“Who is Hopkins…?” I asked.
Arthur looked puzzled, as though I should have known who ‘Hopkins’ was. Victoria, seeing an opportunity and seizing on it, said in very clear English: “He said ‘Who is Hopkins’!” It was as though my accent had needed translation. Arthur smiled, winked again and gave her a nudge.
“Matthew Hopkins,” Arthur explained, “was the self-styled ‘Witchfinder General’ of these parts, though he was really more of a witch confirmer, than a witch finder. With Civil War raging and Catholic and Protestant tensions at an all-time high, the villagers of the time - especially the more Puritan ones - were convinced that witches were in their midst. When they suspected someone of witchcraft, however, there was no way to really confirm it. Hopkins and his partner, a man by the name of John Stearne, discovered that they could make good money ‘pricking’ or ‘testing’ these witches. If they found one and confirmed this to the village, then the village could be rid of the witch and a healthy profit could be made. Therefore, it seems that Hopkins and Stearne began to lean increasingly toward confirmation rather than denial. Of course, the final say still rested with the assizes - the periodic courts held at Colchester and there were a number of cases thrown out in disgrace. There were, however, a great many that were not. Too many.”
“And what happened to the witches?” I asked. “I mean, the ones found to be witches by the court?”
“They were hung,” he continued. “Many people still think that such women, as they often were of course, might have been ‘swum’ to see if they lived or drowned or burned at the stake but, by Hopkins’ time, such practices had long been outlawed.”
“And the bodies..?” Victoria asked.
“Well, not unlike the owner of this little trinket, they were often thrown underground. Caves, if available, wells if not. If neither was to hand then they might be buried, as you or I might once have been, but the grave would be covered with heavy stones, not as a monument but to prevent the body from ever rising again. They were convinced that Armageddon was coming you see and that the unholy would rise again when it did. They did what they could to prevent that.”
“Were any records kept?” Victoria asked, her English accent still crisp. “And do you have any?”
Arthur looked puzzled as to why Victoria would be so interested, but he seemed to shrug and run with it. “The hangings themselves would all have been dealt with by the relevant parish,” he explained, “and all such records would be centralised now. We are not privileged to have such valuable antiquities here. The court records? Well, they would be held in the archives at Colchester.”
I looked to Victoria. “I think we should go to Colchester.”
Arthur seemed to think for a moment. “You may not be allowed to view them,” he said. “Can I ask what you are looking for? Why such records might be so important to you?”
“Research,” Victoria offered, quick as a flash. “I have decided to write a book.”
“Oh, that’s marvellous,” Arthur said, genuinely enthused. “Well, depending on what you are actually looking for, I may actually be able to save you a journey…”
He moved to one side, examining a bookcase filled with a variety of old tomes of all shapes, sizes and covers. Thick and thin, old and not as old. Not one was new. Carefully and pensively running his finger along the uneven line of spines he eventually settled on the book he wanted. He pulled it out and laid it on a small table next to us: Witch Hunting and Witch Trials printed in 1929 by Austin and Sons of Hertford.
“Everything is in chronological order,” he said.
The book was clearly very old which worried me, so I glanced at him, unsure. He nodded his approval and I carefully opened it wide. Swiftly, I flicked through the pages - and through the ages - ultimately narrowing my search down to page 226. I ran my finger down the list. Nothing. I flicked the page over to 227 and ran my finger again. Top to bottom. Then I stopped.
There it was. There she was. Article 625.
625. Chelm. Rachael Garland, spinster, of Manningtree, kitchen maid, 17 Jul., 20 Chas. I., at M.,
bewitched Anne Potts, Ellen Morley, Prudence Hart, Mary Lawton, all of M.,
Endorsed. Matthew Hopkins. Billa vera. Po se. cul. ca null. Susp.
Her name was Garlens, I know that, but I’m not an idiot. Not all the time. This was her and, conversely, either my worst nightmare or my greatest hope brought to life. I genuinely didn’t know which. Not yet.
