A Witch in Love

by Ruth Warburton

  ‘What business is it of yours?’ I was taken aback.

  ‘Look, Seth nearly drowned you last time you went there. And the Spit is no place for our kind – we don’t mess with Bran Fisher.’

  ‘Seth didn’t nearly drown me; I nearly drowned him,’ I said crossly. ‘And I agree the Spit is no place for our kind – it’s no place for any kind of human being if it comes to that. But I said I’d help Seth, so stop being so melodramatic about it.’

  ‘Hmm. Just be careful.’

  I shot him a poisonous look and he raised an eyebrow.

  ‘What? I can’t tell you to be careful?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll be with Seth.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Abe said darkly. And that was that.

  When I arrived down at the quay after lunch Seth was already there, busy working on Charley’s Angel. He was holding a blowtorch and doing something complicated with glass fibre, but he turned off the gas and pulled up his mask when he saw me, and leapt on to the quayside to give me a sticky hug.

  ‘Are you OK? How was the house?’

  ‘Not as bad as we thought. The bedrooms are fine. The living room needs a coat of paint and a new sofa, but it’ll do. And Dad’s got someone coming to reconnect the electrics this afternoon, so it looks like we should be able to move back in tonight.’

  ‘Grandad couldn’t have been kicked out of hospital at a worse time, could he?’

  ‘No, don’t be silly. We couldn’t camp out at yours indefinitely. And anyway, I think Dad just wants to get back in there. He’s worried about it lying empty with no way of locking up properly.’

  Seth’s face grew set at that and he shook his head.

  ‘I know we’ve been through this, but I really, really don’t like the idea of you being there at night with no proper security.’

  Damn. I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned that.

  I sighed. ‘Dad’s reglazing all the windows. And he’s going to get a proper lockable door for the living room, just until the kitchen’s repaired. It’s not like we’ll be open to all-comers. He just doesn’t want the place looking unoccupied for too long.’

  ‘Did you talk to him about getting a burglar alarm?’ Seth asked. I nodded. ‘And?’

  ‘I think he’s going to.’

  ‘Good,’ Seth said shortly. I decided it was time to change the subject.

  ‘So, anyway. Are we going to stand here all day, or are we going to get to the Spit before night?’

  ‘Good point.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We should get going. Come on.’

  We took Seth’s little sailing boat, not the Angel, and I had the familiar feeling of fear, bordering on panic, as Seth steadied the rocking little craft and beckoned me to jump on board. I wanted to shut my eyes – shut out the rolling seawater – but that would have been insanely stupid, so I jumped, eyes open, and crouched for a second in the bottom of the boat, waiting for the panic to subside. Then we were out on the waves and somehow it was easier to forget the fathoms of black water beneath us and all the horrors down there.

  The landing on Castle Spit was even more impossible than last time – Seth tried half a dozen times, with me leaning out to fend off with an oar, and eventually we bumped up to the jetty with a slightly sickening crunch and Seth leapt out and whipped the painter through the rusty metal ring before the wind could veer again.

  Up at Bran’s cottage a repulsive smell greeted us as Seth hammered open the door with his boot.

  ‘My God, what’s that reek?’ Seth covered his face with his arm and edged in, throwing open the narrow windows all around the single-room cottage.

  ‘It’s this bucket, I think.’ I peered into a plastic bucket full of what looked like it might once have been fishguts and bones. Luckily the weather had been cold – too cold to turn the sludge to maggots and blowflies. But the stench was still incredible. Seth carried it at arm’s length out of the cottage and chucked the whole load off the jetty, bucket and all. It bobbed away, the red plastic brave against the storm-grey waves, and then sank beneath the surf. The smell in the cottage had slightly lessened when we went back in.

  ‘God.’ Seth looked around him, a mixture of depression and disgust on his face. ‘How can someone live like this in the twenty-first century?’

  I knew what he meant. Barring a few things – an electric kettle, a single bare lightbulb – the cottage could basically have come complete from a Robert Louis Stevenson story. The frowsty bed, piled high with crumpled blankets stiff with stains, the smoke-blackened stove, the stone sink with its pump-handle hanging idle – it was all straight out of a novel about Victorian poverty and deprivation.

