My mother said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
She indicated for me to step forward and I did so warily. She wasn’t above hitting me in front of strangers when the occasion warranted it. But instead she pulled the door wide to encourage me to enter.
I looked at the young man again, my gaze insistent.
“Please, come inside. Just for a moment.”
“I have to go now,” he said. “Say hello to your grandmother for me.”
And then he walked off in the direction of the trees.
We watched him go, the moon hanging in the sky like a shard of bone.
As my mother made to lock the door she noticed the threadbare necklace, “Where did you get this?”
I wanted to tell her the truth but knew instinctively that that would be unwise. Instead, I said, “I found it.”
Once inside, my mother discarded her coat before helping me off with the animal skins. Normally, I would have resisted such cosseting but my hands and feet ached from the heat of the cabin. My face burned and I felt completely apathetic. As she removed first one layer and then another I just stood there taking in my surroundings.
“Where’s grandma?”
“She had to go away for a few days. Her neighbour’s taken sick.”
That was odd. My grandmother had precious little to do with her neighbours. She was like my mother in that respect.
Normally, I slept in the bed out back with my grandmother whilst my mother slept on the settee. But the settee was clear now, the bed-clothes having been folded away. Did that mean that I’d have to share a bed with my mother? Just the thought of it made me feel odd.
The cabin’s interior was candle-lit with a large fire blazing in the hearth warming the comfortable furniture. Wide, bright rugs covered the floor and patterned hangings the walls. All the furniture, including the little occasional table, had been hand-made. When my mother had finished with me I stood in the middle of the room in just my vest, tights and boots. My feet felt swollen and heavy. She didn’t try to remove the necklace.
Then she hung the animal skins on the back of the door and made a pile out of the rest of my clothes, placing the fur gloves on top.
“Who was your friend?” she asked feigning disinterest.
“Don’t know. I got lost. He brought me back.”
She asked me some more questions but I wasn’t listening. My eyes were fixed on an object sitting on the table. I hadn’t seen the little amulet in over ten years but the sight of it made me catch my breath. On the day that I’d gone to meet my father I’d purposefully left it behind. It was so dear to me that my mother knew that I would never abandon it. That’s why she’d let me go.
It had been my grandmother’s gift to me on the day of my first period. She’d fashioned it herself from old birch twigs. It was a crude representation of a pregnant woman with a full belly. A symbol of purity with the ability to ward off evil spirits.
I waited until my mother disappeared into the bedroom before examining it. Two tiny emeralds had been worked into the wood to represent eyes.
When she came back in she was rolling up her sleeves.
“You’re filthy. You need a proper wash.”
I shook my head resolutely.
She blew out her cheeks. “Just your hair then. You’re not getting into bed with hair like that.”
“Don’t want to.”
“I don’t care what you want,” she grabbed my arm and forced me towards the sink. I went along placidly enough and waited while she fetched a cloth in order to lift the big copper pan warming in front of the fire. There was a jug of cold water standing on the draining board. When she told me to take off my vest I took my time clutching the cap against my stomach for reassurance. When she’d finished positioning the copper pan she snatched my grandmother’s amulet away, placing it on the window-sill.
The last thing to do was to climb up onto my step. I was too short to reach the sink otherwise. Then I bent over, my hair falling forward.
Knowing how much I hated having my hair washed, my mother stood behind me, enclosing me with her thighs. Pressure was applied to the back of my head, forcing it down, my hands gripping the lip of the sink.
“Not too hot,” I insisted.
“Don’t be such a baby.”
She leaned against me, her breasts crumpling against my back as she reached to fix the plug into position.
Then she used a big glass bowl which she dipped into the hot pan before topping it up with cold water. Then she poured it over my head. The water caught me at the base of the neck splashing everywhere. Some ran down my back and into my tights.
Then a second bowl.
“Too cold!” I bucked against her, trying to rise but her forearm held me firm.
Two more bowls of water before she was satisfied. The last one was too hot and I cried out. She didn’t respond. She had the top of the shampoo off in readiness and applied it in two long squirts. Strawberry. It smelled sweet and artificial – just how I liked it. I tried to rub the shampoo in myself and at first she let me before growing impatient and roughly massaging it into my scalp I preferred my grandmother doing it. She wasn’t as strong as my mother but she took her time, complementing me on the thickness of my hair and telling me how beautiful I was. There were no such compliments from my mother. She was always in too much of a rush.
But tonight was different. I was still rubbing the shampoo from my eyes when she unloaded the whole jug of cold water over me. I caught my breath and tried to straighten but she held me there by the nape of the neck while she tipped the rest of the hot water into the sink.
“What are you doing!”
She pushed my head under the surface. I tried to scream but all I did was take on a mouthful of water as bubbles rushed around my face. I tried levering my thighs against the sink, desperately trying to force my body upright but my mother was too strong.
The weight of her across my ribs was painful and I coughed, only to take on more water. That’s when I started to panic. Started to thrash about.