“Can you translate this?” I asked. I already knew it was not going to be good.
Arthur opened his mouth, but it was Victoria who spoke first. Slowly: “Chelmsford assizes, Monday 17th July in the 20th year of the reign of King Charles I. Guilty of witchcraft. A true bill. To be hanged.”
The thing is, I knew absolutely nothing about U.S. history. Absolutely nothing. And I knew even less about English history. Yet, there and then, I was willing to bet my last dollar that the twentieth year of the reign of King Charles I was 1645.
“1645,” I said, as though I hadn’t actually meant to say it aloud. Rachael had been hung as a witch and Hopkins, this ‘Witchfinder General’ had been the one who had endorsed it.
“1645,” Victoria said, and she did mean to. She was smiling. Knowingly.
“Eternal love,” Arthur said, as though he wasn’t really concentrating.
I looked at him, quite sternly. “What did you just say?”
“Eternal love,” he said. Quite casually, as though the words meant very little to him. They meant the world to me. A world that was becoming increasingly incomprehensible by the minute. “Your bracelet,” he explained. “I trust you have been to see Old Knobbley then?”
I glanced down at my wrist. I hadn’t even been aware that, as my left hand had stretched forward to trace the page it had pulled my cuff back just enough to expose the eternity bracelet Rachael had made for me.
I looked back to Arthur. “What’s Old Knobbley?” I asked.
Again, he looked shocked. As though he was somehow wondering why the hell I had bothered to visit his museum, or this area as a whole, if I did not know even know who the hell Matthew Hopkins or Old Knobbley were..?
“Why, it is by far the oldest tree we have in England,” he said, as though such a thing were obvious. His tour guide excitement was now back with a vengeance. “An oak. It is one of our county’s greatest treasures. And I don’t mind telling you, young man, that it has that very symbol carved right upon it.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Thursday, November 13, 1644.
Manningtree, Essex, England.
In the world beyond the forest the sun was almost gone, clinging to the horizon with fingertip strains of light as the softer dark of moonlight began to make its presence known. Inside the forest it was long gone. The trees had stolen the last vestiges from the skies and now only a blue gloom suffused the wispy air. Nocturnal insects danced like spirits awakening.
It had not rained hard in three full days, but Old Knobbley was still glistening from a mix of sap and the secretions of the many creatures which crawled its surface during the daylight hours. Flecks of blue light glistened like coarse diamonds embedded in the bark in this darkened corner of the glade.
Facing its impressive width, like a sinner praying to escape the gates of hell, knelt a solitary figure. Her head was held low, blood from her forehead mixing with oily sweat and steadily dripping to earth before her. Her shoulders rose and fell as though she were sobbing, as indeed she was, but that was not the main reason. Time was wasting away, stealing into the night as it did at the end of every valuable day which passed and she had things she desperately needed to do. Things which now, more than ever, needed to be done quickly. She was screaming through her hands and, had she time, she might have used her positioning to pray for a moment as well. If she had felt it would do any good, of course.
She didn’t.
Because she didn’t feel it would.
It was time to be her own God, she figured. To carve her
own path through life’s chaos, and so she carved as hard and as fast as she could; cutting deep into the dark, weathered skin of the wizened old maid to reveal the lighter wood beneath. The cutting, her heavy breathing and the pleas for help she was throwing out to a world which did not yet exist filled her senses completely. Which is why she did not hear a thing in the darkness which surrounded her. And why, as she sobbed, scraped and silently pleaded for all she was worth, she did not hear that she was no longer alone.
At the end of the overgrown path, facing the clearing, stood Prudence Hart. Motionless. Staring. Her head was down, but her eyes were fixed firm. Narrowed and focused. The red swellings from not a few carefully forced sobs of her own made them look deeper than they really were and, in the dark of the fast-falling night, her pupils expanded as wide as those who had tasted the Stour mushrooms and felt the uplifting thrill they brought in their wake.
