Piece of cake.
He waited his turn to descend the ladder and cautiously stood up straight again. The Americans were taking photos. Lots of photos. Josh edged past them with a smile and leaned against the wall at the foot of the steps as though he was looking at the light drizzling down through the manhole cover. He put one palm flat on the wall, spread his fingers and waited for something to happen.
He could still see the Americans, but either they had stopped talking, or he couldn’t hear them any more. Instead, there were fleeting snatches of conversation buzzing through the air around him.
How much further?
About twenty feet or so.
And how much longer?
That conversation faded out to be replaced by another.
Hush! Be quiet and listen.
What are we listening for?
Someone else digging.
I hear it!
And faintly now, Josh too felt the sound of hammer and pick on stone. He kept listening, but there was nothing else he could understand, just buzzes and whines and half-heard words. It was like listening to a badly tuned radio.
He gave it five minutes and took his hand away. That should certainly be long enough: Rose and Bessie had said a couple of minutes would do.
The Americans had gone back up the ladder and were taking more photos in the narrow tunnel. As Josh reached the upper level he saw them making their way out, but he didn’t mind. The lights were on, he could see daylight from the entrance, and transmitting the recording – if that really was what he’d been doing – had been no problem at all.
He decided he may as well be comfortable, so he sat down at the side of the tunnel and put his hands flat on the stone floor…
Perhaps hell will be like this.
I wipe sweat off my filthy face, try to ease my spine. The tunnel is far too low to stand up.
Something hits me in the back and I sprawl on the muddy floor. The commander’s boot.
“Get up, boy! There’s no time for idling. Get back to work.”
I pull myself to my knees and grip the handle of the pickaxe.
“Get on with it, boy, or you’ll feel my boot again.”
“Aye, sir.” It’s not what I want to say. I swing the pickaxe.
I am living in a nightmare.
11. DUNCAN’S STORY
I am living in a nightmare.
The three of us work in silence, for all the good that does. The hammers and picks make more noise than our voices ever could.
I am sweating again, partly from effort, but mostly from fear. The tunnel has had three false starts, but now the commanders are convinced we are digging in the right direction. That means, of course, that at some point we will break through into the besiegers’ tunnel. I am afraid to think further than that.
I should have stayed safe in Pitmillie.
I came here to work in the kitchens, then the Protestant rebels tricked their way in and murdered the Cardinal, and suddenly I’m down in the black dark, digging, stuck in the middle of a siege. I shouldn’t be here. I should be with Elspeth.
Every few minutes we stop and listen, but there is nothing but the drip of water and our own harsh breathing. The flames of the stinking tallow candles flicker with each breath.
Please God, don’t let them go out and drown us in darkness.
Without warning, earth and small stones begin to shower down from the roof.
“Get back!”
We scrabble across the uneven floor like spiders. Is this the cave-in that we dread all the time?
The trickle of earth slows, stops.
“Right, it’s safe. Get back to work.” The commander’s voice again.
Safe? How does he know it’s safe? Safe for him, at the mouth of the tunnel. They’re all the same, afraid to soil their hands, for all their talk of fighting, making kitchen lads like us do the dangerous work.
“I said, get back to work.” A heavy hand hits me round the head and a wave of anger snaps through me, leaving my skin tingling.
“Why don’t you take a turn?” The words burst out of me before I can stop them. “Are you feared your hands will get dirty? Or are you just feared?”
The commander swings a fist, but he must be off-balance, because his feet shoot out from under him and he goes down like a felled tree. His head hits the rock wall with a cracking sound as he falls.
The others stop digging, stare at him, then at me.
“What have you done, Duncan Corphat?”
“I never touched him. You know that. I lost my temper and shouted, but I never laid a hand on him.”
It is true and yet it is a lie, for I know I did this. The tingling in my skin… it comes when Satan’s power works in me. I have tried, often and often, to pray it out of me, but it will not leave.
I am surely damned.
I think of Elspeth again, fleetingly, something bright among all my dark thoughts. But that too turns to anger. I should be with her. It’s near her time. I should be there, not rooting in the dark here like a mole.
My blood runs thick with anger and I feel the treacherous tingling again. I try to ignore it, take up the pickaxe once more and go back to work. After a moment, the others follow.
Hammer on rock. Drip of water. Half an hour has gone by, and still the commander doesn’t move.
Have I killed him?
I am too afraid to go and see. The metallic taste of fear is in my mouth. I am in hell, doomed to swing this pickaxe over and over again until the world ends.
“Stop!” the single word is a desperate whisper. A finger points at the rock wall.
A pinprick of light. Coming through the wall. The other tunnel!
God have mercy.
They must have heard us. They must be waiting for us.
We creep back, silently. It’s soldiers they need down here, not kitchen boys. We get perhaps a dozen feet and then the wall detonates in front of us.
I hear screaming, but I do not know if it comes from my throat. The treacherous power comes sweeping through me and there is no chance, no time to control it.
Satan is coming for me.
The power explodes out of me like thunder, and…
“Josh?”…“Josh?”…“JOSH!”
