Gallows at Twilight

by William Hussey

  Twilight had come.

  Darkness crept from the corners of the world and Jake’s pain slipped away. The noise of battle, the fear of the future, the terror of death—none of it mattered any more.

  The light was waiting for him.

  Jacob Harker—his true self—was going home.

  Wrapped in this sense of peace, Jake looked out into the square and saw the figure coming towards him. She moved with ghost-like ease through the warring mob. The people didn’t seem conscious of her presence, and yet they moved aside to let her pass. Her pace was swift and assured. Within seconds, she had slipped between what remained of the guards and was at the foot of the gallows.

  Jake’s legs ceased to twitch. His heart slowed. Stopped. His head fell forward and, with his last scrap of energy, he looked down on the figure in grey. The light of her soul burned around her with all the fire of the setting sun.

  The girl pulled back her hood and lifted her face to him.

  Jake felt his heart throb once more.

  Her name creaked between his lips.

  ‘Eleanor … ’

  Chapter 24

  Fight and Flight

  Hearing her name spoken by Jake, the girl’s cool, determined expression broke apart. She looked at him with such grief in her eyes that Jake forgot the pain of his execution and felt the twist of a deeper agony in his soul. Words came to him, both familiar and strange—

  My Eleanor of the May. My own sweet girl …

  She swung herself up onto the platform, sweeping the short sword from her belt as she did so, and landing noiselessly behind Sergeant Monks. Her movements, so smooth and dextrous, stirred a memory. Jake had once known another nimble warrior with golden hair and bright wide eyes, but with his senses fading he could no longer recall the girl’s name.

  Eleanor jabbed her sword between Monks’s shoulder blades. The sergeant squealed like a stuck pig. Then he looked over his shoulder and his expression switched from terror to amusement.

  ‘But you’re just a girl!’

  ‘A girl with a sword,’ Eleanor corrected.

  She flipped the weapon and brought its heavy handle crashing down on Monks’s head. The man dropped the dagger that he had been holding to Lanyon’s throat and keeled over onto his back. Eleanor kicked the unconscious sergeant aside.

  ‘The Preacher said you’d help me.’ She eyed Lanyon with a trace of distrust. ‘And the Preacher’s never wrong, so move yourself.’

  Lanyon nodded and raced across the gallows. He caught hold of Jake’s legs and hauled him to the platform. Although the noose was still tight around his throat, the relentless pressure of gravity that had stretched Jake’s spine was gone. Meanwhile, Eleanor took a run up and used the unwary Lanyon’s back as a springboard. She rolled into the air, the sword held against the side of her body. At the apex of her leap, she struck out and, with a single blow, cut the rope.

  Lanyon tightened his hold around Jake as the boy dropped. Together, they collapsed onto the platform. With Jake still struggling for breath, Lanyon retrieved his dagger and started cutting away at the noose. The rope was thick, the knots drawn taut, and the vicar’s fingers fumbled with fear. Eleanor pushed him aside and went to work with her own, sharper blade. Beneath the rope, she found a raw and ragged collar of skin. Air creaked into Jake’s lungs.

  ‘M-my Eleanor of the May … ’

  ‘Don’t call me that! Those are not your words.’ She turned to Lanyon. ‘Get him to his feet.’

  Jake’s heart burned. A few cruel words from this girl and he wished that he had been left on the gallows. Better to hang, to die, than to be unloved by her.

  Lanyon tore the sleeves from his shirt and quickly bandaged Jake’s throat. The three figures on the gallows stood together in the darkness after twilight. Less than five minutes had elapsed between Eleanor’s arrival in the square and Jake’s rescue. In that time, the fighting between the guards and the mob had reached a lull and now all eyes had turned once more to the Cravenmouth witch.

  ‘It’s the vicar!’ one of the guards shouted. ‘The vicar stands with the witch!’

  ‘I can get us out of here,’ Eleanor whispered. ‘The Preacher has given me the means, but … ’

  ‘But?’ Jake wheezed.

  ‘It is a magical pathway, designed to carry only us two.’

  The mood of the crowd was like quicksilver. Within the blink of an eye, they had turned from self-righteous citizens back into a superstitious mob. Seeing their chance to escape the crowd’s mercurial anger, the guards spoke up.

