Witch Hunt

by Ruth Warburton

  Brimstone was still grazing in the field where Luke had left him, but there was no sign of Rosa as he crossed the stone bridge to the far side of the shore. He was just getting worried when her small worried face peered out from beneath its shadow.

  ‘Who’s that trip-trapping over my bridge? Ain’t that what you’re supposed to say?’ he called down. It was a thin enough attempt at a joke, but she was smiling as he slid down the bank to join her by the shallows.

  ‘Are you saying I look like a troll?’

  ‘About as much as I look like a billy-goat gruff. Bad news. We’re another shilling down.’

  ‘A shilling!’ Rosa was scandalized. ‘Is that how much hair dye costs?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I’m not in the habit of dying my hair. A shilling and thruppence, to be exact.’

  ‘I had no idea it would be so expensive. We’d better get our money’s worth. Should we do me first or him?’ She nodded up the bank at Brimstone. Luke bit his lip.

  ‘Dunno.’ He looked down at the packet. ‘It looks pretty small. Let’s do him first. I’m worried there won’t be enough to cover your hair.’

  ‘I might end up being cropped for a boy yet,’ Rosa said. Luke felt a smile twitch at the corner of his mouth.

  ‘You’ll need to ditch the corsets first.’

  They squatted by the river’s edge, mixing the powder to a paste on a flat dipped stone. It smelt foul, and Rosa made a face as Luke stirred it with a stick.

  ‘If I were Brimstone I’d run a mile before I let you put that on my nose.’

  ‘First of all, you’ll be Brimstone in a second,’ he said. ‘And second, who says I’m the one daubing it on? I’ll be holding his head.’

  Rosa pulled a face and, dipping her fingers into the gunk, made as if to swipe at Luke’s nose with it. Laughing, he scrambled up the bank.

  ‘You’ll have to be quicker than that. And be careful, that’s about half a shilling’s worth you’ve got there.’

  She followed him up slowly, hampered by her skirts and only one free hand. Luke gave her his to pull her up the last few feet, and they walked together across the field to where Brimstone was grazing contentedly.

  ‘All right, me old mate.’ Luke caught him by the bridle and stood for a moment, petting his nose. Then he took a firm hold of his bridle and reins. ‘Go on then.’

  Rosa took a breath, and stood on tiptoe to stroke the stinking gunk down Brimstone’s nose. To Luke’s surprise he stood quietly as she stroked it gently down, and when the white was completely covered he let go of the halter and the horse trotted off to graze in another corner of the field.

  ‘Blimey. He must have lost his sense of smell!’

  ‘I know.’ Rosa sniffed her fingers in distaste. ‘Me next, I suppose.’

  ‘Come on then. Let’s get it over with.’

  They knelt together at the water’s edge and Rosa pulled the pins slowly out of her hair, letting it tumble down her back, rich and glorious, all the colours of fire and flame. Something in his chest swelled at the thought of staining it a muddy brown, and for a moment he hesitated, his hand hovering over the flat stone.

  ‘Wait,’ Rosa said.

  ‘What is it? Have you changed your mind?’ He was not sure if he was relieved, or angered. It was only hair, he told himself. It’d grow back.

  ‘I don’t want to stain this dress – well, stain it any worse, anyway. It already looks like I’ve been digging ditches in it, but it’s still silk and it might just be saleable.’ She was dabbling her hands in the river, washing off the last of the dye paste. Then she stood and began unhooking the front of her bodice.

  Luke sat frozen, not certain whether to turn away or close his eyes. Instead he did neither, but just watched as she undid hook after hook, after hook.

  A kind of coldness washed over him as he thought of how strangely similar this was to the last time they’d been by a river shore together, Rosa in his arms, a horse quietly grazing the bank above. Only then it had been him pulling apart her clothing in an attempt to undo what he’d done.

  He remembered the bone sticking out of her corset, deep in her lung. He remembered the blood and the bubbling wound . . .

  ‘Luke?’ Rosa’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘Luke? Are you all right? You’re very pale.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he managed hoarsely.

