“What... the... fucke... is... that..?”
Rachael span like a startled child, stumbling onto her back against the base of the tree. To her left the symbol was now fully exposed; two loops intertwined, kinked at the sides. Like two hearts touching. The edges were neat and crisp, as though great care had been taken. This was definitely no idle love token to a suitor, this was most definitely a sign. It looked remarkably similar to another symbol that Prudence remembered seeing once before, on a charm. As she recalled it meant ‘for a thousand years’. The thing is, the charm had belonged to the Ruddy Woman from Thorpe and the Ruddy Woman had been hung as a witch and buried under stones a full year past. Here it was more like two hearts. Two dark hearts, she mused. Two dark hearts plotting together for a thousand years.
“So you carve a witches mark?” she said, her voice low and snarling. “I should have known. You are indeed one of them. The brazen-faced, affronted brood that walks among us.” Spittle sparked between her teeth just as a barbastelle bat, no doubt searching for moths, swooped low in front of her face. As sure a sign as Prudence needed that what stared back at her now was indeed a Devil’s child.
Rachael said nothing, for nothing would come, but her eyes were wide. Every last breath had been stolen. Only now did she see the blade and only now did she see that there was no safe passage around it.
Prudence crouched down, tilted her head gently and slowly and, with an uncaring smile, pointed the blade directly at Rachael’s throat, just touching. It dug in each time she quivered. Prudence’s contempt for the ragged figured, her usually bonny face bloodied and filthy, was more than evident. “You mark the way for your impes do you?” she sneered. “I heard tell that the devil can sharpen a witch’s cunning, so that she might conceal the place in which she fed her impes.” She leaned forward and curled her lip. “So summon them,” she said, spitting the word. “Summon them now so that I might watch them suckle from you.”
She lowered the knife to the buttons at the top of Rachael’s dress and then used the tip to slide away loose strands of hair like the opening of bright red devilish curtains, the remaining black strands creating the impression of deep folds. Then she turned the blade on its side, placed it between the first and second button and slowly carved upward, cutting the thread. The button popped away.
Then the second. Then the third. Little by little the fabric folded under its own weight until the top of Rachael’s pale bosom was exposed.
And now it was Prudence’s breath that was stolen. Silence once more took over the forest. Eventually she gasped, staggered backward a little and raised her free hand to her mouth.
The cross. Upside down and clear as day, embossed upon Rachael’s suckling privacies. The skin was stretched taut and reddened, the edges cracking under the strain as the evil no doubt tried to burn its way to the fore. It was ragged and flaky, but the overall shape was clear and defined and was not to be mistaken. It was most definitely unholy.
A sign of a witch, surely? No... no, no, NO, Prudence thought... more than that. Much more. The sign of the devil himself. She was thinking now, her eyes flitting swiftly, her mind awash. She had seen many a witch but never one so clearly marked. None so brazen. Yes, this must make Rachael Garland a very, very important witch indeed. An ambassador for the Dark every bit a powerful perhaps as her Lord Jesus had been an ambassador for the light.
“Witch!!” She spat the word then spat full-on at Rachael, her phlegm hitting her just below the left eye. Her face curled, her hand clenched tight around the knife and she raised her arm back, ready to strike as hard and as fast as she could. She took her aim, as one might expect, directly at the unholy cross itself.
The dark heart.
“Prudence!!!”
She froze. She knew that voice. She still wanted to strike but it was, even now, the one voice which could make her weak with its sound, the one voice which could stop her dead in her tracks.
“Put the knife down, Prudence.” Calmer now. Reassuring.
She turned to see Master William, at the very edge of the path. He was in the clearing just enough to catch the strains of light which now shaped his face. That beautiful, masculine face sent by God himself and glistening in the blue with a fine sheen of sweat. Prudence looked to him for a moment then slowly filled up. He had seen her. Her love had seen her. She could not kill the girl now. Could she? Tears started to fall.
“She... She is witch,” she sobbed. “She needs be stopped.”
“Not a witch,” William replied, slowly shaking his head. “Just... a wretch. Lost, alone and... innocent. A wretch must not be stopped, Prudence, a wretch must be saved.”
Prudence turned to Rachael once more and raised the knife a second time, her lip curling like a snarling dog defending its food. Rachael flinched. “NO!” Rachael screamed, “She must be...”
“Prudence!” William’s sharp bark left no uncertainty as to who might be top dog in this pack. “NO!!”
She wavered, closed her eyes slowly as she breathed through clenched teeth, then sank to her backside, her left arm falling to the ground and taking the knife with it. Her fingers splayed and it fell to the grass. Resigned. Beaten. Rachael still dare not move. Instead, she sat motionless, save for the shivering. She looked as though she had endured a thousand nights of cold.
William took just a moment to survey the situation then issued his next command. “Boy. Take Prudence home.” He did not turn his gaze away from Prudence. Not for an instant.
Having been told to stay back in the darkest of shadows, Thomas now stepped forward into the clearing. He too looked scared. Most probably of a lot of things, but most strongly of Prudence. “But, Sir...”
William spaced the words as carefully as his eyes watched the girls. “Boy... Take. Prudence. Home.”
