm? You realise everyone in town is wagging on about this. This is not a good look for the brewery, is it? I ought to fire you.”

  Charlie was quick to answer. “He was poaching in Havoc Wood.”

  Michael’s temper banked against the coldness of her tone.

  “You’re an employee of Drawbridge Brewery. Your behaviour reflects…”

  “I wasn’t the one poaching. I’m the Gamekeeper of Havoc Wood.” Her voice seemed to echo around the brewhouse. Charlie was aware of Carl in the brewhouse door, Jamie too with a barrow loaded with mash. She focused her attention on Michael and his loss of nerve, apparent in his eyes.

  “You finished?” Charlie asked. Michael stepped back, as if pushed, then he nodded.

  “Yes. I am finished.” And he turned out of the door.

  15

  Moths

  Anna, dog tired after the Wedding Fayre, had dropped into bed and, for the first time in months, perhaps two years, sleep had covered her like a cosy blanket. What was that dream? The Mad Hatter had booked a tea party at the Pop-Up? She yawned like the dormouse, too tired to dream it.

  Her grandmother’s face pushed out of the darkness, her eyes glittering with fierce energy; her left hand, minus its pinkie finger, shrugged at Anna’s shoulder.

  “Anna.” Grandma Hettie’s voice was clear beside her. “Wake up. Anna, wake up. Find Kitty Warren.”

  The voice was clear as life. The crackle of waxed raincoat made Anna leap out of bed, reaching to switch on the light, and sending it tumbling to the floor. She was already pulling on her boots, shrugging into her jacket.

  “Find Kitty Warren.”

  Her grandmother’s voice echoed across the courtyard. Anna was at the gate of the walled garden before she thought to ask herself who Kitty Warren was and where she might find her.

  “Wake up, Anna, pay attention.”

  She had a terrible feeling. The air sparked. Would Charlie be out on patrol in Havoc still? It was long past midnight. Emz was staying over at Winn’s bungalow; she’d been helping her with her new wi-fi router.

  “No time, Anna. Find Kitty Warren.”

  There was no point running off into the randomised darkness. Mrs Massey’s kindly face loomed large, winking her approval of this idea.

  Doubling back towards the kitchen, Anna reached into her pockets. The small deck of cards, the Paper Prophets, had been zipped into her jacket. They felt cool to the touch, and, before she freed them from their elastic band, she had a strong mental image of walking with Grandma Hettie, a rise, a trodden chalk-down path.

  She turned over the top card with the command Find Kitty Warren in her mind and focused. The card was The Maps and Compass, and she saw at once a path of glimmering lights at the western gateway of the hillfort at Yarl Hill.

  She made good time, her heart like a war drum beating the path, but there was no sign of anyone on the wild, windswept hill. She stood, panicked, at the spot revealed by the card, exactly where she and her sisters had participated in a Bone Resting for an ancient warrior.

  There were advantages to witchcraft, Anna thought; it gave you information. The disadvantage was that you had to interpret the signs shown. She had been brought here for a reason. Kitty Warren might not be here, but there must be something — a clue, a track? At once she saw, a few paces further along the earthworks, where the air held a crackling black edge. What was this? It spiked and prickled and made her eyes hurt. Anna stopped trying to think it out; instead she focused on the energy of it like a fingerprint or scent marking. Something had happened here. What was it?

  Nothing good. Tagged into the dark energy were images, like a disjointed Flickerbook of white hair and hiking boots. Tripping. Falling. Was this white-haired woman Kitty Warren? She looked up, a light winked urgently in the near distance, and, as Anna turned to it, the crackling edge thickened and became a harsh interference, scratching at the Flickerbook images as if to obliterate them. Instinct, a deep primal sense, made her want to run away, far, fast. Her witch sense told her to reach out to touch it, to ravel it into her hands.

  So she did.

  The crackling intensified and burnt like paper, crumbling in her fingers, and in the near distance, the light bobbed wildly and was extinguished. Where was that? Anna held her breath, tried to think, see the landscape in daylight. It was at the tumbledown farmhouse at Ragger’s Edge. Anna was running, pulling the crackling black ribbon of power, and crumbling it as she did so.

  Kitty Boyle was not certain what had spooked the white-haired woman. It might have been when Kitty grabbed the camping lantern and clopped her round the head with it. Or it might not.

  Kitty was not certain where, or even when, she was. There was pain like white light coming from her left hip. It looked as
if it was ribboning out of her into the air, like a sort of Northern Lights from her bones. It was unutterably beautiful beneath the pain. She snatched at it; it mustn’t run out, must not run away from her — it belonged to her.

  She felt odd, and there was a terrible familiarity to the oddness, as if she had been here before, not in this strange physical place but mentally. She remembered this feeling. Like sleepwalking. She was wearing her cardigan again, the one she’d left on the back of the chair in the library. It was moth-chewed and missing a button, and she could feel where pieces of herself were woven into its fabric.

  No. That was all wrong. That was back in the sixties. Ages ago. Fifty years, in fact. Before her boys were born. That cardigan was long lost. Unravelling. Like herself. Stop it. Stop that. She held onto the ribbon of light as the pain dredged through her. She held on tight.

  The white-haired woman had fled, but now three other lunatics were here. This one was holding her hand, which she was glad of, truth be told. It helped — all her mind seemed to empty into the young woman for safekeeping. This one was reaching for her hip, and Kitty protested, “You won’t break my other hip”, though it was no use trying any more. She could hit them with the camping lamp, except it had rolled out of reach, and she couldn’t roll onto her hip.

  The third one was retrieving the lamp, clicking it back on. Did they need it with this white stuff spilling out of her? Enough to light up town.

  The youngest was serious. Words were coming out of her, but Kitty could only hear a scramble. She was reaching a hand to Kitty’s hip, so Kitty braced herself for the agony. There was white light once more, this time coiling back, twisting into her hip like rope, so she felt the bones creak and grind, but heal instead of break. It felt marvellous. Oh, that was amazing. She must be a physio. Kitty was keen to get herself up; she was going to be late for the meet and greet. How unprofessional. The three young women would not let her.