Someone slapped his face and he gasped a breath and focussed his eyes. Callie stared at him, wide-eyed with fear.
“Josh? Can you hear me?”
He looked round in confusion.
I’m Josh. That’s right. I’m Josh, not Duncan.
“What happened?” He pulled himself to his feet, grabbed the handrail for support and, without waiting for an answer, started hauling himself towards the entrance to the tunnel, Callie on his heels.
He emerged into sunlight and fell to his knees, gasping for breath, unable to comprehend what had just happened to him. Callie was beside him, speaking to him, but he couldn’t take in what she was saying.
He heard the sound of other voices and lifted his head to see Rose and Bessie hurrying towards him.
“I’m all right,” he managed to say, and with Callie’s help got to his feet, pushing his hair back from his sweaty forehead.
“Josh, dear, are you all right? We had no idea you would be affected like that,” said Rose, “or we never would have asked you to do it.”
“I’m fine,” he said brusquely, walking away from the gaping tunnel entrance. He ploughed determinedly all the way across to the seaward side of the castle, Callie mute at his side, leaned over a railing and was sick down the cliff.
After a few seconds he straightened up and turned away from the rail, wiping his mouth. Rose and Bessie had sat down on a bench some distance away.
“You look terrible,” Callie said. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” He looked at her properly. “You look pretty awful yourself.”
“You were in there for ages,” she went on. “What were you doing?”
“It was only a few minutes.”
“Josh, it was nearly tw
enty minutes. That was why I came down.” She shivered. “Rose and Bessie knew something was wrong, but they didn’t know what. We kept thinking you’d come out, but you didn’t, so I had to come down and you were just sitting there, staring into space.”
“They said nothing would happen to me.” Josh looked over at Rose and Bessie, who looked anxiously back at him. “They lied to me to make me go down there.”
“No, Josh, honestly. You should have seen them. They had no idea what was going on. They were really worried. They wouldn’t have asked you to go down if they’d thought anything could happen to you.”
“Do they know what I saw?”
“I think so. But I don’t. Will you tell me?”
“I don’t want to have to go over it more than once.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll go and talk to them as well.”
He walked across to Rose and Bessie and sat down at the end of the bench, as far from them as possible. Callie sat next to him.
“Feeling better?” Bessie rummaged in her handbag and handed Josh a bottle of water. He took it without answering and swallowed several mouthfuls before he spoke.
“Did you know what would happen to me?”
Rose’s shock was apparent. “Heavens, no. We would never have sent you in there if we’d expected anything like that to happen.”
“What did happen to me?”
“I don’t know,” said Rose.
“Perhaps it’s because you’ve been in the tunnels before, and then had contact with whatever it is we’re dealing with at Callie’s,” suggested Bessie.
“Maybe that’s somehow sensitised you to what’s down there,” added Rose, nodding.
“But nothing happened the first time I did it – in the big tunnel. I heard a few voices, but that was all.”
“It was the emotion that did it – it was so much stronger at this end of the tunnel. That’s why it affected you so much more.”
Rose leaned across and put a hand on Josh’s shoulder.
“If it’s any comfort at all, we’ve learned a huge amount from what you went through.”
“Will someone please explain to me what Josh saw, what we’ve found out?” Callie almost shouted.
“Yes, of course Callie. But not here, I think. Can we go to your house, Bessie?”
“I think we’d better.”
***
Twenty minutes later they were sitting in Bessie’s garden. Callie looked as though she might burst if someone didn’t tell her very soon exactly what was going on.
“You start, Rose,” Bessie said.
“All right. Bessie, Josh, stop me if I miss anything out or you think I’ve got something wrong.
“The people who dug the tunnel out from the castle – that’s the narrow bit – weren’t soldiers, just castle servants,” Rose continued. “They were young lads from the surrounding villages, who hadn’t much interest in the vendetta that had trapped them inside the castle. They weren’t soldiers, they weren’t miners, but they were suddenly expected to become both. They were angry, but most of all, they were frightened.
“At least one of them was from Pitmillie: a boy called Duncan Corphat, a bit older than you are now.”
“Duncan Corphat? Why is that name familiar?” Josh asked.
“Janet Corphat,” replied Callie. “We found out about her last summer, remember? She was one of Agnes Blair’s witch friends.”
“That’s right. This was about a hundred and fifty years before they were alive, mind you,” said Bessie. “Josh, can you remember what Duncan was feeling?”
Josh nodded. “Yeah. It’s still very clear.” He closed his eyes for a few seconds. “He was really, really frightened. And he was angry he was being made to dig. But…” he cast about for the right words, “it was as if he was afraid of himself more than anything. I think he worried that he was possessed. He kept talking – no, thinking, I suppose – about Satan’s power flowing through him. He’d tried praying, but it didn’t help. He’d feel a tingling and the power would break loose.”
Callie drew a sharp breath. “Did you say tingling?”
“That’s right.”
Callie looked from Josh to Rose and Bessie. “Now it makes sense. Duncan Corphat was a witch. Somehow, it’s him doing all these things, isn’t it?”