The boy reluctantly did as he was told, approaching the still sobbing girl cautiously and then, in a manner which belied his youth, helping her to her feet and ultimately escorting her past William, out of the clearing and into the darkness of the path forward. She did not look at him; she could not bring herself to do it, such was her shame, but he looked to her. His eyes followed her without him ever moving his head. He felt for her, truly he did, but this time... this time the poor deluded Prudence might just have gone a little too far.
When they were gone he slowly walked toward Rachael, though she shunned his approach just as fearfully as she had Prudence, backing away from him on her elbows. It took all his strength not to reach out and touch her, to hold her and comfort her. His eyes were telling her that she had nothing to fear, not any more, and still she shook like a beaten cur. He dared not touch her, lest she snap at him like that same cur reborn. It was then that he saw the fresh mark on Old Knobbley. The light inner wood of the sagacious old oak was standing clear, even in fading light, from the darkness of the gnarled and weathered bark which surrounded it.
A sign, recently carved... and seemingly by Rachael herself. It was not unlike one he too had seen some time ago... used to represent the Roman number for one thousand. Two ‘Cs’, one turned about so that they faced each other. Many took it to mean a thousand, though many took it to mean just that: ‘many’. A huge number, perhaps one without end. And here was something similar, but formed into a never ending loop. One that might continue forever and ever. Instead of the outermost sides being perfect Cs, however, these were kinked. It looked, to his unscientific eye, almost like two love hearts had been laid on their sides and made to touch at the tip. It looked... beautiful. Perfect in shape, symmetry and perhaps even in implied meaning. It was kind of shape his friend, John Wallis, might call ‘mathematically beautiful’. He traced the edges with his hand, following a full loop until his finger rested right back where it had started.
Yes, he mused, two hearts. Two hearts which touched each other. The completion of an unbreakable cycle.
Two hearts. One whole.
“What is this mark..?” he asked gently. “Did you carve this..?”
R
achael looked straight at him. Still scared. No, he thought, not scared; terrified. Shaking like a fly in a web. Tears ran thick down her cheeks, ruddying her pale skin until it nigh-on matched the emergent colour of her hair. Her lips were wet and stringy, her eyelids shuddering and, for a few brief moments, it seemed as though she did not know how to respond. Or, indeed, whether or not she should even respond at all.
“I... can’t...” she began.
William tilted his head softly. “Go on...?”
“I can’t... go home,” she said eventually. Her voice was weak, cracking like dry grain and her words, spread by fear, were punctuated by sobbing breaths.
On the conversations they had already shared, limited as they might have been, he knew as much. He still did not know for certain where it might be that this poor girl considered to be ‘home’ but he had become increasingly aware that, wherever it had been, return was not an option.
“And this symbol...?” he said, looking down to it.
She looked up at him, though her eyes were pleading to something well beyond him and tears were now breaching the fragile dam once more. They coursed her cheeks like the sky’s electric shards as they fought their way to earth.
“I want my home..,” he she said. Then stopped.
She opened her mouth to speak twice more before the third attempt finally delivered the full set of words.
“I want my home..,” she sobbed, “...to come to me.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Sunday, August 23, 2043.
Manningtree, Essex, England.
“You know what you have to do,” she said. “You do.”
I didn’t. How could I? It was one thing to send Alison back; that was my job. I went home afterwards and I got on with my life. And I did it in my own place. In my own time.
The clearing was not dissimilar to the one in which Victoria lived but on a smaller scale, certainly in terms of the size of the trees. It was empty and it felt it and it felt cold and removed. So very far from home in every sense. The only sounds were the leaves, cracking and getting ready to fall for the winter and some cawing birds somewhere in the distance. If one listened intently one could catch the faint hum of traffic in the distance but that was civilisation and civilisation seemed a very long way away right now.
I ran my finger against the bark of Old Knobbley, tracing a rich network of lines which had formed over hundreds of years. Like lives intertwining, stories being exchanged and history repeating itself even when it crossed its own path. This tree was huge, and wide and wiry with no main trunk shooting upward into the sky, as Diamond had, but rather five or six thick branches arching out around all sides as though to shelter those who came shuffling to her base. To offer sanctuary from dark skies. To bring solace.
“She dies,” I said. “Here.”
“Yes,” Victoria said. “I think she does. What I want to know is how were so sure before we saw that book that it was 1645? I’ve studied everything I can on this unholy mess and not even I have been able to get a definitive date.”
“The dots,” I said, a gentle smile of admiration. “That cross is old and pitted but there were definitely dots placed carefully under certain letters. And they were deliberate. Much, much deeper than the other marks.” I thought back to my study of the cross resting in the glass case and the letters carved within it: MEDIUS CRUX EXCUCIO RELEVO. “MDCXLV,” I said softly. “She was marking out a date. 1645.”
Victoria smiled to herself. “She was calling for you.”
I took a deep breath. “She’s dead!” I said eventually, throwing all the weight I could onto the word.
Victoria crouched down beside me and she too ran her finger tentatively along the symbol. “Yes, she is. But not yet. She was very much alive when she carved this. Alive, and alone. She needed you and so she called for you, that’s what people do. They call and you come. The question is, Mr. Strauss, are you going to answer her?”