  ‘At least he had running water,’ I said, trying for a bleak laugh. I meant the stream running sluggishly from the pump and out of the door in a little black trickle, but Seth didn’t smile. He only looked around him, his face hard with pity and anger.

  ‘It never looked so bad when he was here,’ he said, as if he hadn’t heard me. ‘Somehow when Grandad was here you didn’t notice the filth and the cold. But now … now it looks like somewhere you wouldn’t let a dog go to die.’

  ‘Seth …’ I put a hand on his shoulder and he took it and turned it palm up, kissing the soft skin at the crease of my wrist. Then he sighed.

  ‘Come on. Let’s get started; I don’t want to spend any more time here than we have to.’

  We began sorting through Bran’s meagre possessions. Seth picked through the clothes, salvaging wearable nightclothes, trousers and jumpers, discarding more than he packed.

  Bran’s stained and tattered underwear seemed unbearably personal and I felt suddenly sure that he would hate the idea of me poking through his belongings even more than he would hate me being on the island at all, so I turned to his paperwork, trying to do something practical without intruding on his privacy.

  Most of it was in a small metal box under his bed and I began to look through it, trying to make sure we had his pension book, birth certificate, all the essentials he’d need to establish his new life at the Crown.

  I had a carrier bagful of useful documents when I came upon something at the very bottom of the metal box. It was a piece of black fabric and at first I wasn’t sure what it could be. I held it up, the folds fell out, and I saw.

  It was a black hood, a mask, with holes cut out for eyes. Seth saw me looking and laughed.

  ‘What’s that? Grandad’s Halloween costume?’

  He picked it from my limp hand and, still grinning, slipped it over his head. The hood covered his head and face completely, blurring and mashing his face into a featureless mask. Only his eyes glittered, black against black, and full of hate.

  I screamed.

  I screamed and screamed and screamed, completely unable to stop, to speak, to breathe.

  ‘Anna!’ The voice came grotesquely muffled from the mouthless face. ‘Anna! It’s OK! Anna what’s wrong? Stop, please stop.’

  But I couldn’t speak – the hooded stranger grabbed at me and I beat him away with terrified shaking arms. He finally got the hood off with a rip of tearing fabric and grabbed at my arms, gripping me so tightly I couldn’t move, couldn’t hurt him, could only shake with fear. But something in his strong grasp anchored me to reality, the shaking began to subside and I dissolved into sobs. Seth’s warm hands stroked my hair in a comforting rhythm and I cried and cried while he held me wordlessly, as if he feared he’d lose me.

  At last I raised my head from his chest and wiped my eyes and my nose and managed to choke out, ‘I’m sorry – I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I’m the one should be saying sorry. Oh, Anna, you silly thing.’ His voice made the words a caress. I buried my face in his chest again and felt him say, ‘But what scared you? It’s only a bit of cotton.’

  I couldn’t explain. I could only shake my head and shudder all over again, feeling the horror I’d felt as I’d seen a stranger’s gaze glitter black through the stabhole-eyes.

  We stood for a long time, wrapped in each other’s arms,
my head on Seth’s chest and Seth cradling me while my breathing returned to normal. But something else had caught my eye when I lifted out the mask and I pushed Seth’s arms gently away and bent to look in the box again.

  It was a small badge made out of stamped metal, with a hand-drawn design in black enamel. MM it said in irregular black letters and, beneath, the drawing of a crude hammer. It looked something like an old-fashioned Scout pin, the kind my Dad had worn.

  For a long moment I stood, staring down at the small object in my hand, blind and deaf to everything else. What did it mean? Was it Bran’s? If not, whose?

  ‘Anna. Anna.’ I heard at last and became aware that Seth had been speaking. ‘What is it? Why are you looking like that?’

  ‘Like what?’ I said in a strange, dazed voice that didn’t sound like me.

  ‘Like that. Like someone turned you into a chunk of ice.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I held out my hand with the badge on my palm. Seth bent over it and, when he looked up, his face was puzzled.

  ‘What does it mean? I’ve seen that logo before, but I can’t think where.’