  ‘Mr Lanyon has always been a friend of the witch!’

  ‘Master Hopkins told us so!’

  ‘Aye, I’ve seen it with me own eyes.’ This was Constable Utterson, his voice ringing through the square. ‘The vicar always spoke very prettily on the witch’s behalf. Now he has brought another of their coven to save the boy!’

  The crowd surged forward, swords and pikes, bricks and torches, stones and halberds in hand. Their twisted mouths and narrowed eyes told their intention very clearly. There would be no trial and no tidy execution for these damned witches. The mob planned to tear them to pieces, here and now, and leave the scraps for the dogs.

  ‘You must go,’ Lanyon said. ‘Leave while you still can.’

  Eleanor nodded sadly. ‘It’s as the Preacher foretold. You are a brave man, Mr Lanyon.’

  ‘No. I’ve been a coward all my life, but now I have the chance to make my mother proud.’ He smiled at Jake. ‘Goodbye, my brother in Oldcraft.’

  The vicar turned and walked to the front of the platform. A few stray stones struck his face, but the man held his ground. The mob had started shaking the legs of the gallows and climbing the ladder when Jake made his dash. He caught Lanyon’s arm and dragged him back.

  ‘If we’re going, we’re going together.’

  ‘But it’s his destiny to die here,’ Eleanor objected. ‘The Preacher has foreseen it.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we have a saying in the twenty-first century,’ Jake licked his bone-dry lips. ‘Destiny-schmestiny. He’s coming with us.’

  The girl’s frosty expression thawed. Her hand, small and strong, went to Jake’s chest and pressed against his heart. She studied his face and her voice cracked with emotion.

  ‘It’s what he would have done.’

  Jake covered her hand with his. Their eyes met and he felt the spark of some forgotten fire in his soul. It was her and it always had been. The mover of his magic …

  ‘If I may?’ Lanyon interrupted. ‘Whatever you’re going to do, you better get on with it.’

  ‘When I give the word, you must close your eyes.’ Eleanor’s gaze remained fixed on Jake. ‘Do you understand? You must not see what happens. If you catch even the slightest glimpse, the Preacher has told me that the war with the demons will be lost before it has even begun.’

  ‘But why? What’re you gonna do?’

  ‘No questions. Just promise me.’

  Jake gave a reluctant nod.

  During their discussion, the mob and the guards had climbed the scaffold and were now closing in on their prey. Scarred and limping, this half-mad horde still screeched for blood. They were within striking distance when Eleanor reached into her cloak and gave Jake the command:

  ‘CLOSE YOUR EYES!’

  A split second before he obeyed, Jake caught sight of a man standing on the far side of the platform.

  Matthew Hopkins, the infamous Witchfinder General, coughed and a speckle of blood stained his lips.

  ‘I will find you, witch!’ he bellowed. ‘If I have to follow you into the depths of hell, I will find you! YOU CAN NEVER ESCAPE MEEEeeee!’

  A silver explosion flashed against Jake’s closed lids. A rush of wind as he was lifted into the air. An electric crackle and, before the darkness reclaimed his senses, the touch of earth, the sight of trees, the hush of a forest, and …

  Her. Eleanor. Lying beside him.

  Years had fractured.

  Centuries crumbled
.

  Time itself had shown that it could be kind.

  Jacob—Josiah—had found his Eleanor again …

  ‘Daybreak. We have to move.’

  Jake was shaken roughly by the shoulder. He woke to find himself in the forest glade he had glimpsed the night before. A beautiful face fringed with golden, dawn-drenched hair loomed over him. He smiled, and the smile broke into every corner of his being. Untouched for so long, deep memories and feelings were rising to the surface.

  As Jake blinked up at Eleanor, he suddenly realized who she reminded him of. Although they were separated by hundreds of years they could have been sisters, or even twins, for they looked about the same age: Eleanor of the May and Rachel Saxby … Jake sat up. A little sigh of surprise passed his lips. Of course! They were related. Rachel was a descendant of Josiah Hobarron, and so this young woman must be her distant ancestor too! A great-great-great-great-great (probably a few more greats) grandmother!