  She shrugged off the grey silk bodice and laid it carefully on a dry stone. Beneath, she was dressed in some kind of petticoat, and beneath that her corset and chemise, thin as gauze. Try as he might, Luke could not stop looking – at the softness of her pink-white shoulders, at the curve of her breast above the tightness of the stays, at the pristine unstained whiteness of her chemise, where before there had been nothing but spreading blood . . .

  ‘Ready?’

  She knelt at the water’s edge, her head bowed, and pulled her hair apart at the nape, for all the world like a prisoner baring her neck for the executioner’s sword.

  ‘R-ready,’ Luke said, and to his fury he found that his voice shook as he said the single word. It’s only hair.

  He picked up a handful of the dye, black and stinking, and for a minute he didn’t think he could bring himself to touch her.

  ‘Come on!’ Rosa’s voice came impatiently from beneath the shimmering curtain of hair. ‘I’m g-getting cold. It’s f-freezing with no clothes on.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  He knelt behind her and touched his hand to her nape, where the fine hairs were red as fire, and the tendons of her neck rose and dipped. She shivered at his touch.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘The stuff’s cold, I know.’

  ‘Not half as cold as it’ll be rinsing it off. Be quick.’

  He felt her shudder as he smeared it in.

  ‘Keep going,’ she said, her teeth gritted.

  He put his fingers back into the black gloop and smoothed on another handful. And another. And then another, running his hands down the long, silky length of her hair, feeling it grow thick and clagged beneath his fingers.

  ‘R-rub it into the roots.’ Her teeth were chattering. ‘I d-don’t want a r-red p-parting.’

  He pushed his fingers deep into the roots of her hair, rubbing her scalp, and she shuddered again, a long slow almost luxurious shudder, and he saw her fingers dig hard into the silk of her skirt as if she needed something to hold on to.

  ‘Lean back,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I’ve got you, don’t worry.’

  He piled her hair up in a heavy, gunk-filled mass and she tilted her head slowly upright so that he could smear the last of the dye on to her hairline, above her forehead.

  ‘Is it d-d-done?’ Her teeth were chattering so hard she could barely speak. Luke nodded.

  ‘Here, take my coat. You’ll perish.’ He held out the stiff woollen greatcoat and she pulled it on, but the shivering didn’t stop. Her cheeks had lost the angry red flush of cold and had gone bloodless white, and her lips were starting to look blue.

  ‘Rosa . . .’ He knelt beside her, shivering himself, now he was clad only in his shirtsleeves. ‘Rosa, you need to get warm. Use some magic.’

  She didn’t speak, just nodded. Then she closed her eyes and he saw her lips begin to form a strange silent prayer, and felt the familiar mix of awe and horror shiver across his skin as he waited, watching for the flare of magic, the halo of fire crackling around her that would tell him the spell had worked.

  It didn’t come. Rosa opened her eyes.

  ‘Luke, it’s not working. What’s happening?’

  ‘Try again,’ he said. But there was a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach and he knew, even before she tried, that it was not going to work. He could see there was nothing there. It was as if some vital fire in her had burnt out.

  ‘‘Luke w-what’s happening?’ Her cold shaking hand closed on his wrist. ‘What’s wrong with m-m-me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Suddenly he didn’t care about her hair any more. ‘Let’s get that muck off your hair and get you warmed
up.’

  She knelt again, shaking so hard now, even with his greatcoat on, that he had to hold her still with one hand while he poured water over her head from a tin can he’d found by the water’s edge. It was rusty and the water trickled from the holes in the side, making it hard to pour carefully. She gasped and flinched beneath his grip as the water ran down inside the collar of his coat. The river at the water’s edge turned muddy brown, and he poured and poured, and still the stream ran dark from her hair. At last he gave up and helped her stand.

  ‘Come on, you’ve had enough.’

  She was blue and shaking, her hair like a drowned rat’s close to her head, dripping dark down his greatcoat.

  ‘W-w-what’s wrong with me, L-Luke?’

  ‘Shh, you’re cold, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s n-n-n . . .’ she tried, but she couldn’t finish. He pulled her up the bank into the thin winter sunshine, and helped her to sit, huddled with her back against a tree, her teeth chattering helplessly.