  ‘In red paint,’ I said flatly. ‘On the side of my house.’

  His face went white and then he began shaking his head violently, as if he could shake the accusation out of his ears like water.

  ‘No. No, no, no. Grandad was in hospital! How could it be anything do with him?’

  ‘I didn’t say it was.’

  ‘But that’s what you thought.’

  ‘It’s a group,’ I said wearily, ‘called the Malleus Maleficorum. The Hammer of Witches. Created to persecute and drive out witches.’

  ‘This is not the sixteenth century,’ Seth said angrily.

  ‘No,’ I agreed. I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. ‘Whoever burnt down my house is very much here and now and alive.’

  We stood our ground, staring fiercely at each other. Then Seth swore and turned away, deliberately hitting his forehead against the rough stone wall of the cottage.

  ‘Shit. Shit shit shit.’ He stood with both hands flat against the wall, his head bowed, refusing to look at me. ‘That old bastard. It’s never easy, is it? It’s never simple. Why can’t we just be together?’ There was a furious bitterness in his voice that I didn’t quite understand. I could only bite my lip as he kicked viciously at the cottage wall, as if Bran could somehow feel his violence. Then he crumpled the badge in his fist, flung it to the floor and ground it under his heel. I heard the enamel crack.

  ‘What shall we do?’ he asked at last, his voice harsh. I shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know. What can we do? I don’t think Bran’s strong enough to raise the subject, do you?’

  ‘Ugh.’ Seth rubbed his swollen forehead. ‘I want to shop him to the police – but the stupid sod would probably have a heart attack just to spite us.’

  ‘Anyway, chances are he won’t be able to help us,’ I said. ‘He probably joined this group back in nineteen forty-something and hasn’t had any connection since.’ Seth said nothing, but the unspoken question hovered between us – then why had Bran kept the badge?

  ‘It’s getting dark,’ Seth said at last. ‘We’d better finish up here.’

  I nodded and we began to pack up the clothes and papers into Seth’s rucksack. As I tightened up the straps I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Seth pick up the black hood and crushed badge and toss them into the pile of rubbish. He handled them as if they were poisonous, with the tips of his fingers.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘OK. Well. What are you going to do?’ Emmaline bit into a slice of soggy school pizza and stared at me accusingly. It seemed like every conversation these days was punctuated with someone asking what I was going to do. What to do about my grandmother. What to do about the Malleus. What to do about Bran. What to do about my leaky, imperfect power. How was I supposed to know? I was just seventeen. Eighteen. Whatever … I wanted someone to tell me what to do for a change.

  ‘I don’t know, Em. Happy? I have no idea. My grandmother is part of a secret organization who was trying to kill us last year. My boyfriend’s grandad was part of a secret organization who seems to be trying to persecute me right now. My mother was so worried about my very existence that she tried to stamp out my magic before it even came in, for reasons I’ve yet to identify. I’ve lost my coat and my walking boots and I can’t control my power. Apart from advocating compulsory euthanasia for the over-sixties, I really have no idea how to sort this out.’

  ‘Look – you need a break from all this. Come over this weekend – stay the night, talk to Mum about it.’

  This weekend … A cold feeling settled in the pit of my stomach and I said shortly,

  ‘Can’t, unfortunately. It’s my birthday—’

  ‘Allegedly,’ Em interjected sarcastically.

  ‘Allegedly,’ I agreed. ‘Anyway, Elaine wants to have me and Dad over for dinner to celebrate. While Bran’s there. She hasn’t exactly spelled it out, but I think she figures he can’t kick up a fuss if she stages it as a big birthday-celebration-type thing.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s a good idea?’ Em asked sceptically. I shrugged. Truth to tell, I wasn’t entirely convinced myself – but Elaine wanted to do it and Seth wanted to do it and Dad wanted to do it. It seemed like Bran and I would have something in common at least. It looked like we were the only people who thought this was a bad idea.

  I was about to say as much when a shadow fell over our table and Em and I both looked up. Mrs Redbird, the school secretary, was standing in front of us carrying a large cardboard box and wearing a thoroughly pissed-off expression.