In her right hand something also glistened, but this was no diamond either. It would, however, be sharp enough for a cut. A knife; the one she used daily to peel the spuds. It still had the dirt from many a skin on its ragged blade but what did she care? She was going to kill the she-devil who had begun by stealing her promise and who had ended it by stealing her child.
In the end, cleanliness was irrelevant.
In the end. She smiled viciously. These were truly the moments of the end. The moments in which it would all come to a defining halt for young Rachael and her devilry and where it would all begin, as it should have done many months past, for Prudence herself. She would peel this wretch’s filthy skin as she had so many potatoes and carefully remove the rotten core which she just knew would be found within.
Then, she would go home, start her new life and leave the carcass for the animals of the night to feast upon.
She stepped forward.
* * * * *
William was lost. His heart knew it, his mind knew it, the Boy knew it and it was probably no exaggeration to suggest that both still-sweating horses knew it. He was not physically lost, of course, for he knew this land as well as he knew his own skin, but within that heart and mind his path was as overgrown as Rachael’s with unclear thoughts. He was lost for answers. Thomas and he had ridden nigh-on a hundred miles, back and forth, north and south, Thomas awkwardly trying to remain in his saddle with stirrups pulled higher then they had ever been intended. They had found nothing of the girl.
Eventually, they had come to rest at the crossing of the Mistley and Colchester roads. Bewt and Novice, the horses, were taking a moment to eat grass as William stood dead centre of the junction and slowly twirled around. There was no need to tie the horses as neither the elder Bewt, nor her youngest son, were ones for wandering. Thomas had also dismounted now and was leaning against a rough dry-stone wall, eating a thick slice of bread he had been itching to retrieve from his pocket all afternoon. It was damp, but it was food. The smell of the horses hung thick in the air around them and there was little in the way of breeze to cool anyone’s hot skin. So, in the silence of a clear afternoon, this ragged quaternary just stood and chewed upon their respective desires as though enjoying the last strains of autumn sunlight without a care in the world.
A false mask.
The air was already getting colder and William sensed that this close and humid day might just turn into a very cold night indeed. One for the woollens and certainly not one to be spent too far away from the fire.
Rachael was not back at the Manor, he knew that much. He had checked there first and many of the staff had even searched the grounds lest she be found curled sobbing and foetal in a barn. It would not have been the first time, though the first for many a month. Taking the enthusiastic boy along with him for the ride, he soon discovered that she was not to be found at the Mistley dock either, perhaps seeking to board a ship. And, unless she could run faster than Bewt and Novice, she was neither on the treacherously carved tracks north to Brantham, south to Thorpe or sou’west to Colchester. It pained him deeply that the answers eluded him and it showed on his face as he continued to scour blindly in all directions, vainly hoping he might catch a glimpse. Wherever she might be, Rachael would very probably be in no fit state to care for herself if trouble came knocking during her flight. So it was simple... if he were lost... then so was she. She knew only of the lands he had shown her and, given her fright at almost anything new which crossed her path, those lands were still painfully few.
He turned to the boy. “Can you think of somewhere... anywhere... that we have failed to look?”
Thomas swallowed hard. “I cannot, sir,” he said, suddenly standing more upright having been addressed directly. “Short of turning the stones, Sir, I doesn’t know where she might be.”
William sighed. “Nor I,” he said, almost to himself. “Nor I.”
“Should we not be headed to the manor, Sir?” Thomas asked. “You have visitors today. Important ones so they says, and they’ll be here soon enough.”
William did not answer immediately. Instead he took one last panoramic glance around and across the empty fields which surrounded them and let out one long, resigned sigh.
“Aye, lad,” he said in one long, slow breath. “Perhaps we should.”