A favourite game of mine, as a child, had been to plunge my face into the water and hold my breath while I tried to count to a hundred. The highest I’d ever managed was just short of sixty. But that was only possible after I’d taken in three deep breaths.
Now, all I had in my lungs was panic. I was quickly running out of air and the light in my head was getting brighter.
This is not real, I protested. Then another thought occurred to me. Of course it’s real, otherwise you’d be able to just shrug her off and escape.
But I couldn’t.
My lungs were burning as I thrashed backwards and forwards, the water slopping first one way and then the other. But still, I couldn’t pull clear of the water, she was holding onto me far too tightly for that. My last effort - surely it had to be my last - was to buck my hips upwards while pulling my head down and in. With all the water sloshing around, my mother simply miscalculated. As my head slipped lower she lost her leverage and her forearm slipped over the back of my head. She quickly steadied herself but not before I’d managed to draw one whooshing breath and glance across at the windowsill.
The amulet.
It could cast out evil spirits.
I pulled my knees in tight in order to brace my feet flat against my mother’s thighs but already I could feel my strength ebbing away. My arms felt floppy. She was just too strong for me.
I dived for the plug instead, thrusting back at her with both heels. But she’d thought of that, her right hand arcing out to cover the plug and protect the water. She pressed down on me with all her might, forcing the side of my face down into the water but not all of it. I could still breath, the spangled lights exploding behind my eyes as I did so. My strength was slipping away. This was my last chance.
I squirmed, groaned, took in water, coughed and wriggled out from under her as she re-positioned herself. My hand clawed at the window-sill but came back empty. No strength left, I thought. This
is how you die.
Her elbow pressed hard against the nape of my neck as she transferred her weight.
My outstretched arm was bent back on itself, my palm twisted towards the ceiling. It brushed against the wall and disturbed something. I managed to hook whatever it was with first one finger, then another. Scrabbled to claim it.
Closed my fingers around the little bundle of birch twigs.
And everything changed.
The weight that had been pinning me suddenly disappeared and I flipped off the side of the sink, landing heavily on my shoulder. I quickly checked that the amulet wasn’t broken. The twin emeralds glowed green.
I turned back towards the sink. My mother was gone.
In her place stood Kohl. He looked confused.
There was movement at the window and for a second I saw the face watching me.
My companion.
Carl Hardy as was, standing out in the darkness. He mimed tugging at an unseen necklace and then was gone.
I used a towel to wipe away the water from my face. I was a woman again standing there in my boots and tights. When I’d finished drying my face I used the towel to cover myself. It smelled vaguely of my mother.
“Why are we here?” I said.
“You should ask yourself that. I probed your mind once before, remember? I was eager to explore your flaws. That time you were able to resist me. But now that you’re here it’s all so much easier. You can deny me nothing. My only question is: why have you gone to such lengths to bury this memory? What are you afraid of?”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
“Oh, but you do.” He came across and tugged at my towel. “You see, it’s just too easy to strip you of your defences.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“Come, come, Bronte. You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about. Lots of people are terrified of their mothers.”
I shook my head. “No, you just don’t get it.”
Kohl laughed then indicated the sink, the over-turned jug, the pan. “Our presence here would suggest otherwise.”
“I’m not afraid of my mother. She tried to drown me once, yes, but I’m not afraid of her. Not anymore.”
“What is it then. What are you afraid of?”
“I’m afraid of becoming my mother. She thought that by killing me she could draw on my lifeforce. Prolong her own life - perhaps indefinitely. She didn’t care about me. She only cared about one thing: power.”
I felt a hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me.
When I looked up to see who it was I found my vision blurred and sparkled. A black shape blotted out the light.
And I was back on the plane.
A stewardess was standing over me, a look of concern on her face. All the overhead lockers were hanging open. The plane was empty, everyone had gone.
“We landed about ten minutes ago.”
“Sorry. I was fast asleep.”
The woman smiled.
I un-clipped my seat belt and looked around for my luggage before remembering that I didn’t have any.
The woman was turning to leave when she stopped herself. She was holding something in her hand.
My grandmother’s amulet.
“I was just wondering: we found this on the floor. It doesn’t belong to you by any chance?”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
My first view of Rome was in the rain.
Upon leaving the Termini I was struck by how beautiful everything looked: from the rain slicked streets, to the imposing buildings and beyond to the jumble of roofs, domes and spires. It was unseasonably warm but I still chose to wear my coat, the red cap pushed deep into one of the pockets. I orientated myself by the street map outside the station. The area where Kohl’s father lived was several blocks away but looked walkable and I relished the idea after spending so long cooped up on the plane. Also, I was hoping to save some money. If I had to find somewhere to stay it was going to be expensive.
Just reading some of the place names was, in itself, intoxicating: the Pantheon, the Colosseum, St Peter’s. All within walking distance. But the reality of being a pedestrian in Rome was not quite as I had imagined it. When I attempted to cross the road I quickly discovered that Italian drivers don’t slow for pedestrians; they accelerate.