  ‘Rosa . . .’

  He didn’t know how to say it. If he didn’t warm her, she would likely die, or catch her death of cold. But she was small and wet and unclothed, and he didn’t know how to ask her.

  Instead he moved closer and put his arm around her, inside the coat. Her skin was cold and wet and she was shaking. He’d thought it would feel strange and wrong to touch her, but it did not. He pulled her close, as if she were Minna or some other small thing, and with shaking hands she tried to push the coat over his shoulders, so that it covered them both.

  He felt one small, cold hand steal tentatively around his ribcage, making him shudder in sympathy and suck in his breath as her icy skin struck cold though the thin cotton of his shirt. Then slowly the heat of his body woke an echoing warmth in hers, and the shivering subsided, and they grew still together, huddled inside the rough shelter of his coat.

  ‘God, you’re nesh,’ he said.

  ‘I am not!’ Rosa’s indignant voice came from somewhere near his chest. ‘What does that mean anyway?’

  He laughed at that, feeling it shake through them both.

  ‘You’re so ready to deny it before you even knew what I’d said? What if it was a compliment?’

  ‘It wasn’t. I could tell from your voice. Go on then, what does it mean?’

  ‘It means you’re a bit feeble – you can’t take the cold.’

  ‘What! I’m not feeble! You’d have been cold if someone poured icy river water down your neck for two hours!’

  ‘Two hours? Ten minutes. You should’ve grown up washing under the yard pump like I did.’

  ‘More fool you, if you couldn’t work out how to boil a kettle,’ she said, but there was a smile in her voice.

  They lapsed back into silence after that, for a long time. Luke wasn’t sure quite how long, but he knew that the tree trunk at his back had grown hard and uncomfortable, and that his arm around Rosa’s shoulders had gone to sleep. And yet he didn’t want to move – in fact, he thought he might never move again, that he would be quite content to sit here for all time, feeling the warmth of her bare skin against his chest and the weight of her head on his shoulder.

  ‘Come on,’ he said at last, and she lifted her head so that his shoulder felt cold, suddenly, and empty.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We should get going. The sun’s gone in. We need to keep moving, find a place to spend the night. And we need to wash that stuff off Brimstone. Is your hair dry?’

  She felt it, pinching it with the tips of her fingers.

  ‘Dry enough. How do I look?’

  She looked . . . different. And yet the same. Her fire was muted, and the dark hair made her face look smaller and paler, the nutmeg freckles standing out against her nose and cheekbones. But she was still beautiful – the most beautiful girl he had ever touched. He felt an almost overwhelming urge to kiss her, as he had in that moment of madness in the stable before Sebastian found them both. Instead he turned away, his heart thudding painfully.

  ‘You look fine,’ he said brusquely, speaking to the river. ‘Good thing your eyebrows are dark.’

  ‘Yes.’ She gave a short laugh as she stood. ‘Alexis wouldn’t fool anyone with dark hair. Orange eyebrows are a bit obvious. Ow . . . My foot’s gone to sleep.’

  ‘My shoulder an’ all.’ He rotated his arm, feeling the joint click and crunch and the blood rush back into the starved muscle. ‘Come on, I’ll fill up that can from the river while you get dressed. Then we’ll try to catch Brimstone.’

  ‘I’ve ruined your shirt,’ she said as she handed him back the coat. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He looked down. There was a brown stain, like tea, where her wet head had rested on his shoulder.

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  It took a long time to wash the stuff off Brimstone’s nose. It had dried on, and where he’d been so good about letting Rosa put the dye on, he was skittish and cross as Luke tried patiently to scrub it off.

  ‘Come on, you bastard!’ Luke said at last, as Brimstone pulled his head free and skittered sideways across the field for the fifth, or maybe sixth time. ‘Will you just stand bloody still?’

  ‘Don’t swear at him!’ Rosa said crossly. She’d dressed again, the shawl clutched around her shoulders, her dark hair pinned as well as she could without a mirror.

  ‘I wasn’t swearing.’ He grabbed Brimstone’s bridle and pulled his head round. ‘If you think that’s swearing – Christ, I could really give you something to complain about if you want.’