“We think so,” said Rose.
“But he didn’t know what he was,” said Bessie. “So he’d had no help from anyone to deal with the power. It just broke out when he got angry, so he thought it was a sign of evil.”
“He thought he’d hurt the commander,” said Josh excitedly. “Maybe killed him.”
Rose nodded. “We saw that.”
“Okay,” said Callie. “So Duncan Corphat was an untrained witch, and that’s what all this power is that’s ricocheting round my house, but that still doesn’t explain why it was me that it latched on to. You said there’ll have been witches down there every year. Why not one of them? Why me?”
“Hang on, hang on,” Josh interjected. “You keep saying Duncan was a witch. Surely you mean a wizard? Witches are always women, aren’t they?”
Bessie tutted. “Indeed they are not. Wizards don’t do anything useful. They’re just daft men who like to dress up and wave sticks around. Any excuse for a party. Witches can be men or women, and they’re the ones who have real power. There have been a good few male witches round here over the years.”
“Though none since John Fordyce died,” interjected Rose. “I think that line must have died out with him.”
“Now, Callie, back to your question – and it’s a good one,” Bessie continued. “The answer’s in the poor lad’s name and where he’s from.”
“Duncan Corphat from Pitmillie,” said Rose. “No one moved around much in those days. Lots of people were born, married and died without ever leaving their village. He must have been quite adventurous to have got as far as St Andrews.”
“Do you think he was an ancestor of Janet Corphat?” Callie asked.
“Yes I do,” Rose said. “And Agnes Blair,” she added. “And you. I think perhaps it was from him that all the Pitmillie witches down the years inherited their powers.”
There was silence in the room.
“But wasn’t Duncan killed in the tunnel?” asked Josh. “Surely that explosion…” He stopped as something suddenly occurred to him. “Wait a minute; there were two explosions. Was the first caused by the besiegers and the second one because of him? Was it Duncan’s power that brought the roof down?”
Rose nodded. “I think it was, from what we saw just now. And yes, I’m sure Duncan must have died when the tunnel collapsed, or his memories wouldn’t end so abruptly. Poor lad,” she said sadly.
“But he can’t be my ancestor if he died without having children, and you said he was just a young lad,” Callie protested.
Rose ignored her for the moment and spoke to Josh.
“Can you remember what Duncan was thinking when they went back to digging after the commander’s accident?”
“He was furious that he was stuck in the castle. He wanted to go home to Pitmillie.”
“Why?” Rose coaxed.
“There was a girl… Elspeth. He wanted to be with her. He said her time was near. What does that mean? Was she dying?”
“It means she was pregnant. This Elspeth was expecting Duncan’s child and her time to have the baby was near. They might have been married. People sometimes got married very young back then. You couldn’t count on living to be old.”
“Poor Duncan,” said Callie quietly. “He thought he was possessed by the Devil, he died under the ground trapped like a rat, and he never got to see his child. That’s awful. No wonder he brought so much anger out with him.
“It all fits together: the reason he attached himself to me is not just because I’m a witch; it’s because I’m a witch who’s descended from him.”
“And who hasn’t fully taken control of her power yet,” added Rose.
“But wouldn’t there have been others who
went down between fifteen whatever and now?” Josh wasn’t quite convinced.
“The tunnel was blocked off for centuries,” Bessie replied. “It was only rediscovered a hundred-odd years ago. How many half-trained witches from Pitmillie who’re descended from Duncan Corphat do you think have been down there?”
“Probably just the one,” he had to admit.
12. CONFRONTATIONS
Callie kept rubbing at the black mark on her wrist as Rose drove back to Pitmillie. It was definitely bigger than it had been yesterday.
There wasn’t much conversation in the car, as the three of them tried to absorb what they’d learned in St Andrews.
Josh felt slightly disconnected, part of him still embroiled in Duncan’s memories. How long would it take for them to fade, he wondered.
Now that she had an explanation for what was going on and why, Callie felt more optimistic about the situation, in spite of the dark blot on her arm. She felt sorry for poor Duncan Corphat. She wanted him out of her house, but she also wanted to help him. All these years with part of his mind – spirit – soul – whatever it was – trapped and helpless in the dark. At least she could tell him that his child must have survived.
Rose dropped Josh at the cottages, and she and Callie got out at The Smithy.
“Ask your dad if they want to stay here tonight,” Rose reminded her. “And George and I will see you later.”
“All right.”
***
As she walked home, Callie could see a tarpaulin had been fixed over the hole in the roof. Apart from that, the house looked normal, from the outside at least.
She let herself in and went into the sitting room to find her father slumped in an armchair. He didn’t even acknowledge her.
“Dad? How are things?”
He looked at her as though he wasn’t sure what she meant. After a moment, he spoke.
“It’s all falling apart. The house is just the start of it. Everything’s coming apart: house, marriage, work. There’s no point trying to stop it.”
“What? Dad, what’s wrong? What are you talking about?”
“I’m tired, Callie. I don’t want to talk just now.”
Dark Spell Page 10