  He laughed and the girl leaning over him smiled.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘I don’t think I can explain it,’ Jake said. ‘It’s too crazy!’

  Eleanor’s smile widened, and Jake saw a line of white teeth, perfect except for a slight dent on her left canine.

  ‘Chip,’ he said softly.

  Eleanor’s face hardened.

  ‘Don’t call me that.’ She jumped to her feet and hurried towards the campfire. ‘That was his name for me.’

  ‘Eleanor, wait.’

  Jake tried to stand. He had expected flashes of agony to strike along his neck, spine, shoulders, arms and legs, but there was no pain. Not even the slightest twinge. Stunned, he rolled his head and stretched his muscles.

  Jake looked at the girl slouched beside the campfire.

  ‘How?’

  When Eleanor didn’t answer the man sitting on the log next to her gave a huge smile.

  ‘Magic,’ said Mr Lanyon. ‘Wonderful, miraculous, spiritual, beautiful, godly magic!’

  And with that the vicar leapt off the log and started dancing around the fire. He sang snippets of hymns and fragments of tavern songs, verses of scripture and bawdy ballads. It didn’t seem to matter what the words were, so long as the tune could express the joy in his heart. He seemed to Jake like a sun-starved bird that had been released from its cage and given the dawn.

  Jake caught Eleanor’s eye. She was laughing again and clapping her hands to the rhythm of Lanyon’s song. He went and sat beside her on the log and, although her smile faltered, it didn’t fall away completely. At last, Lanyon tired of his dancing and took a seat between his friends.

  ‘Magic!’ he repeated and slapped Jake on the back. ‘I saw it done, my boy. It was the finest, the most beautiful, the most holy sight I have ever seen. Here, let me show you.’

  Tears in his eyes, Lanyon reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a sliver of mirror.

  ‘A piece of my mother’s old looking glass,’ he said. ‘The only thing I have to remember her by … But look! See!’

  Lanyon held the mirror to Jake’s neck. There was not a burn, not a blister, not a bruise. The glass moved to his face and showed that his nose was firm and straight.

  ‘My back?’ Jake asked, his fingers spidering along his spine.

  ‘Healed,’ Lanyon said in a soothing voice. ‘There are no longer any signs of your torture, Jacob. No evidence of the bodkins and the chains. Not a single trace of that hellish witchfinder.’

  Jake beamed. His hand moved over his body, seeking out the places where he had been wounded. All he found was healthy, solid flesh. Then his fingers went to the side of his head and the smile died. His ear was still missing.

  Lanyon and Eleanor exchanged concerned glances.

  ‘It seems that there are limits even to the strongest magic,’ Lanyon sighed.

  ‘The spell can heal wounds and mend bones, but if the damage is too old and too severe … ’ Eleanor reached for Jake’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry, Josiah—I mean … ’

  She stood up. Unashamed of her tears, the girl walked slowly into the forest. Jake was about to follow when Lanyon caught at his sleeve.

  ‘Let her be.’

  He stared into Jake’s eyes—

  She has shared some of her thoughts with me. While you slept, we spoke of many things, strange and wonderful. She told me of this man, Josiah Hobarron, who she grew up with, and who she loved with all her heart. She told me of his gifts, his goodness, his fight against the hidden evils of this world. She told me of his death and of seeing her beloved frozen in a tomb of ice. And now he has returned to her …

  Lanyon grasped Jake by the shoulders.

  You look like him and you have his moral courage. Can you imagine what hopes and terrors your existence holds for her?

  Jake shook his head. I feel for her.

  Do you? Lanyon frowned. Or are you remembering the feelings of another? You must consider that question carefully, my friend.

  The vicar held out his hand.

  ‘Goodbye.’

  Jake pulled him into a hug.

  ‘My cowardice hardly warrants such friendship,’ Lanyon said softly.

  ‘You saved me … in the end.’ Jake winked. ‘I always knew you would. So, where will you go now? Not back to Cravenmouth, I bet!’

  ‘No,’ Lanyon laughed. ‘I had always feared that my “gift” might one day be exposed, and so years ago I buried a little nest-egg near the Crow Haven Tavern on the London Road. I shall dig it up and then hide myself away somewhere in a country parish where no one has heard of Mr Lanyon and the Cravenmouth witch.’