  ‘Don’t be such a bully,’ she snapped back. ‘God, are all men bullies? I thought I’d been unlucky with Alexis and Sebastian but—’

  ‘Sebastian?’ Luke swung round, his face white with anger. There was dye spattered across his face where Brimstone had shaken his head, trying to get the water off his nose. ‘Is that what you—’

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a . . . Look, I wasn’t comparing you, I was just—’

  ‘It bloody sounded like you were,’ Luke growled. He went back to scrubbing Brimstone’s nose.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said more quietly. ‘I’m just . . . Look, I’m worried, all right?’

  He stopped, his hand on Brimstone’s nose.

  ‘I’m sorry as well. You’re right, I was being a bully – or a shit anyway. Which maybe comes to the same thing in the end. Anyway . . .’ He took one more swipe at Brimstone and then dropped the handful of dock leaves he’d been using to scrub at the dye. ‘It’s not perfect, but it’ll do.’

  Rosa looked doubtfully at the horse. His blaze was no longer white – but it didn’t match the rest of his beautiful mahogany coat either. Instead it was a strange muddy patch on his long nose. No close observer would be fooled, but it might make them harder to spot to the casual passer-by.

  ‘Come on,’ Luke said. ‘We need to get going.’ He held out his palms, and she put her boot into his locked hands and swung her leg up, trying to forget the impropriety of what she was doing, trying not to think of what Mama would say. But as she pulled herself into the saddle, she caught the flesh of her palm between the stone of the ring and the pommel, and it dug viciously into her palm, so painfully that she couldn’t stop herself crying out.

  ‘What happened?’ Luke put out a hand to Brimstone’s bridle, steadying him as he shifted uneasily at Rosa’s cry. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘My finger,’ she managed. She held up her left hand and heard his sucked-in breath as he saw the blood oozing from her palm.

  ‘We’ve got to get it off.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Eleven shillings,’ Luke said.

  ‘What?’ Rosa looked up from where she was sitting on the far side of the bed. The inn they had found in Baldock was nicer than the one in Barnet; the room was larger with a good fire, the landlady kinder. They had eaten roast pork and crackling and then made their tired way upstairs, but not to sleep.

  ‘Eleven shillings. That’s what I’ve got left. Plus the
pound note.’

  ‘Eleven shillings!’ Rosa went pale. ‘Is that all? That means we’ve spent, what – nine shillings in two days? How did we manage that?’

  ‘Two shillings at the first inn, plus a shilling for bread and beer. A shilling on the dye. Another shilling on food at that village we stopped in. Three at this place for bed and dinner for us both . . .’

  ‘And the last?’

  ‘I don’t know – pennies here and there, I suppose.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘Two pounds felt like a fortune when you got it. In Spitalfields that could’ve lasted us weeks. What’re we going to do when it runs out?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Rosa looked down at her hands where she was holding a boot button. Her heart felt like lead. She had spent the last half-hour trying and failing to turn the button to gold. Not for real – just a simple little illusion charm that should have taken a few moments, and yet there it sat, still black as coal, glinting in the palm of her hand in the firelight, as if winking malevolently. What was wrong with her?

  Once when she was twelve and had the influenza, she had nearly died. She remembered Papa crying outside her chamber. And when she recovered, her magic had lagged behind. Long after she was sitting up in bed, sipping soup and asking for her storybooks to read, her magic had sulked and refused to come back.

  But that had been different. She had felt it, stiff and halt, like a cramped muscle that refused to flex and twinged sulkily when pushed.

  Now – there was simply nothing. She could feel nothing wrong. And yet the magic was not there. It was as if it was being siphoned off at the source, before she could use it. But that was impossible. It didn’t help that she could not concentrate – when she shut her eyes and searched inside for that well of power that should have been there, that had never failed her yet, all she could think of was Sebastian, like a hound on her tail, and the ring that bit into her finger.

  As if to remind her, her finger gave a painful throb and she looked down. There was blood in the groove around the ring and her finger was swollen and pink. The ring was tighter than ever.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Luke asked from the other side of the bed. He stood and put the change in his pocket and came around to her side. ‘You’ve been very quiet.’