I gritted my teeth, closing my eyes for just a moment and fighting back the frustration. “What the hell can I do..? Watch her die? Watch them take her and hang her? Watch them throw her body down…” I closed my mouth, not wanting to actually form the words. “Watch them dispose of her. I can’t change it, even you know that. I can’t change anything. Them’s the rules. Isn’t that what they say?”
Victoria did not reply. After all, what could she say? I tilted my head and ran my finger again, tracing the shape in a never ending series of loops. This was her symbol. Our symbol. I wore it on my wrist day in and day out, and I hoped I always would. At some stage in the past, some time in 1645, Rachael had been here and she had carved this symbol. Why, I didn’t know and even if I did, I didn’t really want to admit it.
“Perhaps she found someone else?” I said, shrugging. “Perhaps she was happy and she carved it for them?”
“You don’t believe that,” she said, almost snarling. “This is the oldest tree in England, a tree that will outlive her for centuries. She knew what she was doing. She’d been thrown back to a different time like an old rag and, even though I struggle to get my head around any of this shit half the time, she knew it was possible. She knew that someone could come for her, if they had the stones. All she had to do, in her head, was get a message through to them and this was her only way of doing that. She’s a very clever girl, Mr. Strauss. You know it, I know it. That’s how she found a way to give you a date. She wants you to come to her.”
“You don’t know what she wants,” I said. I sounded angry. “You don’t know anything about her and you don’t know anything about me. Or us. Sure, you’ve read stuff, lots of stuff. Books and bits of papers and TV shows and all your crap. Big deal. Don’t pretend that gives you even the slightest insight into what we had.”
“Do I know you?” she said firmly. She sounded angry too. “No, I don’t. Do I know people like you? Oh, hell yes. Yes, I do, Mr. Smarty Pants. You’re ‘Strauss’ aren’t you? You’re a bit of a laugh, a bit flirty. Always the life of the party, always there with a crap joke, a smile and a wink. But then you went and met the woman you love, didn’t you? And you do love her. Don’t you? So now it’s time, Mr. Strauss. Time to grow the fuck up. But you don’t want to, do you? You want to carry on being just you and playing your silly games. Trying to be Strauss-the-lad all the goddam time.” She looked at me with harsh, narrowed eyes. “Except, you can’t cling on to who you were any more. That’s gone. Forever. Be she isn’t. She needs you, Mr. Strauss. She needs you now and she is all but begging you to come for her. She doesn’t know she is going to die, she doesn’t know we have the evidence, but that’s all irrelevant, isn’t it? She’s scared and alone and trapped in a place and time she really doesn’t understand. She has nobody and she’s calling to the one person she believes can help her. The question is… are you going to step up. Or were you just playing games all along?”
“I love her,” I said, and I meant it. “I will always love her. But she is dead. I cannot change that.”
“I know,” Victoria sighed. “But ask yourself: what do you have here? Really? They’re going to kill you because, rather surprisingly for you, you know too much. You know all about this shit and they really can’t have that, can they? Even if you live, and I’m not going to be placing money on that, then what else do you have? Rachael is gone, the job is gone, the life you lived… is gone. Sorry to be so blunt with you, Mr. Strauss, but whether they kill you or not, you life is gone.” She made a ‘poof’ gesture with her hands, then looked at me quite seriously. “Or is it? Is there more to come? You could have one more day. One more week. One more month.”
“Lots more pain.”
Victoria snorted in derision. “Alison went back to help her mother and she never gave it a second thought. Never batted an eyelid. She stepped up and did what she had to do. She knew something you didn’t.”
I looked up. “What’s that?”
“That it’s not all about you, you selfish little fuck.”
I looked at the tree again,
Old Knobbley, wishing I could argue. Victoria was right, annoying as that was: Rachael was a very clever girl, one of innumerate many reasons I loved her. She had even found a way to tell me when to come - where to find her, chronologically speaking.
I thought back to Alison, just getting on with it. Doing what she needed to do. Nobody was trying to kill her, not that I know of and still she went back. She went back because her mother was scared and alone and there were things that needed to be done. Victoria was right again; Alison hadn’t thought twice about it.
On the plus side, I didn’t have to decide just yet. Rachael would be here whether I waited a month or a year. I could try to get my head around at least some of this. I could take some time to decide what it was that I really wanted to do. If I did head back, then I could head back to 1645. I could be fifty years old if I wanted, it would change nothing for Rachael.
“I don’t have to decide just yet,” I said slowly. “Just because somebody is offering me a gift doesn’t mean I have to take it, does it? I need some time. Time to think about it.”
Silence.
More silence. Slowly, it became apparent that it was an amount that could feasibly be classed as ‘too much’. I turned to Victoria and, when I did, I really did not like the look on her face.
“What..?” I said. “What are you not telling me?”
TWENTY-SIX
Thursday, November 24, 1644.
Thorpe-Le-Soken, Suffolk, England.
“They say you is a finder of witches..?” the girl said, sounding nervous and breathless with excitement at the same time.
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