  ‘Good luck,’ Jake said.

  ‘And to you, Jacob Harker. My friend.’

  A few minutes after Lanyon had left, Eleanor re-emerged from the forest. She looked at the vacated spot beside the fire.

  ‘He’s gone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He was a good man.’ She kicked over the ashes, smothering the last embers of the fire. ‘It’s time we were on our way.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To the village, of course. To the Preacher.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Jake protested. ‘I’ve got this mission, this quest, and I need to—’

  ‘The Preacher knows all about your quest, Jacob Harker,’ Eleanor said, leading the way out of the forest. ‘Only he can help you find Josiah’s witch ball. The Preacher sees all.’

  Chapter 25

  The Blind Man of Starfall

  ‘You’ve got your own magic then?’ Jake asked.

  ‘No,’ Eleanor said, her eyes on the road. ‘What you saw was borrowed magic.’

  They had been walking for the better part of a day and Jake’s bare feet were hot and sore. He winced now as he followed Eleanor over a low stone wall that girdled an untidy meadow. Insects droned in the long grass and the breeze hummed through the trees.

  ‘Then how did you teleport us away from the gallows?’

  ‘Tele-what?’

  ‘Um, make us vanish and reappear in the forest?’

  ‘As I said, borrowed magic.’

  Jake shot the girl a sideways look. He gave a wry smile.

  ‘What’s so amusing?’ Eleanor muttered.

  ‘You are, Chippy. You never were much good at keeping secrets.’

  She glanced at him with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance.

  ‘But you—I mean Josiah—he was always the master of secrets. Close as close could be, even when we were children. He’d tease me all the time, hide my dolls and never tell me where they were. One day I found six of them stuffed down the—’

  ‘Well.’ Jake stopped in his tracks. ‘The old dried-up well in Mr Carew’s lower field. You were so upset, and I—he—he felt so ashamed. He couldn’t bear how much he’d hurt you, and it was then that he realized … ’ Jake reached for the girl. ‘He loved you.’

  Eleanor flushed with anger. ‘Please, don’t speak about him.’

  They walked on in silence. With every step new thoughts and feelings ca
scaded in on Jake, memories that came to him unbidden. He found the sensation both exhilarating and troubling.

  In the far distance, Jake could see the shapes of men and women toiling in the fields. He heard the rattle of an oxcart and his thoughts turned to the cart that had borne him and his coffin into the square. If it hadn’t been for Eleanor he would now be buried beneath the gallows, an iron stake driven through his heart.

  ‘The Preacher sees all,’ Jake quoted. ‘This preacher knew that I was coming to Cravenmouth. That I would be executed there.’

  ‘It’s why he sent me,’ Eleanor confirmed.

  ‘He gave you the magic to save me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then why didn’t he send you sooner?’ Jake thought back over the weeks he had spent in the keep. Days and nights of endless torture.

  ‘His vision was of you on the gallows. Only in your dying moments could you be saved. He saw the woman murdered by the guard, the uproar of the crowds. The Preacher, he … ’ the words caught her throat, ‘he told me that you had to suffer at the Witchfinder’s hands; only then would you be prepared.’

  ‘Prepared for what?’

  ‘For what will come. For the journey you will soon have to take into the land of shadows and torment.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Jake asked.

  ‘I’m sorry, the Preacher did not say. He may not even know. His visions are not always complete.’

  ‘But he knows about me? He told you who I am, where I came from.’

  Eleanor nodded. ‘You are him—Josiah—but you are not him. You are a copy, a duplicate of the man I lost. You come from distant times to find the witch ball and then you will go away again. You have the same face and, like him, you will leave … ’

  ‘Eleanor?’

  Jake could see the struggle as the girl forced herself to look at him.

  ‘Will you hold my hand?’

  She hesitated, just for a moment. And then Jake felt the small, strong fingers entwine with his. In that connection, memories, joys, horrors, and hopes passed between them in an unspoken thread of consciousness. They both gasped, and Jake lifted his free hand to the level of his eyes.