Before he made a move, however, he narrowed his eyes for a moment and tried just one last time to think of somewhere that Rachael might feel safe. Of course, it proved to be as pointless as it had at every previous attempt. Outside of the manor the girl had nowhere to go and no-one to go to. She barely ventured outside at all, except by his own side or when Mrs. Banks’ grasp of the number of eggs in a dozen had let go once more. Each of those occasions were few. There was no real sense to him that Rachael even felt safe within the manor, yet it was the best he had been able to offer her. And there was no point thinking about a place that might make her happy, either, because wherever this girl’s happiness had chosen to lay its hat was, he sensed, a very long way away indeed.
No. Rachael Garland rarely smiled.
Except... his face relaxed very slightly and he widened his eyes... once.
And that being quite recently.
In the clearing, at Furze Hill. Only last week. The day she had accurately predicted the stalemate that Newbury had thrown back at both sides of the war. She had been seated in the clearing as he postulated about his fears but she had, for just a short time, been as entranced as he by the gnarled features of Old Knobbley. She had even approached the tree for herself. And... yes... yes... she had smiled. The frail, aloof and permanently troubled Rachael Garland had actually curled her mouth as though her mind had delivered her just a brief moment of comfort, though he knew not why. Picturing it in his mind now he recalled that it might even have been a warm smile. Warm like a fire. The kind of fire one might just try to rekindle one’s spirit with if one found oneself out in the cold... lost and alone.
“Thomas? Mount up. We ride again.”
Thomas swiftly shoved the last of the crust deep into his pocket without question and climbed onto the rough stone wall so that he might stand at least a fighting chance of mounting Novice unaided.
“Come girl.” William grabbed the loose harness and mounted Bewt as swift as he could. Then, checking that Thomas was similarly mounted safe, he kicked his heels hard into the poor beast’s sides and she launched forward. Furze Hill was some five miles away and there was, he suspected, very little time to waste.
* * * * *
Prudence approached. Slowly. She had been trained to hunt rabbit and deer by her father since she could barely walk, long before the troubles had set rife, and so she dextrously avoided every discarded branch and patch of dry leaves set in her path. Step by step, closer and closer she approached her unknowing prey.
She could hear scraping, as though the she-devil was perhaps digging herself a lair into the base of the tree, and her eyes narrowed. Having seen the girl on her knees, she had assumed that the wretch was merely praying, or perhaps sobbing. Preferably both. It would be fitting, she mused, that this interloper
would be even more wretched in her final moments than she had been in life, and that would be some remarkable feat. But no... something else was going on here, something that Prudence knew nothing about and the only gossip that Prudence truly despised was the one which found voice behind her back.
Was she burying something?
She pondered a moment. Treasure perhaps? Ah... yes. Yes indeed. Treasure. A trinket stolen from the Manor? Why, that was to have been her game after all. Yes, she was no more than a common trickster eking her way into the Master’s household only to strip him piece by piece of his worth? No doubt some nefarious character was already lined up to come and retrieve the piece at a later time.
Unless, of course... Prudence took it first. After all, it was lost to the household already and the culprit would pay even if the horde could not be located. Oh, she could picture it now. A fancy necklace, perhaps, with jewels which lined her slender throat with privilege. She might keep it in her chest, removing it only when the house was clear as she imagined herself and the Master enjoying a dance. Perhaps something more.
In the gloom she edged forward once more until she came up directly behind Rachael, ultimately towering over her. Had Rachael not been so engrossed in her task she may have seen the dark shape looming or, more likely, caught a glint of steel in a clenched hand, but she did not. Her shoulders and elbows pushed back and forth as hard as she could, slowly etching away at the thick bark.
Prudence leaned forward, inquisitive as ever.
And then she saw it. Whatever it was.
Some kind of mark. A sign clearly, but one strange in form. The kind... she pondered... the kind a witch might make. To their imps, perhaps? Yes, indeed. Her mind was racing now. A sign to the dark spirits so that they might know this girl’s location and come to aid her works. Not so much a mark, then, more a marker. A lit beacon on a dark path. In the end, she could not control her own tongue, though for those who knew Prudence well this was barely to be deemed a first.
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