  ‘Anna Winterson, do not make a habit of this. I’ve put up with it this time, but my office isn’t a parcel depot for your convenience.’

  ‘I’m s-sorry?’ I stammered.

  ‘Here.’ She dumped the box down on the table with a thump. ‘I told the courier – any further deliveries for pupils will be returned to sender. Consider yourself lucky.’

  She stamped off, back to her office, and Em and I were left staring at the box in bewilderment. It was done up in brown paper and string and had a white address label on it bearing my name and c/o Winter High, Harbour Road, Winter.

  I turned it over to see if there was a sender’s name. There was. It was from E. Rokewood. The return postcode was London W8 – Kensington.

  ‘It’s from my grandmother,’ I said.

  ‘Er, would that perchance be the same grandmother that tried to get us all killed?’ Em poked the string with one cautious finger, as though the box might explode.

  ‘Yup.’ I hefted the parcel. It was heavy, but not too heavy. It wasn’t ticking. No suspicious fluids were leaking out. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Only one way to find out.’

  With a feeling of mingled dread and curiosity I unthreaded the string and pulled away the paper wrappings. Inside was a cardboard box and a letter.

  ‘Box first,’ Em said bossily. ‘If it’s on a timer we need plenty of warning to decide which wire to cut.’

  ‘Oh shut up, do.’ I opened one flap and peered inside, and then had to laugh at myself as I realized I was holding my breath as if it really was a bomb inside. It was not a bomb. It was clothes. My clothes, to be exact. My coat – which had been dry-cleaned and pressed and looked smarter than at any time I’d owned it. My boots – cleaned and re-waterproofed. My jeans, my shirt, my socks – all beautifully laundered, ironed and folded with layers of tissue paper in between. I didn’t flatter myself that my grandmother had done all this – she didn’t look like she’d know one end of an iron from another. But it was, I supposed, kind of nice that she’d asked her secretary to sort it or something. But my clothes alone couldn’t account for the size of the box and, peering underneath, I saw there were more layers of paper and more clothes. I shook out the top garment and sighed. It was the beautiful cashmere sheath dress, as soft as a black kitten against my cheek. Emmaline gave a groan of sheer envy and began to di
g.

  ‘Oh my God … Issey Miyake, Miu Miu, Alexander McQueen – what is this? Aid parcels for the poor relations?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ She pressed a mass of deep-sapphire pleats to her breast. ‘Anna, I will die and go to heaven if you let me borrow this some time.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t into clothes?’ I said sourly.

  ‘Other clothes – no. These clothes – yes. If you can’t tell the difference you don’t deserve to wear them.’

  I could tell the difference. At least, I could tell that eBaying this lot would probably pay for the repairs to the kitchen. At the very, very bottom was a small jeweller’s box. I opened it and blenched. It was a pair of earrings, pretty hanging things each with a dark-blue stone the colour of the evening sky. I had a horrible presentiment that whatever they were, they were the real thing. I snapped the box shut and closed my eyes, and then opened them again and hastily started stuffing clothes back inside before anyone else could gawp.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Em was practically hopping up and down in agony. ‘You’re crushing them! Oh! You evil wench! Stop it now – it’s a crime against couture.’

  ‘Shut up,’ I said briefly and yanked the string tight around the box. How the hell was I going to get this home? Then the bell rang and Emmaline was forced to go to her Philosophy class. I was luckier – I had a free, so I dragged myself and the bloody box off to the girls’ toilets and locked myself in to read the letter.

  Dear Anna, it began, since I don’t know your address I am sending this to Winter High where, I think you said, you attend school.

  Since you ran away from our dinner last week I have done some investigating and have made a few discoveries of my own about your experience with our organization. I can now quite understand your shock and horror at discovering where you were – and can only say how desperately sorry I am that you were put through such an ordeal.

  But, my dear, please, please believe me – you are wrong to think that I had anything to do with those events. Maud Revere works for one of my fellow Chairs – it might be fairer to say, one of my rival Chairs. It was Thaddeus Corax who ordered the attack on Winter, advised by his agent Vivian Brereton, who, I understand, was working at your school.