For once though, it looked like I’d made the right decision as the traffic heading into the city centre quickly came to a standstill.
There were lots of standing puddles around but the air felt sharp and clear. I managed to download some maps onto my new phone and initially made good progress but then I must have taken a wrong turn down one of the many side streets and found myself at a dead-end. None of the road signs I managed to spot corresponded with the street names coming up on my phone. In the end, I gave up and attempted just to keep heading northwest. I reasoned that it could be only be a matter of time before I stumbled into one of the larger piazzas and I’d be able to take my bearings from there.
I found myself in a shabby neighbourhood of big, old houses which crowded out the sky. The streets were oddly quiet. A group of local children passed me on the cobbles and every once in a while I’d catch sight of someone sitting at an upstairs window but I was genuinely surprised at how few people there were. The houses themselves were locked up tight with their shutters drawn and while I did hear the odd burst of conversation or catch the aroma of cooking oil, I was starting to feel like I had taken a major wrong turn. When I finally consulted my phone again I found that the map had frozen and I was seemingly back to the same location I’d been in fifteen minutes earlier.
All the walking had made me warm so I stopped to take off my coat and fold it over my arm. As I was doing this I heard the whine of an engine and turned just in time to see a scooter tearing down the alley towards me. I threw myself into a doorway and felt the surge of air as it whipped past with a toot of its horn.
I couldn’t help but laugh at such a near miss and the rush of adrenalin I experienced afterwards compelled me to strike out for home. I estimated that although I had initially been heading north west I had been siphoned off in a westerly direction so I decided to take matters into my own hands and take the next available right turn. If I’d stuck to the traffic choked streets I would invariably have been at the Ancient Centre by now but I found it impossible to get upset with myself. I was quite enjoying getting lost.
The next alleyway looked even less promising than the one I’d just walked down. It was narrow enough that I could reach out and touch the walls on both sides but it also had a dog-leg turn about half way down which made it impossible to judge if it actually led anywhere or was just another dead-end. I considered my options for a moment but then decided to risk it. The cobbles were angled gently downwards and I took this as a good sign.
But as soon as I started walking down it, a gust of wind blew past me and the sky seemed to darken. Undeterred, I carried on walking hoping that I would come across one of the little water fountains I’d read so much about. I hadn’t had a drink since leaving London and the warm weather was making me thirsty. As I came around the dog-leg turn I could see the traffic zipping past the end of the alley though it looked to me to be a very long way away. That was when I spied a tiny restaurant about fifty metres further ahead. It had a table outside seating a lone diner.
It was an unlikely place to find a restaurant but I decided to stop in and see if I could buy a bottle of water. I’d gotten some euros back at the airport but I didn’t have any change, only large bills, and it would give me an opportunity to break into one of those.
As I drew closer, I saw that they had a chalk-board menu pinned to the wall. I looked to see if they sold pizza. But I was out of luck; it wasn’t that kind of restaurant. From the outside, it looked dark and exclusive. It was only when I turned to look at the man seated at the table that I realised I who it was.
I took a step backwards.
“Hello Bronte.”
He lifted his head, took off
his panama hat and placed it on the table.
“What are you doing here?”
Kinsella indicated his plate.
“I was having a spot of dinner. Care to join me?”
I looked at the restaurant’s interior with a sense of disbelief. There were probably five or six tables inside with a waiter moving between them. It all looked too real to be an illusion.
Kinsella was pouring red wine into a glass. Some of the wine ran down the side, pooling around the base. It left a dark crescent on the clear white table-cloth.
He lifted his glass in a mock toast.
“No enchantment necessary. It’s a lovely restaurant. Fish is their speciality. Please,” he stood up, holding his napkin in place. “Take a seat.”
I sat. A peal of thunder echoed over the city.
*
“So you’re not dead then?” I asked.
The waiter poured the glass and waited while I sampled it. Sharp but fruity.
Kinsella helped himself to his dinner. He’d gone for the roasted pig’s cheeks. He finished chewing before he spoke again.
“No. It would appear that I’m very much alive.”
“Nice work getting me here. I really had no idea.”
“I can’t take full credit. A young girl alone in a strange city. It wasn’t that hard.”
“Been a damned sight harder if I’d taken a cab.”
Kinsella sipped his wine and smiled. “But that was never going to happen.”
I frowned. Was Kinsella showing off? And if so why?
Then it came to me. “The street map!”
He nodded, rolling the wine over his tongue.
“Oh,” I’d have felt foolish if his work hadn’t been so masterful. “You put a charm on the street map. But how did you know?”
“To be fair, I put a charm on three street maps. But you made it easy for me by travelling on your own passport. If you’d taken a taxi direct from the airport then that might have been more of a challenge but I gambled on you having limited resources.”
Bitter Moon: Urban Witch Series - Book 2 Page 30
